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The Constrained Role of the Muslim Chaplain in French Prisons

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Abstract

The article explores the situation of Muslims in French prisons. It shows the lines of fracture between the Muslim chaplains on one hand, the authorities, and some Muslim groups on the other. Formalized Muslim chaplaincy in French prisons has limited effectiveness in keeping in check radicalization in prison, due to structural obstacles and due to the emergence of new groups of Muslim prisoners, the Salafists, who develop a version of Islam that most of the time is out of tune with that of the imams in prison.

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Notes

  1. I use the terms “Muslim chaplain”, “Muslim minister” and imam as synonymous in this article.

  2. The French government cannot directly and formally cooperate with religious authorities, for instance to curb Jihadism, as is done in Great Britain where government authorities and Islamic ministers cooperate within formal groups to ensure the success of de-radicalization programs, involving the leaders of local Muslim communities and imams, among others.

  3. The observations in this section are based on a two year research in five major French prisons that I conducted from September 2011 up to September 2013.

  4. This was the case in one of the largest French prisons in Ile-de-France, where the imam was mostly absent.

  5. During our research in the French prisons, the old imams of the first type accepted to meet us and present us to the prisoners, but the discussions were “superficial” and they appeared not to be aware of the prisoners’ malaise; as for the younger imams who belong to the second and third category, they were afraid to talk to us and they seemed to have an existential problem themselves: how to cope with the mostly young inmates by neither siding with the prison administration nor showing any inclination towards Islamic activism. Aware of the existential problems of the young inmates, they shared it to a large extent.

  6. During my research in prison, between 2011 and 2013, I met separately the two imams that were opposed to each other, one (with the Mosquée de Paris tendency) blaming the other for his Muslim Brotherhood (alias UOIF) tendency.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre d’Analyse et d’Intervention Sociologiques (CADIS: EHESS-CNRS), Paris, France

    Farhad Khosrokhavar

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  1. Farhad Khosrokhavar
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Correspondence to Farhad Khosrokhavar.

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Khosrokhavar, F. The Constrained Role of the Muslim Chaplain in French Prisons. Int J Polit Cult Soc 28, 67–82 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-014-9183-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-014-9183-x

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