Muslims in the Western World: Sense of Belonging and Political Identity (Immigrants and Minorities, Politics and Policy) 3030994864, 9783030994860

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Immigrants and Minorities, Politics and Policy

Daniel Stockemer Editor

Muslims in the Western World Sense of Belonging and Political Identity

Immigrants and Minorities, Politics and Policy Series Editor David L. Leal, Univ of Texas at Austin, Dept of Govt, AUSTIN, TX, USA

Over the last fifty years, immigrant and minority population growth has transformed much of the developed world, particularly the United States, Canada, and Europe. Understanding the political and policy consequences of this demographic change is essential to scholars and practitioners alike. On topics ranging from elections to public policy to representation, immigrants and minorities are – or should be – increasingly important parts of the discussion. In the electoral arena, we need to better understand the implications of demographic change for parties, public opinion, and outcomes. In the policy realm, it is increasingly necessary to consider the implications of laws, rules, and practices for immigrant and minority groups. The United States population is now one-third minority, for instance, and rapidly expanding Latino communities point to a future with no majority racial-ethnic group. What are the implications of such change for politics and policy? This new series is designed to address these topics, and well as related subjects such as the integration of immigrant and minority groups, internal migration, the implications of migration for sending nations, and the forces that structure migration. If you would like to propose a book or edited volume, please contact either the series or press editor.

More information about this series at https://link.springer.com/bookseries/8832

Daniel Stockemer Editor

Muslims in the Western World Sense of Belonging and Political Identity

Editor Daniel Stockemer School of Political Studies University of Ottawa Ottawa, ON, Canada

ISSN 2625-8544 ISSN 2625-8552 (electronic) Immigrants and Minorities, Politics and Policy ISBN 978-3-030-99486-0 ISBN 978-3-030-99487-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99487-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed 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. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgments

The author acknowledges gracious support from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, which provided both monetary and logistical support for this project.

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Contents

The Importance of Studying Muslims in Western Countries . . . . . . . . . . . Daniel Stockemer and Antonia Teodoro Muslims’ Sense of Belonging and Identification in the Western World: An Overview and Comparison of Scientific Literature in North America and Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Zeynep Sezgin American Muslim Immigrants: Identity and Belonging in the Shadow of 9/11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Youssef Chouhoud

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Muslims in Canada: Their Identity and Sense of Belonging . . . . . . . . . . . . Daniel Stockemer and Antonia Teodoro

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Muslim Immigrants in France: Sense of Identity and Belonging . . . . . . . . Jacques Barou

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Muslim Immigrants’ Sense of Identity and Belonging in the Western World—The Case of Austria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rüdiger Lohlker

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Muslim Immigrants in the Netherlands: Characteristics, Identification and Diversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Willem Huijnk, Jaco Dagevos, and Floris Vermeulen

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Muslims in Britain: From Forcible Assimilation to Preventable Radicalisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Tahir Abbas

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Belonging, Identification and Trust Among Self-Identified Muslims in Sweden: What We Know and What We don’t Know . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 Göran Larsson and Erika Willander Lessons from the Book and Future Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 Daniel Stockemer and Antonia Teodoro

Contributors

Tahir Abbas Institute of Strategic and Global Affairs, Leiden University in The Hague, Leiden, The Netherlands Jacques Barou National Center for Scientific Research and Institute of Political Science, Université Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France Youssef Chouhoud Christopher Newport University, Newport News, VA, USA Jaco Dagevos Netherlands Institute for Social Research, The Hague, The Netherlands Willem Huijnk Netherlands Institute for Social Research, The Hague, The Netherlands Göran Larsson Religious Studies, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden Rüdiger Lohlker Islamic Studies at the Oriental Institute, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria Zeynep Sezgin Department of Development Studies, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria Daniel Stockemer School of Political Studies, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada Antonia Teodoro School of Political Studies, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada Floris Vermeulen Department of Political Science, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Erika Willander Department of Sociology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

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The Importance of Studying Muslims in Western Countries Daniel Stockemer and Antonia Teodoro

1 Introduction Muslims are the fastest-growing major religious group in the world, and the Pew Research Center (2017) estimates that by 2050 they should become the largest religious group worldwide. In 2015, there were 1.8 billion Muslims globally, which equals about 24 percent of the world population. In Western countries, Muslims are also one of the fastest-growing religious groups. Pew Research Center (2017) projects that approximately 10 percent of Europe’s population will be Muslim by 2050, and about 2.1 percent of Americans will self-identify with Islam by then (Vaughan, n.d.). Not only are Muslims a growing group in France, the Netherlands, the UK, or the United States, to name a few countries, they are probably often also viewed as the most controversial group. On the one hand, they identify with a religion confronted with the radicalization of a fringe group of members and in whose name multiple terrorist attacks have been perpetuated. Examples of this would be the events of September 11, 2001 in the United States (US), the November 2015 Paris attacks, the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, or the 2017 London Bridge attack. On the other hand, Muslims also suffer from subtle or deeply rooted Islamophobia in the West, characterized by suspicion or outright rejection of the Muslim faith. In some cases, islamophobia has turned into violent acts such as the burning down of Mosques or physical attacks against Muslim believers (Bahia, 2021). In such a climate of growing distrust between Muslims and non-Muslims, which also includes the victimization, as well as the “othering” and alienating of the Muslim community by the local population, we ask the questions: What is Muslims’ sense of belonging and identity? Do they primarily identify with their country of origin, D. Stockemer (B) · A. Teodoro School of Political Studies, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] A. Teodoro e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. Stockemer (ed.), Muslims in the Western World, Immigrants and Minorities, Politics and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99487-7_1

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their country of residence or with their religion? How connected are they with their country of residence’s political institutions? For integration purposes, it is crucial to better understand how Muslims with or without an immigrant background adapt to the challenging environment that surrounds them. This applies to the first generation of Muslim immigrants, who have directly experienced migration and who must adapt to their new society. Integration is equally important for second-generation migrants, who were born and have been growing up in Western countries. They must negotiate multiple identity processes; they need to combine feelings of belonging to their ethnic and religious community with those to the host country. The processes of coping with a rather hostile environment might also create identity crises for third, fourth or fifth generation immigrants, as well as converted Muslims. This applies even more so considering that the local population might not make any fine-grained distinctions in their views of Muslims. It is with this context in mind that we have organized this edited volume. In addition to the introduction and conclusion, it consists of one empirical overview chapter on Muslims’ sense of belonging and identity in the West, and seven case studies of the following countries: Austria, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the UK, as well as Canada, and the United States. Each of these seven chapters engages in three tasks that on first sight seem simple: (1) identify, who the Muslims in the respective country or set of countries are, (2) discuss their sense of identity and belonging, and (3) showcase possible variation in Muslims’ sense of belonging and identity among subgroups. Yet, in reality these three simple tasks have proven relatively difficult. On a conceptual level, it is quite difficult to identify who a Muslim is and to distinguish a Muslim from a Muslim immigrant. Empirically, there is also very little census or survey data available on the Muslims in the countries under investigation. For example, for some countries showcased in this book (e.g., Sweden and Austria), there is no census data on the number of Muslims, making it difficult to know the exact size of the Muslim population in the country as well as their ethnic backgrounds. When it comes to our main reference terms, which are a sense of belonging and identity, these are complex concepts that are hard to operationalize. Empirically, there is also comparatively little exploration of Muslims’ sense of identity and belonging. For instance, there is no cross-national survey that compares Muslims and their feelings toward their country of residence. So far, some national level surveys illustrate aspects of Muslims sense of identity and belonging, frequently showcasting specific groups, such as youth, but without discussing these groups within an overall comparative framework. Against these backdrops, we try to provide a better understanding of how Muslims in the West feel toward their country of residency and what their main points of attachments are. In the remainder of this introductory chapter, we explain why we study “Muslims” and their “sense of identity” and “belonging.” After this contextual overview, we try to define our two reference points “Muslims” and “sense of identity” and “belonging” and discuss how we use both terms in the book.

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2 Why do we Study Muslims and Their Identity and Sense of Belonging in Western Countries? We study Muslims in the West and their sense of identity and belonging for two reasons: (1) Muslims are the fastest-growing religious group in the West and (2) they are one of the most controversial groups. First, all of the data that we have points to a fast growing Muslim population in Europe and the United States, even if we only have cross-national estimates from surveys from several countries. For example, according to Pew Research Center (2017), Muslims consisted of 5 percent of Europe’s population in 2017, with higher numbers in certain countries such as France, Germany, and Sweden (2017). Pew further estimates that from 2010 to 2016, the number of Muslims in Europe rose by more than 20 percent, from 3.8 percent to 4.9 percent (19.5 million to 25.8 million). According to the survey firm, the share of Muslims in Europe will have more than doubled by 2050, rising to about 11.2 percent or more of the total population. While the entire share of Muslims in the overall population is lower in the United States compared to Western Europe, it is fast growing there, as well. For example, according to the 2011 census, there were 1,053,945 Muslims living in Canada, 40 percent of which arrived after 2000 (Environics Institute Survey, 2016). In the United States, in 2017, Pew Research Center (2017) estimates that there were about 3.45 million Muslims living in the United States, making up 1.1 percent of the total population. This number grew from 2.35 million in 2007 to 2.75 million Muslims in 2011, and since then has grown to about 100,000 new Muslims per year US (Pew Research Center, 2017). Second, not only are Muslims the fastest-growing religious group in the Western world, they are also one of the groups that face the most resistance by the local populations. For example, Ognan et al. (2014) find through survey research that between 27 and 61 percent of respondents in eight different European countries believe that there is a surplus of Muslims in their countries, and that more than half of the polled in these countries believe Muslims are “too demanding.” Other survey research highlights that more than 70 percent of the polled are concerned of extremism in the name of Islam in both the United States and Western Europe. Another survey illustrates that 41 percent of voters in a poll in the United States believe that Islam encourages more violence than any other religion (see Marinov & Stockemer, 2020). Historically, this resistance against Islam is partly grounded in Orientalism, which perceives of Eastern societies as primitive, inferior and exotic. The West views itself as a dynamic, innovative culture that is always expanding for the better, while at the same, belittling other societies. According to this ideology, the Orient or the “colonized” must be “taught” the proper meaning of liberty and democracy, rather than their “ways of life” (Said, 1978). In more recent times, this feeling of Western superiority has its characterization in ethno-centrism, or the feeling that the Christian religion and culture is superior to the Islamic one (Hammond & Axelrod, 2006). Forms of prejudice against Muslims manifest themselves in “their otherness,

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non-whiteness, and foreignness” (Elver, 2012, p.135). These characteristics make Muslims the perfect vehicle to rid the community of its ‘ethical, hierarchical and moral tensions’” to fulfill a “tribal need for a scapegoat, for something which will personify the ‘adversary’” (Weaver, 1953, p. 222). The negative opinions non-Muslim Europeans tend to hold about Muslims stem in part from a general xenophobia but in part also from concerns about religious fundamentalism. Muslim identity is complicated because in Europe, religion “is not a bridge but a barrier to incorporation within Europe” (Connor, 2010, p. 380). Religiosity among Muslim immigrants in Europe is higher than that of the native population; religious competition, religious enclaves, and religious reaction are side products of this higher level of religiosity. Relatedly, Muslims in Europe show higher values of traditionalism and fundamentalism (Koopmans, 2015), two features, that can further contribute to fears against Muslims. An ever increasing number of political actors spearheaded by radical right-wing populist parties ranging from the National Rally in France to the Trump wing of the Republican Party in the United States that push the narrative that Muslims are an existential threat to their country. They portray Muslims as a cultural, economic, and security danger. (1) In their view, Muslims can become a cultural threat because the Islamic religion symbolized by hijabs and burkas, as well as the construction of mosques is expansive and aims to destroy the cultural heritage of Western nations (Choi et al., 2021). (2) In such hostile rhetoric, Muslims are also an economic threat, because they are competitors on the job market and for social welfare (Mayda, 2006). (3) Finally, the radical right portrays Muslims as a security threat; in this view, the Muslim religion is an inherently violent religion characterized by fundamentalism and terrorism in the name of God (Von Hermanni & Neumann, 2019). The media has also contributed to this negative profiling of Muslims. According to Marinov and Stockemer (2020), when reporting about Muslims, the media tend to focus on negative content such as the threat of terrorism associated with Muslim immigration rather than the successes surrounding Muslim migration. Drabu (2018, p. 2) further states that “global politics have aggravated their negative stereotyping and the media is critical in this opinion-shaping.” In another study, Druxes (2020, p. 70) states that “resentment, fear and anger are easily mobilized by a media culture that relies on sensationalism and quick turnover.” Finally, Terman affirms that the US’ mainstream media highlights the notion that Muslims are sexist in nature (2017). Such examples might contribute to a growing anxiety and misconception about Islam’s compatibility with the West, especially in terms of values such as equality, civility and tolerance (Khan et al., 2019). Regardless of whether the underlying rational for rejecting Muslims is economic, cultural, or security related, negative feelings toward Muslims are relatively widespread in contemporary Western countries. The growing anti-Islamic sentiment has also concrete repercussions on the type of treatment Muslims receive in their respective country of residence or as immigrants or asylum seekers. For example, Laitlin et al. (2016) discover that, in France, Muslim immigrants face greater discrimination in the labor market and earn less monthly income than their Christian counterparts in similar jobs. Focusing more on refugees, a study by Bansak et al. (2016) reports that Muslim asylum seekers are

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about 11 percentage points less likely to be accepted than similar Christian asylum seekers throughout Western Europe. How do Muslims cope with this rather hostile climate? Sirin and Fine (2007) propose the term “hyphenated selves.” By hyphenated, they refer to several identities; identities that are “at once joined, and separated, by history, the present socio-political climate, geography, biography, longings and loss” (p. 152). Of course, how Muslims hyphen their identity depends on personal characteristics such as gender, class, and type of schooling, as well as contextual markers such as the type of acceptance or resistance they receive in the community and country they live in. However, what they all have in common is that they “live at the hyphen” between their dual identities of being Muslim and a resident of the country they live in. In this book, we aim at determining if the pendulum swings more toward their country of residence and their institutions or toward their Muslim religion. We also want to determine, the degree to which the context shapes their identity and sense of belonging. However, before doing so in the chapters, we need to define the key terms of this book “Muslim” and “sense of identity” and “belonging.”

3 Who is a Muslim? The term “Muslim” is very broad and basic in describing a group of people, in the same way as the term “visible minority” is broad. In the broadest sense it relates to someone who follows the religion of Islam (Aziz, 2018). Even if Muslims generally refer to and identify with a certain number of fundamental principles, which have their basis in the Quran (Ramadan, 2003), there is not one Islam and Muslims are not a homogeneous group. Some Muslims are “devout but apolitical”; some are political but do not view their politics as “Islamic”; some identify with an origin or a nationality of settlement and/or citizenship, some prioritize different things, such as politics or passions; some have different levels of religiosity and some have different races (Modood, 2009). The umbrella term Muslim renders it clear that we cannot speak of a homogenous group of people. Most of the Muslims we study have an immigration background; in the majority, they are either first, second, or third generation immigrants. Yet, there are also important differences between countries, with Muslims in the two North American countries, Canada, and the United States, being mostly first-generation immigrants, while some countries in Western Europe have a large second- and thirdgeneration population.1 For instance, the website Muslim Link (2015) reports that about 68 percent of Muslims residing in Canada are foreign-born and have arrived 1

From a historical perspective, it is important to note that many slaves that were brought into the United States via slave ships were also Muslims. This implies that the history of Islam and Muslims in the United States dates back several hundred years. However, strong Muslim immigration is a fairly recent phenomenon that occurred mainly after World War II (see chapter on United States for more information).

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after 2000. In the United States, out of the total of roughly 3.5 million Muslims, 6 out of 10 Muslims ages 18 and over are foreign-born (Pew Research Center, 2017). Contrary to the other countries in this book, the United States also have a high number of converted white or black Muslims. Turning to Europe, it is important to stress that Islam and Muslims have had a more than 600-year presence in the Baltic rim (see, for instance, Larsson & Racius, 2010). Despite this early presence on the European continent, Muslims only became a sizable population on the continent in the 1960s and 1970s. In Europe, the composition of the Muslim immigrant pool is also a bit more diverse between first, second, and third generation immigrants, as compared to North America. For example, France saw some rather strong Muslim immigration in the 1960s and 1970s from the former colonies of the Maghreb (Czymara & Eisentraut, 2020). At the same time, the Netherlands experienced some labor migration of Turks, which still make up the largest group in the share of the Muslim population in the country (Pew Research Center, 2017). Most Muslims with Turkish background are now second or third generation migrants. In contrast, in Sweden, Muslim immigration is a rather new phenomenon. According to Bevelander and Otterbeck (2010), the Swedish Muslim population has increased from a few families in the 1950s, to about 100,000 in the 1980s, to about 400,000 Muslims in 2007. From the mid-1980s to 2020s, it has increased by another roughly 400,000 to a total of roughly 800,000 (Tomson, 2020). Sweden has also accepted a high share of Muslim immigrants in the wake of the European Refugee Crisis in 2015/2016. Similar to Sweden, Austria has also seen a relatively strong recent influx of Muslim migrants. In the 1971 census, only 0.3 percent of the population was Muslim, and by 1991, it this number increased to 2 percent, followed by 4.2 percent in 2001 (Sezgin, 2019). In 2017, this number increased to an estimated 700,000, representing 8 percent of the population (Sezgin, 2019). Finally, the UK sees a split between first- and second-generation Muslim immigrants, with approximately 50 percent being born in the country. The chapters in this book use different reference points when defining Muslims. For example, the chapters on the United States and Canada compare first- and secondgeneration Muslims, while the chapters on Austria and the Netherlands compare different subgroups of Muslims. Finally, the chapter on Sweden compares Muslims with non-Muslims. While these different reference points do not necessarily allow for direct comparisons between the chapters, they still shed new light on different aspects of Muslims’ sense of identity and belonging that help us gain some more holistic picture of who the Muslims in Western countries are and what their sense of identity and belonging is.

4 What is Identity and Belonging? Marcia (1980, p. 159) defines identity as “an internal, self-constructed, dynamic organization of drives, abilities, beliefs and individual history. The better developed this structure is, the more aware individuals appear to be of their own uniqueness and

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similarity to others and of their own strengths and weaknesses.” In Marcia’s definition, the structure of identity is not static—it is dynamic; elements are constantly being added and discarded over time. As such, identity is a concept that has a variety of different meanings and sub-meanings. The most important ones are ethnic identity, religious identity and self-identity. Ethnic-identity is feeling like oneself as a “member of a group, a carrier of traditions, rites and values characterizing the group” (Pirtskhalava, 2019, p. 48). Religious identity is the way in which an individual applies a religious label to herself (Aziz et al., 2018). The concept of “place identity” is another form of self-identity that uses the environment that surrounds individuals. Place identity seeks to answer the question of “who am I by asking where do I belong?” (Pirtskhalava, 2019, p. 48). A sense of belonging directly relates to identity. According to Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” a sense of belonging is part of basic human need—the need to feel love and connection. It expresses itself through a feeling of being important to one another and to a group (Kitchen et al., 2015). In order to feel a strong sense of belonging, it is important that there are connections with and among members of the group you wish to be a part of (Brower, 2021). In a narrow sense, a sense of belonging can refer to key identity markers. It can have a religious meaning (i.e., identification with a religious group), ethnic meaning (i.e., identification with an ethnic or cultural group), or geographical belonging (i.e., identification with a specific nationhood, citizenship, or subnational geographical unit). Individuals can also develop a sense of belonging with certain political or interest-based institutions such as democracy (Gabrielsson, 2021). Beyond its narrow meaning, a sense of belonging can have influence on the “formation of social ties, participation of individuals in a community, and affect wellbeing and general quality of life as well as have a significant role in building a sense of community within a neighborhood, motivating a community or groups” (Raman, 2014, p. 1). Through such a definition, a sense of belonging is related to quality of life. It is also an indicator of desirable social outcomes for individuals, such as social inclusion, well-being, social cohesion, social capital, and nationhood (Valle Painter, 2013). Conscientious that is important for citizens of a country, and immigrants alike, to feel a strong sense of belonging to their country of residence, the chapters in this book try to highlight different aspects of Muslim immigrants’ identities and sense of belonging. They do so by focusing on their religious identity (see chapter on Austria), their attachment to the nationhood (see chapters on Canada and the United States), or their trust in the government (see chapter on Sweden).

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Marcia, J. E. (1980). Identity in adolescence. Handbook of Adolescent Psychology, 9(11), 159–187. Marinov, R., & Stockemer, D. (2020). The spread of anti-Islamic sentiment: A comparison between the United States and Western Europe. Politics & Policy, 48(3), 402–441. Mayda, A. M. (2006). Who is against immigration? A cross-country investigation of individual attitudes toward immigrants. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 88(3), 510–530. Modood, T. (2009). Muslims and the politics of difference. In P. Hopkins (Eds.), Muslims in Britain: Race, place and identities. Edinburgh University Press. Ognan, C., et al. (2014). The rise of anti-Muslim prejudice: Media and islamophobia in Europe and the United States. The International Communication Gazette, 76(1), 27–46. Painter, C. (2013). Sense of belonging: Literature review. Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Pirtskhalava, E. (2019). Being here and there: A case study of Muslim Meskhetians’ identity and belonging, formation and reconstruction in the United States. Caucasus Survey, 7(1), 44–59. https://doi.org/10.1080/23761199.2018.1499299 Pew Research Center. (2017). Muslims and Islam: Key findings in the U.S. and around the world. Accessed on March 22, 2022 from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/08/09/muslimsand-islam-key-findings-in-the-u-sand-around-the-world/ Ramadan, T. (2003). Western Muslims and the future of Islam. Oxford University Press. Raman S. (2014). Sense of belonging. In A. C. Michalos (Ed.), Encyclopedia of quality of life and well-being research. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0753-5_2646 Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. Pantheon Books. Sezgin, Z. (2019). Islam and Muslim minorities in Austria: Historical context and current challenges of integration. Journal of International Migration and Integration, 20(3), 869–886. https://doi. org/10.1007/s12134-018-0636-3 Sirin, R., & Fine, M. (2007). Hyphenated selves: Muslim American youth negotiating identities on the fault lines of global conflict”. Applied Developmental Science, 11(3), 151–163. https://doi. org/10.1080/1088869070145465 Terman, R. (2017). Islamophobia and media portrayals of Muslim women: A computational text analysis of US news coverage. International Studies Quarterly, 61, 489–502. Tomson, D. (2020). The rise of the Sweden democrats: Islam, populism and the end of Swedish exceptionalism. Brookings Institute. Vaughan, D. (nd). What is the most widely practiced religion in the world? Encyclopedia Britannica. Von Hermanni, H., & Neumann, R. (2019). ‘Refugees welcome?’ The interplay between perceived threats and general concerns on the acceptance of refugees–A factorial survey approach in Germany. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 45(3), 349–374. Weaver, R. (1953). The ethics of rhetoric. Henry Regnery.

Muslims’ Sense of Belonging and Identification in the Western World: An Overview and Comparison of Scientific Literature in North America and Europe Zeynep Sezgin

1 Introduction Identity has increasingly become an important keyword in contemporary social sciences to the point that it is nearly impossible to provide an exhaustive synopsis of the different contributions in this field. However, the relationship between migration and identity has attracted more limited academic attention and even a smaller part of this attention has been devoted to religious identity in the context of migration— a subject which has gained importance in the West with the growing numbers of Muslims. This chapter provides an overview and comparison of the studies on Muslims’ sense of belonging and identification with their countries of residence, underlining the differences between North America and Europe in general, and the differences across European countries. Providing such an overview and comparison is a difficult task for several reasons. First, the reviewed studies have various aims and discuss a wide range of research questions, including, among others, (a) the significance of religious rights and regulations for Muslim immigrants’ sense of belonging; (b) on the one hand, immigrants’ interest to integrate and, on the other hand, the availability of the opportunity structures that stimulate immigrants’ integration; (c) the interaction between social, labor market and political integration and immigrants’ sense of belonging; (d) the attitudes of the majority society toward the Muslim minority and how Islamophobia, xenophobia, and discrimination influence Muslims’ sense of belonging and the processes of religious identity (re)construction; (e) the relevance of factors, like place of birth, language proficiency, educational status, or socio-economic status for Muslims’ sense of belonging; (f) the interaction between religious, cultural, ethnic, and national identification; and (g) the strategies of identity (re)construction through (dis)identification. Z. Sezgin (B) Department of Development Studies, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. Stockemer (ed.), Muslims in the Western World, Immigrants and Minorities, Politics and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99487-7_2

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Second, the reviewed studies operationalize Muslims’ sense of belonging and identity in different ways, complicating a comparative analysis between them. Research methods of the reviewed studies are diverse, ranging from surveys with 15,000 respondents to qualitative interviews with a handful of Muslims or mixed methods. Some of them focus on one country of residence, such as Germany or the Netherlands, some on a specific city, such as Berlin or London, while others are cross-sectional.1 Third, the reviewed studies use differing terminology, depending on ‘national idiosyncrasies as regards the way immigration is looked at and defined’ (Schneider, 2016, p. 2). In France, for example, referring to the ethnic background of native-born citizens is politically undesirable and immigrants are expected to become French citizens within one generation. In contrast to France, ethnicity is not a problematic concept in the UK and the government conducts ethnic monitoring.2 In the Netherlands, the term ‘tweede generatie’ is well established in the academic and public discourse but the public discourse still highlights a basic distinction between ‘autochtoon’ (being of ethnic Dutch descent) and ‘allochtoon’ (being of non-Dutch descent). In Germany, by contrast, the term ‘second generation’ is uncommon in public discourse, but is often used, although less common than ‘people with migration background,’ in the academic circles (Schneider, 2016). The terminology applied by the reviewed studies reflects these national differences. Some of the studies focus only on ‘first’ (e.g., Rania & Shabnam, 2016) or ‘second generation’ Muslim immigrants (e.g., Beaman, 2016; Peek, 2005), whereas others include both ‘first’ and ‘second generation’ Muslim immigrants (e.g., Beek & Fleischmann, 2019; Boland, 2020). There are also some studies that use the increasingly popular notion of ‘migration background’ (e.g., Fleischmann et al., 2019; Foroutan, 2013).3 Unfortunately, all these definitions contain a lot of potential for inaccuracies and make a valid comparison almost impossible. To start with, the term ‘immigrant’ ignores the differences between the members of these categories, for example, regarding their socio-economic status and level of education, and associates them predominantly with ‘problems of integration.’ Nevertheless, people, who are categorized as ‘immigrants,’ see themselves neither as immigrants nor as problematic (Schneider, 2016). Besides, ‘first generation’ and ‘second generation’ immigrants have diverse experiences in their countries of residence and being ‘second generation’ immigrants in Europe and in the North America means totally different things. Moreover, in the ius soli countries, like the US, the term ‘second generation’ Muslim immigrants refer 1

Broad comparative studies between Europe in general and the US are seldom conducted (e.g., Foner & Alba, 2008; Liebert et al., 2020). 2 See https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/style-guide/ethnic-groups for a list of ethnic groups in the UK and information on how these groups were chosen by the British government. 3 With first generation, we mean Muslims who have migrated into their present country of residence. Second-generation Muslim immigrants are descendants of Muslims who migrated, but do not themselves have a migration experience. Alternatively, the increasingly popular notion of ‘migration background’ is ascribed to a person who: (a) migrated into their present country of residence; and/or (b) previously had a different nationality from their present country of residence; and/or (c) at least one of their parents previously entered their present country of residence as a migrant.

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to native-born citizens, who have limited commonalities with the actual immigrants. Yet, the problems attached with the applied terminology are not limited to these. Some of the reviewed studies claim to focus on Muslims, including both citizens and immigrants, relying on their respondents’ identification of themselves as Muslims. Yet, the studies often do not discuss what it means when individuals identify themselves as Muslim. Does it mean that they are practicing believers, non-practicing believers, or ‘secular’ Muslims? Do they view themselves in a cultural rather than in a religious context? The usage of the term ‘Muslim community’ (e.g., Fine & Sirin, 2007; Pew Research Center, 2017) is also ambiguous because ‘it often overshadows racial, ethnic or national elements of an individual’s identity, which might feel more important to that individual than the “Islamic” elements’ (Sadek, 2017, p. 204). Last but not least, an overview and comparison of reviewed studies are difficult due to the contradictory findings. The first group of the reviewed studies positively characterizes Muslims’ sentiment toward their country of residence (e.g., Nyiri, 2007; Pew Research Center, 2007). The second group rather reports negative feelings (e.g., Fleischmann and Phalet, 2011; Verkuyten & Yildiz, 2007). Alternatively, the third group mentions both positive and negative sentiments toward countries of residence (e.g., Ozyurt, 2013; Verkuyten, 2016). In spite of the above-mentioned burdens, like the diversity of the reviewed studies’ aims, research methods, geographical focus, terminology, and research results, which makes an overview and a meaningful comparison of these studies difficult, we could detect four major findings. This chapter presents these findings in a systematic way after providing information on the applied methodology.

2 Methodology For this chapter, we reviewed 44 studies. We based our selection process on the methodology of two recent review articles (Ahmed & Matthes, 2016; Stockemer & Moreau, 2021). First, we carried out web search using the keywords ‘Muslims,’ ‘belonging,’ and ‘identity’ and paired these keywords with immigrants (and synonyms) and integration. Second, using the same keywords, we searched the EBSCO, Google Scholar, JSTOR, ProQuest, ScopusProQuest, Taylor & Francis, Web of Science (SSCI), and Wiley Online Library databases for relevant publications. Third, from a bigger sample of 75 publications, we selected only those that: (a) focused on Muslims’ belonging and identity in the Western World, (b) were published between 2005 and 2020 in an English language journal, and (c) used empirical data. Using these criteria, we could retrieve 44 articles, books, and research reports (see Appendix 1 for a complete list of these publications including their year of publication, year of data collection, target population, and research methodology). Like in Stockemer and Moreau (2021), we then tried to cluster the studies by geographical focus, level of analysis (i.e., national vs. subnational), and methodological approach (qualitative vs. quantitative) to identify commonalities and differences between them.

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In the following parts of this chapter, we present an overview and comparison of studies that we selected and analyzed through this methodology.

3 Major Findings As previously mentioned, there are four major findings in the reviewed studies. The first major finding, highlighted by the comparison of the North American and European studies, is that the Muslim immigrants in the European countries have lower sentiments of national identity and belonging than their counterparts in the North American countries (Birani, 2017; Ozyurt, 2013). The majority of Muslims in Canada and the US strongly identify themselves with both being Muslim and Canadian/American and are equally proud to be Muslim and Canadian/American, whereas the majority of the Muslims in the European countries value their Muslim identity more than their nationality/belonging to their country of residence (Environics Institute, 2016; Pew Research Center, 2006, 2017). Second, when it comes to Muslims’ sense of belonging and identification with their countries of residence, there are important differences across the European countries (Fleischmann & Phalet, 2018). Third, Muslims’ feelings of belonging to their neighborhood and city seem to be stronger than their belonging to the nation (Choudhury & McCarthy, 2010; Nyiri, 2007). Fourth, the reviewed studies discuss the differences between the members of the Muslim communities and their sense of belonging and identity. These studies address the heterogeneity of the Muslim communities and show how Muslim individuals’ personal attributes, like their religiosity, socio-economic status, educational level, and racial, ethnic, and cultural background, etc., shape their sense of belonging and identity (Fine & Sirin, 2007; Leszczensky et al., 2020). In the following section, we will discuss these major common findings in a systematic way.

4 Muslims’ National Identification Some of the reviewed studies focus on the issue of Muslim integration in their countries of residence through the lens of national identification and explore the factors that best explain their national identification. National identification is an important component of social identity (Tajfel and Turner, 1986) and indicates a sense of belonging to the country (Leszczensky et al., 2020). National identification is also a key in understanding immigrants’ integration because it indicates the level of their psychological attachment to mainstream society (Statham and Tillie, 2016). The reviewed studies on national identification highlight the difference between the European countries and the North American countries. According to these studies, Muslims in the European countries have lower sentiments of national identity and belonging than their counterparts in the North American countries and hence are less

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likely to identify themselves with their countries of residence than the Muslims in the North American countries. In Canada, like in the rest of the Western World, the pressure on Muslims has increased since 9/11, and Muslim individuals and institutions have increasingly experienced difficulties in preserving their traditions and practicing certain aspects of their religion. In spite of these negative developments, the participants of the reviewed studies (foreign-born Muslim and Muslims born in Canada) were often unanimous in their largely positive sentiments about Canada and expressed gratitude for the advantages afforded to them by being Canadian (MacDonald, 2015). Furthermore, most of the participants strongly identify as both Muslim and Canadian. The survey of 600 adult Muslims in Canada (Environics Institute, 2016) reveals that majority of the Muslims in this country consider both religion (84 percent) and country (81 percent) to be crucial parts of their personal identity. Similarly, Muslims in the US overwhelmingly express pride in their national and religious identities alike. According to a study conducted by the Pew Research Center (2017), about 89 percent of the Muslims indicate that they are proud to be American and proud to be Muslim. Just 6 percent say they are proud to be Muslim and not proud to be American, and 1 percent say they are proud to be American and not proud to be Muslim. By comparison, research in Western Europe has found out that the majority of Muslims consider themselves primarily to be a Muslim rather than a national of their countries of residence (e.g., Pew Research Center, 2006; Verkuyten & Martinovic, 2012). For example, a double comparison of national identification across groups (Muslim minority; non-Muslim majority; and other minority) in five European countries (Belgium, England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden) reveals that national identities are less strongly endorsed by all minorities compared with the majority, but national identification is lowest among Muslims (Fleischmann & Phalet, 2018). This descriptive evidence resonates with public concerns about the insufficient inclusion of immigrant minorities in general, and Muslims in particular, in European national identities.

4.1 Islam: A Matter of National Identity and/or Security? According to the reviewed studies, the above-mentioned differences regarding Muslim immigrants’ national identification in the North American and the European countries can be explained by transatlantic differences in: (1) the approach to Muslims and (2) the centrality of Islam as a divide between natives and immigrants (Papademetriou et al., 2016). In Western Europe, cultural fears continue to dominate, with many seeing Islam as a direct threat to the norms and values that bind their societies together. Followers of Islam are often portrayed as a monolithic bloc that is different from the ‘Europeans,’ which are generally depicted as Christian, secular, liberal, and democratic. In other words, Islam is often used as a label to

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indicate and fulfill notions of ‘self versus otherness.’4 Members of this group are thought to be perpetrators of insecurity, being blamed in particular for threatening social stability, economic prosperity, and the European cultural–normative ‘way of life,’ in other words European core values (such as free speech and gender equality) and institutions. In contrast to the European countries, Muslims in the US in and of itself are generally not seen as a threat to national identity. In the US, ‘hostility to Islam is largely focused on national security issues, rather than framed as a fundamental threat to American core values and institutions. Nor is Islam a central issue in debates about immigration and immigrant integration, as in Western Europe; in the US, these debates tend to focus on unauthorized immigrants (very few of whom are Muslim)’ (Papademetriou et al., 2016, p. 6). In order to explain these differences, the reviewed studies refer to demographics, the religiosity of the native majority population, and more inclusive national identities in the US (Papademetriou et al., 2016, p. 8). In Europe, an overwhelming majority of Muslims are immigrants and most of the immigrants are Muslim. In contrast, as of 2020, African-American Muslims account for about one-third of American Muslims, and as such, make the US the only Western country to have such a large number of indigenous Muslims. This circumstance makes it more difficult for the US to represent Islam as something foreign and un-American, as happens in Europe (Azzaoui, 2012). The reviewed studies show that that Muslims in Europe and in the US are more religious than the average in their respective societies. Yet, it is important to mention that the US population as a whole is more religious than the European population (Azzaoui, 2012). According to Pew Research Center’s, 2014 Religious Landscape Study in the US and 2017 Survey of Western Europeans, US adults—both Christian and unaffiliated—are considerably more religious than their European counterparts.5 Furthermore, in the US, there is a long tradition of integrating immigrants into society through their religions and the political and civic engagement of their religious institutions (Pew Research Center, 2014, 2018a). Moreover, the socio-economic differences between the Muslim community in the US and in Europe play a role in the majority societies’ attitudes toward Muslims. Many Muslims from Arabic and South Asian countries migrated to the US for educational purposes, especially after the Second World War, and stayed in the US after completing a degree. As a consequence, most American Muslims are well educated and economically well-placed. Their income is identical to the American average; i.e., they ‘are middle class and mostly mainstream’ (Pew Research Center, 2007). By contrast, most of the Muslims in Europe are labor migrants and their families 4

Without doubt, describing the Islamic and Western worlds as two contradictory poles has led to a dualistic interpretation of their relationship that disregards the many nuances and exceptions of each and the internal heterogeneity of both. 5 For instance, about two-thirds of US Christians pray daily (68%), compared with a median of just 18% of Christians across 15 surveyed countries in Europe, including 6% in Britain, 9% in Germany, 12% in Denmark, and 38% in the Netherlands (Pew Research Center, 2018b).

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come from under-educated class backgrounds. They are disproportionately underrepresented in the upper stratum and disproportionately overrepresented in the lower economic stratum of the income range. The discussion of social problems in the European countries is often conflated with questions of faith traditions, such that Islam is perceived as a ‘working-class religion’ and the religion is blamed for social problems (Azzaoui, 2012).

5 Differences across European Countries Today, European nations face a paradox. At the one end of the spectrum, European countries seek to regulate, institutionalize, and give representation to (i.e., ‘Europeanize’) Islam, and to facilitate the socio-economic integration of Muslim minorities. At the opposite end of the spectrum, anti-terrorism and security concerns push them to compromise the religious liberties of Muslims and to restrict the practice of Islam in public space. New policies and laws related to anti-terrorism and enhanced security have been introduced to deal with potential threats associated with Muslim migration, even in those countries where Muslims had initially been well-integrated citizens who were regarded as an asset (Sezgin and Rosenow-Williams, 2013). In some cases, they are even accused of being ‘foreign enemies’ who finance, participate in, or otherwise support terrorist networks. With the increasing flow of asylum seekers from mainly Muslim countries, as well as the more recent Islamist terror attacks in Europe, such suspicions, secular populist movements, and Islamophobia have gathered momentum. Some of the studies on migration and identity discuss why Islam is often regarded as a direct threat to the European norms and values and increasingly become the ‘negative other’ in the integration debates. These studies offer a broad spectrum of approaches, which can be gathered in two groups. Studies in the first group argue that the difficulty the European countries experience with the integration of their Muslim populations is a result of the incompatibility of Islam with the West. Here, four distinct lines of argument could be identified: (1) the challenge of accommodating and regulating Islam in secular Europe (Joppke, 2013); (2) the liberal identity of the European countries and the illiberal threat Islam might pose to it, in other words the illiberal ideas Islam is argued to transmit (Hansen, 2011); (3) ‘Europe is essentially Christian’ and European countries are unwilling to adapt predominantly Christian settings to religious pluralism (Zolberg & Woon, 1999); and (4) the treatment of ‘Muslim’ as a racialized category that designates a ‘visible other’ in relation to white Europeans in a ‘colour-blind’ Europe (El-Tayeb, 2011, p. 16). In contrast, the studies in the second group claim that despite evidence for tensions between Muslims’ religious and European national identities, there is growing evidence that the extent to which these identities are compatible varies substantially within Europe. They explain these differences across the European countries: (a) with the intergroup context for identification patterns, in other words, the way, in which intergroup relations are shaped at the local and national level, and (b) majority

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members’ attitudes toward Muslims’ identity formation. The reviewed studies in this group indicate that the validation of so-called dual identities, such as British Muslims, depends on recognition and acceptance by members of the dominant group (Fleischmann & Phalet, 2016; Hopkins & Greenwood, 2013). The reviewed studies illustrate that large percentages of Muslims in the European countries think of themselves first as a Muslim rather than as a citizen of their country. Yet, as previously mentioned, there are cross-country variations in this tendency. In Great Britain, 81 percent of the Muslim community identify themselves in the first stance as Muslim rather than British, while in Spain, 69 percent do so and in Germany it is 66 percent. In sharp contrast, 46 percent of the Muslims living in France identify first as a Muslim, a nearly equal 42 percent see themselves as primarily French, while an additional 10 percent say both equally (Pew Research Center, 2006).

