Muslims in Interwar Europe pdf download

Muslims in Interwar Europe – A Transcultural Historical Perspective

Edited by Bekim Agai – Umar Ryad – Mehdi Sajid

MUSLIMS IN INTERWAR EUROPE

Book introduction

The study of Muslims in interwar Europe is a rising and intriguing field of research. With the exception of two edited volumes, Islam in Interwar Europe by Nathalie Clayer and Eric Germain and Transnational Islam in Interwar Europe by Götz Nordbruch and Umar Ryad,1 the history of Muslims in Europe during this period is still fragmented into various fields of study as a side aspect of other issues.

 Some of these works deal with Muslims in interwar Europe as part of Middle Eastern and Asian history, colonial studies or briefly as related to European migration history.2

 Other historians deliver nationally focused narratives of the Muslim presence in western, central, and eastern European territories focused on specific countries, framed within a national history.3

The present volume puts the trans-cultural perspective on Muslims in interwar Europe into focus. It is the outcome of an international symposium entitled “Islam in Interwar Europe and European Cultural History,” which was held at Leiden University (13–14 December 2012).

It was organized by the three editors of this volume in cooperation with the Leiden University Centre for the Study of Islam and Society (lucis) and the research group “Europe from the Outside” at the University of Bonn sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (bmbf).4

A number of scholars from various disciplines were invited to discuss how individuals and groups labelled as “Muslims” interacted with their respective European societies during the interbellum period.5 Some of the guiding questions were: What were their circumstances in their countries of residence? How did they interact as a minority group with the majority society?

What impact did their connections to their counterparts in the Muslim world have on their presence and reflections in Europe? How did the attitude of their respective European societies influence their understandings of Islam and Europe? What kind of new challenges did their presence represent for the European societies?

In dealing with questions of this kind the participants attempted to scrutinize some grey areas of European history and connect geographically restricted findings; this has the potential to give us a whole new perspective on the Muslim presence in interwar Europe.

The following chapters aim to fill a gap by reflecting on different examples of Muslim presences and interactions in western, central, and eastern Europe and by offering an integrative approach to include them in European history. Muslim autochthonous and émigré groups and individuals in interwar Europe are indeed difficult to categorize. The contributors try to further our understanding of Muslim social, political, intellectual, and religious activities in European history, by offering the necessary historical depth to the growing body of literature on Islam and Muslim minorities in the West.

The volume thus pieces together specific case studies that emphasize the interconnections between Muslim religiosity, political activism, and modernity in interwar Europe by considering them as complex, borderless, self-organized, cross-cultural, and multi-ethnic groups.

 Here there is a focus on the idea of the entanglement of Muslim and European memories as “parallel histories.” The volume aims to contribute to the existing debates on the historiography and territorialities of the Muslim world