Exploring Islam beyond Orientalism and Occidentalism: Sociological Approaches (Veröffentlichungen der Sektion Religionssoziologie der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie) 3658332387, 9783658332389

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Veröffentlichungen der Sektion Religionssoziologie der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie

Christel Gärtner Heidemarie Winkel Editors

Exploring Islam beyond Orientalism and Occidentalism Sociological Approaches

¨ ffentlichungen der Sektion Vero Religionssoziologie der Deutschen ¨ r Soziologie Gesellschaft fu Series Editors Marc Breuer, Fachbereich Sozialwesen, Katholische Hochschule Nordrhein-Westfalen, Paderborn, Germany Uta Karstein, Institut für Kulturwissenschaften, Universität Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany Jens Köhrsen, Theologische Fakultät, Universität Basel, Basel, Switzerland Kornelia Sammet, Deutsches Jugendinstitut/Halle, Halle (Saale), Germany Annette Schnabel, Soziologie, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany Alexander Yendell, Institut für Praktische Theologie, Universität Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany

Weitere Bände in der Reihe http://www.springer.com/series/12575

Christel Gärtner · Heidemarie Winkel Editors

Exploring Islam beyond Orientalism and Occidentalism Sociological Approaches

Editors Christel Gärtner Exzellenzcluster Religion und Politik Universität Münster Münster, Germany

Heidemarie Winkel Bielefeld University Faculty of Sociology Bielefeld, Germany

Veröffentlichungen der Sektion Religionssoziologie der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie ISBN 978-3-658-33238-9 ISBN 978-3-658-33239-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-33239-6 © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Responsible Editor: Cori Antonia Mackrodt This Springer VS imprint is published by the registered company Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH part of Springer Nature. The registered company address is: Abraham-Lincoln-Str. 46, 65189 Wiesbaden, Germany

Contents

Introduction: Exploring Islam Beyond Orientalism and Occidentalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Christel Gärtner and Heidemarie Winkel

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Sociology of Islam beyond Orientalism Islam and Post-orientalism: Debates Concerning Comparative and Historical Sociology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bryan S. Turner

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The Sociology of Islam: Beyond Orientalism, Toward Transculturality? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Armando Salvatore

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Prospects for a Relational Sociology of Islam: Some Remarks on Differentiation Theory, Multiple Modernities, and the Pitfalls of Occidentalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Daniel Witte The Gendered Perception of Islam in Western Societies: Problematizing Culturalist and Feminist Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Christel Gärtner

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Islam Re-Negotiated—Global Case Studies The Elephant in the Room: The Silent Moroccan Path Towards Secularization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aziz Chahir

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Contents

Kamel Daoud, the Colonizer and the Fatwa: Negotiating Islam in Algeria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Isabella Schwaderer

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Islamic Feminism. Thinking Gender Justice as a Religious Knowledge Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Heidemarie Winkel

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Configurations of Islam in Europe Understanding the Religion-Politics Nexus in Turkey. Continuities and Ruptures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sinem Adar

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Cultivating a Common World from a Specific Place: The Case of Muslim Internet Media Outlets in France . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anne-Sophie Lamine

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Islam at Work: How Muslim Women in France and Germany Reconcile Piety and Profession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Linda Hennig

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Young Male Salafis in Germany—Ticking Bombs? A Biographical Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gritt Klinkhammer

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Education and Certainty: On the Importance of Education in Fethullah M. Gülen’s Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Johannes Twardella

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Short Biographies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Editors and Contributors

About the Editors Prof. Dr. Christel Gärtner Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics“, Universität Münster, Münster, Germany Prof. Dr. Heidemarie Winkel Bielefeld University, Faculty of Sociology, Bielefeld, Germany

Contributors Dr. Sinem Adar Center for Applied Turkey Studies at the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, Berlin, Germany Prof. Aziz Chahir National Institute of Management Training and Senior Research Associate at Jacques Berque Center of Humanities and Social Sciences, Rabat, Morocco Prof. Dr. Christel Gärtner Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics“, Universität Münster, Münster, Germany Dr. Linda Hennig Centrum für Religion und Moderne CRM, Münster, Germany Prof. Dr. Gritt Klinkhammer FB 09 Kulturwissenschaften, Institut für Religionswissenschaft und Religionspädagogik, Universität Bremen, Bremen, Germany Prof. Dr. Anne-Sophie Lamine Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France

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Editors and Contributors

Prof. Armando Salvatore School of Religious Studies, McGill University, Montreal, Canada Dr. Isabella Schwaderer Allgemeine Erfurt, Erfurt, Germany

Religionswissenschaft,

University

of

Prof. Bryan S. Turner Australian Catholic University, North Sydney, Australia PD Dr. Johannes Twardella Fachbereich Erziehungswissenschaften, Institut für Pädagogik der Sekundarstufe, Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main, Germany Prof. Dr. Heidemarie Winkel Bielefeld University, Faculty of Sociology, Bielefeld, Germany Dr. Daniel Witte Käte Hamburger Kolleg „Recht Als Kultur“, Bonn, Germany

Introduction: Exploring Islam Beyond Orientalism and Occidentalism Christel Gärtner and Heidemarie Winkel

Abstract

This volume aims to reflect on current research on Islam both methodologically and theoretically. As a field of research, Islam is not free of conflict, but rather a socially contested discursive arena that is linked to policy issues of security and integration. Beyond these daily problematizations in the political sphere and media, we want to deal with the various forms of lived Islamic religiosity and sociality. This volume is the outcome of a conference held by the Sociology of Religion Section of the German Sociological Association and the Centre for Religious Studies (CERES) at the University of Bochum. Adopting the title “On the Sociology of Islam—Reflexion, Revision & Reorientation”, the organizers wanted to reflect on current research on Islam both methodologically and theoretically. As a field of research, Islam is not free of conflict, but rather a socially contested discursive arena that is linked to policy issues of security and integration (Asad 1986, 1993, 2003). As such, it is the object of public debate and media outrage (Wohlrab-Sahr and Tezcan 2007), which extends even to the question of whether Islam can be part of Germany. Beyond these daily problematizations in the political sphere and C. Gärtner (B) Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics“, Universität Münster, Münster, Germany E-Mail: [email protected] H. Winkel Bielefeld University, Faculty of Sociology, Bielefeld, Germany E-Mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 C. Gärtner and H. Winkel (eds.), Exploring Islam beyond Orientalism and Occidentalism, Veröffentlichungen der Sektion Religionssoziologie der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-33239-6_1

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media, we wanted to deal with the various forms of lived Islamic religiosity and sociality. On the one hand, we reflected on the conceptual and theoretical framework provided by sociology as well as on newer, more advanced approaches. On the other hand, we wanted to scrutinize Eurocentric approaches such as in modernization theory, as well as those that are based on a homogenizing understanding of culture and that convey an inherent Orientalism, especially when these approaches serve as a comparative foil for analyzing Islam and lead to a dichotomous and asymmetrical interpretation: here, ‘modern Western’ culture; there, ‘traditional Islamic’ culture. We are not entering uncharted territory, but are joining a longstanding, Western tradition of studying Islam and critique of its Orientalist foundations. The prevailing image and understanding of Islam today can be traced back to early Islamic Studies and the sociology of religion at the end of the nineteenth century. The sociological analysis of Islamic religiosity and its social positioning began with the work of Max Weber (Stauth 2000b, p. 239), who, as we know, was prevented from completing his sociological studies of Islam by his early death. Religious analysis has been inseparably linked with the issue of modernity in sociology since its inception. On the one hand, the classics of sociology (and the sociology of religion)—Émil Durkheim, Max Weber, Georg Simmel, and Ernst Troeltsch— understood religion as a central dimension of society and recognized its cultural accomplishments in promoting modernization. On the other hand, however, they also tended to assign religion to ‘tradition’, thereby establishing and perpetuating an epistemic dichotomy between religion and modernity (Gärtner 2019, p. 270). Weber studied the Islamic religion, like all world religions, from the point of view of the conditions of rationalization immanent to religion, but also essentially reduced religion to these conditions. Weber’s interpretation of Islam was for this reason soon criticized, although, according to Stauth, the critics remained “caught up in the dichotomous evolutionism of modernization theory” (2000b, p. 240; our translation; Salvatore 2013), including the antithetical juxtaposition of modern and non-modern societies (the latter continuing to be strongly attached to religion and therefore deemed traditional). In this respect, the question arises for Stauth not only for a Sociology of Islam, but in general: “What happens to ‘traditional religion’, especially in non-Western societies, when it has become a modern religion” (Stauth 2000b, p. 240; our translation)? The understanding of Islam as a modern and modernizing religion has become the focus of sociological research since the 1970s and 1980s, primarily as a reaction to the growing Muslim diaspora in Western contexts, but at the latest since the Iranian revolution of 1979. Explicit debates on and theoretical approaches to a Sociology of Islam are associated above all with names such as Bryan S. Turner

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(2013a, c), Georg Stauth (1998, 2000a), and Nilüfer Göle (2008, 2016), as well as more recently with Armando Salvatore (2013, 2016). In 2013, Turner (together with Nasir) re-published selected essays on Islam that he had written since the 1970s, and reflected in the introduction to each chapter on the classics (especially Weber), on the debate on Orientalism, and on current research on Islam. In doing so, Turner repeats his criticism of Weber, and especially the latter’s interpretation of Islam as a warrior religion that prioritized the expansive search for land rather than, like Calvinism and Lutheranism, the individual search for salvation (Turner 2013a, p. 12). He attributes this to the fact that Weber’s specific interest in the relationship between capitalism and religion narrowed the perspective. The reason for the absence of capitalist conditions for growth, Weber says, is based on two fundamental differences to Christianity: the lack of an ethics of inner-worldly asceticism, and the patrimonial relationships of benefice (Stauth 2000b, p. 239). Turner’s third point of criticism is related more to the sources: on the one hand, Weber’s main focus was the Ottoman Empire, which still existed at the time of his death, and thus Sunni Islam; on the other hand, his interpretations of the Prophet and the Quran reflected the stereotypes of Western Orientalism (Turner 2013a, p. 12). What Turner explicitly refrains from criticizing with regard to Weber, however, is the latter’s historical-comparative method, which Turner values highly (Turner 2013c). Moreover, Weber remains relevant as a classic of sociology for Turner because he provided a whole range of concepts and theories to identify and explain social relations (Turner 2013a, p. 17), which can still be made fruitful for a Sociology of Islam. This includes the concept of methodological lifestyle (Lebensführung), which remains central to the relationship between religion and modernity (see Linda Hennig in this volume). Pierre Bourdieu took up Weber’s concept of the habitus, developed it, and assigned the body a prominent role, thereby (according to Turner) eliminating one of Weber’s desiderata, since the habitus realizes our preferences through the body in everyday practice, forms them, and maintains them. “These ideas are relevant to the study of religion in which our beliefs are embodied and carried through practices such that our disposition towards the consumption of religion is shaped by habitus and our position in the social structure” (Turner 2013a, p. 17). According to Turner, the habitus-concept is crucial: “The sociology of Islam must be fundamentally about how Muslims live their everyday lives through practices and institutions” (2013c, p. 15; see the contributions of Gritt Klinkhammer and Linda Hennig in this volume). In the introduction to his second chapter, Turner reflects on his criticism of Orientalism (2013a, pp. 93–99; see also his contribution in this volume), where he begins by expressing his appreciation for Edward Said (1978, 1981). “Said’s

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work offered both a substantive critique of works of literature and a technique for studying such literary products as manifestations of an underlying system of colonial power” (Turner 2013a, p. 93). Said thus made a significant contribution to establishing postcolonial studies as an academic discipline. According to Turner, Said’s concept of Orientalism became the basis of criticism of Western assumptions about other cultures, especially because the so-called Orient had been degraded to the status of a passive object vis-à-vis a ‘superior’ West. This approach reflects the mechanism of epistemic hegemony and violence, a mechanism that unfolds through the colonial epistemic matrix of difference that constitutes Islamic religion as the subaltern other par excellence.1 Said’s critique of Orientalism, which is based on the analysis of literary sources, has since been heavily criticized, though. First, because he was selective with regard to his empirical fields and sources—for example, he failed to include German-language Oriental Studies, which had made a significant contribution to the development of Islamic Studies. Second, because he analyzed the literature to which he referred in a one-sided way that benefitted his own argument. In contrast, Turner focuses not on the analysis of literature, but on social theories. He emphasizes that the concept of Orientalism is difficult to uphold with regard to research in social anthropology, which Said accuses of being deeply rooted in, and compromised by, colonialism (Turner 2013a, p. 94). “Any detailed account of Orientalism would have to take into account the important differences between western societies in terms of their different imperial histories, but this analysis is absent from Said’s Orientalism” (Turner 2013a, p. 95).2 What is also important for Turner is that the method of discourse analysis is inadequate from a sociological point of view, since he claims that sociology must be interested not only in texts, but also and above 1 On

the notion of the colonial matrix of difference and thinking in terms of binaries, see Khaldoun Samann (2010). 2 Turner demonstrates the under-complexity of this by means of various scholarly and literary works that had a clear anti-colonial impetus, such as those of Evans Pritchard and Mary Douglas, but also early French ethnography, such as that of Michel Leiris. It must also be taken into account, Turner argues, that not all Western countries, e.g. Germany, had significant colonial possessions, and vice versa, i.e. that the USA practised an “inner Orientalism” in its treatment of slaves (2013a, pp. 94-95). In contrast, Talal Asad (1975, p. 18) claims that the power asymmetries in knowledge production are caused not by “the simple reflection of colonial ideology”, but by the hegemony of imperial knowledge regimes and epistemologies such as the coloniality of thinking in terms of antithetical typifications, binaries and difference such as ‘the secular’ versus ‘the religious’. Asad also focuses on the ways and modes of how colonial histories and the experiences of colonial subjects have become subaltern. Regarding the relevance of German colonialism, historical research has recently shown its devastating effects (Conrad 2012; Gottschalk 2017).

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all in social practice. But, despite all the criticism, Said’s concept of Orientalism remains relevant as a demand on scholars to focus on the connections between power relations and knowledge production. This power and knowledge-based perspective has been supplemented by an analytical interest in the Islamic religion as a discursive field and site of knowledge (Asad 1986, 1993, 2003; Hirschkind 1995; Mahmood 2005). This includes a critical approach to conceptualizations of Islamic religion “as a category of an ‘autonomous essence’ that transculturally and transhistorically exists” (Sundkvist 2021, p. 117). In connection with his criticism of Said, Turner points also to the lack of an extended view of “the possibility of a cosmopolitan hermeneutic” (2013a, p. 95) that goes beyond Orientalism and postcolonial studies. Looking for signs of such a methodology, Turner refers to Leibniz as a cosmopolitan enlightener who recognized that the rapidly growing trade routes between Europe and Asia, for example, witnessed the exchange not only of goods but also of cultural values and patterns: “Leibniz proposed a ‘commerce of light’, that is, an exchange of mutual enlightenment” (ibid.). In his study of Chinese civilization, Leibniz had clearly seen that Christianity and Confucianism shared some metaphysical ideas (ibid., p. 96). Turner also highlights Leibniz’s recognition of the diversity of cultures and civilizations, a diversity that leads to the inherent value of difference. Difference between cultures requires not only exchange; rather, “this need for interaction also establishes a commonality of culture” (2013b, p. 152). Thus, he understands the concept of the commerce of light as a cosmopolitan approach that could provide a basis for a new understanding of diversity and transcultural relations. Turner concludes that Leibniz “developed a cosmopolitan virtue in his attempt to establish an exchange with China that offers us a guideline for understanding our own times, especially a cosmopolitan exchange with Islam” (Turner 2013b, p. 152). In that respect, Turner refers to examples like the cultural exchange between Muslims and Christians from the eighth century onwards, in which Christian civilization received significant technological and scientific contributions from Islam (Turner 2013b, pp. 152–153). In his contribution to this volume, Armando Salvatore takes up Turner’s argument and discusses the extent to which the concept of the commerce of light also marks the transition from a comparative approach to an interactive transculturation. As early as 1960, the US historian and Islamic scholar Marshall G.S. Hodgson had criticized the prevailing image of Islam in Western scholarship, and had proposed his own method of understanding Islam in comparison with Christianity. Hodgson criticizes methods that raise Christianity as the standard and then examine Islam as at best a deviation from the Christian ideal. He calls for a comparative method that positions itself at the same distance from both religions, i.e.

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that seeks to look at Islam on an equal footing, in order to compare both religious contexts “as frameworks each with its own inner completeness” (Hodgson 1960, p. 50), and to look first of all at the parallels, i.e. common institutional and cognitive patterns. “My outline moves from human problems faced, to types of spirituality called upon in facing them, and finally to institutional patterns resulting” (ibid, p. 51). Hodgson identifies some commonalities, e.g. that both religions are Abrahamic, believe in a monotheistic God, worship the same prophets, and assume that God created the world. He investigates each of these immanently, in order then to compare the reconstructed contents with each other, thereby emphasizing the particularity and difference of each. Hodgson’s proposals can be found today above all in approaches of an interreligious theology that seeks to explore the preconditions for interreligious dialogue and the capacity for pluralism that religions have (Schmidt-Leukel 2017). In 1974, Hodgson came to prominence above all with his three-volume work, The Venture of Islam, which, published after his death in 1968, places not only Arab, but also Persian Islam in the frame of world history. In this study, he developed an approach to world history that places religion in “a macro cultural, social and geographical context” (1974). By doing so, Hodgson decentered the hegemonic European understanding of history and the Orientalism in the approach to Islamdom (a term that he coined), and invited scholars to analyze Islam on an equal footing with other world religions in the conceptual frame of world history. The sociological studies on Islam that have been conducted since the 1970s not only reflect the diversity of Muslim lifestyles and movements. They also testify to a growing awareness of the problem of Orientalism and conceive of Islam as part of a discourse that sees itself as modern (Stauth 1998, p. 8). While the initial focus was on selected countries in the Middle East, this focus has increasingly shifted to Europe, where Muslims have become a rapidly growing minority due to labor migration, and in many countries are now the third (and sometimes even the second) largest religious community. Towards the end of the millennium, it seemed appropriate to reflect on the results of these studies, which focus on the diversity of Islamic thought and the Islamic history of ideas, as well as the associated models of Muslim lifestyles and ideas of social order. This is what Georg Stauth attempted to do with the Yearbook of the Sociology of Islam, which he initiated and which was published between 1998 and 2008. Stauth’s idea was on the one hand to follow Max Weber’s theoretical analysis of the significance of Islam in modernity, while on the other overcoming the problems associated with Weber’s approach and re-conceptualizing modern Islam in the “formative process of cross-cultural layers of modernity and global culture” (Stauth 1998, p. 8). The Yearbooks bundled together research on Islam on a thematic basis, and reflected

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on this research. While the first volume was concerned with a renewed theoretical assessment of the position of research in sociology and Islamic studies, the other volumes reflected the diversity of research themes that examine Islamic practices, policies, identity formations, and lifeworlds in Muslim and non-Muslim countries (in both the past and the present). Since then, research on Islam has again expanded greatly, so that there is now such a wealth of empirical research findings on Islam and Islamic lifeworlds that there is talk of an ‘exuberant production of knowledge’ (Jeldtoft 2013; Schepelern Johansen and Spielhaus 2018). At the same time, a political and normative discourse on Islam and Muslim immigrants is being conducted in many Western host countries (and increasingly so since 9/11), a discourse that reaches far into the landscape of academic research, but that is also reflected upon critically in academia (Göle 2010, 2016). Particularly when it comes to the body and covering practices, the interpretations of the motives of women who decide to wear a headscarf range on a scale from citing modern values of individualism and freedom (the right to freedom of religion), to seeing the headscarf as a symbol of the oppression of women by a patriarchal religion (Göle 2008; Winkel 2018a). This is regularly combined with culturalist assignments of identity, which have in the background complex processes of categorization and demarcation. Birgit Rommelspacher (2009) has shown how the problematization of Islamic gender concepts functions in this context as a marker of a person’s own identity and superiority in European, Western societies, and how gender (alongside ‘Islam’) itself ultimately becomes a colonial category of knowledge (Winkel 2018b, 2021). It is especially studies that work with culturalist approaches or essentializations that reinforce the socially disparaging discourse associated with Islam, and that should be subjected to sociological reflection (see Christel Gärtner’s contribution in this volume). After Islamic religion had been established in sociological research as part of modernity, the focus was shifted to transnational and global interdependencies (Winkel 2017; see Armando Salvatore’s contribution in this volume), but modernity itself was also freed from singularity and conceived as multiple modernities (Eisenstadt 2002; see Daniel Witte’s contribution in this volume) and expanded as a global perspective by the approach of multiple secularities (Wohlrab-Sahr and Burchardt 2011). The Sociology of Islam journal, which has been published by Armando Salvatore since 2013, aims to focus on the perspective of interdependence, as well as to implement the program of multiple modernities. Salvatore begins from the premise that the importance of the role of an allegedly antimodern Islam or at least an Islam resistant to modernity is itself a symptom of the limitations of Western sociology. He begins from this premise in order then to

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foreground in contrast the potential importance of a Sociology of Islam for analyzing Muslim societies and cultures. “The sociology of Islam by necessity tackles the tensions and antinomies that underlie the sociological project of modernity, and questions the specific yet crucial role it ascribes to religion. Such tensions represent both a challenge and a point of departure for the project of a sociology of Islam” (Salvatore 2013, p. 8). Drawing on Hodgson, Salvatore formulates the path of a Sociology of Islam that questions the hegemonic discourse that constructs a standardized Western model of modernity. “In this sense, the project challenges the idea itself of a compact civilization, be it Western or Islamic, and focuses on both mutual and inner entanglements of knowledge, culture and power” (ibid., p. 9). On the basis of this reflection, Salvatore then proposes a Sociology of Islam as “a theoretically informed and comparatively inspired framework” (ibid., p. 11), and “a sociological approach to entangled, multiple traditions and varieties of modernity by taking into account alternative, non-Western genealogies”; furthermore, such a sociology should explore “the way knowledge, culture and power are shaped by Muslim actors” (ibid., p. 12).3 Bryan Turner also points to what he believes to be existing desiderata. “The sociology of Islam cannot be simply about its growth in Europe and North America without due concern for its many global manifestations” (2013c, p. 15), but must examine the different and diverse manifestations of modern Islam. According to Turner, it would be necessary to develop a sociological equivalent to Hodgson’s “plea for world history” that ultimately treats religion as an institution like other institutions: “Our task is simply to understand Islam as a global, complex and diverse institution in the context of social change” (ibid.). But Turner also notes that, after the long ethnocentric bias in Western research on Islam and the fierce criticism of it, it “is difficult to find any neutral ground by which research on Islam can be conducted without suspicion, acrimony and personal criticism” (2013a, p. 19). The contributions in the first part of the book meet this challenge: to question the analytical and explanatory power of concepts formulated by the classics beyond Orientalism, and at the same time to develop new approaches. It is in this spirit that Bryan Turner has set himself the task in his contribution on Islam and Post-Orientalism to strengthen the Sociology of Islam beyond an orientalist and Eurocentric bias. To this end, Turner reviews the current discussion and the state of research since its new invention in 2011 from the perspective of comparative and historical sociology, to which he himself has already contributed so strongly since his Weber and Islam in 1974. However, Turner primarily argues 3 He

carried out this program in his 2016 book The Sociology of Islam. Knowledge, Power and Civility.

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for a shift in research approach and to go beyond the analysis of orientalism, which he prominently captures in the term post-orientalism. The particular value of this contribution is that Turner sketches—en passent—the relation between the sociology of religion and the study of Islam; that is, the site of knowledge production on Islam itself is traced as a discoursive field of disputed knowledge production against the backdrop of socio-political changes and challenges—from the Iranian Revolution to the fall of the Berlin Wall and more recent incidents such as the Charlie Hebdo crisis in France, which flamed up again while we were writing this introduction. This leads Turner to reflecting research on Islamophobia and the integration of Muslims into Western societies, as well as on the effects of socio-political upheaval on Islamic practices and modalities of belief such as pious and other Islamic reform movements. In this regard, Turner reminds us that the modernization of Islam included fundamentalist as well as modernist movements. However, the presence of Islam was and still is highly contested and, as a result, research on Islam is highly dependent on how Islamic religion is sociopolitically perceived. This makes it all the more important for Turner to promote research that goes beyond ‘fashion-research’ such as ‘fashion-Orientalism’. In contrast, Armando Salvatore focuses in his contribution on global transformation processes, and uses Asia in general and China in particular as empirical contexts of analysis. In this regard, Salvatore explores the contribution of Islamicate civilization (in Asia) to global histories and developments on the intellectual as well as the economic and other societal levels in the longue durée. His theoretical clue is the focus on the entanglements and global connectedness between Eastern and Western contexts. In a reconstructive approach, Salvatore sketches the global rise of ‘Asia’ respectively of China as the emergence of a transcultural reality instead of comparing this world region and its religion(s) with Western social reality. The theoretical elegance of Salvatore’s contribution lies in the fact that he introduces transculturality both as an empirical observable social reality and a relevant—up to now astonishingly overlooked—research paradigm for the Sociology of Islam. This includes the possibility for a shift in the analytical lens, namely beyond what Salvatore perceives as the deconstructive zeal of postcolonial critique with its emphasis on orientalism. As a result, Islamic intellectual responses come into view in a new way—also in the sense of epistemic resistance that counters Western paradigms and their hegemony, which too often produces a reaffirmation of the West’s epistemological dominance in a seemingly new, critical guise. Just like Turner and Salvatore, Daniel Witte turns critically to Orientalism in the Sociology of Islam in his contribution. However, his primary focus is on the ethnocentric and occidentalist attitude of sociology that devoted itself to the

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study of Western, European societies as modern secular societies. To this end, Witte critically engages with the theory of differentiation and its distinction between religion, law and politics that appear as seemingly substantialist entities separated by seemingly clear differences and autonomies. Witte argues that this analytical lens obstructs the understanding of Islamic societies, and here in particular the understanding of Islamic law. By means of Shmuel N. Eisenstadt’s multiple modernities approach, Witte goes beyond the compartmentalization of religious doctrine, theology, law, and profane sciences, and unveils the social reality of Islamic societies as the history of various intersecting institutionalizations of religious, legal and political facets of Islam. Accordingly, Witte argues for a relational turn in the Sociology of Islam that takes blurred boundaries and relative autonomies as the starting-point. This also includes socio-historical entanglements and interdependencies between the global South and North on a global scale. In her contribution on the gendered perception of Islam in Western societies, Christel Gärtner problematizes culturalist and feminist approaches which scientifically underpin the social discourses that view Muslim gender relations as unequal and backward. She points out that the public perception of Islam in Western societies as misogynistic and prone to violence is itself already gendered. Gärtner’s concern is to explore how gender relations in Islam can be examined without subsuming them under Western norms or pre-formed categories. In contrast to culturalist and secular-feminist approaches, she shows that studies using more differentiated concepts and considering also the contextual conditions, are better able to understand the complex and contradictory reality of Muslim women and men. Drawing on the results of these studies, she raises the question of how Muslim gender relations can be examined conceptually and methodologically while avoiding the traps of secularist, essentialist, or culturalist concepts. The contributions in the second part of the book deepen the theoretical reconsideration of classical sociological approaches to Islamic religion. Moreover, they offer selected case studies outside the European context. In his contribution on Morocco, Aziz Chahir interprets socio-political developments by reference to the Weberian understanding of secularization. At the center of his analysis is a supposed transformation of religion as social anchor of sense-making and understanding the world, which the author characterizes as implicit secularization. This type of secularization is implicit, because the political institutions and public life in Morocco are now as before strongly structured by and interwoven with Islamic ethics. However, the reformist Islamists of the governing Party of Justice and Development are engaged in a process of rationalizing moral, religious values in the course of political decision-making. Chahir interprets this mode of Islamic-based decision-making as a utilitarian approach to the social problems of present-day

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Morocco. The author illustrates this with the example of various social challenges such as the consumption of alcohol, but also fundamental issues such as human rights and individual liberties or women’s rights and freedom of conscience. Chahir understands the approach of the reformist Islamists as pragmatic and interest-oriented in the sense of a purposive rationalization and combines this with the hope for a normalization of political Islam towards reform and democratization. In a similar vein, Isabella Schwaderer is interested in how Islamic religion is changing its outlook. However, in her case study on Algeria, the author does not focus on the relation between secularizing trends and religious interpretations of the world. Rather, Schwaderer examines in a discourse-analytical approach how the role of Islam is debated in Algeria. To this end, she devotes herself to a media scandal that developed in Algeria around the novel of a French-based author, Kamel Daoud, which was rejected in Algeria by a fatwa launched by an Islamist imam. Schwaderer uncovers the various layers of this debate in the French media in relation to selected Algerian media. She shows how Islam developed as a master signifier in the dispute between the secular and the fundamentalist religious positions, without, however, falling into the trap of simply opposing both standpoints. Instead, Schwaderer succeeds in developing a differentiated analysis of the relevance of religion in Algeria, namely as a symbolic resource of action and meaning in everyday life and as a master signifier which functions as a central symbolic anchor in the plural landscape of discourses. That way, it becomes discernible how Islam functions as the crystallization point for a complicated system of interdependent conflicts, in the background of which the colonial history between France and Algeria decisively determines the mutual perception, and that still means the perception of Islam, as the ultimate other. In her contribution on Islamic feminisms, Heidemarie Winkel also focuses on the discoursivation of Islam, albeit from a different angle. Winkel examines the socio-historical constitution and outreach of Islamic feminism as a reform movement and suggests understanding it as a knowledge practice that includes a specific mode of interpreting the lifeworld—besides secular conceptualizations. That way, Winkel wants not only to deepen the understanding of religion as a resource of lifeworldly sense-making, but also to provide an insight into the relevance of religion as a resource of feminist demands for social justice and equal rights. In this regard, Winkel also addresses the—often—confrontational relation between feminism, religion, and secularism in her contribution, and discusses the epistemological challenges of analyzing Islamic religion from a secularist, Western standpoint. Taking the Egyptian context as her empirical example, the author

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sketches the socio-historical development of Islamic reform movements in colonial Egypt, the relevance of religion for female political activists of the time, and the strengthening of religious fundamentalism in the postcolonial period. Against this backdrop, the emergence of Islamic feminism is discernible as a consequence of historical ruptures and political developments directly resulting from the postcolonial experience. And it becomes apparent how far Islamic feminism must move between fundamentalist religious positions on the one hand, and feminist secular positions on the other hand, but above all succeeds in breaking with androcentric knowledge production in mainstream Islam as a feminist and a religious movement. The third part of the book is dedicated to configurations of Islam in selected European contexts. This part starts with a contribution by Sinem Adar on the connection between religion and politics in modern Turkey, which has been the focus of interest among European Islamic scholars, sociologists, and political scientists since the Ottoman Empire, but also after the founding of the republic by Kemal Atatürk in 1923, and even more so since the recruitment of Turkish ‘guest workers’ to Germany after the Second World War. Against the backdrop of the secularization paradigm, Sinem Adar aims to overcome the analytical bifurcation that typically posits the secular West against the non-secular Muslim world, and instead focuses on variation in the governance of religion in Turkey since 1923 until the takeover by the Justice and Development Party (AKP), which was interpreted as the end of secular and modern Turkey. Adar claims that the question of what ‘Turkish secularism’ means and whether a supposedly ‘secular’ country can become ‘non-secular‘ overnight still needs to be qualified against the backdrop of the recent transformations in Turkey. She argues that the Turkish state always governed through religion so as to contain political Islam and ethnic conflict. That way, Adar not only provides a deep insight into the way that struggles and boundaries between religious and non-religious fields have changed over time, but rather supports an understanding of secularization processes beyond idealized perceptions of separation and demarcation processes. The following articles focus on Muslims who, due to labor migration, have become an important and growing minority in the Western world. Muslims were (religiously) weakly organized until the mid-1980s due to their intentions to return to their countries of origin. Only after they had increasingly settled in the host country did they found their own clubs, associations, and mosques. In this volume, we take up a point made by Turner, who criticizes the fact that there are many studies on Islamophobia, but few on the successful establishment of Muslims in Western countries. He has Muslim associations in mind, which “play a vital role in civil society in societies in which they are a minority” (Turner 2013a, p. 166).

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In our volume, the contribution by Anne-Sophie Lamine deals with this topic. She examines a Muslim minority media outlet that has successfully established itself in France. This chapter contributes to the investigation of the relationships between minority groups and public space, through the analysis of Saphirnews, one of the four most-visited Muslim websites in France. Against the background of the French context, she describes the birth of the website, analyzes its content and its audience, and shows that it provides a relevant analytical tool for looking at intra-Muslim diversity. Using the data from her empirical research, in which she also interviewed the site’s actors, Lamine analyzes their efforts to standardize the media and discusses the place of minority media in the French public sphere. Beyond this, she shows first how to avoid the risk of making real social cooperation of minorities invisible; second, how to account for the internal plurality of groups and the coexistence within them of more or less collaborative options. Linda Hennig also reacts in a certain way to the deficit named by Turner. She interviewed Muslim women in Germany and France who have integrated themselves into the labor market and in doing so have realized both their religion and their career aspirations. Drawing on Weber’s concept and its further development, she focuses on a typology of Lebensführung (conduct of life) related to religion and career. Starting from the thesis that there is a certain tension between Muslim religiosity and women’s employment that emerges from society’s perception of the religion rather than from any religious convictions within Islam itself, the contribution develops a theoretical perspective based on approaches to life conduct that are useful for understanding the challenges that Muslim women face at work. Hennig then examines how women from a Muslim background who work in the social and medical sectors in France and Germany reconcile their work with their religion. Her paper reveals three types of Lebensführung: a fusion of spheres, a separation of spheres, and flexible boundaries between spheres. She concludes by discussing aspects of Lebensführung that transcend the national context. The volume concludes with two contributions, which deal with Muslim movements that were founded outside Europe but are now firmly anchored in European countries. Marshall Hodgson had already pointed out that, like any other religion, Islam is multi-faceted. Moreover, Thomas Bauer has opened our eyes to the high tolerance of ambiguity of pre-modern Islam (2011), which cultivated equally both a secular and a religious ideal side by side, and was anything but rigorous. Poems in particular testify to the “unreserved acceptance of an ideal of secular happiness on this earth, an element that contributed greatly to the humanity of pre-modern Islam” (Bauer 1996, p. 294, our translation). On the one hand, the diversity of Islam is expressed in the multitude of liberal, moderate, reform-oriented, strict, and even radical Muslim movements. On the other hand, radical movements that

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seek to unify Islam (such as Salafism in particular) cannot be understood solely from within Islam, but only in the context of, and as a reaction to, the colonialism of Western societies. Melanie Reddig, for example, explains the emergence of Salafism with two mutually reinforcing conditions: “Colonialism and postcolonialism led with the ensuing processes of modernization and globalization to a power loss of traditional religious movements. At the same time, modernization and globalization strongly affect the need of the laity for affirmation of identity and status, thus causing a change in the religious interest” (Reddig 2011, p. 154). In the nineteenth century, Salafism primarily pursued the goal of reforming Islamic and Muslim sovereignty in the face of colonialism and imperialism, and not to implement the Sharia in an authoritarian manner. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the first explicitly fundamentalist movements emerged, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, or Jama’at-i Islami, founded in India in 1941 (see also Heidemarie Winkel’s contribution in this volume). According to Reddig, the phase of reform-oriented Salafism finally ended in the mid-twentieth century, when Salafism moved towards Wahhabism theologically. “The new theological orientation is a purist and intolerant view which considers the rich tradition of plurality in Islam merely as a contamination of the ‘true Islamic faith’” (Reddig 2011, p. 155). From the Salafist perspective, Muslim identity is threatened by the West and salvation is seen in the “eradication of all forms of ambiguity” (ibid, p. 156). Salafist groups also serve the desire for unification and disambiguation in secular societies like Germany, which is the subject of the contribution by Gritt Klinkhammer. Drawing on interviews, she shows that Salafism as a response is attractive for young people who are struggling with identity problems in the face of modernization and globalization, or who are insecure and frustrated in the host countries due to discrimination and a lack of recognition. Klinkhammer picks up on a widespread idea in the political public that any Salafist can also turn into an active ‘jihadist’ and criticizes such assumptions as insufficient. She contrasts this with the analysis of concrete social problem areas with which young Salafists are confronted. Based on the analysis of three biographical interviews, Klinkhammer addresses these aspects and the question of the extent to which one can speak of young Salafist men as ‘ticking bombs’ at all. Klinkhammer aims to answer the question as to which positions the young Salafists (can) take or are assigned to, and under which conditions and possibilities. With her analysis of the exemplary cases, she contributes to a deeper contextual understanding of the adoption of a Salafi identity and its conditions. Unlike the Salafists, the Gülen (or Hizmet) movement, which was founded by Fethullah M. Gülen in Turkey in the 1960s, follows the Sufi tradition of the Islamic scholar Said Nursi, who aimed for “a synthesis between spirituality and

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national identity” (Hendrick 2013, p. 135). Gülen was particularly impressed by Nursi’s reinterpretation of the Quran in the light of modern science, by his commitment to democracy, and the connection between reason and revelation. Like Nursi, Gülen focused on the link between natural science and “Islamic science” in education, and saw no contradiction “between scientific inquiry and the teachings of the Qu’ran” (Hendrick 2013, p. 135). Having initially spread to Turkey, the Gülen movement has since expanded internationally and is known as “a renowned Islamic revivalist movement with a worldwide network of schools and centers for the promotion of inter-faith dialogue” (Vicini 2016, p. 263), which “is kept together by the piety-inspired voluntary work of its activists” (ibid, p. 264). Before the 2016 coup in Turkey, the Gülen movement had “accumulated tremendous social influence in education, media, trade, and allegedly, in unelected state office” (Hendrick 2013, p. 131). Johannes Twardella’s contribution addresses a basic feature of the Gülen movement and explores why it concentrates on the field of education. He develops the hypothesis that the central importance of education in Gülen’s thinking is not merely traditional, although acquiring knowledge is a constituent element of the Islamic faith. What is crucial (and even innovative), as Twardella argues, is that the knowledge which Gülen calls on Muslims to acquire is not religious but modern and scientific. By analyzing a text by Gülen, Twardella shows that Gülen regards education as the solution to a fundamental problem which all revelatory religions face, namely the problem of certainty. The suggestion is that education is regarded as the solution to the problem of (un)certainty, and that, by educating themselves, individuals can remain true to Islam and thereby affirm their Islamic faith. The contribution concludes with remarks on how Gülen’s text was received and on its relevance for the Hizmet movement, and points to some problems that this proposed solution also creates. As we mentioned at the beginning, this volume is the outcome of a conference held by the Sociology of Religion Section of the German Sociological Association in cooperation with the Centre for Religious Studies (CERES). This conference was generously funded by the Thyssen-Stiftung, to whom we would like to express our deep thanks. Some of the contributions are based on papers from this conference, while others were recruited afterwards. We would like to thank all authors for their enormous patience and willingness to contribute to our volume. Furthermore, we would like to thank the Board of the Sociology of Religion Section for its generous financial support for this publication, which allowed us to engage an English proofreader. We thank David West for his commitment. Last but not least, we thank Christina Jordanski for her support in the process of writing and proofreading.

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References Asad, Talal. 1986. The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam. Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. Georgetown: Georgetown University Press. Asad, Talal. 1993. Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam. 1st edition. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Asad, Talal. 2003. Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Bauer, Thomas. 1996. Raffinement und Frömmigkeit. Säkulare Poesie islamischer Religionsgelehrter der späten Abbasidenzeit. Asiatische Studien – Études Asiatiques L 2: 275–295. Bauer, Thomas. 2011. Die Kultur der Ambiguität: Eine andere Geschichte des Islam. Berlin: Verlag der Weltreligionen im Insel Verlag. Conrad, Sebastian. 2012. Deutsche Kolonialgeschichte. 2. Aufl. München: Beck. Eisenstadt, Shmuel N., Ed. 2002. Multiple Modernities. New Brunswick/London: Transaction Publishers. Gärtner, Christel. 2019. Religious Change as a Challenge: Sociological Approaches in the Interpretation and Explanation of Religion. Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft 27 (2): 268–295. Göle, Nilüfer. 2008. Anverwandlungen. Der Islam in Europa zwischen Kopftuchverbot und Extremismus. Berlin: Wagenbach. Göle, Nilüfer. 2010. European Self-Presentations and Narratives Challenged by Islam: Secular Modernity in Question. In Decolonizing European Sociology. A transdisciplinary approach, Eds. M. Boatc˘a, S. Costa and E. G. Rodríguez, 103–118. Farnham: Ashgate. Göle, Nilüfer. 2016. Europäischer Islam. Muslime im Alltag. Berlin: Wagenbach. Gottschalk, Sebastian, and Deutsches Historisches Museum. Eds. 2017. Deutscher Kolonialismus: Fragmente seiner Geschichte und Gegenwart. Berlin: Stiftung Deutsches Historisches Museum. Hendrick, Joshua S. 2013. Approaching a Sociology of Fethullah Gülen. Sociology of Islam 1: 131–144. Hirschkind, Charles. 1995. Heresy or Hermeneutics: The Case of Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd. American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 12 (4): 463–77. Hodgson, Marshall G. S. 1960. A comparison of Islam and Christianity as framework for religious life. Diogenes 32: 49–74. Hodgson, Marshall G. S. 1974. The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in World Civilization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Jeldtoft, N. 2013. Hypervisibility of Islam. In Everyday lived Islam in Europe. Eds. N. M. Dessing, N. Jeldtoft, L. Woodhead and J. S. Nielsen, 23–38. Farnham: Ashgate. Reddig, Melanie. 2011. Power Struggle in the Religious Field of Islam: Modernization, Globalization and the Rise of Salafism. In The Sociology of Islam. Secularism, Economy and Politics. Ed. T. Keskin, 153–176. Southern Court (UK): Ithaca Press. Rommelspacher, Birgit. 2009. Feminismus und kulturelle Dominanz. In Der Stoff, aus dem Konflikte sind. Debatten um das Kopftuch in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz, Eds. S. Berghahn and P. Rostock, 395–412. Bielefeld: transcript 2009. Said, Edward. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon.

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Said, Edward. 1981. Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World. New York: Pantheon. Salvatore, Armando. 2013. The Sociology of Islam: precedents and Perspectives. Sociology of Islam 1: 7–13. Salvatore, Armando. 2016. The Sociology of Islam. Knowledge, Power and Civility. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell. Samann, Khaldoun. 2010. Die eurozentrische Sozialtheorie kaputtdenken. In Globale, multiple und postkoloniale Modernen, Eds. M. Boatc˘a and W. Spohn, 285–308. München: R. Hampp. Schepelern Johansen, Brigitte, and Riem Spielhaus. 2018. Die Vermessung der Muslime. Ein Jahrzehnt quantitativer Forschung zu Muslimen in Westeuropa. In Der Inspizierte Muslim: Zur Politisierung der Islamforschung in Europa. Ed. S. Amir-Moazami, 125–158. Bielefeld: transcript. Schmidt-Leukel, Perry. 2017. Religious Pluralism & Interreligious Theology. The Gifford Lectures – an extended version. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books. Stauth, Georg. 1998. Introduction. In Islam – Motor or Challenge of Modernity. Yearbook of the Sociology of Islam. Ed. G. Stauth, 5–13. Berlin et al.: Lit Verlag. Stauth, Georg. 2000a. Islamische Kultur und moderne Gesellschaft. Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Soziologie des Islams. Bielefeld: transcript. Stauth, Georg. 2000b. Anmerkungen zur Soziologie des Islam. In Islamische Kultur und moderne Gesellschaft. Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Soziologie des Islams. Ed. G. Stauth, 239–251. Bielefeld: transcript. Sundkvist, Emma. 2021. Navigating multiple sites of knowledge: the development of religion in a Cairene women’s NGO. In Multiple Gender Cultures, Sociology, and Plural Modernities. Re-reading Social Constructions of Gender across the Globe in a Decolonial Perspective. Eds. H. Winkel and A. Poferl, 116–130. London: Routledge. Turner, Bryan S. 2013a. The Sociology of Islam. Collected Essays of Bryan S. Turner. Eds. B. S. Turner and K. M. Nasir. Farnham: Ashgate. Turner, Bryan S. 2013b [2005]. Leibniz, Islam and Cosmopolitan Virtue. In The Sociology of Islam. Collected Essays of Bryan S. Turner. Eds. B. S. Turner and K. M. Nasir, 151–158. Farnham: Ashgate. Turner, Bryan S. 2013c. Sociology of Islam: the Desiderata. Sociology of Islam 1: 14–16. Vicini, Fabio. 2016. Post-Islamism or Veering Towards Political Modernity? State, Ideology and Islam in Turkey. Sociology of Islam 4: 261–279. Winkel, Heidemarie. 2017. Multiple Religiosities, Entangled Modernities and Gender: what is different about gender across religious cultures? Journal for Religion, Society and Politics 1 1: 89–109. Winkel, Heidemarie. 2018a. Religion, Orientalism and the Colonial Body of Gender Knowledge. In Religion in Context. Bilingual Handbook, Eds. A. Schnabel, M. Reddig and H. Winkel, 71–84. Baden-Baden: Nomos. Winkel, Heidemarie. 2018b. Postkolonialismus. Geschlecht als koloniale Wissenskategorie und weiße Geschlechterforschung. In Handbuch Interdisziplinäre Geschlechterforschung. Geschlecht und Gesellschaft, Vol. 65, Eds. B. Kortendiek, B. Riegraf and K. Sabisch, 293–302. Wiesbaden: Springer. Winkel, Heidemarie. 2021. Islamischer Feminismus: Koloniales Geschlechterwissen und religiöse Sinnressourcen der Geschlechtergerechtigkeit in arabischen Lebenswelten. In

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Religion und Gender: Konstruktionen – Medien – Erfahrungen. Eds. S. Martin, I. Schwaderer and K. Waldner: Bielefeld: transcript (forthcoming) Wohlrab-Sahr, M., and L. Tezcan, Eds. 2007. Konfliktfeld Islam in Europa. Soziale Welt Sonderband 17. Wohlrab-Sahr, Monika and Marian Burchardt. 2011. Vielfältige Säkularitäten. Vorschlag zu einer vergleichenden Analyse religiös-säkularer Grenzziehungen. Denkströme. Journal der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 7: 53-71.

Sociology of Islam beyond Orientalism

Islam and Post-orientalism: Debates Concerning Comparative and Historical Sociology Bryan S.Turner

Abstract

The chapter provides a brief historical overview of the recent history of the sociology of Islam. Unlike the historical and anthropological study of Islam, the sociology of Islam had a late start around the middle of the last century. The study of Islam has been controversial being heavily influenced by political events in the West such as 9/11, the invasion of Afghanistan and the rise of ISIS. Much of the debate has been dominated by Edward Said’s influential Orientalism (1978). Although Said’s work offered an important critique of western understanding of the Orient, his focus was primarily on the humanities rather than social science. I call more recent scholarship ‘PostOrientalism’, because it includes the study Islamic communities in the West and not only the Middle East and Asia. Indeed Islam is now studied as a global religion. However, much of the sociological research has been concentreated on examples of Islamophobia. I refer to this research as advocacy rather than science in part because it obscures the many examples of successful Muslim communites in the secular West. I conclude with a modest proposal for the integration of the study of Islam into the main body of comparative and historical sociology paying attention to the legacies of Marshall G.S. Hodgson’s The Venture of Islam, Karl Jasper’s work in the so-called Axial Age religions, and Robert Bellah’s Religion in Human Evolution. B. S. Turner (B) Australian Catholic University, North Sydney, Australia E-Mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 C. Gärtner and H. Winkel (eds.), Exploring Islam beyond Orientalism and Occidentalism, Veröffentlichungen der Sektion Religionssoziologie der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-33239-6_2

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Keywords

Advocacy • Comparative Sociology • Globalisation • Islam • Islamophobia Orientalism • Post-Orientalism

1

•

Introduction: The Fall and Rise of the Sociology of Religion

I published Weber and Islam in 1974 and perhaps I can be allowed some personal reflections as my opening remarks on the intellectual history of the study of Islam over the last four decades. In the 1970s, the sociology of religion, especially in Britain, was dominated by the study of sectarianism and secularization in the work of David Martin (1978), Bryan Wilson (1966, 1985), and somewhat later in that of Roland Robertson (1992). I was fortunate to have Robertson as a lecturer and was introduced to the idea of globalization at an early stage, which was consolidated eventually through his publications in the Theory, Culture & Society series. I came to work on Islam through the influence of Trevor Ling, a professor of comparative religion, who lectured on Max Weber’s research on the religions of Asia. My Weber and Islam was positively reviewed by Ernest Gellner (1975) in Population Studies, but basically there was hardly any interest in Islam at the time, and the sociology of religion had only a minority following from mainstream sociology. The only other work at the time of any stature was Maxime Rodinson’s Islam and Capitalism, which had been published in France in 1966.1 Weber’s commentary on Islam is obviously contentious, especially his view that Islam was a ‘warrior religion’ that spread through the power of the sword. Such an interpretation overlooks the role of Muslim trading associations throughout Asia and the largely peaceful spread of Sufism. Some of my own dissatisfaction with academic writing on Islam was reflected in my Marx and the End of Orientalism (Turner 2014), in which I rehearsed the by-now well-known criticisms—Islam was static, it could not modernize itself, it contributed to the backwardness of traditional societies, and so forth. My observations on Marx raised other problematic notions about the validity of concepts such as ‘the Asiatic Mode of Production’. Coincidentally, my comments on Orientalism were overshadowed and overwhelmed by the publication in the same year of Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978), which created a specific genre of work that was critical of a 1 The

latest English edition came out in 2007 with a foreword by Roger Owen and was published by Saqi Books.

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large swath of Western interpretations of Islam. I shall return to offer a defense of Weber’s comparative sociology of religion at the end of this contribution. While I admired the elegance and scope of Said’s Orientalism, admired his contributions to the humanities, and respected the man and his politics, over the next three decades I became increasingly critical of the book and its legacy. This change of attitude is reflected in the subtitle of this chapter: namely, the notion of ‘post-Orientalism’; it suggests that it is time to go beyond the repetitious evocation of ‘Orientalism’ as a blanket criticism of Western scholarship. Very briefly, Said’s critique was directed at literary works from France, Britain, and the United States. The book was about an eclectic collection of works from Jane Austin, Mark Twain, French Orientalists, and the romantic reminiscences of travelers in the ilk of Freya Stark. In reality, Said paid little attention to social-science research, where there were and still are major differences between French, British and German research traditions. While he was a brilliant literary critic, he knew little about the history of Western political thought. Consequently, Said’s legacy has not been entirely positive. Young researchers turned away from conventional ethnographic fieldwork to cross-examine texts in order to detect any evidence of Orientalism, and the field of Oriental critique quickly became overly repetitive and conventional. Little attention was paid to the parallel problem of Occidentalism, and social theory was overtaken by literary theory as scholars looked towards Jacques Derrida for guidance over interrogating texts rather than scrutinizing empirical data (Varisco 2005). Systematic criticism of Edward Said was slow to develop, and the main exception probably coming from anthropology such as Dan Varisco’s Reading Orientalism (2007). Recent developments in social theory have been more promising. As literary theory replaced social theory, the American Anthropological Association declared that the former was not a science, and the work of Talal Asad in Genealogies of Religion (1993) and Formations of the Secular (2003) unsettled and de-stabilized many taken-for-granted assumptions about ‘religion’, ‘the sacred’, and ‘secularization’ without offering entirely convincing alternative strategies. Of course, his work and that of Saba Mahmood (2016) played an important role in demonstrating the limitations of Western-focused notions of secularization that assumed, for example, the separation of church and state. Perhaps even more unsettling was the advent of postmodernism, which challenged many of the universalistic assumptions and master narratives of classical sociology. For the sake of argument, we may conveniently date this development from the publication of Jean-François Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition in 1979. While postmodernism did not have a profound impact on the sociology of religion, it certainly did on social theory in more general terms. It has taken sociology some time to respond

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effectively to these trends, and it has done so often with considerable difficulty. In France, the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Luc Boltanski offer a productive framework for studying religion—habitus, field, cultural capital, indignation, suffering, and so forth. However, neither Bourdieu nor Boltanski have contributed anything substantial to the study of religion in general or to Islam in particular (Susen and Turner 2011, 2014). While these developments had a general impact on anthropology, professional sociology in America remained to some extent immune from these theoretical movements in Europe. While European sociologists embraced the idea of secularization and studied the decline of organized Christian religion, religion in American sociology continued to flourish, thereby adding further weight to the idea of American exceptionalism. The emphasis on science and scientific method in American social science faculties often raised questions about whether religion could be studied from a scientific perspective at all (Blasi 2014). Religion was most often described through community studies such as Robert and Helen Lynd’s study of Middletown (1929) and Middletown in Transition (1937). American sociologists produced groundbreaking research on religion such as Gerhard Lenski’s The Religious Factor (1963), but the Detroit Area Studies in general paid very little attention to religion and even less to Islam specifically. As I will indicate later, Islam was not seen as a problem in the United States, where Muslims had blended into the middle class. They only became a presence after 9/11. In recent years the model of supply-side religion, associated with American scholars such as William Sims Bainbridge, Roger Finke, Laurence R. Iannaccone, Rodney Stark, and R. Stephen Warner (Stark and Bainbridge 1987; Stark and Finke 2000), has been applied to competition in the American market, but it has said little about Islam.

2

The Invention of the Sociology of Islam

To some extent, these comments merely provide the historical background to what I call the invention of the sociology of Islam as a late development at the end of the twentieth century and more specifically since 2011. The evidence is relatively obvious; it includes the journal The Sociology of Islam and the edited work by Tugrul Keskin (2011), The Sociology of Islam. What created—so to speak—the Sociology of Islam as a distinct and burgeoning field? The answers are fairly obvious and specific. The first is the Iranian Revolution in 1979, which began a radical transformation of Shia Islam and placed radical Islam on the agenda of

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American foreign policy and of American academics. An anthropological interpretation of the Shia revolt is perhaps misleadingly associated with concepts of martyrdom and self-mutilation. A more accurate interpretation concentrates on the law, political theory, and the reform of rituals to bring about new forms of discipline. To quote from Vali Nasr’s The Shia Revival (2006, pp. 135, 137), “Khomeini’s Republic was all about law, and had little interest in the values associated with Karbala, and even less in the rituals associated with Husayn’s martyrdom (…). He defined his revolution not as a Shia one but an Islamic one, and saw the Islamic Republic of Iran as the base for a global Islamic movement in much the same way that Lenin and Trotsky had seen Russia as the springboard country of what was meant to be a global communist revolution”. This reference to communist global ambitions is justified given the influence of Ali Shariati’s combination of Marxism and Islam on the Iranian Revolution. The importance of religious reformism was also central to José Casanova’s Public Religions in the Modern World (1994), which had a significant influence on the decline of the secularization thesis, and which opened up a new vision of religion in the public domain. Casanova challenged the traditional notion of secularization as the slow but inevitable erosion of religion in the West as measured within a positivist epistemology as the decline in church attendance, belief in God, frequency of prayer, recruitment to the ministry and priesthood, and so forth. Casanova’s publication drew attention to the obvious fact that around the world religion appeared not to be simply a matter of private belief and practice, but a vital part of public life. His examples were the Iranian Revolution, Liberation Theology in Latin America, Solidarno´sc´ in Poland, and the Moral Majority in the United States. In his more recent publication, Public Religion Revisited, Casanova (2008, p. 12) reflects on the fact that, “[b]y my hermeneutic Catholic perspective I mean the fact that my theory of ‘modern public religion’ was very much informed by the experience of the official Catholic aggiornamento of the 1960s”. He went on to claim that the aggiornamento allowed the Church to shift from a state-oriented to a civil society-oriented institution, and as a result it broke with the authoritarian states of Latin America and embraced human rights as a basis for its actions. As a result, Catholicism has been reconstructed as a new transnational and de-territorialized global religious regime. Since the Iranian Revolution, there has been a series of conflicts involving radical Islam that have more than justified Casanova’s observations about public religions. The impact of these conflicts were obvious enough after 9/11, with the United States embarking on the war on terror by attacking Afghanistan in 2001 and then invading Iraq in 2003. These conflicts also included the bombings in London, Madrid and Bali, and more recently the bombing of the Boston marathon.

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These events have not only placed the Sociology of Islam on the agenda of the social sciences; they have also contributed significantly to the growth of security studies and to a wave of research on terrorism, fundamentalism, political Islam, and so forth. A wide cross-section of sociologists have become influential due to their ideas on radical Islam; for example, Mark Juergensmeyer (2003), Olivier Roy (1994), and Gilles Kepel (1994). In particular, Juergensmeyer’s Terror on the Mind of God (2003) defines this popular sociological genre. One further consequence of the idea of public religion was that secularization was declared to be a limited and narrow, if not erroneous, idea. Peter Berger performed his famous u-turn from the secularizing force of consumption and the uncertain plausibility structures of Christianity in his The Sacred Canopy (1967) to the proposal that we are experiencing The Desecularization of the World (1999). Alongside Berger’s revision, Jürgen Habermas (2006) developed the influential notion of post-secular society. These developments were in my view misguided attempts to rethink the position of religion in modernity. Briefly, what we have in modern societies in the West is a strange paradox—secularization and the presence of religion in public controversy. Secularization in terms of the declining membership of churches, the reduction of attendance at major religious events such as Easter, the commercialization of Christmas, and the decline in the ministry are facts about the decline of religion in the West. Recent evidence from the Pew Foundation also indicates a decline in the number of young people with any involvement in Christian belief and activity. The Pew Foundation has conducted two ‘Religious Landscape’ surveys, one in 2007 and the other in 2014. Examining trends Pew reported that the number of Americans not affiliated to a church increased from 16.1% in 2007 to 22.8% in 2014. In contrast, the growth in the diversity of religions was predictable, with the number of Hindus increasing from 0.4 to 0.7%, and the number of Muslims, from 0.4 to 0.9%. As the influence of Christianity declines in the West, there are endless problems that keep religions (and not simply Christianity) in the public domain. What conclusions can we draw from this brief history? One unsurprising conclusion is that developments in sociology (or at least budgets for sociological research) are largely determined by forces outside itself. The main issue that concerns me is that the Sociology of Islam might have a trajectory that resembles the rise and fall of Soviet Studies. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet system, Soviet research centers around the world collapsed, and their researchers were either retired or returned to their disciplinary specialisms. In a note to the newly published journal Sociology of Islam (Turner 2013), I expressed the naïve view that the study of Islam would at some stage become more stable and conventional. My comment was partly ironic. I wanted to suggest that if there

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is a period of peace in the Middle East, then the study of Islam would be less contentious and less driven by politics outside the academy. Unfortunately, peace is a long way away. For tragic reasons, the Sociology of Islam may never become a conventional area of research. For good reasons we might ask the question: does the Sociology of Islam have a future? Furthermore, will the study of Islam play a dominant role in the sociology of religion? Of course, paradoxically, any such large-scale historical studies of Islam can only contribute to the continuing importance of Weber’s sociology of Islam. Perhaps one additional lesson is that there cannot be simply national studies of Islam or not only domestic studies of Islam for the very simple reason that we live in a global world, where conflicts in one part of the world have dramatic consequences in other parts such as the Charlie Hebdo crisis, the Danish cartoons, and the attack on Norwegian youth by Anders Breivik. The international environment has unsurprisingly had adverse effects on domestic politics and policies. Public attitudes towards Islam in the West have been shaped by 9/11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the bombings in London and Madrid, or the Danish cartoon incident, the rise of ISIS, and the global conflict between Sunni and Shia versions of Islam. These international crises have clearly continued to fuel domestic expressions of Islamophobia and fear of the Shari’a.

3

Sociology of Islamophobia—Advocacy Concepts in Sociology

One central topic in the growth of the Sociology of Islam has been the ubiquitous research agenda on Islamophobia. It has been identified as an ‘industry’ (Lean 2012), it is said to be fundamental to American foreign policy (Kumar 2012), and it is thought to be ubiquitous. Much discussed in the media, it is problematic as a concept in social science. Muslims are not an ethnic group, and their communities are diverse, dispersed, and fragmented. It is difficult to see how Muslims can be a common global target of a single undifferentiated prejudice. Is it different from common or garden racism and xenophobia? The use of the idea of ‘phobia’ suggests that any critical or negative view of Islam is irrational. One might argue that fear of the possibility that ISIS will seek out targets in the West is not necessarily irrational. The Runnymede Trust Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia (Islamophobia—a Challenge for Us All) defined Islamophobia in 1997 as the “dread or hatred of Islam and therefore [the] fear and dislike of all Muslims”, stating that it also refers to the practice of discriminating against Muslims by excluding

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them from the economic, social, and public life of the nation. The concept also encompasses the opinion that Islam has no values in common with other cultures, is inferior to the West, and is a violent political ideology rather than a religion. This definition has been widely accepted as authoritative. The second Runnymede Report—The New Muslims (Alexander et al. 2013)—recorded important developments in terms of Muslim participation in public life in education, the armed forces, and the professions, while also recognizing on-going hostility to Muslims. It also acknowledged growing criticism of and alienation from multiculturalism (as both policy and ethics of inclusion). During this period, various right-wing anti-immigrant political movements have become politically influential: the English Defence League, the Northern League, the United Kingdom Independence Party, Golden Dawn, and so forth. European opposition has focused on veiling, on the alleged spread of the Shari’a, and on issues of freedom of speech (namely, freedom to insult Muslims or to draw pictures of the Prophet Muhammad). The debate about the veil is well documented (Joppke 2009). The veil has become a highly public symbol of resistance to uniform assimilation and has challenged norms about the visibility of the citizen before the state. Despite the idea of a generalized Islamophobia, it is important to recognize differences in terms of the reception of Islam. Although there has been considerable criticism and fear of Islam in the United States, much of the public criticism comes from particular states (Oklahoma, Wyoming, and Arizona), where there are very few Muslim communities, or from politicians (such as Newt Gingrich), or from public figures (such as Pam Geller). However, there is ample sociological evidence that Muslims are well integrated into American society, where they form an influential middle class in New York, Detroit, and Newark (Alba and Nee 2003; Bilici 2012; Foner and Alba 2008). The Nation of Islam has become mainstream. One can also say that, even where there is public anxiety about Islam, the law has played an important role in protecting religious minorities such as Muslims and Hindus. It is worth recalling that, historically, Islam was not inevitably a target of prejudice and hostility in the West. Before the Algerian Revolution, Muslims in France were not feared as a group or category. Evidence from the United States and Germany indicates a similar history of successful integration in the past. It may also be useful to distinguish between dislike of Muslims and fear of Islam (Ozyurek 2015). Before World War II, Muslims of the Ahmadiyya community were well integrated into Weimar Germany as a well-off, educated and socially accepted community, but this cohort of Muslims largely disappeared in the aftermath of the war. Masses of new Muslims arrived in Germany during post-war reconstruction

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under the Marshall Plan, where they formed a permanent proletariat, being excluded by a cultural boundary as foreign and inferior. The immigration law of 2000, making it possible for the children of immigrants born in Germany to gain German citizenship, transformed Turks, Arabs and Bosnians into German Muslims, despite the fact that only around 30% attend a mosque. The result of the legislation was to force the German state (and, more widely, European governments) to recognize Muslims as Muslims and to organize Islamic councils to bring state officials and religious leaders together for dialogue. I have elsewhere referred to such strategies as the management of religion on behalf of state policies (Turner 2007). It is no coincidence that Jürgen Habermas’ work on post-secularism and the need to engage in dialogue with religious leaders occupied the period 2002 to 2006. In the German example, the obvious but important point is that, well after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Germany remains a divided society. East Germany, along with China and Vietnam, was especially hostile to religion, and even today around half the population of the former East Germany do not believe in God and only 25% belong to a church (in contrast to around 80% in West Germany) (Froese and Pfaff 2005). The growth in the number of East German converts to Islam is particularly interesting sociologically. A similar pattern— namely, a movement from upper to lower class—also took place in Britain. In the post-war reconstruction, large numbers of Muslims arrived from Bangladesh and Pakistan to work in the construction industries and low-paid jobs in the service sector. The turning point in this post-war development was the Salmon Rushdie Affair. A similar pattern was characteristic for France, where, before World War II and the Algerian Revolution, Muslims were well integrated (Mandel 2014). After 9/11 and the bombings in London and Madrid, many governments and their security agencies came to see the Shari’a as a threat to social stability and more broadly to the democratic foundations of liberal society. Popular perceptions of the criminal law components in the Shari’a concentrated on those measures that appeared to re-enforce gender inequality. In some conservative states in America, Christian evangelicals have responded to what they perceive as the undesirable spread of the Shari’a by demanding that Christians should develop a Christian Shari’a in order to impose God’s law on society. There are now many issues in the public domain that are being contested by evangelicals. One example comes from the Kansas House of Representatives that introduced a bill to permit individuals or businesses to refuse to provide services to same-sex couples when their own religious beliefs are compromised. In modern societies, there is an increasing tendency for the state to engage in the management of religion, thereby often compromising the separation of church and state as the foundation of a secular constitution (Barbalet et al. 2011).

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Various Republican states have passed pre-emptive legislation to prevent any further expansion of references to the Shari’a in legal judgements in domestic disputes, for example (Turner and Richardson 2013). In the United Kingdom, protests against the Archbishop of Canterbury’s public lecture in 2008 suggesting that the growth of the Shari’a was inevitable are further indications of public hostility. These political and legal moves to prevent the spread of the Shari’a are unnecessarily alarmist, because there is no evidence of pressure from within the Muslim communities for any comprehensive introduction of the Shari’a or support for its criminal justice norms. Access to the Shari’a is mainly confined to domestic issues such as marriage, divorce, adoption, and the distribution of property. Through various exceptions, Muslims enjoy provision for customary regulations that cover diet and the production of food that is governed by halal certificates. Evidence of the acceptance of Islam in the West presents a complex picture (Bowen 2010; Cesari 2010). However, on balance, the scholarly evidence suggests that Western liberal governments have gone a long way to offering legal accommodation to Muslim minorities through partial recognition of the role of the Shari’a in arbitration cases (Joppke and Torpey 2013). There is considerable evidence that, in their deliberations regarding domestic issues, judges in Western legal systems are beginning to refer to the Shari’a on a regular basis (Possamai et al. 2014). These cases typically occur when a Muslim couple, who were married overseas according to Islamic norms, attempt to arrive at a divorce settlement in a secular Western society. In such cases, Western legal experts have to refer to the Shari’a in determining the appropriate legal outcome. As a result, the Shari’a is being reformed indirectly by the impact of Western legal principles and at the same time undergoing internal reform in response to modernization more generally. This reform is especially evident in the case of family law (Layish 2014). There is widespread growth and use of Islamic banking where banks will attempt to follow Islamic rules about interest and investment. In other words, there is some application of the Shari’a to these commercial and economic institutions, although the extent of these arrangements and how far they conform to Shari’a norms is unclear. While conservative interests, as for example articulated in the popular press, add to the growth of the Shari’a into the juridical domain, there is less anxiety about the presence of Islam in the economy, where there is generally indifference to religious differences as market exchanges are the primary concern. Nonetheless, the role of the Shari’a with regard to banks and banking regulations has received only little attention in academic literature (Casper 2014).

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With globalization and the expansion of Muslim minorities in the West, there is little to prevent the slow introduction of elements of the Shari’a into Western legal decision-making processes when judges make legal decisions regarding domestic cases. Where democratic governments have a commitment to freedom of religion and equality before the law, it will be difficult to resist pressure from Muslim communities for access to the Shari’a. However, there is in fact little concerted pressure from within Muslim communities for any systematic introduction of the Shari’a. Recent research reports suggest that legal protection from discrimination, laws relating to hate speech, rule of law, and protection of equality have been significant in shaping the climate of public opinion in Europe. In the United Kingdom, the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006, the Equality Act of 2006 and the Equality Act of 2010 have extended the legal protection of individuals. This legislative momentum came originally not from a concern over religious issues but from equality legislation relating to women’s rights and racial discrimination. Contemporary interest in religion and belief was basically an extension of the general broadening of equality legislation. What, then, is wrong with ‘Islamophobia’ as a sociological concept? In 1958, W.B. Gallie published his influential essay on what he called ‘essentially contested concepts’—namely, concepts whose use caused immediate and unresolved controversy. Such concepts were vague, evaluative and occasionally emotive. Their use served to confuse rather than clarify issues. Perhaps ‘Islam’ has become an essentially contested concept in some general sense, but I propose to develop a related idea—the role of advocacy concepts in sociology. An advocacy concept such as ‘Islamophobia’ is one that purports to describe a situation from a position of neutrality, but that in fact aims to provoke an audience to action. Its purpose is not to describe the world but to change it—if I can borrow from Marx’s famous critique of philosophy. Islamophobia is a call to action from the slumbers of the academic world. Another example can be taken from the sociology of disability, where the idea of the social construction of the body is used to reject the idea of impairment in favour of the discourse of rights. People are not impaired; they are simply denied rights. However, the point is that advocacy concepts are neither true nor false. The only question is—do they work? In summary, I have already indicated that the empirical evidence about postwar Muslim integration into Western societies paints a very mixed and confusing picture. There is both evidence of Islamophobia, the exclusion of Muslims from the mainstream and the growth of so-called ‘parallel communities’. However, there is also evidence of successful adaptation and social mobility. Even more confusing is the evidence that, despite 9/11, Muslims have been successfully integrated alongside other migrant communities into the United States. Why is this?

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Some components of an answer would refer to the long history of Muslim involvement in the United States from the colonial period. Muslims are not a ‘new’ arrival. Because America was a booming economy after World War II, Muslims were able to join other groups outside the Protestant hegemony in social mobility and increased affluence, resulting in a Muslim middle class. The US constitution has also been influential in clearly precluding any religious establishment and guaranteeing freedom of religion.

4

Protestantization and Urban Piety

Muslim communities have been marginalized as a result of official processes of securitization, popular suspicion and hostility. Early public criticism of veiling has been followed by anxiety about the spread of the Shari’a. With the global migration of Muslims into the West, substantial Muslim minorities now face complex problems of conducting themselves as Muslims in multicultural and secular societies. Within the Muslim community itself, there has been a rapid increase in the advice given to pious Muslims on how to conduct themselves in societies where secular women do not cover their heads, where alcohol is consumed in public, and where the hours of work do not coincide with the needs for prayer, for example. For Muslims living in the West, there is even a problem about the correct direction of prayers towards Mecca (Bilici 2012). Much of this advice takes place on-line, and is issued by religious authorities. There is often no recognized central religious authority able to give consistent advice, and hence there is evidence of on-line ‘fatwa-shopping’. Alongside these informal and fluid networks, there has also been some expansion of religious arbitration through the development of tribunals. Western governments have sought to influence the development of Islam within their borders. This has occurred through actively convening Muslim and Imam advisory boards, and funding some ‘more moderate’ organizations rather than others. One particularly ill-advised attempt to do so occurred in Australia, with the Prime Minister’s ‘Muslim Community Reference Group’, convened after the 7/7 bombings in London. The group lasted less than a year, falling apart due to infighting and a lack of community support. It did not even meet with the Prime Minister. In recent years there has been much discussion of the modernization of religions. We are familiar, perhaps too familiar, with notions of ‘reform Islam’, ‘political Islam’, and so forth. Other writers have noticed similar developments in the unlikely case of Hinduism (Waghorne 2004). Reformed religions appear to be more engaged with public issues and at the same time they are evangelical not

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only in attempting actively to convert people, but also in their concern to involve the laity into religious institutions and activities. They are also engaged in the internal reform of their beliefs and institutions, and aim to reform individual religious behavior, which we can broadly refer to as an increase in attention to piety. In the case of Islam, this has involved a long and occasionally violent attack on folk religion, which in this case is broadly labelled ‘Sufism’. These movements in world religions remind us inevitably of Weber’s sociology of Protestantism. We do not need to rehearse Weber’s ideas at this stage. Suffice to say that, in his perspective, Protestantism was more individualistic than Catholicism, and gave more emphasis to lay participation in terms of Bible study and lay meetings for prayer and study, and that it was antagonistic to rituals, hierarchy, and religious privilege. In short, Protestantism modernized Western Christianity. As we know, Weber never completed a study of Roman Catholicism, and his own sociology of religion was in one sense ‘Protestant’ insofar as it was heavily dependent on Kant. Consequently, his view of Catholicism was hardly flattering. For example, he viewed the Eucharist and other sacraments as magical. In his terms, the reform of Catholic liturgy would mean the redefinition of the Eucharist as simply a commemorative ritual. These are certainly large claims on my part and they somewhat mask parallel reforms that went on inside the Catholic Church not simply as the Baroque Counter-Reformation. We have to take seriously the arguments put forward by John O’Malley (2000) in Trent and All That, who shows convincingly that the history of Catholicism has been distorted through the lens of Protestant reformism. This implied that Catholicism prior to Luther appeared somehow unchanging, and its subsequent history seems to be bound up exclusively with the challenge of Protestantism. O’Malley thinks that ‘Counter Reformation’ is too general, and recommends instead ‘Early Modern Catholicism’ or ‘Confessional Catholicism’. With these reservations in mind, contemporary sociologists looking at other world religions have argued that there is a general trend towards modernization. Let us then examine some examples of religious reforms. We can think about Islamic reform as starting in the nineteenth century with famous debates about reason, revelation, and the reform of Islam by religious intellectuals such as Rashid Rida (1865–1935), Jamal al-Din Al-Afghani (1838/1839–1897), Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1938), and Sayyid Maududi (1903– 1979). Convinced of the decline of Islam in the face of Western colonialism, these thinkers sought to revitalize Islamic belief and practices, ridding it of what they saw as merely customary elements and folk religion. These early reformist movements became more intense in the twentieth century, especially with the victories of Britain and France in the First World War, the dismantling of the

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Ottoman Empire, the liquidation of the caliphate, and the establishment of the British and the French mandates. As a result, large swathes of Muslim territory came under Western control both politically and culturally. This political and spiritual crisis was influential in the political theology of Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966), whose thoughts gave rise to the Muslim Brotherhood, the redefinition of jihad, the movement to de-colonize the Arab world, the rejection of Russian socialism and atheism, and the attempts to restore pristine Islam. The result was what has broadly been called ‘reformed Islam’. There are three obvious religious manifestations of these changes: the veiling of women, the hajj or pilgrimage, and the attachment to the Shari’a as the defining element in piety. I have consequently defined these developments not as the Protestantization of Islam, but as the spread of lay piety as the key component of modern religious reform. The basis of pietization has been first the large scale urbanization of Muslim lands in the late twentieth century, the widespread increase in literacy, and the growth in women’s involvement in higher education. One example is the fact that women represent 70% of the undergraduate population in contemporary Kuwait (Gonzalez 2013). Similar educational changes have changed the status of women throughout East Asia. As for the United States, there has also been an evolution of Islam involving its reorientation and reformation as something approaching an American denomination in contrast to its more confrontational earlier incarnation as the Nation of Islam. According to Muhacit Bilici (2012), Muslims are finding their way into mainstream American culture as a result of Finding Mecca in America.

5

Globalization, Comparative Sociology, and Methodological Nationalism

Recent research by the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project (2015) projects that, by 2050, Islam (2.8 billion) will almost equal Christianity (2.9 billion) in the number of total adherents and that Islam is expected to surpass Christianity in the number of followers by 2070. Significantly, this exponential growth will be accompanied by significant increases in Western Muslim populations living in constitutionally secular contexts. The Pew-Templeton project estimates that the Muslim population in Europe will almost double from 5.9% to 10.2% of the population (43.5 million to 71 million) between 2010 and 2050. This trend is also expected to occur in the United States, where the population is expected to double as a percentage from less than 1% (2010) to 2.1% (2050). This unprecedented situation has forced Muslims to rethink and refashion their religion so as to cope with a situation where, for example, the Shari’a is no longer fully

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operative and where little concession is made in the workplace to Muslim ritual requirements such as daily prayer. The most valuable insight into this global transformation of Islam has been developed by Olivier Roy (2010), who argues that religions in general have been ‘de-territorialized’. The following propositions from his Holy Ignorance are germane to our approach: 1. The transformation of religion involves both de-territorialization and deculturation because religions become disconnected from their original homelands and cultures. Thus, “in order to circulate, the religious object must appear universal, disconnected from a specific culture (…) religion therefore circulates outside knowledge” (Roy 2010, p. 6). With respect to Islam, its “spread has been linked to the expansion of Muslim populations rather than to a conversion trend” (Roy 2010, p. 4). 2. There has been a general standardization of religions with globalization. “The first element of formatting and standardization is that of classification as a ‘religion’” (Roy 2010, p. 198). This brings many benefits in terms of taxation, protection by the state, certain exemptions from legal requirements, and so forth. 3. The standardization typically involves the growth of urban piety; these developments are often referred to as ‘Protestantization’. In Roy’s own terms, “[t]he homogenization of religion by the spread of a normalizing ‘orthodoxy’ absorbs and marginalizes sub-groups, multiple identities (including ethnic), sub-cultures and popular religions” (Roy 2010, p. 208). With Oscar Salemink, I have argued that similar developments are taking place in Buddhism (Turner and Salemink 2015). The urbanization of Islam across the West, Asia and Africa has seen a younger generation move away from the traditional or folkloric Islam of their parents to strip Islam of its “cultural baggage” (Scantlebury 1995, p. 425). Observant Muslims are more likely to adopt Islam as an identity marker, since it gives “new sense and value” to the experiences of everyday life (Roy 2010, p. 133). This new Muslim identity has rejected ethnic and cultural influences upon Islam to become more assertive in public space. Importantly, the characteristics of this form of Islam, often described by the umbrella notion of ‘Salafism’, are common in cities around the world. We can treat Islamophobia (and other phobias about reformed religion) as a generalized response to the growth of Islam as a global standardized urban religion. As a public religion, the presence of Islam is contested at various levels from law courts to football matches.

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Does the Sociology of Islam Have a Future?

