Western Muslims or Muslims in the West?

Summary of Olivier Roy’s presentation

Thursday January 25th, IGS library

Muslims arrived in the Western countries after a wave of immigration that has taken place in a very short span of time.

There have been many other dramatic waves of immigration, but usually three categories of arguments are given to explain why Muslim immigration and integration into society is unique

Sociological argument: Muslims remain a Diaspora. They maintain links with their countries of origin.

Cultural argument: Islam is an all-encompassing religion: it is impossible to separate religion from culture.

Political argument: There is a clash of values. Islam (the Koran and Sharia) are incompatible with Western values of democracy and equality.

In my book on Globalized Islam, I develop three main ideas:

There is a disconnection between religion and culture.

There is a convergence of religiosity. By religiosity I mean the way people experiment new forms of their faith. Today’s new Muslim religiosity is based on an individualization of Islam and the idea of salvation. People are interested in a personal encounter with the truth. Born-again Muslims and new converts are building communities based on a common faith rather than territory.

The divide of values is not defined along the East-West axis because the West itself is divided. The debate in the West is about the same values, and this is reflected in issues like gay marriage and abortion. Muslims join this debate:There is a “Christianization” of the set of issues at stake.

Where are we now? The Recasting of the Muslim communities

We have to stop speaking of “Islam”! We have Muslims who don’t define Islam the same way. There is not even a definable Muslim community. They recast Islam in several different ways:

  • Secular Muslims: Muslims who don’t believe and who exhibit non-religious behavior such as drinking alcohol. An interesting question here is what the signs of religiosity are: it is not, as one could argue, the number of Muslims who are going to the mosques, because you don’t have to go to the mosque to pray. Even if we employ this criterion, the number of Muslims who are going to the mosques in France is not bigger that the number of Catholics who are attending mass!

Secular Muslims are the silent majority.

  • Liberal-Reformist Muslims: They are the new thinkers of Islam, especially among intellectuals. They are considered crucial to avoiding the clash of civilizations, but there is an issue of leadership among born-again and converts: the religious revival is disconnected from the endeavor of reforming Islam, Secular authoritarian regimes (like Turkey) don’t like liberal-reformists because they don’t like reforms in general. They prefer to deal with the orthodox representatives of Islam than with the new thinkers of Islam. The Liberal Muslims make a distinction between the message of the divine and the interpretation of the Koran and Sharia. They are people who consider themselves believers but think that faith is not an identity. Again, there is a disconnection between religious markers and cultural markers. For example, we have Mecca-cola fast food or you see the consumption of halal turkey increasing during Thanksgiving.

There is a tendency to “Islamize” Christianity. For example, Muslims now go to mosques for their wedding, but this is not part of the Muslim tradition. The old concept of marriage was that it was just a contract. There are many examples of this mix of cultural markers. On one Canadian television series “A Mosque in the Prairie”, a number of Muslim women were interviewed and discussed the question of wearing the veil in front of a gay man! In France, among the Muslims the most popular names are Mohammed and Ryan!! There is a hip clothing label, Dawa, which has a logo illustrating the three ways of bowing down during prayer. The name itself means “predication.”

  • Muslims that try to be recognized as a community through institutions. There is a process I call the “churching” of Islam. Most Muslims are reluctant to include institutions as part of their community. But it is a consequence of political pressures and also of the need for lobbying. It parallels the process of gentrification in the EU: Muslims are marginalized (their social position is destitute) and they need institutions to gain respectability. For example, local imams are recognized as official imams in a process of “clerication.”. This institutionalization creates some problems. For instance, with the exception of the Turks, most young Muslims don’t speak Arabic: you have to preach in French or in English. When you change the language, though, some terminology (for example, the word “sin”) takes on different meanings than they do in Arabic.

Muslims who don’t want to compromise.The salafis are one example of this group. This group does not automatically turn to political violence, but there is a separation.

Multiculturalism does not work because religion and culture are separated. In Holland they have tried to reconnect Muslims to their culture by making them learn their language of origin. There is an institution called the Council of Muslims that helps Muslims who live in the West and advises them on the rules of “halal” dating. With all of these efforts at connecting religion and culture, the question remains, “Are you Muslim by choice or by origin?”

The issue of apostasy and freedom of conversion is key. There is a movement of conversion of Muslims to Christianity that is going very smoothly. The resistance comes from Muslim governments.

How can the Western world encourage greater integration of Muslims communities?

It is important to:

  • Disconnect Muslims and the question of the Middle East.
  • Disconnect religion and culture and treat Islam as a Western religion.
  • Stop discussing theology and promote liberalization of Islam. The state has no power over religion.
  • Promote a citizen approach. How can we adapt the public sphere to the revival of religions while not accepting religious fundamentalism?