Abstract
When at the present time it comes to addressing Islam, we often encounter references to the notions of modernity, as well as to postmodernity.1 In this context the perennial question was asked in the headline of an issue of the Times Literary Supplement: ‘Can Islam cope with modernity?’ (TLS, 23 April 1999). It is one that matters in many ways to the West in the age of migration. To be specific: in acknowledging the secular character of cultural modernity2 we need to ask whether Islamic migrants accept a decoupling of Islam from politics. Is it possible to reduce their demand for religious tolerance in respect of their cultural identity within a pluralism that puts all religions on an equal footing? Or will they insist on a political determination of the religion of Islam as the only true one and thus insist on its absolutism? What are the implications? And last, but not least: is secular modernity, which is intrinsically secular, at peril if an increasing Islamic part of the population does not submit to it?
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Notes
See the works by Fazlur Rahman, Islam and Modernity, Chicago, 1982;
W.M. Watt, Islamic Fundamentalism and Modernity, London, 1988;
S. Ahmed and Hastings Donnan (eds), Islam, Globalization and Postmodernity, London, 1994.
Jürgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, Cambridge, MA, 1997.
On this affair see the documentaton: Lisa Appignanesi and Sara Maitland (eds), The Rushdie File, Syracuse, NY, 1990.
See Jane I. Smith, Islam in America, New York, 1999.
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., The Disuniting of America: Reflections on Multicultural Society, New York, 1992 (expanded new edition 1998).
B. Tibi, Kreuzzug und Djihad. Der Islam und die christliche Welt, Munich, 1999.
Malcolm Anderson, Frontiers: Territory and State Formation in the Modern World, Cambridge, 1996.
Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: a Study of Order in World Politics, New York, 1977, p. 273.
On this idea, see B. Tibi, The Challenge of Fundamentalism: Political Islam and the New World Disorder, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1998, in particular chapters 1, 4, 5.
Hedley Bull and Adam Watson (eds), The Expansion of International Society, Oxford, 1984. See also note 8 above.
I refer here to the works by the historians Henri Pirenne, Mahomet and Charlemagne, Paris, 1937; and
Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, 2 vols, Berkeley, 1995. See also my historical survey of the Mediterranean referenced in note 6.
Terry Nardin, Law, Morality and the Relations of States, Princeton, NJ, 1983.
John Kelsay, Islam and War: the Gulf War and Beyond, Louisville, KY, 1993.
For the difference between both, see Rogers Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany, new printing, Cambridge, MA, 1996.
Helmuth Plessner, Die verspätete Nation, new printing, Frankfurt/M., 1974.
Fred Halliday, Islam and the Myth of Confrontation, London, 1995.
On this debate see B. Tibi, Europa ohne Identität? Die Krise der multikulturellen Gesellschaft, Munich, 1998, Part 1.
M.K. Masud, ‘The Obligation to Migrate: the Doctrine of Hijra in Islamic Law’, in Dale Eickelman/James Piscatori (eds), Muslim Travellers. Pilgrimage, Migration and the Religious Imagination, Berkeley, 1990. See
H. Djaït, Europe and Islam: Cultures and Modernity, Berkeley, 1985.
See B. Tibi, Der Islam und Deutschland — Muslime in Deutschland, Stuttgart, 2000.
W.M. Watt, Muslim—Christian Encounters: Perceptions and Misperceptions, London, 1991. See also my book referenced in note 6 above.
Leslie Lipson, The Ethical Crises of Civilization: Moral Meltdown or Advance?, Newbury and London, 1993, p. 62.
B. Tibi, ‘Les conditions d’une Euro-Islam’, in Robert Bistolfi/François Zabbal (eds), Islams d’Europe. Intégration ou Insertion Communautaire?, Paris, 1995; see also the chapter on Euro-Islam in my recent book Der Islam und Deutschland (referenced in note 24 above) pp. 325–49.
Therefore I strongly reject Wil Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship, Oxford, 1995. See also
Bhikhu Parekh, Rethinking Multiculturalism, Cambridge, MA, 2000.
On Islam in India, B. Tibi, ‘Islam, Hinduism and the Limited Secularity in India: a Model for European—Muslim Relations?’, in W.A.R. Shadid/P.S. van Koningsveld (eds), Muslims in the Margin, Kampen/Netherlands, 1996, pp. 130–44.
Ralph Grillo, Pluralism and the Politics of Difference, Oxford, 1998.
See also Tibi, Europa ohne Identität? (referenced in note 22), Part 3; see also my contribution to the Erasmus Foundation (ed.), The Limits of Pluralism: Neo-Absolutisms and Relativism, Amsterdam, 1994, pp. 29–36.
John Kekes, The Morality of Pluralism, Princeton, NJ, 1993.
Michael Teitelbaum and Jay Winter, A Question of Numbers: High Migration, Low Fertility and the Politics of National Identity, New York, 1998.
Jean-François Revel, Democracy against Itself, New York, 1993, pp. 199–221.
Nicholas Capaldi (ed.), Immigration: Debating the Issues, Amherst, NY, 1997.
Robert Andi, Religious Commitment and Secular Reason. Cambridge, 2000.
Andrew Geddes, Immigration and European Integration: towards Fortress Europe?, Manchester, 2000.
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Tibi, B. (2005). Islam Matters to the West! Islam and Europe, Islam in Europe: Islamic Migration between Cultural Assimilation, Political Integration and Communitarian Ghettoisation. In: Islam between Culture and Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230204157_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230204157_10
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