Because it is difficult to separate out domestic and international relationships, and because, in the words of Olivier Roy, religion has been de-territorialized. With the international crisis around Islamic movements in North Africa, East Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia, the sociology of Islam will remain on the agenda of universities when they come to allocate resources. In short, the sociology of Islam may have a future, but probably for the wrong or unfortunate reasons. It will somewhat eclipse research on the religions of Asia such as Buddhism, and it will probably eclipse research on Christianity. What is my agenda? First, we should avoid fashion-Orientalism and postsecularization. Like other disciplines in the social sciences, sociology needs empirical research and the accumulation of theory and research. As sociologists, we should avoid the fashionable research on spirituality and post-institutional religion. Such research on identity is primarily relevant to social psychology; more importantly, unlike the Protestant Reformation, individualized spirituality is unlikely to have long-term social consequences. Rather than looking at subjectivities, we should explore the impact of the law on religious behavior, how states manage religions, how demography is changing religious practice, and how religions (such as Islam) relate to the economy. Second, sociological research on religion has to have an historical awareness of religion and the history of the study of religion. Third, the core of sociology is historical and comparative research. More importantly, we cannot do sociological research and ignore globalization. However, globalization studies are difficult to conduct with small social-science budgets. Online research may be one (or the only) solution. The status of ISIS will be a political issue for decades to come. How is ISIS to be defined? It became a state, but was it a caliphate? Fourth, treating Muslim communities as victims across different societies ignores the complexity of empirical work on different societies. While Muslims are subject to much day-to-day discrimination, there is plenty of evidence that they are well established in Western societies, where they often practice their religion with more freedom and protection than they would in many Muslim majority societies. We need more research on successful Islamic communities and flourishing (happy) Muslims. Fifth, it is important to examine the law when conducting research on Muslims—the spread of legal pluralism has allowed considerable accommodation of Muslim communities. Sixth, as sociologists we must pay attention to the demographics of religious communities: declining fertility rates and ageing populations in the West are important features of the secular decline of Christianity—will Islam

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go down the same route? Seventh, surveys of attitudes are always somewhat limited when it comes to understanding religion as embodied practice. Eighth, gender differences are probably more important in religious practice than in any other area of life. And ninth, religion is in the public domain because the human body is being contested in the law—such as in the case of abortion, bio-medical science, blood transfusion, circumcision, homosexuality, euthanasia, the longevity project, same-sex marriage, and stem-cell research.

7

An Alternative Sociology of Religion: The Axial Age

One might assume from what has been said about the Orientalist critique that is the postmodern objections to universalizing arguments, and the impact of literary criticism in social theory that an ambitious and historical sociology of religion in the framework of Max Weber’s sociology has largely disappeared. The exception to this reasonable conclusion is the recent revival of the debate about the Axial Age religions (c. 800–200 BCE), a debate that has greatly revived interest in Weber’s comparative sociology of religion. Following the recent death of the famous American sociologist of religion, Robert Bellah, we might note that Weber’s large-scale and at times sweeping observations in his comparative and historical sociology of religion became distinctly unfashionable in both religious studies and sociology. What, then, defines the Axial Age in Karl Jaspers’ 1949 book Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte (The Origin and Goal of History)? Finding the empirical world to be unsatisfactory, the prophets and philosophers of the Axial Age conceived of a transcendental and universal world as an alternative to the grim humdrum reality of this empirical world. They conceptualized a world in which humans could flourish once freed from profane reality, a world that was in principle available to all human beings. The goal of history is to make this moral vision a reality. The origin of religion—a break-out from magic—is also the origin of humanity. Why is the thesis of the Axial Age important? There are several answers. Firstly, Jaspers’ work and its legacy demonstrate the fact that Western humanities were not invariably Orientalist in denying the value of the religions and philosophical systems of Asia. In making this point, we have to keep in mind a problem in Jaspers’ world history: namely, that it did not engage with either the Americas or Africa. At the same time, Jaspers’ thesis is odd in treating Christianity and Islam as merely variations on themes established in the first millennium BCE. Secondly, Jaspers’ legacy is an antidote to the idea of an inevitable clash of civilizations. The groundwork of the human civilizations involved a common

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origin in critical reflection. Thirdly and consequently, this debate has an important moral dimension. Despite their moral thrust, for Jaspers and Bellah the religions of the Axial Age with their theme of acosmitic love were failures in the sense that they ultimately offered no satisfactory solution to the role of violence in human societies (Bellah 2011; Bellah and Joas 2012). What connects Weber, Jaspers and Bellah is a moral vision of the dilemma of humankind faced with the failure of the Axial Age religions to resolve the contradictions between the ethic of brotherly love and the political necessity of violence. Bellah draws attention in particular to the Buddhist notion of dukka: namely, the idea that life in this world is seen to be profoundly unsatisfactory, but in the long run most religious solutions to the unsatisfactory nature of human existence have themselves remained partial or unconvincing. Bellah, like Weber, turned to Tolstoy as the ultimate example of this struggle between a doctrine of ultimate ends and the political necessity for violence. The religious and the political stand in a corrosive relationship to each other (Turner 2013). Two consequences of this argument stand out. Firstly, Christianity and Islam as so-called world religions are post-Axial as simply variations on themes created by the religio-philosophical movements in this period with its remarkable conjunction of prophets and philosophers that came to define what we now regard as ‘humanity’. These figures included the Hebrew prophets, the Buddha, Socrates, Plato, Zoroaster, Confucius, and Lao-Tse. Jesus and Muhammad provided an elaboration of these foundational themes in which the world is a problem that has to be endured or changed. Secondly, because the Axial traditions cannot ultimately solve the inevitable necessity of politics and violence, the religions of the Axial Age undergo processes of periodic revision, restoration or reformation. They need constant critique and renewal. Indeed, in the words of Arnaldo Momigliano in Alien Wisdom, the Axial Age was ‘the age of criticism’, when (in more elaborate terms) “[n]ew models of reality, either mystically or prophetically, or rationally apprehended are propounded as a criticism of, and alternative to, the prevailing models” (Momigliano 1975, p. 9). Churches, synagogues, mosques and monasteries as repositories of our ultimate values are subject to decay and corruption. The conclusion must be that the Axial Age religions are unstable cultural processes rather than unchanging traditions and institutions. Consequently, they are subject to endless debate about what constitutes the authenticity and authority of tradition. This debate is particularly intense as religions are both subject to modernization and contribute to modernity. Of course, at the center of this modernization process sits the Reformation of Christianity undertaken by the Protestant sects as celebrated in Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1930).

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The debate on the Axial Age religions is a challenge to Said’s critique of Orientalism, since Jaspers, when looking at the European disaster of the fascist period, turned to ancient and Asian sources for inspiration. I have recommended moving beyond Said’s version of the critique of Orientalism and therefore publications such as Wael B. Hallaq’s Restating Orientalism. A Critique of Modern Knowledge (2018) point to the richness of the ongoing debate about understanding Islam.

References Alba, Richard, and Victor Nee. 2003. Remaking the American Mainstream, Assimilation and Contemporary Immigration, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Asad, Talal. 1993. The Genealogies of Religion. Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Asad, Talal. 2003. Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Barbalet, Jack, Adam Possamai, and Bryan S. Turner, Eds. 2011. Religion and the State. A Comparative Sociology. London: Anthem Press. Bellah, Robert N. 2011. Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Bellah, Robert N., and Hans Joas, Eds. 2012. The Axial Age and its Consequence. Cambridge Massachusetts/ London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Berger, Peter L. 1967. The Sacred Canopy. New York: Doubleday. Berger, Peter L. Ed. 1999. The Desecularization of the World. Resurgent Religion and World Politics. Grand Rapids: Erdmans Publishing. Bilici, Muhacit. 2012. Finding Mecca in America. How Islam is Becoming an American Religion. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press. Blasi, Anthony J. 2014. Sociology of Religion in America. A History of a Secular Fascination with Religion, Numen Book Series. Studies in the History of Religions. Leiden: Brill. Bowen, John R. 2010. Can Islam be French? Pluralism and Pragmatism in a Secularist State. Princeton/ Oxford: Princeton University Press. Casanova, Jose. 1994. Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Casanova, Jose. 2008. Public Religions Revisited. In Religion: Beyond the Concept, Ed. H. de Vries, 101–119. New York: Fordham University Press. Casper, Matthias. 2014. Sharia Boards and Sharia Compliance in the Context of European Corporate Governance. In The Influence of Islam on Banking and Finance, Schriftenreihe der Ernst von Caemmerer-Stiftung, Ed. U. Blaurock, 41–58. Baden-Baden: Nomos. Cesari, Jocelyne, Ed. 2010. Muslims in the West after 9/11. London: Routledge. Foner, Nancy, and Richard Alba. 2008. Immigrant religion in the U.S. and Western Europe: Bridgeor Barrier to Inclusion International Migration Review 42 (2): 360–392.

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Froese, Paul and Pfaff, Steven. 2005. Explaining a Religious Anomaly. A Historical Analysis of Secularization in Eastern Germany. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. 44 (4): 397-422. Gellner, Ernest. 1975. Review of Bryan S. Turner Weber and Islam. Population Studies 29 (1) March: 168–169. Gallie, Walter Bryce. 1958. Essentially Contested Concepts. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 56: 167–198. Gonzales, Alessandra L. 2013. Islamic Feminism in Kuwait. The Politics and Paradoxes. New York: Palgrave-MacMillan. Habermas, Jürgen. 2006. Religion in the public sphere. European Journal of Philosophy 14 (1): 1–25. Hallaq, Wael B. 2018. Restating Orientalism. A Critique of Modern Knowledge. New York: Columbia University Press. Jaspers, Karl. 1953. The Origin and Goal of History. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Joppke, Christian. 2009. Veil. Mirror of Identity. Cambridge: Polity. Joppke, Christian, and John Torpey. 2013. The Legal Integration of Islam: A Transatlantic Comparison. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Juergensmeyer, Mark. 2003. Terror on the Mind of God. The Global Rise of Religious Violence. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kepel, Gilles. 1994. The Revenge of God. Oxford: Blackwell. Keskin, Tugrul, Ed. 2011. The Sociology of Islam. Secularism, Economy and Politics. Reading: Ithaca Press. Kumar, Deepa. 2012. Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire. Chicago: Haymarket Books. Layish, Aharon. 2014. Islamic Law in the Modern World. Islamic Law and Society 21: 276– 307. Lean, Nathan. 2012. The Islamophobia Industry. How the Right Manufactures Fear of Muslims. New York: Pluto Press. Lenski, Gerhard. 1963. The Religious Factor. New York: Doubleday. Lyotard, Jean-Francois. 1979. The Postmodern Condition. A Report on Knowledge. Manchester: Manchester University Press Mahmood, Saba. 2016. Religious Differences in a Secular Age. A Minority Report. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Mandel, Maud S. 2014. Muslims and Jews in France. History of a Conflict. Princeton: Princeton University Books. Martin, David. 1978. A General Theory of Secularization. Oxford: Blackwell. Momigliano, Arnaldo. 1975. Alien Wisdom. The Limits of Hellenization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nasr, Vali. 2006. The Shia Revival. How Conflicts within Islam Shape the Future. New York: W.W. Norton. O’Malley, John. 2000. Trent and All That: Renaming Catholicism in the Early Modern Era. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ozyurek, Esra. 2015. Being German Becoming Muslim. Race, Religion and Conversion in the New Europe. Princeton/ Oxford: Princeton University Press. Possamai, Adam, James T. Richardson, and Bryan S. Turner, Eds. 2014. Legal Pluralism and Sharia Law. London: Routledge. Robertson Roland. 1992. Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. London: Sage.

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Rodinson, Maxine. (1966). Islam and Capitalism, (translated by Pierce, B., 1974), Allen Lane. Rodinson, Maxine. 2007. Islam and Capitalism. (translated by Allen Lane). Roy, Olivier. 1994. The Failure of Political Islam. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Roy, Olivier. 2010. Holy Ignorance. When Religion and Culture Part Ways. New York: Columbia University Press. Said, Edward W. 1978. Orientalism. London: Routledge. Scantlebury, Elizabeth. 1995. Muslims in Manchester: The Depiction of a Religious Community. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 21 (3): 425–435. Stark, Rodney, and William S. Bainbridge. 1987. A Theory of Religion. New York: P. Lang. Stark, Rodney, and Rodger Finke. 2000. Acts of Faith. Explaining the Human Side of Religion. Berkeley: University of California Press. Susen, Simon, and Bryan S. Turner, Eds. 2011. The Legacy of Pierre Bourdieu. Critical Essays. London: Anthem. Susen, Simon, and Bryan S. Turner, Eds. 2014. The Spirit of Luc Boltanski. Essays on the Pragmatic Sociology of Critique. London: Anthem. Turner, Bryan S. 1974. Weber and Islam. A Critical Study. London: Routledge. Turner, Bryan S. 1978. Marx and the End of Orientalism. London: George Allen & Unwin. Turner, Bryan S. 2007. Managing Religions. State Responses to Religious Diversity, Contemporary Islam 1 (2): 123-37. Turner, Bryan S. 2013. Sociology of Islam. The Desiderata. Sociology of Islam 1: 107–109. Turner, Bryan S. 2014. Marx and the End of Orientalism London: Routledge Turner, Bryan S., and Berna Arslan. 2011. Shari’a and Legal Pluralism in the West. The European Journal of Social Theory 14 (2): 139–159. Turner, Bryan S. and James T. Richardson. 2013. Islam and the Problems of Liberal Democracy. In Applying Shari’a in the West, Ed. Maurits S. Berger, 47–64. Leiden: Leiden University Press. Turner, Bryan S., and Oscar Salemink, Eds. 2015. The Routledge Handbook of Religions in Asia. London: Routledge. Varisco, Daniel Martin. 2005. Islam Obscured. The Rhetoric of Anthropological Representation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Varisco, Daniel Martin. 2007. Reading Orientalism. Said and the Unsaid. Seattle/ Washington: University of Washington Press. Waghorne, Joanne Punzo. 2004. Diaspora of the Gods: Modern Hindu Temples in an Urban Middle-Class World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Weber, Max. 1930. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. London: Allen & Unwin. Wilson, Bryan. 1966 [1969]. Religion in Secular Society. Harmondsworth: Pelican. Wilson, Bryan. 1985. Secularization: The Inherited Model. In The Sacred in a Secular Age, Ed. Philip E. Hammond, 9–20. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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Williams, Rowan. 2008. Civil and religious law in England: a religious perspective. Foundation Lecture at the Royal Courts of Justice, Archbishop of Canterbury Homepage, www. archbishopofcanterbury.org. Pew Research Center. 2011. Muslim Americans: No Signs of Growth in Alienation or Support for Extremism. 23 August 2011. https://www.people-press.org/files/legacy-pdf/Muslim% 20American%20Report%2010-02-12%20fix.pdf. Accessed: 12 May 2015. Pew Research Center. 2013. The World’s Muslims: Religion, Politics and Society. 30 April 2013. Washington: The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project. 2015. The Future of World Religions. https://www.globalreligiousfutures.org/. Accessed: 11 May 2015. Open Society Report. 2010. Muslims in Europe. New York: Open Society Institute. https:// www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/a-muslims-europe-20110214_0.pdf. Accessed: 12 May 2015.

The Sociology of Islam: Beyond Orientalism, Toward Transculturality? Armando Salvatore

Abstract

Sociology arose in Europe as a scholarly reflection on modernity and its processes, with Western modernity often being defined in contrast with nonWestern civilizations. The sociology of Islam has helped challenge the view that Islamicate civilization was simply left behind in the global process of catching up with Western modernity. Focusing on the longue durée of the circulation of goods, peoples and ideas allows us to see the Islamic cosmopolitan ecumene as central to the global civilizing process in both historical and geopolitical terms. This chapter investigates how the sociology of Islam articulates an original approach to the critique of orientalism by focusing on the tension between Western paradigms on the one hand, and Islamic responses on the other. The outcome is a reconstructive approach to East–West connectedness that emphasizes a transcultural turn within the humanities and social sciences, one also stimulated by the global rise of ‘Asia’ in general and of China in particular. The emerging idea of transculturality replaces the paradigm of pure comparison between world religions and civilizations. It could also balance the deconstructive zeal of postcolonial critique. While postcolonialism has emphasized hybridity, transculturation challenges the orientalist obsession with authentic origins. A. Salvatore (B) School of Religious Studies, McGill University, Montreal, Canada E-Mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 C. Gärtner and H. Winkel (eds.), Exploring Islam beyond Orientalism and Occidentalism, Veröffentlichungen der Sektion Religionssoziologie der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-33239-6_3

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Keywords

Islam • Sociology • Orientalism • Religion • Civilisation • Transcultural Circulation

1

•

Introduction: Framing Islam

Despite the increasing cultural entanglements between ‘East’ and ‘West’ in the era of globalization, it would be difficult to question the fact that social theory is still overwhelmingly a reflection on Western historical experiences and a systematizing diagnosis of their traumas. The trajectory and fate of the concepts of religion and civilization are no exception, as they depend on specific Western concerns. The framing of Islam through Western academic and intellectual discourse since the nineteenth century as both a religion and a civilization has played a crucial role in the process, both overtly and covertly. This chapter will revisit the genesis and development of the sociology of Islam as a specific scholarly enterprise designed to redress Western bias within social theory. Accordingly, the study of processes relying on the oft-twinned concepts of religion and civilization requires adopting a perspective pertinent to the inner complexity and diversity of Islamic (and/or Islamicate) history and societies. Furthermore, the chapter will address how the sociology of Islam can focus productively on the tension between Western paradigms and power determinations on the one hand, and Islamic responses and resistances on the other. It does so by considering the global rise of ‘Asia’ in general and of China in particular. This will require a brief tour across the conceptual territory marked by the following question: is it possible to overcome the lopsided character of historical, Western orientalism without merely concealing one’s arguments behind a self-serving type of criticism and an impoverished sociological methodology, one whose most common outcome is (as in much of postcolonial studies) to reaffirm the West’s epistemological centrality in new (albeit ‘critical’) guises? I will examine whether this can happen by investing in what we might call a tentative transcultural turn that has recently been observed across some research program in the humanities and social sciences (Bond and Rapson 2014; Höfert and Salvatore 2000; Langenohl et al. 2015).1

1 Probably the most explicit institutionalization of interdisciplinary transcultural studies is the

University of Heidelberg’s Cluster of Excellence, “Asia and Europe in a Global Context”, housed at the Karl Jaspers Centre for Advanced Transcultural Studies.

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Sociology on the Battlefield of the Study of Islam

One key trait of sociology is its rise during the nineteenth century as a scholarly reflection on modernity and its processes. The sociological literature from the founding fathers onwards has often defined the emergent secular character of Western modernity in contrast with non-Western civilizations (Salvatore 2016; Stauth 1993). This was far from surprising, particularly in the case of Islam. Seen from the perspective of Western Europe’s global imperial triumph during the nineteenth century, the cosmopolitan Islamic ecumene had long traced a more advanced transcultural civilizational trajectory across the Afro-Eurasian realm, for example in South East Asia (Cook 2015; Hodgson 1974; Salvatore et al. 2018). In the early modern era, this ecumene was still perceived in Europe as posing a severe threat, most immediately in the shape of the Ottoman Empire. During the seventeenth century, as Western Europe, but also Russia, started to gain the upper hand over the Islamic ecumene, the West also came into closer contact with China. This new encounter posed fresh challenges in terms of cultural, religious and civilizational commensurability. In Hegel’s philosophy of history, China, along with India, filled the place of a distinctive and even necessary, yet intermediate, stage on the road to the full accomplishment of the triumph of reason in human history. As a result, and despite the attention given to Islam by other thinkers of the Enlightenment and Romanticism and after, including Nietzsche (Almond 2010; Jackson 2007), the Islamic ecumene and its cultural achievements began, in Western eyes, to resemble an anomalous sideshow: the outcome of an accumulation of deficits and delays on the universal path of human civilization. If China and India were perceived as inherently stationary, Islam began to be seen as self-limiting and backward-looking. The development and institutionalization of the academic study of Islam, often in the form of Islamic Studies, occurred during the nineteenth century in the shadow of such preconceptions, whose complexity we cannot reduce to one-sided views of an impoverishing essentialism. The reason why Islam seemed to provide ideally contrastive patterns to a modern articulation of state, civil society and secular civic morals was part and parcel of the reorganization of academic knowledge which unfolded in parallel to the colonial and imperial enterprises (Stauth 1993). A keystone in this scholarly otherization of Islam was the questioning of its credentials for membership in the emerging club of world religions. This could only occur by neglecting the fact that the cosmopolitan commitments of the Islamic ecumene had been particularly strong throughout its early-modern consolidation. As Tomoko Masuzawa (2005) has shown, the category of world religion became foundational to the emerging comparative religious studies. Here,

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comparison makes sense among peers competing with each other in an evolutionary perspective, with Christianity providing both the benchmark of comparison and the leadership in terms of a universalistic vocation. This vocation was, in turn, allegedly grounded on a commitment to embracing the entire world and humanity via its message of salvation. It is particularly instructive here to see where the scholars of the age identified Islam’s deficits. Masuzawa (2005, pp. 121–146, 179–206) explains these dynamics by comparing the Western scholarly construction of Islam with the framing of Buddhism in this emerging comparative framework. In short, while Islam was mostly deemed particularistic, monolithic, and ethnically-based, and as lacking the universalistic commitment that warrants the badge of a world religion, the universal character of Buddhism was identified precisely with its purported ability to reform what European scholars saw as the ethnic and priestly basis of Hinduism. Moreover, Western scholars were inclined to consider Buddhism’s emphasis on individual liberation as correlating with what they saw as an essentially Christian (in fact, predominantly Protestant) cultivation of the inner self. The construction of Buddhism as an adequate world religion on a par with Christianity also satisfied the need to legitimize Christianity itself as the benchmark of religious universalism in the context of the global hegemony of Europe. In contrast, Islam was deemed to constitute a threat to this order, as could be seen in several resistance movements to colonialism extending from North Africa to Southeast Asia (Voll 2018). This 19th-century approach to Islam’s questionable credentials was deepened by Max Weber’s view of Islam as a religion that pursued immediate and tangible rewards (from the booty of jihad to the search for sensual paradise) in contrast to Christianity’s emphasis on an inner realm of redemption. This purported deficit was allegedly made worse by Islam’s resistance to a process of self-renewal determined by how Western modernity was triggered by the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation, ultimately yielding a successful inner-worldly asceticism, a corresponding work ethic, and professionalism (Salvatore 1997). This focus on the alleged absence of major reform or reformation in Islam was destined to become an obsessive refrain in Western approaches to the issue of Islam and modernity, and became crudely explicit, for example, in the work of Gustave E. von Grunebaum, a leading figure in Islamic Studies after World War II. He denied to Muslim cultural elites and political leaders a capacity for that type of reform of the self that in the Western trajectory was said to be facilitated by an increasing reflexivity, rationality, and perpetual intellectual renewal, and that was considered indispensable to enable social actors to cope with the challenges and requirements of modernity. Building on Weberian claims of Western

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uniqueness due to the universality of the ‘Occident’, von Grunebaum saw contemporary Muslim-majority societies as being subjected to an externally induced, Western-led process of modernization, an idea that was enthusiastically endorsed and further elaborated by the modernization theorists of the age (Masud and Salvatore 2009). The approach was continued until the immediate aftermath of 9/11, among others by the well-known interventions of Bernard Lewis (2002) under the significant title What Went Wrong? Developments in the social sciences after World War II did not subvert this approach. The long shadow of modernization theory affected even the most sophisticated analysis in the social sciences of contemporary Muslim cultures. Clifford Geertz, a leading anthropologist of the era, suggested that in such distant and different Muslim-majority societies as Morocco and Indonesia, authoritarian, yet developmentally oriented, forms of postcolonial rule could embrace and promote public forms of Islamic culture based on the nationalization of specific, and sharply different, charismatic figures, such as the Moroccan kingly warrior and the Indonesian meditating saint. These suited national agendas of stabilization and repression by matching popular forms of religiosity, and therefore operated as a glue of collective identity (Geertz 1971 [1968]). The scholar who wrested from Geertz the torch of most successful anthropologist of Islam during the late 20th and early twenty-first century, Talal Asad (1986, 1993, 2003), directly addressed the weakness of Geertz’s approach as part of an articulate attack on Western scholarship in the social sciences stretching from Emile Durkheim to Ernest Gellner. Asad showed how the contemporary reconstruction of Islamic traditions, in both the former metropoles and colonies, rarely escapes the grip of Western norms of modern governance. These he saw as rooted within templates of individual autonomy that express a Weberian type of inwardness and generate a secular type of subjectivity. Asad’s anthropology of Islam and the secular has the unique merit of exposing a vicious hermeneutic circle linking the global promotion of secular subjectivity as the banner of Western hegemony and the reproduction of restricted registers for understanding the West’s various others, especially Islam and Muslims. This vicious circle owes its existence to the fact that the secular presupposes an essentialized, reformed religion as the necessary condition for the formation of self-governing agents. Asad sees a reiteration of such patterns of normalization of religion across various stages of world politics (from the colonial to the postcolonial ages), which are reflected in the global normative power of a secular subjectivity.

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Yet, in spite of his fresh critique, his remarkable theoretical contribution, and its wide reception well beyond anthropology, Asad’s approach could not significantly alter established patterns through which key disciplines within the Western humanities and social sciences had dealt with the role of religion in the ‘civilizing process’ of modernity, and more specifically how these patterns affect conceptualizations of Islam. The historical reality of the global field is far more complex and cannot be contained within the vicious circle that Asad depicts and denounces so well. Much too often does the study of Islam resemble a ‘battlefield’ (Masad 2015) where classic philological approaches conflict with radically deconstructive perspectives which claim that Islam is just a convenient idea needed by Western liberal discourse to reproduce itself. More generally, it would be difficult to deny, and impossible to reverse, those processes of reimagination of Islamic traditions and key concepts unfolding in the colonial and postcolonial eras, as they went hand in hand with the reification of Islam itself (Asad 2001), both as a religion and/or a civilization. As Asad emphasizes, several Muslim reformers, while theorizing on the need to revitalize shari‘a, were often squeezed between the European hegemonic discourse and the imperatives of anti-colonial struggles. At the same time, however, the activities of several generations of Muslim reformers have taken place since the late nineteenth century within an increasingly transcultural public intellectual exchange with Western scholars. This exchange cannot be reduced to the vicious circle mentioned above. As noted by Iman Farag (2001, pp. 95–96), a variety of figures who travelled from Egypt to Europe also to study new pedagogies and to work as Arabic tutors in departments of Oriental Studies, interacted with Western Orientalists without succumbing to their categories. In their own country, they then used their knowledge to influence the understanding of their own traditions in ways that affected daily pedagogies much more than the discourse of Muslim reformers. The ambivalent position of Muslim reformers, which according to circumstances could be both limiting and enabling, was captured effectively by Bryan S. Turner (1974) when his book Weber and Islam inaugurated the contemporary enterprise of the sociology of Islam. Turner had the particular merit of stressing that Muslim reformers had often been caught mimicking (in actual fact, since they came before Weber, often prefiguring) Weber’s argument of the Protestant Ethic, at least in a trivialized form. The most simplified (yet also the most commonly understood) version of Weber’s argument purports that the origins of European capitalism result from the transformation of the Calvinists’ theological tenets of predestination into incentives to lead a regulated life that fosters a strongly profit-oriented type of entrepreneurship. However, these reformers have often retained the simplified (and probably incorrect) gist of Weber’s thesis (Turner

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2013a [1974]) by postulating a plainly positive relation between a rationalized and ascetic religious commitment expunging mysticism on the one hand, and socio-economic development and work ethic on the other hand. Yet, even if it is true that a rather essentialized view of religion (and of its matching concept of civilization) proved appealing to leading Muslim reformers (probably including the Egyptian Muhammad ‘Abduh; Tareen 2018), the impact of this view cannot be extended to Islamicate precolonial modernity retroactively, especially when we need to account for the successful autonomous factors in the thriving and expansion of Islam well into the modern era (Melvin-Koushki 2018). Turner’s book (1974) expanded on an article entitled Islam, Capitalism and the Weber Theses that was published in the British Journal of Sociology in the same year (Turner 2013a [1974]). This article won a British Sociological Association prize in 2010 as one of the two best contributions to the journal in the 1970s (Nasir 2013, p. 5). It is not an overstatement to interpret the combination of such studies as epoch-making in effectively carving out an enduring space for the sociology of Islam and positioning it on the wider ‘battlefield’ of the study of Islam. Significantly, this happened shortly before the critique of orientalism took center stage and set the tone for discussions and reflections, for attacks, defense, and counter-attacks for at least two decades. In order to develop the program of the sociology of Islam, Turner both relied on and critiqued Marshal Hodgson’s monumental trilogy, The Venture of Islam, which appeared posthumously in 1974. In tackling Hodgson’s oeuvre, Turner praised his “attempt to replace the philology of Islam with a sociology of Islam” (2013b [1976], p. 76). Yet, this double approach of rather constructive commentary and criticism as well as reconstruction marked a clear difference from what would be standardized as a critique of orientalism.

3

The Venture of Islam

Before clarifying this decisive move by Turner, we need to focus on the ‘surprise effect’ that the publication of Hodgson’s trilogy had. Hodgson’s work provided indispensable conceptual and interpretive resources to navigate the twin dangers of Islamic exceptionalism and Western universalism. In his career, Hodgson, who was Chair of the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, not only worked closely with scholars in the emergent field of world history, but also had a good grasp of modernization theory, both its innovativeness and limitations. This is why Hodgson was able to develop an interpretation of how seeds of an

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Islamicate cosmopolitanism were sown by an increasingly expanding (and internally diversifying) translocal Islamic ecumene particularly between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, namely prior to Western imperialism which Hodgson called the ‘Great Western Transmutation’. According to Hodgson, the cosmopolitan vocation had an even longer genealogy in the epoch prior to the rise of Islam, as it had in the egalitarian, urban, and increasingly translocal cultures of the Irano-Semitic realm. Islam became a durable venture capable, according to Bruce Lawrence’s extension of Hodgson’s argument, of bringing “a cosmopolitan sensibility to the cultures with which it interacted” (Lawrence 2012, p. 23). The civilizational patterns that animated this venture (on a variety of legal, artistic, multilingual, intellectual, and most notably ‘spiritual’ levels) manifested a dynamics unparalleled in premodern history. Long before Edward Said, Marshall Hodgson was also keen to expose how much the scholarly categorizations related to Islam came to depend on the European experience of history and self-positioning in the world, and on the resulting conceptual hegemony of Western colonial modernity. Without indulging in any wildly anti-essentialist zeal, Hodgson showed how even the apparently innocent categories of religion and civilization needed some cautious handling. Most crucially, he recognized that the Islamic ecumene was not a case of a macro-region or civilization neatly overlapping like Western Europe/Latin Christendom, China and India. Following Hodgson, we can understand Islam as a trans-civilizational ecumene rather than a self-centered challenger to Western Christendom. At the same time, we need to stress the evanescence of a supposedly Islamic civilizational core (in both political and cultural terms) coincident with what the Western military strategists of the twentieth century happened to call the Middle East. This gesture pulls the rug from under the feet of modern and contemporary Orientalists, Muslim reformers and fundamentalists alike, whose converging, relentless efforts insist on the importance of establishing Islam’s authentic origins. It also deflates the Western civilizational discourse as applied to Islam and the Islamic ecumene as a potential or actual threat to the West, for the simple reason that the latter might perhaps qualify for being defined as a civilizational block, but the former does not. Hodgson’s approach, though certainly in need of continual revision and updating, is particularly insightful in addressing the tension between an incipient kind of precolonial Islamic modernity and its succumbing to the hegemonic Western one. He famously stated: “In the sixteenth century of our era, a visitor from Mars might well have supposed that the human world was on the verge of becoming Muslim” (Hodgson 1993, p. 97). Learning from Hodgson, the sociology of Islam rejects the dominant narrative of a Western monopoly on the birth of modernity

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from its inception, based on reductive and homogenizing assumptions, like those postulating a linear alignment between the Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the commercial and industrial revolutions in Western Europe (Salvatore 2016). Most importantly, Hodgson was acutely aware that Weber had asked the wrong questions about Islam and the Islamic ecumene precisely since he made them fit his approach, which consisted in contrasting Western rational puritan asceticism with purportedly Eastern mystical paths (ibid.). Wanting the incipient sociology of Islam to profit from this allegedly Orientalist treasure trove, the young Bryan Turner commented on Hodgson’s trilogy in a piece (2013b [1976]) published in the Review of Middle East Studies, a cooperative undertaking of young scholars of the Middle East and Islam from various disciplines, united by the common goal of critiquing what they saw as the biased categories of an older generation of scholars in Islamic and Middle East Studies. Known as the Hull group, the project included scholars who would later forge new approaches in their disciplines, such as Talal Asad in the anthropology of Islam, and Sami Zubaida in the sociology of Islam. In his piece on Hodgson, who died in 1968, Turner first praised him for his outspoken criticism of what Hodgson himself called ‘traditional Islamic Studies’, which rest on an Arabist bias and the methodological hegemony (if not monopoly) of philology. The combination of the two elements led many scholars in the field to consider every non-Arab element within the Islamic ecumene as a nonauthentic, foreign accretion to Islam. Philology was criticized not in terms of its technical value as a research method, but for creating a rather exclusive emphasis on high culture, to which only philological skills could provide access, over other cultural forms and practices. Turner also highlighted Hodgson’s attention to social and economic factors. However, Turner decried the fact that Hodgson had not been able to deliver consistently on the ambitious program that he had spelled out in the first part of the first volume of the trilogy. For Turner, the main reason was that Hodgson considered conscience and piety to be independent variables in the historical unfolding of religions in general, and of Islam in particular (Turner 2013b [1976]). It is noteworthy that Turner carefully avoided the deconstructivist frenzy animating some of his colleagues in the Hull group, who took on other scholars in Islamic Studies such as Gustave von Grunebaum, Elie Kedourie, Albert Hourani, and Bernard Lewis, and who felt galvanized by the climate of settling accounts with an older generation of scholars. This was just a few years before Edward Said published Orientalism and enshrined text deconstruction as a fashionable approach. While adopting a much more balanced approach, Turner also denounced the fact that Hodgson’s view of religion depended much more on the latter’s faith

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commitment, revealed in a footnote, to the Society of Friends, the Quakers, than on the theorists of religion whom Hodgson claimed to follow, namely Rudolph Otto and Mircea Eliade. Turner emphasized that, as a result of Hodgson’s personal religious involvement, “Islam as religion and social system is treated as an adventure of the inner, personal conscience which creates an external, impersonal civilization” (Turner 2013b [1976], p. 75), so that “[t]he inner religion of faith is independent of society as an irreducible ‘pious fact’” (ibid., p. 77). To put it another way, the individual religious commitment in Islam explains the venture of a grand impersonal civilization and an increasingly global socio-political connectedness, and finally took the form of an Islamicate civilization or, as Hodgson called it, Islamdom. The idea of the The Venture of Islam itself purported that conscience impregnated with the teachings of the Qur’an and Hadith, ventures out of itself and builds up the historical Islamdom. This preference for conscience as the initiator of the venture, rather than the outright focus on the sociological coordinates of religious institutions, was subjected to Turner’s critique. The objection still stands, but, by continuing to engage with The Venture of Islam after his 1976 piece, Turner himself ended up considering it an indispensable and innovative milestone for building up a historically grounded and theoretically conscious sociology of Islam. Through subsequent interventions by Bryan Turner, the sociology of Islam carved out a scholarly space by detaching itself from the methodological inconsistencies and politicized excesses of the contemporary critique of orientalism launched by Said (1978) in the wake of the Hull group. Said’s disdain for sociological approaches (in fact, for historical approaches, too), based on the vague idea of orientalism as a discursive formation, prevented him from seriously tackling the crucial issue of why orientalism was unable to ask constructive research questions. This left behind the lopsided narrative of deficits and delays as inherent in Islam and/or its unfolding in history, and finally culminated in the trivia of What Went Wrong? Over the following decades, Turner decisively contributed, in parallel with Georg Stauth (1993), and with the largely converging arguments of two younger historians of Islam, Peter Gran (1998 [1979]) and Reinhard Schulze (1996), to formulating an issue that was unspoken but ultimately uninteresting for the critique of orientalism. And he did so in genuinely sociological terms. This was the question of the original Islamic/Islamicate articulations of modernity.2 2 We

need to note here that, while the bold genius of Hodgson immediately affected the sociology of Islam, Donner (2010, pp. 641–642) is right to remind us that the 1960s witnessed the first serious attempts in Islamic Studies to heed theory. Therefore, it would be unfair to this field to see Hodgson as an entirely lonely innovator.

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Combining various interventions, some of which were not directly related to Islam but articulated sociological pre-conceptualizations (Stauth and Turner 1988), Turner entangled the question of an Islamic modernity with the explorations of the forms of Islamicate cosmopolitanism predating Western colonial and imperial hegemony. While building his critically Weberian argument on modernity, Turner contributed to show that, by espousing a flat reading of the Protestant Ethic, modern Muslim reformers ended up disproving the complexity and universality of Weber’s comparative argument on the relation between religious traditions and modern rationality. Becoming largely oblivious to the resources and traditions of Islamic cosmopolitanism, the reform discourse consigned a unilaterally modernistic worldview to the so-called Islamic awakening (and re-Islamicization) that unfolded during the 1970s in parallel with the scholarly interventions mentioned above. A tight short-circuit between orientalism and Islamism ensued (Abaza and Stauth 1988); it fostered a rather totalizing worldview that revealed how Islamist groups have raised the exclusivist banner of the implementation of the Islamic shari‘a. A crucial contribution of the Sociology of Islam, however, was to avoid the orientalist reflex, to attribute these tensions and contradictions to alleged Islamic cultural and institutional deficits. The Yearbook of the Sociology of Islam, which for a decade (1998–2008) pioneered this trend, put the study of the antinomies of Western sociology at the center of its programmatic vision (precisely since they are best exposed by Weber’s convenient view of Islam) as well as the overlapping ambiguities of Islam’s positioning within global society. In other words, as summarized by Turner (2013c, p. 11), the sociological study of Islam raised issues of general relevance for the social and historical sciences, while also enabling scholars to work on a critical reconstruction of key Weberian concepts within social theory.

4

Circulation and Transculturality

While the sociology of Islam is under no illusion that it can remedy the inherited epistemic distortions by itself, it certainly has the merit of having seriously challenged the major interpretive traps on the ‘battlefield’ of the study of Islam. This is the deep-seated idea, quite popular among the modernization theorists of the 1950s and 1960s (with whom Hodgson had to cope in Chicago, too), that Islam is catching up with modernity (with some interpreters showing optimism in the name of a socio-economic universalism, and others being rather pessimistic due to the culturalist bias of Islam’s inherent backwardness). One potential

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(though partial) remedy to such prejudiced views is to stress long-term circulatory dynamics more than any kind of unilinear historical progress (or lack thereof) marked by rigid path dependencies attributed to selfsame civilizational blocks or ethno-national collectives. Privileging the longue durée of the circulation of goods, peoples and ideas across the Afro-Eurasian landmass allows us to see the Islamic ecumene as central in both historical and geopolitical terms: the Islamic ecumene emerged mid-way between the ancient and the modern ages, during Late Antiquity, and expanded across central regions of Afro-Eurasia. This emphasis on circulation has the additional advantage of inoculating us against reading the effects of colonialism back into early modernity and the premodern era, which, as Hodgson stressed, were periods of remarkable cultural production and sociopolitical advancement (Salvatore 2016). This approach can help us understand the creation, transformation and entropy of Islamic institutional forms more than by pinpointing any purported authentic and repetitive pattern of institution-building, or lack thereof. Focusing on circulation also helps us understand the flexible degree of formalization of such a ubiquitous Islamic institution as the waqf (pious endowment) across different regions and epochs, both prior to and after colonialism: not just as the source of funding for civic spaces and public places within local communities, but also as the infrastructural facilitator of key circulatory nodes along the Silk Road, across the Sahara desert region into the Sudanic lands of Africa, and along the commercial sea routes of the Indian Ocean linking East Africa to India and ultimately to the Malaysian archipelago. This was a process that established the historical and geo-political centrality of the Islamic ecumene. Being a member of this ecumene became not a badge of exclusivity, but rather a synonym of what we would call today being global, in the basic sense of enjoying recognition as a partner in the hemisphere-wide circulation of goods, people, ideas, and salvific practices. It is also important to stress that, contrary to a common prejudice, the long-term expansion of the Islamic ecumene across the Afro-Eurasian landmass relied more on shifting combinations of attraction and interest than on sheer military advancements and impositions of the faith from above. A frequent outcome were decisions by urban elites, nomadic groups, and confederations to embrace Islam as a convenient trans-civilizational idiom of civic intercourse and moral balance. Yet, it is also important to remember that in the process of expansion, Islam was effectively challenged by various forms of Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, and particularly Buddhism, whose circulatory networks pre-existed the advent of Islam in large areas of Asia and partly survived the era of Islamicate hegemony (most notably in China). Such different religious traditions retained

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a presence and vitality within a circulatory system whose complexity was exalted rather than suppressed by the gradual rise to hegemony of Islam. Within the Chinese empire, whose Western regions (along with its Eastern and Southeastern ports) represented key terminals in the circulatory networks, Islam built a significant presence in relatively isolated pockets, but was nonetheless able to maintain its prestige. In various Central and even East Asian courts, Muslims wrestled for long with other religious groups for the rulers’ favors, until Islam achieved a major breakthrough under Timur (Tamerlane) and his successors in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. At an advanced stage of such a process, and particularly within the major early-modern Muslim empires (the Ottoman, the Safavid, and the Mughal), various expressions of Islamicate cosmopolitanism reached their zenith, supported by literature and the arts, but also by administrative and political cultures. These often integrated a simultaneously ‘spiritual’ and practical knowledge that had long been in the making (and which Islamic Studies reductively labels ‘Sufism’). It was this nexus of knowledge and empowerment that Marshall Hodgson compellingly underscored. Europe was for long a peripheral region within the Afro-Eurasian circulatory system. Yet, in the course of its early-modern rise, decisively aided by the colonization of the Americas, it developed its own forms of cosmopolitanism, even prior to the celebrated zenith represented by late-18th-century Enlightenment thought. In a more recent intervention, Bryan Turner (2013d [2005]) has sensibly contrasted the early-modern European cosmopolitanism in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s view of a commerce of lights (Perkins 2004) between Europe and China on the one hand, and Europe’s later, hubristic and global mission civilisatrice on the other. Turner calls for rediscovering the vitality of the not yet disenchanted, but nonetheless strongly rationalizing and even scientific sense of cosmopolis carried by Leibniz’s life and oeuvre and particularly his turning and opening towards China (Turner 2013d [2005]). Leibniz’s move relied on, but also trumped (at least philosophically) the rather pragmatic campaign launched by the Jesuits’ China mission from the late sixteenth century. The German polymath and courtier thought that Western Christendom as a whole, both Catholic and Protestant, shared some key metaphysical ideas with China. This, so to speak, cosmopolitan triangulation was, according to Leibniz, precisely what would have made obsolete the contentions between Catholics and Protestants, and instead justified their reconciliation. Cosmopolitanism here is not simply the outcome of an inner rationalizing move to overcome Europe’s own provincialism (the diatribes and conflicts between Catholics and Protestants). This would be conducive to what became a plain ruse of colonial and imperial reason: namely, imposing European standards of

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governance and rationalization on the entire world. Cosmopolitanism, as understood by Leibniz, needs instead to be born first in genuinely relational terms. A cosmopolitan move requires a transcultural triangulation through which the West gives up on its claim to provide universal benchmarks. This delusion cannot be neutralized by the inverted move of simply provincializing oneself. A triangulation is needed, requiring, as the crucial mediator, another reference frame. This includes the attempt to renew Leibniz’s move while discounting the imperial hubris that resulted from the West’s self-centering since the high Enlightenment. Given the fact that China is currently a fierce hegemonic contender to the West, the heritage of the Islamic ecumene and its transregional cosmopolitanism can better provide this other reference frame. It is this cosmopolitan heritage that might help bridge the self-centered powers in China and the West. Turner (2013d [2005]) ultimately shows how the concept of a commerce of lights spanning the Afro-Eurasian region provides an understanding of transcultural relations and the social place of religion within society in ways that neither Western orientalism nor its critique through postcolonial studies have been able to do. The emerging idea of transculturality helps replace the highly biased, 19thcentury category of pure comparison between world religions. It also balances the mostly deconstructive zeal of a largely self-referential postcolonial critique. Turner’s argument can be understood as covering a transition from a comparative approach, which was still the beacon of a Weberian type of sociology, toward interactive transculturality. This process was ambivalently energized by colonial and postcolonial conflicts, but did not start with them. It originated in the prehegemonic balance of power of the seventeenth century, when the cradle of the European Westphalian system was matched by still powerful, and scientifically committed, Muslim and Asian empires. Postcolonialism has often emphasized hybridity and hyphenated identities, but transculturation is based on more complex historical dynamics. It escapes a onesided culturalization in mere identity terms, to the extent that it derives from the long-term circulatory process of goods, people, and ideas within which the historical trajectory of the Islamic ecumene contributed a particularly balanced knowledge-power equation (Salvatore 2016). As noted by sociologist Mohammed Bamyeh (2000), the long-distance connectedness and the very experience of being on the road put a premium on the coexistence of a variety of registers and traditions. Transcultural connections thereby became a prime engine of a productive heteroglossia, without preventing, but actually legitimizing, a reliance on a shared, or at least overlapping, set of idioms and connecting interpretations of the world. This is also why the idea of a Sociology of Islam risks becoming an inconclusive rehash of classic sociological themes, if it is not placed in a

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wider context that takes the building of transcultural relations into account. This combination of social and mental connectedness through multiple (including religious) idioms helps intellectual, scholarly knowledge and everyday categorization to develop across various geographical and socio-cultural realms. This combination, and the attritions resulting from it, build the very condition for continual cultural critique and reconstruction. Accordingly, transculturality is the condition for a reflective culture, rather than the other way around, as the slightly selfconceited idea of cosmopolitanism as a superior, open and largely self-sufficient culture might sometimes suggest. This virtue of transculturality is not necessarily diminished by the fact that many encounters are not innocent of highly imbalanced power relations, that they have actually often been activated through power asymmetries, before, during and after colonialism. The critique of orientalism itself should be deemed a late outcome and additional trigger of transcultural opening, and cannot therefore claim to occupy a meta-theoretical standpoint and to embody a kind of methodological purity. In my own attempt two decades ago to classify the critique of orientalism historically and culturally, I stressed the importance of transcultural communication (Salvatore 1997). This idea can help thrust aside the orientalist obsession with authentic origins. When origins are obsessively sought but remain elusive, they authorize culturally imperialist cartographies of authenticity and diffusion, as in the scholarly attempts to rescue the true core of Christianity and Buddhism. This was often accompanied by a reconstruction of the supposed trajectories of decay or misuse of that core, which is usually associated with the charisma of the ‘founders’ (in this case, Gautama Buddha and Jesus Christ). During the high time of colonialism and classical orientalism, Western scholarship enshrined its own worldview within state-supported academic institutions, and imposed its categories on an initially reluctant East (Stauth 1993). The Orient was first seen as incapable of recognizing its own ‘true origins’. However, in a second moment, the so-called East or Orient, by capitalizing on the ambivalence of the orientalist discourse of recognition of non-Western civilizations, readied itself to play its authenticity card with increasing conviction and success. This move culminated in the fact that the recent rise of China and India to the status of new economic and political superpowers is being supported by an intellectual and political discourse articulating claims to exclusive identity and authenticity. Bryan Turner stresses that the West’s own claim to cultural superiority in the field of theological and heresiological polemics—through which Western Christianity tried to invalidate Islam’s message—has never been finally realized. The authenticity discourse entertained by philology, archaeology, biblical studies, and increasingly (at their point of convergence) orientalism temporarily succeeded

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where theologians had largely failed. Turner’s intervention has the merit of turning the idea of the pure origins of world religions via prophets and sages of the West and the East into a focus on an inherently circulatory space. Such a transcultural turn contributes to offset residual claims to true and authentic origins, both in the East and West (Turner 2013e [2001]). This move shifts our attention away from identities toward the continual process of transcultural mapping of porous, leaking and overlapping spaces and mental maps. This process often requires a triangulating mode where approaching a significant Other requires a more familiar third term or mediator. It is, however, important to remark that, in his 17th-century opening to China, Leibniz refrained from seeing the Islamic ecumene as a potential mediator. In a move that made him appear as a precursor of Western colonialism in the area, he devised an Egyptian plan of military conquest to propose to the French king. Symptomatically, however, this was intended as a way not only (perhaps not even primarily) to strengthen Europe, but also to divert energies from inner-European divisions and to concentrate them on the terrain of the allegedly barbarous, backward, and threatening Other represented primarily by the Ottoman Empire (Almond 2010, pp. 17–28). The relative impasse in the sociology of Islam today probably derives from its being caught within an unending and inconclusive confrontation between Western sociological categories and Muslim subjects that are not easily amenable to those categories. But the situation changes if we turn the imbalanced relation into a more complex equation where the Islamic ecumene with its historically porous borders becomes the mediator, the key intermediate variable, in a cosmopolitan and transcultural triangulation with the West and China as its extreme poles, in analogy with the perspective opened by Leibniz. A new epistemic clearing opened up in the nineteenth century for sociology precisely thanks to the evanescence of the Western scholarly search for true origins, on which first theology, and then philology and archaeology, seemed unable to say the last word. The problem with a philologically pinpointed textualism is that it reinforces the linguistic separation of cultures and civilizations, and the concomitant obsession with authentic origins. On the other hand, sociology, when it dedicated itself to the study of the modern division of labor and professionalism was often captured by a nostalgia for holistic integrity (Stauth and Turner 1988). A sociology of Islam should help sociology in general to free itself from the nostalgic residues that make it emphasize stable integration rather than porous relations, and fixed identity rather than open-ended circulation. A transcultural turn in the sociology of religion cannot be performed in purely theoretical terms, but needs to take into account this cartography of cultural power and underlying narratives, be they rooted in stories of heroes, prophets, saints and

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sages, or in more contemporary political mythologies. A key ingredient in this venture should be, according to Turner, an emphasis on the “ethnological imagination” proposed by the sociologist Fuyuki Kurasawa, a Canadian scholar of Japanese background (Turner 2013d [2005], pp. 156–157). This imagination is necessary to understand other cultures, but is one that Western sociology, anthropology, and especially philosophy have been unable to deploy. In this sense, a sociology that, like the Sociology of Islam, embraces transculturality rather than nations or civilizations, might be even better positioned than social and cultural anthropology, since the latter discipline has been central to the British and US global hegemonic projects. Kurasawa explicitly recommends a non-orientalist engagement with Islam intended as a fluid cosmopolitanism rather than as a threatening Behemoth—an engagement that is necessary to help overcome the historical epistemic stalemate of Western social sciences in their inconclusive struggle to overcome orientalism (ibid.).

5

Conclusion

In his The Crisis of Global Modernity, Prasenjit Duara (2015), an Indian historian of China, has shown the extent to which transcendence is intimately related to circulation. It is not just that transcendence is first produced by prophets and sages, and then circulates. It is rather the articulation of transcendence itself— through teaching, practice and the circulatory intertextuality—that characterized the ancient sages and prophets. This implies that what we call transcendence actually is a set of social ideas and practices which are intersubjectively shared and challenged, and are thus subjected to a compelling and often contentious social circulation. Circulation is seldom smooth but is certainly an ongoing, steady and, accordingly, a major constraint on every attempt to crystallize a set of teachings with a name and a well-circumscribed apparatus of virtuosi and attending rules. This understanding of transcendence as a never ending social process of circulation of ideas is particularly crucial for a perspective like transculturality that specifies the close relations of religion to communication and various aspects of society and culture at large. Transcendence is therefore both more and less than simply ‘religious’. It is both the key to and the outcome of transculturality; transcendence is integral to the shaping of communicative networks through social processes of exchange, responses and complex feedback loops that we usually simply call communication. The challenge is how to dissolve and bring forth the ambiguous postcolonial discourse of crisis through the idea of circulatory translocal and transcultural

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spaces and to topple the Western-centered comparative approach. This shift should be strategically aided by breaking through the dualistic, categorical relation between Western sociology and Islam. There is no privileged position or mediator in the relation, but only contingent ones. Far from being extraneous to the sociological tradition, transculturality can be detected in sociology’s very DNA. In its more reflective mode, it is sociology that has sown the seeds for questioning the Western monopoly on the definition of modernity and, more recently, of secularity, through approaches to multiple modernities and multiple secularities.3 In such a framework, Islam and the Islamic ecumene play a quite crucial role in representing patterns and motifs of alterity vis-à-vis Western modernity; however, Islam and Islamic ecumene should not be stigmatized for deviating from Western benchmarks of normality and progress. They can present alternate bundlings of modernity that can be profitably processed in social-theoretical terms and positively retroact on the predominantly Westernbiased categories on which sociology was founded. The Sociology of Islam therefore has the chance to position itself much closer to cosmopolitan hermeneutics than the critique of orientalism ever was or wanted to be. Yet, these hermeneutics need to give back their due to the highly diversified Islamic ecumene by acknowledging nothing less than its historical and geo-cultural centrality within the Afro-Eurasian civilizing process. And it is in the name of this re-centering of a cosmopolitan outlook that the obsession with Islam’s historical and current face-off with Latin Christendom and the West should be replaced by a stronger attention to the circulatory networks linking the Islamic ecumene to other historically central parts of the Afro-Eurasian ecumene, particularly the Sinosphere. This approach was championed by Marshall Hodgson and is ongoing. The Japanese scholar of Islamic studies, Toshihiko Izutsu (1984), should be considered the main precursor of this theoretical repositioning. This approach includes a transculturally conscious cosmopolitanism in terms that can open up a terrain for studying social circulation within a triangle linking the West to the Islamic ecumene and the Sinosphere. In that, the West and the carriers of its historical power-knowledge tools (such as sociological thought) might have the chance to replace their Enlightenment-based monopoly on framing global comparisons through a transculturally reconstructed cosmopolitanism.

3 The

Humanities Centre for Advanced Studies, Multiple Secularities – Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities, was launched at Leipzig University in 2016.

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Prospects for a Relational Sociology of Islam: Some Remarks on Differentiation Theory, Multiple Modernities, and the Pitfalls of Occidentalism Daniel Witte Abstract

Against the background of differentiation-theoretical assumptions, the article outlines some basic prospects for a relational sociology of Islam. To this end, a frame of reference is proposed that already dispenses with essentializing assumptions at the level of basic theoretical concepts, thus enabling a nonoccidentalist approach to Islam and Islamic societies. In order to situate this perspective, in a first step different sociological accounts are discussed, ranging from the sociology of religion in general and the sociology of Islam in particular to differentiation theory and civilizational analysis. In a second step, the direction in which a less essentialist but still differentiation-theoretically informed perspective on Islamic societies could be further developed is discussed. The article concludes with a plea for a relational sociology that is able to investigate diverse patterns of differentiation beyond the West and to do justice to the manifold inter- and intra-societal intertwinements of social spheres and their interactions without reducing non-Western forms of social order to a derivative or even deficit status.

D. Witte (B) Käte Hamburger Kolleg „Recht Als Kultur“, Bonn, Germany E-Mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 C. Gärtner and H. Winkel (eds.), Exploring Islam beyond Orientalism and Occidentalism, Veröffentlichungen der Sektion Religionssoziologie der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-33239-6_4

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Keywords

Sociology of Islam • Differentiation Theory • Multiple Differentiation • Multiple Modernities • Relationality • Relational Sociology • Boundaries

1

Introduction: Islam as Sociology’s Intellectual Stepchild

Over a relatively long period, Islam as a religion and as a civilization has been largely neglected by Western social sciences and, in particular, by sociologists. One may list many reasons for this, perhaps the most important being the almost natural, widely unquestioned understanding of sociology as the discipline exclusively devoted to the study of one’s own modern, secular (i.e., ‘Western’) societies. Fueled by a genuinely Western understanding of modernity itself, Islam simply did not seem to fit some of the discipline’s most fundamental assumptions, particularly the notion that secularization and functional differentiation are central features of modernization. More often than not Islam functioned as a constitutive other for the study of ‘modern society’. Hence, Islam was largely absent from the discipline’s view for most of its constitutive decades. A few exceptions aside, some of which I will discuss in this contribution, neither theorists of society nor sociologists of religion have shown any particular interest in the sociological analysis of Islamic societies but have instead left this to Orientalists and anthropologists. In this sense, we may, in fact, rephrase Talcott Parsons (1977) and call Islam an intellectual stepchild of twentieth century sociology. Although more recent popular identification of Islam with fundamentalism, Islamism, and even terrorism after September 11 was not helpful in correcting the perception of Islamic societies as anything other than an opposition to ‘Western modernity’, times have fortunately now changed. With the displacement of oversimplified versions of the secularization thesis into the realm of myths, with the broadening of the sociological horizon following the globalization discourse from the 1990s onwards, and with the widely shared acknowledgement that modernity appears in various (multiple) forms and manifestations, the conditions for a less prejudiced sociology of Islam have improved considerably. This is demonstrated by the steady growth of this field of research as well as the increasing number of publications on this topic, including the present volume. Nevertheless, I argue that sociology is still in need of a fundamental rupture épistémologique to better understand and analyze Islam, both as a religion and as a civilizational

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setting.1 My assertion is that substantialist accounts in general, and the reification of categories from the theory of differentiation in particular (such as the sharp distinction between religion, law, and politics), even where they are not at work in a strong paradigmatic sense, continue to guide sociological perspectives. This not only obscures understanding of societal figurations other than those in which these very categories were shaped, but also the interplay and interdependencies between varying social orders in multiple contexts of the Global South and North. In the following sections, I will elaborate on this argument and suggest that a relational turn in the study of Islam (as in sociology in general)—that draws attention to socio-historical entanglements as well as to the processual character of basic concepts such as ‘religion’—could help to overcome certain distortions that still prevail in many contemporary reflections on the subject, including not least the theory of social differentiation itself.

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Islam, Secularization, and the Classical Theory of Differentiation

To be clear from the start: all critique and possible weaknesses aside, the theory of differentiation represents one of the most eminent analytical frameworks in sociology. The fact that contemporary societies have established fields of relations which we may meaningfully distinguish from one another and then label as politics, law, or religion, for instance, both serves as an important empirical frame of orientation for social actors and their practices, and offers a highly powerful tool for the analysis of social structures and dynamics. This is not to say that differentiation theory in its currently dominating (and in particular in certain orthodox) forms is without problems. However, there is not a single theory of differentiation, but rather a number of varying approaches (Tyrell 1998)—from classic authors such as Weber, Durkheim, and Simmel to contemporary ones such as Luhmann, Bourdieu, or Latour—that share similar ideas but diverge when addressing the specifics. I believe that there are good reasons to adhere generally to these basic ideas. At the same time, I am convinced that there is still greater potential in this theoretical agenda, which can be exploited by further elaboration and modification. This would also enable a more adequate analytical approach to Islamic-influenced societies than is provided by the dominant approaches at the 1I

am well aware that I am using an overly simplified, monistic notion of ‘Islam’ here. As much as this (widespread) conceptual carelessness is a problem – "even": one that the present chapter even aims to deal with substantially –, my main arguments are of such general nature that I consider this mode of framing the subject tenable.

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current stage of theory development, which, in many cases, still take an ethnocentric perspective on society and focus solely on the state of highly specific patterns of differentiation. Interestingly, such modifications have already been accomplished both below and above the level of abstraction addressed by the theory of differentiation. On the one hand, the processes conceptualized as (functional, institutional, etc.) differentiation constitute one important component of what is typically described as modernization in classical modernization theory (exemplarily Parsons 1971; van der Loo and van Reijen 1992). Over the last decades, this classical version has come under enormous pressure and, on the whole, been abandoned by a majority of sociologists. The single most important scholar in this context, of course, is Shmuel Eisenstadt, who opened the doors to a better understanding of the social reality of multiple modernities (Eisenstadt 2000) thus preserving the very idea of modernity as a starting-point of sociological analysis from the bygone era of naïve Occidentalism. On the other hand, one specific form that differentiation processes can take is what is usually labelled as secularization, or at least one aspect of it, namely the differentiation of religion from other social spheres (Casanova 1994, pp. 19 ff.).2 Here, again, an impressive body of theoretical and empirical literature has moved the focus onto different modes of secularity (Taylor 2007; Künkler et al. 2018) or, seizing on Eisenstadt’s concept, onto multiple secularities in global society (Wohlrab-Sahr and Burchardt 2012). The theory of differentiation, however, stuck as it is between modernization—of which it is an integral component—and secularization—which, in turn, constitutes one special facet of it—has remained almost entirely unimpressed by these far-reaching developments in sociological accounts of (world) society and its historical dynamics. The considerations presented in this chapter start at precisely this point. My argument is that the rather marginalized historical role of the sociology of Islam can be explained, and that the current analytical potential of this field of research could also be increased, by drawing on a differentiation-theoretical perspective that abandons both substantialist categories (such as ‘religion’, ‘politics’, or ‘law’, when these are understood as almost naturally given entities) and the idea of sharp differences and strict autonomies of social spheres. Instead I opt for a relational account that puts fuzzy boundaries, the processes of their contestation, and relative autonomies center stage. For this purpose, I will first briefly revisit some of the classical contributions to the broad field in question, ranging

2 “Strictly

speaking, the theory of secularization is nothing more than a subtheory of general theories of differentiation” (Casanova 1994, p. 18).

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from the sociology of religion in general and the sociology of Islam in particular to the theory of differentiation and civilizational analysis. It is, of course, neither possible nor necessary to evaluate even the most important approaches in detail here, but I will highlight a few points that are of particular importance for my argument. In a second step, I will then briefly outline the direction in which a less essentialist perspective on Islamic societies, which is still informed by the theory of differentiation, could be further developed. I conclude with a plea for a relational sociology that is capable of investigating multiple patterns of differentiation beyond ‘the West’ and of doing justice to the manifold interand intra-societal intertwinements of social spheres and their interactions without reducing non-Western forms of social order to a derivative or even deficit status.

2.1

Max Weber and the (Non-)Differentiation of Spheres in Islam

Undoubtedly, one of the most important—and at the same time most controversial—contributions to a potential sociology of Islamic societies was Max Weber’s comparative sociology of religion and the scattered remarks on Islam that can be found in his work. In Weber’s comparative studies on the ethics of world religions and their relation to economic and societal development, differentiation was largely synonymous with the rationalization of the respective social spheres. The fundamental question was directed at the specific form that processes of rationalization took in the direction of a distinct law-like autonomy (Eigengesetzlichkeit): “Rationalizations in different areas of life have existed in the most various forms in all cultures. What is characteristic for their cultural-historical difference, however, is which spheres and in which direction they have been rationalized” (Weber 1988, pp. 11 ff.; my translation; emphasis added). It is common knowledge that Weber’s study of Islam (in all likelihood intended as part of the Economic Ethics of the World Religions, i.e. for the Collected Essays in the Sociology of Religion) was never published as a consolidated text, leaving Weber’s descriptions fragmentary, patchy, and scattered over different parts of his work (Schluchter 1999, pp. 53–64). However, Weber’s surviving remarks on the topic have become highly influential and, despite all criticism, combine to form “an exceptionally comprehensive and enduring approach to the history of Islamic civilizations” that “has not been radically surpassed in comparative sociological studies of religion”, as at least Bryan S. Turner (2010, pp. 163, 161) claims. Classical Islam, for Weber (1978, p. 624), was not a religion of salvation, but a “national Arabic warrior religion” to which the very concept of inner-worldly

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salvation and a corresponding ethics remained alien (Weber 1978, p. 625). Its asceticism “was basically the rigour and simplicity of a military caste” (Turner 1974, p. 235), so that Weber (1978, p. 512) identified in the “warrior who wants to conquer the world” the primary carrier group and regarded Islam as such as “essentially political” (Weber 1978, p. 625). Conversely, religion appeared to Weber as a force pervading all other spheres of social life in Islamic societies. In Weber’s view, the absence of inner-worldly asceticism not only did not promote processes of differentiation and rationalization, but the role of Islam as an all-embracing belief system and as the foundation of society’s structure as a whole even actively hampered these developments: “Industrialisation”, Weber (1978, p. 1095) states in a much-cited passage, “was not impeded by Islam as the religion of individuals […], but by the religiously determined structure of the Islamic states, their officialdom and their jurisprudence”.3 This quotation already hints at Weber’s remarks on Islamic jurisprudence in his sociology of law,4 which makes his point even clearer. According to these writings, Islamic law was caught in a dualism of holy and profane law, “a dualism of religious and secular administration of justice” (Weber 1978, p. 822), with the holy law (Shari’a) being “derived ultimately from prophecy and divine revelation” (Turner 1974, p. 236), and “worldly” law being accounted for as patrimonial “qadi justice”. According to Weber (1978, p. 821), the former “could not be disregarded; nor could it […] be really carried out in practice” due to the strongly limited possibilities to interpret the Holy Scriptures (Weber 1978, pp. 820 ff.; Turner 2010, p. 163; Gephart 2015, p. 113 ff.). The latter was considered by Weber as charismatic, yet unsystematized and informal. In effect, he perceived ‘Islamic’ law as either “inherently inflexible” or fundamentally “unstable” (Turner 1974, 3 Islam’s

path to rationalization, in Weber’s account, was additionally blocked by a second development, namely the rise of Sufism. While this could have brought “an infusion of intellectualism” to the warrior religion of Islam, according to Weber (1978, p. 512), its “orientation was not along intellectual lines”, and it did precisely not introduce asceticism but a mystical, contemplative religiosity for the masses (Weber, p. 555 ff.; Weber 2004b, p. 57). “The ideal personality type in the religion of Islam was not the scholarly scribe (Literat), but the warrior. […] To be sure, there were ascetic sects among the Muslims. But this was the asceticism of a military caste, of a martial order of knights, not of monks. […] Moreover, it was effective only periodically, and even then it tended to merge into fatalism. […] Islam was diverted completely from any really methodical control of life by the advent of the cult of saints, and finally by magic.” (Weber 1978, p. 626 ff.) The “degree to which a religion has ridden itself of magic”, however, is considered one of two measures for the “stage of rationalization represented in a religion” (Weber 2004a, p. 35). 4 For a recent collection of papers on various aspects of Weber’s sociology of law, including the issues discussed here, see also Gephart and Witte (2017).

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p. 236), either “religiously limited or […] impracticable” (Gephart 2015, p. 116). And since both legal orders ultimately stood under the supremacy of the sacred, they were both hindered in their formalization and rationalization in Weber’s view (Schluchter 1999). For Weber, the problems of Islamic law thus clearly lay in a lack of differentiation. It was obvious to him that “[a]ccording to theory, Islam knows next to no domain of legal life in which the demands of holy norms do not block the path for the development of profane law” (Weber, quoted after the translation in Gephart 2015, p. 116), and that, even historically speaking, nothing could prevent “rational legal thought from being stifled by theological ways of thinking” (Weber 2004c, p. 51). This understanding of Islamic law as a dysfunctional dual structure under the dominance of religious doctrine constitutes one major key to understanding Weber’s entire image of Islam. Thus, Djedi (2011, p. 66) is only half right when he states that for Weber, “the real stumbling block” on the way to capitalist modernity “was not religious, but political, bureaucratic and legal”—in fact, it was the very permeation of politics, bureaucracy, and the law by religion that Weber saw as the main obstacle on Islam’s road to modernity. “Which spheres and in which direction these sphere have been rationalized” in the case of Islam, was a question to which Weber could not give a positive, more differentiated answer. I do not agree with Turner (1974, however, p. 230), who suggested that Weber had “stressed the wrong question about Islam” (emphasis added). Rather, I would hold that his central question regarding the rationalization and differentiation of spheres could have led him to other, more fruitful conclusions, had he posed the question differently, or maybe: in a more radical way—namely by not assuming that the meaning of concepts such as religion or law (or Islam, including its relations to the former) are self-evident from the start. Here, I am again in full agreement with Turner when he trenchantly points out that Weber “never faced the problem of whether a complex meaning system such as ‘Islam’ can be unambiguously treated as a ‘religion’”, while in fact “[u]ncovering the multiplicity of meanings encased in the term ‘Islam’” can be considered “part of the sociologist’s fundamental task” (Turner 1974, p. 233). Interestingly, it was a contemporary of Weber, and indeed someone who had an influence on his writings on Islam that should not be underestimated (Gephart 2015, p. 113), who managed to avoid this epistemological trap of simply identifying Islam as a religion, namely Ignaz Goldziher. In fact, exactly this makes Goldziher’s studies outstanding—not only in contrast to Weber’s work, but also to the work of the majority of early-20th -century Orientalists. As Georg Stauth has put it, “Goldziher was the only one of the classical Islamic scholars who remained aware that Islamic culture was not to be seen from the perspective of a departmentalization of religious doctrine, theology, law, and profane sciences. For

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him, the puzzle was precisely the egregious integrative power that Islam was able to exert on all phenomena of practical and spiritual life” (Staudt 2000, p. 237, my translation).

2.2

Islam as an Evolutionary Laggard: Parsons and Luhmann

But back to classical sociology and Max Weber, who was far from alone in his assessment of Islamic civilization. Talcott Parsons, for instance, also found fault with a lack of systematicity and rationality of Islamic law, as well as with the plurality of legal schools and the pluralization of authority following from it, stating that “this made differentiation among the political, religious, and legal foci of societal organization still more difficult” (Parsons 1966, p. 85). Almost naturally, the Islamic tradition, which he dealt with merely in terms of a ‘historic intermediary empire’, was treated as a contrast to Western modernity, if not as a ‘dead end’ in the scheme of societal evolution. A similar mixture—half ignoring Islamic civilization, half pushing it into dark and ‘undifferentiated’ historic ages—can be found in Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory. For Luhmann, “older societies” solved the problem of the monopoly of legitimate violence “by sacred foundations of political authority”, while “the separation of religion and politics belongs to the obvious structures of society since the Middle Ages” (Luhmann 2000a, pp. 193 f., my translation). Accordingly, Luhmann writes, “nobody is to be found (outside of Islam, one probably has to add nowadays) who would quote an external legitimator for political decisions” (ibid., p. 359, my translation). Likewise, the twentieth century, according to Luhmann, was characterized less by secularization than by a specific structure according to which “participation [or inclusion] in religion can no longer be made a requirement for the participation in other function systems”; and “if it happens nevertheless, as today in some states avowing themselves to Islam, it hampers the […] fulfillment of political functions” (Luhmann 2000b, p. 53, my translation).5 And again, Islamic societies appear as rather ‘premodern’ and—in structural terms—necessarily dysfunctional figurations that have not (yet) adapted to the demands and prerequisites of modernity, the main problem being their lack of structural differentiation. We can find such assessments, or at least closely related accounts, in the writings of many authors. The pattern, according to which societal differentiation is 5 Incidentally,

this quotation also makes clear how much Luhmann secretly relied on a substantialist concept of functionality (and an equally essentialist concept of ‘politics’), one that believes that it knows a priori what the functions of politics are.

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identified with modernity, on the one hand, and with a specific, ‘particularistic’ understanding of secularization (Winkel 2017), on the other, seemingly leaves little room for other interpretations. If the Islamic civilization is not (yet) secularized in the sense of Western models of separating religion and politics, the church and the state, then it obviously is lagging behind in the process of differentiation and, ultimately, cannot be considered fully ‘modern’ (for a rather emphatic version of this series of fallacies see Tibi 1980; 2001, pp. 93 ff., 110 ff., 141 ff., 159 f.). I hold that all three conceptual components of this equation— modernity, secularization, and societal differentiation—are flawed when applied in an overly simplistic manner; that they have to be pluralized, diversified, and elaborated towards comparative research; and, most importantly, that, while this has been largely accomplished over the course of the last decades regarding the first and the second concept, it remains a major task with respect to the third. While modernity and secularity are increasingly treated as phenomena that differ in shape, form, and quality, differentiation is still largely considered a mere matter of degree, i.e. of ‘more’ or ‘less’, without equal attention being paid to its highly diverse qualitative manifestations. Support for this assertion can be found in the writings of an author who has contributed most significantly to the advance in rethinking and conceptualizing secularization, namely José Casanova. As he pointedly states, “one should ask whether it is appropriate to subsume the multiple and diverse historical patterns of differentiation and fusion of the various institutional spheres (that is, church and state, state and economy, economy and science) that one finds throughout the history of modern Western societies into a single teleological process of modern functional differentiation” (Casanova 2006, pp. 9 f.). While Casanova, given his own research focus, is mostly interested in the consequences that this widespread misconception has for secularization theory, he is one of the few scholars who has recognized the greater general relevance of this question, as evidenced by the examples that he chooses to support his perspective, ranging from state– church relations to the differentiation of religion and science or economy to the role and the fundamental value orientations of social movements in different societies. Consequently, Casanova also speaks of “Multiple Differentiations, Secularizations, and Modernities” (2006, p. 11) in a broader sense, thus making it unmistakably clear that a more differentiated approach to secularization processes and a general comparative perspective on civilizations and their respective differentiation structures are merely two sides of the same coin.

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From Teleologies to Modes of Differentiation: Shmuel Eisenstadt

I will now briefly illustrate this basic idea of different modes or patterns of differentiation by drawing on the work of Shmuel Eisenstadt to whom, in turn, we owe most of the progress that has been made in the field of modernization theory. Eisenstadt’s theory (or rather: research program) of multiple modernities, as is well known, is based on the fundamental premise that ‘modernity’ is a specific type of civilization as compared to those of the Axial Age, and is characterized by a distinct cultural worldview as well as a new set of institutional arrangements (Eisenstadt 2001, p. 321 and passim). Moreover, modernity exists in many different forms, with his later works increasingly turning against the idea that the cultural programs and institutional formations of modernity were developed in modern Europe alone and simply extended to the entire globe. The Western patterns of modernity do not constitute “the only ‘authentic’ modernities, though they enjoy historical precedence and continue to be a basic reference point for others” (Eisenstadt 2000, p. 3). From these initial positions, Eisenstadt’s multiple modernities approach has spawned a broad field of historical and comparative research that puts the multiplicity of distinctively ‘modern’ cultural programs and institutional constellations, including their respective relations to one another, and the diversity of interpretations and reformulations of these patterns center stage. Hence, the aforementioned variability of societal differentiation forms an important aspect of this research program. As Eisenstadt prominently writes: “While a general trend toward structural differentiation developed across a wide range of institutions in most of these [modernizing and modern] societies—in family life, economic and political structures, urbanization, modern education, mass communication, and individualistic orientations—the ways in which these arenas were defined and organized varied greatly, in different periods of their development, giving rise to multiple institutional and ideological patterns” (Eisenstadt 2000, p. 1 f.; similarly Eisenstadt et al. 2002, p. 1). With such statements, Eisenstadt provides one of the most important forays into the otherwise largely unexplored terrain at hand. I first maintain, however, that the dimension of structural differentiation in the narrower sense of differentiation theory—in Eisenstadt’s own words: “the modes of structural differentiation” (2003a, p. 17)—is, in fact, too often pushed to the background in his analyses, in favor of the comparative analysis of modernity’s cultural programs, the formation and demarcation of collectivities and identities, as well as other types of differentiation (such as between the public and the private sphere, religious orthodoxies and heterodoxies, or between centers and peripheries; Eisenstadt 2003a; 2003b;

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2003c). Second, and closely connected to this prioritization, I suggest that the key idea (that the ways in which differentiated spheres “were defined and organized varied greatly”) could be exploited in a much more radical and possibly even more fruitful manner.6 To give but one example: In his pivotal Daedalus article, Eisenstadt (2000, p. 6) speaks of the role which the political and its boundaries play in the heterogeneity of multiple modernities: “From the ideology and premises of the political program of modernity and the core characteristics of modern political institutions, there emerged three central aspects of the modern political process: the restructuring of center-periphery relations as the principal focus of political dynamics in modern societies; a strong tendency toward politicizing the demands of various sectors of society, and the conflicts between them; and a continuing struggle over the definition of the realm of the political. Indeed, it is only with the coming of modernity that drawing the boundaries of the political becomes one of the major foci of open political contestation and struggle”. Some of the central aspects mentioned in this paragraph indeed pinpoint the type of questions that I am focusing on as well. However, formulations such as “the political program of modernity” and “modern political institutions” already have to assume a rather precise idea of what the ‘political’ means. Likewise, and even more obviously, “politicizing the demands of various sectors of society” not only presupposes a concept of what is ‘political’, and how and in what exact direction it changes “sectors of society” by reshaping or transforming it, but, in logical terms, it also implies an antecedent ‘apolitical’ character of these other sectors.7 These concerns may sound either trivial or pedantic, but they touch on essential questions, especially when referring to the difficult relations between politics and, inter alia, law, religion as well as morals. As Talal Asad (1993) has stressed prominently, the meaning of concepts such as ‘religion’ (or, for that matter, ‘politics’, ‘law’, and so forth) is far from fixed, natural, or self-explanatory; rather, these concepts refer to complex social constructions that are embedded in highly specific cultural and historical contexts (see also Saler 1993; Benda-Beckmann 2002; Benda-Beckmann and Benda-Beckmann 2016). In this regard, we find a 6 One major reason for this can be seen in a strong tendency in Eisenstadt’s writings to identify

‘differentiation’ with ‘structural’ or, even clearer, ‘institutional differentiation’. This would, of course, constitute only one (albeit important) aspect of what classical as well as modern theories of differentiation aim to describe. 7 This problem is also apparent, for example, in the discussion of ‘political’ or ‘politicized’ Islam. If what we would call governmental and religious forces have always been linked in the Islamic tradition (see also below), then what exactly is the sense of such terms? I am not arguing that the phenomena or processes that they are referring to do not exist at all; however, I doubt that such notions manage to grasp their deeper meaning.

