The Religious Identity of Young Muslim Women in Berlin Muslim Minorities Editors Jørgen S. Nielsen, University of Copenhagen Felice Dassetto, University of Louvain-la-Neuve Aminah McCloud, DePaul University, Chicago VOLUME 14 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/mumi The Religious Identity of Young Muslim Women in Berlin An Ethnographic Study By Synnøve K.N. Bendixsen LEIDEN • BOSTON 2013 Financial support was received from The Research Council of Norway (NFR) and from Uni, Stein Rokkan Centre for Social Studies, Norway. Cover illustration : Graffiti on wall, Lausitzer Strasse, Kreuzberg. Photo provided by Synnøve Bendixsen. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bendixsen, Synnøve K.N. The religious identity of young Muslim women in Berlin : an ethnographic study / by Synnøve K.N. Bendixsen. p. cm. -- (Muslim minorities ; v. 14) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-22116-1 (hardback : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-90-04-25131-1 (e-book) 1. Muslim women--Relgious life--Germany--Berlin. 2. Muslim youth--Religious life--German--Berlin. 3. Identification (Religion) I. Title. BP65.G32B473 2013 305.48ʼ6970943155--dc23 2013006190 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 1570-7571 ISBN 978-90-04-22116-1 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-25131-1 (e-book) Copyright 2013 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers and Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. All rights reserved. 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CONTENTS Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................xi A Note on Language and Sources ...................................................................... xiii Introduction .................................................................................................................1 Research on Islam and Muslims in Germany/Europe—A Brief Outline ................................................................................................................ 4 Individualization of Religiosity.................................................................... 8 Issues and Perspectives ......................................................................................13 Conceptualization ...............................................................................................19 Islam as a Discursive Tradition ...................................................................19 Community ......................................................................................................21 Crafting the Self .............................................................................................. 22 Social Identity and Group Dynamics .......................................................26 Outline ...................................................................................................................28 1 Situating the Field and Methodological Reflections ...................................31 Introducing MJD: A New Generation of Muslims...................................... 32 MJD’s Beginnings ........................................................................................... 32 The Structure of MJD .................................................................................... 35 Profile of the Participants ............................................................................ 37 Local and National Connections ................................................................41 Coming Out in Public: The Scandal ..........................................................42 Methodology: The Art of Fieldwork ..............................................................46 Entering the Field ..........................................................................................46 Making Use of Situational Analysis ..........................................................49 The Social Position of the Fieldworker ....................................................52 Conducting Fieldwork in an Atmosphere of Mistrust..............................54 Who Is the Researcher? ................................................................................ 55 Who Are the Listeners? ................................................................................58 Suspending Judgment ..................................................................................60 As Way of Conclusion: On Conducting Fieldwork ....................................64 2 Making Sense of the City: The Religious Spaces of Young Muslim Women in Berlin .............................................................................66 Introducing Berlin ..............................................................................................66 vi contents Changing Sociological Landscapes ................................................................71 City Spaces Phase 1: The Arrival of Non-European Guest Workers in Berlin .......................................................................................71 The Socio-Historical Situation of Migrants from the Middle East.......................................................................................... 74 City Spaces Phase 2: Ethnic Businesses and Infrastructure ............... 75 City Spaces Phase 3: “Immigrants” and “Turks” Become “Muslims” .................................................................................................... 