Islam and Globalization: Islamophobia, security and terrorism

21 Islam and globalization Islamophobia, security and terrorism Joshua Roose and Bryan S.Turner Introduction As with other ‘world religions’ there is much conceptual disagreement in modern scholarship about the idea of a unified and global Islam as a religion. For one thing, the sectarian division between Shia and Sunni is an important feature of Islamic history. It is often contended in any case that the idea of religion as a distinctive and separate institution within society is a modern creation (Asad 1993).The very idea of world religions has also been challenged. In the modern ‘clash of civilizations’, people who were previously simply regarded as Turks, Arabs or Indonesians are now referred to as ‘Muslims’. In this chapter, for the sake of simplicity, we will not venture far into these academic debates about religion, cultures and identities. We will instead largely follow the interpretation of Islam in the work of Marshall G. S. Hodgson who distinguished in his Venture of Islam (1974) between the following: Islamdom as the equivalent of Christendom; Islam as the religion of Muslims; Islamicate culture, stretching from Spain to Central Asia that can be shared by Muslims and non-Muslims; and faith or personal piety as the irreducible core of religion. This piety was ultimately shaped by the Shari’a-mindedness of Muslims in their daily practices of religion. The reality of Islam could only be understood from the perspective of world history. In considering Islam in the framework of globalization, our substantive concerns are with the global spread of prejudice against Muslims, often referred to as Islamophobia. We will discuss this global phenomenon from a case by case study of national examples. This approach raises methodological questions about how best to study global processes, but we cannot enter into these methodological issues in this chapter. Suffice it to say that, while there are national variations, Islamophobia is a global development with a number of basic characteristics. In Europe Islamophobia has largely centred around two issues of assimilation, namely veiling and Shari’a. It has to be noted that the Shari’a has greater significance because it has implications for major issues such as legal pluralism and state sovereignty. Veiling has more symbolic than constitutional implications. This chapter argues that (not withstanding the conceptual problems surrounding the notion of Islamophobia) there is much evidence of prejudice against Muslims and fear of Islam in the West. Conflict with Islam and fear of Muslims is obviously not confined to the West. There is an established and ongoing conflict in the southern regions of Thailand 388 Islam and globalization between Buddhists and Muslims, and in Thailand there are periodically attempts to define national identity in exclusive Buddhist terms. In Malaysia, there are also periodic conflicts with the Christian Chinese minority and Hindu workers whenever the government attempts to define ‘Malayness’ as Islamic and to impose the Shari’a as the national legal system. There are also conflicts with Muslim minorities in Myanmar, the Caucasus and China. Many of these conflicts are related to attempts to install the Shari’a as the official and exclusive legal system over minorities that are not Muslim (Possamai, Richardson and Turner 2015). In the case of Muslim minorities, it is often a fear from the majority that Muslims are seeking to install the Shari’a and oppose assimilation. However, the empirical evidence about public reactions to Muslim minorities is mixed, and hence blanket claims about Islamophobic prejudice are typically unhelpful. This chapter attempts to define the issues more precisely by a comparison of the United States, various European societies and societies that have western cultures and liberal-democratic politics such as Canada and Australia. The sociological evidence in the USA is generally optimistic in suggesting that there has been a successful integration of Muslims despite 9/11 and the war on terrorism. Sociological research in the United States indicates that Muslims will largely follow the same pathways as Irish Catholics towards inclusion and middle-class membership. Evidence relating to the European experience is far less positive. Why is there this difference between Europe and the United States? There are obviously important historical and cultural differences, and America has a history of slavery and racism. However, we conclude by arguing that the legal framework (such as the First Amendment) in the United States plays an important role in the acceptance of Muslims. Just as the law has been ahead of public opinion over same-sex marriage, it may also be ahead in defending the civil rights of Muslims despite the widespread view of a clash of civilizations. The other issue is that, while the wall between church and state in the United States has never been clear and definite, church and state in Europe (especially in Scandinavian societies) are entangled rather than separated. Therefore in talking about the global spread of Islam in the modern world we need to keep in mind important differences between societies. Globalization is a general trend, but we need to take into account the impact of different national cultures, laws and constitutions. It is important to understand these issues within a historical and comparative framework. Historically, Islam developed in societies in the Middle East where it was overwhelmingly the dominant culture and Muslims were the majority. It is of course true that the Ottoman Empire was culturally and ethnically diverse, but Islam was still the dominant religion despite some recognition of Jews and Christians through the millet system. Central Asia was the other region where Muslims were a minority. Asian Islam was diverse but Muslims shared a common history.While the Turko-Mongolian world was based on nomadism, the Silk Road connecting Europe to China gave rise to a system of oasis city states such as Samarkand and Tashkent. These trade routes brought precious goods and materials to the region, but they were also the conduit of other religions, especially Buddhism. Central Asia has been a place of Islamic influence since the middle of the seventh century. Central Asia, rather than being remote and isolated, has been profoundly connected to and shaped by the outside world. In modern times, the impact of Russia on Central Asia brought about profound changes (Khalid 2007). By 1889, when the Turkmen tribes of the Qizil Qum desert were finally subjugated, Russia emerged as the paramount colonial power in Central Asia. The Russian empire was a vast ensemble of different peoples, languages and religions.While there were periods of harsh repression of Islam, through much of this imperial history the state’s approach to social and religious diversity is best described as ‘pragmatic flexibility’ involving co-operation with rather than opposition to the local ulama. 389 Joshua Roose and Bryan S. Turner Vladimir Putin insists that opposition to Russian rule in Chechnya is a phenomenon of international terrorism. Similarly the Chinese government justifies its suppression of the religious and civic rights of the Uyghur population of Xinjiang, where Chinese policies have created substantial nationalist opposition, on the grounds that the discontented Uyghurs are fundamentalists and terrorists. Similarly in Uzbekistan the government of Islam Karimov defines Islam as a political threat insofar as it operates outside the surveillance exercised by official institutions. Thus‘independent Islam’is the wrong kind of Islam,because it operates independently of the state. Islam is only of use where control of it might be appropriated and controlled by the state. In Kazakhstan while the ‘Islamic threat’ has been less pronounced, nevertheless the law On the Freedom of Religion and on Religious Associations in 1993 prohibited the creation of parties or other political formations of a religious character. Similarly in Tajikistan the state harbours a deep suspicion of education in Muslim institutions especially where it believes there are foreign influences (primarily Salafist Islam spread from Saudi Arabia) at work. With these exceptions in mind, Islam, throughout much of its development from the early caliphate until Napoleon entered Egypt in 1798 with the aim of bringing revolutionary French ideas to the Middle East, was the dominant religion of North Africa, the Middle East and Indonesia. Being a minority religion in the West is the most significant development brought about first by colonialism and second by globalization. Thus throughout the twentieth century as a consequence of globalization and the emergence of a global labour market, Muslims migrated from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and North Africa to work in Western capitalist societies thereby becoming minorities in societies that were constitutionally secular and with a Christian cultural foundation. More recently Muslim migrants have