Europe’s Muslims: An Integration under International Constraints

Jocelyne Cesari is Visiting Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at Harvard University.

 

 

Since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, and particularly since the Madrid and London bombings of 2004 and 2005, the Muslim presence in Europe has become a major political concern. Many have raised questions regarding potential links between Western Muslims, radical Islam, and terrorism. Whatever the significance of such concerns, it is inefficient to address the subject of Muslims in the West from an exclusively counter-terrorist perspective; one cannot analyse the Muslim presence in the West without also taking into account the implications of immigration, integration, and globalisation.

 

Islam’s presence in Europe is a consequence of the immigration flows of the 1960s, when residents of former European colonies in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean relocated to the metropolitan states. Since the official end of work-based immigration in 1974, the integration of immigrant populations into European societies has become an irreversible reality because of both the European policies of family reunification and the increasing sizes of immigrant families. In this context, the assertion of Islamic faith and identity has become a major issue in the absorption of immigrant populations. Throughout Europe, Islam’s public visibility stands at the heart of questions and doubts about, and (sometimes violent) opposition to, immigrants in the West.

 

In Europe, most Muslims are part of the underclass. As immigrants, most have come from underdeveloped nations, many as economic and political refugees. As such, they have often lacked the skills necessary for success in the labour market. That reality, combined with discrimination by the native population, has led to sub-average economic conditions for Europe’s Muslims. At the same time, Western capitalist economies have themselves changed. There are fewer promising entry-level working-class jobs to be found today than in the 1950s and 1960s, during the west European “economic miracle”.

 

The social and civil status of religion is another key factor in the integration process of Muslims in Europe. European secularism has traditionally meant that political power interacts in a neutral manner with religious institutions. It should be noted that this principle is not synonymous with the strict separation of church and state, save for France. Rather, European secularism is realised through several kinds of institutional arrangements, from a state religion to strict separation. Likewise, European Islam is characterised by a multiplicity of situations and circumstances, which reflect the political and cultural characteristics of individual European nations more than the supposedly monolithic nature of Islam. It is striking that, throughout Europe, the arrival of Muslim immigrants has reopened a case previously thought closed: the relationship between state and religion.

 

Another problem has been the growing fear of international terrorism, which is conflated with misgivings about the influence of conservative and radical imams in Europe. One response to this fear of international terrorism has been modified security policies following the events of 11 September. These policies have, in turn, affected the legal status of religions, the recognition of multiculturalism, and immigration laws, all factors that shape the situation of Muslims in Europe. 

Europe’s Security Crackdown 

New laws and policies on immigration have taken effect in most European countries, including France, Germany, Britain, Italy and the Netherlands, since the 11 September attacks. These policies have generally imposed greater restrictions on incoming asylum-seekers and on family reunions, while making it easier to deport “undesirables”, especially those considered radical. There is no doubt that this has limited the flow of immigrant Muslims, especially in the United States, where reports suggest that it has become extremely difficult for individuals from Muslim countries to obtain travel papers.

 

Along with these changes in immigration policy have come security responses. Initially, it appeared that the United States had responded more vigorously than western Europe to the heightened terrorist threat, with large-scale detentions, new police powers and strict requirements about reporting financial dealings. The suspension of judicial review for detentions was a particularly serious break with past American law. However, when the 11 September attacks were followed by the bombings in Madrid and London, European countries accelerated their own efforts, introducing new security laws and policies. Typically, these have included greater powers of surveillance and detention for the authorities.

 

In Britain, for example, there has been an extension and updating of laws designed initially to deal with the troubles in Northern Ireland, allowing easier detention and streamlined judicial review. In France, a new domestic security law has been implemented along with new anti-terrorism measures which make electronic eavesdropping much easier. In a particularly controversial step, Germany introduced data-mining of public sources to develop profiles of possible terrorism suspects; in 2006 this legislation was declared unlawful unless concrete evidence of a threat was provided. These policies have similar counterparts in other European countries, some of which have been under judicial or legislative review. While some of the laws have been altered under such review, as in Germany, it remains to be seen whether specific laws on a larger scale will be revised.

 

Immigration rules affect not only new migrants but resident Muslims as well. Directly after 11 September, hundreds of Muslims were detained in the United States and many were deported for minor/technical immigration violations. In Britain, there have been numerous detentions of foreign nationals. According to Amnesty International, anti-terrorism laws have been used in routine criminal and immigration cases involving Muslims. In France, the “Law on Everyday Security”, passed in 2001, substantially increased police powers against domestic populations. Similar legal responses in all European Union countries have displayed the tendency of the new security laws to extend their effects to domestic populations. The new security and immigration laws have had an important impact on the legal and religious situation of Europe’s Muslims. 

