Exploring the Multitude of Muslims in Europe

Niels Valdemar Vinding, PhD (2013), University of Copenhagen, is Assistant Professor researching on Islam in Europe and European Muslim institutions. Currently, his focus is on ‘Imams of the West’ and the authority and leadership challenges amongst Muslims. Egdūnas Račius PhD (2004) is Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic studies at Vytautas Magnus University (Kaunas, Lithuania). His research interests encompass Eastern European Muslim communities as well as Muslim revivalist movements. Račius is a co-editor (together with Antonina Zhelyazkova) of Islamic Leadership in the European Lands of the Former Ottoman and Russian Empires Legacy, Challenges and Change (Brill, 2018) and the author of Muslims in Eastern Europe (Edinburgh University Press, 2018).Jörn Thielmann, Ph.D. (2001) in Islamic Studies, Ruhr-University Bochum, is Executive Director of the Erlangen Centre for Islam and Law in Europe EZIRE, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg. He has published with Ala Al-Hamarneh Islam and Muslims in Germany (Brill 2008).

“This collection of articles is a fitting tribute to a scholar who has set the standard and ‘defined the field’ of research on Muslim communities in Europe. For those who have studied under, worked with, or benefited from, Jørgen S. Nielsen’s personal commitment to and academic pursuits of accurate descriptions and understandings of the various Muslim communities in Europe, this volume will not disappoint. It demonstrates how indebted many of us are to the work of Jørgen S. Nielsen.”David D. Grafton, Hartford Seminary, The Duncan Black Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations“Jørgen S. Nielsen is rightfully acknowledged as a pioneer of the Muslims in Europe research, continuously authoring prolific texts. Whilst celebrating Nielsen’s research legacy, this collection of articles from some of the leading scholars in the field also contributes with vital and intriguing perspectives on Muslims in Europe.”Jonas Otterbeck, professor of Islamic Studies, Lund University

• Publisher’s PrefaceEditors’ IntroductionList of ContributorsBibliography of Jørgen S. NielsenPart 1: Conceptualizing Islam and Muslims1 Between Islam as a Generic Category and Muslim ExceptionalismThijl Sunier2 European Muslims as Skilled Kite FlyersWerner Menski3 Does European Islam Think?Mohammed Hashas4 Churchification of Islam in EuropeNiels Valdemar Vinding5 “Perpetual First Generation”: Religiosity and Territoriality in Belonging Strategies of Turks of FranceSamim AkgönülPart 2: Producing Islam and Muslims in Europe6 Alternative Dispute Resolution among Muslims in Germany and the Debate on "Parallel Justice"Mathias Rohe7 Islamic Law in Lithuania? Its Institutionalisation, Limits and Prospects for ApplicationEgdūnas Račius8 The King, the Boy, the Monk and the Magician: Jihadi Ideological Entrepreneurship between the UK and DenmarkJakob Skovgaard-Petersen9 ”Allah is Ignorance”: An Essay on the Poetic Praxis of Yahya Hassan and the Critique of Liberal IslamThomas HoffmannPart 3: Multitudes of Muslims in Europe10 Human First – To be Witnesses to Each Other’s Life: Twenty-one Years of Struggle for Equal Human DignityNaveed Baig, Lissi Rasmussen and Hans Raun Iversen11 Muslims Accused of Apostasy: An Ahmadi RefutationGöran Larsson12 Marginalised Islam: Christianity’s Role in the Sufi Order of BektashismEmil B.H. Saggau13 Islamic Literature in Bosnian Language 1990–2012: Production and Dissemination of Islamic Knowledge at the PeripheryAhmet Alibašić14 European Islam in the Light of the Bosnian ExperienceSafet BektovicIndex