Governing Islam Abroad - Spire

Transcription

Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris
ECOLE DOCTORALE DE SCIENCES PO
Programme doctoral Relations internationales
Centre d’études et de recherches internationales (CERI)
Doctorat en Science politique
Governing Islam Abroad
The Turkish and Moroccan Muslim Fields in France and
Germany
Benjamin BRUCE
Thèse dirigée par Madame Catherine WIHTOL DE WENDEN, Directrice
de recherche CNRS-CERI, Sciences Po Paris
Soutenue le 15 janvier 2015
Jury :
M. Bayram BALCI, Ingénieur de recherche, CNRS-CERI
M. Matthias KOENIG, Professor, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
M. Jonathan LAURENCE, Associate Professor, Boston College (rapporteur)
M. Olivier ROY, Directeur de recherche, EHESS (rapporteur)
Mme Catherine WIHTOL DE WENDEN, Directrice de recherche, CNRSCERI (directrice de thèse)
Thesis Abstract
Over the last fifty years, Turks and Moroccans have come to form the two largest diaspora
groups in Western Europe, with the largest numbers in Germany and France respectively. The
states of origin of these populations have developed a wide variety of policies aimed at their
citizens abroad, amongst which Islam has figured prominently. For decades, the official
institutions of state religious governance in Turkey and Morocco, the Presidency of Religious
Affairs (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı) and the Ministry of Habous and Islamic Affairs, have
actively engaged in providing support to Muslim groups in France and Germany, from sending
imams to directly financing mosques and the associations that run them.
This doctoral thesis seeks to respond to the following questions: how and why are Turkey and
Morocco able to govern Islam outside of their national boundaries, and what are the
consequences for the development of Muslim fields in France and Germany? Based on over
one hundred interviews carried out with diplomats, state religious officials, and non-state
religious actors in all four countries, this study argues that in contrast to France and Germany,
the Turkish and Moroccan states consider religious governance as a distinct domain of public
policy. Thanks to diplomatic cooperation and converging interstate interests, both home states
have been able to expand their religious activities within transnational Muslim fields. In
particular, Turkey and Morocco seek to promote a legal-rational model of religious authority
and a national form of Islam, ultimately reinforcing both the position of home state religious
institutions and ethno-national boundaries in religious fields abroad.
Key words: diaspora politics, transnational Islam, religious governance, foreign policy,
Turkey, Morocco, France, Germany.
Benjamin Bruce – “Governing Islam Abroad” – Thèse IEP de Paris – 2015
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Résumé de la thèse
Au cours des cinquante dernières années, les communautés turques et marocaines sont
devenues les deux groupes diasporiques les plus importants en Europe occidentale, notamment
en Allemagne et en France. Les États d’origine de ces populations ont développé de
nombreuses politiques envers leurs ressortissants à l’étranger, parmi lesquelles l’islam occupe
un lieu privilégié. Depuis des décennies, les instances étatiques officielles chargées de la
gouvernance du religieux en Turquie et au Maroc, à savoir la Présidence des Affaires
Religieuses (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı) et le Ministère des Habous et des Affaires Islamiques
(MHAI), soutiennent des groupes musulmans en France et en Allemagne par le biais de divers
moyens, allant de l’envoi d’imams à des financements de mosquées.
Comment et pourquoi la Turquie et le Maroc réussissent-ils à gouverner l’islam au-delà de
leurs frontières nationales, et quelles en sont les conséquences pour le développement des
champs religieux musulmans de France et d’Allemagne ? Cette étude conclut qu’à la différence
de la France et de l’Allemagne, la Turquie et le Maroc conçoivent la gouvernance du religieux
comme un domaine distinct de la politique publique, et ce même à l’étranger. Grâce à la
coopération diplomatique et à la convergence d’intérêts interétatiques, ces deux États ont
étendu leur rayonnement dans le champ religieux transnational. Ceci se manifeste par le soutien
d’un modèle d’autorité religieuse légale-rationnelle et une forme d’islam national, afin de
renforcer la position des instances de gouvernance du religieux des États d’origine ainsi que
les frontières ethno-nationales dans les champs religieux musulmans à l’étranger
Mots clés : politiques de diaspora, islam transnational, gouvernance du religieux, politique
étrangère, Turquie, Maroc, France, Allemagne.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to my directrice de thèse, Catherine Wihtol de
Wenden, whose guidance and supervision began during my Master’s degree at Sciences Po
Paris and has continued ever since. Her unflagging support for my research has been essential
in its development over the years and has been of great help every step of the way.
I would also like to express my sincere thanks to all the members of the thesis committee for
their time and insight, and am certain that their appraisal of my work will be of great value to
my current and future research.
I am deeply indebted to the many individuals who agreed to meet with me over the course of
my field research for lengthy interviews. It is thanks to the patience and hospitality of these
diplomats, state officials, and local religious actors that I have been able to gain a broad
understanding of the subjects presented in this thesis. In particular, I would like to thank Ali
Dere, Mehmet Fevzi Hamurcu, and Mehmet Paçacı of the Turkish Diyanet, Najib Binebine of
the Moroccan Embassy in France and Mohammed Rifki of the Moroccan Ministry of Habous
and Islamic Affairs, and Bernard Godard of the French Ministry of the Interior.
The nature of my subject has required a great deal of international travel, during which I have
been very lucky to receive institutional support in numerous countries. In particular, I spent
time as a visiting scholar at the Wissenschaftszentrum für Sozialforschung Berlin in the
department of Ruud Koopmans, the Middle Eastern Technical University thanks to Zana Çitak,
the Institut Français des Études Anatoliennes (IFEA) led by Nora Şeni, and the Centre Jacques
Berque under Baudoin Dupret. My thanks go out to these scholars and to my colleagues at each
institution.
This thesis would not have been possible without a 3-year fellowship (contrat doctoral) from
the French Ministry of Higher Education, which provided me with unparalleled financial
stability and key opportunities for developing my abilities as a university lecturer at Sciences
Po Paris. Thanks to travel grants from the École Doctorale of Sciences Po, I was able to conduct
field research in a number of locations (Strasbourg, Marseille) as well as present my research
findings at academic conferences (Barcelona, Fez, Cambridge). In addition, my field research
received financial aid from the Centre interdisciplinaire d’études et de recherches sur
l’Allemagne (CIERA), the Office franco-allemand pour la Jeunesse (OFAJ), and the IFEA.
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My research institute in Paris, the Centre d’études et de recherches internationales (CERI) has
provided me with an ideal location to exchange with a broad horizon of scholars and other
doctoral students, including all the regulars of the “Open Space.” I would also like to thank
Christian Lequesne, Riva Kastoryano, and Denis Lacorne for their constant dedication to
contributing to the academic life of centre by organizing conferences and workshops that have
invariably enriched my research. The CERI and its administrative staff have been an important
source of institutional support that has facilitated the myriad practical difficulties that
accompany life as a Ph.D. candidate. In addition, I would also like to thank the entire team of
the Institut des Amériques (IDA), who provided me with a second home during the lengthy
process of writing this thesis.
I owe a special debt to the following colleagues and friends: Marie-Noëlle Carré for her
cartography seminars, Jérôme Pelenc for his timely French corrections, and Guillaume
Grégoire-Sauvé for his revision of the extended French summary. A hearty teşekkürler to Cihan
Özpınar for his help with many of the harder passages of my Turkish interviews and to Cem
Kalpaklıoğlu for proof-reads in Turkish. As well, shukran bezzef to Myriam Aboutaher for her
advice with a number of Arabic expressions. Finally, many thanks to Joyce Valdovinos for her
map-making advice and extensive help with an untold number of details, and to Iris Bruce for
her very thorough proofreading of the entire thesis.
A special mention goes to Victor Hori for having planted the seed for this research in a
Rosemont Buddhist Temple, and to Jocelyne Cesari for giving me the chance to participate as
a research member of the website euro-islam.info. In addition, I would like to express my
gratitude to my fellow members of the Observatoire de recherche interdisciplinaire sur la
Turquie contemporaine (OBTIC), as well as my colleagues in the French national research
agency project “TRANSFAIRE,” coordinated by Marc Aymes, for all their comments and
support.
I would like to thank the Texas Couscous for providing an unshakably upbeat soundtrack to
my years in France, and to my closest friends, Alex Maouche and Agnès Léger, for their
constant support and ready laughter. Above all, vielen Dank an Nicolas Fescharek – ohne Dich
hätte ich’s nicht ausgehalten!
Vielen Dank an die ganze Familie in Deutschland, insbesondere an Opa und Annelie, und an
Oma und Ernst, as well as to my Mexican family, and to all my friends and family back home
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– especially Pat for the many lengthy phone calls. Many, many, thanks to Papa and Christine,
and Mama and Ilan, without whose support this would not have been possible.
Finally, I would like to express my profound admiration and gratitude towards my wife Joyce,
who has shared every moment of this long journey with me. Her energy, determination,
passion, and laughter have brought joy to even the hardest days – gracias mi vida… ya se hizo
la machaca.
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Note to Readers
This dissertation uses sources in numerous languages, especially: English, French, German,
Turkish, and Arabic, which comes with certain challenges. The titles of certain organizations
or individuals have at times been altered slightly so as to be rendered more easily in English,
though the names of organizations, political parties, etc. are consistently provided in the
original language when first mentioned in the text. I have been fortunate to receive suggestions
from colleagues and friends concerning the translation of certain terms or passages; however,
unless otherwise indicated, all translations for interviews and written sources are by the author.
For the transliteration of Arabic words, I have followed the guidelines of the International
Journal of Middle Eastern Studies (IJMES). This does not apply to certain words that are
commonly used in English (Ramadan, Eid al-Adha, imam, etc.), or for which widespread
transliterations exist in Francophone texts (dirham, dahir, habous, etc.). In cases where the
Turkish and transliterated Arabic spellings are close, I have opted for the one I consider most
prevalent in English (ulema and not ulama, Ramadan and not Ramazan); however, in some
instances one spelling may be favoured over another, depending on the country under
consideration (cf. Turkish teravih and Arabic tarāwīḥ). In addition, certain terms specific to
the countries studied in this thesis have been left in the original language and are indicated in
italics. This includes administrative units, such as the départements in France or the Länder in
Germany, as well as a small number of institutional titles (préfet). The main currencies
mentioned are the euro, the Moroccan dirham, and the Turkish lira.
The maps and figures in this dissertation have been designed and created by the author using
the following software programmes: Philcarto, Cartes & Données, Inkscape, Adobe Illustrator,
Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. All interviews have been transcribed by the author using
the programme Express Scribe.
The first time an interview is quoted in the text, the name of the interviewee, the date of the
interview, and the location of the interview are all provided. For all subsequent citations, only
the name of the interviewee is indicated (Interview, Name). Roman numerals are used to
differentiate in cases of multiple interviews (Name I, Name II), while anonymous interviews
indicate the solely the institution of the interviewee (French Interior Ministry, etc.). In the latter
case, letters are used to distinguish between individual employees (“X,” “Y,” etc.), and
“personal communication” refers to more informal interactions. See the “list of interviews” for
a complete chronological overview by country.
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To my parents, and the library they raised me in.
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Table of Contents
Thesis Abstract ..................................................................................................................... 3
Résumé de la thèse ............................................................................................................... 4
Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................. 5
Note to Readers .................................................................................................................... 8
Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... 10
List of Figures ..................................................................................................................... 14
List of Maps ........................................................................................................................ 16
List of Abbreviations ......................................................................................................... 17
Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 25
A - Research Questions and General Approach............................................................... 28
B - Relevant Literature and Main Concepts..................................................................... 30
1) International Relations Theory: The State System and Transnationalism............... 30
2) The Development of “Migration Studies” ............................................................... 33
3) “Islam in the West”: From Multiculturalism to Religious Governance .................. 38
4) Spaces and Fields: Delimiting Transnational Muslims Fields ................................ 46
C - Selection of Case Studies ........................................................................................... 54
1) The “Home States”: Turkey and Morocco .............................................................. 55
2) The “Receiving States”: France and Germany ........................................................ 61
D - Field Research ........................................................................................................... 63
E - Outline of Chapters .................................................................................................... 71
I - The Many Faces of Official Islam in Turkey: Diyanet and Unofficial Islam .......... 75
A - Early Antecedents: From Empire to Republic ........................................................... 75
B - The “Official Islam” of the Early Republic ............................................................... 84
C - Unofficial Islam, Party Politics, and an Evolving Diyanet ........................................ 87
D - Instability and Intervention: Islam as a Tool of National Unity .............................. 103
E - After the Coup: from ANAP to Refah ..................................................................... 109
F - The Rise of AKP and State Religious Governance in Turkey Today ...................... 115
G - Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 129
II - The Moroccan Muslim Field: The Makhzen and Beyond...................................... 133
A - Islam in the Sherifian Empire: Sultans, Saints, and Habous ................................... 133
B - The Colonial Ministry: The Vizirat of Habous ........................................................ 142
C - Islam and Independence: Salafism, Party Politics and the Resurgent Monarchy .... 148
D - The Reign of Hassan II: Authoritarianism and Religious Legitimacy .................... 156
E - Recasting the State Monopoly: Royal Responses to Islamist Contestation ............. 164
F - The Reform of the Religious Field ........................................................................... 174
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G - Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 182
III - Post-War Migration and the Development of State Religious Services Abroad 185
A - Labour Migration, Diasporas, and Muslim Fields ................................................... 196
B - Turkish Labour Migration and the Turkish Muslim Field Abroad .......................... 204
1) The Development of the Diyanet’s Foreign Activities .......................................... 207
2) Change Comes from the Top: Diyanet President Tayyar Altıkulaç ...................... 213
3) The DITIBs and Diyanet Foundations ................................................................... 221
4) Consolidating a Transnational Network ................................................................ 225
C - Religious Diaspora Policies and Moroccan Workers Abroad ................................. 232
1) The Amicales and the Early French Muslim Field ................................................ 233
2) Early Diaspora Policies and International Rivalry ................................................ 238
3) Establishing a Religious Base Abroad: The Évry Mosque and the National
Federation of French Muslims (FNMF)..................................................................... 244
a) The Mosque of Évry-Courcouronnes: Changing Alliances ......................................................... 246
b) The National Federation of French Muslims (FNMF) and the Reorientation of Diaspora Policies
towards the Religious Field ............................................................................................................. 249
D - Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 255
IV - Emerging Muslim Fields in France and Germany: Partial Governance and
Public Policy Instruments ............................................................................................... 259
A - The Partial Governance of Muslim Fields in France and Germany ........................ 260
1) France .................................................................................................................... 262
2) Germany ................................................................................................................ 266
3) Partial Governance and Public Policy Instruments ............................................... 270
B - “National” Islam vs. Interstate Cooperation? .......................................................... 278
1) Institutionalizing Islam in France: The French Council of the Muslim Faith
(CFCM) ...................................................................................................................... 280
a) Consultations and Establishment ................................................................................................. 280
b) Elections and Home State Involvement....................................................................................... 284
c) Moroccan Islam in the CFCM: Dominant yet Unstable .............................................................. 289
2) The Deutsche Islamkonferenz (DIK): The Politics of Dialogue ........................... 295
a) The “Paradigm Shift” .................................................................................................................. 295
b) The First Phase of the DIK: 2006-2009 ...................................................................................... 299
c) The Second Phase of the DIK: 2010-2013 .................................................................................. 304
C - Partial Governance in Practice: The Effects of Multiple Levels ............................. 309
1) Evolving Constellations of Regional Religious Governance ................................ 309
a) Muslim Federations and Islamic Religious Instruction in Germany ........................................... 309
b) France: The CRCMs and the CFCM Electoral Procedures ......................................................... 318
2) Partial Governance at the Local Level................................................................... 322
a) Duisburg: The “Wonder of Marxloh” .......................................................................................... 325
b) Strasbourg: The Genesis of the Great Mosque ............................................................................ 334
D - Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 345
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V - Interstate Cooperation and Diplomacy: Exporting Imams Abroad ..................... 349
A - Religious Authorities Abroad: Theory and Definitions........................................... 350
1) Situating Diplomats and Religious Bureaucrats .................................................... 350
2) Religious Public Policy Instruments Abroad ......................................................... 355
3) State Religious Services for the Community Abroad: Exporting Imams .............. 357
B - Morocco ................................................................................................................... 360
1) Categories and Selection........................................................................................ 360
2) Visas and Preparation ............................................................................................ 370
3) Destinations ........................................................................................................... 375
4) Organization of the Stay Abroad ........................................................................... 379
5) Organizational Support: Studies and Reports ........................................................ 382
C - Turkey ...................................................................................................................... 386
1) Categories and Selection........................................................................................ 386
2) Visas and Preparation ............................................................................................ 398
3) Destinations ........................................................................................................... 410
4) Organization of the Stay Abroad ........................................................................... 416
5) Organizational Support: Studies and Reports ........................................................ 424
D - Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 430
VI - National Interests in Transnational Muslim Fields: The Consequences of StateBounded Policies .............................................................................................................. 435
A - Chronological Overview of Recent Activities Abroad ............................................ 436
1) Turkey .................................................................................................................... 436
2) Morocco ................................................................................................................. 439
B - Knowledge and Security: State Approaches to Controlling the Muslim Field ........ 445
1) The Securitization of Islam in France and Germany ............................................. 446
2) Expertise and “Correct” Islam: Religious Authorities and Control of the Field ... 455
a) The International Theology Programme of the Diyanet .............................................................. 459
b) The European Council of Moroccan Ulema (CEOM) ................................................................. 465
C - Negotiating Change: Interstate Agreements and National Interests ........................ 473
1) Export Imams Revisited ........................................................................................ 474
a) Moroccan Long-Term Imams ...................................................................................................... 474
b) The 2010 Franco-Turkish “Declaration of Intent” ...................................................................... 480
2) Determining Form and Content: Interstate Tensions over Muslim Fields ............ 488
a) Official Status and Form.............................................................................................................. 488
b) State-led Islamic Theology Faculties in France and Germany .................................................... 493
The Strasbourg Theology Faculty ................................................................................................... 494
D - Nationally-Bounded Transnational Muslim Fields.................................................. 507
1) The Persistence of Home State Politics in the Muslim Field Abroad ................... 507
a) The Rise of the AKP: Relations between Diplomats, DITIB and Milli Görüş ............................ 508
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b) The Makhzen’s Changing Partnerships: The Divorce with the RMF .......................................... 515
2) Home State Cultural Capital in the Religious Field Abroad ................................. 522
a) Celebrating the Nation in Foreign Mosques: The Turkish National Anthem and Turkish Cultural
Capital ............................................................................................................................................. 523
b) Exporting a New Recipe for “Moroccan Islam”.......................................................................... 538
E - Conclusion................................................................................................................ 546
Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 549
A - Governing Islam Abroad ......................................................................................... 550
1) Institutional Frameworks ....................................................................................... 550
2) Interstate Cooperation ............................................................................................ 554
B - Consequences for Muslim Fields in France and Germany ...................................... 557
1) Legitimate Religious Authorities ........................................................................... 557
2) The Place of Cultural Capital ................................................................................ 561
Bibliography ..................................................................................................................... 569
List of Interviews.............................................................................................................. 621
Annex 1. Template Questionnaire .................................................................................. 631
Annex 2. Diyanet –Ministry of Foreign Affairs Memorandum ................................... 632
Annex 3. Salaries for Turkish Employees Serving Abroad ......................................... 634
Annex 4. Diyanet Imams – Official Visa Requests........................................................ 635
Annex 5. Diyanet Activity Reports (Weekly and Monthly) ......................................... 638
Annex 6. CEOM Members .............................................................................................. 640
Annex 7. The Franco-Moroccan Agreement on Religious Officials............................ 641
Annex 8. The Franco-Turkish “Declaration of Intent” ................................................ 643
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List of Figures
Figure 0-1 “Typology of Actors: The Turkish and Moroccan Transnational Muslim Fields in
Germany” ................................................................................................................................. 65
Figure 0-2 “Typology of Actors: The Turkish and Moroccan Transnational Fields in
France” ..................................................................................................................................... 66
Figure I-1 “Diyanet Presidents, Past and Present”................................................................... 97
Figure I-2 “Diyanet Budget and Overall Turkish Budget under AKP, 2002-2014” ............. 119
Figure I-3 “Total Diyanet Personnel, 1970-2013” ................................................................. 121
Figure I-4 “The Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs in Ankara” ................................... 122
Figure I-5 “Diyanet Personnel by Profession in 2013” ......................................................... 124
Figure III-1 “Foreigners in Germany, 1969-2012” ................................................................ 187
Figure III-2 “Foreigners in France, 1968-2011” .................................................................... 191
Figure III-3 “Diyanet Foreign Branches Worldwide” ........................................................... 231
Figure IV-1 “German Public Policy Instruments with an Impact on the Religious Field” ... 273
Figure IV-2 “French Public Policy Instruments with an Impact on the Religious Field” ..... 274
Figure IV-3 “Home State Transnational Religious Public Policy Instruments”.................... 277
Figure IV-4 “CFCM Election Results (2003-2013) – Administrative Council Seats” .......... 290
Figure IV-5 “The Duisburg-Marxloh DITIB Central Mosque” ............................................ 329
Figure IV-6 “The Great Mosque of Strasbourg” ................................................................... 342
Figure V-1 “MHAI Ramadan Delegation Abroad by Category (2008-2013)” ..................... 363
Figure V-2 “Moroccan Religious Personnel Sent Abroad During Ramadan (1997-2014)” . 364
Figure V-3 “The Evolution and Composition of the FHII’s Ramadan Delegations, 1998-2014”
................................................................................................................................................ 367
Figure V-4 “Five Largest MHAI Ramadan Delegations in Europe (Without France)” ........ 378
Figure V-5 “Total Diyanet Personnel Abroad by Category, 2002-2013” ............................. 389
Figure V-6 “Educational Qualifications of the Diyanet’s Personnel Abroad vs. General
Personnel” .............................................................................................................................. 395
Figure V-7 “Diyanet Religious Personnel Abroad, 1979-2013” ........................................... 397
Figure V-8 “The Diyanet’s Three Main ‘Foreign Service Regions’ ”................................... 410
Figure V-9 “Long-term Diyanet Imams in Top Three Western European Countries”.......... 412
Figure V-10 “Diyanet Imams in Western Europe, 2002-2003: Supply and Demand” .......... 413
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Figure V-11 “Number of Monthly Visits by Turkish State Representatives to DITIB Mosques
in Germany (January 2007-June 2010)” ................................................................................ 426
Figure VI-1 “Financial Aid Provided by the MHAI to Moroccan Muslim Associations in
Western European Countries (2010-2013)”........................................................................... 442
Figure VI-2 “MHAI Financial Subsidies Abroad in 2013” ................................................... 443
Figure VI-3 “Students Enrolled in the Diyanet’s International Theology Programme and Main
Countries of Origin” .............................................................................................................. 460
Figure VI-4 “Graduates of the International Theology Programme by Country in 2013” .... 463
Figure VI-5 “CEOM Ulema Members by Country”.............................................................. 466
Figure VI-6 “The DITIB Strasbourg Theology Faculty” ...................................................... 496
Figure VI-7 “Job Offers in Islamic Studies at German Universities for Turkish
Theologians” .......................................................................................................................... 504
Figure VI-8 “The IGMG Iftar in Kerpen, Germany in 2010” ............................................... 512
Figure VI-9 “The Turkey Diyanet Foundation’s Encyclopedia of Islam” ............................ 525
Figure VI-10 “DITIB Kermes Posters from Bergedorf, Heiligenhaus, Iserlohn, Essen, and
Cergy-Pontoise” ..................................................................................................................... 528
Figure VI-11 “National Anthem Recitation Competitions in DITIB Mosques” ................... 533
Figure VI-12 “Ceremonies for the Battle of Gallipoli in DITIB Mosques” .......................... 534
Figure VI-13 “The Great Mosque Mohammed VI of Saint-Étienne and the MHAI” ........... 543
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List of Maps
Map III-1 “Turkish Citizens in Germany, 2013”
188
Map III-2 “Turkish Citizens in France, 2009”
190
Map III-3 “Moroccan Citizens in France, 2009”
193
Map III-4 “Moroccan Citizens in Germany, 2013”
195
Map V-1 “Moroccan Religious Personnel and Moroccans in Western Europe, 2012”
377
Map V-2 Diyanet Imams and Turkish Population in Western Europe, 2002-2003
415
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List of Abbreviations
AABF
Federation of Alevi Communities in Germany (Almanya Alevi Birlikleri
Federasyonu / Alevitische Gemeinde Deutschland)
ACMIF
Cultural Association of Muslims of Île-de-France (Association
Culturelle des Musulmans d’Île-de-France)
ADÜTDF
Federation of Turkish Democratic Idealist Associations (Almanya
Demokratik Ülkücü Türk Dernekleri Federasyonu)
AEIF
Association of Islamic Students in France (Association des Étudiants
Islamiques en France)
AGB
Community and Counselling Action (Aktion Gemeinwesen und Bildung)
AISBL
International Non-Profit Association (Association Internationale Sans
But Lucratif)
AKP
Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi)
ALM
Moroccan Liberation Army (Armée de Libération Marocaine)
AMF
Association of Moroccans in France (Association des Marocains en
France)
ANAP
Motherland Party (Anavatan Partisi)
AP
Justice Party (Adalet Partisi)
AQMI
Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (Al-Qaida au Maghreb Islamique)
AME
Association of Moroccans of the Essonne (Association des Marocains
de l’Essonne)
ATİB
Austrian Turkish Islamic Union for Cultural and Social Assistance
(Avusturya Türk İslam Kültür ve Sosyal Yardımlaşma Birliği)
ATMF
Association of Moroccan Workers in France (Association des
Travailleurs Marocains de France)
BAMF
Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bundesamt für Migration
und Flüchtlinge)
BCC
Central Office for Religions (Bureau Central des Cultes)
BfV
Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt für
Verfassungsschutz)
BKA
Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt)
BMBF
Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für
Bildung und Forschung)
BO
Official Journal (of the Moroccan State) (Bulletin Officiel)
BRD
Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland)
CAMS
Coordination of Muslim Associations of Strasbourg (Coordination des
Associations Musulmanes de Strasbourg)
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CAVIMAC
Social Security Fund for Religions for Old-Age, Disability and Sickness
(Caisse d’Assurance Vieillesse, Invalidité et Maladie des Cultes)
CCDH
Consultative Council for Human Rights (Conseil Consultatif des Droits
de l’Homme)
CCME
Council for the Moroccan Community Abroad (Conseil de la
Communauté Marocains à l’Étranger)
CCMTF
Coordination Committee of French Turkish Muslims (Comité de
Coordination des Musulmans Turcs de France)
CDT
Democratic Confederation of Labour (Confédération Démocratique du
Travail)
CEFR
Common European Framework of Reference for Language
CEM Foundation
Republican Education and Cultural Centre Foundation (Cumhuriyetçi
Eğitim ve Kültür Merkezi Vakfı)
CEOM
European Council of Moroccan Ulema (Conseil Européen des Oulémas
Marocains)
CERI
Centre d’Études et de Recherches Internationales
CFCM
French Council of the Muslim Faith (Conseil Français du Culte
Musulman)
CHP
Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi)
CIERA
Centre Interdisciplinaire d’Études et de Recherches sur l’Allemagne
CIFIE
Independent Committee of Islamic Financing in Europe (Comité
Indépendant de Finance Islamique en Europe)
CMF
Congress of French Mosques (Congrès des Mosquées de France)
CNMF
National Council of French Moroccans (Conseil National des
Marocains de France)
CORIF
Council for Reflection on Islam in France (Conseil de Réflection sur
l’Islam en France)
CRCM
Regional Council for the Muslim Faith (Conseil Régional du Culte
Musulman)
DACS
Department of Consular and Social Affairs (Direction des Affaires
Consulaires et Sociales)
DIK
German Islam Conference (Deutsche Islam Konferenz)
DİSK
Confederation of Revolutionary Workers’ Unions of Turkey (Türkiye
Devrimci İşçi Sendikaları Konfederasyonu)
DITIB
Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (Diyanet İşleri Türk İslam
Birliği)
Diyanet
Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı)
DP
Democrat Party (Demokrat Partisi) or Democratic Party (Demokratik
Partisi)
18
DRAC
Regional Authority for Cultural Affairs (Direction Régionale des
Affaires Culturelles)
DSP
Democratic Left Party (Demokratik Sol Parti)
DYP
True Path Party (Doğru Yol Partisi)
EKD
Evangelical Church in Germany (Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland)
ELCO
Instruction of Languages and Cultures of Origin (Enseignements de
Langues et de Cultures d’Origine)
EPHE
École Pratique des Hautes Études
ERP
Establishments open to the public (Établissement Recevant du Public)
FAR
Royal Armed Forced (Forces Armées Royales)
FASSE
Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences (Faculté de Sciences Sociales
et Économiques)
FATCM
Federation of Moroccan Workers’ and Merchants’ Friendship Societies
in France (Fédération des Amicales de Travailleurs et de Commerçants
Marocains en France)
FFAIACA
French Federation of African, Comorian and West Indian Islamic
Associations (Fédération Française des Associations Islamiques
d’Afrique, des Comores et des Antilles)
FGMP
Federation of the Great Mosque of Paris (Fédération de la Grande
Mosquée de Paris)
FIOE
Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe
FIS
Islamic Salvation Front (Front Islamique de Salut)
FN
National Front (Front National)
FNMF
National Federation of French Muslims (Fédération Nationale des
Musulmans de France)
FOIF
French Foundation for Muslim Works (Fondation pour les Œuvres de
l’Islam de France)
FP
Virtue Party (Fazilet Partisi)
FPA
Foreign Policy Analysis
GG
Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany (Grundgesetz für die
Bundesrepublik Deutschland)
GICM
Moroccan Islamic Combat Group (Groupe Islamique Combattant
Marocain)
GİH
General Administrative Services (Genel İdare Hizmetleri)
GIR
Government Involvement in Religion
GMP
Great Mosque of Paris (Grande Mosquée de Paris)
GMS
Great Mosque of Strasbourg (Grande Mosquée de Strasbourg)
GMSE
Great Mosque of Saint-Étienne (Grande Mosquée de Saint-Étienne)
19
FHII
Foundation Hassan II for Moroccans Residing Abroad (Fondation
Hassan II pour les Marocains Résidant à l’Étranger)
HCFM
High Council of French Muslims (Haut Conseil des Musulmans de
France)
HCI
High Council on Integration (Haut Conseil à l’Intégration)
IAK
Islamic Working Group in Germany (Islamischer Arbeitskreis in
Deutschland)
ICCB
Union of Islamic Societies and Communities (İslami Cemiyetler ve
Cemaatler Birliği)
ICP
Catholic University of Paris (Institut Catholique de Paris)
IDA
Institute of the Americas (Institut des Amériques)
IESH
European Institute of Human Sciences (Institut Européen des Sciences
Humaines)
IFEA
French Institute of Anatolian Studies (Institut Français des Études
Anatoliennes)
IGBD
Islamic Community of Bosnians in Germany (Islamische Gemeinschaft
der Bosniaken in Deutschland)
IGD
Islamic Community in Germany (Islamische Gemeinschaft in
Deutschland)
IGGiÖ
Islamic Faith Community of Austria (Islamische Glaubensgemeinschaft
in Österreich)
IGMG
Islamic Community Milli Görüş
IKZ
Islamic Cultural Centre (Islamisches Kulturzentrum)
IMEM
Institut Méditerranéen d’Études Musulmanes
IRCAM
Royal Institute of Amazigh Culture (Institut Royal de la Culture
Amazigh)
IRD
Islamic Council for the Federal Republic of Germany (Islamrat für die
Bundesrepublik Deutschland)
İSAM
Centre for Islamic Studies (İslam Araştırmaları Merkezi)
İTDV
England Turkish Diyanet Foundation (İngiltere Türk Diyanet Vakfı)
JEMS
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
KAS
Konrad Adenauer Foundation (Konrad Adenauer Stiftung)
KEGY
Assistant General Directorate for Citizens Living Abroad and Real
Estate (Yurtdışında Yaşayan Vatandaşlar ve Emlak Genel Müdür
Yardımcılığı)
KMK
Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs
(Kultusministerkonferenz)
KRM
Coordinating Council of Muslims (Koordinationsrat der Muslime)
20
MCMRE
Ministry of the Moroccan Community Residing Abroad (Ministère de
la Communauté Marocaine Résidant à l’Étranger)
MDC
Citizens’ Movement (Mouvement des Citoyens)
MEB
Ministry of National Education (Milli Eğitim Bakanlığı)
METU
Middle Eastern Technical University (Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi)
MFA
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Dış İşleri Bakanlığı)
MGK
National Security Council (Milli Güvenlik Kurulu)
MHAI
Ministry of Habous and Islamic Affairs (Ministère des Habous et des
Affaires Islamiques)
MHP
Nationalist Movement Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi)
MMTD
Magazine of the Minutes of the Turkish National Parliament (Milli
Meclis Tutanak Dergisi)
MNP
National Order Party (Milli Nizam Partisi)
MP
Parti)
Nation Party (Millet Partisi); or Conservative Party (Muhafazakar
MPDC
Popular Democratic and Constitutional Movement (Mouvement
Populaire et Démocratique Constitutionnel)
MRE
Moroccans Residing Abroad (Marocains Résidant à l’Étranger)
MSP
National Salvation Party (Milli Selamet Partisi)
MUR
Movement for Unification and Reform (Mouvement Unicité et Réforme
/ Ḥarakat al-Tawḥīd wal-Iṣlāḥ)
MÜSIAD
Association of Independant Industrialists and Businessmen (Müstakil
Sanayici ve İş Adamları Derneği)
MWL
Muslim World League (Rābiṭa al-ʿĀlam al-Islāmī)
NRW
North Rhine-Westphalia (Nordrhein–Westfalen)
NSU
National Socialist Underground (Nationalsozialistischer Untergrund)
OADP
Organisation of Popular Democratic Action (Organisation de l’Action
Démocratique Populaire)
OBTIC
Observatory of Interdisciplinary Research on Contemporary Turkey
(Observatoire de Recherche Interdisciplinaire sur la Turquie
Contemporaine)
OFAJ
Franco-German Office for Youth (Office Franco-Allemand pour la
Jeunesse)
OKK
Joint Culture Commission (Ortak Kültür Komisyonu)
PCM
Moroccan Communist Party (Parti Communiste Marocain)
PDI
Democratic Party
l’Indépendence)
PEST
Political, Economic, Social and Technological (Analysis)
of
Independence
(Parti
Démocratique
de
21
PJD
Party of Justice and Development (Ḥizb ʿAdāla wa Tanmīya/ Parti de la
Justice et du Développement)
PKK
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê)
PPS
Party of Progress and Socialism (Parti du Progrès et du Socialisme)
PRA
Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı)
PS
Socialist Party (Parti Socialiste)
PSM
Muslim Participation and Spirituality (Participation et Spiritualité
Musulmanes)
RAMF
Annual Meeting of French Muslims (Rencontre Annuelle des
Musulmans de France)
REC
Rally of CFCM Delegates (Rassemblement des Élus du CFCM)
RG
Official Gazette (of the Turkish Republic) (Resmi Gazete)
RMB
Belgique)
Rally of Belgian Muslims
RMF
Rally of French Muslims (Rassemblement des Musulmans de France)
RNI
National Rally of Independents (Rassemblement National des
Indépendants)
RP
Welfare Party (Refah Partisi)
RPR
Rally for the Republic (Rassemblement pour la République)
SHP
Social Democrat People’s Party (Sosyal Demokrat Halkçı Parti)
SONACONTRA
National Corporation for the Construction of Residences for Workers
(Société Nationale de Construction de Logements pour les Travailleurs)
SP
Felicity Party (Saadet Partisi)
SPD
Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sozialdemokratische Partei
Deutschlands)
SRAS
Separation of Religion And State
SWOT
Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats (Analysis)
TBP
Unity Party of Turkey (Türkiye Birlik Partisi)
TDV
Turkey Diyanet Foundation (Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı)
TGD
Turkish Community in Germany (Türkische Gemeinde in Deutschland)
TME
Moroccan Workers Abroad (Travailleurs Marocains à l’Étranger)
TÜSIAD
Turkish Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s
Sanayicileri ve İşadamları Derneği)
TİP
Turkish Workers’ Party (Türk İşçi Partisi)
UETD
Union of European Turkish Democrats
UGTM
General Union of Moroccan Workers (Union Générale des Travailleurs
Marocains)
22
(Rassemblement des Musulmans de
Association
(Türk
UİP
International Theology Programme (Uluslararası İlahiyat Programı)
UMAM
Union of the Muslims of Alples-Martimes (Union des Musulmans des
Alpes-Maritimes)
UMF
Union of French Mosques (Union des Mosquées de France)
UMP
Union for a Popular Movement (Union pour un Mouvement Populaire)
UMR
Union of Mosques of the Region (Union des Mosquées de la Région)
UNEM
Moroccan National Students’ Union (Union Nationale des Étudiants
Marocains)
UNFP
Populaires)
National Union of Popular Forces (Union Nationale des Forces
UOIF
Union of French Islamic Organizations (Union des Organisations
Islamiques de France)
USFP
Populaires)
Socialist Union of Popular Forces (Union Socialiste des Forces
VIKZ
Association of Islamic Cultural Centres (Verband der Islamischen
Kulturzentren)
VSMF
Muslim Values and Spirituality France (Valeurs et Spiritualité
Musulmane de France)
WR
German Council of Science and Humanities (Wissenschaftsrat)
WZB
Berlin Social Science Center (Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für
Sozialforschung)
YÖK
Council of Higher Education (Yüksek Öğretim Kurulu)
ZMaD
Central Council of Moroccans in Germany (Zentralrat der Marokkaner
in Deutschland)
23
24
Introduction
In 2013, Turkey had over 1,500 imams serving in foreign countries. The vast majority of these
state-employed religious officials are appointed to mosques in Western Europe to provide
religious services to local Turkish communities. The same year, Morocco not only sent over
500 imams abroad for the month of Ramadan for its diaspora communities, but also provided
10,000,000 euros in funding to Moroccan mosques and religious associations across the
continent. However, governing Islamic religious activities abroad is nothing new for either
state; in fact, it has been a common practice since the 1970s. The purpose of this thesis is to
understand how this phenomenon has arisen in the case of Islamic affairs in France and
Germany: the issues it raises for international relations as well as the consequences it has for
the development of Islam in both countries.
Turkish and Moroccan communities have come to constitute the two largest “quasidiasporas” in Western Europe, in the sense that they represent “the two most numerous nonEuropean nationalities, spread across numerous European countries and maintaining strong
transnational ties […] oriented towards their countries of origin” (Wihtol de Wenden 2009,
30). The active social, political, economic, and cultural transnational ties between these groups
go beyond the national boundaries of the states in which they are based, and connect them with
the evolving realities of the countries from which they or their parents came.
