Muslim Diaspora Research Articles

The Religious Identity Perception of the Egyptian Muslim Diaspora in the West: A Case Study of Postgraduate Students

Egyptian Muslim postgraduate students carry their identities, memories, and affiliations with them when moving from an Islamic country to a Western country and face many challenges in re-identifying and representing themselves in their new context of living in the diaspora. This research investigates how postgraduate students living in the Egyptian Muslims Diaspora perceive their religious identity using qualitative methodology, in order to understand the nature of Muslim identity in relation to mobility and space. This study finds that participants perceive their religious identity as an individual characteristic, rather than a social one and previous experiences in the homeland greatly affect their sense of belonging. Participants also express their belonging to a spiritual territory, rather than a spatial one. The sense of estrangement that the participants experience living abroad provide them with a positive perception and appreciation of their own religious identity. Additionally, the participants express the fear of dynamism in their religious identity while living in the diaspora and they emphasize holding on to the fundamentals as their personal identity, while highlighting the decrease in their practice, justified by the absence of their social religious community.

Identity Negotiation in the Age of Global Migration in Exophonic Novels

The vast changing of the cultural structure caused by globalization and migration has a complicated identity. A higher number of migrants from numerous parts of the world has arisen lately, especially from Middle Eastern and Muslim countries facing various conflicts. Negotiating identities, thus, becomes inevitable, particularly for migrants. Identity negotiation has been frequently raised as an underlying issue in early 2000s literary works. Such an era becomes a worth researching topic on migration as portrayed in exophonic novels. Exophony refers to writing and producing literary works in a language that is not one’s mother tongue. The article covers the analysis of novels written by exophonic writers: Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner (2003), Elif Shafak’s The Bastard of Istanbul (2006), and Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007). The analysis focuses on identity negotiation experienced by Muslim diaspora characters by employing Homi K. Bhabha’s cultural identity. This study reveals that identity negotiation often occurs in the context of power relations and can occasionally be hegemonizing. This notion is backed by the fact that the complexity of the identity negotiation process occurs not only at the intersection of opposed cultures or civilizations but also at the intersection of politics and power relations.

Belonging to Quebec and English Canada as Muslims: The Perspectives of the Highly Educated Uyghur Immigrants

Following the rise of Islamophobia, Muslims in the West have been experiencing increasingly challenging identity dilemmas. Canada is not an exception. This article, at the intersection of Critical Race Theory and post-colonial perspectives, analyzes the narratives of 13 highly educated Uyghur Muslim immigrants living in Quebec and some English provinces of Canada. Their stories show that many of them have become subject to multiple identity dilemmas common to other Muslim diaspora groups, while also facing some challenges unique to their own background. This article further highlights the Uyghur’s experiences through a new angle: they all appear to have developed an us/Muslim immigrant vs. them/white Canadians’ dichotomy. In the province of Quebec, their narratives reveal “oppositional consciousness” against the dominant white Quebecers, which is quite political, while in English provinces they may see their Muslim identity more as “oppositional culture” against the white English Canadians, which is much less political.

Homeland and Heartland: Conceptualizing the “Muslim” “Diaspora”

Arguing for more conceptual specificity regarding the term “Muslim diaspora,” this article identifies two conflation problems in the scholarship on Muslim immigrants. First, the immigrants’ “Muslimness,” which refers to the signifiers, thought-processes, discourses, and actions that others perceive to be associated with Islam, is often conflated with the immigrants being “Muslims”—i.e., members of a discrete, bounded group supposedly different from non-Muslims. Second, Muslims’ transnational engagements—meaning, their cross-border ties between exclusively the sending and receiving countries—are often conflated as being diasporic—connections targeted towards other Muslims abroad motivated by a sense of religious solidarity. Consequently, researchers have been largely unable to distinguish Muslims’ religious performance from an ethnic one and have taken Muslims’ immigrant transnationalism as evidence of an emerging “Muslim” “diasporic” consciousness. This article parses existing scholarship on Muslim immigrants in the West and offers a new way of conceptualizing “Muslim diaspora” to move past these ambiguities. It offers the concept of “heartland”—distinct from immigrants’ “homeland”—to better distinguish Muslims’ religion-based diasporic expressions from their ethnicity based transnational ones.

