non-Muslim Groups Research Articles

Policing Terrorists in the Community

Twelve years after the September 11th attacks, countering domestic terrorism remains a top priority for federal law enforcement agencies. Using a variety of reactive and preventive tactics, law enforcement seeks to prevent terrorism before it occurs. Towards that end, community policing developed in the 1990s to combat violent crime in inner city communities is being adopted as a means of collaborating with Muslim communities and local police to combat 'Islamist homegrown terrorism.' Developed in response to paramilitary policing models, community policing is built upon the notion that effective policing requires mutual trust and relationships among local law enforcement and the communities they serve. Thus, traditional community policing is premised on their convergence of interests.While community policing in counterterrorism appears facially sound, this Article proffers that this endeavor is fraught with peril – both for collective civil liberties interests and local police’s interests in preserving relationships of trust. Accordingly, community policing exacerbates, rather than resolves, the underlying subordination of Muslims post-9/11 manifested in preventive counterterrorism policies, notwithstanding the increase of homegrown terrorism threats from non-Muslim groups. The Article asserts three critiques of community policing in counterterrorism: it is more akin to counterradicalization taken from military counterinsurgency strategy than the partnership-based traditional community policing model; to the collective detriment of communities it divides them into 'Good Muslims' willing to cooperate with law enforcement on the federal government’s terms and 'Bad Muslims' who demand a meaningful quid quo pro that ensures protection of Muslim communities’ civil rights and liberties; and it deputizes Muslim leaders to gather and share seemingly innocuous information about their communities that may be used adversely to their collective interests as part of the predominantly prosecution-driven counterterrorism regime. As such, CCP as currently envisioned betrays its rhetoric of empowerment and mutual trust, and is just another weapon in the federal government’s toolkit that perpetuates the 'terrorist other' stereotype. Unless systemic reforms are made to federal preventive counterterrorism strategies, community policing is likely to aggravate existing civil liberties violations and impair otherwise good relations between Muslim communities and local police. Thus, a serious rethinking of proposals to implement community policing in counterterrorism is warranted.

The Concept of National Minorities in Turkey is Compulsive Obstacle for the Membership of Turkey in European Union?

Fifty years ago, on 12 September, 1963, the association agreement between the European Economic Community (EEC) and Turkey was signed in Ankara. However, in contrast to many other countries who applied later on, Turkey has not yet become a member of the EU. Nevertheless, Turkey’s candidacy to join the EU is still one of the most considerable and controversial topics within the European political arena. Within the accession negotiations, apart from human rights and the Kurdish and the Cypriot issues, one of the greatest challenges to Turkey’s successful candidacy is the issue of respect for and protection of minorities. It might indeed represent an unsolvable problem, which will ultimately block Turkey joining the EU. Neither the EU nor Turkey has really come to terms or dealt with what the EU sees as an “unsatisfactory” protection of minorities in Turkey. What lies at the root of this disagreement is what the term “minority” actually means. Due to Turkey’s own nation state concept as being a united and undivided country and to the terms of the Treaty of Lausanne signed in 1923, which defined Turkey as a nation, the country only recognises non-Muslim minorities. Moreover, contrary to the wording of the minority protection clauses in the Treaty of Lausanne, Turkey restricts its recognition of non-Muslim minorities only to the Greek, Armenian and Jewish religious populations. Although being a non-Muslim group as well, the Assyrians are excluded from the Turkish concept of minorities and, therefore, also from minority protection. In contrast to that, the EU’s concept of minority includes ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities, which means that according to the EU’s concept of minorities, also ethnic minorities like the Kurds, linguistic minorities like the Laz and religious minorities like the Alevis are included in the term “minority” and, therefore, these minorities should benefit from specific minority protection rights. To find a common basis for discussing the unsatisfactory issue of minority rights in Turkey, the concept of “ethnic groups” is introduced by the author as the most promising approach to deal with this unreconciled conceptual difference. According to this concept, ethnic groups could form a sub-identity of Turkishness and help build a legal basis to the treatment of minority groups founded on human rights, which would be compatible with both Turkish and EU Law.

