Muslim Diaspora Research Articles

Islamophobia in the Netherlands: The Adaptation Strategy of the Indonesian Muslim Diaspora in the Netherlands in Response to the Anti-Islam Issues

Islamophobia in the Netherlands: The Adaptation Strategy of the Indonesian Muslim Diaspora in the Netherlands in Response to the Anti-Islam Issues

THE MUSLIM DIASPORA’S NATIONALISM AND IDENTITY IN KAMILA SHAMSIE’S HOME FIRE

The paper deals with Kamila Shamsie’s novel Home Fire to explore the profound social and psychological aspects and identity conflicts Muslim immigrants face in the West, especially in Britain. The importance of this paper is to express the conflict that the Muslim expatriate experiences in his relationship with the West and explore the reasons that affect their tolerance and coexistence. The paper’s problem manifests in exploring significant facets of human interactions, including tolerance, the increasing migrations from Islamic nations to non-Muslim countries, and the challenges arising from identity, religion, and race, which expose migrants to significant perils. The Method uses a social theoretical framework that intersects with the psychological approach. It investigates how both the original and new environments affect character development and individuals' psychological, developmental, and cognitive dimensions in the Muslim Diaspora. It aims to understand the reasons behind involvement in terrorist organizations and also examines the citizenship rights of Muslim Diaspora members. Finally, the paper concludes by presenting the most prominent results, which collectively illustrate that the aggressive style of fiction has influenced the presence of paranoia in literary criticism, leading to an exaggeration of the crimes of others and justification of the self. This is not conducive to objective and neutral analysis, so adopting a more moderate and neutral approach is recommended to allow for open discussion and acceptance of differing viewpoints. This approach should address questions of identity and national belonging.

THE ‘TREES FROM THE SEA’ CORAL ARCHITECTRURES AND INDIAN OCEAN MARITIME RESOURCES

This article presents the author’s experiences, over the past twenty-five years, in coral stone architecture. The use of marine porite coral is a technology that unites different cultures around the Indian Ocean, from the Maldives to the Swahili coast in Africa. The paper focuses on the use of environmental constraints and local resources for the construction of maritime mosques and coral buildings. The pre-Islamic origin of coral architecture is located between India and Indonesia around the first century AD. The diffusion of this technology was supported by Abbasid travellers and merchants in the Western Indian Ocean, and in Africa around the 9th century, as well as its globalisation under the Buwayhids and the Fatimids in the 11th century. This article shows how international maritime trade and Muslim diasporas disseminate a unique technology and how local populations assimilate material cultures, new technologies, new building material and how they share a common Indian Ocean identity. Keywords: Coral Stone, Indian Ocean, Swahili, Maldives, Islamic, Abbasids, Buddhism

Pasai Muslim Diaspora in the 16th Century on the North Coast of Java

This research aims to explain the Pasai Muslim diaspora on the North Coast of Java. This research uses historical research methods which include heuristics (primary sources such as Suma Oriental Tome Pires and secondary sources such as Asian Trade and European Influence in the Archipelago between 1500 and around 1630, Sociological Historical Studies of Indonesian Society Volume 1, Islamic Archeology of the Archipelago, Critical Review of History Banten, Sunan Gunung Jati (between Fiction and fact) Grounding Islam with a structural and cultural approach), source criticism, interpretation, and historiography. The results of this research found that the process of the Pasai Muslim diaspora in the North Coast of Java occurred in the 16th century, resulting in the formation of the Cirebon Sultanate. It also shows that the Pasai Muslim diaspora had spread to parts of West Java brought by Sunan Gunung Djati. After controlling the West Java region, Sunan Gunung Djati then founded the Sultanate of Banten, led by his son, Sultan Hassanudin.
 Keywords: diaspora, Muslim, Pasai, North Coast of Java

Becoming Europeanized Muslims: Religious Identity Formation among Millennials in the Indonesian Muslim Diaspora in the Netherlands

Abstract This article aims to provide insight into the formation of religious identity among the millennial generation of the Indonesian Muslim diaspora in the Netherlands, identifying its main influencing factors. Our empirical study identified a dynamic and diverse process regarding the formation of the millennial group’s religious identity, expressed dynamically in various aspects of Islamic teachings at the level of religious beliefs, morals or ethics, and practices. The negotiation process between their Islamic and Western identities produced various identity statuses, namely diffusion, foreclosure, moratorium, and achievement. The process shifts between exploration and commitment. The study concludes that religious identities formed through exploration are more established and more adaptable to environmental changes than those based on commitment with no exploration. Second, the formation of the Indonesian Muslim millennial diaspora’s religious identity is influenced by three key factors, namely social environment, reference groups, and role models.

