Notes

CHAPTER ONE: ISLAM AND THE REPUBLIC

1. Pew Global Attitudes Project (2006). When asked to choose between religion and nationality as their primary identity, 42 percent of them said French first, Muslim second. By contrast, only 7 percent of British Muslims and 3 percent of Spanish Muslims put nationality first.

2. My visit was in October 2006.

3. Bowen (2007).

4. I do not know who first uttered this phrase, but I have heard it many times in the speeches of Tariq Ramadan.

5. I have set out the political-theoretic issues in an earlier work on Islamic Indonesia (Bowen 2003); the contrast here is to the later writings of John Rawls (especially Rawls 1999). My ethnographic-analytic focus on how actors reason given the constraints of a specific field, or “realm of justification,” rather than a normative focus on whether their reasons are acceptable in liberal-democratic societies distinguishes this approach from most work developed in the wake of Rawls’s writings but is neither contradictory to nor inconsistent with it.

6. Boltanski and Thévenot (2006) distinguish six such “worlds” of justification, of which the “civic” closely resembles idealized forms of Republicanism and the “inspired” concerns aesthetics, not religion. A more ethnographic and inductive approach, and thus closer to what I try to do here, comes from Lamont and Thévenot (2000), who begin with the Boltanski and Thévenot classification, but then highlight French-American contrasts in dominant modes of justifying specific policy measures. Both approaches differ from the cognate scheme advanced earlier by Michael Walzer (1983), in that Walzer bases his distinction of “spheres of justice” both on values, such as “hard work,” and on institutional domains, such as “office.” All these lines of inquiry are indebted to Max Weber’s efforts to analyze ideas of status and worth, but recent work seems to have slighted Weber’s perceptive analyses of religious goods, such as salvation, as constitutive of hierarchies. Even Walzer, much of whose career has concerned salvation and religious certainty, gives only a few pages to the subject (1983: 243–48), and Boltanski and Thévenot’s scheme seems to leave out religion entirely; Lamont, however, has insisted on the importance of morality as a criterion of worth. Finally, I refer to the idea of “social fields” developed by Pierre Bourdieu, for example in the case of “religious field” (1971), but I find the fields treated in this book to be better seen as unstable outcomes of historical compromises than fixed spaces structured by diverse sorts of capital. Specific Islamic initiatives reawaken the anxieties and resentments generated by those compromises, as in the case of Islamic private schools or Islamic marriages. For a different application of Bourdieu’s theory to the French Islamic case, see Peter (2006).

7. On the issues of Republicanism, associations, and religious life, see Gauchet (1985, 1998) and Rosanvallon (2004, 2006); on the specific legal history of French secularism, see Boyer (2004).

8. I can only indicate something of the range of excellent, recent studies of gender and Islam by pointing to a few titles: on contemporary legal reform and women’s rights, Welchman (2007); on scripture, Ahmed (1993), Ali (2006), and Wadud (2006); for a historical study of judicial practice and fatwas, Tucker (1998); for an ethnographic analysis of gender and agency in religious practice, Mahmood (2005); and on Indonesian judicial practices and reforms, my own study (Bowen 2003).

9. These comparative remarks concern Western Europe. We must remember that parts of southeastern Europe have been mainly Muslim for centuries, as have areas of Russia; see my overview of the broader Western European Muslim world in Bowen (2008a), and see Caruso (2007), Cesari (2004), and Rath et al. (1999).

10. Ansari (2004); Lewis (2002).

11. For example, Frégosi (2006); Venel (2004); and see the discussion in chapter two. The first work along these lines was Gaspard and Khosrokhavar (1995), which must be seen as an important political response to a far-right denunciation of scarf-wearing, as well as a pioneering academic work.

12. The classic in this genre is Tribalat (1995); see also Tribalat, Simon, and Riandey (1996).

13. Cesari (1998); Souilamas (2000); Venel (2004). See Khosrokhavar (2004) on prison life. Other studies have had different aims. Kepel (1991) is a detailed historical and political account of Islamic institutions and practices in France; Roy (1999, 2002) has pursued an inquiry into the global nature of Islam in France and elsewhere.

14. Roy (1999, 2007). See also Gauchet (1998) and my discussion in Bowen (2007: 182–96).

15. The 2001 report by the High Council on Integration followed earlier scholars in estimating the number of Muslims at slightly over 4 million, but insisted that the number of people “of Muslim religion” would be closer to 1 million, the rest being “of Muslim culture” (Haut Conseil 2001: 36–39). They based their estimate of the number of people of “Muslim religion” on surveys concerning how often Muslims pray in mosques. Because the census is not allowed to gather data on “faith,” figures in France always have to settle for official data on immigration and naturalization, and surveys on religious practices.

16. A number of younger European scholars also seek to understand French Islamic understandings of religion, including Alexandre Caeiro (2004, 2006), Frank Peter (2006), and Amel Boubekeur (2004). I draw on the work of many other colleagues as well, cited elsewhere in this book.

17. For recent discussions of the ideas of general interest and public good, see Opwijs (2007) and Zaman (2004).

CHAPTER TWO: FASHIONING THE FRENCH ISLAMIC LANDSCAPE

1. On the history of immigration in France, see Dewitte (2003), Feldblum (1998), Hargreaves (1995), Viet (1998), and Weil (1991); on the contrast between France and Britain on ideas about and laws regulating immigration, see Favell (2001). On the history of secularism, see Baubérot (2004); on anti-Semitism, Wieviorka (2007); on the contemporary legacies of colonialism, Blanchard, Bancel, and Lemaire (2005).

2. On national identity, see Lebovics (1992) and Noiriel (1995). The debates in 2007 over the inclusion of the phrase “national identity” in a new ministry remind us how contentious this notion is for its echoes of Vichy-era anti-Semitism, particularly when, as in the case of the new ministry, it is linked to immigration (Weil 2008).

3. For overviews and analyses of France’s “Islamic politics” in colonized territories, see three recent volumes: Bancel, Blanchard, and Vergès (2003), Le Pautrement (2003), and Luizard (2006).

