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This paper forms the introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies on 'Islam, Transnationalism, and the Public Sphere in Western Europe'. Taking as its starting point the seminal volume edited by Gerholm and Lithman-- The New Islamic Presence in Western Europe (1988)--the paper reviews continuities and changes in European Muslim communities and their relationship with others. Drawing extensively on case studies based on anthropological research in four European countries (Britain, France, Germany and Italy), the paper first examines the problematic character of the category 'Muslim', and identifies ways in which Islam in a European context can be considered transnational. It then explores how the question of living as a Muslim in Europe is being addressed in the context of transnationalism, considers whether there is an emergent 'European Islam' or 'European Muslim' identity, and ends with consideration of the problems and prospects for Islam in European public spheres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the multiple dimensions in the identity constructions of the daughters of the Muslim migrations to Italy. It focuses on the transformations in the way girls and young women relate to religion, in the transition from the generation of mothers, who emigrated from countries with a Muslim majority, to the generation of daughters, who grow up in a European context where Islam is a minority religion. It discusses ‘transmissions’, ‘translations’ and ‘betrayals’ in the migration experience, from a standpoint which highlights the specificities of gender and of generation. The article is based on an intersectional analysis of biographical accounts by Muslim girls and young women of Bengali and Moroccan origin who were born and/or grew up in Italy. Intersecting religious identity with other identity lines such as national belonging (to the parents’ country of origin and to the country where they were born or grew up), gender, class, color and age, multiple reactions and positions emerged. In this context, the religious dimension inherited/experienced/reinvented/called into question by the daughters of migrations appeared to be in constant evolution. Indeed, the stories contained herein of young Muslims tell of the emergence of European Islam. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An emerging consensus among scholars of Muslim political and social identity suggests that Western Muslims live out an anti-essentialist critique of identity construction. Considering this view, this paper examines a cross-national comparison of British Bangladeshis in London and Spanish Moroccans in Madrid that solicits the perceptions of working-class Muslim men. While the results indeed reaffirm respondents' concomitant relationships to a variety of identity paradigms, interview content demonstrates that subjects' multiplicity is complicated by their desire to meet – not reject – the essentialist standards of belonging to the identity paradigms discursively available to them. Rather than defiantly cherry-picking preferred characteristics of religion, ethnicity and nationality, individuals' responses suggest that they are trying to fulfil perceived standards of authenticity. Such a contention helps explain the prevalence of Western Muslims' expressed and well-documented ‘identity crisis’, suggests the enduring relevance of identity essentialisms, and more broadly, complicates post-modern conceptions of identity formation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In recent years, scholarship on Islam in Europe has highlighted the many attempts to govern Muslims and Islam. Concerned with discussions about secularism, security, integration, or national sentiments more generally, Muslims and Islam have become a target of governmental power. However, the effects of such governmental discourses, practices, or strategies are rarely analysed. In filling this lacuna, we turn to the scholarship on Muslim ethical self-making and specifically ask how configurations of a liberal-secular paradigm govern Muslim subjects in Europe. Focusing upon the nexus of governmentality and the (re-)making of an ethical self, we make visible the ways Islamic ethical and moral commitments are contested, negotiated, or even restructured through the liberal-secular powers of the modern state, its institutions, and its agents in different European contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how we might best understand the potential establishment of a waqf (plural: 'awqaf), or Islamic charitable endowment, in London. Drawing on ethnographic and archival data, it considers the waqf space from four angles that emerged as significant during fieldwork: Islamic quality, temporality, communities of interest, and local relationality. In doing so, the article offers a detailed account of an example of an under-studied Islamic institution, as well as a portable framework for thinking about Islam and space in Muslim-minority contexts. It draws on these explorations to offer conclusions about the fieldsite, arguing that "Islam" is a major structure for shaping this particular space, but not a totalizing presence. The conclusion considers how this case study about space might relate to a debate within the Anthropology of Islam, as well as providing additional reflections on studying space and Islam in Europe relevant to the Special Issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Islam has become the key site for demarcating boundaries between majority populations and individuals of immigrant origin across Europe. This article outlines a research agenda on the socio-cultural integration of Muslims in their Western European societies of settlement. Integration issues with regard to Muslims have especially tended to focus on cultural and religious aspects. This raises questions. First, does culture/religion matter in shaping Muslims’ relative disadvantage in the socio-economic domain? Alternatively, does Muslim social disadvantage result from majority society's discrimination and bias against religious/cultural difference? Second, religious and cultural difference seems to matter in its own right. Do Muslims identify with their countries of settlement and accept the core liberal democratic values and norms? Or do persistent socio-cultural ‘gaps’ between Muslims and non-Muslims result from intolerance by the majority population? The article outlines a theoretical approach and empirical research programme. The framework is cross-national comparative, including France, Germany, Britain, Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland. The main data source is a survey that includes four groups of Muslims from distinct countries of origin (Turks, Moroccans, former-Yugoslavians, and Pakistanis) plus a majority sample, which facilitates cross-group, cross-national comparison. This introduction concludes by introducing contributions that address a specific question embedded within the overall framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contemporary Europe, Islam and Muslims are rightly or wrongly often perceived as the ‘other’. Among the central foci of concern in many Western European countries with a significant presence of Muslims, the law has featured prominently in recent years. What can anthropology tell us about the multiple ways in which European Muslims engage with liberal and secular laws and the state? Perhaps no other contemporary scholar in anthropology has written more extensively about these issues than Professor John R. Bowen. As part of an ongoing series in public anthropology, Professor Bowen engaged in a public conversation with Professor Oddbjørn Leirvik and Postdoctoral Fellow Sindre Bangstad at The House of Literature in Oslo, Norway on 27 September 2011. Due to technical failures, the conversation had to be re-recorded at the Grand Hotel in Oslo on 28 September 2011. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Muslims in western countries are routinely depicted as non-liberal minorities through representations of homophobia, honour killings and forced marriage within their communities. This presents a practical challenge to face up to non-liberal practices where they do exist, but without demonising an entire faith community. It also raises conceptual questions about mainstream western values. In the context of forced marriage, liberal principles (such as an individual's right to choose their own marriage partner and to decide whether to marry) appear to clash with postcolonial sensibilities including a valorisation of multiculturalism (which might recognise the rights of minorities to practice different marriage customs). These questions are examined through a case study involving Stichting Platform Islamitische Organisaties Rijnmond (SPIOR), a Muslim-identified organisation that works against forced marriage. Based in the Netherlands and active in six other European countries, SPIOR has worked with people potentially affected by forced marriage and also communicated its projects – and the progressive vision of Islam they advance – to wider audiences. Its experiences suggest that tensions between secular majorities and Muslim minorities, and between liberal and postcolonial values and sensibilities, are less fundamental than they sometimes appear, and more navigable. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Until the middle of the twentieth century, Muslims living in European countries were mainly indigenous people, completely assimilated with the rest of the population. Both their religion and their representative organizations enjoyed legal recognition, sometimes centuries long. A significant influx of immigrants of Muslim origin to Europe began in the mid twentieth century and a need for legal regulations sanctioning the status of Muslims within largely Christian societies became apparent. Their situation in this respect differs from country to country, sometimes due to a lack of an organization that would represent all the Muslims in a particular country, sometimes because of legal technicalities. In some countries, it is not even possible for Muslim immigrants to become citizens. The legal situation of Islam and its adherents exerts an important influence on their attitude towards their new country of residence and towards Europe, as well as significantly influencing their loyalty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]