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notable number of remarks in Eisenstadt’s account of the Islamic civilization that seemingly speak of ‘politics’ and ‘religion’ without any problems, even where the very intertwinement of the two, the difficulty of clearly separating them according to Western conceptions, or simply their different meaning and variability is at stake (Eisenstadt 1992; 1993, pp. 13 ff., 22 ff.; 2003d). We indeed have to ask for “the conception of the political order and its relation to other societal orders” (Eisenstadt 2003c, p. 429)—but how do we draw the boundaries when doing so? To repeat, this is not at all meant as a critique of Eisenstadt, who of all scholars in comparative sociology was probably most sensitive to these problems; it is rather meant as an indication towards crucial issues that are not only at the bottom of the entire debate on Orientalism (basically starting with Said 1978), but concern the epistemological and methodological foundations of social-scientific practice in general. “We cannot avoid Western concepts”, Eisenstadt (2003c, p. 428) writes— not coincidentally in an article on Islamic societies, “but we can make them more flexible, so to speak, through differentiation and contextualization”. We may also “account for the internal dynamics of […] non-European modern civilizations at least to some extent in their own terms” (ibid.), but Eisenstadt is well aware that neither strategy is fully capable of circumventing the pitfalls of Occidentalism, even if each already constitutes a major step forward compared to the classic sociological perspectives mentioned before.

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Revisiting Islam’s Plurality from a Differentiation Theoretical Perspective

Against this backdrop, it is not without reason that the relation of religion, law, politics, morals, and ethics in the Islamic tradition has often been described as one of entanglement. It has been stated many times that Islam, in contrast to, for example, Buddhism, can be considered as a “political religion par excellence” (Toprak 1981, p. 22; Nafissi 2016, p. 103); that law and religion were inseparable, up to the point that “Law is Religion and Religion is Law, because both have the same source and an equal authority, being both contained in the same divine revelation” (Bryce 1901, II, p. 219); and that Islam may be treated as “a rich ensemble of religious, juridical, and literary traditions” (Salvatore 2016, p. 271). We could add further similar quotations almost ad infinitum, which not only indicates a certain fascination with this supposedly ‘undifferentiated’, holistic arrangement, but may also raise the question: If what we are used to treating as different is so closely intertwined, what is the point of speaking of ‘politics’, ‘law’, or Islam as a ‘religion’ at all?

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From a systematical perspective, applying overly sharp (‘Western’) distinctions between religion and other spheres, without a doubt, leads to confusion and the posing of falsely stated questions. While Shari’a, the very core of Islam as a legalistic or “juridical religion” (Ballard et al. 2009, p. 16), does in fact include what would be called law from a Western perspective, it is largely misleading to equate it with Islamic law (in fact, there is not even an equivalent in classic Arabic for the English word law; Weiss 2006, p. 17). Shari’a rather describes a way of life in the most encompassing sense: from general rules of conduct to advice on believing and practicing faith to regular ‘legal’ rules and rules for their judicial application. The inner structure of Shari’a, as a comprehensive normative system, mirrors this character which is clearly transverse to Western tradition (Rohe 2015, pp. 10 ff.; Weiss 2006, pp. 18 ff.). In one of its basic categorizations, Shari’a distinguishes practices along the attributes according to whether they are obligatory, recommended, neutral, disapproved of, or forbidden—but while the obligatory and the forbidden may be tied to formal sanctions and thus fit into a Western concept of law, the other three categories obviously do not. Other crucial distinctions, such as between valid (s.ah.¯ıh.) and invalid (b¯a.til) acts, also include legal, moral, and religious dimensions. In short, law may certainly be regarded as an “integral component of the theology of Islam” (Ballard et al. 2009, p. 16), but again, this very statement already indicates the deficiencies of a naive application of these concepts, because it cannot avoid reifying the categorical distinction that it seeks to overcome. Historically speaking, Islam, in contrast to Christianity, was not founded by members of any other monotheistic religion but by Arabian pagans. In turn, the early Muslims “did not appropriate an empire but rather created one” (Weiss 2006, p. 5; Hallaq 2005, pp. 8 ff.). In this regard, both politics and religion in Islam developed in fact “in the context of a polity of its own making” so that “[m]onotheistic law and monotheistic polity went hand in hand” and “a divinely ordained law unfolded in the midst of a developing political community whose needs it was designed to meet” (Weiss 2006, pp. 3 f.; Eisenstadt 1993, p. 23). “Islam”, in the words of Casanova (1994, p. 48), is the unique historical case of a religion which was born simultaneously as a religious charismatic community of salvation and as a political community. This was expressed in the dual religious and political charisma of its founder, Muhammad, as God’s messenger and as [a] political and military leader. It is even more literally expressed by the fact that the Islamic era begins not with the birth or death of a founder or with the date of revelation but, rather, with the hijra, or migration, which marks the foundation of the Islamic political community in Medina (‘the City’). The umma, the Islamic

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From a sociological perspective, this is, however, only half the story, and hence Casanova (1994, p. 48) instantly continues by stating that “it is totally inaccurate to argue that Islam has no differentiated religious and political spheres. Indeed, the history of Islam could be viewed as the history of the various institutionalizations of the dual religious and political charisma of Muhammad into dual and differentiated religious and political institutions”. On the level of ideas and values, regarding chains of authority and legitimacy, and with respect to Islam as a religion in the narrower sense, these connections may indeed be so close that for Western observers, it can become difficult to draw meaningful distinctions; on the level of institutional contexts, concerning social role structures and elite positions, and when discussing Islamdom in a wider civilizational sense,8 it would nevertheless be absurd to deny it its specific patterns of structural differentiation, even if they may differ from Western ones—not least regarding their very relations to the former (Eisenstadt 1999; 2003b, p. 59; 2003c, p. 409; Casanova 2009, p. 30). Again, these patterns can be traced back to the early days of Islam: Beginning in the seventh century and mirroring the highly specific historical founding situation, the Umayyad dynasty established a system of justice whose judges (qadi) were direct subordinates of the Caliph. It soon became independent scholars (ahl al-ra’y), however, who competed with these judges, thereby causing an early tension between the official regime and private scholarship, and who took over the shaping of Islamic law as Shari’a. At this point in time, different legal schools developed from a number of important regional centers, with interschool debates and polemics leading to more sophisticated legal argumentation, the refined use of analogical reasoning, and greater coherence of the law (Hallaq 2005, pp. 63 ff., 113 ff.; Bearman et al. 2006; Weiss 2006, pp. 7 ff.). Soon, the legal schools still known today started to develop (Melchert 1997), establishing a body of scholars devoted to the interpretation of the hadiths (ahl al-h.ad¯ıth) and the compilation of hadith narratives as a body of legally relevant texts. Interpretation, hermeneutics, and exegesis of holy scriptures thus became the key skills of legal scholars who were trained in the principles of Islamic jurisprudence (us.u¯ l al-fiqh) in the madrasas from the eleventh century on and quickly turned into “immovable rocks of Islamic society that the ruling regime would never be able to challenge 8I

am following authors such as Marshall Hodgson (1974) and Armando Salvatore (2010; 2016) here, who distinguish between Islam in a religious sense and Islamdom in a civilizational sense (Salvatore also stresses the relations between the two), and between Islamic and Islamicate as adjectives referring to religious and cultural phenomena respectively.

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or dislodge” (Weiss 2006, p. 16; Eisenstadt 1992, p. 156). What we find here is a process of differentiation that is of utmost historical importance, largely at the level of carrier groups or elite positions, yet one that left the ideational and culturally influential intermingling of law, religion, and politics largely intact (or, one could argue, even strengthened it in a certain way). It is, of course, not possible to further pursue here the complex historical developments that followed from this point. The history of Islamic law underwent a large number of revisions and reform movements from the 12th to nineteenth centuries (Rohe 2015, pp. 215 ff.) and then changed again considerably from the nineteenth century due to Western influence and colonialism (Hallaq 2009, pp. 85 ff.), leading to codification processes and, in some instances, to hybrid legal systems (e.g. in South Asia and Egypt). The breakthrough of the nation-state often limited classical Islamic law to questions of national civil (family, personal statute, etc.) law, before the ‘re-Islamization’ of law and society became a political demand throughout large parts of the Islamic world again beginning in the 1970s. While these upheavals could simply be described as processes of differentiation and subsequent de-differentiaton (particularly of law and religion), they turn out upon closer consideration rather as a series of reconfigurations that ran straight through the legal sphere itself, moving the boundaries between different legal fields to the foreground and the simplistic ‘law-religion divide’ to the background. Moreover, the “return of the sacred” reconstituted Islam as a “transnational religious regime and as a global imagined community”, the ummah (Casanova 2009, p. 31; Roy 2004), while on the other hand prompting further inner legal, political, and, more generally, societal plurality (Hallaq 2009, pp. 115 ff., 140 ff.; Rohe 2015, pp. 525 ff.; Geertz 1968). As Olivier Roy (2014, p. 118) has noted, speaking of “re-Islamization hides a very important fact”, namely that it has “contributed to the diversification and the individualization of the religious field”, in parts “disconnecting religion from daily politics” as well as from culture, thereby even “contributing to the secularization of society” (emphasis added; see also Roy 2010, emphasis added). In effect, if there is only one thing evident about ‘the Islamic civilization’ today as seen from the cruising altitude of social theory, then it is indeed this enormous inner plurality.9 Even if I am not as skeptical as Said Arjomand (2004, p. 215) when it comes to “broad ideal-types of entire

9 Which,

as a side note, does of course also apply to, e.g., ‘the Western civilization’. In this sense, the theoretical framework argued for in this chapter allows for a more differentiated view not only of non-Western societies, but also of the variability of differentiation patterns of the supposedly more familiar societies of ‘the West’.

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civilizations”, he is undoubtedly right in stating that they are always in need of further historicization, cultural contextualization, and empirical research.10 In defense of sociological theory, however, for further inquiries in this direction, we are at the same time in need of an analytical framework that is both elaborated and flexible enough to identify, describe and explain common patterns, systematical differences, and singularities. I assert that the theory of (societal) differentiation of relatively autonomous spheres is an extremely powerful tool for such endeavors.11 Differentiation, however, does not mean that connections or relations of interchange between differentiated spheres do not exist (hence: relative autonomy), and nor that value spheres, plural worldviews, institutional orders, and fields of practice are always congruent and share the exact same boundaries. Once we abandon the idea that such boundaries are fixed, stable, and natural, we need to turn from presupposed entities—such as religion or politics, ‘Islam’ or ‘the West’—towards relations, processes, and practices, and particularly towards the very relations, processes, and practices that constitute, shape, and continuously transform these alleged ‘entities’ in the first place. Belief systems, in general, and religion, in particular, do, of course, play a significant role in how these relations and processes develop historically—this, at least, we can (still) learn from Max Weber. In other words, “we need to rethink the issue of the changing boundaries between differentiated spheres and the possible structural roles religion may have within those differentiated spheres as well as the role it may have in challenging the boundaries themselves” (Casanova 1994, p. 7). The vision that Casanova offers here is the vision of a modified, more advanced, general theory of differentiation that meets the requirements of a truly global sociology; a theory that is able to account for different civilizational contexts (including Islam) without either giving up the idea of structural differentiation as a whole or denying (or downplaying) the specific patterns of differentiation and versions of modernity that can be observed outside of the West. However, more than two decades later, and while both secularization theory and modernization theory have made significant advances in this very direction, we still lack such a theory. 10 For a good example of how Arjomand seeks to enrich the “appealing” yet “simplistic” framework of Eisenstadt at this point, see Arjomand (2005). 11 In fact, I would argue that this theory has to take processes and patterns of cultural differentiation and class structures into account at the same time, and look for the relational effects of these different dimensions. The proper label for this type of theory, hence, would probably be ‘multiple differentiation’ (Renn 2006; Witte 2017). This theoretical form can certainly draw on a long debate, not least in German sociology, in which possible integrations of differentiation theory and theories of social inequality (or stratification) have been discussed for many years (Tyrell 1978; Schwinn 1998, 2001, 2004; Schimank 1998, 2015).

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Against the background of these observations, it seems obvious to me that not least the example of Islamic societies forces us to place the basic methodological principle of relationality at the beginning of a corresponding development of theory. As we have seen, our essentializing ideas about what—ahistorically and a priori—can be understood as ‘law’ or ‘religion’ fail because of the interweaving of highly diverse normative expectations, as they are constitutive for Islam and can only be adequately understood in their interaction and mutual interpenetration. In addition, the Islamic example in a historical perspective once again points to the central importance of the interrelatedness of social spheres (for instance, the embedding of the religious sphere in political and military contexts, and the specific power relations that prevail between these spheres) and to the always only relative relations of autonomy, which can be asserted for the respective spheres and, at the same time, must be analytically brought into focus. The example also makes it clear that cultural traditions, on the one hand, and social structures or institutional settings, on the other, do exhibit a relative autonomy as well, but can only ever be meaningfully studied in their interactions. Finally, especially the recent history of Islamic societies and the associated reconfiguration of different social spheres and their relations also points to the entanglements between different national or civilizational contexts, both within the Islamic world and between its societies and those of the West. In this sense, I will now turn to some concluding remarks on how a relational approach could serve as a basis for the development of a theoretical framework that places precisely these manifold relations at the center of analysis; preserves the analytical potential of differentiation theory; and frees it from essentializing ideas about the character, structure, and complex relations of social spheres.

4

Outlook: Relational Sociology and Multiple Differentiations Beyond the West

Relational sociology is a general style of conceiving social phenomena that stresses the analytical primacy of relations between any given entities over those entities themselves, thereby standing in principle opposition to substantialist approaches that start their analytical reasoning from these very entities and merely add relations in a second step (if at all). As Norbert Elias (1978, p. 116) put it, relational sociology, in contrast “starts from the connections, the relationships,

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and works out from there to the elements involved in them”.12 It is important to stress, however, that this principle applies not only to the most obvious case, namely the relations between human actors: just as relational sociology seeks to understand actors and their practices on the basis of their embeddedness in social relations, it also generally thinks from structures to elements, from processes to entities, from discourses to meanings, or from relations of autonomy and heteronomy and from the interaction of social spheres to their inner logic—while at the same time trying to undermine false dichotomies systematically (such as structure versus agency, structure versus process, structure versus culture, and so forth). As has been argued elsewhere (Witte et al. 2017), the principle of relationality can furthermore be applied on four different levels of sociological thinking and research: on the levels of ontology and epistemology (which tend to blur from this perspective), fundamental social theory (Sozialtheorie), theories of society (Gesellschaftstheorie), and research practice and methodology. In the sense of some final suggestions, I will now mainly draw on the first and the third to address again this chapter’s main concern: the differentiation of religion from other social spheres on an epistemological and conceptual level, and the question of their boundaries and their interaction from the perspective of the theory of society. Firstly, the reason for the problems discussed here is that religion—just like other key concepts in the social sciences—is frequently dealt with as a preestablished, a priori determinable entity, with specific (typically ‘Western’) ideas and standards then being applied in this determination. However, such difficult concepts should be treated as results, not as starting points of social processes and their sociological analysis. Here, the first and possibly most important step consists of starting with a relational epistemology that does not presuppose or postulate categorical distinctions, but rather declares what religion ‘is’ in a certain context (i.e. how it is socially and discursively produced and then treated as such) as a fuzzy yet crucial object of study. Once this perspective has been adopted, it quickly becomes noticeable that differentiating religion from other realms and classifying specific phenomena as religious (or non-religious, for that matter) are not only difficult analytical tasks, but also practical concerns of social agents and longstanding political issues—issues related to power and the authority to

12 “Es ist der spezifischen Verflechtungsordnung und den ihr eigentümlichen Zusammenhangsformen, mit denen man es in der Soziologie zu tun hat, angemessener, wenn man von den Beziehungen her auf das Bezogene hin denkt” (Elias 2004, p. 124; my emphasis).

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draw such distinctions and thereby shape others’ perspectives in ways considered legitimate (Turner and Kirsch 2016, pp. 6 ff.).13 Definitions of religion and its multiple constitutive others (including definitions of secularity, etc.) are not only the results of historical processes that can take very different directions, but they are also, almost naturally, highly conflictual. A suitable theory would thus be well-advised to put such conflicts center stage instead of starting with explicit or hidden ontologies and teleologies. Secondly, a relational account stresses the entanglement of religion with other societal spheres, as opposed to a clinical understanding of differentiation as total separation. If we look only at the supposedly secular legal and political Western tradition, we find that even here religious practices are regulated by different systems of legal rules (and other normative orders, such as custom), which, in turn, themselves originate from and are embedded in cultural and religious traditions, and are influenced by religious ideas, ideas of religion (including decisions on what is legally coded as such), and specific conceptions of the human being and ‘good’ society. In other words, we should not only take seriously the account according to which the premodern period, even in European civilization, was characterized by a “theologico-juridical episteme” in which religion was “totally impregnated with legal culture just as legal thought [was] bathed by religious culture” (Nerhot 1992, p. 64)—but we should also consider this to be a systematical rather than mere historical argument. The same, of course, applies to the role of religious ideas and arguments in the political sphere and to the political nature of religious claims and aspirations, as it does, of course, apply to any other field relation. In short, a relational approach draws attention to the fact that, in the (historical as well as contemporary) analysis of supposedly ‘autonomous’ fields, there is never just one single logic to be considered, but always also their manifold interweaving and interaction in empirical practice. On a related note, this way of emphasizing the relations between different social spheres also stresses the relationality of what is considered ‘micro’ and ‘macro’ in other theoretical traditions; here: practice, rules and institutions, long-standing traditions, social structures, and the distribution of authority and power, etc. As previously mentioned, value spheres (Weber), systems of communicative meaning (Luhmann), or fields of practice (Bourdieu) are not to be identified prematurely, and a high degree of institutional differentiation, as the example of Islam demonstrates, does not exactly exclude the existence of overarching values or hegemonic ideas and 13 This is exactly what is at stake in the Bourdieusian ‘field of power’, which can thereby serve as a theoretical framework for analyzing such processes (Bourdieu 2014; Witte 2015; Schmitz et al. 2017; Schmitz and Witte 2017; Schneickert, Witte and Schmitz 2020).

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codes that make their presence felt in different realms of society (and vice versa). Just as a relational approach pleads to principally consider social fields in the light of their plurality and coexistence (Schmitz et al. 2017), so these fields themselves should also be analyzed as heterogeneous entities that consist of elements, branches, or segments which again can be better understood by taking their internal relational structure into account. Thirdly, and finally, this logic, applies not only to legal, political, and religious fields in isolated national frameworks, but also to the fundamental relationality of legal and political orders as well as religions and belief systems on a transnational and global scale. On the level of world society, we find a large variety of political and legal systems, just as religious traditions do not exist independently but constitute a global field of religious beliefs, communities, institutions, and organizations. These alleged ‘entities’ do, in fact, interact and communicate; they overlap, permeate, and continuously transform each other, so that we are welladvised to study them in these very entanglements, and in relation to the common global structure that they constitute. Once we have realigned our analytical gaze according to such modifications, it becomes absurd to distinguish between a consolidated ‘Western’ civilization on the one hand, and a homogenous ‘Islamic’ civilization on the other hand, or to attach dichotomous blanket labels such as differentiated vs. undifferentiated, modern vs. premodern, or secular vs. religious in an across-the-board manner. In this chapter, I have argued that many mistakes made by early sociologists regarding the analysis and evaluation of Islamic societies can be overcome by pluralizing and revising our theoretical toolbox. What has already been achieved in the sociology of secularization and in the theory of modernization or modernity still needs to be pushed forward in the theory of differentiation. Once modified along the lines sketched in this chapter, and according to some fundamental ideas from relational sociology, the theory of differentiation can still offer a powerful instrument for comparative civilizational analysis, in general, and for the sociology of Islam, in particular. Just like ‘modernity’ and ‘secularity’, ‘societal differentiation’ is by no means a Western idiosyncrasy—it may simply look different in other parts of the world.

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The Gendered Perception of Islam in Western Societies: Problematizing Culturalist and Feminist Approaches Christel Gärtner

Abstract

In this chapter I will reflect the gendered perception of Islam in Western societies. Empirical studies in European countries show that Muslims are associated with misogyny, violence, and intolerance. It is striking that the perception of Islam as misogynistic and prone to violence is itself already gendered: while Muslim women are generally regarded as the victims of religiously legitimized oppression, their male counterparts tend to be regarded as perpetrators who act based on norms of masculinity that legitimize violence, with these norms being regarded in turn as religiously grounded. First, I will outline the argumentation structure of the gendered perception of Islam in the public discourse of Western societies. Secondly, problematize culturalist and feminist approaches that essentialize Muslim gender relations as unequal and backward and discuss the implications of these approaches. In the third part, I will argue that studies using more differentiated concepts and consider gender relations in the context are better able to understand the complex and contradictory reality of Muslim women and men. Finally, I will raise the question of how we can examine Muslim gender relations conceptually and methodologically without falling into the traps of secularist, essentialist, or culturalist concepts.

C. Gärtner (B) Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics”, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, Münster, Germany E-Mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 C. Gärtner and H. Winkel (eds.), Exploring Islam beyond Orientalism and Occidentalism, Veröffentlichungen der Sektion Religionssoziologie der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-33239-6_5

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Keywords

Muslim gender relations • Gender inequality • Gendered perception of Islam Public discourses • Culturalist, feminist and secularist approaches • Turkish-Muslim masculinity

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Introduction

The shift towards secularization that took place in the 1960s resulted in most Western societies in a change in values that was accompanied by an egalitarian conception of gender roles, liberal sexual norms, and the rejection of a traditionally anchored and religiously legitimized sexual morality (Gärtner 2019a). It is against this background that we should interpret reservations about Islam, which, according to popular opinion, supports gender inequality. A study carried out by Detlef Pollack et al. (2014) in several European countries shows that Muslims are associated with misogyny, violence, and intolerance. For example, around 80% of the population in all countries think of discrimination against women when they hear the keyword ‘Islam’; around 70% associate Islam with fanaticism, around 60% with a propensity to violence, and just over half with narrow-mindedness, the German population being significantly more intolerant of Muslims than the population in other European countries (Pollack 2014, p. 21 ff.). It is striking here that the perception of Islam as misogynistic and prone to violence is itself already gendered: while Muslim women are generally regarded as the victims of religiously legitimized oppression, their male counterparts tend to be regarded as perpetrators who act on the basis of norms of masculinity that legitimize violence, with these norms being regarded in turn as religiously grounded. In this article, I would like to explore how we can examine gender orders in Islam without subsuming them under Western norms or pre-formed categories. First, I will outline the argumentation structure of the gendered perception of Islam in the public discourse of Western societies (2). Using studies of Muslim women and men that take a liberal-feminist or culturalist approach and that essentialize the object of study, I will then argue that such an approach certainly gives scientific underpinning to the social discourse that views Muslim gender relations as unequal and backward (3). In the third part, I will look at more nuanced studies and show that differentiated scientific concepts which consider also the social context are better able to reflect the multi-layered and contradictory reality of Muslim women and men (4). Finally, in an outlook section, I will raise the question of

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how we can examine the Muslim gender order conceptually and methodologically without falling into the traps of secularist, essentialist, or culturalist concepts (5).

2

Gendered Perception of Islam in the Public Discourse

Discussions in many Western societies about the headscarf have sparked an emotionalized debate about the position of women in Islam (Tietze 2008, p. 133), and have generated an image of the oppressed Muslim woman. This image communicated and reinforced by the media is often accompanied by a simplification and essentialization of Islam, and is barely shaken by the presence of self-confident Muslim women in the media, politics, and academic world (Rommelspacher 2010, p. 1).1 And nor even by the numerous studies that attest a likewise strong interest in equality among Muslim women as among their non-Muslim counterparts (e.g. Klinkhammer 2000; Nökel 2002; Pollack et al. 2016). Instead, violent incidents perpetrated by people from mostly educationally disadvantaged strata and families who must cope with the challenges of migration with limited resources are used as examples (Rommelspacher 2010, p. 1) to prove that Islam is not capable of modernization. The construct of the ‘oppressed Muslim woman’ thus creates two counter-images: that of the ‘emancipated European woman’ on the one hand, and a complementary image of the ‘violent Muslim man’ on the other. This perception is reinforced by secular Muslim women, who blame Islam for being the source of gender inequality. These activists argue for the implementation of Western values, and are often involved in an advisory role in the regulation of religious practice and legislation related to this practice—for example, within the framework of the German Islam Conference (Amir-Moazami 2009), or in France in the ban on full veiling (Spohn 2013). While their words are seen as authentic, those of practising Muslims are regarded as being fundamentally suspicious. According to Amir-Moazami, this gendered relationship is also reflected in the representation of Muslims in the German Islam Conference, where female Muslims are represented exclusively by secular feminists, while pious Muslims are 1 In

her study, Kohla Maryam Hübsch shows that the media not only take up controversial issues excessively often, but above all work with images that strengthen the impression of a radical Islam, even when the content is about Muslim women fighting for their rights. With regard to the portrayal of Muslim women in German weekly newspapers and magazines, Hübsch identifies five frames, of which the “victim-frame” is the most common (with 38%). If, on the other hand, reporting follows the “emancipation-frame” (19%), it is mainly female professors, judges, editors-in-chief, entrepreneurs, women’s rights activists, etc. from Islamic countries that are reported on (Hübsch 2014, p. 240–248).

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represented by male members of the umbrella organizations alone. This composition twists the ‘gendered’ perception of gender inequality in an interesting way: while in the media the image of the religious, but oppressed, Muslim woman whose counter-image is the violent Muslim man prevails, what is represented in the Conference is the already liberated and emancipated liberal and secular Muslim woman, whose counterpart is represented by the religious, and therefore (still) traditional, Muslim man. These secular Muslim women, who have adapted to the liberal discourse on religion and to a secular understanding of feminism, point at the same time, as Amir-Moazami argues, to an ideal that women should strive for: that of the free, uncovered, emancipated Western woman, which they themselves already represent. The asymmetrical perception of the ‘oppressed Muslim woman’ and the ‘emancipated European woman’ illustrates that the ‘indigenous gender relationship’ is seen as being modern and equal, while the Islamic gender relationship is considered patriarchal and unequal.2 According to Amir-Moazami, it is in the argumentation of liberal-secular feminists in particular that the “female Muslim body is conceived and constructed as the counterpart to the autonomous Western subject” (Amir-Moazami 2009, p. 193; my translation). Like the feminist criticism of multiculturalism (Razack 2004; Sauer 2011), this is linked to the expectation that Muslim women adapt to the secular order and the norms of freedom and liberty in order not to fall under the suspicion of being oppressed and subordinated (Amir-Moazami 2009, p. 196). This paternalism, which is inherent in the sometimes missionary struggle of liberal-secular feminism, has been pointed out many times (Razack 2004; Amir-Moazami 2009; Ewing 2008a; Sauer 2011; Spohn 2013): “The decision of women to submit to certain religious rules is exposed as a ‘false consciousness’ based on the internalization of religiously founded patriarchal patterns” (Amir-Moazami 2009, p. 195; my translation).3 On the other hand, the discourse of the ‘oppressed Muslim woman’ indirectly generates an image of ‘Muslim men’ who use force and (sexual) violence against women, subjugate women, and force their daughters to marry or even murder them to protect their honour (see Razack 2004; Toprak 2007; Ewing 2008a). This idea of patriarchal violence that is culturally ascribed to “Muslim men” leads 2 In

the following, I use my argumentation set out in (Benthaus-Apel et al. 2017, p. 25 ff.). the German Islam Conference, Amir-Moazami reveals that, supported by Muslims who see themselves as secular and liberal (such as Necla Kelek), an “ideal is produced of the Muslim subject to be liberated”, who is “uncovered, autonomous and free” (AmirMoazami 2009, p. 201). She observes that the recognition of the religiosity of Muslim women is replaced by an effort to “liberate Muslim women from family and religious constraints, and sometimes even from themselves” (ibid.).

3 Evaluating

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to the conception of a “foreign” masculinity that is likely to be dangerous and difficult to integrate (Ewing 2008b; Tunc 2008, p. 106). The narrative of the “impulsive Muslim man” was very present in the media after the events on New Year’s Eve 2015,4 when numerous sexual assaults on women, but also other crimes, were committed by a crowd of people around Cologne’s main railway station. In the days that followed, hundreds of complaints were received by the authorities, with the majority of the accused being identified as men from North Africa and the Arab world.5 These events, in which women became victims of sexualized violence on a massive scale, triggered a strong wave of indignation, even among those who otherwise tend to trivialize sexualized violence, especially against women in the immediate vicinity, where the perpetrator is precisely not the “foreigner” (see, for example, Brückner 2000, Stövesand 2005).6 In this heated debate, people were very quick to resort to culturalist interpretations and racist stereotypes such as those of the “dangerous foreigner”.7 In contrast, feminists, who have long been committed to victims of sexualized violence and who publicize violence in non-public, private spaces, but also in family relationships,

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selection of media coverage and commentary on the New Year’s Eve events can be found at: https://www.gwi-boell.de/de/2016/01/29/der-silvesterdiskurs-im-ueberblick#Gewalt; on anti-Muslim resentment, see Khola Maryam Hübsch: https://www.taz.de/Der-muslimischeMann/!5263585/. Accessed: 6 November 2020. 5 On the so-called “Facts check”, see: https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/koeln-uebergriffe109~_origin-b9772078-0677-4be2-ad0d-6a982cb68734.html. Accessed: 6 November 2020. 6 See, for example, the hashtag #aufschrei (https://twitter.com/aufschreien) or https://taz.de/ Debatte-zur-Hysterie-nach-Koeln/!5265144/; Lalon Sander and Anna Böcker interpret the sexist depiction of the cover of Focus, which attacks the sexism of “others”, as an expression of “rape culture” itself: https://www.taz.de/Der-%E2%80%9EFocus%E2%80%9C-zu-denKoelner-Uebergriffen/!5267901/; the hate speeches on the net are also not directed in principle against sexualized violence, but only against what is carried out by “non-white men”; “concerned” AfD men, for example, want women who speak out against racist interpretations to themselves be victims of sexual harassment or violence: https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/ koeln-rechte-gewalt-101.html. Accessed: 6 November 2020. 7 Armin Nassehi suspects two problems behind the instrumentalization of the events, in which a small number of criminal young men are taken as pars pro toto for all refugees: on the one hand, a failed debate on immigration and refugee policy, in which one side denies that Germany is an immigration country, while the other denies that problems are associated with immigration (a similar polarization can be observed in the debate on multiculturalism; on this, see Razack 2004); and, on the other, the longing for simple explanations; see: https://taz.de/ Soziologe-ueber-die-Uebergriffe-in-Koeln/!5263616/. Accessed: 6 November 2020.

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put forward nuanced arguments.8 The majority of feminists reject the racist appropriation and exploitation of these events, by which “refugees” are constructed as others: namely, as problematic “Muslims” from archaic cultures where there is no respect for women, which is why they tend to use violence against women.9 This complementary gender order is also part of anti-Muslim constructions of the other, which are based on the premise that Western values of Enlightenment have universal character to which other cultures must adapt (Ewing 2008b, p. 21). When linked to immigration, gender relations become a central domain to highlight a cultural difference (Spindler 2007) that at the same time generates images of an uncivilized Islam (Amir-Moazami 2009, p. 193). Islam is perceived as a religion that does not grant women the same rights as men, exerts coercion on them, and subjugates them by imposing certain (bodily) practices and religious commandments (ibid.).10 Such a view does not do justice to Islam or other religions (which are not criticized to the same extent as Islam). On the one hand, it overlooks the fact that religion can certainly be a resource for perceiving the scope of decision-making and for developing individuality (Gärtner and Hennig 2017); on the other, it does not take into account the fact that a religion can change and transform, especially in the process of migration (Schiffauer 2005, 2006).

8 See, for

example, the article by Susanne Völker: https://blog.feministische-studien.de/2016/ 01/geht-es-um-schutz-verletzende-dynamiken-sexualisierte-gewalt-und-rassistische-instru mentalisierungen/ or: https://derstandard.at/2000029334571/Solidaritaet-in-Paris-mit-denAngriffsopfern-von-Koeln. Accessed: 6 November 2020. 9 Politicians from various parties have reacted to this with promises to rapidly deport criminal foreigners, harsh punishment for sex offenders, and the announcement of a tightening of the law on sexual offences. Heide Oestreich interprets this “political actionism” as a substitute action that attributes the problem of sexualized violence solely to immigrants, thereby concealing the sexism in Germany; that, in other words, neither our society nor the media “still hardly even realize that sexualized violence against women exists at all, and that it is committed by ethnic Germans” (https://taz.de/Debatte-zur-Hysterie-nach-Koeln/!5265144/. Accessed: 6 November 2020; my translation). 10 While women and men are equal in Islam from a religious point of view, Islamic law treats the sexes differently (see Abid 2003; Gerhard 2003); besides inheritance law, this applies above all to decisions on marriage, divorce, work, mobility, and custody of children, which in Islamic societies are governed by religiously anchored family law, which subordinates women to their male relatives (Kreile 2003).

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Feminist and Culturalist Interpretations of the Muslim Gender Order

While the debate on Islam and gender orders initially produced a rich literature on Muslim women (see, for example, Klinkhammer 2000; Nökel 2002; Rumpf et al. 2003; Amir-Moazami 2007; Göle 2008), young men with a migration background, especially those of Turkish origin, have increasingly moved into the focus of social science research from the gender perspective since the mid-2000s (Toprak 2007; Spindler 2006; Ewing 2008b; Tietze 2008). In the following, I would like to problematize the implications of secular feminist approaches in terms of the debate on the headscarf worn by Muslim women (3.1). On the other, I will use the construct of Turkish-Muslim masculinity to show why culturalist approaches and the essentialization of Islam lead to inadequate and questionable results (3.2).

3.1

External Perception of Muslim Women: Implications of Secular-Feminist Interpretations

Birgit Rommelspacher has formulated the provocative thesis that the headscarf posed no problem for as long as it was worn only by the Turkish cleaning lady or the female assembly line worker. “Now that female doctors, lawyers and teachers are doing so, there is suddenly strong resistance to it” (2009b, p. 38; my translation). The Islamic headscarf is provocative not least because it publicly propagates a gender model that derives from complementary gender roles. It marks the difference between the sexes and thus apparently enshrines the inequality between, and the associated unequal treatment of, the sexes. Against this background, the equality of women and men, which is part of the self-image of many Western societies, has become a touchstone for the acceptance of Islam, whereas the compatibility of Islam and emancipation is often doubted (ibid., p. 34). In the German and French debates, the hijab is also interpreted as a political statement—that is, as an expression of Islamic fundamentalism (Amir-Moazami 2007). Orthodox secular feminists insist that fundamentalist Islam manipulates and enslaves women, and accuse especially women who are completely veiled of reproducing gender inequality through their attachment to fundamentalist Islam (Rommelspacher 2009a). The headscarf debate has not only led to a controversy in feminist discourse about the emancipation of Muslim women, but has also created a contrast between Muslim and Western women: the ‘oppressed Muslim woman’ vs. the ‘emancipated European woman’.

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This asymmetrical opposition is linked to a devaluation of religion: a woman’s decision to follow religious rules, norms and ways of life is interpreted as submission to religiously based patriarchal patterns that prevent autonomy. Behind this lies a Western understanding of emancipation, which equates emancipation with the Enlightenment, and progressive thinking with overcoming religion (ibid, p. 400). For this reason, pious Muslim women are perceived as symbolizing an ancient order. According to Rommelspacher, this perception fulfils the function of idealizing one’s own situation and deprecating that of Muslim women: “Women in this country seem so emancipated in comparison to the Muslim woman that further disputes about gender equality in the majority society become increasingly superfluous. However, this ‘emancipation’ is no longer measured according to the unequal distribution of work, income and status between men and women, but according to the distance between the Western and the Muslim woman” (ibid., p. 401; my translation, emphasis in the original). This ignores a further aspect: that of ethnic privileging. While women of the majority society climb the social ladder, migrant women fill the places vacated. Thus, for Rommelspacher, Western women no longer focus primarily on gender relations, but concentrate instead on the contrast between themselves and the oppressed ‘other woman’. Her thesis is that the hierarchy that in fact still exists is compensated for by an ethnic hierarchization. Orthodox feminism, as represented in Germany by, for example, Alice Schwarzer, is based on the premise that equality can only be achieved once differences between the sexes have been overcome. Gender relations are considered a basic category “from which all other social power relations can be explained” (ibid., p. 395; my translation; see also Woodhead 2017). The problems and contradictions associated with this premise are not reflected upon, however. On the one hand, a contradiction between ‘equality’ and ‘difference’ remains insofar as the latter is included in the construction of the ‘other woman’. On the other, this gender model, which seeks to eliminate difference in the gender relationship, is not supported unanimously as a program in Western societies, either. On the one hand, there are certainly currents in feminist circles that assume the existence of fundamental differences between men and women, without thereby losing sight of the demand for equality between the sexes. On the other, we find in conservative, and especially in Christian fundamentalist, circles belonging to the Catholic Church or Evangelical groups the notion of the essential difference between women and men, a notion that is certainly much closer to that held by Muslims than secular positions based on the principle of gender equality.

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While this conflict is generally not made into the object of political disputes,11 the Muslim model is attacked without its critics paying attention to the different positions and arguments within the Muslim women’s movement.12 Condemnation of the Muslim model of gender difference therefore creates a unity that excludes differences and ambivalences, and that at the same time prevents self-critical reflection on one’s own projections. For Rommelspacher, the feminist idea that equality can only be achieved by overcoming gender difference ignores the associated costs (2009b, p. 36). If Western women consider themselves to be, in contrast to their Muslim counterparts, completely free in their choice of clothing, then they overlook the constraints to which they are also subjected, constraints that extend to the submission and manipulation of the body in line with standards of beauty. This also applies to the polarization between freedom and coercion in relation to ‘sexual liberation’. Thus, greater sexual self-determination has also brought about extreme forms of sexualization of the public domain and the commercialization of sexuality, and led to new forms of violence and sexual exploitation. According to Rommelspacher, freedom is therefore not an absolute value, but is “relativized both by the constraints of self-control as well as by new forms of coercion” (ibid.; my translation). She therefore urges us to look more closely at the “possibilities and limits of freedom and self-determination depending on the social and cultural context, and to consider both opportunities and risks” within strategies of gender difference and gender equality (2009a, p. 409; my translation).13 These orthodox or liberal-feminist positions are problematic on the one hand because they have an inherent paternalism that universalizes Western values and 11 Only the anti-genderism debate has led to a reflection on these positions in academic circles (see Hark and Villa 2015). 12 Positions among Islamic feminists are quite diverse. While radical and secular feminists claim that the Quran itself establishes the primacy of the man, they advocate secular rights and are therefore not dissimilar to Western feminists. In contrast, Islamic and reform-oriented feminists see the significance of Islam as lying in its recognition of equal dignity for women and men. The sexes are deemed different (in their duties and rights) but equal, which means that the principle of gender separation need not be repressive. Islamist feminists, on the other hand, claim that the Quran is oriented towards gender equality, and believe that the oppression of women is a result of capitalism and Western ideology. They see Islam as the solution to the exploitation of women as sexual objects (Mir-Hosseini 2003; Rommelspacher 2009a, p. 407 f., 2009b, p. 37 f.). 13 Rommelspacher points to the pitfalls of an apodictic juxtaposition of ‘freedom’ and ‘oppression’, e.g. women certainly have the opportunity to decide for their families even if they have experienced violence, because freedom also includes having a say in the consequences of a decision (2009a, p. 402).

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wants to impose them on Muslim women; in this context, women’s rights are prioritized in favour of the right to cultural self-determination and free exercise of religion (Spohn 2013). On the other, Western feminism sees itself as an expression of modernity and interprets other, especially Muslim, cultures as a backward precursor of its own. This position shows parallels with both the secularization thesis and the modernization theory, since, like them, it is based on the premise that modernity and religion are incompatible. The secular self-understanding, however, denies that Western culture has been shaped by Christianity, for modernity carries with it both cultural and religious traditions, as well as their counter-movements (Rommelspacher 2010). Rommelspacher exemplifies this contradiction by pointing to the “women’s question”: the “emancipated woman” has become a symbol of modernity. “Her emancipation has often been used as a yardstick to measure the progress that has been made by a society, since it apparently proves how much women have overcome regressiveness and oppression, and have thereby redeemed a central promise of the Enlightenment” (Rommelspacher 2010, p. 7; my translation). Like modernization theory, liberal feminism sees itself as secular, and believes that it has overcome its religious ties and can therefore offer a universal model for the liberation of women throughout the world.14 At the same time, liberal feminism maintains a contradictory attitude towards the Christian religion. On the one hand, it is attributed to the past and is deemed incompatible with modernity. However, when it comes to the ‘other’ religion such as Islam, the Christian religion is accepted as having been purified by the Enlightenment. For Rommelspacher, liberal feminism of Western provenance has thereby become a voice of a “secularistic ideology” that “ascribes to itself, with its belief in modernity as a linear path leading to the liberation of all people, a monopoly on explaining the world” (ibid., p. 17; my translation). As long as feminism looks at Muslim women through the lens of a “secularist ideology”, it cannot recognize their religiosity, but can only interpret it as a traditional relic and compulsion.

14 Rommelspacher also stresses the immanent connection between liberation motifs and “Orientalism” (2009a, p. 399). Linda Woodhead also points to the teleological force of the modernization narrative, which assumes that the rest of the world will join the secular West (2017, p. 38).

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The Construct of Turkish-Muslim Masculinity: The Problem of Culturalist and Essentialist Approaches15

Katrin Huxel (2008) puts the research that has been done on young, male migrants down to the fact that it was precisely this group whom negative headlines made the focus of public perception in the wake of the September 11 attacks. In its coverage, the media spread such stereotypes as that of the “patriarchal and backward orientation of young Turkish men” (Zölch et al. 2012, p. 18; my translation). The media trace the potential for violence and integration difficulties attributed to Turkish men to the way that their socialization is guilty of gender polarization. Such popular discourses of ethno-cultural masculinity, which chiefly explain the behaviour of young migrants by referring to their Islamic culture of origin (see, for example, the studies by Toprak 2007 and Kelek 2006), operate with a problematic understanding of culture: they consider culture to be “an essentialist and almost unchangeable factor, inevitably derived from national, regional, or even social origins” (Huxel 2008, p. 68; my translation). Sherene Razack showed in her 2004 essay, “Imperilled Muslim Women, Dangerous Muslim Men and Civilized Europeans”, the latent racism of culturalistic explanations by referring to books that present spectacular cases of forced marriages. Using the study by Ahmet Toprak (2007) as an example, I will illustrate the pitfalls of culturalistic interpretations. Toprak approaches the theme of arranged marriages—which are not quite the same as forced marriages—from the perspective of the sons of Turkish-Muslim migrant families in Germany, and investigates the attitude of the men involved towards sexuality, partnership, and marital violence. In all, Toprak interviewed 15 married men of Turkish origin living in Germany, all of whom corresponded to the same type: they come from noneducated families, have little chance on the German labour market, and live in a precarious economic state. Most led in their youth a dissolute life with their male peers; had a number of sexual experiences; some even turned to crime. Implicitly, it becomes clear that these external freedoms are not accompanied by an inner maturity or by a detachment from their parents. The parents disapproved of the lifestyle of their sons and decided to marry them to Turkish women from their region of origin (Toprak 2007, pp. 20, 79). Some of the young men report of failed relationships with Muslim women of Turkish origin who had grown up in Germany. They explain the failure by pointing to the high demands made by these young women for an equal relationship, and to the fact that the women were not willing to submit to the wishes and ideas of the men (Toprak 2007, pp. 37, 93). 15 In

this chapter, I use the argumentation set out in (Gärtner and Ergi 2017, p. 294 ff.).

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While they consider such women to be too complicated and “dishonourable”, they see women from Turkey as “unspoiled”. Such women accepted conventional gender roles and demurely adopted the “female role” (ibid., p. 37). The young men, Toprak shows, reproduce gender relations mediated by the family that attributes different rights and obligations to men and women: while it is the duty of the man to feed and protect his wife and family, it is the duty of the woman to manage the household, raise the children, and sexually satisfy her husband (ibid., p. 149 f.). And since the men experienced violence in their families, and were themselves victims of violence, they see the violence that they perpetrate against women as a legitimate disciplinary measure. They take it for granted that they can decide on behalf of their wife, sisters, and children (ibid., p. 144). They often justify male dominance by referring to Islam (ibid., p. 145). Toprak concludes that the young men unthinkingly adopt the patriarchal structures and have no consciousness of wrongdoing with regard to their (sexualized) violence against women. He explains this by referring to the concept of honour that compels the men to control female sexuality and thereby protect the family’s honour (ibid., p. 146). Toprak does indicate that the rigid image of gender that he found is especially prevalent in non-educated milieus. And, unlike Necla Kelek, for example, he avoids working with impressionistic cases (Scheibelhofer 2011, p. 164). But his study nonetheless shares a general problem of culturalistic approaches, which explain gender constructions with regard solely to the Islamic tradition and Turkish culture of origin, which is also essentialized. In this way, images of an exaggerated masculinity are generated: Turkish men are driven by archaic notions of honour, which leave no room for reflection or individual morality. Such studies thereby show patriarchal notions of gender regarding individual cases, but cannot explain how they are appropriated, reproduced, or transformed because they neglect the social processes by which such constructions of “Turkish masculinity” are circulated and institutionally anchored in Western host societies (Scheibelhofer 2011, p. 161 f.).

4

The Multilayered and Contradictory Reality of Muslim Gender Orders

In the following, I will discuss concepts that attempt to avoid both crude gender images and the pitfalls of essentialist and culturalist interpretations. In particular, these are intersectional approaches that analyze the data material at the intersection of religion, gender, sexuality, and origin. They also examine gender orders and constructions of masculinity in the complex relationships between migration,

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milieu of origin, and social context (for example, Klinkhammer 2000, 2003; Nökel 2002, 2003; Spindler 2007; Scheibelhofer 2007, 2009, 2011; Huxel 2008; Tietze 2008; Yip and Nynäs 2012; Zölch et al. 2012; Gärtner and Ergi 2012, 2017).

4.1

Muslim Women in the Context of Migration: Self-Confident, Educationally Oriented, and Religious

The media images of the ‘oppressed Muslim woman’ and the ‘violent Muslim man’ outlined above are shaken neither by self-confident Muslim women nor by empirical findings. These studies (for example, Amir-Moazami 2007; Klinkhammer 2000, 2003; Nökel 2002, 2003; Karaka¸so˘glu 2003; Ramji 2007; Pollack et al. 2016) show that young Muslim women are certainly self-confident, strive for educational success, sometimes also justify such success by pointing to the Quran, consider their own career as being important, and wish for an equal partnership. A study by Pollack and colleagues (2016) among Muslims of Turkish origin shows that both sexes of the second and third generation (albeit women more than men) reject unequal gender norms and align themselves with the attitudes of the majority society. Nonetheless, it is precisely religious women who emphasize the gender difference more strongly than their Western counterparts, especially when it comes to clothing, but also concerning their choice of professions (see Hennig 2017; and also Hennig’s contribution in this volume). According to Rommelspacher, women with a Turkish background try to gain acceptance in their career more by marking their femininity, while German women tend to believe that they have to adapt to norms of masculinity (2009b, p. 35). Conclusions that generally see the headscarf as a symbol of the oppression of women are therefore mistaken and inadequate (Gärtner and Hennig 2017). Such an interpretation does not reflect that the headscarf can change its meaning depending on the context, it can be transformed by new practices, and especially by migration (Rommelspacher 2009a; Amir-Moazami 2007; Gärtner and Ergi 2012). Young Muslim women in Western societies often use religion to set themselves apart from their parents without having to give up ties to them, and use religion as a resource to seek an independent position between their culture of origin and that of the host society (Klinkhammer 2000, 2003; Nökel 2002, 2003; Karaka¸so˘glu 2003; Gärtner and Hennig 2017). They publicly mark with the headscarf, which they often actively choose, their affiliation to a religious minority. This goes hand in hand with a gain in distinction: by deliberately making their difference visible, they transform the stigma into a symbol of self-confident identity.

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This is not to deny the existence of violence, the forced wearing of the headscarf, and forced marriages in Muslim milieus; these are not specifically Islamic, however, but are also part of other cultures. It seems appropriate, however, to reflect on the polarizing images of victim and perpetrator associated with this, since not only fathers but also mothers are involved in forced and arranged marriages. Rommelspacher points out that, in “patriarchal power relations”, both sexes are “part of a system with different options in different contexts”, a fact that gender theories have tried to understand conceptually (2009a, p. 397; my translation). Furthermore, a distinction must be made between forced and arranged marriages (Straßburger 2003). Gaby Straßburger argues that there is definitely an overlap between forced and arranged marriages, and that the grey area begins where the freedom of choice of the future spouses is restricted: “This is the essential difference. The pivotal question differentiating an arranged marriage from a forced marriage is that of freely given consent: has the freedom to choose been interfered with or has it been freely exercised?” (2007, p. 12) The restriction of freedom and the exercise of coercion “can range from subtle forms of influence and the stressing of particular family expectations, to emotional pressure and threatening behaviour to physical violence”, but can also be due to economic constraints (ibid.). In her study on marriages of the second generation of migrants of Turkish origin (2003), Straßburger develops a typical sequence of an arranged marriage in which both families and genders are involved in different ways (Straßburger 2007, p. 16ff.). She identifies the rules that allow the process to be interrupted in the four phases before marriage (the latter being the fifth phase). If one compares arranged marriages with the individual model, Rommelspacher says, it becomes clear that social considerations also play a role in personal choice, with partners usually being sought from the same social class and origin (Rommelspacher 2009a, p. 406 ff.).

4.2

Appropriation of Masculinity in the Complex Relationships Between Migration, Milieu of Origin, and Social Context

To avoid the pitfalls of culturalistic explanations we also need approaches on Muslim men that analyze biographies in the context of migration, milieu of origin, and majority society. In her study of young male migrants who became criminals, Susanne Spindler (2006) takes into account, for example, their educational disadvantages and the effects of living in stigmatized neighborhoods. She shows how their failure at school is also related to the default settings of teachers, who

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foreground their deficits and social background. In addition, the school promotes a form of ‘masculinity’ based on claims to dominance over women, and on patriarchal constructions of masculinity. Young people are confronted with the social attribution of an assumed gender difference which is regarded as not conforming to social norms: strong patriarchal fathers and weak, oppressed mothers (Spindler 2007, p. 293 f.). But, in adolescence, the sons often realize that their fathers have insecure working conditions, are very low down on the scale of social importance, and only inadequately perform their expected role as head of the family (Gärtner and Ergi 2017). It has not yet been sufficiently understood what consequences this devaluation of the father has for the adolescent sons (Zölch et al. 2012; Gärtner and Ergi 2017). Sven Sauter (2000) has pointed to a gender-specific way of dealing with the problem: the sons deal with their disappointment through aggression towards the outside world, and thereby set in motion a negative process for themselves. Spindler confirms this thesis, but also explains this behavior by pointing to the restricted opportunities that they have in the host society: if young people are denied access to training and employment through failures at school, or through their being reduced to the status of foreigner, then they find it almost impossible to gain access to “legal masculinity”—that is, adequate and respected work activity (Spindler 2007, p. 291). They look for other domains to position themselves: for example, social participation through problematic or illegal means (like drug dealing), which at the same time marginalize them. Nevertheless, such young people often see this “unofficial” form of hegemonic masculinity as the only option to establish themselves economically and to gain power symbolically. It is precisely the marginalized situation of the young people that encourages them to see their male gender as a resource and orientation, with their “subjugated masculinity” sometimes turning into violence (Spindler 2007, p. 304). Katherine Ewing’s study of Muslims of Turkish origin in Berlin also expands the horizon (2008b): she shows, first, that the concept of honor is neither static nor immutable; and, second, that the appropriation of stereotypical attributions can vary between classes and generations. While the first generation of migrants indeed used, and positively evaluated, these stereotypical images, their sons certainly showed an awareness of the discriminatory discourses. They tended to adopt the strategy of accepting the negative stereotypes, while at the same time positioning themselves as being different from most Turks (Ewing 2008b, p. 107 ff.). This is particularly true for young people who climb the educational ladder: “One of the alternatives was the idea of hybridity, of being a person who picks and chooses various cultural elements considered ‘Turkish’ or ‘German’, claiming an identity as a hybrid of all the best elements of two distinct cultures” (Ewing

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2008b, p. 109). The study also reveals that the gender constructions accompanying self-ethnicizing and ethnicizing by others certainly perform different functions. First, they serve to justify racism; second, they can also be appropriated as a source of identity for constructions of masculinity, both to legitimize claims to power and control, and to secure a positive position in the community; third, they can also be used as a means of distinction (Scheibelhofer 2011, p. 162 f.). Finally, I want to focus on the appropriation of gender identity by male adolescents with a migration background. The study conducted by Hanna Idema and Karen Phalet (2007) on Turkish-German migrant families that uses data from 1999 verifies a gender-specific mediation of gender roles through intergenerational and intercultural relationships: while daughters of the second generation showed a significant move towards egalitarian values, the sons adopted the conservative ideas of their fathers. A more recent study by Pollack and his colleagues (2016), which was carried out a good 15 years later, even shows that Muslim women hardly differ from ethnic German women in this respect. The former study explains the adoption of conservative values by sons primarily with the influence of the normative reference to religious authority; however, the experience of discrimination also plays a role. In order to explain the appropriation and transformation, we should also take into account that gender images are not only reproduced through intergenerational transfer, but can also be transformed in adolescent struggle in the triangle of family, host society, and peers (Gärtner and Ergi 2017). This thesis is based on the assumption that adolescence is the critical biographical phase for processes of cultural transformation and repositioning. Young people with migrant backgrounds, however, face a double challenge: the experience of transformation brought about by migration can itself exacerbate the crisis of adolescence. This is related to the fact that migration first needs to be dealt with by the parents, whose economic conditions, opportunities in the host country, and experience of acceptance and discrimination greatly determines their capacity to give their children a moratorium to develop. Their adolescent confrontation with their own gender is therefore affected by a number of factors: by lived patterns of femininity and masculinity in the family, the generative attitude of the parents, and the quality of intergenerational relationships—but also by societal discourses, media constructs, and the ideals of peers.

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Outlook

Finally, I would like to reflect again on how Islamic gender relations can be examined conceptually and methodologically. As we have seen, the essentialization of Islam, especially when the oppression of women is deemed to be Islamic, is problematic, if only because ‘Islam’ does not exist, but rather different Islamic traditions, which, moreover, can differ from each other again in the respective countries (of origin). Georg Stauth has put forward a proposal on how to research contemporary Islam without running the risk of essentialization (2000, pp. 253– 266). In doing so, he assumes the perspective of the sociology of religion, one that focuses on the interplay of text and practice, but also takes into account the actual diversity of the paths of Islamicization. Methodologically, he proposes a comparative perspective that takes into account both similarity and difference. This comparative approach also means that unequal gender relations should not be examined as a problem of Islam, but should be studied and addressed within different religions as well as within secular societies. Just as there is no such thing as ‘Islam’, so there is no such thing as ‘the’ women or men, but rather gender orders. These are not static; they are appropriated, adapted, and changed through time (Benthaus-Apel et al. 2017; Blaschke 2017). Moreover, they are not specifically Islamic; rather, all religions regulate sexual and gender norms, and legitimize (unequal) gender orders. On the one hand, religions take on a regulating and normalizing function; on the other, gender also structures religious practices, beliefs, and social structures. In addition, religious gender relations are always in the context of other social and societal factors. This means that Muslim gender relations in Western countries must be analyzed in the context of migration, culture of origin, and host society. This involves in the latter case taking into account both the religious-legal peculiarities of the respective countries, and the public discourse that produces social models or stereotypes and establishes them as a benchmark. Conversely, migration, in which gender and religious norms can be reappropriated and reinterpreted, is also an essential condition for the transformation of (religious) gender relations. Culturalist approaches also lead to inadequate insights because they are based on the false premise that cultural and religious norms, symbols, and forms of habitus are static. Yet, the fact that even seemingly rigid concepts such as that of ‘honor’ can change, especially under the condition of migration, has been shown by Ewing (2008b). Moreover, gender and religion are not the only principles of social structure and order; other categories of difference that generate inequality, such as milieu/class, education, generation of migration, age, must also be analyzed. The phase of adolescence, for example, is an essential phase in

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the appropriation, (re)interpretation, and (re)positioning of religious and gender beliefs, norms, and practices. Differences related to whether a person belongs to the first, second or third generation of migrants, what educational opportunities are available, and the relationship between majority and minority religion must also be considered. In particular, feminist approaches that tend to universalize equality rights assume that the situation of living as a woman connects all women in the world. In doing so, they do not reflect on the fact that women do not share the same experiences of gender-specific violence and discrimination because they belong to different social classes, ethnic groups, regions, religions and nations, and thus have very different access to resources and power. I would like to make one final point: religion and modernity cannot be played off against each other and are not mutually exclusive. Rather, the relationships between modernity, secularity, and religion must be reflected upon repeatedly (Gärtner 2019b). As I have highlighted, feminist approaches that have a hostile or at least ambivalent relationship to religion consign it to tradition and assume that religions, due to their patriarchal structures, prevent gender equality. On the one hand, they overlook the fact that women are not only victims of religion, but that religion has also been a resource for women at different historical times, by extending their scope for decision-making or providing educational opportunities. On the other, it does not take into account that religiously legitimized gender relations are transformed over time, especially under conditions of migration. Using studies of feminist researchers on religion, Linda Woodhead (2017) has shown how the understanding of religion in modernity and of (religious) gender relations can be addressed, conceptualized, and researched anew.

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Islam Re-Negotiated—Global Case Studies

The Elephant in the Room: The Silent Moroccan Path Towards Secularization Aziz Chahir

Abstract

Very different from models of secularization that are based on the institutional separation of politics and religion, Morocco seems to be following a particular path of implicit secularization. Inherent in this process is a tendency toward political modernization of Islamic ethics within an authoritarian regime that is deeply rooted in public religion. Closely controlled by a rights-oriented monarchy considered as divine, reformist Islamists in the Party of Justice and Development (PJD), which has headed the government since the Moroccan uprising of 2011, are engaged in a process of rationalizing and intellectualizing moral and religious values. The PJD’s pragmatic, utilitarian approach, which is inspired by the liberalization of îjtîhad, reveals a development towards an interest-oriented, purposive rationalization rather than a value-oriented, axiological rationalization. Using a Weberian approach, I argue that the PJD’s sporadic and circumscribed attempts of implicit secularization are likely to weaken its political leadership. However, at the same time, it might normalize political Islamism through reform, liberalization and democratization. This is discussed using selected empirical cases such as human rights, Islamic finance, the arts, the consumption of alcohol, and individual liberties such as women’s rights and freedom of conscience.

A. Chahir (B) Salé, Morocco © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 C. Gärtner and H. Winkel (eds.), Exploring Islam beyond Orientalism and Occidentalism, Veröffentlichungen der Sektion Religionssoziologie der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-33239-6_6

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Keywords

Morocco • Secularization • Rationalization • Max Weber • Islamism • Party of Justice and Development • Islamic Ethics “How When and by whom are the categories of religion and the secular defined? What assumptions are presupposed in the acts that define them? Does the shift from a religious political order to one that is governed by a secular state simply involve the setting aside of divine authority in favor of human law?” (Talal Asad 2003, p. 201)

1

Introduction

Towards the end of his despotic reign in Morocco, King Hassan II spoke of the historical sanctity of the monarchy with these words: “In our country, the Emir of the faithful has a divine mission (…). He is considered by all his subjects as the representative of God on earth. This divine mission obliges you to be a Sunni Muslim, to oversee the application of the religion, and to settle civil matters. (…) Morocco is a kingdom and it must be held by its only common denominator which is the religious nature of the monarchy” (Alaoui 1993, pp. 94, 172; my translation). Almost two decades later, times have changed. Amid the turmoil of the Moroccan uprising of 2011, King Hassan’s son, Mohammed VI, faced a huge wave of protests that, for the first time, called on the regime to relinquish absolute power and break with the sacredness of the monarch’s person. Among the slogans chanted by the February 20 movement were, for example, ‘enough sacredness, more freedom’ (baraka men lmouqaddassate, zidouna falhurriyate) and ‘neither subjection nor sacredness, we want to benefit from citizenship’ (la ra’aya la qadassa hna bghayna al-mouwatana). The thinly veiled message was that the regime should continue the path of secularization already underway. Religion plays a significant role in the public sphere of politics in Morocco. From a legal point of view, the constitution of 2011 provides that Islam be the state religion, with the state guaranteeing the unrestricted exercise of cults1

1 According to the Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs, 98.5% of the population are,

like most North Africans, Sunni-Malekite.

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(Article 3) and appointing the monarch as the amir al-mouminin, the commander of the faithful (Article 41).2 The secularization of the monarch’s tremendous power is reflected in the distinction between his religious function as calif and his political position as head of state. It is often the case that the logic of political action, which is based on utilitarianism and which prescribes social action by maximizing gains and minimizing costs, goes beyond the religious framework (divinus juri). Moreover, as Mohamed Tozy (1999, p. 99) has rightly pointed out, “[t]he Constitution is not the umbrella for the normative edifice. The monarch, amir al-mouminin, mobilizing tradition, stands between it and God”. Hence, the notion of Islam as public religion3 is a cultural reality as long as all political parties4 support the monarchy’s monopoly on religion as a source of legitimation. Currently, the rulingParty of Justice and Development (PJD) (Hizb al-Adala Wa-tanmia) implicitly claims a moderate level of obedience to Islam. Leading the government since the Moroccan uprising of 2011, the PJD has been criticized by its detractors, especially among left-wing political forces,5 of leading an ‘undeclared’ Islamization at the expense of defending democracy and liberty. While the demonstrators in 2011 demanded constitutional reforms such as the election of 2 For

this and all other references to the 2011 constitution, see the English translation by William S. Hein & Co. in Constitute. The World’s Constitutions. To Read, Search and Compare. https://www.constituteproject.org. Accessed: 20.12.2020. 3 Against the backdrop of secularization theory, which claims that religion has lost its influence on society, José Casanova (1994) has highlighted the public, political impact of religion in selected case studies (Spain, Poland, Brazil, and the US). He captured the results in the notion of public religion. According to Casanova (1994, p. 216), public religion assumes or tries to assume a public character or function: “religion always transcends any privatistic, autistic reality, serving to integrate individuals into an intersubjective, public, and communal ‘world’”. 4 The Moroccan partisan field has been dominated by monarchic interventionism, which did not hesitate to create so-called administrative parties during the 1980s. By the end of the 1990s, the political parties derived from the nationalist movement had accepted reconciliation with the monarchy by participating in the government of the so-called alternance (attanawoub), led by the socialist leader Abderahmane El Youssoufi (1924–2020). In 2002, Mohammed VI favored a government of technocrats before authorizing the creation of the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) by his friend and first adviser in 2008. This party quickly became one of the most dominant political parties in parliament, notably because of the support provided by the administration to the PAM’s candidates in the elections. 5 Omar Balafrej, who is one of the leaders in parliament of the Federation of the Democratic Left (FDL), explicitly defends the idea of secularization in an interview: “The only party that talks about secularism today, is the Party for Justice and Development (PJD), which accepts partial secularism, the true secularists do not dare to talk about it. We are for secularism not against religion, but for its protection. We need it today in order to confront the ‘deep state’ and the Islamists”. https://maroc416.rssing.com/chan-40450030/all_p56.html. Accessed: 30.6.2020.

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the prime minister by the parliament (and not by the king), Morocco’s co-opted political parties like the PJD distanced themselves from the young protestors. The monarch responded to the February 20 movement and initiated a constitutional reform that includes some liberal principles. However, these principles also enshrine the king’s position as amir al-mouminin. While the previous Article 19 of the constitution described the king’s position as sacred, the new Article 46 still declares him as inviolable. The king keeps executive power and remains the guardian of religion, but now it is the constitution that defines the social role and relevance of religion for the monarchy. This leads to the question not only of whether the kingdom is inherently connected with the predominance of public religion but also whether the tensions between monarchy and political parties will, contrary to what one might think, foster the secularization of political and public life in Morocco. My claim is that the governing Islamic-oriented PJD is engaged in a process of what I call implicit secularization.6 This mode of secularization reinforces the monarch’s monopoly on religion, but also eases the public pressure to seek democratic change. Based on interest and utilitarianism more than on moral and religious values, this secularization path leads to paradoxical consequences for the PJD. On the one hand, it strengthens normalization with the regime and Western democracies, and also consolidates the party’s reputation as defending a moderate Islam that is supposed to be compatible with democratic values. On the other hand, the commitment to secularization might weaken the political and religious leadership of the PJD by reducing its popularity, especially among conservative and Islamist voters, as these voters consider secularization as the neutralization of religion by the left-wing elites among politicians and intellectuals (Chahir 2011, 2015). Historically, the power of the Moroccan monarchy has always benefited from the division of political actors, notably the division between Islamists and secularists. Between the 1960s and 1990s, for instance, secular leftists and fundamentalist Islamists clashed on various occasions because of their deep ideological differences,7 before accepting political procedures based on consensus and compromise from the early 2000s onwards.8 In 2011, the February 20 movement 6I

borrow Talal Asad’s concept of implicit religion summed up in this quote: “we should not assume that every act is the act of a competent agent with a clear intention” (Asad 2003, p. 71). 7 In 1972, Abdelkrim Moti’, a former member of the National Union of Popular Forces (UNFP), created al-Chabîba al-Islamîyya (Islamic Youth). In 1975, the Moroccan courts sentenced him in absentia for the murder of the socialist leader, Omar Benjelloun. 8 Composed of many people close to the king and of formerly radical left-wing and secular activists, the Party of Authenticity and Modernity (PAM) was created in 2008 by Fouad Ali

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provided young Moroccan activists, both secular and Islamist, with the opportunity to demand the consensual democratization of an authoritarian regime. In order to stem popular discontent, the monarch delivered a royal speech on 9 March 2011 in which he announced that he would initiate a constitutional amendment and organize early parliamentary elections. The PJD won these elections with 27.08% of the votes cast, gaining a relative majority in parliament (107 of 395 seats).

1.1

Methodological Approach

Inspired by Max Weber’s perspective on rationalization, I consider that, like any political organization, Islamist movements might try to take the path of modernization by seekingpragmatism, rational calculation, and the best reasoning from means to ends. In this regard, two types of rationalization are of interest: purposive, interest-oriented rationalization (Zweckrationalität) and axiological, valueoriented rationalization (Wertrationalität).9 However, methodologically speaking, my approach does not endorse the irreversibility of disenchantment in social life—that is, the total eclipse of magic and religious beliefs. On the contrary, I understand secularization as a process that leads not necessarily to a weakening of religion, but instead, as Weber showed with the example of Christian Puritanism, to a change in the quality and direction of cultural ideas and practices that have a religious basis. From this perspective, the shift towards rationalization is

al-Himma, a friend of the king and former minister delegate to the Interior. In just a few years, the PAM has become the second most powerful party after the PJD. During the Moroccan uprising of 2011, the former leader of the PAM, Ilias El Omari, fled abroad to escape the protests of the 20 February movement. 9 Regarding these types of rationalization, Weber noted as follows: “Social action can be determined either (1) by purposive rationality; through expectations of the behavior of external objects and other people, and employing these expectations as a ‘condition’ or ‘means’ for one’s own rational ends, as sought after and considered objectives; or by (2) value rationality: through conscious belief in the unconditional and intrinsic value—whether this is understood as ethical, aesthetic, religious, or however constructed—of a specific form of particular comportment purely for itself, unrelated to its outcome; or by (3) affect, especially emotion: through actual emotions and feelings; or by (4) tradition: through ingrained habituation” (Weber 2019, p. 101).

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characterized by altering forms of intellectualization.10 This is reflected in how social action is oriented towards ethical perceptions,11 for example in the political realm, and how it is guided, whether by priests and saints or teachers and intellectuals. This shifting of religiously based cultural ideas and conceptions does not necessarily include a withdrawal of religion from the political realm; rather, religiously shaped conceptions of the world can be understood as a possible facet of modernization. Nevertheless, Weber’s concept of rationalization has, often implicitly, influenced debates on the compatibility of Islam and democratic institutions (Sadiki 2004). The question of the interweaving of religion and politics has gained importance since the 1970s, especially with the emergence of twentieth-century Islamism, considered here as a current of thought that deliberately adopts Muslim doctrine as a guide for political action (Guazzone 1995). In this regard, two figures of thought have emerged: the defense of the conservative idea of a ‘return to religion’, and the advocacy of the secularization of Arab-Muslim societies. Consequently, I follow neither the hypothesis of religious revival nor the simplistic idea of radical secularization, as in Europe. Furthermore, I do not subscribe to a blind criticism of the supporters of Islamism, who are systematically associated with extremism and accused of advocating an anti-modernist project. In this regard, I reject outright the notion developed, for example, by Mohammed Cherkaoui (2006; 2018), one of the main experts on Weber, of a homogenizing and stereotypical path of Islamization. Unlike Cherkaoui, I argue that the Islamicoriented movements and parties that have developed in Arab-Muslim societies like Morocco since the 1970s do not all defend the same arguments, do not all display a systematic, radical opposition to modernity in the Western sense, and do not all promote the re-Islamization of Muslim societies, whether partially or completely. In contrast, I claim that these movements are not all substantially incapable

10 In his analysis of Protestant ethics in European civilization, Weber (1992 [1930]) highlighted

the central role of intellectual rationalism, which is linked to patterns of religious administration and based on scientific reason, individual autonomy, as well as a specific conduct of life and personal salvation. 11 Weber considered ethics as a mark of religious ‘doctrine’: “The marks of doctrine are the development of a rational system of religious concepts and the development of systematic and distinguishably ‘religious ethics’ which are based upon a collected and fixed teaching validated by ‘revelation’” (Weber 1993 [1963], p. 30). Furthermore, Weber associated ethics with the Prophet of Islam. According to Bryan Turner (2011, p. 62), “Weber sought to understand the status of Muhammed as an ethical prophet and how the Prophet articulated a set of revelations in the Qur’an to challenge the traditional values of Arab society”.

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of producing a humanist social project,12 but can be understood, following Max Weber, as varying forms of the religious rationalization and intellectualization of socio-political life. Accordingly, my objective is not to identify the roots or origins of secularization in Islamic thought or to measure the potentialities of modernization in Arab-Muslim societies.13 In this chapter, my ambition is to deepen our understanding of the particular pattern and process of secularization14 within the Moroccan political system. My working hypothesis is based on the mutual intertwining of politics and religion as a self-evident framework of meaning and action in Morocco. I assume that as a consequence of this interdependence, Islamic ethics has a special effect in the political sphere, in the sense of a mode of rationalization and intellectualization of religious thought.15 Concretely, I suppose that the Islamic-oriented PJD is fostering a shift towards secularization through the implicit rationalization of its ethics and its religious values. Based on selected

12 In

this regard, Mohamed Cherkaoui (2006, p. 167) states: “These movements share many common features. The same dogmatic principles underlie their doctrines. The same stock of ideas about the social ideal, similar semantics, are peculiar to them. They develop a similar argument against modernity, disqualified because it is materialistic and scientific, mutilating because it denies the spiritual dimension of man. Their radical rejection of modernity is the counterpart of what they consider to be the radicality of Western thought. Could not the violence of this reaction also be understood by the absence of an alternative project that is humanly feasible, will we move forward? (...) They have certain identical objectives such as the re-Islamization of Muslim societies and are all driven by a messianic expectation”. 13 From the thinkers of the Nahda, the Arab Renaissance in the 19th century, to Mohammed Arkoun and Mohammed-Abed Al-Jabri, to Adonis, Abdallah Laroui, Constantin Zurayq, Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd and Hassan Hanafi, many intellectuals have sought to interpret the fact that Arab and Muslim societies lock themselves into irrational attitudes, take sides with archaisms, or adhere to solutions that look to the Arab-Islamic past. Elisabeth Kassab (2010) gives an instructive overview of the shifting of contemporary Arab thought. 14 Only the investigation conducted by Al-Ayadi et al.(2007) has tried to tackle the issue of social secularization rigorously. This study concludes that “there is a strong tendency to rationalize religious practice (...) in the form of a double movement: the withdrawal into daily worship and obedience to a standardized repetitive logic, including daily prayers” (Ayadi et al. 2007, p. 231). 15 In Arabic, the term ethics means akhlak. The ulema evoke what they call ideal ethics (makarim al-akhlak) designated and embodied by the Prophet Mohammed. The Quran does not use the term ethics, but speaks in terms of good and evil, of right and wrong (Fakhry 1991, p. 11). Islamic ethical theories fall into two main categories: rationalist ethics and the ethics of divine command. The first, championed by the Mu’tazîlîtes (eighth century) and the Sh’ites, privileges reason to judge good and evil. The second defends the action ordained by God (Esposito 2003, p. 76).

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fieldworks16 within the framework of the sociology of religion, I adopt a processbased approach for analyzing the secular potentialities and limits of the PJD. These are shaped by the religious doctrine of the Movement for Unicity and Reform (MUR), which is considered to be the PJD’s forerunner. To this end, I first briefly present some theoretical reflections on the Weberian thesis of the disenchantment of the world, and propose a new paradigm for analyzing secularization in Islamic contexts. Second, I sketch the ideological commitment of the PJD since the 1990s as the design of a utilitarian, Islamic master narrative. In this regard, I focus on the party’s institutional participation model, which is grounded on the principles of normative legality, democracy and human rights. Finally, I examine some sporadic and circumscribed attempts deployed by the PJD to ensure the rationalization of Islamic ethics (moral and religious values). In order to demonstrate the PJD’s path of implicit secularization, I present various empirical examples—from the moralization of public life such as in the case of Islamic finance, nudity in the arts, and the prohibition of alcohol, to matters of individual emancipation and the recognition of individual liberties such as in the case of women’s rights and freedom of conscience (Chahir, 2014).17 An analysis of these concrete facets of secularization reveals that the reformist Islamists of the PJD seem to favor a path of purposive rationalization that translates into an adjustment to corruption (for example, in the case of tax amnesty for income illegally obtained to bail out the state budget); religious validation of interest-based credit for young entrepreneurs; liberalization of morals by accepting nudity and sexuality in artistic performances; increasing taxation on alcohol instead of closing down liquor stores; responsiveness to the exercise of individual freedoms by displaying more flexibility in recognizing women’s rights, such as

16 In part, the chapter is based on the results of a survey on local political leadership that I conducted as part of my doctoral research (interviews and observations) among the PJD’s elected officials on the Casablanca city council between 2003 and 2007. My work was inspired by results of two qualitative surveys on the MUR based on archive work and non-participant observation of meetings, carried out in 2008 and 2010. The purpose of these investigations was to capture the ideological contribution of the MUR in the emergence of reformist Islamism in Morocco. Finally, I take into account the content analysis of a set of political assessments of the PJD since their participation in government in 2011. 17 The publication of the first results of my survey on secularization in everyday life, carried out by reformist Islamists in Morocco, already dates back to 2014. See for more details Aziz Chahir (2014), “Islamic ethics and political modernization: the secularizing potentialities of reformist Islamists in Morocco”, Moroccan Review of Political and Social Sciences (MRPSS) 7 (X): 123–232.

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what women do with their bodies in the private sphere, and, finally, more openness to religious pluralism by accepting a debate on freedom of conscience, which is actually deemed a red line for all Islamist movements.

1.2

From the Weberian Thesis of the Disenchantment of the World to a New Analytic Framework of Islamic Secularization

The fact that secularization has ‘a strong ideological charge’ (Beckford 2003, p. 41) should not prevent us from assessing its sociological relevance in diverse contexts. As Talal Asad (2003, p. 17) suggests, “the important thing is not the origins of ‘religious’ and ‘secular’, but the forms of life that articulate them, the powers they release or disable”. Accordingly, it is my objective to abandon the idea of the predestination of Islam, which pits Islamic religion as irrational against modernity as rational. To this end, I bring in the instructive thesis of Max Weber, who considers the disenchantment of the world to be a consequence of rationalization processes—not as a normative ideal, however, but as a historical process of reducing the scope of religious significance. Nevertheless, “acts motivated by religion or magic are (…) at least relatively rational”, as Weber (1971, p. 429) argues. Weber therefore invites sociologists not to oppose rationalization and religion simplistically, as if the extension of the first necessarily implies the decline of the second. Thus, this chapter focuses on the scope and relevance of religion as a possible, natural facet of social and political processes. In sum, while Weber seems to be convinced that bureaucratization—and one could also add democratization18 —necessarily lead to an institutional “separation of church and state” (Weber 2013, pp. 408–409)19 , he also implicitly recognizes their coexistence and entanglement even in Western democracies (Weber 2013, pp. 361–362). According to Weber, political power (state) and religious power (hierocracy) should, due to the interdependence of interests, only exercise partial control over their respective fields of action (Weber 2013, p. 408); for example, between priests and politicians.20 18 I

am adopting this concept, although Weber did not use it (Weber 2015). did not make a clear separation between church and state. He uses quotation marks every time he mentions both institutional arenas (Weber 2013, pp. 408–409). 20 As Talal Asad (2003) has shown from an anthropological perspective, secularization does not necessarily mean the withdrawal of the religious into the private realm, and nor the separation of church and state. The distinctive features of secularity are rather anchored in 19 Weber

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Despite Max Weber’s excellent contribution, confusion arises from the disagreements over the function of religion in ‘differentiated contexts’ (Porter 1973, p. 1). In the French case, for example, secularization is not only politically institutionalized, but also finds a specific ideological manifestation in the notion of laicity (Dobbelaere 2008, p. 2). Similarly, secularization in Muslim countries is not only based on the institutional division of religious and political institutions of power, but also results from other institutional and ideological constellations that latently produce secularizing effects (Dobbelaere 2008, p. 179), such as the constitutional right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. As religion is reduced to a subsystem next to other autonomous value spheres in Western, European societies, such as law, economy and politics, sociologists of religion distinguish three levels of secularization (Dobbelaere 1981): secularization at the macro-social level of social subsystems, at the meso-social level of religious organizations, and at the individual level of religious practices and attitudes. Accordingly, these three levels are applied to the object of interest here: at the macro-social level, the focus is on the monarchy and the political class in Morocco; at the meso-social level, the analytical lens centers on the organizational and ideological development of the PJD; and, at the individual level, on religious behavior and sense-making, as prioritized by Max Weber (1993). Further on, I propose to approach secularization processes through the prism of contingency. This enables me to achieve a twofold objective: on the one hand, to apprehend the complexity of particular secularization processes in concrete sociopolitical constellations, where varying modes of distinction between the political and the religious are used by different actors, and, on the other hand, to identify the political effects of this practice—and the respective mode of rationalization of this political practice and the related power relations, whether purposive or axiological. Hence, I propose the concept of contingent secularization, which refers to the varying engagement of individuals in religious modernization processes in different contexts and situations (Johnson and Chalfant 1993), to cope with the contextually contingent conditions of pluralism and liberties. Consequently, Islamic secularization could be understood as a paradigmatic case that I define here in a first step as follows: a reversible process of rationalization through which an Islamic-oriented political party21 initiates an internal reform of its moral and the reconfiguration of behaviors, sensibilities, and moral attitudes that cause the political governance of religion. 21 Weber defined political organizations by analogy with religious authority. Since “there is no conceivable end which some political association has not at some time pursued”, political authority must be defined “only in terms of the means peculiar to it” (Weber 1978 [1920], p. 55).