4. Jewish residents of Algeria eventually were declared to be French citizens, but Muslims had to renounce their Islamic civil or personal status in order to apply for French citizenship. Adopting citizenship came to be thought of by many as giving up Islam; see Stora (2004) and Shepard (2006).

5. On Algerian migrations and post-independence demographics, see J. Simon (2002) and Stora (1992).

6. On these separate immigration streams, see the essays in Dewitte (1999), and see Dewitte (2003) for an overview.

7. I explore these contrasts in Bowen (2008a). Briefly, the sources of difference vary for each country: Britain’s South Asian Muslims are divided into many competing factions by their schools of origin, Germany’s Turkish Muslims mainly by the division between state-run and Millî Görüs mosques, and those in the Netherlands and other northern countries by the wide range of countries of origin.

8. Sargent and Larchanché-Kim (2006); see also Timera (1996).

9. For an analysis of the recent attention to “blacks” as a socioracial category in France, see Ndiaye (2007).

10. Petek (1998).

11. Petek (1998); Kastoryano (1986); see also Amiraux (2001) on Turkish leaders in Germany.

12. Héran, Filhon, and Deprez (2002).

13. Godard and Taussig (2007: 27)

14. Godard and Taussig (2007: 25). The situation is complicated by different state language policies and by differences in education and generation: French is an official language in Mali or Senegal, but recent emigrants from rural regions of those countries may never have attended school; Algerians’ competence in French varies by shifting educational policies, and so on.

15. These percentages are 45 percent of Tunisians, 37 percent of those who were born in Algeria or Morocco, 26 percent of those from Turkey, 39 percent of Senegalese, and 21 percent of those from Mali (Borrel 2006). We may also analyze the numbers of new arrivals to France who do not have French residency papers (and who a fortiori are not French nationals). In 2003, of those who signed the new “contract of welcome and integration,” which requires language lessons and civics lessons in return for residence and the eventual possibility of naturalization, 29 percent were Algerians, 17 percent Moroccans, 7 percent Tunisians, and 6 percent Turks.

16. Each HLM is run by one or more private or public companies, or is jointly owned by residents, and benefits from state funding by way of a tax levied on businesses. Today there are almost 300 HLM state offices, which bring together local governments, state officials, and private companies to provide funds and supervise day-to-day operations. There also are private HLM companies that work in parallel with the public offices and receive subsidized loans (as do the inhabitants). Today nearly 5 million people live in just over 2 million HLM units; see Barou (2002) and Tellier (2007). For a moving account of the slums in which many immigrants lived prior to finding decent lodgings, see Sayad (1995); on Tunisian workers’ spaces, see G. Simon (1979).

17. Lepoutre (1997: 42).

18. Cited in Laurence and Vaisse (2006: 36). These figures do not include children of immigrants.

19. Meurs, Pailhé, and Simon (2005). See Maurin (2004) and, on schools, Bowen (2008b).

20. See Bromberger (2006) for a personal account of Clichy-sous-Bois.

21. About three-quarters of legal immigrants arrive in France today through claims of marriage or family ties, most often when a French citizen reaches back to a country of origin to find a spouse (Le Monde, January 4, 2006).

22. This common identity was reinforced by the tendency of others in France to assimilate all North Africans to the category of “Arabs” or Maghrébin (from the Arabic word for West, also used for Morocco, on the western edge of the Muslim world). Anthropologist David Lepoutre noted for the Quatre-Mille projects near Paris that young people use the categories of “Arabs,” “Blacks,” or “French”—today in their current slang forms of Rebeu, Renoi, and Céfran (Lepoutre 2001: 79–106).

23. Students from North Africa had formed associations at least since 1907, and continuing on to the present, but it was only in the 1960s that workers began to do so. These associations tended to either be organized by or on behalf of origin countries, such as the Friends of Algerians in Europe, or as a vehicle to oppose regimes in the home countries. See Silverstein (2004) and Wihtol de Wenden and Leveau (2000).

24. Sayad (1999) gives a moving sociological account of the immigrant’s plight; Boubeker (2003) and Hajjat (2005) do so for the beur generation. See Chattou and Belbah (2001) on the meaning of citizenship for Moroccan immigrants.

25. Cited in Godard and Taussig (2007: 420). See the essays in Boubeker and Hajjat (2008) on these new movements.

26. Le Monde, May 24, 2005.

27. Tariq Ramadan is the grandson of Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. A prolific author and lecturer, he has argued for a European Islam that preserves its ties to the Islamic tradition and also cultivates practices of European citizenship. He often is the target of accusations of “double-talk” because he does speak both to Islamic audiences and to broad-based European ones.

28. On these associations, see Wihtol de Wenden and Leveau (2000).

29. In an avowed effort to drive Muslims out of his town, the mayor of Charvieu-Chavagneux, in the Isère region, tore down buildings used for prayer by the local Islamic association in August 1989. Two years later he demanded they leave another set of buildings loaned to them by the regional government (Le Monde, August 17, 1991).

30. On the positions and anxieties surrounding the series of “headscarf affairs,” up to the passage of a law in March 2004, see Bowen (2007); the reference is to an article signed by several of France’s leading left-leaning intellectuals in Le Nouvel Observateur at the moment of the first “headscarf affair” in 1989.

31. Among them are Cesari (1994, 1998), Guénif-Souilamas (2000), Gaspard and Khosrokhavar (1995), Tietze (2002), Venel (1999, 2004), and Weibel (2002).

32. Venel (1999: 71).

33. Souilamas (2000: 184–94).

34. Cesari (1998).

35. But see the important corrective to this claim by Alexandre Caeiro (2006), who emphasizes the ties connecting European institutions of ifta (the giving of fatwas) to older Islamic practices. For an overview of the problem of Islamic authority in Europe, see Caruso (2007).

36. Tunisians play a preponderant role as teachers, in part because actions taken by the Bourguiba government against Islamic-oriented parties and movements led many Islamic scholars to leave the country.

37. Examples of teachers developing this dual track are Tareq Oubrou in Bordeaux, Ahmed Jaballah and Hichem El Arafa in Saint-Denis, and Dhaou Meskine in Aubervilliers, all mentioned below.