At the same time, both form the largest or one of the largest migrant groups in many
Western European countries, and as such the dynamics particular to each community may have
wider implications for the development of Islam in each individual country. The largest
Moroccan community abroad is in France, where there are 1 million people of Moroccan origin,
representing approximately 1/4 of Muslims in France and the second-largest national group
from a Muslim country after Algerians (Haut Conseil à l’Intégration 2000, 26; Tribalat 2004).
In Germany, Turkish citizens and their descendants constitute by far the largest immigrant
group at around 2.5 million individuals, while they make up slightly under 2/3 of all Muslims
in the country (Haug, Müssig, and Stichs 2009, 11–13; Bundesamt für Migration und
Flüchtlinge 2009, 5, 20).
The large waves of Turkish and Moroccan emigration to Western Europe originally
began within the framework of bilateral treaties first signed in the 1960s. Turks and Moroccans,
along with individuals from southern Europe, North Africa, and former colonies, were actively
25
recruited as “guest workers” to provide the labour for the post-war reconstruction and booming
economies of “receiving states,” such as France and Germany. The character of this migration
changed fundamentally after the oil shocks and the economic crisis of the mid-1970s led
Western European states to put a definitive halt to their guest worker programmes. Though
receiving states attempted to encourage return migration, a large majority of labour migrants
decided not only to stay on in their adopted countries, but to bring over their families as well.
This demographic change fundamentally altered the situation by changing the composition of
these migrant populations, and consequently their needs and their concerns. Nevertheless, for
officials in both “home states” and “receiving states,” as well as for many migrants themselves,
the permanent settlement of these populations was never fully accepted, leading to a
widespread belief that they would one day return to their home countries. This “myth of return”
(Castles 1984; Schnapper 1986, 158–163) has had long-term effects on the policies enacted by
state actors with regard to these migrants, as well as on the latter’s relationship to their new
home.
Turkey and Morocco began providing religious services abroad during this time, and
have not ceased doing so ever since. Independent of the political and social changes over the
subsequent decades, home state involvement has continued to represent a perennial feature of
the Islamic religious landscape in both France and Germany. The persistence of the myth of
return amongst policy makers in receiving states meant that it seemed only natural for Turkey
or Morocco to continue to look after their own citizens. This was even more so the case with
regard to Islamic religious affairs, first and foremost due to legislation which restricts state
intervention in religious matters to varying degrees in Western European countries. By
contrast, the governance of religion is institutionalized at the level of the state in almost all
Muslim countries, including Turkey and Morocco. In Turkey, the main state actor of the
religious field is the Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı (Presidency of Religious Affairs, hereafter
Diyanet), while in Morocco it is the Ministère des Habous et des Affaires Islamiques (Ministry
of Habous and Islamic Affairs, MHAI).
Given the close to total lack of Muslim religious facilities in France and Germany at the
time, as well as the ongoing interstate cooperation in many other domains, Islamic religious
affairs came to be included as one amongst many different issues concerning these migrant
populations that was largely delegated to the home states. Over the years, Turkey and Morocco
would both, to differing degrees, send imams and teachers of Islamic religion; religious texts
26
and learning materials; and in the case of Morocco, provide substantial financial donations.
Perhaps most importantly, both states would institutionalize the organization of Islamic
religious activities at the level of their consulates and embassies.
The myth of return was definitively put to rest during the 1990s, by which time Islam
had begun to emerge as a major component in the identities of many second-generation
migrants. The children of the former guest workers had grown up far from the homelands of
their parents: they spoke different languages and had been socialized in different environments.
At the same time, they were subject to discrimination and many who felt excluded from
mainstream society turned to religion in their search for their own identity. In the meantime,
international events such as the Algerian civil war and the terrorist attacks of 9/11 pushed
policy-makers in French and Germany to view Islam as a potential “problem,” especially for
national security. The long-standing economic and social issues concerning migrant
populations were thus translated into a new vocabulary, in which “Islam” became a central
explanatory factor.
By the beginning of the 2000s, “integrating” and “institutionalizing” Islam had become
catchwords in both France and Germany, as councils and committees of Muslim notables were
somewhat haphazardly assembled by state authorities with the goal of providing some kind of
overarching structure for the large diversity of mosque associations and umbrella organizations
that had emerged over time. The majority of these religious organizations were and are still
today linked to transnational religious movements or foreign state governments. Thus, in
keeping with the policy goal of creating a “national” French or German Islam, both
governments announced the need to rein in foreign influences coming from abroad. The
creation of the Conseil Français du Culte Musulman (French Council of the Muslim Faith,
CFCM) in 2003, and the Deutsche Islam Konferenz (German Islam Conference, DIK) in 2006,
both expressed this desire by creating a framework for institutionalized relations between
public authorities and certain associative Muslim leaders, while symbolically recognizing the
presence of Islam at the national level.
However, these and other measures have in no way led to a decline in the involvement
of home states in French and German Islamic affairs. Quite to the contrary, Turkey and
Morocco have both substantially increased their activities abroad since the beginning of the
21st century, and are today perhaps more than ever indispensable actors to the governance of
Islamic affairs in both France and Germany. The goal of this thesis is to understand why.
27
A - Research Questions and General Approach
The central questions addressed in this study can be expressed as follows: how and why are
Turkey and Morocco able to govern Islam outside of their national boundaries? Moreover,
what are the consequences of home state religious policies for the development of Muslim fields
in France and Germany?
My goal in phrasing the question in this fashion is to put the focus squarely on the
perspective of Turkish and Moroccan state actors. Consequently, this thesis is not primarily
interested in the sociological profile of French and German Muslims, nor the study of Islam
limited to one country. Rather, the focus as stated above requires an analysis of the international
and diplomatic relations between Turkey and Morocco, and France and Germany, as well as
the transnational development of Islamic religious movements originating from the former two
countries. Furthermore, it necessitates a thorough consideration of the religious diaspora
policies of Turkey and Morocco towards their citizens abroad, in addition to an understanding
of the institutional frameworks that regulate state-religion relations in France and Germany.
Two initial hypotheses have served to guide my research with regard to these questions:
(1) Turkey and Morocco are able to govern Islam outside of their national boundaries thanks
to pre-existing forms of institutionalized religious governance at home and/or interstate
cooperation coming as a result of a convergence of interests with receiving states. (2) These
home state religious policies abroad can have long-lasting structural consequences for Muslim
fields in France and Germany, in terms of promoting a specific model of legitimate religious
authority and preserving boundaries between ethno-national groups.
The theoretical approach I adopt in this study is inspired by the currents of political
sociology (Baudouin 1998; Braud 2002), the sociology of International Relations 1 (Devin
2002a), and (neo-)Weberian historical-sociology (Dufour and Lapointe 2007). The common
element of these subdisciplines is to emphasize the interdependent relations between society
and the state, and to question reductionist attempts to theoretically understand global politics.
As Hobson (2000, 194) summarizes, theories that seek to understand and explain state, society,
and international politics must include:
(1) a study of history and change
When used with capital letters, “International Relations” makes reference to the academic discipline
of the same name, and is to be distinguished from events or ties that take place at the global level or
between states.
1
28
(2) multi-causality (not one but many interdependent power sources)
(3) multi-spatiality (not one but many interdependent spatial dimensions)
(4) partial autonomy of power sources and actors
(5) complex notions of history and change (historicism)
(6) (non-realist) theory of state autonomy/power
Accordingly, I consider the forms and types of state governance that I study in this thesis to be
historically and contextually dependent. There is no “essential” character to Islam nor the states
that I study; each is the product of complex historical processes that have led to certain forms
of institutionalized power and socially accepted forms of legitimate domination (Weber 1992).
The forms that power takes are not static: in keeping with the multi-causal and multispatial perspective adopted here, I consider that “power is not in things […] a body may appear
to ‘have’ the potential to do something […] but it is the assemblage of resources and abilities,
not power as such, which gives rise to it” (Allen 2003, 108). This understanding of state action
emphasizes its nature as both partially autonomous within and between different state actors
and institutions, yet still capable of being pooled and mobilized through networks that span
spatial dimensions (local, national, global, etc.) that “all affect and structure each other, such
that none are self-constituting but are embedded in each other” (Hobson 2000, 195). In sum,
the perspective I follow fundamentally challenges the classical division between internal and
external politics, and permits a theoretical perspective that is not constrained by what Wimmer
and Glick-Schiller call “methodological nationalism” (2002), which has caused scholars to “see
like states,” in the sense of “identifying with the interests of a nation-state and view[ing] social
processes from that perspective” (Glick Schiller and Levitt 2006, 12).
At the same time, the perspective I adopt also corresponds to Della Porta and Keating’s
“interpretivist approach” to the social sciences. This approach similarly views knowledge as
contextually-based and human beings as “meaningful” actors, with the result that “scholars
must aim at discovering the meanings that motivate [individuals’] actions rather than relying
on universal laws external to the actors” (Della Porta and Keating 2008, 23–25). In other words,
while I may not theoretically consider that internal and external politics operate independently
of one another, I fully accept that for many of the diplomatic actors with whom I spoke they
constitute fundamentally different spheres due to the principle of state sovereignty.
However, before detailing how I intend to answer to my thesis questions, I must first
give a thorough explanation of what it means to “govern Islam,” as well as the key concept of
29
“Muslim field.” In addition, I will provide a brief overview a several bodies of scholarly
literature that have been central to the development of the main concepts and ideas used in this
thesis. Moreover, I will highlight why I believe that these previous studies have not sufficiently
addressed the issue of home state involvement in the governance of Islam, and how my thesis
will contribute to recent work in the fields of International Relations and political science, with
a focus on diaspora politics, foreign policy analysis, and religious governance.
B - Relevant Literature and Main Concepts
1) International Relations Theory: The State System and
Transnationalism
International Relations theory has undergone numerous changes since the beginning of the
1990s, brought on as much by global events as by academic debate. The rise of new thematic
perspective ranging from feminism to the environment have challenged the preconceived
notions of the discipline, and International Relations as a distinct field of studies has itself
become subject to debate.
A central difficulty is posed by the theoretical assumptions inherent in the name of the
discipline itself: word-for-word, international relations refers to relations between “nations,”
though this polysemous term is generally understood as meaning “state.” It is for this reason
that an increasing number of universities and scholars have begun to simply view international
relations as part of a more general field, that of “global studies.” Speaking of the “global scale”
instead of the “international scale” permits research on subjects which go beyond national
borders but which do not focus exclusively on interstate relations. Consequently, for the
purposes of this thesis I have decided to use the word “international” sparingly, due to its
ambiguous nature, and to privilege “interstate” or “global,” depending on the context.
Nevertheless, in doing so my goal is to promote clarity, not academese: for instance, I will
continue to use general expressions such as “international media” or “international
considerations”; however, the topic of my thesis concerns interstate relations and interstate
cooperation in the governance of Islamic affairs.
Following scholars of the historical sociology current of IR theory, I begin my thesis
with the presupposition that units and systems in the general “international system” are
mutually constitutive, and that the spatially-defined authority of modern states must not be
30
viewed as an objective reality (cf. Spruyt 1998, 345). Indeed, it would be difficult today to
argue that any state exerts unchallenged sovereign authority without taking into consideration
forms of cooperation and interdependence with a multitude of other state and non-state actors.
These ideas have already attracted substantial attention in IR literature under the heading of
“transnationalism,” which emerged in embryonic form from liberal institutionalist studies
during the 1970s, notably in the earlier writings of Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye (1974;
1977). In their work from this period, Keohane and Nye elaborated the idea of “complex
interdependence,” a paradigm which “recognizes as an actor not only states, but equally infrastate (that is to say the sub-units which make up governmental and administrative systems) and
non-state actors, and which proposes to study interstate relations, as well as transgovernmental
relations and transnational relations” (Battistella 2006, 196). To use a common cliché, these
were attempts to open up the “black box” of the state, as Allison (1969) had equally done
several years earlier in his famous analysis of models of foreign policy-making and the Cuban
missile crisis.
The turning point for IR theory, however, would be the end of the Cold War (Macleod
and O’Meara 2007a). Although the events of the first Gulf War, along with Krauthammer’s
“unipolar moment” (1990) and Fukuyama’s “end of history” (1992), kept some focus on statecentric paradigms, scholars in numerous domains began exploring the possible contours of a
new post-Cold War world order. The starting point for these studies has generally been the
ways by which the rapid developments in communications, trade, transportation, and
information technologies during the latter part of the 20th century – or “globalization” – have
empowered individuals and non-state actors to the extent that they can now be considered fullyfledged “actors” of international, or more appropriately, global politics.
A great deal of IR literature has subsequently interpreted these developments and
attempted to examine their consequences. Focusing on the global level, Rosenau was amongst
the first to highlight the significance of these changes and how the new situation would lead to
increasing “turbulence in world politics” (1990), while Badie and Smouts begin their study
with the “irruption of societies” on the international scene and the “rediscovery” of concepts
such as “culture” and “identity” (1992, 23–31). Other authors such as Sassen (1991; 1996) and
Strange (1996) focused on the global economy and its impact on state sovereignty, highlighting
the importance of cities, transnational corporations, organized crime, and international
financial institutions (IFIs). Similar ideas would be echoed in somewhat more bestsellerfriendly language by numerous authors, from Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations
31
(1996) to Benjamin Barber’s Jihad vs. McWorld (1996), and from Kenichi Ohmae’s The End
of the Nation-State (1996) to Naomi Klein’s No Logo (1999). Nevertheless, no matter whether
in the academic or popular literature, this heightened attention to transnational interactions
between non-state actors often coalesced around one main conclusion: the traditional
understanding of sovereignty based on the Westphalian system of nation-states is no longer
valid and the nation-state is no longer the most important actor of global politics.2
As significant as this assertion may be, the “decline of the nation-state” thesis has not
only been a debate about how to characterize current global politics, but rather about how to
conceive of global politics in general. Mainstream IR theories such as neorealism and
neoliberalism, which had been discredited for their inability to foresee the end of the Cold War,
were told that “the demise of the Soviet Union surprised power theorists because their theories
were focused on states and their relations” and that “academics and practitioners are illprepared to make sense of events that do not fit statist theory” (Ferguson and Mansbach 1996,
1–2). This new emphasis on the role of non-state actors in global politics, as well as the rise of
social constructivist approaches which have sought to put greater emphasis on questions of
identity and perception in explaining international phenomena, have had a great impact on the
research agenda of the last two decades. Indeed, when examining issues such as migration and
religion which are inherently transnational, state-centric theories will at best underestimate the
resource-mobilization strategies of non-state actors thanks to transnational networks, and at
worst will simply not “see” them at all, due to inherent methodological nationalism. As Ludger
Pries notes, in cross-national comparisons and world system studies “the time-space related
units of reference are basically rooted in absolutist concepts of space and in the ‘double
binding’ and mutual exclusiveness of geographic space and social space: (1) in one geographicspatial unit (like the territory of a nation state) there is place for just one social-spatial unit (like
a national society); and, (2) each social-spatial unit needs just one geographic-spatial unit”
(2007, 10). Concretely, this means that migrants are generally only understood as either
immigrants or emigrants, while transnational movements and diaspora politics can only be
partially apprehended.
2
The Westphalian system refers to the treaties signed in Münster and Osnabrück bringing an end to the
30-years war (1618-1648) in Europe. It is generally viewed by IR theorists and political scientists as a
watershed moment in the establishment of an international system where the primary actors are
territorially-bounded states led by secular authorities (Badie 1995, 42–51; Smouts, Batistella, and
Venesson 2006, 542–543).
32
A quick search through the main IR literature shows that migration, diasporas, and
religion, are either peripheral topics, or they are investigated solely with regard to their impact
on armed conflicts. Benedict Anderson’s concept of long-distance nationalism (1992) is thus
much more understandable to a traditional IR scholar, than for instance, the enormous body of
literature that has been developed on “transmigrants” and transnational identities (Basch, Glick
Schiller, and Szanton-Blanc 1994). The role of religion in global politics or interstate foreign
policy has become an increasingly treated subject, especially since 9/11 when “Islamic
terrorism” became a new focus of security studies. However, many political science studies
that have rediscovered religion have either veered far off the map along the lines of Samuel
Huntington’s cultural determinism (Huntington 1996), or continue to focus on the influence of
religious groups within particular national contexts (cf. the articles in Jeffrey Haynes 2010)(cf.
the articles in Haynes, 2010). Indeed, Fox calls IR theory’s “blind spot for religion … one of
the greatest failings of that body of theory” (2009, 289), and he and others have worked on
developing the tools necessary to account for religion’s impact on international relations (Fox
and Sandler 2004). Other scholars such as Haynes (1998; 2001; 2009) or Colonomos (2000)
have attempted to rectify this by studying transnational religious actors, such as the
Organization of the Islamic Conference or the Catholic Church.
Nevertheless, the viewpoint I adopt in this thesis poses an additional difficulty: the main
question does not concern the impact of religion on state policies, but focuses directly on state
religious policies and their impact on transnational religious fields. These policies constitute a
distinct domain of state action for Turkey and Morocco, and thus are fundamentally different
from those of the aforementioned transnational religious actors. At the same time, France and
Germany have taken various initiatives to incorporate Islam as a part of immigrant integration
programmes, though they are limited by their particular regimes of state-religion relations.
Consequently, the migratory aspect of these issues necessarily constitutes an important
undercurrent to the development of this thesis.
2) The Development of “Migration Studies”
The subject of this thesis directly addresses issues of IR theory such as state sovereignty,
foreign policy, and interstate relations; however, the direct relationship between international
migration and the expansion of Islam to Western European countries cannot be overlooked.
33
While migration is in no way new to human societies, it is still a relatively new object of study
for the disciplines that are be concerned by it.
Many scholars of migration highlight its “transdisciplinary” nature (for instance Brettell
& Hollifield 2008, and Lucassen et al. 2010), as it is difficult to focus exclusively on one single
angle, or on one single perspective. This is all the more true given its propensity to cross
boundaries, both internationally and between social science disciplines. It is also thanks to this
characteristic of migration that a certain overlap between disciplinary and national boundaries
becomes apparent, something which helps to explain the difficulty numerous academic
disciplines have when attempting to understand different facets of migration. As mentioned
above, Wimmer and Glick Schiller call this overlap “methodological nationalism,” which they
characterize as “the assumption that the nation/state/society is the natural social and political
form of the modern world”; moreover, this viewpoint leads to “the territorialization of social
science imaginary and the reduction of the analytical focus to the boundaries of the nationstate” (2002, 301,307). In order to gain an understanding of actors and processes related to
migration, it is thus fundamental to move beyond static conceptions of the state, the nation, and
society, in order to perceive the social, economic, and political ties which lead to the
permanence of migratory movements and transnational relations as a feature of global politics.
Being aware of the implications of methodological nationalism is of particular
importance to studies of migration. This is because the history of such studies shows a distinct
tendency to reflect the concerns and viewpoints of the states in which these studies have been
undertaken. Overall this has meant that migration studies have more often than not veered
towards immigration studies, in essence taking account of migratory phenomena solely at the
moment that they cross the boundaries of a given “receiving state.” Unsurprisingly, the
“receiving state” which contributed the most to the initial development of migration studies
was the United States, where scholars linked to the Chicago School of sociology produced
some of the first theoretical work treating immigration in the social sciences during the 1920s
and 1930s (Rea and Tripier 2008, 1–17; Schnapper 2007, 48–59).
This school of thought promoted a perspective emphasizing the eventual assimilation of
immigrants into the American “melting pot,” which “remained the dominant sociological
paradigm until the late 1960s” (Schmitter Heisler 2008, 83). Assimilation was seen as a finality,
and migration itself had a unidirectional flavour to it: in Park’s oft-cited article, migration
“involves, at the very least, change of residence and the breaking of home ties” (1928, 886–
34
887). Though Park celebrates immigrants as the “marginal man,” which he describes as “the
site of changes and fusions of culture… where we can best study the processes of civilization
and progress” (R. E. Park 1928, 893), there is a clear positivist teleology which sees immigrants
in a period of transition from one bounded society to another, ultimately leading to assimilation.
In the case of Europe, after centuries of emigration to the Americas and beyond,
frequently within the framework of colonial empires, themes concerning migration have had a
considerably different history. During the 16th-18th centuries, European states espousing
mercantilist views had considered their population as an economic and military resource,
meaning that mercantilism was “fiercely opposed to emigration” (Ragazzi 2009, p.385,
drawing on Foucault). Unprecedented demographic growth and the rise of Malthusian ideas at
the end of the 18th century convinced many states to change their position on emigration, and
over the course of the 19th century the impact of the industrial revolution, social unrest, poverty,
and famines would lead to some 29 million Europeans leaving the continent (Zolberg 1994,
43–49). With emigration waves continuing throughout the 20th century, it was only in the 1970s
that a fundamental shift occurred, leading to Europe becoming a “continent of immigration” in
terms of net population gain (Bade 2003, 217–218). This long history of emigration left a
distinctive impression on how migration was perceived:
Prior to 1945, Western European states never considered themselves as
immigration countries. Even in the second half of the 20th century, when
immigration soared, the awareness among governments that they were de facto
immigrant societies only very slowly gained ground in the face of political
resistance (Lucassen et al. 2006, p.11).
However, this view of migration was not just a result of a certain historical reality tied
to emigration. As Castles and Miller point out, the “denial of the role of immigrants in nation
building has been crucial to the creation of myths of national homogeneity.” Though this was
impossible in the case of the USA, this denial has meant that “it is only in very recent times
that French, German and British historians have started serious investigation of the significance
of immigration” (2003, 50). The historian Gérard Noiriel has emphasized this view as well in
the case of France, drawing attention to the fact that although “over a third of the current French
population is of non-French origin,” during the same period of time immigration has largely
been considered “an illegitimate object” for French historians (2001, 102–108). While
proposing possible explanations, Noiriel states that “the persistent tendency to ‘think of social
phenomena through a national lens’ constitutes the major epistemological obstacle for the
35
understanding of a phenomenon which radically challenges the theme of national unity” (2001,
103).
In essence Noiriel is describing the link between methodological nationalism and the
nation-building project mentioned by Castles and Miller above, while explaining the lack of
interest in the subject of immigration in France. This argument explains how adopting a
perspective constrained by methodological nationalism in the social sciences not only serves
to reinforce national mythologies, but that it does so precisely by promoting a certain blindness
to phenomena which challenge the basic premises of such a perspective.
As mentioned above, following the Second World War Western European states signed
bilateral agreements in order to procure the necessary work force for their resurgent post-war
economies.3 These agreements were designed to recruit workers from the European periphery
(primarily Italy, Spain, Yugoslavia, Greece, Portugal, and Turkey) within the framework of
“guest worker” programmes (from the German Gastarbeiter), meaning above all else that they
were not expected to stay. For former colonial powers such as France, the UK, and the
Netherlands, this form of migration overlapped with migration from former colonies (North
Africa, the Indian subcontinent, the Caribbean) for whom citizenship and settlement rights
could be considerably different. Due to these circumstances certain well-known “migratory
couples” formed, such as Algerians in France, or South Asians in the UK, while Turks and
Moroccans, though concentrated in Germany and France respectively, have spread in
significant numbers all across Western Europe (Wihtol de Wenden 2010, 22). Guest worker
programmes, though prevalent across all Western Europe, are perhaps epitomized by that of
the Federal Republic of Germany, where:
We see in the most developed form all the principles – but also the
contradictions – of temporary foreign labour recruitment systems: the belief
in temporary sojourn, the restriction of labour market and civil rights, the
recruitment of single workers (men at first, with increasing numbers of
women as time went on), the inability to prevent family reunion completely,
the gradual move towards longer stay, the inexorable pressures for settlement
and community formation (Castles and Miller 2003, 71–72).
3
I use the term “Western Europe” in the thesis to refer to the countries that represented the core of
industrial production and that consequently were most implicated in recruiting foreign workers:
Germany (which is to be understood as referring solely to the Federal Republic of Germany during the
Cold War), France, the Benelux countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxemburg), the United
Kingdom, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.
36
In terms of migration studies, it would be difficult not to agree with Lucassen et al., that
these waves of labour migration “certainly contributed to [Europe] beginning to appreciate its
migration roots… extend[ing] far beyond the well-known westbound emigration past (2010,
7). Nevertheless at the beginning “the study of migration was largely reserved for
demographers and political economists,” and “until the oil crisis of 1973, the mere economic
dimension of migration was actually assumed to be the most obvious and most natural
dimension of the process” (Martiniello and Rath 2010, 7). Not surprisingly, this echoed the
needs of the Western European states which had been heavily promoting labour migration for
purely economic reasons.
Following the oil shock and subsequent economic downturn in the 1970s, Western
European states put an end to their bilateral labour programmes and moved to halt immigration,
encourage foreign workers to return to their home countries, and integrate certain foreigners
into society if they had been residing in the country long enough (Hollifield 1992, p.74).
Though the initial goal of halting labour migration was attained, these policy changes did not
turn out quite as expected. Large numbers of labour immigrants decided to remain where they
were instead of returning to their countries of origin, while immigration continued through
family reunification programmes. This progressive demographic shift led to a marked change
in academic interest starting at the end of the 1970s and throughout the 1980s. After economics
and sociology, other disciplines such as political science, anthropology, ethnology, and
geography all began taking a closer look at subjects related to migration; at the same time, new
themes such as identity, integration, political participation, and minority rights were introduced
to the study of migration, along with the re-emergence of interest in questions surrounding
citizenship (Wihtol de Wenden 2010, 76–77).
Nevertheless, immigration remained the focus of study in most cases. Abdelmalek
Sayad, writing on Algerian migrants in France, was one of the first to criticize this state of
affairs:
Any study of migratory phenomena which neglects the starting conditions of
immigrants condemns itself to giving but a partial and ethnocentric view of
migratory phenomena: on the one hand, it is as if existence begins with arrival in
France, as it is the immigrant – and he alone – and not the emigrant who is taken
into consideration; on the other hand, the implicit and explicit issue is always that
of adapting to the “receiving” society (1977, 59).
Sayad not only highlights the one-sided view adopted by studies of immigration, but equally
draws attention to the reasons for this new-found interest: the question of “immigrant
37
integration” was becoming an issue of scholarly interest and public policy in Western Europe,
despite the political resistance alluded to above. This prominence of debates on “integration”
would only increase as unions and workers’ movements lost importance as the principal modes
of social and political mobilization for these immigrants and their families, and as issues
concerning Islam and identity politics came to the fore. Islam and immigration thus became
intimately tied together in the Western European context, and would become an increasingly
mediatized and politicized topic from the end of the 1980s onwards. The scholarly literature
that has developed as a result will be discussed in the next section.
The purpose of this short overview of the development of migration studies has been to
show the persistent and enduring influence of methodological nationalism, and highlight how
it has generally induced scholars to automatically “see like states,” and consider migrants as
either immigrants or emigrants. While for some this may simply be a necessary evil due to a
conscious emphasis on, for example, receiving state labour markets, the inability that migration
studies has had in comprehensively addressing the multiple social and political spaces which
migrants traverse limits their potential explanatory power. Moreover, for my subject of study
this conceptual division poses a distinct problem. The intersection of international and
transnational forms of religion and politics is at the heart of my research, meaning that my
approach must be capable of taking into account state structures and influence, but must not
reify international borders as naturally-occurring phenomena.
3) “Islam in the West”: From Multiculturalism to Religious
Governance
The body of literature that seems to be most relevant to my thesis topic is that which treats
“Islam in the West.” The origins of these studies can be found in part in the rise of identity
politics and what Brubaker calls the “differentialist turn” in “social thought, public discourse,
and public policy” (2001, 531–533) during the 1980s and 1990s. The terrorist attacks of 11
September 2001 (“9/11”) led to even greater media attention and omnipresent public discourses
on security and radicalization, while the politicization of identity issues related to religion and
immigration (especially in Western Europe) has served to create what seems an almost
insatiable market for publications on Islam.
As mentioned in the last section, following the settlement of labour migrants and their
families in Western Europe during the 1970s, new disciplines entered the fray asking many of
38
the same questions that the Chicago School of sociology had asked earlier in the century on the
other side of the Atlantic: how best can public policy promote integration? Are certain migrants
more (or less) prone to integrate? Is this due to specific factors (culture, education, religion,
etc.)? However, the failure of the assimilationist theories of the Chicago School to account for
continued racial inequalities in the United States, especially with regard to African-Americans,
had already led to serious challenges (Schmitter Heisler 2008, 83–86). with scholars such as
Glazer and Moynihan arguing that “the point about the melting pot is that it did not happen”
(1963, 290).
From the 1960s onwards, race and ethnic relations, along with identity politics and the
recognition of cultural difference and diversity, would all come to the forefront in redefining
the focus of scholarship. As Glazer and Moynihan would write a decade later, “ethnicity” seems
to correspond to the “emergence of a new social category”:
There has been a pronounced and sudden increase in tendencies by people in many
countries and in many circumstances to insist on the significance of their group
distinctiveness and identity and on new rights that derive from this group character
(1975, pp.2–3, my emphasis).
This mobilization of ethnic and racial identities as a basis for political movements calling for
the official recognition of group difference – and subsequent distinct group rights – has been
crystallized by one term today: multiculturalism.
Multiculturalism emerged in the 1970s, originally as a form of public policy adopted by
the Canadian government in 1971 and followed by Australia a year later. While critics of the
policy have seen it as an attempt to diminish the momentum of the rising Québécois nationalist
movement (Bissoondath 1994), the larger reality was that both Canada and Australia had
thoroughly revised their immigration regulations in the 1960s and had progressively removed
discriminatory and racist provisions (i.e. the Pearson reforms of 1966-7, and the Holt
government’s Migration Act of 1966, effectively ending the “White Australia Policy”). In the
case of Canada, “whereas prior to these [new] regulations almost 90 percent of immigrants
were of European origin, by the early 1970s about half came from other regions, including the
West Indies, Africa, South America, and Asia” (Riendeau 2007, 331–2). Multiculturalism thus
began as a public policy which gave official recognition to ethnocultural difference in an effort
to promote social cohesion and immigrant integration, in opposition to the assimilationist
practices which had characterized state approaches to immigration up to that point.
39
With identity, ethnicity, and the politics of difference making the headlines of so many
newspapers and policy papers, scholars of political philosophy began to consider the wider
implications of these developments for liberal democracies. The publication of John Rawls’ A
Theory of Justice (1971) marked the beginning of two decades of philosophical debate between
“liberals” (such as Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, and Thomas Nagel) and their “communitarian”
critics (including Charles Taylor, Alasdair MacIntyre, Michael Sandel, and Michael Walzer)
on normative questions concerning how best to achieve a “just” society. The central role
accorded to individual rights in liberal political theory was called into question by those who
considered that values and identity derived from membership in a given community (religious,
ethnic, etc.) equally deserve recognition. Moreover, according to the communitarian critiques,
normative attempts by liberal theorists to envision the individual outside of his or her
community (such as Rawls’ famous “veil of ignorance”) were bound to fail, for in their view
few actual individuals exist or imagine their existence outside of their communities.4 While the
debate continued throughout the 1980s, by the beginning of the 1990s authors such as Neal and
Paris chided both sides for having forgotten “that arguments about the philosophy of liberalism
are meant to have political implications about the way we live” and that “we should also avoid
fully detaching political philosophy from its political and practical dimensions” (1990, 439).
This would be precisely the evolution of the “communitarian-liberal debate” in the 1990s, as
the “speculative” side to the debate gave way to greater emphasis on empirical cases and
propositions for different “types” of political solutions to questions of social cohesion
(Doytcheva 2005, 38).
Amongst these empirical cases an increasing number were concerning the place of
Muslims and Islam in Western European countries. Multicultural policies in different shapes
and forms had begun to make an impact on Western European states during the 1980s, due to
the need to respond to the needs of sizeable populations of former guest workers who had now
become settled immigrants. Academic research on the subject thus began to address the topic
in earnest by the end of the 1980s when a first wave of publications and edited volumes
emerged. In France, research on Islam benefited greatly from scholars who were already
familiar with North African or Middle Eastern countries, in particular Rémy Leveau and Bruno
Étienne, who would launch this field along with their colleagues and students during the 1980s
4
For an overview, see Mulhall and Swift 1996.
40
and 1990s (Cesari 1998; Cesari 1994; Frégosi 1995; Etienne 1989; Leveau and Kepel 1988;
Mouriaux and Wihtol de Wenden 1988; Kepel 1987).
In Germany, despite the early presence of a small number of experts of Turkey and
Turkish Islam, most notably Gotthard Jäschke from the 1930s until the 1970s, the first research
on Islam was notably more muted. The first two publications came at approximately the same
time as in France (Abdullah 1993; Binswanger and Sipahioğlu 1988), though the production
of an important body of literature would take more time to develop. One exception is the work
of Werner Schiffauer (2010; Schiffauer 2000; Schiffauer 1991), who was one of the first to
analyze Turkish transnational migration and religious movements in Germany, while other
specialists on Turkey began to work on the situation in Germany considerably later (cf. SpulerStegemann 2002). At the same time, several of the first studies were actually commissioned by
German state governments (cf. Karakaşoğlu 1994 in the case of North Rhine-Westphalia), and
were carried out by the Zentrum für Türkeistudien (Centre for Turkish Studies), led by Faruk
Şen until 2008.
This new literature was spurred on by the ever-growing media attention that Islam began
to receive by the end of the 1980s. Though the Iranian revolution in 1979 had already raised
the spectre of Islamic fundamentalism, the link with Muslims in Western European countries
would not be made until later in the decade, when the Rushdie affair and the first French
headscarf affair both in 1989 sent ripples across the continent (Laurence 2006). The succession
of armed conflicts in Muslim countries, ranging from the Soviet War in Afghanistan to the
Lebanese and Algerian civil wars, was paralleled by an increasing number of local conflicts
involving the accommodation of Islam religious practice in both France and Germany.
The amalgamation of Islam and terrorism by media and political leaders became
increasingly frequent in the wake of 9/11, when national security concerns came to paint
socioeconomic problems as primarily concerning cultural or rather religious issues (for
instance, the 2005 riots in the Parisian banlieue).5 As a result, much recent research on “Islam
in the West” focuses on deconstructing the media representations and political discourses that
A“banlieue” simply refers to suburb of a large city in French. However, during the last 30 years it has
been commonly associated with migrant groups and Islam due to the fact that it is where many lowcost housing projects were constructed during the 1960s and 1970s for migrant workers and their
families. For instance, Kepel’s pioneering work in 1987 was entitled Les banlieues de l’islam (“The
Suburbs of Islam”) (Kepel 1987), while more contemporary studies continue in the same vein, such as
Adraoui’s Ph.D. thesis, Du Golfe aux banlieues: le salafisme mondialisé (“From the Gulf to the
Suburbs: Globalized Salafism”) (Adraoui 2013).
5
41
portray Islam as threat (Cesari 2010; Cesari 2009; Kaya 2009; Bigo and Tsoukala 2008).
Certain “objects” of study have also attracted more attention than others, for example imams
(for Germany, see Ceylan 2010; Halm et al. 2012; for France, see Jouanneau 2013; Jouanneau
2009; Sèze 2013; for Spain (Catalonia), see Moreras 2007), and certain emblematic figures
now even have their own “interview” books, such as Tareq Oubrou (Oubrou, Privot, and
Baylocq 2009) and Khalil Merroun (Merroun and Lévy 2010).
At the same time, in recent years a growing number of scholars interested in state policies
and institutional dynamics concerning “Islam in the West” have begun employing the term
“religious governance.” In 2007, a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
(JEMS) was dedicated to “Governing Islam in Western Europe.” This followed other JEMS
special issues on Islam and transnationalism as well as conflicts surrounding mosques in
European cities (for the respective introductions, see Cesari 2005; Grillo 2004), and built on
much earlier collaborative work as well (cf. Gerholm and Lithman 1988).
In the introduction to the 2007 special issue, Veit Bader outlines many of the main ideas
associated with this theoretical approach. The term “governance” is privileged over others such
as the “management” or “government” religious diversity because the former “includes
hierarchy and top-down competencies usually confined to either private or public hierarchies,”
while the latter “focuses on one (internally highly diversified) actor – the state – and on actioncoordination by ‘public hierarchy,’ by rules, particularly law and law-like regulations” (Bader
2007a, 873–874). Beyond the vast literature on the concept of “governance” in political
science, IR theory, and other social science disciplines, the preference for this term stems more
specifically from its narrower focus on “regulation or steering, guidance by a variety of means,
not only by rules” and the fact that it “includes more actors and modes of coordination in the
perspective of regulation” (Bader 2007a, 873–874).
Religious governance can be understood as both “internal and external governance and
democratic (bottom-up) and hierarchical (top-down) governance,” referring to the forms of
organization and mechanisms of control that exist both within religious communities as well
as outside them (Bader 2007a, 874). The latter “external” governance perspective includes the
prevailing “political opportunity structures” (POS) as well as other forms of “self-regulation,”
includes the networks and forms of organizations established between different sets of religious
actors (Bader 2007a, 874). By taking into account these different modalities of interaction and
the involvement of a wider variety of actors, Bader and other proponents of the religious
42
governance approach argue that it provides a more comprehensive understanding of the widely
divergent models that characterize relations between state and non-state actors concerning
religious affairs. In a similar fashion, Koenig provides a detailed theoretical overview of the
ways that studies on religious governance can provide “explanatory accounts” of “Western
nation-states’ accommodation of religious diversity” by focusing on “actor-constellations,
structural conditions, and cultural contexts,” and while maintaining a critical perspective
towards ostensible “national models” (Koenig 2009, 305–315).
The religious governance approach has been used to consider the place of religious
affairs at the level of the European Union (Koenig 2007); mosque construction in France and
the Netherlands (Maussen 2009); the incorporation of Islam in the United Kingdom, France,
and Germany (Soper and Fetzer 2005; Soper and Fetzer 2007); the accommodation of Islam in
Spain (Astor 2014); and numerous other cases. It was also featured in a publication coordinated
by Bramadat and Koenig (2009) that extended the approach to case studies in countries such
as the United States, Canada, Australia, Austria, and Switzerland. Moreover, some scholars
who once privileged the term “management” have now moved towards using both terms in
their work (cf. Laurence 2012; Laurence 2006; Laurence and Vaïsse 2007). The “explo[sion]”
(Bader 2007a, 872) of scholarly literature on Muslims in Europe since the beginning of the 21st
century has even been collectively grouped together by Maussen in his state of the art report
on “The Governance of Islam in Western Europe” (2007), which delineates the numerous
approaches, perspectives, and theories used by social scientists to treat different issues
pertaining to Muslims in Europe.
