Reading Islam

There has historically been a longstanding presence of Muslims in Europe. Millions of Muslims live in France, England, Germany and the Netherlands, just as Muslims are present in the rest of Europe. As a result, there are now approximately 13 million Muslims in Western Europe (Yükleyen, 2009: 292).

The author of this study on key movements in contemporary European Islam, Fabio Vicini, is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Istanbul 29 Mayis University and an Affiliate Member of the School of Religious Studies, McGill University.

Vicini offers a journey within the intimate relations, reading practices and forms of intellectual global engagement that regulate Muslim life in two religious communities originating in 20th Istanbul, which have spread into wider Europe and indeed across the world. He draws on anthropological observation combined with textual and genealogical analysis. Thus, he demonstrates how the modes of thought and social engagement promoted by these two communities are the outcome of a complex use of intellectual entanglements with modern discourses about science, education, the self, and Muslims’ place and responsibility in modern societies. Using these research methodologies, Reading Islam sheds light on the formation of new religio-social movements with generations of educated, faithful and socially active Muslims over the last thirty years as well as on their impact on the transformation of Turkey from a secularist Republic since 1923 to an Islamic-oriented form of government and social order.