38. The term “Salafi” can be used to convey multiple meanings. The term refers to the “pious ancestors” who followed the Prophet Muhammad and is invoked as part of diverse calls to return to older, more religious ideas and practices. In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century it was adopted by modernist thinkers such as Muhammad Abduh, who wished to return to the original sources to introduce a new spirit into Islam. Its current use to indicate literalist or radical Muslim thinkers is more often than not imposed from without: many of those labeled Salafi in Europe would choose to call themselves ahlul hadîth, “those who follow the hadith.” Most observers of European Islam distinguish between a Salafism oriented toward dawa, “predication,” and one, far less numerically important, oriented toward armed struggle; see Roy (1994, 2002). Salafists in the first sense often refer to such scholars as the hadith specialist Nâsir al-Dîn al-Albâni, and the Saudi Grand Mufti Abdelaziz Ibn Baz, both of whom died in 1999, and al-‘Uthaymîn (d. 2001); many of their works are available in French translations in Islamic bookstores in France. For competing French accounts of the issues, see Kepel (2004) and Burgat (1995).

39. Galembert (1994, 2005); Kepel (1991).

40. On the “application” of the 1905 law and the development of Islamic associations in Algeria, as well as the eventual challenge to French governance of Islam, see Bozzo (2006), Achi (2006), and Shepard (2006).

41. These peaks came in 1989, when fear of the Ayatollah Khomeini came at a time of disillusion with the grand political projects of the preceding decades; in the mid-1990s, when some on the French Left sought to link growing political violence in Algeria and its spillover into France to the growing expression of Islamic beliefs; and again starting in 2001, when a series of government reports described malfunctioning schools and a growing lack of contact between the ethnic France and the children of immigrants, and the attacks of September 11 raised domestic fears of Islamic violence; see Bowen (2007). On the chronology of security-related events, see Bowen (2009).

42. For a comprehensive examination of these efforts, see Laurence and Vaisse (2006).

43. Sarkozy gave the two vice-presidential positions to leaders of the two other large mosque networks. The National Federation of French Muslims (Fédération Nationale des Musulmans de France, FNMF), formed in 1985, was associated with Morocco and most of its affiliated mosques were led by Moroccan imams; since the creation of the Islamic Council, however, the Moroccan association has split into two groups, with challengers winning seats in the 2008 elections and a Moroccan, Mohammed Moussaoui, chosen as the new Islamic Council president. The UOIF was mentioned above. Several other organizations have been represented in the Islamic Council: the two largest associations of Turkish mosques, the proselytizing Tablighi Jamaat organization, and an association of Muslims from West Africa and other French overseas departments and territories.

44. On the state’s role in regulating Islam and on the hostage crisis, see Bowen (2007: 34–62, 145–46).

45. Zeghal (2006).

46. Le Monde, July 6, 2007.

47. See Brisebarre (1998) for some of these efforts.

48. Libération, Febuary 11, 2003; Le Monde, February 11, 2003.

49. Renard (1999) discusses this history.

50. Kepel (1991: 145–59); Pitti (2008).

51. The body originally had the modifier “Algerian” added to it name; this word was dropped in 1963.

52. I follow the major outlines provided by Kepel (1991: 125–68) for this period; on the use of these spaces by the workers, see Diop and Michalak (1996).

53. Galembert (1994).

54. See the case described by Kepel (1991: 161–68).

55. See Frégosi (2006: 44 et passim).

56. For more on the legal dimensions of these collaborations, see Bowen (2007: 39–48).

57. In Toulouse, for example, in 1999 an imam appointed by the Algerian government to the mosque at Empalot became the leader of the association formed to work with the city to build a new mosque. Others, especially younger, French-born students, disputed his leadership. Their standard-bearer became Mamadou Daffé, who had come from Mali to pursue a doctorate in biology at Toulouse and a postdoctoral fellowship in the United States before taking a position at the CNRS in Toulouse, and who presides at the al-Houceine mosque next to Toulouse-Le-Mirail University. The division was not only along generational lines but also pitted Algerians against those from Morocco and elsewhere. “It is always like that,” he told me in 2001. The division stalled the mosque project for years, although by 2005 construction had begun on land provided by the city. Similar rivalries among Muslim associations have stalled other projects to build mosques, even when the city administration had committed funds, most notably in Strasbourg and Marseille.

58. I draw on the analysis in Maussen (2009).

59. Bowen (2007).

60. Le Monde, July 7, 2006, July 17, 2007.

61. Godard and Taussig (2007: 130).

CHAPTER THREE: MOSQUES FACING OUTWARD

1. Frégosi (2006) provides a sophisticated analysis of mosques in some regions of contemporary France, Maussen (2005) an overview of studies on mosques and imams in Europe; see also Maussen (2009) for a detailed history of public policy on mosques in the Netherlands and France. Cesari (1994) provides a detailed account of Marseille mosques and other Islamic institutions; Ternisien (2002) includes some interesting aperçus on mosques as part of a broader survey. For a look at new Islamic spaces in Europe and North America, including mosques, see the essays in Metcalf (1996b).

2. Le Figaro, March 21, 2005, quoting the Interior Ministry.

3. Le Monde, November 16, 2006.

4. Le Monde, November 3, 2005. The upper Clichy mosque was run by young people affiliated with the FNMF, a rival organization to Boubakeur’s Paris Mosque within the CFCM, and they did not want the Paris Mosque to appear to be speaking for Muslims.

5. On the UOIF Web site: http://www.uoif-online.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=414, accessed July 7, 2007.

6. oumma.com, November 7, 2005.

7. See the interview with Yamin Makri in Boubeker and Hajjat (2008: 217–24).

8. This asymmetry had given rise to petty rivalries with the other associations, such that the coalition ceased their activities for one year to let things cool down. Indeed, when Fouad Imarraine opened an all-day seminar sponsored by the coalition in May 2001, he began by declaring that the association “has no goal of federating or uniting” (my fieldnotes).

