Thomas Schmidinger

This chapter provides an overview of the Muslim communities in
Europe, their ethnic and religious background, their social, economic
and legal status, and their organizations. Of course, such a huge topic
deserves much more than such a short overview. However, as Islam
and Muslim immigrants have become a main topic in the discourse on
migration and integration, it is important to give an overview about
this part of the European population and their religious affiliations.
Islam as Part of European History

The discourse about Islam in Europe often portrays Europe as a
Christian or Christian-Jewish Occident, while Islam is seen as a for
eign Oriental religion. This narrative does not only negate the fact
that all three big, monotheistic religions actually were formed in the
Middle East, but it also excludes historic influences of Islamic scien
tists and scholars on the intellectual development of Europe and the
long history of Islam as part of European history.

Europe had its first encounter with Islam much earlier than many
parts of the present day so-called ‘Islamic world.’ When the Berber
noble Tāriq Ibn Ziyād crossed the Strait of Gibraltar
with his troops in 711, conquered the Empire of the Visigoths and
thereby established the Islamic al-Andalus less than 80 years
had passed since the death of Prophet Muhammad. As we know,
Islamic presence in Spain lasted for more than 780 years. Sicily and
parts of southern Italy were also under Islamic rule from the 9th to
99
100

LOOMINGSHADOWS: MIGRATIONAND INTEGRATIONATATIME OF UPHEAVAL
the 11th centuries. However, these early European encounters with
Islam were wiped out of European consciousness and the Islamic pop
ulations of Spain and Italy were eliminated due to forced conversions
and deportations after the Christian conquests of southern Italy and
Sicily in the 11thcentury and al-Andalus in the 15th century.

This differs from the development of Muslim minorities in Eastern
and Southeastern Europe, where Islam came with Turkish-speaking
peoples like the Tartars in Russia and different Turkish tribes in the
Ottoman Empire. After the conquest of the Khanate of Kazan and the
Khanate of Astrakhan in the 16th century, the abolishment of the
Qasim Khanate in the 17th century and the conquest of the Crimea in
the 18th century, Islam continued to be the second largest religion in
Russia, widely tolerated by the Russian Empire. With the conquest of
the North-Caucasus in the 19th century additional Muslim peoples
like the Chechens, the Circassians, the Dargins and the Avars came
under Russian control.
In Southeastern Europe the majority of the Bosnians and Albanians
converted to Islam under Ottoman rule. Additionally, other Slavic
speaking groups like the Pomaks and some Hungarians became Mus
lims. Likewise, Muslims from Anatolia or the Caucasus settled in some
cities of the European parts of the Ottoman Empire. While many of
these Southeastern European Muslims withdrew along with the
Ottoman rule in the earlier years of the Austrian expansion towards
the southeast, most of them stayed when Austria occupied Bosnia and
Herzegovina in 1878 and when they annexed it in 1908.
Indigenous Muslim Populations in
Eastern and South-Eastern Europe
As a result of that historic development there are a number of
indigenous Muslim populations in Europe today. All of them live in
the territories of the former Ottoman or Russian Empires. Already
these indigenous Muslim populations form a very heterogeneous
group of European Muslims. They do not only speak different lan
guages, but also follow different religious traditions. While the major
ity of them are Sunni Muslims, there is also a significant minority of
Alevi or Bektashi-affiliated Muslims in the former Ottoman sphere.
Islam, Migration, and the Muslim Communities in Europe 101
Especially in Albania and Bulgaria, these heterodox groups have sub
stantial adherents. Albania even became the location of the headquar
ters of the Bektashi (turk.: Bektaşi) after their ban in Turkey under
Mustafa Kemal in 1925. Some Bektashi claim that they made up
nearly half of the Muslim population of Albania. Although this num
ber seems to be exaggerated, it is unquestioned that Albania became
the second center of Bektashism and that Bektashism was even recog
nized as a specific religious community by the state. Persecuted like all
religious communities under the rule of Enver Hoxha, they had a
revival after the fall of the regime in 1990. They reopened their his
toric tekke in Tirana and established new tekkes in different parts of
Albania.1 In Kosovo and Macedonia, where Bektashism was of lesser
importance than in the south of Albania, it always had some presence
in the Albanian population.
Also within the Sunni Muslims, there are a variety of different
forms of religious expression between more ‘orthodox’ forms and
more secular forms of Islam, including syncretistic influences, espe
cially within Muslim Roma communities in southeast Europe. In sum,
we have to notice that Islam did not only have a constant presence in
Europe since the 8th century, but also that the indigenous European
Muslim population now? includes between nine and twelve million
people in southeast Europe and Russia.
Migration and Islam
Like the presence of Islam, migration is also not a new phenome
non. However, it has to be mentioned that small numbers of Muslims
also lived in western European countries in the 19th century already.
Colonialism did not only result in the colonization of territories over
seas, but also in contact between the colonizing and the colonized
populations. Some of the colonized people found their ways to Britain,
France or Italy, while Austria suddenly ruled over a largely Muslim
population in Bosnia.
1 John Norton, “The Bektashis in the Balkans,” in Celia Hawkesworth / Muriel Hep
pell / Harry Norris (eds.) Religious Quest and National Identity in the Balkans (Bas
ingstoke (Hampshire): Palgrave Macmillan, 2001) pp. 168-200, p. 194.