77 Religion and the Urban ....................................................................................82 Structuring Islamic Communities .............................................................85 Mosques: Contested Religious Spaces......................................................88 Identification with Religious Spaces ............................................................90 Ethnicity-Based Religious Spaces ..............................................................97 The Reputation of Religious Spaces ....................................................... 100 Teaching and Presentation Style of Religious Spaces .........................102 Making Sense of Religious Spaces in the City .......................................... 106 3 Negotiating, Resisting and (Re)Constructing Othering .......................... 108 The Occidental and Oriental Other ............................................................. 110 The Role of the Other in Constructing the Nation .............................. 112 Migrants Entering the European Nation-State: The Cultural Other .................................................................................. 114 Migrants Born in Germany: The Religious Other ................................. 115 Looking at the Headscarf ........................................................................... 120 The Tactics of Muslim Women ..................................................................... 124 The Joking Tactic .......................................................................................... 128 The Rehearsal Tactic ................................................................................... 129 The Normalization Tactic ...........................................................................134 Politics of Representation.............................................................................. 136 The Corrective Tactics ................................................................................ 139 The Headscarf as Social Capital................................................................ 141 Contesting Representations ...................................................................... 143 4 Crafting the Religious Individual in a Faith Community ....................... 147 A Religious Ethos ............................................................................................. 150 The Religious Body ....................................................................................... 151 Objectification and De-Culturalization of Religion ........................... 154 Knowledge Formation in MJD...................................................................... 158 Distinguishing between Culture and Religion ..................................... 158 Merging Internal Motivation and External Motions........................... 161 contents vii Practicing How to Desire Correctly......................................................... 166 Acquiring an Islamic Character ................................................................ 171 Submission to God ............................................................................................177 Cultivation of a Religious State of Mind: Formation of the Unfree Subject? ............................................................................178 5 Trajectories of Religious Acts and Desires: Bargaining with Religious Norms and Ideals ..............................................................183 Defining Religious Agency ............................................................................. 187 Situating Social Behavior in a Discursive Tradition ........................... 187 Positioning Behavior as Religious............................................................ 188 The Religious Subject.................................................................................. 190 Trajectories of Religious Acts ....................................................................... 192 Trajectory 1: Effort .........................................................................................193 Trajectory 2: Exception ............................................................................... 195 Trajectory 3: Contesting Knowledge ....................................................... 197 Trajectory 4: Using Multiple References ................................................ 199 Pluralization of Religious Acts and Behavior ...........................................204 Alteration of Acceptable Performances ................................................204 (Per)forming the Religious Self ................................................................206 Individualization of Religious Identity? ................................................208 6 Making a Religious Gender Order ................................................................ 216 Making Gender through Religion .................................................................217 The Virtuous Female Body ........................................................................ 