Why european women are turning to islam

To this reality, one has to add travel accessibility, expanding international networks and the fact that there is still demand at the upper end of the labour market for highly qualified professionals, and at the lower end, there is demand for workers in unregulated sectors of the economy, which depend on a cheap and exploitable workforce to remain competitive.

Clearly, migration pressures from Muslim and non Muslim countries will not diminish any time soon. From the very beginning of labour migration, in the s and s, European states have adopted different policies with respect to managing their immigrants and integrating them.

Some countries, like Germany, did little in the first decade to facilitate the integration of its migrants. The United Kingdom and the Netherlands embraced the notion of multiculturalism, by which the governments sought to maintain distinct cultural identities and customs.

France, by contrast, professed a policy of assimilation by imposing its model of secularism. The social unrest was almost concomitant with the terrorist attacks in Madrid and in London, serving as eye-openers and questioning old integration models. Whatever the model, the immigrants, as I said earlier, gathered in ethnic neighbourhoods, called banlieues , in France, and suburbs, in England.

After the economic downturn of the s, and the closure of mines and factories, immigrants became the first to bear the brunt of the crisis. Although a large number of the rioters appeared to be Muslims, most observers agree that urban segregation and the lack of opportunity and upward social mobility were key factors behind the unrest. The social unrest was almost concomitant with the deadly terrorist attacks in Madrid, in , and in London, in France had already suffered similar terrorist attacks in Holland and Denmark were not spared, with the assassination of filmmakers and cartoonists.

These tragic events served as eye-openers. Old integration models came under attack. Multiculturalism in the UK and in Holland has been questioned, and gradually, the policy has been abandoned, and governments have stepped up their efforts to better integrate their Muslim communities.

Germany relaxed its naturalisation policy and allowed Turks and Kurds to acquire German nationality. Only France stuck to its secular model. Undoubtedly, in the last 15 years, the issue of migration and integration policies has dominated the political and intellectual debate, with two questions gaining particular momentum: Are European Muslims discriminated and segregated?

And, if so, should the European states be held responsible? As the bulk of Muslims are labour immigrants or native-born of immigrant origin, they are poorer than the national average, and they often live in segregated neighbourhoods.

However, it is also true that poverty is often linked to poor parental control, dropping out of school and the lack of opportunities. In addition, there was an alarming development in the s. The migrants, whose problems were seen as a consequence of their socio-economic status during the preceding decades, started to be perceived as culturally different.

The apparent failure to integrate has been viewed in cultural terms, that is, as failure to adapt to European culture and to adopt European norms, values and styles. In other words, Muslims do not integrate because they are Muslims, and Islam is perceived as incompatible with Western culture and values. Thus, it is no surprise that Islam has been constructed as a problem.

This shift in perception is synchronic with the advent, since , of the so-called Islamic revival. However, there is no one Muslim community in Europe; this is a fantasy. Muslims come from different countries, live in different countries and speak different languages. They are immensely divided in their faith, in their ethnicity and also in their relation to religious practice and to the role religion plays in their lives.

It is therefore erroneous to remove the migrant from his own condition. A migrant born to Algerian migrant parents with French nationality is first of all French. So why should we encage him in a Muslim community supposedly closed and fixed forever? Speaking constantly of Muslim community means that Islam eclipses the individual Muslim as the presumed actor of social and political change. Such a postulate is both erroneous and dangerous, not only because Islam assumes the role of an internal enemy in a societal cold war between European societies and their Muslims, but also because the integration issue is disconnected from the socio-economic context and becomes the sole responsibility of Muslims.

Happily enough, many Muslims are fighting their way into European societies and gradually integrating their norms. Many success stories of Muslims in all sectors, from economy to culture, provide ample proof that there is no Muslim fatality. Muslims with higher education and higher wages—like the Unfortunately, the bulk of Muslims in Europe are labour migrants or sons of labour migrants who are badly equipped to better integrate into European societies, not because of Islam, but because of their socio-economic condition.

Should we, therefore, incriminate official policies for the lack of integration? I believe so, to a certain extent. There have been shortcomings and even failures in France and elsewhere. Urban policies have been inadequate. Employment incentives have been limited and job discrimination insufficiently addressed. All of these shortcomings are now under review, and measures are being taken, unfortunately, up until now, with scarce results.

