Islamic Organizations in Europe and the USA

A Multidisciplinary Perspective

M. Kortmann, K. Rosenow-Williams, M. Kortmann, K. Rosenow-Williams

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781137305572
• eBook ISBN: 9781137305589
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Social Sciences

This volume explores the variety of forms, strategies and practices of Islamic organizations in Europe and the United States. It focuses on the reactions of organized Muslims at local, national, and transnational levels to the on-going debates on their integration into society and the structures of state-church relations.

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Multidisciplinary Research on Islamic Organizations: Heterogeneous Organizational Forms, Strategies, and Practices

Kerstin Rosenow-Williams and Matthias Kortmann

Introduction

As of 2010, there were 43.49 million Muslims living in the 50 nation-states associated with the European continent, and 2.77 million in the USA (PEW, 2012). Since the beginning of the century, questions surrounding the integration of Muslims into society and the inclusion of their organizations in the structures of state–church relations in non-Muslim countries have been widely debated by academics and politicians both in Europe and in the USA. This issue has led to numerous studies which apply a top-down perspective focusing on the way states deal with Muslim minorities and their organizations against the background of different national regimes of religious governance and religious diversity (e.g., Bramadat and Koenig, 2009; Cesari, 2009; Nielsen et al., 2012).

One of the most recent books on Europe’s Muslims, Laurence (2012), presents a valuable in-depth analysis of ongoing political negotiations over the inclusion of Muslims in non-Islamic countries. However, although the study draws on extensive fieldwork and convincingly portrays historical developments in five Western European countries (France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and the UK) since the 1970s, it does not focus specifically on individual Islamic organizations but, rather, provides a cross-national comparison of their positions in the organizational field. The recently published special issue ‘Public discourses about Muslims and Islam in Europe’ of the journal Ethnicities (Cinalli and Giugni, 2013) also provides a rich empirical basis for innovative comparative research. However, it also does not refer to countries outside Western Europe, and only subordinately discusses Islamic organizations. This volume presents new empirical research on organized Muslims in Belgium, Germany, France, the Netherlands, the UK, and Switzerland, and also includes research on the Baltic States, Poland, Spain, and the USA.

A bottom-up research perspective

The aim of this volume is to demonstrate the usefulness of a bottom-up research approach to the analysis of Islamic organizations and the challenges these organizations are facing in non-Muslim societies such as Europe and the USA. This volume addresses the question of how Islamic organizations perceive the changing public discourses on the inclusion of Islam in the structures of state–church relations and on the integration of Muslims into non-Muslim societies. The challenges faced by Muslims and Muslim organizations during the turbulent first decade of this century are examined from a bottom-up perspective, based on an outline of the most recent developments in the organizations studied. All of the studies contained in this volume draw on recent empirical research involving a variety of methodologies. With its bottom-up research perspective, it contributes to the emerging literature on the perspective of Islamic organizations vis-à-vis their changing institutional environments, ranging from specific organizational case studies on Islamic umbrella organizations representing local mosque communities (e.g., Allievi and Nielsen, 2002; Love, 2009; Rosenow-Williams, 2012; Schiffauer, 2010) to empirical studies of Islamic organizations in the context of ongoing integration debates in different countries (e.g., Al-Hamarneh and Thielmann, 2008; Bilici, 2012; Kortmann, 2011; Mügge, 2011; Yazbeck Haddad and Esposito, 1998; Yükleyen, 2012). One of the major comparative studies on the relationship between Muslims and the state in the UK, France, and Germany is Fetzer and Soper (2005). This study examines the claims made by Islamic organizations in different national contexts, but its focus is limited to only these three Western European countries, so that developments in the countries of Eastern Europe or the USA are neglected entirely, and, due to the narrow focus on the relations between Islamic organizations and state actors, less attention is given to internal structures, religious practices, and rituals. All of these factors are addressed in this volume.

A multidisciplinary research perspective

To provide the reader with a multidisciplinary perspective on Islamic organizations, this volume brings together writings of authors from research disciplines such as organizational sociology, political science, religious studies, Islamic studies, anthropology, and ethnography. These research perspectives and traditions enable us to understand the heterogeneity of Islamic organizations from a variety of disciplinary angles while at the same time focusing on the organizations’ perspective.