Muslim experiences and Islamic perspectives on suicide: a qualitative analysis of fatwa inquiries

Suicide is a rising global public health challenge. Yet, the determinants and magnitude of the problem are understudied in both Muslim-majority countries and Muslim diaspora communities. The overall rarity of suicide events compounded by poor reporting complicates the study of suicide among Muslims. Results across studies are inconsistent and data remains limited due to a myriad of factors. Against this backdrop, this study takes a novel approach to examining the relationship between suicide, Islam, and Muslim cultures through a qualitative analysis of Muslim scholarly responses to suicide-related inquiries (fatwas). The study includes 122 fatwas extracted from Arabic and English fatwa databases based in the Middle East and North America. Through a general inductive approach, both the questions and the answers of each fatwa were analyzed for recurring themes. The analysis yielded four main themes: (1) risk and protective factors; (2) post-suicide matters; (3) prevention; and (4) worldview and conceptualization. The significance and implications of each of these themes are explored in order to advance the understanding of lived experiences, risk factors, and prevention of suicidality in Muslim populations.

The Muslim Diaspora Giggles Back: A Touch of Humour in Notre-Dame and the Vatican’s Shadow

While the earlier literary production of the Moroccan, Algerian and Tunisian Muslim diaspora writing in French and Italian is characterized by its autobiographical overtones, some literary texts written in the twenty-first century have engaged in more experimental enterprises. Kiffe Kiffe demain (2004), originally written in French by French- born Algerian diasporan Faïza Guène, and Divorzio all’islamica a viale Marconi (2010), published in Italian by Algerian-born Amara Lakhous, are two fictions that have achieved international success. This article argues that the tragic and the humorous are interwoven in the two texts by investigating Guène and Lakhous’s depiction of Muslimness as both a source of torment and exhilarating humour.

Russia's Legal Policy Against Diaspora Marriages in Muslim Communities

This article discusses the politics of marriage law in the Russian Muslim diaspora. The Muslim community in Russia faces challenges in carrying out their marriage according to the principles of the Islamic religion amidst the legal regulations in force. This article analyzes the political development of marriage law in the Russian Muslim diaspora, including the recognition of Islamic marriage law, the settlement of legal conflicts between Islamic marriage and state law, and the role of Islamic organizations in safeguarding Muslim marriage rights. This article also presents case studies, examples of legal marriage practices in the Russian Muslim diaspora, and obstacles and solutions encountered in dealing with different legal regulations. This study uses normative research methods. Conceptual, literary and sociological approaches are used in normative or doctrinal research. Data analysis in this study used qualitative analysis methods. The results of the study state that there are political implications of the marriage law of the Russian Muslim diaspora, in addition to the challenges and opportunities in fulfilling the elements of the rights of the Muslim community in Russia. Therefore, it is expected to contribute to broadening the understanding of the politics of marriage law in the Russian Muslim diaspora and exploring issues related to Muslim marriage rights in the context of that country.

Voluntary Diaspora and Missionary Purposes: Mapping Indonesian Muslim Diaspora in Western Countries

This paper aims to show a new characteristic of diaspora. While previous literature discusses the issue of diaspora mostly in terms of victim subject and is associated with the marginalized individual and forced refugees, this article finds a new category which we call a voluntary diaspora. This term refers to a group of diaspora society who actively organize their members to maintain a social bond and identity. This finding was sufficiently generated by conducting literature research, especially on recent works of the diaspora of Indonesian Muslims in Western countries. The finding then contributes to the theoretical explanation of diaspora which is dominated by the notion that views diaspora as a victim phenomenon, as discussed in previous literature.