6 Local Belonging and Sub-national Variation Another major finding is that Muslims’ feelings of belonging to their neighborhood and city seem to be stronger than belonging to the nation. As previously mentioned, 81 percent of the Muslim respondents in Great Britain identify themselves as Muslim rather than British (Pew Research Center, 2006) although the majority of Muslim respondents in Leicester (82 percent), and London (72 percent) saw themselves as nationals (Choudhury & McCarthy, 2010). Yet, the British case is not unique. In Europe, the majority of Muslims consider themselves primarily as a Muslim rather than identifying themselves as a citizen of their country of residence (Pew Research Center, 2006). In contrast, a report on 11 European cities showed that over threequarters of Muslims share a ‘very strong’ or ‘fairly strong’ sense of belonging to their city (Choudhury & McCarthy, 2010). According to this report, in Antwerp, over 90 percent of respondents expressed a ‘very strong’ or ‘fairly strong’ sense of local belonging. This was also true for over two-thirds of respondents in other cities except for Paris, Marseille, and Stockholm. These results underline the strong sense of sub-municipal identity that exists in many cities, such as, the neighborhood culture in Berlin (Choudhury & McCarthy, 2010, p. 70).

7 Diversity within the Muslim Community Muslim communities in the Western World are diverse, including practicing believers, non-practicing believers, or ‘secular’ Muslims; Sunni, Shiiti, and Alevis; immigrants, people with migration background and natives; people with different gender, nationalities, race, ethnicities, educational levels, and socio-economic statuses. This diversity is reflected in the heterogeneity of the research results. It is not surprising that the findings of the studies which focus on Turkish Muslims in Germany and their situation differ from the findings of studies on British Muslims

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who have their historical roots in India or Pakistan. These communities do not only live in different countries and have different migration histories but their experiences in West European countries are shaped by additional factors. As previously discussed, cross-cultural distinctions in European countries are important in understanding Muslims’ sense of belonging and identification. Perceived discrimination and rejection in the countries of residence is an important barrier to national identification among Muslims, because it indicates feelings of rejection and exclusion by mainstream society (De Vroome et al., 2014; Schulz and Leszczensky, 2016). Yet, some of the reviewed studies argue that cross-cultural distinctions and anti-Muslim sentiments that exist in many European societies are not the only predictors of Muslim identification. These studies emphasize the diversity within the Muslim communities and suggest why some Muslims are more (or less) likely to identify with European nations. First, some of the studies describe Muslim religiosity as a key barrier to identifying strongly with European nations. One reason for this is that Islam supposedly clashes with key European norms and values, especially among more fundamentalist adherents (Koopmans, 2015; Sniderman & Hagendoorn, 2007). Second, immigrant integration factors, such as having citizenship and being born in the country of destination, matter for immigrants’ national identification (Diehl and Schnell, 2006; Maxwell and Bleich, 2014). Third, host language proficiency is another key determinant of Muslim immigrants’ national identity, as it increases feelings of similarity and cultural exchange (Hochman & Davidov, 2014). Fourth, Muslims are often segregated into religious or ethnic minority networks with other non-European-origin minorities (Leszczensky & Pink, 2017), and this resulting lack of contact with natives may make them less likely to identify with the nation (De Vroome et al., 2014; Fleischmann & Phalet, 2018). Finally, the reviewed studies mention the importance of the socio-economic status, because many Muslims in Europe are socio-economically disadvantaged (Heath et al., 2014), and this lack of structural integration could hamper their national identification (Alba & Nee, 1997). In one of the above-mentioned studies, Leszczensky et al. (2020) argue that religiosity, citizenship, contact with the native majority, and perceived discrimination explain national identification both among Muslim adolescents (15-year-old secondgeneration immigrants) and non-Muslim immigrant-origin adolescents in four European countries (England, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands). For example, there is a negative relationship between religiosity and national identification among non-Muslim immigrant-origin adolescents. Likewise, majority group contact and perceived discrimination are equally important for Muslim and non-Muslim youth’ national identification, as is having citizenship. Finally, the country of birth, host language proficiency, and socio-economic status are strongly related to both Muslim and non-Muslim youth’ national identification. Taken together, the findings of this study suggest that national identification is best understood as part of dynamics that affect immigrants and minorities more broadly rather than Muslims specifically (Leszczensky et al., 2020).

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8 Conclusion The comparison of the reviewed studies is difficult due to the diverse research interests; different operationalizations of Muslims’ sense of belonging and identity; and contradictory research findings. In spite of these difficulties, the overview of the reviewed studies shows that the Muslims in the North American countries have higher sentiments of national identity and belonging than their counterparts in the European countries, and hence are more likely to identify themselves with their countries of residence than the Muslims in the European countries (Fleischmann & Phalet, 2018; Reeskens & Wright, 2014; Schulz & Leszczensky, 2016). At this point, the reviewed studies highlight the transatlantic differences in the approach to Muslims. Precisely, Muslims in Europe are often blamed for threatening the European cultural–normative ‘way of life,’ whereas Muslims in North America are not seen as a threat to American national identity, and hostility to Islam is largely focused on national security issues (Papademetriou et al., 2016). As previously discussed, demographics, socio-economic conditions, the religiosity of the native majority population, migration history, and the historic role of religion in society are provided as explanatory factors for these differences. The reviewed studies show that in spite of the parallels within European countries about the integration debates, as well as the securitization and politicization of Islam, there are also at times striking, specific cross-cultural distinctions in their inclusiveness of Muslim minorities. Hence, it is not surprising that there are wide variations between Muslims’ sense of belonging and identification across European countries. The studies also point out to subnational variations in European countries, arguing that ‘the way in which intergroup relations are shaped at the local and national level provides more or less room for Muslims to reconcile their religious identity with the identities they share with their fellow European citizens’ (Fleischmann & Phalet, 2008, p. 45). In general, studies report a higher number of Muslims identifying with the cities or localities in which they live rather than with their countries of residence (Choudhury & McCarthy, 2010). According to the reviewed studies, religious affiliation alone does not provide a complete understanding for Muslim identity formation or for Muslims’ differing experiences. Other factors, such as the country of birth, host language proficiency, and socio-economic status, are equally important because being a Muslim in Europe is highly correlated with being an immigrant or a descendant of immigrants, with being less fluent in the host language, with being segregated in ethnic minority friendship networks and neighborhoods, and, last but not least, with socio-economic disadvantages (Maxwell & Bleich, 2014).

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Appendix: Reviewed Studies

Author

Pub. Date Title

Geographic Focus

Method

Hussain and Bagguley

2005

Citizenship, Ethnicity and Identity: British Pakistanis after the 2001 ‘Riots’

UK

Qualitative

Pew Research Center

2006

Muslims in Europe: Great Britain, France, Quantitative Economic Worries Top Germany, and Spain Concerns About Religious and Cultural Identity

Fine and Sirin

2007

Hyphenated Selves: Muslim American Youth Negotiating Identities on the Fault Lines of Global Conflict

USA

Mixed

Sirin, Bikmen, 2007 Mir, Fine, Zaal, and Katsiaficas

Exploring dual identification among Muslim-American emerging adults: A mixed methods study

USA

Mixed

Verkuyten and Yildiz

2007

National (dis) identification and ethnic and religious identity: A study among Turkish-Dutch Muslims

Netherland

Quantitative

Vassilis and Mathijsen

2007

Religion, multiple Belgium identities, and acculturation: A study of Muslim immigrants in Belgium

Quantitative

Bisin, Verdier, Patacchini, and Zenou

2008

Are Muslim Immigrants Different in Terms of Cultural Integration?

UK

Quantitative

Constant, Gataullina, and Zimmermann

2009

Ethnosizing immigrants

Germany

Quantitative

Hutnik and Street

2009

Profiles of British Muslim identity: Adolescent girls in Birmingham

Birmingham

Qualitative

(continued)

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(continued) Author

Pub. Date Title

Geographic Focus

Method

Moghissi, Rahnema, and Goodman

2009

Diaspora by design: Muslim immigrants in Canada and Beyond

Canada

Quantitative

Choudhury and McCarthy

2010

Muslims in Europe: A report on 11 EU cities

Leicester, London, Amsterdam, Marseille, Antwerp, Hamburg, Berlin, Copenhagen, Paris, Stockholm, and Rotterdam

Mixed

Cilingir

2010

Identity and Integration among Turkish Sunni Muslims in Britain

Great Britain

Qualitative

Maxwell

2010a

Evaluating migrant integration: Political attitudes across generations in Europe

Austria, Belgium, Quantitative Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, and UK

Maxwell

2010b

Trust in Government Among British Muslims: The Importance of Migration Status

UK

Quantitative

Fleischmann and Phalet

2011

Integration and religiosity among the Turkish second generation in Europe: A comparative analysis across four capital cities

Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, and Stockholm

Quantitative

Thomas and Sanderson

2011

Unwilling Citizens? Muslim Young People and National Identity

Oldham and Rochdale Qualitative

Youris

2011

Perceptions of Muslims in the United States: A Review

USA

Quantitative

(continued)

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(continued) Author

Pub. Date Title

Geographic Focus

Method

Crul, Schneider 2012 and Lelie

The European Second Generation Compared: Does the Integration Context Matter?

Vienna, Linz, Quantitative Brussels, Antwerp, Zurich, Basel, Berlin, Frankfurt, Madrid, Barcelona, Paris, Strasbourg, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Stockholm

Jacobson and Deckard

2012

Surveying the Landscape of Integration: Muslim Immigrants in the UK and France

France and UK

Ali

2013

Identities and Sense of UK Belonging of Muslims in Britain: Using Survey Data, Cognitive Survey Methodology, and InDepth Interviews

Qualitative

Ozyurt

2013

Negotiating Multiple Identities, Constructing Western-Muslim Selves in the Netherlands and the United States

Southern California and Netherlands

Quantitative

Hackett

2013

Foreigners, minorities and integration: The Muslim immigrant experience in Britain and Germany

UK, Germany

Quantitative

Adida, Laitin and Valfort

2014

Muslims in France: Identifying a discriminatory equilibrium

France

Qualitative

De Vroome, Verkuyten and Martinovic

2014

Host National Identification of Immigrants in the Netherlands

The Netherlands

Quantitative

Maxwell and Bleich

2014

What Makes Muslims Feel French

France

Qualitative

Mustafa

2015

Diversity in political UK perspectives and engagement among young British Muslims

Quantitative

Qualitative

(continued)

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(continued) Author

Pub. Date Title

Geographic Focus

Method

Survation Survey

2015

Polling of British Muslims

Great Britain

Quantitative

Adida, Laitin and Valfort

2016

Why Muslim integration fails in Christian heritage societies

USA

Quantitative

Ahmed and Matthes

2016

Media representation of Muslims and Islam from 2000 to 2015: A meta-analysis

USA, UK, Australia

Meta-analysis of media analyze

Fleischmann and Phalet

2016

Identity conflict or compatibility: A comparison of Muslim minorities in five European cities

Antwerp, Brussels, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Stockhom

Quantitative

Verkuyten

2016

Supporting the democratic political organisation of Muslim immigrants: The perspective of Muslims in the Netherlands and Germany

Netherland & Germany

Quantitative

Rosentiel

2017

Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream

USA

Quantitative

Birani

2017

Toward an Inclusive Islamic Identity? A Study of First- and Second-Generation Muslims in Canada

Canada

Mixed

Fleischmann

2017

Religion and National Identification in Europe: Comparing Muslim Youth in Belgium, England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden

Belgium, England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden

Quantitative

Greenwood

2017

Demographic portrait of Muslim Americans

USA

Quantitative (continued)

Muslims’ Sense of Belonging and Identification in the Western World …

25

(continued) Author

Pub. Date Title

Aziz, Lowell, Granger, Self

2018

Measuring Muslim USA Religious Identity Formation: Instrument Assessment with A Sample of Muslim-American Students

Geographic Focus

Quantitative

Fleischmann and Phalet

2018

Religion and national identification in Europe: Comparing Muslim youth in Belgium, England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden

Belgium, England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden

Quantitative

Nyiri

2018

European Muslims London, Paris, and Show No Conflict Berlin Between Religious and National Identities

Quantitative

Pauha

2018

Religious and national Finland identities among young Muslims in Finland: A view from the social constructionist social psychology of religion

Mixed

Barclay, Ford and Sobolewska

2019

The 2010 Ethnic Minority British Election Study

Quantitative

Beek and Fleischmann

2019

Religion and The Netherlands integration: does immigrant generation matter? The case of Moroccan and Turkish immigrants in the Netherlands

Quantitative

Fleischmann, Leszczensky and Pink

2019

Identity threat and Germany (North identity multiplicity Rhine-Westphalia) among minority youth: Longitudinal relations of perceived discrimination with ethnic, religious, and national identification in Germany

Quantitative

UK

Method

(continued)

26

Z. Sezgin

(continued) Author

Pub. Date Title

Geographic Focus

Tausch

2019

Muslim Integration or Alienation in Non-Muslim-Majority Countries

Austria, Belgium, Quantitative Denmark, Germany, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, and UK

Method

Leszczensky, Maxwell and Bleich

2020

What factors best explain national identification among Muslim adolescents? Evidence from four European countries

England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden

Quantitative

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Fleischmann, F., & Phalet, K. (2011). Integration and religiosity among the Turkish second generation in Europe: A comparative analysis across four capital cities. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 35(2), 320–341. Fleischmann, F., & Phalet, K. (2016). Identity conflict or compatibility: A comparison of Muslim minorities in five European cities. Political Psychology, 37, 447–463. Fleischmann, F., & Phalet, K. (2018). Religion and national identification in Europe: Comparing Muslim youth in Belgium, England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden. Journal of CrossCultural Psychology, 49(1), 44–61. Fleischmann, F., Leszczensky, L., & Pink, S. (2019). Identity threat and identity multiplicity among minority youth: Longitudinal relations of perceived discrimination with ethnic, religious, and national identification in Germany. British Journal of Social Psychology, 58, 971–990. Fober, N. and Alba, R. (2008). Immigrant religion in the U.S. and Western Europe: bridge or barrier to inclusion? International Migration Review, 42(2), 360 – 392. Foroutan, N. (2013). Identity and Muslim integration in Germany. Migration Policy Institute. Hansen, R. (2011). The Two Faces of Liberalism: Islam in Contemporary Europe. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 37, 881–897. Heath, A. F., Rothon, C., & Kilpi, E. (2014). The second generation in Western Europe: Education, unemployment, and occupational attainment. Annual Review of Sociology, 34, 211–235. Hochman, O., & Davidov, E. (2014). relations between second-language proficiency and national identification: The case of immigrants in Germany. European Sociological Review, 30, 344–359. Hopkins, N., & Greenwood, R. M. (2013). Hijab, visibility and the performance of identity. European Journal of Social Psychology, 43, 438–447. Joppke, C. (2013). A Christian identity for the liberal state? The British Journal of Sociology, 64(4), 597–616. Koopmans, R. (2015). Religious fundamentalism and hostility against out-groups: A comparison of Muslims and Christians in Western Europe. Journal of Ethnic Migration Studies, 41, 33–57. Liebert, S., Siddiqui, M. H., & Goerzig, C. (2020). Integration of Muslim immigrants in Europe and North America: A transatlantic comparison. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 40(2), 196–216. Leszczensky, L., & Pink, S. (2017). Intra- and inter-group friendship choices of Christian, Muslim, and non-religious adolescents in Germany. European Sociological Review, 33, 72–83. Leszczensky, L., Maxwell, R., & Bleich, E. (2020). What factors best explain national identification among Muslim adolescents? Evidence from four European countries. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 46(1), 260–276. MacDonald, E. G. (2015). Muslims in Canada: Collective identities, attitudes of otherment and Canadian Muslim perspectives on radicalism. Islamophobia Studies Journal, 3(1), 44–61. Maxwell, R., & Bleich, E. (2014). What makes Muslims feel French? Social Forces, 93(1), 155–179. Nyiri, Z. (2007). European Muslims show no conflict between religious and national identities. Gallop Research Report. Retrieved March 23, 2022, from https://news.gallup.com/poll/27325/ european-muslims-show-conflict-between-religious-national-identities.aspx Ozyurt, S. (2013). The selective integration of Muslim immigrant women in the United States: Explaining Islam’s paradoxical impact. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 39(10), 1617– 1637. Papademetriou, D. G., Alba, R., Foner, N., & Banulescu-Bogdan, N. (2016). Managing religious difference in North America and Europe in an era of mass migration. Migration Policy Institute. Peek, L. (2005). Becoming Muslim: The development of a religious identity. Sociology of Religion, 66(3), 215–242. Pew Research Center. (2006). Muslims in Europe: Economic worries top concerns about religious and cultural identity. Retrieved March 23, 2022, from https://www.pewresearch.org/global/ 2006/07/06/muslims-in-europe-economic-worries-top-concerns-about-religious-and-culturalidentity/ Pew Research Center. (2007). Muslim Americans: Middle class and mostly mainstream. Retrieved March 23, 2022, from https://www.pewresearch.org/2007/05/22/muslim-americansmiddle-class-and-mostly-mainstream/

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Pew Research Center. (2014). Religious landscape study. Retrieved March 23, 2022, from https:// www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/ Pew Research Center. (2017). Muslims and Islam: Key findings in the U.S. and around the world. Retrieved March 23, 2022, from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/08/09/muslimsand-islam-key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/ Pew Research Center. (2018a). U.S. adults are more religious than Western Europeans. Retrieved March 23, 2022, from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018a/09/05/u-s-adults-are-morereligious-than-western-europeans/ Pew Research Center. (2018b). Being Christian in Western Europe . https://www.pewforum.org/ 2018/05/29/being-christian-in-western-europe/ Rania, M., & Shabnam, J. (2016). An investigation of the identity of first generation american muslim youth participating in muslim students associations. Journal of Muslim Mental Health, 10(2), 55–78. Reeskens, T., & Wright, M. (2014). Host-country patriotism among European immigrants: A comparative study of its individual and societal roots. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 37, 2493–2511. Sadek, N. (2017). Islamophobia, shame, and the collapse of Muslim identities. International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 14, 200–221. Schneider, J. (2016). First/second generation immigrants. NESET II ad hoc question No. 4/2016. Retrieved March 23, 2022, from https://nesetweb.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/NESET2_ AHQ4.pdf Schulz, B., & Leszczensky, L. (2016). Native friends and host country identification among adolescent immigrants in Germany: The role of ethnic boundaries. International Migration Review, 50, 163–196. Sezgin, Z. and Rosenow-Williams, K. (2013). Integration and representation of Islam in Austria and Germany. In P. Herrmann, and S. Kalaycioglu (Eds.), Social policy and religion (pp. 93–118). Nova Science. Sniderman, P., & Hagendoorn, L. (2007). When ways of life collide. Princeton University Press. Statham, P., & Tillie, J. (2016). Muslims in their European societies of settlement: A comparative agenda for empirical research on socio-cultural integration across countries and groups. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 42, 177–196. Stockemer, D., & Moreau, S. (2021). Muslim immigrants’ sense of identity and belonging in the Western world: A comprehensive review. Nations and Nationalism, 27, 223–237. Tajfel, H. and Turner, J.C. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. In S. Worchel, and W. G. Austing (Eds.), Psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 7–24). Nelson-Hall. 7–24. Verkuyten, M. (2016). Supporting the democratic political organization of Muslim immigrants: The perspective of Muslims in the Netherlands and Germany. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 43(1), 137–155. Verkuyten, M., & Yildiz, A. (2007). National (dis)identification and ethnic and religious identity: A study among Turkish-Dutch Muslims. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 1448– 1462. Verkuyten, M., & Martinovic, B. (2012). Immigrants’ national identification: Meanings, determinants, and consequences. Social Issues and Policy Review, 6(1), 82–112. Zolberg, A., & Woon, L. L. (1999). Why Islam is like Spanish: Cultural incorporation in Europe and the United States. Politics & Society, 27(1), 5–38.

American Muslim Immigrants: Identity and Belonging in the Shadow of 9/11 Youssef Chouhoud

1 American Muslim Immigrants: Identity and Belonging in the Shadow of 9/11 There is a long lineage of both elites and the mass public questioning (or outright disavowing) the compatibility of Islam and democracy—and, by extension, the compatibility of Muslims living in a democratic society. In modern times, this suspicion goes back at least to Montesquieu who devotes a chapter in the second volume of Spirit of the Laws to explaining, “That A Moderate Government Is Most Agreeable To The Christian Religion, And A Despotic Government To The Mahometan” (Book XXIV, Chapter III). More recently, evidence of official skepticism over whether Muslims are capable of integrating into American society is not particularly difficult to find among executives and legislators (Allam & Ansari, 2018), and one need not go too far back to find similar proclamations from the third remaining branch of government. In his decision denying a Yemeni immigrant’s petition for naturalization, for example, a federal district court judge in the mid-1940s commented: Apart from the dark skin of the Arabs [a relevant point given that only Whites were eligible for naturalization at the time], it is well known that they are a part of the Mohammedan world and that a wide gulf separates their culture from that of the predominately Christian peoples of Europe. It cannot be expected that as a class they would readily intermarry with our population and be assimilated into our civilization (In Re Hassan, 1942, p. 844).

These concerns over a tension between Islamic and American/Western culture tended to emerge only occasionally, however, as few Muslims in the United States were foreign-born prior to the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act abolishing national origin quotas. In the decades following the enactment of this landmark bill, an influx of immigrant Muslims from the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa changed the landscape of Islam in America. Buoyed by the cultural depiction of Y. Chouhoud (B) Christopher Newport University, Newport News, VA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. Stockemer (ed.), Muslims in the Western World, Immigrants and Minorities, Politics and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99487-7_3

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Muslims as a foreign threat (Shaheen, 2008, 2014) and propelled by the seeming affirmation of that depiction with the terrorist attacks of September 11, wariness over Muslims’ ability to integrate into a liberal democracy gained renewed and widespread salience at the turn of the twenty-first century. Speaking directly to this point, 44 percent of Americans held that there exists “a natural conflict between the teachings of Islam and democracy” in a recent poll (Pew Research Center, 2017b). With this abiding skepticism as a backdrop, this chapter assesses whether, and to what extent, immigrant American Muslim attitudes and behaviors diverge from their second-generation counterparts as a way of examining their collective identity and belonging. This approach aligns with mainstream conceptualizations of these two contested terms. First, “identity” for our purposes follows Fearon’s (1999, p. 25) tentative definition: “Personal identity is a set of attributes, beliefs, desires, or principles of action that a person thinks distinguish her in socially relevant ways and that…the person takes a special pride in….” The analysis below features items that directly operationalize this link between identity and pride alongside others that tap a key component of Muslims’ identity: religiosity. Second, in terms of belonging, the study draws on Antonsich’s (2010) framework that accounts for both a placebelongingness (i.e., a feeling of being “at home” in a particular space) and a politics of belonging (i.e., the dynamics of socio-spatial inclusion/exclusion). Measures that highlight Muslims’ integration—and their sense of the broader society’s support of or opposition to that integration—proxy Antonsich’s analytical guidelines. The chapter proceeds as follows. The next section briefly introduces the subject population before subsequently providing a demographic snapshot of American Muslims, generally, and this community’s immigrants, in particular. The analysis then begins by highlighting key demographic differences between foreign-born American Muslims and the generation succeeding them. With this foundation set, the core of the analysis then compares these sub-groups on matters of religiosity and social/political attitudes and behaviors. This chapter thus offers a wide-ranging, empirically grounded appraisal both for scholars looking to expand the dearth of research on this understudied community and those interested in the comparative politics of race and ethnicity more broadly.

2 Immigrant American Muslim Evolution(s) 2.1 An Enduring Myth The vaunted American “melting pot” often plays a central role in popular narratives of immigration in the United States. While this imagery reflects a certain idealized conception of American multiculturalism, it does not quite align with many immigrant experiences in practice. The assimilation imagined through this metaphor evokes a sense of different groups coming together to create a new common culture. In truth, numerous minority populations have historically been excluded from this

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synthesizing process, leaving a cultural core with much more narrowly bounded traits. Put differently, the contents of the pot have had a distinctly “Anglocentric flavor,” as Schlesinger (1998, p. 34) argued: “For better or worse, the white AngloSaxon Protestant tradition was for two centuries—and in crucial respects still is—the dominant influence on American culture and society.” Thus, the central question surrounding immigrant assimilation has been whether (and to what extent) newcomers would conform to this established tradition—to, in effect, “Americanize.” To be sure, many ethnic minorities arriving on US shores as foreigners did eventually and collectively blend into the national landscape. The once precarious now indelible status of Irish- and Italian-Americans is often pointed to as evidence of this phenomenon. Although this classical (or “straight line”) assimilationist model has received much criticism in recent decades (see Feldmeyer (2018) for a review), some of its underlying dynamics may still be driving immigrant adaptation. Indeed, evidence suggests that Hispanics may eventually join the ranks of White ethnics. In their 2015 National Survey of Latinos, for example, Pew found that those with Hispanic origin whose family had been in America for at least three generations were just as likely as not to identify as non-Hispanic and that among those who self-identified as non-Hispanic, a clear majority (59 percent) felt that most people would describe them as White (Lopez et al., 2017). Similarly considered within this framework are religious minorities. There are indications that these communities may also follow a classical assimilative path, along the way diluting (if not altogether discarding) their distinctive beliefs and practices. This may be the case with many American Jews, 62 percent of whom reported in 2013 that being “Jewish” was mainly a matter of “Ancestry/Culture” rather than religion (Pew Research Center, 2013). Relatedly, Catholicism is today no longer the majority religion among Hispanics (Pew Research Center, 2019) despite twothirds of Hispanic adults self-identifying as Catholic as late as 2010 (Pew Research Center, 2014). Giving these past trajectories and the circumstances that brought them to the United States, American Muslims seem at once well-suited to follow this path of traditional assimilation as well as test its limits.

2.2 A Brief History of the Immigrant American Muslim Experience Although America’s relations with the Muslim World stretch back to the country’s founding (Morocco, after all, was the first country to recognize the fledging United States after the latter declared independence from Britain), Muslim immigrants did not arrive on US shores in large numbers until the late-twentieth century. From about 1870 through the 1910s, subjects of the failing Ottoman Empire came to America seeking economic opportunity and mobility, yet these emigres were predominantly Levantine Christian (Foad, 2013). The next wave took place over two decades beginning in the 1940s, but official quotas largely limited immigration during this period to

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individuals seeking asylum from war-torn countries and oppressive regimes—most of whom were Muslim, well-educated, and often members of influential families.1 Then, in 1965, the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) paved the way for an influx of Muslims that continues to this day. During the initial decades following the INA’s passage, however, obtaining a visa depended largely on whether a potential immigrant could fill a need in the US labor market. Generally, then, the Muslims that came to America soon after the passage of the INA were: (1) from numerous countries, (2) educated and/or sought to advance their education, and (3) given the opportunity to settle and participate in American affluence (Haddad, 1997). This particular set of circumstances contrasted with the environment for Muslims across the Atlantic during the post-war period. Rebuilding after the most devastating war in history required a concerted, long-term effort—and, more pressingly, manpower. Mindful that their decimated populations plainly limited any largescale reconstruction, governments across Europe began turning to foreign workers throughout the 1950s and 1960s to fill blue-collar posts. Though Germany is the country most emblematic of this economically driven immigration boom, “[t]he fabulous post-war prosperity of France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and other West European countries was also boosted by immigrant labor, mainly from Turkey and North Africa” (Nickerson, 2006). Unlike in America, then, Muslim immigrants to Western Europe during the post-war period were: (1) largely from a single country or region, (2) comprised mostly of unskilled laborers, and (3) never meant to settle and incorporate into the larger society. This initial state of affairs set the stage for future volatility and strained relations between Europe and its Muslims. Along with a more hospitable set of policies, Muslim immigrants to America also found a more accommodating cultural climate for religious minorities. In her commentary comparing Muslim integration in the US and France through the prism of the veil controversy, Kristine Ajrouch (2007) suggests that the divergent social environment in these two countries critically affects the overall experience of their respective Muslim populations. The existence of a relatively welldefined and well-promoted national French character, for example, offers less space for ethnic differences than the more varied understanding of what it means to be “American.” Similarly, the stricter French perception of secularity fosters a more antagonistic atmosphere for religion than the more malleable American notion of separation between church and state. In France, more specifically, “secularity means removing from the public realm any sign of religion, whereas in the US secularity allows broad latitude for the freedom to practice religion” (Ajrouch, 2007, p. 322). With its hardline assimilationist ideology, France effectively offers Muslims an ultimatum. As such, French Muslim identity is more likely to develop from a defensive posture, thereby reinforcing already established isolationist tendencies within these immigrant communities. 1

These included Palestinians displaced by the founding of Israel, Egyptians whose property had been nationalized by President Gamal Abdel Nasser, Iraqis fleeing their country after the 1958 revolution, elite Syrians excluded from government participation, and Eastern European Muslims escaping Communist rule (Haddad, 1997, p. 3).

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Yet, despite immigrating under conditions less likely to induce alienation and finding a more pliable cultural milieu, first-generation American Muslims often built institutions meant to be more comforting than integrative. For instance, beyond its raison d’être as a house of worship, Muslim immigrants originally envisioned the American mosque not as a means to adapt to their new setting, but as a substitute for (and analog to) spaces back home. In effect, “[l]ike the Italian, Irish, and Jewish immigrants before them, many [Muslims] hunkered down in ethnic enclaves” (Miller, 2007) when they reached America’s shores. Mosque leadership also reflected these initial impulses. Notably, imams charged with guiding worshippers were often imported from the country or region of the congregation’s majority. Consequently, the sermons delivered in mosques led by non-native English speakers were either: 1) in broken/heavily accented English, 2) in the imam’s native language followed by a cursory English translation, or 3) exclusively in the imam’s native language.2 These collective tendencies often engendered a culturally homogeneous and linguistically limited mosque environment. While such a setting may have felt familiar to first-generation immigrants, it was far less recognizable to their offspring who found little overlap between mosque culture and the American society they were raised in.

2.3 Generational Divide In effect, then, second-generation Muslim-Americans were initially exposed to a largely monotone understanding of Islam conveyed in a religious space relatively isolated from the broader society. Had their religiosity ultimately taken hold in this setting, they may very well have carried forward these barriers to integration. As it was, with their conscious decision to fashion American mosques into mirrors of communities in Muslim-majority countries, early Muslim immigrants effectively limited their value as a social space to the generation that founded them. Thus, when the need for a more nuanced understanding of Islam arose in the aftermath of 9/11, young Muslims in America turned to new outlets and culturally competent leaders for guidance in not only developing, but contextualizing their religious identity. For many young Muslims in America, the Muslim Students Association (MSA) functions as their preliminary (sometimes primary) means of building an identity that is both Muslim and American. This directive hinges on the organization’s ability to compensate for the shortcomings of the immigrant mosques’ social idiosyncrasies.

2

Bagby (2012, p. 9) reports: “Ninety-seven percent of mosques use English as the main language, or one of the main languages, for the message of the Jum ‘ah Khutbah (Friday sermon).” This analysis, however, does not speak to the qualitative use of English nor does it specify which language takes precedence during the weekly sermon. More importantly, the report does not disaggregate the data to highlight figures specific to immigrant dominated mosques. Had it done so, the 3% of total mosques that conduct their sermons exclusively in a foreign language, coupled with the study’s finding that “[o]f the mosques that do use English, 47 percent use one or more additional languages,” would likely yield more sobering statistics on the role of English in these houses of worship.

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As Garbi Schmidt (2004, p. 93) observes in her study of Muslims in Chicago, where the MSA was first established: Among the [current] generations of young Muslim Americans from which the organization gains its members, religious inspiration and interpretations are no longer imported from abroad. Rather, Islamic perspectives develop through the members’ interactions with one another and with the non-Muslim majority surrounding them.

These more diverse exchanges, coupled with a more inclusive organizational structure and native leadership, enabled MSAs to offset the disaffection many young Muslims experienced at American mosques. Buttressing much of the MSA’s capacity in forming a more holistic identity is its pluralistic environment. As opposed to the mostly homogeneous makeup of America’s immigrant-led mosques, MSAs have a breakdown that more closely approximate the diverse backgrounds of Muslims in the United States. That is, whereas mosques often have a congregation primarily made up of, for example, Egyptian, Pakistani, or African immigrants, the MSA members are an amalgamation of these and other racial and ethnic backgrounds. As Jamillah Karim (2005, p. 501) notes, “[i]ntegration between African American and second-generation Arab and South Asian Muslim occurs most often on university campuses.” This diversity thus undergirds the organization’s closer correlation to American society as well as facilitates its role in not only shaping a Muslim identity, but also placing that identity within a broader framework. In the aftermath of 9/11, second-generation American Muslims also increasingly turned to native leadership rather than imams imported from “back home.” Among the high-profile leaders fitting these more culturally conscious criteria are a number of North American converts to Islam. Hamza Yusuf, one of the most prominent religious leaders in America, is a white convert known for his eloquent speeches that often draw scores of listeners. His extensive travels through the Muslim world, and firsthand experience with the educational shortcomings found therein, have also made him an ardent proponent of indigenous Islamic scholarship in America. Along these same lines, Sherman Jackson, a Religion Studies professor at the University of Southern California, is an African-American convert who, though specializing in Islamic law, writes extensively on Islam in America, particularly on historical and contemporary issues within the Black Muslim community. Dr. Jackson’s popularity among secondgeneration Muslim-Americans indicates this demographic’s acceptance of a more inclusive Islam, as opposed to the culturally specific versions many of them were exposed to as youths in alternatively Arab, Asian, or African-dominated mosques. Additionally, the current generation of young Muslims has embraced Westernraised leaders with ethnic backgrounds more traditionally associated with Islam. Yasir Qadhi, who currently heads a large Islamic center in East Plano, Texas, is one such scholar who fits this mold. Qadhi, whose parents immigrated to Houston, Texas in the mid-1970s, received an undergraduate degree in engineering before undertaking traditional Islamic studies at The Islamic University of Madinah in Saudi Arabia and ultimately earning a PhD in Religious Studies from Yale University. This global perspective coupled with Western roots allows Qadhi to offer culturally

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relevant yet traditionally grounded lectures on a wide range of topics. This rare ability was in especially high demand in the early- to mid-2000s, as many second-generation American Muslims were coming of age and trying to make sense of a suddenly salient identity. To this uncertainty, Qadhi offered the following pointed remarks during a 2007 talk: For those of you who do have a “back home,” let me ask you a very blunt question. Think about the situation “back home,” think about your friends and relatives...Look at their mentality, look at the way they view the world. Look at the way they view religion (emphasis in the original) …. Ask yourself a very blunt question: Where would you rather have been born and raised?

Speaking for himself, and in terms of spirituality, Qadhi replies: “I thank Allah…that I was born and raised where I was [in Houston, Texas].” Such statements acknowledge the consternation that many Muslims living in America (or, more broadly, the “West”) felt at the time while countering this sense with an affirmative case for Muslims’ place in the West. Clearly, questions of American Muslim identity and belonging have also factored into intra-communal discussions alongside more public debates on this community. This brief historical and institutional overview underscores the divergent trajectories of American Muslim immigrants and their second-generation progeny. Whereas foreign-born Muslims settling in America aimed to establish communities that reflected the cultural makeup of their home country, the sons and daughters of these migrants to the United States eventually molded institutions and turned to leaders more attuned to the indigenous American experience. Notably, these dynamics all took form in an environment that allowed for an organic expression of religiosity. What, then, has been the outcome of these historical pathways in terms of American Muslims’ identity and belonging? Before turning to that analysis, the next section introduces the chief data source for the study, provides a demographic snapshot of this community, and discusses key methodological decisions that stem from the makeup of this population.

3 Demographics and Data Part of the reason that systematic research on American Muslims (and other lowincidence populations (Berry et al., 2018)) has lagged behind their political and social salience is the lack of quantitative data sources. Prior to 2001, Zogby International conducted the only national survey of American Muslims (which was fielded in the lead-up to the 2000 election), although the data remains proprietary aside from the published topline findings. It was not until 2007 that Pew conducted the first systematic survey of American Muslims, complete with data and methodological transparency. Over the next decade, Pew would field two more waves of this survey and the latest, conducted in 2017, offers us the most reliable insight into this community’s demographic makeup.

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A number of relevant characteristics emerge from Pew’s demographic portrait of American Muslims (Pew Research Center, 2017a). First, Muslim adults in the United States are about three times as likely as the average American to be immigrants (58 percent vs. 18 percent). Second, a majority of these migrants (56 percent) settled in the United States after the year 2000. Third, of those who are foreign-born, about 35 percent hail from South Asia while a similar proportion originate from the Middle East and North Africa (including Iran). Notably, no single country is origin to more than 15 percent of foreign-born Muslim immigrants. This latter statistic highlights the uniquely diverse quality of American Muslims. Indeed, American Muslims are the most racially and ethnically diverse religious community in America (Mogahed & Chouhoud, 2017, p. 9). In addition to large South Asian and Middle Eastern sub-groups, there is a sizable contingent of White Muslims and African-Americans, as well. This means that one must be careful when setting up in-group comparisons of this community. If the goal is to understand whether identity and belonging varies between first-generation immigrants and their successors, then dividing a Muslim sample solely along lines of nativity would lead to invalid assumptions given the considerable proportion of indigenous Muslims. As such, the analysis in this study compares the attitudes of foreign-born Muslims in Pew’s survey to those respondents that reported (1) being born in the United States, and (2) having at least one parent born outside of the United States (i.e., a group commonly referred to as second-generation Americans). Admittedly, this approach could potentially exclude respondents that we would want in the analysis (namely the grandchildren or great grandchildren of immigrants to the United States). That said, a check of the 166 respondents excluded through this process revealed that two-thirds were converts and nearly all were either White, Black, or “Other” in terms of their race/ethnicity. Thus, the inclusion of these respondents would be far more likely to bias our analysis than their exclusion. Table 1 provides a demographic comparison between foreign-born and secondgeneration respondents in the Pew 2017 poll. On the key socio-economic indicators of income and education, there appears to be little generational difference. The largest discrepancy is on the basis of age, with two-thirds of second-generation respondents falling into the 18–29 range while only a small fraction is over 55 years old. Along these same lines, there is a wide gulf in marriage rates, with foreign-born American Muslims about one and a half times more likely than their second-generation counterparts to be wed. In terms of political leanings, it is important to note the slightly higher proportion of second-generation Muslims self-identifying as Democrats may have more to do with immigrant aversion to affiliating with any party than ideological divergence, as evident by the statistical parity when it comes to describing oneself as “Somewhat/Very Liberal.” Nonetheless, this snapshot cautions us to consider that any observed attitudinal or behavioral correlations with immigrant status could be an artifact of compositional differences. As such, the analyses in the next section control for the variables listed in Table 1.

American Muslim Immigrants …

37

Table 1 Demographic differences Variable HH Income < $30K

(1) First Gen

(2) Second Gen

N

Mean/SE

N

Mean/SE

645

0.32

190

0.26

(0.04) HH Income > $100K

645

0.07

College Graduate

645

0.39

190

0.05

190

0.29

0.28

645

0.18

Married

645

0.69

190 190

0.02

190

0.27

0.47

645

0.66

SW/Very Liberal

645

0.32

190

0.43***

0.56

– 0.09

(0.06) 190

0.77

190

0.37

(0.04) (0.04)

0.16***

(0.05)

(0.04) Democrat

– 0.40***

(0.01)

(0.03) 645

0.68 (0.06)

(0.03)

Women

0.10

(0.05)

(0.03) Age: 55+

0.02

(0.02)

(0.03) 645

0.06

(0.06)

(0.02)

Age: 18–29

T-test Difference (1)–(2)

– 0.12*

(0.05) – 0.05

(0.06)

* p < 0.10, **p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01

4 Assessing American Muslim Immigrant Identity and Belonging To assess identity and belonging among American Muslims, this section highlights the effect of immigrant status on a suite of relevant attitudes and behaviors. Each dependent variable is rendered dichotomous and the coefficients in the regression plots below represent the marginal effect of being a second-generation American Muslim, controlling for standard demographic variables and political leanings. The results are therefore fairly straightforward in their interpretation: Each point estimate in the figures represents the average change in probability that a second-generation Muslim will hold the attitude being modeled compared to a foreign-born baseline. The full logistic regression tables can be found in Appendix A.