102 LOOMINGSHADOWS: MIGRATIONAND INTEGRATIONATATIME OF UPHEAVAL
Islam was not only brought to western European societies by immi
gration. In the early 20th century Europe got increasingly interested
in the Orient. All over Europe, buildings in an Oriental style, like the
world-famous ‘Yenidze’ in Dresden,2 were erected. Despite the fact
that this was mainly a very romanticized Oriental curiosity, some
intellectuals became interested in the religion of Islam. Some of them,
like the Jewish Austrian Leopold Weiss (Muhammad Asad) from Lem
berg or the Austrian social anthropologist (Umar) Rolf Leopold von
Ehrenfels, converted to Islam and played an important role in estab
lishing Islamic organizations in Western Europe.
Through conversion and immigration not only Sunni Islam
reestablished roots in Europe, but Shia Islam and smaller Islamic sects
like the Ahmadiyya were introduced in Europe. The missionaries of
the Ahmadiyya, a sect from British-India, became especially active in
Europe. They established the first permanent mosque in Germany.
Between 1924 and 1928, the Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ischat-i-Islam
Lahore (AAIIL) erected a mosque in the Indian Mughal style in
Berlin-Wilhelmsdorf. The survival of the mosque during World War
II was interpreted by the Ahmadiyya Muslims as
a clear sign of the hand of the Almighty God working
behind the scene. It also shows the purity and sincerity of
the purpose with which the handful of members of the
Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement are working for the noble
and sublime cause of the propagation of Islam in Europe.3
However, the number of Muslims in Western Europe was still very
limited during the first half of the 20th century. The majority of the
Muslim populations of Europe other than indigenous Muslim popula
tions immigrated only after World War II. The immigration of Mus
lims from either the (former) colonies to France, Britain or Portugal
or as part of the immigration of workers from Turkey and other
Islamic-dominated countries to countries like Germany and Austria
changed the map of Islam in Europe.
2Reinhold Zemke, Die Moschee als Aufgabe der Stadtplanung (Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2008),
p. 18.
3http://berlin.ahmadiyya.org/ber50.htm, accessed on April 25, 2011.
Islam, Migration, and the Muslim Communities in Europe 103
While Islam was the religion of an evanescent minority in Western
Europe at the beginning of the 20th century, it became the second
strongest religion in most of the countries of western Europe at the
end of the 20th century. Today the majority of European Muslims are
not living in the east and southeast of Europe anymore, but in coun
tries like France, Germany, Belgium, Austria and Great Britain. Mean
while, many of these Muslims are citizens of European states and the
majority of them have been born in Europe.
There are no accurate comparable numbers of Muslims in the dif
ferent countries of Europe. However, the German Bundesamt für
Migration und Flüchtlinge, a department of the German government
that is responsible for migrants and refugees, estimates that there are
about 15 million Muslims living in Europe and between 11 and 12
million in Western Europe.4 In my opinion, the statistic of 15 million
Muslims in Europe is too small by far. The estimation of the Bunde
samt für Migration und Flüchtlinge perhaps does not include the mil
lions of Muslims in the European part of Russia.
Even if there is no accurate data about the exact numbers of Mus
lims in Europe, there are different censuses and estimations that allow
us to give an overview of the present Muslim population in Europe.
Figure 1 is based on the numbers published in the different chapters
of the Yearbook of Muslims in Europe5 and different national censuses
and estimations.
The map illustrates that there are still high numbers of Muslims in
the former Ottoman Southeast part of Europe, but also an increasing
number in Central and Western Europe, while the former Eastern
Bloc countries have very limited numbers of Muslims.
The Diversity of European Islam
Due to the different economic and political developments in
Europe and the different migration histories, the number of Muslims
4http://www.integration-in deutschland.de/nn_284656/SubSites/Integration/DE/
03_Akteure/ThemenUndPerspektiven/Islam/Europa/europa-node.html?_ nnn=true,
accessed on April 26, 2011.
5 Jørgen S. Nielsen / Samim Akgönül / Ahmet Alibašić / Brigitte Maréchal / Hugh
Goddard eds., Yearbook of Muslims in Europe 2010 (Leiden: Brill, 2010).
differs from state to state, as well as their ethnic and linguistic back
ground. Figure 2 shows the origins of the majority of the Muslim pop
ulation within different countries of Europe.
There are always smaller and larger minorities within the Muslim
communities as well. Figure 2 shows the descendent of the majority of
the Muslims in each country.
However, the map does not only show the plurality of Muslims in
Europe, but also the connection between colonialism and immigra
tion. The majority of the Muslim population in all big former colonial
powers originates from their former colonies, while in Germany and
Austria they come from the old ally Turkey. The immigration of cheap
labor that could be interpreted as a continuation or a relocation of a
colonial relation created the major part of the present Muslim com
munities in Western Europe. This is in comparison to the east and
southeast of Europe where most the Muslim communities are pre
104 LOOMINGSHADOWS: MIGRATIONANDINTEGRATIONATATIMEOFUPHEAVAL
Figure 1. Muslim Population of Europe
dominantly leftovers from the former Ottoman Empire or the various
Tatar Khanates in present day Russia and Ukraine.
The result of this is a very diverse population of Muslims in
Europe. Muslim communities in Europe differ between each country
and within each country. They differ in their national, ethnical and
linguistic background, but also in their political affiliations, their social
and economic status and their religious affiliation within Islam.
While in countries with Muslim communities with predominantly
Arab origin, such as France, Spain or Italy, the vast majority of the
Muslims are Sunni Muslims of different madhāhib (schools of law,
singular: madhab, in countries with Muslims of pre
dominantly Turkish origin, such as Germany and Austria, the Sunni
majority is affiliated with the madhab of the Hanafiya and
there is also a strong minority of Alevis, a heterodox current of Shiites.