Hijab and enclothed cognition: The effect of hijab on interpersonal attitudes in a homogenous Muslim-majority context

Stereotyping and discrimination against hijab-wearing women have been studied extensively in many Western countries, which are home to Muslim diasporas. However, there is a paucity of research on Muslim-majority countries. The purpose of this study is to address this gap and explore interpersonal attitudes toward both hijab-wearing and non-hijab-wearing women, in Pakistan, a Muslim Majority country. In this paper, we used the presence or absence of hijab as the independent variable, and measured competence and warmth using items from the Stereotype Content Model (SCM), as well as social and task attraction using items from the Interpersonal Attraction Scale (IAS) as dependent variables. Study 1 included 352 undergraduate students, while Study 2 involved 151 human resource professionals. The findings from both studies were consistent in suggesting that participants had a higher attribution of competence, warmth, and social and task attraction toward the hijab-wearing women compared to the non-hijab-wearing women. Conversely, participants in the non-hijab condition attributed lower levels of warmth, competence, and social and task attraction. We interpret these findings such that in a homogeneous society, individuals who strongly identify with and internalize Muslim culture, and exhibit a preference for their own cultural and religious values (cultural endogamy), attribute higher levels of competence, warmth, social attraction, and task attraction to the protagonist who wears hijab. This research has implications for employment opportunities and attitudes toward women in the workplace in Muslim-majority countries, both for hijabis (women who wear a headscarf) and non-hijabis (women who do not wear hijab).

Rewriting '9/11 or US invation of Iraq' Traumatic Memories in Shaila Abdullah's Saffron Dreams

This paper examines how the US-Pakistani Muslimahs or Muslim women live in the US after US Invasion of Iraq (2003) in Shaila Abdullah’s Saffron Dreams (2009). In the novel, Abdullah depicts her characters as victims of the 9/11 attacks to challenge US dominance in 9/11 narratives, which tend to show how the US becomes the victim, instead of the perpetrator of the US invasion of Iraq. By engaging with postcolonialism and 9/11 studies, this paper questions US anti-Muslim racism, which tends to associate Muslims with terrorism by exploring the ideas of trauma of being attacked by US extremists. This paper found that Abdullah’s Saffron Dreams depicts US Pakistani Muslimah struggling to seek social justice and US belonging. In doing so, this novel resists anti-Muslim racism by depicting its protagonists as facing several trauma, which is ironically continued by her next generation, who is suffering from multiple born defect representing their endless traumatic experiences living in the US after US invasion of Iraq. By exploring US-Pakistani-Muslimah stories, this novel suggests how the Pakistani Muslim diaspora not only struggles to live in the US after the US invasion of Iraq but also faces multiple trauma, especially being attacked by US extremists. This multiple trauma work to question US-trauma centric in dominant narratives. Thus, it is important to investigate traumatic stories from marginal experiences to undermine dominant narratives, which tend to exclude marginal memories after US invasion of Iraq from US belonging.

Indonesian Muslim Diaspora: Strengthening Cognitive Aspects and Competencies Regarding Islamic Heritage in Southeast Asia

This study examined the cognitive aspects and competencies of the Indonesian Muslim diaspora in Southeast Asia through a community empowerment program to preserve Islamic heritage. Muslim communities in Southeast Asia have a historical relationship in the process of da'wah, Islamic culture, and the transmission of knowledge. Historical heritage in the form of mosques, tombs, kingdoms, and religious ceremonies is a potential for halal tourism and a challenge for the cultural conservation process. In this regard, the Indonesian Muslim diaspora plays a significant role in efforts to maintain Islamic heritage in Southeast Asia due to their shared culture, traditions, and language. Enhancing the diaspora's cognitive aspects and competencies was a priority for assistance. Therefore, various activities were implemented to improve their ability to document relevant information about Islamic heritage. This endeavor employed a Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodology to support the Indonesian diaspora residing in Malaysia, Thailand, and Brunei Darussalam. The mentoring program included Focused Group Discussions about Islamic heritage and assistance in improving skills related to data collection and writing about Islamic heritage and Arabic Pegon writing. Following the mentoring activities, notable improvements were observed in the cognitive aspects of the assisted subjects concerning historical mosques and Islamic kingdoms (13.3%), Islamic museums (21.43%), Islamic traditions (35.71%), and Islamic arts (42%), tombs (38.46%), and haul ceremonies (84%). Additionally, there was increased competency in searching and writing Islamic heritage information (13.3%) and Arabic Pegon writing (28.57%) after the mentoring. To ensure program sustainability, the diaspora actively disseminates service outcomes through online directories. Furthermore, ongoing collaboration is fostered through community-based cultural initiatives, which contribute to preserving Islamic history.