also been working in the oil industry throughout the Middle East (and in particular the Gulf states) where they are often Shia minorities in Sunni majority states. The exponential growth of Muslim minorities Sometime this century, Islam is expected to become the numerically dominant faith in the world. Recent research by the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project (2015) projects that by 2050, Islam (2.8 billion) will almost equal Christianity (2.9 billion) in total adherents. Islam is expected to surpass Christianity in number of adherents by 2070. Significantly, accompanying this exponential growth will be significant increases in Western Muslim populations living in constitutionally secular contexts. The Pew Templeton project estimates that between 2010 and 2050, (just 35 years from the time of writing) the Muslim population in Europe will almost double from 5.9 per cent of the population (43.5 million) to 10.2 per cent of the population (71 million). This trend is expected to occur in the United States, where the population is expected to double as a percentage from less than 1 per cent (2010) to 2.1 percent (2050), Canada from 2.1 per cent (2010) to 5.5 per cent (2050) and Australia 2.4 per cent (2010) to 4.9 per cent (2050). This unprecedented situation has forced Muslims to rethink and refashion their religion to address a situation where for example the Shari’a is no longer fully operative and where little concession is made to Muslim ritual requirements such as daily prayer. The most valuable insight into this global transformation of Islam has been developed by Olivier Roy (2010) who argues that religions in general have been ‘de-territorialized’. The following propositions from his Holy Ignorance are germane to our approach: 1. 390 The transformation of religion involves both de-territorialization and deculturation because religions become disconnected from their original homelands and cultures. Thus Islam and globalization 2. 3. ‘in order to circulate, the religious object must appear universal, disconnected from a specific culture … religion therefore circulates outside knowledge’ (Roy 2010: 6). With respect to Islam, its ‘spread has been linked the expansion of Muslim populations rather than to a conversion trend’ (4). There has been a general standardization of religions with globalization.‘The first element of formatting and standardization is that of classification as a ‘religion’ (198). This brings many benefits in terms of taxation, protection by the state, certain exemptions from legal requirements and so forth. The standardization typically involves the growth of urban piety and these developments are often referred to as ‘protestantization’. In Roy’s own terms, ‘The homogenization of religion by the spread of a normalizing “orthodoxy” absorbs and marginalizes sub-groups, multiple identities (including ethnic), sub-cultures and popular religions’ (208). This development is not confined to Islam but affects Judaism (the growth of ultra-Orthodoxy) and Buddhism (such as engaged Buddhism). The urbanization of Islam across the West, Asia and Africa has seen a younger generation move away from the folkloric ‘low’ Islam of their parents (inflected by local custom and emotional attachment) and seek to strip Islam of its ‘cultural baggage’ (Scantlebury 1995: 425). Observant Muslims are more likely to adopt Islam as an identity marker, giving ‘new sense and value’ to the experiences of everyday life (Roy 20010 133). This identity has displayed a tendency to be more ‘puritanical’ and ‘scriptural’; what Ernest Gellner would refer to as ‘High Islam’. This new Muslim identity has rejected ethnic and cultural influences upon Islam to become more assertive in public space. Importantly, the characteristics of this form of Islam, often described by the umbrella notion of ‘Salafism’, are common in cities around the world. We can treat Islamophobia (and other phobias about reformed religion) as a generalized response to the growth of Islam as a global standardized urban religion. As a public religion, the presence of Islam is contested at various levels from law courts to soccer matches. The growth of anti-Muslim sentiment: veiling, Shari’a and public anxiety Islamophobia has been much written about and discussed in the media, but in the academic world it is seen to be a problematic concept. At best, Islamophobia might be considered an ‘emerging comparative concept in the social sciences’ (Bleich 2011) buffered by a significant body of academic literature deploying the term. At its worst, Islamophobia might be considered ‘elusive’ (Doyle and Ahmad 2013) and polemical (Sayyid 2010), an advocacy concept lacking in social scientific rigour. Muslims are not an ethnic group and Muslim communities are diverse and fragmented. Expressions of Muslim religiosity are extremely variable. How then can Muslims be the common global target of a one-dimensional prejudice? Is it different from xenophobia? If so, how does it connect to racism, if at all? How widespread is it? Are there important differences between societies, especially between different legal systems and different notions of citizenship? And is it a transitory problem? Can one distinguish between a generalized hostility to Islam (mis)conceived as a coherent and singular religious tradition and specific hostility to Muslims in all of their diversity? The notion has been criticized for failing to show how Islamophobia might be different from the umbrella notion of xenophobia or how it relates to anti-Semitism. One thing is certain, that since 9/11 and the Boston bombing in the United States, after the London and Madrid attacks and after the Bali bombing, Islam, as a civilization, is often defined by its critics as fundamentally incompatible with Western values. Popular critics of Islam such 391 Joshua Roose and Bryan S. Turner as Ayaan Hirsi Ali (2015) have argued that Islam needs a reformation if it is to become integrated into modern societies. Muslim communities have been marginalized as a result of official processes of securitization and by popular suspicion and hostility. Early public criticism of veiling has been followed by anxiety about the spread of the Shari’a. With the global migration of Muslims into the West, substantial Muslim minorities now face complex problems of conducting themselves as Muslims in multicultural and secular societies. There has been within the Muslim community itself an explosion of sources of advice to pious Muslims about how to conduct themselves in societies where secular women do not cover their heads, where alcohol is easily consumed in public, and where the hours of work do not coincide with the needs for prayer for example. For Muslims living in the West, there is even a problem about the correct direction of prayers towards Mecca (Bilici 2012). Much of this advice, through question and answer, takes place online with religious authorities issuing religious advice and judgments. Often there is no recognized central religious authority able to give consistent advice and hence there is evidence of online ‘fatwa shopping’. Alongside these informal and fluid networks, there has also been some expansion of religious arbitration through the development of tribunals. Great Britain has in many respects led the way in Europe with these institutional developments.Western governments have sought to influence the development of Islam within their borders. This has occurred through actively convening Muslim and Imam advisory boards and funding some more ‘moderate’ organizations over others. One particularly ill-advised attempt to do so occurred in Australia with the Prime Ministers ‘Muslim Community Reference Group’, convened after the 7/7 bombings in London. The group lasted less than a year, falling apart due to infighting and a lack of community support. It did not even meet with the prime minister. But to start at the beginning, ‘Islamophobia’ in its contemporary usage was first defined by the Runnymede Trust Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia in 1997 (Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All). Islamophobia was defined as the ‘dread or hatred of Islam and therefore, [the] fear and dislike of all Muslims,’ stating that it also refers to the practice of discriminating against Muslims by excluding them from the economic, social, and public life of the nation. The concept also encompasses the opinions that ‘Islam has no values in common with other cultures, is inferior to the West and is a violent political ideology rather than a religion’ (Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia 1997). By 2011 the Muslim population had increased from 3 per cent of the population of England and Wales in 2001 to 4.8 per cent, although of course these Muslim communities were heavily represented in the Midlands and the North. The second Runnymede Report – The New Muslims (Alexander, Redclift and Hussain 2013) – recorded important developments in terms of Muslim participation in public life in education, the armed forces and the professions, while