“Рассоединенное королевство”: мусульманская диаспора Великобритании в научном дискурсе

The present world is characterized by the growth of conflicts. Dividing lines and fractures are increasingly appearing in societies. Migration reinforces such phenomena. The West is no longer an area of stability and prosperity. Moreover, in the last two decades, the problem of integrating the descendants of migrants into society has become clear. In this regard, the scientific discussions of cultural identity acquire a high practical significance. The paper presents an analysis of the scientific discourse on the Muslim issue in the UK. The choice of the case is due to the fact that the UK is a typical Western state, where there is a steady trend to strengthen the cleavage of society. At the same time, it is noted that migration has become one of the key processes in the history of the United Kingdom. The authors apply the concepts of a divided society and responsible development. It is noted that in practice multiculturalism is changing to interculturalism as a more adequate concept of solving existing problems. According to the authors, the ethno-religious discourse on the issue of the Muslim diaspora in the UK consists of four areas: migration, school and higher education, gender, and radicalization of young people. Discourses on the problems of migration policy and functioning of diasporas, Muslim education, gender equality, and radicalization of Islamic youth can be considered derived from a higher discourse – the discourse of identity, which is based on value-worldview aspects. In conclusion, it is noted that negative processes are taking place in British society, which are of strategic importance for responsible development. According to the authors, success in overcoming divisions in British society will depend on coordinated planned actions at all levels (international, national, regional, local). “Indigenous” residents and the Muslim diaspora need to build a model of partnership, which implies mutual responsibility. The analysis of scientific discourses presented in the article inspires moderate optimism, as it offers well-founded and concrete solutions to the existing problems of British society. Although British society is divided, British scientific discourse has a common platform where researchers of different backgrounds and faiths successfully engage in dialogue.

Исламский терроризм: кейс ФРГ

The likely terrorist capacity of the Muslim community in Germany is examined in relation to the ethnic and religious diversity of this community. Domestic policy measures taken by state structures to prevent and combat Islamic terrorism are shown and their effectiveness is investigated. Due to its domestic politics, Germany too late realized the necessity of integrating the Muslim diaspora into national life and close monitoring of the activities of Islamic organizations present in the country. At the beginning of the new millennium, when the danger of Islamic terrorism became apparent in the West, there was a strong Muslim diaspora in Germany, ethnically diverse, practicing different trends in Islam, functioning in parallel to the life of the state and vulnerable to radicalization. Aware of the need to integrate Muslims, German government entered into a dialogue with Muslim organizations and alliances that displayed interest in it. At the same time, Islamic organizations which were incapable of or not interested in domestic political integration were politically and legally marginalized. The government’s course towards radical Islamic associations was significantly tightened during the 2015–2017 immigration crisis, when the country accepted large contingents of Mus-lim refugees and when German citizens became victims of terrorist attacks. There is now a (mostly) well-coordinated, structured fight against Islamism, which includes both preventive and repressive measures and involves all levels of society, ranging from state authorities to civil society organizations.

ПРОТИВОДЕЙСТВИЕ ТЕРРОРИЗМУ В ЕВРОПЕ И США: ПРОБЛЕМЫ И РЕШЕНИЯ

Beginning with an overview of the threats of terrorism in Europe and the USA, the author offers a survey of factors that have been identified as influencing the practices of counterterrorism or law enforcement agencies. Massive counterterrorism operations in Syria and Iraq as well as effectiveness of the counterterrorism authorities curbed large-scale attacks of jihadists in both Western Europe and the United States. But with one of the Islamic State’s key goals being the formation of a new society, rather than simply military victories, the dissemination of its brand and ideology via mainstream social media becomes critical to achieving ISIS’ strategic goals. A surge in the Muslim population with subsequent high Muslim unemployment has been shown to be a predisposing factor for radicalization of the part of Muslim diasporas and its recruitment into the global jihad. The EU-members and the United States need to work more closely on disrupting jihadists’ social media, travel, recruitment and logistics, countering terrorist finance, protecting potential targets. The importance of sharing information is specifically underlined. But the polarisation of society, discrimination and other psychological and sociological factors can reinforce people’s vulnerability to radical discourse. Thus, counter-terrorism should not be purely repressive: integration and iclusion would contribute to prevention efforts, assuming that a more cohesive and inclusive society can help prevent the spread of extremist ideologies leading to terrorism.