9. See also Frégosi (1998).

10. Le Monde, February 8, 2002. No similar study has been undertaken since 2001, but the secret police, who plant informants in mosques throughout the country, reported about forty mosques under “Salafi” control by early 2005, a term used in those circles to refer to teachings close to those of Saudi religious leaders; these figures suggest that at least some sermons took on a more political tone (Le Monde, February 22, 2005). It should be noted that after 2001, sermons were much more likely to be policed than before, and that few revelations of radical sermons have surfaced in the ever-vigilant mass media.

11. Cesari (2005).

12. Later on in our conversation I asked him about his ideas on an “Islam de France,” and he reacted negatively to the phrase: “When people say that, they mean something ‘moderate,’ such as Dalil Boubekeur.” I reminded him that he had used the phrase, and he said yes, he was talking about how most people use it.

13. On this tension in French political history, see Rosanvallon (2004, 2006). Karim invited me to speak about Islam in the United States to the 2005 annual gathering. But a few days before the gathering he called me, embarrassed, to say they had circulated the program, and the speaker they had invited from Senegal had refused to come if there was an American on the program, and they already had paid for his plane ticket, so that they had to “disinvite” me.

14. See the interview with Boualam Azahoum on DiverCité, and with Salah Amokrane on les Motivé-e-s, in Boubeker and Hajjat (2008: 201–6, 265–71).

15. This section is based on interviews with mosque personnel conducted in April, 2006; see also Frégosi (2006: 302–5).

16. Le Monde, October 13, 2006.

17. Knowledge of usûl al-fiqh is generally acknowledged as particularly deficient, not only in France, and at the same time necessary for the project of rethinking jurisprudence.

18. The imam of Roubaix, Imam Kerzazi, was jailed in 1997 for the death of a girl he was exorcising (L’Express, November 9, 2006). The Abbe Bellot, exorcist in Paris, said that many Muslims come to see him because they figure that on Catholic territory he would be more effective against jinn than Muslims would be. On Bellot, see Le Monde, December 31, 1995.

19. Najjar specified the action called a “khula” divorce, or an action taken by the wife in which she offers payment, sometimes the value of the marriage gift, the mahr, in return for the husband’s willingness to acquiesce to the divorce. I return to the problems with extralegal marriages in chapter eight.

20. Here the references are to Ibn Baz (d. 1999) and al-‘Uthaymîn (d. 2001), Saudi grand muftis, and probably to Shaykh Arabî al-Tabbân.

21. Godard and Taussig (2007: 104); Galembert (2005).

22. Direche-Slimani and Le Houérou (2002: 103–18).

23. Comoro Muslims followed the Shâfiî tradition, in contrast to the majority of North Africans, who are Mâlikî followers, and to the Hanafî followers in the Middle East and South Asia.

24. This description is taken from Direche-Slimani and Le Houérou (2002: 103–39).

25. This section draws from Bava (2003, 2004); see also Ebin (1996).

26. In this respect the practices of this and other Sufi groups resemble those pursed by the networks of some Shi’ite groups; see Blank (2001) for a case study.

27. Bava (2003: 161).

28. Soares (2004); on a different West African case, the Soninké, see Timera (1996).

29. Frégosi (2006: 63).

30. Comité de coordination des Musulmans Turcs de France, CCMTF.

31. Caymaz (2002: 216).

32. Frégosi (2006: 58).

33. Frégosi (2006: 80–81).

34. Two other major categories of imams have been mentioned only briefly: those affiliated with the Tablighi Jamaat and those labeled “Salafi.”

35. “Congregationalism” as an analytical term tends to include two dimensions: organizing along voluntary membership lines of governance, and the provision of community services. Immigrant communities in the United States tend to adopt some form of this model; see Ebaugh (2003).

CHAPTER FOUR: SHAPING KNOWLEDGE TO FRANCE

1. Many sophisticated books of fiqh are also arranged by topics and provide rules, and I discuss an example from Qaradâwî below. By rule-book I mean an approach that frames learning in terms of simply following rules.

2. On the Tablighi Jamaat, see Metcalf (1996a).

3. The center has changed names several times as well. I first knew it in 2001 as the IEIP, Institut d’Études Islamiques de Paris, or Paris Institute of Islamic Studies.

4. In 2006, each sequence cost 460 euros per year. There is also a four-month intensive Arabic course for those who already have some knowledge of the language.

5. In the early 2000s the last-mentioned course was based on a reading of a French edition of the twelfth-century theologian al-Ghazzâlî’s Revival of the Religious Sciences.

6. See chapter two, n. 38, on the polysemy of the term “Salafi.”

7. On the development of scholarship about and uses of the hadith, see Brown (1996) and Graham (1993).

8. Qur’an 2:225. Many Muslims consider reciting this verse to bring more merit than any other verse.

9. Al-Qaradâwî (1995:17). The book relies heavily on the Riyâd al-Sâlihîn of the seventh-century scholar Imam Nawawi. On al-Qaradâwî, see Feldman (2007) and Mariani (2003); see also Zaman (2006).

10. Al-Qaradâwî (2001, 2002).

11. On the Egyptian Renewal movement to which Hichem is attuned, see Baker (2003). On the broader field of religious education in Cairo, see Zeghal (1996, 2006).

12. Despite Hichem’s many criticisms of the Saudi approach to knowledge, the center receives funding from Saudi sources, as do many other Islamic institutions in France. One day in class in 2001, Hichem entered accompanied by a bearded, tall man, whom he introduced as the representative of the Saudi embassy in charge of looking at what is being done for Islamic education in France. He spoke only Arabic. Hichem later told me that they like to control things, keep tabs on what is being done everywhere. This aid makes Hichem visibly nervous, and in truth, it is unclear that the Saudis exert any efforts to control what is taught. No other teachers have ever accused him of being influenced by this aid.

