Download or read book Former Muslims in Europe written by Maria Vliek and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-07-21 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Within contemporary Western European academic, media, and socio-political spheres, Muslims are predominantly seen through the lens of increased religiosity. This religiosity is often seen as problematic, especially in the context of securitised discourses of Islamist terrorism. Yet, there are clear indications that a growing number of people who grew up in Muslim families no longer subscribe to Islam or call themselves religious at all. Drawing on fieldwork in the UK and the Netherlands, this study examines the experiences of people moving out of Islam. It rigorously questions the antagonistic nature of the debate between ‘the religious’ and ‘the secular’, or who is in and who is out, and argues for recognition of the ambiguity that most of us live in. Revealing many complex forms of moving out, this study adds much-needed nuance to understandings of secularity and Muslim identities in Europe.

Download or read book Why We Left Islam written by Susan Crimp and published by WND Books. This book was released on 2008 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Records the testimonies of former Muslims who have left the Islamic faith, recording their reasons for leaving the religion and the consequences that they have faced as a result.

Download or read book Leaving Islam Ex Muslims and Zemiology written by Weronika Lenartowicz and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-02-28 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cases of ex-Muslims in Europe being punished by their former fellow Muslims constitute an unacceptable practice from the standpoint of democratic societies in which human rights are respected and individuals have the freedom to choose their religion, or none at all. Ex-Muslims’ fear of punishment by their former community should prompt an open, candid, and measured discussion of the issue. Leaving Islam, Ex-Muslims and Zemiology presents the reasons for and consequences of consciously leaving Islam, based on interviews with 80 ex-Muslims currently living in Germany and Sweden. In their view, many of the practices and beliefs of Islam are harmful and unfair. Many parts of the Islamic world regard apostasy as treason or a crime. As a result, emphasis in the book is shifted from “crime” to “harm” and a thesis is put forward concerning the “decriminalization” of apostasy from the perspective of zemiology. The book highlights how a broader shift of interest in the democratic structures of Europe could allow ex-Muslims to join the discussion on the guaranteed right to religious liberties and freedom of speech in the context of the apostasy law in Islam. This should happen without fear for their own security and without facing potential suppression or social exclusion. It will appeal to scholars with interest in Islam and the conflict between religious values and an individual’s aspirations and needs.

Download or read book Leaving Islam written by Ibn Warraq and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2009-12-02 with total page 471 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A renowned scholar of Islamic studies interviews ex-Muslims, who feel it is their duty to speak up against their former faith to tell the truth about the fastest growing religion in the world.

Download or read book The Apostates written by Simon Cottee and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Apostates is the first major study of apostasy from Islam in the western secular context. Drawing on life-history interviews with ex-Muslims from the UK and Canada, Simon Cottee explores how and with what consequences Muslims leave Islam and become irreligious. Apostasy in Islam is a deeply controversial issue and features prominently in current debates over the expansion of Islam in the West and what this means. Yet it remains poorly understood, in large part because it has become so politicized-with protagonists on either side of the debate selectively invoking Islamic theology to make claims about the 'true' face of Islam. The Apostates charts a different course by examining the social situation and experiences of ex-Muslims. Cottee suggests that Islamic apostasy in the West is best understood not as a legal or political problem, but as a moral issue within Muslim families and communities. Outside of Muslim-majority societies, ex-Muslims are not living in fear for their lives. But they face and must manage the stigma attached to leaving the faith from among their own families and the wider Muslim community.

