Description

The voices in this book belong to parliamentarians, city councilors, doctors and engineers, a few professors, lawyers and social workers, owners of small businesses, translators, and community activists. They are also all Muslims, who have decided to become engaged in political and civic organizations. And for that reason, they constantly have to explain themselves, mostly in order to say who they are not. They are not fundamentalists, not terrorists, and most do not support the introduction of Islamic religious law in Europe - especially not its application to Christians. This book is about who these people are, and what they want.
This book is based on three hundred interviews with European Muslim leaders from six European countries: Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Great Britain, France, and Germany. The question of Islam in Europe is not a matter of global war and peace but raises difficult questions about the positions of Christianity and Islam in public life, and about European identities. Europe's Muslim political leaders are not aiming to overthrow liberal democracy and to replace secular law with Islamic religious law. Those are the positions of a minority. There is not one Muslim position on how Islam should develop in Europe but many views, and most Muslims are rather looking for ways to build institutions that will allow European Muslims to practice their religion in a way that is compatible with social integration.

Features

• First book to examine the response of European Muslim leaders to the idea that there exists a 'clash of civilizations' between religious Muslims and secular Europeans
• Provides facts about who Europe's Muslim leaders actually are and how they view Islamic integration into European society and polities
• Explores complex and controversial issues, such as the position of women in Islam, and how best to accommodate religious rituals in schools and the workplace
• Based on a wealth of new data generated from interviews with 300 European Muslim Leaders from 6 countries (Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Great Britain, France, and Germany)

Reviews

"Refreshingly down-to-earth.... [a] valuable book."--The Economist

"What makes this thoughtful and honest volume so useful is its refusal to simplify an extraordinarily complex picture. ... By destroying bogeymen, Klausen forces us to face rationally and compassionately sensitive and difficult issues of great importance to Europe's future."--Stanley Hoffman for Foreign Affairs

"An important corrective... Klausen's survey presents a useful counterpoint to the now-hackneyed image of disaffected Muslim youth by emphasizing the malleable political and ideological responses to local politics."--World Policy Journal

Product Details

264 pages; Numerous tables; ISBN13: 978-0-19-928992-9ISBN10: 0-19-928992-1