The Transformation of Radical Islam in a Post-Industrial Society

In a post-industrial society, radical Islam has undergone significant evolutionary changes, that contributed to its transformation from a religious ideology to a political one. The key element of the updated doctrine was the idea of creating a world Islamic state - caliphate - through global jihad. This article explores a new stage in the history of the phenomenon of Islamic radicalism, which has developed outside the Muslim world, where it has acquired features of a specific subculture. Global jihad is gaining popularity among young Muslims in Europe, the US, and Southeast Asia. A variety of cultural manifestations of Islamism, united by the term jihadi-cool, form an attractive image of a Salafist-jihadists through a special manner of clothing, new types of music (jihad rap and jihad rock), etc. Members of this subculture tend to join terrorist organizations, spread radical ideas among young people and attract new supporters. One of the most important causes of the radicalization of Muslims in Europe and the Americas is considered to be the complex socio-economic and cultural preconditions created by Western policies towards the States of the Middle East and the local Muslim diaspora. As part of the research, a historical-genetic analysis of the evolutionary transformations of Islamic radicalism has been conducted. The statistical method has been used to track the number of terrorist acts in the EU and the USA. Content analysis has been applied in the article in order to examine lyrics of jihad-rap musical compositions. The interdependence of jihad-rap popularity and the general interest in the ideology of jihad has been assessed based on the analysis of statistics of search queries. Biographical methods have been used to study the relationship between belonging to a jihadist subculture and joining radical Islamic organizations. The results of the study demonstrate, first of all, the high adaptability of Islamic radicalism to the changing conditions of the global world. Secondly, they indicate the specific evolution of a phenomenon that gradually overcomes sectarian differences. And third, they note increasing prevalence of this destructive doctrine in Europe, USA, South and Southeast Asia. All the results confirm that Islamic radicalism is not a local phenomenon, but a real threat to global political stability.

Traversing the Origin and Diaspora: Leila Aboulela’s Minaret in the Light of Miriam Cooke’s Transnational Muslim Feminist Sensibility

This paper explores Leila Aboulela’s Minaret 1 in terms of its protagonist’s journey between the Muslim origin and global diaspora. For its theoretical underpinning, the paper draws on transnational Muslim feminist paradigm with Miriam Cooke as its chief proponent. With this, the paper probes how the convergence of the religious origin and contemporary diaspora creates a globally accepted, new identity for Muslim women across the globe. Muslim migrant women from the third world, who are already faced with double colonization, are now struggling against Islamophobia as yet another oppressive force. Aboulela’s protagonist, Najwa, experiences similar difficulties, especially when it comes to identity construction and meaning-making in her life abroad. She, being a Muslim woman, revisits her religion in search of self-actualization and awareness about the global ummah without any geographical boundaries. This study is, therefore, an attempt to see the variegated identity of Aboulela’s protagonist as a Muslim woman and a global citizen.

Queer Muslim Diasporas in Contemporary Literature and Film

This is a book review of Alberto Fernández Carbajal's Queer Muslim Diasporas in Contemporary Literature and Film.

Islamist Unofficial Legal Pluralism in Turkey: The Rise of Islamist Fatwas

Unlike other administrations, the AKP government has justified this ideological, Islamist turn with the fatwas of government-sponsored religious preachers. The Government has not only blurred the divide between religion and state, but it has also vilified and securitised, as a ‘traitor’ or a ‘heretic’, anyone who stands against any government policies or actions. As a well-funded ideology, Erdogan’s Islamist populism has found its way to different Muslim communities in the West, and Erdogan’s AKP has used any means possible – mosques in Europe and the US, sponsoring conferences and keynote speakers, trips for Muslim diaspora members to Turkey, among other methods – to influence Muslims living in the West, with some success. The last section of this chapter will look at the preliminary signs of the impact of the AKP’s Islamist turn on the grassroots at home and abroad, because these fatwas and propaganda do not only affect the Turks living in Turkey but also abroad and other non-Turkish Muslims that live in the West. In this chapter, we focus only on Turkey, the Turkish diaspora, and how the fatwas issued by the pro-government preachers have affected them, beyond the school, the mosque, and foreign policy.