Maussen’s rich and very detailed report, however, demonstrates one aspect that is only
very superficially covered in this extensive body of research. The involvement of home state
governments in the governance of religious affairs is given little to no attention by most authors,
and is only mentioned in passing with regard to certain specific subjects – as Maussen does
himself, with regard to the issue of mosque conflicts (2007, 13). Moreover, in the JEMS special
issue on Islam and transnationalism, home state involvement is similarly absent. In Grillo’s
introduction (2004, 865–866), home states are only mentioned indirectly as part of “binational” or “plurinational frameworks”; Bowen’s view of “transnational Islam” includes
“transnational religious institutions” (2004, 881–882), but only mentions non-state diasporic
religious movements; and Henkel’s article (2004) on Turkish Islam does not even once mention
Turkish state religious authorities.
43
There is conspicuous lack of research on the role of home states and their religious
institutions abroad despite the incredible increase in literature on “Islam in the West.” One of
the only exceptions is the work of Jonathan Laurence, who has paid particular attention to home
state activities within a broad pan-European comparative perspective (2012; Laurence 2006),
as well as in the case of France (Laurence 2005; Laurence and Vaïsse 2007). Nevertheless, his
main interest until very recently (Laurence 2014) has remained in explaining the evolution of
Western European state policies towards Muslims, and less the home state motivations and
diplomatic relations that affect transnational religious governance. Cesari has also recently
expanded her research to include “emigration countries” (2013); however, her focus remains
quite broad, and generally does not focus on the inner workings of home state religious
institutions and interstate relations.
In addition, there are very few scholars of religion and politics in Turkey and Morocco
who have studied state religious activities aimed at the diaspora (for an exception in the case
of Turkey, see Çitak 2013; Çitak 2011; Çitak 2010). While some scholars consider
transnational religious fields in passing within more focused studies on specific national cases
(see Tozy 2009; Tozy 1999; Zeghal 2005a for Morocco), others have concentrated on one
“national” Islamic current in Western European countries (for Turkish Islam, see Akgönül
2005; Amiraux 2001; Avci 2005; Çaymaz 2002; Yükleyen 2012; Yükleyen and Yurdakul
2011). Finally, the question of Islam in foreign policy and relations with transnational religious
actors has attracted attention in the case of both countries (for instance, see Sambe 2011; Sambe
2010; Belhaj 2010 for Morocco; and Kösebalaban 2011; Robins 2007; Balci 2003 for Turkey).
Nevertheless, there is significant gap in the literature concerning the transnational activities of
state religious actors, and no work has been done that considers home state religious institutions
and their activities abroad from an IR and foreign policy perspective.6
In one respect, the general lack of research on home states may once again demonstrate
the danger of understanding transnational phenomena (such as religion and migration) solely
from one perspective – in these cases, that of the Western European societies, where Islam has
now become a common feature. While such a perspective may provide fascinating portraits of
relations between certain ethnic or religious groups and the surrounding mainstream society, it
neglects to provide a comprehensive view of the very transnational realities that these studies
My own work, based on my master’s and doctoral research, has endeavoured to address this gap over
the last years (Bruce Forthcoming; Bruce 2012a; Bruce 2012b; Bruce 2010; Bruce 2009).
6
44
seek to bring to the fore. It may as well be the result of an excessively transnational perspective,
in the sense of concentrating exclusively on non-state movements and forgetting the continuing
importance of state structures in transnational fields and spaces.
In many ways, this echoes the debate between Fitzgerald and Waldinger (2004) and
Glick Schiller and Levitt (2006) concerning the focus of studies on “transnationalism,” or more
specifically transnational migration studies. The former assert that the literature on
transnational migration has largely forgotten to take into consideration the importance of states,
and propose an
Alternative approach that emphasizes the interactions of migrants with states and
civil society actors in both sending and receiving countries […] emphasizing the
regularity of international migration and its inevitable collision with the
mechanisms by which nation-states attempt to keep themselves apart from the
world (Waldinger and Fitzgerald 2004, 1179, 1193).
In their response, Glick Schiller and Levitt reproach Fitzgerald and Waldinger for
rediscovering the wheel, and provide a detailed list of research responding to what the latter
stated was lacking in the scholarly literature. Moreover, Glick Schiller and Levitt ultimately
criticize their colleague for “seeing like a nation-state” and “embracing the very
methodological nationalism they warn against” (2006, 12).
The positions taken by both sets of scholars is of great importance for this thesis. On the
one hand, I follow Waldinger and Fitzgerald in arguing that not enough attention has been paid
to the “mechanisms by which nation-states attempt to keep themselves apart from the world,”
despite or because of the transnational nature of the fields created by international migration.
Consequently, my contribution to the existing literature on the governance of Islam in Western
Europe is to develop a theoretical framework that provides a clearer picture of the fields in
which this governance takes places, as well as of the central role played by Turkish and
Moroccan state religious authorities, such as the Diyanet and the MHAI.
At the same time, I recognize the risk highlighted by Glick Schiller and Levitt, that in
doing so I replicate the perspective of the state and perhaps overemphasize the importance of
home state actors in fields that extend beyond that of their territorialized sovereignty. As
explained below, these two positions have influenced the methodology and research design of
my study, and constitute important reminders to keep in consideration my own “positionality”
(Faist 2012), and the limits and challenges that it imposes on the issues I attempt to describe
and explain.
45
4) Spaces and Fields: Delimiting Transnational Muslims Fields7
The literature on transnational migration generally uses the terms “transnational social spaces”
or “transnational social fields” (Basch, Glick Schiller, and Szanton-Blanc 1994; Faist 2012;
Faist 2000a; Faist 2000b; Faist and Özveren 2004; Glick Schiller, Basch, and Blanc-Szanton
1992; Pries 2008a; Pries 2007; Pries 2001; Risse-Kappen 1995; Vertovec 2009; Wimmer and
Glick Schiller 2002).
Faist defines the former as the “ties and the unfolding strong and dense circular flows
of persons, goods, ideas, and symbols within a migration system” (Faist 2000a, 2), while Basch,
Glick Schiller, and Szanton-Blanc use the latter to refer to the “single field of social relations
[…] spread across state boundaries” (1994, 6) that “link[s] together [the] country of origin and
[the] country of settlement” (1992, 1). For all of these authors, the most important element has
been elaborating a perspective that could take into account the entire lived reality of migrants
(or “transmigrants”; see Glick Schiller, Basch, and Blanc-Szanton 1992) and not artificially
truncate it by only considering them either as immigrants or as emigrants. However, delimiting
these transnational fields (or spaces) becomes a major theoretical and analytical challenge once
one has accepted that state borders should not be taken as objective limits for scholarly
research. Without the familiar borders of the international state system, which elements should
be emphasized so as to distinguish one transnational social field from another? Moreover, are
all transnational social fields the product of migration, and if not, how might they overlap or
differ?
In order to answer these questions and provide a larger theoretical framework for this
study, I have privileged the term “field” in order to better understand the dynamics of
transnational religious governance between Turkey and Morocco, and France and Germany.
This does not represent a decision in favour of either term mentioned above. Indeed, following
Vertovec (2009) I consider these terms (along with similar ones as “transnational societal
spaces”; see Pries 2008b) as referring to the same need to overcome methodological
nationalism and thus to be generally synonymous. My decision to fall back on the term “field”
stems rather from the vast research on “field theory” as originally elaborated by Pierre
Bourdieu, which he himself applied specifically to the question of religious actors and activities
(Bourdieu 1971). Field theory provides a framework in order to better grasp the specific logics
7
Parts of this section have been published in Bruce 2013.
46
and interests that underlie religious actors’ strategies, and can help in understanding the forms
of competition and the frames of reference and authority that structure specific social domains.
By using these concepts together, I postulate that religious actors active across state
borders can be understood as operating within transnational religious fields, which can be
delimited by religion – such as Islam – due to a certain internal coherence based on shared
practices, beliefs, and references. 8 At the same time, these transnational Muslim fields are
multiple in number,9 and can be distinguished from another on the basis of linguistic, national,
or ethnic criteria. In other words, I begin this thesis with the following premises: that there is a
Turkish Muslim field and a Moroccan Muslim field; that both form part of larger global Muslim
fields to different degrees, especially for historical and linguistic reasons; and that both have
become transnational Muslim fields as a result of the large-scale migration and settlement
abroad. Finally, religion constitutes a potent policy instrument of diaspora politics for both
states, who seek to maintain ties with citizens and their descendants abroad for a host of social,
cultural, economic, and political reasons.
Assuming that a religious field can be delimited by ethno-national boundaries comes
with its own difficulties.10 Not only does it raise the danger of resuscitating methodological
nationalism, but it may also underestimate religion’s capacity to transcend the majority of
social and political boundaries that exist. It may also run the risk of assuming an overly large
homogeneity within the population of one country, and glossing over internal ethnic or
linguistics distinctions (Kurds in Turkey; Amazigh in Morocco) that can have implications for
differences in religious practice. Nevertheless, and with all these caveats in mind, I employ this
category for two main reasons.
Unless otherwise indicated, I will use the term “transnational religious field” largely as a synonym for
“transnational Muslim field,” given that I do not focus on religious actors from other faiths in this thesis.
9
I have decided to favour the term “Muslim field” over “Islamic field” for the simple reason that it
draws attention to the individuals – Muslims – that represent identifiable actors for political science
research. By contrast, “Islam” might seem to refer to a more theological approach that I do not follow.
10
I employ the term “ethno-national” to refer to the mainstream, home state-sponsored national identity.
This includes its customs, cultural traditions, language, and holidays, which constitute some of the most
visible and mobilizing elements of each “ethnic” immigrant group. The term “ethnic” by itself is often
used in English to refer to national origins and identities in the context of immigration (“ethnic
groups/minorities” in Fenton and May 2002, 10). However, this can lead to confusion in cases like
Morocco and Turkey, where a state-led nation-building project has contributed to giving rise to a strong
national identity which co-exists, with varying degrees of tension, with supra- (Arab; Turkic) and
subnational (Amazigh, tribal; Turkmen, Laz, Kurdish, etc.) ethnic identities.
8
47
The first is in order to reflect the reality that in both countries the Muslim field is
structured by historically-derived forms of religious governance that are based on the central
role of state religious institutions and the ambiguous relationship the state maintains with
“unofficial” (non-state) religious currents, whether they be sects, associations, or political
parties. The existence of a national Muslim field thus makes reference to the totality of state
and non-state actors that promote their understanding of Islam within the limits of the statedefined borders and take national imaginaries and state structures as frames of reference for
the development of their activities.
For example, the decades-long conflict between state religious authorities and
movements of political Islam in Morocco and Turkey has been entirely focused on national
issues, regardless of the transnational ties the former may have to similar movements in other
countries. Indeed, François Burgat explains how even transnational movements such as the
Muslim Brotherhood were rapidly confronted with the issue of “national specificities” in the
Arab world (1988, 51–52), especially in North Africa. Moreover, he provides an excerpt of an
interview conducted in 1987 with the leader of ʿAdl wal Iḥsān (Justice and Spirituality), one of
the main contestatory Islamic movements in Morocco, in which the latter explains that despite
his aversion to the artificial boundaries of nation-states, they are well-anchored in the
population and “they will always exist, in the spirits, and souls, and practices, and customs”
(Yassine in Burgat 1988, 44–48).
The second is that is serves to explain the persistence of certain ethno-national
cleavages within Muslim fields abroad, such as in France and Germany – even amongst the
second and third generations that have become French and German citizens. These nationallydelimited religious fields and their particular dynamics were originally “transplanted” abroad
as a result of the waves of migration to Western Europe (Dassetto and Bastenier 1984), which
created the transnational fields in which religious activities have developed between Turkey
and Morocco and their respective diaspora communities abroad.
The form that these dynamics have taken thereafter varies widely. Following Mügge’s
typology of transnational political activities, the religious field abroad reflects three broad
tendencies: the reproduction of home conflicts abroad (“transplanted homeland politics”);
support or opposition from migrants for institutions or groups in the homeland (“homelanddirected politics”); or the promotion of activities by homeland groups oriented towards
migrants abroad (“country of residence-directed transnational politics”) (2010, 37). The close
48
connections between religious and political movements in Turkey and Moroccan since at least
the 1970s make the connection between these categories of transnational activities all the more
pertinent. Moreover, over the last decade scholarly research has progressed greatly in the
analysis of the last category mentioned above, with a particular focus on the role of home states
vis-à-vis populations abroad. The growing literature on “diaspora politics” (Dufoix,
Guerassimoff, and de Tinguy 2010; Sheffer 2003), the “governance of diasporas,” (Ragazzi
2014; Ragazzi 2009) “diaspora engagements policies” (Gamlen 2008a; Gamlen 2008b;
Gamlen 2006), and “emigrant nations” (Choate 2008; Choate 2007) shows that home states in
many different contexts seek to maintain ties to expatriates by using specific policy
instruments, amongst which religious and cultural activities figure prominently.
On the other hand, if nationally-delimited Muslim fields can be said to exist in Morocco
and Turkey, where Islam has been practised for centuries, what about France and Germany?
Franck Frégosi and Frank Peter have both employed the notion of “Muslim field” in the context
of France, which the latter describes as a “relational structure of positions which are defined
and in turn determine the agents occupying them as part of the broader distribution of capital,
i.e. potential sources of power” (2006, 708). Peter’s application of field theory to the case of
Muslim in France has been influential in guiding the way that I have developed and employed
the concept in this thesis. In his article, Peter notably demonstrates the shifting value of
different kinds of capital (especially religious and cultural) in a post-migratory religious field.
Speaking of a Muslim field is thus a way to contextualize the actions of Islamic organizations,
acknowledging the specificities inherent to this “religious field” while examining the areas of
overlap with other fields (political, economic, and so forth) and the “convertibility of other
forms of capital” (Peter 2006, 709). Frégosi (2004) has similarly been influential in
demonstrating how the emergence of new figures of Islamic leadership in the French Muslim
field has given rise to competition between the very sources of capital on which they base their
authority.
Since field boundaries can be fluid and flexible, the difficulty lies in determining if and
when a term such as the “French Muslim Field” may be misleading. As mentioned, many
studies on Islamic organizations in Western Europe focus exclusively on political opportunity
structures (POS) and pre-existing state-church regimes in order to explain the development of
different models of religious governance (Soper and Fetzer 2005). Indeed, these factors do
show that there are country-specific differences that may lead to the creation of a “national
49
Islam” in France, Germany, or elsewhere in Western Europe, in the sense of state-led attempts
at incorporating Muslims (cf. Laurence 2012).
However, this represents only one side of the coin. As Bowen (2004) asks in the title of
his article: “Does French Islam have borders?,” the symbolic and material resources which
Islamic organizations draw on are not limited by the borders of the states in which they are
primarily located. Local Islamic organizations are well-integrated into multiple transnational
networks, and many are linked to their states of origin, which has helped them establish
themselves as dominant actors in their respective religious fields. In order to account for this,
some authors such as Blätte (2011) simply integrate transnational resources (such as financial
or material support) into a broader vision of the resource-building capacities of Islamic
organizations, while Ögelman opens POS theory up to include a transnational dimension,
which he defines as “a combination of circumstances, arrangements and interrelations
transcending sovereign nation-states and their constituent sub-units, which enhances the ability
of particular actors to exercise power over others” (2006, 170).
Both these approaches effectively address the question of how to include transnational
resources in an analysis of Islamic organizations; however, I argue that Bourdieu’s field theory
can take this analysis a step further and better explain the persistence of ethnic cleavages by
demonstrating the convertibility of different forms of cultural capital within the Muslim
religious field. Cultural capital here refers to those customs (habitus), symbols, and institutions
which are specific to a given society, knowledge of which is acquired through processes of
socialization and education; it differs from religious capital in that it is not equally valued,
known, or even recognized by Muslims who come from different cultural backgrounds.11
Given that immigration has been the main reason for the growth of Islam in Western
Europe, and the fact that many of these immigrants and their descendants have maintained ties
to their countries of origin, the borders of states such as France and Germany can be far more
porous than the divisions that exist between different immigrant groups within each country.
Pushed to an extreme, these ethnic and linguistic divisions may at times seem so wellentrenched that the only thing “French” or “German” about the Muslim field in each country
would be the particular mix of pre-existing ethno-national Muslim fields (Moroccan, Turkish,
Pakistani, etc.). A contributing factor may be that there is a certain overlap between ethnic
This characterization is based on Roy’s definition of culture (2008, 43) and Bourdieu’s explanation
of cultural and symbolic capital (1979; 2011, 302–303).
11
50
differences and the differences between juridical schools (maḍhab/mezhep): for example,
practically all Sunni Turks follow the Hanafi tradition, while Moroccans are Maliki. 12
Nevertheless, the reality of these divisions between communities has much less to do with
juridical and theological differences than it does with cultural and ethno-national identities.
Conversely, the Islamic organizations in Western Europe which have been able to bring
together Muslims of diverse ethnic origins have largely been transnational movements
emphasizing the global pan-Islamic community (the ummah), such as the Jama’at al-Tabligh
(Khedimellah 2001; Dassetto 1988; Kepel 1987) and Salafist movements (Adraoui 2013;
Ceylan and Kiefer 2013; Meijer 2009), or movements of political Islam such as those tied to
the Muslim Brotherhood (Rubin 2010; Maréchal 2008). These transnational movements have
succeeded in appealing to the uprooted feeling experienced by many immigrants and their
descendants by promoting a “quest for universality, rather than nostalgia for a country or a
society which in any case are not positive models (such as Algeria and Pakistan), and from
which one flees in order to find a better life in Europe or in America” (Roy 2004, 13). At the
same time, these movements have also adapted more rapidly to the local contexts of Western
Europe than those tied to home state religious institutions: preaching in a language (and
languages) understandable to their target public, these groups have reoriented their activities
so as to coincide with the interests of the second and third generations of Western European
Muslims.
At the same time, certain distinctions remain in place. For instance, the French Union
des Organisations Islamiques de France (Union of French Islamic Organizations, UOIF) or
the German Islamische Gemeinschaft in Deutschland (Islamic Community in Germany, IGD),
both tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, generally appeal to Muslims of Arab background
(Moroccan, Algerian, Egyptian, etc.). The classic representative of political Islam stemming
from Turkey, the Milli Görüş movement, has certainly cooperated with the UOIF or the IGD
on different occasions; however, it remains a thoroughly Turkish movement, and there has
never been any thought of merging with its like-minded partners. The longevity of such
distinctions is a result of the fact that Milli Görüş is a product of the Turkish Muslim field, and
continues to evolve today as a pan-European actor of the transnational Turkish Muslim field
12
Two of the main four schools of Islamic jurisprudence, the Hanafi School is practised generally in
the Middle East, Central and South Asia, while the Maliki School is predominant in North Africa.
Alongside differences in Islamic legal jurisprudence there are also differences concerning the
performance of Islamic rituals and dietary restrictions.
51
and as part of the national Muslim fields of countries such as France and Germany. Indeed, the
same could be said of other non-state transnational religious movements, such as ʿAdl wal Iḥsān
in the case of the transnational Moroccan Muslim field, which goes by Participation et
Spiritualité Musulmanes (Muslim Participation and Spirituality, PSM) in France. Despite the
formation of some federative pan-ethnic groups, large portions of the nascent Muslim fields of
Western European countries still resemble a juxtaposition of different home state religious
fields.
Nevertheless, I follow Peter’s assertion that it is possible to speak of a French Muslim
field since the late 1980s, and I would argue a German Muslim field since the 1990s, in the
sense that the limits of a field correspond to whether “the objective relations between a group
of actors generate effects that impact the functioning of each of them” (2006, 711). At the same
time, due to the interpenetration and overlapping with transnational home state Muslim fields,
the value of different forms of religious and cultural capital is even more contingent on
changing internal dynamics and the evolving vision of new generations of French and German
Muslims.
As Mügge summarizes, many scholars of transnational migration “argue that the first
generation’s attachments to the homeland are likely to be absorbed by their children and
grandchildren” due to having “grow[n] up in ‘transnational social fields’” (2010, 26). The
extent to which this is the case will determine the receptivity of young French and German
Muslims to certain forms of home state religious and cultural capital, and even more
importantly their expectations concerning the place of cultural capital within the religious field.
Indeed, the answer to this question has a direct bearing on whether Muslims in religious fields
abroad will continue to consider home state trained and employed religious actors to be
legitimate, and on the future perception of home state institutions as sources of legitimate
religious authority in transnational Muslim fields.
At the same time, the French and German Muslim fields are characterized above all by
a lack of resources, and the paucity of financial as well as religious capital. Turkish and
Moroccan religious authorities, as well as transnational non-state religious movements, are
keenly aware of this situation, and accordingly propose an evolving offer of “religious
services” that ultimately plays a key role in shaping the demands and vision of legitimate
religious authority in France and Germany. Indeed, both states are conscious of their own
interest in extending their governance over the religious affairs of their citizens abroad for
52
internal as well as foreign political reasons. As a consequence, they both allocate significant
resources in order to secure symbolic as well as structurally-important positions for themselves
within their transnational Muslim fields, with the concurrent result that they obtain similar
positions within the French and German Muslim fields.
One of the main strategies that both states employ in order to achieve this goal is the
cooptation of non-state religious actors. I define the concept of cooptation in this thesis as the
ability of the state to – more or less forcefully – align the interests of non-state religious actors
with their own, especially when it serves political purposes. On the one hand, this definition
takes from the literature on neo-corporatist political systems (Braud 2002, 332–337) in the
sense of conflict resolution and negotiation between state and non-state actors (Bealey and
Johnson 1999, 89–90). On the other hand, it reflects the inherent tension between “power”
(Macht) and “domination” (Herrschaft) in Weber’s political thought, in which the latter is
distinguished by its “legitimate” character, due to the acceptance of those who are dominated
(Baudouin 1998, 56–57). Weber argues that this legitimacy can be based on tradition, charisma,
or legal-rational principles, while other scholars have added a “fourth category” that focuses
on legitimacy derived from expertise, knowledge, and ideology (Bealey and Johnson 1999, 22–
23). For the purposes of this thesis I have assimilated the so-called “fourth category” to that of
legal-rational authority, for the simple reason that both correspond to state religious authorities
in both countries, who embody bureaucracy, expertise, and legal-rational norms. 13 These
authorities constitute the front-line actors mobilized by Turkey and Morocco in legitimizing
and expanding their policies of religious governance abroad.
Finally, the state’s ability to establish its model of legitimate authority in the religious
field is intimately tied the power it deploys to carry out its actions. In this thesis, the state’s
intervention in the religious field is understood through the lens of public policy instruments
(as explained in Chapter IV), which concretely provide different forms of capital. As mentioned
above, I focus in particular on forms of religious, cultural, and financial capital, which are at
the heart of home state policies that provide personnel, organizational, and symbolic support
to religious associations abroad. The power of home states in these Muslim fields is thus
nuanced in this study through the usage of different forms of “soft power” (Nye 2004), which
For a study that actively uses the “fourth category” to analyze the case of the ulema in Saudi Arabia,
see (Mouline 2011).
13
53
are included as part of their overall diaspora policies, given that these home states are operating
outside of their sovereign boundaries.
I argue that the governance of Islam abroad by these states must take into account that
the modes of power employed by these home states, which have also changed over time: from
a more coercive and “disciplinary” mode to more “neo-liberal” forms of governing or
“governmentality” (Ragazzi 2009), today’s religious diaspora policies reflect rather what Allen
calls the “seductive” mode of power, which is especially effective “at a distance,” because it
“seek[s] to take advantage of attitudes and values that are already present, leaving open the
possibility of rejection or indifference” (2003, 103). Consequently, the governance of Islam
abroad occurs when home states promote particular types of capital in Muslim fields – such as
those of France and Germany – through the use of specific religious public policy instruments.
The ultimate goal is to influence the construction of models of legitimate religious authority
within diaspora communities and ensure that they remain favourable to home state interests,
both by conditioning the access of actors abroad to the forms of capital that home states control,
and by “seducing” those actors who may be predisposed to this strategy through processes of
cooptation and organizational expansion abroad.
It is within this broader conceptual and theoretical framework that this thesis seeks to
understand and explain the ways by which home state religious institutions succeed in
governing Islam abroad, as well as detailing the consequences for Muslim fields in the
countries of settlement.
C - Selection of Case Studies
The pertinence of the case studies under consideration in this thesis will be presented in this
section. More specifically, this concerns the comparison, on the one hand, between Turkey and
Morocco as home states engaged in the governance of transnational Muslim fields, and France
and Germany, on the other hand, as the sites in which evolving national Muslim fields are
influenced by these forms of religious diaspora policies.
54
1) The “Home States”: Turkey and Morocco
Since independence, Turkey and Morocco have both been countries in which a great degree of
diversity has been overshadowed by a militant, at times oppressive, nationalistic discourse
emphasizing unity and homogeneity. Religion, tied to nationalism, has been seen by
generations of state leaders as a primary means of affirming this unity, to the point that being
Turkish or Moroccan is considered synonymous with being Muslim. This idea is echoed by
countless fact books and atlases which refer to the “99% Muslim population” of both
countries, 14 masking the multiple levels of diversity which lie under the denomination
“Muslim.”
However, this statistic does point to an undeniably important development for the
religious fields of both countries: over the last one hundred years, the traditional non-Muslim
populations of both countries have decreased dramatically. In the case of Morocco, the number
of Christians was generally limited to European colonialists in the past, 15 and more recently to
expatriate communities and Sub-Saharan immigrants. It comprises today approximately 25,000
Catholics and a small Protestant community of 1,500, the latter often making headlines for its
“proselytizing” activities, which are punishable by law (Amilhau 2012). The native Moroccan
Jewish population decreased dramatically following the creation of Israel and the subsequent
fallout from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, from an estimated 240,000 individuals in 1952 to
a mere 6,000 in 2000 (Laskier & Bashan 2002, p.486, 503).
In Turkey, the creation of the new state came after years of armed conflict in which
religion played a polarizing role, and huge numbers of non-Muslim minorities had either
perished or fled. While the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne only mentions “Non-Muslim minorities,”
these have traditionally been understood as the Greeks, Armenians, and Jews, each of which
had been governed according to religious affiliation (and not ethnicity) under the Ottoman
millet system. 16 Religion divided the population where other aspects would not have, for
14
See for instance the entries on Turkey and Morocco in Islam & Islamic Groups: A Worldwide
Reference Guide (Shaikh 1992), or in the CIA World Factbook online.
15
The 1930-31 censuses give the following numbers for Europeans: 160,798 in the French Protectorate,
of which 3/4 were French (total population 5,364,809); 48,000 in the Spanish Protectorate (total
population 750,000); and 11,000 more in Tangiers (total population 74,000), which had been declared
an international zone in 1923 (in Ganiage 1994, 462–463). In 1947, the European population of the
French Protectorate was as high as 325,000 (Julien 2002, 57).
16
Thus the majority of the “Greeks” were followers of Greek Orthodox Christianity, represented by the
Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople; “Armenians” were generally members of the Armenian
Apostolic Orthodox Church, represented by the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople; and “Jews”
followed the Hahambaşı, or Chief Rabbi of Constantinople. Nevertheless, there was diversity within
55
instance excluding Turkish-speaking Christians from the national community for not being
Muslim, all the while including Muslims who spoke no word of Turkish yet denying their
linguistic and cultural specificities (such as in the case of Kurds).
The 1923 convention between Greece and Turkey, which organized massive population
exchanges between the two countries, is another example of this vision given that it was based
on religious, instead of ethnic or linguistic criteria (Bruneau 2012). The many different
Christian denominations in Turkey, accounting for 258,000 according to the 1927 census, are
estimated to be at around 98,000 in 2005, while the Jewish population has fallen from 81,454
in 1927 to around 26,000 today (Gruen 2002, 309; Güleryüz 2013; Içduygu, Toktas, and Ali
Soner 2008, 363). Overall, the percentage of non-Muslims has plummeted from 19.1% of the
Ottoman population in 1914 to 2.5% of the population of Turkey in 1927, and even further to
0.2% in 2005 (Içduygu, Toktas, and Ali Soner 2008, 363).
While Muslims may constitute the overwhelming majority of the populations of both
Turkey and Morocco, this tells us very little about the actual organization of the religious field
in both countries. The ostensible homogeneity that Islam seems to represent masks not only a
great degree of ethnic, social, and individual difference, but also a religious field in which
countless different actors and tendencies compete for religious legitimacy. This competition
has frequently overlapped with political considerations, rendering the question of religious
governance of upmost importance to the state. Due to the lack of a church in Islamic theology,
in the sense of an institutionalized and recognized religious organization such as the Catholic
church, as well as the lack of the accompanying notion of a clergy (at least in Sunni Islam),
there is no one universal standard for religious governance in Muslim countries. Even apart
from the Shi’a/Sunni division, the four schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence
(maḍhab/mezhep),17 and the numerous Sufi-inspired Islamic currents (tariqa/tarikat), the role
of the state in Islamic religious governance varies a great deal across the Muslim world.
Moreover, the state’s role in the religious field is also conditioned by its perception of local
these groups: Armenian Catholics and Protestants, for example, or Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews.
Moreover, there were numerous other Christian communities, such as the Assyrians (Orthodox,
Chaldeans), and Bulgarians (Orthodox), and other small historical and recent Catholic and Protestant
communities. For more on the competition between the Christian millet during the Ottoman period, see
(Masters 2006), and for more on this religious and ethnic diversity in Turkish society see Akgönül 2005,
37–40, 58–61; Bazin 2005, 397–398.
17
The four main Sunni schools are the Ḥanafī, Shāfiʿī, Mālikī, and Ḥanbalī. As mentioned, the dominant
school in North Africa is the Mālikī, while in Turkey it is the Ḥanafī (hereafter “Maliki” and “Hanafi”).
For more see (Newby 2002).
56
religious movements, especially if and when such movements use religion in order to mobilize
opposition to the ruling regime.
In Sunni contexts, the transversal elements which do exist are often the result of early
historical legacies. The rise of Islamic theologians (ʿulamā˒, hereafter “ulema”) as élites from
the 9th century onwards established a precedent which “made the ulama, and not the caliph, the
arbiters of religious authority” (Berkey 2003, 128). These religious élites used their religious
knowledge “as a kind of cultural capital that became a source of religious authority,” giving
them the ability to control “entry into the academic and legal establishment” which equally
“allowed the most senior clerics to create a kind of religious aristocracy of old, established
families in places such as Cairo, Damascus, and Istanbul” (Hatina 2010, 2). In the 10th century,
the madrasa spread across the Islamic world as the primary place of Islamic education, and
especially for instruction in Islamic law (fiqh), and became a key component of the state’s
administrative and legal systems, alongside training the next generations of preachers and
Islamic scholars (Hatina 2010, 17–18). These centres of learning, as well as many other
important institutions of Islamic civilization (mosques, travellers’ inns, hospitals, etc.) were
financed by pious endowments called waqf (pl. awqāf) or vakıf (pl. evkaf), which “make[] the
principal (aṣl) of a revenue-producing property inalienable in perpetuity and assigns the
usufruct or yields (manfaʿa, [menfaat]) of the property to specified persons or institutions”
(Hennigan 2004, xiii–xiv). Interestingly, Berkey points out that the waqf constituted a means
by which rulers and members of the ruling class could retain a degree of control of the ulema,
but in terms of “carrots rather than sticks,” giving them access to wealth instead of resorting to
coercion, and in doing so creating a “complex ‘condominium’ of power involving soldiers and
scholars” (2003, 213–214).
These elements of religious governance all underwent significant changes as Turkey and
Morocco became modern states, but they have survived in different ways within the state
apparatus. Together, these institutions give a face to “official Islam,” referring to the kind of
Islam that is promoted and sanctioned by the state. As part of the state apparatus, the Diyanet
and the MHAI – along with other actors of official Islam – are already ensured to occupy a
position of authority within the national religious fields of both countries. It would be mistaken,
however, to assume that the content of official Islam is static; the term alludes merely to the
fact that it corresponds largely to the prevailing interests of the state at a given moment, which
in turn means that it is entirely contingent on the changing interests of political actors over
time. At the same time, the actors of official Islam are presented as the most legitimate religious
57
authorities in the country, and are logically contrasted with the religious actors of “unofficial”
or “parallel” Islam.
This latter group can be extremely heterogeneous, and may include any and all Islamicinspired groups and movements that are not officially recognized or approved of by the state.
These groups are not necessarily in opposition to state-approved religious institutions, and they
may even form tacit alliances or be outright co-opted by state authorities – sometimes in order
to undermine other such groups. Nevertheless, the state or parts of its apparatus may be
perceived by certain groups of unofficial Islam as an illegitimate form of government, with the
ensuing result that state religious actors are not recognized as legitimate within the religious
field. In a more limited fashion, other actors may contest the state’s involvement in religious
affairs and challenge fundamental aspects of the current system of religious governance, though
they recognize the current state structure as a legitimate form of government. Nevertheless the
perceived danger posed by such groups, whether instrumentalized or real, can also serve to
justify state oppression of religious actors that do not follow the prescripts of official Islam.
The similarities between Turkey and Morocco can thus be summarized by two
fundamental factors that permit a large-scale comparison: the first is the existence of an
“official Islam” and historically-derived models of state religious governance, as symbolized
by the Diyanet and the MHAI; the second is the presence of a diaspora (or “quasi-diaspora”)
that covers a large number of Western European countries, and which is not concentrated solely
in one country. The latter factor is important in that it implies a certain level of standardization
for religious policies abroad before they are adapted to the individual contexts of different
countries. If the diaspora community in question in located in only one other country, this
reduces diaspora issues at the interstate level to first and foremost a question of bilateral
relations, without the prior construction of a broader home state vision concerning the diaspora
and the transnational Muslim field.
Both examples can be considered “explanatory case studies,” in that I aim to advance
causal explanations to the main thesis questions through a “complex stud[y] of organizations
or communities […in order] to examine a plurality of influences” (Berg 2001, 230). Indeed,
the choice of comparing few cases resembles a comparative politics approach that enables a
“middle level of conceptual abstraction” while “encompass[ing] more of the nuances specific
to each country” (T. Landman 2003, 27–32). However, there is an important nuance to be made
here: the focus of this thesis is on transnational religious governance as an international
58
phenomenon, while Turkey and Morocco constitute the explanatory case studies (in the cases
of France and Germany) in order to understand and explain this phenomenon. In that sense, my
perspective stems from the discipline of International Relations, in that the question I seek to
answer focuses on transnational and interstate political and social dynamics. By contrast, an
approach more inspired by case study methodologies in comparative politics would be
primarily interested in explaining the differences or similarities in policy outcomes with regard
to the internal characteristics of Turkey and Morocco. While this angle is crucial in explaining
the specific structural consequences of Turkey and Moroccan religious governance abroad for
individual Muslim fields, it does not answer the main question of how both states are able to
govern Islam abroad.
The purpose of this thesis is not to argue that transnational religious fields exist
everywhere, nor that all states are able or interested in engaging in the governance of such
religious activities. Indeed, certain positivistic methodological currents of political science
research would most likely raise red flags concerning the “selection bias” of the cases I focus
on in this study (King, Keohane, and Verba 1994, 128–139). However, since I aim at a “middle
level” of conceptual abstraction, my interest is not on identifying large-scale causal
explanations that may be generalized to fully different spatial or temporal contexts. Indeed,
Tilly points out the King et al.’s textbook on social inquiry presents a view of causal inference
that “do[es] not require general laws, but [that] belong[s] to this tradition,” in which “models
are invariant – they work the same under all condition” (2001, 23).
Establishing such general laws is not a goal of this study, though I do not preclude the
possibility for generalizations concerning similar cases in terms of space and time. My study
starts with an explanandum: “a sequence, a part of [an] ongoing process, and tr[ies] to explain
how it has come to the particular point,” which entails “causal reconstruction, a retrospective
process-tracing that ends with the identification of crucial initial conditions” (Mayntz 2004,
244). In order to answer the question of how Turkey and Morocco have been able to govern
Muslim fields abroad, I thus employ process-tracing techniques and a historical sociological
perspective to describe and explain the multiple causes that have contributed to the evolution
of this explanandum in time and space. My use of process-tracing and the identification of
certain explicative causal factors (or “mechanisms”; see Mayntz 2004; Tilly 2001) is meant to
ensure a close relationship with the field work that I have carried out in order to move “towards
theories that capture and explain the world as it really works” (Checkel 2005, 14–15). I thus
59
consider process-tracing to be an essential tool in identifying multi-causal explanations, with
the caveat once again that these causal explanations are contextually bound.
King et al. criticize this approach in the case of Tilly’s “retrospective research” on the
formation of nation-states, arguing that the selecting cases on the basis of certain dependent
variables (such as “survival in the year 1900”) will “on average reduc[e] the attributed effects
of explanatory variables that [in this case] distinguish the surviving states from their less
durable counterparts” (1994, 136). Applied to my research, the same criticism could ask why I
do not include other Muslim home states, such as Pakistan or Bangladesh, which have large
diaspora communities but do not engage in religious governance abroad to the same degree as
Turkey or Morocco. Conversely, another argument would point out that I have conditioned the
dependent variable (the similar geographic spread of the Turkish and Moroccan diasporas
abroad), and that my study could have focused on Algeria instead (and to a lesser degree
Tunisia), in order to see if there are different outcomes due to the decidedly bilateral context
of the Algerian diaspora with France.
There are three answers to these critiques: the first is based on the presence of
comparable objects in both cases. For all their differences, Turkey and Morocco both have state
institutions that are active and structural actors of their respective religious fields. The
Ministries of Religious Affairs in Pakistan and Bangladesh do not have the same institutional
histories nor the same competencies, and are not as active concerning their transnational
Muslim fields. Indeed, I would argue that there is a transnational Muslim field bringing
together non-state movements from the Indian subcontinent (attested by the affiliates of the
Deobani, Barelvi, Tablighi, and other movements within diaspora communities in Western
Europe and elsewhere), but that home states do not engage to the same extent in comparable
activities, due to many historical and institutional reasons that cannot be treated here.
Conversely, Algeria does in fact correspond to the first main similarity concerning “official
Islam” and the role played by state religious institutions in the national Muslim field.
The second answer goes back to the second similarity mentioned: the geographic extent
of the diaspora communities. In the case of Algeria, migration has overwhelmingly been to
France: 75% of Algerians abroad in 2012 resided in France, followed by Spain (6.3%), Canada
(3.5%), and Italy (2.4%) (EUI Migration Policy Centre 2013, 1). Moreover, the colonial history
of Algeria with France was far longer and more pronounced than in the case of its North African
neighbours, and the subsequent development of Algerian religious activities abroad has
60
occurred within the framework of bilateral Franco-Algerian relation. This represents a
fascinating subject,18 but one that does not address the larger issue of a state policy formulated
for diaspora communities based in multiple different countries, necessitating as well multiple
interstate relations.