Accommodating Islam 

The European recognition of Muslim religious practices has occurred within legal and social frameworks designed to accommodate European Christianity. These frameworks have not always functioned as well in accommodating Islam.

 

As noted above, the Muslim presence has reopened the European debate on the relationship between state and religion. We can find three specific types of this relationship across Europe: the state-church model, the recognition of church by state, and the separation of church and state. 

The State-Church Model

Western European countries with state religions differ markedly from one another in their relationships with Islam. In Denmark, the state religion (Evangelical Lutheranism) is the only faith to be funded through taxation. Although individuals are not compelled to join the church, other religions have objected to Lutheranism’s privileged position. Multiple religious communities, however, are either recognised by royal decree or approved under the 1969 Marriage Act, which grants them permission to perform marriages. Several sects of Islam have received royal recognition in Denmark.

 

In Greece, the Orthodox Church is established as the primary recognised religion. However, Islam has been given a legal categorisation that mirrors some of the privileges given to Greek Orthodoxy and Judaism. Given the presence of a substantial indigenous Muslim (and generally Turkish-speaking) population in Thrace, the Greek and Turkish governments continue to adhere to the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. The treaty grants language, educational, and religious rights to the Thracian community, although the Greek government insists that the treaty does not apply to Greek Muslims living outside Thrace. Thus, Muslims in other parts of Greece must often travel to Thrace to obtain services such as Islamic marriages and funerals. In addition, the Greek government controversially reserves the right to appoint religious leaders for the Thracian community.

 

The situation in Britain has been still more contentious. The Church of England has been the established state church for centuries, and the head of state acts as the supreme governor of the church. A blasphemy law—applicable only to attacks against the Church of England—has been on the books since 1838. Although it has been little used in recent decades, some British Muslims argued unsuccessfully that the law provided grounds for the prosecution of Salman Rushdie for what they alleged was his blasphemy against Islam in his novel, The Satanic Verses. More recently, arguments have been raised in favour of expanding the blasphemy law to prevent incitement against all religions. (Because Muslims are not considered a racial group in Britain, there is no law against incitement to hatred of Muslims as such.) In 2004, the British government moved to create broader legislation that would supersede the existing blasphemy law. The issue attracted controversy during the general election of 2005, and in 2006 the Racial and Religious Hatred Act was passed which makes it an offence to stir up or incite hatred against a person on the grounds of his or her religious belief. 

State Recognition of Religion

Most European nations with state recognition of religion have been reasonably successful in crafting non-controversial policies towards Islam. Austria guarantees religious freedom and, despite the predominance of Roman Catholicism among its population, is generally secular. Religious organisations in Austria are regulated by the 1874 Law on Recognition of Churches and the 1998 Law on the Status of Religious Confessional Communities. Under these laws, organisations are categorised as religious societies, religious confessional communities, or associations with distinct legal status. Only religious societies can participate in the state-run contribution system, provide religious instruction in public schools, and receive financing for private schools. Austria recognised Islam as a religious society in 1912.

 

In the Netherlands, the state recognises certain religious groups and provides them with public resources for education and other activities. There is generally no difficulty in qualifying for this status, and Islam has been granted these privileges. In Sweden, official recognition has been withdrawn from the Church of Sweden, and essentially equal privileges, including the use of the tax system for funding, are now provided to most religious groups.

 

Belgium officially recognises seven faiths, including (since 1974) Islam. These religions receive wages and pensions for their clerics. Recognised religions are provided with government funding for religious instruction in public schools, and receive state help to maintain and build religious structures. State funds are distributed by proportion of the population served.