Heritage and archaeology in Chitral, Pakistan: exploring some local views and issues

The present article presents the results of a recent (2009) survey of understandings and attitudes to heritage and culture in Chitral, Pakistan. Chitral has two main ethnic-religious groups: the Muslim Kho and the Kalasha, who are the largest non-Muslim minority group in the Hindu Kush. Very little is known formally of Chitral history and prehistory beyond the last 200–300 years, and this has led to a relatively set list of heritage and cultural events or traits being iterated by local people and outsiders alike. With a growing emphasis on tourism and development in Chitral we think that it is important for local people to have understanding and control of what is and is not presented as heritage here, and also how heritage might be appropriately preserved. We also touch on the tensions between a powerful majority and a less powerful minority group, and the impact such an unequal relationship has on heritage.

Provision of spiritual and pastoral care facilities in a high-security hospital and their increased use by those of Muslim compared to Christian faith

The relationship between religion and psychiatry remains controversial amongst British psychiatrists. We looked at the provision of spiritual and pastoral care facilities in a high-security hospital and the role of faith chaplains with particular reference to the Muslim minority group. There was a significantly higher uptake of pastoral care services amongst those of Muslim faith compared to Church of England and Roman Catholic Christians. Possible reasons for this are discussed. Resources allocated for the Muslim faith group were limited and heavily dependent on the availability of the Muslim faith chaplain. Our study highlighted the need for clearly defined standards for the provision of spiritual and pastoral care within high-secure psychiatric hospitals, and by implication other NHS psychiatric settings, a re-examination of the role of the faith chaplain in relation to the clinical team, and raised questions about the equitable allocation of resources between various faith groups within the hospital.

Perceived islamophobia: Scale development and validation

“Islamophobia” has been used as an umbrella term capturing different types of religious stigma towards Muslims. However, the operationalization of the term for research purposes varies greatly, where little attention heretofore has been paid on how islamophobia affects Muslim minorities’ lives. Against this background, we aimed to develop and validate the Perceived Islamophobia Scale (PIS). In the first study (167 German-Arabs, 184 German-Turks and 205 British-Pakistanis), exploratory factor analyses of a preliminary item pool gave support of a three-factor scale in all samples. Subscales were computed for each factor (i.e., perceptions of a general fear of Islam and Muslims, fear of islamization, and islamophobia in the media), which were reliable across the samples. In all samples, the PIS was positively related to psychological distress and in two samples this relation remained significant, after controlling for experiences of discrimination. In Study 2 (262 German-Turks, 277 French-Maghrebis and 249 British-Pakistanis), confirmatory factor analyses supported the structural equivalence of the scale's three-factor solution. The PIS was positively related to perceived stress and discrimination. Lastly, PIS predicted higher levels of religious and ethnic identification, controlling for discrimination. The PIS seems to be a valid and reliable measure across different Muslim minority groups. The fact that perceptions of islamophobia in two samples negatively predicted psychological distress after controlling for experiences of discrimination, suggests that anti-discrimination laws may be insufficient in protecting Muslim minorities of the negative effects of stigma on psychological well-being.

‘No one speaks for us’: security policy, suspected communities and the problem of voice

This article examines some of the detrimental consequences of post-9/11 counterterrorism and security policies on Muslim minority groups in the United Kingdom. Drawing on empirical data from a qualitative study conducted in the north-west of England involving young British Pakistanis, it is argued that both political discourses and specific security policies have unjustly targeted Muslims and fuelled a wider public climate of suspicion and hostility. Three focal issues raised by participants in the study are prioritised. First, we discuss the process of collective attribution through which Muslims are generically treated as a suspect community. Second, a series of experiential ‘safety gaps’ – resulting in part from the pre-emptive turn in counterterrorism regulation – are considered. Third, critical ‘speech gaps’, which have important ramifications for future policy-making, are elucidated.