The Synergy between White Supremacist and Jihadist Violence in the Targeting of Religious Institutions

The 2019 Easter Islamic State (IS) attacks on Sri Lankan churches is seen by the government as retribution for a white nationalist attack on Christchurch New Zealand mosques. This article analyses the synergy between white nationalist and jihadi violence. It examines the growth of the Western extremist right as a response to economic globalization and the cultural-religious transformation of European and North American society. In part right-wing terrorism is a response to past jihadi attacks in the West and radicalized minority sub-communities within Europe’s large Muslim Diaspora population. Much like the left-right terrorist violence that convulsed Europe in the 1970’s we may be facing a destabilizing future of revenge attacks by jihadists and their far-right antagonists that target religious institutions and celebrations. This process results in a synergistic level of violence in which Jews are at the greatest risk for attacks.

Hyper-Securitisation and Belonging: Understanding the Plight of Young Muslims in Melbourne, Australia

Following 9/11 the Australian government instituted an unprecedented raft of counter-terrorism measures, which introduced both preventative mass surveillance and pre-crime offences. We suggest that this development represents part of a broader turn in the West towards a “militant democratic” approach to countering violent extremism that, whilst not directly targeting Muslims in name, does so in practice, and has had negative unintended consequences for Muslim diaspora communities. To support our claim we draw on 23 interviews with Muslim youths in Melbourne. In doing so we utilise Ghassan Hage’s application of misinterpellation to frame our analysis. We found that Muslim Australians are retreating into their ethno-religious identities as a result of a feeling of misrecognition. We also found that a climate of fear and anxiety is leading to self-censorship and that there was a sense of disconnect between the current leadership and Muslim youth, and that as a result government consultation should extend beyond Muslim peak bodies.

The Youth of Muslim Diaspora and Identity Markers: The Crossroads of School, Religion, and Society

This study addresses the religious identification of young people from an immigrant background in the context of a sociological perspective. This study is essentially focused on young people's perceptions of their religious identities. We tried to understand the religious markers exhibited by young people attending a religious Muslim school in Canada. How do these students construct identity in the gears of religion, school, home society and parental culture? Young people are thus given the opportunity to express their identity-building perspectives. Through an ethnographic stay, the data collection took place in a private school located in Quebec, Canada. The data analysis allowed us to identify some religious identity markers developed by participants during their biographical and social paths. Participants are hence distinguished as a cultural group in a minority context. These religious markers also seem more adapted to the context of young people and more open to others

Arab resistance in the diaspora: Comparing the Saudi dissident and the Egyptian whistleblower

Abstract While much research on Arab and Muslim diasporas in the West focuses on the War(s) on Terror, in this article, we explore how two particular diasporic groups, Egyptian and Saudi activists, work to shape public perceptions of the authoritarian regimes in their countries of origin. Contextualizing the efforts of these activists in the post-Arab Spring political and mediated environments, we investigate how these political exiles employ communication to disrupt, expose and resist the resurgent authoritarianism taking root in their countries of origin. Using a comparative framework, we analyse the discourse of two prominent activists, Mohamed Ali and Omar Abdelaziz, to illustrate the larger dynamics of online cyberactivism amongst these diasporic groups. Critically, we argue, the differences in these two activists’ communicative practices demonstrate how ostensibly similar resistance movements may lead to disparate political outcomes, as their calls for change diverge when it comes to issues of reform versus revolution. In doing so, we seek to complicate overly simplistic understandings of Arab anti-authoritarian resistance taking place online in the post-Arab Spring era.