Download or read book Islam and Muslims in Europe written by Yehuda Cohen and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The main subject of this book concerns the Muslim immigrants in Europe. It includes the entire history of Islam vis-a-vis Europe since the 7th century, prescribing useful do's and don'ts for current European policymakers.Europeans have developed negative predispositions toward Muslims, sometimes even distinctly perceiving them as foes. The British greatly value the recollection of their glorious erstwhile empire, thus, when it broke-up, they enabled former subjects of the Crown to settle in the UK, as if to build a miniature duplicate of their empire within Britain's borders. Hence, the British did not perceive former colonies' Muslim immigrants as foes, unlike continental Europeans, but as British subjects.Generally, Europeans intend to fill the individual Muslim immigrant's needs as a citizen, according to the liberal approach. The expectation, however, is that Muslims, as a group, would become culturally integrated within the absorbing society. That approach bewilders the European Muslims. Many Muslim immigrants experience discrimination in Europe. The continental European approach toward Muslims, stemming from prejudice and fear, made some immigrants aggressive.The main divergence between European society and Muslim immigrants is due, foremost, to certain collective memories of the native Europeans. That insight is elucidated by comparing European and American societies. The American, found in a country built by immigrants tends to adapt to a variety of new immigrants, Muslims included. Conversely, European society is fundamentally incapable of truly incorporating immigrant culture and practices, which it perceives as a threat, especially concerning Islam.It is, therefore, the Europeans who hold the key to alter the destructive dynamics, not the Muslims.Muslims and Arabs within their countries suffer the frustration of remembering their Golden Age when the Europeans were deeply mired in the Middle Ages. Nowadays, the Arabs and Muslims have not been able to lift themselves back to their former state. That frustration may be compared to the German frustration in the 1920s being split up into distinct German states - the consequence of which was the mass destruction of the European Jewish population. The splitting of the Germans, while suffering from lack of one uniting national myth, had brought on the adoption of a German race theory - which Adolf Hitler offered to the Germans - and had led to the Holocaust. Frustration may turn people rather aggressive, and Iran or some Arabs (like the members of ISIS) aided by Muslims in Europe might end up using weapons of mass destruction against Europe. The case of ISIS is therefore elaborated upon, in detail, in this book. The successful integration of the Muslims in Europe may help somewhat; indeed, this book aims to promote such an accomplishment.The French approach is uniquely rather rigid towards Muslim immigrants, as a group and individually. Hence, there is no mental confusion among Muslims there and a significant portion of the Muslims in France see themselves as French - better integrated than other Muslims in Europe.The best policy the Continental Europeans may adopt is the French approach.

Download or read book Europe s Balkan Muslims written by Nathalie Clayer and published by Hurst & Company. This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are roughly eight million Muslims in south-east Europe, among them Albanians, Bosniaks, Turks and Roma -- descendants of converts or settlers in the Ottoman period. This new history of the social, political and religious transformations that this population experienced in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries -- a period marked by the collapse of the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires and by the creation of the modern Balkan states -- will shed new light on the European Muslim experience. Southeast Europe's Muslims have experienced a slow and complex crystallisation of their respective national identities, which accelerated after 1945 as a result of the authoritarian modernisation of communist regimes and, in the late twentieth century, ended in nationalist mobilisations that precipitated the independence of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo during the break-up of Milosevic's Yugoslavia. At a religious level, these populations have re--mained connected to the institutions established by the Ottoman Empire, as well as to various educational, intellectual and Sufi (mystic) networks. With the fall of communism, new transnational networks appeared, especially neo-Salafist and neo-Sufi ones, although Europe's Balkan Muslims have not escaped the wider processes of secularisation.

Download or read book Muslims and the Making of Modern Europe written by Emily Greble and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing upon Muslim Europe's own voices, institutions, and experiences, this compelling work reframes the debates on European secularism, the historic role of Shari'a law in diverse European states, Muslims and Nazis, Muslims and Communists, and the contributions of Muslims to Europe today.

