Emergence of Western Muslim identity

Abstract

This chapter identifies and discusses a number of processes, agents and factors which have facilitated the emergence of decidedly Western Muslim identity over the last three to four decades in the context of Western Muslims belonging to a new immigrant minority religion. The chapter also describes two different types of contemporary Western Muslim identities, here termed progressive and neo-traditional Salafi. In order to account for the diversity of contemporary Western Muslim identities, the chapter also outlines one mechanism which contributes to the emergence and construction of different Western Muslim identities, namely the role of scriptural hermeneutics. The author concludes that since the last decade of the last century in particular, we can observe strong indications of the emergence of a distinctly Western Muslim identity driven by multiple processes, discourses and agents such as increasing institutionalization of Islam in the West and the role of Western Muslim academics and intellectuals to name but the most prominent two.