All over Europe, there are smaller minorities of Twelver Shiites of
Iranian and Arab origin. In Britain there are minorities of different
Islam, Migration, and the Muslim Communities in Europe 105
Figure 2. Origins of the Muslim Population of Europe
106 LOOMINGSHADOWS: MIGRATIONAND INTEGRATIONATATIME OF UPHEAVAL
sects of the Ismaili Shia and some Zaydis. In France and Britain there
are also small minorities of Ibadis from Algeria and Oman.
In addition to these traditional sects, the two rival sects of the
Ahmadiyya known as the Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ischat-i-Islam Lahore
(AAIIL) and the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat (AMJ) are present in
Europe. Due to the repression against Ahmadiyya Muslims in Pak
istan, the 4th Khalifa of the AMJ fled to London in 1984. With the
Khalifa most parts of the worldwide headquarter of the AMJ moved to
Europe.6 The AMJ has a strong presence in the Pakistani community
in Britain, but also has groups in nearly all countries of Europe and is
especially active in proselytizing other Muslims and non-Muslims.
Besides these ethnic and sectarian differences, Muslim identities
intersect with class, gender, sexual orientation and other sources of
identity.
In the more liberal political climate of Europe many Muslim
migrants also rediscovered particular ethnic identities that were
oppressed, marginalized, or at least ignored in their countries of ori
gin. Many of the Muslims from Turkey in Germany and Austria can
express their Kurdishness more freely than in Turkey. For many of
them their Kurdish national identity is much more important than
their religious identity as Muslims. In Britain many Pakistani Muslims
developed their own identities and see themselves primarily as Kash
miris, Pashtuns, Balutshis and so on.
This makes the social reality of European Muslims highly pluralis
tic, as opposed to the image of a unified block of Muslims which is
imagined in the public discourse of many European states. There is no
single European Islam, but a diversity of European Muslims with dif
ferent attitudes towards their religious identity.
6 Andrea Lathan, “Reform, Glauben und Entwicklung: die Herausforderungen für die
Ahmadiyya Gemeinde” in Dietrich Reetz, ed.: Islam in Europa. Religiöses Leben heute.
Ein Porträt ausgewählter islamischer Gruppen und Institutionen (Münster / New York /
München / Berlin: Waxmann, 2010), pp. 79-107, p. 100.
Islam, Migration, and the Muslim Communities in Europe 107
Social and Economic Situation of Muslims in Europe
This diversity is also mirrored in social and economic situations of
Muslims in Europe. In countries with traditional Muslim majorities,
like Turkey, Albania and Bosnia, Muslims are present in every segment
of the society. However, some of the indigenous Muslim peoples of
Europe live in rural areas with a poor economy and little access to
higher education. These peoples include the Pomaks of Bulgaria and
the Goranci in the border region of Kosovo, Albania and Macedonia.
The data about the social and economic situation of Muslim immi
grants in Western Europe is not really accurate. Censuses of the vari
ous European states are often not directly comparable. Most of the
censuses of European states do not connect poverty or economic suc
cess with religion. We do not have enough data to present a definitive
picture of the poverty of Muslims in comparison to non-Muslims in
Europe. However, it can be stated that in general, Muslim immigrants
in Europe come from a different background than in the United
States. While Muslim immigrants into the U.S. are generally highly
educated, many of the Muslim immigrants in Europe come from a
rural or a working class background. Most of them did not come as
international students or professionals like in the U.S., but as workers
or refugees. Such as status results in different starting conditions for
the integration and the social advancement in the new society. While
American Muslims can state that they are a “highly educated” commu
nity “with 58% holding college degrees; extremely successful, with
50% earning more than $50,000 annually,”7 European Muslims are
less successful than their American fellow Muslims.
In 2006 a study of the EUMC, the predecessor of the European
Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), stated that not only
Muslims, but
migrants throughout Europe experience discriminatory
practices to a significant extent, particularly with regard to
employment and in the sphere of commercial transactions.
Nearly one third of respondents stated that they experi
7Abdus Sattar Ghazali, Muslim Immigration to the USA, January 1, 2004.
http://www.ghazali.net/amp/html/four_waves.html, accessed on April 26, 2011.
108 LOOMINGSHADOWS: MIGRATIONAND INTEGRATIONATATIME OF UPHEAVAL
enced discrimination through being refused access to jobs,
missing promotions, or being harassed at work. More than
one in four respondents claimed to have experienced dis
crimination in commercial transactions, either through
denial of access to housing, or credit or loans.8
Although many of these migrants are Muslims that does not neces
sarily mean a discrimination of Muslims as such. The study suggests
that the question of discrimination of Muslims differs enormously
throughout Europe:
While the suggestion that Muslims are particularly vulner
able to experiencing discrimination seems to be true for
some countries, according to the studies conducted in
Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Portugal, the majority of
country studies on migrants’ experiences of racism and
xenophobia do not support such an assumption.9
With the increasing debate about the integration of Muslims in
Europe, the requirement of data about the living conditions of Mus
lims in Europe grew. However, the database is still very weak because
in nearly all researches on social and economic conditions indicators
do not target Muslims as a specific group.
Despite that weak database, the study of the EUMC stated the fol
lowing concerning the question of unemployment:
Although differences in wages, type of employment and
unemployment rates of migrants, of which a significant
proportion belongs to Muslim faith groups, indicate per
sistent exclusion, disadvantage and discrimination, it would
be misleading to attribute this only to religious or cultural
differences. A variety of interrelated factors, such as human
capital (educational and professional qualifications, lan
guage skills, etc.), structural changes in the economy, and
8European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, Muslims in the European
Union. Discrimination and Islamophobia (EUMC: Vienna, 2006) p. 32.
