Constructing the ‘Ummah’ in European Security: Between Exit, Voice and Loyalty

Abstract

AbstractThe security discourses and practices that grew exponentially in Europe after 9/11 facilitated the elaboration of a counter-discourse on identity and security among many Muslim communities. In this context, the state's attempts to ‘discipline’ the Muslim communities produced an instrumental alliance between officials and those Islamic leaders deemed moderate enough to represent the ‘Muslim community’. Undermining this alliance of convenience are not primarily the global terror networks that triggered the securitization overdrive but rather those ‘amateur jihadists’ whose individualized approaches to religiosity increasingly undermine the political efforts to organize and institutionalize Islamic authority inside the framework of the nation-state.