Returns on education amongst men in England and Wales: The impact of residential segregation and ethno-religious background

Individuals’ occupational and educational attainment is influenced by their ethnicity, religion and colour in the UK and elsewhere. In this paper, we analyse the impact of ethnicity, religion and colour along with residential segregation11By residential segregation we mean here the level of residential concentration of all non-white groups counted together and our threshold for segregation 20% is much lower than that in much of the literature, namely 20% of members of non-white minorities resident in an area. and socio-economic deprivation on returns to education for men in England and Wales. We analyse the 2001 UK census data by employing multi-level logistic regression models. It is found that non-White groups including Christian Black-African, UK born Sikh-Indians and South Asian Muslims are found to suffer an ethnic penalty compared to Christian White-British. While there is evidence to suggest that Muslim men may experience a greater penalty compared to some non-Whites other non-Muslim groups too face ethno-religious penalties, sometimes even more severely such as in the case of Christian Black-Africans. Socio-economic difficulties faced by ethnic minorities are also linked to spatial segregation only when associated with high levels of area deprivation. This suggests that what matters may not be segregation per se, but whether or not it is associated with deprivation.

Östliches Christentum in Geschichte und Gegenwart – Perspektiven und Hindernisse der Forschung

Diversity and hybridity, interaction and exchange: these terms compose the thematic focus of this issue of the journal “Der Islam”: Eastern Christianity in History and the Present: Perspectives and Obstacles. The issue features contributions to a conference held in the year 2008. Evaluating the state of research on Eastern Christianity in Germany, the participants observed that this field of academic enquiry is in danger of becoming extinct in this country. Thus, this collection of articles hopefully serves as a catalyst for jumpstarting debate on Eastern Christianity in the German academic community. The study of Eastern Christian communities’ cultural identity is at the same time ineluctably intertwined with Qur‘anic Studies and Islamic History - i. e. an Islam in dialogue with, but not mimicking Jewish and Christian traditions of the Hijaz. Diversity in the Islamic-ruled world is a historical reality that has been largely ignored in the study of Islam as well. This edition of “Der Islam” therefore highlights research that considers the interaction between Muslim and non-Muslim groups, as well as the entangled development of the religious traditions, in order to better understand the socio-religious plurality of Western Asia. Interaction and exchange, however, also include moments of conflict and discrimination. As we close upon the one-year anniversary of the “Arab Spring”, the authors are reminded that it is important to consider the worsening condition of Eastern Christian communities today and their representation in Western studies as well as in the political systems they live in.

Negotiating the ‘Genuine’ Religion: Muslim Diaspora Communities in the Context of the Western Understanding of Religion

Abstract The article contextualizes the current West European debates on Islam within the framework of the specific modern Protestant understanding of religion. Using the case study of Muslim minority groups from the Balkan (Albanians and Bosniaks) in Switzerland, it illustrates how this essentialistic understanding of religion characterizes the public perceptions of religious minorities in West European societies, especially in the post 9/11 period. The main argument of this contribution lays stress on the fact, that, depending on their cultural background as well as on their perception by the non-Muslim majority, different Muslim actors internalize the essentialistic understanding of religion dictated by majority society and likewise reply with different essentializing discursive constructions of Islam.

The Clash of Civilizations and the Interaction between Fear and Hatred

This paper models conflictive interaction between a West European state and a domestic dissident immigrant Muslim minority group in terms of fear and hatred. The genesis and production of both phenomena are modelled. Identity is crucial and provides the micro-foundations of dissident Muslim behaviour by solving the collective action problem; however, complex multiple identities are possible. Hatred of the West arises both because of the economic disadvantage experienced by Muslims in Europe, as well as historical grievances and contemporary foreign policy deemed to be against the Muslim world. The fear of visible Muslim minorities among the European host population may be partially a result of strident propaganda. The innovations of this paper lie in modelling the interaction between fear (treated like a public good) and hatred (a club good), as well as allowing multiple identities amongst dissidents. Policy implications include creating space allowing Muslim migrants to merge their cultural background with their adopted European identity, and redressing some of the economic disadvantage experienced by Muslims.