also recognizing ongoing hostility to Muslims. It also acknowledged growing criticism of and alienation from multiculturalism (as both policy and ethics of inclusion), and the growth of the English Defence League and other right-wing associations. Much of this European opposition has focussed on veiling and more recently on the alleged spread of the Shari’a and issues of freedom of speech (namely to insult Muslims or to draw the Prophet Muhammad). The debate about the veil is well documented (Joppke 2009). The veil has become a highly public symbol of resistance to uniform assimilation and has challenged norms about the visibility of the citizen before the state. The United Kingdom The United Kingdom has a foreign-born population of approximately seven million or 11.3 per cent of the population. It has a Muslim population of approximately three million or 5 per 392 Islam and globalization cent of the population. Its Muslim community is drawn mainly from Pakistan and Bangladesh, and there has been considerable concern about the growth of ‘parallel communities’ especially in the East End of London, where in many schools there are few ‘native’ English children.With the growth of anti-immigrant sentiment, there is little enthusiasm for multiculturalism. In the May 2015 election, although UKIP (the United Kingdom Independence Party) only won one seat, it was able to replace the Liberal Democrats in many constituencies. There is therefore little public support for welcoming strangers whether they are from Bangladesh or Eastern Europe. In the United Kingdom much of the hostility towards Islam has been driven by the popular or tabloid press. Thus the debate about the Shari’a followed somewhat after anxiety about the veil. In Britain the Telegraph newspaper reported on 14 September in 2008 that Shari’a ‘courts’ had been operating since August 2007 under the Arbitration Act in London, Birmingham, Bradford, Manchester and Nuneaton where there are substantial Muslim communities (Edwards 2008). The relative openness of English law to such developments may be related to the fact that English common law is case law or judge-made law and has less rigidity than continental or American legal systems. Some have suggested there is a similarity between English (judge-made) common law operating on cases that are regarded as setting a precedent and the fatwas of qadis being guided by the Shari’a (Weber 1978). If Shari’a begins to enter Western systems of law, it will do so in a partial manner and at different levels. For example, while Western governments have shown hostility to the idea that Shari’a could influence the law relating to personal status, they have often been more than willing to accept Islamic banking arrangements that are governed by Shari’a rules. In Great Britain, following the Archbishop of Canterbury’s lecture in 2008 in which he suggested that the adoption of Shari’a to promote community cohesion was unavoidable, the Labour government of Gordon Brown was quick to say that, while there had been changes in the regulations to allow mortgage products that were consistent with the Shari’a, there was no possibility that Shari’a principles could be used in a civil court. Islamic banking and Islamic banking rules (relating to interest) have been widely accepted in the West, and in any case, from a secular democratic standpoint there is little reason to object to the operation of Shari’a standards relating to banking, interest and general finance. Islamic banks have become a fairly regular feature of global banking systems. The UK government has vigorously pursued Islamic finance as a growth sector. In October 2013 London became the first Western city to host the World Islamic Economic Forum (the Muslim equivalent of the World Economic Forum). Speaking at the forum Boris Johnson boasted about being the first Mayor of London of ‘Muslim extraction’ (due to his great, great grandfather Ahmed Hamdi). Johnson then announced a £100 million fund to encourage IT startups to move from the Muslim world to London (Chorley 2013). At the same meeting, the British Prime Minister stated that the UK would become the first non-Muslim nation to issue a Sukuk (Islamic bond). In the UK, there has nevertheless been considerable public concern, expressed in the national press, that the government has adopted a pragmatic policy of de facto recognition of Shari’a courts and not just arbitration. For example a Sunday Times report in September 2008 noted that ‘the government had quietly sanctioned the powers for Shari’a judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence’ (Taher 2008). Shari’a court rulings can be enforced in terms of the Arbitration Act 1996 through the county courts or High Court. Under a system of ‘alternative dispute resolution’, cases can be heard and judgements enforced where both parties have agreed to give the power of resolution to an arbitration tribunal. The teaching and practice of the Shari’a has been complicated by the scarcity of trained 393 Joshua Roose and Bryan S. Turner imams who understand and respect legal traditions (Leonard 2003). In this gap a wave of new spokespeople has emerged who are not well-versed in Islamic civilization and traditions but may hold professional credentials, which they have acquired in the West. Increasingly, these professionals play an important role in deciphering the Shari’a for non-Muslim and secular institutions including courts (legal practitioners) and industry (businessmen and women), increasing their authority both within Muslim communities and in wider society beyond that of traditional authority figures. Traditional scholars of fiqh and Shari’a residing outside the West are increasingly out of touch with Muslims in America. Increasingly, critics claim that ‘the field of shari’a is flooded with self-declared experts who inundate our discourses with self-indulgent babble and gibberish’ (Abou El Fadl 1998: 41). Finally, because Islam, unlike Roman Catholicism, is as an institution highly devolved to the local authority of the mosque, it is difficult, if not impossible, for Muslims to speak with one voice over religious matters. Despite these challenges to traditional authority, this online debate can be regarded as a form of imminent Shari’a. A fatwa normally takes the form of a response to a request and as such these legal opinions give us an insight into what petitioners (mustafi or fatwa petitioners) are concerned about and how they define the tensions between Islamic ideals and everyday realities. In this dialogue between mustafi and muftis, there is so to speak an emerging Shari’a (Kaptein 2005). In most Western liberal societies, there are arbitration acts that make the application of Shari’a principles in third-party dispute resolution perfectly proper and legal, and yet there is considerable opposition to Islam in general and to the Shari’a in particular. For both conservatives and nationalists, the Shari’a is seen to be a threat. For evangelical Christians it is believed that Muslims wish to transform liberal secular societies by imposing the Shari’a or that the growth of Shari’a practice among minorities will create a system of parallel societies. More recently David Cameron, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy have all expressed the view that multicultural policies have created parallel communities and that national integrity has been compromised. President Sarkozy proposed to create a museum dedicated to celebrating French national culture, which his critics argued was to compete with the right-wing political movement led by Marine Le Pen. It was believed that this museum would define French culture in such a way that it would exclude migrants and redefine France’s colonial adventures in Vietnam and Algeria. The project was promptly discarded upon a change of government in 2012. United States Similar opposition to the Shari’a has been expressed in the United States where Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker, has argued that America needs a federal law to establish the principle that the Shari’a may never be recognized by any American court (The Economist 2010). He believes that where one stands on the Shari’a defines where one stands on America. Brigitte Gabriel through her organization ACT! for America has led a campaign through her publications and public speeches to warn Americans of the infiltration of the CIA. and FBI, at the Pentagon and State Department. The Representative Peter T. King, a Republican from Long Island, has also conducted hearings in Washington in March 2011 in response to the claim that the United States has been infiltrated by radical Muslims. ACT! for America, which has connections with evangelical Christians and Tea Party Republicans, has created a system of chapters across America to warn the public about this menace to society (Saad 2011). Much of the public anxiety is enhanced by the political activities of right-wing groups such as the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), an anti-Islamic organization based in New 394 Islam and globalization