The last point equally raises another important aspect of the case studies chosen for this
thesis. Despite what could be assumed, I do not focus only on Turkish religious policies
towards Germany, and Moroccan religious policies towards France, but rather the intersection
of all four cases. That is to say, this thesis also studies Turkish state religious activities oriented
towards France, as well as Moroccan state religious policies towards Germany. The underlying
assumption is that by including an additional receiving country for both home states where
their citizens abroad do not constitute one of the main ethno-national groups of Muslims (Turks
in France, Moroccans in Germany), I will be able to develop a broader picture of each states’
diaspora policies and religious activities abroad outside of a particular bilateral framework.
Elaborating this general vision is precisely what would not have been possible with the case of
Algeria.
The final answer is of a practical nature. Carrying out field research in four different
countries has necessitated a great degree of time, background knowledge, and financial
resources. Consequently, including more case studies would have resulted in a less thorough
treatment of the cases already chosen. Including more home states or more receiving states are
obvious paths for further research in comparative studies of transnational religious fields, as
Laurence (2012) in particular has shown concerning receiving states.
Finally, by deciding to work on Turkey and Morocco I also have decided to privilege my
previous experience, having written my Master’s thesis on Turkish religious governance
abroad, and my linguistic skills in German, Turkish, French, and to a lesser degree Arabic.
2) The “Receiving States”: France and Germany
In terms of receiving states, this thesis focuses on France and Germany as participant actors as
well as the site of transnational religious governance. The reasons for this decision have in part
already been answered above: after the main home state case studies had been chosen, it was
necessary to decide on both a major and a minor country of emigration for each diaspora group
18
The religious activities of Algeria in France are studied by Dorra Mameri Chaambi in her Ph.D. thesis.
61
in order to carry out my study of religious governance abroad. France, with the largest number
of Moroccans abroad, and Germany, with the largest Turkish community outside of Turkey,
obviously corresponded to these criteria. Once again, on a more practical note they both also
corresponded to other decisive factors, namely my fluency in French and German and
familiarity with both countries. Moreover, as a Ph.D. student based in Paris, I have been able
to actively follow developments in the field first hand, as well as participate in conferences and
workshops with actors involved in the governance of religious affairs.
There is a substantial literature that compares France and Germany in terms of
citizenship (Brubaker 1992) and the relations of both to their Muslim populations (Koenig and
Willaime 2008; Kastoryano 2004a; Soper and Fetzer 2005; Tietze 2002; Leveau, Wihtol de
Wenden, and Mohsen-Finan 2001; de Galembert 2001; de Galembert 1995). However, as with
the other bodies of scholarly work mentioned above, almost none of these studies focuses on
Islam as a question of foreign policy and international relations. While this thesis takes into
account significant aspects of receiving states’ perspectives towards their Muslim populations,
and that of the different Muslim populations themselves, my contribution to these prior studies
is through an in-depth study of how the governance of Islam in both countries is treated as a
matter of foreign affairs. In other words, the particular angle that guides my analysis of these
receiving states is the way that both “outsource” (Laurence 2006) or “externalize” (Jouanneau
2013) the governance of their Muslim fields to the “consular Islam” (Geisser 2004) of home
states such as Turkey and Morocco.
Given the two home states chosen, there are a select number of other receiving countries
which could have also been interesting for this study. The most notable example is the
Netherlands, where the Muslim population is split roughly down the middle between
individuals of Moroccan and Turkish origin, alongside certain smaller groups such as the
Surinamese (Sunier and van Kujieren 2002). In a similar fashion, Muslims in Belgium are for
the most part of Turkish and Moroccan origin, and the country equally presents a novel
institutional framework, in which Islam has benefitted from official recognition since 1974.
There have also been a number of important studies on the Turkish Diyanet in the Netherlands
over the years (Sunier et al. 2011; N. Landman 1997; N. Landman 1992; den Exter 1990), and
a smaller number in the case of Belgium (Çitak 2011; Manço 1997; Dassetto and Bastenier
1984), though in both countries there exists an important literature treating many other aspects
of Islam and Muslim organizations.
62
For Turkey, a few other countries such as Switzerland and Austria, and to a less degree
the Nordic countries offer possible comparisons. In addition, the significant size of Turkish
migration to North America (Canada and especially the United States) and Australia opens
doors for other possible comparisons. In the case of Morocco, changing migratory movements
have led to Spain and Italy rapidly becoming major centres of Moroccan emigration, which has
equally led to an expansion of the transnational Muslim field to include these countries as well.
Despite the fact that none of these additional countries are analyzed in detail in this thesis,
their status as integral components of the Turkish and Moroccan transnational Muslim fields
has led me to turn to them on occasion for further examples and in order to privilege a global
vision of my object of study.
D - Field Research
In conducting the field research for this thesis, I have employed a qualitative methodology
based on three main sources of primary information: semi-directive qualitative interviews;
official reports and documents published by state sources and religious associations, as well as
their internet presence in the form of official websites, Facebook pages, and other social media;
and participant observation, during field visits to mosques and religious institutions in all four
countries. In addition, French, German, Turkish, Moroccan, and other international media
sources, along with scholarly literature and a number of documentary videos, have constituted
significant sources of information.
In determining a typology of actors involved in transnational Muslim fields, this thesis
identifies home state actors, receiving state actors, and non-state actors. As a subset to these
three actors, I distinguish between state actors who are directly involved in the governance of
religious affairs; state actors of the central state or other ministries for whom religious affairs
constitutes a peripheral concern; parapublic organizations; and religious associations. 19 The
question of levels of governance (transnational, national, regional, or local) constitutes an
additional factor in distinguishing between state and associative religious actors, which may be
organized differently internally or act distinctly externally depending on the level that is
considered. This typology of actors has been applied to the contexts of France and Germany
19
Parapublic organizations refer to organizations that have a certain autonomy from the state apparatus,
but which for all intents and purposes can be considered as quasi-state bodies (i.e. The Turkish Diyanet
Foundation, the Moroccan Hassan II Foundation, the French Institut Français, the Goethe Institut, etc.).
63
in order to provide a guiding comparative framework with the goal of identifying the main
actors in the governance of Islam abroad (see Figures 0-1 and 0-2).
After identifying the most pertinent state and non-state actors at different levels, I
proceeded to elaborate a template questionnaire that was then adapted to each type of actor,
their country of origin, and the level of governance at which they were situated (see Annex 1
for the template questionnaire). This ensured a certain harmony between the specific
information collected during the interviews and central questions addressed in the thesis. The
preparation of these interviews was aided by methodological seminars at Sciences Po Paris
given by Samy Cohen on “Interviewing Leaders” in 2009-2010, during which many of the
advantages and limits of this methodological tool were addressed.
Indeed, as pointed out by Rathbun, “intensive interviewing is a powerful, but
unfortunately underused tool in political science methodology” for a number of practical
reasons: the difficulty of “gaining access to interview subjects, particularly elites”; the costs,
as it “often entails traveling great distances, sometimes across national borders”; the
“tremendous personal investment in language training that might not seem worth it”; and the
fact that after all that effort, “informants might reveal little” (2008, 685–686). Indeed, I can
confirm that in my personal case all these factors have been present. For instance, though my
knowledge of Turkish before beginning the thesis was decent, I was forced to improve it greatly
in order to be able to carry out interviews and transcribe them, as well as analyze them along
with the official documents and literature only available in Turkish. Furthermore, even though
my Moroccan interlocutors were all fluent in French, I was similarly obliged to develop my
proficiency in Arabic in order to read the official reports and documents of the MHAI and other
institutions.
Despite criticism about the “objective value” of information drawn from interviews,
Rathbun points out that “interviewing is often necessary for establishing motivations and
preferences […and] for all its problems, interviewing is often more ‘scientific’ than other
methods” that try to “infer[] preferences from observable behavior and a posited set of
situational constraints” (2008, 690–691). My reliance on semi-directive interviews – also called
“semistandardized” by Berg (2001, 70–71) – has been undertaken in order to be able to ask
both directly and indirectly the specific questions of interest to this thesis, while permitting
important digressions that have helped me in understanding the vision and perspective of my
interviewees.
64
Figure 0-1 “Typology of Actors: The Turkish and Moroccan Transnational Muslim Fields in Germany”
Type of Actor
Germany
Turkey
Morocco
State – General
Politicians, ministers, ministerial
employees, diplomats, police and security
officials, ambassadors and diplomats
employees, diplomats, police and
security officials, ambassadors and
diplomats
employees, diplomats, police
and security officials,
ambassadors and diplomats
State –
Religious
Affairs
Subdepartments of the federal interior
(MII, GI4, ÖSII) and foreign affairs (208,
312, 606, 609) ministries, BAMF,
diplomats in embassies abroad, security
services, regional (Land) ministries for the
interior, education (Kultus), nature and
agriculture, local courts, municipal
authorities, integration officers
The Diyanet and its foreign affairs
department, the consular affairs
division of the foreign affairs
ministry, diplomats in embassies
abroad, Diyanet religious services
counsellors and attachés posted
abroad, imams and preachers
The MHAI and divisions for
Moroccans abroad, the High
Council of Ulema, the European
Council of Moroccan Ulema,
diplomats in embassies abroad;
social affairs counsellors in
consulates (DACS); imams and
preachers
Parapublic
The Goethe Institut and political party
foundations (in Germany and abroad);
universities
(The Turkish Diyanet Foundation)
Hassan II Foundation, Mohamed
VI Foundation for the Holy
Qur’an, Council for the
Moroccan Community Abroad
Religious
Groups and
Associations
(Other actors of the German Muslim Field)
ZMD, IRD, IGD, IZH, AMJ, IGBD,
Salafist groups, etc.; and regional and
national joint structures: Shura Councils
and Regional Islamic Communities, KRM
DITIB, IGMG, VIKZ, AABF,
ADÜTDF, Foundation for “Dialogue
and Education,” ICCB, Turkish
Hizbullah, Menzil Nakşibendi,
Qadiriyya groups, etc.
The Central Council of
Moroccans in Germany,
Amicales associations, Qadiriya
Boutchichiya Deutschland, ʿAdl
wal Iḥsān, etc.
Elaborated by the author. For all acronyms, see the list of abbreviations.
65
Figure 0-2 “Typology of Actors: The Turkish and Moroccan Transnational Fields in France”
Type of Actor
France
Turkey
State – General
security officials, ambassadors and
diplomats
Politicians, ministers,
ministerial employees,
diplomats, police and security
officials, ambassadors and
diplomats
security officials, ambassadors
and diplomats
State – Religious
Affairs
Subdepartments of the interior ministry
(BCC, DLPAJ) and foreign affairs
(CAR), diplomats in embassies abroad,
interior minister “Islam” counsellors,
Ministry of Culture, Ministry of
Agriculture, prefectural employees and
security services, municipal authorities
The Diyanet and its foreign
affairs department; the
consular affairs division of the
foreign affairs ministry;
Diyanet religious services
counsellors and attachés posted
abroad; imams and preachers
The MHAI and divisions for
Moroccans abroad, the High
Council of Ulema, the European
Council of Moroccan Ulema;
social affairs counsellors in
consulates (DACS), imams and
preachers
The Institut Français (abroad),
universities
(The Turkish Diyanet
Foundation)
Hassan II Foundation, Mohamed
VI Foundation for the Holy
Qur’an, Council for the
Moroccan Community Abroad
(Other actors of the French Muslim field)
GMP, UOIF, FFAIACA, UAM 93,
Tabligh, Ahmadiya, Alawiyya, Ahbach,
Tijaniyya, Muridiyya, mosques of
Mantes-la-Jolie and Al-Islah, Salafist
groups, etc.; regional and national joint
structures: CRCM, CFCM
DITIB and CCMTF, CIMG,
COJEP, Süleymancılar,
Kaplancılar, FTF, FUAF,
Plateforme de Paris, Menzil
Nakşibendi and other Sufi
groups
FNMF, RMF, UMF, Amicales
associations, “Great Mosques”
(Évry, Saint-Étienne, Strasbourg,
etc.), Qadiriya Boutchichiya,
PSM, MUR affiliates
Parapublic
Religious Groups
and Associations
Elaborated by author.
66
Morocco
In this fashion, I have sought to follow an interpretivist process-tracing methodology by
focusing “not only on what happened, but also on how it happened […by] examin[ing] the
reasons that actors give for their actions and behaviour and [investigating] the relations between
beliefs and behaviour (Vennesson 2008, 233).
Over the course of this thesis (2009-2014), I have conducted 120 in-depth qualitative
interviews with actors corresponding to the typology provided above. These interviews have
taken place in France, Germany, Turkey, and Morocco, as well as in Toronto during a short
trip to Canada in April 2014. The majority of these interviews lasted between 1 and 3 hours,
and were organized in advance after a formal request was made by e-mail or telephone (see list
of interviews). In the rare moments when no formal contact information could be found through
my prior contacts or on the internet, I also went directly to certain locations to request an
interview or speak with the individuals in question.
The interviews were conducted in French, German, Turkish, and English, and the
majority were recorded with the consent of the interviewee using a digital voice recorder.
Interviews were conducted by phone when I was not able to meet in person with the individuals
in question, which is indicated in the list of interviews by the following symbol: (T). Finally, I
was able to exchange with certain actors in a more informal fashion during conferences and
workshops, or at times by e-mail. The few such exchanges that are cited in this thesis are
labelled as “personal communication,” and are not included in the list of interviews.
The questionnaires for the interviews were at times requested in advance, but in most
cases they served as a general guide, and depending on time constraints they were frequently
adapted depending on the subjects raised during the interview. Independent of the status or
position of my interlocutor, I dressed formally (shirt, and dress pants, or full suit), introduced
myself as a researcher and Ph.D. candidate from Sciences Po Paris, and in most cases gave a
business card attesting to my credentials.
The formal character of the interview was emphasized for two reasons. The first, rather
straight-forward reason, was to be taken seriously by my interlocutors, especially those in
higher positions of power. The second reason also concerned my interlocutors’ perception of
me, but in a different manner. By highlighting the formal aspect of the interview and presenting
my credentials as an academic researcher, I hoped to dispel worries that I was in fact not who
I seemed to be. Indeed, throughout the course of my field work I was confronted with
individuals concerned that I may in fact be a journalist, part of a far-right organization, or a
67
member of the police or secret services. Unsurprisingly, in cases where this suspicion was more
pronounced, my interlocutors asked to remain anonymous or not be recorded, while some even
asked me not to take notes.
Nevertheless, in the vast majority of cases I was well received by my interviewees, and
was invited to numerous cups Turkish çay, “Moroccan Whisky” (mint tea), and the odd piece
of baklava as the conversation went on. Moreover, once I had met with the superiors or
colleagues of certain individuals, it became much easier to get into contact with other actors.
In general, my interlocutors were males between 35 and 60 years of age, though not
exclusively: I also spoke with both German, Moroccan, and France diplomats, as well as
Turkish mosque association leaders, who were women.
My interviewees’ perception of me often depended on the frequency with which they
themselves gave interviews: for many I was first and foremost a “student” or “researcher” –
which was contrasted directly with “journalists,” saying a great deal about how actors involved
with Islam affairs in France and Germany perceive the media. Several in fact reminded me of
my responsibility as a social scientist to dispel stereotypes concerning Muslims, and present an
objective picture of reality. As a Canadian-German male in his late 20s, some of my
interviewees commented that their son(s) were my age, and depending on the country I was
assumed to be French or German until asked directly. Many of the religious actors were more
interested in my religious beliefs than nationality; in many cases I dodged this subject by
speaking of my father’s Catholic upbringing, so as not to overly diverge from the main subject
of conversation. Finally, during a number of interview I had to take care to demonstrate prior
knowledge of the subject. In particular, this was due to the fact that during moments when I
was perceived by religious actors as an outsider with little knowledge of Islam, I often ran the
risk of receiving a lengthy introductory lecture on Islamic history and the five pillars of Islam.
Once recorded, the interviews were transcribed using the software programme “Express
scribe,” forming a corpus of many hundreds of pages. In cases when I could not record the
interview, I wrote a detailed report immediately after the interview, primarily based on the
notes I had taken during the conversation. The interviews were then analyzed using coding
techniques (in part with the software programme “Atlas.ti”) that identified and contrasted
specific thematic passages between different types of actors. These codified passages were then
analyzed and employed in the successive sections that comprise the dissertation. All interviews
were transcribed in the language of the interview, and field interview citations used in the
68
following pages have been translated directly by myself from the transcribed documents or the
aforementioned interview reports.
The field work for this thesis occurred during many different moments between 2009
and 2014, though the largest number of interviews in all four main countries was conducted
during 2011. Following some minor exploratory field work in Berlin in the fall of 2009, the
first interviews were conducted in Paris and in the cities of Cologne, Düsseldorf, and Duisburg
in Germany in the fall of 2010. Between February and April 2011, I was a visiting scholar at
the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (Berlin Social Science Center, WZB) in
the department “Migration, Integration, Transnationalization” under the direction of Ruud
Koopmans, for which I received funding from the Office Franco-Allemand pour la Jeunesse
(Franco-German Office for Youth, OFAJ) and the Centre Interdisciplinaire d’Études et de
Recherches sur l’Allemagne (CIERA). During this time, I was able to build on the earlier
research trips to Germany, and carried out interviews in Berlin, Münster, Düsseldorf, Cologne,
and Offenbach.
In June of the same year, I was received as visitor scholar in Rabat, Morocco at the
Centre Jacques Berque, under the supervision of Baudouin Dupret, and with financial support
from Sciences Po Paris. Thanks to interviews conducted in Paris before my departure, I was
already in contact with a number of Moroccan state religious actors, and managed to meet the
majority of Moroccan, French, and German actors over the following weeks. I returned to
Cologne for a number of interviews in September, and continued meeting with actors in Paris
in the meantime.
In November 2011, I travelled to Turkey where I was able to mobilize contacts made
thanks to interviews conducted in Paris in the months beforehand, as well as thanks to contacts
made during prior field work in Turkey carried out during my Master’s degree in 2009. I was
able to stay as visiting researcher at the Middle Eastern Technical University (METU) in
Ankara thanks to Zana Çitak, while my travel costs were covered by a scholarship from the
Institut Français des Études Anatoliennes (IFEA), where I was received as visiting scholar
during my field work in Istanbul and was supervised by Nora Şeni and Élise Massicard.
During 2012, other than a few short trips to Germany (Bremen, Berlin) and Morocco
(Rabat, Fez), my field work was focused especially on different locations in France. Alongside
interviews in Paris, I travelled to the cities of Marseille and Strasbourg and met with Moroccan
and Turkish state representatives and religious actors, once again with financial support
69
provided by Sciences Po Paris. During 2013 and 2014, I continued to meet with a number of
actors in Paris and the surrounding region with whom I had not been able to establish contact
during the main stage of my field work. Especially in the final stages of this thesis, I recontacted
several of my earlier interlocutors in order to verify certain information and ensure that my
vision of the field was up to date, and conducted field work at three of the main mosques in the
city of Nice.
Thanks to frequent international field work, I was also able to assemble a corpus of
official documents related to the governance of transnational Muslim fields by Turkish and
Moroccan authorities. Most importantly, this includes hundreds of pages of yearly activity
reports for both the Diyanet and the MHAI, as well as strategic plans, internal performance
reports, and certain internal documents that I received directly thanks to my interviewees. In
some instances, these official reports and publications are now available online, though they
are only accessible in Turkish or Arabic. Indeed, the Diyanet and the MHAI, as well as the
associations tied to them, have vastly improved their online presence during the years that this
thesis was carried out, and now provide a wealth of information that has been barely touched
by scholars. Consequently, alongside their value as primary sources for the arguments I
advance in the follow pages, another goal of this thesis has been to render these official sources
more accessible to a scholarly audience by translating, summarizing, and employing them in
my research.
Online websites and social media represent an incredibly rich, yet fundamentally
unstable source of information. On the one hand, Facebook pages, blogs, and social media
sources provide a fascinating glimpse into the relations between actors unmediated by the
researcher’s presence. On the other hand, the ever-changing nature of the internet has also
meant that some materials that were originally widely accessible can disappear entirely with
no prior warning.20 For this reason, I have been hesitant to engage in an extensive usage of
more unstable internet resources (especially Facebook), and have concentrated on official
websites of institutions, religious federations, or mosque associations, alongside media news
sources.
This was the case, for instance, with the Diyanet’s Turkish-language magazine for Europe (Diyanet
Avrupa Dergisi). Online access to the magazine was possible for years thanks to a large number of
links; however, in late 2013 the Diyanet’s website design changed, and access to the magazine
disappeared entirely.
20
70
Finally, during my visits to religious institutions or mosque associations, I was able to
participate in and observe first-hand a number of events involving the actors under
consideration in this thesis. These events have ranged from religious services in local mosques
to official dinners organized by the Diyanet in Istanbul, and have constituted privileged
moments during which I was able to speak with a variety of actors in more informal settings,
and observe the everyday reality of what “providing religious services” to populations abroad
concretely means. These informal moments are referred to in certain passages when deemed
relevant, and though they do not represent a central focus of this thesis, they have exerted a
subtle yet undeniable influence over the perspective I develop in the following pages. It is
thanks to these moments, and the personal contact established through the interviews, that I am
constantly reminded that my thesis analyzes realities experienced by living, breathing human
beings, and not simply actors of social and political processes.
E - Outline of Chapters
Chapter I provides an overview of the religious field in Turkey and its evolution since the
founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923. Unlike most studies on Islam and politics in modern
Turkey, the focus of this chapter is primarily on the Diyanet and other state institutions (i.e.
“official Islam”) involved in governing the Turkish religious field, and their relationship to
“unofficial” Islamic groups. I have two overarching goals in structuring the chapter in this
manner: the first is to introduce and describe the historically complex relationships between
state and non-state actors within the Turkish religious field at home, and to advance the
argument that the categories of “official Islam” and “unofficial Islam” are and have always
been contingent on the changing political interests of state actors. The second goal is to provide
a detailed picture of the Diyanet as an institution, and explain how the Turkish state governs
Islam at home before beginning an analysis of how it governs transnational Islam abroad.
Chapter II has the same task as the first, but in the context of Morocco. The chapter
argues that the development of religious governance in Morocco is the result of a combination
of traditional structures that were institutionalized during the French protectorate, and which
have thereafter been closely watched over by the central figures of royal and state power in the
country. The second chapter similarly focuses on state religious institutions, following the
evolution of the MHAI and other state bodies that have been given the mission of governing
the national religious field. Once again, the overall goal is to reveal the changing nature of
71
“official Islam,” and emphasize the political and religious interests that are central to
developments in the Moroccan Muslim field.
After the first two chapters have painted a portrait of religious governance at home,
Chapter III charts the “transnationalization” of Turkish and Moroccan religious governance to
include Islamic affairs in both France and Germany. The historical development of these home
state religious activities abroad took place alongside the waves of labour migration that left to
Western Europe. However, home state diaspora policies (reglious and otherwise) was
especially influenced by the active cooperation of receiving states and the frequently tense
political climate in both home states. The conflict between the Turkish and Moroccan states
and contestatory groups led to many years of suspicion and competition within the Muslim
field abroad, which has had consequences for the development of Islam in France and
Germany. The chapter ultimately argues that the specific ways by which Turkey and Morocco
have institutionalized religious governance abroad have a structural effect on both the activities
that they pursue and their larger impact within the French and German Muslim fields.
Chapter IV develops a conceptual model in order to explain the different modes of
religious governance employed by receiving states and home states concerning Islam in France
and German. By considering religious governance through the lens of public policy studies, I
argue that French and German are only capable of partially governing the Muslim fields that
exist within their borders. I follow this conceptual model through the analysis of specific cases
of receiving state intervention at the national level (the CFCM and the German Islam
Conference) before considering examples at other levels of governance. This includes Islamic
religious education in Germany and Islamic councils in France at the regional level, and the
mosques of Duisburg and Strasbourg at the local level. In doing so, I argue that there are both
structural and political reasons that favour the expansion of home state religious governance
over the Muslim fields in both countries, and I highlight the importance of cultural capital in
explaining local tensions in the field.
In Chapter V, I focus exclusively on one instrument of religious public policy: the
exporting of imams abroad. After a brief discussion situating the actors involved in terms of IR
theory and public policy considerations, the diplomatic and administrative mechanics
concerning the sending of Moroccan and Turkish imams abroad are covered in extensive detail.
In both cases, I take care to explain the similarities and differences in both home states’
approaches in order to highlight the importance of specific policy instruments in determining
72
their strategies abroad. The yearly activity reports of both the Diyanet and the MHAI, along
with the many interviews I have conducted with actors of both institutions, provide the primary
source material for this chapter. Interstate cooperation in Islamic religious affairs is shown to
be common and widespread, while I argue that the institutional interests of state religious actors
are to be taken seriously.
Chapter VI returns to the potential for tension between home states and receiving states
in cases where interests diverge by focusing on a series of recent initiatives and changes
concerning home state religious policies. After a brief overview of these activities, I focus on
the most recent developments concerning imams sent by Turkey and Morocco, and ultimately
argue that partial governance continues to explain France and Germany’s incapacity to fully
govern the Muslim fields on their territory – despite signs to the contrary. At the same time,
the chapter shows how home state political events continue to exert a direct influence over
religious fields abroad, underscoring the structural consequences of nationally-bounded
transnational Muslim fields for the development of Islam in France and Germany. Furthermore,
I contend that these consequences are best explained by analyzing the role played by home
state cultural capital, and the manner by which the Turkish and Moroccan states seek to secure
their position in the Muslim fields abroad.
73
74
I - The Many Faces of Official Islam in Turkey: Diyanet
and Unofficial Islam
Islam and politics have maintained a complicated relationship since the Turkish Republic was
founded in 1923. This chapter gives an overview of the main evolutions in the Turkish religious
field in the decades since the end of the Ottoman Empire and the Caliphate to present day. The
two main goals are to present the main structures and dynamics which underlay religious
governance in Turkey, as well as to argue that the boundaries between that which is considered
“official” and “unofficial” Islam are more ambiguous and volatile than is often imagined. In
order to give focus to this argument, and provide a detailed introduction to the institutions of
state religious governance in Turkey, I will focus in particular on the Presidency of Religious
Affairs (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı, hereafter Diyanet) and its relationships to non-state religious
actors.
A - Early Antecedents: From Empire to Republic
As Bein rightly notes, “The debates in present-day Turkey concern contemporary issues, but
their historical roots may be traced almost invariably to the late Ottoman period and the early
years of the republic” (2011, 155).
The founding of the modern Turkish state had far-reaching consequences for the place
of Islam in Turkish society. This new state was formed initially as a resistance movement
following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War, at a time when the Allies
of the Triple Entente began occupying Ottoman territory. The goal of the victorious powers
(France, Italy, and Britain) was to distribute what remained of the empire between themselves,
an enlarged Greece, a new Armenian state, and a possible Kurdish state, finding its ultimate
expression in the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres (Yerasimos 2005, 45). The emergence of a Turkish
nationalist movement led by Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) resulted in the founding of a new
government in Ankara and the Turkish Grand National Assembly (Türkiye Büyük Millet
Meclisi, hereafter Turkish Parliament), in opposition to the Ottoman government of Sultan
Mehmed VI in Istanbul (Bozarslan 2007, 22–24).
The new Turkish government in Ankara rejected the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres and
became the seat of armed opposition to the Allied occupation, rallying behind the “National
75
Pact” (Misak-i Milli) of 1920 which “advocated not Turkish national sovereignty but that of all
Muslim Ottomans” (Zürcher 2004, 139). With Atatürk’s forces emerging victorious three years
later, the Turkish War of Independence ended with the Treaty of Lausanne in July 1923, by
which time the Turkish Parliament had already passed a bill abolishing the Sultanate. The
Ottoman Empire officially ceased to exist when the constitution was amended on 29 October
1923, and Turkey was proclaimed a republic; this represented more than a change of political
institutions, given that for Atatürk and his supporters the republic was “the expression of
progress” (Jevakhoff 2005, 71).
The abolishment of the Ottoman Empire and the Sultanate crystallized tensions
concerning another issue amongst the factions vying for power within the new Turkish state.
For over 400 years the Ottoman sultans had also held the title of “Caliph,” 21 and when
abolishing the Sultanate, Atatürk had been careful to distinguish one from the other so as not
to arouse substantial opposition – after all, it had been thanks to the support of many local
ulema, muftis and other religious leaders that he had been able to rally support for his cause in
Anatolia (Çaymaz 2002, 49). 22 Consequently, conservative and religious groups within the
Parliament began hoping that Turkey would become an Islamic state, while other supporters,
such as those at the Istanbul newspaper Tanin, argued that the Caliphate was a means by which
Turkey could maintain its influence over the Muslim world (Jevakhoff 2005, 71). These
conservative and religious groups within the parliament, which Berkes calls the “Khilâfatists,”
were also responsible for the constitutional article (2) stating that “the religion of the Turkish
state is Islam,” introduced in 1923 during the amendment of the constitution which led to the
declaration of the Republic (1964, 446–460). However, in the months thereafter Atatürk
managed to politically out-manoeuvre these groups, and succeeded in “arousing national
“Khalīfah” is an Islamic spiritual title referring to the head of the Muslim community (ummah) in
Sunni Islam, and means “successor,” as in the successor of the Prophet Muhammad. The term is to be
contrasted with sulṭān, a title which referred to the highest non-religious political authority (for more
see Newby 2002, 122–123, 197). The title of “Caliph” was taken from the last Abbasid ruler by the
Ottoman Sultan Selim I during his conquest of Egypt in 1517.
22
A mufti (Turkish müftü, Arabic muftī) is an individual capable of giving a fatwa (Turkish fetva), in
other words a legal opinion based on Islamic jurisprudence. As Newby points out, “the muftī has not
historically necessarily been a qāḍī,” that is to say, a state administrator of Islamic law; however, their
value to political power led to the practice of appointing a state-paid mufti in many different Islamic
contexts (2002, 153). As a result of this practice, the term muftī frequently refers to high-ranking Islamic
scholars and officials, such as the Grand Muftis of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc., though the forms of
religious governance differ from country to country. In modern Turkey, a müftü is a Diyanet employee
who serves as the highest religious authority in a province (il or ilçe); for more, see below.
21
76
feelings to a higher level than that of religious zeal,” and the Caliphate was officially abolished
by the Turkish Parliament on 3 March 1924 (Berkes 1964, 460).
The abolishment of the Caliphate was the first of three laws (429, 430, and 431) that
fundamentally altered the relations between religion and state, all of which were published in
the Official Gazette of 3 March 1924. The second, entitled the Law on the Unification of
Instruction (Tevhid-i Tedrisat Kanunu), concerned a significant reorganization of the education
system, including religious education. The third law founded the Diyanet İşleri Reisliği (i.e.
the Diyanet), which replaced the Ministry for Shari’a and Pious Foundations (Evkaf ve Şeriat
Vekaleti) that had existed within Atatürk’s provisional government since 1920.23 The latter
ministry had been modelled after its Ottoman predecessor, the Şeyhülislamlık, but the laws
passed in 1924 represent a much more important rupture with the past, despite the evident
legacy left by the Ottoman system of Islamic religious governance.
In the Ottoman past, religious governance had been characterized by the millet system,
which had divided members of the empire according to their religious affiliation, and which
accorded a degree of “autonomous self-government under religious leaders” to non-Muslim
minorities (Heper and Criss 2009, 209).24 Beginning in the late sixteenth century, the grand
müfti of Istanbul had come to occupy the highest position of religious authority amongst
Muslim clerics under the title Şeyhülislam. One of the most powerful figures in the Ottoman
state system, he represented one of two pillars of the traditional Ottoman system – the Grand
Vizier (or Sadrazam) being the other – reflecting the “ruler’s dual functions as Sultan-Caliph”
(Berkes 1964, 97). He was “accepted as the leader of all müderrises, müftis, kadis and
kadiaskers (professors, religious administrators, judges and chief judges, respectively),”
23
The Turkish language underwent significant reforms from the 1920s onwards, resulting in words of
Arabic and Persian origin being replaced by Western (usually French) imports, and even more often by
“pure Turkish” (öztürkçe) creations (for more see (Lewis 1999). Thus reislik (from Arabic ra’īs plus
Turkish noun-ending –lik) lost its Arabic component and became başkanlık, as in the case of today’s
Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı. Both words can be adequately translated as “Presidency” in English (the
Diyanet’s own preference), though other terms such as “directorate,” “department,” etc. are often used
by foreign authors; “agency” may also be a good alternative in English, given its administrative status.
24
For more on the Christian millets, see Masters 2006, while for the millet system in general, see GarcíaArenal 2010. Understanding the semantic shifts of the Turkish words millet and milliyet, both derived
from the Arabic millah, can go a long way in helping to understand modern Turkey. The difficulty in
recognizing different ethnic groups such as Kurds, Laz, Turkmen, etc. in modern Turkey has come in
part from their religious affiliation as Muslims, and thus members of the same “Muslim nation” (millet).
The presence of this vision during the Turkish War of Independence can be seen by the reference to
“Muslim Ottomans” in the National Pact, and equally explains the usage of this word by the pan-Islamic
movement Milli Görüş (“National Vision”). For more on the ambiguity concerning the terms for
“nation” in Turkey, see Copeaux 2002, 24–30.
77
meaning that “the functions and duties of the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Education, the
General Directorate of Foundations and the Presidency of Religious Affairs (PRA) of modern
Turkey were carried out and implemented by the office of the Şeyhülislam” (Erdem 2008, 201–
202). Indeed, this was all the more important, considering that by the sixteenth century
“virtually all legal scholars [ulema] who presided over a medrese classroom or a şeriat court
in the Turkish-speaking areas of the empire, along with imperial appointees everywhere, were
ranked, graded and pensioned under central state auspices” (Zilfi 2006, 210, 213).
This position of the Şeyhülislam would undergo significant changes during the Tanzimat
period of Sultan Mahmud II (beginning in 1839) and all throughout the nineteenth century, as
the Ottoman state moved to reform its administrative and educational structures.25 No longer
viewed as an element of “temporal government,” the Şeyhülislam was equated with the other
millet organizations and kept outside of the Tanzimat reforms, while the emergence of a
“modern” education system challenged the Şeyhülislam’s authority in yet another area (Berkes
1964, 98–121). Following a memorandum written by Ziya Gökalp in 1916, the Young Turks
would go even further, excluding the Şeyhülislam from the cabinet and removing numerous
domains from its authority: religious courts were turned over to the ministry of justice; pious
foundations (evkaf) were to be overseen by a state minister; and the medrese were put under
the authority of the ministry of education. All that was left for the Şeyhülislam was “to maintain
the religious services of the state” (Erdem 2008, 205).
During the Turkish War of Independence the Turkish Nationalist government in Ankara
included a ministry (the Şeriat ve Evkaf Vekaleti) which was charged with overseeing religious
services, and which also briefly regained control over numerous sectors, such as pious
foundations and religious education, until the laws of 1924 once again allocated these domains
to separate state bodies. The office of the Şeyhülislam continued to exist as a part of the
lingering Ottoman government in Istanbul; however, its active engagement against the
nationalists sealed its fate. In 1920, Şeyhülislam Dürrizade Abdullah Efendi drew a clear line
in the sand by issuing a fatwa which painted Atatürk and the leaders of the Turkish national
movement as traitors and called for their deaths, provoking a counter-fatwa in support of the
government in Ankara by other ulema, such as the müfti of Ankara (and future first president
of the Diyanet) Rifat Börekçi Efendi (Altunsu 1972, 260–264).
The “Tanzimat” (meaning “reorganization”) began in 1839, and ushered in a period of vast reforms
to the Ottoman state administration and military organization.
25
78
The position of active hostility towards the nationalists was endorsed by Tokatlı Mustafa
Sabri Efendi (Abdullah Efendi’s predecessor and successor), who had been promoting the
politicization of the Ottoman ulema since 1908. Mustafa Sabri opposed any compromise with
the government in Ankara and endorsed the Treaty of Sèvres, galvanizing even further the
division between the traditional figures of Ottoman religious authority and the rising nationalist
leadership. Mustafa Sabri was followed by Mehmet Nuri Medeni Efendi, who “represented a
diametrically opposed vision on the involvement of ulema in politics,” and avoided political
controversy during his two years in office; nevertheless, there would be no successor within
the Ankara government, and the office of Şeyhülislam ceased to exist with the resignation of
the last Ottoman cabinet in November 1922 (Bein 2011, 102–104).
Consequently, the laws of 1924 represent a milestone in the development of the modern
Turkish state. This is especially the case with regard to the development of secularism, or laiklik
(from the French laïcité). Contrasting with other definitions of secularisms, however, for
Atatürk and his Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP), “secularism meant
not so much the separation of church and state as the subjugation and integration of religion
into the state bureaucracy” (Zürcher 2004, 233). Secularism was an integral element of the
Turkish state’s foundational ideology, which has since come to be known by the term
“Kemalism,” and which was at the heart of a vast modernization project of state and society
asserting the primacy of the Turkish nation-state over the now-discredited multi-ethnic and
Islamic Ottoman Empire. The first article of law 431 abolishing the Caliphate displays this shift
clearly. After stating that the (office of the) Caliph was dissolved, the logic provided is the
following: “given that the meaning and notion of hilafet is essentially inherent in that of the
Government and Republic, the term hilafet is abolished” (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti 1924a, 6). The
grounds for the legitimacy of the state were no longer religious, but Republican and
nationalist.26
The Law on the Unification of Instruction (430) addressed a lingering problem initially
brought on by the Tanzimat reforms in the educational sector. The creation of a secular current
in the 19th century had given rise to a form of “dualism in the structure of the educational
system of the state” (Paçacı and Aktay 1999, 391–392) with religiously-oriented institutions
(medrese) on the one hand, which had been under the authority of the Şeyhülislam, and
26
Incidentally, the remainder articles of the law passed in 1924 are more preoccupied with establishing
the legal framework for the appropriation of the Sultan-Caliph’s estates and properties than with a
discussion on state legitimacy and the place of Islam.
79
“Western-style” secular institutions (mekteps, foreign schools) on the other (Ruşen Çakır,
Bozan, and Talu 2004, 56). The law brought all educational facilities under the control of the
Ministry of Education, and its fourth article led to the establishment of a theology faculty
(İlahiyat Fakültesi) for “training high-level religious specialists” (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti 1924b,
6) at the Darulfünun, later to become Istanbul University in 1933. Once the new republic had
achieved its monopoly over all educational institutions in the country, it proceeded to close the
totality of the medrese schools and gradually phased out religion classes from the national
school curriculum. State schools for imams and preachers (hatips) were closed by 1930-31,
and the theology faculty at Darulfünun followed suit in 1933 (Berkes 1964, 477; Kara 1999,
218–219).