 

Despite Islam’s legal status in Belgium, for many years Muslims did not receive their share of these funds because they lacked a representative institution to negotiate with the state. This is partly why Belgium facilitated the creation of an Islamic organisation, the Belgian Muslim Executive (EMB), to represent the needs and interests of the Muslim population. The EMB was to be selected in a mostly democratic fashion to mirror the ethnic and religious breakdown of Muslims in Belgium. However, the state screened candidates for ideological extremism, thereby seriously eroding the EMB’s legitimacy. Although there were protests from almost all Muslim organisations in Belgium, the minister of justice decided to organise new elections on 13 March 2025 for the assembly from which the EMB is chosen. Despite the fact that most Muslims in Belgium are of Moroccan heritage, Turkish leaders won most of the seats. In 2007, however, following representations from an EMB delegation, a government decree was signed that will officially recognise forty-three mosques in Belgium, twenty-six of them Turkish. This decision now allows mosque officials to receive a monthly stipend and housing from the state. Belgium hoped to recognise eight more mosques by the end of the year.¹

 

Italy and Spain, as historically Catholic countries, have a more particular system influenced by their relations with the Vatican. Italy has formal freedom of religion but provides special status to some denominations, especially Roman Catholicism. The concordat between the Catholic Church and the Italian government is long-standing, but many of its legal provisions have been extended to other religions. Despite the Muslim presence in Italy, the lack of a clear Muslim leadership structure has prevented the state from establishing such an agreement for Islam. As one might expect, the Catholic Church enjoys a clearly preferential relationship with the Italian state. In September 2005, the government established the sixteen-member Islamic Council of Italy, representing the most important Muslim organisations and leaders. The council has been charged with preparing an agreement with state authorities outlining the major civic responsibilities of Italian Muslims. No significant progress has been made on such major issues as Islamic instruction in Italian schools, the provision of halal food in schools and other public institutions, the availability of Islamic burials, and the recognition of Islamic holidays.

 

In Spain, although special treatment of any religious organisation is considered illegal, the state does have agreements with the Vatican that give the Catholic Church unique rights. Some rights have been extended to Islam and other faiths, although these religions do not receive state funding through the tax system. Despite the legal status of Islam, recognised in 1992, there have been difficulties in getting the state to grant full rights to it, particularly as regards tax privileges and funding for religious instruction in schools. Muslims have also had problems in appointing chaplains to prisons and the military. More recently, however, the socialist government has made moves to downgrade the special status of Catholicism, and has also introduced the study of Islam in school curricula.

 

In Germany, although freedom of religion is provided for, the state officially recognises some faiths and uses the tax system to assess funds for them. Once recognised, these faiths are granted the status of public organisations. They subsequently receive such privileges as full independence in matters of employment, recognition of the community’s religious oath in a court of law, freedom to organise councils and chains of command, automatic affiliation of individuals with the faith they are born into (unless they explicitly opt out), fiscal protection, exemption from real-estate taxes on public-domain property, and the right to receive a percentage of the national revenue based on taxpayers’ declarations of membership.

 

Islam has not been recognised as a public organisation in Germany, perhaps primarily because of difficulties in establishing who the Muslim leadership should be. However, there have also been political concerns about groups connected to the Muslim organisation Milli Görüs, especially after 11 September. Milli Görüs, associated with the Islamist party in power in Turkey, has been seen as radical and therefore potentially terrorist. These problems have created a situation in which Islam receives little help from the federal government, a distinct contrast with Protestantism, Catholicism and Judaism. Muslims have been forced to negotiate individually and piecemeal for benefits from the governments of Germany’s various constituent federal states. Thus, in Germany, the rights of Islam vary tremendously across regions and are often subject to the whims of politicians in the more conservative regions. In 2006, an Islamic conference organisation was created under the auspices of the Interior Ministry to overcome this fragmentation. This conference brings together representatives of the main Islamic organisations in Germany and influential leaders from Germany’s Muslim minority. 

Separation of Church and State

France is unique among European countries in officially separating church and state, a policy known as laïcité. The state does recognise and fund some social and cultural activities by churches, but does not directly fund any religious practices. During the period of France’s possession of a colonial empire (that is, until 1962), the policy of laïcité did not apply to Islam. This allowed for some official economic assistance to Muslim institutions—the state, for example, helped build the main Paris mosque in 1926. The mosque of Paris, closely aligned with Algeria, has typically been quite powerful and has enjoyed good relations with the French government, although some French Muslims have objected to its primacy.

 

Because of this, the French government has tried over the past fifteen years to develop a new framework for handling issues relating to the Muslim community, and has played an important role in the creation of a representative Muslim body. Nicolas Sarkozy, then interior minister, facilitated the establishment in May 2003 of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM). This serves as the official organisation representing Muslims to the state. The creation of a public authority is intended to bring Islam into the open, thereby affording more input from the French government.