9 Ibid, p. 33.
Islam, Migration, and the Muslim Communities in Europe 109
the increasing importance of informal social networks,
serves to impact on the employment opportunities and per
formances of migrant groups. Nevertheless, there is evi
dence to suggest that religion does play a role in employ
ment discrimination.10
Despite the fact that there is some evidence that Muslims in
Europe also have lesser access to higher education and limited possi
bilities for social advancement due to their class background, there is
no reliable data existing about many of the social and economic reali
ties of Muslims in Europe. Recently, the Austrian political scientist
Arno Tausch tried to distill some data about social integration and
poverty and its connection with a political radicalization of Muslims in
Europe from the World Values Survey and the European Survey. In
his evaluation of the data he demonstrates that in all Western Euro
pean countries the subjective risk of poverty of Muslims was much
superior to that of the average population. In 2004 only 12% of the
non-Muslims in Austria saw themselves in danger of becoming poor,
compared to 46.5% of the Muslim population who saw themselves in
danger of becoming poor. In Denmark only 3.9% of the non-Muslims
saw themselves in danger of poverty, compared to 25.1% of the Mus
lim population.11 From this data Tausch created a ‘Muslim Develop
ment Index’ according to the ‘Human Development Index’ of the
UNDP. According to this index, Muslims in Switzerland, Spain and
Slovenia are the most content Muslims in the European Union, while
Muslims in Britain, Germany, Austria and France are the most discon
tent, with France being by far the worst.12
However, even if there are lots of differences concerning economic
success and education between the Muslim communities in the differ
ent European states and also within the different communities, it can
be stated, that there is a tendency that Muslims in Europe are gener
ally poorer and less educated than non-Muslims.
10Ibid, p. 44.
11Arno Tausch, Armut und Radikalität? Soziologische Perspektiven zur Integration der Mus
lime in Europa basierend auf dem “World Values Survey” und dem “European Social Sur
vey” (Bremen: Europäischer Hochschulverlag, 2010), p. 122f.
12Ibid., p. 151.
110 LOOMINGSHADOWS: MIGRATIONAND INTEGRATIONATATIME OF UPHEAVAL
Islam and Identity
The reasons for these social differences are of course not religious,
but sourced from the differing social backgrounds and limited chances
of advancement for underprivileged immigrants in the existing Euro
pean class societies. However, many debates about the integration of
Muslims in Europe still connect religion and culture with poverty and
lack of education. Hate-mongers like extreme right-wing parties or
the German Social Democrat Thilo Sarrazin wrongly suggest that
Islam is the root of these problems.13 Therefore, the discussion in
many European states twists to a discussion about culture and religion
and does not focus on the social realities that are widely unresearched.
There are indications that show that for some of the Muslim popu
lation, as well as the non-Muslim population, Islam does play an
important role in identity construction. It is used to demarcate their
‘European Identity’ against an imagined ‘foreign’ and ‘Oriental’ reli
gion. However, on the Muslim side that does not necessarily mean
that such an Islamic identity construction would also mean a stronger
or more conservative religiousness. The British social scientist Yunas
Samad, who researched the ethnicization of Islam under young British
Muslims with Pakistani descent, concludes:
Young men and women are using Islam to lever open space
for gender and generation negotiation. Islam has become
an indicator that they are, or have become, more British/
European and have reformulated differences in identifica
tion in relation to their parents. Islam is also used as a tool,
in particular by women, to negotiate important live deci
sions such as marriage, continuing with education and
working. It should not necessarily be seen as an indicator
for increased devotion to faith or of religiosity.14
13Thilo Sarrazin, Deutschland schafft sich ab. Wie wir unser Land aufs Spiel setzen
(Munich: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2010).
14Yunas Samad, “Ethnicization of Religion” in Yunas Samad / Kasturi Sen (eds.), Islam
in the European Union. Transnationalism, Youth and the War on Terror (Karachi: Ameena
Saiyid, Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 160-169, p. 168.
Islam, Migration, and the Muslim Communities in Europe 111
Thus Islam for many Muslims and non-Muslims does not only play
a religious role, but a role of collective and personal identity creation.
Although it would go far beyond the scope of this article to analyze
these identity constructions, these multiple dimensions of an Islamic
identity should be kept in mind while discussing the questions of the
relations of non-Muslims and Muslims in Europe as well as the legal
status of Islam within secular European states.
Islam and the State: The legal Framework of Islam
The legal status of Islam as a religion differs a lot in Europe. The
official status of Islam is closely connected with the general relation
between state and religion. Aside from the theocratic Vatican City
State, European states have different forms of secular regimes with
different traditions of state-church relations. While the French laïcité
promotes the complete absence of religious involvement in any gov
ernmental affairs and the complete separation between state and reli
gion, other European states like Austria, Germany or Italy have a
model of cooperation of churches and religious communities with the
state. A third group of states, like Great Britain, Denmark or Liecht
enstein, still have a state church. All of these are monarchies. In some
of them the head of the state is also the head of the state church. For
example, the British queen is also the head of the Church of England.
Still, all these states guarantee the freedom of religion and recognize
other churches and faiths.
