Magazine / Society / Euro-Islam / Debate | 02/05/2007

On the road to Euro-Islam?

The headscarf debate, terrorism, EU membership for Turkey: in many of Europe's ongoing debates the question of whether Islam is compatible with European values is of key importance. Could Euro-Islam be the answer?

There are many controversial opinions on what form Euro-Islam should take. Islamic dissidents like politician and women's rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali take a radical stance. Hirsi Ali criticises Islam in principle, for example in an interview which appeared in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of 4 October 2006: "I'm convinced that Islam is not compatible with liberal societies like those that have developed since the Age of Enlightenment."

Baitul Futuh Mosque, London: up to 10,000 devotees can pray in Western Europe's largest mosque.
Photo: AP

Brought up to be a strict Muslim in her home country of Somalia, Hirsi Ali became a harsh critic of Islamic fundamentalism following her emigration to the Netherlands. In her "Berlin speech" delivered on 9 February 2006, she called for the Holy Writings to be historicised and also demanded the right to criticise the statements of the Prophet Muhammad. "The Koran is the work of men, not of God," she writes in her autobiography.

In doing so she demands the right to take a hermeneutic approach to the Koran. Pioneers of a reform of Islam, such as the liberal Egyptian theologian Nasr Hami Abu Zaid, who regards the Koran as a cultural product, share this view. Back in 2003 he concluded in the German weekly Die Zeit that, "precisely because the message of Islam is meant to be valid for all humanity, regardless of time or place, it is inevitable that there will be many different interpretations."

The authority to interpret the Koran

But can Islam really be reformed in the sense of being adapted to fundamental European values? The answer to this question is inextricably bound up with how the Koran is interpreted. Is it an unalterable message from God? Or is the Koran the work of man and a product of history that should be understood as such?

The fact that there are so many different interpretations is the result of, among other things, the non-hierarchical structure of Islam. For according to Muslim belief, each and every believer has a direct relationship with God. Consequently, there is as little authority on religious matters as there is consensus on who is entitled to represent Muslims in individual European states. In Austria, for example, Islam has been a recognised religious community in the form of the Islam Religious Community in Austria (IGGÖ) since 1912. In Germany, on the other hand, it was only recently that the Central Council of Muslims was created as an umbrella organisation for the country's four main Islamic associations. Daniel Bax takes a positive view of this development in the tageszeitung of 12 April 2007, but also notes that the Council is still "far from representing all Muslims living in Germany."

Groups like the "Central Council of Ex-Muslims", which was founded at the beginning of this year, want to prevent Islamic organisations from being regarded by the German state as the only representatives of all Muslims living in the country. The Central Council of Ex-Muslims also warns Europe's societies not to permit the erosion of fundamental values such as freedom of expression, the rights of the individual and the rule of law. "Europe is still tolerant of intolerance," Mina Ahadi, the Iranian-born president of the Central Council, remonstrated on 8 March in an interview with the Tagesspiegel.

The Islamisation of Europe?

Many share the view expressed by Hirsi Ali and Ahadi that Europe's commitment to cultural diversity is naïve and has encouraged the radicalisation of European Muslims. On 28 December 2006, in the midst of the Muhammad cartoon dispute, Maros Balo, a Slovak economic analyst, voiced the fear in the Slovak daily Sme that "to prevent an escalation in the conflict, Europe may be tempted to give up its values."

Spanish commentator Daniel Martín also pointed out in the 20 March 2007 edition of the conservative Spanish online newspaper Estrella Digital that Europe was "powerless against an enemy with clear beliefs and staunch followers."

Laicism or special rules

But at what point do we begin to compromise European values? Can Islam's fundamentally religious view of the world be brought into harmony with secular Europe?

Of all the European states, France has the most unambiguous concept: laicism. There is a strict division between religion and state, and religion is not permitted to play a role in public life.

Other European states tolerate special rules for Muslims. In Germany, female pupils are often excused from swimming lessons or sex education for religious reasons. In the Netherlands, a Muslim hospital with separate facilities for males and females is in planning. In Great Britain Muslims and other religious groups are allowed to express their religious beliefs through their clothing even if they're public servants.

The modification of fundamental European values?