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religious values. The political purpose behind this process of intellectualization is to cope with normative legality, individuation, and institutional differentiation in a pluralistic context of competition and political arrangements. That said, I claim that secularization in Morocco, at least at the moment, is inherent to the PJD’s commitment, namely in a way that leads to the rationalization of Islamic ethics in three analytical dimensions: ideological registers, discursive logics, and related repertoires of political action. Against this background, my next step concentrates on the ideological efforts of the PJD, which is striving for political modernization, before I discuss selected cases of current secularization tendencies. Before proceeding, it should be mentioned that the objective here is not to make an exhaustive analysis of the ideological referent adopted by the reformist Islamists, the MUR and the PJD, but to draw inspiration from it in order to grasp the operational modes of secularization.

2

Reformist Islamists Between Axiological Rationalization (Wertrationalität) and Purposive Rationalization (Zweckrationalität)

In Arab-Islamic contexts, the concept of secularization poses not only ideological, but also normative and political challenges. On the legal level, for example, the Moroccan regulatory system is full of potentialities for secularization that are often overlooked or ignored in the analysis. As already mentioned above, Article 3 of the constitution from 2011 stipulates that “Islam is the religion of the state, which guarantees to all the free exercise of beliefs (cults)”.22 In this regard, it is important to note that the constitution refers to Islam as a religious belief and not as a source of legislation. The legislator perceives religion from a secular perspective as a set of religious practices and not as a set of divine rules governing political power. In his official speech of 30 July 2003, Mohammed VI affirmed the fundamentally secular nature of the state by calling for a clear separation that “must be made between religion and politics, given the sacredness of dogmas conveyed by religion, which must be free from any discord or dissension”, and for “the need to counter any instrumentalization of religion for political ends”.23 22 Accessed from the English translation by William S. Hein & Co. in Constitute. The Worlds Constitutions. To Read, Search and Compare. https://www.constituteproject.org. Accessed: 30.06.2020. 23 For the speeches of Mohammed VI see https://aua.ma/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Roy aume-du-Maroc.pdf. Accessed: 30.6.2020

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In doing so, the monarch established, arbitrarily, his supremacy by monopolizing religious power and pretending to fight Islamic radicalism that way. The law on political parties from 2006 consolidates the exclusiveness of the religious status of the monarch, based on Article 4 of the constitution; it stipulates that “any constitution of a political party founded on a religious basis is null and void”.24 This explains why the PJD insists that it is a national and not an Islamic party by not explicitly referring to Islam or Sharî’â in the party’s legal statutes. Still, it should be mentioned that the majority of political parties do not formally adhere to secularism, except a few marginalized, far-left political parties.25 The overwhelming majority of Moroccans seem disinclined to accept the idea of al’almanîya (secularization) or al-laîkîya (laicity). In the collective imaginary, secularism is associated with a Western anti-religious project led by the former French colonizer and its secular Moroccan elites. From a historical point of view, the separation of religion and politics (as in the case of Kemalism) is an idea that only existed among a minority. During the French protectorate, most political parties found it difficult to position themselves in the face of a secular project, except the unsuccessful movement of Mohamed Hassan al-Wazzani (1910–1978), a distinguished democrat and ‘alim who timidly advocated a secular alternative to the monarchical regime. As Mohamed Tozy has argued, even after independence, the seculars still “constitute a marginal fraction of civil society. The secular discourse is incidentally organized in human rights associations. The only political expression of this nascent laicism is represented by elements of the ‘new left’” (Tozy 1999, p. 134).26 And also in popular culture, Islam is often associated with both religion and the state (al-îslam dînoun wa-dâwla). According to the World Values Survey from 2001, 80.9% of Moroccans think that politicians who do not believe in God are unfit for political office. Interestingly, this survey concludes that “there is an inability to assess the relationship between religion and politics” in Morocco,27 while the Moroccans Mohamed Al-Ayadi, Mohamed

24 Accessed from the English translation by William S. Hein & Co. in Constitute. The Worlds Constitutions. To Read, Search and Compare. https://www.constituteproject.org. Accessed: 30.6.2020. 25 Among them are extreme-left parties such as the PADS and Annahj Adimocrati, which are still boycotting the elections. 26 This is a movement made up of several groups belonging to the Marxist and Maoist spectrum. Several activists are former prisoners or people who had been in exile; they formed a political party (which no longer exists) called the Party of the New Left (PNL) in June 1996. 27 World Values Survey, Maroc, 2001. http: //www.worldvaluessurvey.org/. Accessed: 30.6.2020.

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Tozy and Hassan Rachik conclude in their study “that the majority of those interviewed believe that religion should guide political life” (Al-Ayadi et al. 2007, p. 82).28 Faced with this dilemma, the PJD is carefully seeking secularization based on institutional differentiation between various spheres of political and social action.29 This shift towards secularization was operated by theologians of the MUR and adopted by political leaders of the PJD, such as Saâdededdine AlOthmani, who is currently chief of the government. Al-Othmani supports the idea of the theologian Al-Imam Al-Qarafi30 concerning differentiation (al-fourouq) between political and religious actions, as already reported about the Prophet Muhammad (Al-Othmani 2008, pp. 84–103). In order to strengthen the process of implicit secularization without offending conservative believers, Al-Othmani supports the idea that “religion allows a ‘distinction’ (a-tamyyîz) to be made between politics (political activity) and religion (preaching activity or a-da’wa)” (Al-Othmani 2008, p. 73). In this regard, Sheikh Ahmed Raïssouni, a scholar of usul al-fiqh (principles of Islamic jurisprudence) and ideologue of MUR, also distinguished between the religious and the political arena, but he refused to allow history to be a category absolutely autonomous of Sharî’a" (Raïssouni 2012, p. 15). Al-Othmani states that “there is a consensus between political action that is neither condemned because it is religious, nor rejected because it is Islamically illegal. According to Al-Othmani, "the solution is to adopt the concept of civil status, which is neither theocracy nor secularism. (…) Neither the state nor any political formation should interfere in people’s beliefs or impose given religious conceptions on them. Its mission is the management of public affairs within the framework of society’s own system of values” (Al-Othmani 2008, pp. 29, 37, 39).

28 “According to 28.9% of the respondents, religion should guide political life”, while “26.3% (…) think that religion should be limited to personal life. Furthermore, 26.1% think that religion does not become dangerous when it interferes with politics and 24.9% think the opposite” (Al-Ayadi, Tozy and Rachik 2007, p. 82). 29 See in this regard the vibrant analyses of Islam and secularization in Morocco provided by Haouès Seniguer (2011), Youssef Belal (2011), and Rachid Benlabbah (2016). 30 The fîqh doctrine of Al-Imam Al-Qarafi (1228–1285) is based on the ‘science of differences’ (al-fourouq). Al-Qarafi distinguished religious acts (spiritual behavior) from political acts (temporal behavior). For example, he differentiated between the function of the imam, the political and religious arbitrator, and the function of the magistrate as the judicial arbitrator, who should distinguish the temporal aspect of civil disputes, even if they are subject to Sharî’â (Al-Qarafî 1998).

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From this doctrinal perspective, it could be argued that reformist Islamists31 such as the PJD and the MUR are attempting a modernization process32 that is based on two interdependent matrices: namely, legality (Rechtmäßigkeit) and rationality (Rationalität). Rationalization policy is reflected in the PJD’s full support for institutional and state reforms initiated by the monarchy (for example, constitutional revisions).33 Furthermore, the reformist’s strategy tends towards a gradual (tadarruj) inclusion of normative legal theory in political life (Yatim 2006, pp. 58–59). This theory is concerned with the ends and justifications of the law with regard to legal, social and moral norms (Glos 1969). In local government, for example, the PJD’s popular leadership takes the path of ‘institutional legality’ that gives consideration to the moralization of the management of public affairs (Chahir 2011, 2015, pp. 578–581). The PJD thus promotes the idea of political commitment that respects the ‘democratic credo’ composed of procedural impartiality, respect for individual rights, and flexibility vis-à-vis majority rule, particularly during the process of decision-making (Dahl 1961, p. 316). At the same time, reformist Islamists in the PJD seek to place everyday political activism within an ethical framework of mediation (al-wassatates) that is likely to curb dissent (fitna) and strengthen the culture of reconciliation (al-mossalaha). Indeed, the PJD promotes an ethics with religious affinity that, in Max Weber’s

31 In

the 19th century, the thinkers of al-Islah rejected the idea that Islam is fundamentally incompatible with the scientific spirit and modernity. In my opinion, the term ‘reformist Islamists’ (al-îslamîyîne al-islahîyîne) could be considered as an ideal type represented by PJD/MUR activists, who adopt a paradigm based on reconciliation (al-moussalaha) with the monarchy. On the theological level, the notion of reform (al-isslah) marks an epistemological break with traditional fîqh (the Qur’an and the Sunnah) and orthodox or radical Islam. From the view of îjtîhad, the notion of al-islah is part of a reference frame inspired by the fiqh al-Maqassîdî (purposive) (Abû Is-hâq Ash Shâtibî: -1338), which aims at the utilitarian purpose al-Masslaha al-Morssala (interests) or al-îstîslah (the search of human interest) by the use of axiological means such as al-waqi’îyya (pragmatism) al-i’tîdal (moderation) and al-wassatîya (right medium). From a political view, reformist Islamists try to bring about gradual change (attadarrouj) through ‘institutional participation’ in accordance with Islamic ethics. Finally, from a programmatic or electoral view, the notion of al-islah allows a binary ideological construction (inspired by the theologian Ahmad ibn Taymiyya, 1263–1328): assalah (godliness) vs. fassad (corruption), and assalih al’amm (public interest) vs. al-massalîh achakhssîya (personal interests). 32 In this regard, I follow Shmuel Eisenstadt’s concept of multiple modernities including multifaceted institutional formations adjusted to different contexts, actors and ideas (Eisenstadt 2000). 33 The PJD’s Electoral program: For a new Morocco (Freedom, Dignity, Justice & Development), Rabat, 2011, p. 116 (unpublished).

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terms (1946), lies between an ethics of conviction (salvation) and an ethics of responsibility. To promote the rationalization of religious doctrine by individualizing and liberalizing Islamic ethics,34 the PJD allows its members, for example, to decide on the ijtîhad,35 the legal and theological interpretation of controversial social issues, individually. This confirms the thesis put forward by Mohamed Tozy, a specialist in Moroccan political Islam that the PJD has managed to adapt its own ideology to historical and epistemological conditions of modernity.36 The PJD’s commitment to the path of institutional legality (sovereignty of law) and acceptance of the democratic method (sovereignty of the people) attests to its purposive efforts at rationalization. This process reduces the realm of the religious referent, for example of the Sharî’â, to an ‘ethics of mediation’ in which political interests (al-massalih a-adounyawiya) take precedence over moral and religious values (axiological rationalization). In stark contrast to orthodox Islam, the PJD adopts the doctrine of utilitarianism37 in the realm of moral ethics. Based on a doctrinal revision (mourajaâ), this approach endorses the PJD’s political participation38 based on bureaucratization and the institutionalization of political action. By doing so, reformist Islamists ultimately aim to decrease, laboriously, the relevance of religious and moral references in public affairs, as in the following cases. Instead of promoting the establishment of the Caliphate, the PJD aims to consolidate the state’s Islamic identity and enhance religious practices by abandoning proselytism (da’wa). 34 In this respect, Weber argued that “[t]he full development of religious ethics requires an independent and professionally trained priesthood, permanently occupied with the cult and with the practical problems involved in the cure of souls” (Weber 1978 [1920], p. 426). On this basis, the role of the priests could be assimilated to the ulema or, in the case of the PJD, to the movement’s ideologues such as Ahmed Raïssouni, Mohamed Yatim, and Saâdeddine El Othmani. 35 “The Islamists are not a religious party that holds a monopoly on Islam and, in fact, the party’s interpretive efforts (Îjtîhad) and its choices remain relative and refutable” (Raïssouni 1999, p. 293). 36 According to Mohamed Tozy (1999, p. 246), “[t]he Islamists of Al-Islah have made an ideological upgrade that attempts to clarify the positions of the movement on three main axes: the use of violence in political change, the compatibility of democracy (the people’s sovereignty) with Islam (the sovereignty of God) and, finally, the status of women”. 37 Ahmed Raïssouni (1994) has developed al-fîqh al-Maqassîdî, an approach that takes into consideration the principle of the usefulness of the objective to be achieved in order to solve contemporary problems. 38 Developed by al-Îmam Chatîibî, fîqh al-Maqasîdî endorses the idea of ‘participation’ and denounces the notion of excommunication (takfir).

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Moreover, Ahmed Raïssouni,39 one of the most influential ideologues of the MUR/PJD, tried to highlight the theological underpinnings of the majority principle (al-aghlabîya) as the foundation of democracy. He also tried to demonstrate that the principle of the sovereignty of the people (al-hakîmîyya li-Acha’ab) has a religious foundation that does not contradict the principle of the sovereignty of God (al-hakîmîyya li-Allah) (Raïssouni 2012). In this regard, the MUR is adopting the positive values of rational modernity through commitment to democracy, which is associated with the shuûra (consultation/election) that governed the pre-dynastic Islamic State (Yatim 2006, p. 54). Indeed, the reformist Islamists are coping with the democratic credo without discrediting the Islamic one. This displays the purposive rationalization of the PJD’s political ideology or what I call a utilitarian Islamic narrative initially reinvented by the MUR. From an ideological point of view, this movement expresses its endorsement of rationalization in these terms: “Political action and religious preaching (da’wa) are shaped by interest-based vision of the aims and ends of the religion considered here as indispensable, utilitarian and charitable” (Yatim 2006, pp. 43–44). From a practical perspective, this ongoing process of purposive rationalization is reflected in a series of pragmatic decisions taken by the PJD over many decades. For example, in the early 1990s, reformist Islamists decided to accept the monarchy (Yatim 2006, pp. 146–149) and to recognize the state in its national and Moroccan dimensions (Yatim 2006, p. 59). Technically speaking, they took part in two referendums on constitutional revisions, in 1992 and 1996, where they campaigned for ‘yes’. The reformist Islamists have participated in all elections as candidates without party affiliation since 1997. In the late 1980s, the reformist Islamists began to break with their revolutionary ideology and with excommunication (Yatim 2006, pp. 72–74); the PJD’s condemnation of the suicide attacks by Salafists in Casablanca on 16 May 2003 can be interpreted as a particularly clear sign of changing perspectives. At the same time, the PJD approved the reform of the Family Code (al-moudouwanna) that the monarch ratified in 2004, as well as all other projects that he initiated. Having opposed the monarch in the past, for example, the PJD ended up supporting the high-speed passenger train TGV, announced in 2007 and inaugurated in 2019, and the Mawazine-Rhythms of the world music festival, a royal project launched in 2001. Moreover, the PJD often shows pragmatism by rejecting all opposition to the monarchy, and, at the beginning of the Moroccan uprising in 39 Ahmed

Raïssouni was head of the Movement for Unity and Reform (MUR) until 2003; he was forced to resign because of his critical stance towards the ‘Commander of the faithful’. In 2018, he succeeded Sheikh Youssef El Qaradaoui as head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS).

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2011, the ex-leader of the PJD, Abdelilah Benkirane, refused to support the 20 February movement. He also unreservedly approved the monarch’s revision of the constitution, which was accepted by 97.58% of the population in the referendum of July 2011. Furthermore, the PJD is tirelessly trying to normalize relations with its political opponents. Since 2011, it has built coalitions even with parties close to the regime called ‘administrative parties’ (for example, the National Assembly of Independents, NAI, and the Constitutional Union, CU), and with parties that are ideologically different, such as the Party for Progress and Socialism (PPS), a former Moroccan communist party. One of the leaders of the PJD, Mustapha Ramid, currently Minister of Human Rights, even contributed to the ‘mediation’ that led in 2012 to the monarch’s decision to pardon the radical Salafist sheikhs involved in the bomb attacks of 2003. As a result, the commitment of reformist Islamists are leading to a far-reaching secularization process that depends on their ability to adapt Islamic ethics to the democratic credo and its institutionalization. However, the interweaving of the religious and the political makes driving daily life towards secularization tricky. From an ideological point of view, the process of axiological rationalization tends to narrow the scope of religious references in daily life under the constraints of legal normativity and bureaucratization described by Weber as “the cockpit of the new servitude” (Weber 1968 [1920], p. 57). Accordingly, the PJD’s mobilization of Islamic ethics aims at an alternative model of governability, one that is not devoid of morality and values, such as the liberal model of governability. This led reformist Islamists to reinvent the idea of moralization of public life brought to the fore especially during the election campaigns. According to their political doctrine, as analyzed above, the PJD’s reformist Islamists argue that there is no opposition between politics (interest) and morality (values). From this point of view, politicians must devote themselves to serving the public interest (massalih adounyawiya), while respecting the distinctive value-based ethical system. From a political perspective, Islamic secularization has led to some disillusionment of PJD leadership in terms of popularity, reflected in a decreasing use of religious references and symbols in the public sphere. PJD politicians are sometimes even forced to abandon their ethical system of norms and moral codes, when their political interests are threatened or when they are forced to make choices determined by the monarch’s political agenda. In this regard, the Islamic-oriented PJD does not hesitate to revisit (mourajaâ) its doctrinal baseline to deal with current secularization issues without falling into radical secularism, namely for good reason, because such a model of secularization risks damaging the reformist Islamist’s capital of religious legitimacy. According to party officials, “the PJD

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is taking into account the unique history of the kingdom of Morocco under the reign of the Alawite dynasty” (Yatim 2006, pp. 43–44). Showing unconditional support for the monarchy, Abdelilah Benkirane, ex-leader of the PJD, stated after the announcement of the election results on 25 November 2011 that “religion can be considered as the reason of being of the monarchy” (Benkirane, 2011a).40 A few days later, he added that the PJD cannot adopt the Turkish model of secularization based on separation, but that there should be a ‘Moroccan model of secularization’ (Benkirane, 2011b).41 After highlighting the ideological efforts of reformist Islamists in Morocco aiming at modernization via implicit, purposive rationalization - without evacuating Islamic ethics from public affairs—I introduce selected case studies of attempts to secularize everyday life issues in the next step.

3

The Islamic-Oriented PJD’s Involvement in the Secularization Process: Selected Cases

As mentioned above, I claim that the PJD is involved in religious rationalization processes based on an ideal type composed of two types of rationality: purposive rationality motivated by instrumental orientation, and axiological rationality motivated by moral and religious values. My notion of Islamic secularization refers to the attempts of the PJD aimed at the rationalization of moral public life in many areas, notably Islamic finance, artistic creativity, the public sale of alcohol, women’s rights, and individual and public liberties.

3.1

Public Morals and Accommodation with Corruption (Al-Fassad)

The first case of axiological rationalization is related to the PJD’s attachment to pragmatism and consensus to defend its interests in the elected councils. After entering government in 2011, for example, the PJD relegated its moral and religious values to the background for a while by forming an alliance with the Party of Progress and Socialism (PPS). In principle, orthodox Islam prohibits alliances 40 Interview

with Abdelilah Benkirane in the newspaper Asharq al-Awsat on 27 November 2011. 41 Exclusive interview with Abdelilah Benkirane by the Anatolia News Agency (APA) on 1 December 2011.

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with secular and anti-religious parties such as communists and Marxist-Leninists. Despite this, the PJD’s leaders believe that partisan coalitions could be justified, especially since they are ideologically unproblematic. This position is also theologically justified by the fiqh, which authorizes Muslims to commit prohibited acts (a-dârourâte Tou-bîhou al-mâhdourâtes) in the case of emergency or exceptional pressure. The overall objective is to allow the PJD’s members to serve the general interest (al-Mâsslâha al- ‘Ammâ). In 2007, for example, the PJD tried to strengthen public morality by establishing an internal ethical pact (mîtak akhlakî). It was nominally signed by all elected and party deputies, in order to crack down on corruption (al-fassad) and the rentier economy protected by the Makhzen.42 Furthermore, in 2011, several PJD ministers showed transparency and accountability by publishing a list of their financial assets (patrimony). In 2012, the Minister of Transportation and Equipment publicly disclosed a list of beneficiaries of the ‘transportation authorizations’ (called ‘lagrimate’ in Darija)43 granted by the monarch to his ‘loyal subjects’. Still, corruption, fraud and impunity continue to permeate all spheres of society, despite the efforts of the PJD to moralize public life. For example, during a meeting in parliament on 31 December 2013, the chief of government, Abdelilah Benkirane (PJD), recognized the limits of policy when declaring that “corruption is still endemic and [its] protectors are numerous and strong”. Proof of this is the 2017 index of the perception of corruption (CPI) adopted by Transparency International, which places Morocco 80th of 180 countries. Corruption is another example of Islamic secularization that overshadows moral and religious values in favor of purposive interests. In 2013, the government decided on a specific tax amnesty by inviting nationals with unreported assets and property abroad to regularize their situation with the administration (before 31 December 2014). To replenish the public budget, the PJD decided that all means should be used to increase state income44 without taking into account the religious principle of the illicitness (haram) of illegal activities, such as drug 42 The term Makhzen refers here to an authoritarian style of government embodied by the monarch and his entourage. 43 Darija is the Arabic dialect spoken in Morocco. 44 This decision symbolized the PJD’s attachment to the religious values of clemency (legal practice) and mercy (divine principle). It sends a strong political message to opponents of the PJD, but also to its allies in the party of Istiqlal, including a minister, Yasmina Baddou, who allegedly embezzled funds abroad. This ‘tax amnesty’ contained an implicit warning to business people suspected of misappropriating funds in tax havens, starting with the king, who, according to Swissleaks/Le Monde Journal (08/02/2015), illegally holds many bank accounts abroad (for example, at HSCB, which he opened in 2006).

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trafficking or money laundering. Nevertheless, the PJD’s ideologues demand the rationalization of public decisions by reducing expenses in order to face adverse economic circumstances. They also argue for the clemency of God after ‘people’s sincere repentance’ (attawba annassouh). The PJD’s Islamist leader, Abdelilah Benkirane, formulates the principle of forgiveness in his own terms: “’Afa Allahou ‘Amma Salaf ” (God is clement and merciful).

3.2

Interest-Based Loans Between Religious Requirements and Financial Capitalism

As part of its commitment to axiological rationalization, the PJD has pledged to adapt banking activities to Islamic ethics. From the predominantly theological view, the Qur’an considers interest-based loans as an unlawful practice known as usure (riba in Arabic). For this reason, the majority of Islamic organizations challenge the capitalistic banks and support so-called Islamic banks. The Moroccan regime was initially distrustful of Islamic banks for two main reasons. First, because conventional, monopolistic banks would be weakened; second, because of the risk of money laundering or the financing of illegal activities. In 1999, the PJD’s parliamentary group had already demanded the cancellation of ‘interestbased personal loans’ on the pretext that the Sharî’â prohibits riba. The same theological argument was presented by the PJD at the time to oppose the draft law on microcredits, which had been presented by the socialist-oriented government. But the PJD has since shifted its view of ‘personal interest loans’ by challenging the institutionalization of so-called Islamic finance. In 2006, the Moroccan central bank (Bank al-Maghrib) decided to create so-called alternative financial products which are supposed to comply with Sharî’â principles, but under strict banking regulations. In the international context of the 2008 financial crisis, reformist Islamists decided to reopen the debate on Islamic finance, which interests many people (including potential voters). In its electoral program of 2011, the PJD thus strongly supported the creation of so-called Islamic banking products, arguing that its goal is “to diversify the sources of financing of the economy, enhance competitiveness, and boost consumption and growth”.45 In January 2014, Benkirane’s government presented a draft bill on credit institutions and similar organizations initially called Islamic banks. In fact, this project was developed by the Moroccan

45 PJD’s

electoral program; op.cit., p. 62.

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central bank and monitored by the establishment. Legally speaking, it was adopted by the minister’s council (headed by the monarch) without being discussed in parliament. Many further observations can be made. First, PJD leaders were overridden by bureaucrats, who, when drafting the bill, managed to avoid the term ‘Islamic banks’ (bounoûk îslamîya). The Islamic-oriented government was forced to accept the term ‘participation products’, which is less religiously connoted. Second, the initial project provided for the ‘a-Sharî’â Commission’ (religious authority) to be replaced by a ‘compliance committee’ (normative board), designed by the superior council of the ulema. Indeed, the role of the ‘compliance committee’ is limited to a posteriori control of legal-ethical standards relating to Islamic financial activities. Despite this, the role of the ulema has been put forward within the Moroccan central bank for the first time in the Moroccan banking sector, ensuring the application of the regulatory system including ‘Islamic credit institutions’. Seen from another angle, though, Islamic finance allows the PJD to strengthen Islamic ethics in a sector of activity deemed to represent the core of Western capitalism. By adopting the law on ‘banking participation products’, reformist Islamists have managed to increase the scope and relevance of moral and religious values such as the illicitness of riba. A closer look reveals that the authorized banking products of ‘Islamic character’ are indicative of the end of the secular Moroccan banking system. In the future, the ‘participation products’ will have their value and their place, particularly among potential voters who are devoted to the respect of the Sharî’â. Furthermore, the commitment of the PJD to streamlining Islamic ethics was confirmed with the launch of a royal project aimed at financial service providers in February 2020. Once again, the economic logic based on credits by interest defeated the religious dogma that rejects riba, considering it as a major sin (mina al-kabâ’ir). To this end, Ahmed Raïssouni issued a fâtwâ46 in favor of bank financing and put forward the social aims of the royal project (purposive rationalization). Raïssouni considered these bank credits as lawful (halâl), commendable (axiological rationalisation), and fully compliant with Sharî’â precepts. In this regard, he asserts: This highly praiseworthy initiative is not motivated by a profit motive. Credit rates, which are capped at 2% in urban areas and even 1.75% in rural areas, do not allow banks to generate profits. This is barely enough to cover the costs of managing the files submitted by the young project leaders (...). The losses to be borne by creditor banks 46 Fâtwâ

(legal statement) launched by Ahmed Raïssouni in the online information site of “Al’omk Al-Maghribi” on 14 February 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBH86r PjunE&feature=emb_title. Accessed: 30.6.2020.

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or other guarantee bodies in the event of non-repayment of some or all of the credits distributed to the beneficiaries of the Intelaka program. These credits are allowed for basic needs, especially for young people who want to marry and start a family.

This liberal interpretation of Islamic legislation breaks with Muslim orthodoxy, which prohibits borrowing against the payment of interest. In my opinion, this fatwâ is important for at least two reasons. The first stems from a desire on the part of the reformist Islamists to ‘invest’ religious norms in a centralized liberal economic and finance sphere monopolized by the state. From a legal-rational point of view, the evaluative and discursive performance of the fatwâ of the president of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), Ahmed Raïssouni, provides religious legitimization (ta’ssil char’î) of an economic initiative taken by the monarch and implemented by the PJD as head of the government. In order to justify the interest on loans in this specific case, Raïssouni drew on the principle of fiqh, confirming that “needs (al-hâjâte) can be commuted into imperative necessities (darûrate)”. This makes it possible to convert the forbidden (harâm) into a licit act (halâl). The second reason is inherent in the identity of the author of the fatwâ considered as an’alim maqassîdî (utilitarian legal advisor), who is known to be particularly critical of the religious establishment, including even the amir al-mouminin, the monarch. Thus, the effort of interpretation (îjtîhad) of a religious prescription (riba) could be seen as an attempt at the axiological rationalization of Islamic legislation (Sharî’â). Moreover, this fatwâ supplants the religious establishment of the ulema, whose traditional power remains a prisoner of the monarch’s arbitrary power. Thus, it could be argued that the interest-based loan is considered as less moral and more related to the capitalist world-system. This assumes that, in economic matters, Islamism could be compatible with individual success and the development of entrepreneurship (Moisseron and Ben Cheikh 2016, pp. 34, 45). It should also be noted that Ahmed Raïssouni specifically addressed young, socially mobile entrepreneurs with his fatwâ. Ultimately, this category could feed a middle class that supports the secularization of the economic sphere, as currently pursued by the PJD. This opening up to finance and banking capitalism by the reformist Islamists of the PJD/MUR has been criticized by supporters of rigid Islamic orthodoxy, who reject interest-based finance. For example, the ex-Salafist jihadist Sheikh Hassan El Kettani has called for Raïssouni’s fatwâ to be revoked, arguing that it contradicts the Sharî’â. In the same vein, this new religious consultation could be detrimental to the PJD, insofar as it risks offending conservative circles, many of whom adhere to the so-called ‘Islamic participation banks’, and do not hesitate

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to vote for reformist candidates. The rationalization of Muslim ethics through the practice of riba could have two effects. First, it could cause a major ideological break between reformist Islamists and radical Islamist movements, which totally reject the charging of interest on loans. Second, it could anchor the PJD in the capitalist world.

3.3

Artistic Practices Between Religious Puritanism and Individual Emancipation

A third example of Islamic secularization is the PJD’s involvement in defending art and culture through the prism of Islamic ethics. I draw here on my research on the emergence of Islamic leadership in Casablanca since 2003 (Chahir 2011). In 2005, for example, the PJD elected counselors who opposed the organization of the first artistic film and theatre festival in Casablanca. This stance was officially supported by the MUR, which defended a cultural conservatism based on a ‘rigorist morality’.47 Concretely, the PJD criticized the cultural choices made by the president of the city council, an ally of the PJD, during the planning of the festival. More specifically, the local PJD leaders tried to impose a kind of puritanism on cultural practices in the city. For example, they disapproved of some artistic styles such as urban music represented by young artists performing hiphop and rap protest songs48 arising from the festival L’boulevard.49 Some of the PJD’s elected counselors judged the lyrics of rap songs to be indecent and opposed to noble and moral artistic creativity. Nevertheless, the PJD does not defend so-called moral conservatism. In 2013, for instance, Najib Boulif, a former PJD minister, welcomed the PJD’s moralistic stance, deeming it an ethical guarantee to spread what he called clean art (al-fann Anadîf ) or committed art (al-fann al-moltazîm).

47 An MUR statement dated 3 August 2005 reads: “This festival is a deliberate policy to spread deceit under the pretext of combating extremism (...). We invite all Moroccans to boycott it because it has nothing to do with noble art and culture; this festival is contrary to good morality”. A document published and distributed by the MUR to the press and the populations in the city of Casablanca 48 Since the 2000s, the regime has faced the rise of ‘protest rap’, whose most radical proponents are persecuted or banned. For example, al-Hakad was imprisoned and then forced into exile in Belgium because of his songs criticizing police corruption. 49 The Boulevard of Young Musicians, Nayda (upheaval), is a competition festival for young musicians. It has taken place annually in Casablanca since 2003 (after the bomb attacks there).

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On the other hand, the PJD denounced at the national level the artistic program of theMawazine festival headed by Mounir Majidi, the president of Morocco of Cultures and the king’s private secretary. The PJD “condemned the participation, under the patronage of the monarch, of immoral Western artists who encourage mixing, the consumption of alcohol and drugs, and depravity among young people”.50 During the Mawazine festival in 2010, for example, Abdelilah Benkirane openly called for the concert of the British pop star Elton John to be cancelled, because he is an icon of the gay community. Many PJD members of parliament argued that “the participation of such artists is a maneuver aimed at trivializing homosexuality in Islamic countries, where it is prohibited”.51 After joining the government in 2011, however, the PJD stopped condemning the Mawazine festival, particularly its artistic choices and programs, and the ‘morality’ of the performers (axiological rationalization). At present, some PJD leaders only criticize the organizational management of the festival (purposive rationalization). For example, in 2013, El Habib Choubani, the former PJD minister for Relations with Parliament and Civil Society, denounced “the incompatibility of a festival funded by public money with youth unemployment”, and criticized “the festival’s programming during the period of the baccalaureate exams”.52 To avoid conflict with the monarchy, reformist Islamists were thus forced to reduce the scope and relevance of moral values whenever they pronounced on the issue of the Mawazine festival. Despite its neutrality regarding the artistic orientation of this festival, the PJD was accused by its opponents in 2018 of having surreptitiously led a campaign to boycott the festival that discouraged spectators from attending.53

50 In 2005, elected PJD counselors in Casablanca accused AMIS (Moroccan Association to Combat AIDS) of “inciting young people to commit debauchery by distributing condoms for free”. 51 Article 489 of the Criminal Code criminalizes “unlawful or unnatural acts with an individual of the same sex”. 52 Interview given to the Arabic-speaking daily Akhbar Al-Youm, February 28, 2012 53 See The PJD/MUR’s statement calling for the boycott of the festival in 2005. A document published and diffused among journalists and populations by the MUR’s activists

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The Public Sale of Alcohol

According to the Sharî’a, the consumption and sale of alcohol by Muslims should be prohibited, since the Qur’an explicitly decrees that alcohol or fermented beverages are illegal.54 In the late 1990s, the MUR thus denounced the public sale of alcohol by the Marjane supermarkets owned by the royal holding Al-Mada. Indeed, since its creation, the PJD has been calling for the adoption of stricter laws against the consumption and sale of alcohol by Moroccan citizens.55 In its electoral program of 1997, the PJD explicitly called for a ban on drinking establishments.56 In 2003, some PJD candidates in communal elections in Casablanca led a campaign against the sale of alcohol in supermarkets located in poor neighborhoods, arguing that the consumption of alcohol increases crime. This turned out to be a winning strategy that helped the president of a municipal council in the metropolis to increase his popularity among a conservative electorate and thus to win a second term. The local PJD leader even took part in a sit-in to protest against the opening of a Marjane supermarket selling alcohol in a deprived area of the city. However, the PJD has since made an undeniable shift towards purposive rationalization to the extent that it is apparently inclined to overshadow its moral and religious considerations. The purpose of these shifts is to realize some legal and rational transformations in the regulation system of selling and the consumption of alcohol. In 2007, for example, the PJD introduced an amendment to the Finance Bill, which called for high taxation on alcohol. The same year, the PJD parliamentary group called on the Minister of the Interior to open an investigation into the organization of a ‘wine-tasting meeting’ in the city of Meknes. In December 2009, Ahmed Raïssouni, theologian and former president of the MUR at the time, issued a fâtwâ calling on Moroccans to boycott all supermarkets selling alcohol. The former secretary-general and leading member of the PJD, Saâd Eddine El Othmani, supported this fatwâ by calling for the strict application of the law prohibiting the purchase and consumption of alcohol by Moroccans.

54 The Qu’ran, Surah 5 Al-Ma-îdah (The table) 90: “Ô you who believe! Wine, gambling and idols and divining arrows are only an abomination of Satan. Spread yourself that you may prosper”. 55 The dahir (royal legislative act) of July 1967 states in Article 28 that “it is forbidden for any operator (...) to sell or offer free alcoholic beverages to Moroccan Muslims”. 56 Journal Ar-Raya, 6 November 1997 (preaching organ affiliated to the MUR which was called at the time al-Islah wa-Tajdid—Movement of Reform and Innovation, MRI).

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Leading the government since 2011, the PJD has reduced the scope of religious ethics in the system of alcohol regulation. In 2012, for example, the PJD parliamentary group decided to vote for two ambiguous legislations: first, to prohibit any advertising of alcohol pretending to defend an Islamic ethics that prohibits the consumption of alcohol (axiological rationality); second, to levy a domestic consumption tax (DCT) on liquor and wine. The objective announced is to gradually increase the price of alcohol as a way to replenish state funds (purposive rationality). In the 2014 annual budget, the PJD sought to take advantage of tax revenues from the sale of alcohol. By adopting a public policy based on ‘financial interests’, the Islamic-oriented government lowered the tax on ‘popular cheap wine’, but failed to increase it on luxury wines. The stated purpose of reformist Islamists was to encourage the production of wholesale wine, which would create significant tax revenues for state funds. In sum, the PJD is fostering a shift towards secularization by being less intransigent concerning the public sale of alcohol. This is probably due to two main reasons. First, alcohol is produced by a company (Brasseries du Morocco) that had until 2003 belonged to the king, who decided in 2014 to no longer sell alcohol in Marjane markets. Second, the alcohol industry creates jobs and contributes to the growth of the Moroccan economy. Tax revenues from alcohol increased to 1.4 billion Dirhams in 2017 compared to 2016.

3.5

Individual Liberties Under the Yoke of Religious Orthodoxy

The PJD has an ambivalent relationship to the issue of individual liberties. However, now that they are involved in running the government, the party’s leaders have become increasingly compelled to carry out an axiological rationalization of affairs that aims to reduce the scope of religious prescriptions in the public sphere. Three case studies are briefly presented here.

3.5.1 Women’s Rights and Sexual Rights Reformist Islamists are reducing the possibility of Islamic secularization by promoting a conservative approach to the question of women’s rights. Indeed, female activists in the PJD have found it difficult to integrate the liberal vision advocated by Islamic feminist movements.57 In 1998, the PJD criticized the philosophy 57 The term Islamic feminism was coined in the 1990s, among others by the Iranian anthropologist and activist Ziba Mir-Hosseini. The global movement is active in numerous Arab

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behind the socialist-oriented government’s reform of the Personal Status Code. The PJD has denounced the prevalence of Western values such as a gender equality program promoted by the United Nations as part of the National Action Plan for the Integration of Women in Development (PANAFID). After tensions had risen between Islamists and secularists, royal arbitration was imposed to allow the adoption of the Family Code (moudawanate al-oussra) in 2004. During the 2000s, the PJD tried laboriously to modernize the status of women and the family. In a meeting on 16 March 2003, it decided to highlight the issue of women’s rights and created the Organization of the Renewal of the Feminine Consciousness (ORCF). Nevertheless, reformist Islamists are still unwilling to accept all claims for gender equality made by feminist Moroccan NGOs. Rather, the PJD seeks the impartiality of rights based on two religious principles, namely al-înssaf (equity) and a-takamoul (complementarity) between the sexes. In this regard, Bassima Hakkaoui, ex-minister of Solidarity, Women, Family and Social Development, claimed in 2003 that “men and women do not have the same obligations; there is a feminine characteristic, including biological and physical structure of women”.58 Since gaining power in 2011, the PJD has been more or less forced to adapt its moral and religious doctrine to the secular demands of women’s rights, in particular according to the constitutional provisions and international conventions. In this respect, the MUR’s ideologues recognize international law as long as in their view it does not conflict with Sharî’â (Yatim 2006, pp. 54, 81). In the past, reformist Islamists deemed, for example, that marriage after rape preserved the social reputation of the woman who had been raped. In late January 2014, Benkirane’s government finally accepted a partial amendment to Article 475 of the Penal Code that no longer allowed rapists to avoid prison if they married their victim. However, in another area, reformist Islamists remain rather unyielding on issues of individual freedom, which weakens their commitment to secularization. Obviously, the PJD refuses to repeal (or at least amend) the law against sexual freedom, and still opposes the legalization of homosexuality, as the PJD’s chief of government stressed in a press interview in February 2016. This position is not new. In February 2008, the PJD’s young people launched a national moralization campaign against homosexuality and sexual debauchery, which began in the province of Ksar lakbir, where two individuals had organized a symbolic celebration countries, South East Asia and Iran. It has participated with UN women in researching religious frameworks to end discriminatory practices against women. See Heidemarie Winkel’s contribution in this volume. 58 Bassima El-Hakkaoui, “woman and development between authenticity and occidentalization”, workshop organized by the PJD, 31st July 1999.

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of their gay marriage. To avoid clashing with secular forces, the PJD is currently showing a kind of neutrality towards events involving homosexuality. This was the case in February 2014, when the organizers of the national festival of cinema in Tangier decided to present a film about homosexuality by Abdellah Taïa, the first Moroccan writer to make his homosexuality public. In the sphere of law and international legislation, the PJD condemned Morocco’s adherence to CEDAW (the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women) in July 2015.59 The convention addresses—among others—the issue of equality between men and women with regard to inheritance.60 Also unacceptable for the PJD’s leaders is the legalization of abortion (al-ijhaad), except in the limited case of incest or rape. Reformist Islamists refuse also to make concessions on some societal issues such as the abolition of the death penalty and the prohibition on polygamy, which are regularly advocated by secular forces.

3.5.2 The Hijab as a Private Matter From a legal point of view, the PJD does not impose in its statutes the compulsory wearing of the hijab61 on its female members. After almost a decade at the head of the government, the PJD is traversed by a movement of liberalization of morals that manifests itself through an implicit acceptance of women’s emancipation. This intellectual openness has come to the fore through the emergence of a feminist leadership that explicitly advocates secularization in which culture and society are supposed to be freed from religious control. This ideological trend was led by a female member of the PJD, who defends a political

59 Statement by Abdelilah Benkirane, who will be appointed head of the government in 2011, at a meeting with some leaders of the PJD, working meeting on the strategy of the Islamists in the next decade, 2005. 60 The question of inheritance in Islam is heating up in Morocco. Gender activists organized a petition on 21 March 2018 seeking to abolish certain inheritance practices such as residues (ta’asib). Ironically, Ahmed Raïssouni ex-president of MUR, declared that “the religious doctrine of Islam cannot be changed by the game of petitions” (la tougha yyarou al-farayid bil-‘arayid). 61 The term hijab appears seven times in the Qur’anic and translates, each time, as everything that hides and conceals something. While the hijab only concerned the prophet’s wives, it was quickly transformed into an essential tool for the historical submission of women to the patriarchal order. Following their father, Hassan II, the princesses do not wear the hijab. This is particularly the case for the ex-wife of King Mohammed VI, Princess Lalla Salma. Separated from her husband a few years ago, she is not hesitant to publicly appear in a miniskirt and without a veil.

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practice that recognizes women’s rights and liberties, far from religious orthodoxy. In January 2019, Amina Maelainine, a young PJD deputy, made headlines after photos of her without a hijab were shown in front of the Moulin Rouge cabaret in Paris. Attacked from all sides, she found refuge in the home of the former head of the PJD government, Abdelilah Benkirane, who expressed his solidarity with her, saying that “the question of whether or not to wear the veil is a matter of personal conviction, which is not a matter for the party”.62 This opinion was not shared by the PJD’s current Minister of State for Human Rights, Mustapha Ramid. In February 2019, Ramid denounced the double game played by Maelainine, arguing that she had misled voters by taking off her hijab abroad, while wearing it in Morocco when she ran in the legislative elections of 2011.63 The PJD’s disciplinary commission was lenient, and only excluded her from the race for the top positions to be filled on behalf of the party. A year after this controversy, Maelainine used a post on her Facebook account to acknowledge the authenticity of the photos of her in a miniskirt, and said that she was proud to have assumed the responsibility of freely disposing of her body. Invited to a televised debate on France 24 on Thursday 18 April 2019, she attacked her critics, including those within the PJD, calling them cowards and hypocrites. She took the opportunity to call on her party’s activists to “make a distinction between political commitment, which is part of the public sphere, and individual beliefs, which are exclusively a private matter”. In addition, she indicated that she was considering leaving the PJD for another political party, but that she would always remain true to her beliefs, including defending women’s rights and freedoms, and gender equality with regard to inheritance.64 Through the lens of Islamic feminism, Maelainine developed an intellectual approach of axiological rationalization that tends to diminish the rigorist interpretation of the Quranic text carried by Muslim orthodoxy. The latter continues to see the liberation of the woman’s body as a fitna (source of temptation) that will have to be curbed through the cultural and political confinement of women in the hijab, while radical movements even require the wearing of the burka (the full-length veil).

62 Filmed intervention broadcast on social networks by relatives of Abdelilah Benkirane, dated 13 January 2019, hereinafter the link https://youtu.be/IzBdFUpemrw. Accessed: 20 June 2020. 63 Exclusive statement to the information site, retrieved from https://fr.le360.ma dated 01/02/2019. 64 See the program at https://youtu.be/mBhDbuxL89Y. Accessed: 20 June 2020.

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Religious Freedom as the Main Challenge of Secularization

When the interweaving of the theological and the political predominates in the public sphere, society is continually confronted with the question of the status and positioning of opinions. In Morocco, the standpoints are necessarily hierarchized according to the political and societal place given to transcendence. Max Weber affirms that, in contrast to sects that claim religious freedom, a religion of salvation that aims at universalistic ends, such as Christianity—as well as Islam—will always have difficulty in conceding freedom of conscience (Weber 2013, pp. 409–410). According to Bryan Turner, Islam has to face the paradox of the ‘choice of belief’ (Turner, 2011). For the anthropologist Talal Asad, the particular conditions of secularism are not to be sought from the point of view of tolerance and freedom of worship. For his part, the Moroccan philosopher Mohamed Mouaqit asserts that freedom of conscience represents a serious challenge for Muslim countries insofar as they are confronted with the question of ‘religious pluralism’ and ‘individual freedoms’ (Mouaqit 2017, p. 139). In Muslim societies, few regimes legally recognize freedom of conscience, as they do in Turkey or Egypt, and, even when it is recognized, it is difficult to ensure that it is respected in the socio-political reality. Morocco is not left out of this controversial debate. During the French protectorate, the subject of religious freedom was not of high priority for the political parties, not even for those on the left within the national independence movement. The predominance of the Muslim faith was seen as a mark of identity of (Muslim) Moroccans in their struggle against the colonial administration (Christians). Moreover, the ‘enlightened salafism’ (salafiâ moutanâwirâ) advocated by the party of Istiqlal (independence) had also contributed to curbing the undeclared ambitions of the secularists to establish a kind of separation of politics and religion. After independence, the path of secularization was not followed by the leftwing parties, which seem to have preferred to strengthen the monarch’s exclusive monopoly on public religion. This path enabled the monarchy to neutralize supporters of political Islam and thereby to circumscribe religious freedom in the kingdom. In 1962, for example, the regime of Hassan II proved to be intractable with regard to religious pluralism, deciding to imprison thirteen Moroccans and one Syrian because they belonged to the Baha’i religion, before releasing them under international pressure. The regime of Mohammed VI presented itself as being more tolerant towards Muslims who claimed the right to renounce their faith, that is, who defended freedom of conscience. Currently, the practice of

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Bahaism is tolerated even if it is not officially recognized. In spite of this, religious freedom has continued to give rise to controversy between supporters of secularism, who call for a separation of politics and theology, and conservative circles, including Islamists65 and Salafists, who argue that public religion is embodied by the amir al-mouminin. In the MUR literature, for example, the movement’s theologians skillfully avoid mentioning freedom of conscience, conversion and apostasy. However, during the revision of the constitution in 2011, the PJD was forced to take a position when the debate focused on the issue of religious freedom. According to a member of the Consultative Commission for the Revision of the Constitution (CCRC), the first draft of the text established freedom of conscience as a normative principle. But, as expected, the religious establishment clung to the status of the amir al-mouminin. In fact, the article in question was deleted and all references giving primacy to universal values were embedded in a vague expression: namely, “in accordance with the constants of the kingdom” (see Article 19 of the 2011 Moroccan constitution). Faced with the religious clergy, the proponents of secularism within the CCRC would not stand up to support the constitution’s attempt to recognize freedom of conscience. And, for good reasons, the monarchy was not yet willing to formally recognize religious freedom in order to lay the foundations for a real secularized state. A brief analysis of this historical sequence tells us that the PJD probably did not block this proposal, as its detractors have suggested. According to a member of the CCRC, the PJD remained committed to political liberalization. Initially, the PJD had no interest in opposing the recognition of freedom of conscience (axiological rationalization) as long as the palace had no reservations on this issue. However, it was only after the opposition of the chairman of the CCRC to this proposal that the PJD decided to take an explicit stand against freedom of conscience. Its objective was twofold: to preserve its political brand as a party of Islamic obedience in the eyes of its voters, and to recalibrate its choice with the monarch’s ‘undisputable orientations’ (purposive rationalization). In fact, it seems that the PJD’s position against freedom of conscience does not emanate from a dogmatic predisposition inherent in the rigorous interpretation of the religious referent (Sharî’â). Its shift seems to be completely consistent with a rational strategy based on political pragmatism and utilitarianism, and above all its recognition that the hegemonic balance of power broadly favous the monarchy.

65 The

association of Al Adl Wal Ihssan (Justice and Charity), which is not recognized by the regime, is considered as the leading opposition force in Morocco. This politico-religious organization does not recognize the monarch’s status as amir al-mouminin.

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From a political point of view, it seems that both the monarchy and the reformist Islamists have no interest now in opening the debate on religious freedom, because both sides draw on the religious referent to maintain their political legitimacy. In the future, the recognition of freedom of conscience will probably be the real challenge for PJD supporters. In this way, they could fundamentally contribute to the formation of a ‘Moroccan model of secularization’—far from Kemalism, which clearly recognizes the freedom of conscience and thought (Article 15 of the constitution of the Turkish Republic). A deep axiological rationalization of the PJD’s ideological referent could finally pave the way for institutional secularization where religious freedom and tolerance would be the normative rules. Recently, the head of the MUR had rejected the rigorous interpretation of religion by paying homage publicly to secularism. In this regard, Abderrahim Chikhi stated this: “Secularism has liberated religion from the state authoritarianism.” Moreover, he affirmed that “the question of individual freedoms is no longer a side matter, but an urgent priority”.66 It is true that the MUR has never dared to raise the question of individual liberties in its ideological documents. Nevertheless, we cannot deny that we are attending here an intellectual openness on the part of the reformist Islamists, which could lead in the near future to recognition of individual freedoms. Despite all these attempts at secularization, I should recognize that the reformist Islamists remain to a certain extent attached to Islamic ethics when dealing with public liberties. In the audio-visual field, for example, the Islamic-oriented government decided in 2012 to ban the advertising of alcohol on TV. At the same time, the PJD’s ex-minister of communication decided to strengthen the use of the Arabic language in television broadcasts. Symbolically, the PJD forced 2 M, a public TV channel with a liberal editorial line, to broadcast the five daily calls to prayer (Azan) and the prayers led by the monarch such as the Friday sermon (al-joumou’a) as well as the two religious celebration prayers (Eid al-Fitr and Eid-Kebir). In return, the PJD had to make many concessions while drafting the new broadcasting law. The party failed, for instance, to impose restrictions on lottery advertising, despite knowing that a lottery is a game of chance strictly condemned in the Qur’an.67 66 See the intervention of the president of the MUR during the conference organized by the Movement on October 11, 2019 in Rabat, under the theme "The debate on individual freedoms in Muslim societies". Accessed: https://youtu.be/eKqKYjMHHZU. 67 See the Qur’anic verse: O ye who believe! Strong drink and games of chance and idols and divining arrows are only an infamy of Satan’s handiwork. Leave it aside in order that ye may succeed” (Al-Ma’idah: 90–91).

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145

Conclusion

From a Weberian perspective, I have proposed a new analytical framework in this chapter to gauge the depth of what I call the process of implicit secularization. In an authoritarian context dominated by public religion such as in Morocco, dynamics of ongoing secularization are gradually crossing the whole political system in response to legalitarism and democratization. Since the 1990s, indeed, the reformist Islamist Moroccan Party of Justice and Development (PJD) has been rationalizing and intellectualizing its religious and moral referent by implementing a pragmatic, utilitarian approach to purposive rationalization. This philosophy finds resonance in the fiqh maqassîdî, which tends to reduce the realm of the religious referent (Sharî’â) to an ethics of mediation. Based on îjtîhâd (religious interpretation), political interests (al-massalih a-adounyawiya) take precedence over moral and religious values (axiological rationalization). In this regard, the PJD is defending a model of institutional participation grounded on the principles of normative legality (sovereignty of legality), human rights (sovereignty of international law), and democracy (sovereignty of the people). It should be noted that all the examples analyzed above substantially affirm my claim that the PJD is more inclined to purposive rationalization for political and ideological motives. This is manifest in the sporadic and circumscribed attempts at intellectual legitimation such as the endorsement of corruption (tax amnesty for illegal incomes), the approval of the practice of riba (interest-based loans prohibited in Islam), and the decision to take advantage of potential financial benefits from the actual ‘illicit business of selling alcohol’. Simultaneously, the reformist Islamists are trying to ensure a mode of axiological rationalization of moral and religious values. Currently, the PJD’s leaders are publicly avoiding opposing nudity and sexuality, especially in the artistic field, and seem to be increasingly willing to accept individual freedoms, such as women’s rights, while remaining somewhat reserved about adultery. In the meantime, they seem to oppose religious pluralism less and less, such as freedom of conscience. At the same time, as is the case with most Islamic movements, the PJD remains intransigent on the issue of the death penalty, which has not been used in Morocco for the past 25 years. At this point, I could state that reversible Islamic secularization could enhance democratization based on the distinction between politics and the religious. Referring primarily (and not only) to normative legality, individuals could then claim their priority for citizenship without being forced to renounce their moral and religious value system. At the same time, pre-political traditional ties and the patrimonialist system of allegiance and legitimation should not gain the upper hand over the rule of law and legality. In contrast to ideological purposes, my

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attempt here is to forge an analytical paradigm of secularization grounded on concrete constellations of everyday life. That way, we can understand the approach taken by Moroccan reformist Islamists to manifold socio-political challenges in everyday life as implicit secularization by purposive and axiological rationalization that reduces the scope of the religious in their political action. The aim of this shift in their political orientation is twofold: to strengthen the civil character of the state and to curb the hegemony of the monarchy in the public sphere. Furthermore, the emergence of a political Islam that tends towards the institutionalization of secularization could help counteract the rise of radicalism and extremism of all kinds, and consolidate individual liberties, religious pluralism and human rights. Instead, I believe that dynamics of secularization are in the Moroccan authoritarian regime indispensable for establishing a democratic state, where public religion is not instrumentalized (or monopolized) to strengthen power and to dominate people in the name of God.

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Kamel Daoud, the Colonizer and the Fatwa: Negotiating Islam in Algeria Isabella Schwaderer

Abstract

After a performance by novelist and journalist Kamel Daoud on a French TV show, a call for his execution has been posted on Facebook. This escalates into a media scandal that affects actors far beyond Algeria. These events and the associated media reflections are examined using a post-foundational discourse analysis approach and are explained as practices of seizing and maintaining power and contests the view of a binary opposition of religious vs. secular forces in the country. In this interpretation, the master signifier Islam, around which social discourses are constantly evolving, serves as a crystallization point for a complicated system of interrelated societal conflicts. These include a shared colonial history with France, the role of French education and language in Algeria, and a tradition of political role of Islam as well as current social conflicts. Nowadays, the lack of economic and social prospects for an This text contains a few Arabic quotations, which are presented in transliteration. I have excluded names and common expressions to keep the text fluid. Proper names of Algerians are given in the form that is used in the Algerian press based on French orthography. I am very grateful to Yousra Ibrahim for help with translations and transliterations from Arabic, to Faiza Hussain for introducing me to the intricacy of Islamic theology, and to Mouloud Allek, who has contributed immensely to my understanding of controversies in Algeria. If not stated differently, all translations into English are mine. I. Schwaderer (B) Allgemeine Religionswissenschaft, University of Erfurt, Erfurt, Germany E-Mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 C. Gärtner and H. Winkel (eds.), Exploring Islam beyond Orientalism and Occidentalism, Veröffentlichungen der Sektion Religionssoziologie der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-33239-6_7

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entire generation and ethnic segregation phenomena destabilize an encrusted political system and influence the European perspective on North Africa as a country of origin for potential migrants. Keywords

Algeria • Islamism • Postcolonial Theory • Albert Camus • Frantz Fanon Media • Politics

1

•

Introduction

Algeria, a country at the gates of Europe, is commonly associated with extremely violent terrorist attacks that have diminished but not disappeared since the Black Decade of civil war in the 1990s. Scholarly interest in a country where traveling has become dangerous due to the organized kidnapping of European tourists has almost vanished, and media information is reduced to atrocious fights between the Algerian army and Islamist terrorists, or, more recently, to the cruel treatment of refugees stuck on their way to Europe. One of the most prominent preoccupations of producers and consumers of news stories seems to be the incessant confrontation between Islamist fighters and a secular, Western-oriented but defiantly dictatorial regime taking the breath out of a thin and exhausted democratic movement that had surfaced in the so-called Arab spring. While this schematic view is not wrong in itself, it is very simplistic. Hence, in this paper, I question the binary opposition of two major social forces facing each other, namely Islamist anti-Westerners and secular pro-European actors, and I show that a discourse-analytical approach is more suitable in uncovering the different layers of a multifaceted societal debate around the role of Islam in Algeria. For this purpose, I focus on a small media scandal that arose and vanished rather quickly in Algeria in December 2014, but that had a stronger impact in France and, to a lesser extent, in Germany. The best-known part of this story is a fatwa launched by the self-proclaimed Islamist imam, Abdelfattah Hamadache Ziraoui, who demanded that the author of an acclaimed novel, Kamel Daoud, should be put to death for offending Allah, Muslims, and the Arabic language. To uncover the layers of this debate, I have analyzed different kinds of sources ranging from the contested novel, the Arabic and French media coverage in Algeria, newspaper articles from France and Germany, blog entries, online forum discussions, and television interviews. The above-mentioned incident will serve to illustrate, in a kind of mise-en-abyme, tensions and conflicts, as well as the

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complicated interdependencies of national identity, language, and faith in a country that has chosen political self-isolation but is, nevertheless, tightly connected to France due to (de)colonization, migration, and intersecting global interests. The Lacanian term (Lacan 1993, pp. 268–269) of the master signifier serves the purpose of grouping the various parts of this broad and emotionally charged debate that not only permeates every layer of Algerian society, but also affects France and, in a broader sense, the so-called West in general. For the French media, the situation seems to be quite clear: we have two persons, each representing a group in an ongoing societal dispute over the role of Islam in Algeria. On the one hand, there is a Western-oriented writer who endorses a critical position towards Islam. On the other hand, there is an Islamist preacher and demagogue who launched a fatwa demanding the death penalty for Daoud. In brief, the image corresponds to what the French, or generally, the supposed Western reader expects, i.e. a dispute between a secular or, at least, ‘enlightened’ view of Islam which emphasizes liberalism and freedom for the individual, and an extremist position clinging to medieval ideas and repressive practices.1 Therefore, sympathies are not distributed in an equal way, to put it mildly, as Daoud is perceived in the French media as an angry young David who defends ‘Western’ values against the Islamist Goliath in an African country ruled by a sinister dictatorship (Ford 2017, pp. 63–69). But, looking at the rather subdued response to the event in the Algerian media and the various reactions from Algerians, nothing suggests a struggle between ‘secular’ and ‘Islamist’ positions. In Western media reports on this event (or similar ones), the binary opposition of secular/non-secular or secular/Islamist is predominant, but not much of this dualism can be found in the Algerian discourse. I thus propose a different reading of the Daoud affair that also presents an Algerian perspective on the matter. In fact, for the greater part of the population in Algeria, the idea of a secular society is difficult to conceive and not really relevant for their worldview. In contrast, Islam appears as a particularly reliable parameter of both individual and social life, and is thus omnipresent as an anchor of sense-making, action and orientation in the world, ensuring symbolic continuity in an otherwise politically, socially, and economically unstable environment. In fact, all societal discourses revolve in one way or another around the correct application of Islam, from high-level political actions down to the ordinary level of household chores. But, even if all discourses and social practices in the 1 On the echo in France and what followed the publication of the English translation, see Ford

(2017). Additionally, on France, see also Cocquet (2014) and Lévy (2014); on Germany, see, for example, Marot (2015).

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very end refer to Islam2 as the starting-point of sense-making, I claim that Algerians tend to negotiate their everyday life around Islam as a symbolic resource of action and meaning without necessarily touching on religious matters in the sense of questions directed towards the sacred (Otto 1917) or the transcendent (Luhmann 2000), be they public or private (Casanova 1994). Hence, to avoid the binary oppositions (like secular vs. religious, sacred vs. profane, transcendent vs. immanent) utilized in many sociological theories from an implicit standpoint of methodological secularism (Asad 2003; Calhoun et al. 2011), I provide a discourse analysis (Stuckrad 2015, pp. 1–21) of the events around the accusation of blasphemy levelled at Kamel Daoud. This will allow me to focus on shifting relationships around the power of values and social trust connected with the ultimate justification of a religious model (Joas 2017, p. 442), instead of trying to establish a static model of the relevant society. Second, I propose a non-essentialist approach using a linguistic and psychoanalytical conceptualization based on Jacques Lacan’s discourse theory, which has been translated into political categories by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe (2001); for recent discussions, see Hildebrand and Séville (2019). Even if all discourses and social practices in the very end refer to Islam as the starting-point of culture and finally as its ultimate justification, it is impossible to maintain a common definition of what each of the actors involved exactly means by Islam. I want to show that Islam can in this case be understood as a Lacanian master signifier which functions as a central symbolic anchor in a plurality of discourses. In this regard, it has additionally to be taken into consideration that the high socio-cultural relevance of Islam as a socio-cultural linchpin of sense-making and belonging also mirrors the colonial legacy as well as the burden of self-assertion in an ongoing neo-colonial, global regime. In order to develop the different reading of the affair, I first sketch the notion of the master signifier in line with the discursive approach of Jacques Lacan, as well as of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Second, I examine the discussion from different angles, from actors from Algeria and abroad. Overall, this chapter shows that the debate around Islam and its interpretations is a slightly veiled dispute of who sets the boundaries on a public debate and who is allowed to speak.

2 In

the following text, the term Islam will be marked in italics when I refer to the master signifier in the meta-discourse of the analysis; the normal form will be used when it occurs in a different context.

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Theoretical Presuppositions—Islam as Master Signifier

The concept of a master signifier (or empty signifier) as the most abstract reference point of social discourse and as a supplier of social cement—albeit temporarily— has been developed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe.3 Originally situated in political studies, their discourse theory can be usefully translated into cultural studies (as in Carpentier and Spinoy 2008) and into religious studies (Bergunder 2014). This approach explains how social practice unfolds around the hegemonic, but at the same time contingent, act of defining or naming Islam in a determinate context. Its creation and repetitive performance underlines a hegemonic demand and works as an ideological glue in situations of crisis of authority (Laclau and Mouffe 2001). Therefore, I opt here for a post-foundational analysis of the phenomenon of Islam based on the political thought of the Heideggerian Left (for the definition, see Marchart 2010, p. 19, note 4) as a key to understanding attempts at social demarcation and the implementation of claims to power in Algeria. A master signifier is “the most abstract principle by which any discursive space is totalized” (Sayyid 1997, p. 47). Bobby Sayyid is applying the work of Slavoj Žižek (1989) to Islam here, where the abstract and, in consequence, empty signifier becomes the “source of identification beyond any concrete manifestation” (Sayyid 1997, p. 51, note 69). Similarly, Laclau and Mouffe used the insights of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan on the fixation of meaning in a discourse; they start from Jacques Derrida’s critique of the idea that our concepts are based on an invariable reference, situated outside the linguistic sign system in which they are pronounced. The linguist Saussure had already loosened the connection between signifier and signified by postulating an aleatory connection between the object and the name by which it is designated. Signs thus gain their meaning only in contrast to other signs and not in reference to a reality outside the discourse (Saussure 1977, p. 67 and passim). The meaning of signs is by themselves not fixed but free-floating and in constant movement. This finally leads to an infinite regress in the ascription of meaning consisting, finally, in a mere tissue of difference (Bergunder 2014, p. 261), as in the case of ‘Islam’ versus ‘secular’. But, to make communication possible, a temporary fixation is necessary: The impossibility of an ultimate fixity of meaning implies that there have to be partial fixations – otherwise, the very flow of differences would be impossible. […] Any discourse is constituted as an attempt to dominate the field of discursivity, to arrest the flow of differences, to construct a centre (Laclau and Mouffe 2001, p. 112). 3 A theoretical re-evaluation of this concept aiming at a systematic operationalization of post-

foundational discourse analysis has been proposed by Tomas Marttila (2015).

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These partial fixations, also known as ‘nodal’ or ‘quilting points’ (points de capitonnage, Lacan 1993), can temporarily freeze the free fluctuation of signifiers and provide the illusion of provisional ‘centers’ in a discourse, i.e. temporary meanings: A nodal point might also aspire to assume the universal position of a whole social and discursive system, conferring a fictional and provisional sense of closure to that system by way of a unique signifying gesture. This means suturing temporarily a definite social space, representing its discursive totality. The universal position that a nodal point covers here can best be grasped through the expression master signifier, which highlights the ability of the nodal point to ‘order’ a chain of signifiers, giving meaning to all the elements that compose it (Mura 2014, italics: Mura).

Accordingly, the master signifier is a signifier which has been cleared from every differentiality to comprehend virtually anything. Its emptiness is nevertheless always in danger and always inadequate, unfulfilled, and thus constantly demanding ascriptions. The durability of the master signifier is never assured, meaning that it never succeeds in holding together the whole chain of equivalence for a longer period of time. Every occasional fixing, every ‘quilting’ or ‘nodal point’ is thus an unstable compromise and always remains contested and friable, opening new possibilities of definition and, thus, temporary compromises. This process is necessarily endless, leaving the social practice of discourse open, permeable, and fluid. Applied to societal discourses, the process of a contesting fixation of empty signifiers is a conflictive process of negotiation (Nehring 2006). Discussing the master signifier marks a social praxis. The fixing of a system of differences through an empty signifier is not a pure phenomenon of language; rather, it penetrates “the entire material density of the multifarious institutions, rituals and practices through which a formation is structured” (Laclau and Mouffe 2001, p. 109). Finally, to close the circle and come back to the discourse surrounding Islam, nation, and language in Algeria, I introduce another category, which is that of performance in a socio-political context. That way I aim to show how political hegemony is produced by naming and introducing empty signifiers to hold together the chain of equivalence of religion, nation, politics, and language that provides the social glue. This approach can be reinforced by Judith Butler’s concept of performativity. Butler shares the basic assumptions of post-structuralism with Laclau and Žižek (Bergunder 2014, p. 267), adding the dimension of iterability and citability to the hegemonic but contingent act of naming which produces

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historicity in the process of repeated articulations of continuity—as, for example, when Kamel Daoud is categorized as un-Islamic or even as an apostate: If a performative provisionally succeeds […] then it is […] only because that action echoes prior actions, and accumulates the force of authority through the repetition or citation of a prior, authoritative set of practices (Butler 1993, pp. 226–227, italics: Butler).

To replicate the performance of a determinate speech act is more than a simple repetition. It derives its power from the action of citation itself and leads to an imagined objectivation and to a creation of apparently unalterable references – signifiers – in a discourse which for themselves claim to refer to an external reality (Butler 1993, p. 139).

As the performative speech act of naming often refers to nothing in particular, as in the case of naming an action (un)Islamic, it is therefore termed catachrestic. The catachrese is a rhetorical trope where a linguistically misused word is applied to a concept for which a word/name does not exist (yet). It has thus been argued that a catachrese can fix a name for an existing object such as an unIslamic novel, but also, especially when it comes to a political context, to create something new through the act of naming (Laclau 1989, p. xiv). This means that an incorrect linguistic usage of a designation (catachrese) also works as a performative act of naming and a rhetorical strategy of resignification (Posselt 2005, pp. 18–24), for example when the Islamist imam launched a fatwa against Daoud and called him an apostate. The catachrese thus stands not only for the temporary character and the instability of social discourses, but also opens up the possibility of transforming discursive reality and of making it a site of social and political change (Posselt 2005, pp. 228–235; Spivak 1990, p. 242, note 20). For example, the dispute around Islam and society can be read as a constantly repeated and re-enacted process of sedimentation and “fossilized practices of power” (Marchart 2010, p. 204), but it also opens a space for the negotiation of seemingly unchangeable realities. Accepting the premise that Islam serves as a kind of ‘Archimedean point’ from which the universe of most Algerians departs, the master signifier Islam assumes different roles in virtually every societal discourse, acting as social glue exactly because of its undefined and open character. It is therefore not too audacious to presume that, under the cloak of Islam and tradition, different conflicts of the seizure and retention of power and social resources are negotiated. In a different

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societal setting, e.g. in Europe, they would instead be summarized under other master signifiers such as justice or democracy.

3

Islamic Resurgence in Algeria

The emergence of Islamic reform movements developed in parallel to the colonial history of Algeria. One of the first historical figures who combined Islamic learning with political activities was Abdelhamid Ben Badis (1889–1940), who founded Arabophone periodicals and private schools (Grandguillaume 2014, p. 406). After the Algerian revolution, “decolonized North Africa was seen as one region where secular modernization had the greatest chance of success” (Takeyh and Gvosdev 2004, p. 39). But, in the 1980s, political instability and economic decline due to dropping oil and gas prices fueled the quest for political alternatives. Islamism had become, for a large part of the population, if not a viable alternative for immense social problems—the Islamist slogan of ‘Islam is the solution’ reverberated everywhere—then at least a possibility to protest against a corrupt and authoritarian elite (Martinez 2000, pp. 48–71; Rouadjia 1990). Moreover, the reference to Islam signifies a strong stance towards Western-European hegemony that also continued after Algeria’s independence. Many different factors have led to the growing influence of the Islamist Party Front Islamique du salut (Islamic Salvation Front), better known under the acronym FIS in Algeria. One factor was the limited possibilities of political participation in the only slightly-veiled one-party government of the National Liberation Front (Front de libération nationale—FLN) that kept Algeria in constant isolation after the war of independence from 1954 to 1962 (Abderrezak 2010, p. 340). Social protest could only be actioned based on the “widest institutional ensemble” that remained “semi-autonomous from the state—the mosque” (Sayyid 1997, p. 20; see also Rouadjia 1990). The FIS won the majority of seats contested in local elections in 1990, and most of the seats in the National Assembly in the first round of balloting in 1991. The government cancelled the second round of elections. This military coup was followed by prolonged conflicts between different armed groups and the Algerian army, and the years after 1991 are remembered as the Black Decade, which was characterized by immense bloodshed and atrocities committed against civilians by both sides. In September 2005, the re-elected president Abdelaziz Bouteflika (1999–2019) declared the civil war ended. In a referendum, amnesty to end legal proceedings against individuals who were no longer fighting, and to provide compensation to the families of people killed by government forces, was also widely accepted.

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Today, the Islamist movement in Algeria is fragmented and too weak to impose its ideas in a larger societal context. Nevertheless, Islam/Islamism is still the specter that haunts Algerian society (Au secours 2014). Although the government presently draws its legitimacy from having liberated the country not only from the colonizer, but also from the threat of an Islamist overthrow, the alternative of an Islamic state looms invisibly, while remaining nonetheless present, like a “bodiless body” (Derrida 1994, pp. 41–42), behind the larger part of political actions and interactions (Sayyid 1997, pp. 1–2). This specter, like any other, is neither dead nor alive; it is dead and alive at the same time, and thus incites fear and creates uncertainty. Politically (and physically), the FIS is defeated—but nonetheless it has not completely vanished and even holds a very important place in the structure of power. Most of its former members are either dead or in exile but, at the same time, “the ‘dissolved Islamists’ have always excelled in the art of communication, even if, officially, they don’t have any legal existence” (Au secours 2014). The government, on the other hand, benefits from keeping alive the ghost of Islamism since its perpetual presence-absence serves as a permanent source of legitimation. It is not surprising, though, that Islam has become and remains the master signifier not only for the Islamist opposition but, in fact, for the whole of society.

4

The Writer, the Preacher, and the Fatwa

This background of political events in postcolonial Algeria serves to explain different layers of the discourse around Islam in the country. On 13 December 2014, the leader of the Algerian Salafist group Front of the Islamic Salafist Awakening, Abdelfattah Hamadache Ziraoui, published an appeal on Facebook demanding the death penalty for Algerian author Kamel Daoud, accusing him of offending Islam and the Arabic language. Only a couple of hours earlier, the journalist and novelist had appeared in France on a popular late-night talk show called On n’est pas couché (We’re Not Asleep), where he introduced himself as an Algerian and not an Arab, speaking a distinct language called Algerian4 not Arabic.5 Moreover, reference was made to a 4 The

vernacular spoken in Algeria is called Darja and differs considerably from written Arabic; it has to be studied almost like a foreign language at school and was introduced to the Algerian school system after independence in 1962 as part of a broader Arabization and Islamization process. Arabic in the stricter sense of the written language is not what an Algerian would refer to as his or her mother tongue. 5 “Je le dis souvent en Algérie ça prête à beaucoup de polémique. J’ai écrit un article sur ça aussi, où je dis que l’arabe m’appartient, je lui n’appartiens pas. J’ai un passeport où

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quotation from Daoud’s novel Meursault, contre-enquête (The Meursault Investigation)6 : “I prefer to approach God on foot, if necessary, rather than in an organized trip”,7 and he claimed that religious orthodoxy had become an “obstacle to progress in the Arab world”.8 Hamadache’s fatwa immediately caused strong reactions in the Algerian media, and especially in France, where Daoud had recently received much attention for his novel. Despite the demands made by both actors for governmental intervention, the public authorities hesitated to commit to either side. The scandal vanished in Algeria after a short while. It was, on the other hand, frequently mentioned in Western media, mostly in France, where it contributed to a certain extent to Daoud’s success as a writer and as a sought-after interview partner both in newspapers and on television channels. It perhaps favored the echo Daoud received outside of France and may have spurred the translation of his novel into German—at least, the verbal attack by a Salafist preacher is often mentioned in reviews of the translation (see Marot 2015). In the following part, I will analyze the above-mentioned media scandal, which has the following timeline: December 13th: Daoud appears on the TV channel France 2. December 13th: Hamadache publishes the ‘Facebook-fatwa’. December 18th: Response by Ali Belhadj (Algerian Islamist). December 20th: Letter of support by Bernard-Henry Lévy (French public intellectual). December 22th: Intervention by the Minister for Religious Affairs, Mohamed Aïssa. Instead of analyzing the texts in strictly chronological order, I have decided to group the material around three select fields of discourse: anti-intellectualism, il est écrit ‘Algérien’, je me sens algérien, je parle algérien, je me défends, […] je ne suis pas arabe. L’arabe, ce n’est pas une nationalité, c’est une culture, une domination, ça a été une colonisation… Elle est là, mais ce n’est pas une nationalité pour moi” (video recording: 9:25–9:54). The interview is no longer available on YouTube. User meziane abdellah has uploaded a recording of the central part of the interview (probably filmed with a camera or a mobile phone from a television screen): https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2d1i5l. Accessed: 19.06.2020. 6 First edition: Alger: Editions Barzakh 2013; 2nd edition Arles: Actes Sud 2014. 7 “La religion pour moi est un transport collectif que je ne prends pas. J’aime aller vers ce Dieu à pied, s’il le faut, mais pas en voyage organisé” (video recording, see above n. 6: 9:55–10:00): This sentence also occurs in Daoud’s novel Meursault, contre-enquête (2014, p. 76). 8 “La religion […] est devenue le mal du monde arabe” (video recording, see note 6:10:10).

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language, and colonialism. Exposing the different layers of the debates in a “thick description” (Geertz 1973, pp. 3–30), I will show that each of these permanently debated topics is linked, in one way or another, to Islam as a master signifier, including cases in which theological questions are only marginally touched upon.