Homeland, magnet, and refuge: Mecca in the travels and imaginaries of Chinese Muslims

AbstractMecca is often conceptualized as a destination for the ḥajj or a source of leverage for both western and Ottoman imperial states, and in the twentieth century, for Saudi national foreign policy and Islamist movements. While building on such transnational angles, this article views the city as a convergence point for diaspora populations, an intermediary site that has received and redirected the mobilities of sojourners, refugees, and exiles from different parts of Asia throughout the manifold turnovers of the twentieth century. The article focuses on a community of first- to third-generation settlers in the Hejaz who trace their other homes to different places in China proper. Using archival documents, travelogues, and ethnographic interviews, the article argues that the routes to Mecca, coupled with imaginaries of the city as a home place for Muslims worldwide, served as a rare constant orienting force that sustained two-directional mobilities of Chinese Muslim diasporas through the wars and revolutions of modern times.

Rebellion and Opportunism: Responses to Glocalization in Aslam's Maps for Lost Lovers

Glocalization has affected the lives of the Muslim diaspora population in North England.Diaspora communities struggle to live in a new lifestyle with a hybrid cultural and blended religious identity while coping with the problems of displacement as a result of the mixing and overlaying of eastern and western cultures caused by glocalization. Nadeen Aslam's Maps for Lost Lovers captures the sociological structure of the Diaspora and demonstrates how different ways of living inspire new forms of artistic expression. Roland Robertson popularised the idea of glocalization in social discourse.The thesis expressly addresses the problems of cultural displacement and generational gap among the characters of the novel as a result of their disparate responses to glocalization, leading to isolation one way or another. The gap between the first and the second generations of immigrants is brought about by the coexistence of values from both local and global cultures. While the second generation becomes influenced by their local ideals, the first generation tries to fight against global conventions.

Muslim Diasporas: An Examination of the Issues of the Second and Third Generation Muslims in Europe

This article studies the issues of the emerging second and third generations of post-war Muslim migrants in Europe. There has always been some presence of Muslims in Europe, but immigrants who came in the post-Second World War (WWII) period represent the majority of today's Muslim diasporas in Europe. They are referred to as the ‘first generation’. This division is made to distinguish between those who had moved permanently to a country other than their country of birth, from the second/third-generation immigrants referring to those who were born in Europe. This article explores issues of second and third-generation Muslims in Europe, contrasting and comparing them with their parents’ experiences. Family socialisation has significant effects supporting the effective transmission of religious identification, belief and practices to the next generation. The younger generations may receive a ‘transmitted package of heritage’ from the first generation, but they are not born in a vacuum, rather are exposed to a different mainstream cultural identity coming from the media, non-Muslim (The term non-Muslim refers to anyone who does not define himself as belonging to or practising the Islamic faith.) friends and educational institutions in the new environments. They are not expected to be just passive recipients. They try to relate to both heritages and negotiate in such a way as to maintain relations with family and achieve full European citizenship. For the younger generations in Europe, greater contact and exchange between the races and cultures is the key towards the future even if it is contested within their own community.

How to Protect Your Daughters from “Stranger Marriage”: Palestinian Families in Germany Betwixt Kinship Endogamy and Intercultural Exogamy

This article is about marriage stories collected from Palestinian Muslim families making a new life in Germany while seeking to retain their transnational ties and cultural roots. They belong to the Arab and Muslim diaspora whose disposition to integrate into the fabric of European society has been persistently questioned. Arab and Muslim immigrants and their offspring largely seem to prefer staying amongst themselves, taking spouses from their home countries rather than intermingling with the local population. However, faced with transnational exchange and intercultural crossover in much the same way, those who do intermarry and those who do not may have more in common than often suggested. Combining narrative inquiries with quantitative comparisons, three issues are addressed in this article: the impact of migration histories on marriage preferences and prerogatives, intergenerational dynamics of marriage stories unfolding at the family level, and shifting boundaries of “protection” and “strangeness” evolving in the course of change from below.

Transnational securitization and violence: the discursive mechanism behind the pro-AKP diaspora’s repression of the dissident diaspora groups in the West

ABSTRACT Authoritarian regimes do not only target and oppress their opponents at home, they also try to repress dissident diaspora members abroad. The literature on transnational (extraterritorial) repression has shown that authoritarian regimes normally use transnational organs of the state such as intelligence services as part of their usual transnational repression activities. However, since they do not have sovereignty in the countries, their transnational repression has limits. This article argues that loyal diaspora supporters help these regimes as additional repression and violence apparatuses by trying to repress diaspora members from the same country of origin. However, the discursive mechanism behind this phenomenon has not been studied. This study aims to address this gap. Based on the competitive authoritarian Turkish case, it introduces the concept of “transnational securitization” to securitization theory. The article argues that what makes this type of securitization different is that the audience (pro-government Turkish and non-Turkish Muslim diaspora groups) is not only convinced by the securitization narrative that legitimates the use of extraordinary means that are normally undertaken by the state, but takes it upon themselves to carry on the anti-dissident repressive and violent actions. The article contributes to both transnational repression and securitization literatures.

