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The Influence of Islamophobia on Ethnic and Religious Identification among the Iranian Diaspora: Iranian Jews and Baha’is in Germany

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Diaspora as Cultures of Cooperation

Part of the book series: Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship ((MDC))

Abstract

The chapter explores the identity formation and changing patterns of belonging among Iranian immigrants in Germany. The topic of interest is how different religious groups from Iran, whose traditions are heavily intertwined with Islam, conceptualise their Iranian heritage in the context of Islamophobia. Focusing on Baha’is and Jews, the chapter assesses how these two minorities cope with anti-Muslim racism in German society: although they are not Muslim, they are subjected to anti-Muslim sentiments due to their Middle Eastern origin. The chapter discusses ethnic and religious identification as a form of differentiation from Islam and in order to find social acceptance in the diaspora.

I am grateful to Oliver Scharbrodt for his thorough reading and comments on this chapter.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Islamophobia is a form of racism and defined as the subalternisation and inferiorisation of Islam produced by the Christian-centric religious hierarchy of the world-system since the end of the fifteenth century (Grosfoguel and Mielants 2006). However, the usage of the term is a matter of debate (Benz and Pfeiffer 2011).

  2. 2.

    A few examples are: www.bic.org/focus-areas/situation-iranian-bahais/current-situation, http://news.bahai.org/human-rights/, www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-oppression-of-bahais-continues-in-iran/2013/11/12/4b5dcf34-4b0f-11e3-be6b-d3d28122e6d4_story.html, http://publicaffairs.bahai.us/with-aching-hearts-bahais-of-the-world-focus-on-the-events-unfolding-in-iran-the-birthplace-of-their-religion/, http://iranpresswatch.org/, www.kas.de/upload/veranstaltungen/2009/09/090919_iran.pdf [all accessed 17 Nov. 2015]. See Nikolko in this volume for the significance of narratives of victimisation for diaspora mobilisation.

  3. 3.

    http://www.paaia.org/CMS/demographics–statistics.aspx [accessed 20 Nov. 2015].

  4. 4.

    It is not possible to determine the percentage of Baha’is of Iranian origin in this number. www.thearda.com/QuickLists/QuickList_40c.asp [accessed 23 Oct. 2014].

  5. 5.

    Nowruz (lit. New Day) is the first day of spring. Due to its pre-Islamic origin it is celebrated by many Iranians of different religious affiliation. The custom is to put up the Haft-Sin (Seven ‘S’) table, on which seven items starting with the letter ‘sin’ in the Perso-Arabic alphabet are placed. The Koran and the book by Hafiz are additions that are differently practised from family to family.

  6. 6.

    A fourteenth-century Persian mystic and poet, a national symbol in Iran, whose works have permeated everyday life.

  7. 7.

    Telephone interview, 9 Oct. 2014.

  8. 8.

    This notion has a long history: A Western traveller described the Jews of Iran in the seventeenth century as follows: “Jews only by name. They do not know any Hebrew and have no knowledge at all of the Jewish religion though they still observe some ceremonies of the ancient law, but so much changed through the mixture with the ceremonies taken from the Maures and the heathens that they are not anymore recognizable” (Figueroa, cited in Fischel 1982).

  9. 9.

    http://blogs.forward.com/forward-thinking/208473/learning-to-undo-ashkenormativity/ [accessed 30 March 2015].

  10. 10.

    All names are anonymised.

  11. 11.

    Mr. Maani then assures me that during the Second World War Iranian Jews escaped their extinction by a whisker because the Germans had already planned their annihilation but were stopped just in time. This is a common trope among Oriental Jews in order not to be excluded from the main trait of Jewish identity—the Holocaust.

  12. 12.

    For the symbolic public role of the Jewish community in Germany, see Koerber in this volume.

  13. 13.

    These processes are not merely driven by individual preferences but connected to socio-political dynamics. In a talk at UCLA, Saba Soomekh recounted from her experience as a professor teaching Iranian-Jewish history in Los Angeles: “When I ask them, who knows the Iranian national anthem? Only the Muslim students raised their hand. And I ask my students who knows the Hatikvah (national anthem of Israel, A.S.), every single one of them raises their hand…, because most of them go through Jewish day schools. My Persian Jewish students can tell you every war Israel was involved in but they don’t know anything about Iranian history.” Soomekh contends that for most Iranian Jews, particularly the second generation, Israel has replaced their national identity. The video of her talk is available at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0j-Z9mOW-E [accessed 4 Nov. 2014].

  14. 14.

    Abdul-Baha Abbas (1844–1921) was the son and successor of Baha’u’llah (1817–1892), the founder of the Baha’i religion.

  15. 15.

    In Muslim modernist movements this practice is called ‘ijtihad’, meaning the use of “independent reasoning in jurisprudence to confront new contemporary situations not directly addressed by the Qur’an and the Sunna” (Hidayatullah 2014: 33).

  16. 16.

    There are important differences between the generation of Baha’i immigrants who came before or shortly after the revolution and those who are coming to Germany more recently: Besides the tendency towards a lower socio-economic status, the recent Baha’i immigrants do not display the same pride about being Baha’i anymore. This is most probably a result of the attempts of the post-revolutionary government to erase the presence of Baha’is from Iran. The various strategies at work here have created a generation of Baha’is who no longer feel the sense of pride that was prevalent among the older generation.

  17. 17.

    It is not possible to elaborate on the history and development of the Baha’i faith in Iran within the scope of this chapter. For the formation of a Baha’i identity and its relationship to Islam, see Amanat (2005), Cole (1998), and Scharbrodt (2008).

  18. 18.

    For Baha’i writings on the relationship between religion and politics see: http://bahai-library.com/uhj_theocracy [accessed 1 December 2015]. The controversy regarding this issue can also be observed in online forums such as the ‘Baha’i Questions Resource Forum’ on Facebook, where members recently discussed whether the Baha’i law opposing same-sex marriage can be overruled by a national civil law that allows same-sex marriages.

  19. 19.

    This is not to suggest that German society is completely secular or that all religions are treated equally by the German state. For a critical reading of what is understood as a ‘secular society’ see Mahmood (2015).

  20. 20.

    In 2015, attacks on refugee homes quadrupled according to the Federal Criminal Police Office in Germany: www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/bundeskriminalamt-anschlaege-auf-asylunterkuenfte-haben-sich-2015-vervierfacht-a-1066932.html [accessed 19 Jan. 2016].

  21. 21.

    For the conflation of the terms Muslim and immigrant, see Spielhaus (2013).

  22. 22.

    In January 2016, two Israeli students were attacked in the German city of Dresden by men who shouted, “Fucking Arabs, get out of our country!” http://www.sz-online.de/nachrichten/rechte-pruegeln-israelische-studenten-3295524.html [accessed 24 Feb. 2016].

  23. 23.

    This is not to judge Baha’i principles such as the prohibition of same-sex marriage, pre-marital intercourse, or drinking alcohol, but rather to point out their deviation from what is understood as a secular-liberal lifestyle.

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  1. Vienna, Austria

    Ariane Sadjed

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  1. Norman Paterson School, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    David Carment

  2. European Ethnology, University of Vienna, Wien, Austria

    Ariane Sadjed

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Sadjed, A. (2017). The Influence of Islamophobia on Ethnic and Religious Identification among the Iranian Diaspora: Iranian Jews and Baha’is in Germany. In: Carment, D., Sadjed, A. (eds) Diaspora as Cultures of Cooperation. Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32892-8_4

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