5

Islam and Anti-Intellectualism

The accusation that Abdelfattah Hamadache Ziraoui (2014) made in his “appeal to put him to death”9 is that Kamel Daoud is “warring against Allah, the Prophet, the Qur’an and the sanctities of Muslims, their children and the country”,10 endorsing Western and Zionist values (“glory of the West and Zionism”),11 which make him an enemy. He appeals to the Algerian government to “sentence and put him to death in public”,12 because “if the law was applied in Algeria it would be the duty of Algeria’s minister of justice that he be killed publicly”.13 Articles, especially in France, Germany, and the US, state that Daoud was threatened by a fatwa (Lévy 2014; Marot 2015). This somehow misleading description implicitly refers to the case of Salman Rushdie in the 1990s and suggests parallels between the two events, which should be examined carefully. The heated controversy around the latter’s fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, was accompanied by violent protests by Muslims all over the world and culminated in death threats and a fatwa calling for his assassination issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on 14 February 1989. This “fatwa issued in response by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran Ayatollah Khomeini remains to this day an iconic register of the radical intractability of cultural difference” (Mondal 2013, p. 59). Since the “dominant reading of the fatwa has been to suggest that Islamic and Western norms and values are untranslatable” (ibid.), the same controversial topic seems to match the Daoud affair. But a closer look at the similarities between the actors shows that these similarities are rather minor; Kamel Daoud is indeed a critical author, but Hamadache is far from possessing Khomeini’s authority and

9 da wa

li-tat.b¯ıq al-h.ad al¯ıhi. h.arbihi al-f¯ajira d.idda Allah ta a¯ la wal-rasul s.alla Allahu al¯ıhi wa-sallam wakit¯ab Allah wa-muqadds¯at al-musl¯ım¯ın wa-abn¯a ihim wa-bil¯adihim. 11 majjd al-gharb wa-l-sah¯ . a¯ına. 12 wa-nad u al-nizam al-jaza ir¯ı ila-l-hukm al¯ıhi bi-l-i d¯ am qatlan alan¯ıatan. . . 13 K¯ ana (sic!) f¯ıhih shar  yut.abbaq f¯ı-l-jaz¯a ir bi-l-qas.a¯ s. wa-l-h.add la wajab al¯a-l-niz.a¯ m al-jaz¯a ir¯ı al-h.ukm al¯ıhi qatlan am¯am al-mal¯a . 10 bi-sabab

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influence. More importantly, Hamadache’s text nowhere mentions a fatwa, which is precisely a non-binding legal opinion by a faqih, i.e. an Islamic scholar.14 A proper fatwa is usually understood as an answer from a religious specialist, a member of the ‘ulama, to a specific question or object and is issued upon request. The questions that arise often circle around problems of daily life, its paradoxes and anomalies; they give advice or practical solutions to circumvent the literal application of the law if it creates unnecessary discomfort or damage for the individual, the family or the community (Al-Azm 2014, p. 121).15 Generally, it is the request for the clarification of an issue that has not been treated in the traditional sources of the Qur’an or the Sunna (Mozaffari 1998, p. 31). A consideration given by an Islamic scholar (muft¯ı) without a request by a fatwa-caller (mustaft¯ı) is not a genuine fatwa but a mere expression of his opinion (ra ¯ı) on different religious matters (Mozaffari 1998, p. 33). Fatwas can also be expressed in urgent circumstances of war, and, generally, if the welfare of the umma, the community, is at stake. It then imposes the duty to fight against an enemy (jih¯ad). But a fatwa can also defend peace treaties, as an example from Algeria in the nineteenth century shows.16 Hamadache argues that Daoud has to be put to death because he is an atheist (zind¯ıq) who also “glorifies the West and Zionists”,17 and is thus an enemy of the state at war with the Algerian government. In order to reinforce his claim, Hamadache quotes: “Those who wage war against God and His Messenger and strive to spread corruption in the 14 On

the process and function of the fatwa as legal opinion, see Dallal (1995). example, the website of the Algerian Ministry of Religious Affairs offers a collection of fatwas for everyday use: https://www.marw.dz. Accessed: 19.06.2020. This is probably a response to the quickly growing demand and the increasing popularity of Facebook fatwas and prominent figures like the “so-called media mufti Yusuf al-Qaradawi […] an Azhari scholar and preacher close to the Egyptian Muslim Brothers, [who] plays a significant role in a transnational, mainly Arabic-speaking mediascape, not as a religious authority in the conventional sense but as a popular religious person whose fatwas are well suited to reception and adaptation by a great many people from different Islamic currents in a number of regions” (Gräf 2014, p. 139, italics: Gräfe). 16 During the invasion by the French, warring against the colonizers as well as peacemaking needed justification from the Muslim authorities. When Emir Abd al-Qadir (1808–83) made a peace accord in Tafna (1837) with French Marshal Thomas Burgeaud (1764–1849), a fatwa was issued by the maternal uncle of the Emir to support the treaty stating that in this case, given the military superiority of the enemy, the pursuit of war was equivalent “to exposing oneself to inexorable peril” (Chater 1996, p. 43). Similarly, concerning the delicate question of the legitimacy of the Treaty of Tafna, a fatwa pronounced by Ali Ben Abd al-Salam Mdides al-Tassouli in Fez stated that “truce with the enemy is permissible if the enemy is not in an offensive mode. Otherwise jihad is a personal duty” (ibid.). 17 See note 10 above. 15 For

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land should be punished by death, crucifixion, the amputation of an alternate hand and foot, or banishment from the land”.18 This argumentation has several inconsistencies. Firstly, the severe punishment has no direct connection to the alleged crime (apostasy and Zionism), and the conclusion is made only by analogy (‘if he is a Zionist, then he is waging war against Allah and the messenger’) and is thus not valid. Secondly, if we examine historical fatwas, Hamadache’s line of argumentation is unnecessarily violent. Again, a look into the past helps to put this into perspective. Before attacking the tribes that had rallied to the side of the colonial authorities, the Emir Abd al-Qadir consulted the attorney (q¯ad¯ı) of Fez. How should those who have submitted to the infidel enemy and have joined his troops be viewed? Are they apostates? The attorney ‘referred to the […] Muslim period in Andalusia, showing that fiqh schools were not unanimous in considering Muslims who rally to Christians as apostates’ (Chater 1996, p. 44).

If these tribes were not necessarily considered infidels and apostates, the same principle could be applied to Daoud as well.19 While the Emir had a certain interest in ensuring the allegiance of the tribes which had deserted to the enemy, Hamadache is not seeking any compromise here. From this point of view, Hamadache’s fatwa indeed resembles to a certain extent the case of Salman Rushdie’s.20 In essence, it has been argued that Khomeini’s fatwa is really a judgment, a call and a death sentence which the Imam, the Grand Mufti, the faqih and so on authorizes himself to issue in moments of grave danger to Islam and for the defense of the integrity of the faith and the sanctity of the umma (Al-Azm 2014, p. 123).

18 Sura

5,33. English translation by Abdel Haleem (The Our’an 2004). used this example to explain the Rushdie affair (Mozaffari 1998). I would not go as far as to say that “the same principle must be applied in our times to Rushdie” (ibid., p. 27). It shows that fatwas can simply serve very well the political intentions of a leader that requested them. 20 It also seems rather clear that Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie is not a genuine fatwa, but rather “purely political, discretionary and in this case of charismatic origins to boot” (Al-Azm 2014, p. 123). Mozaffari dedicates a chapter in his exquisite study to the question, If Khomeini’s Fatwa is not a Fatwa, What is it? (Mozaffari 1998, pp. 51–58). After dismissing several possibilities such as a juridical act following a judgment, a bill of war or a personal opinion, he concludes: “Khomeini had no authority to order Muslims to kill Rushdie. His decree was null and void from the moment it was published” (Mozaffari 1998, p. 58). 19 Mozaffari

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Since Hamadache does not have the authority to sentence somebody to death, he asks the minister of justice to condemn Daoud for “apostasy, blasphemy, Zionism and insulting the Quran and the Arabic language”.21 Thirdly, and this is more important to understand the quality ofHamadache’s text, it does not conform with the classical tradition of Qur’an interpretation (tafs¯ır),22 or even with the views of two of the most prominent Salafist theologians, Abul A’la Maududi (1903–1979) and Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966). Both authors understand religious tradition as a socio-political institution that extends into all aspects of life (Schirrmacher 2016, pp. 401–438; Qutb 2006, p. 27), and read the Qur’an according to this premise. They understand “enemies of God” in this verse in a purely military sense as aggressors of an Islamic territory and neither of them applies this to intellectuals.23 Hamadache’s interpretation is thus not even to be considered an Islamist point of view in a strict sense, and it is therefore not surprising that he is not supported by other Islamists. On December 17th or 18th, 2014, Ali Belhadj, a well-known and influential Algerian Islamist added his own point of view to the Daoud affair (Ali Belhadj 2014).24 Although Belhadj has been banned from political actions by a court decision, he is still heard in Algeria with his ghostly presence-absence. In his press release, he distances himself from Hamadache’s appeal to sentence Daoud to death, since “only God can judge who is Muslim or not” (Ali Belhadj 2014). Belhadj, who is a notorious Islamist hardliner, refrains from the accusation of apostasy and, in fact, denies Hamadache the authority to give such a judgment. This statement not only shows the limited influence that Hamadache has in Islamist circles, but also deconstructs to a certain degree the image of a writer who has been “sentenced to death” by an Islamist radical. In addition, the minister of religious affairs, Mohamed Aïssa, 21 Hamadache’s

‘Facebook-fatwa’ from December 13. for example, Ibn Kathir (2003, pp. 121–124). I am grateful to Faiza Hussain for this clarification. 23 “The expression ‘to wage war against Allah and His Messenger’ denotes war against a righteous order established by the Islamic state. […] If anyone tried to disrupt such an order […] committing murder and destruction and robbery and brigandry […] by attempting to overthrow that order and establish some unrighteous order instead” (Maududi 1996, pp. 156– 157) and “armed group [of] rebels” (Qutb 2001, p. 76). 24 Ali Belhadj, a former high-school teacher, is co-leader and co-founder of the Algerian Islamist political party FIS, established in 1989. Belhadj has been described as “emblematic of the many radicals […] who are Arabic-speaking teachers in primary and secondary schools and who act as independent imams, preaching their redemptive messages in mystical tones” (Entelis 1997, p. 64). He is profoundly nourished by the writings of Sayyid Qutb and Hassan al-Banna, like a whole generation of Arabophone-educated intellectuals in Algeria who were strongly influenced by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (Rouadjia 1990, pp. 13–44). 22 See,

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stresses in his reply to Hamadache’s appeal25 reported on 22 December 2014, that Hamadache is not known in any of the Islamic universities of the country and thus lacks the qualification even to express a qualified religious opinion (Ghali 2014). If Hamadache lacks the education and the authority to pronounce a proper fatwa, and if Belhadj prefers to leave the decision of who is a Muslim or not to God, then what is the reason for the hostilities against the novelist? If we understand Islam as a master signifier that holds together the whole chain of equivalence of religion, politics, and nationhood dominating the discourse, it is well possible that, under the pretext of a discourse around seemingly religious aspects like apostasy and blasphemy, other, at first glance hidden aspects like politics are being negotiated here. One implicit accusation is directed against the Algerian government, which allegedly does not apply the Islamic tradition (“If the law was applied…” see above and n. 12), making legitimacy dubious from an Islamist point of view. Secondly, if Daoud is accused of insulting the Qur’an, this is indeed aligned with the accusation of blasphemy and, considering his mordant remarks in his newspaper articles as well as in his novel, is partly understandable. However, Hamadache’s accusations of “offending the Arabic language” and of being a “Zionist”26 do not seem apt here. Moreover, Aïssa, the minister of religious affairs, also stresses this point, although in a less aggressive way, and points in another direction: for him, the Arabic language plays an eminent role as a central cultural reference, which in the terminology of Laclau and Mouffe is equivalent to a nodal point, a “partial fixation” of the discourse (Laclau and Mouffe 2001, p. 112).

6

Islam and Language

What is the connection between Islam and language that Daoud has allegedly insulted? In fact, the strong connection of Islam and the Arabic language seems to be natural insofar as Arabic is the language of revelation. Unlike in Europe, where Latin had played this role at the latest until early modern times before the vernacular languages gradually became the vehicles of culture and education, 25 Hamadache had published a second appeal addressed explicitly to the minister a few days after the first one, also on Facebook, where he insists more on the theological aspect. I have saved this text in my research notes, but, since it is not available anymore on the Internet, I cannot use it for this analysis. For this and other texts that have disappeared from the Internet, see below (n. 29). 26 yatata . ¯ wal al¯a-l-Qur a¯ n wa-yuh.a¯ rib al-isl¯am wa-l-lughat al- arabiyya (“He insults the Qur’an, he blasphemes Islam and the Arabic language”) (Ziraoui 2014).

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Arabic has historically kept its pre-eminent status throughout the Arab world. However, in post-colonial Algeria, we witness a second important meaning. It has been argued that, “from the beginning, most Algerians believed Arabization to be inherently tied to Islamization and, inferentially, Francophony to be tied to secularization” (Ruedy 1992, p. 205). This interdependence of nationalism, Arabization and Islamization dates back to the days of the anticolonial struggles, when many members of the FLN decided to put aside their own Berber identity in the name of a unifying national identity that consists, as we learn from the preamble of the Algerian constitution, in the fundamental components of Islam and Arabism.27 Moreover, Arabic’s highly charged sacred character increases its coercive power, transforming it into what Benedict Anderson calls a truth-language, a “single, privileged system of representation”, the only possibility through which “ontological reality is apprehensible” (Anderson 1991, p. 14). Under president Houari Boumédienne (1965–78), a radical cultural revolution installed Arabic as the sole national language, imposing standard Arabic onto the school system instead of French, the former being a language which, for most Algerians, is almost incomprehensible and has to be learned like a foreign language. Additionally, French schools and universities were closed. However, the employment market could not ultimately absorb the large number of graduates from Arabic schools and universities. In the culminating economic crisis that was due to dropping oil and gas prices at the end of the 1980s, this fueled the frustration of young people, who mostly came from families that had migrated to the urban centers in order to escape famine, and who lacked prospects in the provinces. A whole generation of young, well-educated but unemployed men was the pool where the fundamentalist movement recruited many of its followers, people who were also easy prey later to armed Islamist groups during the civil war (Martinez 2000; Rouadjia 1990, pp. 133–139; Takeyh and Gvosdev 2004). Considering this, it becomes clear that the reproach against Daoud is of a different type: the allegedly theologically motivated Islamist invectives against the author and journalist convey a large spectrum of hidden sentiments. A huge gap opens between the thin, predominantly francophone political elite, and most of the Algerian population, which is poor and feels deeply disappointed and disgusted at the ostentatious, Westernized lifestyle of this corrupt and criminal part of society (Ruf 1997, p. 96). The mutual incomprehension is not limited to different 27 “Les composantes fondamentales de son identité sont l’Islam et l’Arabité” (“The fundamental components of its identity are Islam and Arabism”). The Berber identity, “Amazighité”, was not added to this until 1996 (see Zenati 2004, p. 144, and the Preamble of the Algerian constitution: https://www.conseil-constitutionnel.dz/conseil/preambule-2016p.html. Accessed: 19.06.2020).

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language choices, but affects almost all aspects of life. The two parts of Algerian society—French-reading intellectuals and the Arabic-trained mass—literally do not speak (or read) the same language. This inevitably opens the floodgates to mutual misunderstanding and disintegration. Moreover, it has to be noted that Algerian culture is predominantly based on the spoken word in contrast to written texts. This explains another peculiarity of the debate: when Hamadache published his Facebook post, Daoud was on a book tour and received a lot of attention for his novel in France, mostly on television, where he was frequently invited to talk shows and extended interviews. He had written similar statements on language, culture, and religion before in his newspaper columns, but saying it on French television made him noticed by people back home that otherwise do not read the French-language press in Algeria (Shatz 2015). Choosing French as a medium of expression, Daoud also distanced himself clearly from his own past: he turned his back on the Islamist movement that he had joined in his adolescence (Shatz 2015, 2016). The reaction of his former companions ranges from deep contempt to anger and hidden jealousy for someone who has left them and earned much attention in France. These feelings became particularly intense when Daoud openly criticized Islam on French television28 (“Islam is the disease of the Arab world”), thereby denigrating the image of Algeria and the Arab world—the fact that he had written far sharper comments in his articles does not matter at all here. Thus, Daoud is suspected, not necessarily by Islamists, of collaborating with the colonial enemy in his writing as a sort of neo-colonial practice (Laouari 2017, pp. 46–49). In addition, Aïssa stated that Kamel Daoud was being “co-opted by an international Zionist lobby” (Aïssa 2014). The reference to the “Zionist lobby” points to an open letter by Bernard Henry Lévy, a French author and public intellectual, born in 1948 in Béni Saf, then part of French Algeria, to an affluent Algerian Jewish family (and hence the accusation of an ‘entanglement with Zionism’). On 20 December 2014, Lévy had published an open letter of support and solidarity for Daoud signed by French intellectuals and many Algerians in exile (Lévy 2014). This touched the feelings of Algerians less because their country was being depicted as backwards and primitive, and more because a member of the ruling class from colonial times was trying to influence Algerian politics. This means that, in spite of the clear anticolonial bias which will be discussed in the next paragraph of this chapter, Daoud is seen as a kind of a traitor by many of his compatriots. If read through the lens of Frantz Fanon’s understanding of anticolonial revolution, an understanding which has been largely integrated into 28 See

note 4 above.

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the official master narrative of the nation used by the FLN to marginalize any political, cultural or minoritarian opposition, Daoud seems to fit perfectly into the mould of the colonized “native intellectual”: At the very moment when the native intellectual is anxiously trying to create a cultural work he fails to realize that he is utilizing techniques and language which are borrowed from the stranger in his country. He contents himself with stamping these instruments with a hallmark which he wishes to be national, but which is strangely reminiscent of exoticism. The native intellectual who comes back to his people by way of cultural achievements behaves in fact like a foreigner (Fanon 1968, p. 223).

In the rhetoric of the anticolonial struggle, the position of culture is ambivalent. Fanon dedicates a whole chapter in his seminal book The Wretched of the Earth to the issue of national culture. The diffidence towards the slightest appropriation of the culture of the colonizer is regarded with massive suspicion, as it opens the doors to manipulation (Fanon 1968, p. 224). Finally, national culture should merely serve the fight for liberation: “A national culture in underdeveloped countries should therefore take its place at the very heart of the struggle for freedom which these countries are carrying on” (Fanon 1968, p. 224). Along these lines, a somewhat socialist suspicion of intellectuals can be easily perceived, which is reiterated in the FLN’s histoire-fiction (“history-fiction”), as the historian Benjamin Stora put it, a singular narrative of history, which has excluded “any disunity from the national movement, and thus, the multiple narratives the System’s canon did not wish to retain” (Stora 1992, p. 57). The usage of the French language has, thus, always been problematic and ambiguous even among Algerian intellectuals. “I write in French to tell the French that I am not French”, the Algerian writer Kateb Yacine once said. “The French language was and remains a trophy of war” (Shatz 2016). In Daoud’s words, French is a “bien vacant”, a “vacant dwelling” that can be inhabited like the houses that the French left after their departure (Daoud 2014, p. 12), “solidly built, in which one can dream of a better life” (Kaplan 2016, p. 337). Writing in French in Algeria is, as Daoud concludes, never an innocent activity, but always carries the burden of evoking the violence of the decolonization process. Writing in French implies taking a position in an uncompleted postcolonial struggle for national identity. Kateb’s almost apologetic statement that he is “telling the French that he is not French” is paradigmatic of the ambiguous relationship between the Algerians and their former colonizers. On the other hand, writing in French in Algeria today is also frequently an act of opposing the official line of politics of the FLN, always

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pitted in opposition to the official narrative of the nation, performing a constant balancing between censure (and sometimes jail) and freedom of speech. [Their] controversial novels, poems, plays, and essays attest to a commitment on their part to probe, criticize and to use the memory of the liberation struggle to shape the present and to envision the future (Orlando 2017, p. 288).

As such, when Hamadache accused Daoud of apostasy and blasphemy, this does not necessarily have exclusively religious implications. There is no doubt that an affirmation such as “I prefer to approach God on foot […] instead of joining an organized trip” (Daoud 2014, p. 76) did not evoke much sympathy for Daoud in Islamist circles, but what is far more disturbing for them is that Daoud ‘fraternizes’ with the arch-enemy by adopting its language and culture. In this regard, Islam functions as a master signifier when Hamadache accused him of apostasy, and, in the same line, of insulting the sacred Arabic language. Similarly, Aïssa underlined Daoud’s (involuntary) entanglement in political circles in France. In this discussion, the performative aspect of the discursive activity circulating around the contested concept of ‘Arabic language’ becomes visible. The importance of the language question depends directly on the master signifier Islam and derives its symbolic capital from the fact that the language connects the questions around postcolonial national identity to the superordinate sphere of Islam. Being heard in France with an argument that “Arabic is an act of colonization”29 is a sensitive subject in Algeria. Although the topic of multilingualism is fervently discussed in academic circles, the question of language, both the valuation of the vernacular and the Berber languages, virtually endangers the official program of Arabization that has been promoted by the FLN since Algeria’s independence, one that Islamists would like to push even further in order to even out inner societal ethnic differences. Arabization combined with Islamization was promoted to move Algeria closer to the Arab states (Ruedy 1992, p. 205). Thus, from an Islamist perspective, Daoud has become an apostate for his linguistic choices30 that mirror the function of the Arabic language as a nodal point in the chain of signifiers. 29 See

note 6 above, the quote from Daoud’s interview. Kateb Yacine has also been accused of “treason” in the Algerian press for his favorable attitude towards colloquial Arabic and the use of highly elaborate French in his literary works. The parallel to Daoud goes as far as the fact that both have been condemned by an Islamist imam: “the day after Kateb’s death on 28 October 1989, an Egyptian imam who worked as a teacher in an Islamic university in Constantine declared: ‘[Kateb] should not be buried in a Muslim cemetery’” (Benrabah 2013, p. 142; see also id. 1999, p. 258). 30 Similarly,

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Colonialism, Literature, and Islam

If the choice of language is a political statement within the chain of equivalences, this is a consequence of decolonization, and a vital part of a general re-appropriation of the discourse. Immediately after achieving its independence, Algeria, like many former colonies, had to deal with the twofold nature of the question of its official language, which makes it particularly thorny. The language inherited by the colonizer keeps being an effective communication tool replacing one, or even many, non-standardized precolonial languages. French, and English, also remain dominant in the field of legislation and education. With this, they represent the values of the Empire, thereby opening a contrast between a cultivated and to a certain degree elitist form of communication of the center, and a non-standardized, ‘bastardized’ vernacular form pressed to the margins. For a long time, the cultivated elites of the dominated countries have submitted themselves, consciously or not, to this symbolic domination, thus recreating mimetically occidental codes (Boizette 2017, p. 24). The decline of the former colonial empires did not entail the abrogation of this cultural form of domination over postcolonial31 societies. On the contrary, while taking on the challenge of adopting the language of the metropole to integrate the periphery, the challenge lies in escaping the implicit prejudices of the colonizing language, its aesthetics and its social values, as well as its limitations of historically fixed literary genres (Boizette 2017, p. 25). Parallel to the spoils of colonial war, it is not only the language that had to be appropriated in order to develop a new discourse. The whole canon of literature of the colonizer can be subverted as a possibility to give a voice to the silenced Other. This strategy has been applied in many formerly colonized countries (Boizette 2017, p. 25). The aim is twofold, since the discourse must be appropriated and voiced in the language of the colonizer in order to be heard and understood. The formerly muted Other gains agency both in the collective memory of the former oppressor and, ideally, also in that of the oppressed in order to fill the void left by decolonization in the merely partially liberated country. Against this backdrop, the critical discourse around Kamel Daoud’s novel, which is an adaptation of Albert Camus’ L’Etranger (The Stranger) from 1942, the book is set in a colonial context. Daoud’s rewriting of Camus’ novel can be read as a liberating and patriotic act on the one hand, and on the other as a more or less playful contest between ‘father’ and ‘son’, or as a substitution, a patricide in the Freudian sense (Freud 2000). In either case, success was foreseeable in France in the circles of leftist 31 On

the term postcolonial, see Ashcroft et al. (1989).

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intellectuals, who are prone to self-reflection and who have criticized the role of the French in the Algerian war. Meursault, contre-enquête stands in the postcolonial tradition of rewriting fundamental texts of European literature. It is an answer to Albert Camus’ L’Etranger, with Daoud’s novel first being published in 2013 in Algiers on the occasion of Camus’ 100th birthday. Albert Camus, born in Algeria and a fervent opponent of Algerian independence, albeit always someone who denounced injustice and spoke up for the oppressed against racist intellectuals in his own community, is still a highly contested personality both in France and in Algeria (Benammar Benmansour 2013). Camus had won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1957 for his novel The Stranger. In his existentialist manifesto, absolute evil steps into human existence in the form of a completely unmotivated murder that antihero Meursault commits by shooting a nameless Arab on the beach of Algiers. At the end of the novel, he is punished and sentenced to death, but for a completely different reason. More than fifty years after independence, rewriting Camus’ novel has become both a work of national emancipation as well as a personal and collective quest for identity provoked by the frustrating experience of disappointed love. The reader can take the point of view of the oppressed who tries to overcome the colonial experience by re-writing its history from the opposite side in an act of “abrogation and appropriation” (Ashcroft et al. 1989, p. 39; Laouari 2017, p. 58). At the same time, in postcolonial literature, the oppressed wishes to encounter the former oppressor, on an equal footing and as an equal partner. This emotional turmoil is also palpable in Daoud’s book, as it captures in a singular way many of the contradictions caused by hegemonic realities that characterize the everyday life of many Algerians. In the first half, Daoud’s novel seems to have a clearly anti-colonial bias. Giving a voice and a shape to the nameless Arab that is killed without reason by the protagonist of Camus’ novel, Daoud settles his accounts with the colonial power by giving the victim of the murder in his book a name and a story and thus a personality. “The Arabs in La Peste and L’Etranger”, stated Edward Said, “are nameless beings used as background for the portentous European metaphysics explored by Camus” (Said 1989, p. 223). The complete literary execution of the figure of the anonymous victim that was formerly left intentionally blank not only gives the Arab back his human features but also reveals clearly the intention to present to the (French) reader a reconstruction of the history of the war of independence from the Algerian side, as well as a correction of the official (French) historiography. The success of the novel in France had almost no counterpart in Algeria, before the Daoud affair created some headlines. In this regard, Meursault shares general tendencies in postcolonial literature: it concerns only a relatively

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modest group of intellectuals and authors from the former colonies writing for a Western audience (Boizette 2017, p. 33). The (literary) struggle is more of a personal kind and touches the environment of the former colonizer more than the reality in Algeria itself. However, the novel is potentially more than an attempt to heal the narcissistic slight of the colonized searching for their identity. In the second part of the text, the narration switches from the atrocities of the anti-colonial struggle towards a poignant critique of the absurdities of the post-independence Algerian state. The anger that the book provoked arose mostly from this latter part. Haroun, the narrator, lets his confessions flow in a stream of consciousness while sitting in a nightclub drinking with an anonymous interlocutor. He has himself become a stranger in a country overrun by religious zeal and hypocrisy, and joins hands in this feeling of alienation with the protagonist of Camus’ novel. He shares many features with Daoud, the author of both the book and writer of the columns in Le Quotidien d’Oran with their eloquent, lyrical anger interspersed with frustration and despair over the desperate situation in his homeland Algeria. Daoud denounces in his journalistic work the aberrations of religion in his country of origin from the sacralization of the anti-colonial war to the dominant role of a hypocritical concept of religion that hovers over everyday life in Algeria. However, to read the novel exclusively as a simplistic or merely political manifesto of sorts would neglect the ironic qualities of the literary text (Ford 2017, pp. 71–74). Nevertheless, what can be sensed from Daoud’s writings is less a radical critique of Islam itself, and more a condemnation of the absurdities of a system that tries to control every aspect of public and private life demanding total submission to Islam, as the sole point of reference. If seen from a systemic point of view, the master signifier Islam remains at the center of the discourse and provides a temporarily fixed meaning for the participants. As Adam Shatz points out, “Daoud is not a typical secularist; he has read deeply in classical Islam and is close to Algeria’s minister of religious affairs. What he rejects is the intrusion of Islamist doctrine into politics” (Shatz 2016). Daoud, who had joined the Islamist movement as an adolescent only to leave it as an adult (Shatz 2014, 2016), remains, all the while, inside an Islamic framework. He has also been sketched as part of “another tradition of Islam, that of rebel poets and thinkers of doubt” who have always maintained the “flame of Muslim civilization” (Zouari 2016). Finally, I argue, Daoud’s position is to be read in the complex relation to the other voices, and remains within an Islamic framework. The binary opposition of Islam and a secular or liberal society thus reflects a ‘Western’ paradigm and points at a different master signifier that holds together societal discourses in France and Germany, but not necessarily in Algeria.

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Conclusion

Media events evolve very fast given the involvement of its different kinds from television, social media as well as print and online newspapers both in French and in Arabic. The polyphony that arises is even more difficult to reconstruct as the different actors, readers, and spectators do not necessarily follow the discussion as a whole but filter it according to their personal preferences. Both protagonists, Kamel Daoud and Abdelfattah Hamadache Ziraoui, continued to float for a while on the wave that the media had created. Given his brilliant style and the new interpretation of Camus’ novel, but also due to his anti-Islamist invectives, Daoud received a considerable amount of attention in France: his novel won the Prix Goncourt de premier roman in 2015 and, after being translated into German, a theatrical adaptation premiered in Munich on 29 September 2016 with considerable success.32 He is named among the “dissident Algerian writers of French expression writing today”, alongside Boualem Sansal and Maissa Bey (Orlando 2017, p. 287). But Daoud seems to owe the interest in his works to a large extent to the affair around the alleged fatwa of Hamadache and the neo-colonial marketing strategy of the foreign editors of the translations of his book. They both “exoticize and commercialize violence in Algeria” (Ford 2017, p. 68) and thus unconsciously imitate the binary narrative that helps the Algerian government to reproduce its hegemonic discourse (Ford 2017, p. 68). Daoud’s journalistic work received massive critical attacks at a certain point in France33 and he thus decided to concentrate solely on his literary work. On the other hand, Hamadache, having played a prominent role in mass demonstrations in Algier following the Islamist attack on the editorial staff of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, was sentenced to six months in prison for his fatwa against Daoud on 3 August 2016, a fact that was unworthy of many headlines (Lamlili 2016). Meanwhile, the traces

32 https://www.muenchner-kammerspiele.de/inszenierung/der-fall-meursault.

Accessed: 19.06.2020. 33 His articles have caused outrage not only in notoriously Islamist circles but, later on, also in a ‘collective’ of 19 academics, most affiliated to Western universities. In the context of antiIslamic controversies and politics in France (and internationally), Daoud’s angry prose gained a wholly different value. Written initially for a rather small Algerian and French readership (Le Touzet 2014), his articles seemed to fuel anti-Islamic rhetoric when published in large French newspapers and the New York Times, causing an outcry among intellectuals, who accused him of utilizing “orientalist clichés”, lending himself to the “Islamophobic fantasies of a growing proportion of the European (and American) public under the comfortable pretext of refusing to engage in a naive optimism” (Shatz 2016).

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of the discussion on the Daoud affair in the media have been meticulously erased from the Internet.34 What we have witnessed in this short surge of indignation from many different actors is thus less a clear division between secular and religious factions, and more a complicated net of references—a chain of equivalence linking religion and politics via a discursive webwork in which Islam functions as a master signifier that is not limited to strictly theological or secular questions of the demarcation of two seemingly clearly separated social spheres. Moreover, in Algeria, where the whole affair had dissolved rather quickly, critical voices arose almost immediately (on 19, 21, 22 December 2014) that it was nothing more than a “storm in a teacup” (De S’Biha 2014). One of the major beneficiaries seemed to be the Algerian government, weakened by dropping oil and gas prices (Algeria watch 2014). Hamadache’s later trial was not worth more than a few mentions in the daily press. During the civil war of the 1990s, the secret intelligence service, the Département du Renseignement et de la Sécurité (DRS), was notorious for systematically instigating attacks on civilians, manipulating terrorist groups,35 and also prolonging these practices after the installation of a government of national unity (Souaïdia 2015). Hamadache, an ex-member of the FIS, who spent several months in prison in the 1970s for adherence to extremist groups, is reportedly on the payroll of the DRS (Saoudi 2014) and is described in what is surely an understatement as a ‘dangerous obscurantist’ (Rabia 2015). Some Algerian commentators have suspected from the very beginning that the whole scenario was a strategy to

34 The recording of the television transmission “On n’est pas couches” (see note 4 above), formerly available on YouTube, has been removed, and its existence can only be presumed from the comments under the posting of the interview (dead) YouTube-link from 15 December 2014 on the Facebook page of the broadcasting television channel France 2. This posting has not been deleted: https://www.facebook.com/onpcF2/posts/810585115665417. Accessed: 19.06.2020. The part of the television broadcast is available only in a private recording published on a video platform (see note 5 above): https://www.dailymotion.com/ video/x2d1i5l. Accessed: 19.06.2020. Moreover, the original Facebook post by Hamadache and the repost on Facebook by Daoud are not available online anymore—both Hamadache’s and Daoud’s accounts have been closed. Full Arabic text reposted by the user reeze.dz on 24 December 2014, online: https://forum.dzfoot.com/topic/13642-comment-expliquer-le-par adoxe-algerien-chapitre-vi/page__st__28080. Accessed: 09.08.2018. 35 Most importantly, the revelations on Algeria’s ‘dirty war’, published in 2001 by Habib Souaïdia, a former officer and parachutist of the élite Special Forces in the Algerian Army (Souaïdia 2001).

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distract the public with yet another incident of ‘Islamic terror’ that keeps guaranteeing the regime legitimate power. This allows both the perpetuation of a military state of emergency with the consequence of restricted civil rights. Finally, the matrix of Islamist and secular antagonists in Algeria is not working to explain every aspect of the affair, because the pouvoir is neither secular nor Islamist: it has pursued a policy of deliberate indecision, not only tolerating radical Islamists like Hamadache and Belhadj, but instrumentalizing their activities in the media and on the streets (to a certain extent) in order to allow for emotional pressure compensation. Ray Takeyh and Nikolas Gvosdev describe the paradoxical role of Islamic symbols for political aims in Algeria as follows: Although Algeria had long been acclaimed by the Arab salon as the paradigm of secular modernization, the Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN) coalition that managed the extraordinary feat of besting the French empire greatly relied on religious forces and symbols to mobilize the population behind the cause of independence. Despite the clerical community’s contributions to this cause, the secular leaders of the FLN viewed religion from a utilitarian perspective, sufficient for mass mobilization but inadequate as a template for governance (Takeyh and Gvosdev 2004, p. 40).

Using the theoretical concepts introduced above, I propose an understanding of these events as a practice of seizure and retention of power. In this process, the master signifier Islam, around which the societal discourses constantly evolve, serves as a crystallization point for a complicated system of interdependent conflicts where disputes emerge and a whole range of controversial questions are negotiated. A discussion around a case of alleged apostasy (Kamel Daoud accused of being an unbeliever because of certain statements on a French television show), which I have introduced as a form of anti-intellectualism, conceals social unrest caused by anger and frustration over social iniquities, political exclusion, and lack of participation for large parts of the population. The accusation of “insulting the Qur’an and the Arabic language” also connects religion with the fear of social disintegration over ethnic distinctions (Berber vs. Arabic). Finally, it is not surprising that a book like Kamel Daoud’s novel that touched on the immensely painful process of decolonization ignited this emotionally heated debate. In this, the personal identity of the author as well as of the whole Algerian nation is strongly intertwined with a notion of Islam as absolute ‘otherness’ as opposed to the former French colonizer. Islam thus becomes the master signifier for every process of differentiation in the question of creating separated identities over the splitting up of the formerly fused complex of French Algeria,

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and it gives space to utter hidden fears of both Westernization in Algeria as well as the Islamization of France.36 On the other hand, the continuing struggle that develops around the master signifier Islam can also introduce new, catachrestic aspects into a constantly evolving action of discourse and agency. For example, the debate around values like ‘freedom of speech’ is relatively new in Islamic societies but is rapidly gaining importance.37 With the figure of Kamel Daoud, a new aspect has been introduced to the societal discourse around Islam and the affair has opened new approaches for negotiation. It remains to be seen how far this issue will be discussed in the future.

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this complicated subject see also the enlightening study of Shepard (2018).

37 Academic texts, such as several in the anthology Freedom of Speech and Islam (Kolig 2014)

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Marchart, Oliver. 2010. Die politische Differenz - Zum Denken des Politischen bei Nancy, Lefort, Badiou, Laclau und Agamben. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Marot, Jan. 2015. Es gibt eine Fatwa gegen die ganze Welt. Interview mit Kamel Daoud. Die Welt, 27.04.2015. https://www.welt.de/kultur/literarischewelt/article140132315/Es-gibteine-Fatwa-gegen-die-ganze-Welt.html. Accessed: 19.06.2020. Martinez, Luis. 2000. The Algerian Civil War, 1990-1998. London: C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. Marttila, Tomas. 2015. Post-Foundational Discourse Analysis. From Political Difference to Empirical Research. London: Palgrave Mac Millan. Maududi, Abu A’la. 1996. Towards understanding the Qur a¯ n (Tafh¯ım al-Qur a¯ n). Transl. and ed. by Z. Ishaq Ansari, Leicester: Islamic Foundation. Mondal, Anshuman. 2013. Revisiting the Satanic Verses: The Fatwa and its Legacies. In Salman Rushdie: Contemporary Critical Perspectives, Eds. R. Eaglestone and M. McQuillan, 59–71. London/New York: Bloomsbury. Mozaffari, Mehdi. 1998. Fatwa. Violence & Discourtesy. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press. Mura, Andrea. 2014. Islamism Revisited. A Lacanian Discourse Critique. European Journal of Psychoanalysis, Winter (1): 107–126. Nehring, Andreas. 2006. Religion und Gewalt. Ein leerer Signifikant in der Religionsbeschreibung. In Religion, Politik und Gewalt, Ed. F. Schweitzer, 809–821. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus. Orlando, Valérie K. 2017. The Algerian New Novel. The Poetics of a Modern Nation, 1950– 1979. Charlottesville/London: University of Virginia Press. Otto, Rudolf. 1917. Das Heilige. München: Beck. Posselt, Gerald. 2005. Katachrese. Rhetorik des Performativen. München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag. Qut.b, Sayyid. 2001. In the Shade of the Qur a¯ n. Transl. and ed. by A. Salahi, vol. 4, Markfield: Islamic Foundation. Qut.b, Sayyid. 2006. Milestones. Birmingham: Maktabah. Rabia, Said. 2015. Hamadache est-il le protégé du pouvoir. El Watan, 20.06.2015. https:// www.elwatan.com/edition/actualite/hamadache-est-il-le-protege-du-pouvoir-20-062015. Accessed: 19.06.2020. Rouadjia, Ahmed. 1990. Les frères et la mosquée: Enquête sur le mouvement islamiste en Algérie. Paris: Karthala. Ruedy, John. 1992. Modern Algeria: The Origins and Development of a Nation. Bloomington/Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Ruf, Werner. 1997. Die algerische Tragödie. Vom Zerbrechen des Staates einer zerrissenen Gesellschaft. Münster: Agenda. Said, Edward. 1989. Representing the Colonized: Anthropology’s Interlocutors. Critical Inquiry 15/2: 205–225. Saoudi, Abdelaziz. 2014. L’imam salafiste est un agent du DRS!, 22.12.2014. https://www. algerieinfos-saoudi.com/2014/12/l-imam-salafiste-est-un-agent-du-drs.html. Accessed: 19.06.2020. Sayyid, Bobby. 1997. A Fundamental Fear: Eurocentrism and the Emergence of Islamism. London: Zed Books. Schirrmacher, Christine. 2016. “Let there be no Compulsion in Religion” (Sura 2:256). Apostasy from Islam as Judged by Contemporary Islamic Theologians. Discourses on Apostasy, Religious Freedom, and Human Rights. Eugene/Oregon Wipf & Stock.

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Shatz, Adam. 2015. Stranger Still: Kamel Daoud and Algeria, caught between Islamist fervor and cultural flowering, 01.04.2015. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/magazine/str anger-still.html. Accessed: 19.06.2020. Shatz, Adam. 2016. The Daoud Affair. London Review of Books, 04.03.2016. https://www. lrb.co.uk/2016/03/04/adam-shatz/the-daoud-affair. Accessed: 19.06.2020. Shepard, Todd. 2018. Sex, France, and Arab Men, 1962-1979. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Souaïdia, Habib. 2001. La sale guerre: Le témoignage d’un ancient officier des forces spéciales de l’armée algérienne, 1992–2000. Paris: La Découverte. Souaïdia, Habib. 2015. De l’assassinat d’Hervé Gourdel à la déstabilisation tunisienne: manipulations et intox des services secrets algériens, 27.04.2015. https://algeria-watch.org/? p=5492. Accessed: 19.06.2020. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1990. Poststructuralism, Marginality, Post-Coloniality and Value. In Literary Theory Today, Eds. P. Collier and H. Geyer-Ryan, 219–244. Ithaca/NY: Cornell University Press. Stora, Benjamin. 1992. Histoire de la guerre d’Algérie (1954-1962). Paris: La Découverte. Stuckrad, Kocku von. 2015. The Scientification of Religion: A Historical Study of Discursive Change 1800-2000. Boston/Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Takeyh, Ray, and N.K. Gvosdev. 2004. The Receding Shadow of the Prophet: The Rise and Fall of Radical Political Islam. Westport: Greenwood. The Qur’an. 2004. English Translation by M. A. S. Abdel Haleem. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zenati, Jamel. 2004. L’Algérie è l’épreuve de ses langues et de ses identités: histoire d’un échec répété. Mots. Langue(s) et nationalisme(s) 74: 137–146. Ziraoui, Abdelfattah Hamadache. 2014. da wa li-tat.b¯ıq al-h.ad al¯ıhi (Appeal to put him to death), originally a facebook post from 13.12.2014. https://forum.dzfoot.com/ topic/13642-comment-expliquer-le-paradoxe-algerien-chapitre-vi/page__st__28080. Accessed: 09.08.2018. Žižek, Slavoj. 1989. The Sublime Object of Ideology. London: Verso. Zouari, Fawzia. 2016. Pourquoi Kamel Daoud a raison. Jeune Afrique, 24.02.2016. https:// www.jeuneafrique.com/mag/304007/societe/polemique-kamel-daoud-a-raison/. Accessed: 19.06.2020.

Islamic Feminism. Thinking Gender Justice as a Religious Knowledge Practice Heidemarie Winkel

Abstract

The contribution aims to deepen the understanding of religion as a resource of feminist demands, namely beyond the perceived socio-historical divide to secular feminist notions of justice. This is discussed using the example of the Mashriq, and Egypt in particular. Islamic feminism is introduced as a heterogeneous field of theo-political approaches whose commonality is the break with androcentric knowledge production. Theoretically, I conceive the gender-equitable rereading of sacred texts and the law as a feminist knowledge practice. This is done from a phenomenological sociology of knowledge perspective, which can help make ‘the religious’ and ‘the secular’ visible as coexisting rather than mutually exclusive provinces of meaning and which aims to consolidate understanding of the way in which religion takes effect as a basic dimension of sensemaking in the everyday lifeworld. I suppose that, in the Mashriq, this province of meaning is naturally intertwined with secular modes of sensing the world. Socio-historically, I sort Islamic feminisms as part of a highly contested field of Islamic and secular knowledge practices. To this end, I frame my discussion of Islamic feminisms with a section on epistemological backgrounds of the relationship between feminism, religion, and the secular from a postcolonial perspective.

H. Winkel (B) Fakultät für Soziologie, Universität Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany E-Mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 C. Gärtner and H. Winkel (eds.), Exploring Islam beyond Orientalism and Occidentalism, Veröffentlichungen der Sektion Religionssoziologie der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-33239-6_8

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Keywords

Islamic Feminism • Secular Feminism • Mashriq • Egypt • Phenomenological Sociology • Knowledge • Islam

1

Introduction

Since the 1970s, Islamism has gained visibility and political strength in various regions across the globe. The rise of political Islam1 and its totalitarian visions of state and society affected not only Arab regions such as the Mashriq starting in Egypt, but also African countries such as Nigeria or South and South East Asia, beginning with India.2 The rise of Islamism in this early post-colonial era was accompanied by an emphasis on rigid gender perceptions. In the face of persisting Western influence and global power asymmetries, the turn towards religious orthodoxy was legitimized by the alleged need for an ‘authentic’ identity—including an ‘authentic’ Islamic state. Islamists located authenticity in the holy texts, the Qur’an and the Hadiths, in a strict scripturalist (re)reading of these texts, and in the call for a ‘return to the Shari’a’ as the primary legal basis of jurisdiction. This orthodox approach drew social attention to women’s status role in the family and society at a time when women had long since questioned male dominance, claimed citizenship rights, and gained access to higher education and employment (Hatem 1992; Moghadam 1993). Hence, Muslim women did not leave Islamist conceptions of state, family, and society unchallenged. Alongside socio-political women’s movements,3 Islamic feminism evolved as another voice that represents an intellectual, theological response to the rise of political Islam and its gender orthodoxy. This feminism provided women with a language to call for equality from within the religious knowledge system, its tenets and teachings, and its practices of faith, which I refer to as ortho-practices or knowledge practices (Winkel 2010). 1 Besides

Christian fundamentalism, political Islam is one of various empirical cases of the politicization of religion. For a more detailed discussion of the notion of political religion, see Richard Faber (1997), and Heiner Bielefeldt and Wilhelm Heitmeyer (1998). 2 Historically, Islamism emerged in the 1920s and 1930s (Roy 1994; Keppel 2003). First fundamentalist organizations were the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Jama’at-i Islami in India (Abu-Rabi 1996; Lapidus 1997). For Nigeria, see, for example, Ezeilo (2006). 3 These movements range from explicitly religious to more or less ‘purely’ political positions, and can be traced back to the end of the 19th century (Badran 1993; Fleischmann 1999; Al-Ali 2000; Sadiqi 2016).

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In the 1990s, Islamic feminism took shape as a multifaceted global movement (Badran 2009, p. 3) that is rooted in various local controversies such as the gender rights advocacy of the Malaysian feminist movement Sisters in Islam (Osman and Hirst 2013), or the conflicts that both religious and secular feminists have with Islamic fundamentalism in Iran (Mir-Hosseini 1996; Najmabadi 1998; Seedat 2013, pp. 406–408; Moghissi 1999). Another case is Morocco, where Fatima Mernissi (1975) dismantled Islamic notions of women’s sexual inferiority first from a sociological perspective, before shifting to a critical rereading of patriarchal scriptural interpretations, while historian Margot Badran (1994) identified the conduct of life of individual Muslim women as the core of Islamic feminism in Egypt, thus bringing women’s agency into focus. Partly, for example in Morocco, Islamic feminism was supported by Islamists who wanted to counter the “sweeping trend of secular feminists and earn them[selves] more followers” (Sadiqi 2017, p. 112). However, Islamic feminists started to question Islamist’s misogyny after a while. The globally varying manifestations of Islamic feminism do not make it easy to conceive the movement’s common ground. This becomes even more complex when one considers that Islamic feminists are embroiled in orientalist discourses, for example in Western migration contexts (Abu-Lughod 2002; Golley 2004),4 and withstand authoritarian regimes that instrumentalize women’s rights issues against Islamist political camps, such as in Tunisia (Antonakis 2017, p. 19). Primarily, however, Islamic feminism points at a different understanding of Islam from within the religious body of knowledge and sensemaking to demystify “the sanctity that veiled the patriarchal interpretations of the Shari’a”, as Ziba MirHosseini (2009, p. 44) puts it. The ethical reasoning of Islamic knowledge sources from a gender-inclusive perspective is pivotal to this approach, with the Qur’an and the Sunna leading the way for gender-equitable visions of society (Wadud 2008, 2009). That way, Islamic feminists both challenge Islamist teachings on female subordination and identify Islam as a resource of equality. Beyond differences in emphasis, Islamic feminists share the concern both for gender-equitable interpretations of the scriptures and gender-inclusive principles of social justice. This includes the demand to decode male-dominated legal cultures.

4 In

recent years, Islamic feminism has also been seized upon in Western, European contexts, where Women of Color and Muslim women have increasingly experienced racism. Here, Islamic feminism has been developed as a reaction to the experience of denigration (Sirri 2017).

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In this contribution, I want to deepen the understanding of religion as a lifeworldly5 resource of feminist demands for social justice and equality—or, to put it another way, as a taken-for-granted dimension of interpreting and experiencing the social world. To this end, I frame my discussion of Islamic feminism with a section on epistemological backgrounds of the relationship between feminism, religion, and the secular. This is done from a postcolonial perspective, complemented by a sociology of knowledge approach, which aims to consolidate the understanding of the way in which ‘religion’ takes effect as a basic dimension of sensemaking in the everyday lifeworld, and of the extent to which Islamic feminism is able to enshrine gender justice in the social order of meaning. This approach is not naïve; rather, Islamic feminist discourses are imagined as part of a highly contested field of Islamic and secular knowledge practices. Behind this approach is the conviction that Islamic feminist thought is no stray figure of knowledge, neither within Islamic discourse nor in a secular, feminist perspective; it is rather compatible and intelligible. Theoretically, I conceive the gender-equitable rereading of sacred texts and the law as a commonly shared feminist knowledge practice. Beyond the fact that Islamic feminism is a heterogeneous field of diverse theo-political approaches, the implementation of gender justice is a joint concern across different contexts, such as the Mashriq. This concern unfolds in the symbolically based system of religious knowledge codes on gender relations, femininity, and sexuality (on the level of social action) as a knowledge practice that is associated with a specific cognitive style of interpreting the lifeworld (Schütz 1953, 1967, 1974). I suppose that, in the Mashriq and the Maghrib, this cognitive style is naturally intertwined with modes of experiencing and sensing the world that are typically understood as ‘secular’. Accordingly, both modes of lifeworldly experience, the ‘religious’ and the ‘secular’ differ only gradually from each other. I will discuss this by using the phenomenological sociology of knowledge, which can help make ‘the religious’ and ‘the secular’ visible as coexisting and entangled rather than mutually exclusive provinces of meaning (Schütz 1945). I connect this phenomenological approach with the concept of symbolic codes6 that I understand as the socio-cultural macroframe of the various modes of experiencing, sensing, and acting in the varying provinces of meaning. These codes function as a scaffold for the socio-cultural order, such as religious gender codes that legitimate the interpretation of ‘the’

5I

use the notion of the lifeworld as coined by Edmund Husserl and developed by Alfred Schütz and Thomas Luckmann (1975). 6 I use the notion of symbolic codes following Shmuel N. Eisenstadt (1979).

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gender order by reference to the metaphysical realm.7 Using a selected context in the Mashriq, I discuss the extent to which religious codes on gender and the related knowledge practices function as central anchors of knowing and understanding the world, and as a resource of feminist notions of justice, namely beyond the perceived socio-historical divide to secular feminist understandings of equality (inspired by the universal conception of human rights). This is based on the assumption that both feminist approaches, the secular and the religious, overlap in how they question and withstand gender inequality. This approach calls into question views that equate religion as inherently anti-enlightenment, while identifying secularity as “synonymous with progress, emancipation, and modernity” (Scott 2018, p. 5). In that sense, I focus on thinking gender justice as a religious knowledge practice in this contribution. Before introducing Islamic feminism as both a religious and feminist knowledge practice, I discuss the epistemological challenges of analyzing religion from a methodologically secular perspective in a first step. Against this epistemological backdrop, I introduce religion in a second step as a central dimension of sensemaking in the Mashriq. Using the example of socio-historical developments in precolonial and colonial Egypt before 1900, I illustrate how Islamic religion functions as a taken-for-granted facet of the social order of meaning, that is, as part of the common sense (Schütz 1953, 1974), namely also in the context of societal transformation and upheaval, not least during colonization. In particular, I show the extent to which religion is the starting-point of a discoursive transformation that includes the emergence of both fundamentalist Islam and modernist, liberal Islam, added by a brief delineation of the extent to which women’s socio-political commitment at this time mirrors the relevance of religion as a taken-for-granted knowledge anchor in these processes. Based on this, I finally show how Islamic feminism has socio-historically evolved within this framework of fundamentalist and modernist approaches, and I sketch in what way I understand Islamic feminism as a knowledge practice that signifies a break with androcentric positions in the institutionalized body of religious knowledge (Qur’an, Sunnah, and Hadith). This approach is premised on the working assumption that Islamic feminism would be misunderstood if it were constructed in an essentialist way as a categorically different practice of knowledge that is not compatible with secular feminism at all. Instead, the relation between religious and secular knowledge practices can be much better understood, if we consider them as coexisting provinces of meaning. Accordingly, women’s everyday experience of ‘the religious’ and ‘the 7 Another

example is the bourgeois gender code that structures social relations in European societies along the lines of a supposed categorical gender binary based on dimorphism.

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secular’ in the Mashriq unfolds not necessarily as irreconcilable, dichotomous life spheres, but rather as entangled dimensions of experiencing and understanding the social world.

2

Feminism, Methodological Secularism, and the Secular/Religious Divide

The notion of ‘religion’, its relation to ‘the secular’, and their respective genealogies in European thinking have been an object of increasing critical reflection following the pioneering work of Talal Asad (1993, 2003), Saba Mahmood (2005), or Charles Taylor (2007), and Ussama Makdisi (2008, 2019). A central critique focuses on the epistemological foundations of the analysis of religion; it highlights how these foundations are developed from a secularist stance that is nevertheless assumed to be a neutral framework, while secularity indeed functions as the prism of analysis. Charles Taylor (2007, p. 539) describes this as the socio-historically situated emergence of the immanent frame of experiencing the world. This frame of meaning and sensemaking structures the perception of the (secular) self in the late modern world as a buffered self that is captivated by this immanent frame. According to Taylor, this mental frame is not ethically neutral, but includes a moral attitude: “the buffered identity of the disciplined individual moves in a constructed social space, where instrumental rationality is a key value, and time is pervasively secular. All of this makes up what I want to call ‘the immanent frame’. (…) this frame constitutes a ‘natural’ order, to be contrasted with a supernatural one, an ‘immanent’ world over against a possible ‘transcendent’ one” (Taylor 2007, p. 542).

The supposed naturalness and neutrality of immanence obscures that the understanding of ‘the secular’ is “indelibly intertwined” socio-historically with ‘religion’ and that both orientation patterns are “co-constitutive” (Brown et al. 2013, p. x). Accordingly, Western, European analysis of religion is socio-culturally biased and embedded in unequal epistemic power relations that can be traced back to colonial times. Talal Asad explains that the power asymmetries in knowledge production do not result from the direct “aid” of intellectual, academic thinking “to colonial administration, or (.) the simple reflection of colonial ideology” in academic knowledge production (Asad 1975, p. 18), but from the hegemony of imperial knowledge regimes such as secularism that entered the stage in the name of modernity, progress, and development. Like many other postcolonial thinkers,

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Asad calls attention to the way in which colonial histories—and in connection with this also the experiences of colonial subjects—have become subaltern; this includes the histories of physical as well as epistemic violence. As a result, Asad, unlike Taylor (2007), assumes that the concepts of ‘the religious’ and ‘the secular’ are so deeply intertwined with European history of ideas and culture that they cannot be transferred to non-European contexts without making presuppositions. Otherwise, I suppose, this nurtures the colonial episteme of difference,8 which, based on a contrasting typification of knowledge regimes in terms of we and the Others, consistently turns religion into a subaltern form of knowledge. This approach does not question the global relevance of secularism as a social reality, but emphasizes its relevance as a discoursive power category, and reminds us that secularism is a socio-political attitude which “emerged in response to the political problems of Western Christian society in early modernity—beginning with its devastating wars of religion” (Asad 2003, p. 2). As a consequence, I approach religion and the secular as historically situated knowledge categories. From this perspective, the contrasting conceptualization of religion and the secular, or religious and secular feminisms, turns out to be a paradigmatic case of how Western, European representations dominate the perception of the lifeworld and related knowledge practices in non-European contexts, too. This started in the fifteenth century, when religion emerged as the first global marker of otherness and difference in the modern/colonial world system of the time. First, Arabs and Jews on the Iberian Peninsula were identified as “‘people with the wrong religion’” (Grosfoguel and Mielants 2006, p. 2), and later, during their expulsion from the Peninsula, as barbaric and uncivilized people without any religion. Further evidence of the function of religion and secularization as imperial knowledge codes is their use as generic analytical concepts. This fosters the problematic impression that globally different phenomena are in principle generically equal. Sociologist of knowledge Joachim Matthes (1992, p. 82) has criticized the notion of religion as a one-dimensional interpretament that solidifies as abstract model and ignores the cultural-historical situatedness of its origin. According to Matthes, the research axiom is thus (euro)centric, as it constrains researchers to strategic decisions and classifications of research objects, such as religious feminists. This shapes the results before the research has even begun, and furthers the conceptual “birth of religion out of the spirit of research about it” (Matthes 1993, p. 26). Both 8 The

notion of the colonial episteme of difference is borrowed from the notion of the coloniality of difference (Mignolo 2012; Samann 2010) that is reproduced in many ways through the “re-construction and (…) restitution of silenced histories, repressed subjectivities, subalternized knowledges and languages“ (Mignolo 2007, p. 45).

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Talal Asad’s and Joachim Matthes’ focus on the bias and the axiological foundation of the concept of religion points to its particularity. I claim that religion’s particularity is condensed in the epistemic optic of seemingly clearly definable processes of separation and demarcation between the immanent and the transcendent, and the supposed value neutrality of secularity. This epistemic optic relates to the colonial episteme of difference mentioned above, and results in a methodological secularism (Calhoun 2010; Calhoun et al. 2011) that views non-Western lifeworlds through a particular lens that prioritizes secularization processes and demotes religion as an irritating, subordinate residual. This colonial episteme of difference is also reflected in how religion and secularization are each related to perceptions of gender rights. While secularism—that is the separation of religion and the secular—is viewed as the “guarantor of equality between women and men” (Scott 2018, p. 7), religiously based lifeworlds appear per se as being incompatible with feminism. In Sex and Secularization, Joan Scott (2018) reconstructs the socio-cultural history of European secularisms and its identification with liberal political thought as the supposed fundamental condition of equal rights. However, as not only Joan Scott (2018, p. 4) demonstrates, gender inequality is at the “very heart” of secular European modernity and “not simply a by-product”. The bourgeois gender order, as it emerged around 1800 inheres a very new, fundamental model of gender inequality based on the seemingly categorical difference of women (Fraisse 1995; Bock 2000). Scott also counters the argument that Western societies have now achieved far-reaching (sexual) emancipation by asking how far freedom and equality have in fact been realized in the twenty-first century. She concludes that “women in the West are depicted as sexually liberated”, and that “this is said to be a measure of the equality brought by ‘secularism’” (Scott 2018, p. 181). However, as Scott notes, the liberal conception of (sexual) freedom as individual autonomy neither clarifies nor ensures that equality is realized: “this vision of sexual emancipation is not the realization of a universal freedom but is instead a historically specific creation: a Western middle-class notion of what it means to be free. It is, moreover, a freedom that does not necessarily confer equality – the asymmetry of the difference of sex continues both in the most intimate of relationships as well as in the marketplace of jobs and ideas. It is only the contrast with Muslim women’s fate (they are depicted as sexually oppressed […]) that the idea achieves its sense” (ibid.).

At this point, it becomes apparent to what extent the coloniality of the secular/religious divide intersects with the gender divide: from the very beginning, the formation of the secular subject was gendered based on the “visible, sexed

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bodies of women and men” with “nature as a guarantee” of gender inequality (Scott 2018, p. 120). Hence, the question posed by Wendy Brown (2013, p. 4) as to whether critique is secular points—again—to the socio-cultural situatedness of these notions in the secular European history of ideas (Brown 2013, pp. 6–7), which provided this immanent frame in the first place. While a specific idea of secular critique is indeed related to this particular history, critique as such, for example feminist critique, does not per se have to be secular. In order to deepen the understanding of religious feminist critique, for example in the Mashriq, it is necessary to go beyond the secular/religious divide, to decenter the eurocentric perspective on critique, and conceptualize both religion and the secular frame as interrelated spheres of knowing, meaning, and critiquing. The secular is a “concept that brings together certain behaviors, knowledges, and sensibilities”, which “overlap(.) with ‘the religious’” in many ways and respects (Asad 2003, p. 25). From the phenomenological sociology of knowledge perspective following Alfred Schütz, the secular/religious divide can be approached in a way that considers the possibility of multiple coexisting knowledges and sensibilities instead of taking a methodologically secularist stance and focusing on their mutual exclusiveness. This does not deny that varying sensibilities and knowledges can conflict with each other. However, I claim that, in taking into account the social existence of multiple social realities, this perspective does not give epistemological priority to one particular knowledge position. In his essay On multiple realities, Schütz (1945) developed the notion of various (finite) provinces of meaning in terms of multiple realities alongside each other, such as religious experience, theoretical thinking, play, and dreaming next to the paramount reality of the everyday lifeworld. Each meaning province is based on a distinctive cognitive style and attitude, the epoché that shapes the respective experience such as in a daydream, a theatre play, or a prayer. In this conception, cognitions can oscillate quite naturally between the different provinces of meaning; they are to be understood not as something ontologically static, but rather as permeable knowledge spheres. Hence, women’s everyday experience of ‘the religious’ and ‘the secular’ in the Mashriq does not necessarily unfold as irreconcilable, dichotomous areas of life. Instead, they turn out to be coexisting dimensions of experiencing and acting in the social world that actors can effortlessly switch between and that can both include feminist thinking, rather than mutually exclusive provinces of meaning. The relevance of religion as one of various multiple realities that coexists with other dimensions of experience and sensemaking is reconstructed in the following chapter in a socio-historical, knowledge based approach using the Mashriq as empirical context.

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Conceptualizing the Social Order of Meaning in the Mashriq: (Political) Religion as a Symbolic Key of Social Continuity in Processes of Social Transformation

Often, societal transformation in the Mashriq since the nineteenth century was interpreted as primarily been driven by an imagined confrontational encounter between the religiously shaped Arab lifeworlds, secular Western science, and the colonial administrations of Britain and France, which imagined themselves as superior, whether at the level of the state or at that of the family and the gender order. This raises three questions. First, whether intellectual and political change in the Mashriq really was primarily exogenously induced, driven by the contrast between religion, Western science, and secular, political visions of society, and whether this change led more or less automatically to fundamentalist visions of the political future. The second question concerns related societal concepts of women’s status in this period of socio-political transformation. The third question refers to the extent to which an analysis of this encounter must take into account that secularization is not a universalistic notion, but rather a particularistic conceptualization of society (Winkel 2017), one that is strongly interwoven with the social history of European ideas, culture, and nation states (Taylor 2007). This is linked to the assumption that the particularity of the concept of secularization is condensed in an epistemic scheme of binarity, contrast, and difference, which not only leads to a predetermined focus on processes of separation and demarcation (in this case, of the religious and non-religious provinces of meaning), but also combines this with a devaluation of religious voices as subaltern voices. That way, religion functions as a colonial category of difference and othering (Grosfoguel and Mielants 2006). The first question can be easily answered. The early nineteenth century was characterized by an atmosphere of intellectual production and optimism. It led into the so-called Arab awakening, the nahda. This movement was furthered by sociopolitical reforms of the Ottoman Empire also known as the Tanzimat,9 such as in Egypt, where the khedive pushed the reforms forward (Hourani 1992; Abu-Rabi’ 2006; Kassab 2010). The nahda intensified in the second half of the nineteenth century and developed into a steadily growing production of literature and media. Intellectual societies and political organizations, parties and women’s movements 9 Literally, Tanzimat means reorganization. The term describes the long period of comprehensive legal, military, and administrative reforms in the Ottoman Empire from 1839 to 1876 (Krämer 1992, 2002; Weber 2006). A basic concern of the reforms was the re-stabilization of the Ottoman Empire’s power.

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bloomed (Hourani 1962).10 These intellectual shifts were not anti-religious, but also not anti-Enlightenment; rather, they developed as active reconsiderations of ‘the’ Arab-Islamic heritage, as well as its relation to intellectual and sociopolitical developments in Europe. These modernist approaches towards Islam mirrored an atmosphere of intellectual openness (still before colonization). They were part of a contested field of Islamic knowledge practices that did not yet include the familiar fundamentalist currents of today’s Salafist views. The modernist approach is outlined below, with the Egyptian context as empirical focus, extended by a section on the relevance of religion for women’s political visions at the time, and a section on theological gender beliefs from a modernist perspective. This way, I want to highlight the heterogeneity of positions beyond (organized) political Islam11 around 1900. The third question concerns the methodological challenge of dualistic worldviews and categorizations of lifeworlds, such as the contrast between ‘the religious’ and ‘the secular’, or between religion and democracy. Hence, the focus of the third subchapter is the extent to which this furthers the function of religion as a colonial category of difference and othering, and how far it fosters a perception of Islamic feminism as ‘the Other’, subaltern voice from a secular knowledge position.

3.1

Intellectual and Political Change in the Mashriq: Religion as a Part and Parcel of the Symbolic Knowledge Order

As indicated above, the Mashriq was a place of intellectual and theoretical knowledge production in the nineteenth century, just as European societies. Islamic reform ideas were part of these far-reaching processes of reorientation. According to Ulrike Freitag (2008, p. 96, my translation), the intellectual movement included “enlightenment, rationalism, freedom of conscience, education and science, organized public administration and the equality of citizens before the law, as well as an economic policy that is oriented towards the common good”. This approach not only takes into account the colonial ‘periphery’ as a social arena with vibrant forms of knowledge exchange, but also intends to decenter European experience and make it understandable as a particular frame of conceptualizing and knowing the lifeworld rather than as a universal ideal-type. Following Shalini 10 According

to Ulrike Freitag (2008, pp. 97–98), social change had already developed at the beginning of the 18th century, namely as a renewed orientation towards Greek sciences; the difference is the growing speed and dynamic of change in the 19th century. 11 Organized political Islam starts with the foundation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928. It developed offshoots in various Arab countries.

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Randeria (1999) this can be grasped as the existence of multiple lifeworlds across the globe. These lifeworlds are at the same time linked by transcultural entanglements in the course of (neo)colonial history; this is the frame within which divergent paths of uneven transformation and modernization12 unfolded (Randeria 2009). Against the backdrop of colonial history, a different light can be cast on the continuing relevance of religion as a symbolic horizon of meaning and as a mirror of collective identity. Religion becomes discernible as a continuing, symbolically based system of knowledge codes that do not function as a set of “cultural value orientations”, but rather as “generalized modi” of orientation and experience in varying institutional settings (Eisenstadt 1979, p. 8),13 such as the extended family or the religious and the political community, for example in the vision of the ‘Umma. Codes do not in themselves prevent interpretation and negotiation among actors, such as in the case of competing modernist and fundamentalist visions of society. Instead, codes structure social action and orientation in a very basic way; they define “the cultural and the political identity, the perception of the relation between the cosmic, the social and the political order, the participation in this social and cultural order, and the basis of legitimation of this order” (Eisenstadt 1979, p. 163), which includes the possibility of varying ‘nuances’ such as modernist or fundamentalist beliefs that are linked to different practices of faith. I conceptualize these ortho-practices as knowledge practices, that is, as the performative dimensions of religious knowledge codes. Both the knowledge codes, which consist of specific tenets and teachings of faith (the ortho-doxies), and the lifeworldly practices of faith (the ortho-practice) constitute a religious system of knowledge. Knowledge codes gain particular relevance because they take effect as focal points of collective identity and action in transformation processes, such as in the Mashriq in the nineteenth century. According to Eisenstadt (1979, p. 8), they serve as “a kind of hidden structure” that enables distinct solutions to social problems in varying contexts. As a result, the solutions to structurally similar societal problems are “widely different” (Eisenstadt 1979, p. 8), both within societies and across the globe. This is demonstrated not least by the emergence of heterodox socio-political movements around 1900, such as in the case of religious fundamentalism. However, in the Mashriq, different knowledge codes developed within the symbolic order of Arab societies to solve the institutional problems of the 12 I use the notion of modernization here as a term of self-description and differentiation from supposed Others. 13 This and all further quotes from Eisenstadt (1979) are my translation from the German edition.

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time, such as in the political, the educational, and the academic sphere. Besides Islamic fundamentalists, Barbara Stowasser (1993) identifies Islamic conservatives and modernists as two further religious reform movements of the time. In each of these movements, The Women’s Question was identified as a touchstone of social change and nation-building (Ahmed 1992), as in the independence movements at that time. The Egyptian grand mufti Muhammad ‘Abduh (1849–1905)14 is of paradigmatic interest in this regard. He was a leading figure in theological modernism in and beyond Egypt. Naturally, his thinking formed a bridge to political nationalism and the independence movements (linked with strong personal ties). However, while rejecting Western influence, ‘Abduh also argued for sociopolitical change from within and took up Western intellectual developments. Part of his theologically-based consideration was an elaborate gender approach. Before I discuss this gender philosophy in the following subchapter, I take a closer look at ‘Abduh’s thinking. When Muhammad ‘Abduh was born in 1849, Egypt had already begun to undergo large-scale reforms, the Tanzimat mentioned above. Part of this was a shift towards Western sciences and technologies in the 1820s and 1830s. It provided the stimulus for considering different influences, not only in the political sphere, but also in the theological domain. ‘Abduh himself had been introduced to European literature, philosophy, and the natural sciences during his studies at the prestigious al-Azhar university in Cairo (1866–1876) under the guidance of Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani. While the British occupation (1882–1956) shifted the attitudes held by Egyptian intellectuals like ‘Abduh against Western political influence,15 it did not change his basic interest in methodological standards, for example in reason as a means of reflecting on ethical issues such as gender beliefs embodied in the Qu’ran and the Hadith.16 In that vein, ‘Abduh focused on the scriptures as a store of ethical quintessence: “The prominent trait of the modernist school (…) seeks to grasp the value system of the Quran as a whole, therefrom to win fresh and new guidance”, as Barbara Stowasser puts it (1993, p. 34).

14 ‘Abduh

was appointed grand mufti in 1899. 1882, ‘Abduh was exiled due to his participation in the Urabi uprising. 16 ‘Abduh’ criticized the simple doctrinal structure of Taqlid in Islamic schools (Stowasser 1993) and criticized the prejudices against Western epistemology that were prevalent at alAzhar. Taqlid is a legal term that aims at a strict and literal adherence to doctrines and traditions, without asking for reason or evidence. 15 In

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Starting from this reform-oriented stance, ‘Abduh contributed to nationalist discourses as a writer and public intellectual.17 I understand the way in which he developed his political visions from a modernist theological perspective as a religious knowledge practice that made him widely known and influential on public opinion (Hourani 1962, p. 133). Also for the British, ‘Abduh was a “leading spirit of the (national) movement” (Adams 1968, p. 53) with close ties to political leaders. ‘Abduh wrote intensively about national unity in terms of a united homeland (al-Watan) (Hourani 1962, p. 156; Haq 1970, p. 22). His understanding of Wataniyya can be interpreted as a kind of national patriotism that was not directed towards secularism neither ideally nor in terms of institutional power, but which I identify as a modernist political religion. ‘Abduh’s perception of the nation was anchored in an idea of belonging, namely to a certain place and land, where the family exists, “the place of rights and duties upon which political life revolves” (Badawi 1976, p. 15). And this ‘revolve’ is composed of the religiously-based ethical Islamic values that guide the conduct of life, which is a primary sphere of religious knowledge practices in Islam. The case of the modernist Egyptian grand mufti shows the range of variants that existed alongside conservative and fundamentalist knowledge practices, although the latter increased in visibility with the foundation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928 as the first Islamist organization in the Mashriq.18 The increasing turn towards radical Islamist positions around 1900 can be interpreted as a reaction to the apparent impossibility of maintaining the Ummah’s politicalreligious vision. This was—and still is today—accompanied by a strong resistance to secularism and Western dominance (Roy 1994; Fuller 2003). According to Ibrahim Abu-Rabi’, Islamism “cannot (…) be understood, except by recourse

17 Encouraged by al-Afghani, ‘Abduh began to write, for example, for al-Ahram (The Pyramids), one of the oldest political journals in Egypt (founded in 1875). Al-Ahram mirrors the emergence of nationalist thinking and new notions of belonging, namely in contrast to the political rule of the Ottoman Empire in Istanbul. In 1880, ‘Abduh became the editor of an official gazette, where he continued to write about national, cultural, educational, and religious issues. 18 Radical Islamist visions gained in importance between the generations of ‘Abduh and Raš¯ıd Rid.a¯ (died 1935). Originally ‘Abduh’s disciple, Rid.a¯ turned to a more radical Salafism and had great influence on Hassan al-Bann¯a, the populist founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. In order to understand the radicalization of Islamism, we should mention Sayyid Qutb (1905-1966), who redefined the notion of Dschahiliyya, a term that describes a state of ignorance or folly and unbelief. He declared Muslims who adhere to modern ideas to be unbelievers, with the consequence of the death penalty for so-called apostates. This is the basis for assassinations and terrorist attacks. The writings of Qutb have become very influential in this regard.

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to hegemonic Western modernity” and its enduring striving for geo-political hegemony (Abu-Rabi’ 1996, p. 249). Against this backdrop, the recourse to religious knowledge codes and related practices can be interpreted as a central dimension of experiencing and understanding the world—as a generalized modus of orientation and action respectively (Eisenstadt 1979). As discussed, this includes conflicting knowledge practices in the contested field of Islamic ortho-practices as part of processes of reflection. These contestations deepened in the postcolonial era, for example after Egypt’s defeat in the Six Day War in 1967, which is not only paradigmatic to understand the rise of Islamism, but, alongside the Islamic revolution in Iran, it rather is a threshold for its revitalization. Egypt’s defeat revealed the crisis of the nation-state and its authoritarian regime under Gamal Abdel Nasser, and the disappointment with the socio-political vacuum that followed the defeat, particularly (but not only) in Egypt. The renewed ‘return’ to Islam filled this vacuum. At the beginning of the 1980s, all political parties, with the exception of some communist groups, advocated the principles of the Shari’a (Krämer 1992, p. 211). This is the context in which liberal Islamists such as Hassan Hanafi and later Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid (1996), as well as Islamic feminists, developed critical approaches, some of which are reminiscent of ‘Abduh’s modernist version of Islam.

3.2

Religion’s Continuing Relevance for Women’s Political Visions of the Future

Before discussing Islamic feminism in more detail, I want to outline the extent to which religion played a role in women’s political visions of the future around 1900, that is, in the context of colonialism and national independence movements. Everywhere in the Mashriq, independence movements were important vehicles for women’s claim to political participation (Badran 1988).19 As women’s (rights) issues turned out to be of subordinate interest in the national movements, women launched their own organizations such as the Egyptian Feminist Union (EFU) founded by Huda Sha’arawi in 1923 or The Society of Egyptian Ladies’ Awakening founded by Labiba Ahmed in 1919/1920. Nevertheless these female personalities maintained close contacts with the various national parties and movements, and 19 In Egypt, for example, women from the upper and the middle class allied in demonstrations against the British and publicly took part in the resistance against occupation (Baron 1994, pp. 120ff.; Ramdani 2013, p. 40). Beth Baron (2005, pp. 107ff.) writes extensively about the “Ladies’ Demonstrations”.

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with their competing nationalist visions. This naturally included a religiously framed nationalism represented by the Watani Party,20 which “combined territorial affinity with religious identity” (Baron 2005, p. 31), as well as secular parties such as the Umma Party and the constitutionalist Wafd Party, which was the most influential party until the 1930s, with strong ties to Huda Sha’arawi’ and the EFU. However, the Watani Party was also supported by leading women of the time such as Labiba Ahmed. Her case signifies that women certainly responded to Islamic nationalism positively. For her, the answer to the question of what an indigenous Egyptian nationalism could look like included a tentatively conservative Islamic foundation. Consequently, Labiba Ahmed “conceptualized women’s rights in Islamic terms” (Baron 2005, p. 189). Nevertheless, together with the women of the EFU, she took part in the famous 1919 revolution against the British, but prioritized her own philanthropic association, The Society of Egyptian Ladies’ Awakening.21 In so doing, both, Ahmed and Sha’arawi, exemplify women’s active search for a place in the nation. However, Ahmed represents a part of society that explicitly called for a gendered code of behavior that places religious morality in its center (Baron 2005, p. 196). According to Beth Baron (2005, pp. 209–210), Ahmed also paved the way for radical visions of Islamic nationalism as represented by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Muslim Ladies Association, founded by Zaynab al-Ghazali in 1936 (Bechmann and Raheb 2016); Ahmed is said to have had strong personal ties to these groups, and to have “played a critical role in nurturing the younger generation that made the transformation from Islamic reform (Salafiyya) to Islamic radicalism (Islamism)” (Baron 2001, p. 225). However, it is not only Labiba Ahmed’s political vision of society and its gender relations that are rooted in a religious conception of the lifeworld. Huda Sha’arawi, founder of the EFU and ally of the constitutionalist Wafd Party, also wanted to reform—but not abandon—Islamic family law, while Labiba Ahmed sought to strengthen it. Also, Islam was for Sha’arawi a self-evident reference frame with regard to normative and legal issues, such as, for example, in public debates on women’s rights. Historian Ellen Fleischmann (2003, pp. 86–87) discusses a vivid public controversy about legal matters in the press in the 1920s. The debate centered in the claim for women’s equal rights in Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and in Egypt, and referred to the Shari’a as the guarantor of these rights. Fleischmann (2003, p. 88) provides evidence that Huda Sha’arawi also publicly called “for the restoration of [women’s] lost rights” and considered the normative order 20 Watani

means ‘homeland’, while Wafd stands for ‘delegation’. to her considerable charity work in the educational field, Ahmed also founded a magazine, The Women’s Awakening. 21 Next

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of the Shari’a as a source of these political rights. Although the notion of women’s rights had not been “precisely clarified”, it is discernable that it “seemed to denote individual autonomy in order to enable women to participate in public life and make choices in their personal life, but primarily in order to serve a collectivity, the nation, rather than the individual herself” (Fleischmann 2003, p. 87).22 One could argue that the reference to Islam and Shari’a was part of a discursive strategy. In contrast, I assume that the reference to religion in the debates about national and legal issues results from its relevance as a provider of symbolic orientation, plausibility, and legitimacy. Moreover, the reference to religion is a familiar, but not uncontested, knowledge practice. This argument will be deepened in the next subchapter, where I take the theological visions of gender relations formulated by the reformer Muhammad ‘Abduh as an example of a gender-equitable knowledge practice.

3.3

Reformist Theological Visions of Gender Relations

As indicated above, a core topic of Islamic reformer’s critique within the process of socio-political transformation around 1900 was directed towards the gender order. In this regard, Islamic modernists made an instructive contribution to the nationwide debate about The Women’s Question. This is again best exemplified by Muhammad ‘Abduh, who developed a tentative gender-conscious theology. ‘Abduh pointed at a different understanding of Islam ‘from within’ the religious body of knowledge. His approach to Islamic sources encompasses a gender philosophy that I identify as a distinct knowledge practice based on ethical reasoning.23 This knowledge practice differs in varying ways from ‘conventional’ Islamic gender ideologies of his time. ‘Abduh was, for example, convinced that ijtihad, the individual interpretation of the scriptures, could solve problems such as women’s liberation from male oppression, as it was sanctioned in the polygamy and divorce laws of medieval fiqh formulation. His argumentation in favor of a legal reform of religious customs and practices in everyday life was embedded in critical self-reflection: “The Muslims have been at fault in the education and training of women, and acquainting them with their rights; and we acknowledge that we 22 This hints at the symbolic priority of relations and the group of belonging relative to the individual in the Mashriq (Joseph 1999). 23 Both Fatima Mernissi (1975) and Leila Ahmed (1992) point to nineteenth-century Muslim reform theology as the first source of critical thinking on gender in theological thinking.