Supporting minority women and girls: Key frames of reference and understanding for educators

Recent high‐profile rape cases in Australia involving Muslim and Indigenous minority groups have heightened contention around issues of culture, gender and justice. The article critically examines the culturalising of rape as an ethnic minority issue in the public and legal discourse associated with these cases. This examination problematises the western‐driven narratives about minority women that undergird and make possible this culturalising and foregrounds Muslim and Indigenous feminist priorities concerning issues of gender equity and justice. Against this backdrop, the article draws parallels between the inferiorising of ethnic minority culture in dominant legal and public discourse and the reductionism of culture in education discourse. Towards realising the equity mandates of national schooling policy, the article outlines key frames of reference and understanding about culture, gender and justice necessary for enhancing educators’ support for ethnic minority women and girls.

Measuring Muslim Integration in Europe

The European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (established by the Council of Europe in 1997) has warned that anti-terrorism security measures risk disrupting the task of integrating Muslim communities in EU member states.1 Without reliable statistics, the effects of these measures are difficult to assess. Fears of Muslim radicalization and “cultural conflict” can then be exploited to justify just such measures. Despite these acknowledged concerns research on the situation of Muslims in western democracies relies on “mostly ‘proxy’ data, referring to nationality and ethnicity.”2 The European Commission has initiated an effort toward “the systematic production of harmonized Community statistics,” with a long-term view to improving knowledge of the socioeconomic integration of immigrants and there are moves towards an EU-wide benchmarking system.3 An examination of data on the situation of Muslims in the Netherlands, Germany, France, and Britain provided in this paper finds that these data are neither comparable between nations, nor sufficient to benchmarking “Muslim integration” according to criteria being drawn up at the national and European levels. The data neglect important questions relating to the place of Muslims in European societies, including incendiary problems, such as the tension between Muslim youth and the police, and overlapping inequalities that lead to violent crime. Reference to entrenched national norms surrounding the role of the state in society provides a rationale for those opposed to change to undermine the effectiveness of the EU's “Community Statistics” initiative in tracking and improving the integration of Muslim minority groups.

Ethnocultural identification and naturally occurring interethnic social interactions: Muslim minorities in Europe

AbstractThis study examined relationships between ethnic identification and ethnic minority members' interactions with majority group members. Members of Muslim minority groups, ethnic Turks and Moroccans in the Netherlands and Chechens in Poland, described the social interactions they had for two weeks using a variant of the Rochester Interaction Record (RIR). They also completed measures of ethnocultural identification that distinguished involvement with and attachment to their ethnic minority culture and to the majority culture. Relationships between ethnic identification and contact with the majority group varied as a function of the dimension and source of identification and the aspect of interaction (quantity or quality) being considered. Across the samples, involvement with the ethnic minority culture was negatively related to the quantity of contact with majority group members, whereas emotional attachment to the majority culture was positively related to the quality of interactions with majority group members. Attachment to the ethnic minority culture was not related to either the quantity of interaction with majority group members or to the quality of these interactions. These results suggest that when studying interethnic contact, it is important to distinguish different dimensions and sources of ethnic identification and different aspects of interethnic contact. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

'I'm a Muslim, but I'm not a Terrorist': Victimization, Risky Identities and the Performance of Safety

Since the events of 11 September 2001, Muslim minority groups have been subjected to pervasive scrutiny in the United Kingdom. The 7 July 2005 attacks have led to young Muslims' being party to intensified modes of monitoring, surveillance and intervention by crime and security agencies. The introduction of multiple forms of counter-terrorism regulation by the state has been underpinned by discourses of (in)security, which have defined British Muslims en bloc as a risky, suspect population. Against this wider backdrop, this paper presents the findings from a study investigating the effects of these processes on young British Pakistanis in the North-West of England. Giving voice to these young people, we explore their responses to risk-victimization and articulate the impacts of legal and cultural regulation both on the management of Muslim identities and performances of safety in the public sphere.