York that also has the name ‘Stop Islamization of America’. In 2014, professional polemicist Pamela Geller, leader of the AFDI placed anti-Islamic advertisements on New York City buses and subway stations comparing Muslims to savages. In May 2015, the organization expanded its activities, holding an art exhibit and contest in Garland Texas where entrants would paint the Prophet Muhammad. Despite extensive security, the event was attacked by two gunmen who were killed by police in an exchange of gunfire. The exhibition was widely reproached. A NewYork Times editorial described the event as ‘an exercise in bigotry and hatred posing as a blow for freedom’ (New York Times 2015). A day after the shooting, Rabbi Jack Moline, executive director of the Interfaith Alliance in Washington, condemned the exhibition as ‘deserving of criticism even absent yesterday’s violence’, and stated further that ‘This competition, which rewarded disrespect with cash, may be legal, but it is certainly not worthy of the great tradition of free-speech advocacy in America’ (Interfaith Alliance 2015). The attack was somewhat parallel to the attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris in January 2015. Much of this anxiety about Islam in America comes from states such as Oklahoma, Arizona and the Carolinas, which have small Muslim populations. While there is an ongoing critique of Shari’a in the United States, arbitration arrangements are available through the US Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) of 1925, which provides for the resolution of disputes arising out of private contractual relationships by an arbitration panel. Furthermore, there is evidence that American courts make reference to legal traditions outside the American legal system (such as European legislation and human rights provisions) as well as to the Shari’a. In Oklahoma, State Question 755 barring ‘courts from considering Shari’ah law’ was a pre-emptive strike in a state where there is little prospect that Shari’a could ever become a significant social force. The proposal, after legal action, was declared unconstitutional. These political attempts to pre-emptively block the Shari’a are also connected, often implicitly, with the Tea Party movement and the accusation that President Obama is a secret Muslim and that Shari’a is a jihad by stealth (Cohen 2010). Unsurprisingly in the USA, public views about the Shari’a are rarely consistent. Dalia Mogahed, a member of President Obama’s Council on Faith-Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships late in 2009 defended the Shari’a claiming that Gallup Organization data showed that the majority of women associated Shari’a with gender justice. She went on to claim that ‘majority Muslim countries’ already have Shari’a as part of their laws. If Shari’a is understood as a holistic legal system, then this claim is probably only true of Saudi Arabia. There is in Muslim communities in the West little support for the imposition of Islamic criminal or customary laws – the so-called Hudud laws – relating to corporal punishment such as amputation and stoning to death. This may be considered a strong contrast to perspectives in Muslim majority nations where the population supports Hadud punishments, including Pakistan (88 per cent), Afghanistan (81 per cent), the Palestinian Territories (76 per cent), Egypt (70 per cent) and Malaysia (66 per cent) (Pew Research Centre 2013). In any case while the Shari’a is often referred to as a revelation that cannot be changed, it is not in fact – contrary to Max Weber’s view – fixed and immutable. In order to discuss the issue of Shari’a and Western systems of law, we need to start with some technical questions about the law itself. This is important because often when the popular press refers to ‘Shari’a courts’ they should in fact be referring to ‘religious arbitration’ and tribunals. In addition, the popular press often equates Shari’a with punitive criminal justice codes involving the stoning of women or the chopping off of hands, but such procedures are more accurately regarded as aspects of customary laws operating in some countries such as Afghanistan, Brunei or the Indonesian province of Aceh. These laws are not being promoted by Muslim communities in the West and attempts to reintroduce them, for example, in Malaysia have been resisted. Survey data show that Muslims 395 Joshua Roose and Bryan S. Turner are comfortable with secular law and the Qur’an teaches that Muslims should accept the law of the lands in which they live. There is support of course for Shari’a norms to operate in connection with diet, prayer, charity, male circumcision and burial (An-Na‘im, 2008; Cesari, 2010). Recent critical responses to Islam in the United States fail to recognize that American Muslims have defined America, not as a site of contestation or war, but as ‘a place of order’ (dar al-aman) within which Muslims can live in peace and practice their religion (Khan 1998). Other comparative survey data show that Muslims, while critical of American foreign policy, support a range of values that are essential to the working of a liberal democratic society (Hassan 2002). There are occasions when a Muslim public figure has challenged Western liberal views; the case of Egyptian-born Abu Hamza Al-Masri in the UK is an example. His organisation was called SOS – Supporters of Shari’a – and Al-Masri supported terrorism. He was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment for inciting murder and racial hatred in 2006 and the British authorities ruled that he could be extradited to the USA to face terrorism charges in 2008 (Schwartz 2010). In Australia, Hizb ut Tahrir, a group advocating a caliphate and who criticize democracy as ‘man made’ governance have similarly sought to intervene in debates. The group has been successful in gaining mainstream media coverage of their views. Successive Australian governments have resisted calls to ban the organization despite their often inflammatory rhetoric. These cases are the exception rather than the rule. Canada Muslim communities and associations have themselves often defended the secular laws of the lands in which they live – even as minorities. The most famous legal battle over the Shari’a took place in Canada. Public objections to acceptance of the Shari’a emerged in the legal debate in Ontario, where from 1991 onwards the secular courts authorized the use of Shari’a in civil arbitration over divorce, child custody and inheritance cases. The Arbitration Act allowed individuals to access religiously based tribunals within the province. The creation of these arrangements was in part a response to an over-burdened legal system for which these new tribunals would provide some respite. These provisions included not only recognition of Islamic legal traditions but also the legal legacy of rabbinical, Catholic and aboriginal faiths. These legal developments gave rise to critical concern, not only among secular Canadians, but also among local Muslims. The arguments against such legal arrangements which were reported in the Globe and Mail included the fact that many Muslim women are poorly educated and do not easily understand their rights under Canadian law. Because there is little understanding of women’s rights, they are vulnerable and may not be able to access third-party oversight. The imams can make judgments in situations where there is little oversight and consequently how would one know whether these judgements contravened the secular law? These debates were aggravated by sensational reporting of a murder case in which it was alleged that a young girl aged 16 years from a Toronto suburb was strangled to death by her father following her refusal to wear a head scarf. These arbitration arrangements were criticized by the Canadian Council of Muslim Women who petitioned against the use of Shari’a law in Canada. Perhaps the most influential document was the report (‘Dispute Resolution in Family Law: Protecting Choice Pronouncing Inclusion’) commissioned by Marion Boyd (2004) a former Ontario Attorney General.What came to be known as the ‘Boyd Report’ provided for a consultative process between the Muslim community, concerned members of the public, women’s groups and feminist activists. In response to the debate and the problems it threw up, Premier Dalton McGuinty determined to repeal the Act without prior discussion with his Cabinet. In the symposium 396 Islam and globalization (‘Muslim Women’s Equality Rights in the Justice System’) that was organized to debate these issues, Will Kymlicka asked what these faith-based arbitration arrangements had to do with multiculturalism (Bhandar 2010). The public dispute was brought to a sudden conclusion in September 2005 when McGuinty announced that ‘Shari’a arbitration in family law matters’ would be banned from the province. Those groups that supported the arbitration arrangements argued that the ban prevented religious women from living ‘a faith-based life’ (Bakht 2006: 71). The Boyd Report said arbitration is not ‘a parallel system but a method