 

There have been numerous disputes over whether the body is representative, as well as complaints about state interference. More recently, there has been some pressure for the state to begin funding mosques again, and a foundation for this purpose was established in March 2005. This institution will be funded by private money, but maintained by a state-owned bank to guarantee the government’s ability to examine contributors. The impetus for this move derives primarily from the state’s desire to exercise greater control over the religious ideology of the mosques. Initially, Sarkozy proposed that public funds would be used for this purpose, but the idea met serious opposition from other powerful political figures.

 

Worries about radicalism often infuse these relationships between European states and representative Muslim bodies. This has been highly problematic for organisations associated with, for example, the Muslim Brotherhood or the Saudi government. As previously mentioned, trouble has also arisen for associations of Turks that have connections with Milli Görüs. Government fears about radicalism can lead to refusals to deal with the organisations in question. This has particularly been the case in Germany. Another approach, used primarily in France and Belgium, has been the establishment of a state-sponsored council for dealing with Muslim issues. Ideally, such councils could provide a functional framework for contact and negotiation. In practice, however, these bodies have been fraught with controversy over ideological screening by the state and questions about how genuinely representative they are. 

Islam and European Secularism 

As noted above, secularisation indicates the neutral interaction of political power with religious institutions. But the institutional agreements between Islamic organisations and the secular state are only one aspect of the status of religions in the West. Beyond the differentiation of the political and religious spheres and notions of neutrality is an ideological meaning to secularisation, the origins of which lie in the philosophy of the Enlightenment. A common thread within western European countries has been the tendency to consider that the sacred is misplaced and illegitimate within the civic context. The idea that religion cannot play a role in the general wellbeing of societies—a mark of the secularised mind—is common throughout Europe, despite the aforementioned differences among the national contracts between state and religion. It is important to note here that some non-Islamic religious groups in Europe have questioned secularist tenets. Germany, for example, has experienced debate over Christian values in the public sphere, while display of the crucifix in classrooms has sparked controversy in Italy. However, the main strands of European public culture in the political, intellectual, and media spheres are highly secularised, and tend to ignore religious dimensions and references that are still meaningful to some segments of society.

 

The consequence of this invalidation of the religious is that the various manifestations of Islam in Europe have become troublesome, or even unacceptable. The controversy in a number of European countries over the wearing of the Muslim female headscarf, the hijab, the crisis provoked by a Danish newspaper’s publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, and the Rushdie affair shed light on the tension between Islamic claims and European conceptions of secularism.

 

Demands and requests made by Muslims are often automatically perceived as suspect, and sometimes as backward, by many non-Muslim Europeans. As such, these requests provoke highly emotional reactions. The hijab is interpreted as a sign indicating a rejection of progress and individual female emancipation, and arouses the wrath of groups spearheading the defence of secular ideology: teachers, intellectuals, feminists, civil servants, and so forth. The 2004 French law prohibiting religious symbols in public schools represents the peak of this secular ideology, perhaps, although such controversies can be found elsewhere in Europe—for example in the uproar that followed British cabinet minister Jack Straw’s October 2006 criticisms of the niqab, the Muslim face veil that leaves a space for the eyes. The legal and civic aspects of Islam’s presence in Europe have relaunched disputes over religion in general, as shown by the example of a Norwegian atheist association that in March 2000 won the right to proclaim from rooftops via loudspeakers the non-existence of God for several minutes daily, in order to compete with Oslo’s muezzin.

 

Throughout Europe, the presence of Islam has called into question the norms of the dominant secular culture. In France, the controversy over the veil has renewed a long-dormant debate about the definition of a secular society. In Britain, the Rushdie affair sparked a new critique of British public culture. Until the publication of The Satanic Verses, the British debate over multiculturalism had been dominated by members of the majority population, and had treated integration as all but synonymous with minority adjustment to majority standards. After the Rushdie affair, integration came to be understood as a two-way process which would necessarily transform the majority population as well. British Muslim leaders, as noted, expressed their desire that British blasphemy laws be extended to protect Islam, and all other non-Anglican faiths. In the terms of this request, political integration is understood as a bilateral relationship, in which the host society must negotiate a consensus respectful of the fundamentals of the minority’s way of life. For British Muslims, conflating political with cultural adhesion constituted an attack on their moral and cultural integrity.

 

The protests of European Muslims over the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad also illustrate the tension between Europe’s dominant secular public culture and the resistance of a religious minority. There are, of course, other religious groups (including some European Christians) at odds with the idea of a secular public space—for example, the Catholic groups which agitated against the removal of crucifixes from Italian public schools in 2003. But their dissatisfaction tends to receive less media attention than that of Muslims, and rarely has the same international dimensions.

