Islam in Modern Societies: Facts, Issues, and Perspectives in the West

By Jamel Khermimoun PhD

Jamel Khermimoun considers that Muslims born in France and in the West now build their identity not from an imported model but from a strong sense of belonging to the nation, which they claim at the same time as their Islam. He wants to shed light on his reading of texts guided by the spirit of flexibility and openness advocated by Islam. We must listen carefully to what he has to say to us; one must know how to confront ones own point of view with ones own, and thus enter into a process of dialogue which, as he writes himself, creates real issues and is capable of appeasing the spirits

(Jean Baubrot, professor emeritus of the Chair History and Sociology of Secularism [Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris] and author of several books).

Through this book, the author has the merit of advocating the creation of a field of mutual acquaintance [. . .], a base of common values that can help Westerners and Muslims to get out of the tunnel of reciprocal prejudices, to protect together the true notion of secularism that calls for respect for individual choices and the defense of the right of expression

(Claudia Mansueto, doctor of literature, professor at the University of Trieste).

Jamel Khermimoun provides answers to the questions raised by the place of the Muslim religion in modern societies.

For the author, Islam is not incompatible with secularism because it shares with it the most important values which make possible cohabitation, or even mutual enrichment. Instead of opposing them, it encourages us to reinvest the republican principles that make up our societies. [. . .] It is for those of us who want to understand the world in which they live. The links of Islam to modernity, to knowledge, to the idea of freedom, to the equality of the sexes, to violence, to fanaticism, to racism, are here dealt with frankness and clarity

(Victor Loupan, journalist, author, former international reporter at Figaro Magazine).

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jul 6, 2018
• ISBN: 9781973633020

Jamel Khermimoun PhD

Researcher and author of several books, PhD in Geography and Territory Development, graduated Master of Political, Cultural and Historical Geography and Master of Town Planning and Development (Paris Sorbonne University), member of CERII (European Center for Research on Islam and its Interactions). He is member of the International Political Science Association (IPSA): "Human Rights", "Religion and Politics" and "Comparative Studies on Local Government and Politics" research committees.

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Copyright © 2018 Jamel Khermimoun, PhD.

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ISBN: 978-1-9736-3301-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-3303-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-3302-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018907710

WestBow Press rev. date: 07/06/2018

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1 Terminological Approach

Sharia

Jihad and Fundamentalism

Integration and Colonialism

Fatwa and Case Law Substratum

Chapter 2 Society’s Challenges

Place of Women

Women in Islam: Between Fantasy and Reality

The Headscarf Issue

Educational Issues

Chapter 3 Civilisation Issues

A New Spiritual and Socio-Demographic Landscape

Islam-West: Clash of Civilisations?

Questioning Nation

The September 11th Effect

Men’s Rights as an Interface to Civilisations

An Islamic Concept of Human Rights

Chapter 4 Integration and Disintegration Issues

The Republic’s Suburbs

Troubled Youth and Territories

An Open and Evolutional Conception of Secularism

Chapter 5 Western Muslims and the Weight of Literalism and Rigorism

A Restrictive Conception of Islam

French Muslims Faced with Radicalism: What Kind of Belonging? What Kind of Interpretation and Practise of Islam?

Chapter 6 Conceiving Islam in Secularity: Identities, Institutionalisation, and Representability Goals

A Contextualised Conception of Islam

Citizenship Goals

Training Issues, Structure, and Representation of France’s Islam

Concerning Wearing the Veil in School

Chapter 7 French Muslims and the Nation’s Collective Identity

Culture and Identity

The Migration Factor

The Historical Factors

Chapter 8 Moving Identities: Spirituality, Culture, and France’s Islam

Cultural Legacies, Identities and Belonging

France’s Islam, Belonging to the Nation and Cultural Challenges

Conclusion

Bibliography

DEDICATION

For my parents, Mustapha, Mina, Yassine, and for all those who matter to me.

ALSO BY JAMEL KHERMIMOUN

Politiques urbaines et image du territoire, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2008.

Français et musulman, pour en finir avec les idées reçues, Paris, L’Œuvre, 2011.

L’identité heureuse, penser l’islam de France, pour une nation unie, diverse et apaisée, Janzé, Coëtquen éditions, 2014.

Ethique et environnement, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2016.

L’environnement et l’islam, Paris, éditions Albouraq, 2018.

INTRODUCTION

The different themes discussed in this book are subject to debate and tension, caused by the confrontation of two civilisations that must find together a constructive dialogue. Through this book, we intend to read across these two visions of the world, founded on a themed analysis supported by examples. Our work focuses on civilizational dialogue, between two worlds that live together without meeting each other. One of goals of modern societies today is to deepen connections, to fight self-isolation, and to analyse the link between Islam and spirituality, and what it might become. At a time when social and professional stability is less seen as an obstacle in the socioeconomic crisis, even in wellbeing, the question of resurgence in spirituality resurfaces in the West. What are the real challenges of living together that each person preaches without truly defining the limits, in a multicultural, secularised society, victim to disintegration and violent acts? In this book, we will study the paths that could allow the Western world and Islam to communicate. Our ambition is to contribute as well as understand the tensions and frictions that are present throughout countries like France.