However, it is important to mention that all of these models were
created for the organization of Christian churches. But not all reli
gions are organized in the structure of a church. Islam never estab
lished a ‘church’ and Sunni Islam, which is comprised of the large
majority of all Muslims, never even established a definite religious
hierarchy. This lack of a ‘church’ makes it difficult for Muslims to fit
into the existing structures of state-church relations in most European
states. Ayhan Kaya, professor for Political Science and Director of the
European Institute at Istanbul Bilgi University correctly argues that
secular Western countries have followed the same pattern
to accommodate Islam, which they generated before when
112 LOOMINGSHADOWS: MIGRATIONAND INTEGRATIONATATIME OF UPHEAVAL
accommodating other faiths such as Orthodox, Catholic
and Protestant Church, or the Jews. 15
However, that model did not fit for a less institutionalized religion
like Islam. While the traditional leading Christian churches in Europe,
especially the Catholic and orthodox churches, saw themselves and
their hierarchy as mediators between their god and the believers,
Islam does not know priesthood as such and has a concept of a much
more direct interaction between their god and the believers. There
fore, very conservative and strictly orthodox or orthopractic Muslims
do not need a religious institution to practice their belief.
The demand on institutionalization of Islam by European states on
one hand and the traditional Islamic concept of personal subjection
under the almightiness of God on the other leads to a contradictory
development in European Islam. Ayhan Kaya mentions additional rea
sons for that paradoxical development of individualization and institu
tionalization of Islam in Europe:
It was claimed that while the processes of globalization
compel younger Muslims to emancipate themselves from
the pressure of their patriarchal parental and community
culture, Western states and ethno-cultural and religious
brokers are in a position to reify or reinforce, ethnic and
religious boundaries. Hence, it turns out that the descen
dants of migrants are squeezed between individualization
and institutionalization of Islam.16
European states went different paths to institutionalize Islam. Apart
from countries traditionally shaped by Islam, such as Bosnia, Albania
and Kosovo and countries with traditional Islamic minorities like Rus
sia, Poland or Greece, who mainly have traditional Islamic representa
tives, only two European states have an Islamic institution that is for
mally equated to Christian churches and other officially recognized
religions. While Austria and Belgium established officially recognized
religious communities that— at least in theory—should represent
15Ayhan Kaya, Islam, Migration and Integration. The Age of Secularization (Basingstoke
(Hampshire): Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), p. 199.
16Ibid., p. 199f.
Islam, Migration, and the Muslim Communities in Europe 113
Islam on equal footage of Christian churches or the Jewish communi
ties, many other states formed different bodies of representation.
Additionally, Hungary officially recognizes Islamic religious commu
nities. However, the Hungarian law of religion was modeled after the
law in the US. This made it extremely easy to establish officially regis
tered religious communities, but they did not have a lot of privileges.
Meanwhile, there are three different Muslim communities officially rec
ognized, although they have only a few hundred members each.17
Though the new right wing government adopted a new “Law on the
Right to Freedom of Conscience and Religion, and on Churches, Reli
gions and Religious Community” on July 12. Only 14 of the 358 reli
gious groups in Hungary will be granted formal recognition under the
law and hundreds of groups will automatically lose their “registered”
status and as of January 1, 2012 will no longer receive financial alloca
tion in support of their work.18 None of the 14 is a Muslim community.
In most of the other European countries there has been intent to
establish some sort of a representation of Muslims, each with different
types of success.
In 1992 Spain established the Comisión Islámica de España by a unifi
cation of the Federación Española de Entidades Religiosas Islámicas
(FEERI) and the Unión de Comunidades Islámicas en España (UCIDE).
The Comisión Islámica de España was created as the sole representative
of Islam vis-à-vis the state. It is neither an official religious community
comparable to the Catholic church, nor does it really include all major
currents present in the Muslim communities of Spain. Political and
Islamic scientist Brigitte Maréchal questions its efficiancy “because it
does not represent the diversity of Muslims, nor the immigrants who
are the poorest and the most recently arrived, often illegally.”19
17Gyorgy Lederer, “Hungary,” in: Jørgen S. Nielsen / Samim Akgönül / Ahmet Alibašić /
Brigitte Maréchal / Hugh Goddard eds., Yearbook of Muslims in Europe 2010 (Leiden:
Brill, 2010) pp. 245–249, p. 246.
18http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=70&release=1480, accessed on
November 10, 2011.
19Brigitte Maréchal, “Institutionalisation of Islam and Representative Organisations for
Dealind with European States” in: Brigitte Maréchal / Stefano Allievi / Felice Das
setto / Jørgen Nielsen (eds) Muslims in the Enlarged Europe. Religion and Society (Lei
den: Brill, 2003) pp. 151–182, p.163.
114 LOOMINGSHADOWS: MIGRATIONAND INTEGRATIONATATIME OF UPHEAVAL
In 2003 France formed the Conseil Français du Cult Musulman
(CFCM) as a representative body of French Muslims. The CFCM is
registered as a nonprofit association20 and not as a religious commu
nity. It constitutes an elected body that serves as contact for the state
authorities and consists of 25 Conseil Regional du Culte Musulman.
Since its establishment, the CFCM was partly paralyzed by conflicts
between rival Islamic organizations, especially between the Muslim
Brotherhood affiliated Union des organisations islamiques de France
(UOIF) and more secular groups like the Grande Mosquée de Paris.
Political scientist Malika Zeghal argues that the creation of the
CFCM was a result of a strategy by the French political elites and not
by the French Muslims.21
This is also the case in the efforts of Germany to establish a repre
sentative body for German Muslims. The Deutsche Islamkonferenz
(DIK, German Islam Conference) was established in 2006 by the
Ministry of Interior for a limited time to encourage a structured dia
logue between the German state and Muslim representatives who
were appointed by the Ministry. The Law Professor Mathias Rohe,
who was himself a member of the DIK argues that:
These appointments have (naturally) been disputed from
the beginning: the organized Sunni Muslims complain of
their ‘minority’ position compared with the ‘secular’ major
ity, while others would reject the participation of conserva
tive Muslims, especially those under observation by the
security services. Of course, everybody who was not invited
has challenged the authority of the council to speak for
Muslims. This is equally true with regard to the state repre
sentatives: none of them are members of parliament and
this has led to criticism of the DIK for ‘lack of trans
20http://www.journal-officiel.gouv.fr/association/index.php?ACTION=
Rechercher&HI_PAGE=1&HI_COMPTEUR=0&original_method=get&WHAT=c
ulte+musulman&JTH_ID=&JAN_BD_CP=75013&JRE_ID=&JAN_LIEU_DECL=
&JTY_ID=&JPA_D_D=07%2F06%2F2003&JPA_D_F=07%2F06%2F2003,
accessed on April 26, 2011.