38

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4.1 Religiosity The first set of analyses considers American Muslim religiosity. This factor features prominently in general assessments of assimilation, but takes on added analytical weight when considered in the context of this particular population. This increased significance is rooted in the (sometimes implicit, often explicit) presumption that religiosity and societal disaffection often go hand-in-hand when it comes to Muslims in the West. An Oxford Analytica (2009) brief distributed as incidents of domestic terrorism in America were beginning to multiply typifies this association: A sizeable portion of the immigrant Muslim-American population is becoming more religious and alienated from mainstream US society. This is true particularly among secondgeneration Muslims. This trend is similar to the growing religiosity among Muslims in many countries in Western Europe.

A landmark NYPD counter-terrorism study similarly casts suspicion on rising religious sentiment (Silber & Bhatt, 2007). In the radicalization process the report outlines, for example, the second of four stages is described as “Self-Identification,” in which an individual undergoes “religious seeking” by means of “trusted social networks made up of friends and family, religious leaders, literature and the Internet.” Moreover, while acknowledging that American Muslims have adapted and have been allowed to adapt, far more than their European counterparts, the report nonetheless cautions that “[d]espite the economic opportunities in the United States, the powerful gravitational pull of individuals’ religious roots and identity sometimes supersedes the assimilating nature of American society” (Silber & Bhatt, 2007, p. 32). As Fig. 1 demonstrates, there is no discernible drop-off in religiosity between firstand second-generation American Muslims on any of the five unique measures of religiosity. Whether it be subjective attitudes, like the importance of religion in one’s life, or objective behaviors, like always wearing a hijab; whether it be private actions, like praying the 5 salat, or public ones, like attending weekly religious services, the analysis evidences no generational divide. Additionally, the one divergence—namely that second-generation Muslims are more likely than their foreign-born counterparts to describe themselves as religious—happens to be in the opposite direction of what classical assimilationist theories would predict. Taken together, these findings indicate that religion remains an important part of American Muslim identity beyond the first generation of immigrants. Indeed, the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding also found that American Muslim youth (age 18–29) were just as likely as older Muslims to say that religion was important to their daily life, which contrasted with a 25-point gap between the oldest and youngest cohort among the general public (Mogahed & Chouhoud, 2017). These patterns are certainly at odds with the straight-line assimilative paths that other minority groups have taken in the past and, correspondingly, the one that American Muslims were expected to take. As Yvonne Haddad (2007, p. 253) notes in her study of hijab adoption post-9/11: The integration and assimilation of second and third generation Muslims into US society was expected to proceed according to a predictable trajectory noted among previous immigrant

American Muslim Immigrants …

39

Fig. 1 Religious Parity among Immigrant and Second-Generation Muslims (Note Each coefficient was modelled separately, controlling for standard demographics and political learnings. The darker whiskers around the point estimates represent the 90% confidence interval)

groups. The children of the immigrants would shed their parents’ religious and cultural markings and become more Americanized.

Haddad hypothesizes that the September 11 attacks, however, established and accelerated what she calls a “re-Islamization” among Muslim youth. Is this durable pattern reflected in American Muslims’ social and political attitudes? To be sure, the analytic neutrality of this question does not quite capture what truly piques skeptics’ interest in this community.

4.2 Suspicion and Skepticism Does the stickiness of religiosity among second-generation American Muslims translate to feelings of isolation or resentment? This question is perhaps closer to the core of the concern over Muslim religious behavior. That is, the agencies and commentators mentioned above are not worried about how practicing American Muslims are per se, but are instead concerned about the public ramifications of these personal beliefs. The findings presented in Fig. 2 seem to indicate that years of suspicion and skepticism being directed toward American Muslims have caused a segment of the community to respond in turn. When it comes to particular institutions, second-generation American Muslims are significantly less likely to believe that the Democratic Party is “friendly” to their community. Given America’s political duopoly (at least when it comes to federal office) and the clear animosity that many prominent Republicans

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Fig. 2 Skepticism and Suspicion among Second-Generation Muslims (Note Each coefficient was modelled separately, controlling for standard demographics and political learnings. The darker whiskers around the point estimates represent the 90% confidence interval)

have shown to Muslims in recent years (Klaas, 2019) (a pattern that manifested even before Donald Trump became president (Beinart, 2015)), this apprehension toward the Democratic Party could limit American Muslims’ political efficacy. Along these same lines, second-generation American Muslims are more likely to believe that police arrests of Muslim suspects are not motivated by a credible threat. Certainly, there have been numerous examples of cases driven by questionable—if not altogether illegal—policing tactics bordering on entrapment (Norris & Grol-Prokopczyk, 2015). This distrust of US security officials is all the more understandable given the extensive, invasive, and, again, illegal surveillance of Muslim communities across the country (Khan & Ramachandran, 2021; Mansoor, 2021). When it comes to perceptions of broader American society, here, too, secondgeneration American Muslims evidence a bleaker view than their foreign-born counterparts. Native born respondents in the analysis are less likely to believe that most Americans are friendly to Muslims and more likely to say that it has become harder to be Muslim in the United States. Compared to the skepticism showed toward institutions, these findings could potentially lead to more worrying outcomes. As Oskooii (2016) has shown, the source of perceived discrimination can determine downstream socio-political ramifications, with horizontal (as opposed to top-down) animus more likely to lead to withdrawal from public activity.

American Muslim Immigrants …

41

Fig. 3 First- and Second-Generation Muslims Evidence a Sense of Place-Belonging

4.3 Resilient Belonging Despite these feelings of a society that is wary of Islam and its adherents, Fig. 33 shows that American Muslims are not exhibiting signs of alienation. To start, there is statistical parity between immigrant and second-generation American Muslims when it comes to their likelihood to completely agree that they are “Proud to be Muslim.” That over three-quarters of each sub-group reports this sentiment shows that religion remains a core component of identity for American Muslims. Just as notable, clear majorities of both immigrant and second-generation American Muslims completely agree when asked if they are “Proud to be an American.” While there is some dropoff in these numbers compared to those expressing pride in their religion, it is worth noting that when the next option for this question is taken into account, around 95 percent of each sub-group at least “Mostly Agree” that they are proud to be American. Thus, while not as central as religion, being an American is still nonetheless an important factor in identity formation for Muslims in the United States. At minimum, we can conclude that clear majorities do not see a tension between being Muslim and being American.

3

These analyses report a simple difference in means in order to highlight the proportions within each group for each outcome alongside the cross-group comparisons. Separate secondary analyses confirmed that the relationships highlighted in the figure hold after controlling for the variables in Table 1.

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More broadly, the vast majority of both immigrant and second-generation American Muslims similarly see no conflict between Islam and democracy. While noteworthy, this finding is not at all surprising. Despite a vast literature questioning Muslims’ commitment to democratic norms (see Fish (2011) for a review), studies have repeatedly shown that Muslims across the world value democracy as much as other respondents and see no inherent tension between their faith and this political system (Jamal & Tessler, 2008). Attitudes toward democracy is one thing, but what about Muslims’ feelings toward their adopted home country? Here, too, the findings are normatively positive. A majority of Muslim immigrants settling in the United States come with a fairly high sense of commonality with the American people, which only gets enhanced among the second generation. The clear overall conclusion from these metrics is that Muslims do not feel that they need to sacrifice a sense of identity or belonging in order to be a part of American society.

5 Conclusion This chapter assessed American Muslim immigrant identity and belonging via a brief historical overview and targeted empirical analysis. Two key takeaways emerge from the latter analysis. First, the findings indicate that second-generation American Muslims and their foreign-born counterparts exhibit high levels of pride in being both Muslim and American. That is, there does not appear to be any tension between these identity markers and, more notably for this analysis, no statistically significant drop-off from the first generation to the next. Second, the findings on belonging are mixed. In terms of place-belongingness, American Muslims do not exhibit a feeling of alienation from their society. At the same time, however, they are concerned that societal institutions and the broader public are not fully embracing them, but are instead promoting exclusionary practices and ideas. Thus, while asserting their rightful place in society, second-generation American Muslims are also taking on something of a defensive posture in light of the policies and animus of the post-9/11 period. A couple of caveats accompany these general takeaways, however. First, we should be careful not to reinforce an existing double standard as we conduct our analyses of Muslim public opinion. This chapter, for instance, featured an extended discussion and inquiry into Muslims’ religiosity. On the one hand, since this is a perennial topic of interest whenever Muslims in the West are invoked, it is necessary to investigate the matter systematically rather than leave it susceptible to broad accusations variably tethered to reality. On the other hand, it is worth considering how this type of research may lend credence to the narrative of “exceptionalism” around American Muslims. In Pew’s second national survey of American Muslims (Pew Research Center, 2011), for example, they make a point to note that while 49 percent of respondents reported thinking of themselves as “Muslim first” (i.e., before American or any other nationality), a comparable percentage of Christians in the United

American Muslim Immigrants …

43

States (46 percent) similarly reported prioritizing their religious identity. Clearly, the researchers and writers at Pew were mindful of the need to contextualize their findings given the abiding tendency to read data on Muslims in an uncharitable light. Second, we should be cautious in not treating the findings presented in this chapter as the final word on American Muslim identity and belonging. Of course, chiefly, this caution is borne of the need to more fully model these attitudes beyond the one (albeit critical) dimension of immigrant status. What role, for example, does experience with discrimination have in driving the drop-off between those proud to be Muslim and those proud to be American? Along these same lines, does immigrant status or nativity moderate this potential link? Moreover, dovetailing off the point in the previous paragraph, is the attitudinal gap shown in Fig. 3 particular to this community or a function of high religiosity across populations? Such questions are critical to building on the (ever sturdier) foundation of knowledge on Muslims in the United States. More fundamentally, however, American Muslims are the youngest religious community in the United States (Pew Research Center, 2017a). Where they are today in terms of their attitudes and behaviors may not be where they will be a generation down the road. What can be said at this point, however, is that there do not appear to be any internal obstacles to an organic American Muslim identity and sense of belonging in the United States. Whether the policies and proclamations of elected officials and the general sentiment of the broader public erect (additional) external obstacles, however, remains to be seen.

Appendix A: Regression Results Regression Table Corresponding to Fig. 1 (1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

Second Gen

0.27

0.16

0.29

0.48

0.73∗

(0.32)

(0.35)

(0.34)

(0.47)

(0.33)

Age: 18–29

0.20

−0.07

−0.67†

−0.12

0.09

(0.36)

(0.36)

(0.34)

(0.53)

(0.36)

Age: 55+

0.19

−0.03

0.46

−0.25

−0.72∗

(0.37)

(0.41)

(0.42)

(0.78)

(0.36)

−0.97∗∗

−0.88∗

−0.81∗

−1.11

−0.01

(0.37)

(0.35)

(0.39)

(0.81)

(0.34)

HH Income < $30K

−0.22

0.11

0.64∗

0.95†

0.96∗∗

(0.33)

(0.34)

(0.31)

(0.52)

(0.31)

College Graduate

−0.59∗

−0.29

−0.28

−0.58

0.03

(0.28)

(0.30)

(0.29)

(0.50)

(0.27)

HH Income > $100K

(continued)

44

Y. Chouhoud

(continued) (1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

0.68∗

0.63†

0.76∗∗

0.70

−0.06

(0.32)

(0.33)

(0.29)

(0.45)

(0.32)

Middle Eastern

−0.40

0.48†

0.57∗

0.47

−0.68∗

(0.29)

(0.29)

(0.28)

(0.43)

(0.28)

Women

−1.03∗∗∗

0.44

0.21

0.00

−0.19

(0.28)

(0.28)

(0.28)

(.)

(0.26)

Democrat

1.06∗∗∗

−0.06

0.26

−0.10

0.41

(0.32)

(0.32)

(0.31)

(0.63)

(0.29)

−0.95∗∗

−0.59∗

−0.08

0.64

−0.28

(0.30)

(0.29)

(0.29)

(0.45)

(0.27)

Constant

−0.08

0.46

−1.00∗

−1.28

−0.03

(0.44)

(0.47)

(0.43)

(0.84)

(0.42)

N

835

835

835

312

835

Married

Somewhat/Very Liberal

(5)

Standard errors in parentheses † p < 0.10, ∗ p < 0.05, ∗∗ p < 0.01, ∗∗∗ p < 0.001 Note Model numbers correspond to the following questions (all responses are dichotomized): (1) Attends religious service weekly; (2) Religion very important to R’s life; (3) Prays 5 daily salat; (4) Always wears hijab; (5) Thinks of self as “religious”

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

Second Gen

−0.58†

−1.50∗∗∗

0.78∗

1.12∗∗∗

(0.33)

(0.32)

(0.38)

(0.33)

Age: 18–29

−0.18

−0.10

−0.11

−0.85∗

(0.39)

(0.37)

(0.42)

(0.34)

0.41

0.63

−0.41

−0.37

(0.38)

(0.46)

(0.56)

(0.37)

HH Income > $100K

0.70∗

−0.12

0.32

0.27

(0.36)

(0.35)

(0.39)

(0.32)

HH Income < $30K

0.81∗

0.52

0.27

−0.51

(0.32)

(0.34)

(0.39)

(0.31)

College Graduate

−0.01

0.01

0.68∗

0.90∗∗∗

(0.29)

(0.27)

(0.32)

(0.27)

Married

0.25

0.90∗∗

−0.28

−0.77∗

(0.36)

(0.33)

(0.40)

(0.33)

Middle Eastern

−0.08

−0.01

0.95∗∗

0.05

(0.27)

(0.28)

(0.34)

(0.28)

−0.64∗

−0.72∗∗

0.24

0.53∗

(0.27)

(0.27)

(0.33)

(0.26)

Age: 55+

Women

(continued)

American Muslim Immigrants …

45

(continued) (1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

1.37∗∗∗

0.05

−0.06

0.30

(0.32)

(0.30)

(0.37)

(0.29)

Somewhat/Very Liberal

0.13

0.01

−0.02

0.65∗

(0.27)

(0.29)

(0.33)

(0.29)

Constant

−1.25∗

0.51

−1.07∗

−0.51

(0.54)

(0.42)

(0.49)

(0.44)

N

835

835

535

835

Democrat

Standard errors in parentheses † p < 0.10, ∗ p < 0.05, ∗∗ p < 0.01, ∗∗∗ p < 0.001 Note Model numbers correspond to the following questions: (1) The Democratic Party is [friendly] toward Muslim Americans; (2) When law enforcement officers have arrested Muslims in the United States suspected of plotting terrorist acts, do you think they have arrested mostly ___? [ANSWER: People tricked by law enforcement who did NOT pose threat.]; (3) Most Americans are Friendly to Muslims; (4) It has become harder to be Muslim in the United States

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from https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/post-9-11-surveillance-has-left-a-generation-of-mus lim-americans-in-a-shadow-of-distrust-and-fear Klaas, B. (2019). Opinion|A short history of President Trump’s anti-Muslim bigotry [newspaper]. Washington Post. Retrieved December 6, 2021, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ 2019/03/15/short-history-president-trumps-anti-muslim-bigotry/ Lopez, M. H., Gonzalez-Barrera, A., & López, G. (2017). Latino identity declines across generations as immigrant ties weaken. Pew Research Center’s Hispanic Trends Project. Retrieved June 1, 2020, from https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2017/12/20/hispanic-identity-fades-acrossgenerations-as-immigrant-connections-fall-away/ Mansoor, S. (2021). Muslim Americans bring the fight against surveillance to the supreme court. Time. Retrieved December 6, 2021, from https://time.com/6097712/muslim-american-surveilla nce-supreme-court-sept-11/ Miller, L. (2007). American dreamers: Islam in America. Newsweek. Retrieved November 21, 2021, from https://www.newsweek.com/american-dreamers-islam-america-104633 Mogahed, D., & Chouhoud, Y. (2017). American Muslim poll 2017: Muslims at the crossroads. Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. Nickerson, C. (2006). A lesson in immigration [newspaper]. Boston.com. Retrieved November 21, 2021, from http://archive.boston.com/news/world/articles/2006/04/19/a_lesson_in_immigr ation/ Norris, J., & Grol-Prokopczyk, H. (2015). Estimating the prevalence of entrapment in post-9/11 terrorism cases. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (1973-), 105(3), 609–677. Oskooii, K. A. (2016). How discrimination impacts sociopolitical behavior: A multidimensional perspective. Political Psychology, 37(5), 613–640. Oxford Analytica. (2009). UNITED STATES: Young Muslims’ piety, alienation rise. Pew Research Center. (2011). Muslim Americans: No signs of growth in alienation or support for Extremism. Mainstream and Moderate Attitudes. Pew Research Center. (2013). A portrait of Jewish Americans. Washington, D.C. Pew Research Center. (2014). The shifting religious identity of Latinos in the United States. Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project. Retrieved June 1, 2020, from https://www.pew forum.org/2014/05/07/the-shifting-religious-identity-of-latinos-in-the-united-states/ Pew Research Center. (2017a). Demographic portrait of Muslim Americans. Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project. Retrieved November 24, 2021, from https://www.pewforum.org/ 2017a/07/26/demographic-portrait-of-muslim-americans/ Pew Research Center. (2017b). How the U.S. general public views Muslims and Islam. Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project. Retrieved October 1, 2019, from https://www.pewforum. org/2017b/07/26/how-the-u-s-general-public-views-muslims-and-islam/ Pew Research Center. (2017c). U.S. Muslims concerned about their place in society, but Continue to Believe in the American Dream. Washington, D.C. Pew Research Center. (2019). In U.S., decline of Christianity continues at rapid pace. Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project. Retrieved June 1, 2020, from https://www.pewforum. org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/ Schlesinger, A. M. (1998). The disuniting of America: reflections on a multicultural society. W. W. Norton & Company. Schmidt, G. (2004). Islam in urban America: Sunni Muslims in Chicago. Temple University Press. Shaheen, J. (2008). Guilty: Hollywood’s verdict on Arabs After 9/11. Olive Branch Press. Shaheen, J. (2014). Reel bad Arabs: how Hollywood vilifies a people. Olive Branch Press. Silber, M. D., & Bhatt, A. (2007). Radicalization in the West: the homegrown threat. NYPD Intelligence Division.

Muslims in Canada: Their Identity and Sense of Belonging Daniel Stockemer and Antonia Teodoro

1 Introduction Minorities’ identity and sense of belonging are central for their integration into the society they live in. According to psychological and sociological research, there are two fundamental dimensions underlying minorities’ integration into their new country of residence, these are: cultural maintenance and participation in the receiving society (Hou et al., 2018). A higher level of cultural maintenance is more strongly associated with a sense of belonging to their country of origin, whereas a higher level of participation in the receiving society is associated with a greater sense of belonging to the new country of residence (Painter, 2013). Through this lens, minorities’ level of attachment to their country of residence is largely determined by those they surround themselves with. A sense of belonging emerges if people develop perceptions of unity, togetherness, solidarity and community spirit, and if actors see themselves as one with other people, in the sense that others become ‘one of them’ (Claridge, 2020). Networks and trust in others are essential in developing attachment to the mainstream society. The same applies to confidence in public institutions, which fosters effective cooperation, communication and positive relationships (Schellenberg, 2004). For the development of a positive identity with the host country, we cannot overstate the importance of a sense of belonging as a source of well-being and as a factor in minorities’ long-term commitment to their new country (Wu et al., 2012). Attachment with the society they live in determines whether or not someone with minority background may feel welcome and ‘at home’ in her new environment. In contrast, a feeling of marginalization can inhibit social and civil participation. In particular, The authors want to thank the Environics Institute and, in particular, Keith Neuman for sharing their data of the 2016 survey on Muslims in Canada. D. Stockemer (B) · A. Teodoro University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. Stockemer (ed.), Muslims in the Western World, Immigrants and Minorities, Politics and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99487-7_4

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discrimination can hamper minorities’ life satisfaction, therefore weakening their motivation to participate in the receiving society, which, in turn, can further alienate minorities from the new society they live in. In this chapter, we want to provide an overview of Muslims’ sense of belonging and identity in Canada. To do so, we first present the type of Muslims who reside in Canadian society. Second, we shortly summarize and discuss the existing literature on Muslims’ sense of belonging and identity in Canada and beyond. Third, using an Environics (2016) survey, we present our own analysis of Canadian Muslims sense of identity and belonging. Our survey results confirm prior studies in that Muslims in Canada feel well integrated with a strong sense of belonging to the Canadian society. In fact, 95 percent of the queried feel a strong or very strong sense of belonging to Canada. Finally, we discuss our results more broadly and provide some avenues for future research.

2 Muslims in Canada According to the 2011 Census data, there are approximately over 1 million selfidentified Muslims in Canada, which represents 3.2 percent of the country’s population (Statistics Canada, 2017). For every 10 Muslims living in Canada, seven of them are immigrants. The most significant country of origin is Pakistan (13 percent of Muslims in Canada originate from there), followed by Iran, Algeria, Morocco, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and India. About 95 percent of the Muslim population live in urban areas, such as in the Greater Toronto Area and Montreal, and approximately 9 in 10 of these individuals regard themselves as visible minorities. Over half of all foreign-born Muslims have arrived in Canada after 2000 (Environics, 2016). In addition, Muslims are on average younger than non-Muslims, more often men and are more likely to be foreign-born (Joly & Reitz, 2018). Furthermore, they are more highly educated than non-Muslims with a higher rate of unemployment. In terms of religious practice, Muslims have a higher rate of religiosity than the general Canadian population. Compared to Muslims immigrating to other popular Western immigrant destinations, Muslim immigrants to Canada are quite distinct and also share some unique features. One common feature of the Muslim immigrant population in Canada, as well as in many other immigrant destinations including Germany, France and Belgium, is that Muslim immigrants are younger than the average citizen. One major difference lies in the diversity in origin and race, and the relatively high education levels that characterize Muslim immigrants in Canada and the United States, but not many other Western immigrant destinations.1 Contrary to the diversity in Canada, the immigrant population in many European countries come from one destination. For example, 1

In the United States, Pew (2018) reports that the majority of Muslims in the US are American-born (42%). The next highest immigration levels to the United States are from South Asia (20%), the Middle East/North Africa (14%) and other Asian-Pacific countries (13%).

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Germany has been receiving a fairly high number of Muslim immigrants from Turkey. These immigrants are called Gastarbeiter, meaning ‘guest workers’ with the initial goal of filling labor shortages. In other countries, such as France, most Muslim immigrants originate from Maghreb, and Belgium has a large Muslim population consisting of Moroccan and Turkish immigrants (Czymara and Eisentraut, 2020). In addition to the greater diversity of the Muslim population in Canada, there is another major difference. Several European countries such as Germany or Sweden had to cope with an unregulated mass immigration during the refugee crisis in 2015/2016. Even if Canada has accepted upwards 20,000 Syrian refugees in the aftermath of the refugee crisis, the country has never experienced a comparable uncontrolled influx of Muslim immigrants. Rather, Canadian Muslim immigrants have generally immigrated through regular migration channels. This also implies that many of them have been vetted by Canadian authorities before their arrival to the North American country.

3 History of Muslims in Canada In this study, we use the generic term Muslims, because we do not have a clear benchmark of when to still talk about an immigrant. However, most Muslims in Canada have some immigration background as first, second or third generation immigrants. They are part of a larger immigrant population. To illustrate, first and second generation immigrants make up 44.6 percent of Canada’s population, outside of Quebec and 21.6 percent within Quebec (Reitz et al., 2017). Within these groups, Muslims account for 6.8 percent in Canada and 13.5 percent in Quebec. The history of Muslim settlement in Canada began in the nineteenth century, with the immigration of a Scottish Muslim couple, James and Agnes Love, whose child born in 1854 was the first Muslim born on Canadian soil. The Canadian Census of 1871, which is the earliest record of Muslims in Canada, documented 13 self-identified Muslim men. By 1901, this number reached between 300 and 400, then in 1911, it reached 1500 individuals (McDonough & Alvi, 2002). In 1938, when the Muslim population was still quite small, Muslims in Edmonton, Alberta built the first Canadian mosque (Lorenz, 1998). In 1951, the number of Muslims in Canada reached between 2000 and 3000, then, three decades later, in 1981, it soared to 98,165, making up 0.5 percent of the population (Canefe, 2007). The Census of 1991 declared that there were 253,260 Muslims in Canada, and the number has continued to rise significantly since then (Canefe, 2007). We can explain the strong increase in the percentage of Muslims in Canada by the removal of European immigration preference in the 1960s. In 1962 and 1967, Canada introduced two Immigration Acts, after embracing internal and external pressures for less discriminatory immigration practices (Boyd, 1976). Prior to this, both Canada and the United States sought to only admit immigrants from countries that were considered compatible with North American values and society. The major change

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in the 1960s was that immigration regulations were removed against people of nonEuropean descent, and immigration selection was based on occupational skill rather than citizenship. This resulted in an influx of Muslims from a range of former British colonies, such as South Asia, Africa and the Middle East (Canefe, 2007). These newcomers generally settled in the center of the Canadian political and economic landscape, usually in Ontario. Another factor in the surge of Muslim immigrants over the past 50 years is the increase of conflict in mainly Muslim countries. Refugees and asylum seekers came in large waves from Uganda in the 1970s to escape ethnic persecution, then Afghans fleeing Russian occupation of Afghanistan, and following this, Somalis who were escaping civil war and tribal conflicts in Somalia in the 1980s and 1990s (McDonough & Alvi, 2002). More recently, Muslim refugees came from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, among other Muslim majority countries. However, compared to regular migration, refugees have still constituted a minority of Muslim newcomers to Canada over the past four decades. Over the 30 years, Canada has also seen a growth in the number of Mosques and Islamic organizations preserving and promoting Muslim religious and cultural identity.

4 Existing Studies The existing literature agrees that Muslims in North America experience higher levels of attachment to the host country compared to Muslims in other Western countries (Greenwood, 2017). It also seems that among North American countries, Canada is the country where Muslims feel the strongest sense of belonging to the host country (Birani, 2017). According to Grant (2007), it is evident that Muslims internalize a new national identity after they move to Canada. They participate in both mainstream Canadian and cultural activities as well as hold positive views toward multiculturalism. Respondents who have lived in Canada longer than 5 years start to describe themselves as Canadian. These findings suggest that over time, Muslim newcomers gradually acculturate into Canadian society. Another study by Wong and Simon (2009) confirms that Muslim immigrants develop a very strong sense of belonging to Canada; according to the authors, they are almost four times as likely to have that sense in comparison with non-Muslim immigrants. Birani (2017, p. 49) further argues that most Muslims actively seek Canadian citizenship; for them it is the final step toward some successful integration into the Canadian society.2 Stockemer and Moreau (2021) provide three explanations for why Muslims in Canada are likely to develop this strong sense of identity. First, the culture in Canada is far less homogeneous and the Canadian society is far more accepting of multiple identities within their citizenry than many Western European countries. Canada is

2

. According to Reitz et al. (2017), about 73 percent of Canada’s foreign-born population are naturalized, compared to a lower percentage in other Western countries, such as France, reaching only 39 percent.

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an immigrant country; it has developed its culture, political landscape and infrastructure around the notion of an immigrant society. Second, in order to immigrate to North America, most immigrants must have more wealth and a higher education status. In particular, the higher education status is necessary to enter the Canadian migration system, which favors high skilled workers. Third, there are major differences in immigration laws and perceptions in society between Canada and some European countries, such as Germany. For example, the Canadian immigration system offers immigrants a clear route to citizenship, and Canadians generally welcome newcomers as citizens. In contrast, gaining citizenship in Germany is very difficult and time-consuming. The German society still considers second- and thirdgeneration Muslim immigrants as part of the ‘immigrant community’; they are not recognized as ‘Germans.’ Taken these three points together, it seems that Muslim immigrants coming to Canada are willing to integrate in the host society and find a structural environment conducive to do so. Yet, there are also some signs that some subgroups of Muslim immigrants experience some difficulties in their journey to adopt a positive identity toward the Canadian culture and society. For example, Joly and Reitz (2018) find that Muslims have a higher prevalence of psychological distress than non-Muslims, and it is women who experience these higher stress levels more so than man. According to a news article by Nasser (2016), young Muslims sometimes feel a strong societal pressure to answer questions about violence perpetrated by extremists in the name of Islam and are struggling with reclaiming their Muslim identities. Such questions about violence has driven some young Muslims to pull away from their faith and others to recapture it. They feel their Canadian identities have been put in question. Survey results reported by Nasser (2016) further display that 61 percent of respondents said that being Muslim was the most important part of their identity, 6 percent said that being Canadian was the most important and 26 percent said that both were important. Furthermore, the same article reports that Muslim Canadians feel profiled by Canadian authorities, with 62 percent worrying about discrimination, 35 percent have actually experienced it and 35 percent believe that the next generation of Muslims will face more discrimination. When this occurs, Muslim Canadians may feel as though they are being sent the message that they are not Canadian, despite the fact that they feel Canadian. A recent survey conducted by the group Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) confirms that there is growing suspicion toward Muslims. The survey summarized five points: (1) Canadians are the least comfortable with authority figures wearing a hijab versus any other religious dress or symbolism. (2) Canadians are more likely to hold negative perceptions about Muslims than about Jews or Christians. (3) They are less comfortable welcoming a Muslim into their family than Jews or Christians. (4) They are less concerned about protecting Muslim religious rights than other religions. (5) A sizable minority of 17 percent perceive the Muslim

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community as a monolith with uniform views (CJPME, 2018).3 Nevertheless, the same survey also reports that Canadians are aware of the issues facing Muslims, with 81 percent agreeing that there is Islamophobia present in Canadian society, and that they have faith in Canada’s multiculturalism model to rectify this.

5 Our Study In this study, we want to complement the existing research aiming to confirm Muslims high levels of identification with the Canadian society, but also determine variation in this sense of belonging among different types of demographics. To do so, we use the Environics (2016) survey entitled ‘Survey of Muslims in Canada,’ a comprehensive survey of 600 Muslims living in Canada. This survey is predominantly a survey of Muslim immigrants. Only 59 of the 600 Muslim respondents of the survey indicate that their country of origin is Canada. Therefore, we consider this survey to be predominantly a survey of Muslim immigrants, when we describe Muslims sense of belonging and identity, even if many of these first generation migrants have already accepted the Canadian citizenship. We proceed by providing some general overview statistics of Muslims’ sense of belonging and identity. In a second step, we present some hypotheses as to which type of Muslims should have a higher or lower sense of identity with the Canadian host society. Third, we test these hypotheses using various types of multiple regression models.

6 Overview Statistics To get an overview of how Muslims feel toward their country of residence, we have decided to present four different overview statistics. First, we offer some information on the two items: (1) the importance of being Muslim and (2) the importance of being Canadian. Second, we display the percentage of Muslims who feel a strong or a very strong sense of belonging to Canada, as well as indicate their level of proudness in becoming Canadian citizens. Third, we look at how satisfied Muslims are with their life in Canada. Finally, we present some statistics on how Muslims feel treated in Canada compared to other Western countries. Table 1 illustrates that it is important for Muslims to be both Canadian and Muslim. From these summary statistics, it seems that Muslims have both a strong attachment 3

Other surveys come to similar conclusions. For example, McAndrew and Bakhshaei (2012) illustrate that Muslims rank as the least favored group compared with other religious or cultural communities in Canada. In their study, this sentiment was strongest in Quebec where 41 percent of respondents said they have a very unfavorable opinion of Islam. An Angus Reid (2017a, b) opinion poll further demonstrates that out of older respondents, aged 55 and older, 81 percent of them opposed wearing the niqab and burka in public.

Muslims in Canada … Table 1 The importance of being Canadian and being Muslim

53 Being Canadian (%)

Being Muslim (%)

Not important at all

1.67

1.50

Somewhat unimportant

0.50

5.83

13.33

9.67

Very important 83.17

82.50

Somewhat important Do not know

1.33

0.50

to Canada as well as their Muslim religion. To illustrate, more than 95 percent of the polled deem it very important or somewhat important to be or become Canadian, and more than 93 percent find their identification with their Muslim belief either important or somewhat important. Given these high numbers, it also appears that nearly all of the respondents do not find that these two identities are conflictual. Rather, it seems that the respondents agree that they can be both Canadian and Muslim. The summary statistics in Tables 2 and 3 further corrugate the findings from Table 2. Muslims in Canada have a strong sense of identity toward Canada; 95 percent identify strongly or very strongly with Canada. In addition, more than four out of five Muslims are very proud to be Canadian and accept the Canadian nationality. In contrast, less than 5 percent express no proudness. In a report, the Environics Institute (2016) further argues that the percentage of Muslim immigrants expressing their proudness to become Canadian has increased by 10 percentage points over the Table 2 The sense of belonging toward Canada

Being Canadian (%) Very weak

0.33

Generally weak

2.83

Neither weak or strong

1.17

Generally strong

36.50

Very strong

58.50

Do not know

0.67

Table 3 The feeling toward gaining Canadian nationality

Being Canadian (%) Not proud/not very proud It depends

0.50 0.17

Somewhat proud

12.17

Very proud

83.83

Do not consider myself Canadian

2.5

Do not know

0.83

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Table 4 Muslims’ satisfaction rates with their life in Canada

Satisfaction with one’s life in Canada (%) Dissatisfied Satisfied Do not know/refusal to answer the questions

7.50 88.30 4.17

Table 5 Muslims’ perceived treatment in Canada compared to other Western countries Treatment of Muslims in Canada compared to other Western countries (%) Worse

2.00

The same

9.33

Better Do not know

82.83 5.83

past ten years overall, with this upward trend rising the most in Quebec by 30 percent in ten years. Table 4 illustrates that Muslims’ strong sense of belonging to the Canadian society also translates into a relatively high satisfaction rate with their life in Canada. In total, more than 88 percent of Muslims are satisfied with their lives in Canada. This is an incredibly high percentage, and we hypothesize that this life satisfaction stems, at least in part, from their strong sense of belonging with Canada. The last item we discuss—Muslims’ perceived treatment in comparison with other Western countries—shows a very high percentage of survey respondents agreeing with the statement that Canada treats Muslims better than other Western countries (see Table 5). In fact, nearly 83 percent of the polled feel that Muslims are better treated in Canada than elsewhere; this compares to only two percent, who believe that Canada treats Muslims worse than other Western countries.

7 Explaining Variation in Muslims’ Attachment to Canada and Their Life Satisfaction So far, we have established that the grand majority of Muslims feel a strong sense of belonging with Canada. Most Muslim Canadians are also satisfied with their lives. In this section, we are interested in the factors that explain variation in Muslims’ feelings of belonging toward Canada and in differences in their life satisfaction. We hypothesize that six factors could explain such variation: (1) birth status of the Muslim (i.e., foreign-born or born in Canada), (2) education, (3), (3) gender, (4) age, (5) whether they have experienced discrimination and (6) the region in which the Muslims live.

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7.1 Hypotheses H (1): Second-generation and third-generation (Canadian-born) Muslim feel a stronger sense of identity and belonging to Canada than first generation (foreignborn) Muslim immigrants do. We believe that first generations feel a strong attachment to their home country. They have already led a life with a previously inherited culture which they inevitably bring with them to their new country of residence. While their culture and their identities can evolve and multiply, there will always be a strong sense of their home identity. In contrast, it is more common for second generation immigrants to have more fluid, multi-dimensional identities and not want to be categorized within a set group (Tiflati, 2017). Most second generation immigrants will get their Muslim culture through their parents, visits to their parents’ countries of origin and through cultural activities in which they participate in their country of residence. However, they will also get their ‘new culture’ in school, in interactions with friends, and in social activities. H (2): More educated Muslims feel more attached to Canada than their country of origin than less educated Muslims. We hypothesize that higher educational attainment can lead to more social participation of immigrants into Canadian society (Wu et al., 2012). With higher education comes more contacts and the possibility for higher socio-economic mobility. This higher social capital and the likelihood to gain friends and contacts with nationals should increase their identity and positive feelings toward Canada. On average, those who are more educated are also more likely to contribute to their new economy more directly through employment in a better paid job. This, in turn, may create many opportunities for interactions, create life satisfaction and increase newcomers’ attachment to their host country. H (3): Muslim women feel less of a sense of identity and belonging to Canada than Muslim men. The integration for Muslims into the host society might be more difficult for women. Women might wear the hijab, a public Muslim symbol, and they might be held to high (moral) standards within their culture. Because of the visibility of their Muslim identity due to their scarf, they might feel that they have to auto-supervise their behaviors in public (Tiflati, 2017). Being a Muslim woman can thus lead to more discrimination than being a Muslim man, which could be another factor preventing her to develop a strong sense of belonging to the host culture. In contrast, men are able to experience the privilege of being less visibly Muslim, which can be advantageous in their everyday lives and lead to a stronger sense of belonging. H (4): Younger Muslims should feel a stronger sense of belonging and identity to Canada than older Muslims. There are several reasons why youth should find it easier to integrate into the host society. For example, Muslim youth who have experienced, either directly or indirectly, poor living or undemocratic conditions, tend to have a deeper appreciation for their parents’ choice to immigrate to Canada (Tiflati, 2017). This also implies that

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when comparing Canada with their country of origin, in regard to democratic rights and freedoms, youth might express a feeling of gratitude for Canada’s multiculturalism. In addition, Muslim youth rather naturally make friends and acquaintances in school and university and get accustomed to the rules and costumes of the host country. H (5): Muslims who experience religious based discrimination are more likely to identify less with Canada. Even if it is not as pronounced as elsewhere, discrimination of Muslims has been on the rise in Canada in recent years. In the global climate of terrorism and insecurity, a larger portion of the population sees Muslims with suspicion or outright rejection (Wilkins-Laflamme, 2018). It comes as no surprise that in such a climate, some Muslims have experienced religious discrimination (i.e., around 20 percent in our survey sample). We believe that such discrimination could compromise Muslims social integration and respect for the mainstream values and beliefs (Kitchen et al., 2015), which, in turn, might reduce their social engagement and attachment to Canada’s values and beliefs. H (6): When it comes to region, we believe that Muslims in Quebec feel less of an attachment to Canada than Muslims in the rest of Canada. For one, people in Quebec embrace a double identity. They are Quebecers and Canadians. For example, Tiflati (2017) argues that Quebecers recognize that they cannot be Quebecois without being Canadian but identify more strongly with their Quebecois identity. On the other hand, it is possible that Muslims in Quebec feel some sense of discrimination in the province. For instance, Mahmut’s (2021) study demonstrates that Muslim immigrants in Quebec, although highly educated and skilled, have a very difficult time securing jobs in their field and believe that all of the good jobs in Quebec are reserved for Francophone white people. This sentiment was different in other parts of Canada (e.g., in Alberta and Ontario, respondents expressed a minimum degree of concerns over Islamophobia and felt more connected to society).4

8 Statistical Procedures We are interested in the influence of our six independent variables on two dependent variables: individuals’ sense of belonging with Canada and their general life satisfaction. For the first dependent variable, we use a three value ordinal scale with the categories: weak sense of belonging with Canada, strong sense of belonging with Canada and very strong sense of belonging with Canada. In doing so, we combine the three categories: very weak, generally weak, and neither weak nor strong under the category weak, because the three original categories make up less than five percent 4

It is also important to note that Quebec’s immigration policy differs from the rest of Canada. Quebecers abide by the idea of ‘interculturalisme’ rather than ‘multiculturalism’ like in the rest of Canada. This perspective recognizes minority cultures but advocates for a deeper integration and participation in French culture and language, and is a far more secularized society, whereas, in the rest of Canada, these differences are more celebrated (Reitz et al., 2017).