Islam’s place in this country establishes a debate in society (wearing headscarves, street prayers, halal meals, etc.). Here, we will try to bring answers to the questions about Islam’s place in modern societies, particularly in secular countries such as France. Islam is in the background of every European’s day-to-day life. It has been subject to various interpretations and heterogeneous practices. The Islam we see every day in public spaces, in our neighbourhood, is the result of understandings, practices, experiences, and adaptations of specific contexts. In this way, Islam is dynamic, constantly evolving, and complex. It is sometimes deeply disconnected from Man’s aim to a higher spiritual level. For some, Islam is an absolute regression of the human condition, and particularly of the place of women in the world. It is therefore condemned because of its positions on this or that matter not being compatible with Western democracy. Believers, Muslim or not, give their faith and spirituality a leading role in society’s progress. In this, Muslims in France and around the Western world try to go back to theirs basics, to practise their faith, and acquire their place in the world. Only an open-minded approach to the realities and constraints of modern society can achieve this. Why go back to basics? It’s important for Muslim citizens to differentiate what is part of the foundations of Islam, and what they think is a travesty of its essence, an overhanging heritage of the spirit of its words. Today, Islam isn’t experienced and practised by European Muslims homogeneously. It’s subject to many interpretations, and the results of these understandings are widely permeated with sociocultural contexts. These can mold the perceptions of people that grew up in a predominantly Muslim country, and who eventually settled in the West. For a number of Muslims who grew up in the West, their priority is to define their identity so they may join their nation’s identity, to which they belong. In this book, we will specifically focus on France’s example. Today, there is a need for French Muslims to achieve a contextual Islam de France, a French Islam. It’s important to not stop at its title, but to look into its content. Muslims are conscious of their dual belonging, spiritual and cultural. They manifest their wish to live peacefully within their faith while being in harmony with their collective identity, and to be in line with their society’s goals. Some think that Islam is one, that it’s universal, and that a French Islam would be useless. Muslims living in the West believe that Islam’s foundations are unchangeable and unchanging. However, within exists a vast area which stays forever open to interpretation and context of scriptural sources. According to them, on a practical level, Islam cannot be understood or experienced in conflict with its context in time and space. We will concentrate on the issue of Islam in France. What is there to be understood? What are its priorities, its projects, its perspectives? How and by whom is it thought through? There are many projects implying the rise of a contextualised Islam in France and other Western countries. The questions at the back of our minds ask about identity and the link in culture. These will be our guides in our thought process. This work is being translated from French, we ask the indulgence of the reader for the imperfections that it could contain.

CHAPTER 1

Terminological Approach

Summary: The terminology and prism through which Islam is seen today in the West could favour rejecting it, and could contribute to maintaining a fearful atmosphere. In the minds of a non-Muslim, Islam and the Quran are often associated with extreme terms of violence, intolerance, withdrawal, and self-isolation opposing progress, and modernisation. These arguments led by politics and media help to build and broadcast a negative image of this religion. If modernism is understood as a break with all forms of regression of the human condition (knowledge, traditions, mentalities), in Western societies Islam is brought into this dynamic.

Keywords: Islam, perception of Islam, sharia, jihad, fundamentalism, integration, colonialism, fatwa, case law substratum

Political scientist Anouar Boukhars (2009, pp. 297-298) considers that a growing part of Europeans fear that Europe will be confronted with a Muslim problem. He would like to point out that this is not a new phenomenon in France.

Satirical pictures – or caricatures – criticising religion have played their part in history in the protest against social and political roles, as well as society’s morals in religious power. Sometimes, it has even put their dogmas into question. On the one hand, the authors of these satirical images or literature defend their right to express freely and publicly their opinions. On the other hand, believers see this as a subjective construction of a religious icon, rooted in history, and interpret it as a desecration. They associate this with a recurring regression in the human condition: religion can only be the shackles of which the world must free itself in order to progress. A tendency of monotheist religions is to criticise modernism and progress, and accuse them of drifting. This often arises when it comes to ethical and moral subjects such as marriage, adoption, abortion, surrogate mothers, etc. The oppositions displayed in France and Europe regarding le mariage pour tous – literally marriage for all – only illustrates this truth. Marcel Gauchet (2002) devotes one of his works to the issue of the future of modern democracies. He questions himself on the profound discomfort of a thought-system that doesn’t guarantee the republican state’s sustainability: a democratic model that didn’t know how or doesn’t wish to look upon a critical view of its own future. When faced with the complex crisis of postmodern democracies’ situation, religion defends and expresses the historic values it carries, and considers them to be the solution to all of the worlds, and modern society’s troubles.

Sharia

The English term closest to the meaning of the Arab word sharia is path. The way Muslims see it, the strongest aspect of this term is the legal meaning attached to it. If the legal aspect integrates multiple meanings of this word, its first meaning is Man’s finality and the path that is chosen for him by God. This path represents a perfect balance between Man’s relationship with his fellow men, his environment, and God. Islam preaches this balance through its precepts (Quran 2: 143). In fact, historically, it has adapted to the diversity of dress codes and eating habits of tribes and people having adopted its message, particularly in Europe and Asia. Along with the rest of their countrymen, French Muslims abide by national law. The foundations of these laws often based in values such as justice and the respect of each other’s freedom. To them, being Muslim is accepting the idea of a republican nation and its principles. In other words, the sharia, subject to many interpretations in the West, represents a path, a journey, that imposes the respect of republican laws.

Jihad and Fundamentalism

Islam considers the virtue of continuous efforts both individual, and collective as the consecration and culmination point of the journey towards God. The ambiguous notion of jihad is open to many interpretations in the West. jihad and ijtihad share a common linguistic root, integrating a number of meanings: effort, bettering one-self, determination, perseverance, commitment, etc. In Islam, the dimensions of the efforts put in the path towards God are multiple and apply to different layers of life. For Muslims, the wish to always perfect something, to constantly aspire to excellence, is the guide to all their thoughts and actions. This continuous ego-mastering attitude, to only submit it to the positive wishes of heart and mind, flow from the jihad’s different layers: the gift of self, as well as one’s goods and educational,