13. Abû Ishâq al-Shâtibî (d. 1388) grew up in Granada; most references are to his work al-Muwâfaqât; see Masud (1977) and al-Raysuni (2005). Shâtibî’s approach was one among several distinct efforts to place the concept of welfare (maslaha) within the broader framework of Islamic legal reasoning; see Opwijs (2007). The continuing interest in Shâtibî can be seen on the Internet, where, for example, as of late 2008, the Web site www.islamonline.net had nine fatwas in its fatwa bank that cited Shâtibî. On the question of whether these forms of reasoning are ultimately able to advance jurisprudential reasoning, see the arguments set out in Hallaq (1997). On relationships between objectives, principles, and the “cause” (illah) of a verse, see Kamali (2008: 126–36).

14. Ibn Ashur (1879-1973) studied at al-Zaytuna in Tunis and in 1932 was named Sheikh al-Islam. Among his works is Maqâsid al-Shariah al-Islâmiyyah, available in translation (Ibn Ashur 2006). On al-Fâsî, see Johnston (2007). The Qaradâwî quote is from Zaman (2004: 135).

CHAPTER FIVE: DIFFERENTIATING SCHOOLS

1. Note how he casts the presentation of fiqh in the past by making the analogy to equivalents “today.”

2. The students were doing their best to understand precisely what to do; one told me later, “I take the classes to add to what I understand about my religion, not with the idea of teaching or being an imam.”

3. Here he is probably referring to al-Bûtî’s criticisms of maqâsid reasoning; see chapter seven.

4. Note the same emphasis made by the UOIF, described in chapter seven.

5. Bourdieu (1971); cf. Peter (2006).

CHAPTER SIX: CAN AN ISLAMIC SCHOOL BE REPUBLICAN?

1. Some 98 percent of all private schools under state contract are Catholic, and in 2000, 40 percent of families used Catholic schools; the number is doubtless higher by 2009 (Troger 2001). Two other Islamic day schools had begun teaching in metropolitan France by late 2008: one in Lille, sponsored by the UOIF, and a second in Lyon, around which sufficient controversy reigned to cause the resignation of the director of the regional school academy (the governing body for schools). The relative success of the Lille school has confirmed the suspicions of some that those who play the state’s game (in this case, by joining the Islamic Council) are more likely to be rewarded.

2. Dhaou continued to make unfavorable comparisons with the Rose Luxembourg school, noting after the Success School’s first year that only one pupil failed to achieve the average grade (and he did achieve it the following year), whereas only 15 percent of the public school’s pupils did.

3. By 2002, of the 913 children who had ever taken a class or gone on a summer camp, most came from Seine-Saint-Denis, and most of those, 508, had declared their nationality as Tunisian, followed by French at 313, and far smaller numbers for other nationalities.

4. Saphir News, November 7, 2005.

5. At the following year’s examination, one girl did not pass. When she arrived at the designated site for the examination, a public school in the eastern Paris suburb of Montreuil, she was told to take off her headscarf before entering the classroom; Dhaou claimed this incident distracted her. She retook the examination later that year and passed.

6. Fayçal’s slate gained only 8 percent of the second round vote, but that was enough to get him and the next candidate elected to the local council.

7. Libération, June 21, 2006; Le Figaro, July 5, 2006.

8. Le Monde, November 11, 2006; Le Figaro, November 2, 2006.

CHAPTER SEVEN: SHOULD THERE BE AN ISLAM FOR EUROPE?

1. See Hallaq (1997), Johansen (1999), Powers (2001), and the essays on ifta in Masud, Messick, and Powers (1996); on the German case, see Rohe (2004).

2. As of 2006 I knew of one institution that would accompany a Muslim to a bank to propose an arrangement whereby the bank would buy the house and the client would repay at a slightly higher price but without interest.

3. See Saeed (1996) for a review of the varying Islamic approaches to the idea of ribâ.

4. The fatwa discussed here appears on the council’s Web site in the list of resolutions taken at the 1999 session: http://www.fioe.org/ask_the_scholar/fourth%20statement.htm. On the council’s history and the mortgage fatwa, see Caeiro (2004).

5. In the paper prepared for the deliberations, a member of the council, al-Arabi Bichri, drew on the analysis of ribâ made by the legal scholar Abd al-Razzâq Sanhûrî and concluded that for some types of ribâ, demonstrating mere needs (hâja) sufficed to authorize an exception. He also proposed that a loan at fixed interest, perhaps limited to a rate of 7 percent, could be considered equivalent to an installment sale (Caeiro 2004: 353–54).

6. Caeiro (2004: 374).

7. See the site http://www.bouti.net/en/article.php?PHPSESSID=c9153546701ed7fb35b22f45a728f9ed&id=349, accessed November 9, 2007.

8. Ben Biya’s speech was translated from the podium. All quotations are from my notes from the French translation, though I also noted the key Arabic terms he and others used. Beyond these general pronouncements, the UOIF’s own fatwa body, the Dar al-Fatwa, has made use of the possibility of issuing individual fatwas to extend the boundaries of the community fatwa on interest. In 2006, a member of the Dar al-Fatwa, Ounis Qourqah, told me that on the previous day he had spoken with someone he had known for ten years and who had a good idea to open a business. “I told him that it was permissible to take out a bank loan for that purpose because his situation was an emergency [darurat].” A general fatwa to that effect would also be in the interest of the Muslim community in general, he continued, but the European Council does not want to consider that question: “it is too difficult, touches so many people.”

9. Al-Qaradâwî has achieved recognition for his advocacy of the “middle way” (wasatiyya, juste milieu). Born in 1926 in Egypt, al-Qaradâwî studied and taught at al-Azhar before moving to Qatar, where he created a faculty of sharia. Today he publishes his thoughts in books and (since 1997) on his Web site and through his contributions to the television station al-Jazira; he also heads the committee responsible for the site Islam On-line. The idea of a fiqh for minorities may have originated in the mid-1990s with the Iraqi scholar Taha Jabir al-Alwani, who directs the School of Islamic and Social Sciences in Leesburg, Virginia, near Washington, D.C., and whose book, Towards a Fiqh for Minorities: Some Basic Reflections, appeared in Arabic in 2000 and in English in 2003.