of alternative dispute resolution that is subject to judicial oversight’ (Boyd 2004: 88). The Report argued that given the social inequalities between men and women that Muslim woman would be deprived of ‘the benefits and protections of citizenship’. While the cancellation of the arbitration arrangements were seen by many critics as a triumph for rational debate and democracy, by removing religious arbitration the secular solution prevented pious women from faith communities practicing religious rites and customs. Germany While this deterritorialization of Islam is a global phenomenon, its manifestations are shaped by national and local issues. In Germany, the post-war struggle to expunge the legacy of fascism has made the public nervous about the re-emergence of racism and especially anti-immigrant politics. Perhaps the main barrier to full acceptance in Germany is the legislation on corporations. Because Islam is not recognized by law as a religious community under Article 140 of the Basic Law, it does not enjoy the benefits attached to other Religionsgemenschaft. Islam cannot co-operate with the state in fulfilling public functions. By comparison with other European societies, Germany has accepted large numbers of foreign workers. Muslims were well-integrated into Weimar Germany as a prosperous, educated and socially accepted community before World War II, but this early generation of Muslims had largely disappeared by the aftermath of the War. New Muslims arrived in large numbers in Germany during post-war reconstruction under the Marshall Plan. As these Muslims became a permanent component of the working class, they were increasingly excluded by a cultural boundary as foreign and inferior. It is important to understand how legal and political changes play a crucial role in the socio-cultural marginalization or success assimilation of Muslims. Thus the immigration law of 2000, making it possible for the children of immigrants born in Germany to gain German citizenship, transformed Turks and other ethnic minorities into German Muslims, despite the fact that only around 30 per cent attend a mosque. It is estimated that Germany has a Muslim population of approximately five million, but these are mainly concentrated in large industrial cities such as Frankfurt. The result of the legislation in 2000 was to force the German government, and indeed European governments more widely, to recognize Muslims as Muslims and to organize Islamic councils to bring state officials and religious leaders together for dialogue. I have elsewhere referred to such strategies as ‘the management of religion’ on behalf of state policies (Turner 2011:30). It is no coincidence that Jürgen Habermas began to address the question of dialogue between secular and religious citizens in his notion of post-secularism in the period 2002–6 (Gorski, Kim, Torpey and VanAntwerpen, 2012). In the German case we have to be aware, not only of important differences within Islam, but also of the history of East and West Germany after World War II. Even after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Germany remained a somewhat divided society. Communist East Germany, along with China and Vietnam, was especially hostile to religion and today around half the population have no belief in God and only 25 per cent are registered as belonging to 397 Joshua Roose and Bryan S. Turner a church, whereas in West Germany around 80 per cent of the citizens are registered. The growth of East German converts to Islam is thus particularly interesting sociologically. In Being German Becoming Muslim, Esra Özyürek (2015) makes a distinction between ‘Germanizing Islam and Racializing Muslims’(the title of her Introduction) to describe how Germans are converting to what they see as a pure version of Islam and at the same time distancing themselves from ‘born Muslims’ who are not practicing Islam correctly. This distinction allows converts to retain a strong sense of their German identity, embrace Islam and distinguish their practice from inferior ‘indigenous’ forms. Thus, female German converts to Islam are more likely to attend a mosque than women who are born Muslims. We can briefly summarize Özyürek’s generally argument. The ideas behind promoting ‘a pure Islam’ that is by definition compatible with German culture were based on the Enlightenment concept of the rational individual. The flip side of this argument sees purified Islam as a perfect fit for the enlightened German mind. Many of the German Muslims who advocate ‘an idealized Islam compatible with the German culture also condemn immigrant Muslims for being so oppressed by their traditions that they are unable to make their own rational judgments, which would naturally lead them to the truth of Islam’ (Özyürek 2015: 68). In secular sociological studies of the security risks of Islam, the principal research question has been to understand how and why radical forms of Islam have an appeal, especially to the young and impressionable. Most accounts of conversion to Salafism pathologize converts and in the process often fail to take seriously the idea that Salafism has a coherent philosophy. In addition, conventional accounts of conversion often fail to recognize that Salafism satisfies converts spiritually and psychologically. In any case, conversion cannot be easily explained in terms of any simple notion of reward such as a status gain. Many converts suffer in material, social and psychological terms as a consequence of accepting Islam. If the push factors are to be understood in terms of the spiritual appeal of Salafism, the pull factors include the inclusive character of the movement, its universalism and its missionary zeal. Despite the fact that Salafism can be interpreted as compatible with European values, conversion to Islam gave rise to a moral panic early in this century. To guard against terrorism, the Bavarian Interior Minister Gunther Beckstein argued in favour of a register of German converts. During the Salman Rushdie affair Talal Asad argued that the affair was politically problematic because raised a question about who is British, exposing a national anxiety about its own identity. Özyürek offers a similar conclusion saying that converts to Islam ‘provoke new anxieties about the changing realities of being European’ (2015: 136). Australia The debate around Shari’a in Australia has been similarly polarized, with leaders of both the Liberal and Labor parties rejecting outright any possibility of accommodation. The most significant recent controversy occurred in 2011 when the then President of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (since rebranded as ‘ Muslims Australia’) wrote a submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry on multiculturalism, urging for a ‘public sphere’ for Muslims to practice their belief and stating that ‘Islam essentially advocates legal pluralism’. The Labor Federal Attorney-General stated in response that ‘there is no place for Shari’a law in Australian society’, sentiments backed by their Liberal political opponents. Speaking in response to the call for Shari’a, former Australian High Court Chief Justice Sir Gerald Brennan argued ‘No court could apply and no government could administer two parallel systems of law, especially if they reflect – as they inevitably would reflect – different fundamental standards’ (2012). Possamai et al. conducted a review of Sydney newspapers from the time of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s 398 Islam and globalization speech in 2008 until 2013. The use of the word shari’a across major newspapers was captured and analysed utilizing a modified Likert scale. Just 10 per cent of references, primarily related to Islamic finance were found to be positive, while 46 per cent focused upon the application of Shari’a in the Australian context and hadud punishments were negative (Possamai et al. 2013). Successive Australian governments have been positive in their approach to both Islamic finance and the halal food industry, leading legal scholars Ann Black and Kerry Sadiq to note a differentiation between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ shari’a (2011). Speaking in May 2010 the Assistant Treasurer Nick Sherry stated ‘We are taking a keen interest in ensuring there are no impediments to the development of Islamic finance in this country, to allow market forces to operate freely’ (Sherry 2010). Possamai et al. (2015) consider the emergence of an Australian neo-liberal multicultualism, valuing minority communities for their economic potential, but rejecting separate cultural rights. Australia has both positive and negative liberty for religious minorities. Section 116 of the Australian Constitution (1901) states that ‘The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion’. It states further that ‘no religious test will be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth’. Whilst not without problem in its legal application (individual states may choose to discriminate and this section of the constitution has been narrowly interpreted), this