219 Ideals of Gender Relations: Complementarity versus Equality ......222 Creating Gendered Religious Spaces ......................................................224 The Corrections ............................................................................................228 Finding a Suitable Husband ..........................................................................232 Halal Dating...................................................................................................234 Female Emancipation through Religion? ..................................................240 Reconfiguration of Authority ...................................................................243 An Alternative Space ..................................................................................247 7 The Meanings of and Incentives for a Religious Identification............249 Why are we Asking Why?...............................................................................253 The Question of Why: External Social and Cultural Context ..............254 Being with Others like Themselves: Socio-Cultural Background ...256 The Question of Difference: Three Sisters with Different Desires........................................................................................................259 viii contents The Question of Why: Incorporating Religious Experiences ................264 Being with Others like Themselves: Lifestyle Orientation ...............265 Being with Others like Themselves: Forms of Religiosity .................268 Being with Others like Themselves: Sharing Experiences of Self-Transcendence ............................................................................271 Variations in Religious Careers ................................................................ 273 Taking Religiosity Seriously ...........................................................................278 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 281 Being a Modern Muslim Youth......................................................................283 Religion as a Modern Urban Identity ..........................................................287 Politics of the Religious Self .......................................................................... 290 Appendix I: Situating the Movements Studied within the Wider Islamic Field in Germany................................................................................295 A Brief Overview of the Three Main Organizations in This Study ..................................................................................................296 Muslimische Jugend in Deutschland e.V. ..............................................296 The Islamische Kultur und Erziehungszentrum Berlin e.V. .............297 Al Nur-Mosque .............................................................................................297 Overview of Selected Islamic organizations in Germany and Berlin.......................................................................................................299 Bibliography ............................................................................................................305 Index..........................................................................................................................323 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figures 1. Participant with MJD logo at MJD meeting 2004. ....................................40 2. Ibn al-Khattab mosque at the Görlitzer Bahnhof, Kreuzberg ..............67 3. Fruit and Vegetable stand at Kottbusser Tor, Kreuzberg........................76 4. Bakery Kreuzberg ............................................................................................. 79 5. “Light of the Orient”, wedding dress shop in Wedding ...........................80 6. Outside the MJD premises ..............................................................................91 7. Inside the courtyard, entrance to the mosque and Youth Club Assalam ..........................................................................................................93 8. Entrance to the Al Nur mosque, Neukölln .................................................95 9. Young women with headscarves, Kreuzberg............................................123 10. Entrance to seminar tent at MJD summer camp. Women’s entrance on the left, men’s entrance on the right hand side ..........170 11. MJD Event with Ammar 114 in Berlin .........................................................177 12. Inside the seminar tent at an MJD summer camp. Women sit on the left-hand side, men on the right-hand side ...........................226 Tables 1. Religious associations in Berlin (national) ..............................................299 2. Berlin-specific religious associations (local) ........................................... 301 3. National umbrella organizations ...............................................................303 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book is based on my PhD thesis at Europäische Ethnologie , Humboldt University (Berlin) and Anthropologie sociale et ethnologie at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris), which resulted in a diploma in 2010. Although writing a book is to a large extent a lonely venture, many people have offered invaluable time, support, and friendship, in this pro- cess. Some continue to be part of my life, and others I hope to meet again. It would not have been possible to complete this book without them. I am grateful for the patience and generosity of the youth who I met and worked with in Berlin. For reasons of confidentiality I cannot acknowl- edge them by name, but I hope that this book in some ways makes avail- able their stories, aspirations and struggles. I would like to express my gratitude to my primary dissertation advisor, Wolfgang Kaschuba, for his continued support and encouragement throughout