21Malika Zeghal, La constitution du Conseil Français du Culte Musulman: Reconnais
sance politique d’un Islam français? Archives des Sciences sociales des religions 129
(janvier– mars 2005) pp. 97–113.
Islam, Migration, and the Muslim Communities in Europe 115
parency’. The Ministry has clearly decided to begin in an
informal manner rather than to enter into a broad political
process from the beginning.22
However, despite the criticism all important Islamic umbrella-orga
nizations, including the Federation of the Alevi communities, partici
pated in the first round of the DIK. In the second round, which began
in 2010, the Islamic umbrella organization with the largest member
ship was missing. The DIK justifies the absence of the Islamrat
(Islamic Council, IRD):
Because of the well-known on-going preliminary proceed
ings against leading members of the Islamic Community
Milli Görüş (IGMG), the largest member organisation of
the IRD, its membership of the German Islamic Confer
ence has been suspended for the time being. The Islamic
Council has relinquished the option of maintaining a sleep
ing membership.23
Although the DIK continues to work, it did not lead to the estab
lishment of a state recognized religious community. Only a number of
predominantly Sunni Islamic umbrella organizations formed a new
umbrella organization called Koordinierungsrat der Muslime (KRM,
Coordination Council of the Muslims) in 2007. It claimed to repre
sent all Sunni and Shiite Muslims in Germany, but its representative
ness is highly disputed and it turned out to be a very weak organiza
tion. Until now, there is no officially recognized Islamic religious
community on a federal level with the same rights that Christian
churches or the Jewish communities have.
Some other European countries like the United Kingdom and Italy
did not try to establish a legal umbrella organization or representation
22Mathias Rohe, “Germany,” in Jørgen S. Nielsen / Samim Akgönül / Ahmet Alibašić /
Brigitte Maréchal / Hugh Goddard eds., Yearbook of Muslims in Europe 2010 (Leiden:
Brill, 2010) pp. 217–232, p. 218f.
23http://www.deutsche-islam-konferenz.de/cln_110/nn_1917156/SubSites/DIK/EN/
TeilnehmerStruktur/Teilnehmer/teilnehmer-node.html?_nnn=true, accessed on
April 27, 2011.
116 LOOMINGSHADOWS: MIGRATIONAND INTEGRATIONATATIME OF UPHEAVAL
of all Muslims in their states. Nevertheless, these countries have dif
ferent rival Muslim organizations existing within each of them.
Some Muslim organizations also tried to establish European
umbrella organizations like the Muslim Council for Cooperation in
Europe (MCCE). These attempts to construct a united European
Islamic structure were disappointing due to the lack of representatives.
The Case of Austria: Recognition of an Islamic ‘Church’
It is not a surprise that the first non-Muslim western European
state that officially recognized Islam as a religion did so in the frame
work of the experiment of establishing a church-like Islamic institu
tion. This church-like structure represents Islam as the Catholic
church represents Catholicism. The recognition of Islam by Austria is
a result of a specific historic development. It was not Islam that came
to Austria, but it was Austria that came to Islam, or more precisely to
Bosnia. Austria occupied Bosnia in 1878. Consequently the occupying
forces created all those structures surrounding Islam, which still today
represent characteristics of Bosnian Islam, like that of the Reis ul
ulema, for example.
The establishment of these autonomous Islamic structures not only
demonstrated tolerance, but also a religious decoupling from Istanbul.
The recognition of Islam as a religious community was based on a
Hanafiya school and was confirmed through the law of 15th July 1912
RGBL Nr. 159 and later on elaborated.24 Hence, to be more precise, it
can be concluded that the Sunni Islam of the Hanafiya school of law
has been recognized as a religious community in Austria since the
annexation of Bosnia, which led to privileges such as the introduction
of Islamic clergymen for the military. The same privileges were given
to Protestant churches and Jewish religious communities.
In western Europe Islam is only officially recognized in Belgium
and Austria. In Austria the unique status of Islam in Austria is not the
result of the immigration of Muslim workers in the 1960s and 1970s,
24Smail Balić, “Zur Geschichte der Muslime in Österreich I: Lebensräume und Kon
fliktfelder,” in Susanne Heine (ed.), Islam zwischen Selbstbild und Klischee. Eine Religion
im Österreichischen Schulbuch, Wien: Böhlau, 1995, p. 25.
Islam, Migration, and the Muslim Communities in Europe 117
but is in fact the result of a historic relationship between Austria and
the Balkan states, in particular with Bosnia and Herzegovina.25
The end of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in 1918 did not bring
any changes to this specific judicial situation, except for the loss of the
subjects of the Islamic Religious Community through the detachment
of Bosnia. From then on this law was more or less dormant until May
2, 1979, when the creation of an Islamic Religious Community in Aus
tria (Islamische Glaubensgemeinschaft in Österreich, IGGiÖ) was per
mitted. The demand of the first president Ahmad Abdelrahimsai of
the IGGiÖ of representing all “members of Islam […] who are resid
ing in Austria” was accepted by the head of law and by the public.