Law 429 founded the Diyanet as a state institution directly tied to the office of the prime
minister, both administratively and financially. The law detailed its duties and organizational
structure, in the process delineating the remaining areas of competency for the main state body
concerned with religious affairs in Turkey. The first article specifies “the administration of all
Islamic commandments (ahkam) and affairs concerning belief (itikadat) and prayer (ibadat) as
well as the management of religious institutions” as the main tasks of the Diyanet. There is an
important semantic difference between the terms “din” (religion) and “diyanet” (piety) which
is not reflected in the English translation of the institution’s name. Indeed, the choice between
these two words was the cause of much debate when the Diyanet was originally created. For
instance, a contemporary member of the Turkish Parliament, Samih Rifat, argued that
according to Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh / fıkıh) the term “diyanet” referred to a limited number
of religious domains (those mentioned in the first article above), and was in opposition to
“kaza” (the non-religious judiciary), thus making it more appropriate than “din,” which in fact
encompassed both notions (Kara 2008, 62–63). Another perspective is given by former Diyanet
president Ali Bardakoğlu, for whom the decision to use “diyanet” instead of “din” at the
beginning of the Republican period “can be interpreted as an effort to provide for religiousness
based on a moral foundation,” given that “diyanet expresses a higher value; the spiritual and
moral aspects of life” (2008, 10–11).
From the beginning, the Diyanet was designed to administer solely the Islamic religious
field, since the Treaty of Lausanne had established that “Non-Moslems” would have the right
to “establish, manage, and control at their own expense, any charitable, religious and social
institutions” (Treaty of Lausanne, Article 40). Conversely, the focus on “Non-Moslems” as the
80
sole minorities in Turkey had the consequence that all Muslims were assumed as belonging to
the “same” Islam, that is to say the officially-accepted Sunni Hanefite School, leaving out the
very large Alevi minority.27
While law 430 ensured that all religious educational institutions would come under state
control, article five of law 429 stipulated that all individuals involved in the administration of
religion were to be named and employed by the Diyanet (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti 1924c). The list
of these individuals provides a who’s who of the hierarchy of Islamic religious employees at
the time: “the directors of mosques, prayer spaces, Sufi lodges and religious shrines, imams,
hatips, preachers, sheikhs, prayer-callers, mosque custodians, and others,” 28 while the
subsequent article indicates that the competent authority for muftis is also the Diyanet. The
final article specifies that religious foundations (evkaf) are to be managed by a different
administrative body, which would later become today’s Directorate General of Foundations
(Vakıflar Genel Müdürlüğü). In sum, while the Diyanet was given the legal state monopoly
over certain aspects of the Turkish Muslim field, its field of action was at the same time
significantly limited when compared with similar institutions in the past. By definitively
delegating the administration of pious foundations and Islamic education to separate state
bodies, the state ensured that the Diyanet would not have the resources to develop into a pole
of political authority, as the Şeyhülislam had been at times during the Ottoman past. Moreover,
given its institutional and financial dependency on the office of the Prime Minister, the
Diyanet’s activities would henceforth be “constrained by the funding it would receive from the
state budget” (Kara 1999, 219).
The significance of this moment is at times relativized by certain members of the
Diyanet, who acknowledge the important changes brought about by these laws but who argue
that the Diyanet “is not an innovation of the founders of the Republic of Turkey,” and rather
ought to be seen as a “continuation of the office of Şeyhülislām in the post-Tanzimat shape and
The Alevis practise a form of Islam related to Shi’ism, certain Sufi currents, and Anatolian folk
beliefs. They represent approximately 15-20% of Turkey’s population today, though they benefit from
little official recognition. For more, see below.
28
Hatip (Arabic khaṭīb) is a title given to individuals who recite the hutbe (Arabic khuṭbah), the sermon
that takes place during the Friday prayer. This individual may at times be the same as the imam who
leads the five daily prayers (ṣalāt), in which case the term “imam hatip” is frequently used (cf. The
“imam hatip schools” in Turkey, see below). In this thesis, the words “hatip” and “imam hatip” will be
used as such so as to avoid confusion with other titles, such as those translated above and found herafter
in the original Turkish: “Türkiye Cumhuriyeti memaliki dahilinde bilcümle cevami ve mesaicidi
şerifenin ve tekâya ve zevayanın idaresine, imam, hatip, vâız, şeyh, müezzin ve kayyımların ve sair
müstahdeminin tâyın ve azıllerine Diyanet işleri reisi memurdur” (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti 1924c, 6).
27
81
functions” with regard to religious services (Erdem 2008, 212). Nevertheless, the difference
between Ottoman Westernization practices and the Kemalist Republican reforms is stark:
whereas the former had pursued an underlying logic of preserving and reinvigorating Islam,
the latter “used religion as the legitimation for its political goals and as a means to influence
the population” (Kara 1999, 212). Moreover, the very fact that the religious affairs were to be
managed by an administrative body and not a ministry, shows that “the ruling elite both took
religion under their control and at the same time managed to break the potentially sacred
significance of the [Diyanet]” (Gözaydın 2006, 1). Indeed, relegating the issue of religious
affairs to the realm of bureaucratic administration has significant consequences for the type of
authority that the Diyanet can claim to represent. Far from the charismatic baraka of a Sufi
sheikh, but equally distant from the traditional figures of religious authority represented by the
Ottoman ulema, the Diyanet’s claim to legitimacy at the most basic level is through the
institutional and legal framework which tie it to the Turkish state.
Direct control was also exercised over the religious field through the prohibition of Sufi
religious orders (tarikat) in 1925. Law 677 closed all the dervish and Sufi lodges (tekke and
zaviye) in the country, outlawed all activities associated with Sufi leaders, and made
disobedience punishable by fines or prison sentences. The immediate explanation for this
development was the involvement of Naqshbandi sheikhs in the Kurdish Rebellion (or Sheikh
Said Rebellion) in 1925, as well as in other protests against the secularizing Kemalist reforms,
such as the Hat Law, which had banned turbans and the fez (Azak 2010, 23,35). The pace of
reforms at this moment was moving forward at a dizzying place: fundamental changes to the
justice system, including the introduction of a new civil code in 1926 (based on the Swiss
model) and a new penal code in 1928 (based on the Italian penal code); the change to the
Western clock and Gregorian calendar in 1926; the adoption of the Latin alphabet and Western
numerals in 1928, as well as the removal the same year of the constitutional article which had
made Islam the state religion (Karasipahi 2009, 22). All these changes had a direct impact on
the boundaries and perception of the religious field, as the government moved to secularize
public spaces and remove Islamic symbols from concrete aspects of daily life. The reforms
were complemented by the very real loss of power and status of traditional religious figures,
such as the Ottoman ulema and graduates from Islamic schools.
Nevertheless, the prohibition of the Sufi orders and other popular expressions of religion
had the largest impact on the general population. As Zürcher puts it,
82
By extending their secularization drive beyond the formal, institutionalized Islam
the Kemalists now touched such vital elements of popular religion as dress,
amulets, soothsayers, holy sheikhs, saints’ shrines, pilgrimages and festivals. The
resentment these measures caused and the resistance put up against them was far
greater than, for instance, in the case of the abolition of the caliphate, the position
of Şeyhülislām, or the medrese, which was only important to official ‘high’ religion
(2004, 192).
The latent hostility of the Kemalist state leaders towards such religious actors had only
increased as it became apparent that they possessed a real capacity to mobilize and challenge
the state. The leaders of the early Turkish republic had developed a deep-set suspicion of all
independent religious actors, and voiced this suspicion by accusing these actors of following
an “impure” Islam, “tainted by its entanglement in political affairs” (Parla and Davison 2004,
109). This dichotomous discourse, which distinguishes between a “pure” (and state-approved)
Islam, and an “impure,” politicized Islam, was essential in tying Turkish identity to a “national
Islam” (milli din), while delegitimizing any religiously tinged opposition aimed at the state as
that of irtica (reactionary Islam). The subsequent attempts to “Turkicize” Islam, most notably
by privileging the Turkish language during prayers and Turkish translations of religious texts,
as well as outright banning the recitation of the call to prayer (ezan) in Arabic from 1932 to
1950, serve as examples of how the Kemalist government promoted the idea that the only
legitimate Islam in Turkey was one which corresponded to state-approved Turkish nationalism.
The end of the Caliphate and the beginning of the Republic marked the end of one form
of religious governance and the beginning of a new one. While the late Ottoman period had
seen significant institutional reforms and a gradually diminishing role for religious actors in
the administration of the state, the founding of the Turkish Republic represents a watershed
moment. The state’s official monopoly over religion was reinforced by the new institutional
division of religious labour, which ensured that figures of religious authority would not be able
to pose a threat to the government in power. The end of the traditional religious establishment
and its replacement “by a more strictly bureaucratized and regulated civil administration” (Bein
2011, 106) may well have its roots in Ottoman history, but it was founded on a radical new
discourse on religious authority in which legitimacy is derived from the state. This vision would
lead over the next decades to the growth of numerous currents of Islamic religious opposition,
which have had a significant impact on the evolution of state-religion relations within Turkey
and Turkish communities abroad.
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The establishment of what has come to be known as “official Islam” in the Turkish
Republic, looked over by the Diyanet and a small number of other state institutions (above all
the General Directorate of Religious Education of the Ministry of Education and the Directorate
of Foundations), has generally led to two affirmations in media sources and academic literature.
The first is that the Diyanet has no autonomy of its own, and that “official Islam” is directly
controlled by the Turkish state. The second is that by delimiting the boundaries of what was
acceptable as “official Islam,” the Turkish state burnt bridges with a host of religious actors,
who now came to constitute an “oppositional Islam” (Akgönül 2005, 97). In the following
section, I will attempt to nuance this dichotomy while providing the historical background
necessary in order to understand the subsequent development of the Turkish Muslim field
abroad.
B - The “Official Islam” of the Early Republic
“Official Islam” in Turkey has had a much more complicated history than summary renderings
seem to indicate. In order to understand the content of “official Islam,” I will focus here on the
evolution of state administrative responsibilities within the religious field, the discourse of its
representatives, and the porosity of the boundaries between “official” and “unofficial” Islam in
the Early Republican period.
While in retrospect the Kemalist reforms are now generally considered as part of a
movement towards “Westernization” or “modernization” that had already begun with the
Tanzimat period, they nevertheless constituted a radical break with the past for the majority of
the population. More importantly, the fact that the full thrust of many reforms was limited to
major urban centres meant that the “provinces” (taşra) were unevenly affected by such
changes. The existence of prior administrative structures and the lack of suitable “republican”
personnel for all circumstances also meant that despite official rhetoric, local actors managed
to retain a degree of independence, often leading to situations more characterized by
compromise than direct top-down control. For instance, though religion classes disappeared
from the official curricula of city schools starting in 1930, this did not occur in village schools
until 1939 (Clayer 2013, 8). As Clayer states, these kinds of changes engendered “tensions
within state institutions, as well as complex relations between these institutions and certain
84
religious
actors,
which
cannot
simply
be
summarized
as
relationships
of
oppression/suppression, or reaction/repression” (2013, 24).
The former kinds of “tensions within state institutions” (Bein 2011, 125–126) provide a
good example with the case of Mehmed Cemaleddin Seven, the imam of a mosque in the
Istanbul neighbourhood of Göztepe, during the first Friday prayers of the month of Ramadan
in 1926. At a time when debates on the “Turkification” of Islam had become increasingly vocal,
Cemaleddin took it upon himself not only to deliver the sermon (hutbe) in Turkish, but also to
lead the prayers in Turkish, instead of Arabic. News of his actions spread rapidly, earning him
both praise and criticism in the media and across the country. However, his superiors in the
Diyanet, including the former mufti of Ankara and first president of the Diyanet, Rifat Börekçi,
immediately voiced their disapproval, and Cemaleddin soon found himself unemployed.
Nevertheless, not long after the Ministry of Education hired him to “train future religious
officials… sticking a finger in the eye of his former colleagues and superiors at the Diyanet,”
where he continued on as a government employee until his retirement (Bein 2011, 126). In
other words, the Diyanet may have been able to exert its control over its particular branch of
the state religious administration after discovering dissent in its ranks, but it found itself at a
loss to enforce its authority over the field of state-approved “official Islam” as a whole.
Clayer (2013, 14–17) equally shows how tensions between state institutions could have
an impact on the religious field and on the governance of “official Islam.” The Diyanet at the
beginning of the 1930s had been more downgraded than at any other time in its history, having
lost in 1931 the power to name religious personnel and run mosques to the Directorate of
Foundations (Evkaf Umum Müdürlüğü) (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti 1931, 45; articles 8 and 9). Only
preachers (vaiz) were still on the Diyanet’s payroll (other than in Istanbul), though the Diyanet
had no ability to take any disciplinary measures beyond “spiritual oversight” (Jäschke 1951,
99). Nevertheless, despite having officially lost all control over religious education to the
Ministry of Education, the first president of the Diyanet Rifat Börekçi succeeded in keeping
Qur’an courses (kuran kursu) under the supervision of the Diyanet. By the end of the 1940s,
there had been a considerable growth in the number of these courses, from 9 courses for 232
students in 1932-33, to 56 courses for 1689 students in 1940-41, and finally to 130 courses for
8706 students in 1949-50 (M. Öcal 2004, 88).
Though these classes were taught by instructors affiliated with the Diyanet, almost half
of them were not being remunerated for their activities. The Ministry of Interior and the
85
Ministry of Education objected to this practice in 1940-41, and went a step further, appealing
to the Prime Minister to close these courses down on the basis that they were violating the Law
on the Unification of Instruction, due to the presence of primary school children. The Diyanet
managed to sidestep the issue and continue giving the courses, “creating for itself a degree of
leeway by expanding its field of action into the unofficial sphere (unpaid teachers, unregistered
students)” (Clayer 2013, 17).
Nevertheless, such “victories” for the Diyanet were few and far between during these
decades of single-party rule, characterized by increasingly aggressive secularist policies
enforced by Atatürk’s Republican People’s Party (CHP). As mentioned above, following the
founding of the Turkish republic, the traditional religious establishment was “downsized and
peripheralized, most of its institutions were abolished, its jurisdiction was curtailed,” and the
traditional figures of religious authority, the Ottoman ulema, watched on as “even the
appellation ulema was virtually purged from the Turkish language” (Bein 2011, 1). This left
the Diyanet in an awkward position. On the one hand, Kemalists perceived it with a mixture of
suspicion and hostility, leading occasionally to conflict with state ministries, as seen above. On
the other hand, the Diyanet’s role as a source of religious legitimation for state policy was
thoroughly criticized by other Islamic actors, who disapproved of the secular direction that
modern Turkey was taking. As Bein rightly points out, “the policies of the early republic left
‘former’ ulema with difficult questions and tough choices,” and though the responses “ranged
from full cooperation at the one end to various forms of tenacious opposition and resistance at
the other… the majority sought to navigate a middle course” (2011, 107). Ahmet Hamdi
Akseki, a top member and the third president of the Diyanet (1947-1951), is singled out by
Bein for his pragmatic attitude in this respect, in that he opted for “qualified cooperation” in
order to mitigate “the effects of the excesses and radicalism of the republican leadership from
within the system” (2011, 114).
Akseki also became president precisely at the moment when Turkey was making a
transition to multi-party politics. The new Democrat Party (Demokrat Partisi, DP) and the CHP
realized the symbolic importance of religion in electoral politics, and both began to “court the
Muslim vote,” the CHP “itself becoming more tolerant of religion after the seventh party
congress in 1947 (Zürcher 2004, 233). This change had been made visible by a number of
developments: in 1948-1949, the first imam hatip courses were opened since the closing of the
short-lived İmam Hatip Mektepleri (1924-1930); in 1949, a Theology Faculty (İlahiyat
86
Fakültesi) at the University of Ankara was founded (the first since the Theology Faculty at
Darulfünun had been closed in 1933); and again in 1949, the government reattributed the
management of mosques and religious personnel to the Diyanet (Kara 1999, 218–219).
Nevertheless, Akseki, along with many other Islamic conservatives, such as those associated
with the magazine Sebilürreşad, saw an even greater opportunity looming with the victory of
the DP in 1950. Akseki began a campaign to “reinvigorate” the Diyanet, and together with the
prominent intellectual Ali Fuat Başgil, he began working on a bill that would have had a great
impact on the governance of religion in Turkey: aside from greater autonomy, the Diyanet was
also to have regained a measure of control over Islamic education as well as endowments
(vakıflar) (Bein 2011, 147–151).
Akseki’s unexpected death in 1951 meant the end of any reform of the Diyanet for the
time being. However, what I would like to highlight is that “official Islam,” as represented by
the Diyanet in Turkey, has from the beginning not been a simple carbon-copy of Kemalist
directives. Though it evidently does not operate independently of the central state, the
Diyanet’s role in the development of “official Islam” during the Early Republican period, as
well as thereafter, has been characterized by degrees of cooperation and negotiation with
government demands. Moreover, top officials, such as Rifat Börekçi and Ahmet Hamdi
Akseki, were able on various occasions to exert their control over the religious field, for
instance, concerning the Qur’an courses run by the Diyanet. The official limits to their
activities, however, also meant that the Diyanet did not always have the necessary resources in
order to respond to the religious demands of all parts of the Turkish population. Moreover,
those who opposed the Kemalist reforms on religious grounds simply did not recognize the
Diyanet’s religious authority. Consequently, a large part of the Turkish religious field would
remain outside of the state’s religious monopoly in the decades following the founding of the
republic.
C - Unofficial Islam, Party Politics, and an Evolving Diyanet
During the first years of the republic, oppressive and authoritarian measures had been taken in
order to combat opposition to the new state and the Kemalist reforms – especially when the
opposition had religious overtones. As mentioned, the outlawing of the Sufi orders (tarikat)
and the closing of their places of worship had been tied to the Kurdish rebellion of 1925, while
other incidents such as a religiously-inspired rebellion in 1909 and the “Menemen incident” of
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1930 were mobilized to create a discourse which framed all religiously-motived opposition as
that of irtica: religious fundamentalists and reactionaries. However, the prohibition of the Sufi
orders and the drastic changes concerning the religious offer proposed by the state did not result
in immediate changes in all aspects of the religious demand, especially in rural Anatolia and
outside of the main urban centres. As Mardin writes, the official nationalism of Republican
Turkey, dominant from the 1930s until the 1960s, “left the ‘day-to-day’ in a limbo,” and “even
in the most stringently secular times of the republic, Islam filled in the void” (Mardin 1993,
224). State oppression forced the Sufi orders to go underground, but they and several
movements inspired by them moved to fill in the void left by state institutions in the day-today activities of the religious field – most notably in the domain of Islamic education. This was
especially the case for the Nakşibendi Sufi order, which adapted more successfully than the
Mevlevi and the Bektaşi orders, and surreptitiously continued to train imams and other
religious personnel over the coming decades (Bilici 2005, 305–306).
These religious actors, which operated outside the boundaries of “official Islam,”
successfully harnessed the frustration felt by large parts of the population over the state’s
heavy-handed secular reforms. In doing so, they reinforced the place of Islam as a shared
“sociocultural idiom” (Mardin 1989), as well as a means to mobilize segments of the population
for political purposes. Nevertheless, it is mistaken to think that “unofficial Islam” is
automatically opposed to the state just because it operates outside state boundaries. More often,
the relationships between the state and such religious actors are better characterized by
compromises and tacit understandings, and religious actors may at times gravitate in and out
of the state religious administration. For instance, the beginning of a democratic multiparty
system in the 1950s brought Islam directly into the political arena, especially with the founding
of an openly Islamist party in 1969. This change led to the development of clientalist
relationships between religious movements and political parties, as well as more complex sets
of relations between state, religious, and political actors in Turkey. In order to prepare the
subsequent analysis of the Turkish transnational Muslim field, I will follow the chronology
begun in the last section with a brief presentation of the main religious communities (cemaat)
of “unofficial Islam,” all of which have developed from the Nakşibendi Sufi order.
The first example of “unofficial Islam” is that of Bediüzzaman Said Nursi (1876-1960),
a Kurdish Muslim revivalist (mujaddid) from Eastern Anatolia whose teachings founded the
transnational Nurcu movement. Said Nursi, “arguably the most important and influential
88
Muslim scholar to emerge from Turkey in the past five hundred years” (as “modestly” stated
by one recent study of his work, Turner & Horkuc 2009, p.2), is an enigmatic figure insofar as
his relations with the Turkish state are concerned. Despite his opposition to the secularist
reforms, Nursi’s philosophy was favourable to modern sciences and reinterpreting Islamic
principles in accordance with the changing times. He did not engage in militant antigovernment activities, and had supported both the Young Turk revolution and the republican
side during the War of Independence (Özdalga 2010, 80). Nevertheless, he was often targeted
by the republican government as a possible danger, especially following the Kurdish rebellion
in 1925, when he was exiled to Western Anatolia. Though heavily influenced by the
Nakşibendi order, he routinely stated that he was also a follower of the Qadiri Sufi tradition,
and drew on a variety of sources in order to “justify the novelty and the distinguishing
characteristics of his own movement” (Mardin 1989, 60).
His followers took the name Nurcu from their devotion to his writings, compiled in the
Risale-i Nur (The Epistle of Light), and would meet in dershanes, “a special apartment or onefloor building where a congregation of people meets to read aloud and discuss Nursi’s writings”
(Yavuz 2003, 162). The activities of the Nurcu aimed at promoting and preserving Islamic
education within the general population during a period of time when symbols and values
associated with Islam were increasingly challenged by the state apparatus. As Özdalga writes,
“the regime saw religious groups, like the Nurcus, as harmless onlookers at best, and at worst
as reactionary troublemakers” (Özdalga 2010, 82). Though he did not engage directly in
politics himself, by the 1950s Said Nursi had “announced that it was incumbent upon his
followers to support the new Demokrat Party” (Mardin 1989, 98). After his death, his followers
would continue to be important actors in the religious field in Turkey, but also abroad, where
in particular the neo-Nurcu movement founded by Fethullah Gülen has grown to be a
transnational religious network on a global scale.
Another movement which came into being around the same time was that of the
Süleymancılar, or “followers of Süleyman,” referring to its eponymous founder, the Nakşibendi
Sheikh Süleyman Hilmi Tunahan (1888-1959).29 Tunahan, a native of the town Silistra (now
in Bulgaria), studied theology at the medrese of the Fatih and Süleymaniye mosques in
Istanbul, and received the titles of kadı and dersiam in 1919. He was appointed vaiz in another
Istanbul mosque under the new republican government in 1924, and in the years thereafter he
29
The sources for this paragraph are Çaymaz 2002, pp.97–107 and Yavuz 2003, pp.145–149.
89
began to attract an important following. Faced with the Kemalist reforms of the new republic,
Tunahan’s main goal was the preservation of Islam and especially traditional Islamic education,
and as Çaymaz notes, the “construction of this community was founded on an opposition to the
Islamic orthodoxy controlled by the state” (2002, 102).
However, the state decision to allow the opening of Qur’an seminaries in 1949 led to the
end of the Süleymancılar’s period of withdrawal. Tunahan’s community began actively
opening and running Qur’an courses across the country, and organized itself in the “modern
form of declared associations with a religious or philanthropic goal” (Çaymaz 2002, 103). The
Diyanet may have saved its Qur’an courses during the early republic by venturing into the
unofficial sphere, but it still had nowhere near the means necessary to train imams for all the
mosques in Turkey. This lead to the “establishment of a symbiotic relationship with the state,”
and during the 1950s and 1960s “Süleymancı preachers dominated the different levels of the
Diyanet” (Yavuz 2003, 146).
Mehmet Görmez, former vice-president and current president of the Diyanet, admitted
in a 2006 statement that in the 1950s and 1960s it had been very difficult to find well-educated
religious personnel, and that well up into the 1970s many of the Diyanet’s employees had been
medrese-graduates, which had meant that “religious personnel under the influence of such
currents entered the Diyanet” (in Milliyet 2006).30 The Süleymancılar were amongst the very
first to realize the potential of expanding their activities to the Turkish worker communities in
Western Europe, and equally became active in party politics in Turkey, generally supporting
centre-right parties. This is most clearly demonstrated by Tunahan’s successor (and son-inlaw) Kemal Kaçar, who was not only head of the Süleymancılar community but was also a
member of the Turkish parliament, representing Kütahya (1965-1973) and Istanbul (19771980), as a deputy of Süleyman Demirel’s Justice Party (Adalet Partisi, AP) (Yavuz 2003,
146).
Another of the main religious actors who would have a long-lasting influence on the
Turkish religious and political fields was the Nakşibendi Sheikh Mehmet Zaid Kotku. Kotku
was head of the İskenderpaşa community (cemaati), part of the Gümüşhanevi branch (dergâh)
of the Nakşibendi order, and is perhaps the best example of a politically-engaged religious
“Böylece bazı akımların etkisinde olan din görevlileri de kuruma [Diyanet’e] girmiş oldu.” Given
that the context of the article is the presence of Sufi orders (tarikat) and other religious communities
(cemaat) and currents (akım) within the Diyanet, “medrese graduates” (medrese mezunları) here refers
primarily to individuals who had studied at seminaries such as those run by the Süleymancılar.
30
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actor operating both inside and outside the parameters of “official Islam.” He was the spiritual
father of the Milli Görüş (National Outlook) movement, which was led by one of his disciples,
Necmettin Erbakan, who would go on to found all the main Turkish Islamic political parties
from 1970 until 2001.
Kotku had become a member of the Gümüşhanevi branch of the Nakşibendi order in the
early 1920s, and had received his permission to guide and teach within the order (hilâfetname)
in 1924 (Necâtioğlu 2013). After over twenty years as an imam in Bursa and the village of
Izvat, Mehmet Zaid Kotku returned to Istanbul in 1952. It was the beginning of the Demokrat
Partisi’s decade in power, a period marked by “a new liberalism and open-mindedness […] in
all spheres of life: political and economic as well as social and religious” (Özdalga 2010, 77).
During the CHP’s last years in power notable changes in religious organization had already
occurred. The Demokrat Partisi’s electoral victory in 1950 brought on even more changes: the
ban on the call to prayer in Arabic was lifted;31 religious classes for school children became
mandatory (though with an opt-out option); and during their first four years in power they
opened fifteen imam hatip schools, all of which were overseen by the Ministry of Education
(Bein 2011, 148; Ruşen Çakır, Bozan, and Talu 2004, 59–60).
Kotku had returned to Istanbul to order to take over as head of the Gümüşhanevi branch
following the death of Sheikh Abdülaziz Bekkine in 1952. He served in the Ümmügülsüm
mescidi, “most probably through the acquiescence of the Diyanet,” until he was appointed
imam of the İskenderpaşa mosque in 1958 (Mardin 1991, p.133). Kotku emerged as the “most
significant Sufi leader” of his time, with many of his mürid (followers) becoming important
social and political figures: “ministers (Korkut Özal, Lütfü Doğan, Fehim Adak), a prime
minister and president (Turgut Özal), and another prime minister (Erbakan),” not to mention
the current prime minister, Tayyip Erdoğan (Yavuz 2003, 141). While Nursi promoted
education and modern sciences and Tunahan emphasized traditional Islamic education, Kotku
“stressed economic progress and industrialization as the best ways to develop society and ease
the iron grip of Kemalist authoritarianism” (Yavuz 2003, 142). In terms of politics, Kotku
openly supported the DP during the 1950s, as did the Nurcular and the Süleymancılar, and
shifted this support to the AP following the 1960 military coup.
31
For an in-depth analysis of this highly symbolic example of early republican Turkification policies,
see (Azak 2010, 45–84).
91
In the political field, the DP had been careful to state that they would continue to uphold
the secular nature of the state before coming to power, and the party went on to adopt a
pragmatic strategy with regard to religion. Prime Minister Adnan Menderes and the DP were
skillful at mobilizing religion when it was to their advantage: they were not hostile to the
religious organizations of “unofficial Islam,” “and even legitimized them when they accepted
the support of the Nurcu movement in the 1954 and 1957 elections” (Zürcher 2004, 234). Eligür
agrees that the DP “co-opted the brotherhoods for electoral gain” (2010, 58), but also points
out they did so with limits. For instance, Kemal Pilavoğlu, the head of the Ticani (Tijaniyya)
Sufi order, which had been responsible for a series of highly mediatized attacks on Atatürk
statues, was sentenced to fifteen years in prison following the adoption of a Law to Penalize
Anti-Atatürk Criminal Conduct in 1951. Furthermore, though Said Nursi was no longer subject
to state persecution, the government did not allow him to enter Ankara in 1959, and the planned
burial of Süleyman Hilmi Tunahan in Istanbul’s Fatih Mosque the same year was prevented by
police forces sent by the Interior Ministry (Yavuz 2003, 62). Indeed, Menderes’ decision not
to support any major reforms of the Diyanet, such as those proposed by the late Ahmed Akseki,
caused disappointment and criticism in Islamic circles. To top it off, Akseki’s successor, Eyüp
Sabri Hayırlıoğlu, was a former CHP member of parliament who was appointed by the DP
cabinet after having rejected all the candidates close to Akseki, and “under whose bland
leadership, the Diyanet operated throughout the 1950s as a dependent and politically
dependable government agency” (Bein 2011, 151).
The junior military officers who led the 1960 coup d’état accused the now-incarcerated
Menderes and the DP of having exploited religion for political purposes, and saw themselves
as the guardians of Atatürk’s secular revolution. Indeed, article 19 of the new constitution of
1961 on “freedom of thought and faith” now included a long paragraph forbidding the
exploitation and abuse of “religion or religious feelings or things considered sacred by religion
in any manner whatsoever for the purpose of political or personal benefit, or for gaining
power…” (TC Constitution of 1961). Over at the Diyanet, Eyüp Sabri Hayırlıoğlu, president
since Akseki’s death in 1951, was accused of “reactionary-mindedness” (Jäschke 1961, 185)
and was replaced by the müfti of Istanbul, Ömer Nasuhi Bilmen, who would be replaced in
turn 9 months later in 1961 by Hasan Hüsnü Erdem, a theology professor at the Ankara
University.
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Despite such ominous signals, there was no return to the strict secularist policies of the
one-party days. Quite to the contrary, “efforts were made to cut the ground from under the feet
of the Islamist currents by increased attention to the building of mosques and the restoration of
shrines and to religious education in schools” (Zürcher 2004, 247). Elections were held in 1961,
and by 1965 the successor to the DP, the conservative AP, came to power under the leadership
of Süleyman Demirel. Though initially supportive of the AP, those who identified with Islamist
currents gradually became dissatisfied with it during the 1960s, often voiced in the pages of
the magazine Sebilürreşad. In response to this dissatisfaction, the main current of political
Islam in Turkey,32 the Milli Görüş movement, led by Kotku’s disciple Necmettin Erbakan,
organized itself as a political party which was founded in 1970: the Milli Nizam Partisi
(National Order Party, MNP). Aside from its significant base, which was linked to Kotku and
the followers of the Nakşibendi İskenderpaşa community, and its appeal to other proponents of
political Islam, support for the MNP came from movements such as the Nurcu (Özdalga 2010,
83) and certain AP parliamentarians.33
Indeed, the new constitution, more liberal than its predecessor, and the “climate of
pluralism” which it brought about “permitted the development of the press, the proliferation of
Islamist associations but especially, for the first time, the foundation of an Islamic-coloured
party” (Bilici 2005, 309). Moreover, as Mardin reports, the foundation of this party was part
and parcel of a “many-sided strategy” put in motion by Kotku, “which included the
organization of discussion groups throughout Turkey, the establishment of a Muslim-owned
motor producing plant, the publication of the daily Sabah (established 1968), and last, but not
least, the encouragement of political activities” (1993, 222). Though dissolved only one year
later by the Constitutional Court during the military coup of 1971, it was founded again in 1972
as the Milli Selamet Partisi (National Salvation Party), and came to power as part of a coalition
government in 1974.
The founding of the MNP marked the entry of political Islam into the mainstream
Turkish political arena, and was first in a long line of Islamic political parties over the
In this thesis, “political Islam” refers to Islamic-inspired movements that have opted to promote their
causes in the form of political parties in democratic elections, and who thus consider active social and
political engagement along with the possibility of gaining control over the state as the means to
Islamicizing society. For the purposes of this study, the term is largely synonymous with “Islamism”
and “political Islamism” (for more, see Burgat 1988; Roy 1992).
33
For example Hasan Aksay, who would gone on to be a main figure in Erbakan’s parties (Gözaydın
2009, 164).
32
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subsequent decades.34 Moreover, the 1960s represented a period of generational change “with
the gradual passing away of the last generation of Ottoman ulema” (Bein 2011, 152), and the
rise of new strategies, influenced by modernizing tendencies and party politics, such as Kotku’s
emphasis on media, business, economic development, and “captur[ing] the higher summits of
social and political institutions” (Mardin 1993, 222–223). These goals, echoing both the elitist
and renewalist tendencies of the Nakşibendi Khalidi tradition, are at the core of another
religious current which began to form in the 1960s: the neo-Nurcu “Gülen Movement” (Gülen
Hareketi), led by Fethullah Gülen.
Fethullah Gülen, originally from the region surrounding Erzurum in Eastern Anatolia,
had been introduced to the dershane of the Nurcu movement already as a teenager. He began
preaching in 1958 on the other side of the country in the city of Edirne, and was officially
appointed to Izmir as a vaiz for the Diyanet in 1966. Gülen gradually attracted a following,
giving public lectures in the surrounding region and organizing summer camps, and
increasingly became focused on educational activities and “community service” (hizmet)
(Ebaugh 2010, 26–27). During the 1971 military intervention, Gülen was arrested and
imprisoned for seven months for his links to the Nurcu movement, an experience which “led
him to develop a low profile,” and “channel his activities into symbolically less loaded projects,
suggesting that building a school is more virtuous than building a mosque, and building a
normal (secular) school is more virtuous than building an Imam-Hatip school” (Özdalga 2010,
84–85).
Gülen retired from the Diyanet in 1981 (Fethullah Gülen Official Web Site 2009) but
stood out as a prominent supporter of the 1980 military coup and the new constitution of 1982,
as opposed to the neo-Nurcu followers associated with the newspaper Yeni Asya (Yavuz 2003,
174). His close connections with the Anavatan Partisi (Motherland Party, ANAP) government
of Turgut Özal helped in the expansion of his movement at home and abroad, and since the
This includes, of course, the “moderate” Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice and Development Party,
AKP), which has dominated Turkish politics since it swept the elections of 2002. Until the AKP, the
Islamic parties that were founded following the MNP were all reincarnations of the same political
Islamic current (the Milli Görüş movement), and were led by Necmettin Erbakan. Due to repeated bans
by the Turkish constitutional court, usually based on violations of Turkish secularist principles, the
movement was forced to regroup under different names: Milli Nizam Partisi (National Order Party,
MNP) 1970-1971; Milli Selamet Partisi (National Salvation Party, MSP) 1972-1981; Refah Partisi
(Welfare Party, RP) 1983-1998; Fazilet Partisi (Virtue Party, FP) 1998-2001. Following the
constitutional ban on the FP, disagreements on the future of the movement resulted in a split, leading
to the founding of two separate parties: the “traditionalist” Saadet Partisi (Felicity Party, SP), led once
again by Erbakan, and the “moderate” AKP, led by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
34
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1980s the Gülen movement has established media outlets (Zaman newspapers, Samanyolu
television, magazines, and publishing houses), put in place extensive business and professional
associations, and founded over a thousand schools spanning the globe “located on five
continents in the 100 countries where members reside (Ebaugh 2010, 5). While the Gülen
movement is clearly a significant example of Turkish “unofficial Islam,” similar to the other
examples discussed above, its relationship with “official Islam” is by no means black and
white. Gülen began as a rank and file vaiz employed by the Diyanet, a position he held for over
twenty years, and his movement has maintained an ambiguous relationship with Turkish state
authorities ever since, including both moments of cooperation and conflict. “Official Islam” is
thus not static: depending on the political forces in power and the views and goals of specific
individuals – such as the president (başkan) of the Diyanet – the ties between “official” and
“unofficial” Islam can vary greatly.
A measure of the changing boundaries of “official Islam” can be seen during the 1960s,
when the Diyanet prepared a series of brochures against “groups which have lost their
moderation and harm Islam and its principle of unity” as well as “materialistic currents,”35
singling out missionaries, communism, mysticism and certain Sufi orders (Batınîlik and the
Biberiyye), as well as the Nurcu movement (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 1964, 6). Three such
pamphlets were published in 1964, targeting the Nurcu movement, communism, and the
Biberiyye order, altogether demonstrating the “political animosity of the 1960s at the level of
the Diyanet” aimed at the Turkish republic’s “ ‘main enemies’: ‘religious reactionarianism
(irtica)’ and ‘communism’” (Kara 1999, 235). While this is certainly true, Kara himself
mentions that Hasan Hüsnü Erdem, the Diyanet president under whom the pamphlets had been
compiled, was removed from his post as a result of the anti-Nurcu publication (1999, 235).
Despite the monopoly that “official Islam” might attempt to exercise over the religious field,
its capacity to act was (and remains) frequently limited by political and pragmatic
considerations.
The question of ties between the Diyanet and currents of unofficial Islam would continue
to turn up in the press and in parliamentary debates in the years thereafter. An interesting
example is that of İbrahim Bedreddin Elmalı (1903-1994), who served for less than one year
as Diyanet President. In 1966, Elmalı was sent to an early retirement after accusations that the
“İslam’a ve onun tevhit görüşune zarar veren, itidalini kaybetmiş cereyanlar” and “maddeci akımlar”
in the original Turkish.
35
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Diyanet had prevented the distribution of the anti-Nurcu brochures, and had even denied their
existence, were published in the newspaper Hürriyet (Ekmekçi 1966, 1). The accusations seem
to have come from a member of the Diyanet, who also wrote that Elmalı had spoken out in
favour of restoring the Caliphate, and that under his watch the Süleymancılar had been
protected and members of the Nurcu movement had been let into the Diyanet (Akis 1966, 9–
10).
Following Elmalı’s hasty retirement, the CHP parliamentarian Muzaffer Karan
addressed rumours of the ex-Diyanet president’s Islamist leanings in a written query, and asked
whether enough was being done to combat “Nurculuk and similar subversive, separatist
movements” (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi 1966, 204–205). The response from Refet Sezgin,
AP state minister responsible for the Diyanet, was terse: the matter was still under
investigation, and Elmalı had been appointed as per regulation; Karan’s subsequent questions
concerning “subversive movements” were not addressed (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi 1966,
205). Ismail Kara cites a personal conflict with Sezgin concerning the appointment of a
colleague as the main reason for Elmalı’s removal (1999, 235). This is supported by a
contemporary article in the left-wing Akis magazine, which mentions that the colleague had
been involved in anti-Atatürk propaganda, and had been brought along on a trip to Tunisia
despite Sezgin’s objections. The article’s general appraisal is that the AP government had
begun to consider that Elmalı was losing control over the “reactionary environment,” and was
beginning to consider himself as a “flag” and a new “Şeyhülislam” (Akis 1966, 10).
