God will reward you: Muslim practices of caring for precarious migrants in the context of secular suspicion

In recent years, Muslims have become more visibly invested in humanitarian work in France. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Marseille, this article examines local initiatives to care for precarious others whose lives are neither materially supported nor socially recognized within the current French political regime. Engaging with critical French scholarship on humanitarianism as care for others associated with emergency, suffering and the politics of compassion, I show how food-distribution (maraudes) by Muslim-run humanitarian associations also draw from Islamic ethics of care. While social dynamics related to gender, class, race and generation structure the maraudes, the foregrounding of shared precarity, and of religious duty and piety over pity, challenges the ‘hierarchies of deservingness’ established by humanitarian border regimes. In caring for precarious others, Muslims must navigate both the secular suspicion directed towards Islam and the securitization of migration. Carrying out the religious duty of helping those in need, they are ‘laying claim to public space’ for both Muslims and precarious migrants.

Critical thinking and non-formal Islamic education: Perspectives from young Muslims in the Netherlands

Critical thinking is a highly valued skill in the twenty-first century, and its incorporation into formal school curricula as a core skill is nearly ubiquitous globally. It is considered imperative for educational quality, employability, competitiveness, and for promoting democratisation and social integration. While schools are tasked to promote critical thinking, non-formal Islamic education (NFIE) provided by mosques or by private organisations or tutors is often criticized for its emphasis on rote learning and memorisation, and for fostering an uncritical acceptance of authority. Based on interviews with 27 young adult alumni from four different Muslim communities in the Netherlands, this study seeks to explore the pedagogy of NFIE, with a focus on critical thinking. The accounts of young adults revealed that an emphasis on stimulating critical thinking was largely absent, and there were limited opportunities for interactions, questions, debating or challenging the authority of religious educators or Islamic texts. The traditional pedagogical approach, discouraging attitudes of educators and peers, lack of language proficiency, the young age of learners, and a perceived lack of need for critical deliberations were identified as key challenges. Young adults called for reforming the pedagogy of NFIE to allow for more reflexive, inquisitive and dialogical learning. Some argued that lack of critical deliberation would lead to weakness in the belief structures and faith of new generation Muslims in Europe, resulting in a sense of confusion and disorientation, and limited embodiment of Islamic principles.

“They have no taste in Morocco.” Home furnishing, belonging, and notions of religious (im)perfection among white Dutch and Flemish converts in Morocco

This article focuses on furnishing practices in the domestic space of the homes of white Flemish and Dutch Muslim female converts to Islam who made hijra (Islamic migration) to Morocco. Fed up with European Islamophobia and longing for a place that supports and strengthens their faith, they decided to emigrate to a Muslim country. However, remarkably, once settled in Morocco, many experience discontent with regard to a perceived “lack of true Islam” in the country. To gain insight into the positions and experiences of these women, I look at how they create a sense of belonging through furnishing practices in the domestic space of their new homes. I am interested in how various senses of belonging are expressed and come together in relation to their construction of religious belonging and place, and are renegotiated through domestic decoration practices. Building on literature on home, transnational migration, conversion, and material religion, I demonstrate that mechanisms of distinction and notions of religious (im)perfection intersect in the organization of the domestic space. Based on ethnographic accounts, I argue that my interlocutors bring a “culturalized” West-European Islam to Morocco, with tastes and sensibilities that jostle uneasily against local Moroccan religious practices but also allows them to repair some of the privileges they lost upon their conversion in their homeland. Lastly, this article shows that it is through the engagement with mundane material forms, but also with absence and empty spaces, that Islam becomes present in their domestic spaces, enhancing the cultivation of their ethical selves.