Civil Society in the Middle East During the Arab Spring and Socio-Political Transformations of the Late 2010s and Early 2020s

The paper analyses the development of civil society in the key Arab countries of the Greater Middle East – Egypt, Tunisia and Syria – through the 2000s and early 2020s. The research mainly focuses on identifying specific features of civic activity developing by various Islamic and Islamist organizations. Methodologically the paper utilizes a set of methods borrowed from history, sociology, Islamic studies and political science. The source base of the research includes a wide range of primary materials on the civic activity in various countries of the region and the author’s interviews conducted with politicians and public figures in Egypt, Tunisia and Syria. The author identifies and analyses the key factors that led to civil society activism and the multidirectional development of civil society organisations and activism in countries in the Middle East region during the “Arab Spring” and social protests of the late 2010s and early 2020s. He carefully examines the transformation of civil society in the Arab Middle East in close relation to new socio-political developments in the West in the 2010s and 2020s and the phenomenon of growing social and political subjectivity exhibited by Muslim diasporas in Europe. The article postulates the hypothesis of the emergence of leader countries with significant influence on Islamist civil society actors in the Middle East through whose influence the “Islamic project” is reinforced as a factor structuring civic engagement in key Arab states in the Middle East.

The Opening of the Muslim World League Office in Paris in 1977. Based on Materials from the Archives of the French Foreign Ministry

The article, based on materials from the archives of the French Foreign Ministry, most of which had not been introduced into scientific circulation before, restores the history of the opening of the office of the Muslim World League in Paris in 1977, which became an important event and led to a noticeable increase in the influence of Saudi Arabia on the Muslim community of France. The archival materials show that the French Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Robert Richard played a significant role in the opening of the office, regularly rushing the leadership of the French Foreign Ministry to make a decision. The tactics chosen by the leadership of the League turned out to be correct: negotiating with the French side not through Islamic organizations and centers, but through the French embassy in Saudi Arabia, thus making this issue an aspect of bilateral relations and linking it with the visit of Valerie Giscard d'Estaing to Saudi Arabia. The problem of the spread of Salafism to the Muslim diaspora in France was not actually taken into account.

Дискурсы евроислама

In the modern world, the increasing pace of globalization strengthens inter-civilization interaction, its consequence is the Europeanization of non-European social worlds and cultures, and the response to it was the orientalization of Europe, that is the emergence and integration of significant Muslim diasporas on the territory of European states. The Europeanization of the Islamic regions of the East and the increase as a result of migration of Muslim communities in European countries poses the problem of a painless and, preferably, fruitful synthesis of the European way of life and values with the ethics and lifestyle of followers of Islam. The purpose of the article is to consider the positions assessing the interpenetration of Islam and Western European culture in the discussions of Islamic scholars, politicians and religious figures. The object of the study is discussions about the concept of “Euroislam” in modern Russian and foreign oriental literature. The subject of the study is the content of the concept of “Euroislam” in relation to modern socio-political life and religious practices of Muslims. The objectives of the study are: to analyze the genesis of the emergence of the concept of “Euroislam” among thinkers of different regions of residence of Muslims in new and modern times; to define the concept of “Euroislam” in domestic science and the religious and political field; to identify the relationship of the concept of “Euroislam” with the realities of the life of the Muslim world, as well as the existence of Muslim communities in Russia and Europe. The work is carried out on the basis of the general scientific principles of objectivity, consistency, historicism using the hermeneutic method, methods of content analysis and comparative studies, as well as formal-logical procedures for deduction and induction, definition and classification. Using comparative techniques, the authors have made an attempt to answer the question of how much Euroislam affects such components of classical Islam as its dogma, rituals and organization of religious life. This approach to Islamic issues allows to a certain extent to enrich the methodology of humanitarian research with additional experience in the use of comparative studies. The case of Euro Islam raises the question of the possibility of the “joint existence” of different ethnic groups and faiths and the “collective habit” (that is, the incorporation of the individual’s social and political experience), on the one hand, and the basic principles of democracy of the Western European model, on the other.