The expression of Muslim identity in the public space

In many respects, the practice of Muslim worship in public spaces causes concerns for European democracies, but as well for imams because the state and the surrounding society expect them to facilitate the ‘integration’ of Islam into national realities. France is no exception to this phenomenon. Imams adjust their roles in response to these pressures; indeed, far from perpetuating North African or Middle Eastern norms, as debates on imam training often continue to assume, their ways of showing their Muslim identity in the public sphere reflect their involvement in the emergence of what is sometimes called (in the case of France) a ‘French Islam’. More specifically, the changing stances of imams are involved in the negotiation of the place of Islam in a secular society.

The place of Islam in France is not always obvious, despite the fact that Muslims have been present in French territory for several decades. On the contrary, the visibility of religions, and of Islam in particular, is now more than ever a cause of dissension in the country. The veil, for example, has probably never been so widely worn as it is now; at the same time, it has never generated so many prohibitive laws and controversies. Never have ‘great mosques’ been so numerous or given rise to so many protests and desecrating acts. Prayers in the streets of Paris, Nice, and Marseilles have suddenly become an unprecedented political problem.