10. Al-Qaradâwî (2002: 19); see Feldman (2007).

11. Al-Qaradâwî (1991: 113).

12. A1-Qaradâwî (2002).

13. On the early modern Hanafî position, see Abou El Fadl (1994: 173–74).

14. Ramadan (2002).

15. See http://www.bouti.net/en/article.php?PHPSESSID=c9153546701ed7fb35b22f45a728f9ed&id=336, accessed November 9, 2007.

16. See also al-Bûtî (2001). In the passage quoted, I have altered the English slightly for readability.

17. A “SMIC spirituel” (Makri 2005).

18. Work began on a new mosque and Islamic cultural center in September 2008, but sufficient funds had been raised only to cover the cost of building the foundation.

19. The visits may have had more of an effect on the father; see below.

20. Taqi ad-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiyyah (1263–1328) followed the teachings of Ibn Hanbal and often is considered to be a relatively strict interpreter of Islam, but some of his specific opinions, such as this one on divorce, are cited by those seeking to adapt Islam to European conditions. That it is Ibn Taymiyyah whom they cite may add additional rhetorical force to their efforts.

21. Islamic public actors may also strategically invoke French and European norms, as when some scholars argued that girls should be allowed to wear headscarves to school because of the European convention on human rights; see Soysal (2002), although unlike her, I do not see a change in the structure of justifications within the Islamic realm.

22. Werbner (2003)

23. See Mariani (2006).

CHAPTER EIGHT: NEGOTIATING ACROSS REALMS OF JUSTIFICATION

1. As an example of the diverse potential social functions of norms surrounding mahr, consider the contrast between Indonesian gifts, which are usually low in value and play a smaller role after the wedding, with those in much of South Asia and Iran, which may be very high and play a critical role in subsequent bargaining. See Mir-Hosseini (2001) for examples of how in contemporary Iran, a high mahr gives the bride leverage with respect to divorce and child custody.

2. The site le-mariage.com; it specializes in these questions of marriage for Muslims. The specific discussion was at http://www.le-mariage.com/speak/messages/66/5301.html?samedi7avril200722h28, last accessed June 14, 2007.

3. Since 2006 a woman must be eighteen to contract a marriage in France. This example is complicated by the fact that they appear to have legally married in Algeria, and that marriage could have been recognized in France but for her age.

4. The general-purpose French-language Yahoo site http://fr.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070620102458AApehHZ, accessed June 24, 2007.

5. Belgium has requirements regarding marriage similar to those in force in France.

6. An example is maison-islam.com, which focuses on religious questions; other sites, such as oumma.com and saphirnews.com, include such articles among other types of news, opinions, and general information.

7. On the question-and-answer format across Islamic history, see the essays in Masud, Messick, and Powers (1996).

8. On the interrelationships of authority and individualization on the Islamic Internet, see Roy (2002: 165–83).

9. For the Moroccans living in France interviewed by a team of sociologists in the mid-1990s, les fiançailles meant a promise to marry and not a simple “trial run” between a man and a woman, and this reflected the usage in Morocco itself, where the promise opened a period of negotiations about the terms of marriage (Rude-Antoine et al. 1998). In France the term seems to have come to mean, for some, the “trial run,” or something like an engagement, which does not figure in mainstream Islamic understandings of Islam. See Boubekeur (2004: 116–22) on varying ideas of marriage and fiançailles in France.

10. The question began a thread about halâl marriage, on a site devoted to women’s issues, http://forum.aufeminin.com/forum/f341/__fl286_f341-Fiancaille-ou-et-mariage-halal.html, accessed June 24, 2007.

11. Respondents disagreed sharply, however, as to whether or not Islam recognized an engagement. Some denied this claim vehemently, while others argued the opposite, on grounds that men had long promised their daughters to other men, and is this not engagement? See, for example, the long account at http://www.sajidine.com/fiq/mariage/fiancaille.htm, accessed June 24, 2007.

12. Some French imams will assure a woman who has divorced in civil fashion that she also is now free to remarry in the eyes of God, but there are no clear and agreed-on procedures or doctrines to this effect.

13. On the site http://www.bladi.net/forum/61455-rompre-hallal/index4.html, accessed June 24, 2007.

14. A condition clarified in the law no 99-944 of November 15, 1999.

15. See, on this point, Bénabent (1996: 28).

16. See Hafiz and Devers (2005: 261).

17. Le Monde, June 8, 2007.

18. Indeed, one blogger on a Muslim site expressed horrified surprise that fellow Muslims had been running this risk, which of course does not exist for the parties to the marriage under any interpretation of this law; see http://www.islamie.com/des-jeunes-musulmans-veulent-saffranchir-du-mariage-civil-t36601.html?s=2eb252d405907c0d9595c400ad8bf266&p=333054#post333054, accessed June 26, 2007.

19. See the ministerial response to the question posed by the UMP deputy Étienne Mourrut, published in the Journal Officiel, August 5, 2007, p. 4319.

20. Le Nouvel Observateur, June 23, 2008.

21. Le Parisien, October 21, 2008.

22. He mentioned the author Malik Chebel as someone who did just that in referring to Islam but not reasoning from Islamic principles.

23. See Ramadan (1998) for his most extensive analysis of the heritage of Islam.

24. Interview, Saint-Denis, May 2, 2001.

25. Interview, Bordeaux, November 12, 2002.

26. Oubrou (2004).

27. Note the parallel with the procedures for evaluating reports of the Prophet’s deeds and statements, discussed in chapter four.

28. Oubrou (2000: 43).

29. Interview, Bordeaux, November 12, 2002. Oubrou made the same argument in his extended debate with Leïla Babès, in Babès and Oubrou (2002: 328).

30. Interview, Saint-Denis, May 2001.

31. Interview, Bordeaux, November 12, 2002.

32. For an informed overview by one of the major commentators on these issues, who now sits on the Court of Cassation, see Monéger (2005).

