exploring muslim identities in europe & north america

Islam in Europe: Public Spaces and Civic Networks Spyros A. Sofos and Roza Tsagarousianou Published by Palgrave Macmillan (October 2013) ISBN 9781137357779 Islam in Europe delves into the daily routines of European Muslim communities in order to provide a better understanding of what it means to be a European Muslim today. Instead of positing particular definitions of being Muslim, this volume invites and encourages a diverse body of 735 informants from Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK to reflect on who they are and on the meaning and place Islam has in such considerations. Drawing upon extensive fieldwork and suggesting novel ways of seeing the phenomenon of European Islam and the continent's Muslim communities, Islam in Europe examines how through their practices, discourses, face to face and mediated interaction, European Muslims construct notions or identity, agency, solidarity and belonging, or how they negotiate and redefine religion, tradition, authori...

Earlier yesterday members of the French parliament approved with 336 votes for and 1 against a controversial law banning the voile intégral (the burqa). The vote has not come as a surpise as it has been discussed and anticipated for several months. Although the reasons put forward in support of the ban consider the burqa a “prison for women” and a “sign of their submission to their husbands, brothers or fathers” and therefore identify Muslim women as the target of this law, the legislators crafted the law in such a way as to ban any face-covering material, to “forbid concealing one’s face in public.” On the surface, a gender blind piece of legislation whose authors claim no intention to discriminate against Islam, the law curiously contains elements that clearly negate the declarations of its sponsors. In a display of determined arrogance that totalitarian regimes would envy, the law stipulates that, alongside a fine of  €150, women who will be caught covering their faces will b...