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have failed to follow the guidance of our religion, so that we have become an argument against it” (‘Abduh quoted in Ahmed 1992, pp. 139–140). While seeking to rediscover the original meaning of the Qur’an and how it had shaped the faith of the righteous predecessors, ‘Abduh placed importance on the notions of women’s full humanity and equality with men before God, thus reverting to the basic symbolic code of spiritual egalitarianism: in ‘Abduh’s opinion, women are indispensable in shaping a truly moral society. Along the lines of ethical egalitarianism as a basic Qur’anic ethos, ‘Abduh called for educational and legal reforms in order to educate men in the meaning of Islam “so they would begin to deal with their wives in the spirit of love, compassion, and equality that the Qur’an enjoins” (Stowasser 1993, p. 35). One example of this is ‘Abduh’s criticism of polygamy. Barbara Stowasser (1994, p. 121) emphasizes that ‘Abduh wrote “in empassioned language about male tyranny (..), female exploitation and oppression, (…), all features of the nineteenth century reality of polygamy gone wrong”. This issue is supposed to be addressed in one of ‘Abduh’s most innovative Qur’an interpretations and fatwas, in which he called for legal reform. Divorce was another equally strong concern of his (Stowasser 1993, p. 34). According to Barbara Stowasser (1994, p. 7), this has to be seen against the backdrop of medieval religious scholarship that was “largely unchallenged” in the nineteenth century. Life had proceeded along the structural paths of patriarchal clan, gender, and kinship ties that served as the fundamental matrix for social coherence. The theological-legal paradigm of medieval Islam had enshrined this social order. ‘Abduh voiced strong disagreement with medieval exegetic lore that retained views of women’s supposed innate nature as weak and deficient, such as in the Hanbali school of jurisprudence (Stowasser 1994, p. 21).24 However, ‘Abduh’s reform ideas did definitely not signify a comprehensive re-coding of the gender order in favor of individual equality, but rather the reconstruction of the order on equal terms. Accordingly, ‘Abduh’s gender philosophy is an example of symbolic continuity, because he draws on a firm cultural code: the Qur’anic understanding of spiritual egalitarianism between the sexes.25 According to this code, everybody—the old and young, women and men—contribute to the common good of the community as a system of mutual duties 24 For example, ‘Abduh criticized as a cultural construction the interpretation of Eve as Adam’s temptress, even going so far as to say that [the Adam and Eve] story has nothing to do with history (Stowasser 1994, p. 17; Keddie 2007, p. 30). 25 Equitableness does not refer to individual justice or the conception of individual rights, but rather to the notion of extensive mutual obligations as the core of social interdependency. Equitable reciprocity constitutes the nucleus of a gender code in its own right alongside the Western-European model of sexual difference (Winkel 2012b).

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and rights, specified according to seniority, gender and kinship. This principle of building relationships—that is prioritized over individual interests and autonomy—includes a notion of equality aimed at the “unity and solidarity of the collective” based on identical, reciprocal obligations (Stowasser 1996, pp. 33– 34). This does not mean “absolute and individual social, political, or economic equality” (ibid.). Instead, it sustains complementary forms of involvement that pay tribute to the common good, usually represented by the kin group. Nevertheless, I argue that ‘Abduh’s gender philosophy includes a knowledge practice that is tentatively gender equitable and different to the theological-legal paradigm of medieval Islam, since, according to ‘Abduh, men and women should be involved as equally ranked members of the group in moral and spiritual terms.26 In the first half of the twentieth century, ‘Abduh’s modernist theology and its gender-critical impetus were replaced by religious fundamentalism. At a time marked by colonialism and two world wars (both of which were also fought in the Maghreb and the Mashriq) gender philosophies growingly developed in contrast to hegemonic European concepts. While women’s subordination to male authority is legitimated in Islam by religious law, Islamic ethics, and moral doctrines that aim to control female sexuality, gender inequality is legitimated in Western modernity by the ideology of two categorically different, incommensurable sexes (Honegger 1991; Fraisse 1995).27 This shows how religion functioned as a highly relevant knowledge code in the social order of meaning in the Mashriq, whether in the nineteenth century or later in the wake of postcolonialism in the second half of the twentieth century. In each of these processes of socio-political transformation, religion proved to be a relevant point of departure and reference for discoursive change; this includes the emergence of both fundamentalist and modernist Islamic knowledge practices based on varying gender ideas. As indicated earlier, fundamentalist currents gained in importance in the 1970s and 1980s. This is the context in which Islamic feminists developed critical readings of fundamentalist, patriarchal knowledge practices. The next section discusses how Islamic feminism emerged as a religious and feminist knowledge practice.

26 It has to be emphasized that ethical egalitarianism does not (necessarily) include the entitlement to equal rights; rather, it functions as a means of social cohesion in terms of reciprocity and complementarity. 27 This conceptualization of gender is based on dimorphism, which includes the notion of categorical difference and results in the heterosexual matrix based on heteronormativity (Butler 1991).

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Islamic Feminism as a Religious and Feminist Knowledge Practice

To come closer to an understanding of Islamic feminism as feminist knowledge practice, I draw on Saba Mahmood’s insights on pious women in the Islamist Cairene mosque movement. Mahmood (2005, p. 157) suggests to think of the pious women’s activities as a modality of agency and to refine the notion of agency that has hitherto been closely intertwined with the perception of “resistance to social norms” and free choice. This approach develops from the empirical insight that the women’s ethical practice in the orthodox movement turns out to be a modality for the women to develop their selves. Mahmood is aware that the practices of self-cultivation take effect as a disciplinary mechanism that nurtures male dominance such as the practice of shyness with “which one trains oneself to be pious” (Mahmood 2005, p. 158). At the same time, Mahmood realizes that a perspective that understands this as an objectification of women’s bodies in masculinist representation produces a blind spot regarding “the making of the self, (.) in which the outward behavior of the body constitutes both the potentiality and the means through which interiority is realized” (Mahmood 2005, p. 159). She continues, “[r]epresentation is only one issue among many in the ethical relationship of the body to the self and others, and it does not by any means determine the form this relationship takes. (…) [T]he mosque women’s practices of modesty and femininity (…) articulate a positive and immanent discourse of being in the world” (Mahmood 2005, p. 160). That way, Mahmood tries to grasp and go beyond how certain concepts such as a secular-liberal, feminist understanding of agency and the tropes “through which knowledge about the Muslim world has been organized” (Mahmood 2005, p. 195) structure the possibility of understanding Muslim female agency. Against this backdrop, Islamic feminism can be understood as a knowledge practice that makes a difference. What the pious women in Mahmood’s sample have in common with religious feminists is the relevance of religion as a takenfor-granted horizon of meaning in their social lifeworld, namely as a commonly shared system of social categorizations and typifications that refer to a (symbolically based) transcendent social reality—however, one that includes different knowledge codes on gender, femininity, and sexuality. While religion is a jointly addressed province of meaning for both Islamist women and Islamic feminists, the processes of interpretation and sensemaking in these groups vary considerably. They are based on distinct gender codes. What distinguishes feminist actors from pious women is the former’s explicitly critical stance towards an orthodox, androcentric, and male-dominated approach to the scriptures.

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Hence, I understand the emergence of Islamic feminism as an anti-hegemonic knowledge practice. By a knowledge practice, I mean the performative production of, but also the reference to, religious codes of knowledge in the flow of experiencing, interpreting, and acting in the social world, i.e. the practice of experiencing and doing faith in an ethnomethodological sense. This anti-hegemonic knowledge practice includes not only a critique of patriarchal knowledge codes, but also a claim to legal equality in the normative order of Islamic societies (Derichs 2013), as well as a demand for a distinct speaking position (Cooke 2001). Consequently, feminist knowledge practices aim to reconstruct the symbolic horizon of meaning of religion in general, insofar as this horizon legitimates gender inequality and women’s inferiority. This reconstruction includes all codes of knowledge that prefigure the conduct of life, namely the practices of belief (ortho-praxy) as well as religious schools of thought (orthodoxy) and their reflection in theological terms (Winkel 2010, 2012a). Before deepening my thoughts on the central knowledge code of Islamic feminism, I sketch the movement’s socio-political place and contours as a global endeavor with local centers such as in the Mashriq.

4.1

The Socio-Political Place and Contour of Islamic Feminism

As already mentioned, Islamic feminism mainly emerged as a global discourse about gender and (in)equality in the early 1990s. This intellectual movement is strongly based on women’s re-readings of the Qur’an and the Hadith, the Prophet’s sayings and actions, as well as the Sunnah. In this regard, Islamic feminists position themselves in contrast to fundamentalist Islam, which is determined to re-impose patriarchal thinking and male dominance in the name of religion. While many Islamic feminists do not understand themselves as political actors, various Islamic feminist movements intersect with political women’s movements. In the Mashriq, both streams can be imagined as a “continuum”, as Nadje Al-Ali (2009, p. 130) suggests in her study on contemporary Egyptian women’s movements, including explicitly secular movements. Emma Sundkvist (2021) shows in her analysis of an organization for women’s legal assistance in Cairo that women’s rights work can naturally operate within a multiple framework of Islamic discourses of gender justice and political, secular ideas. Hence, Islamic feminisms can also be understood as locally rooted grassroots movement that is often anchored in women’s socio-political activism and is “intertwined with the politico-legal environments in which [it is] located” (Osman and Hirst 2013, p. 191), such as in Egypt. At the same time, Islamic feminism is an intellectual movement

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engendered by the theological reinterpretation of the scriptures and by academic work such as Fatima Mernissi’s sociological analysis of postcolonial Morocco in Beyond the Veil (1975) and her pioneering studies on Qur’an interpretation (Mernissi 1989, 1991) or Leila Ahmed’s historical investigation of Women and Gender in Islam (Ahmed 1992). First gender-inclusive approaches particularly struggled with the normative view that Islam had already corrected the pre-Islamic gender bias and was anyway a source of liberation due to its inherent notion of spiritual equality. But the ethical vision of women’s spiritual equality with men does not only characterize Islam wrongly as progressive, but also proved to be a source of women’s hierarchization in everyday life. In practical terms, it resulted in the maintenance of the patriarchal status quo. Hence, Fatima Mernissi differentiates between “‘risalah Islam’”, the divine message as revealed by the Prophet with its egalitarian view, and “‘political Islam’”, which she considers “misogynist and restrictive”, arguing “that the generations subsequent to the Prophet failed to maintain his spirit of gender equality” (Seedat 2013, p. 405), while Leila Ahmed also highlights the ethical vision of Islam in contrast to its practical regulations, for example in the context of law. This indicates that Islamic feminism is not a coherent doctrinal system, but a contextually contingent “strategy of multiple-critique” that shares the focus on Islam’s ethical foundation (Miriam Cooke cited after Seedat 2013, p. 409). Ethical reasoning can therefore be understood as a central knowledge practice in Islamic feminism. At the same time, Islamic feminism is for many a resource for “a broad concern with women’s (…) oppression at work, in the home, and in the society” in general, as Ziba Mir-Hosseini puts it (1996, p. 146). Likewise, Amina Wadud (2009, pp. 95–112), who centers her approach on the equal inclusion of all human beings in socio-political life in order to break the subordination of Muslim women,28 develops her understanding of equitable social participation as an ethical question of legal reasoning (and its relation to human social praxis and fundamental ideas about social relations). For these reasons, I assume that not only the idea of a knowledge practice based on ethical principles of equality is constitutive for Islamic feminism, but also that the socio-political relevance of equality in all life spheres is central to the Islamic-feminist code of knowledge and the knowledge practice linked to it. By opposing fundamentalist Islam and its androcentric theology, Islamic feminism lays the foundation for an egalitarian political vision, although many Islamic feminists do not understand their theologically inspired rereading of the scriptures as political in a narrower 28 In this regard, it is relevant that Wadud does not use the notion of women’s rights; this reflects her explicit theological approach.

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sense, because the notion of political religion is so closely linked to Islamic fundamentalism. In my view, a broader understanding of political religion might be helpful in this regard, because it could open the view for liberal religious approaches that understand themselves as progressive (Safi 2003) as further political visions of the social contract. In the following subchapter, I finally deepen the understanding of Islamic feminism as a knowledge code and a related knowledge practice.

4.2

The Central Knowledge Code and Knowledge Practice in Islamic Feminism

The central knowledge code on gender justice in Islamic feminism is the egalitarian approach as contained in the notion of spiritual egalitarianism. It is based on the Qur’anic concept of the human being, who is created from one essence called nafs; nafs is not gendered, but neutral in character. This is based on the conviction that each human includes since the creation female and male characteristics. Consequently, Islamic feminism explicates the idea of gender equality as part and parcel of the Qur’anic notion of equality of all insan (human beings) based on the principle of the full spiritual equality (al-musawa) of human beings. According to Leila Ahmed (1992, p. 67), some Qur’an verses and some Hadith also emphasize “an egalitarian view of human biology”—next to the “spiritual equality of men and women”. In theoretical terms, these considerations concern the deep structures of knowledge production both in terms of religious orthodoxy and ortho-praxis across all spheres of life. For Amina Wadud, it follows that all parts of life are profoundly characterized by reciprocity between self and others, and should be structured by balanced relationships based on ethical responsibility for one another, by fair and just behavior, and by balanced possibilities of participation, whether in the public or the private realm, or in economic, ecological, and other terms. In this interpretation of the Qur’an, everybody, all genders, are considered morally responsible subjects of the law, but should also have the opportunity for equal and active participation, for example in legal and policy reforms. The key to understanding this approach is that it is an ethically based concept of equality that aims to challenge patriarchy by means of a fundamental moral understanding of equity (and not individual equality). This theological move has an equivalent in the legal and the political sphere. In the frame of the international women’s year (1975), the United Nations decade for women (1976–1985) and the international women’s rights convention (CEDAW),

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transnational advocacy networks and international non-governmental organizations emerged in Muslim contexts and were able to increase political pressure at the national level.29 Women Living Under Muslim Law (WLUML) is the most prominent example of such a transnational network that advocates for the reform of Muslim family law; it was founded in 1984 and is now based in 70 countries (Derichs 2013). Also in the context of these political movements, the discourses center on normative and ethical issues, and not on the role of Muslim women or on women’s individual rights. As Fatima Seedat (2013, p. 404) explains, this is the result of a discursive shift that critically discussed the religious narrative according to which women’s status in Muslim societies is progressive in comparison to the pre-Islamic period as well as other, for example Western societies, and that “came to be theorized as ‘Islamic feminism’”. It was Fatima Mernissi (1989, 1991) who had argued in the first place that patriarchal norms were gradually strengthened with the institutionalization of Islam, while the rights that women had enjoyed in pre-Islamic times and in early Islam were abandoned. Leila Ahmed (1992) argued similarly and rediscovered the Islamic modernist’s critical discussion of women’s subordination in the nineteenth century (as discussed in Sect. 2). As Ahmed states, for “the first time since the establishment of Islam, the treatment of women in Islamic custom and law—the license of polygamy, easy male access to divorce, and segregation—were openly discussed in Middle Eastern societies” in the nineteenth century (Ahmed 1992, p. 128). However, Ahmed also sees an irreconcilable contradiction between Islam and feminism, since, for her, conventional, classic Islam regards women as the inferior sex (Moghadam 1993, p. 8; Seedat 2013). In contrast, Mernissi emphasized the egalitarian vision respectively the ethical core of Islam. This development has been deepened through the expansion of a critical Qur’an exegesis, with Fatima Mernissi (1991), Amina Wadud (1992), and later Asma Barlas (2002) leading the way. For some like Mernissi this is a feminist approach, while Wadud and Barlas are hesitant to use the term, although they interpret the Qur’an as genuinely emancipatory. But seeing herself in the dilemma of being either ‘celebrated’ or ‘condemned’ for being a feminist, Wadud, for example, clarifies that she uses feminist methodologies, but that her motivation is “faith and not feminism” (Seedat 2013, p. 41). Nevertheless, I claim that what Wadud is doing is political in its effects and its relevance, because it touches on power relations. And, like Asma Barlas (2002, 2007) and Riffat Hassan (1991, 1996), who focuses on legal issues and who identifies the Qur’an as a source of (religious) human rights, Wadud’s writings mirror a vivid political awareness (Seedat 2013, p. 417). For some who identify much 29 Morocco

is known as the forerunner in this regard (Heintz 2003).

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more strongly as social scientists, such as Valentine Moghadam (1993, p. 8), it is more important to understand the socio-political and economic conditions of inequality: “Whether the content of the Quran is inherently conservative and hostile toward women or egalitarian and emancipatory is not irrelevant to social science or feminist inquiry, but it is less central or problematical than it is often made out to be”. This perspective might underestimate that the substantiation of ethical visions about spiritual egalitarianism provides important legitimation for the change of law. Against this backdrop, I understand spiritual egalitarianism as a religiously compatible and socio-politically intelligible knowledge code. It is intelligible within the varying women’s movements including the secular ones. As Fatima Sadiqi (2014, p. 128) explains in reference to the Moroccan situation: “the notion of secularism as envisioned and lived in the country [of Morocco] necessarily includes a dose of religion. (…) From this perspective the Moroccan secular feminist discourse seeks to improve, not to replace, Shari’a law”. Accordingly, I understand Islamic feminism as a counter-hegemonic knowledge code in the system of religious knowledge production that not only fosters women’s full humanity and equality with men before God, but also argues for a socio-political reality that is structured by full equality. Consequently, feminist agendas are indeed part and parcel of critical gender theological agendas in Islamic feminism in the Mashriq. This becomes apparent when the discussion— and understanding—of Islamic feminism is dismantled from epistemologically secularist reservations about what is understood as a meaningful ethical constitution of justice and equality (rights) in religion—meaningful in terms of a gender-equitable knowledge practice.

5

Conclusion: The Politics of Islamic Feminism

In this chapter, I aimed to deepen the understanding of Islamic feminism as both a feminist and a religious approach. To this end, I introduced religion— following the phenomenological sociology of knowledge perspective—as one of various provinces of meaning to which actors can naturally refer in their lifeworldly experience. The relevance of religion as part of the common sense in the Mashriq was developed in various steps, beginning with a socio-historical reconstruction of a modernist reform approach that developed in the nineteenth century in an atmosphere of intellectual openness, but that was increasingly challenged by fundamentalist interpretations of Islam in the context of colonization around 1900. I then sketched the continuing relevance of religion to women’s

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political visions of the time, and discussed a selected theological reflection on gender in modernist Islam. That way, religion becomes discernible as a symbolically based system of knowledge codes that function not as a set of “cultural value orientations”, but rather as “generalized modi” of orientation and experience (Eisenstadt 1979, p. 8) that result into multiple visions of society, including heterodox visions. This allows for a deeper understanding of the varying—and conflicting—interpretations of Islamic sources, such as in fundamentalist, modernist and liberal reform movements that shaped political developments at different historical turning points as in the case of colonial and postcolonial Egypt. Against this backdrop, I focused on thinking gender justice in religious terms, that is: as a religious knowledge practice that seizes on modernist and liberal reform movements and responds to fundamentalist Islam. I have linked these considerations back to a methodological reflection on the conditions of research on ‘religion’ from a secularist perspective. I suggest—again following the phenomenological perspective of the sociology of knowledge—that the theoretical secular/religious divide can be approached in a way that takes the possibility of multiple coexisting provinces of meaning and sensibilities into consideration, instead of their mutual exclusiveness. This does not deny the possibility that these sensibilities might conflict with each other (Badran 2005). However, I suppose that the secularist knowledge position should not be epistemologically prioritized, but rather decentered; also in feminist thinking. This also means acknowledging secularity and (secular-liberal) feminism as socio-culturally situated horizons of meaning and modes of experiencing the world, and, accordingly, as biased frames for the reconstruction and understanding of religiously inspired feminist activism. Against this backdrop, I have approached current Islamic feminism (in the Mashriq) as a religious knowledge practice that is anti-hegemonic, as it centers on a critique of patriarchal knowledge codes and a claim to legal equality in the normative, socio-political order of Islamic societies. Although not all Islamic feminists understand themselves as explicitly feminist or political, their opposition to fundamentalist political Islam and its androcentric theology lays the foundation for an egalitarian political vision, too. Analogue to Saba Mahmood’s notion of the politics of piety, this could be called the politics of Islamic feminism. This is a feminism whose vision is based on the ethically based knowledge code of spiritual egalitarianism. It aims to challenge patriarchy by means of a fundamental moral value and is, accordingly, a religiously and socio-politically intelligible knowledge code. Each time women reread orthodox interpretations of the scriptures (in terms of spiritual egalitarianism) a feminist knowledge practice is at work.

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Configurations of Islam in Europe

Understanding the Religion-Politics Nexus in Turkey. Continuities and Ruptures Sinem Adar

Abstract

The question of whether the ‘new Turkey’ under the Justice and Development Party rule is still a model of secular Muslim country has been in the last decade an increasing concern to scholars and experts. By exploring the variation in the governance of religion in Turkey, this chapter argues that the Turkish state has not only governed religion since the establishment of the republic in 1923; it has also long governed an ethnically and religiously highly diverse population through religion, a fact that is often overlooked in the literature. Religion has been used by state elites as a tool to categorize peoples, to mobilize constituencies, and to contain political Islam and ethnic conflict. What is new especially since the early 2010s is the breadth and depth of the expansion of religion into social life with the backing of the state, particularly in the realms of education, family and law. Keywords

Religious Politics • Nation Building • Ethnic Diversity • Political Islam Electoral Democracy • Turkey

•

S. Adar (B) Center for Applied Turkey Studies at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Berlin, Germany Stiftung Wissenschaft Und Politik, Berlin, Germany © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 C. Gärtner and H. Winkel (eds.), Exploring Islam beyond Orientalism and Occidentalism, Veröffentlichungen der Sektion Religionssoziologie der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-33239-6_9

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Introduction

Since the 1970s, empirical realities on the ground have cast doubt on the secularization paradigm.1 From the Iranian Revolution to the Solidarity Movement in Poland, from Liberation Theology and the spread of Pentecostalism in Latin America to the increasing salience of political Islam across the world, religion has re-emerged in politics as a source of collective mobilisation (Audi and Wolterstorff 1997; Berger 1999; Casanova 1994). The increasing public salience of religion has not been the sole challenge to secularization theories, however. At the individual level, too, different patterns and degrees of religious practice have confounded expectations that individual religiosity will decline (Gorski and Altinordu 2008, pp. 62–67). Unlike in Western Europe, where, despite differences in timing, speed and degree at the national and regional level, churchgoing has declined over time, individual religiosity has remained strong elsewhere such as in Poland and Ireland (ibid.). Empirical studies have also demonstrated that the relationship between religion and politics is more complicated than simply being a matter of the differentiation of subfields. According to a recent survey conducted across Europe, a significant proportion of its populations still identify themselves as Christian even if they are non-practicing.2 These empirical challenges have prompted scholars to re-think the assumptions and predictions of the secularization paradigm. One modification has been the analytical separation of institutional differentiation from individual religiosity and the privatization of religion (Casanova 1994; Turner 2012, pp. 1064–1065). Divergent trajectories and patterns in the privatization of religion and in individual religiosity have cast doubt upon master narratives that teleologically couple secularization with modernization (Casanova 2006, p. 15; Gorski and Altinordu 2008, p. 65; Taylor 2007). As a result, there has been renewed attention to historical specificities and contingencies. Instead of focusing on whether secularization has occurred or not, research agendas have shifted towards exploring how secularization unfolded in specific cases; what kind of political arrangements between religious and non-religious fields such as education, welfare provision, and family emerged as a result; and the implications of these arrangements for types and degrees of religiosities and non-religiosities. Against this backdrop, the

1 See

Gorski (2018) for a discussion on the orthodox and neo-orthodox models of the secularization paradigm, and its critiques. 2 See the PEW Research Center Report “Being Christian in Western Europe”: https://www. pewforum.org/2018/05/29/being-christian-in-western-europe/. Accessed: 30 June 2018.

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last decade has witnessed an upsurge in studies exploring “varieties of secularism” (Warner et al. 2010), “varieties of secularity” (Gorski and Altınordu 2008; Künkler et al. 2018), or “multiple secularities” (Burchardt et al. 2015). As the sociological interest in variations between institutional settings and policies that shape the boundaries between religious and non-religious fields has grown in the last decade, discussions about (non-)Western difference have also intensified, especially among political philosophers and anthropologists. In his magnum opus, A Secular Age, Charles Taylor (2007) argues that the Western world, despite internal variations in individual religiosity and practice, has become secular insofar as the “context of understandings” has expanded beyond “belief in God”, with nonbelief becoming an option equal to others as a result (Taylor 2007, p. 3). Driven by the transformation of ideas within Latin Christendom, such pluralization in the “conditions of belief” is unique to the West, Taylor argues, and clearly contrasts with “the majority of Muslim societies, or the milieux in which the vast majority of Indians live” (ibid.). In response to such geographical clustering and the analytical bifurcation that posits the secular West against the non-secular Muslim world or Asia, a group of scholars mostly comprising anthropologists emphasize similarities across cases by turning attention to state sovereignty. As such, secularism is conceptualized as a “state project” (Mahmood 2015, p. 206) of governing religion in ways that perpetuate “ongoing, deepening entanglement in the question of religion and politics” (Agrama 2010, p. 502). State practices of governing religion, be they in Egypt or in India, or in the US, or at the European Court of Human Rights, are seen to be not dissimilar from one another in that secularism in each of these cases makes “religious difference inconsequential to politics while at the same time embedding majoritarian religious norms in state institutions, laws, and practices” (Mahmood 2015, p. 206; also Chatterjee 1995; Danchin et al. 2014; Hurd 2015). This assertion that modern states govern religion across the world, and thereby empower certain actors, institutions and teachings at the expense of others, has now become consensus in the literature (Bowen 2010). Yet, the governance of religion varies significantly across national cases, as well as across time in specific individual cases. This is despite the fact that, as critiques of secularism often emphasize, a liberal language of rights mediates the implementation, negotiation, and even representation of such governance in Western and non-Western cases alike.3 By overlooking the historical conditions (which include connections, particularities and contingencies) of inter-temporal and inter-spatial variation in the 3 See

Asad (1993) for a genealogical account of religion that first emerged as an idea in the West, and was then applied as a universal concept often used to justify liberal politics.

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governance of religion, arguments against the uniqueness of Western secularity then equally risk turning secularism into an ideologically overdetermined concept that precludes dispassionate and normative discussion about the relationship between religion and politics. Against this backdrop, this chapter looks at the variation in the governance of religion in Turkey since the establishment of the republic in 1923. Turkey has long been seen as a paragon among the majority Muslim countries of the Middle East of secularist representative democracy with a unified secular law (Kuru 2009, p. 4). Especially the first decade of rule by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) is regarded by many observers, both in the policy world and among scholars, as a showcase for the compatibility of Islam and democracy.4 This view has changed since the Gezi demonstrations in 2013, however, when the AKP government began to turn increasingly authoritarian. Especially after the Constitutional Referendum in April 2017, many outside Turkey have declared the Kemalist Republic and the model of a secular and modern Turkey to be dead.5 Such proclamations are based on a rather shallow understanding of the relation between politics and religion in the history of Turkey. Despite a growing critical literature on Turkish secularism,6 what ‘Turkish secularism’ actually means still needs to be qualified in order to explain the recent transformations of the religion-politics nexus. How did the relationship between the religious and nonreligious fields change historically? Can a supposedly ‘secular’ country become ‘non-secular’ overnight? To answer these questions, this chapter argues that the Turkish state has not only governed religion; it has also long governed an ethnically and religiously highly diverse population through religion, a fact that is often overlooked in the literature. Religion has been used by state elites as a tool to categorize peoples, to mobilize constituencies, and to contain political Islam and ethnic conflict. What is new especially since the early 2010s is the breadth and depth of the expansion of religion into social life with the backing of the state, particularly in the realms of education, family and law. I will first provide a brief overview of the Turkish state’s governance of religion, before outlining the three ways that state elites have historically deployed religion in defining the who and what of the political community, in party politics, and in containing conflict. It is important to note that I use these clusters 4 See,

for instance, Kuru and Stepan (2012). https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/04/16/rip-turkey-1921-2017/; https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/reports/2018/02/11/445620/turkey-experi encing-new-nationalism/. Accessed: 30 June 2018. 6 See, for example, Akan (2017), Azak (2010), Büyükokutan (2018), Mardin (1989), NavaroYashin (2002), Özgül (2014), Özyürek (2006), and Parla and Davison (2008). 5 See

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for mainly hermeneutical reasons; state elites often deployed religion for multiple ends at the same time. Building on these two sections, I will then analyze the continuities and discontinuities in the relationship between politics and religion under AKP rule. The chapter ends with a brief discussion on what the Turkish case might offer secularization theories. In short, nation-building and democratization processes should be taken more seriously in the analysis of how struggles and boundaries between religious and non-religious fields have changed over time.

2

Governing Religion

Turkey is considered to be a stark example of top-down and elitist secularism (Cady and Hurd 2010; Calhoun et al. 2011; Göle 1997). The main hallmark of Turkish secularism, as it was imagined and institutionalized when the republic was founded, was the idea of separation between religion and politics. Its political motivation was to protect the hegemony of the state at all cost over religious actors, institutions and teachings. This motivation turned the ideal of separation into an extreme form of state control over religion. The first two decades of the republic witnessed an excessive state expansion into the religious field in order to control and define it. The Republican understanding of Islam was implicitly based on the Sunni Hanafi school of Islam (Seufert 2013, p. 148), and led to the creation of the Directorate of Religious Affairs (DoRA) in 1924, which is still the primary institutional vehicle for governing religion. As part of the extreme secularist policies of the single-party government under the rule of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), religious instruction was in the 1920s re-designed to legitimize Turkish ethnoreligious nationalism and the republic’s secular foundations (Bayar 2013, p. 20; Parla and Davison 2008, p. 64; Seufert 2013, p. 148). The single-party government abolished the caliphate in 1924, closed religious schools (medreses), and replaced the Arabic script with Latin. The Constitution of 1924 was amended in 1928, and the provision ‘The religion of the State is Islam’ was removed. Laïcité explicitly entered the constitution in 1937 as one of the six defining principles of the Kemalist republic. Religious instruction was eventually removed from school curricula in 1938. The governance of religion in the early decades of the republic also entailed disempowering non-state religious institutions and actors, especially during the first two decades of the republic. Early efforts at this were evident in the outlawing of religious orders (tarikats) as well as their convents (tekke) and religious shrines (türbes) in September 1925 (Seufert 2013, p. 148). Similarly, the abolishment of religious laws pertaining to family affairs was, for instance, driven as

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much by efforts to undo the influence of religion on social life as by the aspiration to consolidate state power over citizens’ lives. This is manifest in the discussions between the Allies and the Turkish delegation during the Lausanne negotiations in 1923 over the right of non-Muslim Ottoman subjects to apply their canonical law in family-related matters. One argument that the Turkish delegation put forward during the negotiations was that such a pluri-legal structure would create a ‘“state within a state”’, referring to non-Muslim religious institutions.7 In line with this understanding, the state elites convinced non-Muslim minorities in 1925, one year before the introduction of Civil Law, to renounce their right granted by the Lausanne Treaty to a form of legal pluralism limited to family-related matters.

3

Governing an Ethnically and Religiously Diverse Population Through Religion

Since its establishment in 1923, the Turkish state has governed religion by controlling, shaping and defining it. Yet, any analysis of Turkish secularism is incomplete without understanding how state elites also and at the same time deployed religion as a tool to govern Turkey’s ethnically and religiously diverse population. Religion served four purposes here: to categorize peoples, to mobilize constituencies following the transition to multiparty politics in 1946, and to contain political Islam as well as Kurdish-Turkish conflict.

3.1

Religion and Political Community

Religion, together with language, played a foundational role in defining Turkish nationhood. Since the early days of the republic, being a Turk has been closely linked to being a (Sunni) Muslim and Turcophone.8 A striking example of this ethno-religious understanding of national identity can be found in the early parliamentary discussions on the wording of the citizenship Article in the 1924 Constitution. Concerns over how the Constitution should define and categorize the non-Muslim subjects of the Ottoman Empire, who became the minority citizens of the republic, dominated these debates. Notwithstanding critical voices advocating 7 The full text of the negotiations can be found in Lozan Barı¸s Konferansı: Tutananaklar. Belgeler. Paris: Devlet Basımevi (translated by Seha L. Meray). 8 See Ünlü (2018) for a historical analysis of the transformation of what he describes as the ‘“Turkish Contract”’.

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a territorial conceptualization of nationhood, the overarching consensus within the parliament was that religious and linguistic affiliations were the primary markers of Turkish nationhood. This was best expressed as follows by Hamdullah Suphi, a Member of Parliament, during the discussions in April 1924: “[O]ur authentic citizen (öz vatanda¸sımız) belongs to the Hanafi sect of Sunni Islam and speaks Turkish” (Adar 2018, pp. 6–8). Such an ethno-religious imagination of the nation was in accordance with the spirit of the international regime that governed population politics from the late nineteenth century until the end of World War II.9 The premise of the congruence between territory, sovereignty and population led to the division of peoples into majority and minority categories, leading in turn to practices of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Population politics in Turkey was no different in this respect from the prevalent attitude of the first half of the twentieth century. During the Lausanne negotiations between the Allies and the Turkish delegation, a compromised consensus emerged that religious affiliation would define who would be considered a minority.10 Although there was no explicit list in the Lausanne Treaty of which religious groups would be given a minority status, the early state elites extended it only to the members of Ottoman millets—Greek, Armenian, and Jewish (Dressler 2015, p. 16). Despite, or perhaps precisely because of their minority status, non-Muslim citizens were considered strangers (yabancı) in official documents and to a large extent by the Muslim majority. They were barred from occupying any official function in the upper echelons of the state, their property was confiscated, and they were also subject to violence such as during the 1934 riots in Thrace, the 6–7 September 1955 riots in Istanbul, and, more recently, the assassination of the Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink in 2007.11 According to a survey conducted by KONDA in 2016, 59% of those who were surveyed thought that non-Muslims should not hold senior positions in the military, and 63% thought that the president of Turkey should not be a non-Muslim.12

9 For

a detailed discussion of the late-nineteenth/early-twentieth-century population politics that was driven by the idea of ‘unmixing’, see Weitz (2008). 10 Lozan Barı¸s Konferansı: Tutananaklar. Belgeler. Paris: Devlet Basımevi (translated by Seha L. Meray). 11 On the 1934 riots, see Bali (2009); on the 1955 riots, see Kuyucu (2005). On the assassination of Hrant Dink, see Adar (2018) and Türkmen-Dervi¸so˘glu (2013). On rights violations, see Oran (2004). 12 https://konda.com.tr/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/VatandaslikArastirmasiRapor.pdf. Accessed: 1 May 2017.

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Non-Muslims were not alone in being denied full membership in the political community. The ethno-religious conceptualization of nationhood also had implications for Kurdish and Alevi citizens. Despite the Allies’ efforts during the Lausanne negotiations to include linguistic, ethnic and sectarian difference in the definition of a minority, the Turkish delegation insisted on limiting minority protection only to non-Muslims. For the state elites, this position had several advantages: Sunni Kurds could be assimilated through shared religion and sect, while Turkish Alevis could be assimilated through common ethnicity. For each of these peoples, however, this ‘option’ of forced assimilation meant repressing ethnic and religious difference respectively. The situation of Kurdish Alevis was more complicated as they were neither Turkish nor Sunni Muslim.13 The assimilatory approach of the early state elites, who sought to create an ethnically and religiously homogeneous nation, left Kurdish and Alevi citizens on the margins of nationhood in an ongoing and growing struggle for political recognition. Indeed, violence led by state and society against these undesired, unwanted and ungovernable peoples was, and is still, not uncommon—such as the 1938 Dersim massacres and 1978 riots in Maras, the Madimak massacre in 1993, and the ongoing attacks on Kurdish and Alevi citizens throughout the 2000s, to name just a few.14

3.2

Religion and Party Politics

After the transition to electoral democracy in 1946, religion also became an important tool to mobilize constituencies.After two decades of policies that suppressed religion, electoral dynamics encouraged political actors to appeal to ‘folk Islam’ for electoral gains (Mardin 1977). For instance, the first political party to be established after the transition was the National Development Party,15 which targeted pious constituencies with a program including policies and commitments 13 For a detailed analysis of the demarcation of Alevis in the last few years of the Ottoman Empire and the early Turkish Republic as “heterodox” but Muslim, and as an integral part of the Turkish culture, see Dresler (2013). 14 On different instances of violence against Kurdish and Alevi citizens, see Sinclair-Webb (2003), Üngör (2011), and Yüksel (2008). 15 There were ephemeral attempts at multiparty politics during the first two decades of the republic. The Progressive Republican Party was banned in 1925, and the Free Republican Party was forced to disband in 1930 after it was faced with allegations of advancing reactionarism and obscurantism (Altinordu 2013, p. 403). Similar allegations provided the grounds for military interventions (1960, 1971, 1980 and 1997) in the second half of the twentieth century.

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such as the “unity of the Muslim world” and “Technology and Morality Universities” (Çakır et al. 2004, p. 56). In total, 23 parties were founded between 1945 and 1950, some of which were forced to shut down while others disbanded due to a lack of popular support. The party programs of nine of these 23 parties did include overtly religious commitments (ibid.). In this political environment of apparent diversification, the CHP adapted its previous stance to appeal to the needs of the electorate. At its seventh party convention in 1947, for instance, a consensus emerged to abandon earlier strict policies towards Islam (Ahmad 1993, p. 40), and to allow a limited expansion of religious instruction at schools and universities (Çakır et al. 2004, p. 57; Seufert 2013, p. 148). These policy moderations continued under the rule of the Democrat Party (DP) between 1950 and 1960, which is often identified in the literature as an era of ‘“alternative secularism”’ (Azak 2010, 2013). Founded by a group of former CHP members, the DP adopted a milder approach to Islam. Among the party’s first measures after entering office were to readopt Arabi as the language of ezan (the call to prayer), to broadcast recitations from the Quran on the state radio channel, to incorporate voluntary religious instruction in school curricula, and to reopen religious vocational public high schools (imam hatip) (Çakır et al. 2004, p. 60). The proportion of the public budget allocated to the DoRA also increased after 1950, as did the number of Directorate employees (Akan 2017). Moderation in policies on religion under the DP government was not only limited to Islam, but also included non-Muslim communities (Adar 2013, p. 13). At the same time, the DP also continued the Republican commitment to keeping the political organization and mobilization of Islam under control, especially during the first half of the 1950s (Koca 2015, pp. 298–299). DP elites adopted Islam mostly as a symbolic and cultural code for electoral gain, “relegitimiz[ing] Islam and traditional rural values” (Mardin 1973, p. 185). In doing so, however, they also initiated a transformation in the relationship between state elites and non-state religious actors (Kaya 2015, p. 315). Electoral politics in a way made forging contact with religious networks and orders such as the Nak¸sibendi-led movements and the Nurcu-movements possible, and even necessary, for electoral gains (Mardin 1989; van Bruinessen 1992, pp. 222–230).16 These networks and

16 Nak¸sibendi is an orthodox Sunni dervish order that became highly influential in the late nineteenth century. The origins of the Nurcu movement go back to Sait Nursi, known as Bediuzzuman. Sait Nursi was taught by Nak¸sibendi sheiks in the east at the turn of the century. He founded a religious renewal movement in the 1930s that “offered an alternative to Kemalist modernization by accepting Western science and technology, but rejecting secularism” (Zürcher 2017: xiii & 194). Also see Mardin (1989).

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orders have become powerful in different realms of Turkish associational life, including universities, especially since the 1960s (Mardin 2005, pp. 157–160). Beginning in the 1970s, religious networks and movements entered the realm of party politics as the struggle for control of the political organization and mobilization of Islam as a political resource became fiercer. Conservative Islamist parties that claimed that they owed their origins to the Nak¸sibendis, particularly the Iskenderpasa Cemaati led by Sheikh Mehmet Zahit Kotku, were founded in the 1970s, concurrently with the rise of Islamist politics across the world (Mardin 2005, pp. 157–160; Zürcher 2017, p. 260).17 The AKP is the direct successor and byproduct of these parties,18 which were closed down by the intervention of the army or the decision of the Constitutional Court, but began all over again throughout the 1970–2000 period (Altınordu 2013). However, links between political parties and religious movements and networks were not limited to the Islamist parties. Turgut Özal, the leader of the Motherland Party (AP) and the prime minister of the government established after the military coup in 1980, is also known, for instance, to have connections with the Nak¸sibendi order (Zürcher 2017, p. 288).

3.3

Religion and Conflict

In addition to categorizing peoples and mobilizing constituencies, religion served yet another purpose: namely, to contain political Islam and the Kurdish-Turkish conflict. The ideological backbone of such containment was provided by the ‘Turkish-Islamic’ synthesis endorsed by the military regime of 1980–1983, and continued thereafter by the AP governments between 1983 and 1991.19 Accordingly, religious instruction in public schools became obligatory, and the public budget allocated to the DoRA, as well as the number of Directorate employees, 17 It is important to note here that Islamist politics in Turkey has differed from its counterparts in postcolonial states in its heavy dependence on the “organizing principle of the dominant culture and institutions of politics” (Cizre-Sakallioglu 1996, p. 241). In other words, Islamist politics in Turkey has been shaped by and has in turn shaped, the state, instead being a mere challenger to it. Also see Mardin (2005) and Lord (2018). 18 On the rise of the AKP to power in 2002 as a socially conservative, ‘moderately’ Islamist and neoliberal party against the backdrop of this contested history of the relationship between religion and politics, see Tugal (2009). On the inability of the secularist elites to intervene in the political system after the rise of the AKP, see Altınordu (2016). 19 The scholarship on Turkey explains the Islamic-Turkish synthesis endorsed by the military after the 1980 coup as a mechanism to counter communism during the Cold War era (Altınordu 2013, p. 388). For an exception, see van Bruinessen (1991).

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continued to increase (Akan 2017). The number of mosques and religious vocational schools also increased in the period between 1983 and 1999 (Altınordu 2013, p. 388). Expansion of religious movements and networks within civil society continued during this period. The 1990s also witnessed members of these movements and networks infiltrating the police force, the educational bureaucracy, and the military (McDowall 1996). Increased and expansive state governance over religion, together with close contact with religious networks and movements, served to contain not only political Islam in the post-1980 era. Religion was also used heavily in the period to contain the armed conflict that began in 1984 between the Turkish state and the Kurdistan Workers’ Army (PKK). Religious vocational high schools and state mosques were used in the majority Kurdish areas to advocate ‘religious brotherhood and nation’, a rhetoric also used extensively by the Islamist Welfare Party during the 1990s (Cakir 1996). Using religion both as a discourse of national unity and as a policy instrument, especially within the field of education, in order to contain ethnic conflict was not limited to the post-1980 era, however. As already noted earlier, religious movements and networks were very influential in the everyday organization of social life in Anatolia. In the Kurdish Southeast and East, they also earned a distinct character, especially starting from the nineteenth century, as the only organizations that “transcended tribal differences” (Zürcher 2017, p. 171) and “were capable of mobilizing large numbers of men from different tribes for common action” (van Bruinessen 1991, p. 12). It is thus no surprise that, after the transition to electoral democracy, the leaders of these movements and networks received material and moral support from the state to help promote a Sunni Turkish-Kurdish rapprochement (McDowall 1998). Even though the ethnic conflict turned into a guerrilla war in the post-1980 era, and thus became salient in the mainstream Turkish public domain, intensifying the emotions of both Turks and Kurds, the origins of the conflict go back to the foundation of the republic. In fact, the first major upheaval against the republic in 1925 was organized by a Kurdish organization, Azadi (Freedom), which was led by a religious figure, Shaikh Sa’id. As already mentioned, Kurds were not recognized as a minority during the Lausanne negotiations, and most of the promises for autonomy given by the state elites, including Mustafa Kemal, were largely forgotten after the foundation of the republic (Zürcher 2017, p. 171). In addition, the dethronement of Islam by the secularist elites of the early republic also contributed to the weakening of Turkish-Kurdish unity (van Bruinessen 1991, p. 18). Against this backdrop, Islam was then increasingly used, especially after

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1950, to contain ethnic conflict in the absence of an institutionalized compromise regarding the governing of ethnic diversity.

4

Turkish Secularism Under AKP Rule: Raising ‘pious Generations’

Under AKP rule since 2002, the state has continued to be the primary actor both in governing religion and in governing a diverse population through religion. As in previous periods in the history of modern Turkey, for instance, the DoRA continues to treat Alevism as a heterodox or ‘mystical’ interpretation of Sunni Islam (Hurd 2014; Seufert 2013; Tombu¸s and Aygenç 2017, pp. 78–81; Türkmen 2009). Moreover, the AKP has also deployed the rhetoric of ‘religious brotherhood and nation’ to foster Sunni Turkish-Kurdish rapprochement (Somer and Liaras 2010, p. 154; Türkmen-Dervi¸so˘glu 2016). Despite these similarities, however, the period since the early 2010s also differs from previous historical moments, with the marked increase in the state-sponsored penetration by religion of social life. Since 2014, ‘New Turkey’ has become a popular slogan employed by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) to express its political project of remaking the nation. Since then, there has been a growing emphasis on religion as the primary cultural marker of national identity. ‘“Raising pious generations”’ has become the slogan of this new political project (Lüküslü 2016). Religious actors, teachings and organizations play an important role in implementing this project, which is designed to re-engineer the perceptions and understandings of the population according to religious values and dogma.20 In this respect, the state continues to govern through religion. At the same time, though, its governance has clearly gone beyond categorizing peoples, mobilizing constituencies, and containing ethnic conflict, and now touches upon the very core of social life and social interactions in Turkey. Particularly relevant to the discussion here are developments in the realms of family and educational policies. Examples abound and I will mention only a few here. In the last couple of years, the DoRA has been elevated to the position of arbitrator and regulator in family-related issues. Since 2011, the Ministry of Family and Social Policy (MoFaSP) has established close cooperations21 with the 20 On the increasing role of faith-based charities in welfare provision, for instance, see Göçmen (2014) and Kaya (2015). 21 See https://sgb.aile.gov.tr/data/545235d7369dc3369409bd46/aile_dib.pdf/. Accessed: 30 June 2018.

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DoRA, and there are now offices called Family and Religious Guidance.22 These offices provide citizens with information about family and religious matters, ands play a role in conflict resolution within the family, mainly between spouses. This is a clear example of how the state sponsors religious actors to micromanage people’s private lives. Another example is the legal regulation of marriage. Unlike other countries across the Middle East, Turkey does not apply religious law to family matters (see the discussion above). Religious marriages are not recognized as legally valid. Despite this, the Turkish Constitutional Court ruled in 2015 against imprisoning imams who conduct religious marriages without proof that the couple have had a civil marriage.23 New legislation was passed recently that authorizes müftüs and imams to conduct civil marriages.24 Although this new regulation does not change the content of the law—that is, marriages continue to be conducted according to civil law, it does extend the visibility, and thereby the authority, of religious actors in regulating marriage and family law. Arguably, it might also gradually blur the legal distinction between civil and religious marriage both in the eyes of citizens and as a matter of law. During the last few years, religion has become more salient in education as well. Over the last decade, there has been a significant increase in the official number of Quran courses and Imam Hatip Schools. According to official statistics, the number of Quran courses increased from 5654 in the 2005/6 academic year to 15,457 in the 2013/2014 academic year.25 Similarly, the number of Imam Hatip Schools increased from 450 in 2002 to 1452 in 2017.26 Moreover, there have been significant changes to school curricula, including the removal of the teaching of evolution from science education in secondary schools.27 Finally,

22 See https://www2.diyanet.gov.tr/DinHizmetleriGenelMudurlugu/Sayfalar/Gorevler.aspx/. Accessed: 30 June 2018. 23 See the detailed ruling: https://bianet.org/system/uploads/1/files/attachments/000/001/420/ original/AYM_kararı.pdf?1432911977. Accessed: 30 June 2018. 24 See https://www.resmigazete.gov.tr/eskiler/2017/12/20171202-10.pdf. Accessed: 30 June 2018. 25 See https://www.tuik.gov.tr/PreTablo.do?alt_id=1018/. Accessed: 30 June 2018. 26 See https://sgb.meb.gov.tr/meb_iys_dosyalar/2017_09/08151328_meb_istatistikleri_orgun_ egitim_2016_2017.pdfAccessed: 30 June 2018. 27 See https://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/egitim/783757/_Evrim_teorisi_ogrencilerin_ yeterli_alt_yapiya_sahip_olmamasi_gerekcesiyle_universiteye_birakildi_.html. Accessed: 30 June 2018.

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there has also been co-operation between the Ministry of Education and civilsociety groups, including Islamic brotherhoods, across the country as part of the Ministry’s ‘“Value Education”’ program.28

5

‘New Turkey’: An Abrupt Rupture or a Historical Continuum?

Is the ‘secular’ Turkey dead? The answer is not straightforward either empirically or politically. Empirically, the answer depends on how the comparison is made. If we situate the current moment within the period since the establishment of the republic in 1923, there is clear evidence of a continuum rather than an abrupt shift. This is a continuum of the state’s governance through religion, as manifest in efforts to categorize peoples, mobilize constituencies, and contain conflict. However, if we compare the current moment with the early republican policies of disempowering non-state religious actors and teachings, it can be argued that the current moment constitutes a complete reversal of these policies. The singleparty government during the first two decades of the republic aimed at removing religion from social life especially in the realms of family, law and education; the AKP government is now returning religion to these realms. The right question, then, is not whether ‘secular’ Turkey is dead or not, but why the foundational aspirations to remove religion from the organization of social life have not been realized. The answer is perhaps hidden in the simultaneous yet paradoxical aspiration of state elites since the establishment of the republic to restrict the role of religion while also governing through religion. Against this backdrop, what we are witnessing today is the crystallization of almost a century-long conflict over control of state institutions and the definition of the political community. We are left wondering what other paths might have been taken in the process of nation-building and democratization in Turkey that might have resolved these questions differently. Policies are never neutral with respect to politics; politics that shape and are shaped by alliances and struggles among actors. What happens at a certain historical moment is not inevitable. Rather, it is the outcome of historical processes that are simultaneously shaped by the decisions of actors and

28 See https://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/egitim/925292/Nurcular_MEB_izniyle_okul larda.html. Accessed: 30 June 2018.

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by historical contingencies.29 What would have happened, for instance, had state elites endorsed more inclusive definitions of political community? What would have happened had Turkey transitioned to electoral democracy at a later or at an earlier stage? What would have happened had the political actors responded differently to the Kurdish-Turkish conflict? Questions that interrogate and historicize the trajectory by which we have arrived at our current conjuncture are better able to shed light on the present predicament than hand-wringing over the demise of a romanticized and exaggerated secular past.

6

Conclusion

Thinking of Turkish secularism not only as governing religion but also as governing an ethnically and religiously diverse population through religion has two implications for secularization theories. The Turkish case powerfully demonstrates the role of religion as “a source of cultural [and also symbolic] power” (Edgell 2012, p. 257) that can be deployed by both secularists and Islamists to attain multiple ends. It also shows that nation-building and democratization processes are influential in shaping the motivations of political actors. Struggles over defining the who and what of the political community, i.e. nation-state, shape to a large extent the characteristics of the relationship between religious affiliation and nationhood. Political participation, on the other hand, influences the form and degree of alliances and conflicts between state elites and non-state religious actors. This is clear in the case of Turkey. The transition to electoral democracy in 1946, and the rise of the Democrat Party in 1950 opened the way for religious networks and actors to be incorporated in the political system, and even for religious movements to be transformed into political parties. Electoral politics was arguably also the beginning of a differentiation within the religious field itself in terms of an increasing competition among religious actors. The Turkish case also raises important questions about (non-)Western difference. For sure, secular states do govern religion, in Western and non-Western cases alike, in ways that enforce majoritarian norms, rules and values. This has also been the case in Turkey, where a state-controlled Sunni Islam has dominated understandings and practices at the expense of suppressing other traditions such as Alevism or of not allowing non-Muslims to open theological schools. Yet, overemphasizing the singularity of a process or condition can lead us to overlook the 29 See

Gorski (2018, pp. 43–52) for a theoretical suggestion to develop “a nuanced set of descriptive concepts and a richer stock of explanatory mechanisms”.

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historical specificities and contingencies that establish the character of the social and political circumstances surrounding our everyday lives. What is the relationship, for instance, between layers of diversity and secularism? What difference, if any, does it make to perceptions and practices of belief that Turkey, unlike majority Muslim countries of the Middle East, still has a unified secular law? What kind of religiosities or non-religiosities might be generated by legally preventing or making possible conversion and interreligious marriage? What do such different arrangements mean for dynamics of social interaction in everyday life? Does the nature of the relationship between religious affiliation and nationhood have any effect in shaping the religion-politics nexus? For instance, is there a difference between when the nationhood is based solely on a single religious identity (as is the case in Turkey), or when it embraces multiple religious affiliations (as in Egypt or Lebanon)? To understand the relationship between macro-, meso- and micro-level processes surrounding the religion-politics nexus, we need to develop a conceptual toolkit that would allow us to answer these questions comparatively.

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Cultivating a Common World from a Specific Place: The Case of Muslim Internet Media Outlets in France Anne-Sophie Lamine Abstract

This chapter investigates the case of Muslim internet media outlets in France, with a particular focus on Saphirnews.com, one of the four most visited websites in France, and aims to situate it in the field of media. The analysis shows that this media outlet is a relevant locus of intra-Muslim diversity with a significant capacity for pluralism, like its readership. Its place in the public sphere makes it a specialized rather than an activist or counter-hegemonic media outlet. From a pragmatist point of view, the case presented here is also one of cooperative participation in the ‘rational resolution of common problems’ (Dewey): producing information about current social realities related to Muslims that target both Muslims and non-Muslims (interested in these matters). Various indicators reveal a growing recognition by partners of other media outlets and, more broadly, its assessment as a reliable source of information by general journalists. Keywords

Islam • Media • Pluralism • Public Space • Dewey • Pragmatism Participation

•

A.-S. Lamine (B) SAGE and Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France E-Mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 C. Gärtner and H. Winkel (eds.), Exploring Islam beyond Orientalism and Occidentalism, Veröffentlichungen der Sektion Religionssoziologie der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-33239-6_10

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Introduction

Muslim Internet media outlets, which appeared in the early 2000s, are still underreported. In the French-speaking context, studies on Internet use by religious actors have first focused on Catholicism (Jonveaux 2007; Jonveaux 2013). Research has also been carried out on minority media, in a comparative European perspective (Rigoni 2010; Rigoni and Saitta 2012). With regard to the Muslim case, while the transnational dynamics of the Internet (Roy 2002: 165–183) and its role in proselytizing networks, particularly Salafist networks (Thomas 2008), are well known, the presence of ‘ordinary’ Islam on the Internet is yet little explored (Rigoni 2005; Maréchal 2018). From an international perspective, online religious media are receiving increasing attention (Bunt 2018; Campbell 2012; Dawson and Cowan 2013; El-Nawawy and Khamis 2009; Jonveaux et al. 2015). Analyzing a ‘minority media outlet’ raises the question of the relationship between particular identity and public space or, more broadly, between ‘minority groups’ and the majority society.1 Research on public space and recognition has often considered alternative publics as counter-publics, building on a critical reading of Habermas’s approach to public space. Another perspective—pragmatist and inspired by Dewey (1954)—refers to the formation of ‘publics’ affected by a set of social transactions carried out by others. This approach—considered here—can complement the former, particularly because it draws attention to the possibility of participation in solving common problems, although from a minority starting-point. This chapter contributes to the investigation of the relationships between minority groups and public space, through the analysis of Saphirnews. This website, created in 2002, ranks among the four most-visited Muslim sites in France.2 I will first present the French context and its ‘Muslim problem’. I will then describe the birth of the website, analyze its content and its audience, and show that it provides a relevant analytical tool for looking at intra-Muslim diversity. Finally, an examination of the efforts undertaken by its actors at media standardization will allow me to discuss the place of a minority media in the French public sphere. I carried out a systematic observation between February 2013 and March 2014 that consisted of an analysis of the site’s structure, types of contributions and contributors, and the themes dealt with by the articles. Furthermore, I conducted

1I

am grateful to Sociologie journal for allowing me to publish a slightly modified version of my article (Lamine 2015). 2 The three others are: Oumma, Al-kanz and Islametinfo.

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thematic analysis of the 308 top pages and identified the source of the 133 releases published over one year. I conducted expert interviews with five current and former members of the team (15 h of transcribed interviews) plus several informal conversations. With the help of the site’s manager, I was able to make available an online readership survey, which received 219 responses. I compared this site to the main Muslim websites and researched references to this media outlet from general media outlets. I conducted additional observations in 2019 as part of a larger ongoing project about Islam online in France.

2

A Context of Social Misrecognition

Islam in France is seen as a ‘problem’, as in other European countries, but it is reinforced by a generally negative perception of religion (Hajjat and Mohammed 2013; Amiraux 2005, 2013; Göle 2011). Most Muslims experience social misrecognition (Honneth 1996, p. 134). These social representations are reinforced by regular and widely publicized surveys. As an example, one such survey, which is very typical, entitled “France 2013, new fractures”, states that 74% agree with the items that Islam is “rather or completely incompatible with the values of French society”, and 80% with the statement that Islam “seeks to impose its way of behaving on others”. Regardless of the real beliefs, practices, and attitudes of Muslims, their religiosity is confused with fundamentalism and activism; visible religious identity is deemed to be fundamentally incompatible with pluralist attitudes. This leads some authors to speak of “collective counter-identification” as a basis for discourses on national identity (Lorcerie et al. 2007). In contrast to these representations, academic surveys underline a convergence in most respects between Muslims and non-Muslims. More than 80% of Muslims surveyed agree with the statement, “[i]n France, only secularism [laïcité] allows people of different faiths to live together” (Brouard and Tiberj 2005, p. 37). They are also equally (or more) positive towards secularism and politics. Their main point of difference is their stronger relationship to religion (belief in God and prayer) compared to non-Muslims. Nevertheless, only 5% of Muslims state that they would send their children to a Muslim denominational school if they had the opportunity to do so, but 67% want such schools to exist, which expresses the desire for equal treatment of their religion (Brouard and Tiberj 2005, pp. 51, 30, 34). Another study, the “Trajectories and Origins” (TeO) survey, shows that endogamy rates are very similar to those of other religions. It also reveals a lower rate of homophilia (choice of friends similar to oneself) (43%) than that of nonreligious individuals (51%) or Catholics (65%) (Simon and Tiberj 2013, pp. 11ff.).

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Identitarian closure, if it is proven in particular cases, such as in the Salafist movement (Adraoui 2013), is therefore far from being statistically significant. The annual surveys of the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (CNCDH) show a growing rejection of Muslim visibility (e.g. Ramadan, prayers, celebrations, food consumption, and veiling) (Mayer et al. 2014). Based on these surveys and a comparative socio-historical approach, Hajjat and Mohammed (2013, p. 98) demonstrate the relevance of the concept of ‘Islamophobia’, which they define as the “complex social process of racialization/alteration based on the sign of membership (real or assumed) in the Muslim religion, the modalities of which vary according to national contexts and historical periods”. Muslims react individually or collectively (via media or associations) in various ways to this gap between the reality of their experience and its stereotypical representations. The answers to the open-ended questions3 in my online survey provide an overview of the perception of the media’s treatment of Islam: I can’t stand the media hype about Muslims in France when most Muslims live in peace here. We feel more and more uncomfortable in this atmosphere. [L., teacher, 25–49 years old] Saphirnews brings knowledge, reflection and intelligence to the debates that affect Muslims, an important step in a deteriorated media environment (and also where socalled) not good quality Muslim media are on the market. [F., executive, 25–49 years old]

While the terms ‘media hype’ or ‘degraded climate’ attest to the intensity of the feeling of social disregard, criticism of the general media treatment of Islam does not lead to general approval of Muslim media.

3

Birth and Development of a ‘Muslim’ Media Outlet

3.1

Before the Internet, Writing as Training

Although the Saphirnews site was created in 2002, the formation of the initial core team dates back to the early 1990s. At that time, the two designers of Saphirnews

3 “In

your opinion, what is Saphirnews’ strong point?” and “In your opinion, what is Saphirnews’ weak point?”

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were high-school students in the city of Dreux and were weary of the only local Muslim option, the literalist piety of the Tabligh4 Mosque: We had something special in Dreux: it was the overwhelming Tabligh majority. Some Muslims thought that Islam was reduced to Tabligh at that time. And there were a few young people who were able to get away from that vision, because they came to listen to conferences in Paris and in particular conferences organized by the AEIF [Association des étudiants islamiques de France] [...]. It opened doors for us. So we formed a small group [in Dreux], where we tried to exchange ideas, to look for a different way of expressing Islam than Tabligh’s. Because we were very frustrated that we couldn’t associate our studies with our conviction. Because, for them, [studying] was what kept Muslims away from their faith! [A., founding member of Saphirnews, in his 40s]

Wanting to become more familiar with their religion and to be able to discuss it, they went to the AEIF meetings. This association played a formative role for the founding members of the Saphirnews website and the paper magazine, Saphir, Le médiateur, that preceded it. Nevertheless, these two media outlets were created and developed completely independently of the AEIF. Yet, the training acquired within the AEIF turned out to be an important resource for subsequent projects. Founded in 1962, the AEIF brings together—around the scholar Muhammad Hamidullah5 —foreign students visiting France (mainly in graduate or doctoral studies). As one witness from the early 1990s points out: “The intellectual level of the students at the time […] was impressive! I remain indebted to them for their approach to the problems” [B., former team member, in his 40s]. This framework is all the more valuable because it was rare at that time: “In any case, when you wanted to have access to a speech, to debates on Islam, with intellectual depth, there were not many places!” [B.] The association also allows them to encounter a great diversity of Muslim sensibilities and cultures: “Its strength is that it was able to embrace diversity. There have even been periods when some Shia Muslims participated” [B.]. But, as this same former team member (who was active in the

4 Tabligh (Tablighi Jamaat, Society of Preachers in Urdu) is a transnational missionary move-

ment. Its members aim at encouraging Muslims to return to their religion. They emphasize spirituality and religious observance, while imitating the Prophet and the practices of this early period. 5 Muhammad Hamidullah (1908–2002) of Indo-Pakistani origin, a jurisconsult, is known for his French translation of the Koran (1959). Researcher (1954–78) at the CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique), he lived in France from 1948 to 1996. “This association [AEIF] brings together young intellectuals from various Muslim countries, Muslim brothers or not, who discuss certain themes of Islamic thought” (Maréchal 2009, p. 53).

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AEIF in the early 1990s) points out, this strength also has drawbacks: “Its weakness is that the common base is fragile” and “without leadership” or “pyramidal structures”. However, this training center not only provided knowledge content, but also an active learning method that was implemented within the association: There was internal work. I mean, people were preparing presentations. There was no particular personality that was above the other. That’s just it, the advantage of this school is that you learn to be an actor right away. And to be trained and self-trained. And that’s what is interesting about the AEIF’s approach. I made presentations on topics very early on. We do a presentation, then we have a debate about it! And so after that, there are different understandings of the contributions. [B.]

The method also implies reflexivity, which remains in further commitments: B. asked me to come, that he would make an assessment of his activities [the magazine Le Musulman Junior, which will be discussed later]. This is the AEIF method. Every time we want to change, we make a written assessment, we hand it over. It’s a Hamidullah method, it’s clear! Today, I talk about it as a “Hamidullah method”, but at that time, that’s the way we did it, that’s all! [H., former team member, in his 50s]

The AEIF environment is therefore stimulating and instructive for these young adults. However, the association’s concerns generally remained far apart from the experiences of the majority of young Muslims born and educated in France. The second witness of this period—a little older, and who had been an active member of the AEIF since the mid-1980s—also highlights the gap between the intellectual level of the AEIF activities (and publications) and the aspirations of young Muslims: I really saw that what we were doing at the AEIF was very interesting, but socially useless! We were talking about epistemology... When I saw that Muslims... Young Muslims... “Epistemology”, hello, what! I mean... (Laughs) That’s it! So there we were, saying “hermeneutics of the Koran”, uh... I’m sorry! I said to them [AEIF members]: “No! We’re mistaken!” […] I was seeing that my activities in Muslim movements had nothing to do with the situation on the ground. [...] The young people, they didn’t know anything [...]. And even those who were interested in Islam and wanted to read, who liked to read, had nothing to read! [H.]

In addition to its study circles, the AEIF published a quarterly magazine, Le Musulman, from 1972 to 1975,6 and from 1987 to 1996. The same person who 6 The

magazine ceased to appear when a crisis occurred within the association, which led to a split in 1978–79 between “those who wanted to do more social work, build mosques, etc.”

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had participated in the relaunch of this magazine in 1987 remembers the lack of interest it provoked among his young fellow Muslims, despite his efforts to make it known: I went to Lyon and tried to promote the magazine Le Musulman there. When they started their [Muslim youth] movement, I went there with my magazine, very well written and so on, to promote it. Young people, I saw young people taking the magazine, turning it over like a precious object and leaving it, you see! [H.]

Except for certain leaders, he also observes a surface understanding of Islam: “Islam for them was summed up in two things: ‘I don’t eat pork and I don’t drink alcohol’”. After such experiences, he decided to found a magazine for young people, still within the framework of the AEIF, but with a degree of autonomy. The AEIF’s leaders were not convinced of this need, but they let him launch his project nonetheless. Le Musulman Junior, also quarterly, started in 1992 and lasted for a year and a half. The new magazine was staffed by a small group of students, led by one of them and supported by the elder quoted above (H., at that time in his 30s—a high-school teacher, with an academic background), who also trained them how to write: With these young people I gathered at the AEIF, we worked on writing articles. We were organizing writers’ circles in which we also criticized articles published in other journals. It’s do-it-yourself because I myself don’t have any journalist training. [H.]

This sequence also shows that the AEIF, despite its elitist tendencies (and whatever its background may be), was an essential resource for the group: a place of self-training through the preparation and discussion of presentations, followed by training in article writing. This framework also made it possible to forge intragenerational links within the team as well as with a few elders, to whom they could later turn for advice, among them Larbi Kechat.7 [H.], who left to form the GIF (Groupement islamique de France) in 1979, and those “who wanted to continue intellectual work like Hamidullah” [H.], who remained at the AEIF. The GIF (with some local associations) would then become the UOIF (Union des Organisations islamiques de France) in 1983 (on GIF, see Maréchal 2009, p. 53). 7 Kechat became involved in the AEIF when he was a student (in linguistics and sociology) at Sorbonne University in the 1970s (Amiraux, 2011); he remained in the AEIF part after the 1979 split [H.]. He was then among the first imams to use French for his sermons. He became the rector of the Addawa Mosque in the 19th arrondissement of Paris (in former warehouses), where Hamidullah gave lectures. Kechat would later organize (in his mosque) round tables on social issues with Muslim and non-Muslim speakers.

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A few years later, in 1997, a small group formed again, at the instigation of B., who had led the short-lived Le Musulman Junior, but this time the group lacked any link to the AEIF. They were motivated by a strong desire “to do something freely” and were reacting to the lack of adapted Islamic literature. As B. puts it: “In the Muslim community, there was a cruel lack of reading material! All books were translated in Lebanon and brought, imported into France and sold per kilo, huh!” But their motivation was also based on the tension they felt between idealized Islam and the reality of the social context: It was felt that there were two shores, that two shores had appeared! One was the pure Islam, uh, why not orthodox? And the other was the reality, very far from these ideals. Then we thought, “We need a mediator!” There you go! There you go! It was the idea of this magazine! We are the children of both shores. We are in the middle and we are trying to make sure that both shores understand and accept each other! So the idea, the editorial line, it was: we’re not giving up! We make no concessions about Islam! But at the same time, we are really context-sensitive! We are sensitive to the point of view of others, to the way they see us too! And so, we try to respond … with as much fluidity as possible to the problems that arise [...] The idea of Saphir, that’s it, you see! It’s the context; the sources and how to, uh … make it compatible? And how to find a compromise? [B.]

Saphir le Médiateur is the name they chose, “because in French, it is a precious stone. But, in Arabic, it means the ambassador”.8 The idea is to bring together the two shores of Islam, the rigorist and the accommodating (Venel 2004). The former is typical of converts: The so-called ‘born again’ [Muslims], they are people who are returning to Islam and who need to assert a ‘hard’ Islam [...]. In fact; it’s not really an assertive thought, because they’re in the middle of building themselves! But they need to build on something strict. They have this state of mind and thus, when they see something which seems a little too liberal, a little too far from Islam, they will necessarily have some reluctance. [A.]

Those who join the group are students, Muslims, and French. The first issue of this ephemeral print magazine, Saphir le Médiateur, was published at the end of 1999, and a second issue was published in 2000. But a print magazine is not sustainable. However, technological developments would soon turn to the team’s advantage,

8 It

differs from other media outlets, almost all of which have purely Arabic names (without any meaning in French) or explicitly refer to Islam and Muslims: Islam de France, Islam et Info, Regards d’islam, Pages hallal, Oumma [community], Al-Kanz [treasure], Sajidine [prostrate].

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especially since one of the team members is a computer scientist. While paper is not viable, the Internet would be the solution.

3.2

September 11, the Turning Point

The real trigger was the shock of September 11, 2001, when technical possibilities and societal context coincided. For former high-school students who had become young professionals, the shock of the attack was reinforced by their colleagues’ “most detestable” statements about Muslims: [The boss] immediately asked me to set up a TV [on his desktop computer]. I had all the executives, who had come into my office and commented on the event! And that was a shock to me! I had all the most... I would say the most detestable terms, which were expressed in my office, in the face of images that were very hard to accept and: ‘That’s it! The Arabs again! That’s it! That’s it! There you go! …’ Really expressions... And that was open... I had all the … colleagues, huh! With whom I had lunch every day, who used very shocking terms! [A.]

From this context emerged their determination to create a ‘source of information’ on the Muslim issue. This is also the moment when it became possible to create an online media outlet. The project started with about thirty students and young professionals, all volunteers. The website was launched in April 2002. For the promoters of the project, it was above all a matter of communicating intelligibly about Muslim topics: “There must be people willing to talk about Islam, without being militants […] in a healthy, peaceful, correct way” [H.]: Thus, at some point, this situation made it hard to read the mainstream media! I would turn on the television and say, “What are they going to say now?” When I turn on the radio in the morning, I say, “What are they going to say now?” That’s it! That’s it! So, there comes a time, you say to yourself: ‘Yes, so there is really this need!’ We were in a situation of suffocation... So, even if it hadn’t worked, I think we would have continued! At least to be able to rest easy, to be able to look at yourself in the mirror in the morning, and be proud of yourself, that’s all! [H]

The ambition is immediately clear: the team aims to become a reliable source of information and to be recognized as such by both the Muslim public and journalists in the general media. As A. states: “The clear aim for us was to become a reference point, certainly, for the Muslim public since we were meeting needs, but especially for [mainstream] journalists! We would become a source of information for these journalists!” [A].

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The Professionalization of the Media

During the first few years of the website, it was operated on a voluntary basis, including the two founders, who were working in large companies (as communication officer and engineer). Internal training sessions were organized, to which a professional journalist, an anthropologist, the president9 of a Catholic NGO (CCFD),10 and a liberal Muslim intellectual were invited. The media outlet employed staff from 2006. Today, one of the founders, Mohammed Colin, is the publishing director of Saphirnews (and Salamnews), and the other, Mourad Latrech, is the commercial director and technical manager. The media outlet is backed by a communications company that provides rental space for the office and headquarters. The team of journalists is currently composed of three women. The staff are highly qualified (possessing master’s degrees at least), with lengthy experience in publishing for one, and short experience in other media outlets for the other two. They were recruited in 2008, 2009 and 2012. One is also the editor-in-chief of the free monthly paper magazine Salamnews, launched in 2008 by the same team of founders in order to increase advertising revenues. She therefore devotes only part of her time to Saphirnews, providing the sections on culture, books, films, and shows, as well as being the interface with external contributors and partners. Saphirnews presents itself as a “daily media outlet on Muslim news” and claims to have about 850,000 visits per month (380,000 individual visits), with a peak of a million visits during the month of Ramadan (900,000 individual visits). The latter figure suggests that some of the visits correspond to clicks by people seeking information about Islam during this period. The vast majority of visits come from France (90%). The outlet also claims to have 28,000 free articles and 65,000 subscribers to its newsletter.11

9 This person encourages them to submit to their NGO a funding request that they will obtain. 10 The Catholic Committee against Hunger and for Development (now called CCFD-Terre solidaire or in short CCFD) is the biggest French humanitarian aid NGO. 11 Data provided by the technical manager (November 2019).

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4

The Site Content and Its Readership

4.1

Analysis of Site Content

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As to its form, the site follows the model of press professionals: titling, layout, headings, sections, satirical drawings related to current events, advertising for the mobile application, and advertisers. Only a watchful eye will detect a discreet orange rectangle at the end of the main menu bar to access prayer times. The main headings are “Society”, “Religion”, “Economics”, “World”, and “Culture & Media”. In addition, the section “Point of View” includes articles written by authors outside the editorial staff, and “Official Communications” includes articles from institutional or associative contributors. Other sections include “Films, books, shows”, “Diary”, and “Psychology”. The publication is daily. The front page changes every day. It includes, on the upper banner, four scrolling titles, accompanied by their visuals (photos). The first page also gives access to recent front-page articles and to a list of the most-read articles. Journalists on the editorial team write an average of 120 articles per month in total. Ten to fifteen others are taken from partner media outlets (mainly Zamanfrance.fr, Religioscope.com, and Témoignage-chrétien.fr), and about fifteen are from external contributors (regular or occasional, i.e. 10% of the total). These are historical, philosophical, and sociological texts by Muslim authors, as well as by non-Muslim intellectuals or groups.12 Lastly, about ten “official press releases” from associations or organizations are published each month in the dedicated section. Compared to other minorities or militant media outlets, the strictly journalistic proportion is therefore relatively high. The articles mainly focus on the current social realities facing Muslims, as well as on social topics such as entrepreneurship or racism (in general or against specific groups). A systematic thematic analysis of the 308 front-page articles published between October 2012 and September 2013 allows us to analyze subjects chosen by the staff, as they produce the most substantial articles. Articles from cultural pages occasionally appear on the front page, for example, for exceptional events that are the subject of analysis (and possibly promotion, through

12 The “Books” section also allows the editors to diversify the thoughts presented, and includes works by liberal Muslim thinkers such as Mohammed Arkoun and Rachid Benzine, and by non-Muslim authors.

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DVDs or ticket competitions) or the release of a series of four documentary films about Jews and Muslims, e.g. So far so close, by Karim Miske, in 2013.13 One-third of the articles (34%) deal with religious subjects.14 Within that figure, 14% are on Ramadan or pilgrimage, 14% on Muslim organizations, and 6% on interreligious subjects15 (one-sixth of religious subjects). Just under a third (30%) deal with economic and social issues, including 8% on solidarity, social ties, and working-class suburbs,16 9% on economic issues such as halal, the slaughtering of animals, finance, and business development, and 13% on other social issues such as marriage, education, and daily life. One-fifth of the articles (22%) focus specifically on racism and discrimination (16%), and on the media coverage of Islam (6%). Lastly, 14% of the articles fall under the world section (3% Israel-Palestine; 3% Muslim minorities in Asia; 3% Arab countries and Turkey, 5% other). The subjects covered by journalists generally give way to a plurality of points of view and the search for contradictory information, as shown, for example, by the theme of homosexuality and same-sex marriage. Various actors are interviewed, including the head of an association of homosexual Muslims promoting an ‘inclusive’ place of worship, and a theologian.17 During the hearing by the Senate of representatives of religions and religious personalities in favor of samesex marriage, two lengthy articles presented and analyzed the positions.18 Fatwas are occasionally mentioned, but in an informative and often critical way. They 13 “Juifs et musulmans, frères amis ou ennemis? 1400 ans d’Histoire commune”, H. Trinh Nguyên, 22/10/2013. 14 For example, long articles about the Pew Research Center’s investigations of religious issues. 15 For example, “François: un Pape 2.0, nouvelle star du web”, M. Magassa-Konaté, 31/01/2014. 16 For example, “YUMP [Young Urban Movement Project]: une académie pour les entrepreneurs de banlieue”, M. Magassa-Konaté, 3/10/2013, “Les expulsions de Roms explosent en 2013, ‘la voie au racisme anti-Roms’”, La Rédaction, 14/01/2014 (seven articles about the Roma population during the year). 17 “Une mosquée pour gays et transsexuels musulmans en France”, M. Magassa-Konaté, 6/11/2012; “Les associations de croyants gays condamnent les exorcismes et traitements destinés à ‘guérir’ de l’homosexualité”, M. Magassa-Konaté, 17/05/2012; “Islam, homosexualité et homophobie, Interview de Tareq Oubrou”, H. Ben Rhouma, 29/05/2010. 18 “Mariage pour tous: les cultes auditionnés au Sénat, le CFCM catégorique”, H. Ben Rhouma, 13 /02/2013; “Mariage pour tous: la mobilisation continue, les musulmans à l’offensive”, M. Magassa-Konaté, 14/03/2013, which, despite its title, is devoted to the approach of the founder of the Muslim Homosexuals Association of France (HM2F), one of the personalities interviewed by the Senate.