Turkey'S Armenians: A Research Note on Armenian Identity

The aim of this research note is to describe how Turkey's Armenians, who are the largest non-Muslim minority group in the country, define their identity, and to understand which factors contribute to the perpetuation of a dominant Armenian identity. This discussion is based on a field survey of Turkey's Armenian community, conducted in Istanbul between November 2004 and May 2005. Evaluation of these surveys based on both quantitative and qualitative methods brings us to the conclusion that it is possible to argue about the degree of dominance of Armenian identity over Turkish national identity amongst Turkey's Armenians, more than 95 per cent of whom live in Istanbul, and that the strong community ties play a significant role in maintaining Armenian culture and, therefore, strengthening Armenian identity.

Evaluación nutricional de una población universitaria marroquí en el tiempo de Ramadán

The aim of this work was to assess nutritional status in Muslim population, bigger and bigger in our universities, in a period during which its dietary habits change considerably. The study has been performed in a population of Muslim students from the University of Granada, and has been compared to a non-Muslim population within the same setting. Study subjects undertook a questionnaire in which they reported the diet consumed each day during the Ramadan period. Macronutrient analysis for such diet was performed with Dietsource software. On the other hand, anthropometrical parameters were taken before and after the study period to observe their change and obtain conclusions on nutritional status. It has been observed that lipid intake of Muslims during the Ramadan period was excessive (48% of total energy), by decreasing hydrocarbons and particularly proteins. This is highlighted by means of the anthropometrical study, observing a decrease in measurements such as muscular area of the arm, the arm area, the muscle perimeter of the arm, and weight, with an increase in arm fat, perimeter of the arm, leg and mid-ieg circumference in the Muslim group, which are in contrast with parameters in the non-Muslim group. From our results, we may stress that during the Ramadan period macronutrient intake values are not appropriate as compared to standard recommendations in Spain. Besides, it is striking to observe how anthropometrical measurements related to fat increase whereas those related to muscular mass decrease.

The Thirty-fourth AMSS Annual Conference

This conference, held from Sept. 30 – Oct. 2, 2005 and co-sponsored byTemple University (Philadelphia), represented a homecoming for theAssociation of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS), for its source of inspiration,Dr. Isma`il al-Faruqi, taught religion there from 1968-1986. Elevenpanels addressed the theme, “Muslims and Islam in the Chaotic ModernWorld: Relations of Muslims among Themselves and with Others,” by coveringa wide range of topics, from Muslim minority groups, mutual understanding,and women, to modernity, family law, legal theory, education, andjust war. Due to space constraints, only a few of them will be covered here.After the welcoming and introductory remarks by Program ChairKhalid Blankinship (Temple University) and Rafik Beekun (University ofNevada), Abdul Mutualo (American University in Cairo) began the proceedingsby discussing the history of Islam as an “imported” religion in his nativeMozambique. Heol Choul Kim (Temple University) spoke on KoreanMuslims’ problems due to cultural traditions (e.g., ancestor worship) and thelack of an indigenous Muslim community. Robert Riggs (University ofPennsylvania) discussed how the White Fathers gave Algeria’s KabyleBerers a sense of national self-consciousness and how many of them, livingin small Christian communities, left Algeria after independence.The banquet’s keynote speaker, Abdullah Schleifer (American Universityin Cairo), reflected on his many years as a news reporter and producerin the Middle East. His talk received such an enthusiastic response that wehave included it in our “Forum” section. The winners of the AMSS BestGraduate Paper Awards were also announced: Zareena Grewal (first place),Maleeha Aslam (second place), and Kamran Hashimi (third place).Panel 4A featured, among others, Helena J. Kaler (George WashingtonUniversity), who revealed, probably to the surprise of many, commonalitiesbetween Ayman al-Zawahiri’s and Farid Esack’s responses to modernity.She said that while al-Zawahiri bases his worldview on grievances, Esack ...

Violent Crime: Does Social Capital Matter?

