Churchification of Islam in Europe

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Between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Islamic Council of Norway and the Challenge of Representing Islam in Europe, 2020

In several European countries the authorities have sought to institutionalize and regulate the Islamic or Muslim presence in their countries through Islamic Representative Councils (IRCs) that can function as interlocutors between Muslim communities and the state. Many of these organizations have been marked by instability, defection, conflict, or splits. This thesis asks why, through a detailed case study of the trajectory of one such IRC – the Islamic Council of Norway (IRN). Existing research on IRCs has not delved deeply into the question of why so many IRCs have been unstable, but three broad perspectives can be found. One perspective is that there are internal reasons for the conflicts: it is argued that Muslims and Muslim organizations are simply too different from one another, and this may make cooperation difficult. Another perspective is that these conflicts have been caused by external reasons: external conditions or the policies of the authorities made it difficult for these organizations to function well. A third perspective is that the conflicts were caused by a combination of internal and external factors – it is about the competing expectations they face, and the difficulties of dealing with these competing expectations. The thesis employs a process-tracing approach to explore the trajectory of the Islamic Council of Norway. The organization was created in 1992/1993 and grew stronger for the next couple of decades. The IRN’s performance during the cartoon crisis in 2006 led the government to provide public funding to the organization from 2007 onwards. In the 2010s a conflict began to emerge. One faction advocated a dialogue path, with an emphasis on soft rhetoric and external outreach. Another faction advocated a community path, which aimed at strengthening the internal solidarity in the Muslim communities. Those who were in favour of the community path won the internal power struggle and were able to secure an independent source of funding through a successful system for certification of halal meat. After a prolonged conflict the advocates of the dialogue path decided to break out and create a competing organization. The government took away the IRN’s funding, and the system for halal certification broke down. Following the split, the IRN continued to exist, but now without funding and with a close competitor. The thesis relies on analysis of different sources of data – primary archival records, secondary literature, oral interviews, and media items – in order to ascertain why these events occurred. Perspectives from earlier scholarly literature indeed point to relevant factors, but the concepts are clarified and the actual mechanisms are unpacked in detail. What earlier researchers have referred to as diversity on the Islamic field is in this thesis conceptualized as multipolarity. Multipolarity played a role since different member organizations in the IRN had different goals. During its phase of consolidation the organization was able to work through these differences. But when the conflict erupted in the 2010s, the multipolarity among the members made it more difficult to find solutions. Throughout the organization’s history external actors also had an impact. Whereas existing literature mostly talks about the relationship between IRCs and the state, the case of the IRN indicates that intermediary third-party organizations can also be important. In the first couple of decades these organizations acted as stabilizing forces. These organizations helped actors in the IRN to find ways of dealing with the demands from different sectors of Norwegian society. When the organization was beset by stormy weather these organizations were there to help the IRN. In the final phase, however, these organizations did not publicly support the IRN, giving the authorities carte blanche to remove funding from the organization. It was a consistent challenge for the IRN to deal with the competing demands placed on the organization. The thesis details how such competing demands can create challenges and conflicts. The organization mostly tried to deal with such competing demands through balancing solutions which to a certain degree could satisfy all stakeholders. The major difficulties for the organization arose when different factions in the organization wanted to pursue different and conflicting strategies for dealing with these competing demands. In addition to these existing perspectives from the literature, this thesis also shows that organization matters. The challenges IRN experienced are not unique to IRCs as Islamic or migrant-dominated organizations. In the thesis the IRN is conceptualized as a meta-organization: an organization whose members are organizations themselves. Meta-organizations often have weak central hierarchies and are therefore ill-suited to deal with conflicts and deep disagreements. Crucially, the thesis shows that all of these factors interacted with one another. When a meta-organization is placed in a politicized environment that frequently requires it to take a stand on controversial issues, when it has a multipolar membership base and faces external actors that place difficult demands on the organization, conflicts and difficulties easily arise. This thesis is the first study to explore in depth why IRCs seem prone to conflicts and splits. The main factors identified – the multipolarity of the Islamic field, the influence and meddling of external actors, the multiple demands the organizations are facing and disagreements about how to relate to these demands, the difficulties of solving conflicts due to the weak hierarchy of meta-organizations, and the interplay between these factors – have probably played a role in the conflicts in other IRCs as well. For the research fields of political science and Islamic studies on the one hand, and authorities and Muslim organizations in Europe on the other, this dissertation brings new conceptual and empirical knowledge. It elucidates why it remains a challenge to ensure that relations between authorities and IRCs can be beneficial both to society at large and to the Muslim communities themselves.

