Localizing Islam In Europe

In the twentieth century, Muslim minorities emerged in Europe seeking work, a refuge from conflict, and higher life standards. As a result, there are now more than 12 million Muslims in Western Europe. As these immigrants became permanent residents, the Islamic communities they developed had to respond to their European context, reinterpreting Islam in accordance with local conditions. In Localizing Islam in Europe, Yükleyen brings this adaptation to light, demonstrating how Islam and Europe have shaped one another and challenging the idea that Islamic beliefs are inherently antithetical to European secular, democratic, and pluralist values. Yükleyen compares five different religious communities among Muslim immigrants in the Netherlands and Germany that represent a spectrum from moderate to revolutionary Islamic opinions. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, he finds that, despite differences in goals and beliefs, these communities play an intermediary role, negotiating between the social and religious needs of Muslims and the socioeconomic, legal, and political context of Europe. Yükleyen’s rich ethnography shows that there is no single form of assimilated and privatized “European Islam” but rather Islamic communities and their interpretations and practices that localize Islam in Europe.

In the twentieth century, Muslim minorities emerged in Europe seeking work, a refuge from conflict, and higher life standards. As a result, there are now more than 12 million Muslims in Western Europe. As these immigrants became permanent residents, the Islamic communities they developed had to respond to their European context, reinterpreting Islam in accordance with local conditions. In Localizing Islam in Europe, Yükleyen brings this adaptation to light, demonstrating how Islam and Europe have shaped one another and challenging the idea that Islamic beliefs are inherently antithetical to European secular, democratic, and pluralist values. Yükleyen compares five different religious communities among Muslim immigrants in the Netherlands and Germany that represent a spectrum from moderate to revolutionary Islamic opinions. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, he finds that, despite differences in goals and beliefs, these communities play an intermediary role, negotiating between the social and religious needs of Muslims and the socioeconomic, legal, and political context of Europe. Yükleyen’s rich ethnography shows that there is no single form of assimilated and privatized “European Islam” but rather Islamic communities and their interpretations and practices that localize Islam in Europe.

Louis Massignon, H.A.R. Gibb, Marshall Hodgsons and T.E. Lawrence are discussed in a collection of essays that focuses on the relationship between European and Islamic thought and culture from the late eighteenth to the twentieth century.

In the last two decades of the 20th century, theorising on modernity has entered a new stage. The former dichotomy between an active West exporting its successful model of modernity on a global scale and passive non-Westerners gratefully implementing this model in their own societies has been challenged by critical anthropology and postcolonial studies, and further elaborated upon within social theory. This volume focuses on Europe and the Islamic world as two historically constructed geo-civilisational domains, and shows that modernity was not achieved in splendid isolation in Europe, but in the tensions and conflicts within the «transcultural space» between Europe and Islam. The impact of Islam as a complex civilising tradition on the making of Europe, and vice versa, impinged on the building of political, religious and scientific institutions and discourses. These sustained a continuous process of drawing, adjusting and transgressing symbolic and geo-political boundaries between the two civilisational realms, from medieval rivalries to present-day migration-related conflicts. This volume assembles seven contributions by historians and sociologists covering the whole of the modern era and focusing on the notion of a transcultural space and the discussion of revised concepts concerning the genesis and shape of modernity. In so doing, they try to escape both the apories of cultural relativism and the militancy of the «clash of civilizations».

Islam and Heritage in Europe provides a critical investigation of the role of Islam in Europe’s heritage. Focusing on Islam, heritage and Europe, it seeks to productively trouble all of these terms and throw new light on the relationships between them in various urban, national and transnational contexts. Bringing together international scholars from a range of disciplines, this collection examines heritage-making and Islam in the context of current events in Europe, as well as analysing past developments and future possibilities. Presenting work based on ethnographic, historical and archival research, chapters are concerned with questions of diversity, mobility, decolonisation, translocality, restitution and belonging. By looking at diverse trajectories of people and things, this volume encompasses multiple perspectives on the relationship between Islam and heritage in Europe, including the ways in which it has played out and transformed against the backdrop of the ‘refugee crisis’ and other recent developments, such as debates on decolonising museums or the resurgence of nationalist sentiments. Islam and Heritage in Europe discusses specific articulations of belonging and non-belonging, and the ways in which they create new avenues for re-thinking Islam and heritage in Europe. This ensures that the book will be of interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students engaged in the study of heritage, museums, Islam, Europe, anthropology, archaeology and art history. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (see also http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).

1. Multiple faces of Islam, R. Hrair Dekmejian

This vigorously argued book reveals the central role that Islam has played in European history. Following the movement of people, culture and religion from East to West, Goody breaks down the perceived opposition between Islam and Europe, showing Islam to be a part of Europe's past and present. In an historical analysis of religious warfare and forced migration, Goody examines our understanding of legitimate violence, ethnic cleansing and terrorism. His comparative perspective offers important and illuminating insights into current political problems and conflicts. Goody traces three routes of Islam into Europe, following the Arab through North Africa, Spain and Mediterranean Europe; the Turk through Greece and the Balkans; and the Mongol through Southern Russia to Poland and Lithuania. Each thrust made its mark on Europe in terms of population and culture. Yet this was not merely a military impact: especially in Spain, but elsewhere too, Europe was substantially modified by this contact. Today it takes the form of some eleven million immigrants, not to speak of the possible incorporation of further millions through Bosnia, Albania and Turkey.

This ebook is a selective guide designed to help scholars and students of Islamic studies find reliable sources of information by directing them to the best available scholarly materials in whatever form or format they appear from books, chapters, and journal articles to online archives, electronic data sets, and blogs. Written by a leading international authority on the subject, the ebook provides bibliographic information supported by direct recommendations about which sources to consult and editorial commentary to make it clear how the cited sources are interrelated related. A reader will discover, for instance, the most reliable introductions and overviews to the topic, and the most important publications on various areas of scholarly interest within this topic. In Islamic studies, as in other disciplines, researchers at all levels are drowning in potentially useful scholarly information, and this guide has been created as a tool for cutting through that material to find the exact source you need. This ebook is a static version of an article from Oxford Bibliographies Online: Islamic Studies, a dynamic, continuously updated, online resource designed to provide authoritative guidance through scholarship and other materials relevant to the study of the Islamic religion and Muslim cultures. Oxford Bibliographies Online covers most subject disciplines within the social science and humanities, for more information visit www.aboutobo.com.

This collection of twelve papers provides case studies and thematic reflections on the growing transnational networking of European Muslims and their involvement with contemporary global Islam. The volume pays particular attention to the mechanisms and significance of this phenomenon.