Section has formed an important base for religious freedom. In contrast to the United States however, Australian legislation features strong negative liberties including limitations on freedom of speech. In particular, the Racial Discrimination Act 18C (1975) makes it unlawful to publically use language that will ‘offend, insult, humilate or intimidate another person or group of people’ on the basis of their race, colour or national and ethnic origin. Efforts by conservative elements of the Liberal party to remove 18C were met with overwhelming community resistance from across the religious spectrum including Jewish and Muslim communities as well as broader ethnic communities. The severity of the backlash led to the legislation being dropped. In a context defined by strong political hostility to legal pluralism, Muslim communities and most elements of the Shari’a (other than government approval of the possibilities of Islamic finance and the halal food trade) it may be argued that Australia’s unique blend of positive and negative liberties in relation to religion has, in a similar vein to the United States, opened greater social space for Muslim minorities to succeed and integrate into the wider community. Globalization and legal pluralism In our view the real issues regarding Shari’a lie elsewhere, namely with respect to the conflict between national sovereignty and legal pluralism. It is generally claimed that legal pluralism – the development of different legal traditions and institutions within a sovereign state – is a consequence of globalization. Thus the evolution of the Shari’a in the West can be regarded as simply one element within a larger movement towards legal diversity. The first question concerns the problem of whether integrated social systems can withstand the growth of legal pluralism. The problem in defining legal pluralism is simply a by-product of the problem of defining law (Tamanaha, 2008). We can identify two traditions. Firstly, law is, following anthropological fieldwork, simply the normative order of a social group. The problem with this approach is that it is sufficiently expansive to include the obligations emerging from all social relationships. Second, law can be defined in terms of the public institutions to enforce norms. On the one hand law cannot be separated from morality and custom, and hence laws are as 399 Joshua Roose and Bryan S. Turner diverse as moral norms. On the other hand, law in the eyes of Max Weber and Hans Kelsen is a command within a rational system of law backed up by the state. However many institutions apply rules and there is no clear way to determine which are public and which are not. These issues are important for this discussion of Shari’a, since crucially there is no definitive consensus about whether the enforcement of norms by religious institutions outside the courts is in fact law. There is much confusion as a result and some theorists who welcome postmodern interpretations of this situation accept the conclusion that ‘legal pluralism’ simply defines any form of normative or regulatory pluralism (de Sousa Santos 1995). The upshot of these legal debates is twofold. First, law is often regarded merely as ‘normative ordering’, in which case Shari’a is obviously operating in the United States alongside many other examples of normative ordering. The case of the Minneapolis-St Paul Airport taxi drivers refusing to transport items they perceive as violating Islamic law including alcohol and guide dogs would be a clear example of the presence of Islamic customary normative ordering. Second, insofar as globalization is inevitable, legal theorists argue that legal pluralism is inevitable. It follows that legal pluralism will also include the growth and diffusion of Shari’a. The debate in the West about religion and law comes ultimately down to a question of maintaining some level of common citizenship against a background of growing cultural, religious and ethnic diversity.We support the view expressed forcefully by Brian Barry: The core of this conception of citizenship, already worked out in the eighteenth century, is that there should be only one status of citizen (no estates or castes) so that everybody enjoys the same legal and political rights. (Barry 2001: 7) Many liberals are of course worried that these developments not only undermine the experience of common citizenship but they also challenge some fundamental principles of equality. Concerned that the modern enthusiasm for identity politics and cultural difference undermines the egalitarian principles that are essential to a secular democracy, Barry concluded that the privileges ascribed to the special interests articulated by religious minorities could not be reconciled with considerations of justice. He was especially critical of the isolation and special benefits enjoyed by sectarian groups. In particular he was critical of the Amish community and their many immunities from state interference. He argued convincingly that any public acceptance of a religious practice of a minority could only be justified if it could be demonstrated that the practice was pivotal to the beliefs of that religious tradition. For Barry many of the exemptions (from taxation, jury service, military service and so forth) won by Amish communities in legal battles are not in fact essential to the practice of their faith. These immunities and privileges in his view are inappropriately packaged in the language of individual religious freedoms. As an illustration, one might for example argue that in Christianity the Eucharist is pivotal to Christian practice, whereas the rosary is not. Therefore any legal prohibition on the Eucharist might be unwarranted, but banning the use of the rosary in public would not be hugely damaging to Christian faith. Similarly, the case of British Nurse Shirley Chaplin, who was moved to a desk job by her employer, a hospital, for failing to remove the cross around her neck raised questions of the centrality of the crucifix to the Christian faith. These questions about orthodoxy will always be controversial. Is the cult of the Virgin Mary in Catholicism an essential or a customary aspect of the Catholic tradition? If a zealous secular state banned the image of the Virgin Mary from public spaces would this be a serious infringement of the pivotal beliefs and practice of Catholics? Are all crucifixes in secular space a threat to the state? In Italy the crucifix has been defined as a cultural symbol of national 400 Islam and globalization importance and hence its presence in public is not discrimination in favour of Catholicism. Law courts can decide whether a religious symbol such as a crucifix continues to have an exclusive religious meaning or whether it has become a secular symbol of national significance (Gedicks and Annicchino 2015). However, Barry’s argument offers additional stringent tests for religious organizations, because he argues that none of them really match up to the criteria established by liberal democracies – transparency, equality, voluntary membership, the rights of dissent and legitimate internal opposition. The state typically supports groups and institutions that are regarded as voluntary and Barry questions whether societies like the Amish are in fact voluntary associations at all, since the option of leaving the community is severely restricted, where those that leave are often subject to considerable psychological pressures. States become very nervous about conversion movements from evangelical Christianity because they are often regarded as forcefully disturbing traditional social relationships. Joining and leaving religious groups – and hence questions about conversion and apostasy – are hugely controversial issues in the Middle East and Asia often resulting in violent conflicts between religious groups. Rigid rules about the conditions for voluntary conversion to and exit from social groups contribute inevitably to the construction of exclusive social groups. In this respect, recent criticisms of multiculturalism in Europe have expressed fears that multicultural policies have not resulted in integration but in the creation of parallel communities with their own schools, languages and customs. The danger with parallel legislation, even with a range of safeguards, is that it will simply reinforce the fragmentation of modern societies (Turner 2007b). American success and European failure? In this section we return to what we see as the contrast between Europe and America. This contrast is well described by Christian Joppke: ‘This is part of the larger paradox that the country which, together with Israel, is the most reviled one in the Muslim world has no domestic problem with integrating Muslim minorities’ (2009: 3). In the United States the cup of successful assimilation is half full. Christian Joppke and John Torpey (and quoting for further support from Richard Alba and Victor Nee (2003)) ‘Islam in America seems to have been the dog that didn’t bark – a nonproblem, at least from a constitutional-legal perspective’ (Joppke and