“We have mosques?â€, is what a lot of people in Belgium would probably ask themselves reading this book title. Ghent, the city where I attended university and where I still linger more than I should, is central here and even to me a lot of Muslim spaces got unveiled while reading this book. The bottom line is, they don’t determine the Belgian skyline like the mosque of, let’s say, Mohammed Ali does for Cairo, but yes, we have mosques. This book talks about Islam in Diaspora, about the processes Muslims go through searching for orientation in the European cities they have lived in for three generations. A search that promises to be tough because living Islam in a country where only a minority takes the Qur'an as their guide is different than living in countries where Islam is dominant and religious rules are even endorsed by public authorities. What will a European Islam look like and how far can and may it differ from Islam in North Africa and the Middle East, is a burning question on not only European agenda’s. The presence of mosques is a main component of Islam in Europe and knowing more about them and the contexts they were founded in can – according to Kanmaz – bring us further to a mutual understanding in the diverse communities of a new Europe. Being a reproduction of a PhD and although very interesting, the 274 page book isn’t what we’d call a page turner. The book is very elaborate and detailed. But since the subject is so interesting and essential in today’s news, it deserves to be discussed. Early years Since the 1950s and 1960s Muslims have been around in Europe, yet back then they weren’t seen as such. For example in Belgium, they were migrants, temporary laborers. When dealing with them or during scientific research about them, this was always done in the economic context. But as social issues came up, more attention went to the social aspect of migration. During the 1970s, when it became clear migrants were staying permanently, people started discussing integration policies and at that point- together with the international context of the seventies off course- their religious adherence became visible. The Muslim was born. How many Muslims there are in Belgium isn’t known exactly, because people aren’t registered based on their religious beliefs, so numbers here are never a perfect representation of reality. What we do know is that Belgian Muslims nowadays aren’t as monolithic as the media often give the impression. There’s a big theological, confessional, political and ideological diversity, a Sunni majority and a Shi‘i minority. In Ghent, a city in Eastern Flanders with a population of about 240.000, about 10 percent are Muslim. And there has been a recent immigration of Muslims from East-Europe, Pakistan and sub Sahara Africa. What’s a mosque? Kanmaz points out that the main question of ‘what is a mosque?' is not that simple to answer. She differentiates between a mosque (jami‘), a space of prayer (masjid) or an Islamic center (markaz), and noticed that even Moroccans and Turks use these descriptions differently. Mosques have different approaches and definitions whether they’re situated in the Islamic world or in the Diaspora. While in the Islamic world, according to the religious tradition, the presence of the holy word, the religious practice, the rituals and the prayer can make every space into an Islamic space, in the Diaspora other criteria are being considered. A mosque for European Muslims is often their Islamic space in their non-Islamic environment, it symbolizes their presence and their religious institutionalization. But since we were surprised by the amount of mosques Belgium supposedly has, how visually present – since that’s so important – are they? Kanmaz informs that in the beginning of their presence they were more or less hidden, and later one wished to have a central big cathedral-like mosque for everyone (although not welcomed by all communities that were used to their smaller ones). So, when we talk about Ghent, mosques are rather invisible, being former industrial or commercial properties and with only a few of them having modest minarets. This also means that from the outside some mosques look like houses, but from the inside the mihrab, the minbar, calligraphic inscriptions and prayer rugs tell you you’re in an Islamic space. Other areas in Belgium and Europe are some steps ahead thinking about the Big Mosques in Brussels, London and Paris. The case of Ghent Ghent’s first mosques were founded in the second half of the 1970s by migrants mainly from Turkey and the Maghreb countries. Typical of these mosques is that the idea of setting them up was initiated by individual believers. Foreign governments and other bodies only had their say later. Two examples allow us to have a bit of an insight in those early dynamics within the Turkish and Maghreb communities and how they got translated into practice. The Eyüp Sultan Cami, or the ‘big’ Mosque of Ghent, is the oldest and biggest Turkish Mosque in Ghent. It has a ceremonial function and has around 1500 people attending the Friday prayer. Interesting to know is that the Turkish government has their say in the ins and outs of this and other mosques – through a body called Diyanet – by making sure the official Islam as lived in Turkey gets transferred to the Turkish communities oversees by sending their own imams, or hoca ‘s, for a period of three years. The mosque is a big complex with even a small barbershop attached to it and a big screen television for – what did you think – important football matches The first mosque initiated by the Maghreb community is called al-Fath, which was set up in the early 1970s, initially with the main reason they needed a place to conduct the ritual cleansing after a death. It’s known as a traditional mosque that carries out loyalty towards the Moroccan royal house. Founders had to work closely with the ‘Amicales’, an organization that tried to control the Moroccan Diaspora politically and economically. It joins around 400 people on Fridays and it provides lessons in the Qur’an, Islamic faith and Arabic. Later, the number of mosques in Ghent rose to about thirteen. About what should go on in these mosques besides prayer is a topic of discussion between the old and new generations. They agree that mosques should be a place of encounter, but while the first generation Muslims stress that the religious function of the mosque is a priority, the younger generations wants to expand towards social, cultural and educational activities, which makes some mosques more like a center. But also ideology and ethnic-cultural identity determines this discussion. New muslims, new mosques Mosques have proved to be more than places for religious practice, by also being places of encounter. And that’s why newcomers – new migrant groups – also set up their own mosques once they have enough resources. We have Pakistanis and Muslims from the former Yugoslavia that fit in this description. Belgium also has between 3,000 and 15,000 people that have converted to Islam, a significant group that also organized itself in different organizations and wishes to have its own mosque as they don’t quite feel at home at Moroccan or Turkish mosques, mainly because of a language barrier and because they sometimes have different questions about their new chosen path. Conclusion Setting up or attending a mosque in the Diaspora has different meanings. It’s a physical space with faith being the most important component but where passing along one’s culture is of almost equal importance. Muslim identities are shaped in these spaces and they symbolize their presence in a non Islamic environment. Kanmaz concludes that despite the suspicion there is for mosques or religious organizations and despite the idea that the coming of mosques in Europe should mean integration has failed, her and other studies ‘prove’ that Muslims, to the contrary, accept their new environments and that having mosques helps them integrate by offering a multifunctional meeting space, not only for religious ends. Author Meryem Kanmaz is doctor in political and social sciences and did extensive research on the dynamics within the Turkish and Moroccan Muslim communities in Belgium and Europe. She’s one of the few experts in the challenging research and policy-domain of the future of Islam in our environments and published in many domestic and foreign journals. She is currently connected to the recently founded Center of Expertise of Islamic Cultures in Flanders. BM