Publications from the Faculty of Theology, No. 42, 2013

The thesis studies the specific problems that Muslim organisations struggle with as they navigate and position themselves amongst the churches, the state institutions and the many other relevant organisational actors in the religio-organisational fields in Denmark, Germany and England. In framing an analytical focus on the relations and environment of Muslim organisations, the thesis applies the concepts of field, doxa, capital, norms and symbolic power as theorised by Pierre Bourdieu and others. The thesis proposes the idea of the religio-organisational field as a construct informed by the spheres of religious life and of organised, institutional logics. The religio-organisational field frames the struggle for the positions of power, recognition and capital available in the structural relations of the field. In this context, the thesis seeks to identify what Muslim organisations stand to win and loose in the pursuit of the stronger positions in the field. Also, the thesis questions how the Muslim organisation impacts and changes the existing institutions and organisations. This is done by investigating the structural norms, technologies, tactics and powers of dominations and subjection as applied by both the Muslim organisations and the governing institutions in the field. A core assumption of the thesis is that since the introduction of Islam and Muslim organisations into the European context, Islam has been a catalyst or occasion for significant changes in the balances of power amongst states and churches. This is investigated further by looking at the history of regulating religion, which is the structural context in which Muslim organisations must navigate and position themselves. Not only the history of churches and states is revealing, but also the specific laws and norms that frame and structure the possible field of action of Muslims are of relevance. Within this normative and historical context, a case from each of the three countries is analysed and discussed in depth. In Danmark, the focus is on Muslim organisations who seek recognition and approval to perform marriages with civil validity. The analysis goes into significant detail about the ministrial practices and procedures as managed by the Advisory Committee on Religious Denominations. The Bourdieuian perspective applied here is on the construction and maintenance of fundamental dividers in the religio-organisational field and the strict scrutiny to which Muslim organisations are submitted. Next, the focus is on the German Islam Conference. This analysis looks at the struggle between the German government and the Muslim organisations who are trying to position themselves as eligible and respectable partners in the religio-organisational field. The Bourdieuian perspective applied here is on the generative structuration that transforms ‘Muslims in Germany’ to ‘German Muslims’ by analogy to the Christian institutions. In the English case the focus is on the Shari’a councils and their position between the Muslim communities and the wider English society. The Shari’a councils are locked in a tricky game of managing expectations from both these sides. They have the difficult task of stewardship of the Islamic norms embedded in Shari’a, which is challenged in a modern context. The Bourdieuian perspective is on the symbolic resignification and reproduction of Shari’a norms as these become new resources for Muslims in the religio-organisational field. The thesis concludes on the overall guiding questions and outlines the most important perspectives from the analyses of the religio-organisational fields. This is done by looking specifically at what Muslim organisations, on one hand, and state and governments, on the other, stand to win and loose in the struggles of the field. The conclusion, furthermore, summarises the most important and critical insights into the impositions of division in the religio-organisational field and into the Muslim positions taken in response to these impositions.

Royal studies journal, 2015

2014

This article portrays the institutionalisation of religion as a conflictive, two-way process that involves many actors and is influenced by differential opportunity structures. Institutionalisation entails promises but also poses risks for religions, religious minorities, and governments. Religious newcomers are drawn into lobbying and coalition building, and conflictive processes of ‘negotiations cum deliberations’ are an unavoidable side effect of this. All regimes of governance imply serious strategic problems for religions. The first problem is how to deal with the trade-off between autonomy and privileges on the one hand, and political influence on the other (the autonomy dilemma). Legal privileges along with fiscal and monetary ‘gains’ for religions, go hand in hand with ‘losses’ in the formal autonomy of religions and with increases in state regulation and control. The second problem concerns how to deal with issues inherent to institutionalisation (the organisation and mobil...

Statistics suggest that across Europe, Muslims are disproportionately represented in prisons. The reasons for this are numerous – the young age profile of Muslims, social and economic deprivation, counter-terrorism legislation that criminalises acts that previously would not have been criminalised, and so forth. Perhaps unsurprisingly, therefore, the number of Muslims found guilty of terrorist and terrorist-related offences in prisons has generated significant concern for prison authorities. Officials are concerned that Muslim prisoners convicted of terrorism may pose a risk in relation to radicalising other prisoners, and so a range of measures have been discussed and implemented, including the creation of isolated units for prisoners convicted of terrorism and terrorist-related crimes so that they are unable to influence other prisoners. Crucially, the teaching and practice of Islam within prisons has generated substantial policy interest and focus, with prison officials keen to scrutinise the schools of Islamic thought and teaching that are taking place within prisons. Critics argue that this comprises of a further example of the ways in which Islam is being securitised, whereby an entire faith is being viewed through a security lens, and Muslim populations are seen as a risk to nation state security. Importantly, the intrusion of security service personnel into the lives and faith practices of Muslims can lead to eroding any relationship that Muslims have as citizens with their governments. There have also been reports of inappropriate, offensive and Islamophobic behaviour of prison guards towards Muslim prisoners, some of this stemming from a lack of knowledge of how Islam is practised. It is somewhat naïve to think that the ways in which Islam is being taught and applied inside prisons may have an impact upon radicalisation. Most prisoners have a very rudimentary knowledge of any faith they may follow or convert to whilst in prison, partly because many prisoners have identity issues in that often they are confused about who they are and how it is that they find themselves to be incarcerated. Having counselled many prisoners as a prison psychotherapist, I have experienced individuals who are searching for a sense of self, looking for ways in which they can become more resilient to some of the factors that have led them to a life of crime and violence, and for some of these individuals religion, including Islam, may be part of a solution. Radicalisation is complex. As a psychotherapist I draw upon the Transtheoretical Model (TTM) developed by Prochaska & Norcross (2010), to shed light on some of the complexities to radicalisation. This is a psychosocial model that conceptualises and analyses psychological and behavioural change, and so when exploring the journeys that prisoners have made in relation to their ideologies, actions, personal and other identifications, it seems that this model might offer some useful insights, or at least raise questions for future research.

Knowledge, Normativity and Power in Academia, Critical Interventions, 2018

Darulfunun ilahiyat, 2019

Policy Centre of the New South, 2020

2017

This paper aims to develop a conceptual framework to explain how organizations may respond in the case of conflict between Islam and other institutional logics. Taking into consideration some theoretical and empirical studies, I propose that there are two main alternative ways for organizations to react in such a conflict: according to the merits of the religion or according to the norms of the field. I argue that the former alternative promotes the protection of religious authenticity whereas the latter promotes the reinterpretation of religious rules and is thus in touch with modern practices. I further offer some ontological and functional aspects of Islam as antecedents of organizational responses.