This paper examines empirically the effect of some commonly used indicators of social capital, such as the prevalence of trust on community members and the participation in voluntary secular and religious organizations, on the incidence of violent crimes. This is a cross-country study whose basic sample consists of 39 developed and developing countries and whose dependent variable is the national intentional homicide rate. The paper identifies and deals with three challenges in the empirical estimation of the effect of social capital on the incidence of violent crimes. The omittedvariable problem is dealt with by including income inequality and economic growth as additional determinants of a country’s violent crime rate. The joint endogeneity (or reverse-causation) problem is accounted for by using instrumental variables for social capital in the crime regression. The specificity problem, that is the potentially opposite effects of group-specific and society-wide social capital, is noted and addressed only indirectly by emphasizing the results applied to the social capital indicators that have application for society as a whole. The main result of the paper is that only the component of social capital measured by trust on community members has the effect of reducing the incidence of violent crimes. The results regarding measures of other indicators of social capital are rather unclear. This may be due to a combination of limited samples, inability to fully control for reverse causation, and most likely, the opposite effects that society-wide and group-specific social capital may have on violent crime. ∗ Lederman and Menendez are economists with the Office of the Chief Economist for Latin America and the Caribbean of the World Bank. Loayza is a senior economist with the research department of the Central Bank of Chile, and he is currently on leave from the Development Economics Research Group of the World Bank. The opinions expressed herein should not be attributed to the World Bank. The authors are grateful to Ed Glaeser, Jeff Grogger, Gale Johnson, Sanjay Marwah, Steve Messner, Nicholas Sambanis, and an anonymous referee for invaluable comments and suggestions. The authors are responsible for any remaining errors.

Communalism and the state in Iraq: the Yazidi Kurds, c.1869–1940

The Yazidis are a Kurdish heterodox group settled in the province of Mosul. They represent an interesting case study for the development of communalism in the heterogeneous social fabric of northern Iraq. This article analyses cultural difference, intergroup relations and processes of nation building as they affected and articulated various manifestations of Yazidi identity under the political modernization of the late Ottoman and mandatory periods.' The Iraqi Yazidis constituted the second largest non-Muslim group living in the Mosul province. They were settled in the two main enclaves of Jabal Sinjar and Shaikhan: the former is a mountainous area located in the middle of the northern Jazira south-west of the city of Mosul, the latter is a transitional zone between the Mosul plain and the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan. As a community the Yazidi Kurds functioned within several often overlapping frames of reference: they were a tribe, a religious community, and an economic group whose members were mainly agriculturalists and cattle breeders. They also shared language and racial affiliation; all the Iraqi Yazidis were Kurds and spoke Kurdish as their first language. Thus individuals operated within a variety of contexts which served different types of action: the family, the clan, the tribal group, the religious polity and the wider ethnic community.2 This article concentrates on Yazidi tribal, religious and ethnic identities as sources of communal mobilization which provided a continuous interaction between the members of the group and the surrounding environment. The development of socio-economic and political solidarities that crossed communal boundaries was an important dimension of a continuous process of exchange and strategic negotiation which occurred between the Iraqi Yazidis and the cultural, socio-economic and political spheres within which they operated. In particular, the complex patterns of socio-economic and political identification which developed among the community in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were closely related to the impact of state power. After the appointment of Midhat Pasha to the

Minorities in Islam: reflections on a new book by Xavier de Planhol

The geography and history of the minorities living under Islam is the subject of a new book by the noted French scholar Xavier de Planhol. This article sets Planhol's work in the context of 14 centuries of Islamic rule over non-Muslim groups. Islam itself was initially the religion of a minority, a fact that helped determine its treatment of Jews, Christians and some other groups as tolerated ‘Peoples of the Book’. Islam conceived of a society in which non-Muslims had a place, as second class citizens, whereas medieval Christendom saw the Jew or Muslim as an outsider who could not be part of society in a real sense. For the Jews in particular, the meeting with Islam was enormously stimulating, and occasional derogatory remarks about Jews, or bouts of persecution, bore no comparison with western anti-Semitism.