The case of Elmalı is one of many which demonstrates how the position of Diyanet
president, as well as that of state minister responsible for the Diyanet, both became more
politicized as political and Islamic currents became ever more intertwined. Elmalı, for instance,
went on to become a member of parliament for two conservative and nationalist political
parties, the Millet Partisi (Nation Party, MP) from 1969-1973, and the Demokratik Partisi
(Democratic Party, DP) from 1973-77, the latter of which represented the right wing of
Demirel’s AP, which had broken off as a separate party in 1970 (Zürcher 2004, 252). Many, if
not most, of his successors would also have telling political careers (see Figure I-1 below):
Lütfi Doğan, a member of the Milli Görüş movement, became a senate member for the MSP
following his four years as Diyanet president, and went on to be a member of parliament for
the RP (1991-1999), FP (1999-2002), and was a founding member of the SP. His successor,
Dr. Lütfi Doğan (no relation), was a CHP parliamentarian from 1977-1980, and served as state
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minister for the Diyanet under the government of Bülent Ecevit (Kara 1999, 233). This
tendency has by no means diminished with time, as can been seen with the cases of Tayyar
Altıkulaç, parliamentarian for the DYP and currently for the AKP, as well as Sait Yazıcıoğlu,
currently an AKP member of parliament as well, and state minister responsible for the Diyanet
in Erdoğan’s first AKP government in 2002.
Figure I-1 “Diyanet Presidents, Past and Present”
Name and Political Affiliations
Time in Office
Rıfat Börekçi
1924-1941
Şerefeddin Yaltkaya
1942-1947
Ahmet Hamdi Akseki
1947-1951
Eyüp Sabri Hayırlıoğlu (CHP)
1951-1960
Ömer Nasuhi Bilmen
1960-1961
Hasan Hüsnü Erdem
1961-1964
Tevfik Gerçeker
1964-1965
İbrahim Elmalı (MP/DP)
1965-1966
Ali Rıza Hakses
1966-1968
Lütfi Doğan (vice) (MSP/RP/FP/SP)
1968-1972
Dr. Lütfi Doğan (CHP)
1972-1976
Doç. Dr. Süleyman Ateş
1976-1978
Tayyar Altıkulaç (DYP/AKP)
1978-1986
Doç. Dr. Sait Yazıcıoğlu (AKP)
1987-1992
Mehmet Nuri Yılmaz
1992-2003
Dr. Ali Bardakoğlu
2003-2010
Dr. Mehmet Görmez
2010-
Sources: Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2013a; Kara 2008; Kara 1999.
The electoral success of the MSP in 1973 led to its joining a short-lived coalition
government with the CHP, during which time it was given the portfolio for the Diyanet
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(Gözaydın 2009, 42). Perhaps even more importantly, from this date on the MSP also began
focusing more on municipal elections, a strategy that would be continued with success by its
subsequent incarnations, the RP, FP, and AKP (and notably not the SP) (Massicard 2009, 21–
23). At the national level, Erbakan and the MSP came back to power in 1975 as part of another
coalition led by Demirel’s AP along with Alparslan Türkeş’s far-right Milliyetçi Hareket
Partisi (Nationalist Movement Party, MHP). Once again, despite being the minor coalition
partner, the MSP managed to obtain the portfolio for the Diyanet and was instrumental in
replacing Dr. Lütfi Doğan, one of the Diyanet’s “most secular presidents,” with Süleyman Ateş,
as well as in “pushing aside” then-vice president Tayyar Altıkulaç, who was appointed head of
the Ministry of Education’s General Directorate for Religious Education (Kara 1999, 236–
237). When Ecevit’s CHP government returned for a third time in 1978, former Diyanet
president Dr. Lütfi Doğan now became state minister for the Diyanet, while Tayyar Altıkulaç
returned to the Diyanet as its president.
This game of political musical chairs was a direct result of the instability of elected
governments during the 1970s, and shows to what extent party politics had a direct effect on
the personalities controlling the main institution of “official Islam” in the country. The
antagonism was not simply between the secular leftist CHP and one party representing
conservative religious currents; these currents themselves were divided between the political
Islam of the MSP (supported by conservative Islamists of all stripes, as well as by the
Nakşibendi groups and some branches of the Nurcu movement); the far-right nationalist MHP
(which could on the support of the Süleymancılar at times); and Demirel’s conservative AP,
following in the tradition of the DP (supported by most Nurcular and Süleymancılar, as well
as the nascent Gülen movement).
Completing this summary panorama of “unofficial” Turkish Islam are the Alevis.
Alevism refers to a heterodox and diverse religious group, related to Shi’ism through its focus
on Ali, son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, and which is generally estimated at representing
between 15% and 20% of the Turkish population today (see Gökalp 2011). Massicard traces
its historical origins back to the beginning of the 16th century, to tribal Turkmen Anatolian
groups named the “Kızılbaş” (“red heads,” due to their headgear), which had allied themselves
with the Safavid Persian Empire against the Ottomans. After the Ottoman victory over the
Safavid Persians, many Kızılbaş communities were influenced by the Bektaşi Sufi order,
though by the 19th century the Bektaşi had become increasingly rooted amongst the urban élites,
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while the Alevis remained “predominately rural and isolated” (Massicard 2005a, 332–333). In
terms of practice, Alevi communities are guided by male religious leaders named dedes, who
trace their lineage “through Saint Hacı Bektaş back to İmam Cafer, Ali and the Prophet,” and
who are the only individuals capable of leading the Alevi prayer ritual, known as the cem
(Shankland 2003, 8,24). The definition of Alevism is all the more difficult as there is no one
particular orthodox version: it transcends ethnic boundaries (both Turks and Kurds are Alevis),
and the belief system can reveal pre-Islamic Turkic shamanistic characteristics, as well as
Zoroastrian and Christian influences; for Massicard, the “ambiguous nature” of Alevism in fact
constitutes one of its “essential variables” (Massicard 2005b, 6–7).
On the other hand, Alevism as a political and identitarian movement has a much more
recent history. Alevism has never been officially recognized, neither by the Ottoman Empire,
nor by the Turkish republic, which explains the difficulty of finding precise statistics, as well
as the absence of any inclusion of Alevism within the Diyanet. Following the coup d’état of
1960, the new constitution officially included the Diyanet as a body of the state administration
(article 154); however, there was still no specific directive outlining its organization, so the
Turkish parliament began working on a draft bill. Debates dragged on for years, during which
time the Turkish President Cemal Gürsel raised the idea of creating a “directorate of mezhep”
within the Diyanet, in order to better represent the different Islamic currents in the country.
This suggestion was sharply criticized by the Islamic press, provoking in turn a public
declaration by fifty students in Ankara concerning their “Aleviness,” and followed soon after
by the creation of Alevi associations, magazines, and the political party Türkiye Birlik Partisi
in 1966 (The Unity Party of Turkey, TBP) (Massicard 2005b, 41–42).
In 1965, the size of the Diyanet and the scope of its activities were significantly expanded
with law 633 on “The Creation and Duties of the Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı” (Diyanet İşleri
Başkanlığı Kuruluş ve Görevleri Hakkında Kanun). The law was the result of four years of
debate, six draft proposals, and the work of a government draft committee (Gözaydın 2009,
71); needless to say, it had given rise to much debate on the role of the Diyanet within the
Turkish state and society. Indeed, debates on reforming the Diyanet had already begun along
with democratization following World War II, during which time certain groups advocated the
full separation of the Diyanet from the state, while others proposed instead to keep the Diyanet
within the state structure, but to grant it “broader jurisdiction and significantly higher levels of
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administrative and financial autonomy” (Bein 2011, 144). 36 Law 633 followed this latter
position, and the most significant change was to be seen in the expansion of the Diyanet’s
organizational structure. Up until the early 1960s the Diyanet had been composed of only “two
councils or bodies and two or at most four departments”; in the draft bill submitted in 1963,
the number of departments was at first increased to eleven, while the number of vice-presidents
increased to two (Gözaydın 2009, 71). After significant debate, law 633 did indeed enlarge the
organizational structure of the Diyanet, and resulted in the creation for the first time of a “High
Council for Religious Affairs” (Din İşleri Yüksek Kurulu), and the reorganization of numerous
other departments. However, the “Directorate of Mezhep,” which had been proposed by Gürsel
and which had been included in the draft bill in 1963, was eventually dropped as a result of
fierce criticism which saw it as a danger to “national and religious unity” (Gözaydın 2009, 72).
The passing of law 633 represented the victory of a certain vision for religious
governance in Turkey, one which reinforced state oversight of religion, as well as emphasized
religious-national unity over pluralism. For the newly-founded TBP, equating national unity
with Sunni Islam was tantamount to rendering Alevis “second-class citizens,” and in the leadup to the 1969 elections, the leader of the party, Hüseyin Balan, criticized the Diyanet for
“being in the service of only one religious group (mezhep), over which it has a monopoly,” and
called on the Diyanet to “represent all religious groups (inanç gurupları)” (İpekçi 1969, 11).
The following year, the TBP filed a case with the Turkish Constitutional Court, challenging
the Diyanet and law 633 on the basis that it “contradicted the constitutional principle of
secularism” (Kara 1999, 231). The Constitutional Court rejected the TBP’s case, which had
especially focused on the status of public servants, giving an explanation which fully reflects
the mainstream state view of religious governance. I quote here at length the same passages
highlighted by Gözaydın (2009, 104):
The Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı is not a religious organization, but an administrative
organ, which according to constitutional article 154 is a part of the general state
administration. […] There is no doubt, that the Diyanet’s inclusion in the
constitution and the status of its employees as public servants […] are necessary
36
As Bein notes, the proponents of complete separation between the Diyanet and the state were at odds
about how religion should be governed once the separation had been accomplished. One group proposed
a centralized, monopolistic vision, in which the Diyanet would continue to exist as an independent
institution with “exclusive religious authority for all Muslim citizens of the republic,” while a
contending group proposed that the Diyanet be “replaced by privatized, community-based religious
organizations” (2011, 144).
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consequences born of the numerous historical causes, realities, and specific needs
tied to the circumstances of this country […].
State oversight of religion is founded on reasons such as preventing religious
fanaticism through the training of competent religious personnel and ensuring that
religion is a source of moral and spiritual discipline for society, and in this fashion
achieving the ultimate aim of sublimating the Turkish nation and elevating it to the
level of modern civilization […]. State support within this domain and the fact that
employees of the Diyanet are considered public servants are not to be understood
as state control of religious affairs, but as an appropriate solution to certain
obligatory needs due to the circumstances of the country (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti
1972b, 5).
This understanding of the Diyanet is highly revealing. According to this line of thinking, if the
Diyanet is not a “religious organization,” its actions must be understood as those of any other
state department providing a necessary service to the public. The religious governance provided
by “official Islam” is furthermore presented as a public service, which exists in order to fulfill
two mains goals: preventing “religious fanaticism” (represented by religious actors operating
outside the boundaries of official Islam), and guiding and “civilizing” the Turkish nation.
Indeed, this viewpoint continues to constitute one of the central elements in the discourse
employed by representatives of the Diyanet, as discussed in greater detail in Chapters V and
VI.
It is, however, a viewpoint which seeks to speak for the entire “Turkish nation” while
remaining officially blind (or hostile) to the pluralism within Turkish society. Following the
passing of law 633 and the decision of the Constitutional Court, the Diyanet’s Sunni identity
was more evident than ever, as “official Islam” either dismissed Alevi practices as elements of
culture and folklore, or excluded them altogether as aberrations. The historical context
exasperated the situation further. On the one hand, the increasing convergence of Alevism and
the Turkish left during the 1960s and 1970s had numerous consequences, for instance leading
certain young Alevis to attempt to “secularize” their beliefs by interpreting Alevism through a
Marxist lens; on the other hand, as “a group stigmatized as heretical and non-Muslim,” the
Alevis and their leftist political tendencies were perfect as a scapegoat for nationalists and
Islamists “in a country in the grip of an obsessive fear of communism” (Massicard 2005b, 46–
47).
The fortunes of the TBP were short-lived: its portion of the vote declined substantially
in the 1973 elections, and by 1977 it had lost most of its support. This was in part because of
the decision of five TBP members of parliament to support Süleyman Demirel’s liberalBenjamin Bruce – “Governing Islam Abroad” – Thèse IEP de Paris – 2015
101
conservative government in 1970, discrediting the party in the eyes of its mainly left-leaning
supporters. Even more importantly, however, was CHP’s move to the centre-left under Bülent
Ecevit (“ortanın solu”), which provided a more credible alternative and wound up attracting
the bulk of Alevi voters, including for instance a resounding 97% of the Alevi votes in one part
of the province of Tokat in 1977 (Shankland 2003, 205–206; Massicard 2005b, 43–44). More
generally, the ideological and political polarization of Turkish society would only worsen
during the 1970s, leading to a series of pogroms against Alevis across the country, most notably
in Kahramanmaraş in 1978.
The politicization of the Diyanet’s top leadership as a result of the transition to
multiparty democracy opened up a new means by which to influence the contours of official
Islam. Alongside the ambiguous relationships which the Diyanet had maintained with various
movements of unofficial Islam throughout the early Republican period and thereafter, party
politics now became an instrument for different movements of unofficial Islam, all of which
tended to support right-wing parties, though not always the same one.
More specifically, the 1960s represent an important period for the Diyanet, in that both
its constitutional and organizational framework were legally established, as well as
significantly expanded. The pamphlets which it issued against the Nurcu movement,
communism, and the Biberiyye Sufi order demonstrated its ability to extend the “political
frontline positions” (Kara 1999, 235) of the Turkish state to the religious sphere, and the
government’s decision to exclude any Alevi representation from its organization entrenched
even further the Sunni character of official Islam in Turkey.
At the same time, the goal of this section has been to highlight an important element of
ambiguity: despite the official discourse and rhetoric concerning the character of statesponsored official Islam, every example of unofficial Islam which I have given here (other than
the Alevis) has also operated within the boundaries of official Islam. Said Nursi, Süleyman
Hilmi, Mehmed Zaid Kotku, and Fethullah Gülen were all employed by the Diyanet (and thus
the Turkish state) during their careers. Consequently, it is clear that the reality of “official
Islam” in practice is much more ambiguous and variable than might be assumed from the
standard official discourse, or from analyses which propose a black and white binary pitting
“official” against “unofficial” Islam in Turkey.
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D - Instability and Intervention: Islam as a Tool of National Unity
The 1970s marked a turbulent period in Turkish history. The decade began with another
military intervention, the so-called “coup by memorandum” on 12 March 1971. Worried about
the “communist threat” coming from increasingly organized and active left-wing groups, such
as the Türk İşçi Partisi (Turkish Workers’ Party, TİP), the recently-founded Confederation of
Revolutionary Workers’ Union (DİSK), and more particularly attacks carried out by left-wing
guerrillas linked to the revolutionary left (Dev Sol), the high command issued a memorandum
forcing the resignation of Süleyman Demirel’s Justice Party (AP) government (Gökay 2006,
96). Little over a month later, they had imposed martial law in 11 provinces, and proceeded to
engage in the heavy-headed persecution of leftist groups: around 5,000 were arrested, the TİP
was dissolved, and there were numerous reports of torture and extrajudicial executions, often
carried out by contra-guerrilla forces (Zürcher 2004, 258–259).
Democratic elections returned in 1973, when the Islamist MSP would come to power as
the smaller partner in a coalition with Ecevit’s CHP that lasted one year. The decade would be
characterized by a series of unstable coalition governments which were unable to deal with the
heightening ideological polarization of society and unheard of political violence in the streets.
Moreover, the oil crisis of 1973 and the global economic slowdown hit Turkey hard, and by
the end of the decade large-scale strikes and labour unrest were prevalent. Though Ecevit
enjoyed high levels of popularity at home, especially thanks to his handling of the Cyprus crisis
in 1974, Demirel managed twice to lead a “Nationalist Front” coalition (Milliyetçi Cephesi) to
power (in 1975 and in 1977). Overall, political instability reigned at the top: from 1973 to 1980,
Ecevit and Demirel would both be prime minister on three different occasions, each time at the
head of a different coalition or minority government.
The 1970s also gave rise to a series of new problems for the Diyanet, due to an attempt
to revise portions of law 633 in 1974 which was eventually found to be unconstitutional by the
Constitutional Court five years later. This situation, which was only recently addressed by new
legislation, led one of the foremost scholars on the Diyanet to assert in 1993 that the Diyanet
was an organization “devoid of a legal foundation” within the Turkish administration
(Gözaydin in (Ruşen Çakır and Bozan 2005, 64)). On the other hand, in 1975 a significant
development for the Diyanet took place: the Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı (Turkey Diyanet
Foundation, TDV) was founded by top-ranking Diyanet officials (including Diyanet president
Dr. Lütfi Doğan and future Diyanet president Dr. Tayyar Altıkulaç), and received tax-exempt
103
status three years later by ministerial decree (RG 16168, 1978, p.1). This foundation has come
to play a very important role in financially supporting the activities of the Diyanet, at home as
well as abroad, though its opaque status as a state-dominated private foundation has also
attracted criticism. At the same time, the relationship between the Diyanet and TDV was also
taken as a model for the Diyanet’s expansion abroad, which was ostensibly reproduced between
the Diyanet and the DITIB organizations (see Chapters IV and VI).
Following the massacre in Taksim Square during May Day celebrations in 1977, violent
clashes in the street became ever more frequent, causing between 1200-1500 deaths in 1979
(Zürcher 2004, 263); as Gökay relates, “the fractured political scene and poor economic
performance had led to mounting violence between ultra-nationalist gangs and left-wing
activists in the streets of Turkey’s cities” (2006, 113). Multiple pogroms were carried out
against Alevis across Turkey in 1978-9, mixing sectarian violence with political conflict, given
that many Alevis supported militant left-wing groups in opposition to right-wing, nationalist
political parties, which were invariably Sunni (Yavuz 2003, 68). Equally in 1978, another leftist
group led by Abdullah Öcalan combined Marxist ideology and the Kurdish nationalist
movement to form the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Its violent attacks continued
“seemingly unchecked throughout the latter half of the 1970s” because “all of Turkey was
spinning out of control” (Marcus 2007, 49). As Bozarslan notes, the political violence between
1975-1980 caused more deaths and injuries than the 1919-1923 Turkish war of independence
(2007, 62). The inability of Turkey’s democratically-elected political leaders to reign in the
worsening violence frustrated military leaders, who began preparations to take power.
One the one hand, Turkey’s strategic geopolitical position on the frontlines of the Cold
War meant that leftist movements were perceived by the military establishment as a direct
threat to the state, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 only served to reinforce the
reality that the Cold War often turned hot. On the other hand, the Iranian revolution of 1979
gave rise to a new realization that Islamist movements had the potential to destabilize the state.
To bring the point home, on 6 September 1980 Erbakan’s MSP held a large rally in Konya,
where participants refused to sing the Turkish nationalist anthem and shouted instead “today
Iran, tomorrow Turkey,” and called for the return of the shari’a; this moment is generally
considered to be the immediate trigger for the coup d’état which began in the early morning of
12 September 1980 (Zürcher 2004, 269; Yavuz 2003, 68; Schiffauer 2010, 80).
104
Led by the General Kenan Evren, the coup had been well-prepared in advance. After
issuing a series of ultimatums, the military decided that the political leadership was incapable
of running the country and seized power on the morning of 12 September 1980. The national
security council (Milli Güvenlik Kurulu, MGK), bringing together the top military
commanders, moved quickly: they appointed a government under ex-admiral Bülent Ulusu
composed of bureaucrats and ex-officers; declared a state of siege; dissolved the parliament;
shut down all political parties and trade unions; and arrested the principal political leaders, such
as Bülent Ecevit, Süleyman Demirel, Necmettin Erbakan, and Alparslan Türkeş (Bozarslan
2007, 65). By the end of the first year after the coup 122,600 people had been arrested, coming
from all walks of life and all sides of the political spectrum; as Zürcher mentions, “in short
anyone who had expressed even vaguely leftist (or in some cases Islamist) views before
September 1980, was liable to get into trouble” (2004, 279–280). Indeed, Erbakan’s MSP was
outlawed as well, and numerous Islamist leaders were arrested; nevertheless, the military
regime was not opposed to a greater Islamic influence in Turkish society. In their view,
however, this influence needed to come under greater state control and supervision.
At the ideological centre of this strategy was a current of thought known as the “TurkishIslamic synthesis” (Türk İslam Sentezi), which linked Turkish nationalism and Islam
inextricably together. The basic tenets of this ideology equate Turkish culture with Islam, while
simultaneously affirming that the Turks are the natural leaders of the Islamic world, relying on
an idealized version of the Ottoman past (Şen 2010, 61–63). The Turkish-Islamic synthesis had
developed initially as a cultural movement, taking after the cultural nationalism of Ziya Gökalp,
but given the polarized political landscape it came to be seen as a means of reconciling Islamists
with the nationalistic ülkücü (“Idealist”) movement, respectively represented by Erbakan’s
MSP and Alparslan Türkeş’ MHP, in a general effort to counter the perceived danger posed by
leftist movements and communism. During the 1970s this task of “creating a ‘national front’
against the left’” was taken up by a group of right-wing nationalist intellectuals known as
Aydınlar Ocağı (the Hearth of Intellectuals), culminating in the institutionalization of the
Turkish-Islamic synthesis by the leaders of the 1980 coup d’état (Cetinsaya 1999, 374). For
these military officers, “the sterility of Kemalist positivism as an ideology of state
legitimization had become obvious by 1980,” and the nationalist-religious ideas developed by
the Aydınlar Ocağı were precisely what was needed in order to restore national order and unity
(Yavuz 2003, 71–72).
105
The Diyanet, as the official state institution in charge of managing and overseeing
religious affairs, became a key tool in this ideological battle. In the new Turkish constitution
of 1982, the article concerning the Diyanet was changed in a significant fashion. In the 1961
constitution, article 154 stated merely that the Diyanet, “a part of the general administration,
carries out its duties as set out in its particular law [5634 until 1965, law 633 thereafter]”
(Türkiye Cumhuriyeti 1961). In 1982 this became article 136:
“The Department of Religious Affairs, which is within the general administration,
shall exercise its duties prescribed in its particular law, in accordance with the
principles of secularism, removed from all political views and ideas, and aiming at
national solidarity and integrity” (Republic of Turkey 1982).
This article in and of itself sums up all the contradictions and paradoxes which lie at the heart
of the relationship between the Turkish state and Islam. The Diyanet is thus first and foremost
an administrative state institution, and like any other state institution it must carry out its duties
in a neutral manner, with the sole goal of promoting the unity of the nation. This latter part
stands out especially; as Gözaydın points out, “in this fashion the Diyanet was made
constitutionally responsible for the protection of the Turkish national identity” (2009, 47).
There may very well be no better official example of the success of the Turkish-Islamic
Synthesis than this article, which is also all the more interesting for what it does not mention,
as much as for what it does.
Indeed, in becoming the protector of both national identity and religious identity, the
Diyanet was put on the front lines against all those who might threaten “national solidarity and
integrity,” and who are not named directly. Consequently, though presented as neutral and
apolitical, the Diyanet was directly involved in a concerted effort on the part of the state to
“homogenize” Turkish society (Özçelik 2011, 88). For Kenan Evren and the military regime,
anchoring the Turkish-Islamic Synthesis at the heart of the state-promoted version of Sunni
Islam was an effective means of fighting the ideology of communist leftist groups, as well as
undermining the increasingly vocal challenges from Alevis, Kurds, and Islamists (Yavuz 2003,
69–70). This was of course alongside more direct actions, such as dissolving unions and
political parties, detaining over 600,000 people and imprisoning 85,000; promoting the
construction of mosques in Alevi villages; outlawing the use of Kurdish; in short, “decreeing
that any ideological conviction other than Kemalism, any ethnic background other than
Turkish, any religious affiliation other than Sunni, was a ‘perversion,’ requiring psychiatric
treatment” (Bozarslan 2007, 66).
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The introduction of compulsory religious education in public schools (article 24 of the
1982 Constitution) was one of the most important changes in the state’s promotion of the
Turkish-Islamic Synthesis, as the state could thus promote its version of Sunni Islam amongst
the entire population, aside from those religious communities recognized by the 1923 Lausanne
Treaty. Moreover, though the military regime did not open any new imam hatip high schools,
it elevated them to the same standing as public high schools by giving graduates of the former
the same right to attend university through a change to the basic law on national education in
1983 (Ruşen Çakır, Bozan, and Talu 2004, 66–67). The regime had moved quickly towards
controlling higher education from the very beginning with the foundation of the Council of
Higher Education (Yüksek Öğretim Kurulu, YÖK). These reforms extended equally to
advanced Islamic education, which became standardized in the form of university-level Islamic
theology faculties applying the same curriculum across the country (Paçacı and Aktay 1999,
403).37 Though these religious activities were not under the supervision of the Diyanet, 38 they
would have a great impact on reinforcing the central role of the Diyanet in the Turkish Muslim
field. In addition, it was during this period of time that the Diyanet’s centralization and
standardization of prayers (vaaz) and sermons (hutbe) began in earnest (Özçelik 2011, 88),
representing another means by which to enforce greater top-down control of religious affairs
in the country.39
Tayyar Altıkulaç, who had been appointed president of the Diyanet in 1978 by Bülent
Ecevit, continued to serve as president during the entire coup and until 1986. Given the scale
of political turmoil and changes he weathered, his longevity is impressive. From the unstable
governments of Ecevit and Demirel, through the entire period of the military coup, and finally
during the first three years which saw the return of democratic elections, Altıkulaç remained at
the helm of the Diyanet, and played an important role in reinforcing the Diyanet’s position in
Islamic Theology Faculties (İlahiyat Fakülteleri) in Turkey have an interesting history. Emerging at
the same time as the “modern university in Ottoman Turkey,” the last Faculty of Theology closed its
doors in 1933, almost a decade after the medrese-style school system had been abolished, along with
the caliphate. It would not be until 1949 that another Faculty of Theology would reappear in Ankara,
and these and other forms of Islamic higher education would foment debate for decades to come. For
more on their history, see (Paçacı and Aktay 1999).
38
The curriculum for Islamic religious education in Turkey has been the responsibility of the General
Directorate for Religious Education (Din Öğretimi Genel Müdürü) of the Ministry of Education since
the foundation of the republic.
39
According to Gibbon, it was not the coup in particular which led to the greater centralization of
sermons, but rather concern over 12,000 newly-hired imams with only elementary school education.
(Personal Communication, J. Gibbon, September 2013) Nevertheless, it is certain that the military
leadership approved of these measures.
37
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Turkey. While head of the Ministry of Education’s General Directorate for Religious
Instruction, he had co-founded the Turkey Diyanet Foundation (TDV) in 1975, and after
becoming Diyanet president he became a central figure in the development of the Diyanet’s
activities abroad. Altıkulaç’s personal implication led to the creation of a network of Diyanetlinked organizations amongst the Turkish communities in Western Europe, with the goal of
better organizing religious activities as well as competing directly with the currents of
unofficial Islam which had taken root there (see especially Chapter III.B.2).
With Erbakan arrested, the MSP shut down, and the military regime detaining thousands,
individuals active in currents of unofficial Islam generally tried to keep a low profile until
democratic politics returned. Nevertheless, the 1980 coup did have a direct effect on some
movements, such as the Nurcu, which split between the Yeni Asya group, who were opposed
to the intervention, and the supporters of Fethullah Gülen, who came out in support of the
military regime (Yavuz 2003, 174). At the same time, the generals had also become aware of
the unfettered growth of unofficial Islamic movements abroad, most notably the Süleymancılar,
the Nurcu, and Milli Görüş. This sudden recognition that the growing Turkish Muslim field in
Western Europe was largely dominated by currents of unofficial Islam led them to take a
number of actions intended to regain control of the religious field abroad, as it had the potential
to serve as a base of operations and a source of funding for these non-state religious actors (for
more, see Chapter III.B.).
Alongside the military regime’s express interest in anchoring state-controlled Sunni
Islam in the national consciousness, they were especially concerned with keeping control
themselves. A telling example of this is the famous lament of the extreme right-wing MHP
leader Alparslan Türkeş, who stated that he was in prison while his ideas were in power (in
Toprak 2006, 37). This authoritarian vision extended to all domains of society, and political
parties were denied the right to have youth or women’s branches. Their revision of the
constitution effectively undid many of the moves towards liberalization which had been
included in the 1960 constitution, and even more importantly the regime took measures in order
to ensure that the military retained a significant degree of power over civilian politics. In this
fashion, they would be able to intervene through the existing channels and institutions
whenever they deemed necessary, without having to deploy tanks and troops. Nonetheless, the
ultimate goal was a return to democratic party politics, which occurred with the founding of
new political parties and a national election in 1983.
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E - After the Coup: from ANAP to Refah
The 1983 elections brought to power the Anavatan Partisi (Motherland Party, ANAP), led by
Turgut Özal, who thereafter became one of the dominant figures of Turkish politics until his
death in 1993. Özal had already begun reforming the economy as a minister in Demirel’s
government before the coup, as well as a member of the military government thereafter, and
now he continued his liberalization programme as prime minister of Turkey. His economic
reforms had far-reaching effects on Turkish society, leading to the rise of the “Anatolian tigers”
(Anadolu kaplanları) characterized by Yavuz as “a new autonomous force in Turkish history,
outside the control of the state, who acted to redefine Turkey by supporting a neo-liberal
economic transformation, along with a conservative religious culture” (2009, 77). This new
“Anatolian-based Islamic bourgeoisie” (Yavuz 2009, 52) has come to constitute a highly
influential actor in Turkish society, and represents the core constituency for parties such as the
RP, FP, and the current governing AKP.
Özal’s economic liberalization was accompanied by a “liberal approach to Islam”
(Karasipahi 2009, 34). This policy was in keeping with the programme initiated by the military
regime, which aimed at establishing the Sunni Islam of the Turkish-Islamic Synthesis as the
core component of Turkish national identity, and had entrusted a large degree of this task to
the Diyanet. The Diyanet began receiving more official visits starting in the 1980s, a practice
which has become normal today, though it had rarely occurred in the years before the coup
(Ruşen Çakır and Bozan 2005, 20). Özal’s public affirmation of his religious beliefs
represented a break with politicians of the past: aside from the frequent photographs of him
attending mosques, Islamic banking was introduced for the first time in Turkey at the beginning
of his mandate in 1983, and he also became the first Turkish prime minister in office to go to
Mecca in order to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca (the hajj) in 1988 – a feat which was
broadcast live on state television (Jenkins 2008, 149, 151).
Özal’s liberal approach to Islam and the economy was key to the success of his ANAP
as a “big tent” party, attracting not only nationalists, conservatives, economic liberals, but also
the major currents of unofficial Islam. The leader of the Süleymancılar, Kemal Kaçar, had been
a vociferous critic of the MSP during the 1970s as a member of parliament within Demirel’s
AP, and thereafter the Süleymancılar supported the ANAP during the 1983 and 1987 elections
(in Çaymaz 2002, 132). As mentioned above, Özal had been himself a follower of the
Nakşibendi leader Mehmet Kotku, as had his brother Turgut Özal, who had served twice as
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minister in the 1970s as a top member of the MSP. Finally, the branches of the Nurcu
movement which had supported the military coup, such as those led by Fethullah Gülen and
Mehmet Kırıncı, also lent their support to Özal’s ANAP government (Yavuz 2003, 175). This
broad support garnered by Özal explains the continued electoral victories of his party in the
1980s at the national and local levels, which continued until he was elected president of Turkey
in 1989.
In addition, the opposition was in shambles: the most popular politicians of the pre-coup
period (Demirel, Ecevit, Erbakan, and Türkeş, amongst others) had been constitutionally
banned from participating in party politics until a very close referendum lifted the ban in 1987.
Up until this moment the MGK had routinely used its veto to block parties founded by or tied
to the main pre-coup politicians from participating in national and local elections. This had led
to the rise of a new left-wing party, the Sosyal Demokrat Halkçı Parti (Social Democrat
People’s Party, SHP) under Erdal İnönü, the son of “national leader” (Milli Şef) İsmet İnönü.
Following 1987, the main political formations of the pre-coup period returned, though with
different names and somewhat changed: Demirel led the new Doğru Yol Partisi (True Path
Party, DYP), occupying the centre-right along with Özal’s ANAP, though he now promoted
democracy and human rights. Ecevit was at the head of the Demokratik Sol Parti (Democratic
Left Party, DSP), on the centre-left and opposite the SHP, though he adopted an increasingly
radical nationalist discourse. Erbakan returned as leader of the Refah Partisi (Welfare Party,
RP), and Türkeş reassumed the leadership of his ultranationalist party (now named the
Milliyetçi Çalışma Partisi, Nationalist Labour Party), though both had “quieted down” and
tried to “improve their trademarked image” (Bozarslan 2007, 68–69).
Due to its character as a big tent party on the centre-right, the ANAP was made up of
multiple factions which existed within the party. Given that RP and MÇP were not fully
rehabilitated until their historical leaders returned in 1987, many Islamist and ultranationalists
had found a home within the ANAP after the coup, and in doing so had come to constitute an
influential segment of the party.40 In 1988 they made their presence fully visible when they
reached an accord between themselves that they called the “Holy Alliance” (Kutsal İttifak)
(Zürcher 2004, 285), and they were instrumental in drafting laws aimed at lifting the ban on
40
Both parties had already been re-founded in 1983, but neither had been allowed by the MGK to
participate in the 1983 elections. Türkeş’s party went by Muhafazakar Parti (Conservative Party, MP)
at first, then changed to MÇP in 1985, and finally back to MHP in 1993. RP had participated already in
the municipal elections of 1984, but received only 4.4% of votes nationwide.
110
Islamic head-scarves in universities in 1989 (Poulton 1997, 195).41 Another influential ANAP
politician, Vehbi Dinçerler, was also a purported Nakşibendi member and served as minister
of education between 1983 and 1985, during which time he removed Darwinism from the
curriculum of primary and secondary schools, and revised the curriculum of imam hatip
schools in order to better entrench the central ideas of the Turkish-Islamic Synthesis (Jenkins
2008, 151). As opposed to parties openly advocating political Islam and the construction of an
Islamic state (such as the RP), ANAP’s adoption of the Turkish-Islamic Synthesis better
reflects the views of Nakşibendi and neo-Nakşibendi groups, which give particular focus to the
value of Islamic education. This is due to the belief “that Islamic faith will by itself put one on
the political warpath without any abrupt transition from faith to ideology” (Mardin 1991, 139;
Poulton 1997, 184).
Nevertheless, the ANAP was often just following the precedent established by their
predecessors: the dramatic rise of students studying in imam hatip schools was clearly
facilitated by their policies, but education had been a battleground for some time already.
During the second half of the 1970s, when the MSP was in power as part of Demirel’s
“Nationalist Front,” the number of İmam Hatip schools increased dramatically. During the
three years and nine months that the two “Nationalist Front” governments were in power, 230
new schools were opened, bringing the total number of schools to 374 in 1980-1981. As for
the students, in 1974-1975 there were 48 895 who were enrolled in imam hatip schools; in
1980-1981 this number skyrocketed to 200 300, equivalent to a rise of 410 % (Ruşen Çakır,
Bozan, and Talu 2004, 64–65). This number would continue to grow until the “post-modern
coup” of 1997, peaking at 511 502 students (Ruşen Çakır, Bozan, and Talu 2004, 68). The
initial rise in the number of students can partly be explained by an administrative court decision
in 1976 which allowed girls to attend, while another major factor was the military regime’s
move to lift restrictions concerning higher education, making it possible for graduates of imam
hatip high schools to enter any university faculty (Ruşen Çakır, Bozan, and Talu 2004, 195).
Under the ANAP government more schools were built, but the focus turned to improving the
41
The question of Islamic headscarves has been at the centre of debate for numerous decades in Turkey.
Under the military regime the headscarf had been prohibited in universities, and though Özal had
somewhat eased this regulation in 1984 it eventually led to confrontation between him and President
Evren over the issue in 1987. The law passed in 1988 further easing restrictions was struck down by the
Constitutional Court the following year for violating the principle of secularism (Jenkins 2008, 150–
151).
111
quality of these schools, for which the main framework was already in place: between 1980
and 1990 the number of students rose by 45% (Bozan 2000, 19).
The growing presence of Islam in the public sphere during the 1980s is commented on
by numerous scholars, who point to developments such as the increasing number of Islamic
publications, Islamic content in school textbooks and in the media, and the rise in mosque
construction (Poulton 1997, 185–186; Jenkins 2008, 149–150; Zürcher 2004, 289). While this
general trend seems indisputable, some statistics do need to be taken with a grain of salt: the
seemingly enormous jump in the Diyanet’s personnel, from 46,665 in 1983 to 74,930 in 1989
(Ruşen Çakır and Bozan 2005, 26; Jenkins 2008, 150; see Poulton 1997, 185–186 for similar
statistics but based on different sources), may very well stem from changes in how
administrative categories were determined than in a massive hiring campaign during the 1980s.
Gözaydın mentions problems with this in the past, and herself puts the Diyanet’s personnel at
78 582 in 1984 (Gözaydın 2009, 189–190). The same goes for the Diyanet’s budget: despite a
steady absolute increase during the 1980s, as a percentage of the overall state budget the
Diyanet’s share changed very little, never exceeding 1% and actually dropping from 0,85% in
1980 to 0,71% in 1989 (Gözaydın 2009, 221–222). In fact, while Turkish society underwent
significant changes during this decade, the most important changes concerning the Diyanet as
an organization would actually occur abroad, as it stepped up its foreign activities amongst the
Turkish communities in Western Europe (see Chapter III.B.).
The most major and recent changes concerning state-Islam relations in Turkey began
with the rise of the RP during the 1990s, and the deepening conflict between its religious
conservative supporters, and alarmed Kemalist secularists, who supported the undemocratic
interventions of the Turkish military as a means of controlling the perceived Islamist danger.
The RP’s rise began slowly during the 1980s, and following the return of Erbakan in 1987 they
broke the 10% barrier and entered parliament in the 1991 general elections. As Yavuz points
out, the RP’s social base built upon that of the MSP in the 1970s, but expanded it “by reaching
out to the urban poor, new upwardly mobile middle class professionals and especially to
emerging Islamic urban entrepreneurs” (2009, 59). Erbakan’s programme of adil düzen (“just
order”) had a wide populist appeal, and alluded to the Islamic values that he proposed to put at
the heart of the state’s policies (for more on adil düzen, see Schiffauer 2010). Indeed, as Gülalp
sums up, “in the 1980s and 1990s […] as both Kemalism and Marxism declined, radical
Islamism rose to fill the ideological void” (1999, 32). Top members of the party often went
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further in private, making “no secret of their support for the introduction of the Sharia” (Jenkins
2008, 155). At the height of their electoral successes, the RP recorded victories in Istanbul and
Ankara and received almost 20% of the vote in the municipal elections of 1994. Following the
general elections of 1995, the RP emerged with the highest number of votes, permitting
Erbakan to become prime minister in 1996, as part of a coalition with the DYP.