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of the responses in the survey. Because we have a three value ordinal variable, we use ordinal logistic regression analysis for this model. The second variable—satisfaction with life in Canada—is a binary variable with two categories: dissatisfied and satisfied. This binary choice of the dependent variable calls for binary logistic regression analysis. We operationalize the six independent variables as follows: (1) birth status of the respondent is a dummy variable coded 1 if the survey participant is born outside of Canada and 0 for Canadian-born second and plus generation immigrants. (2) Education is an 8 value ordinal variable ranging from public or elementary education (coded 1) to a graduate degree (coded 8). (3) Gender is a dummy variable coded 0 for men and 1 for women. (4) The variable age denotes the actual age of the participant at the time he/she took the survey. (5) The variable experienced discrimination is a binary variable coded 0 if respondents have not experienced discrimination over the past 5 years and 1 if they have experienced discrimination. (6) The final variable is a dummy variable coded 1 if the respondent lives in Quebec and 0 if she lives in another province. Both regression models have the two dependent variables—the degree to which the polled feel a sense of belonging with Canada and survey respondents’ life satisfaction levels with Canada—respectively. On the right hand side of the equations are the six independent variables. To the model measuring Muslims’ life satisfaction in Canada, we also add our first dependent variable, which measures the sense of belonging the polled feel toward Canada hypothesizing that survey respondents’ sense of belonging, as a proxy for a Canadian identity, can be a strong source of life satisfaction. For both models, we also present probability plots of the average predicted effects of statistically significant independent variables to get an idea of the substantive meaning of these statistically significant variables (Fig. 1).

9 Results Table 6 displays the ordered logistic regression coefficients, standard errors and significance levels of the regression model explaining and predicting the strength of sense of identity and belonging Muslims feel with Canada. We find that the four explanatory variables—born in Canada, gender, age and residence in Quebec are statistically significantly different from zero (p < 0.05). Yet, only three variables behave in accordance with our hypotheses. As expected, we find that Muslims, who are born in Canada, have a stronger sense of belonging, than those who are born outside of Canada. The same applies to men and survey respondents who live outside of Quebec. In contrast, the variable of age has an effect that runs counter our expectations. Contrary to our hypothesis, it is older survey respondents who experience a stronger sense of belonging. As with the other statistically significant variables, these differences mainly occur between the categories of a strong sense of identity with Canada and a very strong sense of identity with Canada. Yet, and in particular for age, the differences between these two response choices can be quite substantial.

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Table 6 Ordered logistic regression analysis explaining Muslims’ level of proudness to be or become Canadian Unstandardized logistic regression coefficient

Standard error

Significance level

Born in Canada

0.598

0.302

0.047

Education

0.019

0.057

0.741

–0.719

0.181

0.000

0.029

0.006

0.000

Experienced discrimination

–0.250

0.221

0.258

Quebec

–0.421

0.205

0.040

Cut off point 1

–2.58

0.840

Gender Age

Cut off point 2

0.369

N

0.467

573

Log likelihood

–437.70

Pseudo R-squared

0.06

.8

1 .8

Probability

Probability

.6

.4

.6 .4

Weak

.2

Weak .2

Strong Very strong

0 Men

Strong Very strong

0

Women

20

Gender

40

60

80

100

Age

.8 .6

Probability

Probability

.6

.4 Weak

.2

.4

.2

Weak Strong

Strong Very strong

0 No

Yes

Born in Canada

Very strong

0 No

Yes

Residence in Quebec

Fig. 1 The predicted effect of gender, age, born in Canada and residence in Quebec on Muslims’ level of proudness to become Canadian

For example, if we look at the predicted effect of age, Fig. 1 predicts that somebody aged 25 years old has a roughly equal chance (i.e., nearly 50 percent) of having

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either a strong or very strong sense of identity with Canada. In contrast, somebody aged 60 years old has a 75 percent likelihood to have a very strong sense of identity with Canada. In addition, to the four variables that have explanatory power in our regression models, we also have two variables, which do not have any influence on the dependent variable; these are education and having experiences of discrimination. This latter finding pinpoints that Canada can become a home with which survey respondents identify for Muslims with various education levels. In addition, we find that the experience of discrimination does not translate into more hesitancy to identify with Canada. This finding also pinpoints that the growing Islamophobia has not created a feedback loop yet. It seems that Muslims are eager to integrate into Canadian society even if they have experienced some discrimination. When it comes to our second dependent variable, variation in life satisfaction with one’s life in Canada, we find the expected relationship; that is Muslims’ sense of belonging with Canada is a very strong driver to explain the survey respondents’ life satisfaction. To illustrate, the regression model in Table 7 predicts that nearly 95 percent of Muslims, who feel a very strong sense of identity with Canada are also satisfied with their lives (see Fig. 2). In contrast, individuals who only have a weak sense of belonging with Canada ‘only’ have a roughly 78 percent likelihood to be satisfied with their lives in Canada. Surprisingly, none of the other independent variables bears any salience in explaining Muslims’ life satisfaction. Table 7 Ordered logistic regression analysis explaining Muslim s’ level of satisfaction with their life in Canada Unstandardized logistic regression coefficient

Standard error

Significance level

0.847

0.276

0.002

–0.065

0.576

0.911

0.088

0.102

0.386

Gender

–0.063

0.346

0.855

Age

–0.007

0.011

0.495

Experienced discrimination

–0.048

0.413

0.907

Quebec

0.773

0.462

0.094

Constant

0.922

0.895

0.303

Sense of belonging with Canada Born in Canada Education

N Log likelihood Pseudo R-squared

549 –144.07 0.05

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Predicted level of life satisfaction

1

.9

.8

.7

.6 Weak

Strong

Very strong

Sense of belonging to Canada

Fig. 2 The predicted effect of somebody’s sense of belonging to Canada on life satisfaction in Canada

10 Conclusion Our analysis points a rather rosy picture of Muslims’ sense of belonging and integration. Becoming a Canadian citizen is a goal nearly all Muslims share. In the overall majority, Muslims have strong or very strong sense of belonging with Canada and are proud, if they can become Canadian. While generally this high sense of belonging applies to the overall majority of Muslims, there are some differences with men, older survey respondents, Canadian-born survey respondents and survey respondents from outside of Quebec having an even stronger sense of belonging to Canada. Over 80 percent of Muslims in the survey also acknowledge that they are treated better in Canada compared to other Muslim immigrant Western destinations. In addition, nearly 90 percent of Muslims in Canada are satisfied with their lives. This number is higher than in the general population where life satisfaction levels are roughly at 80 percent (Bonikowska et al., 2014). It is also worth noting that Muslims’ sense of belonging is a prime factor in their life satisfaction in Canada. At first site, our analysis offers very little reason for concern. Based on our results, Canada appears to be the typical country for a successful integration of Muslims. Yet, there are first signs of alarm and we should take these concerns seriously given that our study is based on survey data from 2016. While Canadians’ overall views on multiculturalism have remained quite positive, with the majority of 80 percent of the population agreeing that immigration is beneficial for the country (see Environics, 2018), there are clear indications that the acceptance of Muslims into Canadian society is waning. For example, Triadafilopoulos and Rasheed (2020) claim

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that public opinion toward Muslim shifts toward negativity. According to them, the renewed fear of Islam is rooted in the recent past, most notably in the War on Terror. If this stronger rejection of Islam continues in the Canadian society, Muslims, both recent immigrants, naturalized Canadians and converts might face more difficulties in integrating into Canadian society. They might also face more resistance and prejudice; this, in turn, could render it harder for them to develop a Canadian identity. Being eyed critically by a part of Canadian society might also hamper social contexts and mobility and might drive old and new Canadian Muslims to build ethnic communities, something that is not beneficial for cross-cultural contact and integration. Hence, it is possible that the increased discrimination Muslims are facing will finally translate into some more rejection of the Canadian life, something that has not occurred up to now.

References Angus Reid Institute. (2017a). Religious trends. Retrieved December 17, 2021 from http://angusr eid.org/religious-trends-2017a/ Angus Reid Institute. (2017b). Faith and religion in public life: Canadians deeply divided over the role of faith in the public square. Retrieved December 17, 2021 from http://angusreid.org/faithpublic-square/#part-4. Birani, A. (2017). Toward an inclusive Islamic identity? A study of first- and second-generation Muslims in Canada. Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository, 4582. Retrieved December 17, 2021 from https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6305&context=etd Bonikowska, A., Helliwell, J. F., Hou, F., & Schellenberg, G. (2014). An assessment of life satisfaction responses on recent statistics Canada surveys. Social Indicators Research, 118(2), 617–643. Boyd, M. (1976). Immigration policies and trends: A comparison of Canada and the United States. Demography, 13(1), 83–104. https://doi.org/10.2307/2060422 Canefe, N. (2007). The making of “modern” diasporas: The case of Muslims in Canada. Opportunity structures in diaspora relations: Comparisons in contemporary multilevel politics of diaspora and transnational identity, 53–84. Conference Paper Series 4. CJPME. (2018). Survey: Islamophobia in Canada, still a grave problem. Retrieved November 23, 2021 from https://www.cjpme.org/islamophobia Claridge, T. (2020). Identity and belonging. Social Capital Research. Retrieved December 17, 2021 from https://www.socialcapitalresearch.com/identity-and-belonging/ Czymara S. C., & Eisentraut, M. (2020). A threat to the occident? Comparing human values of Muslim immigrants, Christian, and non-religious natives in Western Europe” Frontiers in Sociology, (5), 1–15. Environics Institute for Survey Research. (2016). Survey of Muslims in Canada. https://www.env ironicsinstitute.org/docs/default-source/project-documents/survey-of-muslims-in-canada-2016/ final-report.pdf?sfvrsn=fbb85533_2. Accessed September 2021. Environics Institute for Survey Research. (2018). Canadian public opinion about immigration and refugees. https://www.environicsinstitute.org/docs/defaultsource/project-documents/focus-can ada-winter-2018---immigration-and-minoritygroups/focus-canada-winter-2018-survey-on-imm igration-and-minority-groups---final-report.pdf?sfvrsn=ede94c5f_2 Grant, P. (2007). Sustaining a strong cultural and national identity: the acculturation of immigrants and second-generation Canadians of Asian and African descent. Springer, (8), 89–116.

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Greenwood, S. (2017). Demographic portrait of Muslim Americans. Pew Research Report. Retrieved January 2, 2020 from https://www.pewforum.org/2017/07/26/demographic-portraitof-muslim-americans/ Hou, F., Schellenberg, G., & Berry, J. (2018). Patterns and determinants of immigrants’ sense of belonging to Canada and their source country. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 41(9), 1612–1631. Joly, M., & Reitz, J. G. (2018). Emotional stress and the integration of Muslim minorities in France and Canada. International Migration Review, 52(4), 1111–1129. Kitchen, P., Williams, A. M., & Gallina, M. (2015). Sense of belonging to local community in small-to-medium sized Canadian urban areas: A comparison of immigrant and Canadian-born residents. BMC Psychology, 3(1), 1–17. Lorenz, A. (1998). Canada’s pioneer mosque. Aramco World, 49 (4). Retrieved December 17, 2021 from https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/199804/canada.s.pioneer.mosque.htm Mahmut, D. (2021). Belonging to Quebec and English Canada as Muslims: The perspectives of the highly educated Uyghur immigrants. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 41(2), 281–298. McAndrew, M., & Bakhshaei, M. (2012). The difficult integration of Muslims into Quebec since 9/11. International Journal, 67(4), 931–949. McDonough, S., & Alvi, S. (2002). The Canadian council of Muslim women: A chapter in the history of Muslim women in Canada. The Muslim World, 92(1), 79–98. Retrieved December 17, 2021 from https://login.proxy.bib.uottawa.ca/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/ canadian-council-muslim-women-chapter-history/docview/216432950/se-2?accountid=14701 Nasser, S. (2016). How islamophobia is driving young Canadian Muslims to reclaim their identity. CBC. Retrieved December 17, 2021 from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/environics-muslimcanadian-survey-1.3551465 Painter, C. V. (2013). Sense of belonging: literature review. Government of Canada. Retrieved December 17, 2021 from https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/ reports-statistics/research/sense-belonging-literature-review.html#sec01 Reitz, J. G., Simon, P., & Laxer, E. (2017). Muslims’ social inclusion and exclusion in France, Québec, and Canada: Does national context matter? Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 43(15), 2473–2498. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2017.1313105 Schellenberg, G. (2004). Perceptions of Canadians: A sense of belonging, confidence and trust. Canadian Social Trends 75 (Winter). Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 11-008-X. Statistics Canada. (2017). Canada day by the day. Accessed September 2021. Retrieved December 17, 2021 from https://www.statcan.gc.ca/eng/dai/smr08/2017/smr08_219_2017 Stockemer, D., & Moreau, S. (2021). Muslim immigrants’ sense of identity and belonging in the Western world: A comprehensive review. Nations and Nationalism, 27, 223–237. Tiflati, H. (2017). Muslim youth between Quebecness and Canadianness: Religiosity, identity, citizenship, and belonging. Canadian Ethnic Studies, 49(1), 1–17. Triadafilopoulos, T., & Rasheed, J. (2020). A religion like no other: Islam and the limits of multiculturalism in Canada. Working Paper No. 2020/14. Wilkins-Laflamme, S. (2018). Islamophobia in Canada: Measuring the realities of negative attitudes toward Muslims and religious discrimination. Canadian Review of Sociology, 55(1), 86–110. Wong, L., & Simon, R. R. (2009). Citizenship and belonging to Canada: religious and generational differentiation. Canadian Issues, S3, 3–12. Wu, Z., Schimmelle, C., & Hou, F. (2012). Self-perceived integration of immigrants and their children. Canadian Journal of Sociology, 37(4), 381–408.

Muslim Immigrants in France: Sense of Identity and Belonging Jacques Barou

1 Demographics of Muslim Communities in France How many Muslims are living in France and who are they? It is not easy to answer this question. France is a secular country and questions of religious Faith are considered to be private. The government authorities do not have to know precisely what the religious beliefs of the population are. Since the national census of 1872, which was the last one to record the religion of the interviewed persons, it has been forbidden to establish the religious opinions of people by means of a public census. There are consequently two main ways to evaluate the number of Muslims in France and neither of them is fully satisfying.

1.1 Sociological Muslims The first option consists of adding up the number of immigrants from countries in which Islam is the dominant religion. It is possible to use statistics collected by the “Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques” (INSEE), the public office which has to organise the national census and various quantitative surveys. The concept of immigré concerns both people who have kept the citizenship of their native country and those born abroad who have obtained French citizenship as they are settled in France. It is thus possible to know whether some French citizens are former citizens of a Muslim country. It is also possible, through the census, to know the number of their children, although most of them are French citizens due to the

J. Barou (B) National Center for Scientific Research and Institute of Political Science, Université Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. Stockemer (ed.), Muslims in the Western World, Immigrants and Minorities, Politics and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99487-7_5

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benefit of the jus soli. It is, however, more difficult to know the number of their grandchildren and other descendants. There is also a drawback with this way of evaluating the number of Muslims in France: it does not distinguish between the main religion of their home country and their personal conviction. To be an immigrant or a child of an immigrant from a Muslim country does not mean that you consider yourself as Muslim. There is no systematic association between the dominant religion of a country and the personal beliefs and religious practices of its inhabitants. We can only consider the immigrants and their descendants as “sociological Muslims”. From this point of view, there are around five or six million Muslims in France, according to different surveys (Arkoun, 2006; Simon, 2019; Tribalat, 2008). According to a survey made in 2011 by the Pew Research Centre, France has the highest percentage of Muslims in Europe among its global population: 7.5 percent. The most numerous are those with Algerian citizenship or Algerian descent, which currently account for approximately 1.5 million today. The majority of first generation migrants belong to the working classes. Their children and grandchildren, being more educated, have become in party members of the middle class. The Harkis1 and their descendants probably number about 500,000 and still suffer precarious social situations (Jordi & Hamoumou, 2004). As Algeria was, for 130 years, a part of French Republic, all of these migrants have been deeply influenced by French culture and French way of life. There are one million Moroccans. Among them, 50 percent have French citizenship. This is mainly a population of rural origin belonging to the lower classes in France and living both in industrial and in agricultural regions. There are around 400,000 Tunisians. They live mainly in large cities and present a more varied profile from a social point of view. African people from the Sahel—Mali, Senegal and Mauritania—number some 340,000, mainly of rural origin and practising traditional Islam, often belonging to specific orders. There are 700,000 Turks, mainly from Anatolia, who are strongly attached to their traditions. People from the Middle East number only 70,000, most of whom are natives of Lebanon and Iran. The vast majority of Muslims living in France belong to Sunnism. From a juridical point of view, they follow the malekite rites. There are very few Shia Muslims. There is a wide diversity of home countries of Muslims living in France and that means we will also find a large variety of beliefs and religious practices, producing variant attitudes concerning their sense of identity and belonging.

1

The Arabic word harki refers to a soldier belonging to auxiliary troops of the French army during the war in Algeria. After Algerian independence, most of them were murdered. 85,200 of them were repatriated to France and generally lived in very poor conditions. Today, they are still considered as traitors by the Algerian government and do not have the right to return to their country. Their children and grandchildren often have painful problems of identity.

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1.2 Professing Muslims The other option is to evaluate the number of Muslims in France and take into consideration their real religious practice. Here we refer to professing Muslims rather than sociological Muslims. For several years, public opinion polling institutes have undertaken many surveys concerning the Muslims in France, using representative samplings. The results have been published by mainstream newspapers such as Le Monde and La Croix. According to the most recent surveys, there is a growing percentage of the individuals considering themselves as Muslims who state that they believe and practice the religion. In 2001, 78 percent of Muslims said they were believers and 36 percent said they were practising. However, 43 percent of the Muslims born in France say they are not practising. By contrast, Muslims who have recently arrived in the country are more concerned with religious practice. According to a survey made in 2011 by the “Institut Français d’Opinion Publique” (IFOP), 75 percent of people with Muslim origin who have recently settled in France, say they are believers. An older survey by the “Centre d’Etudes de la Vie Politique Française” (CEVIPOF) in 2005, showed 60 percent of immigrants from Africa and Turkey considered themselves as Muslims. These differences underline the difficulties to configure the real number of Muslims in France. According to different polls and surveys, in 2021, Muslims represent 8.8 percent of the whole population of the country, that is to say 5,800,000 persons. This number is generally considered as reliable by the majority of serious institutes and researchers. The Pew Research Centre (2017) gave a very close number: 5,720,000. If we consider regular practice, for instance, prayers at the mosque on Fridays, there are only 10 percent of the polled Muslims in the various surveys who participate. The surveys undertaken by the Ministry of Interior on the 2012 mosques and places of Muslim worship registered in France revealed that 250,000 individuals frequented them regularly, that is to say, 5 percent of the 5 million “sociological” Muslims (Ministère de l’Intérieur, 2019). But, this way of evaluating the number of professing Muslims is not entirely satisfactory either. There are different practices in Islam which afford the possibility to affirm oneself as a real practising believer. It is not necessary to frequent the mosque for prayers, and fasting during the month of Ramadan is often considered by a large number of Muslims as the main mark of their adherence to Islam. We must note that there are very many ways to affirm one’s membership of a Muslim community. What are the effects of the different affirmations of a Muslim identity concerning the belonging to the host country? It is necessary to take in consideration different data like the social situation and the political positions of people to have a precise idea of the role of religion concerning the feeling to belong or not to France.

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1.3 The Socio-Economic Profile of Muslims in France The identity of a community is not only religious. The social position of Muslims in the French society and their participation in political life have impacts on their sense of belonging. A significant proportion of Muslims who emigrated from countries in which Islam is the only or the dominant religion belong to the lower classes. Algerians began to come to France in the 1930s as unskilled workers, looking for jobs in the building trade and public works. Their numbers increased during the 1950s and 1960s, but they were still mainly employed in those sectors. After the independence of Algeria, thousands of Muslims were “repatriated” to France, although they had never lived in this country. Some of them were well educated, like the officers or the civil servants of the colonial administration. But the majority of them were peasants who joined the Harkis troops to have peace. They were settled in rural areas and obtained unskilled jobs in the forestry sector. A large number of them lived for a long time in special camps with poor housing conditions (Pierret, 2011). Moroccan immigration began later, during the 1960s. People were mainly employed in the car industry in the region of Paris, in agriculture in the South of France and in coal mines in the North and East. The Senegalese and Malian migrants came during the same period, mainly as unskilled employees in warehouses and as street sweepers in Paris. The Turks arrived last, in the early seventies, in the majority, they worked in the Eastern regions, as bricklayers and workers in manufacturing industries. Generally, men came first and some years later were joined by their families. Most women and children came from the middle of the seventies to the end of the eighties. Today the social situation of these groups is clearly more critical than the average of the population. Their rates of unemployment are twice as high as those of French people and European migrants. In spite of a better level of education than their parents, the children of African migrants are also highly affected by unemployment. Many households live with allowances and social minima. Almost 50 percent of North and West African households are tenants in public housing. The flats in which they live are generally comfortable but the neighbourhoods are often rattled by violence, delinquency and disorder in schools; they also suffer from a bad reputation, which counters the political projects to restore social and ethnic diversity (Barou, 2014). However, we observe a social mobility between the first and second generation. 42 percent of the children of migrants are workers while 66 percent of their fathers were in this situation. 14 percent are white collars versus 4 percent of their parents (Observatoire des inégalités, 2012, p. 4). Some academics argue that a successful integration is linked to the familial context (Santelli, 2009). Children or grandchildren of Muslim immigrants who join the middle classes have been educated in families who gave them positive values: freedom, autonomy, respect of the cultural differences and so on. These families have generally a liberal point of view about Islam and never cultivated resentments against France nor a retirement within the religious community.

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1.4 Civic Participation and Representation of Muslims in Political Processes French policy concerning migrants and their descendants has been aimed essentially at the improvement of these neighbourhoods by financing urban renewal and housing restoration, the creation of associations and social intervention among the inhabitants. Recently, the problem of racism and discrimination has appeared as a frequent cause of unemployment among young people of North African or Black African origin. A law prohibiting racial and ethnic discrimination has therefore been promoted. A policy was created in order to reinforce the struggle against discriminations, the “Haute Autorité de Lutte Contre les Discriminations et pour l’Egalité” (HALDE). The results of this policy are not spectacular. Some individuals have succeeded in business, in the arts and in intellectual activities, and some have been promoted to high functions. Since 2004, the different governments under the presidency of Chirac, Sarkozy, Hollande and Macron, have included ministers with Muslim origin and Muslim have sometimes been given high functions in Justice and Education. However, these persons, mainly women, have portrayed an image of Muslim persons emancipated from the constraints of Islam and assimilated in the Western culture. They have been an example in the eyes of young people looking for integration and social promotion but they could not represent the entire Muslim population, mainly the traditional Muslims. If we can find Muslim people with important political functions in government or in city administrations, they have not been frequently represented in basic functions of civic representation. For a long time, there was no or few Members of Parliament from North African and Black African communities and the percentage of local councillors of these origins was small compared to the number of French citizens who are Muslims. This changed in 2017. At the legislative elections, 15 persons of African and Asian origin were elected, among them, 10 were of Muslim descent. However, none of them used their religious belonging as an electoral argument. They do not speak to Muslims but to working class people. They were elected in popular suburbs. The populations of these areas with Muslim heritage have for a long time shown political indifference, with very few voters in the elections. They have at times expressed their dissatisfaction by violent and unforeseeable riots. For the first time, in 2007, a high rate of voters was registered in the neighbourhoods inhabited by many Muslims during the presidential election. Perhaps this happened because the young inhabitants of these places have considered Nicolas Sarkozy as a personal enemy since he insulted them before the riots of November 2005, and have therefore expressed their refusal of him by voting for his opponents. It could be also because a political consciousness is beginning to appear among them. Nowadays, the religious component of the political behaviour of French citizens of Muslim heritage does not appear to be important. The social and economic reasons to prefer a left-wing policy are much more present (Barou, 2016, p. 90). There are no projects to create a Muslim Party, because it would be very difficult in a secular

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regime like France, and also because few Muslim citizens actually claim it. But, in the future, Islam may become a common reference for a larger political mobilisation.

2 Diversity of Identities and External Influences 2.1 A Persisting Influence of the Originate Countries and of the International Islamic Organisations 2.1.1

Islam of the Consulates

The influence of Islam, as it is practised in the countries of origin, is still relatively important in France, especially among the first generation of immigrants. These people, mainly from rural areas, easily combine religion, customs, traditions and even some superstitions. They are still attached to the cult of Saints and often make pilgrimages to their villages to worship pious people who are buried there. They often belong to mystic orders created by a Saint and follow the teaching of the Sheik, leading the order as the direct descendant of the founder. The governments of the different countries in North Africa support these orders, because they consider them as a protection against the influence of radical Islamism. In France, these governments still maintain a strong influence among their citizens and former citizens. They send imams to France, civil servants of the Ministry in charge of religion in order to help the immigrants to organise their practice. This is what sociologists of Islam call “the Islam of the consulates”. For a long time, the French authorities tended to delegate the organisation of Islam to the foreign consulates. Nowadays, despite the existence of the French Council of the Muslim Faith,2 the influence of the governments of the Muslim countries of origin remains strong and there are some rivalries between Morocco, Algeria and Turkey to appear as the best defender of Muslims living in France. So, the sense of identity and belonging is both national and religious. The most important organisation in the CFCM, the FNMF (National Federation of Muslims in France), is linked to the Moroccan government. Despite its importance, this organisation is not very united and its members belong to different currents, even if they are all attached to their Moroccan origins. Most of them practise a traditional Islam, yet one that is not concerned with radicalisation. Moroccans and French citizens of Moroccan origin are the most present in Islam in France. They account for 40 percent of the imams in France and each year, around 25 percent of the pilgrims to Mecca starting from France. Algerian Islam, in spite of an older presence in France and of a larger number of people, is not so well represented among the different organisations and inside the

2

The « Conseil Français du culte musulman», founded in 2003 by the French Ministry of Interior, is the official representative of the Muslim Faith in France.

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official institutions. Many Algerians living in France tend to have a secular perspective and some of them are more interested in the reformist or radical organisations than in the associations controlled by the Algerian consulates. Only the Turuq, mystic orders often supported by the Algerian authorities, enjoy a certain success among young and often well-educated people. In North Africa, these orders are considered as archaic and are condemned by reformist trends because of the superstitions they perpetuate but, paradoxically, in France they are experiencing a revival. Their spiritual teaching and their discretion attract people who are not interested in political and social aspects, which tend to carry too much weight in contemporary Islam. Perhaps they point to a future solution for the development of Islam in Europe, based on democratic and secular values (Addas, 2015). Turkish immigrants remain attached to Islam because it is a part of their ethnic and national identity. In France, they live in closed communities with a strong respect of family and religious values. The first current among them was the Milligörüs, a reformist movement similar to the Muslim Brotherhood. Discreetly, this current became influential among the Turkish communities settled in France. However, during the 1990s the Turkish authorities signed an agreement with the French government to send official imams to serve their nationals. The consulates were responsible for controlling all the mosques frequented by Turks. Even if it was financed by immigrants, a mosque is headed by the DITIB,3 the governmental office of religious affairs. But the official imams nominated by Turkish authorities are not present everywhere and some radical trends have managed to maintain their influence, like the Milligörüs and even the MHP, the religious version of the party of the “grey wolves”, an extreme right-wing nationalist movement (Debarre & Pétek, 2019). The “Islam of the consulates” offers some advantages to the French authorities. Generally, the governments of the home countries of immigrants consider radical Islamism as a political opposition and they try to control it and to limit its influence among their nationals. But they do not have all the means to carry out an efficient control. Moreover, young people born and educated in France do not think they are represented by these national versions of Islam. Political opponents do not frequent the Islamic associations controlled by the consulates; they create their own associations, often linked to international Islamic movements like the Muslim Brotherhood or the Salafi movement. Some of these associations have an official status in France and can freely develop among Muslim people.

2.1.2

The Reformist and Radical Organisations

The most important of the reformist organisations existing in France is the UOIF,4 close to the Muslim Brotherhood party created in Egypt in the 1930s, which has inspired various political movements in Muslim countries, including the Hamas in 3

Diyanetisleritürk islam birligi. Union des organisations islamiques de France. Created in 1983, it changes its name in 2017 becoming Musulmans de France in order to hide its foreign origin and to cheer the public authorities.

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Palestine, the Ennadha in Tunisia, and the FIS (Front Islamique du Salut) in Algeria. These movements are often called “fundamentalist” because their ambition is to revert to the spirit of the founders of Islam, that is to say, the prophet Muhammad and his first companions. They are most interested in the original Islam a political system to organise the state and society in a modern context. Citing the famous formula of Cheikh Abdessalam Yassine (1998), they usually say: “Islam has not to be modernized but Modernity must be Islamized”. Their practice of Islam is therefore very different to that of the older immigrants. They consider that one must separate the Muslim popular traditions and customs from the pure Islamic Faith. The Islamic revelation has to inspire a political system which will promote real justice. Although they minimise their links with this organisation in their public declarations in France, they support all the struggles of the Brotherhood in the Muslim world and they spread their ideology among the people they influence. In the CFCM,5 the UOIF is the second largest organisation after the FNMF, and that gives it a social visibility among Muslims in France. The organisation continues to be managed by the same kind of staff: students from Arab countries and intellectuals who speak Arabic. The Muslims born in France are merely represented in the youth organisations controlled by the UOIF and are never members of the executive staff. They wish above all to maintain their leading position as representatives of Islam in French society and consequently avoid any sharp conflict with the public authorities. They have, to date, never encouraged violent initiatives in France although they are linked to a current which has often used violence in Muslim countries. The Tabligh is not really considered a radical Islamic organisation, but because of its sectarian aspects it has caused some of its members to be manipulated. Some of them have taken up radical positions and have been attracted by more violent groups. This organisation, created in British India during the 1920s, appeared in France at the end of the sixties. Some Pakistani preachers went to the northern suburbs of Paris in order to bring back to religious practice those Muslims who were living without any observance of Islamic obligations. The action of the movement during the seventies and eighties contributed to the reappearance of many “born again Muslims”, among immigrant workers who had forsaken any practice and among young people who had never received religious education. Today, the main trend among the Tabligh is, the association Tabligh wa dawa,6 which is mainly controlled by Moroccans. According to the Ministère de l’Intérieur (2019), members of the Tabligh are present in 163 mosques throughout France. The main character of this trend is the importance given to proselytising action. Members must also copy the behaviour of the prophet Muhammad and his companions in their daily life. They therefore wear a long beard, a gandoora and a rosary. Their day begins at dawn with the first prayer and finishes at midnight with the last one. They have to repeat some prayers a hundred times a day. New members are helped by a dalil, a guide, and must leave their family and devote most of their time to the organisation, even if they risk losing their job. 5 6

CFCM (ConseilFrancais pour le Culte Musulman): French Council for Muslim Faith. Practice and mission for God.

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People who have experienced membership of this organisation first feel enthusiastic and then become depressed and isolated. They suffer the same problems as people involved in sectarian organisations. They often leave the Tabligh which cannot offer them any objective other than to preach and to pray. As they look for something more concrete to do, they are often attracted by more radical groups such as the Salafisor Takfiris, which can connect them with violent international groups. Godard and Taussig (2005, p. 67) consider the Tabligh as dangerous for young people with psychological problems: A l’image de certains mouvements sectaires, le Tabligh, en désocialisant l’individu qu’il attire …peut laisser l’adepte sans défense à l’issue d’un parcours qui l’enthousiasme d’abord puis entraîne un processus de déprime psychologique. C’est là que des groupes plus radicaux interviennent en l’invitant à rejoindre des cercles encore plus fermés.7

The Salafis firstly try to protect themselves from a world which they do not accept, and therefore attempt to create specific places in which they will have no contact with other people, such as schools, neighbourhoods, shops and so on. Their world is particularly closed in order to avoid any contact with kouffar 8 but also with Muslims who do not have the same point of view about Islam. Their reading of the Quran never uses interpretation or adaptation to the contemporary context. Supported by Saudi Arabia, they have all the necessary means to develop their vision of Islam in Western societies. Like the Tabligh, the Salafis recommend perfect imitation of the prophet Muhammad. The Salafis consider themselves as the people chosen by God. They refer to a hadith, which said that the Muslim community will be divided into 73 fractions and among them only one will be saved. The rejection of any agreement with the modern world, recommended by Salafis, is a powerful attraction for young people of Muslim origin as well as converts who are rebels against Western society. In France, the Salafis appeared during the 1990s. Some students coming back from the Universities of Medina, Mecca and Riyadh began to preach in the mosques of France. At the same time, some former members of the Algerian FIS,9 who had taken refuge in France, developed their influence among immigrants (Amghar, 2005). Saudi Arabia gives grants to students who want to study theology in its universities. In 2001, the French consulate in Jeddah recorded fifty French students, 40 percent of whom were converts. As the Salafis have to avoid any contact with others, they have created their own businesses. They control a large number of hallal butcheries, Islamic bookshops and phone points. In spite of their ultra conservative point of view about religion, they use the most modern techniques to broaden their influence. Adherents can chat on the websites of the organisation with members living in distant countries, and consult the advice of the Saudi Sheiks on diverse subjects. Since cyberspace is as virtual as the perfect Islamic community they are awaiting, they feel 7

« Like some sectarian movements, the Tabligh, by de-socialising the individual it attracted, let him without any defence after an enthusiastic trajectory. Finally, the adept falls into a nervous breakdown. At this moment, more radical groups intervene and try to attract him.» 8 Infidels—this word, formerly used for pagans, is used by radical Islamists for all non-Muslims. 9 Front islamique du salut, an Islamic party, banned in Algeria since 1990.

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at ease with this mode of communication: “Parmi les courants durs de l’islam politique, les salafistes utilisent les sites islamistes comme leur mode de communication privilégié”10 (Godard & Taussig, 2005, p. 140). The Jihadis criticise the policy headed by Saudi Arabia and other conservative Muslim regimes. They do not want to wait passively for the final triumph of Islam and prefer to fight the Jews and the “crusaders” who are accused of constantly conspiring against Islam. Some of the Saudi ulamas are not controlled by the Monarchy and they preach the jihad against the enemies of Islam. Osama Bin Laden and his companions represented the main leaders of this trend. Unlike the purists who live in an Islamic enclave, the Jihadis try to mix with the population. This is a good way of meeting people who are easy to manipulate and to persuade to take part in acts of terrorism. After such encounters with Jihads, some young Muslims who had experienced personal difficulties and had a feeling of rebellion against society became terrorists, and their lives ended tragically. Dounia Bouzar, a French anthropologist who studied young people involved in terrorism, explains their trajectories using three dimensions: “emotional, relational and ideological underpinning invisible little steps in the ‘jihadist’ radicalization process” (2018, p. 67).

3 Between Terrorism, Reforms and Secularity 3.1 Islamic Terrorism: A Treason Against the Host Country? France has been particularly concerned by Islamic terrorist attempts since 1982. From this period to 2021, 37 attacks occurred, killing 303 persons (Vidino & alii, 2017). We can distinguish three main waves of attempts. In the year 1980, the attempts were linked to the war between Iran and Iraq. Because its support of Iraq, France was targeted by a large number of attacks organised by the Embassy of Iran. However, some Muslim immigrants, living in France for a long time, participated in certain attempts. During the 1990s, the attempts were linked to the situation in Algeria. The G.I.A,11 fighting the Algerian Government helped by France, recruited some young Muslims living in France to commit attempts in this country. In the year 2000, the majority of the attempts were claimed by Al Qaida and from 2014 to 2020, ISIS claimed almost all the attacks, without always giving proof of its implication. Though the attacks are linked to the international situation and to the involvement of France at this level, some Muslims born and educated in France have taken a part in the murders. What reasons could explain this phenomenon? It is difficult to know this precisely, because the profiles of these terrorists are very different. Some are converts, educated in Christian families or in a context of religious indifference. 10

12 « Among the radical currents in political Islam, the Salafis use Islamic websites as their most favourite way of communication.» 11 Groupes islamiques armés, fighting the Algerian Regime after the annulation of the elections won by the Front Islamique du Salut, in December 1991.

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They do not suffer particular social difficulties. Others are recent immigrants involved in political groups acting in their countries of origin (Vidino & Alii, 2017). However, many terrorists with a Muslim descent have been educated in France. How can we analyse this hostility against a country of which they are citizens? What does it reveal about their sense of belonging? According to many academics, there are two main factors explaining the trajectory of terrorist Muslims educated in France: their own experience of frustration and the influence of a radical ideology encountered in specific circumstances (Khosrokavar, 2014). The case of Khaled Kelkal is a good illustration of the role of these factors. He was a young man with Algerian descent, educated in the suburbs of Lyons. His father was an unskilled worker and his mother was an illiterate. He was a good pupil and integrated, when he was sixteen years old, in a prestigious technical school. He felt uneasy among fellows mostly belonging to middle classes and he abandoned his studies. After this failure, he began to commit different offences. He was sentenced to imprisonment. During this period in jail, he encountered an Algerian jihadi who drew him into the terrorist struggle. He committed different murders, putting a bomb in the R.E.R,12 killing eight persons. He was killed by the police in September 1995 while trying to escape after his fingerprints were found in the different places where he attempted to murder. His case is similar to many other young Muslims who were led to violence by personal disappointments and the search of an identity and a group to belong to. He was interviewed in 1992 by Dietmar Loch, a German sociologist, in the frame of his thesis about the suburbs of Lyons. This interview was published by Le Monde in 199513 after the death of Kelkal. He explained the reason for why he found his place nowhere else than in Islam, stating “I do not feel Arab nor French, I am Muslim” (Interview of Khaled Kelkal collected by Dietmar Loch, on 3rd October 1992, in Vaulx-en-Velin and published by Le Monde on 7th October 1995 under the title “Moi, Khaled Kelkal”. If he had not encountered in jail an influential jihadi, things would have been different (Godard & Taussig, 2005, p. 227). The experience of discrimination, the feeling of injustice and the difficulties to improve his one social condition cannot, by themselves only, explain the involvement in terrorist action. The role of a radical ideology, adopted by discussing with hardened propagandists in mosques or more often on the web, is essential to understand why a young man decides to belong to a violent group. However, these groups are in the minority. Alain Chouet (2011), a member of French special services and specialist of Islamist terrorism, explains: Sur ces 4 à 5 millions de musulmans quelques dizaines sont passés à la violence terroriste quelques centaines à la provocation religieuse, quelques milliers à la violence sociale ou crapuleuse.14 (p. 238)

In front of these violent groups, a very large majority of Muslims just demand to live in peace in the society, which they have chosen. This majority condemns the 12

Réseau Express Régional, the underground railways of Paris and its outer suburbs. Le monde October 27, 1995. 14 « Over 5 or 6 millions of Muslims, some dozens are involved in terrorism, hundreds are concerned by religious provocation and some thousands by social and dissolute violence.» 13

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Islamic terrorism which portrays a disastrous image of their religion. However, they fear the interventions of some political leaders who tend to generalise the terrorist threat and suspect all Muslims. In their point of view, such political reactions risk to provoke more radicalisation among youth (Geisser & Alii, 2018).

