Muslims in Europe

""""""""In recent years, a rising number of German Muslim associations initiated representative mosque projects, which are highly contested in the German society. In these conflicts, provisos of local residents against Muslim prayer houses in their neighbourhoods often intermingle with prejudiced discourses about mosques as visual signs of Islam. This article critically examines mosque debates as targets of right -wing populist propaganda, but also as opportunities to question commonly held prejudices against Muslims and to deepen the systemic inclusion and democratic participation of immigrants.

Keywords : mosque debates; anti -Muslim racism; populism; right -wing extremism; Germany"

FULL ARTICLE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT: http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/curie.2012.19.issue-2/v10226-012-0012-z/v10226-012-0012-z.xml"

From the Germans of Danzig (now Gdansk, in Poland) to the Turks of Rhodes: the «Europa etnografica» map (1:6.000.000) of the Atlante internazionale del TCI (1st ed., 1927). For a later version of this map (3rd ed., 1929) you can see www.davidrumsey.com

""В публикации представлена и проанализирована «Докладная записка о деятельности общества «Ашарихуль-Исламия»» (1928 г.), созданная Восточным отделом ОГПУ. В ней содержится уникальный материал о деятельности исламских организаций, секты ахмадийцев в тюрко-татарской эмигрантской среде европейских государств в конце 1920-х гг., а также о роли подобных формирований в российской политике по отношению к «внутреннему» исламу и восточным государствам.

The publication is presented and analyzed «Report about «Asharihul-Islamiya» (1928) written by Oriental Department of the OGPU. It contains unique material on the activities of Islamic organizations, Ahmadiyya sect in the Turko-Tatar emigration among European states in the late 1920’s and the role of these  organizations in Russian policy towards the «internal» Islam and the eastern states.""

The article is devoted to the practical of preparation the unknown story of the Russian Muslims to Islamic Congress, which was held in the fall of 1923 in Calcutta, India. Based on previously unpublished archival material, the author draws a conclusion about the interests of a group of national-religious elite of the Volga-Ural Turks, and the reasons why these and similar ambitions could not be realized.

European Muslim consumption practices, including the profound sense of alienation from mainstream media and turn towards alternative, more Muslim media have been interpreted as their exit from Europe's media and cultural institutions. However, analysis of these practices indicates that European Muslims have developed critical attitudes towards and distances from European mainstream media along with skills that enable them actively to deconstruct and reconstruct mainstream as well as ‘Muslim’ media content. It is thus possible both to ‘exit’ and to develop a ‘voice’ that attempts to transform mainstream broadcasting.

What explains Islamic organizations' differing support for European integration and the democratic reforms that it entails? The question is highly relevant in the context of European Union (EU) enlargement towards Muslim-majority countries in the Balkans as well as theoretical debates on reasons and forms of Islamic moderation. Yet, almost no comparative research has been done on Balkan Muslims' support for European integration with the exception of the Turkish case. This article explores the role of interest- and belief-related factors in explaining Muslim organizations' differential support for the EU accession project in Albania and Turkey. The comparison of the most powerful Muslim organizations in both countries enables a most similar cases research design – our cases are similar in all aspects of the identified theoretical framework except for organizational capacities, which we argue explain the difference of attitudes towards the EU.

“Islamophobia” has been used as an umbrella term capturing different types of religious stigma towards Muslims. However, the operationalization of the term for research purposes varies greatly, where little attention heretofore has been paid on how islamophobia affects Muslim minorities’ lives. Against this background, we aimed to develop and validate the Perceived Islamophobia Scale (PIS). In the first study (167 German-Arabs, 184 German-Turks and 205 British-Pakistanis), exploratory factor analyses of a preliminary item pool gave support of a three-factor scale in all samples. Subscales were computed for each factor (i.e., perceptions of a general fear of Islam and Muslims, fear of islamization, and islamophobia in the media), which were reliable across the samples. In all samples, the PIS was positively related to psychological distress and in two samples this relation remained significant, after controlling for experiences of discrimination. In Study 2 (262 German-Turks, 277 French-Maghrebis and 249 British-Pakistanis), confirmatory factor analyses supported the structural equivalence of the scale’s three-factor solution. The PIS was positively related to perceived stress and discrimination. Lastly, PIS predicted higher levels of religious and ethnic identification, controlling for discrimination. The PIS seems to be a valid and reliable measure across different Muslim minority groups. The fact that perceptions of islamophobia in two samples negatively predicted psychological distress after controlling for experiences of discrimination, suggests that anti-discrimination laws may be insufficient in protecting Muslim minorities of the negative effects of stigma on psychological well-being.

"Ruixat est une revue transdisciplinaire de sciences sociales dont l’objet principal est d’investir l’espace catalan. Le but de ce périodique est de décrypter des phénomènes que peu voient et débattent, et ainsi, de communiquer, non sur ce qui fait polémique, mais bien sur ce qui constitue souvent la cécité et l’amnésie locale. Dans un temps où les frontières ne sont plus exclusivement physiques, les découpages sociaux que l’on fabrique et que l’on subit apparaissent comme les enjeux principaux de ce qui fait lien, ou plus dramatiquement, de ce qui ne le fait plus.
L’ambition première de Ruixat est de faire état de ces cartographies sociales pour penser la Cité.

Ont contribué :
Jean‐Paul Carrère // Intervention sociale dans les quartiers populaires de Perpignan 1972‐2012 : un regard d’acteur.
Jean‐Luc Panek // Déclin de la mixité sociale dans les établissements scolaires perpignanais.
Pierre Jimenez // L’expérience d’un travail de groupe chemin faisant...
Rachid Id Yassine // Les musulmans en Catalogne française, d’hier à demain ?
David Giband // Dépasser la frontière ou quand l’espace frontalier se rêve territoire.
Dominique Sistach // Au fin fond des « bordels » de Catalogne : les clients roussillonnais de la prostitution.
Alain Tarrius // Perpignan et les nouveaux étrangers.
Ahmed Boubeker // Les mondes de l’immigration des héritiers. Ancrages et transmigration.
Michel Kokoreff // Drogues, trafics, imaginaire de la guerre : des quartiers aux cartels."