Making and unmaking Muslim religious authority in Western Europe

Abstract

In this paper I wish to begin addressing a number of questions concerning Muslim religious authority, to which I do not have ready answers myself and which, I believe, have only incidentally been touched upon by earlier research. Given the fact that Islamic knowledge – by which I mean that which Muslims consider to be correct Islamic beliefs, values and practices — is inherently contested, how do certain forms of Islamic knowledge become authoritative among Muslims in Western Europe? There exists a range of would-be Muslim authorities, which are eager to define correct Islam for other Muslims as well as to represent it towards non-Muslims. There are also states as well as non-state actors in European societies that have a strong interest in favouring or rejecting certain interpretations of Islam. What are the strategies used by individuals and institutions to establish their authority or to delegitimatise that of others? Why have some of these strategies been successful or failed? To what extent does the European social, political and cultural context play a part in these strategies or in the forms of Islamic knowledge represented? Whereas these questions concern what may be called the “supply” side of religious knowledge, there is a corresponding series of questions concerning the “demand” side: How do Muslims in Europe, especially second- and third-generation immigrant Muslims, acquire their knowledge of Islam? Whom do they seek out as teachers, counsellors or role models, and on what grounds? What is the impact of their linguistic competence on the type of knowledge demanded or acquired? To what extent does the life-world of young Muslims in Western Europe give rise to new questions, new values, new practices, new interpretations?