Torpey 2013: 116), and ‘there do not appear to be any major obstacles to integrating Muslims as such into American society’ (ibid.: 138). Nancy Foner and Richard Alba argue that in Europe religion is a barrier to inclusion while in America it is a bridge, and they quote President Clinton ‘Islam is an American religion’ (2008: 380). Mucahit Bilici describes the ‘transition from being Muslim in America to becoming an American Muslim’ and describes their movement from diaspora to home (2012: 4). His argument is that with the rise, for example of Muslim comedy, Muslims have become part of American domesticity because they can laugh at themselves. Muslims find it easier to be faithful practitioners of their faith in America than they would in Muslim majority societies such as Saudi Arabia.While giving full recognition to anti-Muslim sentiment during the rise of the Nation of Islam and more recent hostility towards Muslims after 9/11, Kambiz GhaneaBassiri emphasized Muslims’ confidence that acceptance into American society was not only feasible but was already taking place. This engagement with America was taking place through both national and local activist groups. He argues that despite prejudice against Muslims, ‘Nonetheless, American Muslims, both activists and non-activists held on to the popular convention that in America, through greater political organizing efforts, they, just as any other minority group, would be able to counter the prejudices they faced and play a more 401 Joshua Roose and Bryan S. Turner influential role in shaping US policies both at home and abroad’ (GhaneaBassiri 2010: 340). In Islam in America, Jane I. Smith, admittedly writing before 9/11, claimed that second and third generation Muslims want ‘to assimilate as much as possible into American culture’ and paradoxically ‘the increase in anti-Muslim prejudice in the light of terrorist activities, pro-Israeli sentiment, anti-American rhetoric from many Arab Muslim leaders, and a number of other highly publicised international realities in the last several decades has encouraged this assimilation’ (1999: 179). Robert Putnam and David Campbell (2010) in American Grace found widespread distrust of Mormons, Buddhists and Muslims. They suggest that, because the Muslim and Buddhist populations are relatively small, there is little social bridging with these groups. They also found agreement (around 80 per cent) about the statement ‘There are basic truths in many religions’ and concluded that, possibly because of widespread inter-marriage between people of different religious traditions that much of the religious bigotry of the past had evaporated. Of course, it is possible to offer significant counter examples. With respect to the Shari’a several states but most notably Oklahoma sought constitutional amendments that would ban courts from referring to Islamic law in their deliberations. Let us now turn to some European examples. Describing the situation of Muslims in Europe is obviously problematic, because the situation of minorities (Muslim and non-Muslim) various considerably between France, Germany and Great Britain (Bowen 2010; Fetzer and Soper 2005). Nevertheless, evidence of the marginalization of Muslims in Europe, negative views about the compatibility between Islam and democracy, and Islamophobia are ample. There is, in addition to the academic literature, plentiful popular criticism of Islam (Ali 2015). For academic commentary, there is plenty to choose from: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 402 ‘Across the board, surveys indicate that Europeans consider Islam to be incompatible with Western values’ (Jocelyne Cesari, 2013:15) Why the West Fears Islam. ‘In practice, the Race Relations Act proved incapable of providing Muslims the same protection it provided other minorities in British society’ (Fetzer and Soper 2005:32). ‘In October 2013, a mosque in Gdansk was set on fire … these acts of hatred spread beyond the circles of the critics that directly affected Muslims – both online (through their webpages and Internet profiles) and, even more disturbingly – offline’. The Polish Defence League organized café discussions against ‘Wahhabi mosques in Poland’ despite the fact that Muslims represent less than 0.1 per cent of the Polish population (Gorak-Sosnowska 2014: 34). ‘It would not be an exaggeration to say that many influential individuals and institutions in the West today have come to perceive Islam and Muslims, particularly since the end of the Cold War, as the principal threat to the survival and progress of Western civilization, a civilization founded on and formed by Christian ethos and values’ (Humayun Ansari and Farid Hafez 2012: 13). As evidence they cite the Swiss minaret ban, the Danish cartoon incident, the rise of the British National Party, the leadership of the Austrian Freedom Party by Jorg Haider, and right-wing populism in Germany such as the Burgerbewegung pro Koln. Reflecting on the Rushdie Affair and the Ayatollah Komeini’s fatwa of February 14, 1989, Talal Asad concluded that ‘The Rushdie affair has helped to promote a new political discourse on Britishness. There have been renewed calls for assimilation … Why this determination to remould South Asian immigrants in accordance with unitary principles? The assumption is that the presence of unassimilated immigrants constitutes a threat to social cohesion’ (1993: 266–78). Islam and globalization Explanations: law, civil rights and citizenship Taking into account the differences between the social composition and history of Muslims in Europe and the United States, what might explain these differences? We conclude with two observations. The first is that, while in the US there has been plenty of public and political opposition for example to the Shari’a and especially in the media around figures such as Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Pam Gallagher and others, the Shari’a does appear to be operating successfully in domestic dispute resolution in law practice in the US and there is a visible Muslim middle class in American cities such as Dearborn and NewYork. The second is the law in the US has played a major role, perhaps the major role, in protecting individuals and communities from openly racist abuse. In protecting religious belief and practice, the law is compelled at least in principle to guarantee freedom to practice Islam. Leaving to one side disputes about multiculturalism, assimilation and integration, if Muslim communities have more successfully entered the mainstream in America than in Europe, what might explain the differences? History Islam came to America with slavery, where it is estimated that around 15 per cent of slaves from Africa were Muslim. Islam has therefore been around in the United States since colonial times. African American Muslim and Christian communities are very integrated, with significant rates of intermarriage, something not so common in other Muslim communities. While Muslims have been in European societies for centuries, they did not arrive in significant numbers until after World War II. Poland is an exception to the rule in that it has an ancient Muslim community. Further, the United States has a history as a settler society and of sheltering religious minorities from Europe seeking freedom from persecution. Composition There are important differences in composition of Muslim communities in Europe and the United States in that Muslims are generally a solidly middle-class and educated sector of American society. The United States (like Canada, Australia and New Zealand) has been from its inception a migrant society in which diversity is built into the culture – notwithstanding the Protestant Establishment. Naturalization is a key aim of settlement in these nations, compared to European nations such as Germany where large guest-worker populations may live their whole lives without citizenship. Professional Muslims migrated to the United States for economic opportunity and notwithstanding the perceived cleavage with these more recent middle-class migrants and working-class African American Muslim populations, American Muslim communities have been more affluent than those in Europe. Intolerance Despite the efforts of anti-Islam activists to promote intolerance and the marginalization of Muslims in the United States, surveys reveal that less than half of American Muslims surveyed reported experiences of intolerance or discrimination (43 per cent) in the previous year (Pew Forum 2011). By comparison, almost two thirds of Muslims in Europe (65 per cent) reported having experienced intolerance or discrimination in the previous year (Open Society 2010). The extent to which class location (professional jobs and neighbourhoods) played a role in this 403 Joshua Roose and Bryan S. Turner was not drawn out. However, it does suggest that American Muslims have an easier time integrating into the wider community and developing a sense of belonging. Economic decline The wave of anti-migrant sentiment and xenophobia in Europe – National Front in France, Golden Dawn in