33. See Libchaber (1996: 65).

34. Libchaber (1996: 69).

35. On the history of these categories in Algeria, see Shepard (2006).

36. The bilateral treaties also were consistent with the general principles of personal status within French interpretations of international private law, following which individuals carry their family status with them as they travel from one country to another; the relevant body of laws is that of the country in which they have citizenship. If they married or divorced in their own country following the rules of that country, they remained married or divorced when they traveled to France. If a conflict were to arise over that marriage or divorce while the couple happened to be in France and the husband or wife took the matter to court, the French judge would follow the legal rules that defined valid marriage and divorce in the country where the marriage or divorce took place, even if they conflicted with France’s own rules. This basic tenet of the conflict-of-laws doctrine corresponds to common sense, in that one does not want marriages to become alternately valid and invalid as couples cross borders and laws change.

37. On these dilemmas and for an up-to-date review of the debate, see the analysis by Hugues Fulchiron (2006). Article 8 (right to lead a normal family life) of the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms is invoked to challenge expulsions of family members, but what counts as the “normal family life” to which all have a right remains under dispute.

38. In its Bendeddouche decision of 1980, the Court of Cassation ruled that a polygamous marriage could have effects in France, as did the Montcho decision taken by the Council of State the same year, which prevented a prefect from deporting a second wife and her children on grounds that the polygamous marriage went counter to ordre public.

39. On the history of immigration laws in France, see Feldblum (1999) and Weil (1991).

40. Alaux (2001); on some of the consequences for West African women in polygamous situations, see Sargent and Cordell (2003).

41. Lahouri (2004).

42. See Libchaber (1996: 72) and especially Begdache (2002: 140–52) and Monéger (2005: 54–55).

43. See especially Fulchiron (2006) on this point.

44. Libchaber (1996: 74).

45. Several Belgian lawyers have begun to reason in this way regarding the future evolution of the Morocccan code (France Blanmailland, personal communication, Brussels, July 15, 2008).

46. By 2000, more and more couples were avoiding marriage entirely, and 40 percent of children born in France each year were born to an unmarried couple, according to the National Institute of Demographic Studies (INED), at http://www.ined.fr/fichier/t_telechargement/3705/telechargement_fichier
_fr_fiche4.pdf, accessed June 26, 2007. See also INED (n.d.). On the tendencies toward de facto polygamy by successive French presidents, see Deloire and Dubois (2006).

47. Several law professors expressed their acceptance, if not enthusiasm, for this solution to me as late as 2008.

48. Fulchiron (2006).

49. For an example, see the debates on talaq in the special issue of the Revue internationale de droit comparé, no. 1, 2006.

CHAPTER NINE: ISLAMIC SPHERES IN REPUBLICAN SPACE

1. On charges of “communalism” (communautarisme), see Bowen (2007: 155–81); on “insufficient secularism,” Bowen (2007: 183–207) and Roy (2007); on the question of values, particularly regarding gender equality, Bowen (2007: 208–41) and Scott (2007: 151–74).

2. See Rosanvallon (2004) on the first point; Kastoryano (2002) on the second and especially at p. 101. In this section I draw extensively on Kastoryano (2002) and Wihtol de Wenden and Leveau (2000).

3. The figures for associations are taken from the government Web site, http://www.associations.gouv.fr, accessed August 8, 2008.

4. Kastoryano (2002: 107–12).

5. Kastoryano (2002: 98–104.

6. Tippett-Spirtou (2000: 76–77).

7. Cholvy (1999: 360–68); Pelletier (2002).

8. Hyman (1998: 114–35).

9. Hyman (1998: 142–44).

10. Benbassa (1999: 179–99).

11. Many of these pupils will have studied some Arabic and the basics of Islam at a mosque or perhaps at La Réussite while of primary-school age.

12. See Bowen (2007).

13. See Beattie (2000).

14. See the cogent analysis of the issues, made with British and U.S. schools in mind, by MacMullen (2007). On Islamic education in Britain, see Mandaville (2006).

15. See Galston (2002) for the former position and MacMullen (2007) for the latter among Anglo-American theorists.

16. Indeed, in both 2005 and 2006 the telecast was the most widely viewed among all French on-line broadcasts. I attended the gatherings held in 2001, 2003, and 2006.

17. The bookstalls, each with its own orientation, provide a subtly shifting map of the range of Islamic tendencies that fit under the UOIF’s umbrella. Lyon-based Tawhid features books it publishes, and in particular those written by Tariq, Hani, and Said Ramadan. Sana publishes works by authors associated with Saudi “Wahhabi” tendencies, such as Ibn Baz and al-Albâni. The Left Bank store al-Bourraq emphasizes Sufis and more “scholarly” works, while Arrissala publishes translations of Arabic-language religious books. By 2006, the Tawhid store had left the Salon, a sign of the break between the Lyon-based Collectif des Musulmans, whose leading light had been Tariq Ramadan, and the UOIF. A new magazine, Generations, now appeared, with a less expensive stand to the side of the hall, and translations of the Egyptian preacher Amr Khaled appeared alongside Saudi authors in several stands.

18. He and his associates kept busy answering questions from would-be students; they exhibited a set of pie charts showing where their students lived (mainly in Seine-Saint-Denis), how they had evaluated the courses (very positively), and whether they had found satisfactory employment afterward (75 percent had).

19. In other words, the UOIF performs the same function as the upper-class Catholic social networking events, the rallyes!

20. About thirty French Islamic associations had stands along the side of the main hall in 2006. These included seventeen groups seeking help to build mosques, four that appealed for humanitarian aid, two (La Réussite and Savoirs Utiles) soliciting new pupils for their schools, one for the Women’s League, three for children’s or students’ associations, a booth for the arts, the one for Generations, and one for the sign language Muslims, “Give Me a Sign.”

21. During the lively contest for the office of Grand Rabbin de France, for example, it was reported that one candidate, Gilles Bernheim, who won the contest, was accused by many in “the community” of “speaking too frequently with Christians.” These comments did not elicit the kind of attacks that one would have heard if comparable comments had been made by Muslims (Le Monde, June 25, 2008).