Since then the Islamic Religious Community in Austria demands full
rights to speak for all Muslims in Austria, regardless of if they pay
their member fees or not. This created a bizarre constellation in which
the IGGiÖ claims to represent all Muslims in Austria, yet in fact
counts only a small minority of paying members— the exact number of
which has never been disclosed to the Austrian public. This small
group paying the fees is the only group which has the full active and
passive right to vote for the various committees of the IGGiÖ. Abdel
rahimsai stated more precisely in one of his texts about the IGGiÖ:
Hereby all the members of Islam, who are not members of
the Hanafiya rite, like other Sunnites (Shafites, Malakites,
Hanbalites) and Shiites (Twelver Shiites, Zaidites, Ibadis),
are equal to members of the Hanafitic school of law.26
Firstly, he wrongly enumerates the Ibadites as part of the Shia, as
they arise from the Kharjaites and have no link whatsoever with the
Shia27—a mistake which was repeated by many other writers. Sec
25Sabine Kroissenbrunner, “Islam, Migration und Integration: soziopolitische Netzw
erke und ‚Muslim leadership’,” in: Heinz Fassmann and Irene Stacher eds., Österre
ichischer Migrations- und Integrationsbericht. Demographische Entwicklungen—
sozioökonomische Strukturen— rechtliche Rahmenbedingungen (Wien, Klagenfurt/
Celovec: Drava, 2003) pp. 375–394.
26Ahmed Abdelrahimsai, “Zur Geschichte der Muslime in Österreich II: Die Islamis
che Glaubensgemeinschaft,” in Susanne Heine (ed.), Islam zwischen Selbstbild und Klis
chee. Eine Religion im Österreichischen Schulbuch (Köln: Böhlau, 1995) pp. 37–44, p. 42.
27Amal Ghazal, “Kharijism and Ibadism: The Quest for an integrative approach to
118 LOOMINGSHADOWS: MIGRATIONAND INTEGRATIONATATIME OF UPHEAVAL
ondly, it is obvious that only orthopractical movements of Islam find
their place in his enumeration.
Heterodox groups like the Alevis have been trying to get recog
nised as an official religious community for years. The president of the
IGGiÖ has always refused to accept them as Muslims.28 After a long
legal dispute, where two different groups of Alevis tried to get the offi
cial recognition to establish an independent state-recognized religious
community, one of these two groups succeeded in December 2010 and
is now recognized as Religiöse Bekenntnisgemeinschaft.29 It is in a prelim
inary stage before becoming a fully recognized religious community
like the IGGiÖ. This was made possible by a decision of the Austrian
Constitutional Court which saw the decision of the Bureau of Cult
(‘Kultusamt’) of the Austrian Ministry of Culture and Education to
accept only one Islamic community in Austria (the IGGiÖ) as a viola
tion of religious freedom on December 1, 2010.30 This decision could
have a strong impact on the status of the IGGiÖ as well, because the
constitutional court recognized the denial of the recognition of the
islamisch-alevitische Glaubensgemeinschaft as a violation of the European
Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). It concluded that article I
and § 1 of the Islamgesetz can not be interpreted as the Austrian law
only accepting one officially recognized Islamic religious community.
The future will demonstrate what this means for the claim to sole rep
resentation of all Muslims by the IGGiÖ and other Islamic communi
ties who could try to get official recognition. Already in December
2010, more Islamic groups including a Shiite group requested official
recognition. The Bureau of Cult has to decide about these requests
within six months after their application.
Islamic History,” Bulletin of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Sudies, vol. 7, no. 1
(Spring-Summer 2005), pp. 1-6.
28See many statements of IGGiÖ-president Anas Schakfeh to the press or this report
about a discussion with the author or this paper: http://www.dasbiber.at/content/
minarett-diskussion%3A-shakfeh-distanziert-sich-erneut-von-aleviten, accessed on
September 20, 2010).
29http://www.wienerzeitung.at/default.aspx?TabID=5127&Alias=wzo&cob=532648,
accessed on December 24, 2010).
30Entscheidung des Verfassungsgerichtshofs B 1214/09-35 on the 1st of December
2010.
Islam, Migration, and the Muslim Communities in Europe 119
However, even though the IGGiÖ does not recognize Alevis as
Muslims, it still claims to be the sole representative of all Muslims in
Austria. In 2010, the IGGiÖ tried to recruit new members before
their new elections. In November 2010, IGGiÖ President Schakfeh
announced that the IGGiÖ managed to get 45,822 members, but only
15,803 would be entitled to vote.31 After a publicity campaign in
schools and the registration of thousands of school children by their
teachers, Schakfeh announced in March 2011 that the IGGiÖ man
aged to register 100,000 Muslims of whom 27,000 would be entitled
to vote.32 The rest are either younger than 14, did not pay the mem
bership fee or had not been living in Austria for at least one year.
20,500 of these 27,000 Muslims really went to vote33, which is less
than 4% of the Austrian Muslim population of more than 550,000
Muslims. The elections brought a stronger influence of the Turkish
Islamic associations. Fuat Sanaç, an affiliate of Milli Görüş, was elected
as the new president of the IGGiÖ in June 2011.34
Despite the fact that many Austrian politicians tried to present the
‘Austrian solution’ as a model for other states, as well as some scholars
claiming that the Austrian model of official representation “causes
fewer problems than elsewhere,”35 the lack of participation of Muslims
in this elections clearly demonstrates that the artificial creation of an
all-embracing Islamic ‘church’ did not solve any of the problems of
the representations of Islam. Rather, it helped to cover them under the
glint of a pseudo-representative organization. The fact is that in Aus
tria, a plurality of different Islamic organizations always played a much
more important role than any official Islamic community.