Download or read book Christian Martyrs Under Islam written by Christian C. Sahner and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A look at the developing conflicts in Christian-Muslim relations during late antiquity and the early Islamic era How did the medieval Middle East transform from a majority-Christian world to a majority-Muslim world, and what role did violence play in this process? Christian Martyrs under Islam explains how Christians across the early Islamic caliphate slowly converted to the faith of the Arab conquerors and how small groups of individuals rejected this faith through dramatic acts of resistance, including apostasy and blasphemy. Using previously untapped sources in a range of Middle Eastern languages, Christian Sahner introduces an unknown group of martyrs who were executed at the hands of Muslim officials between the seventh and ninth centuries CE. Found in places as diverse as Syria, Spain, Egypt, and Armenia, they include an alleged descendant of Muhammad who converted to Christianity, high-ranking Christian secretaries of the Muslim state who viciously insulted the Prophet, and the children of mixed marriages between Muslims and Christians. Sahner argues that Christians never experienced systematic persecution under the early caliphs, and indeed, they remained the largest portion of the population in the greater Middle East for centuries after the Arab conquest. Still, episodes of ferocious violence contributed to the spread of Islam within Christian societies, and memories of this bloodshed played a key role in shaping Christian identity in the new Islamic empire. Christian Martyrs under Islam examines how violence against Christians ended the age of porous religious boundaries and laid the foundations for more antagonistic Muslim-Christian relations in the centuries to come.

Download or read book Christian Jihad written by Ergun Mehmet Caner and published by Kregel Publications. This book was released on 2004 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two former Muslims examine the impact of Christian atrocities on modern personal and cultural interaction, question popular views of just war, and challenge us to face our past and redeem our future.

Download or read book Journey into Europe written by Akbar Ahmed and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2018-02-27 with total page 595 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An unprecedented, richly, detailed, and clear-eyed exploration of Islam in European history and civilization Tensions over Islam were escalating in Europe even before 9/11. Since then, repeated episodes of terrorism together with the refugee crisis have dramatically increased the divide between the majority population and Muslim communities, pushing the debate well beyond concerns over language and female dress. Meanwhile, the parallel rise of right-wing, nationalist political parties throughout the continent, often espousing anti-Muslim rhetoric, has shaken the foundation of the European Union to its very core. Many Europeans see Islam as an alien, even barbaric force that threatens to overwhelm them and their societies. Muslims, by contrast, struggle to find a place in Europe in the face of increasing intolerance. In tandem, anti-Semitism and other forms of discrimination cause many on the continent to feel unwelcome in their European homes. Akbar Ahmed, an internationally renowned Islamic scholar, traveled across Europe over the course of four years with his team of researchers and interviewed Muslims and non-Muslims from all walks of life to investigate questions of Islam, immigration, and identity. They spoke with some of Europe’s most prominent figures, including presidents and prime ministers, archbishops, chief rabbis, grand muftis, heads of right-wing parties, and everyday Europeans from a variety of backgrounds. Their findings reveal a story of the place of Islam in European history and civilization that is more interwoven and complex than the reader might imagine, while exposing both the misunderstandings and the opportunities for Europe and its Muslim communities to improve their relationship. Along with an analysis of what has gone wrong and why, this urgent study, the fourth in a quartet examining relations between the West and the Muslim world, features recommendations for promoting integration and pluralism in the twenty-first century.

Download or read book Muslims in Spain 1492 1814 written by Eloy Martín-Corrales and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-12-15 with total page 699 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Muslims in Spain, 1492-1814: Living and Negotiating in the Land of the Infidel, Eloy Martín-Corrales surveys Hispano-Muslim relations from the late fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, a period of chronic hostilities. Nonetheless there were thousands of Muslims in Spain at that time: ambassadors, exiles, merchants, converts, and travelers. Their negotiating strategies, and the necessary support they found on both shores of the Mediterranean prove that relations between Spaniards and Muslims were based on reasons of state and on a pragmatism that generated intense political and economic ties.These increased enormously after the peace treaties that Spain signed with Muslim countries between 1767 and 1791.