3.2 Looking for a “Modern” Manner to Claim a Place for Islam in French Society: The Role of Tariq Ramadan The terrorist attacks “in the name of Islam” are the worst case of disloyalty against the host-country. A large majority of French citizens, among them many Muslims, agree with this opinion. S’il s’agit de punir ou d’expulser les auteurs d’appels à la violence, la plupart des autorités musulmanes interrogées y sont favorables. (France 24, 2015, p. 3)15

The consequences for the image of Islam have been disastrous, reinforcing the trends to discriminate Muslims in daily life. According to a survey made in 2019, 42 percent of Muslims in France say they have been discriminated at least once because of their religion”. Probably because of its lack of a fighting spirit against the French authorities, the UOIF has lost many militants who have tried to develop their own organisations by keeping the same reformist principles. The most famous is Tariq Ramadan. Tariq Ramadan can be described as a Muslim reformist, fighting to give a place to Islam inside French society in its social and political dimensions and not only religiously; he is the grandson of Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood Party in Egypt. Living in Geneva where his parents took refuge after the party was persecuted by Nasser, he studied philosophy and theology and created an Islamic centre in this town, which he runs with his brother Hanni, who is prohibited from entering France since April 2017. Tariq has been careful enough to avoid too radical discourses publicly. Since the early 1990s, he has given many lectures in France and developed a wide influence among young Muslims. The key of his success lies in his ability to combine religious and social objectives. He is not interested in the concept of fiqh al-aqaliyyât, the right of Muslims as a minority in Western society. He considers the Western world as a dâr ach-chahâda, a land of testimony where Muslims have to show their Faith among non-Muslims. He introduces himself as a Muslim moralist living in his time (Ramadan, 2003). This also explains the audience he enjoyed for a certain period among Christians. According to him, the practice of Islam in France must be something like the “theology of liberation” in Latin America. The fight for religious rights is also a fight against social exclusion and racism. To defend the right for girls to wear a hijab in schools is a manner to defend their right to be educated both as French citizens and as Muslims. Using references to 15

« The interviewed Muslim Authorities agree with the idea that preachers calling for violence must be punished or expelled.»

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social problems shared by young Muslims living in the suburbs, often concerned by unemployment, he became very popular among those who felt themselves cast aside by French society and in search of a positive identity in Islam. He also attempted to win over the circle of progressive intellectuals in order to appear as a modern Muslim, fighting for freedom of conscience in the Islamic world. He was interviewed by leftwing newspapers such as Libération: Je ne reçois aucune rémuneration du Quatar (2013), and Le Nouvel Observateur (2009), but his proposals appeared ambiguous. He never took clear standpoints against some practices considered as legal in Islam, but archaic in Western world, like polygamy and death sentences for apostasy. He simply suggested a moratorium in Islamic countries to give the ulama the time to discuss other possible solutions to such questions. He was also accused of having “double talk”. The texts he published in Arabic had a much more conservative note than those he published in French. On his website “oumma.com”, he expressed some ideas of an anti-Semitic nature (Fourest, 2004). Little by little he lost the audience he had previously enjoyed in the media and among politicians and intellectuals. Finally, he was accused of rape by at least five women. In 2021, he was charged with two counts of rape in the criminal court of Paris. This has scandal contributed to discredit him, and his supporters have abandoned him. However, he has remained one of the rare Muslim intellectuals who can obtain a large audience among young people experiencing social problems. The recent surveys (IFOP, 2019) concerning Muslim practice show a growth of the will to follow the Muslim rites, at anytime and anywhere. For instance, in 2017, collective prayers have been organised in the streets of Clichy, a town in the suburb of Paris. That provoked many debates between Muslim associations and the local authorities. The Muslim associations explained it was a way to protest against the absence of a mosque in this town. The mayor said it was a trouble of law and order. According to the Justice, to pray in the streets is not illegal, except when it troubles law and order. Finally, the prayers in the streets were forbidden by the prefect, who considered they are a provocation, disturbing the traffic (Le Monde, 2017). This incident illustrates the difficulties to dialogue between the institutions attached to secularity and the Muslims attached to a radical respect of the religious rites.

3.3 The Evolution of Muslim Sense of Identity and Belonging During the Last 30 Years Identity and belonging are complex notions. We will use them here in their sociological meanings referring to the works of the academics of the second school of Chicago who were confronted in the sixties with different groups of belonging claiming the recognition of their identity. They underline the importance of the social group in the building of identity. According to Goffman (1963) and Strauss (1969), identity is always plural and changing, according to different moments of life and in different contexts. The identity of Muslims living in France is diverse. They have

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a sense of belonging to Islam but they also have a sense of belonging to France, to their countries of origin, to their generation, to their social class, to their ethnic group and so on. The importance of having different kinds of belongings change during one’s life and in accordance with the different contexts wherein they are. The most recent surveys show an upward trend of growth with the Islamic part of their identity. However, things remain very diverse, whether they are immigrants or French citizens and above all, with the different generations (Galland & Muxel, 2018). A recent study made by IFOP (2019) shows the evolution of attitudes of Muslims living in France concerning the main values of the Republic and their opinion about their place in their country of residence. The problem of “the foulards of Creil” was an ordinary event which provoked many debates among politicians, intellectuals and educators. In Creil, an industrial town in the North of Paris, in October 1989, three girls, entered their high school, wearing a “tchador”. The headmaster decided to expel them, in the name of the principles of secularity and religious neutrality existing in the schools of the Republic. Since this event, many initiatives have been decided by different governments to manage Islam in a republican and secular frame. Different laws have been voted to allow Muslims to enjoy better conditions to practice their Faith and other laws have been promoted to defend the secularity of the public spaces and public services, like the law of 2004 which forbade the infants to wear ostensible signs of religious identity the schools and other public places (Bulletin Officiel de l’Education Nationale, 2004). The results of the IFOP survey in 2019 gives an opportunity to measure the impacts of the different policies decided since 1989. An important component of the 2019 survey reveals the level of satisfaction of interviewed people concerning the possibility to practise their religion. Of these results, 70 percent of the interviewees think secularity has improved their possibilities to practise their religion. Consequently, the practice has grown considerably. In 1989, 16 percent of Muslims frequented a mosque or a prayer room, 25 percent in 2011 and 38 percent in 2019. Young people and young men above all, frequent the mosque at 40 percent of the 18–25 years old versus 23 percent of those 35–49 years old. Men frequent the mosque most often at 55 percent, versus 20 percent of women. Since 1989, the number of mosques has grown because of different laws facilitating the building of places of Faith, even in towns ruled by authorities opposed to such projects.16 Today, the number of places devoted to Muslim Faith is around 2012. This jumped from 900 in 1985 and only 5 in 1965. The majority are simple prayer rooms located in public housing. The most important ones have been financed by the Monarchies of the Persian Gulf, above all by Qatar. That shows the influence of the Muslim countries on the development of Islam in France: 10 percent of mosques, (the most important ones), have been financed by foreign donations coming from Muslim States and rich private donors. (Coulet, 2016, p. 26)

Another important result is the growth of the “orthopraxis”, that is to say the respect of religious norms in daily life. That concerns not only the main obligations 16

According to the data given by the BUREAU DES CULTES of the Ministry of Interior, 2,500 mosques have been registered in 2020.

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of Islam, which are prayers, fasting, pilgrimage, but also the obligations of minor importance, especially in the field of food and of clothes. About 35 percent of the interviewees in 1989 were Muslims that occasionally drink alcoholic beverages. As of 2019, this number is down to only 21 percent. Above all, the consumption of hallal products has considerably grown and concerns not only meat. Of the respondents, 57 percent say that they eat only hallal sweets, yoghurts and biscuits. In 1989, the main problem at school concerned the veil. Today it concerns the menus in school refectories. Some Muslim parents refuse that their children eat anything else than Hallal food, though it is not a central obligation in Islam. So it is difficult to gather Muslims and non-Muslim children in the same refectory. Further interview results show that a short majority, 41 percent, agree with the idea that Islam must adapt its practice to the secular context, while 37 percent think secularity must adapt itself to the demands of Islam and 19 percent have no answer to this question. Concerning hallal foods, 82 percent think Muslims should have the possibility to eat hallal at school and 68 percent think girls could wear a veil in the classrooms, in spite of the law of 2004 prohibiting the ostensible signs of religious identity. A majority of 53 percent reject the “anti-burqa” law of 2010 which forbade the entire veil in the streets. The number was only 33% in 2011 (IFOP, 2019, p. 15). On the topic of the workplace, 54 percent think that people could affirm their religious identity in the companies or the offices wherein they work. It is above all the case of workers and employees: 55 percent. Concerning the white collars, they are only 26 percent who think so. This attitude has recently created problems in some companies like the RATP17 or the Roissy airport, with some Muslim drivers refusing to sit down in a bus chair previously used by a woman (Maillard, 2017). Finally, concerning the Republic, 27 percent agree with the idea that Sharia might force itself upon the laws of the Republic. However, this opinion is shared by only 18 percent of the Muslims born in France and by 26 percent of those who obtained French citizenship by naturalisation, as well as 41 percent of the foreigners. The persistence of immigration flows coming from Muslim countries, in party, explains this attachment to traditional behaviours and the difficulties to develop a double sense of belonging, both to Islam and to a secular Republic. The link with the country of origin still remains important. In these countries, Islam has a deep influence on daily life. The recent arrivals concern also countries where French language and culture are not present, such as Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Sudan. Many of these newcomers tend to retire within their community and are not easily influenced by liberal ideas about religion and do not understand the principles of secularity. This evolution does not express a collective reject of secularity but it reveals a growing trend of a significant part of the Muslim population to reaffirm its religious identity especially in daily life. This evolution could threaten the Republican ideal to live together, because of the increasing demands of specific religious practices leading to a separation from the rest of the society.

17

Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens, a public company managing the urban transports in the Paris area.

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However, in the long run, we can observe a trend to change in the life of individuals. People who live for a relatively long time in France are a minority to agree with the idea they have to obey the Sharia rather than the laws of the Republic. Even if young people have more radical opinions than mature persons, they change their minds while ageing. The sense of identity and belonging of Muslims living in France is a changing reality. Muslim people have different countries of origin, different social situations, different levels of education and different opinions concerning the role of religion in Western nations. A larger and larger part of them is well integrated, keeping or not their beliefs and practice and living at their ease in a secular society. At the same time, a growing group tends to distinguish itself from the whole society, by a strict respect of religious rites. Their chance to live interactions with other kinds of citizens in daily life is diminishing. Will they be able, in future, to share the same values and the same projects than the whole nation? If the sense of belonging is reduced to the only religious community, the identity grows poorer and risks to be perceived as negative by the dominant population.

References Abdessalam, Y. (1998). Islamiser la modernité. Al Ofok Impressions. Addas, C. (2015). La maison mohamedienne. Gallimard. Amghar, S. (2005). Idéologies minoritaires de l’Islam de France, Musée National d’histoire de l’immigration, 108. Arkoun, M. (2006). Histoire des musulmans en France du Moyen-âge à nos jours. Albin Michel. Attal, S. (2015). Les derniers attentats ne suscitent pas le même dilemme que Charlie chez les musulmans français. France 24. Barou, J. (2014). Integration of immigrants in France: A historical perspective. Identities, 21(6), 642–657. https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289x.2014.882840 Barou, J. (2016). Islam en France, islam de France. La Documentation Française. Bouzar, D. (2018). The process of “jihadist” radicalization: A triple dimension. Les Cahiers De L’orient, 130, 107–146. Bulletin Officiel de l’Education Nationale. (2004). Bulletin Officiel n° 21 du 27 mai 2004, circulaire n°2024-084: Port de signes et tenues manifestant une appartenance religieuse dans les écoles, collèges et lycées publics. Coulet, N. (2016). Mission d’information sur l’organisation, la place et le financement de l’islam en France et de ses lieux de culte. Sénat. http://www.senat.fr/commission/missions/islam_en_fra nce/index.html Debarre, S. & Pétek, G. (2019). Histoire des Turcs en France. Editions du détour. Fourest, C. (2004). Frère Tariq, discours, stratégie et méthode de Tariq Ramadan. Grasset. Galand, O., & Muxel, A. (2018). La radicalisation religieuse des jeunes musulmans en France. Les Presses Universitaires de France. Geisser, V., & Alii. (2018). Musulmans de France, la grande épreuve face au terrorisme. Editions de l’Atelier. Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma. Prentice Hall. Godard, B. and Taussig, S. (2005). Les Musulmans en France. Courants, Institutions, communautés: un état des lieux. Robert Laffont. Institut Français d’Opinion Publique. (2011). Cumul de soixante-dix vagues d’enquêtes auprès de 950 personnes.

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Institut Français d’Opinion Publique. (2019). Les Musulmans en France trente ans après l’affaire des foulards de Creil. Jordi, J. J., & Hamoumou, M. (2004). Les harkis, une mémoire enfouie, Autrement. Decître. Khosrokavar, F. (2014). La radicalisation. Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme. Maillard, D. (2017). Quand la religion s’invite dans l’entreprise. Paris Fayard. Ministère de l’Intérieur. (2019). Bureau des cultes, département des statistiques: part des musulmans allant à la mosquée le vendredi en 2019. Le Monde. (1995). Moi, Khaled Kelkal. Le Monde. (2017). Prières de rue à Clichy: comprendre le conflit entre la mairie et les associations musulmanes. Observatoire des inégalités. (2012). Mobilité sociale: les enfants d’immigrés font aussi bien que les autres, 2. Ollivier, B. (2013). Alain Chouet (entretiens avec Jean Guisnel), Au cœur des services spéciaux. La menace Islamiste: fausses pistes et vrais dangers. Questions de Communication, 24, 274–276. Pew Research Forum. (2011). Muslim population by country. Pew Research Center. (2017). Estimated size of Muslim population in 2016. Pierret, R. (2011). Les révoltes des enfants de harkis. Les Temps Modernes, 666, 140–158. Ramadan, T. (2003). Les musulmans d’occident et l’avenir de l’islam. Actes Sud. Santelli, E. (2009). La mobilité sociale dans l’immigration: Transmissions familiales chez les Algérens. Migrations Et Société, 123(124), 177–194. Simon, P. (2019). Le nombre de musulmans en France et en Europe: la fabrique des chiffres. Institut Convergences Migrations Strauss, A. (1969). Mirrors and masks: The search for identity. Routledge. Tribalat, M. (2008). Le nombre de Musulmans en France; qu’en sait-on? L’islam en France. Les Presses Universitaires de France. Vidino., & Alii. (2017). Fear thy neighbour: Radicalization and Jihadist attacks in the West, ICCI, IPSI. The George Washington University.

Muslim Immigrants’ Sense of Identity and Belonging in the Western World—The Case of Austria Rüdiger Lohlker

1 Introduction Talking about Muslims in Austria implies a process of othering Muslims. There is a history of Muslim organizations in Austria for many decades. With the official recognition of Islam as a religious community in Austria since 1912 and having Bosnian Muslim soldiers fight in the Austro-Hungarian army in World War I, it is evident that Islam and Muslims may indeed be regarded as part of the Austrian societies in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and not as a population of migrants. Yet, despite this long history of presence in Austria and Muslims’ participation, the history of Islam in Austria is one ripe with tensions. Mainly starting in the twenty-first century, radical forces have started to scapegoat Muslims for economic, social, and security issues and engage in what I label the “othering” of Muslims. Such othering tries to portray the Muslim influence in Austrian society as negative, and sheds a bad light on group, whose members for the most part live peacefully and integrated in Austrian society. In this chapter, I comprehensively discuss Muslims’ political and social standing in Austria focusing on Muslims, who have lived in Austria for a long time or who were born in Austria, plus recent Muslim migrants, who have immigrated in the course of the last decade. As such, the chapter presents an overview of the diversity of the Muslim communities, and discusses some statistics about their sense of belonging.

R. Lohlker (B) Islamic Studies at the Oriental Institute, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. Stockemer (ed.), Muslims in the Western World, Immigrants and Minorities, Politics and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99487-7_6

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1.1 Who are the Muslims in Austria? There have been different groups of Muslims in different periods of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in Austria. In this chapter, I especially focus on the twentyfirst century. I distinguish between seven groups of Muslims: (1) Muslims born in Austria, (2) converts to Islam born in Austria, (3) migrant workers since the 1960s, (4) families of migrant workers migrating since the 1970s, (5) students, refugees, etc. since the 1950s, (6) recent Muslim migrants from European Union member states, and (7) Muslim refugees since 2015. A recent set of data from January 2021 (Integrationsfonds, 2021) reveals that the largest group of migrants are from Germany. This includes some Muslims, who have migrated from Germany to Austria. The second largest is from Romania (a small group of Muslims is among them). Then come Serbians and Turkish citizens. The fifth largest group is from Bosnia Hercegovina. Statistically, migrants from Turkey and Bosnia Hercegovina are often categorized as Muslims without information of their actual religious or non-religious status.1 This brings us to the first important observation; there is no reliable statistical data on the religious adherence or nonadherence of migrants in Austria. For sure, there are estimates of how many Muslims are among them, but these estimates are not a reliable source.2 An educated guess may speak of more than 700,000 Muslims in Austria. Recent refugees from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan may have even increased the overall number of Muslims in Austria beyond 700,000. Due to unregistered refugees, a lack of knowledge about the possible religious adherence of these refugees, and several converts, it is simply impossible to get a precise number of Muslims in Austria. There is also a certain percentage of non-religious (atheists and agnostics), non-Muslim minorities (Yezidi, Yarsani, Mandaeans, etc.) from Syria and Iraq. The largest group of Muslims is of Turkish origin, originally of rural origin but a sizeable group is of urban background. Many members of this group are often marked as Turkish although they are of Kurdish origin. By now, many members of Turkish and Kurdish families are of Austrian nationality. The second-largest group are Bosnians (including people of the south Serbian Sanjak region with a majority Muslim population). Smaller Muslim minorities are of Albanian, Kosovarian, Kurdish, Northern Macedonian origin, or from Montenegro and several South Asian countries. A small group is of Indonesian origin. The group of Arab Muslims has grown due to the refugee movement since 2015; there is now a sizeable minority of Afghan Muslims and for the last 20 years, a group of around 30,000 Chechens has formed (see Lohlker, 2016b for some insights). Beyond these main groups, we can discern smaller groups of Muslims such as South Asian Muslims from Pakistan, India, and a few from India, as well as Indonesian Muslims (Lenz, 2012). There are also African Muslims with an increasing number of Somali refugees. 1

All the remarks in this contribution are based on permanent empirical research of the author during the last years. 2 There is no data available on religious adherence from a nationwide census since 2001.

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Some of the members of these ethnic groups are migrants. The ratio of migrants to Muslims born in Austria or naturalized is impossible to assess, however, Muslims with migration background form a large majority. Since 1979, the official representative of the Muslims in Austria is the Islamic Religious Community of Austria (IGGÖ) (Heine et al., 2012, p. 55; Dautovi´c & Hafez, 2019). The IGGÖ was founded as a result of the influx of students, diplomats, and migrant workers to help meet their religious needs. The majority of its members have been Sunni, but a small number of Shiites has joined this organization, as well. The IGGÖ is very diverse; it contains some smaller official Muslim organizations. In the first years, there was a dominance of Arab Muslims. However, in recent years, this has slowly changed to a Turkish dominance. As an officially recognized religious community, the IGGÖ is part of the Austrian religiopolitical system. It has the right to organize the Islamic religious education at public schools, to provide spiritual care in prisons, hospitals, and the armed forces. Formally, it has the same standing as all other officially recognized religious communities. Individual mosques are not members of the IGGÖ directly. The mosques are part of sub-organizations, and only a small number of individual believers are part of the IGGÖ. The exact number of members of the IGGÖ is not available. Despite some recent conflicts and potential future conflicts, centering on the rising role of women in mosque communities, the leadership of the IGGÖ has tried to play a more active role in public discussions than before. One of the more recent novelties in the official standing of Islam, is the creation of the center of the teaching of Islamic theological studies at the University of Vienna, which established Islamic teaching at the university level. There is also an institute for Islamic theology and Islamic religious pedagogics at the University of Innsbruck in Western Austria. An official institute for the training of Islamic teachers at public schools exists in Vienna. There is a broad range of Muslim organizations in Austria (Fürlinger, 2018). Some of them claim to establish a true Austrian Islam. The most vocal is the Muslim Youth of Austria (MJÖ)—a very active youth organization that had the first female leader of Islamic organizations in Austria. Another strain, Salafi activism (for a critical view cf. Knight, 2015), emerged in Austria in 2009. Austrian Salafism has links to Salafi networks in Germany and to transnational networks. Sometimes Austrian Salafists try to organize workshops, etc., at mosques or Islamic centers (Hoisl & Donnerbauer, 2017). A small group of young people now follow the teachings of Turkish extremist Salafi preachers. The Shiite minority is highly diverse. An independent Shiite organization is the Islamic-Shiite Religious Community, which claims to be the representative of all Shiite denominations. This religious community is independent and is not part of the Islamic Religious Community of Austria (IGGÖ). It is a registered religious community at the second level in the Austrian law on religious communities. The Shiites adhering to Iran follow the Grand Ayatollah Khamenei and are still members of IGGÖ, however, they keep a somewhat critical distance due to some internal problems. A large number of Afghan refugees pray at the Irani Shiite Center. Their goal, still unsuccessful, is to become an official religious entity. There is no reliable data about how many Shiites live in Austria. Iranian or Iraqi Shiites may be agnostics

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or atheists, thus, adhering to no religious community at all. A small group is the Ahmadiyya community. The last known number of members is 78 (Heine et al., 2012, p. 94). Another fringe group of the Islamic communities is the Alawi group, with no data available for Austria. These are the Syrian Alawis, not the Alevis of Turkish or Kurdish origin.

1.2 Alevis The IGGÖ, for a long time, claimed to be the sole representative of Muslims in Austria. It took years to establish an Islamic-Alevi Religious Community (IAGÖ) in Austria. It was officially accepted in 2010. Later on, the IAGÖ dropped the “Islamic” part of its name, claiming to be the sole representative of Alevism in Austria (Lohlker, 2020, p. 8–10). A second group of Alevis tried to be an accepted registered community, as well. There is an intense competition between both groups (Heine et al., 2012, p. 92–93) documenting that the claim to sole representation by the officially accepted Alevi community is as dubitable as the former claim by the IGGÖ. The third Alevi community is the Ancient Alevi Community officially accepted as a registered religious community since 2013. An interesting characteristic is that the statutes of the community mention that even atheists may be members of it. It is an explicit non-Islamic community. As for the other religious groups in Austria, the number of non-organized Alevis may be far higher than the number of organized believers. The Law on Islam of 2015 also provides the legal foundation for professors of Alevi theology at the University of Vienna. Currently, one professor is teaching Alevi theology since 2018.

1.3 Jihadism Transnational Jihadism has been present in Austria for many years. It began with a Bosnian youth organization dating back to the influence of former Afghan volunteers infiltrating into Bosnia during the wars in former Yugoslavia, then after this, a small group supporting al-Qasmal and supporters of the Islamic State (IS) were active. It is well known that a disproportionately high number of young persons, most of them Chechens (see above), traveled from Austria to Syria to join Jihadi organizations. This meant that a sizeable number of young Muslims felt attracted by the propaganda of IS. A small number of preachers tried to convince their audience to join IS. Due to intense persecution, this appeal of Jihadi worldviews has been reduced over time. In November 2020, the first Jihadist attack in Austria took place in the city of Vienna. In the aftermath, it was reported that the attacker was a young jihadist. Yet, jihadism is not a homogenous subculture, but a youth culture with diverse interests and sometimes conflicting attitudes. It attracts youth with Albanian, Arab, Bosnian,

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Chechen, Turkish origins. Only a small number of young Muslims are influenced by Salafi and even less by Jihadi worldviews. The Albanian community in Austria whose members are usually well-integrated, distance themselves from attacks. In this community, we may find non-religious people, a non-reflected Sunni attitude, Sufis, and others. The members of the community often voice concern about increasing discrimination as a result of the public turning against Albanians as a result of the attack in November 2020. In Vienna and Austria as a whole, some initiatives by Muslims (and some nonMuslims working with them) criticize the Jihadi version of Islam (see: Diaw et al., 2018; Diaw and Hajek, 2017). Part of the Islamic community tries to deal with the many forms of discrimination against Muslims with the term Islamophobia (for a critical view Lohlker, 2021). Several anti-racist institutions and publications (e.g., Hafez, 2010) in Austria have recorded anti-Muslim incidents over the past decades. An important part of Muslim Austrian identity is the establishment of Islamic cemeteries in Vienna and other parts of Austria (for Vienna cf. Brandstetter, 2009; Ladurner, 2012). Changes in some burial rituals indicate an adaptation to the Austrian situation and a kind of feeling at home in Austria even after life. New media, journals, and online resources present a new picture of Muslims in Austria. The picture shows life as a migrant and/or Muslim as part of Austrian society. Some of the media are more intellectually oriented and others are using a daily life experience approach. There is a diverse field of Muslim activities online beyond media portals, most of it is not researched yet. As to the current COVID-19 pandemic, the mosques are trying to adapt to the new hygienic concepts of distancing during prayer, etc. The majority of Fatwas discussed among Muslims are social distancing, prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, washing corpse, etc. The majority of the mosques try to apply the rules. There is no evidence of mosques acting otherwise. COVID vaccination events are organized all over Austria by Muslim groups. The official Islamic Community (IGGÖ) tries to coordinate its efforts with other religious communities and churches. Personal observation confirms that many persons marked as Muslims follow the rules of wearing a mask in public.

1.4 New Elite? A new group of well-educated young people is taking the torch from organized Islam without losing contact with those in power before them. Apart from the organizations mentioned before, this new group tries to establish new forms of cooperation or tries to change the existing organizations. At the academic level, there are institutions beyond the well-known disciplines of Islamic theology, Islamic Studies, Social sciences, etc. The International Research Center on Islam and Muslims in Europe (in short IFIME) at the Sigmund Freud Private University in Vienna intends to do “differentiated

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and reflected research on the reality of the life of Muslims in Austria and Europe” according to its homepage.3

1.5 Beyond Islam Religious minorities who have tried to blend with the Muslim (Sunni and Shiite) majority in their countries of origins, like Yezidi, Mandaeans, etc., are developing an origin of their own in Austria. In contrast to the Alevi communities, they have developed a distinct non-Islamic identity (Lohlker, 2020, 2022; for the Yezidi community cf. Schlatter, 2013) that has never existed in the countries of origin.

1.6 The Recent History of Organized Islam in Austria The initial attitudes toward Islam was quite positive during the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The alliance with the Ottoman Empire during World War I and discussions about joining the Ottoman-German declaration of a Jihad against the allied forces were indicators for this positive attitude (Lohlker, 2020, p. 6). Legally speaking, after the annexation of Bosnia Hercegovina in 1908, the Law on Islam in 1912 formalized this attitude. At first, the school of Sunni Islam accepted the Hanafi School of law. After 1979, other schools of law (and Twelver Shiites) were included in the new official Islamic community. Around a decade ago, the political scene and media began to change. There are right-wing political populist forces in Austria that mark anything Islamic as the inner enemy of the Austrian society. Right-wing Catholicism supports this attitude, displaying a dynamic, religious anti-Islamism. Another element emerging is protestant fundamentalism. The new political and societal approach toward Islam is aggressive and anti-Islamic. This changing attitude may be the result of a more visible Muslim presence in Austria that is perceived as a threat to the dominant balance of powers in Austria. A professor of Islamic religious studies at the University of Vienna, Austria, published a database called “map of Islam” in 2021, claiming to show the presence of Islam in Austria. The map claims to provide information about Islamic organizations and their addresses, along with short and often very critical descriptions. The study received funds from the European Union and the Ministry of the Interior. Leaving aside the problem that Muslims who are not members of Islamic organizations are not part of the survey and that it received strong criticism by Muslim organizations in Austria for its shortcomings, there was some scholarly critique of methodological issues. Very quickly, the map was ignored and was no longer useful. 3

https://www.sfu.ac.at/de/ueber-sfu/forschungsstelle-ifime/ (retrieved August 17, 2021); translation R. L.

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Since 2012, a new Law on Islam was discussed as a new version of the Law of Islam of 1912. Muslim organizations perceived the law as an attack on Islam, especially, due to its attempt to hinder the sending of Imams from foreign countries, such as Turkey, for example. Part of the law consists the establishment of an institute for the study of Islamic theology at the University of Vienna including professors for Sunni Islam and Alevi Islam (see below). The situation of the Shiites was not clear since there was no officially recognized Shiite representation (cf. below). There are other aspects discussed critically. The new Law on Islam was promulgated in 2015 and amended in 2021 in the same legislative process that a law against terrorism was promulgated, thus, adding to the feeling of being scapegoated among Muslims. In 2017, after research in 2015 and 2016, a professor of Islamic studies published part of report on Islamic kindergartens in Vienna, which also received funds from the Austrian Ministry of the Interior. Despite some questionable scientific quality, it became an official study because there were no formal faults.4 Nevertheless, other researchers taking part in this research were highly critical toward the first part of the study, even more so because other studies of this professor frequently receive funds from political interests. A new landmark of this turn toward Islam has been the interdiction of hijab (cf. Höglinger, 2003) for children in schools up to 10 years of age in 2019. The main argument points at a political Islam supporting the hijabization of young children. The constitutional court revoked this law at the end of 2020.5 One of the most important actors in the field of Islam-related politics is the Austrian Integration Funds, which funds a series of studies and public lectures by a selected group of speakers. These speakers are in favor of the ongoing policy to criticize Islamic organizations. One of the speakers in this context is Lorenzo Video, who published a report on the Muslim Brotherhood in Austria in 2017 (Vidino, 2017). His study, even if it does not yield new information, has become a cornerstone of the Austrian governmental policy against what is called “political Islam”, a concept, which is scholarly not well-defined yet (cf. Lohlker, 2019 for a critical view6 ). It is often used as an anti-Islamic discursive tool in politics and media. The report was criticized for methodological shortcomings. Political Islam has been a core element of the politics of Islam of recent governments. It is important to remember the intense relationship of the former Austrian chancellor Kurz to the former Israeli prime minister Netanyahu. Both tried to fight activists of the Palestinian organization HAMAS in Austria (for recent research cf. Baconi, 2018; Brenner, 2017; Sen, 2020). This former chancellor also visited the Egyptian president in 2015 in Cairo trying to recruit Egypt as an ally against what is called “political Islam” and against terrorists of the Islamic State (Ould Mohammadou, 2018; Lohlker, 2016a). In 2018, the Egyptian president visited Vienna. 4

https://www.ots.at/presseaussendung/OTS_20171108_OTS0124/pruefung-der-kindergartenstu die-kein-wissenschaftliches-fehlverhalten-durch-ednan-aslan-festgestellt (retrieved August 15, 2021). 5 https://www.wienerzeitung.at/nachrichten/politik/oesterreich/2085136-Kopftuchverbot-fuer-Kin der-unsachlich.html (retrieved August 12, 2021). 6 Two texts by the author are in print.

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These contacts may explain why several executive forces in Austria were involved in a process of surveillance of persons who were suspected to be members of the Muslim Brotherhood (and HAMAS). A large number of persons and families were put under surveillance and a large-scale house search took place in November 2020 all over Austria. Recent court disputes showed that at least some of the search warrants are not as convincing as expected.7 Since reliable information about the justification of the house searches hints at a lack of knowledge about the Muslim Brotherhood, HAMAS, and the Islamic communities in Austria, in general, these searches have helped certain political interests. Surprisingly, this attempt to condemn “political Islam” in Austria does not seem to focus on the Turkish governing party AKP, a very influential actor among Turkish Muslims in Austria and, and according to the categories used by the government—an important actor of political Islam. Thus, this may support the assumption that the wave of house searches was at least partly motivated to supporting the then Israeli government and the Egyptian one.8 The fact that Egyptian authorities were informed by the Austrian police about the results of the house search. Information that the Austrians shared with the Egyptians also led to one Egyptian living in Austria being arrested when he visited Egypt on November 2, 2020.9 In 2020, the first Jihadi attack in Austria was also committed by a young man who was born in Austria in an Albanian family from North Macedonia. He was part of a network reaching from Switzerland to Germany and claimed allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) (Zarinfard, 2021). The Austrian authorities were busy with the preparations for the raid on the alleged members of the Muslim Brotherhood, thus ignoring the preparations for this attack. In 2021, the Islam map of 2012 (see above) was revived again. Although it was never accepted as a reliable source in academic discourse, the Minister for Women, Gender Equality, Integration, Family and Youth launched the enlarged Islam map of 2012 again with the Bureau for Documentation of political Islam (cf. below) and the professor of Islamic religious studies at the University of Vienna mentioned above. The map caused, again, severe criticism from Muslim organizations but also from the academic community, again, for methodological shortcomings and because of data protection issues. Despite this criticism, the ministry, the responsible professors, and the Bureau for Documentation claimed that the map has scientific value. A professor of sociology in Germany, Marc Hebling, stated clearly, “the addresses [on the map]

7

https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/ausland/gericht-in-oesterreich-erklaert-razzia-gegen-muslim brueder-fuer-rechtswidrig-17469702.html (retrieved August 15, 2021). The conceptual weakness of the repressive Austrian policy has recently been described by Elia Feroz (https://www.heise.de/ tp/features/Operation-Luxor-Die-einfache-Weltsicht-der-OeVP-6166937.html) (retrieved August 15, 2021). 8 We are advocating a political analysis of the actions of the Austrian government, not assuming an anti-Semitic conspiracy. The interests were internal Austrian, just by chance in line with some foreign governments. 9 https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000128893169/nach-umstrittenen-ermittlungen-in-oester reich-ploetzlich-haft-in-aegypten (retrieved August 15, 2021).

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are not useful for anybody. There is no scientific advantage of any kind in this list”.10 The critical discussion got international interest and reached far, even out to a Pakistan TV program, for example.11 The international media response was to some extent very negative, too. The University of Vienna forced the professor responsible for the map to erase the logo of the university. The Bureau for the Documentation of Political Islam was established in 2020 because of the ongoing discourse on “political Islam” officially declared by the Austrian government in 2016. While the Bureau claims to be a scientific institution, it has received criticism as an instrument of surveillance. The Bureau, however, was part of the public presentation of the Islam map. Thus, it was part of a public event orchestrated by the government at that time.12 Nevertheless, the bureau seems to act more constructive now than before. A symbol for this kind of politics was the convention of the majority governing party in 2021 calling for the interdiction of the Shari’a in Austria. There is no evidence for a sizeable minority of Muslims calling for the application of the Shari’a in Austria leaving aside that nobody at the convention mentioned above would have known what Shari’a means. In the legal sphere, the tightening of the Law on Islam in 2021 demonstrates the intent to establish a discriminatory of organized Islam in Austria. If the turbulent times of the conservative party at the time I wrote this chapter in 2021 will change this situation, remains an open question. A discourse merged with the discourse of “political Islam” and it was the discourse on refugees. The majority of the refugees reaching Austria in 2015 and afterwards were Syrian, Iraqi, and Afghans. Thus, another Muslim peril was produced. However, to assume all these refugees are dangerous Muslims13 is overstating crimes committed by refugees. No reliable data about the religious adherence of these refugees are available. Official reports are often biased and show methodological shortcomings and are used as instruments of legitimation for political discourses without any scholarly value.14 A side issue of these discourses is the ongoing scandalization of everything that can be marked as Islamic in the media or/and political 10

https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/islam-landkarte-in-oesterreich-soziologe-mit-dieser-karte.886. de.html?dram:article_id=498246 (retrieved August 12, 2021). 11 The author was part of a TV discussion at this TV program. 12 The analysis is focused on the level of federal politics. The provinces and the local municipalities pursue different approaches we cannot discuss here. 13 A student who fled from Syria once told the author she has “lost her religion” during her flight (summer term 2019). Iraqi refugees are known to be atheists or secularists. 14 An additional spin: a report published at the end of 2019 mentioning some young Afghan refugees among a sample of 707 interviewees in Vienna. In political discourse, 56% of a mixed sample of 700 interviews—among them, a small number of Afghans—turned out to be 56% of young Afghan refugees in all of Austria advocating violence in case their religion is criticized (https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000129078825/kanzler-kurz-will-rueckfueh rungen-in-die-nachbarlaender-afghanistans) (retrieved August 22, 2021). The sample of Afghans consists of 100 persons of 707 persons interviewed (Güngör 2019: 9). A linguistic screening of the Afghan subgroup is difficult since the questionnaire was translated only into Dari (Güngör 2019: 10); no information about a Pashto (or other Afghan languages) is given. Thus, 56 persons of the interviewees interviewed in Vienna are said to be 56% of all young Afghan refugees in all of Austria. A specific Austrian kind of mathematics…

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discourse.15 To summarize these findings, a policy trying to mobilize the electorate for populist parties is trying to mobilize it against the inner-Austrian “other-” have dominated Austrian policies toward Muslims in Austria. More broadly, this discourse might be part of an increasing process of securitization of policies toward Islam nationally (and internationally) (Tomita, 2020). The former policy stressing the official acceptance of Islam in Austria since 1912 was moved to the background. Thus, the discourses of the last decade mark a break in the history of Muslims in Austria— organized Muslims and non-organized Muslims alike. The paradox we witness is that the increasing visibility of Muslims in the Austrian public and daily life leads to fierce reactions of the assumed majority16 of the Austrian society.

1.7 Muslims’ Sense of Identity in a Climate of (Some) Hostility The statistical yearbook of the Austrian Funds for Integration presents some data about how many migrants feel at home in Austria (Integrationsfonds, 2021, p. 96), 48 percent of migrants born in Bosnia and Hercegovina, Serbia, and Turkey are feeling totally at home in Austria. While 3 percent more or less at home, only 2 percent are feeling totally not at home. The ratio for migrants from Chechnya is 60 percent totally at home and 34 percent more or less at home. As to the country of origin, 31 percent of migrants born in Bosnia and Hercegovina, Serbia, and Turkey have a strong feeling of belonging to their country of origin. The strongest feeling of belonging to a home country among recently migrants is strongest among Syrians with around 25 percent. Further, 29 percent of migrants from Turkey say they experienced discrimination. 10 to 13 percent of other groups of migrants feel discriminated against. Thus, we may say there is a strong feeling of belonging to Austria among migrants. Is there a shared sense of belonging of Austrian Muslims? A feeling of belonging to the country of origin and Austria? Sabine Strasser coined the term “shared belonging” (Strasser, 2012) and the data of the yearbook of the Integrationsfonds indicates that around 30 percent feel such a shared belonging. Yet, the core of the problem are not the Muslims, but around 50 percent of Austrians, who have a problem living together with migrants (Integrationsfonds, 2021, p. 96). The recent Islam critical policies might have contributed to this high percentage of critical opinions. Nevertheless, the majority of people, who we think are Muslims do have a certain sense of belonging to Austria, even if this is not always accepted by media, politics, and part of society.

15 16

For a non-scandalizing view of an issue like the hijab cf. Höglinger 2002. At least the part of Austrian society assuming it is the majority.

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1.8 Final Remark The relation of Muslims in Austria toward the non-Muslim majority is at the very least not without tensions. The increasing visibility of Muslims throughout the Austrian society and the emergence of a new Muslim elite able to articulate views of the Muslim communities and the deeply rooted ideas and feelings of the majority, reticent to accept the fact that Muslims are living in Austria, and the instrumentalization of these attitudes reinforce these positions. At the same time, the internal diversity of the Muslim communities affects the proponents of the idea of a unified Muslim position and the role of organizations.