From the beginning, Erbakan took clear steps to placate the military. His government did
not challenge the decisions of the MGK, and signed off on a military cooperation agreement
with Israel in 1996 (Bozarslan 2007, 78), despite its openly anti-Israeli rhetoric. Top posts such
as interior and foreign affairs minister were reserved for DYP parliamentarians, and the
government generally “went out of its way to avoid confrontation and acquire respectability”
(Zürcher 2004, 299). Nevertheless, by the beginning of 1997 tension was evident, and during
a meeting of the MGK on 28 February 1997, the military presented the government with a list
of measures aimed at curbing “Islamist” and “anti-secular” activities, which effectively
amounted to an ultimatum. Over the next months the military began a campaign to force the
RP out of power, mobilizing “major business associations, media cartels, university rectors and
a judiciary long subservient to its commands” in what has been called the “February 28
process” (28 Şubat süreci), the “soft coup,” or even the “post-modern coup” (Yavuz 2009, 64–
65; Zürcher 2004, 301). Nevertheless, as Gülalp aptly notes, this characterization neglects the
very real resemblances between this military intervention and that of 1971, with the significant
difference that the 1980 coup d’état had already instituted the MGK “as a permanent organ of
the state, regulating governmental affairs, thus rendering an outright coup unnecessary”
(Gülalp 1999, 40).
The military pressure eventually led to the collapse of the RP-DYP coalition, which was
replaced by new coalition between ANAP and DSP, and led by Mesut Yılmaz. A case was
brought before the constitutional court against the RP even before Erbakan’s resignation, and
by early 1998 the RP had been dissolved. Its successor, the Fazilet Partisi (Virtue Party, FP),
had been founded even before the verdict concerning the RP was handed down, but after a less
impressive showing at the polls in 1999 it was also shut down by the constitutional court. In
the meantime, Yılmaz’s coalition government, and after its fall, the DSP minority government
led by Bülent Ecevit, worked to implement the measures demanded by the military leaders.
These measures were directly aimed at religious institutions and activities, which the military
and secularists had been painting as a resurgence of irtica, one of the most important being a
reform which closed down middle-school (orta) level imam hatip schools and effectively made
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it impossible for graduates of imam hatip high schools to continue at university level. The
impact was immediate: from an overall high of 511 502 students in 1996-1997, the number of
students attending imam hatip schools across the country (now including only high schools)
plummeted to 64,534 in 2002-2003 (Ruşen Çakır, Bozan, and Talu 2004, 68).
The effects of the “February 28th Process” were also felt elsewhere in the religious field,
as the military sought to diminish the place of Islam in the public sphere, and especially rein in
non-state religious actors which had grown increasingly influential since the 1980 coup. Not
that the rise of these groups had been by accident; indeed, following the coup the Turkish state
had begun to court certain Islamic groups in a bid to outmanoeuvre those that were considered
“reactionary” (irtica). This was specifically the work of the so-called “deep state” (derin
devlet), which led to a series of scandals in the 1990s, especially following the infamous
Susurluk incident.42 In an interview in 1999, the leader of the Yeni Asya neo-Nurcu group,
Mehmet Kutlular, compared the state’s strategy towards Islamic groups in the 1980s and 1990s
to its use of these “bandits.” Moreover, he related how he had been approached by the Turkish
secret services following the coup but had refused to help them, because “after they use you,
they push you aside and destroy you” (in Ruşen Çakır 1999).
Kutlular’s interview was given specifically with regard to the case of Fethullah Gülen
and his eponymous movement, which exemplifies the reversal of fortunes that occurred as a
result of the “February 28th Process.” Gülen, who had retired from the Diyanet in 1981 after
the coup, benefitted during long years from the support of many important Turkish politicians,
including Turgut Özal and Tansu Çiller, while even Bülent Ecevit maintained good relations
with him. These ties provided Gülen with the political support necessary for the astounding
expansion of his movement in the sectors of media and private education, first in Turkey during
the 1980s, then internationally in the 1990s, reaching more than 120 countries by the mid2000s (Hendrick 2013, 3–4). The example of the Gülen movement demonstrates the Turkish
state’s willingness to coopt certain “unofficial” religious actors when it suits their political
interests, as had also been the case with the graduates of Süleymancılar Qur’an schools in the
past. The primacy of these political interests demonstrates not only that official Islam remains
hostage to political imperatives in Turkey, but that its content depends greatly on the prevailing
The Susurluk incident refers to a traffic accident in 1996 in the town of Susurluk which “revealed the
existence of a criminal triangle of politicians, mafia bosses, and security forces engaged in the war
against the PKK” (Cizre 2002, 98).
42
114
alliances between the state and unofficial religious movements that have decided (or been
convinced) to align their interests with those of the state.
Indeed, for the same reasons, the rapid expansion of the Gülen movement had begun to
alarm many within the military establishment by the 1990s. Despite Gülen’s own public
support for the “February 28th Process,” over the next two years he was increasingly attacked
in the media and in the courts, and ultimately was forced to “take refuge in the United States”
(Zürcher 2004, 291). Yavuz, who is particularly critical of the “anti-Gülen campaign,” bluntly
states that “for his part, Gülen had learned the painful lesson that obsequiously catering to the
center of military power can breed contempt as much as it does forbearance” (2003, 203). As
for Kutlular, whose Yeni Asya group had been opposed to the military coup in 1980 and who
remains critical of Gülen’s prior cooperation with the state, he similarly agrees that Gülen was
“used and thrown away” due to the fear that he was planning a conspiracy to take over the state
(Ruşen Çakır 1999).
F - The Rise of AKP and State Religious Governance in Turkey Today
In the wake of RP’s rise and closure, and following the ban of the FP on 22 June 2001, the
conservative Islamist movement that had been led by Necmettin Erbakan since the late 1960s
underwent a significant evolution. Frustrated with the intransigent attitude of the Islamist wing
of the movement, many of its high-profile members such as Tayyip Erdoğan and Abdüllah Gül
broke away and formed the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice and Development Party, AKP)
on 14 August 2001.
As Zürcher points out, this “split was something the army probably had been aiming for
all along” (Zürcher 2004, 304), but it could have hardly imagined the success the AKP would
have over the coming years. The AKP’s clear and conscious decision to abandon Erbakan’s
Islamist rhetoric and promote a discourse axed on business, human rights, democracy, and
conservative social values, succeeded in attracting a vast and diverse electorate, including the
majority of RP/FP voters and those of the other centre-right parties (DYP, ANAP). For the first
time since Özal’s ANAP, practically all Sunni Islamic movements found common ground with
one party: aside from a small number of die-hard Erbakan supporters, Nurcular, Süleymancılar,
Fethullahçılar, supporters of other tarikat, as well as adherents of the political Islam tenets of
115
the Milli Görüş movement, all managed to identify with the AKP’s socially conservative
Muslim values and liberal economic platform.
The AKP swept to power in 2002 with 34% of the vote, and a solid majority government
thanks to the 10% electoral barrier which resulted in only one other party being represented in
parliament, the CHP under Deniz Baykal. The elections of 2007 and 2011 led to increased
majorities for the AKP (46.66% and 49.83% respectively), and other than the entry of MHP
into parliament in 2007, no other political party has emerged to disturb the political landscape.
The opposition in parliament between the CHP and AKP has both reflected and contributed to
the polarization between “secularists” and “Islamic conservatives,” which has overlapped with
another popularized characterization of Turkish society as split between “white Turks” (beyaz
Türkler) and “black Turks” (siyah Türkler).43 This dichotomy has been a mainstay in both
scholarly literature as well as the press for some time. Yavuz, for instance, speaks of the
“normative value conflict” between the “secularist bureaucratic center” and the “Muslim values
that constitute the societal center” (2003, 257), while a less nuanced version of this conflict is
usually the short-hand used in newspaper articles in order to explain current affairs in Turkey.
Since the AKP came to power, Turkey has experienced steady economic growth and has
come to be seen as a “rising power” on the international scene. During its first period of
government, the AKP government initially adopted a pragmatic attitude so as to calm tensions
with its opponents, many of whom openly speculated about the AKP’s purported ‘hidden
Islamist agenda’; however, it would become increasingly assertive concerning social and
religious issues by the time of its second electoral victory (Sunier et al. 2011, 21–22). By 2005,
the AKP would “U-turn from the politics of change/reform” and “backslide into an
undemocratic position,” exhibiting increasing signs of favouring an authoritarian style of
governing (Cizre 2008, 9–10). Cizre mentions that this change in direction was due to
frustration with stalled EU accession talks, while Eligür and others emphasize rather that
AKP’s goal all along had been to “exploit[ ] Turkey’s longtime quest for EU membership as a
The “white Turk, black Turk” distinction is not tied to any physical difference and corresponds rather
to a particular division of Turkish society which integrates numerous economic, social, and historical
factors. The expression “white Turks” generally refers to the established educated urban élites, often
members of the state bureaucracy and military as well as proponents of a certain vision of Kemalist
secularism. On the other hand, the expression “black Turks” is used as a short-hand for the rural,
uneducated masses, many of whom have left their villages and now inhabit the run-down peripheries
and slums (gecekondu) surrounding major Turkish cities, and whose religious conservatism has made
them an essential component of the AKP’s electorate. For more, see Bazin and Tapia 2012, 274–275;
Acemoğlu and Robinson 2013.
43
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political opportunity to advance Islamist demands for change by utilizing a liberal tool kit,”
and especially reduce the strength of the military (2010, 248).
Tensions became even more strained with secularists and the military when the
government nominated AKP foreign minister Abdullah Gül for the position of president in
2007. Aside from provoking massive “Republican Protests” (Cumhuriyet Mitingleri) across the
country, the situation led the military to issue an internet memorandum warning that the armed
forces were “a side in this debate and a staunch defender of secularism” (in (Cizre 2008, 12–
13), just in case the “soft coup” ten years earlier had been forgotten. The following year, the
AKP survived a constitutional court case which would have seen it shut down just like the RP
and FP had been, despite its massive electoral victory in 2007. However, starting in 2008 a
series of controversial high-level court cases, collectively known as the “Ergenekon Trials,”
would rock the military, weakening its position greatly after hundreds of active and retired
officers were convicted in 2013 of a “deep state” plot to overthrow the government. 44 At the
same time, another trial began in 2010 concerning a separate plot to overthrow the government
by the military in 2003 named “Operation Sledgehammer (Balyoz),” and led to over 300
convictions of high-ranking generals and officers in 2012. Yet another trial began on 2
September 2013, barely two months after the verdicts were given in the Ergenkon case, and
brought charges against 103 suspects (almost all members or former members of the armed
forces) for their role in the February 28th “soft coup.”
The AKP, and especially former Prime Minister and now President Tayyip Erdoğan,
have taken increasingly authoritarian stances concerning press freedom and social lifestyle
choices considered contrary to Islamic principles. In recent years, this has led to ever more
frequent public debates on issues ranging from alcohol, adultery, and abortion, to even mixed
student dormitories. The Gezi Park demonstrations of 2013 were in large part a response to this
heavy-handed style of governing, which ostensibly pursues democratic reforms (such as the
so-called “democracy package,” announced a few months after the protests) while showing
little tolerance for dissenting opinions. As a result, fears of a “hidden Islamist agenda” persist:
for instance, during the Gezi Park protests, Erdoğan responded to protestors by defiantly
44
The Ergenekon Trials also led to the conviction of many high-profile journalists (such as Mustafa
Balbay, who was elected to parliament as a CHP deputy while in prison) and public figures (such as the
head of the Turkish Workers’ Party, Doğu Perinçek). Nevertheless, many of those convicted were
eventually released in March 2014.
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vowing to build a mosque in Taksim square, which has been a dream of his and the Islamist
movement for decades (Arango 2013).45
When it comes to the place of the Diyanet in Turkey and the Turkish religious field
abroad, over a decade of AKP rule has had noticeable effects. Nevertheless, they are still far
from resembling the fears of those who suspect the AKP of wanting to turn Turkey into an
Islamic state. As Gözaydın shows, while the Diyanet’s budget has risen under the AKP
government, when considered relative to its share of the overall budget it has not increased
significantly more than in the preceeding decades (2009, 223–224). The largest increases have
been during the last years, bringing it to a current high of 1.1% of the annual budget (see Figure
I-2).
Nevertheless, this is still below what it was when the Diyanet received its highest-ever
share of the budget during the rule of the centre-right AP (1.89% in 1966) and ANAP (1.23%
in 1990) (Gözaydın 2009, 223–224; Sunier et al. 2011, 47). The Diyanet’s budget remains
nevertheless relatively high amongst Turkish state organs, consistently above that of the
Foreign Ministry, the Interior Ministry, or even that of the Prime Minister’s office. This fact is
often raised in the literature on Turkey in order to underline the size and relative weight of the
Diyanet within the Turkish state, while for the same reasons it is also levied as criticism by
opposition politicians and commentators who see it as an affront or even a threat to Turkey’s
secular character.
45
Despite the fact that the Turkish state has no legal competency to build mosques.
118
Figure I-2 “Diyanet Budget and Overall Turkish Budget under AKP, 2002-2014”
Budget
Year
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
Overall Budget
(in TL)
98,131,900,000
147,230,170,000
150,658,129,000
156,088,874,910
170,156,782,052
215,059,364,450
233,956,370,463
276,088,760,474
301,656,587,292
335,149,875,830
385,485,625,921
444,070,912,450
480,047,818,000
Diyanet Budget
(in TL)
553,364,200
770,292,000
976,834,294
1,125,744,626
1,308,187,000
1,638,383,000
1,998,412,595
2,454,275,000
2,650,530,000
3,178,992,500
3,891,166,000
4,604,649,000
5,442,784,190
Diyanet Budget as
Percentage of Overall Budget
0.6
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.8
0.9
0.9
0.9
0.9
1.0
1.0
1.1
Sources: Gözaydın 2009, 224; Turkish Ministry of Finance 2009-2014.
The Diyanet’s remarkably large budget when compared with other organs of the Turkish
state is explained by its personnel. In general, over 90% of the Diyanet’s budget is used to pay
for the salaries and social security benefits of its employees, while what remains is used for the
maintenance and upkeep of the country’s mosques – in 2012, that meant 105,472 employees
and 84,684 mosques (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2013i, 31; Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2012a).
The most recent budget increases are the direct result of the AKP’s decision to significantly
augment the Diyanet’s personnel, a plan which had originally been announced at the beginning
of their mandate, but which was then postponed for numerous years due to significant
opposition (Ruşen Çakır and Bozan 2005, 32). The fact that two former Diyanet presidents,
Tayyar Altıkulaç and Sait Yazıcıoğlu, are both AKP members of parliament (the former had
been a DYP parlimentarian beforehand, while the latter served as state minister responsible for
overseeing the Diyanet from 2002-2009) has undoubtedly played a role in the government’s
heightened attention to Diyanet’s needs.
The new personnel joined the Diyanet in 2011 and were followed by almost 7,000 more
employees in 2012, constituting the largest changes in Diyanet’s personnel in the last decades
(see Figure I-3 below). Cemil Çiçek, spokesperson for the AKP government in 2007, explained
that this increase was due to the fact that “a large number of mosques in Turkey, especially in
119
rural areas, do not have enough religious personnel. A different kind of religious services are
given there, which has obvious drawbacks” (Yeni Şafak 2007). Far from promoting an Islamic
state, the rationale for this decision continues to be the desire to maintain and reinforce state
control of religious services, echoing the religious policies adopted by other Turkish
governments in the past.
The significant growth in the Diyanet’s personnel since 2010 has led to criticism in
parliament, in particular during the yearly commission hearings concerning the Diyanet’s
budget. During my own attendance of one of these hearings in 2011, I was able to watch how
the subject of the Diyanet’s budget led to heated debates between government and opposition
MPs, as issues such as the state’s role concerning religion and the place of Alevis in society
were sucessively brought up during hours of discussion during the commission meeting. In a
similar budgetary hearing in 2013, the state minister responsible for the Diyanet Bekir Bozdağ
responded to opposition MPs by stating that the real problem had been that during many years
no new personnel had been hired. This was especially the case in the 1990s, during which
“people couldn’t find imams (hoca efendileri) to perform funerals” (Türkiye Büyük Millet
Meclisi 2013, 53) Bozdağ also highlighted that 20,000 of the Diyanet’s official personnel
positions have yet to be hired. Regardless, it is clear that the Diyanet’s fortunes have improved
since the AKP came to power.
120
Number of Employees (in thousands)
Figure I-3 “Total Diyanet Personnel, 1970-2013”
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Sources: Ruşen Çakır and Bozan 2005, 74; Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2014e, 17; Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2013b,
37; Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2013c. Elaborated by author.
The Diyanet’s personnel is divided into a number of different categories, corresponding
to the function that they fulfill in the provision of religious services and/or their hierarchical
position within the state administration. According to its own administrative breakdown, the
Diyanet is composed of its central organization in Ankara (merkez teşkilatı), its organizations
in the provinces (taşra teşkilatı), and its branches in foreign countries (yurt dışı teşkilatı). The
central organization includes all the top administrators, decision-makers, as well as auxiliary
employees (including 11 cooks), coming to 1,098 individuals in 2013. After decades of being
located next to the largest mosque in Ankara in the central district of Kocatepe, the Diyanet’s
continous growth required a larger building. Construction of the new headquarters was
completed in 2001, and the same year the Diyanet moved to its current location on Eskişehir
yolu – a long highway in Ankara, along which kilometers of ministries and state agencies
succeed one another. In recent years a large mosque named after Ahmet Hamdi Akseki has
built next to it, while many other additional buildings are planned for construction (Diyanet
İşleri Başkanlığı 2014e, 13; see pictures below). Religious personnel sent abroad are not
included in the “foreign branches” category, which only takes into account the 36 religious
counsellors and attachés who coordinate the Diyanet’s activities abroad (see Chapter V).
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Figure I-4 “The Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) in Ankara”
Reproduction of image
unauthorized
From left to right, top to bottom: the main building and the new mosque; the front gardens and the main entrance;
Ramadan decorations and the entrance from the highway; an architect’s rendering of the many new buildings and
complexes planned; the state of the construction in 2011. Sources: all photographs by author (2008, 2011);
architectural model from Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2014e, 8.
The provincial organizations of the Diyanet follow the general administrative divisions
of the Turkish state, meaning that the religious affairs of Turkey’s 81 provinces (il) and 957
districts (ilçe) are each governed by a separate religious official who is given the name of müftü.
The provincial and district müftülük (müftü departments) are responsible for organizing and
overseeing the Diyanet’s activities throughout the country, which includes all individuals who
serve in mosques (there are no legally recognized independant or private mosques in Turkey).
The müftü themselves generally all begin their careers as imam hatips or preachers, and then
work their way up the ranks after having completed higher education degrees at Islamic
institutes or university-level theology faculties.
The müftülük are fully integrated within the overall state administration. For instance, a
law (6447) passed in 2013 creating 26 new districts (ilçe) in Turkey also outlines the additional
personnel to be hired for each state body as part of the new district administrations. The Diyanet
figures alongside numerous other ministries and departments of the Turkish state with its own
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allotment: one district müftü; two bureaucrats (memur); one chauffeur; and an attendant
(hizmetli); each position with its specific state employee class and grade within the state
administration (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti 2013a). In this instance, the district müftü is included in
the “General Administrative Services” class of state employees (Genel İdare Hizmetleri, GİH),
as is the case with most of the main administrators of the Diyanet. On the other hand, the
primary law on state employees (law 657) stipulates that “religious services” constitute a
separate class (sınıf) in the state administrative system for salary and benefit issues (just as
health, legal, education, or security services do). This difference can be clearly seen in the
breakdown of the personnel in Diyanet’s central organization: the only members who are part
of the “religious services” class are the eight preachers who work at the central headquarters,
while the top directors and executives all belong to the general administrative services class
(Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2014e, 13,17).
This “religious services” administrative class applies to the core of the Diyanet’s
religious personnel, which is to be found in the provincial organizations: 78,047 imam hatips;
19,946 Qur’an course teachers; 11,735 prayer caller-mosque custodians (müezzin-kayyım); and
1,121 preachers (vaiz) – not including the director (baş) and specialist (uzman) categories
(Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2014e, 15). Moreover, as shown in Figure I-5 (see below), the vast
majority of the Diyanet’s personnel belongs to one of these four categories of religious
officials. Indeed, the müftülük account for 98% of the Diyanet’s total personnel. The
educational prerequisites and the tasks expected of each of these four positions are explicitly
detailed in a directive issued by the Diyanet in 2011, which sets out the entire administrative
framework for the examinations and conditions regulating career advancement within the
institution (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti 2011). Finally, the provincial organizations also include 19
educational institutes (eğitim merkezi) – of which 3 are for higher specialization – located
around the country, and which are used for professional development and in-service training.
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Figure I-5 “Diyanet Personnel by Profession in 2013”
Imam Hatip
Muezzin-kayyım
Qur'an Teacher
Preacher
Other
1%
10%
8%
16%
65%
This includes the director (baş) and specialist (uzman) categories for each profession. “Other” includes both higher
administrative positions as well as chauffeurs, security guards, etc. Source: Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2014e, 13–
17. Elaborated by author.
Along with the increases in personnel size has also come greater professionalization,
specifically in the form of higher educational standards for religious personnel. In 2003, Ali
Bardakoğlu, a professor of Islamic law at Marmara University’s Faculty of Theology was
appointed president of the Diyanet, replacing Mehmet Nuri Yılmaz, a former mufti of Ankara’s
central Çankaya district. Gibbon emphasizes the fact that Bardakoğlu came from an academic
background, and “did not become Diyanet president by working his way up agency ranks” (as
did, for instance, his predecessor) and that Bardakoğlu “brought other academics with him to
fill top administrative positions and this new cadre has pursued projects designed to promote
scholarship and increase religion’s public presence” (2009, 19). Okumuş goes so far as to call
Bardakoğlu’s presidency the beginning of a “new era,” also highlighting that “there were more
divinity faculty academicians in the administration of the [Diyanet]” giving rise to what he
calls “a new ‘academic’ religiosity” (Okumuş 2008, 355).
Ali Bardakoğlu was not the first academic to become president of the Diyanet – indeed,
Kara (1999) mentions an ongoing tradition of appointing professors to this position. However,
an important difference is that Bardakoğlu could rely on an institutional academic network
which had not existed in the past. Since the 1980s, when the Turkish state adopted the TurkishIslamic Synthesis as its guiding principle for social and religious policies, not only had the
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number of imam hatip schools around the country greatly increased, but also the number of
theology faculties at the Turkish universities.46 These faculties still numbered a mere nine at
the end of the 1980s, but by the end of the 1990s this had increased to twenty-three (Paçacı and
Aktay 1999, 405, 412). In fact, it had been one of Bardakoğlu’s academic predecessors, Sait
Yazıcıoğlu, a professor from Ankara University’s Faculty of Theology, who had begun the
push for higher academic qualifications and training facilities for the Diyanet’s religious
personnel during his presidency (1987-1992). Yazıcıoğlu continued playing an important role
in the development of this educational infrastructure after his presidency as dean of Ankara
University’s Faculty of Theology from 1993 until 2002, going on to become AKP state minister
responsible for the Diyanet until 2009.
This academic professionalization of the Diyanet’s upper cadre has thus been
accompanied by a similar change within its enormous body of religious personnel. For instance,
amongst the former, the percentage of theology faculty graduates barely rose from 1993
(4.16%) to 2003 (5.51%), but nearly doubled by 2012 (10.89%). Similarly, the creation of a
two-year post-secondary theology programme in 1998 has had a significant impact, accounting
for the largest group of Diyanet employees in 2012 (35.29%). Perhaps the most drastic change
which demonstrates this increase in academic qualifications is the percentage of Diyanet
employees with only an education from an imam hatip high school or less: from 91.81% in
1993, it decreased to 61.80% in 2003, and now represents an ever-shrinking minority at 27.85%
in 2012 (Ruşen Çakır and Bozan 2005, 23–24; Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2013i, 17).
Aside from the continual close ties to the university-level theology faculties, the
Diyanet’s presence in the domain of higher education has been supported especially by the
Turkey Diyanet Foundation (TDV). In 1988, the TDV founded the İslam Araştırmaları
Merkezi (Centre for Islamic Studies, İSAM) as part of its project to create one of the largest
encyclopedias of Islam ever (İSAM 2008) – the 44th and last volume was just recently
completed in 2013. İSAM has come to represent an institution of central importance for the
diffusion and production of Islamic research in Turkey; moreover, it has become the seat of a
new university, the May 29th University of Istanbul, founded by the TDV in 2010. The May
29th University has been especially active in attracting international students from Western
Europe, as well as from the Turkic Republics of Central Asia and the Caucasus (its website is
Though sometimes translated as “Divinity Faculty,” I prefer “Theology Faculty” for the translation
of İlahiyat Fakültesi.
46
125
well developed in Turkish, Russian, Arabic, and English) (İstanbul 29 Mayıs Üniversitesi
2014). The university is also part of the Diyanet’s new International Theology Programme,
which has been designed especially for Turks coming from diaspora communities in foreign
countries (for more on the programme, see Chapter VI).
Members of the Diyanet invariably highlight the importance of this academic theological
training when discussing the religious authority of their personnel, especially with regard to
other sources of religious authority emanating from other Islamic currents. Indeed, as former
Diyanet president Bardakoğlu writes: “Muslims do not derive their power, authority or dignity
from sacred men and institutions. Then where do these come from? From scientific knowledge
that overlaps with the main sources of religion which are dervied from tradition and interpreted
according to the needs of the time” (2008, 16). The legitimacy of state religious authorities in
Turkey is based on both their official status as state employees, as well as their professional
and scholarly education in religious sciences.
This mix recalls the Weberian concept of “office charisma” (Amtscharisma), within
which religious authority has been separated from “the person, and [is linked] with the
institution and, particularly, with the office (Amt)” (Weber 1968, 1164), as well as Weber’s
legal-rational category of authority, considering the role played by laws and learning in
legitimizing state authority in religious affairs. Indeed, Bardakoğlu continues by saying that
“sound knowledge means a struggle against superstition, error, ignorance, injustice and
religious abuse,” and that “in Turkey, the Presidency of Religious Affairs and the theology
faculties are responsible for this near-impossible task” (2008, 17). Determining the content of
“sound knowledge” is at the basis of establishing who constitutes a legitimate religious
authority, and represents one of the main challenges for the Diyanet in the Turkish Muslim
field in abroad (see especially Chapters V and VI).
Another area in which the AKP government has been much more attentive to the
Diyanet’s concerns than previous governments has been in the legal domain. Due to the
constitutional court ruling of 1980, the Diyanet had become a “legal oddity, which continues
to exist as a very powerful administrative unit despite its lack of a technically legal basis”
(Gözaydın 2006, 5), leading to a long period during which cabinet and executive decisions
became the main administrative instruments used to govern it (Gözaydın 2009, 194). This was
solved in 2010 when the Turkish parliament passed Law 6002, which re-established the
Diyanet’s legal basis, while also bringing about an across-the-board raise in administrative
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status for all of its employees. For instance, the President of the Diyanet moved up two notches
in the “General Administrative Services Rankings” (Genel İdare Hizmetleri Sınıfı) to the same
level as the prime ministerial undersecretary (başbakanlık müsterşarı) and deputy ministers
(bakan yardımcısı), at the very top of the ladder for employees of the Turkish public service
(Türkiye Cumhuriyeti 2012). It also gave the Diyanet the ability to found its own television
and radio stations, a very important step given the preponderant role such media play today in
diffusing Islamic norms and values, a fact which numerous other unofficial Islamic currents
had already recognized much earlier (Kanal 7 for Milli Görüş, Samanyolu for the Gülen
movement, etc.).
As mentioned above, the coming to power of the AKP has meant the creation of a bigtent party capable of appealing to practically all Sunni Islamic currents. The links between the
AKP and the Gülen movement have arguably attracted the most attention due to the latter’s
spectacular growth over the last thirty years, which Hendrick calls the “primary power base in
the AKP-led coalition” (2009, 344). Very little is known specifically about the ties between the
Gülen movement and the Diyanet, though it seems that there have been instances of (unofficial)
cooperation in Central Asia (Balci 2003), while comments from Diyanet officials can lead to
widespread speculation in the Turkish media.47 In general, however, despite the ambiguous
relationship that has existed between the Diyanet and unofficial Islamic communities in the
past, “today’s top officials of Diyanet speak in much more positive terms about the
abovementioned religious communities,” which Sunier et al. surmise as being linked to the
“strong relations” which the AKP maintains with a number of them (2011, 114).
At the same time, the spectacular degradation of relations between the Gülen movement
and the AKP very recently demonstrates again the volatile and fragile nature of alliances
between non-state religious actors and official Islam. The AKP government decided to close
down the Gülen movement’s preparatory schools (dershane) in 2013, and only a few months
thereafter a long-scale corruption scandal broke out, forcing top AKP ministers to resign. AKP
officials suspected Gülen followers of having planned the affair, and former Prime Minister
47
For instance, during a meeting in May 2013 between the Diyanet President Mehmet Görmez and the
Vatican’s secretary for interreligious dialogue, Miguel Angel Ayuso, Görmez called for a reappraisal
of the term “interreligious dialogue,” saying that “every single religion is based on its own spiritual
truths” and that there cannot be “dialogue between truths.” A number of media sources took this as an
attack on Gülen, whose movement privileges the notion of interreligious dialogue (the world “dialogue”
shows up often in Gülen-linked organizations), leading to headlines such as “The President of the
Diyanet is going to make Fethullah Gülen very angry” (Odatv 2013).
127
Erdoğan lashed at the Gülen movement, accusing them of orchestrating a conspiracy against
the state. There is currently little doubt that the alliance between the two groups has ended,
with important consequences for the Turkish Muslim field both at home and abroad
(concerning the latter, see Chapter VI for examples).
On the other hand, the generally rallying of Sunni Islamic groups around the AKP has
been met with suspicion by Alevis, who at the same time continue to denounce the Diyanet’s
one-sided Sunni representation of Islam. The AKP’s launched its so-called “Alevi opening”
(Alevi Açılımı) in 2007, and to appeal to Alevis have often been initiated by one of the rare
AKP members of parliament who is Alevi, Reha Çamuroğlu. From 2009 to 2010, special
“workshops” (çalıştay) were organized under state minister Faruk Çelik (responsible for the
Diyanet from 2009-2011) in order to address Alevi issues, leading to a general report at the
end. According to one survey, the “Alevi opening” is regarded with suspicion by most Alevis,
who harbour deep mistrust towards a government that they perceive as trying to assimilate
them (Köse 2010, 148).
Amongst the main reasons for this, Öktem writes that “the AKP’s new Alevi policy is
not based on affirmative recognition of difference and a readiness to acknowledge past
mistakes, but appears to follow the clientelist model of incorporation and assimilation,” and
compares it the AKP’s strategy with Kurds (2008, 7). The Alevi Bektaşi Foundation generally
holds this position and is hostile to the Diyanet’s existence, whereas other groups have tended
to follow the government’s approach, such as the Cumhuriyetçi Eğitim ve Kültür Merkezi Vakfı
(Republican Education and Cultural Centre Foundation, or CEM Foundation), which would
prefer the founding of an “Alevi department” within the Diyanet (Köse 2010, 149). Amongst
these steps taken towards a greater recognition for Alevis, for the first time in 2011 a series of
new textbooks was issued by the Directorate for Religious Education of the Ministry of
Education, which include sections describing Alevi beliefs and practices (Interview, Irfan
Aycan, 11 November 2011, Ankara). Moreover, in 2013, the Diyanet issued its own “Alevi
Report” that included “revolutionary suggestions,” such as equal status for Alevis and the
official recognition of the Alevis’ cemevi as places of worship (Milliyet 2013). It is still too
early to see how the impact the “Alevi opening” may yet have, but it is certain that they will
contribute to the mutually influential relations with Alevis in the diaspora. This is especially
the case in Germany, where Alevis are well organized and have received official recognition
128
as a religious community from state authorities (for more, see Chapter IV and Massicard
2005a).
G - Conclusion
The purpose of this chapter has been to argue that the divisions between “official” and
“unofficial” Islam in Turkey are flexible and volatile. This has been true throughout the history
of the Turkish Republic, from the Diyanet’s cooperation with the Süleymancılar during its first
decades of existence, to the cooperation between certain political parties in power (ANAP,
AKP) with the Gülen movement until very recently.
Indeed, what matters most is are the political interests behind this selective cooperation,
as well as the state’s general capacity to coopt religious actors, in the sense of aligning their
interests with those of the state. It is through this process that the state plays a decisive role in
determining which actors in the religious field constitute legitimate religious authorities. This
role is concretely attributed to the Diyanet and is generally tied to the state’s constitutional role
in determining the boundaries of its religious public policy. In doing so, the state also sets the
legal (and “officially” legitimate) limits for religious actors active in the Turkish religious field.
At the same time, religious public policy is divided between the Diyanet and other institutions,
such as the General Directorate of Religious Education, which is responsible for the imam hatip
schools and religious curricula in public schools; the General Directorate of Foundations,
which owns a larger number of mosques along with many other kinds of foundations (vakıf);
and the university-level theology faculties (supervised by YÖK). Finally, the Turkey Diyanet
Foundation represents a very active partner that has sponsored the development of the
Diyanet’s network of higher educational institutions, such as İSAM and the new May 29th
University.
The place of academia and higher education is of central importance in establishing and
reinforcing a model of religious authority that emphasizes training and professionalization as
fundamental qualities for religious actors. At the same time, the state’s assertion that Diyanet
is above all sectarian (mezhep) differences remains highly contested due to its exclusive Sunni
and Hanafi character. The rise to power of the AKP over the last years has exacerbated tensions
not only with “secularists,” but also non-Sunni population such as the Alevis, which remain
highly skeptical towards state policies aimed towards them. While the electoral victories of the
129
AKP have permitted the creation of politico-religious space capable of encompassing the vast
majority of Sunni Turkish voters, the recent conflict with the Gülen movement shows that this
apparent still unity includes numerous fault lines.
The Diyanet represents an essential tool in the AKP’s goal to broaden the scope and
reach of Sunni Islamic values within the Turkish public sphere. However, the AKP’s time in
government has not changed the fact that Islamic religious activities are highly regulated and
controlled by state authorities, and that they take place within a detailed and extensive
administrative legal framework. On the one hand, the central role of university professors and
higher education within the ranks of the Diyanet highlights the importance of modern academic
training as a form of religious capital in the Turkish Muslim field. On the other hand, the
continuing claim that the Diyanet’s religious officials are more (politically) neutral than any
other alternative serves to discursively establish the legitimacy of state religious actors over
any and all non-state religious currents. These two elements can be understood by two central
Weberian concepts, respectively a legal-rational form of authority that promotes “sound
knowledge” gained in state-regulated academic institutions in the religious field, and a general
policy promoting a form of “office charisma” (Amtcharisma), in which holding a state position
is generally perceived as a form of religious capital for actors within the Turkish religious field.
The chapter has given a few examples of how the Diyanet has been able to act
independently of central state control, highlighting the importance of an analysis that focuses
directly on the institution and its religious officials in the elaboration and execution of religious
public policy. Nevertheless, the Diyanet’s room for manoeuvre is politically and legally
constrained, and its fortunes have often varied depending on the political parties in power.
Moreover, for religious and political actors who are opposed to the political party governing
the country – or the state itself – the Diyanet is automatically associated with the state,
irrevocably tying its legitimacy to that of the state itself.
As the former state minister for the Diyanet has written, the Diyanet currently has a
“global vision” that goes well beyond the borders of the Turkish state (M. Aydın 2008).
However, this vision is not new; as Chapter III will show, beginning in the 1970s, the Turkish
model of religious governance followed Turkish labour migration to Western Europe. After a
period of competition with rival groups, the Diyanet and its partners have emerged today as the
main actors of the Turkish Muslim field abroad, with important implications for the Muslim
field in countries such as France and Germany. Before turning to this subject, however, the
130
next chapter will present the specificities and historical evolution of the Moroccan state’s
model of religious governance. The similarities and differences between these two states’
religious public policies at home and abroad – in particular in France and Germany – will
provide the foundation for the subsequent analyses given in this thesis.
131
132
II - The Moroccan Muslim Field: The Makhzen and
Beyond
Morocco maintains a certain continuity with its past in a way that few states in the region do.
As the seat of numerous empires that stretched across the straits of Gibraltar and into Muslim
Spain (Al-Andalus), Morocco was directly affected by the Reconquista of the 15th century and
the expansion of the Spanish and Portuguese empires. However, unlike the rest of North Africa,
Morocco was never part of the Ottoman Empire, meaning that the structures and institutions
involved in Islamic religious governance do not derive from the same historical past as Algeria
or Tunisia. Moreover, despite the periodic loss of certain costal territories, it remained free
from foreign control until the French and Spanish Moroccan protectorates were proclaimed in
1912.48
Though it has undergone enormous transformations, from sultanate to colonial
protectorate to modern state today, “it is the only modern Middle Eastern or Maghribi state
where the pre-colonial dynasty has continued in power and traditional religio-political notions
have become key components of modern identity and statehood” (Bennison 2002, 2). Since the
arrival of Islam with the invading Arab armies in the 7th century, religion has continued to play
a central role as a force for mobilization and legitimation of political power. This is without
doubt most visible in the person of the King, who detains both political power as well as
spiritual power as amīr al-mu’minīn (“Commander of the Faithful”). The following sections
will sketch the historical and institutional development of the Moroccan religious field with a
special emphasis on the question of “official” and “unofficial” currents of Islam in Morocco.
This will prepare the ground for an analysis of its development in France and Germany in the
next chapter.
A - Islam in the Sherifian Empire: Sultans, Saints, and Habous
In studies of the state in Moroccan history there is one word which stands out: the “Makhzen.”
The original meaning of the word is “warehouse” (as in the French “magasin” or Spanish
48
The name of the country is a history lesson on its own. In Arabic, Morocco is known as Al-Maghrib
meaning “the West,” or “the setting sun” (or more properly al-Mamlakah al-Maghribiyyah, “the
Kingdom of the West”), due to its position on the Western-most edge of Islamic civilization. “Morocco”
and its different versions (Maroc, Marokko, Marruecos, etc.) come from the historical capital
Marrakech, while the Turkish “Fas” takes its origin from another traditional capital, Fez.