this project. The feedback which I received from my second- ary advisor, Jonathan Friedman, has also been invaluable. The German Research Foundation (DFG, Deutschen Forschungsge meinschaft ) supported my affiliation with the Transantlantisches Gratuiertenkolleg Berlin – New York at the Center for Metropolitan Studies (CMS). The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD, Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst ), the German Research Foundation (DFG) and Lise og Arnfinn Hejes fond (Norway) provided financial support for two years of fieldwork. The Transantlantisches Gratuiertenkolleg Berlin – New York provided office space, essential resources, and institutional support, and also facilitated my stay at New York University. At CMS, I want to thank my colleges Elitza Stanoeva, Jenny Künkel, and Ignacio Farias in particular for sharing joyful and difficult moments. The Norway-America Association made possible a longer stay at New York University. Neil Brenner at NYU facilitated my stay at there, and I owe my gratitude for this as well as for inspiring conversations. I am grateful to Valentine Daniel and Katherine Pratt Ewing for their hospital- ity and helpfulness during my time in New York and to Ingrid Olivo for frequently providing me with a bed and a social sanctuary. Parts of this book was written in Hawler, Kurdistan, Northern Iraq, and I want to express my gratitude to all of my Kurdish students who are filled xii acknowledgements with hope for the future. I also need to thank my colleges and friends Sandra Phelps and Daniel Wolk at the University of Kurdistan – Hawler for reading parts of my manuscript. Several sections of this book have been presented at numerous confer- ences and seminars. I thank participants in these conferences and seminar for their stimulating questions and numerous suggestions. I also thank everyone in European Ethnology at Humboldt University in Berlin for creating an inclusive academic atmosphere. My gratitude also goes to the participants in the Kolloquium in Social anthropology at the Europa- Universität Viadrina. Furthermore, I am grateful to several friends and colleges for insight- ful comments in my struggle with this project. I would like to thank (in no particular order) the late Reidar Grønhaug, Werner Schiffauer, Schirin Amir-Moazami, Yngve Lithman, Ulrich Ufer, Nina Mühe, Christine Jacobsen, and Hakan Tosuner for engaging with my writing at various stages of this research project. I am grateful to Uni, Stein Rokkan Centre for Social Studies, Norway, for providing me with financial support and a space to make it possible to complete this manuscript. I also thank the Norwegian Research Foundation (NFR) for generous financial support for the English editing of the final manuscript. Thanks also to the series editor at Brill, Nicolette van der Hoek, to the anonymous reviewer, and to Eileen Muller Myrdahl who edited the text for publication. Needless to say, any flaws in this study are my responsibility alone. Finally, I want to thank my dearly missed sister Gunhild, who left us too early, for teaching me more than I can express. I dedicate this work to her with love. A NOTE ON LANGUAGE AND SOURCES Transliteration of Islamic vocabulary in an English publication on Muslims in Germany is a matter of discussion as there are no fixed standards for an “Islamic-American English” or an “Islamic German” yet. I have chosen to not make use of computer-generated Arabic script. This is because the women in this book mostly made use of the German or English spelling of the Arabic words. Islamic-American English – or rather Islamic-German – is part of how Islam is practiced and lived in Germany. In addition, I use both Arabic terms and English translations of Arabic terms. Translations (such as sometimes using God instead of Allah) is about making the text more accessible and avoiding constructing a radical difference. Through this practice I also seek to avoid an unnecessary and unhealthy Orientalizing of the youth and the Islamic world. Further, there is a wide range of Arabic words that are by now a familiar presence in English publications.1 As there continues to be a divergence in how Arabic words are spelled in the English and German, I follow the standards suggested by Metcalf (Making Muslim Space in North America, 1996) in her work on translitera- tion, though with some exceptions where I have preferred a more collo- quial form. The main difference, however, is that I have opted to italicize the Arabic (as well as the German and Turkish) terms with the exception of some frequently used terms, such as Allah and imam. I also italicize German words and expressions. These terms have a bracketed translation the first time they occur in the text and some words will be translated more than once in the text to facilitate comprehension. German organizations are referred to by their German acronyms in the text. When I quote the writings of other authors, I follow their style of spell- ing and italics. I present the plural forms of Arabic terms either in American colloquial forms or standard Arabic. There is a short overview of Muslim organizations and mosques in Germany and Berlin in appendix I. The main purpose is to situate the movements in this book within the larger Islamic field in Germany. 1 For a longer discussion on the use of English versus Arabic terms, see Metcalf (1996: 1–3). 