Muslims, Soccer, and the Politics of National Identity

Athletes are among the most visible representatives of nations: the nations’ traditions, histories, values, and identities are condensed into the body of performing athlete, who act as ambassadors for their country each time they set foot on the field. However, when we think of athletes today that embody the nations’ identity, how many of these athletes do we come up with of immigrant or minority background? How many do we come up with that are Muslim? These questions predominantly depend on what countries and which sports we examine. In this MRP, I focus on soccer, and the participation of Muslims in this sport. Using a discourse analysis methodology, studying newspaper sources and theories of national identities, I examine the place of Muslims in the West today, and how their participation in soccer is viewed within the context of on-going evolution of national identities, and, most importantly, whether it is viewed as proof or not of their membership in the nation.

Muslims, Soccer, and the Politics of National Identity

Athletes are among the most visible representatives of nations: the nations’ traditions, histories, values, and identities are condensed into the body of performing athlete, who act as ambassadors for their country each time they set foot on the field. However, when we think of athletes today that embody the nations’ identity, how many of these athletes do we come up with of immigrant or minority background? How many do we come up with that are Muslim? These questions predominantly depend on what countries and which sports we examine. In this MRP, I focus on soccer, and the participation of Muslims in this sport. Using a discourse analysis methodology, studying newspaper sources and theories of national identities, I examine the place of Muslims in the West today, and how their participation in soccer is viewed within the context of on-going evolution of national identities, and, most importantly, whether it is viewed as proof or not of their membership in the nation.

Methodological Eclecticism: Feminist-Pragmatist Reflections on Re/centering Muslims in Research about Islam

For over a decade, researchers have consistently asserted that Muslims in the West are ‘research weary’ (Sangera and Thapar- Bjökert 2008: 544), ‘tired of too much research about them’ (Alvi et al. 2003: p. xv) and are concerned about ‘not being given the opportunity to shape research that is about them (Scott-Baumann et al. 2020). Research on Muslim in Britain and in the West are further complicated by social hierarchies and popular discourses that often position Muslims as the ‘different other’. Working within a feminist-pragmatist epistemological framework this chapter will bring together methodological reflections from a decade of research of Islam and Muslims in the West. It asserts the need for research paradigms that are grounded in partnership and positionality, and which maintain intellectual rigour while also being accountable to the people who are the subjects of research.

REINTERPRETING THE ROLE OF MUSLIMS IN THE WEST AFRICAN MIDDLE AGES

Recent research points to a renewed scholarly interest in the West African Middle Ages and the Sahelian imperial tradition. However, in these works only tangential attention is paid to the role of Muslims, and especially to clerical communities. This essay tackles theoretical and historiographical insights on the role of African Muslims in the era of the medieval empires and argues that the study of Islam in this region during the Middle Ages still suffers from undertheorizing. On the contrary, by using a ‘discursive approach’ scholars can unravel access to fascinating aspects of the history of West African Muslims and in particular to the crucial role played by clerical communities, who represented one node of the web of diffused authority which is characteristic of precolonial West African social and political structures.

On the Discursive and Methodological Categorisation of Islam and Muslims in the West: Ontological and Epistemological Considerations

This article reflects on the ethical and epistemological challenges facing researchers engaged in contemporary studies of Islam and Muslims in the West. Particularly, it focuses on the impact of the constructions and categorisations of Muslims and Islam in research. To do this, it considers the entwinement of public discourses and the development of research agendas and projects. To examine this complex and enmeshed process, this article explores ideological, discursive and epistemological approaches that it argues researchers need to consider. In invoking these three approaches alongside an analysis of a collection of recent research, this article contends that questions of race, religion and politics have been deployed to reinforce, rather than challenge, certain essentialist/orientalist representations of Islam and Muslims in the West in research. As this article shows, this practice is increasingly threatening to compromise, in a Habermasian communicative sense (i.e., the opportunity to speak and be heard for all concerned), the ethical and epistemological underpinnings of social science research with its emphasis on inclusion and respect.

Secular Governance and Islamic Law

In this paper I examine the uses of the concept of minority by contemporary Muslim public intellectuals engaged simultaneously in discussions about the status of Muslims in the West and the place of non-Muslims in the Islamic world. I show how the concept of minority – rendered in Arabic through the neologism aqalliyya – is both problematic and indispensable to the discussions taking place in the transnational spaces of Islamic normative debate. Drawing on Saba Mahmood’s work, I argue that the minority question is both a strategy of modern secular governance and a tool used by a set of actors pursuing different projects. I suggest that the Islamic traditions that are often seen as foundational to the inequalities that shape the life of non-Muslims in the Middle East are in fact more ambiguous in their effects than they may appear at first sight. Although Islamic legal discourse has been predicated on a hierarchy that places non-Muslims in a subaltern status, it also embodies universalist norms that serve to counter some of these inequalities – even if the goals it articulates and the language it deploys are not always immediately intelligible within a modern context.