MAKING MUSLIM PRESENCE MEANINGFUL. Studies on Islam and Mosques in Western Europe

Marcel Maussen

 

The establishment of mosques leads to public discussions on Islam and the presence of Muslim minorities in Western European societies. This article critically reconstructs thirty years of academic studies on Islam and mosque establishment in France, the Netherlands, Germany and Great Britain. Three different research perspectives are distinguished: studies on Muslim religious practice, studies on the institutionalisation of Islam, and studies that focus on negotiations about emblems of Islam and cultural diversity. The article shows how researchers working in different research perspectives have discursively constructed and interpreted transformations of Islam and Islamic practice in Western Europe. Academic researchers have actively contributed to the production and development of vocabularies and interpretations to talk and think about Islam and mosques in the West. By consequence, many overlapping concepts and interpretations prevail in academic, policy and political discourses on Islam in Western Europe. The article concludes by suggesting that academic researchers should constantly try and reflect critically upon their own contributions to the process of making Muslim presence in Western Europe meaningful.

• working paper in pdf format: ASSR-WP0503