Jocelyne Cesari

Mosque Conflicts in European Cities: Introduction

This brief paper introduces the special issue on mosque conflicts in Europe, which draws on research results of the Network of Comparative Research on Islam and Muslims in Europe. The paper first provides basic data on the numbers and distribution of Muslim immigrants in Europe. Reflecting a dialectical approach in which Muslims both affect, and are impacted by, European culture, the paper introduces the issue of the islamicisation of European public space, with special reference to mosque construction, which represents the evolution of Islam from the private to the public sphere. Sources and causes of resistance to mosque-building are identified, and various national contrasts—based on the papers that follow—are drawn.

Mosques in French Cities: Towards the End of a Conflict?

Since the 1990s in France, tensions have decreased and Islam has started to be accepted as a component of religious and cultural French society, particularly at the local level. Discriminatory episodes such as the destruction of prayer halls or explicit resistance to the construction of mosques have tended to disappear, even in the aftermath of 9/11. At present no town councillor would deny the right to have a mosque and nearly everywhere representatives of Muslim organisations have established relations with local authorities. This paper therefore addresses the following question: In these conditions, how do Muslims articulate the requirements of their Islamic faith with the characteristics of their local and national environment? I describe two local cases, Marseilles and Toulouse, where the projects of a mosque are pending.

Religion and Diasporas: Challenges of the Emigration Countries

According to a 2011 survey conducted in the 27 member countries of the European Union, all immigrant groups tend to be more religious than the native born population of the host country (Tubergen and Sindradottir 2011). Religiosity was measured as the sum of three factors: frequency of prayer, attendance of religious services and self-declaration as religious. Based on the subjective religiosity, the difference between immigrants and native population is small. Overall, immigrants pray more (30.02%) than native populations (21.86%) and attend religious services at least once in a week in the receiving countries. Interestingly, the religiosity of the same immigrant group varies from one receiving country to another. For example; certain destination countries such as Greece, Poland, Portugal, and the UK demonstrate high levels of immigrant religiosity, however, Scandinavian and Eastern European countries (except Poland) tend to show lower levels of religiosity for immigrants as compared to other countries based on their “religious attendance and praying. There are also certain countries (like Cyprus, Greece, and Ukraine) whose native born population is more religious than the immigrant population.

The Reformation of Islamic Thought

In the West, a reformist trend is beginning to emerge in Islamic thought. It is, of course, still very much a fringe movement, and western Muslims remain, by and large, more conservative and more conformist than one might suspect. But it is nevertheless a first effort to break the vicious circle of the apologist mindset. The trend is particularly visible in the United States, largely due to the concentration there of Muslim elites from a variety of countries and cultures.

Disciplining religion: the role of the state and its consequences on democracy

Abstract This article presents the concept of hegemonic religion and its relationship with democracy. This concept entails not only a certain type of institutional relation between state and religion but, more importantly, a kind of national culture with religion at its core. Utilizing Norbert Elias’s figurational sociology, this article analyses how postcolonial states have built a national habitus that plays a decisive role in the politicization of religion. It focuses on examples from Islam and Buddhism and discusses how hegemonic types of politicised religions have negative impacts on democracy.

Religion and democratisation: when and how it matters

This special issue aims to contribute to the growing literature on the role of religion in democratisation by focusing on state–religion interactions. Although the following articles focus on the relations between religion and democracy, they also add to the broader field of religion’s influence on politics. Our goal is not to assert that religion is the significant factor in the transition to democracy. Actually, most existing surveys demonstrate that the GDP, level of education, urbanisation, and the existence of a middle class are more relevant triggers of regime transition. Religion, however, may influence the building of new institutions, the legal status of civil liberties, and patterns of political participation—all significant factors when it comes to consolidation of democracy. To capture the specific role of religion in democratic or political changes, it is necessary to move away from the dichotomy of state and religion and explore more deeply the interactions between state and religious organisations and actors. The often-assumed antagonism or tensions between the two represents only one form of interaction, which may be used or combined with competition, adaptation, and cooperation. Consequently, the following papers will examine the roles of multiple actors and their different levels and agencies within the state, religious associations, clergy, religious adherents, diasporas, and purveyors of education. In this regard, this special issue breaks from the dominant approaches in political science which focus on either the strategies of political elites during periods of democratisation or on the nature of the authoritarian state. It sheds light on the nature of state interactions—not only with religious ideas and factors, but also with religious institutions—therefore bringing the state back in the study of democratisation.

The Virtual Community

The primary producers and consumers of Internet-based Islam are Muslims living in the United States. Exact statistics are always difficult to come by in anything having to do with the World Wide Web; nonetheless, a 2001 report by the United Nations estimates that less than 1 percent of the Arab-Muslim world uses the Internet, whereas over 50 percent of the population in the United States and Europe go on-line.1 This statistic indicates that Western Muslims are the primary producers and consumers of what can be termed “Virtual Islam.” The development of virtual Islam is closely tied to a specific socio-professional milieu of technicians and software engineers. These members of the educated classes are the primary producers and consumers of Islamic websites. The virtual Ummah of the Internet, therefore, is largely restricted to a group of people possessed of cultural capital and technological knowledge, bound together by a class-based solidarity that transcends countries and cultures.

The Numbers Debate

Muslims are the largest religious minority in Western Europe. Today there are more than 11/12 million Muslims living in the major countries of the European Union, and Muslims constitute almost 3 percent of the total population in Europe.1

Introduction: From Clash to Encounter

It’s graduation day at Harvard University, or “Commencement,” as they call it here. The mood of the day—which marks the end of an era for each student and the beginning of a new one—is always one of great solemnity. On this particular sunny day of July 6, 2002, the families of the graduates have gathered in the Yard, that mythical square bit of greenery that makes up the heart of the University.

The Secularization of Islamic Institutions in Europe and the United States: Two Approaches

It is a significant fact that throughout Europe, the arrival of Islam has reopened the file—up to now considered “case closed”—on the relationship between Church and State. The great diversity of Euro-Islamic scenarios, however, reflects the cultural and political specificity of each country more than it sheds any light on the so-called special nature of Islam. The relationship of the government to religion in Europe tends to pattern itself on one of three principal types: the cooperation between Church and State, the existence of a State-sponsored religion, or the total separation of religion and politics. No matter what the type of relationship, however, the European question of Islam’s institutionalization has no real equivalent in American culture. European secularism does not consist merely in the protection of religious freedoms and the political independence of religious organizations, as it does in the United States. It is also, if paradoxically, accompanied by a collaboration between Church and State. The secularization of Islam, therefore, is seen particularly in the emergence of Muslim Organizations adapted to preexisting structures of Church-State relations within the host country.