 

Although conflicts with incoming non-European migrants may have been inevitable in any case, cultural differences between Muslim immigrants and largely secularised European populations have tended to exacerbate these disputes. Interestingly, in contradiction of Samuel Huntington’s thesis of the clash of Islamic and Western political values, the conflict does not revolve around the nature of the state in Europe, nor Islamic governance, nor the accommodation of Islamic shari’a law in the common law. Rather, the clash concerns lifestyles, gender equality, and sexuality. In this regard, Inglehart and Norris are right to emphasise that the fight is over Eros and not over politics.² A 2007 Gallup poll conducted among Muslims in Paris, London and Berlin confirms that political institutions are not the issue of contention in Islamic communities: Muslims, rather, identify with the national institutions of the countries where they live. At the same time, the Gallup poll also indicates that Islam is important to the individual lives of Muslims.³

 

This acceptance of European political institutions does not preclude conflict; these conflicts, however, tend to occur in the cultural sphere, rather than in the political arena. Probably the most explicit case of cultural conflict was in the Netherlands over homosexuality. Prior to his assassination by an animal-rights activist in May 2002, openly gay politician Pim Fortuyn ran a highly successful political movement against Muslim immigration, owing to what he described as the immigrants’ un-Dutch intolerance of homosexuality. Recently, the Netherlands introduced a video for the socialisation of immigrants into Dutch society. The video is clearly intended to press these cultural differences, with its emphases on the acceptability of homosexuality and nude sunbathing.

 

Although differences between Islamic and European cultural norms are perhaps most starkly visible in the Netherlands, the work of Inglehart and Norris analysing Western and Islamic social attitudes shows that such differences are evident in several countries. Even controlling for numerous other potentially relevant factors, they find that attitudes in Muslim countries are notably more conservative as regards abortion, homosexuality, gender equality, and divorce. Inglehart and Norris tend to see this social conservatism as being linked to the level of economic development, rather than as being a core cultural attribute. However, for European societies attempting to integrate Muslim minorities, this distinction is often hard to note, leading to further conflation of cultural conflicts with anti-Muslim sentiment. 

Islamophobia in Europe 

The discourse in Europe’s political, intellectual and media realms has shown clear signs of anti-Muslim sentiment. Significant anti-Muslim rhetoric has come from right-wing and anti-immigrant politicians in the Netherlands and France, with less serious occurrences in Germany. More sharply racist and xenophobic commentary has become common since 11 September, with numerous instances of Europe’s Muslims being seen as potential terrorists. “[W]e have a fifth column in our midst,” wrote one right-wing British journalist. “Thousands of alienated young Muslims, most of them born and bred here but who regard themselves as an army within, are waiting for an opportunity to help to destroy the society that sustains them. We now stare into the abyss, aghast.”⁴

 

Anti-Muslim rhetoric in Europe is not solely the preserve of politicians and journalists, but has also been delivered by intellectuals of some standing. One of the most notable was Oriana Fallaci, a respected Italian writer and famous political interviewer. In her book, La Rabbia e l’Orgoglio (The Rage and the Pride), written in the wake of the 11 September attacks, she claimed that the West was superior to Islam, used phrases such as “multiply like rats” to describe the birth rates of Muslim immigrants, and called Muslims “vile creatures, who urinate in baptisteries”. In France, the novelist Michel Houellebecq was quoted as calling Islam “the most stupid religion”, as well as delivering other negative comments about the faith. He was tried under French law on charges of inciting racial hatred but acquitted in October 2002. In 2006, the story of the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad became international news and has since exacerbated tensions between Muslims and mainstream European institutions.

 

Another trend notable after 11 September is the resurgence of far-right politics in Europe. Some of this can be seen as a reaction to the continuing project of European Union enlargement. However, the resurgence has been characterised by anti-immigrant and often anti-Muslim rhetoric. In France, Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front party created shockwaves by finishing second in the 2002 elections. In Germany, far-right parties have gained a foothold in the east of the country. The extreme-right British National Party has picked up support among non-Muslim immigrants beyond its traditional white working-class constituency by using explicit anti-Islamic rhetoric since the London Tube and bus bombings of 7 July 2005. The Northern League and Forza Nuovo in Italy, regionalist and right-wing parties respectively, have adopted some anti-Muslim rhetoric in their political campaigns. And, as previously mentioned, Pim Fortuyn’s party enjoyed considerable political success in the Netherlands, campaigning on the contention that Muslim immigrants were a threat to traditionally liberal Dutch culture, especially regarding homosexuality. In all of these countries, because Muslims tend to be lower down the socio-economic ladder and to be first‑ or second‑generation immigrants, they tend to support centre-left parties. Right-wing parties are not dependent on appealing to them, and can gain political rewards by making anti-Muslim comments.