1 According to the Guardian, between 30,000 and 40,000 Muslims marched against the headscarf ban at schools in Paris, Marseille, Lille and other cities in France (the Guardian 2004). INTRODUCTION So tell the tale – perhaps they will reflect. –Koran 7:176 Arriving in Berlin, Germany, in the spring of 2004 for my anthropological fieldwork on youth with immigrant backgrounds, it was impossible to avoid the heated debate about Muslim women in the newspapers, particu- larly the so-called headscarf debate: should Muslim women be allowed to work as teachers, administrators, or police officers while wearing a veil? I was struck by the media representation of Muslim women as oppressed, passive, or unwilling to integrate, at the same time as I observed headscarf marches in Berlin and in Paris (January and February 2004) where thou- sands of young women and men marched for women’s rights to wear the headscarf.1 In my multicultural Berlin neighborhood of Kreuzberg, I observed groups of young women laughing and chatting playfully at street corners, some with headscarves, others without. “How do they feel about this constant media attention?” I wondered. “What impact does the constant media focus on their well-being and inner thoughts have on their daily life?” “What does it mean to be a young woman Muslim in Berlin today?” During my fieldwork with Muslim youth, I gradually came to struggle with a situation in which the media depicted Muslim women as submissive and indoctrinated, whereas the Muslim women I knew were making sexual jokes, contemplating which color of headscarf to wear with what shirt, and reproaching themselves for neglecting certain religious obligations. The tension between the media representations and my eth- nographic experience deepened throughout my fieldwork as I listened to the views the young women themselves had about what they were doing. The apparently zero-sum affiliations that the media and others con- structed between Muslim and German, religious and modern, collective practice or individualization, have guided my fieldwork and theoretical framework. The emergence, re-emergence, and transformation of religiosity and Islamic identity among young Muslims living in European societies have 2 introduction 2 The term “Muslim” should not be used in a reductionist manner. Generally, the media and often current social research consider all people coming from, or having a background in, a country where the majority follows Islam to be “Muslims.” However, one must not lose sight of the fact that individuals differ substantially, and that people from a Muslim back- ground may consider themselves non-believers or adherents of another faith (see Spielhaus and Färber 2006 for a discussion about this). In this book, I use the term “Muslim” more narrowly to refer to those who define themselves as a Muslim. 3 Studies about differences within the Muslim population in Germany and France that are particularly relevant include Al-Hamarneh and Thielmann (2008) Babès (1997), Klinkhammer (2003), Maréchal (2003), Maréchal, Dassetto, Nielsen and Allievi (2003), and Tietze (2001; 2006). According to the study by Şen and Sauer (2006, 20) on the religiosity of Muslims with a Turkish background, in 2005, 28 percent considered themselves very religious, 55 percent considered themselves quite religious, 11 percent considered them- selves not very religious, and 6 percent considered themselves not religious at all. In 2000, been the subjects of significant attention in the last couple of years. Women’s participation in, and support for, Islamic organizations in Western, liberal, “disenchanted” or “post-secular” cities have particularly dumbfounded many, including scholars, media, and politicians. Young women who cover their hair with a headscarf have upset the public to the extent that political authorities in various European countries have codi- fied regulations banning the headscarf from public arenas. For example, since 2011, anyone in France wearing the niqab or burqa in public has risked being fined. In Germany, after a Constitutional Court in 2003 opened the way for distinctive laws by the Land (federal departments), several Land have gradually adopted laws that ban veiled teachers from state schools. Muslim communities in Western Europe deal with a greater range of new and diverse challenges in their everyday life compared to Muslims in countries where Islam is a majority religion. Each European country pres- ents distinct structural, political, legal, and institutional approaches to how they deal with Muslim minority claims, which in turn presents both opportunities and limitations in establishing Muslim institutions and encouraging religious practices. The continuous interaction between Muslim minority populations and non-Muslim majorities and institutions in different European countries affects how Islam is institutionalized and practiced. It also has an effect on young people who seek to live as reli- giously devoted Muslims in European societies. This book provides an in-depth empirical case study of young Muslim women who were born in Germany and who participate in one of the reli- gious organizations in Berlin.2 Previous research has thoroughly docu- mented the plurality of ways of being a young Muslim: there are both intra- and inter-generational differences within the Muslim population in Germany and the relevance of religion in their everyday practices varies.3 introduction 3 the numbers were 8 percent very religious, 65 percent quite religious, 11 percent not very religious, and 3 