References Baconi, T. (2018). Hamas contained: The rise and pacification of Palestinian resistance. Stanford University Press. Brandstetter, G. (2009). Der islamische Friedhof in Wien: Ein Symbol von kultureller Identität und Integration? Diploma thesis, University of Vienna. Brenner, B. (2017). Gaza under Hamas: from Islamic democracy to Islamist governance. I. B. Tauris. Dautovi´c, R., & Hafez, F. (Eds.). (2019). Die Islamische Glaubensgemeinschaft in Österreich. 1909– 1979-2019. Beiträge zu einem neuen Blick auf ihre Geschichte und Entwicklung. New Academic Press. Diaw, M., al-H., Hirsekorn, M. K., & Seferovic, S. (2018). Radikalisierung von weiblichen Personen im Kontext des islamisch begründeten politischen Extremismus am Beispiel Österreichs. DERAD (Radicalization of Female Persons in the Context of Islamically Legitimized Extremism: the Example of Austria). Diaw, M., & Hajek, P. (2017). Lebenswelten und Radikalisierungsverläufe von inhaftierten sogenannten Dschihadisten in Österreich. BMEIA. (Lifeworld and Radicalization of Imprisoned so-called Jihadists in Austria). Fürlinger, E. (2018). Religionsgemeinschaften in Niederösterreich im Kontext von Migration und Globalisierung. Donau-Universität Krems. (Religious Communities in the Province of Lower Austria). Hafez, F. (2010). Jahrbuch für Islamophobieforschung/Islamophobia studies yearbook. StudienVerlag. Heine, S., Lohlker, R., & Potz, R. (2012). Muslime in Österreich. Tyrolia (Muslims in Austria). Höglinger, M. (2003). Verschleierte Lebenswelten: zur Bedeutung des Kopftuchs für muslimische Frauen. Maria Enzersdorf Edition Roesner (The Meaning of Hijab for Muslim Women). Hoisl, T., Donnerbauer, P. (2017). IMAN – Wie Islamisten in Österreich missionieren. Vice. Posted April 6, 2017 https://www.vice.com/de/article/kbjnaz/iman-wie-islamisten-in-osterreich-missio nieren. Retrieved August 19, 2021. Knight, M. (2015). Why I am a Salafi. Soft Skull Press. Ladurner, C. (2012). Tod und Bestattungsrituale im Islam. Diploma thesis, University of Vienna. Lenz, L. (2012). Zwischen Facebook und Islam: Indonesische MuslimInnen in Österreich. Austrian Studies in Anthropology Sondernummer 1: Islam und Macht in Südostasien (pp. 58–74). Lohlker, R. (2016a). Theologie der Gewalt: Das Beispiel IS. facultas. Lohlker, R. (2016b). Jihadism online – Conversations from Austria. Journal for Intelligence, Propaganda and Security Studies, 10, 51–56.

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Lohlker, R. (2019). Politischer Islam: eine historisch-aktuelle Betrachtung eines Nicht-Begriffes, in IGGÖ (ed.), Politischer Islam: Versuch einer Definition (pp. 62–94). IGGÖ. Lohlker, R. (2020). Muslim*innen in Österreich. Research Paper on Islam No. 1. (https://phaidra. univie.ac.at/o:1092541) (Muslims in Austria). Lohlker, R. (2021). Zwischen Wiener Wald und Moslemkutten (Alp-)Träumereien eines weißen älteren Mitteleuropäers. Berlin: Logos 2021 (Nightmares of an Old White Man from Middle Europe). Lohlker, R. (2022). Muslimische Traditionen, to appear 2022. In K. Lehmann, and W. Reiss (Eds.), Religiöse Vielfalt in Österreich (in pr.) (Islamic Traditions in Austria). Österreichischer Integrationsfonds. (2021). Statistisches jahrbuch migration & integration: zahlen daten, indikatoren 2021. Österreichischer Integrationsfonds (Statistical Yearbook 2021). Ould Mohamedou, M. (2018). A theory of ISIS: Political violence and the transformation of the global order. Pluto Press. Schlatter, L. (2013). YezidInnen in Österreich. Organisationsversuche und Vereinsbildung. In F. Ferdinand Hennerbichler et al. (Eds.), Wiener Jahrbuch für kurdische Studien (Vol. 1, pp. 173– 205). Wiener Verlag für Sozialforschung. Sen, S. (2020). Decolonizing Palestine: Hamas between the anticolonial and the postcolonial. Cornell University Press. Strasser, S. (2012). Bewegte Zugehörigkeiten: nationale Spannungen, transnationale Praktiken und transversale Politik. turia + kant. Tomita, G. (2020). Securitisation responses to Jihadi terrorism in Austria 200–2018. Phil. Univ. of Vienna. Vidino, L. (2017). Muslim brotherhood in Austria. University of Vienna/Program on Extremism, George Washington University. Zarinfard, S. (2021). Das netz des attentäters. Dossier: Politisch motivierte Gewalt. Eine Spurensicherung. Dossier.

Muslim Immigrants in the Netherlands: Characteristics, Identification and Diversity Willem Huijnk, Jaco Dagevos, and Floris Vermeulen

Who Are the Muslim immigrants in the Netherlands? The Muslim community in the Netherlands is, for the most part, made up of migrants and their children. From the 1960s onwards, Turkish and Moroccan migrants took Islam with them to the Netherlands. Since that time, the number of Muslims has increased largely, partly due to further migration and subsequent family reunification. As a result, the Islamic faith in the Netherlands is strongly linked to migration history and is often practised within ethnic communities (Maliepaard & Gijsberts, 2012; Vermeulen, 2006). However, Islam is not just a migrant religion. Many Muslim migrants have passed on their faith to their children. For example, more than half This chapter is based on the report ‘The religious experience of Muslims in the Netherlands’ by the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP) (Huijnk, 2018). It uses survey data to investigate developments among Muslim immigrants in the Netherlands over the period 2006– 2015. The available data, which are based on various editions of the Dutch Survey of Integration of Migrants (SIM), are the most comparable databases over this period and enable us to provide an overview of developments in the religious experience and participation of different Muslim groups in the Netherlands. Most information exists on the two biggest Muslim groups in the Netherlands in particular, namely those with a Turkish and Moroccan background. We also briefly describe the religious experience of a number of smaller Muslim immigrant groups in the Netherlands (Afghan, Iranian, Iraqi, Somali and Surinamese Muslims). Together, these groups make up a large majority of the Muslim population in the Netherlands. W. Huijnk · J. Dagevos Netherlands Institute for Social Research, The Hague, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] J. Dagevos e-mail: [email protected] F. Vermeulen (B) Department of Political Science, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. Stockemer (ed.), Muslims in the Western World, Immigrants and Minorities, Politics and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99487-7_7

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Table 1 Religious behaviour and religious attitudes among Muslims, 15 years and older, by origin, 2015 (in percentages) Turkish Moroccan Somali Surinamesea Regards self as Muslimb

86

94

95

9

Non-religiousb

10

5

5

34

Visits mosque at least weekly

40

37

38

16

Prays five times a day

33

78

80

21

Fasted every day during Ramadan

55

87

70

34

Eats halal everyday

80

93

94

69

Wears the headscarf (women)

49

78

90

19

My faith is an important part of who I amc

89

96

93

80

I wouldn’t like it if my daughter married someone 60 from another faithc

63

50

22

Muslims should be able to live in accordance with 61 the rules of Islamc

66

74

41

a To

be able to present a reliable picture of their religiosity, Surinamese Muslims from 2011 and 2015 (9% and 8%, respectively, of the total number of Dutch citizens of Surinamese origin) were taken together b This is the share of the total population group; the other indicators in the table relate purely to Muslims c The share who disagree/disagree completely with the statement Source SCP/CBS (SIM’11-’15); weighted data

of Dutch citizens of Turkish or Moroccan origin are of the second generation (CBS, 2018, 2020); they were born and raised in the Netherlands. It is estimated that around 6 percent of the adult population of the Netherlands are Muslims (around one million people). The vast majority of them have an immigrant background, and roughly two-thirds are of Turkish or Moroccan origin. The share who regard themselves as Muslim is higher among those of Moroccan origin (94 percent) than those with a Turkish background (86 percent) (see Table 1). A bigger proportion of the Turkish group (10 percent) are non-religious than in the Moroccan group (5 percent). The share of Muslims in the Turkish-background group fell from 93 to 86 percent between 2006 and 2015. This decline featured in both generations: in 2015, 82 percent of second-generation Turkish migrants regarded themselves as Muslim, compared with 90 percent in the first generation. The share of those identifying as Muslim in the group of Moroccan origin is also smaller in the second generation (91 percent) than in the first generation (96 percent), though both in the whole group and in the two separate generations, there was no decline in the share regarding themselves as religious. Around 0.1 percent of Dutch people without an immigration background identify as Muslim (around 13,000 people) (Butter & Van Oordt, 2017). In the 1950s, Muslims built the first mosques in the Netherlands, in The Hague in 1955 and in the small city Balk in the north of the country in 1956. From the early

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1960s, more small simple prayer rooms were set up in numerous companies and abandoned buildings in cities with a high concentration of guest worker communities. This occurred in the large cities in the west of the country and some industrial cities in the south and east of the Netherlands. Over the years, more and larger prayer rooms were built. These were mainly located in former churches, school buildings or factory halls. After 1980, the number of Islamic centres and mosques in the Netherlands increased greatly in relation to the arrival of women and children to the Netherlands. This was a transition within these Muslim immigrant communities to a longer or even permanent residence in the Netherlands. Today, the number of mosques in the Netherlands is estimated to be between 450 and 500 (Butter & Van Oordt, 2017; Roex & Tuzani, 2020). Mosque attendance has increased over the last ten years in both generations of Turkish Muslims. No clear trend can be discerned among Moroccan Muslims. The share of Turkish and Moroccan Muslims attending the mosque at least weekly was roughly equal in 2015 (40 and 37 percent, respectively). A fifth of Turkish Muslims never go to a mosque, and the same applies for a quarter of Moroccan Muslims; this holds across both generations, though first-generation Moroccan Muslims visit the mosque weekly—more often than the second generation (42 percent, versus 28 percent). Men visit the mosque weekly, more often than women, reflecting the fact that Friday afternoon mosque attendance is not a religious obligation for women. Praying is increasing in both generations of both Turkish and Moroccan Muslims. Moroccan Muslims pray considerably more often than Turkish Muslims—more than three-quarters (78 percent) pray five times a day, compared with a third of Turkish Muslims (33 percent). The majority of Turkish Muslims pray at least weekly; the share of both Turkish and Moroccan Muslims who do not pray at all is low (15 and 6 percent, respectively). Women pray more often than men. Those who pray five times a day are more often older (45 years or over) and are members of the first generation. Nonetheless, more than two-thirds of young Moroccan Muslims or Moroccan Muslims from the second generation still pray five times a day. This figure is much lower (18 percent) among young and second-generation Turkish Muslims. Muslims living in the Netherlands almost always eat halal, 93 percent of Moroccans and 80 percent of Turkish Muslims. The share of Turkish Muslims eating halal has remained constant since 2006 and has increased slightly among Moroccan Muslims (from 89 to 93 percent in 2015). The vast majority of Moroccan Muslims (87 percent) fast every day during Ramadan, while just over half of Turkish Muslims do this (55 percent). While the share of both Turkish and Moroccan Muslims who fast every day during Ramadan has declined, the reduction is slight, especially in the Moroccan group, and the majority still fast every day. In terms of wearing a headscarf, with Moroccan Muslim women, we witness a strong increase over the last decade, from just under two-thirds (64 percent) in 2006 to more than three-quarters (78 percent) in 2015. This trend has also occurred in the second generation, as well as among young and highly educated women. There was virtually no change in the percentage of Turkish Muslim women wearing the headscarf between 2006 and 2015, as just under half (49 percent) of them wore a headscarf in 2015. There is a wide difference between age categories here, especially

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in the Turkish group; a quarter of young Turkish Muslim women (aged 15–24) wear the headscarf, compared with almost three-quarters of Turkish Muslim women aged 45 or older. Members of the second generation wear the headscarf less often than the first generation. The other Muslim immigrant communities display similar developments as the Turkish and Moroccan communities, although for some groups, the level of religiosity is much lower than among Moroccan and Turkish immigrants. Islam plays a central role for virtually all Dutch Somalis. In many areas, their religiosity has actually increased slightly from its already fairly high level in 2009. They pray frequently, more than two-thirds fast every day during Ramadan. Almost everyone always eats halal and nearly all Somali women wear the headscarf. They also attach great value to their faith. Religion plays a less prominent role in the daily lives of Surinamese Muslims, as they pray less frequently, go to the mosque less often and fewer than a fifth, around 19 percent, wear the headscarf. A minority of Surinamese Muslims (22 percent) would find it problematic if their daughter were to marry a non-Muslim, and those who believe that Muslims must live by the rules of Islam are also in the minority at 41 percent. No recent data is available on Muslims from refugee groups, but research from 2009 showed that a relatively high proportion of Dutch Iranians are not religious and that 20 percent are Christian. Religious participation is the lowest on all fronts among Iranian Muslims, and their views on the role of religion also show the least religious effort. Afghan and Iraqi Muslims are situated between the Iranian and Somali groups in many of their religious behaviours and views. Their religious participation is markedly lower than that of Somali, Turkish and Moroccan Muslims in the Netherlands, but their religious identification is relatively strong (Huijnk, 2018).

1 What Is the Sense of Belonging and (Political) Identity Among Muslim Immigrants in the Netherlands? Research suggests that social identification plays an important role in individuals’ daily lives. Social identification is about the emotional significance that people attach to perceived membership of the social groups in which they self-categorize and with which they self-identify. Social identification helps them to comprehend what they share with others and how they differ from them (Brubaker & Cooper, 2000; Kranendonk et al., 2018; Simon, 1999). Religious identification among Muslim immigrants in the Netherlands remained more or less unchanged between 2006 and 2015. Respondents were asked how important their faith is to them. In 2006, Turkish and Moroccan Muslims placed strong importance on being Muslim. In 2015, this is still the case. A very high proportion say that their faith is a very important part of who they are, especially Moroccan Muslims (96 percent). The religious identification of Turkish Muslims is slightly less pronounced, at 89 percent. In both groups, women in the first generation exhibit

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the strongest religious identification. There are no uniform trends in religious views over time, for example, regarding the role of religion in politics, mixed marriages or living, according to the rules of Islam. The differences between Turkish and Moroccan Muslims are small on this point. A bit less than two-thirds of Turkish and Moroccan Muslims say they would disapprove if their daughter wants to marry someone of a different faith, and they believe that Muslims should live according to the rules of Islam. Religious identification is also strong among many young Muslims (De Koning, 2008; Ketner, 2008; Noor, 2018; Vroon-Najem, 2014). The perceived discrimination and the feeling of being less accepted among Muslims in the Netherlands have increased in recent years (Andriessen, 2016; Huijnk et al., 2015). The third Muslim Discrimination Monitor (Van der Valk & Törnberg, 2017) showed an increase in the number of incidents of aggression against mosques, in the number of complaints to anti-discrimination agencies and in the number of reports to the police and internet discrimination hotlines about Muslim discrimination and anti-Muslim incidents. A large-scale study of perceived discrimination in the Dutch population revealed that Dutch citizens of Turkish and Moroccan background most often experience unequal treatment and most often feel they are perceived negatively. These findings indicate the presence of a stigmatisation ladder in the Netherlands, on which members of these groups have the highest scores. By way of comparison, native Dutch men aged between 35 and 55 years, experience virtually no discrimination (Andriessen et al., 2018). In addition, numerous studies show that there is labour market discrimination against migrants and Muslims (Andriessen et al., 2010; Van den Berg et al., 2017; Thijssen et al., 2021). People with a Turkish or Moroccan background experience labour market discrimination more often than members of other migrant groups. Research by Thijssen et al. (2021) shows that 46 percent of native Dutch job applicants were invited for an interview, compared with 31 percent of Moroccan and 32 percent of Turkish applicants. Negative images of these groups play a role here. The unequal treatment of people with a Turkish and Moroccan background is associated with perceived cultural differences and religious background (Nievers, 2010). Islam, in many Western countries, is often evaluated in form of what studies identify as a process of racialization. In this perception, Islam is presented as the negative mirror of western constructions of identity and gender (Al-Saji, 2010). This process of racialization is also present in the Netherlands and is primarily based upon the idea that Islam is a danger to social cohesion, security and Dutch national (mostly secular) identity (De Koning, 2016). Experiences of increased discrimination and racialisation are associated by Dutch Muslim communities with greater ritual and social engagement (Phalet & Güngör, 2004), as well as greater importance attached to Islam, greater emphasis on religious identity, greater claim to public recognition of Islam and consent to orthodox views (Buijs et al., 2006; De Koning, 2008; Verkuyten & Yildiz, 2007). The stronger the feeling that Muslims are not really accepted and valued, the more they can emphasize the importance of the immutable foundations of Islam. In these foundations, some Dutch Muslims can find security and a positive identity (Verkuyten & Yildiz, 2007).

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The fact that religion forms a key part of the identity of many Turkish and Moroccan people living in the Netherlands can also not be seen in isolation from the social climate in the country. For Dutch citizens with a Moroccan background, the Muslim identity also appears to be an alternative to their Moroccan identity. This is because of the affiliation with a large global community (the Ummah), which offers a moral framework and confers a sense of belonging. At the same time, research has shown that young people of Moroccan and Turkish origin experience multiple identities simultaneously (Huijnk et al., 2015): they are Moroccan or Turkish, and they are Dutch, they are also residents of a city and they are Muslims. In principle, they do not see this as a problem. What is problematic is that others do make the choice, emphasising in all manner of contexts that the person concerned is above all Moroccan or Muslim. This gives young people with a migration background the feeling that they are not permitted to see themselves as Dutch, because those around them regard them predominantly as Moroccan or Turkish or as Muslims. The fact that they are essentially forced into seeing themselves in a particular way is perceived as a form of exclusion—they are not regarded as citizens, but as members of a migrant or religious group. They feel that they denied the Dutch identity, and that a Muslim identity and a Moroccan or Turkish identity is imposed upon them, whereas they themselves feel that different identities can perfectly well coexist alongside each other. This process, and the associated development of negative perceptions of migrants and Islam, contributes to an increased identification with religion. In that sense, the Muslim identity can also be seen as a ‘resistance identity’, which emerges as a reaction to what is perceived as the negative social climate in the Netherlands towards migrants and Muslims. It leads to a complex relationship with feeling at home in the Netherlands and with belonging. The religion that these groups consider as essential for almost all aspects of their lives is regarded by a substantial proportion of the Dutch population as something that does not belong in the Netherlands (Dagevos & Huijnk, 2019). Muslims are sometimes even regarded as the ultimate Other (De Koning, 2016). At the same time, many Muslims were born and raised in the Netherlands and regard it as their homeland. The negative opinions about Islam and Muslims emanating from the Dutch social setting stimulate the strengthening of ties within the Muslim groups and the underscoring of their Muslim identity. Social networks are largely separate from each other, as are the social and other forms of media (Huijnk et al., 2015). Discussing themes such as religion or secularization is often difficult or impossible in classrooms and schools where the tensions, polarisations and dividing lines that characterise broader society are also seen and felt (Kleijwegt, 2016). As stated earlier, the mutual perceptions of Muslims and non-Muslims are generally not positive, and this impedes contact and the willingness to learn about each other’s ideas. Negative attitudes from Dutch society make religion, the Muslim identity and belonging to a community, more attractive (Ketner, 2008). The negative perceptions can also encourage people to learn more about Islam. This may apply the most for the Moroccan group, perceptions of whom are the most negative, as they are the most stigmatized migrant group in the Netherlands (Vermeulen, 2014).

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Life in a Western society, with opinions and behaviours that are out of line with what their religion prescribes, appears to strengthen the determination of some young Muslims to stay close to their religion (Huijnk et al., 2015). The Netherlands is not only a secular country, but also a highly individualised country (De Hart & Van Houwelingen, 2018). This is reflected among other things, such as in broadly shared views about equality of men and women and in permissive attitudes towards people’s sexual orientation. In that respect, the Netherlands perceives itself as a relatively culturally homogenous country (Duyvendak, 2021). It is not just the confrontation with secular and liberal ideas which stimulates the quest for a deeper truth or processes of heightened religiosity in young people (Roeland et al., 2010), but also the religious or cultural diversity within the community. As stated, a proportion of these young people question the way in which their parents interpret the Islamic faith (Roy, 2004). The Islam of their parents and family is seen as being based on tradition, custom and culture, rather than on the true Islam (De Koning, 2008). More generally, the confrontation with the different interpretations of their faith based on country of origin and/or between religious schools can result in a quest for the ‘true’ Islam, which is independent of local, culturally driven interpretations. A more personal, individualistic quest for the true Islam can actually cause young people to become stricter adherents to their faith than their parents or those around. This can be a process in which they set themselves not just against their parents, who in their eyes do not practise the religion in a pure way, but also against a secular context which essentially rejects Islam. This purification is accompanied by discussions and conflicts about who is interpreting Islam correctly, both among young people themselves and also explicitly between young people on the one hand, and their parents and older generations of Muslims on the other (De Koning, 2008; Roeland et al., 2010). For those looking to become more deeply engaged with their religion or searching for ‘truth’, the Internet offers an almost limitless source of information and social contacts. Virtual contacts cut across the barriers of people’s front doors, school doors, municipalities or countries. Faith and feeling part of the Islamic ummah can impart a feeling of security and a strong sense of community. This increase in the religiosity of Muslims in the Netherlands, among different religious subgroups, is not happening in a vacuum; a (renewed) revival of religious values, identification and participation has been ongoing within a large (geographical) diversity of Muslim countries since the 1970s (Carvalho, 2009). There is also a general trend among religious young people in Dutch society to adhere more strongly to their faith and forms of orthodoxy (De Hart, 2014; De Hart & Van Houwelingen, 2018). The quest by young Muslims for ways to give form to their faith in a pluralistic and largely secular society appears to follow this trend. A stronger religious observance can in part be a reaction to life in a secular and liberal society, where believers are in the minority and a religious lifestyle is far from the norm. This forces those who are religious to actively maintain their faith themselves, in order to prevent it from weakening (Beekers, 2015). The need for a safe, familiar setting in which people can be themselves is no different for Muslims than for orthodox Protestant communities or Christian migrants. Christians and Muslims occupy a comparable position on this point and struggle in similar ways. The heightened quest for the authentic heart of

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the religion, which goes beyond the existing traditions and institutions, can also lead to a greater susceptibility to an orthodox interpretation of a religion. For example, Salafism appears to hold particular appeal for young (Moroccan) Muslims. Based on self-identification studies, it is suggested that 0.3 percent of Turkish Muslims and 0.5 percent of Moroccan Muslims in the Netherlands regard themselves as Salafists (Roex & Tuzani, 2020; Roex et al., 2010). In general, this increase in religiosity and the associated increased sociocultural distance in the Netherlands appear to be leading to an ever greater segregation between the worlds inhabited by Muslims and non-Muslims. Since 2017, there is also a political translation of this distance and subsequent segregation with the successful emergence of political parties like DENK and NIDA. DENK, the most successful political party of the two, entered the Dutch parliament with three seats in 2017, representing 2.06 percent of the votes. For the first time in Dutch political history, a party headed by three Muslim politicians of immigrant background promoting a clear diversity agenda was represented in Dutch parliament. Its name means ‘think’ in Dutch and ‘equal’ in Turkish, and the party was established to combat rising intolerance, right-wing thinking and xenophobia in the Netherlands. The party itself is not religious, different from NIDA, but its supporters are primarily Muslims (Loukili, 2019; Vermeulen, 2018; Vermeulen et al., 2020). DENK retained its three parliamentary seats in the 2021 general election. DENK’s success can be largely explained by the growing influence of radical right, anti-Islam and anti-immigration parties in recent years. There is increased frustration among Dutch Muslim voters about the fact that traditional parties (like the Social democratic party) did not react strongly against radical right parties like the Freedom party (PVV) of Geert Wilders. Compared to these traditional parties, DENK can stand up for the specific interests of these groups much more directly and visibly. The party does not have to take into account the interests and/or views of other groups of voters. In addition, DENK has been able to make use of the well-organised, more conservative religious part of the Turkish-Dutch community. A dense and extensive network of organisations, such as mosques and sociocultural associations, has given party leaders, who have been active within these networks for years, direct access to large groups of potential voters (Vermeulen et al., 2020). DENK mainly attracts voters who identify themselves as Muslim, especially voters who have a Turkish and to a lesser extent, a Moroccan background. DENK is popular among young voters. The strong performance of the party and its leaders on social media play an important role here. The party is also particularly popular among low-skilled voters within Muslim communities. Support for DENK among voters without a migration background is small (around 2 percent in the Amsterdam municipal elections) (Vermeulen, 2018; Vermeulen et al., 2020). DENK voters generally take conservative positions with regard to moral issues such as euthanasia or the emancipation of homosexuals. With regard to issues such as immigration, integration, discrimination and Islam, DENK voters take positions that political scientists generally identify as progressive (Vermeulen et al., 2020). Although DENK itself is a secular party, it provides Dutch Muslim voters the possibility to gain political

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representation at both the national and the local level. Feelings of political representation enhance feelings of identification and belonging to the Dutch political system. From that perspective, DENK fulfils an important democratic role in Dutch politics (Vermeulen & Kranendonk, 2019).

2 Differences Among Muslims in the Netherlands and Different Subgroups A latent class analysis1 of different aspects of religion was used to construct a typology with five categories of Muslims (see Table 2). Placing people in groups or categories flattens out individual differences, but makes it possible to observe group differences and therefore to gain some understanding of common differences and processes. The typology used is based on fairly usual forms of religious expression and attitudes. Extreme orthodox groups cannot be identified on the basis of these data. For secular Muslims, religion has little significance and is barely practised at all. For cultural Muslims, religion is important but does not manifest itself in practicing the rituals such as praying or visiting the mosque. Selective Muslims occupy an intermediate position; they take part in the social and ritual practices regularly, but not very frequently. Religion occupies a very important place in the lives of the pious, private Muslims, who pray often and adhere to the dietary prescriptions, for example. On the other hand, they practise their religion largely in private, rarely visiting a mosque, for example. Islam plays the biggest role in the daily lives of the strict, practicing Muslims. They participate very actively in the rituals (prayers, mosque attendance) and social practices (eating halal, Ramadan), and believe—strongly, that other Muslims must also abide by the rules of Islam. The vast majority of Moroccan Muslims fall into the strict practicing (41 percent) or pious (43 percent) category (see Table 3). Taken together, therefore, 84 percent fall into the two most religious categories. Secular or selective Muslims are very rare in the Moroccan group (2 and 5 percent, respectively). There is more diversity among the Turkish Muslims, and the two strictest groups (pious and strict practicing) are much smaller. These latter two groups are also roughly the same size (27 and 30 percent). Taken together, over a quarter are cultural (21 percent) or secular (7 percent) Muslims. In addition to Dutch Moroccan and Turkish Muslims who regard themselves as non-religious, there is also a small group who regard themselves as Muslim, but for whom religion appears to have little significance. The Somali group closely resemble the Moroccan group in terms of religious typology. Together, those 1

Latent class analysis (LCA) is a statistical method that is used to group individuals into classes of an unobserved (latent) variable on the basis of their responses on a series of observed variables (Vermunt, 2004). In other words, it is an inductive statistical technique which aims in a systematic way to classify people into homogeneous, similar groups with certain characteristics, based on the most likely class membership (Hagenaars & McCutcheon, 2002). This assignment to the different classes is based on model fit measures and interpretation.

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Table 2 Muslim typology by underlying indicators, population aged 15 years and older, 2015 (in percentages) Secular

Cultural

Selective

Pious, private

Strict, practising

average

Goes to mosque at least weekly (%)

0

5

45

0

84

38

Prays five times a day (%)

0

0

0

85

90

61

Eats halal everyday (%)

57

96

96

99

100

97

Fasted during Ramadan (%)

24

69

83

90

96

86

Faith is important (% agree/agree completely)

6

93

92

97

98

92

It hurts if someone says something derogatory about my faith (% agree/agree completely)

42

76

77

79

87

80

Live by rules of Islam (% agree/agree completely)

1

42

57

66

82

65

Source SCP (SIM’15); weighted data

Table 3 Muslim typology by origin, population aged 15 years and older, 2015 (in percentages) Cultural

Selective

Pious, private

Strict, practising

Turkish

Secular 7

21

27

15

30

Moroccan

2

8

5

43

41

Somali

2

6

5

43

43

14

19

17

29

22

Surinamesea a The typology

for Surinamese Muslims was determined by taking the 2011 and 2015 data together in order to obtain sufficient respondents. Source SCP (SIM’06-’15); weighted data

in the strict practicing and pious categories are the biggest groups (both 43 percent). There are virtually no secular or cultural Muslims in the Somali group. The secular category is relatively large among Surinamese Muslims (14 percent) and the strict practicing group is small (22 percent) compared with the three other origin groups. At the same time, around half the Surinamese Muslims fall into one of the two stricter categories (pious or strict practicing).

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Secular Muslims are rare among men and women, young and old, low and higheducated and first and second generation. There is a relatively high proportion of cultural and selective Muslims among young people and in the second generation, while the pious and strict practicing Muslims tend to be older on average and belong to the first generation. Many of the low-educated Muslims are pious (38 percent) or strict practicing (44 percent). Men are more often strict practicing (46 percent) and women are more often pious (50 percent). This is mainly due to the fact that women are less often visit the mosque. If we look at the total of pious and strict practicing groups, we find that more than three-quarters of women (78 percent) and almost two-thirds of men (63 percent) fall into the two most religious categories. There is a strong relationship between experiences and socialisation practices in childhood and the degree of religiosity in later life. A minority of secular Muslims attended Qur’an lessons as a child, and those whose father attended a religious gathering on a weekly basis are also in the minority. This is not the case for the other groups of Muslims; for example, almost all fathers (92 percent) of the strict practicing Muslims visited the mosque at least weekly and nearly three-quarters of them attended Qur’an lessons as a child. The two categories which are the most religious in terms of behaviour and opinions (the pious and strict practicing Muslims) have grown since 2006 in both the Turkish (from 37 to 45 percent) and Moroccan groups (from 77 to 84 percent). The category of cultural Muslims has declined steadily since 2006 in both the Turkish and Moroccan groups, while the (small) share of secular Muslims has not changed in either group. The way in which the different categories of Muslims take their place in Dutch society shows a number of clear patterns. The study controls for differences in age, gender, generation, origin and education level. The secular Muslims are the most progressive in their opinions, are most often in paid employment, feel an affinity with the Netherlands, have relatively frequent social contacts outside their own origin group, have a positive attitude towards the Netherlands and the Dutch and exhibit a relatively high degree of social and institutional trust. They are clearly oriented towards the Netherlands, they see and experience many opportunities and their sociocultural distance is limited. The socio-emotional ties with the origin group are weaker than in the other Muslim categories. Secular Muslims also engage less often in volunteering and providing informal care relatively—possibly because they are relatively often in paid work. In many respects, the strict practicing and, to a slightly lesser extent, pious Muslims, are at the opposite end of the spectrum from the secular Muslims and their sociocultural distance to Dutch natives is considerable, as they endorse traditional values and do not have strong emotional ties with the Netherlands. They are also the least accepting of mixed friendships or relationships. As with the cultural, selective and pious Muslims, they are much more deeply embedded in the origin group, identify strongly with it and have many social contacts within it, through their religion or otherwise. However, that is not the whole story. In line with earlier research among Christians, for example, we find positive effects of a stronger religious observance on well-being and prosocial behaviour. The strict practicing Muslims experience better

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mental health, are happier, are more often members of a religious or other organisation and engage in more volunteering and informal care than the other Muslim groups. Their informal participation does not go hand in hand with formal participation; a relatively small proportion are in paid employment. Roex et al. (2010) estimate that approximately 8 percent of Dutch Muslims are strictly orthodox. This is based, for example, on norms relating to listening to nonreligious music, avoiding locations where alcohol is drunk and norms concerning interaction between men and women. The estimated percentage of strictly orthodox Muslims in the study by Roex et al. (2010) is thus notably smaller than our estimates of the pious or strict Muslims in the period of 2006–2015. Although the two studies are not mutually comparable due to differences in research design and timing, there are nonetheless strong indications that these are substantively different groups. The Muslim groups identified in our study as the most religious (strict and pious categories) can therefore not be regarded as strictly orthodox. There is little understanding in any of the Muslim groups for those who employ violence in the name of their religion, nor support for the idea that violence is sometimes the only way of achieving an ideal. There is also little difference between the Muslim groups in the appreciation of cultural diversity; almost all the strict Muslims also take the view that it is a good thing if society is made up of different cultures. Trust in the government and police is relatively low in all Muslim groups. They also share the perception of a social climate that is less than positive and sometimes hostile. In some cases, this perception manifests itself in feelings of exclusion, lack of perceived acceptance and experiences of discrimination. These feelings are less pronounced in the secular group, apart from the experience of discrimination. The perceived acceptance is lowest among the selective and strict practicing Muslims. The feeling that the Dutch are too negative about Islam is also widespread in these groups. The selective Muslims have little social trust and enjoy relatively lower levels of good well-being. It may be that, compared with the more dogmatic groups such as the strict practicing and pious Muslims, they have more doubts about the exact role of religion in their lives. They also have the most negative views about the Netherlands and the Dutch. For example, they are the least satisfied with the Netherlands, feel the least at home there and would most often like to return to their country of origin. They are not the most religious group, but they are closer to Dutch society, which means they may be confronted with negative experiences and challenges more often than the stricter Muslims. The strict practicing Muslims move more in their own circles and may therefore be relatively less affected by the negativity of the host society. Only 20 percent of this group have frequent social contact with Dutch people without an immigrant background, whereas this percentage is 40 percent among secular Dutch Muslims (Huijnk, 2018).

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3 Conclusion For many Muslims in the Netherlands, as in other parts of the world, religion is as important as ever. A very high proportion of Turkish and Moroccan Dutch citizens regard themselves as Muslims. Religion plays an important role in the lives of virtually all Muslims, with the exception of the small group of secular Muslims. Nonetheless, this commonality masks a degree of diversity. Among other things, this plurality runs along ethnic dividing lines; Moroccan and Somali Muslims, for example, are more religious than Turkish and Surinamese Muslims in many respects, especially as regards practicing their religion. The Muslim typology also reveals religious diversity among Muslims in the Netherlands. Certain behaviours and views are more heavily concentrated within certain groups of Muslims, and those groups differ from each other in their attitudes and their positions in Dutch society. This pluralism is more marked among Turkish than Moroccan Muslims. A very high proportion of Moroccan Muslims fall into the two most religious categories, the pious and the strict practicing Muslims. The degree of orthodoxy of the strict or pious Muslims cannot be accurately determined based on the current data, but what our survey does show is that the majority of the strict and pious Muslims are open to cultural diversity and reject the use of violence. A high proportion of them also say they intend to vote. The majority of them therefore do not reject the constitutional democracy and associated institutions, as is the case for certain orthodox Salafist movements. A very small proportion of Turkish and Moroccan Muslims in our study regard themselves as Salafists. However, it is likely that not every Salafist will explicitly identify themselves as such—they see the way they practise their religion as the only true form of Islam, not as one of the schools within it (Roex et al., 2010).

3.1 Individualisation, Mild Secularisation and Religious Revitalisation The way in which Muslims in the Netherlands experience their religion is changing, but the direction of travel is not uniform. There is a mild secularisation trend among Turkish Muslims in the Netherlands; the percentage who regard themselves as nonreligious is small but has grown. This is not the case for the Moroccan Muslims. Religiosity is increasing among both Turkish and Moroccan Muslims. Among Turkish Muslims, for example, mosque attendance and praying have increased in both generations. For Moroccan Muslims, this applies for praying, eating halal and wearing the headscarf. Wearing of the headscarf has increased relatively strongly among the young, highly educated Moroccan Muslim women. These two (opposing) trends— secularisation and increased religious observance—are in line with the idea that faith in the Western, secular and pluralistic society is becoming more individualised. Islam is increasingly interpreted individually (De Koning, 2008; Noor, 2018; Wagemakers & De Koning, 2015). According to the individualization thesis, young people

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go in search of their own meaning and interpretation of their faith and do not unquestioningly follow what the imam or their parents instruct them. Individualization then refers to the path that someone follows in their religious expression and the way in which they give form to their faith. For a small proportion this leads to secularisation, but for most of them, it means that religion actually becomes more important. It is therefore by no means the case that an individualistic approach to religion necessarily leads to ‘modern’ views or the abandoning of traditional practices—quite the reverse (De Koning, 2008). The individualization of religion also does not mean practicing religion in private; the way in which young Muslims observe their faith is often highly social in nature, tied in with social relationships and with online and other social networks (Beekers, 2015).

3.2 Almost No Increase in Secularisation Despite Rising Education Level and Generational Succession A longer time spent living in the Netherlands, generational succession and rising education levels have to date had virtually no secularising effect, especially among Moroccan Dutch citizens. Although those with the lowest education level, consisting mainly of the older members of the first generation, are the strictest adherents to their religion, beyond this there are few differences across the different education levels among Moroccan Muslims in the Netherlands. There are clear signs that highly educated Dutch Turks are the most often non-religious, attend the mosque less often and identify the least with their religion. Members of the second generation are slightly less religious than the first generation in many respects. A slightly higher proportion are non-religious, pray less often, wear the headscarf less often and, in the Moroccan second generation, attend the mosque less often. Other research has also shown that young people aged 15 are less religious than their parents (De Hoon & Van Tubergen, 2014). On the other hand, adolescents with a Muslim background are substantially more religious than their Dutch native peers or adolescents with a different background (De Hoon & Van Tubergen, 2014; Güngör et al., 2011; Van Tubergen & Sindradottir, 2011). Muslims are much more successful in passing on their religion to their children than Christians (De Hoon & Van Tubergen, 2014). Religion is also very important for a substantial proportion of the second generation (see also Huijnk et al., 2015), and that importance is increasing. People can give form to their faith in networks of like-minded people, who offer them support, confirm their faith and encourage them to strive for their true faith. Both Christians and Muslims use online communities to share information, form religious identities and participate in collective online rituals (Schrover & Roeland et al., 2010; Vermeulen, 2006). References are also made when discussing religious developments in the Christian community to a ‘hardcore’ effect (De Hart, 2014; De Hart & Van Houwelingen, 2018), whereby the exodus of more liberal youngsters means that those who remain are the most fervently religious young people. This

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could play a limited role among Dutch Turks, where the percentage of non-religious people has increased slightly, but appears to apply less to Dutch Moroccans, where there has been no increase in those abandoning their religion.

3.3 Sense of Belonging of Muslims in a Secular, Individualised and Hostile Society It is not unambiguously clear what the increasing religiosity means for the position of Muslims in Dutch society. Growing religiosity could have a positive impact on aspects such as mental health, prosocial behaviour, political participation or the ties with other members of the origin group, but at the same time appears to increase the sociocultural distance between Muslims and non-Muslims in Dutch society. The perception of (growing) cultural differences between Muslims and non-Muslims is reflected in their mutual perceptions, potentially reinforcing dividing lines, also politically, and group boundaries (Huijnk et al., 2015). Muslims are seen by a section of the nonMuslim community as ‘the ultimate other’ (De Koning, 2016). And although a Dutch identity and a Muslim identity need by no means be mutually exclusive, for many Muslims their religion appears to be the most important social identity (Huijnk et al., 2015). This means that, for many Muslims, feeling at home in the Netherlands is a complex matter. The secularised nature of Dutch society alone is enough to ensure that there is little understanding for the great importance that many Muslims attach to their faith. In addition, Islam is associated with traditional views on the role of women and homosexuals and with radical violence. In that sense, for many Muslims, this makes the Netherlands a fairly hostile environment. This appears to reinforce boundaries between groups and exacerbate negative mutual perceptions. At the same time, it generates its own dynamic: precisely because Muslims regard their faith as so important and at the same time feel, and are, members of Dutch society, they fight, including through the political arena, to secure an equivalent place for Islam and against the negative perceptions and unequal opportunities.