Those who oppose open practice or special rules argue that they provide the opportunity to circumvent fundamental European values. According to Necla Kelek, a German sociologist of Turkish origin, special rules open the way for political Islam to "establish an Apartheid of the sexes in free European societies" as she wrote on 5 February 2007, in an article for the online magazine signandsight.com.

In the commentaries he wrote for the same magazine, published on 21 January and 22 March 2007, French philosopher Pascal Bruckner also argues in favour of the French model of laicism and describes multiculturalism as "racism of the anti-racist."

Proponents, on the other hand, see special rules for minorities as an expression of multicultural tolerance. "We have to decide what is essential in our European way of life and what is negotiable," wrote British historian Timothy Garton Ash in the New York Review of Books of 5 October 2006. According to Garton Ash, the right to freedom of expression is essential, but he does not see the covering of Muslim women in public places as a threat to fundamental values.

In Garton Ash's opinion, "Islamic reformers" such as Tariq Ramadan could play a pioneering role in promoting peaceful coexistence with Islam in Europe. Ramadan wants an Islam that is compatible with democratic Europe, says Ash: To Ramadan, a Muslim European "can be both a good Muslim and a good European."

Participation according to Muslim rules

As a devout Muslim, the Swiss Islam expert and journalist Tariq Ramadan seems indeed to stand for an Islamic-European identity. On the occasion of the fifth anniversary of September 11, in an "Appeal to Muslims in the West" published by the Financial Times Deutschland on 7 September 2006, he urges: "The Muslims must rapidly develop a critical discourse that rejects the victim pose and criticises radical verbal or cultural interpretations of the Holy Writings. In the name of the guiding principles of Islam they must take a stand to stop their religion being distorted to justify terrorism, domestic violence or forced marriages."

However, Ramadan's attitude towards European values is not entirely unambiguous. In an article in the International Herald Tribune of 4 February 2007 he stresses the need for legal equality of women but nonetheless points out that it should not be forgotten that men and women are not the same, and that in Islamic tradition, women are seen in terms of being mothers, wives or daughters. He places religious laws above secular ones: "We are in favor of integration, but it is up to us to decide what that means. ... I will abide by the laws, but only insofar as the laws don't force me to do anything against my religion."

Such statements prompt Bassam Tibi, a Syrian-born German political expert, to describe Ramadan's version of Euro-Islam as deception: In reality, Tibi says, this is nothing other than "Orthodox Islam" without Europeanisation.

Islam and modern culture

Tibi claims to have coined the term "Euro-Islam" back in 1992. He understands it as referring to a form of "Islam that is in tune with the fundamentals of cultural modernity (democracy, individual human rights, civil society) and embraces pluralism".

He asserts that "Euro-Islam is impossible without cultural change involving religious reforms". This, he says, is why there is no Euro-Islam at present. It is on this point that he sees himself as being most at odds with Ramadan. For him, the key question is to what extent Islam is prepared to open itself to textual criticism and historicise its religious writings.

Euro-Islam: Reality instead of a vision

If Europe is changing owing to the influence of Islam, it's also true to say that its presence in Europe is changing Islam. A European Islam could contribute to the modernisation of the religion as a whole. In an essay published in the 17 April 2007 edition of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Dutch author Margriet de Moor writes: "If Islam does experience any kind of reform, it won't be there [in the countries of the Middle East], in that chaos where the religion has its origin, but in the prosperous West." She adds that "the study of Islam is flourishing" in the countries of the West and that "each religion adapts its everyday practices to those of the country where it exists."

The French philosopher Abdennour Bidar also holds this view. He advocates a pluralistic European Islam which no longer distinguishes between "good" and "bad" muslims but also recognises individual ways of living religiously. This, he points out, would demand a greater measure of inner-religious tolerance from Muslims living in Europe, but would also change the Europeans' view of "Islam" as a monolithic block.

While Tibi regards his concept of Euro-Islam as a vision for the future, according to Bidar the process of modernisation of Islam towards becoming an "Islam of the individual," compatible with Europe, is already at an advanced stage: "Let's acknowledge this change," he writes on 7 February 2006 in Le Monde.

Juliane Gunardono

Juliane Gunardono works as a freelance journalist in Berlin. She studied journalism in Munich, has lived in Indonesia and Germany, and was an editor for ...
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