31http://www.wienerzeitung.at/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabID=3941&Alias=WZO&cob
=526141, accessed on April 28, 2010.
32http://diepresse.com/home/panorama/religion/643567/Nur-jeder-fuenfte-Muslim
bekennt-sich-zur-IGGiOe, accessed on May 10, 2010.
33http://derstandard.at/1304552252914/Islam-Muslime-Wahl-Beteiligung-von-765
Prozent, accessed on May 19, 2011.
34http://news.orf.at/stories/2065615/, accessed on July 1, 2011.
35Silvio Ferrari, “The Secularity of the State and the Shaping of Muslim Representa
tive Organizations in Western Europe”, in: Jocelyne Cesari / Seán McLoughlin (eds),
European Muslims and the Secular State (Aldershot (Hampshire): Ashgate, 2005) pp.
11-23, p. 14.
120 LOOMINGSHADOWS: MIGRATIONAND INTEGRATIONATATIME OF UPHEAVAL
Islamic Organizations
Such Islamic organizations did establish themselves in all European
countries. Many of them are connected with each other, but also with
Islamic organizations in Muslim immigrants’ countries of origin. In
general it can be stated that the large majority of Muslims in Europe
are not categorized in any organization. This resulted in an uneven
surplus of conservative voices in the organized groups of Islam in
many European states. As Islam can be perfectly exercised without any
organization, most of the more secular and moderate Muslims did not
organize in Islamic organizations. That does not mean that all Islamic
organizations are organizations of Political Islam, but rather it means
that the positions of Islamic organizations do not necessarily mirror
the positions of Muslims in Europe. Rather, they only represent their
more conservative and sometimes their more fundamentalist currents.
However, the development of these Islamic organizations in
Europe is often still closely linked to the development of society and
politics in the land of the origin of Muslim immigrants. Jørgen S.
Nielsen points out that that
the Muslim organizational tendencies, which have formed
the roots of those we see […] in Europe today, are the prod
uct not only of traditional Islamic processes but also— and
very significantly— of the organized Muslim reaction to the
expansion of European influence during the last several
centuries.36
It would go far beyond the scope of this article to give an overview
of even the most important of these organizations in Europe. How
ever, it still should be mentioned that most Islamic organizations from
the Muslim immigrants’ countries of origin could also establish
organizations in Europe. In the case of the Turkish Milli Görüş, its
European wing by far exceeds its counterpart in Turkey in member
ship and political influence. The Muslim Brotherhood or different
Sufi-tariqat also have their organizations in Europe. The followers of
Fethullah Gülen established their organizations and schools, and some
36Jørgen S. Nielsen, Muslims in Western Europe (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press 1995) [2nd edition], p. 119.
Islam, Migration, and the Muslim Communities in Europe 121
Salafi organizations are particularly successful in recruiting younger
Muslims, including converts.
Some of the Islamic organizations in Europe are also state-spon
sored. Turkey maintains an extensive network of organizations in
Western Europe that is directly linked to its Diyanet Ỉşleri Başkanlığı
(Presidency for religious affairs), which includes the two biggest
Islamic umbrella organizations in Germany and Austria, the Diyanet
İşleri Türk İslam Birliği, (DİTİB)37 and the Avusturya Türk İslam Birliği
(ATİB). Iran and Saudi-Arabia are also sponsoring Shiite or Wahabi
Islamic organizations. This strengthens forms of Political Islam in
Europe.
Problems and Discussions
Although Islam became a widely debated topic all over Europe,
Muslims are often portrayed in a very stereotypical way. However,
most of these anti-Muslim resentments are culturalized or religiously
loaded forms of racism. This is one of the reasons why the increasing
usage of the term ‘Islamophobia’ in social science hides more than it
describes.38 But not only racist and other anti-Muslim groups draw a
picture of a unified and homogenous Islam, many Muslim officials and
so-called friends of the Muslims also try to focus on the unity of Mus
lims. Therefore, the diversity and the conflicts within European Mus
lim communities are often hidden and under-researched.
However, a fair and scientific discussion about Islam and Muslim
communities in Europe would have to focus much more on this plu
rality of Islam. Although it would make the pictures of Islam more
conflicting, this would help to demonstrate that Muslims are not
37Günter Seufert, “Die ‚Türkisch-Islamische Union‘ (DİTİB) der türkischen Reli
gionsbehörde: zwischen Integration und Isolation,” in Günter Seufert / Jacques
Waardenburg (eds.), Turkish Islam and Europe—Türkischer Islam und Europa (Istanbul:
Franz-Steiner-Verlag, 1999), pp. 261–293.
38For a detailed critique of the terminology, see Thomas Schmidinger, “Antisemitismus
und Islamophobie. Einige Neuerscheinungen zum Vergleich von Antisemitismus und
antimuslimischen Ressentiments,” Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften
(ÖZG), 2011/3, pp. 154–166.
122 LOOMINGSHADOWS: MIGRATIONAND INTEGRATIONATATIME OF UPHEAVAL
something completely ‘other’ but rather as pluralistic and conflicting
as any other religion.
Such an attempt would also help to overcome experiments in vain
to establish all-embracing representative Muslim organizations vis-á
vis European states and would help to recognize an existing religious
pluralism. This would help to not overestimate the influence of reli
gion in the debate on the integration of immigrants and to debate
more about education, social justice and equality. Religion is impor
tant, but it neither explains all aspects of a personal or collective iden
tity, nor does it explain all the conflicts and problems of social justice,
education and our living together in a pluralist society

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