22. This framing no doubt explains why a much larger percentage of French citizens find no conflict between Islam and modern society than is the case for other Europeans or North Americans. The best exemplar of the “Enlightenment Islam” perspective is Malik Chebel, featured regularly on talk shows and in the mainstream weeklies, whose book on 27 propositions to reform Islam led to criticism from some Muslims that he was “setting himself up as God by inventing a religion” (see the discussion on the Islamic site www.mejliss.com, May 5, 2006). A “liberal Islam” promotes the rights of “individual ijtihâd” and shows up on the mainstream shelves particularly through the writings of Dounia Bouzar (2004).

23. Islam de France, one of the more intellectual efforts within the Islamic public sphere, began life in January 1997 as a magazine, and that September transformed itself into a booklike quarterly review. Michel Renard, a French convert, and Saïd Branine, French of Algerian parents, were the editors. In 2000, Branine developed a Web version of the review, which eventually succeeded the print publication as allahouakbar.com and then oumma.com.

24. Libération, June 26, 2000. In a later version of this letter that was published in Islam de France (8:47–51, 2000), they make their suggestion of dire consequences more specific by referring to the killing of Mahmoud Mohammed Taha in the Sudan and the forced divorce and exile of Nasr Abou Zeid by an Egyptian court, both on grounds of apostasy.

25. Allahouakbar.com, July 5, 2000. See the response to their critics by Babès and Renard in Islam de France (8:64–66, 2000).

26. Babès (1997: 147–97) but see especially Babès (2000).

27. Babès and Oubrou (2002). Tariq Ramadan has told me that initially Babès proposed to write the book with him, but that after starting work with her he declined to continue.

28. Babès and Oubrou (2002: 23, 34).

29. Babès and Oubrou (2002: 82–85).

30. Brenner (2002); Libération, December 17, 2003. President Chirac cited The Lost Territories publicly during 2003, and the book is said to have had a strong influence on his decision to advocate a law against scarves in schools, passed in early 2004.

31. See Roy (2007).

32. Studies on values in France tend to affirm similarities between Muslims and others, but, as with most French studies trying to say something about a religious category, they run up against the problem of defining religious “identity” and the absence of data based on religious affiliation or preference. See, nonetheless, Brouard and Tiberj (2005), which samples “persons of immigration origins” from Africa and Turkey, a category that oddly mixes three generations of respondents and requires further analysis to discern religious orientation. They find the greatest difference in expressed values in responses to questions about premarital sex, an issue explored in this section.

33. Bowen (2007) is an account of the processes leading up to the law and an analysis of why such pressures grew during this period; the analyses in a special issue of the review Droit et Société (2008) provide invaluable insider accounts of the debates.

34. I do not take up here the question of the meanings and social roles attached to virginity among different Muslim men and women; Boubekeur (2004: 68–71) points to the insistence on the part of many young Muslim women on making the issue a matter between husband and wife.

35. In political theory, “multiculturalism” usually refers to two broad types of projects: those that would grant some degree of legal autonomy or special legal rights to members of certain groups, and those that would grant a degree of public recognition to efforts by groups to build their own institutions and identities; see Kymlicka’s (1995) normative distinction between demands for self-government and those for polyethnic expression, and subsequent efforts to contrast “strong” and “weak” forms of multiculturalism, as in Shachar (2001). French theoretical discussions invariably refer to Anglo-American theorists; see, for example, Mesure and Renaut (1999) and Wivieorka (1996).

36. Whether or not the imam who participated in the nikah ceremony violated the law is, as I have mentioned, a question for continued legal debate.

37. This law was the same one that ended the official, public status of the churches. Exception was made in the law for religious buildings, funeral monuments or graves, and museums, and said that local or state rules would govern the ringing of church bells. In effect, the law leaves a great deal of discretion in the hands of local officials, and one hears church bells as much in parts of southern France as in Italy, though not in Republican Paris.

38. Muslim leaders have understood this repugnance and often keep even new mosque buildings out of public view. During 2003–4, I followed the building of a mosque in Bagnolet, a city bordering Paris on the east. The mosque is located in a commercial park in the middle of a low-rent HLM complex, and from the outside it looks like any storefront, with a sign identifying it as the Olive of Peace Cultural Center. Inside, however, the visitor finds a large prayer room with carved pillars, rooms for Arabic classes, and proper facilities for ablutions. When the municipality learned that prayers were being held in a commercial park building, the director found himself in the middle of a zoning dispute. His own reticence to showcase the building as a mosque came from years of battling the antireligious mayor of a nearby community over the right to construct a new mosque.

39. I have been following this process in Bobigny, where the relevant municipal councilor has insisted on this public character. “It is a public building for a religion, not a meeting place for a sect,” he explained to me in 2006.

40. See my lengthy exposition of this argument in Bowen (2007), and see Scott (2007) for a related set of claims.

41. The quotation is on p. 80 of the English edition of Schnapper’s Community of Citizens (1998), but I have retranslated it from the French original.

42. Le Figaro, July 16, 2008.

43. See Olivier Roy’s remarks to this effect in Le Monde, July 14, 2008.

44. Didier Leschi, quoted in Le Monde, July 11, 2008.

45. See Hugues Fulchiron’s (2008) analysis to this effect.

46. Le Point, September 15, 2008; Le Monde, June 6, 2008.

47. Le Monde, June 6, 2008. The president of Ni Putes Ni Soumises made the second statement in Le Monde, May 31, 2008.

48. Le Point, June 5, 2008.

49. In September 2008, the state’s attorney at nearby Douai, in consultation with the wife’s lawyer and in order to “protect the interests of society,” recommended that the marriage annulment be upheld but that some other grounds be sought that would not be contrary to ordre public, such as non-consummation. As some of the many public commentaries pointed out, the upshot was to annul for the original reasons but then to find another public justification that would not offend people (Libération, September 22, 2008).

50. Le Figaro, June 12, 2008.

51. Here I agree with the argument developed recently by Olivier Roy (2007). Is it ironic that French objections often target expressions of modesty, such as avoiding premarital sex, covering oneself, or remaining at home?

52. See Gaonkar and Taylor (2006).

53. See here Hallaq’s (1997) trenchant critique of these modes of reasoning, and Masud’s (2001) more hopeful assessment.