Framing, new social identity and long-term loyalty. Hizb ut-Tahrir’s impact on its members

ABSTRACT The present paper explores the role of the radical non-violent Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir in retaining long-term member loyalty. More specifically, this study explores Hizb ut-Tahrir’s framing of the group and the creation of a deep-rooted social identity that fosters loyalty and long-term membership among its associates. Starting with a review of the relevant scholarship on frames and social identity, this paper explores the origin of Hizb ut-Tahrir’s frames – the group’s ‘Aqeedah (doctrine) – and the consequent set of values that define HT members’ social identity. This paper concludes that while frames are essential in the creation of a new social identity that strongly binds the individual to the group, two mechanisms produce HT members’ loyalty over the long run: self-efficacy and positive intergroup differentiation. These mechanisms account for Hizb ut-Tahrir’s appeal and activities in more than 45 countries around the world, where the group represents the choice of all those segments of Muslim diaspora communities who might agree with Islamist arguments but who strongly reject the use of violence.

Rethinking Home and Identity of Muslim Diaspora in Shamsie’s "Home Fire" and Hamid’s "Exit West"

Rethinking Home and Identity of Muslim Diaspora in Shamsie’s "Home Fire" and Hamid’s "Exit West"

Mapping Indonesian Muslim Diaspora in the Netherlands

Since few years ago, Indonesian government has been concerning to gain many benefits from Indonesian diaspora in various regions in the world. There are many events and agendas provided by the government which are aimed to embrace many Indonesian diaspora for giving a great contribution towards their homelands. However, its vision for gaining attention from Indonesian diaspora tends to low because the government do not have Indonesian diaspora maps in details, comprehensive, as well as described by historical trajectory. This paper aims to understand the contribution of Indonesian Muslim diaspora by mapping the role of Indonesian Muslim Organizations in the Netherlands by socio-historical perspectives. The main reasons of the Netherlands as locus of this research are; Indonesian Muslim diaspora are the first actors who promoted Islam faces in this country since 1920s and it also was acknowledged as one of the highest Muslim populated countries in Europe. Afterwards, this paper shows that there are numerous Indonesian Muslim organizations in the Netherlands from different perspectives, mazhabs, and backgrounds. Even though the government did not pillarize Indonesian Muslim organizations, albeit most of them have strong connections with some Muslim organizations in Indonesia, starting from Nahdhatul Ulama (NU) until Salafist Movement.

The Other: Muslim Diaspora in Shamsie’s Home Fire

The postcolonial regime has abundantly uncovered the subtle dynamics of colonialism, which are still rooted in the apex. Postcolonialism entails the liberation and political emancipation of the ones who are declared as ‘others’. The study examines the ‘othering’ of Muslim diaspora in polarized transnational space of the West with respect to Shamsie’s Home Fire. The novel shows the emergence of colonial binaries in the contemporary world in which Muslims have been dragged to the periphery. This marginalization and discrimination deprive Muslim diaspora to live their life with liberation and equality. Moreover, the research employs postcolonial lens on Home Fire to highlight the Western ideologies which tend to play games in order to adjoin Islam with terrorism. However, by treating Muslims diaspora as ‘other’ whose foreign nationalities can be revoked at any time, the West proves itself to be a radical culture. The study is poignant as it proposes the issues of homelessness, identity crisis, racism and depravation faced by Muslim Diasporas in Shamsie’s anew work. The research accentuates that any form of othering, be it cultural or religious, should not be taken for granted. In addition, the recurrence of colonial binaries of Self and Other in various visages should be addressed and decimated.

Tweeting Grenfell: Discourse and networks in critical constructions of British Muslim social boundaries on social media

The Grenfell fire has yet to be analysed to understand the event’s implications in relation to construction of social boundaries for British Muslims. In this current research, two methodological approaches are applied to gain understandings of social boundary construction on twitter: thematic analysis of the content of tweets and social network analysis (SNA) of how messages are diffused and contested. Twitter is shown to be an important platform in spreading positive narratives about Muslims during the fire, enabling individuals to spontaneously contest fake news and hate narratives. Social media acts counter to established knowledge, demonstrating that it is not, per se, a conduit for fake news and hate speech. Furthermore, it demonstrates how twitter offers Muslims an international space to voice and articulate themselves where they can be influential in debates that effect Muslim diasporas in other national contexts.