exploring muslim identities in europe & north america

A volume containing the proceedings of a seminar held at Youngstown State University on the theme of 'Public Islam' and the Nordic Welfare State has just come out as a special issue of Studies in Contemporary Islam and the Tidsskrift for Islamforskning .  The contributions in the volume are diverse yet interconnected. The articles that open the volume discuss how the two different welfare and civil society models represented by the Nordic countries and the USA may affect the institutionalization of Islam and Muslims’ public presence and values in these societies. Ulrika Mårtensson does that by providing a historical survey of the Nordic welfare state and its developments, including debates about the impact of neoliberal models and (de)secularization. Rhys Williams reflects on US civil society and its implications for American Muslims, while Tuomas Martikainen, provides a critical commentary on US research that juxtaposes European ‘religion-hostile’ management of reli

Today, in The Guardian's ' Comment is Free ' columns, Seumas Milne argues 'denying a link between western wars in the Muslim world and the backlash on our streets only fuels Islamophobia and bloodshed'.  In what will be seen by many as a controversial argument, Milne re-establishes the obvious (or what should have been obvious) link between the war on terror , its 'dehumanization' and transmutation into a war where borders are irrelevant on the one hand and terrorist attacks such as the one that took place in Woolwich last May. To say these attacks are about "foreign policy" prettifies the reality. They are the predicted consequence of an avalanche of violence unleashed by the US, Britain and others in eight direct military interventions in Arab and Muslim countries that have left hundreds of thousands of dead. Only the willfully blind or ignorant can be shocked when there is blowback from that onslaught at home. The surprise should be

BY CAS MUDDE December 16 at 2:59 pm The following guest post is by  Cas Mudde ,  assistant professor in the School for Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia  — reproduced from The Monkey Cage  -Washington Post. As Erik Voeten recently  posted , various European media recently reported on  research  on fundamentalism and out-group hostility by the Dutch sociologist Ruud Koopmans at the German Social Science Research Center (WZB), which found that “Islam fundamentalism is widely spread.” Koopmans and his collaborators interviewed nearly 9,000 people in six West European countries (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden), including 3,373 ‘natives’ and 5,548 ‘immigrants,’ respectively of Moroccan (2,204) and Turkish (3,344) origin. The survey stands out because of its cross-national scope, its solid theoretical and empirical basis, and the high number of ‘immigrant’ respondents. That said, both the research report and the media

This December Lund University and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies will organize a two day long event in support of the Syrian people. The goal is to raise awareness about the civil war, but also to show off the cultural richness of Syria. All events that take place during 48H of Syria will be open to the public including lectures, exhibitions, concerts and litterature evenings. The full program can be found   here.

Meet the Somalis is a collection of 14 illustrated stories depicting the real life experiences of Somalis in seven cities in Europe: Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Leicester, London, Malmo, and Oslo. The stories allow readers a unique insight into what everyday life is like as a Somali in Europe. Meet the Somalis is based on the firsthand testimonies of Somalis in Europe interviewed during six months in 2013. The Somali community in Europe is a vibrant, diverse minority group, including people of Somali origin born in Europe, Somali refugees and asylum seekers, and Somalis who have migrated from one country in Europe to another. There are no accurate figures for the number of Somalis in Europe, but on the whole they are among one of the largest minority groups. The illustrated stories focus on challenges faced by Somalis in their respective cities in Europe and issues raised in the Somalis in European Cities research, including education, housing, the media, employment, pol

Pierre-André Taguieff   is director of research at the French  National Centre for Scientific Research  in CEVIPOF. He is also a member of the  Cercle de l'Oratoire  think tank.Taguieff is the author of a number of books and papers on racism and antisemitism, including  The Force of Prejudice: On Racism and Its Doubles  (2001) and  Rising from the Muck: The New Antisemitism in Europe  (2004).

Being Muslim in France means having to navigate through a complex terrain informed by an aggressive secularism, sponsored by the state, a hostile to Islam public opinion (as the recent successes of Marine Lepen in the opinion polls suggest) and a sectarian Muslim communal life. The following text by Giles Kepel that appeared in Le Monde on 01.11.2013, provides an interesting take on the transformations taking place within French Islam but also reflects aspects of the official discourse on the relationship between Islam and the French state. The translation is my own. On 15 October, for the first time in the history of the Republic, an incumbent Prime Minister visited the Great Mosque of Paris , on the occasion of Eid al-Adha, the great feast of the Islamic calendar. In a brief statement, Jean-Marc Ayrault spoke to millions of our fellow believers in what he called "a great religion of France" to extend his wishes. He reminded them of "the government's determi