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concern distant cases: India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, which prohibit cartoons, croissants, yoga, depilation, or first names: “Once again, the Saudi kingdom is noticed for its most bizarre prohibitions”.19 External authors also contribute to this pluralism, for example, following gender controversies, by raising the issue of extreme right-wing control20 and publishing an open letter criticizing the position of a community leader who shared the views of the Muslim Brotherhood.21 Even though (as in Catholicism) the majority position is conservative in terms of morality and family values (Brouard and Tiberj 2005, pp. 79ff.), minority voices are regularly audible. The internal conflict of Muslim activism is also addressed, as in an account of the two competing Parisian demonstrations commemorating the 10th anniversary of the law of 15 March 2004,22 one inter-associative (with non-Muslims), and the other Muslim-only and rejecting any ‘paternalism’. Lastly, press releases constitute a significant contribution to the site, with 133 press releases in one year. They allow the site to share ‘raw’ information and to diversify its content. The majority of contributors are Muslim organizations, but there are also ‘mixed’ (Muslim and non-Muslim) and non-Muslim associations (or collectives). Of these, 39% originate from member organizations of the French Muslim Council (CFCM). Their opponents express themselves, for example, through the voice of “Mosques and Muslims in solidarity”, founded in June 2013, following the elections, and which has headlines on “the failure of the CFCM” (4%). Another significant proportion (40%) come from associations and collectives working for human rights, against racism, Islamophobia, or ‘anti-scarf’ measures—half (20%) of which focus on combating Islamophobia; one-eighth (4%) include mixed collectives (including non-Muslims) on equality and freedom issues; and two-fifths (16%) from associations fighting for human rights. There are still about ten press releases from specific Muslim associations (students, women’s, charitable organizations), two from Sufi organizations, two from progressive Muslims in France, six from the defense of Palestinians, and two from the defense of Christians. Beyond its eclecticism, this list reveals the diversity of

19 For example, “Malek, Alice, Malika: les 50 prénoms interdits en Arabie Saoudite”, La Rédaction, 17/03/2014. 20 “Théorie du genre: est-on conscient de la mainmise de l’extrême droite? ”, M. Baker, 3/02/2014. 21 “‘Théorie du genre’, homophobie, islamophobie... Lettre à Nabil Ennasri”, J. Salingue, 12/02/2014. 22 This law bans “conspicuous” religious symbols in public schools.

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organizations that are willing to use this medium to relay information, from rigorous figures to progressive organizations, including Sufi or non-denominational human rights associations. Conversely, it is not surprising that the media outlet is recognized within institutional Islam with about thirty links on the CFCM website,23 or, since 2012, by the media partnership with the annual gathering at Le Bourget organized by the UOIF (Union des Organisations Islamiques de France), whose audience extends far beyond its members and supporters. Links have also gradually been forged with external partners, as evidenced by the presence of their logos on the site. Occasional or regular collaborations take the form of joint organization of events or exchanges of articles. Thus, besides the aforementioned links with Zamanfrance.fr (up until summer 2016, when it shut down) and Religioscope, the left-wing Catholic weekly Témoignage Chrétien (monthly since 2012) invited them to co-organize the Assises nationales de la diversité culturelle in 2011, welcoming 400 participants. Other partnerships include cultural events, such as those with the Institute of Islamic Cultures of Paris (exhibitions or public debates), with the magazine Altermonde for documentary film projects, with Fondapol (a political sciences foundation) for public debate, and with various film producers (‘ethnic’ in the broad sense, from the Maghreb to Bollywood). An article presents the film and offers a number of free tickets for readers.

4.2

Readership Survey

While the web offers a more accessible means of expression than print media, only a minority of the readers use it. It is not uncommon for 1% of users to provide half of the responses on forums (Barats 2013, p. 216). Like everywhere, the most active Internet users are clearly over-represented in article comments. For example, critical comments in Salafi tone may be particularly numerous on certain articles on Saphirnews or Oumma, while it can be assumed that their authors are not particularly numerous (not finding the norms they seek). There are also critical comments written by non-Muslims (especially by very right-wing commentators). I conducted a questionnaire survey of the readership, which was available on the homepage of the website for one month (October 2013). It included multiplechoice questions on the evaluation and use of the site, and the sociography of

23 Similarly,

with Oumma (but not other Muslim media outlets).

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the respondents, as well as open-ended questions on the other media outlets consulted, the strengths and weaknesses of the media outlet, the topics desired, and an opportunity for free comments. This method features the typical limits of the self-administered questionnaire, in particular, the fact of reaching the most motivated Internet users. While it cannot claim to provide general information on all readers, it can nevertheless be considered as providing data on a population that a priori has the same characteristics as the respondents (Mercier 2012, p. 293), particularly in terms of age, SPC (socio-professional category), level of education, and cultural or religious sensitivity. The 219 responses obtained therefore provide information on the site’s regular readers (who are a priori more motivated to respond than occasional readers). The pool of respondents is close to parity in terms of gender (44% women), residing overwhelmingly in France (95%), with no predominance in the Paris region (38%), Muslim (total: 95%; practicing: 81%; more or less practicing: 16%; not practicing: 3%). It is mainly composed of young professionals (76%, 25– 49 years old; 11%, under 24 years old; 11%, 50–64 years old; 2%, over 65 years old), belonging to SPCs (socio-professional categories) above the national average. Retired people are very significantly under-represented (5%). The use of the site is daily (37%) or at least weekly (90%), and one-third of the respondents use the social network interface. Not surprisingly, the most frequently read articles deal with topical issues: religious (72%), general (67%), international (56%), and debates (55%). Other content comes next: culture/media (22%), cartoons (22%), and psychology (17%), followed by services: prayer times (10%), diary (7%), ads (4%), and Arabic first names (4%). The site seeks to offer information about “Muslims in France” (81%), “Muslims in the world” (75%), “another point of view on current events than in the mainstream media” (79%), and it also seeks to “discover the diversity of opinions within the Muslim community” (64%). Most respondents (79%) also use general media sites (multiple answers possible). The most read media sites are: Le Monde: 26%; Le Figaro: 10%; Libération: 9%; Mediapart: 7%; Rue89: 6%; Le Point: 4%; Le Nouvel Obs: 3%; L’Express: 3%; Le Monde Diplomatique: 3%; and La Croix: 2%. Interestingly, Alain Soral’s site Égalité et réconciliation is rarely mentioned (2%), although it was controversial at the time of the survey and was thought to rally a significant number of Muslims, particularly on family values (demonstrations against same-sex marriage, and the day of withdrawal from school in protest at sex education). Most respondents (85%) read other ‘community’ media sites: half of them read Oumma, which is the best-known and probably most widely read Muslim media site. In

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addition to its news articles, Oumma also offers, unlike Saphirnews, in-depth articles on theological issues and a video section (about eight topics per month). Half of the respondents (53%) read Al-Kanz, which focuses on defending Muslim consumers, media vigilance in the daily treatment of Muslims, and promotion of Muslim entrepreneurs. 31% read both Oumma and Al-kanz. On the other hand, only 3% read Islametinfo, which is not surprising, because it stands out clearly from the others with a very critical tone, and it offers strong support for actions such as the day of withdrawal from school.24 The other sites mentioned (exceeding 2%) are: Ajib (19%); Yabiladi (9%, Moroccan site); Zaman (5%, Turkish Islam, Gülen); and Afrik (2%, general on Black Africa, Maghreb and diaspora, based in Paris). The answers to the open-ended questions25 provide additional information. Two elements frequently appear: first, the importance of having a media outlet that deals with current Muslim topics, in a context where the general press frequently portrays Muslims in a negative or truncated way; and, second, an appreciation of the diversity of points of view and themes covered (30%; the opposite opinion is rare: 3.5%). A thematic analysis by keywords reveals groups that correspond to four trends (which can be combined) within requests and assessments. A first trend can be described as “Muslim identity” and concerns the ‘Muslim topics’: the respondents appreciate and ask for even more subjects on Muslims, both in France and around the world (12%), to show more success stories (especially professional ones) of fellow Muslims in France (12%), or—more precisely—to deal with the theme “Muslim and citizen” (3%). Some also request articles on Muslim belief and practice (16%), or more information on Islamophobia and the defense of Muslims (5%). A second trend focuses on “social subjects” (24%), such as economics (the most frequent), history, geopolitics, education, youth, politics, as well as the offer of debates and cross analyses on these themes (3.5%). A third thematic trend emerges around the “openness to others”, referring to differing communities, religions, and convictions. It includes interreligious, intercultural, non-Muslim, religious, and non-religious speakers (9%). Finally, a fourth trend is that of internal criticism (6%), the lack of which is deplored (racism, extremism within Islam, and the treatment of minorities in countries with a Muslim culture).

24 Which

has been the subject of several critical articles in Saphirnews.

25 “In your opinion, what is Saphirnews’ strong point?”, “In your opinion, what is Saphirnews’

weak point?” and “Any other comment?”

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249

Revealer of Intra-Muslim Diversity

The analysis of the site’s content reveals a wide intra-Muslim diversity both in the topics and the origin of external contributions (personal and organizational), emanating from various trends—from the most rigorous to the most progressive, from religious or non-religious organizations—and giving way to contradictory opinions. The cultural, social (racism against the Roma, employment, suburbs), and interreligious themes (about 20 articles per year) reflect a certain social diversity. With regard to the treatment of religious phenomena, a closer analysis reveals an opposition between ‘believers’ and ‘non-believers’ (often simply labelled as atheists), and the absence of treatment of the ordinary relationship of nonbelievers (or those with little faith) to religion and its visibility. Nevertheless, the relatively high degree of pluralism in content (space allocated to the various currents of Islam, to various approaches of gender and inclusiveness, to various kinds of activism, to interreligious issues, etc.) corresponds to a diversity and pluralism of contributors, as well as of the readership, since the high level of site visits attests that the media outlet has identified its target public. It includes people as diverse as those aligned with Muslim brotherhood sensibility, those who are strongly critical of it, those devoted to various social or humanitarian causes (including cooperation with non-Muslims), those non-affiliated, and those looking for reflection. In addition, many readers who are not activists or who are subject to distant commitments find—in addition to topics related to Muslims—numerous articles and information on books, conferences, and cultural productions of descendants of migrants, featuring cultural plurality or even dealing humorously with Muslim or ethnic identity. Finally, non-Muslim readers or contributors see it as an informational site on Muslims and Islam. The content and the readership ultimately reveal a public (overwhelmingly Muslim) that is more pluralistic than one would expect, considering the internal tensions between Muslim organizations and between rigorous and progressive figures (Frégosi 2009; Cesari and McLoughlin 2005).

4.4

Specific Place in the French Muslim Landscape

A media outlet is not a militant association, but one can nevertheless try to situate it in the French Muslim landscape in the light of the articles (by the editorial staff) on the various organizations and their communiqués, as well as the choice and tone of the reviews of various works on Muslim thought. The diversity of Muslim mobilizations (in France and Europe) can be categorized into three types (Frégosi

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2009): religious (worship, associative, spiritual), socio-political (civic, nationalist, radical), and identity-based (republican, memorial, radical secularists). As the analysis of the site’s content shows, the main religious organizations are highly visible (articles and press releases), from the CFCM to the Sufi brotherhood of Alawiyya, the ‘consular’ Islam (Moroccan and Algerian), the Muslim brotherhood legacy (UOIF, CMF), the activists against ‘slamophobia’ (CCIF and others), and the student interfaith or humanitarian associations, such as Islamic Relief. Nationalism, fundamentalism, political Islam, reform, spiritual Islam, and secular Muslims are the subjects of current articles, as are radical secularist mobilizations, highlighting the stigmatizing effects of their positions on practicing Muslims. As for the book reviews, interviews, and invited articles, they give way to various visions of Islam, within both orthodox and liberal frameworks. The treatment of information combines pluralism and recognition of visible religious identities. The kind of religion that appears globally is much more under a ‘regime of witness’ than of ‘truth’ (or certainties) (Lagroye 2006).

5

A Minority Media Outlet in the French Public Space

Veiled journalists, a pile of the Catholic daily newspaper La Croix in the media’s lobby, non-Muslim trainees or collaborators: religious identity is assumed by the project leaders, but it does not rule out other reference models. This leads to the question of the place of a ‘minority’ media outlet in the French public sphere.

5.1

Standardization as a Program and a Commitment

First of all, it is significant that a non-Muslim media outlet would appear as a model—especially the Catholic daily newspaper La Croix, to which the editorial staff of Saphirnews actually subscribe—as two founding members point out: La Croix was immediately a reference for us. We thought, “How did they manage to become an almost generalist daily newspaper?” I mean, people who read La Croix are not necessarily Catholics! And how they managed, how they started dealing with religious practices, religious convictions. And finally they treat any subject like any other newspaper! [A., founding member of Saphirnews, in his 40s] Regarding religious subjects, we see ourselves as La Croix. We are not for a church, but our fundamental subject is people, its human beings... Not ideology! There is no ‘Bismillah’ [In the name of God] … there is no Koran; there is no stuff. [...] We’re not

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here to tell people what Islam is. We’re here to inform people about who Muslims are, what Muslims do! What we do is journalism. [H.]

The second interlocutor also makes another reference, more unexpected, to sports, but this allows him to stress the importance of reflecting diversity: My example, my ideal, is L’Équipe! [...] They address all sports! That’s it! That’s it! When a sport does something interesting, they put it on the front page, without any hesitation. And when the same sport does something stupid, they bump it off without any hesitation [laughs]! If I could decline a Muslim version of L’Équipe [...] That would be it! … It was important to me that we are nobody’s friends and nobody’s enemies. [H.]

Another significant factor is that, after Saphirnews began to leave the voluntary sector in 2006, employing first one journalist and then two from 2009 onward (in addition to the editor-in-chief of Salamnews, since 2008), some of the trainees and staff journalists are non-Muslim (five out of about fifteen). In a context of social misrecognition and with limited material and human resources, the form, content, and functioning of the media outlet speak to a consistent effort at professionalism and standardization. It is about being a media outlet like any other—following the same professional rules. This echoes the reader’s need for normalization and for representation that Islam is a religion like any other, as this reader points out, evoking the tension between the aspiration for ‘normality’ and the need for an alternative media outlet: I don’t support the approach of Saphirnews as a believer, I support it as a citizen, because of my political convictions and humanist philosophy. I am a French citizen above all, who gives her opinion on a French media. I am not pleased to see that we, as French citizens, must create alternative media, because we no longer have the opportunity to be heard in other media, due to our religious affiliation. For me, Saphirnews is first and foremost an alternative media, not a community media. Or it is a community one by default, it is alternative by necessity. Saphirnews would not have needed to exist if mainstream media respected journalistic ethics. [F., executive, 25-49 years old].

Since the language used is descriptive (about religion and other topics), it would be inappropriate to describe this media outlet as a denominational or community outlet. In the absence of prescriptive or committed statements, it is not a media outlet of opinion, either. Rather, it presents the characteristics of a specialized media outlet, which—gradually—comes to be recognized as such by professionals

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of other (mainstream) media outlets.26 This fact is apparent in particular through external links to the site or tweets from journalists of mainstream media sources that provide links to some Saphirnews articles.27

5.2

The Minority Media, Its Public, and the Common World

Analyzing a ‘Muslim’ media outlet raises the question of the relationship between particular identity and public space or, more broadly, the common world. The latter term obviously does not exclude conflict, which can be socializing (Simmel 1904). In works on public space and recognition, an alternative following is generally considered as counter-hegemonic. This should therefore generally apply to French Muslim media outlets. Nancy Fraser has argued for the need to pay attention to the multiplicity of public arenas. She criticizes the liberal model of public space, as proposed by Habermas, where the public arena is imagined as unique and where this uniqueness is desirable. She draws on the history of various dominated groups: This [recent] history records that members of subordinated social groups – women, workers, peoples of color, and gays and lesbians – have repeatedly found it advantageous to constitute alternative publics. I propose to call these subaltern counterpublics in order to signal that they are parallel discursive arenas where members of subordinated social groups invent and circulate counterdiscourses, which in turn permit them to formulate oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests, and needs. […]. In general, the proliferation of subaltern counterpublics means a widening of discursive contestation (Fraser 1990, p. 67).

Also drawing on a critical reading of Habermas, Éric Macé considers the public sphere “as a place of conflict between hegemonic and counter-hegemonic cultural movements” (Macé 2005, p. 42) and affirms that the “vitality of a democratic regime” lies in its “capacity to generate subordinate counter-publics” (Macé 2005, pp. 50f.). It would be wrong to consider these counter-public productions as sheer enclaves, because their effects go beyond the scope of the initial target audience. 26 I have done counts of links from several media websites: in 2013, from France-Culture, four links to Saphirnews (two for Oumma). Between 2010 and 2013, La Croix mentions it 23 times in articles (five: Oumma; three: Al-Kanz); Liberation eight times (eight: Oumma); Le Monde nine times. Compared to other “Muslim” media, Saphirnews is generally used as a source of information and not as a committed position. 27 For example, in one year, the journalist specializing in the religious topics at Le Monde re-tweeted Saphirnews 17 times, Oumma, three times Al-Kanz, twice and UOIF, once.

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Indeed, “interacting through discourse […] implies wishing to disseminate one’s discourse in ever-larger arenas” (Fraser 1990, p. 128), which applies, moreover, whether one is a member of the ‘subordinate’ public or not. Furthermore, these discourses facilitate the expression of social identities while contributing to their formation: Public spheres are not only arenas for the formation of discursive opinion; in addition, they are arenas for the formation and enactment of social identities. […] Participation means being able to speak ‘in one’s own voice’, thereby simultaneously constructing and expressing one’s cultural identity through idiom and style (Fraser 1990, pp. 68f.).

These approaches, as well as that of ethnic (or religious) public space, allow us to take into account the plurality of the public sphere and to show that these public expressions continuously contribute to the formation of identities, which is a crucial contribution to the conceptualization of plurality. However, they set aside the internal plurality of each of these counter-publics and the fact that, within them, there are also more or less open (or closed) options for collaboration with other publics, as well as different ways of looking for recognition. The actors at Saphirnews aim for the recognition of their professional competence, as well as media visibility. However, the French online Muslim media are schematically positioned between two poles. In the first one, journalistic handling aims for neutrality and plurality of sources. The second pole is, on the other hand, characterized by militant denunciation and critical tones. Saphirnews is clearly in the first pole, unlike other media sources, such as Islametinfo.fr. While the terms counter-hegemonic (Fraser) and subordinate counter-public (Macé) are undoubtedly relevant for the second pole, they are not really relevant for the first. Admittedly, there is an ability to disseminate information that is largely alternative to the mainstream media route, but the ambition is nevertheless to be objective and to receive a ‘normal’ journalistic treatment of ‘ordinary’ religious topics. Rather than a counter-public, Saphirnews reveals a Muslim ‘public’, in Dewey’s pragmatist sense,28 which is affected by a depreciated mainstream media representation of Islam. Saphirnews deems it necessary to promote a fairer representation of Islam and Muslims, while caring for and fully participating in the common social world. 28 The public is indeed considered here as “all those who are affected by the indirect consequences of transactions to such an extent that it is deemed necessary to have those consequences systematically cared for” (1954, pp. 15f.). An individual can belong to several publics. For a pragmatist, Deweyan approach to religious identities, see Lamine (2018a, 2018b).

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Conclusion

This online media outlet proves to be a relevant point of analysis for French Muslim dynamics, particularly in three areas: agency, the strength of difference, and the mode of plurality. Following its founders from their high-school years in Dreux, where Islam equates with Tabligh, to their newspaper offices on the 31st floor of an office building at Saint-Denis, we go beyond the singularity of their trajectory to capture the characteristics of a category of young Muslim and French people who are experiencing the shock of the New York attacks at the same time as they are starting their professional lives.29 In the face of social misrecognition, some will turn their differences into assets and be confident in their ability to contribute to collective change. If a media outlet is in no way the mirror (distorting or otherwise) of a group or society, it can nevertheless be a mediation tool that meets a demand for communication and recognition, and to this extent, informs us about the plurality of the ‘public’ that is constituted. This pragmatist approach, inspired by Dewey, allows us to better understand these forms of social cooperation. The historical perspective of the formation of Saphirnews first demonstrated how reductive it would be to boil down organizations such as the AEIF to the fact that it was attended by some members or sympathizers of the Muslim Brotherhood (Maréchal 2006, p. 30). It would be simplistic, and wrong in this case, to assign actors to alleged ideologies when their environment was, in fact, plural. To some of these actors, the AEIF proved to be a resource as a place of training. The ability to write and discuss positions eventually allowed them to initiate entirely independent projects. In doing so, these Muslim actors generally keep a respectful attitude toward the supporters of a more orthodox Islam and their leaders. This exemplifies the concept of “solidarity without consensus” (Kertzer 1988, pp. 67ff.), which proves frequently to characterize the relationship of contemporary believers to their institutions, their elders, and, more generally, to the diversity of their fellow Muslims.30 At the individual level, their pathways perfectly illustrate what the sociologist Norbert Alter calls the “force of difference”, which allows them to transform their specific position into assets for action and to occupy a position of “brokers”:

29 This event is part of a series of events starting with the Islamic revolution in Iran and contributing to the otherness of Islam. 30 For a discussion of this concept, see Lamine (2013, pp. 159f.).

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[This] consists in being able to transform a marginal position into a position of broker and the distance to the world into an ability to associate. This means that the phenomena of a society’s margin are not ‘marginal’ phenomena, without much importance for the functioning of the whole. A society does not exist only by defining places for each other. It also requires individuals to connect these places (Alter 2012, p. 261).

At the collective level, the analysis shows that this media outlet is a relevant locus of analysis of intra-Muslim diversity with a significant capacity for pluralism, like its readership. Its place in the public sphere makes it a specialized media outlet rather than an activist or counter-hegemonic media outlet. A pragmatist perspective allows to highlight the making of the common world and the importance of pre-politics. The concept of pre-politics was introduced by Axel Honneth while discussing Dewey’s approach to the public (Dewey 1954). It highlights that the vitality of democratic publics presupposes a form of social integration through “a common consciousness for the prepolitical association of all citizens” (Honneth 1998, pp. 776f.). This consciousness is based upon their cooperative actions and their pursuit of common goals, most often in an area that fosters closeness and allows them to obtain a tangible sense of a wider form of “social coordination”. This pragmatist sociological perspective thus allows us to understand how the “variation of the possible modalities of Frenchness” or the “pluralization of the ‘we’ that underlies the collective experience” are made (Laborde 2010, p. 123). The case presented here is indeed one of cooperative participation in the ‘rational resolution of common problems’: producing information about current social realities related to Muslims that targets both Muslims and non-Muslims (but specifically non-Muslims who are interested in these matters). Various indicators reveal a growing recognition by partners of other media outlets and, more broadly, its assessment as a reliable source of information by general journalists. Paying attention to pre-politics allows us to avoid the danger—present in approaches in terms of minority or counter-hegemony—of making real social cooperation invisible. It also makes it possible to account for the internal plurality of groups and the coexistence within them of more or less collaborative options. With the concept of pre-politics, we understand how actors can contribute to a common world from their specific starting-points. This is what media players do, as well as their readers by supporting them.

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Jonveaux, Isabelle et al., Eds. 2015. Religion on the Web. Online-Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet 8. Kertzer, David. 1988. Ritual, Politics and Power. New Haven: Yale University Press. Laborde, Cécile. 2010. Français, encore un effort pour être républicains! Paris: Seuil. Lagroye, Jacques. 2006. La vérité dans l’Église catholique. Contestations et restauration d’un régime d’autorité. Paris: Belin. Lamine, Anne-Sophie. 2013. Singular Pluralities. A Critical Review on Religious Pluralism. Religion and Society. Advances in Research 4 (1): 150–166 Lamine, Anne-Sophie. 2015. Média minoritaire, diversité intrareligieuse et espace public. Analyse du site Saphirnews.com. Sociologie 6 (2): 139–156. Lamine, Anne-Sophie. 2018a. Religion as Experience. Dialogue with John Dewey. Social Compass 65 (5): 667–683. Lamine, Anne-Sophie. 2018b. Identités religieuses et monde commun. Penser les idéaux, les attachements et la participation sociale avec John Dewey. Paris: L’Harmattan. Lorcerie, Francoise, Katrine Romhild-Benkaaba, and Nikola Tietze. 2007. Politisation autour de l’islam et légitimation des ordres politiques nationaux en Europe. In L’espace public européen à l’épreuve du religieux, Ed. François Foret, 179–208. Bruxelles: Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles. Macé, Éric. 2005. Mouvements et contre-mouvements culturels dans la sphère publique et les médiacultures. In Penser les médiacultures, Eds. É. Maigret, and É. Macé, 41–66. Paris: Armand Colin. Maréchal, Brigitte. 2006. Les Frères musulmans européens, ou la construction des processus locaux et globaux. Recherches sociologiques et anthropologiques 37 (2): 19–34. Maréchal, Brigitte. 2009. Les Frères musulmans en Europe. Racines et discours. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Maréchal, Brigitte, Ed. 2018. Mises en scène musulmanes sur internet. Entre représentations de soi et enjeux de l’autorité. Recherches sociologiques et anthropologiques 49 (1). Mayer, N., G. Michelat, V. Tiberj, and T. Vitale. 2014. Un refus croissant de “l’autre”. In La lutte contre le racisme, l’antisémitisme et la xénophobie. Année 2013. Ed. Commission nationale consultative des droits de l’homme, 157–208. Mercier, Arnaud. 2012. Étudier les internautes par des questionnaires en ligne sur site de presse. In Journalisme en ligne. Pratiques et Recherches Eds. A. Degand, and B. Grevisse, 292–297. Bruxelles: De Boeck. Rigoni, Isabelle. 2005. Challenging Notions and Practices. The Muslim Media in Britain and France. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 31 (3): 563–580. Rigoni, Isabelle. 2010. Les médias des minorités ethniques. Représenter l’identité collective sur la scène publique. Revue européenne des migrations internationales 26 (1): 7–16. Rigoni Isabelle, and E. Saitta. 2012. Democratizing the Public Space? Ethnic Minority Media in a Glocal Context. In Mediating Cultural Diversity in a Globalised Public Space Eds. I. Rigoni I., and E. Saitta E, 1–18. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Roy, Olivier. 2002. L’islam mondialisé. Paris: Seuil. Simmel, Georg. 1904. The Sociology of Conflict. American Journal of Sociology 9 (4): 490–525.

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Islam at Work: How Muslim Women in France and Germany Reconcile Piety and Profession Linda Hennig

Abstract

This article contributes to research on the integration of Muslims into the labor market by identifying a typology of Lebensführung (conduct of life) related to religion and career. The central thesis suggests that there is a certain tension between Muslim religiosity and women’s employment that emerges from society’s perception of the religion rather than from any religious convictions within Islam itself. The article first develops a theoretical perspective based on approaches to life conduct that are useful for understanding the challenges that Muslim women face at work. The article then examines how women from a Muslim background who work in the social and medical sectors in France and Germany reconcile their work with their religion. Using a reconstructive methodology, this study reveals a typology of life conduct: Lebensführung with a fusion of spheres (type 1), Lebensführung with a separation of spheres (type 2), and Lebensführung with flexible boundaries between spheres (type 3). Finally, the article discusses aspects of Lebensführung that transcend the national context. Keywords

Boundaries between Work and Religion • Compatibility • Conduct of Life Labor Market Integration • Muslim Women • Reconciliation

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L. Hennig (B) Centrum für Religion und Moderne CRM, Münster, Germany E-Mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 C. Gärtner and H. Winkel (eds.), Exploring Islam beyond Orientalism and Occidentalism, Veröffentlichungen der Sektion Religionssoziologie der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-33239-6_11

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Introduction

Factors such as affiliation to Islam, a strong Muslim religiosity, and the wearing of a headscarf have been shown to reduce a person’s chances of acquiring a job (Stichs and Müssig 2013).1 There are various explanations for this. One approach suggests that the presence of traditional gender roles best explains the gaps that we see in how Muslim women are integrated into the labor market (ibid.; see also Halm and Sauer 2017, p. 51).2 A similar explanation revolves around varying degrees of educational investment for women (Adida et al. 2014, p. 79) and/or a stronger family orientation on the part of Muslim women compared to their nonMuslim counterparts (Schmid and Kohls 2011, p. 154). These arguments reflect the public discourses that all too often paint Islam as a backward religion anchored in traditionalism.3 This might be one reason why affiliation to Islam has become a trigger for discrimination in the labor market (Adida et al. 2012; Ajbli 2011; Bouma et al. 2003; DIK 2012; Lovat et al. 2013). As experiments with fictitious CVs have shown, a sign that the applicant is a Muslim—be it in the family name or mention of involvement in a Muslim charitable institution—reduces the chances of being invited to an interview (Di Stasio et al. 2019; Kaas and Manger 2010; Valfort 2015; Weichselbaumer 2016). There is as yet no empirical evidence that suggests that Muslim religiosity reduces women’s motivation to participate in the labor market. Phillip Connor and Matthias Koenig (2015, p. 195) conclude that the explanatory power of religious practices is extremely low in this regard. In fact, their study shows how intensive religious practice often goes hand in hand with professional activity, regardless of gender (Koenig 2015, p. 198). Other findings prove the (intrinsic) compatibility of the Muslim faith with women’s professional activity (Amir-Moazami 2007; Bouma et al. 2003; Fadil 2013; Jouili 2015; Kaas and Manger 2010; Nökel 2002; Shirokanova 2015; Wunn 2008). Additional findings argue that integration into the labor market depends more on the individual’s competence than on her faith or visible commitment to Islam (Stichs and Müssig 2013, p. 75). 1 By comparing how Muslim and Christian women with a migration background are integrated

into the labor market in Germany, this study is one of the few that manages to distinguish between religious factors and factors related to ethnicity, social origin, and gender. 2 However, this gap does not seem to be very large: in Germany, 35% of Muslim women (compared to 41% of non-Muslim women) are employed full-time, while in France the corresponding figures are 44% and 59% (Halm and Sauer 2017, p. 31). 3 A survey initiated by the University of Münster in 2010 (Pollack 2014, p. 21) found that Islam is associated with discrimination against women (with over 80% of the respondents agreeing with statements that make the link).

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Against this empirical background, I argue that there is a societally induced tension between Muslim religiosity and women’s professional activity. Paradoxically, public discourses arguing against the wearing of a headscarf suggest that doing so promotes traditional role models, while on the other hand women who wear a headscarf are excluded from sections of the labor market in France and Germany, and are therefore prevented precisely from assuming a non-traditional role. It seems that this exclusion is based more on societal and legal norms than on religious convictions. Sabine Hark and Paula-Irene Villa (2017, pp. 86–88), as well as Birgit Rommelspacher (2009), have noted that public discourse is increasingly using arguments rooted in secular feminism. Some discourses, driven by nationalist and racist motives, seek to discredit Islam and repress Muslims by claiming to support the emancipation of so-called ‘endangered Muslim women’. Moreover, it is worth remembering that a 2017 EU ruling allows private employers to bar staff from wearing Islamic headscarves and other visible religious symbols under certain conditions.4 Demands for neutral (i.e. religion-free) workplaces go further in the French context. The private recycling company Paprec invoked the first charter of laicité, although the French policy on laicité is directed exclusively at the public sector. In contrast, there is no such general law in Germany. The general ban on teachers wearing a headscarf that was implemented in several German federal states was annulled by the Federal Constitutional Court in 2015. In general, the right to practice one’s religion in the workplace has a higher level of protection in Germany than in France. Legal compromises are possible in both national contexts, however, when employers and employees have opposing interests (Foblets and Alidadi 2014). Beyond the legal framework, religion is often perceived as a disruptive element in private workplaces. According to a French survey, the wearing of religious symbols is described alongside sexual innuendos as one of the most disruptive influences on the atmosphere at work (Chauvet and Fernandes 2018, p. 35). Muslim women are aware that wearing a headscarf constitutes a barrier, and women from younger generations are more likely to consider the possible effects on their professional trajectory when deciding whether to adopt the practice (Hennig 2017, pp. 336–340). Conversely, anticipated discrimination (as well as religiously legitimized gender norms) can also mean that Muslim women consider withdrawing from the labor market to be a desirable option (Ajbli 2011; Jouili 2015, pp. 121–132).

4 In

2017, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled on two cases (C-188/15, Asma Bougnaoui / Micropole SA and C-157/15, Samira Achbita / G4S Secure Solutions).

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This overview contextualizes my central line of inquiry, which is aimed at assessing the challenges faced by Muslim women in the workplace. Phrased as an empirical question, I ask: How do Muslim women manage to reconcile religiosity and professional activity in Germany and France?

2

Challenges from the Theoretical Perspective of Lebensführung (Conduct of Life)5 Approaches

Concepts of Lebensführung (conduct of life) largely address problems of compatibility. I employ the concepts to describe the interrelation between social conditions and individual agency motivated by individual values, priorities, and biographical goals.6 This theoretical understanding apprehends the general requirements of Lebensführung, such as coping with biographical crises, as well as requirements specific to Muslim women, such as having to deal with the ascriptions, stereotypes, and restrictions imposed on them because of their religiosity. In contrast to this differentiated concept of Lebensführung, most studies on Islam reduce the concept to a religious ethics that determines all spheres of life (Frese 2002; Jouili 2015; Klinkhammer 2000; Mahmood 2005; Nökel 2002;

5 The term Lebensführung was coined by Max Weber. I translate it as ‘conduct of life’, the term that Talcott Parsons used (in addition to the term ‘conduct’) in his translation of Weber’s Protestant Ethic. A person’s ‘conduct of life’ is distinct from her ‘way of life’ or ‘lifestyle’, the latter two terms being related to lifestyle research that measures preferences and behavior in the areas of leisure, consumption, family, work, media (Müller and Weihrich 1991, p. 122). In contrast, an individual’s conduct of life reflects her answers to questions about meaning, proving herself, and probation. 6 This definition is based on two types of approaches that I draw on. I distinguish between them according to the key principle of each. On the one hand, there are those that are centered on values and meaningful ideas that guide life practice (Weber 1985; 1988; Oevermann 1995), and on the other are approaches that focus on questions of negotiation, organization, and compatibility in everyday life. These latter approaches were mainly developed in the Arbeitsgruppe Alltägliche Lebensführung (Research Group on the conduct of everyday life; my translation) at the University of Munich. Funded by the DFG (German Research Foundation) from 1986 to 1996, the research group was situated within the field of the sociology of work (see especially Jurczyk et al. 2016; Kudera 1995; Kudera and Voß 1990; Müller and Weihrich 1991; Voß 1991).

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Rodier 2012; Schrode 2010).7 This perspective risks linking every instance of everyday behavior to Islam and thus essentializing Muslims.8 Studies from a quite different perspective, inspired by the so-called lived religion9 approaches, describe the religiosity of Muslims as varying in intensity and as not necessarily penetrating all spheres of life (Dessing et al. 2013; Jeldtoft 2011; Nyhagen and Halsaa 2016). Accordingly, an Islamic Lebensführung that affects all spheres of life seems to be the exception rather than the rule. Indeed, such a conduct of life would better describe a religious virtuoso. The Lebensführung approaches that I draw on are designed precisely to allow me to study ordinary believers and to take into account a broader range of phenomena than the religious ethics mentioned above. Based on the concept of Lebensführung, this theoretical approach addresses the empirical question of how a person’s conduct of life is related to her religion and career. According to the structural model of religiosity, individuals acquire autonomy through solving crises (Oevermann 1995, pp. 38–41; 2004, p. 160). Autonomy is thus the result of a process in which the individual detaches herself from her environment of origin and makes personally justified decisions. The difficulty consists in making decisions that lead towards an open future full of possibilities without the aid of rational criteria for judgement. Oevermann considers the Weberian concept of personal proof or probation (Bewährung) in a differentiated society where the relevance of religion is decreasing. Consequently, in such societies, the sphere of religion does not automatically determine the overarching meaning of a person’s existence. Devoting one’s life to an object endowed with meaning is a question of individual decisions. Work, family, and the common good comprise the three main areas of probation, regardless of whether religious content is part of a person’s conception of life. Over the course of life, an individual has to adopt a position with regard to profession, sexual reproduction, and the common good (Oevermann 2004, p. 171f.).

7 Lebensführung

is the prevalent term in the German context; in the French context, terms are more closely related to Foucault’s work and include éthique de vie, façon d’être, and réforme de soi. 8 Amir-Moazami (2018, pp. 11–15) argues that the production of knowledge about Muslims is not neutral, but rather is affected by both political interests and power relations. It therefore contributes to constructing Muslims as objects, examining them and trying to control them. 9 The approach of lived religion or everyday religion (Ammerman 2006; McGuire 2008) emphasizes the entanglement of the religious and the secular. It underlines the interconnectedness and variability of the religious by considering ordinary believers (not just experts), non-religious places, and practices other than a strict application of precepts (transgressions).

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Individuals in modern society are involved in various functional areas of society and are expected to fulfil certain roles. The different aims of the functional areas and contradictory role requirements might cause compatibility issues and struggles concerning the different aspects of a person’s identity and personal values, requiring individuals to negotiate practical solutions in their everyday life—for example, while organizing professional and family life. The idea that compatibility problems result when there are contradictory requirements from different spheres of life can be extended to the challenges that Muslim women face at work. Since current society deems their involvement in professional activity and their Muslim identity and faith to be contradictory, there is a lot to be gained from examining their practices, as well as their ways of acting and negotiating. The empirical question of this study therefore revolves around the establishment of boundaries between work and religion, understood as spheres of action, values and sociality. Linking or separating life spheres implies an arrangement that results in a certain stability of everyday life (Kudera and Voß 1990; Voß 1991). The arrangement might imply the setting of limits or, in contrast, the act of accepting (or even amplifying) the intersection of (religious and professional) identities, values, and practices. This, in turn, might be the result of negotiations. Negotiation refers here to a process that is applied to many situations ranging from (real) crises, incompatibilities, anticipated problems, and conflicts to the development of practical solutions or routines. In addition to the practical problems of compatibility (Kudera and Voß 1990, p. 162), Lori Beaman (2014, p. 184) also addresses the reciprocal interactions concerning the place of the religious in the workplace and the acceptance of religious difference. In her analysis, negotiations concerning religion in the workplace imply processes of anticipating and balancing conflict without leading to legal disputes.10 I distinguish here between intra-individual negotiations (e.g. setting priorities in relation to work and religion, the processing of negative perceptions and stereotypes) and inter-individual negotiations (e.g. adjustments for religious practices in the work organization). Negotiations in professional settings concerning the acceptance of (religious) difference can be identified as one main challenge for Muslim women. This includes responding appropriately to attributions and stereotypes to maintain good relationships with colleagues that are conducive to a productive work environment. Jennifer Selby et al. (2018) give empirical evidence 10 Such legal disputes attract high levels of media attention—for example, the so-called ‘Baby Loup’ case in France or the case of Fereshta Ludin in Germany (Chrisafis 2013; Henley 2004). In both cases, the legitimacy of the headscarf was at stake and both women invested a large amount of energy in their legal challenge. Indeed, this can be considered proof of their high motivation to be active in the employment sphere despite their religious conviction.

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for the important fact that aspects of identity other than religious ones are significant for processes of negotiation: in addition to the individual goals and wishes arising from their religiosity and religious affiliation (e.g. adjustments for religious practices, recognition as a Muslim believer), employees also attach importance to everyday and social aspects, such as the desire for good relations within teams and the different professional requirements depending on the situation. Within work organizations, Muslim women do have to conform to legal rules regarding religious practices. They might negotiate certain accommodations regarding religious dress, changes in working hours due to religious obligations, flexibility regarding specific duties or work social events, in addition to the use of (existing) rooms for prayer or meditation (Foblets and Alidadi 2014, p. 17). They also have to deal with implicit norms concerning the place of religion in the workplace, such as the idea that public and private spheres should be kept separate, and therefore that the religious should be kept outside the workplace (Fadil 2013). In an individual’s Lebensführung, meaning, values, identity, and community ties are crucially important to the approach taken to work and religion, and how these spheres of life are connected or separated. In theory, both spheres can strongly shape the Lebensführung and even determine it completely. The religious dimension has an important power of action: the goal of salvation or ideas about redemption (in the Weberian sense) can be a strong motivation for life practice. Beyond mere subsistence, professional work can be a source of identity, meaning, values, and create community ties, and thus contains an important potential for self-realization (Luckmann 1991). The structural similarity between religion and work can lead to a very high degree of compatibility. It is worth noting that the possibility of linking both spheres is not only a feature of Christianity. The literature has also conceptualized an Islamic work ethic, like the Protestant work ethic. Hard work, and the commitment to it, are valorized in the Qur’an and Sunnah (Shirokanova 2015). I thus expect that a Lebensführung in which religion and work are both relevant contains a certain arrangement of these spheres: when religion and work are held as equally meaningful areas of life, it might be necessary to set priorities—for example, making arrangements for a prayer break during working hours. It is important to mention that how a person faces the challenges of Lebensführung depends on individual skills and personal capacities. Individuals differ in how they respond to challenges and crises. Competences and abilities are acquired under certain conditions and through the successful resolution of crises.11 11 Hradil

(1992) makes the important point that the ability to develop biographical goals autonomously is not given but must be acquired.

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Empirical Note

The empirical study that follows employs a comparative logic that recognizes national conditions (e.g. the legal framework) in France and Germany as part of the context for life courses and Lebensführung. I gathered 48 biographical, problem-centered interviews in Paris and Berlin. The interviewees are both Muslim believers and professionals within the social and medical sector of the labor market. I assess the social-care and healthcare professions as being sensitive to religion. Both sectors have a religious as well as a secular history, and allow for the implementation of religious and secular values oriented towards the common good. Religious values can influence how a person carries out her professional activities and can provide useful resources for doing so. The issues that people in these professions have to deal with—illness, death, social problems—might favor the use of religious semantics in the course of professional activity and consideration of the religiosity of patients/clients. I have observed a particular openness to religion and diversity within these professional sectors, particularly among faithbased employers in Germany. This fact points to an important difference between the German scenario and what I have witnessed in France. After the data collection, I used contrasting criteria to subject six cases to an intensive sequential analysis (Oevermann 2002), and reconstructed the origin as well as the characteristics of the individual conduct of life in more detail. Finally, by comparing cases, I developed a typology of Lebensführung relative to work and religion. I will limit the presentation to a short introduction of the types by using the biographies of three women. Djamila (30) was raised in an Algerian family in Paris. Her father migrated to France in 1968 and worked as a locksmith. Her mother, a trained dressmaker, migrated to France in 1982 and worked as a cleaning lady. After receiving her baccalauréat with very good grades, Djamila started her medical studies but dropped out after two years. Three years later, she started vocational training as a nurse. After completing her training, she started working in hospitals via a temporary employment agency. In addition, she also works as a nanny and has acquired multiple naturopathic certificates. Sahla (27) was also raised in an Algerian family in Paris. Her father migrated to France in 1985 as a student and later worked as a youth social worker. Her mother migrated to France in 1983 and worked as a childminder. After her baccalauréat, Sahla completed her vocational training as a nurse. She now works in the geriatric unit of a hospital.

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Ece (40) was raised in a Turkish family in Berlin. Her father migrated to Germany as a low-skilled guest worker in 1963 and worked in the construction industry. Her mother migrated to Germany in 1970 and worked as a production assistant in the light-metal industry. After her A-Levels (Abitur), Ece studied political and educational sciences. She now works as a project leader in the social sector.

4

A Typology of Lebensführung. Connecting Work and Religion

The following typology describes different ways of organizing work and religion, as well as the permeability of the boundaries between them. Negotiations on the place of religion in workplaces are relevant for all types, but the relationship differs slightly according to the arrangement of spheres, practices, and identities.

4.1

Type 1: Lebensführung with a Fusion of Spheres

This type of Lebensführung is based on the close interconnection between religion and work that constitutes a creative solution to a twofold crisis. On the one hand, the Lebensführung converges with regard to work and religion into a global project (a life project); this can be seen as a clear reaction to the difficult position that Muslims find themselves in in mainstream society. This type reflects the negative social discourses and the experience of difference that affect the identity and the conduct of life of Muslim women. Djamila, for example, experienced a crisis when she had a sexual relationship with a man without their being married. Her feelings of guilt reveal the Islamic norm regarding premarital sex. Clearly, the crisis was due to the discrepancy between her internalized Muslim norms and the shared norms of French society. On the other hand, the fusion of spheres is equally the result of crises or biographical ruptures linked to her professional trajectory. Djamila’s dropping out of medical studies was a biographical failure that disappointed her parents, who had expectations characteristic of many migrant families that their daughter would achieve upward social mobility. The fusion of religion and work in a global project is one way of responding to this twofold crisis. After some years of instability, Djamila has chosen to adopt a modern and colorful Muslim style of clothing, including a headscarf folded into a turban. She has turned to values that can be found in Islam as well as in postmodern discourses—for example, those connected to sustainability and protecting

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the environment. Such adaptations can be compared to Weber’s description of Protestant followers who grounded their conduct of life on unitary values. Unlike the Weberian type, however, the orientation of Djamila’s action is aimed at the overall project including professional and religious goals and values. She dreams of opening a well-being center specializing in offering counselling and naturopathic services for young families, both Muslim and non-Muslim, who value nature and ecology. In so doing, Djamila adheres to these values as a basis for her global orientation. Her values represent a creative combination of religious values and postmodern values of sustainability. In this, Djamila differs from Muslims of her parents’ generation, who do not interpret Islam as a religion that includes a healthy and sustainable way of life. Because of this reinterpretation of Islamic teaching, Islam becomes a religion that guarantees her the liberty to develop herself. For this type of Lebensführung, the religious and professional identity are of equal importance. The global project mobilizes the potential of work to provide meaning beyond mere subsistence. It is not surprising that there is this type of arrangement in the social work and health fields, where there is a strong orientation towards the common good even though the trajectories leading to this occupational field are heterogeneous and not necessarily value-oriented from the outset. The importance of religious identity reveals itself in the fact that women who represent this type try to invalidate stereotypes about Islam in their conduct of life. Djamila promotes the image of a modern and ecologically friendly religion that permits self-realization. Type 1 transcends the boundaries between the spheres. Since work and religion are equally important for the overall project, compatibility is guaranteed.

4.2

Type 2: Lebensführung with a Separation of Spheres

Like the previous type, type 2 contains a religious dimension, as religion provides one of the foundations for the conduct of life. However, in contrast to type 1, the religious dimension does not converge with the professional sphere in this arrangement. The relative independence of the religious and professional Lebensführung is not typically Muslim, but characterizes a normal case: this type somehow highlights the secular, differentiated society in which the religious and the professional life are separated. Within a fairly stable life arrangement, a person can identify religion and work as spheres with distinct rules, norms and objectives. The orientation of actions, practices, and the sense of self reflects the characteristic of each sphere. Thus, individuals define ambitions in their religious development as well as their career goals that are independent of each other.

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Sahla’s professional choice to become a nurse goes back to her long hospital stays during her childhood, when she familiarized herself with this professional milieu. Although she is a practicing Muslim through her religious socialization and piety, she does not link her professional ambitions to religious values.12 Nevertheless, type 2 contains some typically Muslim aspects. The ‘naturally grown’ separation of work and religion can be further strengthened by the negative perception of Muslim life concepts in the majority society. Given the negative attitudes towards Islam, Sahla consciously decided to set additional limits at work and not wear her headscarf in the hospital. The decision was based on an experience during her vocational training, when her veiling in the educational institute led to conflicts on the appearance of two other veiled students. Teachers tried to pressurize them into removing their headscarves. Despite the differences in legal status between the educational institute and the hospital, Sahla referred to a pattern of interpretation according to which Islam provokes fear, and concluded that it would be better to anticipate this scenario and avoid conflicts by modifying her behavior. Sahla conforms to the norm of discretion, which is prevalent in the French context, choosing not even to speak about religion in the workplace. The distinction between her professional and religious identity is a key characteristic of type 2: the individual seeks recognition as a colleague while not wanting to be either a role model or a representative of Islam.

4.3

Type 3: Lebensführung with Flexible Boundaries Between the Spheres

Here, the spheres of action and values are neither permanently connected nor strictly separated. They overlap in certain aspects and situations. This type most clearly reflects the conditions of the occupational field that I mentioned above. In contrast to France, faith-based employers in Germany are relatively open to religious diversity. Ece’s religious affiliation was even a condition of her employment. Her employer associated Muslim belonging with certain professional skills and attitudes in the management of elderly care services that consider religious needs. A characteristic feature of this type of Lebensführung is that religion and work intertwine temporarily and in certain aspects, in such a way that might 12 Nevertheless, she states that there is compatibility between her religious and professional values, due to her chosen vocation. However, this leads neither to a merging of spheres (as in type 1) nor to conflicts in professional activity (as seen in type 3).

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result in conflicting demands. The entanglement between the two spheres is not a fixed arrangement, but requires boundary work, situational negotiations, and compromises. In addition, this requires a certain flexibility and capability to endure ambiguity and even ambivalence. The intertwining of the spheres might also involve religious practices and religious values. Ece describes herself as a cultural Muslim and occasionally prays in her free time. In her professional context, she sometimes refers to a cultural habit, the enunciation of the Basmala,13 which provides her with optimism of action. This marriage of religious and professional actions requires further negotiations: Ece has to deal with the puzzlement of her colleagues, who do not perceive her as a Muslim and who see this practice as contradicting her identity. Ece draws situational boundaries. She decides when her religious competence is part of her work and, when she is exposed to attributions by her environment, she acts appropriately and professionally. She establishes a strict limit when she is asked to act as an expert for the group of Muslims. In another situation, she puts her religious affiliation at the service of her work by mobilizing religious arguments to convince a group of elderly and Muslim clients of the need for preventive health care. Unlike type 1, type 3 does not fuse the spheres through a life project, but seeks a dynamic balance between religion and work. Like type 2, individuals with this arrangement do not want to represent the Muslims as a group but do seek personal recognition.

5

Discussion

My analysis shows three types of Lebensführung related to work and religion both in France and Germany, which I will briefly discuss in connection with other findings. Contrary to the hegemonic discourse on labor market integration, being both a Muslim and active in the professional world is feasible but requires effort. The experience of crises resulting from the negative perceptions of Islamic norms and values can contribute to creative arrangements with regard to work and religion. The global life project (type 1) is a particularly creative solution to such challenges. The existence of different types demonstrates that not every Muslim woman experiences incompatibility or difficulties in reconciling employment 13 The Basmala literally means “in the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate”. The Prophet Mohammed is said to have stated that any ethically or religiously permissible action should be preceded by the words “bismillah”, which blesses the action. (Heinzmann et al. 2013, 108 f.).

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with religious observance. The absence of conflict can also result from conduct that follows societal norms in which religion and work are separate spheres and religiosity is not a central subject within an occupational milieu (type 2). People who have developed a certain routine to deal with any such difficulties might not experience stigmatization or discrimination in a traumatic way: this implies a mode of behavior that anticipates and thus avoids conflicts. To conclude, I will identify common features that influence the life conduct of Muslim women. These features are present across the types presented above and do not influence how religion and work are arranged in France and Germany specifically. Individual Lebensführung develops in the interplay of societal and cultural conditions on the one hand, and biographical dynamics embedded in family continuities and discontinuities as a result of migration on the other. It is also important to consider how individuals deal with social and material living conditions, and what material, social and emotional resources are available to them. As my findings indicate, neither the milieu of origin nor the society can be identified as clearly hindering or promoting the development of a person’s autonomy and professional integration. Rather, in a double embedding of Lebensführung, resources and restrictions arise both in the milieu of origin and in the host society. Among the resources, I have identified intergenerational continuity as a marker of successful religious transmission. I also found continuity in the patterns of action for dealing with negative ascriptions from society that were established in the milieu of origin. This background determines whether the negotiations are rather professional, routinized, or conflictual. Sahla builds on a successful religious transmission although she also understands the difficulties that Muslims face when interacting with the mainstream society, especially concerning the wearing of the headscarf. Her practical knowledge of ways of dealing with these difficulties facilitates her negotiations and enables her to adapt her behavior and thus avoid conflicts and emotional struggles. With findings similar to those in resilience research (Alicke et al. 2009), I have demonstrated that the act of successfully dealing with one’s own differences requires the development of personal skills. Ece acquired self-reflexivity through a long autobiographical examination of the difference that she experienced as a crisis during her adolescence. The practice of self-positioning within the framework of professional socialization further promotes the development of personal competencies that support dealing with difference. Furthermore, Ece’s studies of political and educational science provided ideas and theories that lead to a certain understanding of her own life. This competency in productively handling barriers can be called “biographical agency” (Schittenhelm 2011, p. 106). The productive use of opportunities for reflection further promotes the development

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of this competency. This is particularly true when the opportunities for reflection are associated with situations in which difference is experienced as problematic. These situations may then be used as the basis for ongoing reflections on the perception of others, one’s own way of reacting, and the reactions that this provokes in others. Resentment towards Islam and Muslim identities is a common feature of both countries. Although headscarf-related discrimination also occurs in Germany, the French context can be considered more restrictive in this regard. In France, attempts have been made to ban the headscarf from public spaces, and freedom of religion has a weaker protective status there. Yet, national differences do not directly influence the genesis of a type. Djamila is hardly affected by the restrictive legal situation in France as her headscarf is tacitly accepted during the sporadic assignments from the temporary employment agency. This may also be due to the fact that she wraps her headscarf into a turban and wears it in an aesthetically pleasing combination with her striking, colorful, African-influenced clothing style, thus embodying a lifestyle adapted to modern society. Her way of self-expression is not a conflict-avoiding adaptation, but rather punctuated by an explicit desire for distinction in two directions (milieu and society). Sahla, who chooses the conflict-avoiding option, was socialized in the restrictive French context and accepts that the visibility of religious practice is subject to restrictions in certain contexts such as at school. The comparison of these two French cases shows that there is more than one way to ensure compatibility. In contrast to Sahla, who neutralizes her religiosity in the professional context, Djamila deals well with the difficulty of being a Muslim in France by fusing spheres. Although the difficulty of being a covered Muslim is clearly demonstrated in Sahla’s biography, she copes with it without any significant impact on her engagement with the professional sphere, which remains separated from the religious one. This might be due to the fact that, in contrast to Djamila, she has experienced no biographical crises related to her professional trajectory. In closing, the particular arrangement of religion and work depends on much more than the extent to which (the visibility of) Muslim religiosity is embedded in society, including the legal and social restrictions. Muslim women are not at the mercy of occupational and social conditions. Rather, they are empowered actors who establish their own biographical relevance in relation to religion and profession.

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Young Male Salafis in Germany—Ticking Bombs? A Biographical Approach Gritt Klinkhammer

Abstract

Religious radicalization is a phenomenon of great interest in security policy, especially when it comes to Salafists. In my contribution, however, I argue for looking less for general ideal–typical and all too general trajectories of a turn to Salafism, but rather for tracking down the concrete initiating biographical and discursive contexts of the attractiveness of Salafism for the young men. I do so by means of biographical research informed by discourse theory. In particular, the question will be answered as to which social positions the young Salafists (can) take or are assigned, and under which conditions and possibilities. This leads to a more contextual understanding of the adoption of a Salafi identity and its conditions in the cases treated exemplarily here. I will draw on data collected during a one-year field research in an Arabic- and German-speaking Salafi mosque community, at the end of which biographical interviews were also conducted with some of its members. The analysis of the three biographical cases can show to what extent it can be said that the young men who turned to Salafism must be understood as “ticking bombs” and which concrete social and discursive dynamics led to this. G. Klinkhammer (B) FB 09 Kulturwissenschaften, Institut für Religionswissenschaft und Religionspädagogik, Universität Bremen, Bremen, Germany E-Mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 C. Gärtner and H. Winkel (eds.), Exploring Islam beyond Orientalism and Occidentalism, Veröffentlichungen der Sektion Religionssoziologie der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-33239-6_12

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Keywords

Islam • Salafism • Religious Radicalization • Germany • Biography and Religion

1

Introduction

The list of publications on Salafism is quite long; so we can find a canon of literature about the prevention of Islamic radicalization, although empirical research on Salafism is still rare (Biene and Junk 2017). Among the earliest and most influential pieces of empirical research on Salafism is a study conducted by the Islam scholar Quintan Wictorowitz (2006); he established a typology of Salafism which distinguishes three emic, mutually exclusive factions according to their ideology: the “purist” or “quietists”, the “politicos”, and the “Jihadis”. This typology was worked out in the context of the development of Salafism in Saudi Arabia, and Wictorowitz therefore relates these types to the debates in that country. The most important factor leading to the distinction between different factions of Salafism was the (state-declared) fatwa permitting the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf war: the “politicos” criticized this decision and, unlike the mainstream, state-promoted “purists”, said that they have a moral responsibility to discuss politics and express criticism of un-Islamic rulers and policies (Wictorowitz 2006, p. 222). The “purist” faction, on the other hand, has a “strong tendency towards isolationism” (ibid., p. 219) with regard to all worldly, non-Salafi life. According to Wictorowitz, the “Jihadi” faction emerged when the Saudis repressed political dissidents in the mid-1990s. Hence, for the “Jihadis”, the “purists” represent the “scholars of the power” in Saudi Arabia (ibid., p. 227). Wictorowitz thus drew a clear historical-political line between the types. However, these lines were blurred when the regime change in Egypt in 2012 suddenly turned the “purists” into “politicos” (Sedgwick 2014, p. 60). Thus, “purist” Salafists in Germany today are also always suspected of being capable of switching sides at any time, and of becoming a “politico” or even an active “Jihadi” Salafist, with purist Salafism therefore being understood as the first step to a violent Islam. Yet, the examples of Saudi Arabia and Egypt show that the religious ideology of Salafism alone is not sufficient to explain such shifts from religion to political and violent activism. In this respect, ‘religious radicalization’ as a model to explain the question, “What is going on before the bomb goes off?” (Sedgwick 2010, p. 479), does not seem sufficient; rather, what is called for is an analysis of the perception of concrete social problem fields that young Salafists

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face. With my contribution, I address these aspects and the question of how far we can speak at all of young Salafist men as ‘ticking bombs’. I do so in the following by means of biographical research informed by discourse theory, thereby focusing on the personal articulations of meaning as well as on their relation to existing discourses. In particular, the question will be answered as to which social positions the young Salafists (can) take or are assigned to, and under which conditions and possibilities. This should lead to a more contextual understanding of the adoption of a Salafi identity and its conditions in the cases treated exemplarily here. I will draw on data collected during a one-year field research in an Arabicand German-speaking Salafi mosque community, at the end of which biographical interviews were also conducted with some of its members. Before doing so, I will take a short look at Salafism in Germany and at what is understood by Salafism there: namely, religious fundamentalism, extremism, mainstream Islam, and youth protest culture (2). After a methodological look at approaches to Islam and adolescence, and a reflection on the biographical approach (3), I will present three case studies (4). Finally, I will discuss the results in relation to the question posed in the title: namely, whether Salafists should be seen as ‘ticking bombs’ (5).1

2

Salafism in Germany: Fundamentalism, Extremism, Mainstream Islam, or Youth Protest Culture?

Originally, the term ‘Salafi’ was applied to Muslims who strive to be pious and allegiant, like the companions of the prophet Muhammad. They search for perfection in devotion to God, as every believer should. Currently, the term is not cited without reference to the ‘fastest growing radical religious groups of recent years’, as the German security agency puts it. For the first time in 2011, the number of Salafists was recorded by the Verfassungsschutz (Office for the Protection of the Constitution) at 8,300. After the initially strong growth of the movement, increase slowed down somewhat. According to the Verfassungsschutz, the estimated total number of Salafists in Germany was about 11,300 in 2018 (Verfassungsschutzbericht 2018, p. 176). Since 2012, around 1,050 of these have attempted to travel to Syria and Iraq to fight for IS (ibid., p. 173). After the defeat of IS, Germany now expects many to return, including children who have been raised 1I

want to thank here especially one of the editors, Christel Gärtner, for her constructive critical remarks and our discussions of the paper.

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under the IS ideology. The Salafists examined in this chapter live in Germany and are first-generation followers of IS.

2.1

Fundamentalism

In public discussion in Germany, ‘Salafi’ has replaced the terms Islamic ‘fundamentalism’ and ‘Islamist extremism’. Besides criticism of its essentialized and undifferentiated usage,2 the term has been clarified sociologically by Martin Riesebrodt (2004), who identifies three structural characteristics of the fundamentalism of modern religious movements: first, resolving “a perceived dramatic crisis by an uncompromising return to supposed eternal sacred principles, orders or laws” (Riesebrodt 2004, p. 18; my translation). Second, shaping an idea of utopia which refers to a myth of origin (mythischer Regress) that leads to legal rigor and literalism, and third, shaping a ‘cultural milieu’, which focuses on social and moral behavior more than on political subjects. It is transnational, ranges across classes, and is not social-revolutionary. Rather, as a form of controlling the social order, it is often radically patriarchal and morally restrictive. Within this definition, every religious community or tradition would be capable of turning to fundamentalism. For Riesebrodt, religious fundamentalism can thus only be understood in its concrete social context and its embedding in modernity. If we look at its underlying doctrines, then we can describe the ideology of Salafism—and especially how it is spread in Europe—as such a fundamentalization of Islam. One of the most popular works among Salafists in Europe is by the Salafist Sheyck Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips, The Fundamentals of Tawheed (Islamic Monotheism, 2011). According to Philips, the right understanding of Islam centers on the oneness of God, which leads the believer to avoid all behavior that is not mentioned in the Quran, or is not sunna3 because it could be shirk, which means that it is contrary to the subordination to and worship of God. Hence, it follows that many forms of secular behavior, such as music or dance, as well as any innovation in religion, is generally prohibited and declared to be bida (sin). Philips often emphasizes in his book that the current world is in a crisis caused not only by unbelief in God, but also by the false belief of many Muslim ulema (scholars) and their followers. He understands the history of religion on the whole as a process of ‘degeneration and regeneration’: “Man began as a monotheist, but 2 Riesebrodt

(2004) discusses the criticisms levelled at the terms ‘fundamentalism’ and ‘Islamism’. On Salafism, see Meijer (2009) and Sedwick (2014). 3 This means the Prophet Muhammad’s traditional behaviour and statements.

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in time strayed into various forms of polytheism” (Philips 2011, p. 205).4 The aim is to transform Muslim behavior into the ‘perfect model’ of the al-salaf as-salih, those Muslim ancestors who lived together with Islam’s prophet Muhammad or in the next generation. Imposing this model of origins onto the present is only possible by practicing Islam daily in a relentless pursuit of perfection. Hence, there is hardly any excuse for not adhering to the ritual duties of praying five times a day. Furthermore, the separation of the sexes is extraordinarily strict, and the rules for encounters between men and women are highly ritualized and restricted. Women have to wear not only a headscarf, as is common in several Muslim groups, but the niqab, which is a garment that covers the whole body except for the eyes. A wife should leave the house only with the permission of her husband. A man’s appearance is also restricted: a man should not shave his beard and should also cover his body with traditional clothes and/or ankle-length trousers. Thus, several characteristics of religious fundamentalism can be seen in the ideology of Salafism, but that does not explain why so many young men are attracted to the movement.

2.2

Extremism

Ideologically, most Salafists refer to the Wahabiyya of Saudi Arabia, which is based on the most conservative Muslim madhab (legal school) of Ibn Hanbal (died 855), since it avoids other ways of finding sharia—the right way in Islam—than the literal interpretation of the Quran and sunna; nonetheless, there has been (and still is) much debate within these Salafist groups concerning the right interpretation (e.g. Meijer 2009). Such debate relates especially to those readings which refer to questions surrounding the limits of being a Muslim as opposed to a kafir (unbeliever), and to how far a Muslim should be loyal to a sinful Muslim ruler rather than oppose him. It was from some of these Muslim communities identified as Salafist that people from all over the world were recruited to fight for the extremist, highly militant group IS. Many are converts from Europe and especially from Germany. Peter Neumann, director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence (London), stated in a German radio 4 In this framework, Christianity, for example, is understood as the change from a monotheistic

Judaism to a polytheistic Christianity (‘tritheism’; ibid., p. 206). The degeneration leads for some believers to the task of regeneration by living the perfect model of original Islam, and by da’wa (‘inviting’ others to Islam). For others, degeneration leads to the apocalyptic last battle between the unbelievers and the righteous ones. For them, da’wa is only one of the necessary consequences of degeneration, the other being to leave the periphery and move to the centre in order to fight the last battle in the holy land of Syria.

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interview: “If you’re looking for potential terrorists, you’ll find them among the Salafis. Practically all European Jihadis are radicalized by Salafism”.5 Some researchers have examined this statement in a very narrow way by establishing general theories on the radicalization profile of Salafists and concluded that profiling is not possible for this clientele (Precht 2007, p. 6; Silber and Bhatt 2007, p. 8). They have therefore constructed a general process model to explain how people are radicalized, and to identify the “incubators” (Silber and Bhatt 2007) or “triggers”, “background” and “opportunity” factors (Precht 2007), which foster the process. Such models work with generalized stages such as: a) pre-radicalization, b) self-identification or conversion, c) indoctrination, and d) jihadization. The religious ideology can take on an important meaning as an “incubator”, “trigger”, “background factor”, or “opportunity factor” (Silber and Bhatt 2007). The Danish researcher on terrorism, Tomas Precht, has noticed that many young, male Jihadis have a migration background, live in relative deprivation, and have experienced discrimination (Precht 2007, pp. 42ff.). “However, it is important to note that these background factors only are indicative. Most Muslims or converts who live in deprived areas and have an identity crisis, feel discriminated against etc., do not turn into terrorists” (Precht 2007, p. 83). We therefore need to know more about the process of attraction with regard to Salafism.

2.3

Mainstream Islam

It is especially fruitful to take note of research which focuses not only on Salafi groups, but also on trans-confessional Islam in Germany, such as the work of Paula Schrode (2010) and Susanne Schröter (2014). Schrode conducted research on practices and ideas with regard to Islamic dietary law in Germany, and analyzed interviews and chat threads to explore discourses within Islam on correct life practices. In so doing, she showed how dietary law has become a central moral issue of ibadat, the practice of piety of a Muslim, which is deemed a rule determined by God and not a need or habitus of the individual believer. Thus, many Muslims like to follow Quranic rules as a means to gratify “religious ambition” and to gain “religious prestige” (Schrode 2010). That these rules set them apart from the majority of people in Germany is not intended but is accepted. What is especially interesting here is that this orientation to rules is not only a specific habitus within particular and explicit fundamentalist groups, but also an ideal of

5 Cited

after Steffen (2015, p. 10; my translation).

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trans-confessional piety for many believing and practicing mainstream Muslims in Germany. Schröter’s fieldwork (2014) in a German city also showed broad acceptance of traditional rules, especially concerning the inequality of the sexes, regardless of to which Muslim community they belong.6 However, such research raises the question of why and how this orientation to abstract rules for piety has developed. Schröter explains this orientation by pointing to a lack of education regarding Islam. That may be the case, but there are also many opportunities to gain a liberal Islamic education. I claim that this development indicates that the rise of Salafism in Germany as a fundamentalist, rigid and one-sided version of cultivating piety (Dogan 2014), and as a “self-chosen marginalization” (Olsson 2014, p. 90) within Sunni Islam, has to be contextualized in a more general way by taking into account discourses and contexts in our society.

2.4

Youth Protest Culture

Other scholars stress that Salafism should be understood above all as a youth protest movement. Young people want to express opposition to society through religion (El-Mafaalani 2014; Nordbruch et al. 2014). They wish to provoke the adult world, which they can hardly do with less radical means today. Their core idea consists in provocation through “asceticism” and “ideological nostalgia” (ElMafaalani 2017, p. 79; Toprak and Weitzel 2017, p. 54), both of which are in the social trend towards movements critical of capitalism and consumption; but, in contrast to other subcultures, these are taken up in Salafism across the classes and thus also by young people in the lower classes (Toprak and Weitzel 2017, p. 54). If young people with a higher level of education felt attracted, this would only apply to those who had not received the appropriate recognition in society. According to El-Mafaalani (2017, p. 79), professor of education, young people who become Salafists misunderstand their “self-determined exclusion” as autonomy, experience their strong demarcation from the dominant, consumer-friendly youth culture as “self-efficacy”, and develop a “feeling of belonging” through the close community of Salafists. Claudia Dantschke (2014), a former researcher on

6 However,

Schröter’s data collection and analysis are methodologically unclear and opaque in her book, and are therefore scientifically difficult to classify. Thus, we can note her findings only as special example here, but not generalize them.

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Islam and now head of an institution for the prevention of Salafism, also emphasizes the fortified victim mentality that Salafist preachers awaken among young people. These explanatory patterns seem to fit well with behavior in the Salafist scene. It is questionable, however, whether the ascetic perspective really ties in with discourses critical of capitalism, or whether it does not tie in better with discourses on a ‘clash of cultures’ (Huntington 1996). Also, the element of provocation, which is certainly perceived as such by the majority of people in society, seems to have more to do with the associated readiness of IS to use violence than with an asceticism regarding social consumption, which is otherwise perceived quite positively by at least some members of society. Moreover, such an explanation cannot account for why non-migrant young people also feel attracted to Salafism. The question also arises as to whether ‘youth culture’ means that, with adulthood, the development of these Salafist men can be reversed, and that they can be guided back into the mainstream.

3

The Biographical Approach

3.1

Biography, Islam, and Adolescence

Autobiographical storytelling implies a historically presupposed concept of self, especially if it is to serve as a medium of self-reflection (Gärtner 2018). Detached from its historical roots, biographical narrative today has its place as a methodological means of self-presentation in very different contexts. Monika Wohlrab-Sahr emphasizes that, given the current functional differentiation of modern society and the different requirements and rules of the subsystems, the biography is becoming the favored medium for creating a meaningful unit of the self in general. In this respect, it is more and more up to the individual “to reflect on her biography in order to provide such an integrative capacity herself, i.e. to find a pattern of interpretation for her own life that is capable of integrating a wide variety of experiences” (Wohlrab-Sahr 1995, pp. 16–17; my translation). Such biographically meaningful achievements do not have to take place today in the form of religion, but they can—as long as religion shifts to the individually moving themes of love, death, and relationships (Luckmann 1991). Wohlrab-Sahr and Frank (2018, pp. 451–452) also emphasize that it is especially critical life events that initiate biographical reflection and that may call on religion. Religion basically functions as an open resource for different solutions to crises in modernity, depending on what individuals and groups perceive as a crisis, and which

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position they perceive themselves as inhabiting socially or are perceived by others as inhabiting (Klinkhammer et al. 2020). Islam as a religion plays a specific role in Germany. Public and political debates that categorize Islam as ‘other’ and that reject the idea that it ‘belongs’ have been converging for some time.There is, for example, a recurrent debate about whether Islam belongs to Germany or not,7 which illustrates that ‘Muslim alterity’ is basically understood as an essential cultural-religious identity and constituent of a different social order. The narratives within this discourse on ‘Muslim alterity’ focus above all on three issues: the integration of needy migrants in debates on integration, the female victims of Islam in feminist debates, and Islam as a potential threat in debates on security policy (Akbulut 2017). In this situation, the adolescence of young male Muslim migrants is more difficult than that of non-Muslims in Germany. Young Muslims are doubly challenged in their adolescence, because as a rule they are not granted self-evident identification with German society. Rather, in the social discourse of devaluation of the foreign other and revaluation of one’s own identity, there arises a ‘compulsion to unambiguous conduct’ and to taking an explicit position—especially for migrants with an Islamic background, regarding Islam in particular (Geisen 2010, and also Gärtner and Ergi 2017). Accordingly, in the following case studies, the articulated self-positioning within Salafism in the biographies will not be read simply as the acceptance of cultural patterns of a strict Islam, but rather as the consequence of the respective confrontation with those social discourses together with family socialization backgrounds and personal challenges in adolescence. In general today, adolescence is a particularly condensed phase when the individual searches for her own identity independent of parents. Shaped by the urge for freedom and independence, the individual experiences processes of detachment from the family and the quest to try out new relationships on her own as being just as important as the testing of boundaries and the search for independent positions and positioning in society. The educationists Paul Mecheril and Britta Hoffarth emphasize that adolescence is to be understood as a life context “in which the individual is encouraged to engage intensively with her relationship to herself, a self-reference that occurs in relation to relevant social contexts” (2006, p. 222). The main aim for the adolescent is to engage in the social interplay of knowledge and non-knowledge, of the familiar and the unfamiliar, and of social 7 Repeated and rejected by several politicians and recently debated in 2018 by Horst Seehofer

(CSU, Minister of the Interior), as well as by several politicians of the right-wing party the AfD.

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belonging and non-belonging. In this way, she experiences the dominant social rules of belonging and implicit as well as explicit rules, and is confronted with the task of positioning herself within them. Ultimately, it is a question of searching for membership of a group ‘as an equal among equals’, in which the power to act and thus experience self-efficacy can be developed and solidarity experienced (ibid.). From this perspective, it becomes clear that the experience of belonging and inclusion in social contexts has a decisive influence on the phase of adolescence. Moreover, in this respect, the situation of migration for adolescents can under certain circumstances complicate this process of searching for social belonging independent of family, and of experiencing self-efficacy in the framework of society (Günther et al. 2010)—and all the more since interactive and social positions are always also contextualized in an “ethnicized and racist space of discursive and imaginary practices” (Mecheril and Hoffarth 2006, p. 235; my translation). In this dynamic, Islam is impactful not only as a religious, but also always as a cultural, attribution of identity, which is not arbitrarily interchangeable.

3.2

Biographies as Data

Biography, as a resource and pattern of order for the individualized creation of meaning in the modern age, is now to be used for the analysis of the adolescent search for belonging. Biography then serves as the interface between individual and society: in the biographical narrative, the researcher tries to trace the ‘processlike intertwining of individuation and socialization’ (Alheit and Dausien 2009). Therefore, in social and cultural studies, a ‘biography’ is not simply understood as a reservoir of subjective expression, but first and foremost as a social construct. The biography shows that “the individual structuring and processing of experiences in social contexts produce patterns, but always refer to social rules, discourses and social conditions, which in turn can be structurally described and reconstructed with the help of biographical analyses of individual cases” (Dausien et al. 2009, pp. 7–8). In other words, a biography is always at the same time an expression of a subjective and unique life story, which also relates to “social rules, discourses and social conditions” (ibid.). In the biography, the individual and society are thus closely linked, and biographical research therefore looks at precisely the specific connection or confrontation between the two. “Accordingly, a narrated life story can be described as the interaction of social rules of discourse and the resulting framings in the present situation of the interview, in the past of biographical experience, and in situations in which at another point in time the

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experienced has already been discussed or thought about” (Spies 2017, p. 70; my translation). Along with the sociologists Tina Spies (2017) and Reiner Keller (2012), I understand biographical research as a kind of discourse analysis in which the impact of social discourses can be demonstrated empirically by examining which subject positions are adopted or rejected by the interviewees (Spies 2017, p. 84). Such an approach claims that subjects are decentralized and driven by powerful social discourses, while also not completely foregoing the actor—the subject—as the driving force: “social actors actualize discourses, fill them with life, challenge them, transcend them—but do not control them” (Keller 2012, p. 74; my translation). For this kind of biographical discourse analysis, Tina Spies draws on Stuart Hall’s remarks on the unfinished nature of discourses, which makes it possible to create new subject positions in which the individual is ‘called upon’ or in which the individual can also invest. The positioning of the subject is not freely selectable, but conditioned by the discourses: in order to be able to say something, one must take a position within or at least in relation to the discourse. Yet, the discourses are many, just as the positioning are many, and no human being can be reduced to a single subject position. This also results in a certain degree of freedom for the subject to create her own modes of articulation within various, also overlapping positions. According to Hall (1996), the process of subjectivation is an act not only of acceptance of and identification with public discourses and practices, but also of articulation and positioning. This implies questions of “how they fashion, stylize, produce and ‘perform’ these positions, and why they never do so completely, for once and all time, and some never do, or are in a constant, agonistic struggle with, resisting, negotiating and accommodating the normative and regulative rules with which they confront or regulate themselves” (Hall 1996, p. 14). Positioning, then, is neither a stable nor a passive condition, but an active, contingent, contextual, and fluid process, one in which the individual is addressed by several antagonistic or contradictory discourses and practices at the same time or in different situations, and has to imagine and create her own position within these discourses (Hall 1996, pp. 7ff.). For Hall, this decentralization of the subject does not mean its dissolution (as it does for Foucault), but rather its construction as an articulation, which is related to but does not necessarily correspond with the discourse formations. In the following, I view positioning as a biographical process and negotiation with public discourses and practices, and try to find central ‘points of suture’ (Hall 1996, pp. 7ff.) within the biographical narratives of the young Salafi men in order

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to comprehend their social positioning. To do so, I ask how these young men articulate their adoption of Salafism. How is this involved with public discourses and practices, with discourses on and of Islam as well as Salafi discourses, and with practices in family, peer group, education, and society?

3.3

Surveying and Interpreting the Data

The following analysis is based on data gathered from about a year of fieldwork in a Salafi mosque in Germany in 2014–2015, as well as on narrative interviews with four young male Salafists from this community. Both types of data were collected in my working group.8 The interviews needed the permission of the imam of the Salafi mosque, and were finally conducted at the end of the fieldwork. The interview partners were selected by one of the members of the Arabic language and aqida9 course, who was the imam’s confidential advisor and who was the first to give an interview. It was apparent that the other three interviewees had asked about this first interview, and that they were at first very reluctant to participate. In general, conducting the interviews was only possible because of the interviewer’s relationship with the group as such. The interviewer had shown interest in the young men’s everyday concerns, and now and then coached them for their school examinations. He also accepted their help while learning Arabic, because some of them were advanced learners or native speakers of Arabic. Thus, the interviews can be understood as a kind of gift in return (‘Gegengabe’) from the group to the interviewer for dealing with them on an equal basis—even if they do not accept each other’s positions on religion and secularity, and seldom discussed these issues. Nonetheless, one can clearly notice that they also like to be asked about and to talk about their lives. Three of the four interviews lasted more than two hours. In the following, I refer only to three interviews. The fourth is shorter, the man just 18, and his life course at a turning point. This would be interesting to look at separately, but I cannot do so here. The present sample is therefore not the product of systematic sampling; but, even though these three men cannot represent all Salafists in Germany, they are very interesting cases that can help us understand what young men are dealing with in their lives. 8 My

thanks go especially to Till Peters for providing the data, as well as to Habiba Rode for supporting the research in various phases. Laura Dickmann has conducted further empirical research. She conducted fieldwork for around two years by contacting several young female Salafists in Germany, and she is currently analyzing the narrative interviews with them. 9 Course on the basic beliefs of Islam such as the conception of God and the divinity of the Quran.

