This paper examines the ongoing employment of laïcité (French secularism), from the colonial period until today. I argue that Laïcité is used as a barrier to equal status for Muslims under French rule. I ask the questions: what is the official national identity of France and who defines it? Can one be both a practicing Muslim and French? To what extent is the application of laïcité to Islam in France different from its application to other faiths, particularly Catholicism? What are the implications of laïcité acting as a core of the official national identity? To what extent is the identity racial? To answer these questions, the paper begins by outlining the development of citizenship laws regarding colonial populations, such as the 1865 Senatus Consulte that required Muslims to renounce their Muslim status to become French citizens. It then discusses citizenship policies at the eve of Algerian independence, which divided Algerians between those of European descent (settlers and Jewish Algerians) and those of Muslim descent. The Europeans retained their citizenship while the Muslims lost it. The paper proceeds to discuss contemporary debates about the compatibility, or lack thereof, of being both Muslim and French. Two such examples are the debates on banning headscarves in French schools and the formation of the ministry of immigration and national identity under Sarkozy. In this paper I demonstrate a continuity in French discourse and practice with respect to using the veneer of universal values to justify the marginalization and second-class status of Muslims in France. I argue that French intellectual history from the colonial period informs contemporary debates on and understandings of Muslims and their place in France. Laïcité is constructed as a foundational ‘universal’ value of France. It continues to function, in practice, as a barrier to access, for Muslims, to equal status in the French national community. They must be made laïque by the state in a neo-civilizing mission, which is half-heartedly undertaken, as in Algeria. Sources for the paper include laws and government reports such as the aforementioned Senatus Consulte and the Stasi commission report which recommended France’s headscarf ban. It also reviews official statements of the new ministry and debates in major French papers on the ministry and headscarf. This textual research is reinforced by field work conducted in Paris from December 2007 to January 2008, including interviews with activists, social workers, students and government officials.

This paper analyzes the role of the Diyanet, the official institution representing Islam in Turkey, in the Muslim representative bodies in Europe through the case of Austria. Austria is a special case in the institutionalization of Islam in Europe. First, the Islamic Religious Community of Austria-IRCA was established in 1979, much earlier than other examples of Muslim representative bodies in Belgium and France. Secondly, as different from other examples, it was initiated by the Muslim community itself rather than the Austrian government. Based on field research in both Turkey and Austria, this paper argues that the Diyanet faces both opportunities and challenges in its claim to represent Turkish Muslims in Austria. Immigrants of Turkish origin constitute the overwhelming majority in the Austrian Muslim community and the Diyanet has been active in Austria since the foundation of ATIB (The Turkish-Islamic Union for Cultural and Social Co-operation in Austria) in 1990. It controls the largest cluster of mosques within the Turkish Muslim community. With the backing of the Turkish state through diplomatic channels, the Diyanet signed special treaties with Austria and established itself as the representative of the Turkish Muslims for the recruitment of teachers of Islam and imams from Turkey. Such a privileged status has been promoted through several arguments: First, the Diyanet presents itself as an authentic Turkish model of a state-sponsored and controlled Islam under a secular state, which can be replicated in Europe. Second, ‘Turkish Islam’ is promoted as a ‘benign’ form of Islam, which is in peace with modernity and multiculturalism. Third, it claims to have a high level competence and rich historical experience in the provision of religious services. On the other hand, however, the Diyanet seems to be marginalized within the IRCA, which is based on individual membership rather than on associational representation. IRCA also tries to monopolize the recruitment of teachers of religion and imams, which allows the Milli Görü? movement to strengthen its place among Turkish Muslims. This paper responds to several questions: How does the Diyanet perceive the process of institutionalization of Islam in Europe? Is the Diyanet’s promotion of ‘Turkish Islam’ compatible with the European states’ efforts to generate a ‘European Islam’? How does the Diyanet serve Turkey’s quest for membership in the EU? To what extent does the Turkish state use the Diyanet as a foreign policy instrument?

Drawing on fifteen focus group discussions and 120 face to face in-depth interviews this paper seeks to describe the main contours of Chicago’s Islamic landscape. More specifically, it asks whether and how Chicago’s well-entrenched social, racial and class divisions as well as political institutions affect the formation of its new Muslim communities. This study not only focuses on one of the understudied groups, Muslims in Chicago, but also delves into the interaction between the political and social landscapes of the cities and the new identities that are molded in them. Exploring the ethnic, sectarian, class plurality within Chicago’s Muslims this research shows as immigrants discover their cities and the cities discover them, they engage in a process of mutual transformation. Under the conventional immigration studies, the tale of this transformation has often been told either from the perspective of the transformation of the city or the resilience or failures/successes of immigrants’ integration to their new social political settings. To map out the micro processes of mutual transformation our in-depth interviews focus on the members of Muslim Student Association of the University of Illinois, DePaul University, Loyola University, and the University of Chicago as well as the leaders of a selected civil society groups. While this study draws on the focus groups and in-depth interviews this research makes “city” a part of its inquiry and asks whether and how Chicago shapes its Muslim residents’ experiences and how Chicago’s Muslims resist, react, adapt, and alter their urban setting.