percent not at all. However, statistical research on Muslims’ relationship to their religion tends to bring forth different numbers and therefore needs to be handled with utmost care. 4 Scholars frequently divide the plurality of ways of belonging to Islam and of being Muslim into different categories of religiousness. (See e.g. Karakaşoğlu 1999, 2000, 2003b; Klinkhammer 2000, 2003; Maréchal 2003; Nökel 2002; Schiffauer 2006b; and Tietze 2001). Whereas some consider Islam to be part of their cultural and ethnic heri- tage, others confine religion to the private sphere. Yet others relate to Islam as a way of life, as part of both their private and public life.4 This study concentrates on a representative group of religiously inclined young women who care about the place of religion in their lives. In the future, this group is also likely to represent a visible manifestation of a nascent German-Muslim identity. This book investigates how these young Muslim women seek to live a devout life in Berlin, in a context of increasing politi- cization and securitization of Muslims and Islam, and in an atmosphere of distrust in which the behavior, solidarity, and loyalty of Muslims in Europe are being questioned. In the religious organization Muslim Youth in Germany ( Muslimische Jugend in Deutschland e.V. , henceforth MJD), young women from different national and ethnic backgrounds are engaged in the study of Islamic scrip- tures to appropriate norms and behavior that they believe are significant to the crafting of their religious Selves. The youth produce their religious identity through religious education, experiences of rituals, and other events that produce social meaning. This book explores the forms of reli- giosity among the youth and investigates one of the contemporary forms and religious orientations that circulate among young Muslims in Europe. I also examine how religious practices and beliefs take place both at an individual level and as part of a group socialization process. This analysis sheds light on the different paths and spaces that are available to individu- als who seek to identify with Islam or act religiously, and avoids suggesting that they act homogeneously or inconsistently. As youth who participate in a religious organization or faith community are the main focus of this book, I ask not only why young people decide to participate in a religious organization, but also how this participation affects their religious practices and gender identification. As members of this religious organi- zation, young people are presented with religious discourses and social expectations regarding their behavior: how does this affect how they con- struct or craft their Selves as religious subjects in this faith community? How do religious beliefs and practices shape the way they view the world 4 introduction and behave in public life, and how does their milieu affect religious beliefs and activities? What types of actions and practices do the people involved consider Islamically correct, and how are these legitimated? The rest of this introduction provides a short outline of past research on Islam and Muslims in Germany/Europe, focusing in particular on research on Muslim youth, and the scholarly presumption of an ongoing individualization of religion. It then moves on to situate the themes of the book within past research, before it introduces the concepts Islam as a discursive tradition, “community”, “crafting the Self”, “social field” and “social identity.” The last part of the introduction provides an outline of the book. Research on Islam and Muslims in Germany/Europe—A Brief Outline The focus and the analytical approaches in research on Islam and Muslims in Europe have undergone a change in recent decades. Until the 1980s, social science inquiry into migrant populations in European societies tended to concentrate on how the ethnic and cultural heritage of these populations persisted or changed in Europe. In the late 1980s, questions of the religious identities of the migrant communities were increasingly included in migration studies (Vertovec 2000). In particular, this change took place in the aftermath of the Rushdie Affair in 1989 when, to the surprise of social scientists and British politicians, thousands of British migrants protested in the street against the publication of “The Satanic Verses” by Rushdie (in 1988). The vehement public response from migrants against the book’s allegedly blasphemous references directed migration researchers’ attention to the importance of ongoing and changed religious attachments in the socio-cultural life of migrants and in their assertions of a particular ethnic group identity within European societies. Since the 1990s, the fact that youth with migrant backgrounds born in European societies seem to increasingly “turn to Islam” as a locus of iden- tity has received increasing attention both in research and in the media. There has been a tendency to represent Muslim women as “passive vic- tims of oppressive cultures,” or as the “embodiment of a repressive and ‘fundamentalist’ religion” (Dwyer 1998, 53). Simultaneously, the religiosity of the migrant population has increasingly been a feature of debates on cultural diversity, which includes issues such as the provision of special diets to meet religious principles, the hijab, and the building of places of introduction 5 5 Both Grillo (2004) and Vertovec (2000) offer a good overview of the development of the research agenda during this period. 