TERRITORIALIZATION OF ISLAM AS A RESPONSE TO EXCLUSION Oliver Roy highlights the many new movements arising from Muslim minority communities in the West (what he calls the “deterritorialization” of Islam). He argues that second- and third-generation Muslim immigrants in the West do not identify with any particular nation-state, so they have no interest in nationalist or statist Islamic movements. Instead, they seek to create a global community of believers, a global umma. To create such a global community, local and historical cultural differences and variations must be discarded in favor of a “universal” concept of Islam. Islam is radicalized due to this deterritorialization. This paper, based on the ethnographic research conducted on the Turkish Islamist movement Milli Gorus in Germany and the Netherlands, challenges Roy’s argument and argues that neither deterritorialization nor territorialization is automatic. These processes are closely linked to the rules, laws, and regulations of the host country within which Islamist immigrants operate. Deterritorialization might produce a moderate Islam while a territorialized Islam might become radical. Although they embrace ummah as a second pillar of their identity, Milli Gorus members in Germany mostly identify themselves with Turkey, creating a Turkish Islam. On the other hand, Milli Gorus in the Netherlands mostly identify themselves with the ummah while making little refence to Turkey as a marker of their identity. This difference is explained by the exclusivist nature of German rules, laws and regulations in regards to immigration and Islam and the tolerant approach adopted by the Netherlands towards immigrants in general, Muslim immigrants in particular. In the face of exclusion socially, politically and economically, Milli Gorus in Germany turns to Turkey as the main point of reference in their identity construction, becoming more isolated and alienated from the democratic system, while Milli Gorus in the Netherlands adopts a less nationalistic and more universal approach to Islam in the face of acceptance and tolerance by the host society, internalizing democratic processes.