 

In Europe, how Islam and multiculturalism are woven together is a key issue because multiculturalism is closely related to the immigration and settling of Muslims. Of course, there was cultural diversity in European states before the immigration of Muslims. Before there was significant Muslim immigration, there existed specific mechanisms and procedures that dealt with issues of linguistic and regional diversity. Mostly, these pre-existing frameworks have not been applied to Muslims. Across Europe, declining belief in the possibility of a successful multi-ethnic society has changed the nature of ideas about the integration of minorities.

 

More broadly, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant attitudes seem to be on the increase in Europe. The 2000 European Values Survey showed that respondents regarded Muslims as the least desirable group to have as neighbours. Poll data over the last several years regularly show that about one in five Europeans does not wish to have other cultures in his or her nation. Beyond that, growing majorities approaching two-thirds of respondents believe there are limits to the possibilities of multiculturalism. A stable 40 per cent over the last decade have held that legal migrants should not have the same civil rights as native citizens, and a growing minority of about 20 per cent believe that legal migrants should be repatriated to their countries of origin. 

Three Possible Futures

Three scenarios for the future of Muslims in Europe are possible: acceptance, avoidance, or resistance. These three possible Muslim attitudes subtend the multiplicity of discourses and actions in the name of Islam, whether they are oriented towards Muslims or non-Muslims. Acceptance means that the dominant Western discourse is accepted by Muslims, and is accompanied by cultural amnesia and a definite will to assimilate. This trend is marginal among immigrant Muslims. Avoidance refers to behaviours or discourses that attempt to separate Muslim communities from the non-Muslim environment by developing, for example, a sectarian usage of Islamic religious beliefs. Resistance means refusing the status given to Islam within dominant discourses and politics.

 

Resistance need not be violent: it can involve, for example, taking a view opposite to that of dominant narratives and producing a voluminous literature that functions as an apologia for Islam. As for practices, certain forms of resistance involve what the sociologist Erving Goffman called “contact terrorism”, which means using certain Islamic symbols linked to clothing or behaviour in order to provoke the “other’s” fear and repulsion. But resistance can also assume more radical forms, such as involvement in violent Islamist movements. A prominent example is the French citizen born of Algerian parents, Khaled Kelkal, who died in a shoot-out with police in 1995 after being suspected of participating in a wave of bombings in France plotted by the Algerian organisation, the Groupe Islamique Armé. Another is Richard Reid, the British convert to Islam who planned to bring down an airliner by exploding a bomb in his shoe. Then there were the train bombers in Madrid and London. And in late June 2007, there was a series of attempted car-bombings in Britain linked to al-Qaeda. A car was rammed into the main terminal doors of Glasgow Airport, but the explosive did not detonate; the day before, two car bombs were discovered in London and disabled before they could be detonated. A number of Muslims were arrested in connection with the incidents. Although these forms of resistance are not dominant, they are highly visible and increasingly influential in the way Islam is perceived in Europe.

 

However, there also exist positive forms of resistance through which Muslims reappropriate elements of Islamic practice, acknowledging a personal commitment to their faith while simultaneously accepting European societies as their own. These positive forms entail the promotion of civic and political participation and the insertion of religious institutions into mainstream societies and are characterised by a strong discourse linking Islam and Western citizenship. Europe’s emergent Muslim middle classes will be able to convey this position of connection between Islam and the West. They could, in turn, provide role models for some more disenfranchised segments of Muslim youth tempted by separatist voices.

 

 

Endnotes

 

 

1. Vedat Denzili, “Belgium Grants Official Recognition to 43 Mosques”, Today’s Zaman (Istanbul), 21 June 2007.

 

2. Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

 

3. See Zsolt Nyiri, “Muslims in Berlin, London, and Paris: Bridges and Gaps in Public Opinion”, Gallup Organization, Princeton, N.J., 2007 [http://media.gallup.com/WorldPoll/PDF/WPTFMuslimsinEuropeExecSumm.pdf].

 

4. Melanie Phillips, “Britain Ignores the Angry Muslims within at Its Peril”, Sunday Times (London), 4 November 2001.