References Al-Saji, A. (2010). The racialization of Muslim veils: A philosophical analysis. Philosophy & Social Criticism, 36(8), 875–902. Andriessen, I. (2016). De multi-etnische samenleving onder druk? In W. Huijnk & I. Andriessen (Eds.), Integratie in zicht. De integratie van migranten in Nederland op acht terreinen nader bekeken (pp. 243–281). Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau. Andriessen, I., Nievers, E., Faulk L., & Dagevos, J. (2010). Liever Mark dan Mohammed? Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau. Andriessen, I. et al. (2018). Ervaren discriminatie in Nederland II. Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau. Beekers, D. (2015). Precarious piety: Pursuits of faith among young Muslims and Christians in the Netherlands (dissertatie). Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

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Brubaker, R., & Cooper, F. (2000). Beyond “identity.” Theory and Society, 29(1), 1–47. Buijs, F., Demant, F., & Hamdy, A. (2006). Strijders van eigen bodem. Radicale en democratische moslims in Nederland. Amsterdam University Press. Butter, E., & Van Oordt, R. (2017). Zuilen in de polder? Een verkenning van de institutionalisering van islam in Nederland. Ministerie van Sociale Zaken en Werkgelegenheid. Carvalho, J. (2009). A theory of the Islamic revival (Department of Economics Discussion Paper Series 424, Oxford University). CBS. (2018). Jaarrapport integratie. Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek. CBS. (2020). Jaarrapport integratie. Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek. Dagevos, J., & Huijnk, W. (2019). Reflectie op de islam als een zwakke basis voor verbondenheid versus een sterke bron van identificatie. In J. de Hart (Ed.), Wat ons typeert en wat ons bindt: het burgerperspectief. Hoofdstuk 5 van het Sociaal en Cultureel Rapport Denkend aan Nederland (pp. 32–34). Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau. De Hart, J. (2014). Geloven binnen en buiten verband. Godsdienstige ontwikkelingen in Nederland. Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau. De Hart, J., & Van Houwelingen, P. (2018). Christenen in Nederland. Kerkelijke deelname en christelijke gelovigheid. Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau. De Hoon, S., & Van Tubergen, F. (2014). The religiosity of children of immigrants and natives in England, Germany, and the Netherlands: The role of parents and peers in class. European Sociological Review, 30(2), 194–206. De Koning, M. (2008). Zoeken naar een ‘zuivere’ islam. Religieuze beleving en identiteitsvorming van Marokkaans-Nederlandse moslims. Bert Bakker. De Koning, M. (2016). “You need to present a counter-message”: The racialisation of Dutch Muslims and anti-islamophobia initiatives. Journal of Muslims in Europe, 5(2), 170–189. Duyvendak, J. W. (2021). Nativist understandings: The presence of the past in contemporary Dutch debates on national identity. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 47(18), 4209–4220. Güngör, D., Fleischmann, F., & Phalet, K. (2011). Religious identification, beliefs, and practices among Turkish Belgian and Moroccan Belgian Muslims: Intergenerational continuity and acculturative change. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 42(8), 1356–1374. Hagenaars, J. A., & McCutcheon, A. (2002). Applied latent class analysis. Cambridge University Press. Huijnk, W. (2018). De religieuze beleving van moslims in Nederland. Diversiteit en verandering in beeld. Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau. Huijnk, W., Dagevos, J., Gijsberts, M., & Andriessen, I. (2015). Werelden van verschil. Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau. Ketner, S. (2008). Marokkaanse wortels, Nederlandse grond. Exploratie, bindingen en identiteitsstrategieën van jongeren van Marokkaanse afkomst (dissertation). Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. Kleijwegt, M. (2016). 2 werelden 2 werkelijkheden Hoe ga je daar als docent mee om? ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschap. Kranendonk, M., Vermeulen, F., & van Heelsum, A. (2018). “Unpacking” the identity-to-politics link: The effects of social identification on voting among Muslim immigrants in Western Europe. Political Psychology, 39(1), 43–67. Loukili, S. (2019). Fighting fire with fire? “Muslim” political parties in the Netherlands countering right-wing populism in the city of Rotterdam. Journal of Muslims in Europe, 9(1), 21–42. Maliepaard, M., & Gijsberts, M. (2012). Moslim in Nederland 2012. Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau. Nievers, E. (2010). Personeelsselecteurs over niet-westerse migranten en discriminatie op de arbeidsmarkt. In E. Nievers & I. Andriessen (Eds.), Discriminatiemonitor niet-westerse migranten op de arbeidsmarkt 2010 (pp. 52–85). en Cultureel Planbureau Noor, S. (2018). Het geloof van moslimvrouwen in Nederland en België (dissertation). Radboud Universiteit, Nijmegen.

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Muslims in Britain: From Forcible Assimilation to Preventable Radicalisation Tahir Abbas

1 Introduction The subject of Islam in Britain has become a serious source of interest for academics and policymakers in light of recent events in the UK and, more broadly, in light of larger changes in the character of the Muslim lived experience in post-war Western Europe. While much recent emphasis has been focused on terrorism, extremism, and identity politics, larger conversations centred on themes of integration, diversity, equality, and the presence of Islam in public space remain less well-developed (Abbas, 2019a, 2019b). While these discussions are relevant and crucial in today’s context, they are also muddled and instrumentalised by various interest groups in society. This chapter seeks to characterise Islam and Muslims in the United Kingdom by providing a review of significant historical, cultural, sociological, and politicalphilosophical issues in recent decades. The emphasis is less on Islam as a religion, spirituality, or political philosophy, and more on a social science examination of Muslims in the United Kingdom, as well as the nature of the distinctions, similarities, difficulties, and opportunities that all members of society confront. First, this chapter introduces the characteristics of British Muslim communities, focusing on the early phases of interaction with Britain as well as the foundational stages of migration and settlement, notably in the post-war period. Second, there is a discussion of education and employment issues related to social mobility, integration, and broader questions of diversity. These have been the subject of various debates concerning multiculturalism, which is perceived as either a success or a failure depending on the politics of the time. Third, how Islamophobia is experienced and how it affects issues of radicalisation, where the framing of extremism has resulted in securitisation and additional instances of Islamophobia experienced at the T. Abbas (B) Institute of Strategic and Global Affairs, Leiden University in The Hague, Leiden, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. Stockemer (ed.), Muslims in the Western World, Immigrants and Minorities, Politics and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99487-7_8

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local level or as defined by state-centric discourses dealing with countering violent extremism. Finally, I argue that a radical rethinking of how Muslim communities are discussed in popular discourse is required. This includes the fundamental problem of state discourse that solely speaks to Muslims about extremism and radicalisation, where the vast majority of issues relating to socio-economic status, integration as a matter of policy and practice, and issues of identity and belonging have largely been relegated to populist-authoritarian discourses.

1.1 Historical Context For over a thousand years, Muslims have come to and have lived in Britain, contributing to the economy and culture as entrepreneurs, bankers, spice merchants, medical students, seafarers, and servants (Matar, 1998). During the British Raj (British Crown rule over the Indian subcontinent from 1858 to 1947), Indians from affluent families travelled to the UK for particular educational and entrepreneurial goals (Ansari, 2018). While people might expect that the modern British South Asian Muslim community shares comparable educational and entrepreneurial aspirations, they generally hail from the poorer parts of Azad Kashmir in north-western Pakistan, Sylhet in north-eastern Bangladesh, and Punjab in India (Ballard, 2009). At the dawn of the 1960s, the primary goal of South Asian Muslims was to amass their fortunes before returning to their countries of origin, a goal aided by a ‘myth of return’ (Dahya, 1972; Anwar, 1979). It did not occur—either by accident (opportunity), or on purpose (legislation). Most of the Muslim East African Asians came in the 1960s and early 1970s, mostly because of the British’s ‘Africanization’ of formerly colonised nations (Mattausch, 1998). The economic settings of the cultures they left were middle-class and professional, and they tried to fulfil those same objectives in Britain. Ugandan Asians were pushed from their nation in 1973, and those allowed by Britain were urged to reside outside of existing highly populated South Asian districts known as ‘red regions’ (Rex & Tomlinson, 1979). Bangladeshis came in the late 1970s and early 1980s when severe economic difficulties and a yearning for family reunions drove many to seek safety in the United Kingdom (Eade & Garbin, 2006). In the 1990s, an influx of Muslim Eastern European and Middle Eastern refugees from Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Iraq occurred (Al-Ali et al., 2001). Indeed, for many Muslims, the most recent periods of immigration are mostly motivated by political upheaval, with ‘marriage migration’ affecting a smaller proportion of Pakistanis and Kashmiris.

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1.2 Post-War Migration and Settlement During the period of post-war migration and settlement, assimilation, multiculturalism, and anti-racism were experienced. From the late 1940s through the 1970s, governments assumed that by providing English language help in schools, ethnic minorities would learn to ‘become like us’. In other words, they would be ‘assimilated’ (Grosvenor, 1999). However, the assimilationist approach was founded on an insufficient grasp of the social psychology of group identification, particularly the durability of ethnic identities in the face of marginalisation and rejection. Multiculturalism evolved as a response to the failure of assimilation in part by allowing for the acknowledgement of ethnic differences in the United Kingdom. Multiculturalism established a framework within which policymakers could acknowledge ethnicity but promote tolerance for other cultures among people and organisations (Banks, 1993). Thus, multiculturalism influenced the identities and demands of ethnic minority populations, but via a political process in which diversity was seen as a source of contention. As a result, during the late 1970s and early 1980s, several ethnic minority populations criticised multiculturalism for its inherent paternalism. Anti-racist initiatives arose as an alternative to multiculturalism in the early 1980s (Troyna, 1987). This approach recognised the inherent conflicts of interest that existed in multicultural Britain and the critical nature of tackling persistent inequality. It derived its findings from the notion of institutional racism that underpinned the 1976 Race Relations Act and demonstrated how completely regular persons might contribute to discriminatory results via their normal professional activities. Anti-racism was a direct challenge to dominant white Britons who felt secure in Britain’s ‘tolerant credentials’ in response to inequities and discrimination within a multi-ethnic society. It sparked a great deal of controversy in political and government circles. It also drew a variety of criticisms from those on the left and from ethnic minority populations, who saw it as strong in rhetoric but lacking in execution (Toliver & Hadley, 2021). Since the 1980s, Western European economies have seen major transformations as a result of financial deregulation, privatisation of public utilities, and economic neoliberalism. Inner cities, sometimes overlooked by urban designers and politicians until the detrimental circumstances faced by disadvantaged ‘underclass’ people become unsustainable, are home to varied communities (Rex, 1988). Ethnic minorities in the post-war period congregate in certain metropolitan regions to leverage social, economic, and cultural capital for group survival (Peach, 1996). Simultaneously, the geographical concentration of impoverished marginalised majority provides a chance to safeguard group norms and values linked with the group identity, which, in the context of contemporary politics, sees a danger from the dominating (or subjugated) other. The overarching theme, however, is to portray ethnic minorities’ ‘self-styled segregation’ as a self-induced rejection of integration. This rhetoric is ultimately destructive to a large number of minorities, who are often subjected to vilification, estrangement, and discrimination (Johnston et al., 2010). In response to the challenges of integration and participation in society, there is a yearning for some degree of ‘Islamisation’ among second- and third-generation

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British Muslims (Hamid, 2016). Today’s South Asian Muslims born in the United Kingdom, which includes all Bangladeshis and Pakistanis and around 15% of all Indians, increasingly define their identities in religious terms (Abbas, 2011). Islam and ‘Muslimness’ in these communities are questioned and re-examined in light of intergenerational change. Individual, political, cultural, ethnic, and religious identities are re-evaluated, and some have returned to a more literal Islam, with growing implications for Islamophobia and radicalisation, the first among majority populations, and the second as a form of post-modern resistance to failed integration combined with failing foreign policy adventures (Thomas & Sanderson, 2011). This has resulted in conflicts inside groups, and the larger social connections between Muslims and non-Muslims have been impacted by this internal turmoil. While some of these challenges are exclusive to a small number of people and localities, the mainstream language against Islam and Muslims conflates local sociological concerns with an assault on Islam itself (Abbas, 2019b). While South Asian Muslims do undoubtedly represent the most diverse profile of Islam in the United Kingdom, there is a danger of homogenising the religion by implying that South Asian characteristics are entirely characteristic of British Islam. Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are almost invariably Muslims, but there are also British Muslims of Arab, Albanian, Bosnian, Iranian, Nigerian, Somali, and Turkish ancestry, whose cultural, social, economic, and religious characteristics are opposed to those of South Asian Muslims. Additionally, there are within-group differences to consider. For example, although Sunni Barelwi Pakistanis and East African Ismailis have significant distinctions, they are both South Asian Muslims by definition. Pakistani and Bangladeshi experiences are in no way representative of people and groups from other ethnic Muslim origins in the United Kingdom (Gilliat-Ray, 2010).

2 Education and Employment With a present population of 5 million (approximately 3 per cent of the population), Muslims constitute a sizeable demographic minority whose educational requirements are of special concern to the government (Husain & O’Brien, 2017). Most Muslims in the United Kingdom are young people, with one in three being under the age of 15. This lends significant weight to disputes over the educational accomplishments of Muslim communities, which could comprise a sizeable portion of the workforce. A look at the latest educational performance statistics reveals that young Bangladeshi and Pakistani males have among the lowest average levels of achievement at GCSE level, just barely ahead of Caribbean communities (Fernández-Reino, 2016). According to official figures, approximately one-third of Muslims of working age in the United Kingdom lacked qualifications in 2003–2004, a figure higher than that of all other religious groups. On the other hand, Muslims are the least likely of any group to earn a higher education degree. In general, Muslims typically underperform when compared to other South Asian ethnicities in terms of educational achievement (particularly outside of London). The most fundamental reasons for

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this phenomenon appear to be the socio-economic class and educational level of parents (as is the case with all groups in society), how the majority society views and acts towards Muslim minorities, and the negative general outcomes that result from various social and institutional encounters (Ahmad, 2020). The study of Muslims in relation to their ability to engage and participate successfully in everyday life has the effect of concentrating on individual and group differences rather than structures and opportunities, as suggested by Amin (2001) in response to the ‘community cohesion’ reports, and by Modood (2004) in his analysis of the various ‘capitals’ (cultural, social, and economic) that impact upon the experiences of ethnic minorities entering higher-education institutions. A study of first-generation economic migrants and their labour market experiences discovered that, in general, all ethnic minorities, including East African Asians, who were as experienced as qualified, were subjected to an ‘ethnic penalty’ (Heath & Martin, 2013). On the other hand, African-Caribbeans, Pakistanis, and Irish people were the ones who suffered the most. Even after accounting for factors such as age and education, Indians, Pakistanis, and African-Caribbeans all experienced significant ‘ethnic penalty’. A system of racial division of labour meant that African-Caribbean and South Asian workers, especially Muslims, were kept separate and therefore prevented from banding together as part of a broader collective battle for social and economic justice (Sivanandan, 1982). As a result of this process, which also kept wages low and divided ethnic minorities into low-wage positions that the majority of society did not desire, employees were de-skilled as a result. An examination of recent labour market data indicates that the ‘ethnic penalty’ or ‘ethnic disadvantage’ suffered by the first generations is significantly passed down to later generations. It was believed that the ‘ethnic penalty’ would be reduced to some extent since second generations are British-born and have received their education in the United Kingdom (Berthoud, 2000). However, both direct discrimination and cultural differences must play a role since the breadth and scale of the findings imply complicated explanations (Daoud & Khattab, 2020). Muslims in the United Kingdom have lower economic activity rates than the general population, and they are more likely to be jobless and receive lower wages than the general population (Kamasak et al., 2019). There is a discernible difference between Muslims from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, for example. In comparison to Indian Muslims, it is plausible to infer that Bangladeshis and Pakistanis are under-represented in the highest income brackets and particular job sectors, respectively. There are some trends in the educational and professional experiences of different Muslim minorities that reveal a high degree of fragmentation. Even though Muslim educational success is notably low, there are significant ethnic differences within specific patterns of underachievement identified among the sons and daughters of rural and urban first-generation Muslim economic migrants. Experiencing marginalisation in education is frequently translated into problems of limited higher education outcomes, followed by higher than average graduate unemployment, but, notably, the role of community cultural values is important to consider when investigating the education of young Muslim women (Ijaz & Abbas, 2010).

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3 Islamophobia, Securitisation, and Radicalisation 3.1 Assessing British Muslim Social Attitudes While there is a strong emphasis on concerns relating to Muslim social exclusion in the United Kingdom, survey data on the subject is scarce. A new IPSOS-MORI (2018) research, summarised below, uses official survey data to illustrate a variety of pertinent opinions on identity, belonging, citizenship, and attitudes towards terrorism and political violence. Islam is the second most prevalent religion in the United Kingdom, accounting for around 5 per cent of the population (3 million). A third of Muslims are under the age of 15, and half are under the age of 25. While South Asians dominated the early waves of post-war migration, the ethnicity of British Muslims is presently shifting. NonSouth Asian Muslims in the UK increased from around a quarter in 2001 to almost a third in 2011 (32.4 per cent). On questions of education, Muslims place a higher emphasis on education than other Britons, with 55 per cent stating it is important to their sense of self, compared to 35 per cent of Christians. Muslim parents also have higher educational objectives for their children than non-Muslim parents, with Muslim females somewhat higher than Muslim boys. Parents of Muslim daughters and sons were more likely than non-Muslim parents to expect their children will attend university, with 43 per cent of non-Muslim girls and 34 per cent of non-Muslim males believing it was ‘very likely’. Most Muslims, particularly young Muslims and graduates, live in ethnically mixed areas. Younger Muslims and college graduates have more diverse social networks than older Muslims and non-college graduates. Moreover, two-thirds of those aged 18–34 believe at least half of their contacts are from a different ethnic group, while this lowers to 37 per cent for those aged 35–54. In comparison to non-graduates, threefifths of the Muslim graduates say half or more of their friends are from another ethnic group. The same is true for non-graduates (30%) and those with foreign degrees (19 per cent), but not for Muslim UK graduates (42 per cent), or non-graduates with overseas degrees (19 per cent). Most Muslims in England and Wales, like the majority of the population, are content with their lives in general, albeit they do not believe that things are improving. Although 88 per cent are ‘fairly satisfied’ with their ‘life as a whole nowadays’, in a 2010 survey, only 17 per cent thought things had gotten better for Muslims in Britain over the previous few years, while 44 per cent (and even higher proportions of young and graduate Muslims) thought they had gotten worse. Around half of Muslims believe there is ‘often a large difference between what people like me expect from life and what we really get’, but this is not a Muslim-only viewpoint. The majority of Muslims, like the rest of the population, are pleased about the community spirit in their region, and nearly all believe there is respect for diverse ethnic groups. Nonetheless, over two-thirds of Muslims (63 per cent) believe that diverse ethnic and religious groups should mingle more in their community than they do now.

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Muslims have lower levels of ‘generalised trust’ than the majority of British people—by two-to-one, 55 per cent to 28 per cent, they believe that ‘you can’t be too careful’ rather than that ‘generally speaking… most people can be trusted’—and they are more concerned about becoming a victim of crime than the general public. The majority of Muslims (64 per cent) are content with the way democracy works in Britain, making them more satisfied with the democratic process than the British people as a whole, and more inclined to express faith in democratic institutions. Muslims are more likely than the general population to believe that participating in politics may help them, despite the fact that many believe they have little control over decisions that affect them. Young Muslims are the most likely to have been involved in political activity. Most Muslims, like other Britons, have unfavourable and generally cynical attitudes about political parties; yet, they are more likely than the average to have positive sentiments towards at least one political party (55 per cent of Muslims, but only 44 per cent of the whole public, say they like at least one of three main political parties). While some Muslims in the United Kingdom believe they face discrimination, the vast majority say the government treats them fairly. Despite this, Muslim graduates and young Muslims report increased anti-Muslim prejudice, and a large minority believes Muslims are denied equal life opportunities. The majority of young Muslims and graduates (63 per cent) feel Muslims encounter more hostility than other religious groups. One in four Muslims (27 per cent) say they have encountered bias, with the figure rising to one in three (34 per cent) among graduates and Muslims aged 18–24. Less than one-fifth (14 per cent) of Muslims consider harassment to be a big concern, while one-fourth (26 per cent) fear violent assault. According to several polls, few Muslims support or sympathise with terrorism. According to a 2016 poll, Muslim groups were more critical of violent crimes than the overall public. Indeed, general public support for terrorism (4 per cent) was greater than among Muslims (2 per cent). Around half of Muslims (51 per cent) believe it is their responsibility to condemn terrorist actions in the name of Islam, while 38 per cent disagree. While the vast majority of Muslims (94 per cent) say they would report violent extremist behaviour to authorities, just a minority (16%) say they have come across such activity, largely on the internet. In a 2015 poll, Muslims were asked whether they supported the goal of ‘establishing a “Caliphate”, or an Islamic state, governed by a group of religious authorities under a supreme leader’, emphasising that this was the goal of ISIS, which it defined as an ‘extreme rebel group’. It discovered that just 7 per cent supported it, while 67 per cent opposed it, with 54 per cent highly opposed. When the same question was asked of a nationally representative sample in the control group poll, 2 per cent said they supported the goal of establishing an Islamic state and 80 per cent said they opposed it. The majority of people who supported the goal identified as Christian.1

1

ICM Survey of Muslims for Channel 4: face-to-face interviews with 1,081 Muslims aged 18 + across the United Kingdom from April 25 to May 31, 2015, and telephone interviews with a nationally representative control group of 1,008 persons aged 18 + on June 5–7, 2015.

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Two in five (38 per cent) believe that Western foreign policy, such as the invasion of Iraq, is the single most significant root cause of ISIS attacks; 25 per cent blame ISIS leaders who exploit vulnerable young people, 6 per cent poverty and discrimination against Muslims in Western countries, and 14 per cent something else; one in six (17 per cent) say they don’t know. However, the majority (71 per cent) say they have no compassion for young Muslims who leave the UK to join fighters in Syria, while one in twenty (5 per cent) say they have ‘a lot of sympathy’, and 25% of Muslim women say they have at least some sympathy. When compared to a comparable survey poll of British Muslims conducted in March 2015, 8 per cent said they had a lot of compassion, 20 per cent said they had some pity, and 61 per cent said they had no sympathy.2 The interpretation of these findings, however, may rely on how respondents perceived ‘sympathy’, which is arguably an unclear phrase in these circumstances, and the findings should be regarded with caution. Respondents were asked if they sympathise ‘with young Muslims’ rather than their motivations.

3.2 Demarcating anti-Muslim Hatred Despite the emergence of ‘Islamophobia studies’, the word suffers from classification, categorisation, and generalisation issues (Allen, 2016). According to some, the phrase refers to a process, while others see it as a product. The former refers to prejudice and marginalisation patterns quantified in terms of diverse types of racial, cultural, and religious discrimination. The latter manifests itself in both history and modern politics. As a result, an analytical chasm exists between ideas, perceptions, and realisation. For others, the concept’s ambiguity is its strength, since Islamophobia manifests itself in a variety of ways depending on the situation and opportunity. These appear on both a local and global scale within certain areas of intellectual, political, cultural, and social ontologies (Sayyid & Vakil, 2010). Other researchers have concluded that Islamophobia is connected to existing tendencies of xenophobia, orientalism, and imperialism that influence liberal democracies and their multiculturalism conceptions. Racism is not confined to far right groups or institutionalised in the state apparatus. In common with other types of racism, Islamophobia may be colour-coded, which means that it can be biological (usually connected to skin colour) or cultural (not necessarily related to skin colour), or a mix of the two. Islamophobia is not exclusive to British Muslims’ social and political experiences. The reality of anti-Muslim sentiment has the potential to provoke a reactionary response on the part of beleaguered young Muslims, conflated by an anti-multiculturalism paradigm that has recently sought to abandon critical acceptance of social differences in favour of an outmoded, reductive, and exclusive notion of English nationalism, particularly in the post-Brexit era (Cowden & Singh, 2017). Survation survey for The Sun: 1,003 GB resident Muslims aged 18 + , questioned via phone on November 18–20, 2015. The population was sampled based on a demographically modelled probability of inhabitants identifying as Muslims.

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Nevertheless, the othering of Muslims through a negative cultural and social identification heralds from colonialism and the cultural and social formations that it carried through a combination of orientalism and scientific racism. This ‘fear or dread of Islam or Muslims’ is referred to as Islamophobia. In the aftermath of the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks in the UK, there has been a strong emphasis on the identities of Muslim minorities, with little or no recognition of the structural disadvantage that many communities face (Abbas, 2007). A negative politicisation of the argument may influence both the views of the person or group of interest and the perspectives of those who constitute the majority of the population. ‘Islamophobia’ is a cultural and structural phenomenon. It exacerbates an already precarious and challenging position for many Muslim minority communities. While there have been moments of learning and understanding on the side of both the British and the Europeans throughout the ages, there have also been eras of ignorance, warfare, and Islam’s demonisation. Muslims have been depicted as ‘barbaric’, ‘ignorant’, ‘narrow-minded’, and ‘intolerant religious fanatics’ at various times throughout history (Abbas, 2013). Although it is important not to perceive Muslims as a homogeneous group due to the wide range of ethnic, cultural, social, economic, and political variations that exist between people and groups, this categorisation of Islamophobia remains pertinent. The anti-Muslim trend reveals markers of social and religious difference, which is akin to racism in practice today. It is now widely acknowledged that, despite the wide-ranging social and theological underpinnings of Islam and Muslims in general, their ‘visibility’ is automatically connected with negative and destructive frames of reference. Islamophobia has acquired increasing discursive prominence, to the point that most Western European cultures have become blindly susceptible to a wide range of negative images, perceptions, attitudes, behaviours, and practices concerning Islam and Muslims. The accusation of media bias is serious, especially in light of the enormous rise in coverage of ‘extreme Muslims’ and ‘Islamic terrorism’ in recent years (Neumann et al., 2018). The terminology used to characterise Muslims is sometimes aggressive, leading some to believe that Islam is similarly hostile to others. Words from the Arabic language have been taken into the worldwide journalistic lexicon and given new meaning, which is often presented without qualification— where notions of exaggerated violence loom large. For example, the term ‘jihad’ has been used to refer to a military campaign fought by ‘Islamists’ against the Western world. Indeed, the underlying Arabic meaning of the phrase is much wider and relates more to the notion of a ‘battle’ (with the war against one’s own ‘false ego’— nafs—being the most important and most important of all jihads). Extremism and extreme terms such as ‘fundamentalist’, ‘radical’, and ‘Islamist’ are often employed in ominous headlines across all sectors of the British press to create a sense of impending doom (Morey et al., 2019). Politicians have taken advantage of people’s worries about Islam in the wake of 9/11 and beyond to further their agendas. Focusing on the ‘war on terror’ substitutes the concept of ‘terror’ for the anti-Muslim frame of reference that was previously in existence. The reporting is exacerbated by a focus on the ‘enemy inside’ or the lack of devotion of Muslims to Britain (Warsi, 2017).

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3.3 Populism and Authoritarianism In areas of Western Europe and the United Kingdom, the contemporary populism concerning Muslim communities is fuelled by concerns about the group’s population rise, which is a major source of concern (Sayyid, 2015). While political elites feed these worries, the majority of the population continues to be demographically illiterate. It also raises specific concerns about how to respond to violent extremism in certain situations. The trend is to place a larger emphasis on radicalism among groups in society that are manifestly distinct from one another. Because white extremism is becoming more indistinguishable and because feelings against immigration, Muslims, and other minorities are becoming more popular, there is a growing sense of unease among the public (Jackson, 2013). In general, whiteness continues to be a privilege (Mondon & Winter, 2019). Although racism acknowledges that brown male bodies are regulated within specific spatial contexts where identities are qualified as global, it does not recognise that many British South Asian Muslim men seek a localised realisation of identities in context (Isakjee, 2016), which is denied due to patterns of ‘othering’ at the national and international levels. Concerning questions of citizenship, visible minorities are dissatisfied with the way anti-terrorism legislation and state practices appear to be targeting them, whereas majority-white communities, even though some aspects will apply to them as well, project the issues elsewhere while remaining ‘invisible’ in the broader public discourse (Jarvis & Lister, 2013). A significant opportunity is opening up for the spatial shift to deepen understandings of radicalisation, extremism, and the formation of identities. This is especially true in the area of security studies (Elshimi, 2017). When studying the factors that influence minority and majority radicalisation and extremism, there is a conflation between structural and cultural anxieties that are thought to arise from the religious and cultural characteristics of communities. Despite this, these reasons exist on an interpersonal, social, and psychological level, where young men (and women) are redefining what it means to be British (or English, in light of the Brexit decision of June 2016), rather than rejecting it (Mac an Ghaill and Haywood, 2015). Since the introduction of neoliberalism, monetarism, and privatisation, Britain has undergone a transformation that started in the 1980s. Salafism and (white indigenous) radicalism have also emerged as parallel phenomena in the peripheries of society during this period (Abbas, 2017). Since the events of 9/11, not only has an Islamophobia industry sprung up, but so has a radicalisation/deradicalisation industry, which is arguably an attempt to appease domestic and foreign policy by focusing on group differences as the source of extremism rather than religious differences (Lean & Esposito, 2012). The mainstream position is to equate violent extremism as rooted in the religion and culture of distinct communities rather than in the workings of society and politics, which take priority over all other viewpoints. It draws the focus away from issues of structural adversity and discrimination, which are relevant factors impacting all young men in deteriorating metropolitan areas, and instead places it on other issues related to religion, culture, and identity (Abbas & Siddique, 2012).

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3.4 From Exclusion into Radicalisation Societal structure and problems of anomie among young Muslims are all critical in gaining a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon. These social movements (anti-state, anti-globalisation, and pro-localisation) are represented by these social movements (Roy, 1994). A totalitarian ideology permeates their thoughts and actions, and they aim to distil a politics of identity into a utopian vision of society. On the other hand, each of these groups has a narrowly defined picture of themselves that is exclusive of the other. Projected identities are delusions, whereas status inconsistency is a fact of existence. They are the structural and cultural rebels of society, and they are in direct opposition to the rest of society (Roy, 2014). The elite media and political discourse develop opposing perceptions about groups in society that are experiencing the same kinds of social, economic, and political difficulties, hence fostering Islamophobia and radicalisation in the community at large (Abbas, 2020). It makes no mention of the myriad social issues that young males face. Anxiety is centred on the necessity for elites to preserve their positions while ‘othering’ those who do not share their views. Although the emphasis is placed on the incompatibility of Muslim religious and cultural values, the reality is more often than not characterised by negotiation between what seem to be diametrically opposed principles. Young Muslims are encouraged to speak up and critically interact with a language that emphasises their seeming unassimilability when they have a sense of Britishness, European-ness, or American-ness in their lives (El-Haj et al., 2011). Although some Muslims identify with a particular faith identity, the vast majority of British Muslims are generally pro-integration, with foreign policy being of only marginal interest in their daily lives (Gale and O’Toole, 2009). However, foreign policy is a significant motivator for some would-be extremists who join groups such as Islamic State (Schuurman & Van der Heide, 2016). The majority of white communities also have difficulties that contribute to extremism, radicalisation, and violence, but the media and political discourse focus less on these areas, significantly skewing the discussion. Deindustrialisation, postindustrialisation, and globalisation all affect Muslim minority groups in Western Europe’s inner cities, but they also affect majority groups that might find refuge in far right political ideas. There has been little discussion of the general links between extreme far right and radical Muslim organisations. Further development of this line of thought would allow for the exploration of synergies between what are arguably two parallel and related consequences of radicalisation and violent extremism (Abbas, 2017).

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3.5 Co-radicalisation At both the local and global levels, a division between white indigenous and Muslim minority populations occurs in connection to disparities in identity development. It shows a separate dimension of conflict, trapping both groups in a battle for the bare necessities of life. Thus, a critical aspect of far right and Islamist extremist radicalisation is the desire for an alternative, ‘pure’ identity (Pisoiu, 2015). It influenced the UK’s Brexit vote, which was fuelled in part by negative discourses about immigration, refugees, and national political identity. However, recognising radicalisation requires an appreciation of both context and perspective. In certain senses, radicalism alludes to trajectories. In others, it is concerned with results. Additionally, radicalisation is not necessarily synonymous with terrorism (Borum, 2011). This lack of clarity about what constitutes radicalisation affects perceptions of violent extremism, particularly if there is doubt about negative social outcomes that pose serious security dangers. No two nations have the same definition of ‘radicalisation’ or ‘extremism’. For some, the primary issue is violence. Others are preoccupied with an ideology that may or may not result in violence. Nonetheless, all definitions recognise the concept as a highly individualised and generally unpredictable process. In this debate, the term ‘radicalisation’ refers to both the methods and effects of violent extremism (Neumann, 2003). Terrorists’ homicidal, violent aim stems from hatred directed towards certain ethnic, religious, or racial minority or majority groups. Otherwise, any ‘mentally ill’, ‘unemployed loner’, or ‘drifter’ with a history of domestic violence or abuse against others may seem to commit an act of terrorism (Schuurman et al., 2019). As a result, newspapers and other media sources that do not emphasise the random nature of these acts of violence and extremism face difficulties. By obscuring the real motives for political or ideological assaults, it implies a much larger population capable of such atrocities. Islamism is said to be growing among radicalised Muslims who use it to legitimise violence. It is devoid of subtlety. Not only is there a lack of acknowledgement of the broad issue of far right extremism and terrorism in the instance of far right extremists, but overemphasising the ‘lone wolf’ approach diverts attention away from the larger negative structural and cultural factors at work. Meanwhile, Islamophobia has become so entrenched in society that even mentioning it implies that people questioning the status quo, most notably Muslims, are being dishonest, at best, or outright treacherous, at worst (Bakali, 2016). Islamist fanatics’ reactions to assaults are solely ideological, while English or other white ethnic communities have social and psychological difficulties. This demonstrates a widespread agreement within society that their violence against Muslims is justified—i.e., because of whatever Muslims proclaim or adhere to, such as their religion, they have some collective responsibility for the conduct of a small number of Muslims. Orientalism, scientific racism, and now racial categorisation on ethnic, cultural, and religious grounds all point to institutionalised Islamophobia: ubiquitous, dangerous, and all-powerful (Gilks, 2020).

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4 Discussion and Concluding Remarks British Muslim groups have seen their identities shaped by post-industrial spatiality, which is a result of the asymmetrical power relations inherent in post-war, postcolonial, and post-industrial societies, particularly since the advent of neoliberal economics, which has marked a retreat from welfare states since the early 1970s. Ethnic minorities in the United Kingdom define their identities in terms of their migratory histories, socio-economic integration, and social policies, among other factors. Patterns of Islamisation among current generation British-born Muslims, on the other hand, are now at odds with standard migration-integration theory, which predicts that progressive adaption over time is the most likely scenario. As a result of the arguments presented in this chapter, it is possible to evaluate individual, collective, and post-industrial urban spatial formations, which aid in the understanding of group dynamics, modes of social conflict, and the development of politico-cultural identities that define the process of Islamised radicalisation in an environment of virulent Islamophobia. The difficulties of Islamophobia and radicalisation, as well as marginalisation and racialisation, are not ones that Muslims can tackle solely on their own. Muslim organisations need to collaborate as well as with other religious minorities that are subjected to similar systems of discrimination, intimidation, and violence. The total outcome is a reduction in the efficacy of counter-competing narratives, which results in a waste of resources and political possibilities. With a majority of Muslims in Europe being third-generation minorities, issues of educational underachievement, limited skills and training, underemployment, unemployment, and discrimination continue to have a significant impact on their social mobility and integration opportunities, including within and through the education system. These circumstances further marginalise young Muslims, resulting in alienation, dissatisfaction, disenfranchisement, and, eventually, stress and anxiety. For others, this results in violence as a reaction to perceived and real societal conflict, which emerges as a result of symbolic and physical violence perpetrated by the state’s biopolitics (Foucault & Ewald, 2003). Right-wing political parties and radical Islamist organisations gain an advantage via social strife in metropolitan areas when there is no national consensus. Using political-ideological viewpoints defined by the urban phenomenon as a starting point, they are both capable of instrumentalising disdain, disadvantage, and alienation. Islamophobia now refers to the normalisation of anti-Muslim bigotry, which has increased dramatically since the inception of the war on terror mentality after the 9/11 attacks. Throughout this time, intolerance, bigotry, and the rise of alt-right, far right, radical left, and other religious extremist groups have sought refuge in the void left by dominant discourses, allowing societies to stabilise and provide opportunities and outcomes for the many rather than the few. Cumulative extremism on the periphery of society fosters the discourses of intolerance and hatred that foster the growth of these subgroups and their ideals. Islamophobia and radicalism are inextricably linked. State engagement with Muslims is limited to issues that seem

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to emanate from a Muslim universe, relegating anti-Muslim animosity to the arena of counter-terrorism and absolving the state of responsibility for Muslims in general. This chapter has shown the critical importance of structural concerns in understanding the nature of radicalisation among people who participate in extremism and, ultimately, terrorism. While all attempts to limit the possibility of radicalisation leading to terrorism are critical, more needs to be done to develop bridges, enhance ethnic relations, and promote a positive narrative about difference and diversity in the UK environment. Government policy runs the danger of representing a certain perspective that views values, identity, and even religious beliefs as predecessors to extremism, radicalisation, and terrorism in the United Kingdom. This is reductive, unsophisticated, and extremely problematic in light of the gravity of anti-Muslim prejudice, pervasive inequity and bigotry, and a worldwide animosity against a continually demonised religious tradition. Everywhere on earth, people become radicalised in response to injustices, whether perceived individually or collectively, which are realised locally, nationally, or globally. Since the events of 9/11, certain Muslim individuals and groups working in this sector have condemned the institutions and the individuals involved. However, there is much ambiguity because these divides are not evenly divided between the concept of a world divided by light and darkness or the belief that evil and good forces are always at odds. External influences have undermined Islam as a religious tradition, with many countries attempting to maximise their riches via colonialism, imperialism, and, more recently, globalisation. However, the primary flaw in this approach is that it rejects Muslim agency, which is to say that Muslims are not passive spectators who allow anything to be done to them without retaliation. It is critical to believe, even if reality suggests otherwise, that Muslims have a role to play in society, especially in an era when confidence and trust in politicians are at an all-time low. While a proportion of upwardly mobile, professional, technologically savvy, internationally travelled, and well-read British Muslims embody the Generation M paradigm—a mobilisation of Muslims actively engaged in the halal economy—many Muslim groups, having lost trust, remain suspicious of what they perceive to be state betrayal (Janmohamed, 2016). Collective ownership of the problem and its solutions may result in the cessation of radicalisation and terrorism in the context of improved relations, interactions, and engagements between and within communities, as well as an open, informed, and meaningful engagement with the state as a critical friend. Additionally, the state must abandon the outdated view that ideology is both the source and solution of extremism and terrorism, since this exacerbates rather than resolves current issues. Indeed, policy formulation is a complex process. The inner cities are where the majority of British Muslims are physically located. Inevitably, the state and the political elite will continue to show a lack of concern—at least until something ghastly occurs, such as a riot. It is exactly in this context that the multiculturalism model in the United Kingdom fails the most. In a country where diversity is valued and cultural sensitivities to minority interests are encouraged, the notion of a universal national identity has not been sufficiently defined to allow the diverse ethno-cultural characteristics of Britain’s ethnic minorities and majorities to coalesce around it. Within urban areas

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where British Muslim minorities are concentrated, distinct impoverished minorities and majority groups compete directly with one another for what are frequently the scraps of society. Policymakers are more preoccupied with conceptions of cultural identity politics, which have supplanted discussions about the need to eliminate long-standing socio-economic inequities. As I write this early in 2022, the study of Islam and Muslims remains of interest in the United Kingdom, but there needs to be a true movement away from the more urgent worries about terrorism and extremism that have been prevalent in recent years. Many arguments are being made that draw on a broad range of social science and humanities subjects, as well as those that have a particular policy application. More research in these academic fields is required. In this very vital field of study and scholarship, there is now a true chance to take the initiative and to give the intellectual impetus that will influence social transformation and public policy changes in the future. Tahir Abbas is a Professor of Radicalization Studies at the Institute of Strategic and Global Affairs at Leiden University in The Hague. His research interests include ethnicity, social conflict, Islamophobia, and radicalisation. Previously, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, Professor of Sociology at Fatih University in Istanbul, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Birmingham, and a Senior Research Officer at the Home Office in London. His recent books are Countering Violent Extremism (Bloomsbury, 2021), Islamophobia and Radicalisation (Hurst/Oxford University Press, 2019), and Contemporary Turkey in Conflict (Edinburgh University Press, 2017). His new book is Islamophobia and Securitisation: The Dutch Case (with L Welton, SpringerNature, 2022, forthcoming). His recent edited books are Political Muslims (coed., with S Hamid, Syracuse University Press, 2019), and Muslim Diasporas in the West: Critical Readings in Sociology (4 vols., Routledge Major Works Series, 2016). He has published a total of 5 sole-authored monographs, 10 (co)edited books and special issues, 41 scientific articles, 15 encyclopaedia entries, 27 peer-reviewed chapters, and 25 book reviews. He has been a visiting scholar at the London School of Economics (2017–2019), New York University (2015–2016), Leiden University (2013), Hebrew University in Jerusalem (2012), International Islamic University in Islamabad (2012), Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (2007–2008), and the University of Warwick (2001–2003). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.