The chapters in this volume are guided by an overarching research question which combines the research threads represented in the three parts of the book: To what extent do (trans)national organizational environments and changing public discourses on Islam affect aspects of Islamic organizations and their members, such as their forms of organization, strategies, and practices?

A comparative research perspective

Another aim of this volume is to provide a number of comparative studies which can help to close a gap in the research literature on Islamic organizations. Heterogeneity both within and among Islamic organizations can be compared across countries (Western, Northern, and Eastern Europe and the USA), different types of organizations (small advocacy groups or global movements), different groups within Islam (Sunni, Shiites, Alevis, Ahmadis) and different groups within one organization (members, elected representatives, theological leaders). All of these factors are included in the case studies presented in this volume and addressed from different research perspectives and theoretical angles, with some of the authors comparing organizational forms and others national contexts and religious groups. In the Conclusion, the results of these comparative analyses are brought together to identify common themes and provide more of the insights enabled by this in-depth, comparative, bottom-up research perspective on Islamic organizations.

Employing different research methods

Using research perspectives from several different theoretical backgrounds requires different methodologies. Because of the bottom-up approach employed throughout this volume, most of the contributors effectively use qualitative methods to examine how representatives of Islamic organizations view and respond to ongoing debates on Islam. All of the contributions to this volume are based on qualitative interviews which allow the authors to examine the strategic use of opportunity structures in national and transnational contexts (Benjamin Bruce, Ludger Pries and Tülay Tuncer-Zengingül), disagreements within Islamic communities over possible responses to environments that are wary of or even hostile to Islam (Justin Gest, Abida Malik) and strategies to reconcile the expectations of members and state officials in the process of transforming organizational structures (Egdūnas Račius, Agata S. Nalborczyk, and Monika Ryszewska).

Documents published by the organizations under study are important sources as well, particularly for the study of lobbying strategies. Erik Love’s contribution examines a broad range of position papers of Islamic organizations in the USA to reveal a shift from the civil rights mode to the civil liberties mode of advocacy, while Benjamin Bruce illustrates the significance of the ties of Islamic organizations in Germany and France to their countries of origin by analysing documents produced by these organizations.

The authors writing on practices and rituals primarily at the local levels, such as Theresa Beilschmidt, Sarah Beyeler, and Justin Gest, also use participant observation and other ethnographic approaches which broaden our understanding of decision-making processes and belief systems within Islamic communities in response to a variety of impacts of developments on various levels both in the receiving states and in countries of origin such as Bangladesh, Morocco, and Turkey.

Although the emphasis of this volume is mainly on qualitative methods, some of the contributions also employ quantitative methods to provide representative data on the attitudes of Islamic actors in different countries. Anja van Heelsum and Maarten Koomen conduct a quantitative media content analysis to show that, when making claims in the media, Islamic representatives focus more on ethno-cultural and religious issues than on socioeconomic issues, and Patrick Loobuyck and Petra Meier present quantitative data to provide sociocultural information on imams who are active in mosques in Flanders.

Selection of chapters

All of the contributions were required to present up-to-date results of the authors’ research on various immigration countries, based on a variety of disciplinary perspectives and dimensions. In addition to the USA and Western Europe, the often-neglected Muslim communities in Northern, Central, and Eastern European countries such as Poland and the Baltic States were also to be considered. However, to avoid a ‘methodological nationalism’, the authors were encouraged to consider the complex cross-border ties and the related expectations of actors abroad faced by Muslims in non-Islamic countries.

The volume focuses on such diverse issues as religious practices, the institutional inclusion of these practices, organizational characteristics, and management practices on the national, regional, local, and organizational levels. To keep up with the fast-paced developments within societies and Islamic organizations, the many facets of Islamic organizations are presented in the form of recent research conducted by both advanced and junior scholars.

Structure of the book: Heterogeneity and Islamic organizations

The following is an overview of the three main parts of this book and the research questions that guide them. The overview is followed by a brief introduction to the 12 chapters, and the concluding chapter details how the approaches presented in this volume complement the existing research on Islamic organizations.