6 See in particular the work of Amiraux (2003), Bendixsen (2005, 2009b), Cesari (2002, 2003), Fadil (2011), Khosrokhavar (1997), Jacobsen (2011), Jacobson (1998), Jouili (2009), Leveau (1988), Scott (2007), Tietze (2001, 2006). 7 Author’s translation from the original French: “qui sont plus ou moins exclus de la société et de quête d’un sens a donner a leur vie.” 8 Author’s translation from the original French: “recréer un lien social face au vide de l’immigration et aux frustrations de l’intégration.” worship.5 The religiosity of young Muslims has gradually come to be understood as related to processes of social assimilation or segregation, questions about living between two cultures, or identity crises (Kepel 1994; Rogers and Vertovec 1998). The scholars in the edited volume “Muslim European Youth” (Rogers and Vertovec 1998) rejected an understanding of Islam in Europe as a mere tradition relocated from the migrants’ home country to the new country, or as something that the youth either leave behind or embrace. With case studies from Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, and based on concepts such as hybridity, multiplicity, and cultural creativity, this work challenged the idea that Muslim youth in Europe embodied a “clash of civilizations” (à la Huntington’s 1993 thesis). Instead, the studies argued that Muslim youth were creating hybrid and complex identities and establishing new models of religious and cultural expressions. Post 9/11 research has increasingly focused on how religion itself changes as a consequence of experiences of migration and the transfor- mation of religious groups in Europe. This research also examines the continuation and transformation of religious identities among youth with immigrant backgrounds.6 The identification with Islam among youth in Europe has increasingly been seen as a solution to the youths’ social situa- tion in European societies (Cesari 2003; Khosrokhavar 1997). Scholars have argued that Islam is one way that young people can shape, affirm, and situate their identity in a society in which they are not accepted as full participants (Venel 1999, 29). The religious identity of Muslim youth in France has been viewed as a solution for youth “who are more or less excluded from the society and who search for a sense of direction in life” (Khosrokhavar 1997, 39).7 In this view, by turning to Islam, youth can “rec- reate a social bond in light of the emptiness of immigration and frustra- tion of integration” (Saint-Blancat 1997: 51).8 In these studies, Islam is frequently viewed as a cultural sub-system in relation to which youth can develop a strong identity. Importantly, schol- ars see religious identification as not necessarily leading to segregation, 6 introduction 9 Subsequent to her doctoral research, Nekla Kelek has altered her view of Islam as not necessarily leading to segregation in the German society, as signaled by her highly contro- versial and populist books “The foreign bride. A report from the inside of Turkish life in Germany” (“Die fremde Braut. Ein Bericht aus dem Inneren des türkischen Lebens in Deutschland”) in 2005 and “The lost sons. Plea for the liberation of the Turkish Moslem man” (“Die verlorenen Söhne. Plädoyer für die Befreiung des türkisch-muslimischen Mannes”) in 2006. 10 This study does not situate Islam within the Euro-Islam perspective represented by scholars like Bassam Tibi, or within Europeanized Islam. The Euro-Islam perspective highlights the pluralistic and democratic character of the European public sphere and is critiqued for de-legitimizing the mobilization of Muslims that deviate from this “‘enlight- ened’ European system of values” (Amir-Moazami and Salvatore 2003, 52). Euro-Islam, an Islam that is compatible with the Enlightenment, universal values, and Western ways of life, appears to be a normative term with little empirical basis (Thielmann 2008). The Europeanized Islam perspective stresses the transformative and pluralist characteristics of Muslim organizations and social life. It also argues that there has been a privatization of Islam due to its entrance into secular Western societies (ibid.). Cesari is one of the scholars who work within the latter approach. Such perspectives, which primarily situate Muslims and Islam in Europe within the context of the European public sphere, are critiqued both for being implicitly Eurocentric and for constructing a homogeneous view of the European public sphere (Amir-Moazami and Salvatore 2003; Peter 2006a). but instead to potential integration (Kelek 2002).9 Youths’ religiosity or turn to Islam is often considered a response to a situation in which youths with migration backgrounds are “out of context” or discriminated against in Europe. Engagement with Islamic tradition becomes the starting point of an “identity politics” in which the youth not only reinterpret features of migrated traditions, but also start to oppose and assert specific identities. Conceptualizing the youths’ turn to Islam in terms of identity politics sheds light on Muslim youths’ efforts to demand rights and recognition within the various European states and the construction of new modes of political engagement and belonging. Yet these explanations consider Islam’s status as a minority religion and culture within democratic and secular European countries to be the main reason behind transformations of Muslims practices and youths’ relationship to Islam (Cesari 2005).10 Jocel