Download or read book Eurabia paperback written by Bat Yeʼor and published by Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about the transformation of Europe into "Eurabia," a cultural and political appendage of the Arab/Muslim world. Eurabia is fundamentally anti-Christian, anti-Western, anti-American, and antisemitic. The institution responsible for this transformation, and that continues to propagate its ideological message, is the Euro-Arab Dialogue, developed by European and Arab politicians and intellectuals over the past thirty years.--From publisher description.

Download or read book Minarets in the Mountains written by Tharik Hussain and published by . This book was released on 2021-07-15 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Travel writing about Muslim Europe. A journey around Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans, home to the largest indigenous Muslim population in Europe, following the footsteps of Evliya Celebi through Serbia, Bosnia, Albania, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro. A book that begins to decolonise European history.

Download or read book Integrating Islam written by Jonathan Laurence and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2007-02-01 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nearly five million Muslims call France home, the vast majority from former French colonies in North Africa. While France has successfully integrated waves of immigrants in the past, this new influx poses a new variety of challenges—much as it does in neighboring European countries. Alarmists view the growing role of Muslims in French society as a form of "reverse colonization"; they believe Muslim political and religious networks seek to undermine European rule of law or that fundamentalists are creating a society entirely separate from the mainstream. Integrating Islam portrays the more complex reality of integration's successes and failures in French politics and society. From intermarriage rates to economic indicators, the authors paint a comprehensive portrait of Muslims in France. Using original research, they devote special attention to the policies developed by successive French governments to encourage integration and discourage extremism. Because of the size of its Muslim population and its universalistic definition of citizenship, France is an especially good test case for the encounter of Islam and the West. Despite serious and sometimes spectacular problems, the authors see a "French Islam" slowly replacing "Islam in France"–in other words, the emergence of a religion and a culture that feels at home in, and is largely at peace with, its host society. Integrating Islam provides readers with a comprehensive view of the state of Muslim integration into French society that cannot be found anywhere else. It is essential reading for students of French politics and those studying the interaction of Islam and the West, as well as the general public.

Download or read book Russia s Muslim Heartlands written by Dominic Rubin and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-15 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Moscow has the largest Muslim population of any city in Europe. In 2015, some 2 million Muslim Muscovites celebrated the opening of the continent's biggest mosque. One quarter of the Soviet population was ethnically Muslim, and today their grandchildren, living in the lands between Bukhara, Kazan and the Caucasus, once again have access to their historical traditions. But they also suffer the effects of civil war, mass migration and political instability. At the highest levels, Islam has been swept up into Russia's broader search for identity, as the old question of eastern versus western takes on new force. Dominic Rubin has spent the last three years interviewing Muslims across Russia, from Sufi shaykhs in Dagestan, new Muslim artists on the Volga and professionals in Kyrgyzstan to guest-workers commuting between Russia and Uzbekistan and Kremlin-sponsored muftis hammering out a new Russian Muslim ideology in Moscow. He discovers their family histories, their faith journeys and their hopes and fears, caught between roles as traditionalist allies in the new Eurasian Russia and as potential traitors in Moscow's war on terror. This story of Islam adapting in a paradoxical landscape, against all odds, brings alive the human reality behind the headlines.

Download or read book Why Muslim Integration Fails in Christian Heritage Societies written by Claire L. Adida and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amid mounting fears of violent Islamic extremism, many Europeans ask whether Muslim immigrants can integrate into historically Christian countries. In a groundbreaking ethnographic investigation of France’s Muslim migrant population, Why Muslim Integration Fails in Christian-Heritage Societies explores this complex question. The authors conclude that both Muslim and non-Muslim French must share responsibility for the slow progress of Muslim integration. “Using a variety of resources, research methods, and an innovative experimental design, the authors contend that while there is no doubt that prejudice and discrimination against Muslims exist, it is also true that some Muslim actions and cultural traits may, at times, complicate their full integration into their chosen domiciles. This book is timely (more so in the context of the current Syrian refugee crisis), its insights keen and astute, the empirical evidence meticulous and persuasive, and the policy recommendations reasonable and relevant.” —A. Ahmad, Choice