But thorny questions have to be raised: How does a native European Muslim become radicalised? The assertion that Islam is the religion of the sword, and that other religions, such as Christianity, Judaism or even Buddism, are religions of peace is grossly misleading. Why, then, does a tiny minority of Muslim European youth engage in violence?

Answers tend to differ significantly. One school of thought adopts a culturalist view, which links terrorism, jihadism and extremism to the Islamic religion itself. For its proponents, violence is consubstantial to Islam since most of the modern conflicts are taking place in Muslim countries and since the majority of terrorist groups are Muslims, such as al-Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram, Somali Al-Shabab, etc. A second school of thought, considered to be realist, asserts that the failure of European governments to fully integrate Muslim communities leaves some European Muslims more vulnerable to jihadist ideologies.

Some young people feel so left behind and alienated that they turn to Islam as a badge of cultural identity. Clearly, these arguments are not convincing. For centuries, religious wars split European countries apart.

Nowadays, Buddhist monks organise mass killings and deportations of Muslims in Myanmar, and Jewish extremists colonise Palestine and abuse secular Jews in the name of God. But neither is the other argument totally credible. First, there are millions of immigrants who suffer from segregation, discrimination and lack of opportunities but who do not engage in terrorist activities.

Secondly, some terrorist attacks, like those carried out in the US in , were perpetrated by well-educated and economically comfortable individuals. In my humble opinion, four factors might help fully grasp the gradual process of radicalisation. The first is identity-based radicalisation.

For many young Muslims of migrant origin, whether left behind or fully integrated, there is a widespread feeling that they are not fully accepted as fellow citizens. After three generations, a French citizen of Algerian descent is still perceived as an Algerian and a Muslim. He may never have visited Algeria, and he may be a non-believer, but he is still perceived as an alien.

It is no small wonder that some youth curse the country in which they are born and raised. The second factor is socio-economic based radicalisation. This form of radicalisation is related to the socio-economic grievances harboured by second and third-generation Muslims.

Undoubtedly, the lack of opportunities is linked to objective failures like poor education and training. Others are linked to job discrimination. For example, a friend of mine, a young Algerian Muslim and an excellent engineer, sent an application for a job vacancy and signed the letter with his true name.

He received an answer that the job was no longer vacant. He sent the same letter with some slight modifications, including his westernised name, and he was summoned for an interview.

This happens frequently and feeds the sentiment that university studies are not necessarily a ladder of social mobility in the case of many Muslims. In the long run, this may sow the seeds of hatred. The third factor is the search for a mission. This self-radicalisation is partly due to persistent, socio-economic challenges, but also to the exposure to social media and to satellite television, some of which is generously financed.

It is no secret that some petrodollar-financed satellite channels propagate a literalist reading of the Koranic texts, indirectly contributing to the forging of a radical mindset that is prone to see the world with binary logic: Islam versus the Other, Good versus Evil. Such logic leads to fanaticism and the rejection of negotiation, dialogue or compromise. The fourth factor is geopolitical based radicalisation. This relates to the constant exposure that young European Muslims have of the sufferings inflicted by the West and its regional allies on fellow Muslims in many parts of the Arab and Muslim worlds.

The three Israeli offensives in Gaza , and produced dramatic resentment among Muslims against Israel and its western allies, mainly the Americans, who were accused of having double-standards for standing by Israel, in spite of its continuous breaches of international law and violations of human rights. But the belief that those terrorists who orchestrated the horrific attacks in Madrid, London and elsewhere were avenging the suffering of the Palestinians is wrong and misleading.

Palestine has been more of a justification than a source of radicalisation for some young European, radical Muslims. All of these forms of radicalisation may converge or not. We have seen cases of native European converts engaging in terrorist activities. The September 11 th terrorists were highly skilled and affluent. Many terrorists are not religious but suddenly become fanatically religious in a sort of informal religious radicalisation. We have also seen cases of radicalisation in countries, such as Holland, which have done much to accommodate Muslim immigrants affirmative action hiring policy, free language courses, etc.

As a matter of fact, Mohamed Bouyeri, who murdered the filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, was born in Holland and was collecting unemployment benefits.

These facts do not totally invalidate the relationship between failed integration and radicalisation. In such an essentialised image, Islam has been perceived as a homogeneous mass, static and unresponsive to change. Edward Said, in his book Covering Islam , has shown the intellectual fallacy of such a postulate, as it falls in the trap of regarding Islam monolithically and does not grasp the complex heterogeneity of a historical phenomenon.

