European Outsourcing and Embassy Islam

This chapter explores the origins of the privileged status enjoyed by foreign Islamic governments in the first stage (c. 1960–1990) of state–mosque relations in Europe. Several factors help explain why European governments gave them that status. Europeans were interested in a good trade relationship and the even flow of oil, in avoiding the politicization of migrant populations, and above all in orienting the immigrants to eventually go back to their original homelands. A template of temporary migration defined the host governments' demand for religious interlocutors during the first stage, during which they experimented with return-oriented policies and the outsourcing of linguistic, cultural, and religious programs. But this did not constitute a fully developed approach: rather, it reflected the absence of a policy toward the new Muslim minority.

The Partial Emancipation

This chapter addresses the achievements of state–mosque relations and the “incorporation” outcomes that can be measured so far. What is the stability and performance of Islam Councils across the countries? How have these policies conditioned integration outcomes and political moderation, and what impact do they have on the long-term prospects of Muslims' everyday integration in Europe? This chapter empirically traces the effects of European policy approaches and finds that they have had a dramatic effect on Muslim communities: their domestic orientation, their reformed organizational structures, their outspoken distancing from violence and radicalism, and their outward commitment to playing by the rules of the game. Host societies as well as Muslim community leaders—and the scope of their agendas—have been transformed by the experience of institutional integration.

A Politicized Minority

This chapter addresses the growth of Political Islam and transnational religious NGOs in Western Europe. While the European receiving states were granting a de facto monopoly of religious representation to the diplomatic envoys of immigrants' sending states, competing networks of well-organized activists with a more conservative, politicized view of Islam also flourished on the margins of religious community life. Political-Islam federations also provided prayer spaces, imams, lecturers, and social activities and established what may best be described as an Islamist subculture. Although such organizations may represent a relatively small membership base in terms of the local Muslim population, they often control a sizable proportion of the registered Muslim religious associations and prayer spaces where mosque-going Muslims congregate to socialize and pray.

Imperfect Institutionalization

This chapter examines the second round of state–mosque relations that produced institutionalized Islam Councils. Interior ministries provided the first impetus to organize Islam as a “national” religion, and the government-led consultations established a variety of national councils between 1992 and 2006, from the Conseil français du culte musulman, to the Comisíon Islámica de España, to the Exécutif des musulmans de Belgique, to the Deutsche Islam Konferenz, to the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board in Britain, to the Consulta per l'Islam italiano. These national processes are not identical: many place more weight on the role of Embassy Islam and foreign government representatives (e.g., Belgium, Germany, France, Spain), while others rely more heavily on handpicked local civil society organizations (e.g., Italy, United Kingdom).

A Leap in the Dark

This chapter describes the state of the relationship between immigrant-origin Muslim minorities and their Western European host countries in the twenty-first century. Just over 1 percent of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims reside in Western Europe, yet this immigrant-origin minority has had a disproportionate impact on religion and politics in its new and former homelands. For host societies, Islam in Europe is no longer just a matter of ginger diplomacy with former colonies or current trading partners: the integration of Muslims has become a nation-building challenge of historical significance. Moreover, Muslims' long-term integration into European politics and society is a work in progress, as the chapter reveals the unintended consequences, the establishment of the Islam Councils, and other such complications arising from the host countries' engagement with their resident Muslim minorities.

Muslim Integration and European Islam in the Next Generation

This chapter discusses the future prospects for Muslims' political and social integration. A number of the social, cultural, and political adjustments that will characterize Europe in coming generations are already under way, although often the results are not visible to the naked eye. This chapter examines the pre-electoral political behavior and earliest known voting preferences and demographic future of the postcolonial—and post-guestworker—Muslim minorities of Europe. It argues that the most serious threats to successful emancipation—violent extremism among Muslims and right-wing nativism among “host societies”—may ultimately be weakened by a confluence of demographic trends and old-fashioned integration processes.

The Domestication of State-Mosque Relations

This chapter addresses the failures of the “outsourcing” phase described briefly in Chapter 2, and other events and issues that prompted European interior ministries to wrest control of state–mosque relations from their foreign-ministry counterparts and undertake efforts to bring Islam to the table. First, there is a discussion of socioeconomic indicators of integration, followed by the growing problem of foreign government control over Muslims' religious life, an increasingly felt inadequacy of prayer space and imams, and finally, the rise of Political-Islam activism and Islamist terrorism. Then, the chapter delves into the first of two phases of these efforts that culminated in the establishment of Islamic Councils in the ten European states with sizable Muslim populations.

Citizens, Groups, and the State

This chapter places European governments' relationships with contemporary Muslim communities into historical and theoretical context, by reviewing earlier encounters with new categories of citizens and state-building challenges. For the past two centuries, the religion bureaus of interior ministries across Europe have asserted state authority by structuring and mediating the activities of religious organizations. Against the view that the accommodation of religious communities is the equivalent of “capitulation,” this chapter shows that formal recognition has been the method through which the modern state has historically asserted its authority over new citizen groups. The view that Islam is inherently incompatible with, or otherwise presents an unprecedented challenge to, state authority in western democracies is critically examined.