Abstract
In this chapter on Islam and Muslims in Switzerland, Mallory Schneuwly Purdie firstly describes the historical development through which Islam has become the third largest religious denomination in Switzerland after Catholicism and Protestantism. Four confluent migration phases (economic, political, family reunification and humanitarian) explain the ethnic-linguistic diversity of Islam in Switzerland, where Muslims of Turkish, Bosnian, Albanian and North African origin predominate. Then, the author shows how Muslims have become both objects and subjects of media and political debates through the examples of religious visibility and Islamic militancy. She demonstrates that the 2008 popular initiative to ban the construction of new minarets in Switzerland and, in the mind of the initiators, to stop what they define as evidence of an “Islamisation” of Switzerland, has on the contrary contributed to the politicisation of Muslims in Switzerland. Moreover, it has fostered the emergence of an Islamic militancy that is no longer of foreign origin, but rooted in Switzerland.
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Notes
- 1.
Except for the Basel City canton which has recognized the Alevi community since 2012.
- 2.
For example, the canton of Vaud authorises in its Constitution of 2003 the recognition of public interest. A law and an application regulation set out the contours of the procedure. The Anglican and Christ-Catholic, Muslim and Free Evangelical communities have applied for recognition, and their applications are currently being evaluated.
- 3.
To define this militant Islam, I rely on the definition given by Samir Amghar, who refers to “groups based on a precise vision of the religious, affirming the recognition of Islamic precepts which they consider as supreme norms and values. In the name of a totalising Islam defining morality and ethics and governing life in society, and even political behaviour, they call for an Islamisation of the codes, practices and discourses of sociological Muslims” (Amghar, 2013, p. 15, own translation).
- 4.
To date, Switzerland has four minarets. Apart from Geneva (1978) and Zurich (1963), Winterthur (2005) and Wangen (2009) managed to get their construction authorized and built before the ban (Tunger-Zanetti and Schneuwly Purdie 2015 p. 575).
- 5.
Indeed, after France, Belgium and Denmark, Switzerland also banned the niqab and its relatives in all public spacesin March 2021 (Schneuwly Purdie and Tunger-Zanetti 2023, p. 669), following an initiative launched by the same Egerkingen committee.
- 6.
All parliamentary interpellations can be consulted on the internet site of the Swiss Parliament. https://www.parlament.ch/en, accessed 14 February 2023.
- 7.
The choice to focus on forms of militancy in Arabic-speaking Muslim communities is partly due to the current lack of research on militancy in Turkish, Bosnian or Albanian associations, but also to the fact that their militancy often mixes nationalism and religion. Furthermore, converts tend to attend Arabic-speaking mosques. As we shall see, converts play an important role in Islamic militancy.
- 8.
Note that the Tablighi are also present in Switzerland. However, they have so far only been studied in Swiss German-speaking part (Schmid et al. 2022).
- 9.
After the departure for Syria of some 15 young people, including minors, who had attended this mosque and the classes of its imam Abu Mohammed, the authorities ordered its closure.
- 10.
This is also true for the Albanian, Turkish and Bosnian centres.
- 11.
Madkhalism is a movement of Salafism that emerged in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s. It is named after its founder Rabi al-Makhdali, a former student of the University of Medina where he taught. Its masters include Salafist theologians such as Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz and Muhammad Nassirudinne al Albani. Madkhalism insists on the principle of obedience to the ruler as long as he does not commit religious infidelity, even if he makes illegitimate use of violence (Thomas 2020).
- 12.
IZRS is the German acronym for ICCS.
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Schneuwly Purdie, M. (2024). Islam and Muslims in Switzerland Through the Prism of Religious Visibility and Islamic Militancy. In: Ceylan, R., Mücke, M. (eds) Muslims in Europe. Islam in der Gesellschaft. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-43044-3_6
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