What is really intriguing and somehow disturbing is that Islamophobia is not fading in the 21st century. On the contrary, it is gaining salience. There is no consensus among intellectuals about the factors that trigger this modern Islamophobia.

Many intellectuals, both Muslims and non-Muslims, are convinced that Islamophobia is the natural outcome of extreme violence in Muslim countries, anti-Western terrorist attacks, reprehensible behaviour of certain groups of migrants and the radicalisation of some young native European Muslims. Others go even further by arguing that there is a well-structured and well-financed Islamophobia industry that has managed to capture public opinion without serious contestation.

Others are attracted by "a certain idea of womanhood and manhood that Islam offers," suggests Karin van Nieuwkerk, who has studied Dutch women converts. At the same time, argues Sarah Joseph, an English convert who founded "Emel," a Muslim lifestyle magazine, "the idea that all women converts are looking for a nice cocooned lifestyle away from the excesses of Western feminism is not exactly accurate.

Some converts give their decision a political meaning, says Stefano Allievi, a professor at Padua University in Italy. After making their decision, some converts take things slowly, adopting Muslim customs bit by bit: Fallot, for example, does not yet feel ready to wear a head scarf, though she is wearing longer and looser clothes than she used to.

Others jump right in, eager for the exoticism of a new religion, and become much more pious than fellow mosque-goers who were born into Islam. Such converts, taking an absolutist approach, appear to be the ones most easily led into extremism. The early stages of a convert's discovery of Islam "can be quite a sensitive time," says Batool al-Toma, who runs the "New Muslims" program at the Islamic Foundation in Leicester, England.

Al-Toma explains. A few converts feel "such a huge desire to fit in and be accepted that they are ready to do just about anything," she says. At the same time, says al-Toma, converts seeking respite in Islam from a troubled past - such as Degauque, who had reportedly drifted in and out of drugs and jobs before converting to Islam - might be persuaded that such an "ultimate action" as a suicide bomb attack offered an opportunity for salvation and forgiveness.

Already a subscriber? Monitor journalism changes lives because we open that too-small box that most people think they live in. We believe news can and should expand a sense of identity and possibility beyond narrow conventional expectations. Your subscription to The Christian Science Monitor has expired. You can renew your subscription or continue to use the site without a subscription. If you have questions about your account, please contact customer service or call us at This message will appear once per week unless you renew or log out.

Skip to main content Skip to main menu Skip to search Skip to footer. Search for:. In the states of Western and Central Europe, the Muslim presence came later, and grew only after as a result of economic immigration, which most often took the routes connecting former colonies and metropoles. Initially essentially male, this presence began to be feminized starting in the s, thanks to family reunification as well as independent female migratory projects. Since at least the nineteenth century, intellectuals, politicians, and artists from European societies built a system of representations aiming to imagine Europe and the Muslim Middle East as opposing civilizational spaces.

This differentialist discourse, referred to as orientalist , was based on the supposed superiority of the West, which was the land of progress and rationality, as opposed to the world of immobility and superstition. The imprisonment of women in the dual prison of the harem and the veil, or their submission through the institution of polygamy, were considered the most evident expression of their archaic gender relations. In this antagonistic hierarchy that was conceived of in terms of race, the Muslims of South-Eastern Europe—at least those that spoke European languages such as Albanian, Bulgarian, and Serbo-Croatian—nevertheless occupied an ambiguous position halfway between civilization and barbarism.

It influenced the policies of European states toward the Muslim populations, which always hesitated between assimilation and stigmatization. Muslim family law, which had previously been maintained under the jurisdiction of Islamic law tribunals, was abolished in the name of equality between labourer-citizens. It was a period marked by isolation, the secularization of customs, and, when it did endure, a privatization of religious practice.

While the fall of the Wall brought about new religious liberty in South-Eastern Europe at the turn of the twenty-first century, enabling among other things the wearing of the veil in the public sphere, on the contrary its total or partial ban was debated in Western Europe.

These discussions led to the ban of the full veil in six European countries: France and Belgium , Latvia and Bulgaria , Austria , and Denmark The idea that Muslim women were intrinsically oppressed surfaced regularly in debates surrounding the integration of populations stemming from immigration, sometimes even within the feminist movement.