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Each interview is a narrative interview, focusing to begin with on introducing the person and on the question of how they came to Salafism. This opening phase led to further questions on the basis of the narratives or information given. The three cases can only be presented here fragmentarily, and with a focus on some selected issues. I reconstructed their biographical paradigms of meaning and structures of decision-making (Strauss and Corbin 1996). Moreover, I examined the biographical narratives to see what positions they feel are assigned to them by others, or what discourses they ‘called upon’ when speaking and what positioning they adopt or rearticulate (Spies 2010, pp. 144ff.). In the following presentation of the cases, I will first focus on the biographical narratives that deal with the turn to Islam. All three interviewees use their history of turning to Islam as one of the central structures of their biographical narrative, alongside their educational career and their relationship to their family.

4

The Case Studies

All three male Salafists10 attend the same mosque, which can generally be seen as Salafi. During Ramadan, the mosque has up to a thousand visitors from Russia, the North of Africa, and Saudi Arabia, besides an inner circle of German-speaking Muslims from several different national backgrounds. The interviewees were selected in late 2016 and early 2017 from a circle of regular German-speaking attendees. The three interviewees are: First, Arif, whose parents came to Germany as Lebanese refugees at the end of the 1980s, but were in fact Arab-Kurds from Turkey. He was born in Germany, and is the fourth of seven siblings. His father died when he was around eight. His interest in Islam started at around the age of 20. At the time of the interview, he was 24 years old and a student of engineering. Second, Faris, who was born in Germany as the youngest of three siblings and without any migration background. Born into a secular Christian family, he converted to Salafism at the age of 16. At the time of the interview, he was 19 years old and had just married and was planning to go to Saudi Arabia to study Islam. Third, Navid, whose parents are Shiites who escaped from Iran in 1999 and had temporarily converted to Christianity. He was 21 years old and studying economics at the time of the interview. He adopted Salafism at the age of 17, together

10 All

interviews are anonymized.

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with his younger brother. Later, his mother turned back to Shia Islam. At the time of the interview, his father had been in Iran for about a year.

4.1

Arif—“I Was Always Ashamed that I as a Muslim didn’t Know What to Do”

4.1.1 Arif’s Story of Turning to Islam Arif was born in Germany as the son of so-called Arab Kurds from Turkey, a special ethnic group called Mhallami, who speak a special Arabic dialect (but often almost no Turkish) and come originally from Lebanon.11 When Arif’s family came to Germany at the end of the 1980s, they soon obtained a private flat in a quarter where hardly any other foreigners were living. At home, Arif learnt to speak only the Mhallami-Arab dialect. His parents were probably barely able to read and write themselves. Arif talked also about the family’s difficulty in being acknowledged as refugees later in the 1990s. At that time, the father fell seriously ill and then became confused, Arif said. In the end, the father was shot by police because he was apparently threatening people with a weapon. This all happened while Arif was at primary school. School was an unhappy time for Arif: “for me it was: oh, in school you’re labelled stupid, you’ve always been the stupid one”. He always received poor grades, particularly in German and later in English, which he was able to make up for with better grades in mathematics. Finally, his school career was successful. After finishing school after class nine and without other plans, Arif was sent to a school for pupils with learning difficulties. After a few months there, it became clear that this was not the right school for him, and he fought to return to a ‘normal’ secondary school. At this secondary school, he also had regular work placements at a mechanical engineering company. He enjoyed this very much. He told the interviewer that his line manager was impressed by his hard work, reliability, and intelligence. He was offered a job in the company, which he accepted.

11 This group settled in southeast Turkey and grasped the opportunity in the Lebanon War to enter Germany legally as Turks and then destroy their passports in order to apply for asylum as refugees from Lebanon. Many such cases were brought to court – including that of Arif’s parents – but they were still shown tolerance because they could not be sent back to either Turkey or Lebanon without a passport. The problem that is still current today is that such tolerance did not provide a work permit for the first generation. A criminal clan structure has developed within large parts of this Lebanese-Turkish community in Germany. On the specific history of the Mhallami, see Ghadban 2000.

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After this, though, he struggled not only to do the job, but also to obtain a proper training—at the end with success. In Arif’s story, it is striking that he obviously could not gain anything from school, and nor had he developed a plan for his future; but he fought against being labelled as a student with special needs or as someone who was generally stupid. He also tried to convince the manager to give him a traineeship in the company and not just an unskilled job. This story shows his understanding of his positioning in Germany in two ways. First, he understood the demands made on qualified work in Germany, and generally he was motivated to take his life in his own hands and be a success. Second, his strong fight for a regular traineeship can also be understood as a reaction to his experience of exclusion as a child with poor secondary-school qualifications and a history of remedial teaching in his youth: they told us quite frankly then: you won’t become anything (…). You’ll be lucky to get a cleaning job somehow, you’re that bad.

Arif’s opportunities were reduced by his poor knowledge of German (he only learned Mhallami at home), so he had to work everything out for himself. But, precisely because of this, he learned that his actions could lead to success. Thus, he learned that he must actively work himself out of his deprived position. While the practical part of his job training in the company was successful, he failed again at school. He explained this to the interviewer: “I still had my deficiencies (…), because I didn’t know the principle of learning”. His employer advised him to take support lessons. The tutor Tobi, Arif said, was a “cool guy” who helped him. Even though Arif later said that these lessons only helped a little, his grades improved. In the end, he achieved the highest grade in the final examination. How had this come about if it wasn’t through the tutoring? Arif told us that a Muslim family had moved into their neighborhood during the job training. Their son took him with them to the mosque. Even if not practicing, Arif still identified himself as a Muslim, and so he was curious, but also ashamed that he did not know how to pray. He first took lessons from the Internet, and then he went every now and again to the mosque together with his new friend. Half a year later, he decided: “If I do it anyway, come on, then now you do it right”. He seems to be pointing out here that he already feels a strong sense of belonging (do it anyway) and that he really wants to become involved now and wants to take his ‘being’ Muslim into his own hands. He started a course in Arabic in the mosque and took lessons in aqida (the right doctrine of Islam). He was soon in the inner circle of the German-speaking imam, probably because of his

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fast progress in Arabic (which he was already able to speak on a conversational level, but was probably still unable to read and write), and his reliability. (…) and then, in school it started to be, anyhow it spontaneously started to get better. I wrote better examinations. I just achieved higher grades, I did then anyhow, because I then started to read Islamic books in German.

He stated that his understanding of written texts developed as well, and that he used German more frequently, which improved his speaking and understanding of the language. I don’t know, then directly half a year after starting to practice – boom! The average of my grades changed from 3.8 to 2.3 or so (…). Then I went to my boss and he said: What are you doing? Did you fuck your teacher or why have you suddenly got these good grades? I answered: no idea, yes, I am learning, I’m doing something.

Even at home, things were improving. At first, his mother was very critical of his strict way of practicing Islam, praying five times a day and of frequently going to the mosque, he said. Now they get on well with each other, because Arif helps his mother and is more polite to her than before. Arif says that this is because Islam demands that a person respects his or her mother. It is obvious that the culture ascribed to his home receives a new relevance in his life, which he can therefore encounter positively. Meanwhile, two of his brothers are also going to the Salafi mosque, although they are not attending an aqida course. Arif’s tutor Tobi encouraged him to continue school in order to gain qualifications for university and to start studying. In the end, he did both, even though it was a great challenge for him. Today, he is—rightly—very proud of his success. Some of his university professors were struck by his commitment to his studies. In the meantime, Arif says with pride, one of his brothers is also studying, and one of his younger sisters will gain qualifications for university directly from secondary school. She wants to study natural sciences. Another sister is also thinking about going back to school to gain her qualifications for university. All have found a new relationship to Islam, even if not all to Salafism. Today, Arif is not only a regular visitor to the Salafi mosque during the week, but also organizes workshops and other events for the community. He has become one of the imam’s ‘right hands’. Arif’s story sounds very difficult but successful, and all the more successful if we consider the special background of a refugee family with a language problem.

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4.1.2 Discourses and Positioning Arif tells several stories from which we can reconstruct his experiences and positioning. Within these narratives, I have identified two main discourses along with different kinds of positioning. First, it is clear that Arif refers in various narratives to the discourse of individual achievement as a value. He is willing to deliver such achievement, both through intensive learning—once he has found out how learning works—and through reliable and dedicated work. He also shows this commitment to achievement and consistent discipline in the aqida course (e.g. when reading German texts on Islam) and in regular prayer. Arif emphasizes how he taught himself for the university mathematics tests by watching YouTube videos. But he also makes clear that he is aware of the recognition that he receives from those supporting him, such as his tutor, his employer, and also some of the professors at university, and that he appreciates this recognition very much. In these situations, as Arif emphasizes, there is hardly any problem of exclusion or discrimination: what counts here is the performance that he delivers. The situation is more difficult with classmates, colleagues and fellow students. The other students had and have it easier from his point of view, because they come from a privileged background: It is one of the most difficult courses of study in all of Germany //yes// and that is what few people dare to do and most of those who do … For example, if I look now, now from outside of me, what, what stud… what does your dad do? Yes, my dad is, uh, is a doctor, has his doctorate in physics, works at Airbus. Your father? Is a pilot. Your father? Uh, what, uh no idea, somehow has his own company, somehow a metal company (…) OK, my dad… is… asylum (smiles) (…) could just feed here. And wait, well, these are just people who are so really … when they’re at home: Dad, here, explain this to me. Where the father might have studied physics himself or just came from academic families. (…) I notice that during my studies. Now in my studies I am almost always on my own. So I almost always learn, too.

Indeed, Arif has no supportive family background and his self-made career stands out from many others. He adds later, however, that he also has a support network among the ‘Muslim brothers’ who are studying electrical engineering at the same university in higher semesters, and who regularly give him past exam papers. This is a great support and makes coping with the very difficult course of studies much easier. We can already see here why adopting Islam is so important for Arif: Islam integrates him into a wide network of solidarity and support that compensates for the lack of family support structures that he thinks his fellow German students have from their families. However, Arif also points out that his commitment to the student group has no chance of success, because his appearance alone, which

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points to his belonging to Salafism, causes others to distance themselves from him. I still notice it in the university today, when they see me, with beard and so (…), I am undesirable when I come in.

He experiences no reciprocity of give-and-take, and thus no recognition as a member of the student group. He feels left out of his working group, because they never talk to him outside the seminar, they do not want to share anything with him (e.g. eating or even a pen), but take anything they can from him, always asking him about homework, questions in the tests, and so on, because, unlike the others in the group, he has not yet failed a single test: “they know I have the solution” and “I’m such an ass, when I have something, then I give it too”. He tells several stories about how he was willing to share something (knowledge or food) and how his fellow students only took advantage and were never willing to give anything in return or show any interest in him. Finally, he classifies his expectation or his desire to have social recognition, interest and friendly exchange with his fellow students as a habitus in Islam. Islam motivates him to share, but it also implies the expectation of reciprocity: to receive something from the others. Arif’s social clash is thus also justified in Islam; it gives him the moral edge over the others. Nevertheless, it is clear when relating such stories that he expects the non-Islamic interviewer to show total indignation. That is, he also knows that these stories cannot only be coded as Islamic morality. But he does not go into that and he does not complain about his treatment in the group. There seems to be no possibility for him to go beyond the positioning of exclusion and to claim that sharing among companions or friends is a general human value. Rather he picks up on the seemingly obvious anti-Islamic attitude of his fellow students and responds to it with just such an Islamic attitude and religio-cultural narrative: namely, that only Muslims share among friends and companions. The second story is more directly about the public discourse on Islam in general, especially with regard to the assumed misogyny of Islam: When Arif started practicing Islam (especially praying) at the end of his job training, he experienced great difficulties with his foreman. When the foreman discovered him praying, he began arguing with him in front of the others about the misogyny of Islam and called him a potential terrorist. Arif defended the idea of Islam and replied: “people like you are idiots in my eyes, they always only form their opinion from such newspapers”. Later, the tension between the two escalated again in the shower room. The foreman threatened him and kicked him off the company premises. The head of the company was absent, so Arif called the police, but they did not

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arrive. Fortunately for Arif, he only had a few more weeks in the job before the end of the job training, and he decided to start a one-year class with the aim of gaining a qualification for university. During the confrontation, he was unable to talk with the foreman and the other colleagues about Islam and its relationship to women. He felt powerless towards his colleagues and could not make his position clear. Nevertheless, he stresses that his colleagues ‘actually liked him’ and that he had done things together with them from time to time before his practicing of Islam—as long as these activities did not involve alcohol. The only position he was able to take in this dispute, though, was that of the misunderstood believer, who from his point of view had a positive image of women.12 This issue leads him again to a dispute in a student Whatsapp group, where, in an open argument with his fellow male students, he speaks out against sending pornographic material or jokes, because a woman is also a member of the group. What Arif does not reflect on with regard either to his work colleagues or his fellow students is the specific milieu to which the majority of mechanical engineers belong, a milieu not characterized by a high regard for women or an intensive reflection on social relationships. Arif is not able to take up this irony of the story, and he does not seem capable of expressing himself in a nuanced and personal way in the face of the accusations. The only consequence is that he makes clear that he felt and still feels that he belonged neither to the group of colleagues and nor to the group of students.

4.1.3 Conclusion For Arif, Islam provides a new social belonging: within the family, with new intellectual challenges and with new friends. The recognition that he receives from the imam of the mosque community is important and motivating for him. He does not understand his identification with Salafism and the subsequent replacement of his non-Islamic friends and habits as a process of radicalizing his behaviour. Rather, the mosque community and its members accept and promote his specific situation as a non-Turkish-speaking migrant with a Turkish background. However, he emphasizes that he has such a good understanding with the Syrian, Germanspeaking imam of this community, because both see themselves as more German than the others in the mosque community regarding their habitus (reliability, willingness to plan, etc.). By accepting Islam, Arif has above all largely brought his family together and created a binding social and ideal affiliation for himself. Moreover, he thus actively assumes the social position as Muslim and outsider 12 In this situation, he was not able to talk about his ideas on distance from and respect for women, or about his pride in his youngest sister’s success at secondary school.

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that is attributed to him and that he cannot reject. In this way, within the Salafi discourse, he creates a sense of belonging that he otherwise lacks, as well as an experience of autonomy, in a social context that is actually strongly determined by social milieus and discrimination. Although the number of non-Muslim contacts in Arif’s life has decreased, his self-positioning is not marked by a fundamental detachment from the majority of society. This probably has to do with his successful education at university, which gives him at least a formal level of recognition in society. Furthermore, he shows within the stories about his peers at work and university that he did not ‘choose to marginalize’ himself. So, a tension remains: he wants to be acknowledged, but that is exactly what is denied to him—not by all, but by his fellow students. By adopting Salafism, he finds the necessary support in the Islamic environment to pursue his educational path, but at the same time he meets with rejection in the majority society for precisely this reason. Arif seems unaware of these connections, so that at the time of the interview it was unclear which path he would take in the future to deal with these continuing tensions: either formal educational recognition and success, or social discrimination and isolation as a Muslim in German society.

4.2

Faris—“For Me, This Religion Was no Buffet”

4.2.1 Faris’ Story of Conversion Faris grew up in a small town in Germany as the youngest of three siblings, and his family has no migration background. At the time of the interview, he had just finished school with qualifications for university. He converted to Salafism at around the age of 16. Faris seeks to present his life before his conversion in two ways. On the one hand, he emphasizes its normality as a young middleclass German; on the other hand, he shows its extremes by talking about how he took drugs and went to parties, and about the feelings of loneliness that he had within his peer group. When he went to secondary school, he often played the guitar at home and practiced martial arts. Thus, in his story, normality appears to be deviant and extreme: “I have tried all possible things, and I must admit I went through so much when I was young”. He had experimented with drugs and had partied excessively. “What I want to say is, I was quite a normal teenager who went through life like many others”. He connects this normality especially with his growing up in a middle-class context: he did not have to miss out on anything, he lived in a privileged neighborhood, he acquired a good education, and had supportive parents and a peer group to which he belonged. However,

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he also presents himself as an introverted and lonely young man without close friends and without a deep contact to his parents. He describes his initial interest in Islam as being triggered by a general argument with Muslims at school: I was a hater of Islam (…) I had absorbed it from the media (…) I had a big problem with those people, how Muslims behave (…) And maybe it was also developed by this: what kind of crazy religion must they have that they behave in such a crazy way? (…) How I came to Islam? [pause] I mean, I had contact with certain people, Muslim people in school. And actually I wanted to know more about why they are so, maybe out of anger (…) at the end I wanted to know, because the question was left in my mind, somebody said to me that I talked so much about it, but what did I really know?

In the following, Faris claims that he searched for Islam only on the Internet, and by reading the Quran and watching YouTube videos of Pierre Vogel and others: I did it for a longer time (…), because it became increasingly interesting for me, because I didn’t know anything (!) about it before, really nothing and I wanted to [laughing], how can I say. I have been dissed by this religion [both are laughing]. (…) And this spurred me on. And I was curious to find out more about it. Anyway, I took this step, I spoke the … the creed alone for me.

Later in the interview, Faris mentions that his conversion had been a longer process, one in which he had initially still met his friends and gone to parties. He says that he began abstaining from alcohol and the like, and also acquired a more distanced perspective on what was going on in his life. In the end, he could no longer stand his friends’ parties and drug-taking. He therefore kept his faith secret, to begin with, but this pushed him into something like a depression. He was in a mood of deep “mourning” when he imagined what would happen if he were to practice Islam openly. He prayed alone in his room. He practiced his religion without any contact to a mosque for about a year, but then, after three months of being depressed, he told his family what was going on. This decision to tell his family was triggered, Faris says, when one day he and his brother went out for an afternoon walk and they heard the adhan, the call to Islamic prayer, through the park, although there was no mosque nearby. Faris took this as a “sign from Allah” and as an opportunity to tell his brother and then his parents and his sister about his new faith. His brother accepted this after a short period of discussion. For the parents and the wider family, though, it was more difficult; they were shocked for a long time. His sister was also shocked, but, almost a year later, she married a Muslim and converted to Islam herself, although not to Salafism.

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Retrospectively, Faris interprets especially several contexts that he experienced during this process as “signs from Allah” and as “tests” that God makes his believers go through: You confirm by tongue that you believe in this religion, and then it is up to you. You must show you are purposefully on this way. Are you, whatever happens in the world, do you show that you believe in Islam?

Faris attended his first Friday prayers in the nearby Salafi mosque, which a classmate took him to. His parents forbade him to go to this mosque until he was 18, so he went to other mosques intermittently, although he probably also kept in contact with the Salafi mosque. At the time of the interview, he was again going regularly to this mosque, and was soon to marry a Muslim woman and start an internship to study Arabic in Saudi Arabia for three months. He emphasizes that he organized this internship by himself and not through the Salafi mosque.

4.2.2 Discourses and Positioning Faris presents himself in extreme terms from the very beginning, when he tells us that he either sits at home playing the guitar in a very introverted way, or goes to parties, where he takes drugs. Hence, he also refers to the discourse of radicalization when describing his conversion. He first presents himself within the framework of the classical Christian model of conversion (‘from Saulus to Paulus’), as a “hater of Islam” who argued with his Muslim classmates. He then became a passionate advocate of pure Salafism, someone who strives to live and to study Islam in its country of origin. Faris reflects on his conversion to Islam as something that is perceived as being so radical that it could only be explained by “brainwashing” (insofar as he frames his conversion within the discourse of radicalization), while also emphasizing that he resists any kind of brainwashing: “As if people would be so stupid to let themselves be brainwashed”. He counters the real or fictive criticism of brainwashing with the strong and seemingly forceful discourse of rationality, which the Salafi milieu expresses as “proven by sources”. Thus, he stresses that he always searches for proof in the Quran before accepting anything. If I can check the proof, then I accept. Otherwise I don’t take it as true. It’s totally nuts that you will simply be fascinated, that’s ridiculous for me.

Of course, in doing so, he undermines the strong premise underlying this kind of rationality: faith in God and the divinity of the statements in the Quran, neither of

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which are based on secular rationality. The whole conversion story told by Faris shows a strong determination to embrace a (religiously) rational discourse. For him, it ensures a clear orientation in life: For me, this religion was not a buffet … I did not want to just choose what I like, and leave what I do not like. I wanted to know, does this religion have a clear position?

Beyond all the relativities and ambiguities of emotional relationships, and beyond experiences of values or social and cultural conventions, he is striving for an absolutely indisputable and unambiguous truth. Religion, the true one at least, should give this truth. Therefore, he wants to subordinate his life to Islam. He does not doubt this. Doubts develop where religion or ideas are not clear enough. His family, his former friends, as well as German society, represent exactly this ambiguity for him.

4.2.3 Conclusion Faris is aware that his Salafism gives him a very radical and oppositional attitude and self-positioning with regard to majority German society. This is what initially made him shy away from the consequences of converting openly. The decision to embrace Salafism sets the convert apart from his former friends, and also from his family. He states: “I want to do this, I want to do this, what people do not understand, in no way”. However, this reflection on the situation is not only an expression of adolescent provocation, but also a fearful realization of the uncomfortable consequences of opening his new religious convictions to his family and his former friends. However, Faris is clearly ideologically convinced about Salafism, and he characterizes German society as a completely amoral and relativistic counter-world to that of Islam. His complete rejection of the extreme immoral conduct of his former friends seems to flow into his new and extremely idealized convictions. Although he propagates the idea that Salafism is an ideal, socially intact community, he does not find this realized locally, but only outside Germany in an Islamic state. Thus, for him, the community is an ideal set of rules, one that he would like to follow further by completely moving into this foreign idealized world, together with the woman whom he will soon marry (and whom he barely knows). It seems to be difficult for Faris to enter and live in the real world of relationships. He decided instead to stay in an idealized and unambiguous world with clear rules given by an absolute authority, which gives signs to him personally. We can only speculate about the source of the problem. There seems to be hardly any communication with his parents, and nor with anyone in his peer group. What

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we can see is that Faris was depressed in his youth and could not escape from the idealized, black-and-white version of values and authority, and that his conversion to Salafism enabled him to insert this idealized world into his real one.

4.3

Navid—“You Simply Feel the Sweetness and the Happiness in Islam”

4.3.1 Navid’s Story of Adopting Islam Navid was five years old when his parents came to Germany as political refugees from Iran. After a few years in Germany, his parents converted to Christianity and also brought Navid up in the Christian belief—whether they practiced Islam before is not clear. However, Navid emphasizes that he had always been interested in Islam, probably because he had often been addressed as a Muslim due to his origin and appearance. Navid explains that he had sometimes talked about Islam with some classmates in the last years of school, and that he became more interested in Islam shortly before the final examination for university entrance: (…) then the teacher asked us, which religion do you want to do here? Almost all answered Islam, because they were so interested in it. She started to tell us about Islam, but she didn’t do it very thoroughly. One could also notice that she didn’t sympathize with Islam.

Moreover, the teacher asked his Muslim classmates questions like, what does Jihad mean? They could not counter the teacher’s negative attitude towards Islam—they would have been able to had they been practicing Muslims, according to Navid’s implicit expectation. Thus, the issues raised by Navid are more about knowledge of Islam and of the power of interpretation regarding Islam, which is supposed to be on the Muslim side. In the following, he also discussed this with a Muslim schoolmate, Ahmad, from another course, who was a practicing Muslim (and member of a Salafi mosque). Later in the interview, Navid mentions that he thought Ahmad wanted to convince him about Islam like “he wanted to sell me something”, so at first he resisted. Nonetheless, he began to search for information on Islam on the Internet and found the website of Pierre Vogel and others. School was over, so they did not meet each other any longer. After a while, he was convinced by what he had read on the Internet, and thought “Islam is the truth”. But he kept this a secret over the next few weeks. At first, he spoke with his younger brother about his new thoughts on Islam and convinced him within only a few hours. They proclaimed the shahada (confession of Islamic belief)

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in the presence of their mother (who had already reconverted to Shia Islam) and another Shia friend of hers. He leaves unclear what the next steps were. Finally, a younger Turkish boy and neighbor (perhaps a classmate of his brother’s) took them with him to the Salafi mosque, where he unexpectedly met Ahmad again. Ahmad was unaware that Navid had converted. The joy at meeting again was great, Navid says. Navid was immediately asked by the imam to take part in the Arabic course, which Navid did. And he then often had the opportunity to speak with the imam, who answered all his questions about Islam and the right aqida of the al-salaf as-salih. The imam became the authority for him. Thus, Navid also seems to be concerned with a discourse of knowledge and truth, which—as shown above— is linked to the negotiation of who has the power to determine what the truth of Islam is. Several things changed when he started to go to the Salafi mosque: Ahmad, who had a car, took him with him every day from the university to the mosque for prayers, a practice which Navid later continued to do alone. Moreover, Ahmad went every morning with Navid to the fitness studio for half a year, and then once or twice a week. Navid lost a lot of weight, began to eat more healthily, and developed muscles. Navid says that physical fitness has nothing to do with Islam (although it stresses the importance of being healthy), but he thinks that it was the “grace of Allah” that, while taking from him many friends when he converted to Islam, has given him a Muslim brother for life, someone who has helped him so much to practice the religion and who would lay down his life for him. Unlike Faris, Navid greatly appreciates this experience of community with other Salafi Muslims. In addition to the discourse of truth, Navid also appropriates here the Salafi discourse about the Muslim umma as an ideal community of all Salafi Muslims. Like Arif, this also enables him to improve his family life. He is more polite to his mother, although she is a Shia13 Muslim, criticizes IS, and fears that Navid might go to Syria. His father, in contrast, is very concerned with his own life, because he seems to be deeply ashamed on account of the fact (Navid assumes) that he had left his former wife alone in Iran with two handicapped children, which gives the father nightmares. At the time of the interview, the father had travelled to Iran on holiday, but had still not returned after months.

4.3.2 Discourses and Positioning Navid says at the end of his story that adopting and practicing Islam has had “only advantages” for him. How is this to be understood? Navid adds to Salafist 13 Salafi Muslims accuse Shia Muslims of practicing shirk (believing in others besides God), which means being a kafir (unbeliever).

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discourses two biographical positioning: lifelong friendship as a kind of umma (the idea that all Salafi Muslims build a community of brothers and sisters), and strong spirituality within the Salafi discourse of truth. Thus, the friendship that he experiences with Ahmad appears to Navid to be a gift from God. Ahmad, as his ‘brother in faith’, leads Navid to a better life (losing weight and praying), remains eternally connected to him, and would also defend him with his life: (…) if Allah takes something from you, because he protects you, then he gives you something better and he has given me Ahmad now as a buddy or as a brother of course and he is the only one with whom I do more and just do good things (…) if you have a brother in Islam, he is always there for you, because he does that for Allah. But if you have a friend, he may leave you in the lurch, because you are only friends, nothing really binds him as (…) as in religious matters. Because if you have a brother and someone might want to kill you or something, (…) he would try to defend you with his life.

It is quite obvious that this secure, unconditional relationship that Ahmad offers is more like a protective father-son or older-brother relationship; although Ahmad is not older than Navid, he has taken him regularly to the mosque and to the fitness studio. Navid’s real father, on the other hand, was apparently unable to stand firm with his family and in his relationship to his son. Before the father went (back) to Iran, Navid had tried to free his father from feelings of guilt, which he also explains as an obsession with evil jinn (spiritual beings). Navid is very concerned, as are Faris and Arif in general, too, with the power of jinn in this world, and so he tried to cast out the evil jinn from his father by constantly reciting the Quran in the night. But the effect lasted only a few weeks, he says. In general, Navid focuses on a strong emotional and spiritual relationship with God. At first, he refers to the experiences of Ramadan. He has celebrated Ramadan twice since converting to Islam, and he describes this experience as being very special and emotional: This is just a different atmosphere, because the prophet, s.all¯a ll¯ahu alayhi wa-sallam, said: ‘The shaitans are tied in Ramadan’. And you perceive how strong you are during Ramadan. You can do so much, so many good deeds. And then you come here, and the smell of food, which disturbs some people but not me, and the atmosphere is just different. Suddenly many brothers are there. The night prayer after isha,14 then it is warm, you are sweating but you don’t mind, you pray once. The feeling is totally different. 14 The

night prayer isha is followed by the prayer fajr before sunrise.

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He experienced the shared nightly prayers during Ramadan in the mosque as being especially intense and moving, and these strengthened his iman (belief). He says that he had sometimes cried when the Sheik recited the Quran, because he had felt so strongly “the sweetness and the happiness in Islam”. This memory of the strong feelings that he had initially had during Ramadan is so important to Navid that he has even decided to go to his younger brother’s non-Salafi mosque community during Ramadan next year, because there is more space and peace for night prayer than in the Salafi mosque. In general, Navid praises the night prayers even outside Ramadan, when one should pray alone, because then he can concentrate and feel the special relationship to Allah. These night prayers and the regular prayers apparently calm Navid down emotionally, and give him the feeling of a stable bond. Hence, he emphasizes the importance of regular prayer for resisting the ‘whispering influence of the shaitan’ and the jinn, which weaken belief: If I see that the prayer is a duty, but do not do that, then my heart is dying slowly and this means that the heart is going to get bitter, you are more insensitive (…) The same is going on if you see that Islam is the truth and you don’t adopt it, then your heart is dying slowly (…) until you lose the mercy of Allah and the heart is eventually totally sealed so that you don’t accept the truth any longer.

Navid tries to go to the mosque once a day in order to keep the strength of his belief and feeling for Allah. Like Farid, Navid sees Islam as having essentially fixed and unchanging rules. As he puts it: If I am convinced, that the Quran has no faults, and that it is the word of God, the word of Allah, … I would rather accept this than the laws of people, who have faults.

As an example, Navid mentions the changing law on homosexuality: Why should something bad and forbidden in the past now be good and permitted? Hence, like Farid, Navid sees the Salafi discourse on clear Islamic truth as being very important, even if he stresses less the rational and more the emotional and spiritual side of this truth.

4.3.3 Conclusion When he defends Salafism as a clear and absolute truth, Navid refers to an inner subjective-emotional discourse in respect to religion. The radical nature of his position thus results not so much from his denunciation of the immoral, nonreligious world as from his unbroken narrative of the existence of supernatural

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beings (jinn) that aim to intervene in this world. The secular world is conceived as an incomplete and unprotected world where nothing good or reliable can be expected. By adopting Islam, he also continues a family tradition that had probably never really been completely abandoned. He also told us that he had lost some friends after his conversion to Islam, but that Ahmad as his brother in Islam and part of the umma, as well as his strong emotional ties to Allah through prayer, give him more stability than all the other friends. Anyway, he was often addressed as a Muslim before he adopted Islam because of his origin and appearance. Thus, hardly anything has changed for him. Finally, by accepting the Salafist discourse for his life, he has given clear priority to religious affiliation and has solved the crisis brought about by the absence of family support and security. He receives cognitive and emotional security from the lifelong support of his new protective brother in Islam.

5

Conclusions

5.1

Some Common Background Characteristics

There are some striking similarities in the dynamics of attraction to Salafism between the three cases. First, they were all attracted particularly to Salafism because someone picked them up and took them to this particular mosque. So, it is at first a phenomenon of offering a social relationship and belonging, especially for Arif and Navid. Moreover, the Salafi mosque is the only one in the city which is not ethnically specified and has a German-speaking imam who offers lessons in aqida as well as Arabic. Neither Arif nor Navid nor Faris would have had better access to a different mosque community in the city. Second, the three young men all have a higher level of education in the first generation, although this higher level is mainly in the area of science and technology. Deeper debates on orientation, diversity, religion and history, as well as Islam, have not been established—the more so as these issues are dealt with every day in the media. Riesebrodt (2000) has identified precisely this milieu of the technically educated middle class as being those who preserve conservative and fundamentalist views, which in turn revives religion. None of them has seriously reflected on Islam in historical or more contextual terms, and none has learned to look more closely at his own socialization and family position. They only encountered Islam outside school and beyond the family—with their peers and through videos on the Internet.

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Finally, especially Arif and Navid come from an underprivileged family background, which opens up several characteristics of relative deprivation such as educational disadvantage, poverty (even if they do not speak about this in the interview), experiences of discrimination, and social exclusion. Faris’ background seems to be less complex and less marked by deprivation, but it is a background that lacks communication, since Faris was able to withdraw for several months and to go to parties and take drugs without his parents giving him trouble or taking care of him. That does not change until he converts to Islam; only then does his family begin to take care of him.

5.2

Discourses, Counter-Discourses, and Biographical ‘points of Suture’ (Hall) of Salafism (Positioning)

Arif, Faris and Navid expressed their individual biographical positioning within the framework of several public discourses devaluing Islam as fundamentalist, misogynist, and inappropriate to German society, and of the Salafi counterdiscourse of strict belief in only the one God, strong and absolute solidarity only within the umma, belief in the influence of jinn in everyday life, and the perception of the sources of Islam as ‘proof’ of truth and the moral depravity of secular life. In the case of Faris, it is particularly apt to understand the appropriation of Salafism as an expression of a counter-discourse to secular modern society. He shifts from one extreme to the other: from being a strong opponent of Islam to strongly defending one of the strictest versions of Islam. Faris seems to have no social spaces at all where he can debate existential themes that would enable him to reflect on his own positioning. He adopted the Salafi counter-discourse of a strong, ‘proven’ belief as a clear and in this respect rational idea. For him, Salafism brought strength and self-efficacy vis-à-vis dubious individual and relativistic orientations among his secular peers as well as in his relationship to his family. He replaces the openness and aimlessness of his extremely dissolute life—or those of his peers—with a mostly radical position against secular life. Arif’s attachment to Islam seems at first to relate to his family background. In fact, he perceived himself as a Muslim even before practicing Islam, but nevertheless his story of how he became a Salafist was more a story of finding a space for social belonging. Moreover, it was less a matter of adopting a religion than of appropriating a culture that is socially accepted as one’s own. For him, Salafism seems to be the only true but mainstream moral and religious orientation that differs from the secular orientation. Therefore, he positions himself as different,

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but not as radical in his behavior. For him, Salafism is the counter-discourse to the social exclusion that he experienced: it is belonging, inclusion and solidarity. He certainly looked for a way to position himself ‘between’ the main discourses (exclusively German culture or Salafism) by trying to maintain close contact with his colleagues at work while not drinking alcohol, or with his fellow students at university. However, this always failed at the point where Arif should have actively defended his in-between position. Noteworthy is not only his silence at points of escalation, but also the silence of his work colleagues and fellow students. And also, in the mosque, both Arif and the German-speaking imam decided against confronting the congregation with their ‘more German’ positions, but instead looked for a niche within the congregation. Navid articulates his positioning within Salafism according to its steady and strong relation to the absolute. However, he especially stresses the emotional and spiritual dimension of interventionist practices of Salafism. Thus, his understanding of prayer and others seems to be a personal need to maintain emotional stability and orientation through his relationship with God. This adoption of the discourse of the spirituality of Islam can be understood as Navid’s counterdiscourse to the unpredictable and unstable secular world. As an alternative to his highly unstable family situation, where the father had left the family without warning, he replaces his family with the Salafist community. In particular his ‘brother in Islam’, Ahmad, represents for him the absolute solidarity and protection that for him only the Islamic community (the umma) can guarantee.

5.3

Salafism as Adolescent Articulation of Clarity and Belonging

The adoption of Salafism appears in all three cases as an adolescent search for a clear orientation and self-evident belonging to a group of equals. It is particularly obvious in the cases of Navid and Arif that they have not chosen a ‘strategy of marginalization’ (Olsson 2014), and that they were searching not only for a ‘protest culture’ (El-Mafaalani 2017). Rather, in their search for independence from their family, for experiences of self-efficacy, and for a new social affiliation, they were also exposed to ethnically racist discourses that make it almost impossible to transgress the culturally essentialist boundaries of belonging (Mecheril and Hoffarth 2006; Günther et al. 2010). With this, they are once again confronted with their precarious family situations, which for both meant the absence of a father and the perhaps even stronger search for a clear sense of orientation and belonging according to a set of fundamental rules.

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After the biographical analysis, Salafism now appears to be explainable neither as a protest culture nor as an enhancement of mainstream Islam. Rather, Salafism seems to be a resilient resource for the identity-political strategy that people adopt to turn their own stigmatization into a positive source (Arif, Navid). Faris, however, corresponds most closely to the image of Salafism as an adolescent and fundamental protest against German society. It may not be a coincidence that he is also the only one who has adopted Salafism as a full convert—because he was free in his social-cultural discourse position, which does not mean that his biography did not have several precarious dimensions as well. Finally, we can understand the adoption of Salafism by young men as a response to adolescent crises of orientation and belonging. The biographical and discourse-oriented approach taken here shows that the problems of these adolescent men are not completely resolved when they adopt Salafism. Tensions are still evident. In this respect, the claim that these young people are ‘ticking bombs’ cannot really be dispelled. However, I have shown that the causes of the social and emotional crises of the young men that led them on this path are deeply inscribed in our society and should not first be sought in the alien ideology of Salafism.

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Online-Resource Bundesministerium des Innern, für Bau und Heimat, Ed. 2019. Verfassungsschutzbericht 2018. Berlin. www.verfassungsschutz.de/de/oeffentlichkeitsarbeit/publikationen/ver fassungsschutzberichte

Education and Certainty: On the Importance of Education in Fethullah M. Gülen’s Thinking Johannes Twardella Abstract

This chapter addresses education a basic feature of the Hizmet movement founded by Fethullah M. Gülen. The guiding question is, why education is of such central importance to the movement, to Gülen’s thinking and how education is understood in this regard. It is argued that the Koran already places great emphasis on knowledge. In fact, the revelation itself is understood as a process of teaching knowledge. Acquiring knowledge is thus a constituent element of the Islamic faith; it has therefore evolved into a religious duty. Gülen follows in this tradition; he regards education as the solution to a fundamental problem which all religions, especially revelatory religions, face, and that is the problem of certainty. The fact that education is regarded as the solution to the problem of certainty means that it forms the basis of each individual’s motivation and that, through education, individuals can remain true to Islam and thereby affirm their Islamic faith. This working hypothesis is substantiated by the analysis of a selected text by Gülen on certainty from his anthology Emerald Green Hills of the Heart. Methodologically, the analysis is based on the objective hermeneutics approach.

J. Twardella (B) Fachbereich Erziehungswissenschaften, Institut für Pädagogik der Sekundarstufe, Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main, Germany © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 C. Gärtner and H. Winkel (eds.), Exploring Islam beyond Orientalism and Occidentalism, Veröffentlichungen der Sektion Religionssoziologie der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-33239-6_13

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Keywords

Fethullah M. Gülen • Hizmet Movement • Education • Problem of Certainty Objective Hermeneutics • Mystical Path

1

•

Introduction

A new religious movement emerged in Turkey in the 1970s which was named after the man whose ideas and ideals inspired it: Fethullah M. Gülen (*1938). The Gülen or Hizmet movement1 can be seen as a response to the modernization processes initiated by Kemal Atatürk in Turkey in the first half of the twentieth century. It was Gülen’s intention to renew Islam, and to re-assert its relevance in society. What distinguishes the Hizmet movement from other, similar endeavors is that the renewal of Islam is to be achieved through education, and more specifically the education of an elite, an academically trained and deeply religious, pious elite. The Hizmet movement began expanding internationally in the 1980s and is no longer only present to Turkey and its neighboring countries, but operates in numerous countries around the world. The Turkish government accuses the movement of being behind the attempted coup in the summer of 2016; it is classed as a terrorist organization and is being fought, by various means, both in Turkey and elsewhere. This has led to a shift, not only in Turkey, where the movement’s economic clout has been broken, where educational institutions and media companies close to the Hizmet movement have been closed, and where numerous individuals accused of belonging to the movement have been imprisoned. It is difficult to predict what this will mean for the Hizmet movement and its future development. What is clear, though, is that Turkey, where the movement originated, will have a more minor role to play in this future, that the movement will return to its roots, and that the focus of its activities will shift. However, this chapter does not seek to speculate on the future of the Hizmet movement. Instead, it addresses a basic feature of the movement, and explores more specifically why it is that this movement focuses on the field of education. Fethullah M. Gülen is credited with the slogan: “Build schools, not mosques!” But what did he mean by that? Why is education of such central importance to Gülen’s thinking? How does he define

1 Only

the term Hizmet movement will be used in the following; hizmet derives from Turkish and means service.

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education, and what is so attractive about this specific definition of the idea of education? The hypothesis to be presented here is that the central importance accorded to education in Gülen’s thinking is not merely due to traditionalism. The Koran already places great emphasis on knowledge. In fact, the revelation itself is understood as a process of teaching knowledge. Acquiring knowledge is thus a constituent element of the Islamic faith, and has therefore evolved into a religious duty. Gülen, who follows in this tradition, attaches great importance to knowledge and understands education to be a religious duty. What is crucial (and even innovative), though, is that the knowledge which Gülen calls on Muslims to acquire is not religious but modern, scientific knowledge. Further, Gülen regards education as the solution to a fundamental problem which all religions, especially revelatory religions, face, and that is the problem of certainty. The fact that education is regarded as the solution to the problem of certainty means that it forms the basis of each individual’s motivation and that, through education, individuals can remain true to Islam and thereby affirm their Islamic faith. This hypothesis will be explained and substantiated as follows. First, I will sketch the state of research on the Hizmet movement and the importance of education in Gülen’s thinking and its importance for the Hizmet movement. I then explain the term certainty both at a general, action-theory level, and in relation to religious beliefs, especially those based on revelation. I then use two examples from the literature on the sociology of religion (on the emergence of Islam and Protestant ethics) to show briefly how the problem of certainty has proven useful for research in the sociology of religion. I then analyze a selected text by Gülen (2010) from his prominent anthology Emerald Green Hills of the Heart. The selected text reveals his thinking on the problem of certainty and why he proposes education as the solution to this problem. The chapter concludes with some remarks on how Gülen’s text was received, on its relevance for the Hizmet movement, and on the actual or possible consequences of Gülen’s proposed solution to the problem of certainty.

2

Research on the Importance of Education in Fethullah M. Gülen’s Thinking

Opinions in the research vary as regards the importance accorded to education in Gülen’s thinking and in the Hizmet movement. Bekim Agai (2008), for example, investigated the term education from the perspective of Islamic studies, first in the context of an analysis of the discourse which Gülen initiated and led, and second

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as part of an analysis of educational activities within the Hizmet movement, which he describes as a network. In this broad-based study, which not only addresses Gülen’s biography and thinking, but also the Hizmet movement that he founded, Agai comes to the conclusion that Gülen transferred “Islamic teaching on duty and Islamic guiding principles to the field of education” (Agai 2008, p. 356). This is explained in relation, for instance, to the call to join the jihad. When Gülen refers to the jihad, he means the ‘greater jihad’, i.e. the struggle within oneself, which serves purification and the search for perfection. According to Agai, the ‘lesser jihad’ is, by contrast, aimed at changing outward circumstances, primarily through efforts in the field of education. Günter Seufert (2013) adopts the perspective of political science in his study on Gülen and the Hizmet movement. His focus is on the “political vision” (Seufert 2013, p. 8) that the movement pursued. Seufert argues that Gülen’s educational work serves the purposes of “restoring Muslim morality and morals and getting sufficient backing for his vision of a Muslim society” (Seufert, p. 13), which is to be achieved by educating a “pious elite” (Seufert, p. 13). Helen Rose Ebaugh (2012), in turn, has dealt with Gülen and the Hizmet movement from a sociological perspective. Ebaugh’s scientific endeavors focus on religious movements. Given that the media in the United States have mainly referred to “radical Islam” in the wake of 9/11, Ebaugh raises the question of whether there might not also be examples of a “moderate Islam” (Ebaugh 2012, p. 16), and therefore investigates Gülen and the Hizmet movement2 by conducting interviews with its members. Her specific focus is on explaining their voluntary commitment and willingness to donate money to the movement. Ebaugh (2012, p. 201) concludes that this commitment is engendered within “local circles” that foster ties to the movement, and that the willingness to donate money is a product of an “ethos of giving” that Gülen establishes by invoking “an old tradition in Turkish-Islamic culture” (ibid., p. 203): the culture of paying a “tax” (zakat) and of “charitable giving” (sadaka). Finally, Gülen and the Hizmet movement are also the subject of research in the educational sciences. A current research project by Thomas Geier and Magnus Frank on “The pedagogy of the ‘Gülen movement’” focuses on the local circles as defined by Ebaugh, and more specifically on the discussion groups (sohbetler) run by the Hizmet movement.3 Geier and Frank are applying ethnographic methods to study these groups, which primarily comprise students at two locations in Germany (the Ruhr region and Berlin), and their intention is to provide 2 In

contrast to others who regard the Hizmet movement as an (albeit non-fundamentalist) variant of political Islam, Ebaugh views the movement as a form of ‘moderate Islam’. 3 https://www.paedgb.fk12.tu-dortmund.de/cms/de/home/ Accessed: 17 June 2020.

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both a thick description of these groups and a nuanced explanation of the logic applied in their discussions and their lines of reasoning. This article was written as part of that research project. None of the scientific studies conducted so far have provided an adequate answer to why education is so important both in Gülen’s thinking and for the activities of the Hizmet movement. Nor has any found an adequate answer to why the concept of education advocated by Gülen is so attractive to many Muslims and why they therefore apply it in practice. Agai’s contention that Gülen declared education to be a religious duty is plausible, but it does not go far enough, because it does not explain what makes this duty so attractive. Why are many Muslims willing to perform this duty of their own accord? Seufert’s claim that Gülen became convinced at a certain point that he could use education to achieve his goal of re-asserting Islam’s relevance in society, and even of creating a “Muslim society” (Seufert 2013, p. 13) implies that Gülen was interested in education for primarily strategic reasons, and that education was merely a means to an end, the end being to change society. Ebaugh believes that Gülen recognized how important education was for modern societies, and that only educated people could participate and be successful in modern societies. Thus, in Ebaugh’s view, efforts to educate people are a result of Gülen’s study of Western societies. And, according to Ebaugh, it is on account of Gülen’s intention to renew Islam that he ascribed central importance to education. According to another thesis, the activities of the Hizmet movement aim to create educational opportunities, especially for those left behind in Germany’s state education system, and more precisely to combat discrimination in this system (Thies 2013). However, this is not convincing. Although the PISA studies have indeed shown that pupils with a migration background are at a disadvantage in the German education system, any line of reasoning which explains why education is of such relevance for Gülen and the Hizmet movement needs to be divorced from the specific conditions of one particular country and to go much further. This contribution thus proposes that the key motivation behind the Hizmet movement’s efforts to educate Muslims is neither the attempt to change society, nor insights into the importance of knowledge in Western societies, nor efforts to give potentially disadvantaged children and adolescents better educational opportunities and to help them take a stance within an immigration society. Rather, these efforts are the result of a crisis of certainty and of Gülen’s suggestion that this crisis can be resolved by way of education. His idea and his promise is that, through education, individuals can affirm their faith, come close to the Divine Being, enhance their relationship with the Divine, and overcome their doubts.

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The Problem of Certainty

The problem of certainty is fundamental to human actions. The philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce placed it at the heart of his thoughts on action theory in his article, “The Fixation of Belief” (Peirce 1965). According to Peirce, belief, i.e., that a subject is sure that p is certain, is always linked to doubt: “I am convinced that p. But is that accurate? Is it true?” As Peirce explains in his article, there are various ways to overcome doubt and regain certainty. The first is the method of tenacity, whose aim is to suppress all doubt, to push it aside, and simply hold on to a belief. The second is the method of authority, by means of which doubts are dispelled because the subject allows his or her beliefs to be confirmed as true and correct, or an authority requires that no one doubts a specific opinion. Peirce also refers to what has been called the a priori method. Putting aside all experience, a person believes in a thing because it seems “agreeable to reason” (Peirce 1965, p. 238). Finally, Peirce refers to the method of science, which is based on the following hypothesis: There are Real things, whose characters are entirely independent of our opinions about them; those Reals affect our senses according to regular laws, and, though our sensations are as different as are our relations to the objects, yet, by taking advantage of the laws of perception, we can ascertain by reasoning how things really and truly are; and any man, if he have sufficient experience and he reason enough about it, will be led to the one True conclusion (Peirce 1965, p. 243).

The problem of certainty is particularly prevalent regarding religious beliefs, specifically in revelatory religions in which beliefs in a Divine Being are intellectually constructed such that they are purely abstract, merely conceptual. Doubt in p, and thus the problem of certainty, is not something which develops over time. Rather, it is, from the very beginning, linked to this cognitive construct; it is a necessary, perpetual, and direct correlate. Ultimately, though, it is not possible to overcome such doubt, to assuage it. The problem of certainty can only ever be resolved temporarily; it can never be solved once and for all. The history of religion provides numerous examples of the equiprimordiality of belief and doubt, a particularly powerful example arising in the context of the origins of Islam. When Muhammad appeared in the early seventh century CE, and declared himself to be the Prophet who was to reveal to humans what God had revealed to him, it was not only the majority of the citizens of Mecca who rejected what he was saying—he himself had quite considerable doubts initially. At least that is what is claimed in the Prophet’s biography. When he was in the Cave of Hira, he was allegedly unwilling at first to believe that it was the Angel Gabriel

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who had spoken to him. It was not until he had told his wife Khadija about it, and she had said that he was not mistaken, that his doubts were assuaged (Ibn Ishaq 1982). Traces of that doubt, or the problem of credibility, can be found throughout the Koran (Twardella 1999), and we can identify numerous methods that have been used in an attempt to create certainty by eliminating those doubts surrounding the revelation and the claim that Muhammad is indeed the Prophet. The method of tenacity was key. If it had not been applied, if Muhammad had not tenaciously adhered to his claim that he was the Prophet, then the resistance with which he was confronted would have prevailed and the prophetic initiative would have come to nothing. The fact that the revelation kept on being repeated, that the process of revelation lasted more than ten years, is above all an expression of this tenacity. Ultimately, it was also reflected in the Koran, where the iterative nature of the revelation finds expression in its division into suras (chapters).4 Recourse was also taken to the method of authority, in the (self-referential) form of the prophecy being authenticated by the Divine Being (e.g. sura 4, verse 166), whose authority was demonstrated, for example, by means of ‘punishment legends’. These legends illustrate how God punishes those who do not listen to his messenger. There are also examples of the use of the a priori method, particularly in the repeated claim that doubts can be overcome if only people applied their capacity for reason (Twardella 1999, pp. 244ff.). Ultimately, the success of the prophecy and the (naturally incomplete and revocable) assuaging of doubt through that prophecy were key to the success of the Islamic community established in Medina following the Hijra.5 The prophecy was subsequently given (political) legitimacy by dint of this success, by standing the test. As has already been stated, the problem of certainty is also prevalent in other revelation-based religions, i.e. in both Judaism and Christianity. In the latter, a redemptive religion, it has taken on a specific form, in that faith raises not only the question of certainty, but other questions, too, in relation to whether and how an individual can find salvation. This problem comes to a head against the backdrop of the Calvinist doctrine of predestination, according to which God is almighty: If God is almighty and individuals have no influence on His decisions, if they cannot actually find salvation by dint of their piety and good deeds, then how can they be certain of their salvation? It is well known that, in his study of Protestant 4 According

to recent research findings, each sura in the Koran may well be an amalgamation of various parts which were revealed at different times (Schmitz 2009; Neuwirth 2010). 5 The Hijra (or Hijrah or Hegira) is the migration, or journey, of the Prophet Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina. It needed to be made not only because the majority of the citizens of Mecca did not accept Muhammad’s claim to be the Prophet, but also because many were hostile to him. Tradition has it that they even tried to kill him.

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ethics, Max Weber proposed that this uncertainty had been eliminated, that doubt had largely been assuaged, and that wealth was now regarded as indicating a person’s state of grace (Weber 1988). Work, said Weber, had become the method by which certainty was achieved; it no longer served to secure a livelihood, but was distinct from that purpose, the result being the accumulation of ever more wealth (which should not be consumed but reinvested). Because the problem of certainty cannot ultimately be resolved, work for Weber had become restless, and a work ethic arose that corresponded to, and had an ‘elective affinity’ with, the ‘Spirit of Capitalism’. Given the plurality of religious convictions and worldviews, and the fact that religious traditions are no longer a matter of course (Berger 1992), the problem of certainty is becoming increasingly prevalent in all religions in the modern era. In the case of Islam, the success of the Islamic community, the linchpin of certainty, has also dissipated. That was especially true of Turkey in the early twentieth century when the Ottoman Empire came to an end and the new state ceased to be Islamic. The republican reforms implemented by Atatürk led to the introduction of laicism and to the massive crowding out of Islam from public life (Tezcan 2003). Gülen’s interpretation of Islam can be seen as one of a number of responses to this development. However, what distinguishes it from others is the idea that, in the face of greater doubt, certainty can no longer be sought in the external, but only in the internal life. Education, which is directed at a subject’s inner life, thus became the method by which doubt is to be eliminated.

4

The Problem of Certainty and Its Solution According to Gülen

It can be assumed that the modernization processes that Atatürk initiated in Turkey led to a feeling of uncertainty, to a crisis of certainty in faith. Atatürk’s republican reform policies led to the separation of religion and politics, and to the former being expunged from public life. As an “administrative religion” (Tezcan 2003) controlled by politics, Sunni Islam lost much of its credibility. This is the context in which Gülen came to prominence; by drawing on the tradition of Islamic mysticism, he showed how certainty in faith could be regained (Akkdag, 2013). Islamic mysticism (Sufism) can be regarded as both an alternative and an addition to an Islam which provides individuals, who want to establish a relationship with the Divine Being and affirm their faith, with the means of doing

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so, that is the Five Pillars of Islam.6 Islamic mysticism presents other options to those for whom the Five Pillars of Islam do not go far enough, i.e. to those who believe that the Five Pillars will not be enough to help them overcome their doubts. These options are linked to the promise that those who follow the path of mysticism (through meditation or entering into the state of ecstasy) will come closer to God and thus (re)gain certainty in faith (Lohlker 2008). Gülen placed himself firmly in this tradition, while at the same time transforming it. The transformation of Islamic mysticism, the reinterpretation of the mystical path as an educational process through which the faithful acquire knowledge which—and this is important—is not knowledge of Islam’s canonical texts, but modern, scientific knowledge, can be traced throughout the texts which Gülen wrote about Islamic mysticism and which he collated and published in an anthology translated into English as Emerald Green Hills of the Heart. These texts were written over several years and first appeared in the monthly Sizinti, which was published between 1979 and 2016, and was for many years the Hizmet movement’s most important medium, being used both for its PR work and as a platform for internal debate on the relationship between religion and science. The first volume of the Emerald Green Hills of the Heart anthology contains a text which specifically addresses the question of certainty (Gülen 2010, pp. 179ff.). How it has been received since it was first published is difficult to say. However, we can presume that it is a key text which provides an insight into the motivations behind the Hizmet movement’s educational activities. The following analysis applies the methodology of objective hermeneutics (Oevermann 2000) to Gülen’s text on certainty. This methodology requires that the text first be divided into its smallest meaningful elements; then, various possible readings of these elements are provided, without the researcher speculating on what these elements might mean and (at least initially) in a way that is as free of context as possible. It is not until the researcher has spelled out all the possible readings of what has been said and not what was meant, all the while adhering to the principle of extensivity and economy, that all these readings are then related to their context (Wernet 2000). The aim is thus to develop a hypothesis of the case-structure, which then needs to be verified and modified by analyzing other sequences. The analysis only draws on passages at the start of the text, as the first few lines already allow a hypothesis of the case-structure to be formulated. Other passages in the text are then drawn on to verify and modify this hypothesis. The 6 The Five Pillars of Islam are first, the profession of faith; second, prayer; third, the giving of

alms; fourth, fasting in Ramadan, and fifth, pilgrimage, or hajj.

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analysis shows how Gülen transformed Islamic mysticism in such a way that the educational process takes the place of the mystical path, with education being regarded primarily as the learning of scientific knowledge. Following this analysis, the article then briefly looks at responses to Gülen’s proposed solution to the problem of certainty, and concludes by speculating on how relevant this solution might be for the future development of the Hizmet movement. The analyzed text bears the heading “YAQIN” (Gülen 2010, p. 179), which can be translated as certainty. How is this term to be understood? Certainty is always specific to an individual: it is the individual who either has or does not have certainty. If there is certainty, then the individual is absolutely sure about a matter and can utter the following speech act: I am absolutely sure that p. This speech act is made up of two parts: the illocutionary act, in which the speaker communicates that he or she is certain of something, and the specific propositional content, p. By uttering this speech act, the speaker communicates that there is no doubt, in his or her mind, that p. This speech act is always uttered against the backdrop of possible doubt. Regardless of whether it is directed at others or the speaker is talking to himself or herself, the speech act negates any remaining doubts. What is characteristic of certainty, though, is that it is unstable because it can be called into question again and again when doubts arise. As has already been explained, doubt is the obverse of certainty. This gives rise to the question of how doubt can be overcome, and what method promises certainty to all those who apply the method. It is conceivable that the term certainty could be used as the heading for numerous texts, in particular those which explain the term itself, as would a dictionary or manual, for instance. Then the question arises of what perspective is adopted, i.e. the context in which its use is to be explained. That will influence how all further questions will be answered, such as “What p are we dealing with here?” and “What can an individual base his or her certainty on?” In other words: “What is p?” And what means, what methodology, can be applied to assuage any doubt in p and achieve certainty? Yaqin (certainty) means not doubting the truth of things

It is not surprising that certainty is defined as the absence of doubt. But what is meant by “the truth of things”? The predicate “true” always relates to an assertion, which can either be true or false. If someone claims that an assertion is true, then the person is making the performative utterance that s/he concurs with the assertion. Different contexts are imaginable in which an assertion can be described as “true”. It is possible, for example, in lifeworld contexts in which there is

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the expectation that a person will tell the truth and not lie, as well as within specific ‘systems’, such as science. And various criteria are conceivable which may play a role for a speaker who concurs with an assertion: If the speaker is referring to an extralinguistic matter, then the relevant criterion may be the correspondence between the assertion and things in the world. Or else truth is regarded as independent of extralinguistic matters, and value is only placed on coherence between one particular assertion and other assertions. It may also be the case that the key criterion is consensus, or whether an assertion can be ‘borne out’. We must be aware of various details when it comes to Gülen’s assertion. First, it is worth noting that he speaks of “truth” in the singular. There is, then, only one truth and not several truths. Second, it is interesting that he does not speak of the truth about things, but about the “truth of things”. The “truth of things” could be understood to mean that these are assertions about things which can either be true or false. In that case, it would be possible to verify the assertions with the direct aid of the things to which reference is made. Or we could debate the criterion of truth on which it is based, in which case the question would arise of whether or not agreement can be reached on what that criterion is. But how is the “truth of things” to be understood? Gülen’s phrase is obviously based on the idea that things themselves possess truth, their own specific truth. This truth can possibly also be regarded as an assertion. However, in contrast to an assertion about things, which is linked to a claim to truth, the truth of things is always fixed and cannot be subjected to debate about the criteria applied to truth, which is a relativizing debate characterized by doubt. We are therefore dealing here with an absolute truth, a metaphysical truth ‘behind’ things; in other words, with a religious truth. This, then, is the crux of the problem of certainty: How is it possible to be certain of a truth which cannot be verified by reference to reality, and in regard to which we cannot refer to correspondence, coherence or consensus? Is certainty even possible when it comes to religious truths? Must it of necessity always be linked to doubts? The phrase cited above does not lead us to expect that the question will be discussed in what follows, which would of course be the case in a scientific treatise. However, the phrase was not written in such a context. Instead, its style is that of religious speech, which also includes the promise that certainty exists, that it is possible and can be reached. In other words, the writer is not expressing a hypothesis which the listener can expect will be verified in what follows; rather, what is stated itself expresses certainty. And the writer demands allegiance to that certainty from his followers—that is, from the readers of his text. The text goes on:

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and acquiring accurate knowledge

The use of “and” permits two possible readings. Either the “and” is meant additively, i.e. there is no direct link between “the truth of things” and “accurate knowledge”, meaning that there are two aspects to certainty. Or the two things are connected, and the “accurate knowledge” is what can lead to the discernment of the “truth of things” or may even be identical to it. What does “accurate knowledge” denote? If only the term “knowledge” were used here, then it could be presumed to refer to the acquisition of religious knowledge. The idea would then be that the process of acquiring that knowledge (which is traditional to Islam, and in particular that knowledge contained in the Koran) could lead to the obtaining of certainty. In actual fact, as has already been explained, the process of revelation is understood in the Koran to be a process of teaching knowledge: those who do not know the Koran seem to be unknowing, while Muslims seem to be knowing. It is thus important, even imperative, that Muslims acquire knowledge. But is reference being made here to the traditional knowledge of Islam? “Accurate” is the opposite of imprecise or vague. “Accurate knowledge” is knowledge which is based on a precise analysis—either a purely intellectual analysis or an empirical analysis based on observation. Analyses are particularly precise, when they are based on numbers, when things are precisely measured, when values are compared to each other and may even correspond precisely to each other. Such accurate knowledge is expected in the realm of science, and in particular the natural sciences, as they have methodologies and methods of measurement at their disposal to produce precise, or accurate results. That is why one can hypothesize that the phrase “accurate knowledge” is used to establish an implicit relationship to methods applied in the natural sciences. Put another way, what we are dealing with here is knowledge which is either generated using the methods applied in the natural sciences, or knowledge which is just as precise and accurate as the knowledge that can be generated by the modern natural sciences. What does this “accurate knowledge” refer to, of what is it knowledge? No answer is provided to this question. If, however, it is assumed that reference is being made to scientific knowledge, then it can only refer to the world which is available to the senses, which exists in assertions about things. From that, one could then draw the conclusion that one of the two possible readings provided in the above would have to be ruled out—namely, the reading that assumes that reference is being made here not to different ‘aspects’ of certainty (namely, certainty in faith, and certainty based on science). It would, however, be premature to cast this reading aside. In actual fact, it must be presumed to be the correct reading, which would mean that what is being referred to here is the possibility of arriving

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at the “truth of things” by acquiring scientific knowledge. And, since scientific knowledge is accurate because it does not permit any doubts, then doubts as to the “truth of things” are not necessary, and are not even possible; one can be absolutely certain of them. Thus, according to one reading, there are two different types of assertion that certainty refers to and ‘contains’ here, and the two are not directly related. First, there are metaphysical, i.e. religious, assertions, which cannot be subjected to discursive verification and which have always applied; second, there are those assertions which are made in the natural sciences about things in the world. By contrast, under the other reading, individuals can arrive at the “truth of things” by acquiring accurate knowledge, i.e. scientific assertions. “Acquiring” scientific knowledge then means not only acknowledging, internalizing, and thereby being able to reproduce it, but also regarding that knowledge as irrefutable, i.e. believing it to be the “truth”. It would not be acquired as hypothetical knowledge to be scrutinized critically, but as certain knowledge, i.e. knowledge that one can be certain of. The above question could then be answered (provisionally) as follows: the p we are dealing with here is the “truth of things”, an absolute, a religious truth, which is fixed, a truth ‘behind’ things. To arrive at this truth, individuals must acquire scientific knowledge. And, since such knowledge can be assumed to be certain, it can serve as the linchpin of certainty in belief in the “truth of things”. The text continues: which is beyond all doubt.

“Beyond all doubt” means that the question of whether knowledge can be doubted or not does not even arise. Knowledge is within the realms of what is inviolable, of the absolute. And that means that whoever acquires that knowledge can also arrive at absolute certainty. If this reading is correct (i.e. the phrase “accurate knowledge” stands for scientific knowledge), then this addition is naturally problematic, because scientific knowledge is by no means “beyond all doubt”. As the philosopher of science Karl Popper explained, even accurate scientific knowledge only applies conditionally, i.e. only up until the point when it can be falsified (Popper 1994). Science is not capable of verifying assertions to the extent that they apply “beyond all doubt”. At most, it can arrive at certainty when assertions are refuted. At that point, one can be certain that those particular assertions are false. But even then there are no absolute truths, since each and every scientific statement is dependent on specific premises, on the theories on which they are based, or rather on the paradigms within which they have been conceived (Kuhn

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1996). And so, there is no way that science can assuage doubts. The opposite is in fact true since science systematically creates doubt; this is the basis of scientific progress. Thus, either the reading that Gülen is referring to modern sciences when he speaks of “accurate knowledge” is false, or it is based on an idiosyncratic understanding of science, a type of scientism, the idea that science can generate assertions which can no longer be called into question. Although several questions remain open, this analysis can nonetheless provide a case-structural hypothesis: Gülen’s response to the problem of certainty is that individuals can arrive at certainty, certainty in faith, by acquiring knowledge which, like scientific knowledge, is accurate. Education can thus lead to certainty. Nevertheless, Gülen understands education not as an open process that repeatedly calls into question supposedly certain knowledge, but instead as the acquisition of knowledge. Because it is not hypothetical or merely relative, but is instead regarded as certain, this knowledge can lead to certainty, to a certainty which eliminates all doubt as to the “truth of things”.

5

Educational Processes Analogous to the Mystical Path

Ideally, the hypothesis proposed above would now have to be verified by means of a detailed examination of other passages in the text under analysis. But I will not do so here. Instead, I will cite a few other passages from Gülen’s text and briefly comment on them in order to verify and modify the hypothesis, and to validate its plausibility. Further on in the text, Gülen writes the following, for instance: Certainty is a stage,

Referring to a “stage” (mertebe, which can also be translated as a step or station) presupposes the existence of difference, of different levels, higher and lower levels, with there being no smooth transition between these levels. Instead, whoever wants to move from one level to the next has to move to the next stage. The word “stage” is well known from various contexts: the stage of a journey, for instance, or a developmental stage (e.g. in the process of cognitive development). It makes sense to assume that the context from which the term is being taken here is that of mystical thinking. If one assumes that the mystical path is intended to intensify the believer’s relationship with the Divine Being, so that he or she may come ever closer to the Divine, then the implication is that this path will not be

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straight, that it will be marked by stages, or steps, and that one of these stages is that of certainty. That, in turn, means that the process of assuaging doubts is not to be understood as a process by which one doubt after another is eliminated until none are left and certainty ensues. Instead, certainty is attained by making the leap to the next level, the idea being that doubt can no longer arise once one has attained that next stage. The use of the term stage or step shows how Gülen combines different things. Whilst he wrote in the previous passage about education in the sense of acquiring scientific knowledge in order to reach certainty in faith, he links education here to the idea of the mystical path, which has various stages, or steps. In other words, the idea of the mystical path is transformed into the educational process, which has various stages. Which the initiated can achieve through the study and verification of what was previously doubted.

The phrase “study and verification” again refers to science, for which studying (at university or college) is preparatory, and for which the verification of hypotheses is of fundamental importance. The term “verification” shows that not everything which is being claimed, not all the assertions about “things” in the world, are correct and “accurate”. It is down to each individual to verify these assertions and only to learn those which stand up to scrutiny and can no longer be doubted. And that, precisely, is the goal: to possess knowledge which can no longer be called into question. The idea is that, once they have arrived at the stage of certainty, individuals will have left behind all doubts, and there will be nothing left “which can be doubted”. There is, nevertheless, one caveat, and that is that not everyone who studies and verifies assertions is being included here. What has been stated does not apply to everyone who undergoes a scientific education, but only to a specific group of people. The assumption is that those who set out on the path of education have first been “initiated”. They have been taught a specific type of knowledge that not everyone is party to, and they belong to the circle of those who share this knowledge. The term “initiated” can be used in diverse contexts. Given that Gülen is steeped in the tradition of Islamic mysticism, we can again assume that he also adopted the term from the mystical tradition. Those who wish to arrive at certainty in faith can become part of the community in which specific esoteric knowledge is handed down. Once they have been initiated and become a member of the community, their education can lead them to the desired certainty in faith. The process of education, which is in principle open to everyone, is thus linked

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to membership of a particular community. Only those who are members of that community can arrive at certainty in faith through education. Further on in the text, Gülen writes: Travelers on the path to eternity

Here, again, a term has been taken from the mystical tradition, which often refers to those who set out on the mystical path as “travelers”. And we again see in the following how ideas taken from mysticism (in this case, the metaphor of the traveler) are linked to the idea of the educational process: are thus, through continuous observation and study,

“Observation and study” take the place of those mystical exercises which take “travelers” from one stage of the mystical path to the next. It is these which, it is claimed, lead believers to “eternity”. of the book of the universe and of the things and events contained in it,

At this point, it becomes clear that the reading mentioned above, i.e. that “accurate knowledge” can be linked to the natural sciences, is by no means far-fetched. The object of such “observation and study” is the “universe”; in other words, what can be perceived by the senses, “things and events” in the world. And the question of what is meant by the “truth of things” can also now be answered, because the “book of the universe” contains both the level of “things” that can be perceived by the senses, and the level that lies ‘behind’ it. “Observation and study” begin at the level of things, at that level which can be perceived by the senses. However, as is the case when reading a book, where the lines and strokes which can actually be perceived (i.e. the letters) are signifiers of something else, of something on another level that the senses process, it is possible according to Gülen to observe and study the world, and thereby to progress to a ‘world behind’, to the metaphysical level where the “truth of things” is to be found. allows the traveler to perceive God’s own, inimitable seal on these things and events.

These things and events, we now read, have a “seal”. This can be understood to mean that, when God created things, he gave them each his seal, a seal which only he is able to give. Those who study the universe like a book and acquire scientific knowledge of the world can (or at least that is the idea) ultimately achieve the

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insight that everything was created by God and everything belongs to him. That is the “truth” which is inherent to all things (and events). Whoever undergoes a scientific education, acquires accurate scientific knowledge, can advance to this truth, can grasp it—and thus overcome all doubts and achieve certainty in faith; that is, absolute certainty.

6

Conclusion

We can assume that the text analyzed above, like other texts by Gülen, was frequently read, first in the monthly Sizinti, and then in his anthology of texts on Islamic mysticism. Furthermore, and this is a particularly important point, both this text and other texts by Gülen and by Said Nursi have been widely read in the Hizmet movement’s discussion groups. These groups, which are of such importance to the movement, often meet in shared student accommodation and are open to all students. They can be regarded as discursive practices where participants not only read Gülen’s texts, but also internalize his ideas and ideals (Dohrn 2011). In other words, by discussing Gülen’s texts, those taking part are not only introduced to Gülen’s thinking, but also have their beliefs validated, gain in certainty of faith, and are guided by and pledge their allegiance to the norms linked to that thinking. The particular community of the “initiated” recruits its members from these discussion groups. And the discursive practices focused around these groups form the core of that ‘pious elite’ which ultimately is intended to change society as a whole. Recent research findings show that these discussion groups are still addressing the problem of certainty and the question of how to interpret the relationship between religion and science—that is, between a religious, absolute truth and scientific knowledge. And they show how this tension is currently being ‘resolved’ intellectually (Geier and Frank 2019): namely, by creating an “analogy between scientific and religious knowledge” (ibid., p. 86),7 through a “scientific heuristics of the Koran” (ibid., p. 89),8 or a “distinction between claims made by religion

7 Analogies

are formed by correlating the scientifically identifiable characteristics of things with the names for God. For instance, the power, as it were, which an apple gives people due to its nutritional content is linked to the power of God. 8 The Koran becomes a source of inspiration for hypotheses which can be examined using scientific methods.

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and science” (ibid., p. 92).9 It makes sense that these “solutions” are precarious, and that doubts cannot finally be assuaged in this way. Besides this intellectual reception, the practical consequences which were (and still are) derived from linking education and certainty are of key relevance. The fact that it is not the acquisition of knowledge that is handed down by tradition, and that what is called for is modern, scientific knowledge (specifically, knowledge produced in the natural sciences), is the reason that many of Gülen’s followers not only attended secondary education, but also went to university and are now working in academia.10 Another consequence is that establishing and expanding numerous educational institutions have improved educational opportunities for all. This was first done in Turkey, then in various neighboring countries following the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc, and then around the world. The ‘solution’ to the problem of certainty which Gülen proposes enables many Muslims to adhere to Islam and to affirm their Islamic faith. Because access to the professions in modern societies is to a large extent dependent on educational achievement, Muslims can also be very successful in those societies by following Gülen. However, this solution also creates problems, because education is primarily understood as the acquisition of knowledge, and Gülen’s ideas are linked to a kind of scientism, i.e. to the idea that science produces knowledge which is “beyond all doubt”. Another problem arises because, according to Gülen, education is intended to lead to absolute certainty. However, absolute certainty can also lead to a situation in which those who possess it (or believe that they possess it) are no longer prepared to acknowledge other points of view, to compromise, or to relativize their own standpoint. Finally, it must be remembered that there can be no certainty in the end, and that wanting to attain certainty through education can also lead to the opposite. Is it not the case that the educated are repeatedly confronted with new questions, and that knowledge that is purportedly certain becomes uncertain? That would mean that efforts to educate people, the aim of which is to arrive at a state of 9 By flagging up the boundaries, both belief and knowledge are ultimately confirmed as spheres

which are mutally convertible. is not surprising that many people in Turkey who were influenced by Gülen’s ideas and ideals held important offices in the judiciary, in state administration, and in the education and health systems. Critics regard this as an expression of the will to power. However, in the view put forward here, holding economic and political power is primarily based on the desire for certainty by acquiring knowledge and not a will to power (which thus also explains why Gülen succeeded in his endeavour to train a ‘pious elite’ which holds positions of power in society). 10 It

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absolute certainty and assuage doubts, may possibly lead to the opposite of what was originally intended—namely, that the path indicated by Gülen leads in the end to secularization. And so, the piety which Gülen represents might possibly be a transitional phenomenon in the sense that increased efforts at achieving certainty in faith will ultimately lead to the exact opposite. It will have to be left to further empirical research to answer the question of whether that is in fact the case.

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Short Biographies

Sinem Adar is an Associate at the Center for Applied Turkey Studies within the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, Berlin. Her research focuses on state- and nation-making practices and on inclusion and exclusion processes of social identity formation mainly in Turkey and the Middle East. https://www.swp-berlin.org/ en/scientist-detail/sinem-adar/. Aziz Chahir is Professor of Political Sciences at the National Institute of Management Training, Morocco, and Senior Research Associate at Jacques Berque Center of Humanities and Social Sciences. His current research areas are focused on leadership, political Islam and secularization in Arab Islamic societies. Christel Gärtner is Professor of Sociology and mentor of the graduate school at the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” at the University of Münster, Germany; currently she is the head of the international research project “The transmission of religion across generations: a comparative international study of continuities and discontinuities in family socialization”. https://www.uni-mue nster.de/Religion-und-Politik/personen/graduiertenschule/leiter/gaertner.shtml. Linda Hennig a sociologist and recently completed her PhD project on professional biographies of Muslim women in France and Germany. She currently works in the international research project “The transmission of religion across generations: a comparative international study of continuities and discontinuities in family socialization” at Münster University, Germany. https://www.uni-muenster. de/Religion-und-Moderne/personen/linda_hennig.html. Gritt Klinkhammer is Professor of the Study of Religion at Bremen University, Germany. Her research areas are Muslim life in Europe (organizations, Sufism,

© Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 C. Gärtner and H. Winkel (eds.), Exploring Islam beyond Orientalism and Occidentalism, Veröffentlichungen der Sektion Religionssoziologie der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-33239-6

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Salafism, discourses on Islam), religious plurality: conflict and convivence, sociology of religion, qualitative research on religion, biographical research, theories of religion. https://www.uni-bremen.de/religionswissenschaft/personen/prof-dr-grittklinkhammer. Anne-Sophie Lamine is Professor of Sociology at Strasbourg University, France. Her current research areas are pragmatism and sociology of religion with a particular interest in plurality, Islam, rigorism and radicalities, https://sspsd.u-strasbg. fr/lamine. Armando Salvatore is the Barbara and Patrick Keenan Chair in Interfaith Studies, McGill Universit, Montreal, Canada. He is the author of The Sociology of Islam: Knowledge, Power and Civility (Wiley Blackwell, 2016) and the chief editor of The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of the Middle East (Oxford University Press, 2021). https://www.mcgill.ca/religiousstudies/armando-salvatore-0. Isabella Schwaderer is a research assistant in Religious Studies at the University of Erfurt. Her interests are Mediterranean Religions, Islam in North Africa, Dance and Religion in the National Socialist period and Religion and Gender. https://www.uni-erfurt.de/en/philosophische-fakultaet/seminare-professuren/religi onswissenschaft/professuren/allgemeine-religionswissenschaft/team/isabella-sch waderer. Bryan S. Turner is Professor of Sociology at the Australian Catholic University, Emeritus Professor at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, Honorary Professor at Potsdam University and Fellow of the Edward Cadbury Centre University of Birmingham. He is the founding editor of the Journal of Classical Sociology. He is the General Editor of The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social Theory 2018. Johannes Twardella is a private lecturer at the Goethe University Frankfurt/Main, Germany and teacher at a high school in Frankfurt (Main), Germany. He is currently researching as a sociologist and educationalist on teaching in general education schools, on the professionalization of teachers and on pedagogy in Islam. https://www.uni-frankfurt.de/48928491/Twardella. Heidemarie Winkel is Professor of Sociology at Bielefeld University, Germany, and Senior Research Associate at St. Edmund’s College/University of Cambridge. Her current research areas are transcultural gender sociology and global sociology of religion with a particular interest in knowledge production from a postcolonial perspective, notions of equality, and Arab societies. https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/ soz/personen/winkel/.

Short Biographies

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Daniel Witte is Research Coordinator at the Käte Hamburger Center for Advanced Study “Law as Culture” at the University of Bonn. His teaching and research focuses on sociological theory, including classical social theory, differentiation theory, and relational sociology; the sociology of law; the sociology of religion; and political sociology, with a special interest in cultural constellations of law, religion, and politics and their contested boundaries in a global comparative perspective.