Greece, English Defence League and UKIP in the UK, the Norwegian Defence League, the Northern Alliance in Italy, and so forth – have complex causes but one thing they share in common is the rapidly declining life chances of young people (especially young, poorly educated men) in a context of austerity packages and dwindling employment opportunities. The exodus of young workers from Ireland, Portugal and Spain obviously creates social conditions that fuels hostility to foreign migrants including internal European migrants such as Roma. The sense of the erosion of national culture may be associated with a more general sense of national decline. This might explain both the political influence of public figures such as Nigel Farage and the nostalgia of intellectuals such as Roger Scruton (2000) in England. An Elegy. Separation of church and state, and legal protection of religious freedom of conscience While the separation of spheres in the USA dating from Virginia is to some extent a constitutional fiction, the wall between church and state has protected minority religious rights – including the rights of Muslims. The relationship between church and state in Europe and especially in Scandinavia is intertwined rather than separated (van den Breemer, Casanova and Wyller 2014). This is illustrated by the legal response to the attempt in Oklahoma to ban references to Shari’a when the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the protection of religious freedom. Commenting on this decision, Joppke and Torpey observed that ‘the US government is always and unavoidably confronted in First Amendment religion cases with the problem of determining whether that on which it rules is, in fact, religion, because that is what the American Constitution must protect’ (2013: 117). We argue that legal-constitutional issues are the crucial difference between the USA and Europe. A parallel could be made between the defence of the rights of Muslims and the rights of same-sex marriage. While the majority of Supreme Court judges happen to be Roman Catholic, legal judgments about marriage have not followed but rather shaped public opinion. Same-sex marriage is defended because excluding gay and lesbian couples from marriage would be analogous to racial discrimination. Same-sex marriage is defended on a secular principle of civil rights. This argument is developed through a historical overview of the relevant legislation by Michael J. Klarman (2013). Of course, the struggle continues with some states seeking to ban same-sex marriages. However Attorney General Holder Jr on 24 February 2015 declared in an interview that state attorneys generally are not obligated to defend laws that are discriminatory (Apuzzo 2015). The Supreme Court ruled in June 2015 that states could not uphold marriage inequality under state legislation. What sense might we make of this sociologically? We would appeal to Max Weber’s notion of legal rationality, namely that legal thinking does not, in the long run, welcome anomalies. If you discriminate against Muslims, why not against Mormons, Amish, Jews and Buddhists? This legal logic is less evident in Europe, which has no First Amendment. In addition, the sense of cultural and economic decline has left majorities, particularly those not prospering in a stark 404 Islam and globalization economic climate, feeling that their world is disappearing and it then becomes easier to blame Muslims or Roma or any other group that does not appear to fit within the cultural core. What might be a modest way forward at least in the European case? Given deep differences in culture and religion in modern societies – in part as a consequence of labour migration – the institutions of citizenship offer one defence of equality (pace Brian Barry) and as the social glue that offers one possible answer to the sociological question – where does social solidarity come from? Of course, citizenship as an institution comes at a cost – through its system of contributory rights it must exclude those who are not members. This limitation may be addressed by clear and generous rules of naturalization, by respect for international legal guarantees of the rights of refugees and asylum seekers, by social provisions to protect those who are unable to benefit from the labour market (through sickness, old age and infirmity), and by providing basic security of person and property. The problem of modern society is that these citizenship institutions have been weakened and undermined by economic and social policies that have greatly increased social and economic inequality, and eroded shared public spaces and utilities. Conclusion: fear of Islam Anti-Muslim prejudice or ‘Islamophobia’ has been a prominent issue in most Western societies, especially after 9/11. While the level and character of fear varies across societies, there is evidence of its global development in Europe and North America but also in Australia, China and Singapore. We have alluded to important differences between Europe and the United States, but there are good reasons for regarding Islamophobia as global. Existing explanations of Islamophobia are in our view not that particularly convincing. We have argued that, while hatred of Muslims is deeply rooted in Western societies, we need to look at the modern status of Muslims in the West where Islam is a minority and not a majority religion. There is considerable diversity in the experience of Muslims in Western contexts, but as importantly, there are considerably different national constitutional and legislative approaches to religious minorities that shape these experiences. In the case of the United States, Canada and Australia, New World settler societies with substantial Muslim communities, constitutional and subsequent legislative provisions have protected the rights of religious minorities, including Muslims. These protections often stand in strong contrast to political discourse that forms the base of anti-Muslim prejudice and develop a base for inclusion arguably lacking in much of Europe. In this sense, discussions of Islamophobia (even in its best sense as an emerging comparative concept) only scrape the surface of the challenges faced. Writing on Islamophobia almost entirely overlooks the legal protections offered to Muslims and other religious minorities in the new world. These protections are vital to both the physical safety of minorities and a basis for authorities to act. As importantly, they are vital to accessing the rights and opportunities of citizenship.Where they do not exist, anti-Muslim prejudice has significantly greater chance of developing beyond divisive rhetoric (as vile as it may be) and individual physical attacks into an institutional turn whereby Muslims are transformed into enemies of the state. As recent developments have suggested, refugees afforded lesser protections are increasingly being framed in this manner. In the context of the likely doubling of Muslim minorities in the West over the next 30–40 years and Islam becoming the world’s largest religion well before the end of the century, it is vital to develop appropriate nuanced intellectual frameworks to engage with this transformation. Anxiety about national identity may only become worse. In the context of the rise of international movements such as the Islamic State, political discourse will likely take on 405 Joshua Roose and Bryan S. Turner an even sharper edge. The concept of Islamophobia is useful in its superficial description of acts of prejudice, and even in gauging the potential impact of these on feelings of belonging.Yet, Islamophobia remains a fundamentally activist concept that does not engage with deeper structural factors shaping integration, citizenship and the protections of religious and specifically, Muslim minorities. Perhaps the most sensitive issue is not the presence of Muslims as such but conversion to Islam that causes anxiety. Conversion is often seen as coercive rather than voluntary and it represents a challenge to settled identities. One consequence of globalization has been to make many national identities problematic and contested, and in this context migration is often seen to be contributing additional uncertainty to national identity and indeed to sovereignty. In the West there is an additional element that Christianity as the dominant religious tradition is also under threat in terms of its numerical decline and by internal uncertainty about many theological and social issues, such as homosexuality. The Irish referendum on same-sex marriage in May 2015 demonstrated that the Church had become remote from the lives of Irish youth in the most Catholic of European societies. The referendum was not just a challenge to the Catholic hierarchy but to national identity. Conflict with Islam is often inflamed by fundamentalist Christians such as the burning of the Qur’an. And there is the larger question that we cannot tackle here, namely the impact of Christian fundamentalism on American foreign policy and on attitudes towards Israel. 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