On the whole, the research shows that heterogeneity is a key element of the field of Islamic organizations in Europe, the USA, and other parts of the world. Therefore, this volume examines heterogeneity from three different perspectives. Part I examines the different forms of Islamic organizations that have emerged in non-Muslim countries, with a focus on the circumstances that have facilitated the continuous restructuring of Islamic organizations. Part II analyses the different strategies Islamic organizations use to respond to their organizational environments, including the strategies used in negotiations over practical issues such as the construction of mosques, religious rights, and access to and representation in the media. This part also focuses on the diversity of the transnational organizational ties observed and on how the organizations and their members use these ties strategically. Part III presents an in-depth look at the practices within the Islamic organizations under study. The chapters contained in this part focus on the different roles of the members and leaders of Islamic organizations, with special attention given to the personal challenges faced by imams and the bridging roles they play.

Part I: Different forms of organizations

The research question that guides this part is: What forms of collective Islamic actors can be found in the non-Islamic countries selected for study? To answer this question, the chapters included here focus on heterogeneous forms of Islamic organizations. There are a wide variety of collective Muslim actors, ranging from independent and more locally oriented mosque communities to national umbrella organizations to transnational networks spanning several countries and even global networks. Questions that arise in this context are: What can we learn from the study of heterogeneity from an organizational, institutional, or ethnographic perspective? How does this perspective broaden our understanding of how Muslims ‘organize’ their interests and religion in general, and how does this ‘management’ differ across national contexts and with regard to different collective actors?

The volume begins with a chapter by Agata S. Nalborczyk and Monika Ryszewska, who analyse the status of Islamic organizations in Poland, a country with over three centuries of Islamic presence that has experienced profound changes in its religious regime since 1989. In their detailed analysis, the authors show that the period of transformation which followed the collapse of the Eastern Bloc effectively forced the Muslim Religious Union in the Republic of Poland (Muzłmański Zwązek Religijny w Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej, MZR) to surrender its role as sole representative of all Muslims in Poland and initiated a process of pluralization.

The second contribution, by Erik Love, analyses the advocacy work of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and compares their strategies with the civil rights approach of racialized minority communities in the USA which collectivize on the basis of race. The author shows that, rather than following this tradition of advocacy, Islamic organizations opt for a race-neutral approach, stressing their desire for equal civil liberties, thus attempting to establish themselves as part of the American mainstream.

The third chapter, by Justin Gest, examines the organizational life of Muslims in London and Madrid. Based on an ethnographic case study among young British Bangladeshi men in London’s East End and young Spanish Moroccan men in Southern Madrid, the author identifies different organizational forms and the challenges they involve, particularly in terms of inclusion in the political process and adaptation to the internal heterogeneity of the analysed communities.

Part II: Different response strategies to organizational environments

The research question that guides this part is: How do Islamic organizations perceive and respond to the national institutional contexts of different countries of settlement and their countries of origin, and what roles do their transnational ties play? To answer this question, the chapters examine the response strategies of Islamic organizations on the national, regional and local levels to determine to what extent their behaviour depends on their organizational recognition or status on these levels. In addition, this part identifies the transnational ties of Islamic organizations or networks which have been established in countries in which Islam is the majority or a minority religion. These studies also provide evidence of the additional benefits of the bottom-up approach to cross-national policy analysis, which also considers aspects of organizational cross-border ties, as discussed in recent studies on transnationalism (see, e.g., Østergaard-Nielsen, 2003; Pries and Sezgin, 2012).

Part II begins with a contribution by Anja van Heelsum and Maarten Koomen, who examine the impact of public debates on Muslim representatives in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the UK. The authors evaluate the agenda-setting function of the mass media by studying the response strategies of Islamic organizations. They use quantitative data based on 5,000 coded instances of political claims-making in major national newspapers over a period of ten years (1999–200...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on Contributors
• List of Abbreviations and Acronyms
• 1. Multidisciplinary Research on Islamic Organizations: Heterogeneous Organizational Forms, Strategies, and Practices
• Part I: Different Forms of Organizations
• Part II: Different Response Strategies to Organizational Environments
• Part III: Different Practices within the Organizations
• Index of Selected Authors
• Subject Index