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Belonging, Identification and Trust Among Self-Identified Muslims in Sweden: What We Know and What We don’t Know Göran Larsson and Erika Willander

Although the study of Islam and Muslims in Sweden has grown rapidly over the years (for the latest bibliographical overview, see Larsson, 2006; one of the most recent publications in this field is, Sorgenfrei, 2018), most studies are still focused on the institutionalization of Islam and Muslims in Sweden, or the public debate about Islam and Muslims. With some important exceptions that we will draw on and discuss in this chapter, most studies are not based on large quantitative samples, like surveys or official records. Quite surprisingly, few studies have put focus on how immigrants with Muslim cultural backgrounds “adapt to the new environment” (Stockemer & Moreau, 2021, p. 224). Even when there is a growing demand from society to know how societal integration actually works, the majority of studies on Islam and Muslims are still based on a small sample of qualitative interviews (i.e., Karlsson, 2007; Larsson & Sander, 2007; Olsson, 2019; Sorgenfrei, 2018) or textual studies (including analysis of social medias and various online publications, cf., for instance, Larsson, 2004 and Sorgenfrei, 2018 for an overview to previous studies). Exceptions to this rule (i.e., Hällsten et al., 2018) focus on Muslim migrants from a limited number of countries. One reason why Muslims migrant experiences are not described in previous literature is that the large-N surveys collected in Sweden are not large enough. With a target number of 1000 participants, 10 participants represent one percent. From 2007 to 2016, about one to two percent of the Swedish population is described by survey studies as Muslims (Willander, 2019), yielding groups represented by 10–20 survey participants. As a result, scholars studying Muslims in Europe have been forced to

G. Larsson (B) Religious Studies, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] E. Willander Department of Sociology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. Stockemer (ed.), Muslims in the Western World, Immigrants and Minorities, Politics and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99487-7_9

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develop innovative sample strategies (see Brekke et al., 2019; Johansen & Spielhaus, 2012; Thurfjell & Willander, 2021). The present chapter follows this development. By breaking down the concepts of “identity and belonging” to a question about trust and sense of feeling valued in Sweden, we want to explore if Swedes who selfidentify as Muslims show lower levels of trust and feel less valued than the average population of Sweden. Our operationalization starts from the numerous studies that have shown that Sweden and the Nordic countries feature high levels of trust in social institutions as well as inter-personal trust (i.e., Holmberg & Rothstein, 2020). Delhey and Newton (2005) for instance explain these exceptionally high levels of trust in a country like Sweden by its long history of Protestant domination as well as its long period of ethnic and cultural homogeneity, good government, wealth (GDP per capita) and income equality. If these explanations are accurate, the arrival of migrants from countries with a non-protestant majority culture and a growing ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious diversity could potentially be a challenge, or even a threat against the high level of trust that has characterized the modern Swedish welfare state. Moreover, recent governmental reports (DELMOS, 2021) suggest that the socioeconomic inequality is becoming a serious problem in Sweden with consequences, such as, increased segregation and polarization. According to bibliographical overviews on economic inequality in this country (Ahmed, 2015; Waldenström, 2020) there is an economic disadvantage for many migrating to Sweden from Muslim majority societies. The recent developments thus suggest that the conditions such as protestant domination and economic equality—pivotal explanations for the high levels of trust—may be changing. In this chapter, we want to contribute to the general research on trust and minority groups (cf. Wilkes & Wu, 2018) by exploring what we know about those who selfidentify as Muslims in Sweden when it comes to questions of belonging, identification and trust.1 According to Wilkes and Wu’s literature overview (2018), no previous study of levels of trust has put focus on individuals who self-identify as Muslims in Sweden. From this point of view, our study is innovative as well as explorative, and it is our ambition to address both problems and suggest future topics for research. This chapter is structured in the following way. Before we explore the potential nexus between trust levels and Muslim belonging and identification, we first present an overview to the history of Muslim migration to Sweden and discuss how migration might be related to the study of trust levels. After that, we turn our attention to the main part of this chapter, that is, what we know about Muslims’ sense of belonging, identification and level of trust. Finally, we provide an analysis and discussion of our findings. The chapter ends with some general conclusions and directions for future research on Islam and Muslims in Sweden.

1

We have deliberatively chosen to use “identification” rather than identity since this is a concept that is given too many associations within sociologically oriented research. We use identification as a term that describes how individuals chose self-identification and how they want to be presented.

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1 Muslims in Sweden or Swedish Muslims?2 Leaving aside both archeological and textual sources that demonstrate that people from the Nordic regions actually have had contacts with the larger Muslim world since at least the tenth century, the majority of migrants with a Muslim cultural background started to arrive to Sweden after the end of the Second World War.3 Like the rest of Europe, Sweden had a demand for guest-workers who were willing to work in the industry. From the late 1960s, the Swedish state in cooperation with the industry took initiative to recruit workers from countries, such as, Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia and Turkey (Svanberg & Tydén, 2005). Even though our knowledge about this period and those who arrive are limited, most research indicates that it was often single young men who arrived to Sweden at this point of time (Svanberg & Tydén, 2005). If and to what extent they kept their religious traditions in the new country is hard to know since we do not have much documents or interview data from those who arrived from the late 1960s and early 1970s (some data is found in Sorgenfrei, 2018). However, in the first half of the 1970s, the world was shocked by the oil crisis and from this point in time, the workers’ unions in many European countries tried to stop or hinder the import of so-called guest workers. In Sweden, this meant that the possibility to arrive as guest worker became limited from 1973 and onwards. However, this was also the beginning of the so-called family unification period. From the mid-1970s, family members of the guest workers started to arrive to Sweden. This meant a new phase in the history of Islam in Sweden. With this change, women and children started to arrive and the need to care for practical matters, such as, for instance, food supply, but also schooling and religious education, emerged as important questions. In 1973, a new umbrella organization was started and this was also the first period when Muslims started to organize themselves in mosques and prayer houses (musallas) (Sorgenfrei, 2018). With the Iranian revolution in 1979 and the following war between Iran and Iraq, new migration patterns emerged and the Turkish migrants that had dominated from the end of the 1960s till mid-1970s were now complimented with Muslims from other countries and regions. Besides Iranians (especially those who opposed the Islamic Republic of Iran), Iraqis as well as Lebanese and Palestinians started to arrive to Sweden. A number of Shia Muslims also arrived from Uganda after the dictator Idi Amin rose to power in the beginning of the 1970s (Svanberg & Tydén, 2005; Westin, 1990). In the 1980s, the organizational diversity of the Muslims in Sweden continued and a number of new Islamic organizations emerged. Even though Islam was a relatively unknown phenomena in Sweden at the time (Cato, 2012), the Swedish government 2

If nothing else is indicated all information in this section is based on earlier studies like Larsson and Sander (2007); Larsson (2009) or Sorgenfrei (2018). Updated information on Sweden is also published by Larsson and Sorgenfrei in the Yearbook of Muslims in Europe published by Brill. 3 See, for instance, the texts written by the Abbasid official Ibn Fadlan from the Volga region, on this text see (Wikander, 1978; cf. also Birkeland, 1954).

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started to recognize and support some of the new organizations via the governmental body, SST (The Swedish Agency for Support for Faith Communities).4 This governmental support started to include Muslim organizations in the early 1970s. Through the 1980s and 1990s, the ethnic and cultural diversity continued, and individuals with Muslim cultural backgrounds fled from the wars in Yugoslavia and the African Horn. This migration pattern continued after other conflicts and wars took place in the larger Muslim world in the twenty-first century. Examples are, for instance, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the Gulf war in 1990/1991, the subsequent American invasion of Iraq in 2003, as well as the wars in Afghanistan that followed the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. The Arab Spring uprisings that started around 2011 and the civil wars in Iraq and Syria, as well as the rise of the Islamic State also produced massive migration flows to Europe and Sweden. In 2015, more than 150,000 refugees and asylum seekers arrived to Sweden. This was a turning point in the Swedish policy on migration (Sorgenfrei, 2018). The Muslim landscape (or rather landscapes) in Sweden is very heterogeneous and it is not possible to say that one theological tradition dominates. Similarly, it is not possible to say how many Muslims actually live in Sweden, because official records on individual’s religious affiliation are prohibited in the country, for the reason that religious affiliation is labeled as sensitive data. Still, Åke Sander (1997) made several attempts to measure the Muslim population primarily based on his estimations on ethnic background as well as religious practices. The following figure is based on data published in Larsson and Sander (2007) (Fig. 1). Leaving aside the attempts made by Sander, there are several reasons why it is too complex to count the number of Muslims living in Sweden. Current estimations range from approximately five percent (Wadensjö & Tibajev, in print) to eight percent of the Swedish population. The latter estimation is made by PEW institute (2017) and translates to roughly 800,000 of the total population in Sweden. Pew Research Centre (2017) also predicts that approximately 31 percent of the Swedish population will be Muslim in Sweden in 2050. This prognostic estimation is based on selfdefined Muslims in Sweden, controlling for birth rates as well as a continuation of migration from countries and regions dominated by Muslims. If the predictions made by PEW are correct, Sweden will be the country with the highest Muslim population per capita among the 30 countries that were included in PEWs survey in 30 years. Besides the necessity of assessing the methodology behind the report and to scrutinize the predication critically, we should stress that many individuals who have a Muslim cultural background are not necessarily practicing Muslims, who pray or go to the mosque on a regular basis (Thurfjell & Willander, 2021). It is therefore unclear what it actually means to be Muslim in these studies. A Muslim cultural background is not a fixed identity and the interpretation of Islam will most likely vary in future.

4

On this Governmental Agency, see https://www.myndighetensst.se/engelska/myndigheten-forstod-till-trossamfund.html (accessed 2021–09-03).

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Fig. 1 Estimates. Number of Muslims in Sweden. 1970–1995 (Note The figure is based on numbers presented by Larsson and Sander [Larsson & Sander, 2007, p. 73])

2 Migration, Policies and Trust Given that immigrants with a Muslim cultural background/s are a very heterogeneous group, it is not self-evident that they would stick out in their attitudes toward trust, feelings of belonging or feeling of being valued by the Swedish society. With this warning in mind, we still believe that it is relevant to study Muslims as a distinct group since Muslims are often imagined and portrayed by Swedish immigration policy, governance of religion and their positions on the labor market as a homogeneous group. Sweden has a reputation of being exceptional in matters relating to migration policies (Schierup & Ålund, 2011). One reason for this reputation is that Sweden— together with Canada and Australia—were the first societies to formally adapt the idea of multiculturalism during the 1970s. According to Wickström (2015) this implied the public endorsement of ethno-cultural diversity as something that strengthens the common good together with the recognition of minorities rights and protection against discrimination. Following Lamont et al. (2016), these conditions predict social-cohesion and high levels of trust. Interestingly, given the extensive multicultural ambition, religion was not a central topic for quite some time in Swedish policy development. Instead, as pointed out by Borevi (2013), the multicultural policy of Sweden was perceived to be a change that would have small and/or socially insignificant consequences. One reason for this was that when migration to Sweden was dominated by labor migration, policy

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makers assumed that this implied that the workers would return to their country of origin when finishing their employment in Sweden (Puranen, 2019). Another reason was that Finnish migrant workers dominated the labor migration and, as formulated by Wickström (2015) policy makers assumed that they were from the same Lutheran corner of the world as Swedes. In this situation, Wickström argues, activist from religious minority groups joined non-religious groups in their pursuit of voicing pan-ethnic rights. However, another, more seldomly considered reason is that religion in Sweden has historically been closely entwined with the establishment and maintenance of the Swedish nation. Since the end of the sixteenth century, the Church of Sweden was a guarantee for unity and stability in Sweden, but with processes like the industrialisation and the arrival of non-Christian groups in Sweden from the 1960s and onwards, the situation has changed. In the year 2000, the Church of Sweden ended to be a so-called State Church. As argued by Thurfjell (2015), religion is often associated with something that the others (often migrants) have as compared to the so-called ethnic Swedes that have liberated themselves from religion. At the same time, this division between us-and-them is here closely related to how the majority of Swedes understand and define religion, according to Thurfjell (2015). From the 1990s and onwards, the policies governing migration has changed and the ideal of multiculturalism has been challenged by ideals of integration. After the wave of migration in 2015, Swedish policy makers have stressed conditions of economic self-sufficiency with both permanent residence permits and family reunions (Dahlstedt & Neergard, 2019). With this, demands on being employed to be allowed to stay in Sweden have increased. In parallel with the changes in migration policy from the 1990s and onwards, the religious landscape has changed. From a situation where 90 percent of the population were adherers of the Lutheran Church of Sweden to a situation where about five to eight percent of the population have a Muslim family background and only about fifty percent of the population remain members of the Church of Sweden (Willander, 2019). During the same time the economic disadvantage of having a family background in a country of the MENA region or a country south of Sahara has become substantially more salient (Ahmed, 2015). We also have increasing reports of discrimination against Muslims and presumed Muslims (Bursell, 2018). Following these changes, we stipulate that Swedes who affiliate with Islam may share experiences of being ascribed the identity of the religious “other”. Because of the economic disadvantage of immigrants from countries where Islam is the major religion, there may also be a shared feeling of not fully being part of or valued by the Swedish society in the group of self-defined Muslims in Sweden.

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3 Data from the Research Site of Sweden The analysis presented in this chapter is based on the annually collected Society, Media and Opinion (SOM) survey. This survey aims to be representative of the adult Swedish population, 15–85 years. Another advantage is that the survey results are available on request one year after data collection via the Swedish national data service at Gothenburg University (SND, 2021). For this study, we utilize data from the surveys collected in 2015 (n = 1739, response rate of 54 percent) and 2016 (n = 1650, response rate of 52 percent). For our analysis, the cross-sectional SOMsurveys of 2015 and 2016 are added together to create a larger data file (n = 3389, average response rate of 53 percent) representing both years. The data-collections at issue are chosen as the SOM survey during 2015 and 2016 asked questions on interpersonal trust as well as questions about identification with Sweden and feeling of being valued in Sweden. Adding the two years of data collection together allows for the minority groups of interest here to be represented by a modest, yet larger number of participants. For the years 2015 and 2016, the self-defined Muslims sum up to n = 38 (see also, Willander, 2019). Besides keeping in mind that the size of the sample is small, we also need to consider that those who answer the SOM survey are most likely the most integrated self-defined Muslims.

3.1 Self-defined Muslims and Religious Groups of Comparison In order to place those who self-identify as Muslims in a larger context, we base our analysis on a comparison of six religious groups: (1) individuals who self-define as Muslims, (2) individuals who state that they do not have any religious affiliation (i.e., religious nones), (3) passive members of the Church of Sweden, (4) active members of the Church of Sweden, (5) members of minority churches in Sweden (e.g., the Roman Catholic church, the Pentecostal movement or the Mission covenant church) and (6) individuals who self-define with other religions (e.g., Buddhism, Hinduism or Judaism). The self-defined Muslims comprise of one percent of the sample. In 2015–2016, one percent corresponds to approximately 80,000 individuals (for this estimate the Swedish population aged 15–85 is set to approximately eight million individuals). This figure is low compared with the formal number of practicing Muslims (i.e., 190,000 individuals) (Willander & Stockman, 2020, p. 46) and compared with estimates describing the share of the population with Muslim family background, about half a million (Wadensjö & Tibajev, in print) to eight percent (Pew Research Centre, 2017). The group observed here—self-defined Muslims—comprise of individuals who subjectively accept the religious identity “Muslim”. In principle, therefore, the group can consist of both practicing and non-practicing Muslims as well as Muslims with immigrant background and Muslims born in Sweden. Despite not knowing these

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characteristics, the group of self-defined Muslims is for our purposes here favorable compared to an analysis conducted on data for a single year of data collection. Put differently, we are aware that notwithstanding the result of merging datacollections of two years, the group of self-defined Muslims is small (n = 38). This is challenging as many statistical techniques comparing groups assume the groups to be of approximately the same size. In part for this reason, we split the Church of Sweden members (in total of 64 percent of the adult Swedish population) into passive members of the Church of Sweden (43 percent) and active members (21 percent of the population). In part, we do this split because the practice of holding membership in the Church of Sweden, but rarely (if ever) attending this church services or rituals, is common in Sweden and closely connected with Swedishness and cultural belonging to the Swedish society (Thurfjell, 2015; Thurfjell & Willander, 2021; Willander, 2020). The second largest religious group in Sweden is the religious nones (28 percent of the population or roughly 2.2 million adults). In the Swedish context, this is a new and, since the 1990s, rapidly growing group (Willander, 2019). Given that it is common to describe Sweden as highly secularized (Thurfjell, 2015; Willander, 2020), this group fits the ideal of the national self-image. In addition to the self-defined Muslims, two religiously defined minorities are put forward by our analysis. The larger minority consists of members of minority churches in Sweden (six percent of the sample, corresponding to approximately 500,000 adult Swedes). Because of the previous state-church system, it is common in this group to hold membership in the Church of Sweden (for a discussion of “dual church membership” in Sweden see Willander, 2019). For the analysis here, we have chosen to refer all members of minority churches to their minority affiliation. This decision is based on studies showing that members of minority churches generally practice religion in this church and only hold nominal membership in the Church of Sweden. Finally, about one percent of the sample is referred to as affiliated with other religions. Here, the notion “other religion” stands for a religion that is not Christian or Muslim.

3.2 Dependent Variables—Interpersonal Trust, Identification and Feeling Valued We use three survey results from the years 2015–2016 to shed light on identity and belonging among self-defined Muslims in Sweden. The first dependent variable is interpersonal trust. Here the survey question reads: “In your opinion, to what extent can people generally be trusted?” The scale of responses runs from 0 “It is not possible to trust people in general” to 10 “In general it is possible to trust people”. This way of formulating the survey question about general trust is inspired by Rosenberg (1956) scale to measure misanthropy in political ideology and it has repeatedly been used in the studies establishing Sweden as a country with exceptionally high levels of trust

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(e.g., Holmberg & Rothstein, 2020). We have therefore chosen to use results obtained by this survey question to add information on how self-define Muslims respond to the statement about trust. Second, we use the following survey items to probe identification and belonging: “To what extent do you agree with the following statement”—“I feel that I am a part of the Swedish society” and “I feel that I am valued by the Swedish society”. Survey respondents could respond to this question on a scale ranging from 1 (Do not agree) to 4 (Fully agree). These survey questions are inspired by McPherson et al.’s (2001) sociological theory on social cohesion and Tajfel and Turner’s (1979) social psychological theory of othering and interpersonal group relations and aim to probe the feeling of identifying and belonging to the “in-group” of Swedish society. Strömbäck (2017), who introduced these survey-items in the SOM-questionnaire, shows that a feeling of making a contribution to society and a feeling valued by it, is linked to income, position on the labor market and age (the youngest age group and the oldest are overrepresented in the group stating that they do not feel valued by society).

3.3 Analytical strategy For the analyses at issue, we combined the two cross-sectional survey datasets. Notwithstanding this effort, the number of self-defined Muslims in this chapter is rather small (n = 38). With the goal of not dividing this small group any further (in order to avoid anyone participating in the survey to be identified) we compare means between the six defined religious groups using one-way ANOVA technique with post-hoc tests. As expected, given the unequal group-sizes, the ANOVA-models presented here violate the homogeneity of variance assumption. A Brown-Forsythe test (Brown & Forsythe, 1974) for testing equality of means nevertheless demonstrate that mean values of the models significantly differ from each other (i.e., interpersonal trust F (5, 302.456) = 10.4, p = < 0.001; belonging F (5, 228.548) = 8.4, p = < 0.001 and valued F (5, 308.881) = 4.6, p = < 0.001).

4 Self-Defined Muslims in Sweden and Interpersonal Trust We now turn to our data on interpersonal trust. We have already demonstrated that despite differences in how large the religious groups are, the levels of trust expressed between the religious groups differ statistically. Self-defined Muslims express the lowest level of trust (M = 4.9, SD = 2.3) of the religiously defined groups that are included in our sample. The mean of this group most closely resembles the level of trust expressed by individuals that subjectively define themselves with non-Muslim and non-Christian religions in Sweden (i.e., self-defined other religion, M = 5.8, SD = 2.8).

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Post-hoc tests (Tukey) showed that this closeness between the self-defined Muslims and the members of the “other” religion group is not large enough to be statistically significant. The same post-hoc test, nevertheless, showed that the trust expressed by self-defined Muslims differs from all other groups. In line with our expectations, the result shows that self-defined Muslims express significantly lower interpersonal trust than most religious groups and their trust is below the national average.

5 Self-defined Muslims in Sweden, Identification and Belonging We now continue our report of statistical results by looking at identification with Swedish society. Figure 2 shows that all groups tend to agree with the statement of feeling as a part of the Swedish society. Self-defined Muslims, nonetheless, agree to a somewhat lesser extent. Again, the group answers in a way that most closely resembles the self-defined Muslims are the group called “other religions” and the post-hoc tests show that there is no statistical significant difference between these

Fig. 2 Interpersonal trust and religious affiliation in Sweden. Mean values. 2015–2016 (Note The survey-question reads: “In your opinion, to what extent can people generally be trusted?” The scale of responses runs from 0 “It is not possible to trust people in general” to 10 “In general it is possible to trust people” Source Gothenburg University: The SOM-survey, years 2015–2015. n = 3389)

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Fig. 3 Identification with Sweden and religious affiliation in Sweden. Mean values. 2015–2016 (Note Here the survey formulation reads: “To what extent do you agree with the following statement”—“I feel that I am a part of the Swedish society” It was possible to respond on a scale ranging from 1 [Do not agree] to 4 [Fully agree] Source Gothenburg University: The SOM-survey, years 2015–2015. n = 3389)

two groups. However, self-defined Muslims answer in a way that distinguishes them from all other groups (Fig. 3). Our third and final figure (number 3) shows a pattern where all groups express that they, on average, feel valued by the Swedish society. However, self-defined Muslims agree to a somewhat lesser extent. In contrast to the results obtained for interpersonal trust and feeling of belonging, the results of being valued do not differ to such extent that it significantly differs from other groups. In the third and final comparison it is only the largest groups (the active and passive members of the Church of Sweden and the religious nones) that significantly differ from each other (Fig. 4). Self-defined Muslims in Sweden hence answer questions about belonging and being valued by the Swedish society in ways that show an overall positive outlook, yet show that this group rate belonging lower than the average Swede. Adding this result to the one on interpersonal trust, we see a tendency among the self-defined Muslims to express less trust, lower sense of belonging and being valued.

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Fig. 4 Valued by the Swedish society and religious affiliation in Sweden. Mean values. 2015–2016 (Note The survey question reads: “To what extent do you agree with the following statement”— “I feel that I am valued by the Swedish society”. It was possible to respond on a scale ranging from 1 [Do not agree] to 4 [Fully agree] Source Gothenburg University: The SOM-survey, years 2015–2015. n = 3389)

6 Concluding Discussion Swedes are well-known for their high level of trust in social institutions as well as trust in other citizens. Although this finding has been supported by many studies over time (see Holmberg & Rothstein, 2020), there is a need for a qualification of this statement. There are differences in levels of trust between different sub-populations in the society. For instance, those with a higher education are more likely to show a higher level of trust as compared with those who hold a lower education than the majority of the population (cf. Holmberg & Rothstein, 2019, 2020, p. 7). With this said, it is important to stress that individuals who have migrated from outside of Europe often mark high levels of trust and even gain stronger trust over time (Holmberg & Rothstein, 2020, p. 7). At the same time, Holmberg and Rothstein conclude “the average neighbourhood trust is lower than the general interpersonal trust” in areas that are dominated by many migrants and individuals of a foreign background (see, Esaiasson, 2019; Holmberg & Rothstein, 2019, pp. 87–89; Wilkes & Wu, 2018). These conclusions are, however, rather weak since the response rate from this specific population is in general low. However, parallel to secularization processes and the extensive changes in the demographic composition, religion has developed into a question that attracts a lot of attention in the current public debate. Resembling most countries in Europe, Islam and Muslims are often associated with terrorism and violence in public and social

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medias (Axner, 2015), and Islam is, for instance, the least appreciated religion in Sweden (Weibull, 2012, 2019). Even though the number of reported Islamophobic hate crimes have not risen sharply over the years, there are several studies that suggest that anti-Muslim tendencies are on the rise (Islamofobiska hatbrott 2021, BRÅ; cf., Larsson & Stjernholm, 2016). Since the early 1990s, political parties in Sweden have also portrayed themselves as strong critics of Islam and Muslims (Demker, 2014). Immigration laws and questions concerning integration, belonging and identity are therefore some of the most heated topics in Sweden today. If we return to Delhey and Newton (2005), who argue that the explanation for the exceptional high level of trust in a country like Sweden lies in its long history of Protestant domination as well as its long period of ethnic and cultural homogeneity, good government, wealth (GDP per capita) and income equality, the impact of religion and a growing religious and cultural diversity merits more future research. As argued by Thurfjell and Willander (2021, p. 314), the specific Post-Lutheran interpretation of religion that has dominated in Sweden might explain why Swedes respond the way that they do when they are asked about religion. While belonging and matters of ethics and morality are stressed, the rituals and church-attendance are less emphasized, according to Thurfjell and Willander (2021). This way of being religious can even be seen as “a particular nonreligious type of religion” (Thurfjell & Willander, 2021, p. 314). One way to describe the discourse about religion among the state-church Lutheran majority is therefore to speak of an “othering” of religion. Religion, in this mainstream Swedish discourse, is: (1) something that others have; (2) something that often is extreme and potentially destructive; (3) something that in one’s own group existed in the past; and (4) something that is characterized by intense engagement, affinity, belief and practice. All these characteristics form a contrast to the self-perceived secularity of the mainstream. (Thurfjell & Willander, 2021, p. 314)

Even though it is mostly true that Sweden has been distinguished by its ethnic and cultural homogeneity, several studies have shown that Sweden too is a country that has been built on a self-perception of homogeneity. Diversity and minority positions have been silenced and dismissed over the years (i.e., for instance, Svanberg & Tydén, 2005) and those who express their religious beliefs in other ways than the majority have often been portrayed as different or even potentially dangerous. Even though it is hard to separate the factors, listed by Delhey and Newton, that have led to a high trust, the establishment of the Swedish welfare model seems to be a very important candidate for explaining the high level of trust that has dominated in Sweden. From that point of view, it is difficult to see that growing economical inequalities and segregation will not have an impact on the Swedish society. For instance, since the early 1990s, the economical gap has grown in the city of Gothenburg (e.g., Skillnader i livsvillkor och hälsa i Göteborg; Abrahamsson, 2014). While most individuals of a foreign background (or who self-identify as Muslims) live in the suburbs of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö, are more likely to live in areas that have more problems with declining school results (education), higher levels of unemployment (access to the job market) and more social-psychological problems (higher rates of criminality, depressions and health problems), it is difficult to see

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that this will not have an impact on inter-personal trust and feelings of affinity with someone perceived to be culturally or religiously different (for more details and more data on segregation in Gothenburg, see Skillnader i livsvillkor och hälsa i Göteborg; Abrahamsson, 2014; Larsson, 2016; on segregation and trust, see Rönnerstrand & Solevid, 2021).

7 Future Research Although it is very difficult to answer why individuals who self-identify as Muslims score lower on trust as compared to, for instance, members of the Church of Sweden (see Fig. 2), a hypothesis is that individuals who are more likely to experience that they are socio-economic deprived simple do not trust the majority society and have lower trust in fellow humans in the society in general. Another potential explanation could be that the level of inter-personal trust and feelings of affinity with someone perceived to be culturally or religiously different in many countries in the Middle East and Africa is in general low (i.e., Spierings, 2019, pp. 896, 899–900; cf., for instance, Persson & Sjöstedt, 2018). Corruption, civil wars and failed states do not promote trust in the state or in individuals who are outsiders of the core group (i.e., the family, the clan or the religious community). Contrary to the hypothesis that the better educated you are the more trusting you become, which seems to be true for Sweden (Holmberg & Rothstein, 2020), is therefore not supported in, for instance, the Arab Middle East (Spierings, 2019, p. 901). To hold a high education is not automatically a guarantee that you will become successful in a state that is based on corruption and nepotism, on the contrary. This will most likely produce a negative correlation between a higher education and trust, according to Spierings findings from the Arab MENA region (2019, p. 896). In conclusion, Spierings writes: For the MENA, I found no support for this mechanism [i.e. that socio-economic privileged are more trusting]. Employment, higher income, higher education; none of them showed a systematic positive correlation to generalized trust. (Spierings, 2019, p. 902)

However, when migrating to a country governed by a different political system, that ideally should provide equal opportunities for all individuals, this could be a plausible explanation why immigrants levels of trust seem to go up. To arrive from a state that has been dominated by corruption and bad governance (“authoritarianism”) to a state that functions like a modern democratic welfare state can therefore be a very positive experience (Puranen, 2019; Wilkes & Wu, 2018, p. 237). But if the promises of the welfare state—i.e., an opportunity to get a job, education and equality—are not fulfilled this might create a cognitive dissonance or a grave disappointment. If this “feeling” or “reality” is combined with a harsh public discussion about immigration, the multicultural society and Islam and Muslims, this might have a negative impact on both the individual self-perception and the trust in others who do not belong to one’s own in-group. To the best of our knowledge, the correlation between trust levels and “cognitive dissonance” (Festinger, 1962), or a disappointment with the system

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over time (i.e. that you do not get a job or the security that you are expecting), and a harsh political discussion about migration, integration and religion (specifically Islam) have not been studied for individuals who self-identify as Muslims. Still, it is evident that there is a difference between those who are identified as minorities and the majority population, according to Wilkins and Wu, who writes: Taken as a whole, the pattern is clear. Irrespective of how minority is defined, and irrespective of the country considered, respondents who identify as an ethnic minority have lower generalized trust than respondents who do not. (Wilkes & Wu, 2018, p. 237)

However, to arrive at a more well-grounded empirical conclusion on the potential relationship between trust and a self-proclaimed Muslim identity, more research is warranted. As stressed by several researchers, not the least by Holmberg and Rothstein, the response rate among immigrants (including those who self-identify as Muslims) is generally low. To remedy this scientific lacuna, there is need for more research that specifically targets areas who have a high population of migrants and individuals with a “foreign background”. This is also an important research area where earlier studies have showed local differences when it comes to trust in different areas of, for instance, Gothenburg (Holmberg & Rothstein, 2019, p. 85; Rönnerstrand & Solevid, 2021). However, to collect this data, new collection methods are required. Response rate via mail or e-mail (online surveys and similar) is simply too low. Even though it is costlier and more time consuming, there is need for more fieldwork and interviews in these specific areas (one example of this kind of research is Esaiasson, 2019). To conduct this research and to get access to the field there is also a need to engage the local community on site and to involve interviewers that speak more languages than Swedish. While most political scientists have relied on large surveys conducted by institutes that are specialized in this data collection, there is now time to cooperate with other research fields that have knowledge about the local communities and the cultural and religious traditions. However, it is also necessary to engage the local communities in this work. Potentially this can bridge both practical problems with collecting data as well as creating a bridge between different groups in the society. Yet another side effect of this research, might be growing trust between different segments of the society. If this is true or not, is, however, an empirical question that warrants more research as well as cooperation between different fields of sciences. * Acknowledgements We would like to take the opportunity to express our gratitude to Professor Peter Esaiasson, Professor emeritus Lennart Weibull, and Professor Johan Martinsson for valuable feedback and suggestions for how to improve the text. We also like to thank Professor Jesper Strömbäck who designed the survey items used in the analysis. All four are at the University of Gothenburg.

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Lessons from the Book and Future Research Daniel Stockemer and Antonia Teodoro

Despite the fact that Muslims in Western countries are the fastest growing religious group, we know very little about this group. Media, politics and the academic literature dedicate much attention to a fringe section of the Muslim population, a section, who adheres to fundamentalist beliefs and might condone violence in the name of Allah (Jackson, 2007; Nesser, 2018). Yet, radical or fundamentalist Muslims consist of a small minority of the Muslims in both North America and Western Europe. In fact, depending on the estimate, this section of the Muslim population consists of several ten thousand or few hundred thousand people and is not representative of the millions of Muslims, who reside on both sides of the Atlantic (Mitts, 2019). Rather than on radicalization or violence, this book focuses on the average Muslim. In many European countries, the average Muslim faces a rather unfriendly social and political environment. She faces an environment where political forces such as radical right-wing parties, but also some right leaning media channels foster Islamophobia (Marinov & Stockemer, 2020). Overtly, this islamophobia portrays itself through the portrayal of Muslims as a cultural, economic or security threat to the non-Muslim population (Obaidi et al., 2018). More subtle, this islamophobia is visible through discrimination against Muslims in housing or the labor market to name few instances (Najib, 2021). Aware of such a delicate context, we have started out this book by asking the following question. How is the average Muslim’s sense of identity and belonging? How does she feel with regards to her country of residence? Have we had success in comprehensively answering our research questions? The answer is probably a partial yes. Through the comparative chapter and the seven case studies (i.e., Canada, United States, Sweden, the Netherlands, France, Austria and the United Kingdom) we have definitely succeeded in shedding some more light D. Stockemer (B) · A. Teodoro University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] A. Teodoro e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. Stockemer (ed.), Muslims in the Western World, Immigrants and Minorities, Politics and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99487-7_10

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into Muslims’ identities and their sense of belonging. Several findings stick out in this regard. First, and in confirmation with prior research (see Stockemer & Moreau, 2021), we find that the average Muslim in Western Europe has a fairly strong sense of identity and belonging to her country of residence. The majority of Muslims see their Western countries as their home. On average, this sense of identity and belonging seems to be higher in contexts, which practice multiculturalism and where levels of Islamophobia are still quite low (e.g., Canada). In such contexts, Muslims might be among the religious groups, who are the most positive and the most strongly attached to their country of residence. In other contexts with less favorable structural conditions such as the Netherlands, Great Britain or France, Muslims show lower levels of attachments to their country of residence. Yet, what is important to note is that in these countries, the majority still has a positive outlook of the country they live in. Second, we add some nuance to Sirin and Fine’s (2007) theory of hyphenated selves. The Muslims we study have multiple identities. To take the example of French Muslims, their identity is diverse. They have a sense of belonging to Islam and a sense of belonging to France, to their countries of origin, to their generation, to their social class and to their ethnic group. For other countries, the existence of these multiple identities seems similar and includes their religion as well as their identification with the country of residence. In this sense, it is also important to note that their identification as a Muslim refers to the emotional significance that they attach to their perceived membership within the group of Muslims rather than to any religious authority. In fact, only a minority of Muslims seems to go to the Mosque regularly. We also find that Muslims, in the majority, do not see any contradiction between identifying with a Western country and keeping their Muslim identity. This finding slightly tweaks Sirin’s and Fine’s notion of hyphenated selves, which sees potential contradictions between multiple identities. Rather than choosing one or the other, American Muslims for instance, do not feel that they need to sacrifice a sense of identity or belonging in order to be a part of American society. Even in countries such as the Netherlands, where a sizeable part of the non-Muslim population tries to characterize Muslims as outsiders, excluding them from the Dutch identity, Muslims still regard the Netherlands as their home. Yet, this finding comes with the caveat that discrimination and a lack of opportunity can lead to radicalization, even if it is only of a fringe group (see chapter on Great Britain). Third, all these findings come with the caveat that there are multiple subgroups of Muslims. Muslims differ in many ways. Just to name a few, Muslims adhere to different variations of Islam, such as the Alevis, Alawis, Sunni and the Shiites. For example, the Austria chapter teaches us that all these types of subgroups are distinct and choose different ways to participate in the Austrian society. Moreover, Muslims come from different countries of origin and have different experiences as first-, second- or multi-generation immigrants. They come from different social classes, have different education levels, and very different experiences from their society of origin. This also implies that we must contextualize some of the findings of this edited volume. For instance, the finding from the Swedish chapter—that Muslims express less trust toward the Swedish government, can have multiple sources. Given that

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most of Swedish Muslims come from an authoritarian context such as Iraq, Syria or Pakistan; their prior experiences with the authorities in their country of origin might make them less trustworthy of state governments. The Muslims in Sweden are also not identical to other groups when it comes to education, professional achievements and the neighborhoods they live in. Hence, the finding that Swedish Muslims have less trust in government might be an artifact of them being less educated, employed in less well paid jobs or them living in less favorable neighborhoods. The findings from this book also show that research into feelings of belonging and sense of identity of Muslims (and probably of other minority groups as well), needs better theorizing, better operationalization of relevant theoretical concepts and better empirical data. We have started off this edited volume with the simple task of measuring Muslims identity and belonging in comparable Western contexts. Yet, the findings are only partially comparable. At the theoretical level, many of the chapters use different definitions of sense of belonging and identity. Some chapters (e.g., the chapters on the Netherlands and France) focus more on religious identity and compare the religiosity of Muslims against non-Muslims or for different subgroups. Others such as the chapters on Canada and the US emphasize more the concept of nationhood or life satisfaction. Again differently, the chapter on Sweden breaks down the concepts of sense of identity and belonging to a question about “trust” and a sense of feeling “valued” in Sweden. To directly compare these findings, we need better theorizing. This theorizing needs to go beyond the rather narrow definition we have used for this book. Following Brower (2021) or Gabrielsson (2021), we have mainly looked at a specific identity marker such as religious belonging or geographical belonging. Yet, as we have mentioned in the introductory chapter, a sense of belonging also includes a participatory aspect, which includes the creation of social ties and networks with people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds, as well as individuals’ civic participation in the broader community. If at all, we have only touched upon these features in this book (see chapters on Austria and France). Empirically, there is no recent common data source. In fact, the Pew Research Center conducted a study in 2006 entitled “the Great Divide: How Westerners and Muslims View Each Other,” which included 5 Western countries (i.e., the United States, Germany, France, Spain and Great Britain). This survey also captured questions that touch on the concepts of identity and belonging. For example, the survey asked the question, whether the respondent sees a conflict between being a devout Muslim and living in a modern society. While, in 2006, a majority of the polled Muslims did not see such a conflict, approximately one-third of the surveyed answered the question in the affirmative. It would be interesting to redo such a survey 15 years later. The hunch we get from our book is that the percent of Muslims, who sees an incompatibility between being a devout Muslim and living in a Western society has rather decreased than increased. However, future research should confirm this conjecture. More broadly, there is a need for renewed cross-cultural surveys that tap into different aspects of Muslims’ sense of identity and belonging. Ideally, such renewed survey projects could be inspired by Fuchs et al. (2021) scale, which measures,

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what the authors label “a challenged sense of belonging” through four questions tapping into: (1) identification: “I am troubled by feeling I have no place in this world.” (2) Participation: “I don’t feel that I participate with anyone or any group.” (3) Congruence: “I feel torn between worlds.” (4) Connection: “I feel disconnected from those around me.” Even beyond such a cross-national survey, more quantitative and qualitative research is necessary to elucidate how Muslims feel, think and act. How do they feel accepted, respected, included and supported by others? And what factors lead to this feeling of acceptance, respect, inclusion and support or lack of thereof? While we are milestones away from a comprehensive understanding of how the average Muslim perceives her community and country of residence and participates in it, we nevertheless hope that this edited volume inspires others to research the fasted growing and probably most dynamic religious group in the Western World. Our findings indicate that despite rejection and Islamophobia in Western societies, the average Muslim feels quite at home and satisfied with her life in her country of residence. It is now up to future studies to confirm, nuance and broaden this finding. In this sense, we hope that this edited volume is rather a beginning than an end into an under-researched topic.

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