133
“almacén,” both derived from it), alluding to the place where taxes were stored, and echoing
the contrast between bled l-Makhzen and bled s-siba, which divided the sultanate between the
“land of the Makhzen,” which paid taxes, and the “land of dissidence,” which lay outside the
central state’s control (Vermeren 2011, 40). The term has come to refer more generally to the
sultan/king and his central administrative complex, along with its soldiers, ministers, and
official religious scholars (hereafter ulema). As Daadaoui points out, this brought about a shift
from the original meaning to an understanding of the Makhzen as a “reservoir of power”
bringing together the “political authority of the government and army” as well as the “social
symbolic authority represented by the sultan as the head of religious power” (2011, 42).
The sultanate in Morocco as a social and political institution originally arose in the 89th century as a result of the Idrisid dynasty. It was revived with remarkable religious fervour
under the main Berber dynasties that followed over the coming centuries: the Almoravids (1112th centuries), who spread orthodox Maliki legalism across Morocco and Spain; the Almohads
(12-13th centuries), who added their “God-frightened puritanism”; and the Merinids (13-15th
centuries), following whom arose a period of fragmentation dominated by localized sectarian
communities, which Geertz calls the “Maraboutic crisis” (1968, 46–47). When the Arab
Saadian dynasty came to power (16-17th centuries), they brought back to the sultanate an
additional title, which had profound political and religious resonance in Moroccan society:
sharif, or descendant of the Prophet Mohammed. Those who claimed such noble descent had
long been held in esteem by Moroccans, for whom such a direct link to the prophet meant also
having inherited his baraka (divine blessing). 49 This idea, which scholars have called
“sharifianism,” led to the shorfa (“sharif” in Moroccan Arabic) becoming a privileged class
within their tribal and social contexts. This became especially well-entrenched after the
“discovery” of the tomb and purportedly uncorrupted body of Idris II in 1437 (his father, Idris
I, had similarly been “discovered” in 1318) (Luccioni 1982, 63; Pennell 2003, 71).
The Alawites, who succeeded the Saadians as sultans of Morocco in the 17th century
(and continue to rule to this date), were and continue to be exceedingly successful in making
The term baraka holds a special place in Sufi practices, as it refers to “the blessings and supernatural
powers brought from God through the mediation of a walî or saint” (Newby 2002, 41–42) and plays a
particularly important role in Morocco society. Daadaoui analyzes it as one of the main Moroccan state
“rituals of power” (Daadaoui 2011, 1) and Geertz devotes special attention to defining it not as a
“paraphysical force, a kind of spiritual electricity,” but rather as a “proposition […] that the sacred
appears most directly in the world as an endowment – a talent and a capacity, a special ability – of
particular individuals” (Geertz 1968, 44).
49
134
use of this term in order to anchor the legitimacy for their rule. Just as the Idrisids and the
Saadians, the Alawites justified their rule by claiming descent from the Prophet Mohammed’s
grandson Hassan, through the union of the prophet’s daughter Fatima and cousin Ali. This
development has had highly significant consequences, for in doing so the “two major traditions
of political legitimacy in Islam,” which Clifford Geertz calls the “intrinsic” and “contractual,”
were fused together (1968, 75–76). The former notion reflects the “Shia notion of sacred leader,
the Imām” while the latter reflects the “Sunni concept of sacred community, the Umma,”
meaning that in the case of Morocco,
[The] Sultanate put together what, in most other parts of the Muslim world, were
directly antithetical principles of political and religious organization: the principle
that the ruler is ruler because he is supernaturally qualified to be so; and the
principle that the ruler is ruler because the competent spokesmen of the Community
have collectively agreed that he is (Geertz 1968, 76–77).
To make the point even more clear, Bennison provides the following contrast: “whereas the
Ottoman sultan was the embodiment of justice, the Alawi sultan was the embodiment of
baraka” (2002, 9).
If sharif and baraka are the key words in order to understand the Moroccan sultan’s
“intrinsic” political legitimacy, then bayʿa (oath of allegiance) is the term which best represents
the “contractual” element. Though the bayʿa may not often have involved an actual choice, and
despite not representing a “significant political check on power” (Rosen 2002, 34), the
ceremony carried important weight as a public acknowledgement of the sultan’s legitimacy
(Geertz 1968, 78; Luccioni 1982, 149–150). The bayʿa has become a major political event
under the current King Mohammed VI, to the extent that it is difficult to imagine today that it
could also be invoked in order to contest a sultan’s legitimacy (Vermeren 2011, 294), or lead
to debates about whose oath counted the most, in cases where there were multiple contenders
for the throne (Bennison 2002, 28–29). Nevertheless, historically it has been the ulema, and
especially the ulema of Fez, who have been at the forefront of this investiture ceremony, while
debates over succession have been put to rest in modern times by Mohammed V’s decision to
introduce a “primogenitural rule” for the monarchy (Geertz 1968, 77).
In the case of the Ottoman Turks, the religious authority of the dynasty was assured by
the appropriation of the caliphal tradition, following Sultan Selim’s conquest of Egypt in 1517.
Though Selim himself had not paid much heed to the title, under the reign of his successor,
Sultan Süleyman (the Magnificent) the caliphate played a significant role in portraying the
135
Ottoman Empire as the “one true Islamic state”; this was especially important given the
challenge posed by the neighbouring Shi’a Safavid empire and their allies within the Ottoman
empire, the kızılbaş, forerunners of today’s Alevis (Finkel 2006, 145–146). Along with
Süleyman’s many legal reforms (his Turkish epithet, Kanuni, roughly means law-giver), the
emphasis on the caliphal tradition also resulted in the establishment of the mufti of Istanbul (or
Şeyhülislam) as the most important religious figure in the empire, at the head of an increasingly
organized religious administration (Altunsu 1972, 47; Finkel 2006, 146). Consequently, in both
cases, enforcing the religious authority of the ruler required more than simple allegiance: it
required personnel and greater state oversight in order to promote the sultan’s legitimacy and
assure the local supervision of religious activities. While the Moroccan Alawite sultans could
rely on their sharifian origins for their status as baraka-infused saints, this could also lead to
situations in which their sacredness was acknowledged throughout the country, but not their
sovereignty. Geertz makes this point in his discussion of the bled al-Makhzen and bled s-siba:
“ [the Sultan] reigned everywhere, but ruled only in places” (1968, 78).50
Consequently, religious authority was seen as requiring better institutional
organization, especially so with regard to a key element of the entire system: the waqfs, usually
translated as pious endowments or foundations, and often known as habous in North Africa. In
his characterization of habous in Morocco, Luccioni asserts that for centuries they provided
the only available “public services” in the country, given that taxes were used for the imperial
court, and “no credits or resources were allocated for the needs of public interest, namely for
religion, education, health, hygiene and charity” (1982, 6). For this reason, while it was only
on rare occasions that the general population was in direct contact with the Makhzen, their
contact with the myriad manifestations of habous was a daily occurrence, affecting all aspects
of their social life. The central importance of foundations as sources of revenue and in the
provision of “public services” (in which religion is included) meant that they could become a
prime instrument of governance – if appropriately organized and administered. They could be
used to influence not only the ulema and religious élites who populated the mosques and
madrasas, but more generally the population at large.
50
A striking example of this occurred after Sultan Sulayman and his troops suffered an important defeat
against the Berber tribes of the Middle Atlas in 1819. After his forces had been routed and he had been
captured, Sulayman was treated well by his erstwhile enemies and “returned to Meknes with all due
respect, while his tent was cut to pieces and distributed among the tribesmen as talismans of his baraka
or spiritual power” (Brett and Fentress 1997, 177).
136
As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, habous come in many different shapes
and forms, and are to be thanked for some of the most emblematic and impressive architectural
achievements of Islamic societies. The benefit derived from habous might be the direct use of
commercial or residential buildings, or the revenue from their rents; specific products (i.e. lamp
oil, mats, etc. for mosques), or the profits from their sale; at times, the beneficiary might not
even be human, but the flora and fauna – a famous example is the Maristan Sidi Frej in Fez,
which takes care of wounded cranes (Idllalène 2013, 7).51 Religious personnel in Morocco
(such as muezzins, imams, and khaṭībs) received monthly allocations for their services thanks
to the revenues generated by the habous, while the habous itself could serve as a residence for
the cleric in question (this was often the case with khaṭībs) (Luccioni 1982, 139,141). Habous
can be further divided between “public endowments” (waqf khayrī), in which the beneficiary
is the entire Muslim community (ummah), and “familial endowments” (waqf ahlī or waqf
dhurrī), in which the beneficiaries are “individuals who had a lineal or personal relationship to
the founder” (Hennigan 2004, xiv).52 Whatever the endowment or its beneficiary, however,
habous require someone to oversee and manage them.
In pre-colonial Morocco, habous were overseen by a nāḍir (“caretaker”), an individual
who had been named at the time that the particular habous was established. The nāḍir was
supervised by a qāḍī (Islamic judge), a high-ranking official who “represented the religious
authority of the Sultan,” and who named by ḍahīr (royal decree, hereafter “dahir”) along with
the other main figures of Makhzen authority: the pasha (local governor) and the muḥtasib
(overseer of trade and market affairs) (Luccioni 1982, 7). He was the sole authority for matters
relating to “real estate and personal status (marriage, divorce, inheritance, guardianship, freeing
of slaves, etc.), […] he managed religious education, supervised the administration of habous,
and proposed individuals to the Makhzen to name as religious personnel [i.e. khaṭībs and
imams] and ulema who taught in the large mosques” (Luccioni 1982, 7). He also chose the
nāḍir if one had not already been determined during the creation of a habous. The qāḍī had his
51
A maristan is a hospice, in the sense of an early form of a hospital in Islamic countries. On another
note, the Turkish Directorate General of Foundations (Vakıflar Genel Müdürlüğü) has published a
fascinating illustrated book called Tarihte İlginç Vakıflar (“Interesting Foundations over Time”) which
gives an idea of the diversity of these foundations and their goals.
52
Hennigan argues that the distinction between these two terms is relatively recent. The “familial
endowment” type of waqf has been the focus of criticism as a way of avoiding taxation and Islamic
inheritance rules (Luccioni specifically mentions the practice of “disinheriting” female descendants),
while the waqf system has also been criticized for structurally paralyzing the economy and weakening
state institutions in general (Luccioni 1982, 1,14; Işın 2008, 7–8).
137
office or ‘court’ (maḥakma) usually right next to the main mosque of a town or city, and was
often the khaṭīb of the mosque as well (Luccioni 1982, 139, 156). Until the middle of the 19th
century, the qāḍī of Fez was at the top of this religious hierarchy, occupying a position similar
to that of the Ottoman Şeyhülislam, and was responsible for naming qāḍīs throughout the
empire as well as presiding over the university Qarawiyyin (Le Tourneau 1949, 214).53 The
sultan nevertheless remained the ultimate authority, with the – theoretical if not always actual
– capacity to intervene directly in all matters concerning habous and religious affairs across
the empire.
Following a relative decline during the Saadian dynasty, the Alawites undertook a
number of important reforms in order to bring a greater degree of organization to management
of pious endowments. The first important step was taken during the reign of Moulay Ismail
(1672-1727), who ordered the creation of an official inventory in order to register all habous
in the empire (the hawala). To better coordinate these efforts, a “nāḍir of nāḍirs” was named
to head the “General Naḍarat of Habous” under the subsequent sultan, Moulay Abdallah, and
after him Sidi Muḥammad III (1757-1790) decreased the overall number of nāḍirs and
centralized them by region (MHAI 1999). Sidi Muḥammad III played a very significant role in
centralizing the Alawi state, in part inspired by Ottoman models, while “developing a new
absolutist theory of sharifian government,” in which he justified his rule over both political and
religious fields by reaffirming his status as “imam as well as amīr al-mu’minīn” (Bennison
2002, 25–26). His reforms in the religious field involved a “radical reassessment” of the
relationship with the ulema, asserting the sultan’s right to oversee appointments, control
salaries, and determine the curriculum in the madrasas, with the goal of breaking the monopoly
of the ulema in Fes and creating a “loyal scholarly elite” (Bennison 2002, 26–27).
His successor Moulay Sulayman (1792-1822) renewed the Makhzen’s ties with the Fassi
ulema, mostly for financial reasons, but his sympathy for Wahhabism earned him the enmity
of many Sufi movements and he eventually lost the support of the younger generations of
scholars (Pennell 2003, 112–113). Moulay Abdurrahman (1822-1859), after asserting his claim
to the throne over two rivals, did engage in the patronage of habous (most notably renovating
the shrine of Idriss II in Fez), but with the French invasion of Algeria in 1830 the priorities of
the state turned towards modernizing the army and dealing with the fall-out from increasing
Gerber points out that the formal legal aspect of qāḍī justice was by far more present in the Ottoman
empire than in the case of Morocco, where “a political and social bargaining process [took] place ending
in a compromise no more than marginally connected to the law” (2002, 71).
53
138
conflict with European powers. During the latter half of the 19th century, the management of
habous – and consequently religious affairs, which were funded by the habous – began a slow
decline. The reasons for this decline were numerous, including wide-spread unpaid rents to the
creation of “capitulations,” designed to permit foreigners to avoid religious taxation, and the
frequent nepotistic practices of the Sultans Moulay Abdelaziz and Abdelhafid; Luccioni calls
this moment the “decadence of the institution” (Luccioni 1982, 158). The most significant
changes thereafter would occur with the establishment of the Protectorates in 1912.
Given this fluctuating degree of control, it is not surprising that the Moroccan religious
field was never fully under the control of Makhzen-linked structures. Despite the sharifian
status of the sultans, numerous other actors across the empire possessed religious authority
which co-existed or at times challenged the legitimacy of the sultans. While the ulema of the
main cities constituted one potential source of dissent, especially those at the university
Qarawiyyin in Fez, the veritable danger in these cases were the marabouts (“holy men” or
“saints”) 54 and the Zāwiyas (Sufi brotherhoods) 55 they led. During times of dynastic
succession, the ulema could decide to support one camp over another (most often the contender
who had the most links to the north and the prestige of Fez, as opposed to Marrakech and the
south), but their role was never the major determinant factor in who became sultan. As Berque
summarizes, the activities of the ulema were progressively limited as a result of “the
affirmation of the state, the progress of society towards a division of labour, or finally the role
of the leaders of Sufi brotherhoods in the 18th and 19th centuries” (1998, 229).
The wide-spread prevalence of saint-worship as a central characteristic of Moroccan
Islamic practice is seen in the countless tombs and shrines found across the country, and the
numerous local festivals (moussem) held in their honour. Zāwiyas would spring up around such
Marabout is the French rendering of the word murābiṭ (from which was derived the name of the
Almoravid dynasty), which comes from a root meaning “to tie” or “to fasten.” These murābiṭ were
traditionally tied to a “ribāṭ” (from which is derived the name of the capital of Morocco, Rabat), a
“monastic stronghold,” and constitute for Geertz the “axial figure” of Morocco society: the “warrior
saint” (1968, 8, 46).
55
A zāwiya (in French spellings zaouïa), meaning “corner” in Arabic, is used to refer to a physical place
of worship tied to a Sufi order (cf. tekke in Turkish) in North Africa, though it can also be used to refer
to Sufi orders in general. In this latter sense, the meaning is largely the same as ṭariqah (cf. Turkish
tarikat). Many Sufi orders in Morocco are derived from the shādhiliyya (such as the Nāṣiriyya), founded
in the 13th century, or from its revived form as developed by Al-Jazuli in in the 15th century (such as
Darqawa, Isawiya, Sharqawa, Wazzaniyya-Tayyibiya). Another highly influential current in Morocco
has been the Qadiriyya, originally founded by Abd Al-Qadir Jilani close to Baghdad in the 12th century,
and which is present along with numerous offshoots throughout the Muslim world. For a succinct
overview of the main Sufi orders in Morocco, see T. K. Park and Boum 2006, 233–237.
54
139
tombs, often linking the local saint to a larger ṭariqah, though there is no single rule: the Sufi
brotherhoods and the “saint complex” could at times be quite separate matters, while at other
times they mixed thoroughly together (Rosen 2002, 28). Zāwiya networks often overlapped
with other factors, such as kin and tribal affiliations. As in the Turkish case, the Zāwiyas have
played and continue to play a highly important role in the development of the religious and
political fields in Morocco.
Many marabouts claim sharifian descent, which may be the initial grounds for their
baraka, though it can also be assumed or attributed “retroactively” thanks to the miracles that
they have worked. Indeed, Geertz analyzes in detail a telling story in which a confrontation
occurs between the Alawite Sultan Moulay Ismail, and the famous marabout Abu Ali al-Hassan
ibn Masud al-Yusi. Although the sultan detains both political power of sovereign and religious
legitimacy as a sharif, he is directly challenged by Al-Yusi, who represents the “intrinsic” and
charismatic religious authority. Perhaps the most fascinating and symbolic part of the story is
that upon having humbled the sultan, Al-Yusi asks only for a royal decree which recognizes
him as a sharif. As Geertz says, this shows how the rise of the Alawite dynasty led to the
primacy of “hereditary charisma over […] personal charisma and to the containment of baraka
within the confines of a fixed and ordered status system,” in which the “Alawite answer to
maraboutism was to license it; or anyway, to try to” (1968, 29–35,46).
This characterization of relations between “official” and “unofficial” figures of
authority in the religious field is as significant today as it was for the 17th century. This
relationship could be negotiated, as in Geertz’s story, but at other times was resolved by more
direct shows of force. Ismail’s predecessor Rashid, the founder of the Alawite dynasty, had
destroyed the powerful Dilā’ Zāwiyas of Fez and had attacked other sheikhs who had been
opposed to his rule. There was an additional layer to this conflict: the rulers of Dilā’ were
Berber marabouts from the Moroccan Atlas, and traced their roots back to the Almoravids –
thus neither Arabs, nor sharifs, as were the Alawite. Though the Dilā’ Zāwiya had risen to
become the most important political power in Morocco by 1650 (Pennell 2003, 90), the victory
of the Alawite sultans “put an end to any prospect of a maraboutic revolution leading to a
Berber empire in the manner of the past” (Brett and Fentress 1997, 175). The battle being
fought ultimately concerned the legitimate grounds for political and religious authority in
Morocco.
140
Accordingly, Moulay Ismail attempted to gain greater control over the Sufi orders, and
encouraged those Zāwiya that were led by sharifs (in particular the Wazzāniyya-Ṭayyibiyya).
In doing so, he further anchored the importance of sharifianism as a source of for the religious
authority, even for marabouts like Al-Yusi, who already detained significant personal
charisma. The game of cooptation and co-legitimization at work here thus came with a price:
unofficial religious currents were permitted to continue operating, as long as they accepted the
fundamental principles upon which official religious authority was being based.
The relations between the Alawite sultans and the different Zāwiya were never static.
Moulay Ismail had cooperated with the Sharqawiyya of Boujad, who came to play a role of
“intermediary and buffer between the Berbers of the Middle Atlas and the [Makhzen]” (T. K.
Park and Boum 2006, 320–321); however, his successors Sidi Muḥammad III and Moulay
Sulayman would both come to see it as a threat and decide to attack it (Pennell 2003,
99,110,112). At the same time, the Darqawiyya, an Idrissid sharifian Zāwiya, was generally
opposed to the Makhzen (Luccioni 1982, 58). Nevertheless, their decision to promote Alawite
sharifianism in opposition to the Ottomans in the principality (deylik) of Algiers at the
beginning of the 19th century led them to offer their oath of allegiance to Moulay Sulayman
(Bennison 2002, 30–31). Even the aforementioned Wazzāniyya-Ṭayyibiyya, very influential
amongst the northern Berber tribes and normally a close ally of the Makhzen, could turn against
the sultan on occasion (Pennell 2003, 113). Following a Sufi revival at the end of the 18th and
beginning of the 19th centuries, a number of new and reformed Zāwiyas came to dominate the
territory stretching from the Atlantic, through the Rif, the Middle Atlas, and into Western
Algeria. The fact that the most important of these Sufi orders – the Darqāwa, the WazzāniyyaṬayyibiyya, the Tijāniyya, and the Qādiriyya – also adopted an increasingly centralized mode
of organization, translated into a heightened capacity to use their religious authority for
political purposes (Bennison 2002, 43–44).
Given the number of competing religious and political actors, the Makhzen’s system for
the management of religious affairs and habous covered only parts of the empire. It was present
in the main urban centres (especially Fez, Marrakech, and Meknes), though even here
important swaths of territory escaped the Makhzen’s control, such as Demnate, Taroudant,
Taza, and much of eastern Morocco, where local customs took precedence (Luccioni 1982,
38). The frequent dynastic in-fighting meant that the alliances of tribes, Zāwiya, ulema and
other actors supporting the Makhzen was variable, as was centralized control in general.
141
Nevertheless, following the reign of Moulay Ismail, the Alawite family and its claim to
the throne would be largely unchallenged by potential rivals. The sharifian ideal was also
accepted by Moroccan society, but with the caveat that the sultan’s legitimacy had to be
“validated by jihad [holy war] against the infidel” (Bennison 2002, 159–160). In the 19th
century, especially following the French conquest of Algeria, the Alawites attempted to use
this notion to their advantage by portraying all opposition to their rule as “corruption” (fasād),
given the looming threat of European imperialism. Ultimately, however, these sultans only
succeeded in undermining their own legitimacy in the eyes of their population, due to their own
numerous “capitulations to European pressure” (Bennison 2002, 162). This pressure, escalating
steadily throughout the 19th century, came to a climax when Moulay Abdelhafid signed the
Treaty of Fez in March 1912. This treaty ended Moroccan independence and established the
French Protectorate, with the Spanish Protectorate following in November of the same year.
B - The Colonial Ministry: The Vizirat of Habous
While the traditional symbols of religious authority in Morocco had already been established
long before the protectorate, the modern administrative framework of religious governance in
Morocco and today’s Ministry of Habous and Islamic Affairs (MHAI) can be traced to the
reforming policies of French colonial officials.
Habous and religious affairs were treated as matter of high importance by the colonial
administration, as can be seen from the very treaty which established the protectorate. The
second paragraph of the first article of the Treaty of Fez reads: “This regime will safeguard the
religious situation, the respect and the traditional prestige of the sultan, the exercise of the
Muslim religion et religious institutions, notably those of habous. It will include the
organization of a reformed sharifian Makhzen” (Protectorat de la République Française au
Maroc 1912, 1–2). Following a temporary rearrangement in 1912, the new revamped and
trimmed down Makhzen included only those domains which were not fully under the authority
of the French colonial authorities (i.e. foreign, military, and financial affairs), comprising of
three main ministries: the Grand Vizirat, the Vizirat of Justice, and the Vizirat of Habous (Rivet
1988, 1:177–178).
All three were physically present in the form of a bniqa (office) within the Royal Palace,
and were equal in status within their domains of competence; in other words, the Vizir of
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Habous was not subordinated to the Grand Vizir, but rather directly responsible to the sultan
(Luccioni 1982, 171–172). In term of religious governance, the Grand Vizir oversaw the
activities of the Zāwiyas and the sheikhs; the Vizir of Justice was responsible for naming
religious personnel; and the Vizir of Habous paid the salaries of the religious personnel and
had total control over the management of habous (Luccioni 1982, 172). This diminished
Makhzen constituted on paper the sovereign Moroccan government which ostensibly had
exclusive control over specific domains, while the French civilian and military authorities
under the “resident-general” (the highest authority of the French colonial administration in
Morocco) went about ‘pacifying’ and reorganizing the country.56 It was also supervised by the
specialized services of the French Direction of Sharifian Affairs (Direction des Affaires
Chérifiennes), which included a specific division to oversee each Moroccan vizirat, including
the Vizirat of Habous.
The most authoritative source for understanding the organization of habous and
religious affairs under the protectorate was written by one of its main actors, Joseph Luccioni,
who served for decades in the Habous Inspection Service (service de contrôle des habous) and
became a special councillor to Mohammed V after independence. Luccioni’s perspective is
that of a well-intentioned and well-educated colonial bureaucrat, intimately familiar with much
of the Moroccan and French colonial élite, and a firm proponent of the policies followed by
the first resident-general, the general Hubert Lyautey.57 Indeed, when the French began their
rule over Morocco they had already been ruling Algeria for over eighty years and Tunisia for
over thirty (not to mention the rest of the colonial empire). The experience gained from these
North African neighbours had a direct impact on the policies adopted in Morocco, even more
so given that they had had a personal impact on Lyautey, who had served in both Algeria and
Indo-China before being sent to Morocco.
In the case of Algeria, the institution of habous had been eliminated entirely by French
authorities, while the extensive habous lands and real estate holdings had in most cases been
56
This would necessitate 22 years of war against Berber tribes, most notably the campaign against
Abdelkrim el Khattabi’s ephemeral “Republic of the Rif” during the 1920s (Vermeren 2010, 7–11).
57
After my careful reading of Luccioni’s work, it is evident that a number of Protectorate publications
concerning the habous in Morocco (i.e. Les Biens Habous au Maroc, vu d’ensemble sur l’oeuvre
accomplie depuis 30 ans (1944), Les Biens Habous au Maroc (1946), La Rénovation de l’institution
des Habous (1956)) were in fact written by him and later used to varying degrees in his book. Given
Luccioni’s position and experience, I am thus treating his work chiefly as a primary source of
information which nevertheless needs to be approached with a certain degree of critical distance,
especially when he echoes the information provided by the official government publications.
143
appropriated by French and European colonists and the French state (Clancy-Smith 1994, 87).
Islam thereafter became a state affair, meaning that the state paid for the upkeep of religious
buildings, the payment of religious personnel, and the management of religious education – a
situation which led to “general discontentment” and “a loss of interest in the religious and
educative personnel appointed by the state to the benefits of saints, Zāwiyas, and marabouts”
(Luccioni 1982, 163). When in 1881 the French protectorate began in Tunisia, it was only seven
years after the modernizing Ottoman Heyreddin Pasha had reformed the habous and created
the “Djemaïa des Habous,” which the French decided to rely on and put under the authority of
a High Council of Habous in 1908 (Luccioni 1982, 164). Indeed, for the French colonial
administrators “the experience of Tunisia showed how much more convenient it was to work
through an existing government machine rather than to destroy it as in Algeria” (Bidwell 1973,
64). In the new protectorate of Morocco, this realization was a cornerstone of the French
version of “indirect rule,” and went beyond preserving specific precolonial state institutions.
Lyautey’s desire was to “keep everyone in their place” and rely on the existing dominant social
structures, whether tribes or families, meaning that even after independence the majority of
country’s precolonial élites had maintained their status (Vermeren 2011, 116).
Lyautey was a “romantic royalist,” and “to have ended the Sultanate would have been
an idea repugnant to [his] mind” (Bidwell 1973, 64). More importantly, however, keeping the
sultan in place and placing religious affairs clearly within his jurisdiction served a double
purpose for the colonial authorities. On the one hand, by making clear that the habous would
remain entirely within Moroccan hands, and would not be used to benefit the protectorate nor
be sold off to potential colonists, Lyautey succeeded in reassuring the religious, political, and
economic élites of the country, who were well aware of what had happened in Algeria. He
ensured that the administration of habous and religious affairs was carried out exclusively by
Moroccans, and even forbade Europeans from entering mosques.58 These policies were very
effective, and by the beginning of WWI two years later, “the ruling class […] couldn’t imagine
any other future in the short term other than the association with France,” largely because he
had managed to “conquer them without humiliating them” (Rivet 1988, 1:181).
On the other hand, keeping the sultan’s status as “imam” intact allowed the French
colonial authorities to intervene in many potentially provocative issues, such as the reform of
58
This practice has continued until this day, and most Moroccan Muslims have come to believe that it
is in fact Islam which forbids the entry of non-Muslims in mosques (and not a relic of French colonial
policy).
144
habous and religious affairs (Bidwell 1973, 66). Luccioni gives ample reasons for the need to
reform and reorganize the habous in Morocco, stating that the institution as a whole was
“threatened,” which he underlines by quoting the first Vizir of Habous Si Ahmed El Djai in
1915, according to whom revenues had diminished to such a degree that “religious services
could no longer be assured” and “all the mosques in Morocco [were] more or less in a state of
ruin” (1982, 162). An official French publication in 1946 states that these reforms were aimed
at redressing the overall situation so that the habous would be once again financially viable
(Résidence générale de la République française au Maroc 1946, 2). The means by which to
achieve these goals was through the creation of a modern administrative structure, capable of
extending its influence throughout the country. Lyautey’s original policies were well heeded:
the monarchy and specific Moroccan traditions were respected, while modern European
institutions and practices were progressively introduced into the state administration (Balta
1990, 109).
The Habous Inspection Service (later led by Luccioni) was at the centre of this new
modern administration for religious affairs. It is characterized by the aforementioned French
publications as the “permanent counsellor” of the Vizirat of Habous (Résidence générale de la
République française au Maroc 1946, 3), though this is somewhat of an understatement. As
part of the Direction of Sharifian Affairs, which Luccioni calls the “sole component which
connected the Résidence and the Palace” (1982, 173), all correspondence between the Vizirat
and its personnel (naḍirs, etc.) was first translated into French, read over, and checked by the
inspection service. In his most retrospective and openly personal chapter, Luccioni admits that
“even if in appearance and form everything emanated from the Vizirat, in fact, the
administration of habous was, in large part, carried out by the Habous Inspection Service”
(1982, 290). He continues by saying that, “no one was taken in by appearances, not the Vizirat,
nor the nāḍirs, nor the Moroccan élite,” but given the “deficiencies of the Moroccan organisms”
and the “tact and discretion” of his service, all were in favour of this arrangement (1982, 290).
As debatable as the last statement may be, Luccioni’s “memoirs”-style chapter does not
portray the colonial Makhzen as a puppet state. Rather, his writings echo Rivet’s emphasis that
the “neo-Sharifian” state created by the French protectorate was not simply window-dressing,
and that the French took measures in order to push the members of the new Makhzen to perform
their “incumbent role” (1988, 1:179). Of course, given the initial French policy of working
through the élites already in place, it is hard not to see colonial officials’ celebration of these
so-called examples of ‘Moroccan sovereignty’ as more than a little disingenuous, since the
145
cooperation of these Moroccan figures of authority was indispensable to indirectly extending
their rule. In the case of habous, the de facto control exerted by the Habous Inspection Service
is explained by Luccioni as also being the result of a certain “mindset” of the Makhzen, which
would continue until 1943: despite the praise he heaps on the successive vizirs, Luccioni points
out that neither they nor their secretaries “made even the slightest effort to learn French, nor
acquaint themselves with the methods of modern administration or the legislation of the
Protectorate” (1982, 290). This state of affairs convinced Luccioni to give up on modernizing
the Vizirat, and instead to “Moroccanize” the Habous Inspection Service, namely by recruiting
Moroccans who “possessed a double culture (Arabic and French)” (1982, 294). In essence, it
seems that for a period of more or less 30 years the French Habous Inspection Service had
carte blanche during which they consolidated the foundations of an extensive centralized
system for the administration of religious endowments, while other matters concerning
religious affairs were likewise supervised by similar services.
Luccioni highlights 1943 as a turning point in the administration of habous due to the
arrival of US troops on Moroccan soil; President Roosevelt’s assurances of American support
for Moroccan independence to Sultan Mohammed V; and the French decision to replace the
Resident General at the time, General Noguès, whom the sultan had trusted. The sultan, who
had come to power in 1927, had heretofore “reigned in the shadow of the Resident General,”
but now began increasingly asserting his control over the governing of the empire and
especially habous (1982, 295). Notably, the sultan began attributing habous funding to a
reformed system of religious education (called “traditional education” or al-taʿlīm al-ʿatīq) in
the form of new primary schools called “model msids,” placing significant financial strains on
the habous administration: from barely 1 million Francs in 1933, and slightly over 1 million
Francs in 1940, allocations to “traditional education” skyrocketed to 130 million Francs in 1952
(of which 30 million came from the habous) (Luccioni 1982, 253–256).
Nevertheless, the central theme of Luccioni’s testimonial remains unchanging: up to
and even after Moroccan independence in 1956, the colonial Habous Inspection Service
represents “one of the major successes, if not the major success,” of the French protectorate of
Morocco. In terms of finances, the annual revenue of the habous increased from 1,800,000
Francs in 1914 to 660,000,000 Francs in 1955, and the reserve funds increased from 400,000
146
Francs in 1914 to 600,000,000 Francs in 1955.59 One of the most important reforms was the
elimination of the so-called habous moaïanes, in which direct control over the habous was
given to the very religious personnel (imams, khaṭībs, etc.) who benefited from them. This had
led to numerous aberrant situations, which can be resumed as follows: an imam first attempts
to profit individually from such a habous (i.e. by renting a building for personal gain), but
neglects to invest in its upkeep. The building falls into ruin, and can no longer generate any
profit. This in turn means that the imam is no longer paid, forcing him to stop providing
religious services. Moreover, if the building in question is the one in which the mosque is
located, then there is effectively no functioning prayer space even if there is someone to guide
the prayer. This was the case of Fez in 1916, in which the habous of the Qarawiyyin university
along with 44 other main mosques were administered by one of the three nāḍirs of the city,
while 79 other minor mosques in the city were habous moaïanes, and had either fallen into
ruin, or had ceased functioning due to lack of funds (Luccioni 1982, 43).
According to Luccioni, the Habous Inspection Service was not only accepted, but well
regarded and appreciated by the sultan and the vast majority of Moroccans – even the
nationalists and members of the political party Istiqlal refrained from criticizing it (1982, 309).
Perhaps the best indication of this is the fate of the service after independence. Luccioni, who
had survived multiple changes in the French colonial administration of Morocco over the years,
was kept on by Mohammed V as “Inspector of Habous” during the transitory period as
Morocco became independent – despite the objections of the Istiqlal members of the newlycreated Ministry of Habous. Following this short transitory period, Luccioni was named
advisor (conseiller technique) to the sultan himself, a position he continued to occupy until
1967, while the entire personnel of the Habous Inspection Service (including the French
officials) were incorporated in the new Ministry of Habous, “conserving their status, grade and
hierarchical rank” (1982, 310–311). In other words, the administrative structures and
foundation of the Ministry of Habous of the independent state of Morocco today are in large
part the heritage of French colonial structures.
The French decision to “safeguard” habous and religious affairs under the protectorate
and administer them through newly-created modern state bureaucracy had a profound effect on
the governance of the Moroccan religious field. Indeed, while many of the particular attributes
59
The first thorough assessment of the state of habous affairs in Morocco was carried out by the newlyestablished Vizirat of Habous in 1913-1914 (Résidence générale de la République française au Maroc
1944, 4).
147
of this new administration were the result of an “imported (Western) state” (Badie 1992) – and
more specifically French60 – the ideas underlying them had been carried over from Moroccan
precedents. The successive Alawi sultans had endeavoured to create a sociopolitical vision in
which the sharifian sultan-imam represented both the legitimate political leader as well as the
legitimate religious leader; however, none of them had ever possessed the resources necessary
to enforce this across the country. It was the French (and Spanish) colonial administrations and
their armies that finally “expanded the authority over the whole territory of the greater
Morocco, bled es-siba included” (Daadaoui 2011, 54), and “created a framework for national
integration of a sort which had not previously existed” (Geertz 1968, 64).
This section has highlighted that during the colonial period the administrative and
institutional foundations necessary for state religious governance in Morocco were renewed
and reinforced under the guidance of French colonial authorities, notably the Habous
Inspection Service. This was primarily accomplished by expanding the system of naḍarats to
include the entire territory; rejuvenating and promoting religious education; and rendering the
habous once again a reliable source of funding for mosques and religious personnel, all of
which was in the name of the sultan. The coming fight for independence would entrench even
further the figure of the sultan (soon to be king) as the central figure of the Moroccan political
and religious fields, but not before his position and the content of state Islam would be
challenged by the doctrines of Salafism and the nationalist adherents of the Istiqlal
(independence) Party.
C - Islam and Independence: Salafism, Party Politics and the
Resurgent Monarchy
The history of modern Moroccan nationalism is intimately tied with Islam, and more
specifically with the Islamic Salafist movement which spread across the Muslim world at the
beginning of the 20th century. In Morocco, one of the main proponents of this movement was
Allal al Fassi, who was also one of the founding members of the Istiqlal Party. The contest
between the sultan and the nationalist leaders of the Istiqlal party for prominence within the
independence movement would be fundamental in determining who would have power over
60
To the extent that the official journal of the Moroccan state, the Bulletin Officiel, begins not with
independence in 1956, but with the treaty founding the French protectorate in 1912 (cf. Protectorat de
la République Française au Maroc 1912, 1–2).
148
the newly-independent Moroccan state in the years thereafter, and what interpretations of Islam
would be officially considered legitimate by the state.
Salafism is a school of thought which advocates a return to the sources of Islam in order
to reform or renew Islamic practice. The word “salaf” means “ancestor” and “refers to earliest
three generations of Muslims […] whose proximity to the model of the Prophet and whose
interpretive role in forming Islam set them apart as exemplars for future Muslim behavior”
(Newby 2002, 189). Movements inspired by Salafism have existed throughout Islamic history,
and generally promote an idealized Islamic past in order to provide answers for how to deal
with changing contemporary circumstances. Ahmed Ibn Hanbal (8th-9th centuries), Ibn
Taymiyyah (13th century), and Muhammed Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (18th century), are considered
amongst the most important theologians of this current of thought, which is characterized by
its literalist interpretation of the Qur’an and the Sunna, and its vehement opposition to anything
it considers innovation (bidʿah) in Islamic thought or practice, including most currents of
Sufism (Amghar 2011, 12–21).
The term Salafism is also used to refer to an intellectual movement which began in the
19th century and carried over well into the 20th century. This movement was centered on figures
such as Jamāl ad-Dīn al-Afghānī, Muhammad ʿAbduh, and Rashīd Riḍā, scholars and
reformers who attempted to find in the origins of Islam a means by which to counter the
pressure that Western European colonialism and its modernist intellectual thought exerted on
the Muslim world. The renewal of religion for these thinkers meant adopting specific Western
European techniques and technology in order to resist colonial advances while eliminating the
“impure” and “unorthodox” traditions which had ostensibly corrupted Islam. The spread of this
vision presaged a changing of alliances within the religious establishments in many colonial
Islamic contexts, including Morocco. One the one hand, “unorthodox” Sufi orders became a
target for the Salafists, while on the other hand, the ulema could also be targeted as “corrupted
through compromise with temporal authority” and as lending “themselves to the support of
tyrants” (Riḍā in Eickelman and Piscatori 1996, 31).
Salafist currents began taking hold in Morocco at the end of the 19th century, especially
at the Qarawiyyin University of Fez, which would develop into a “centre of Salafist teaching”
during the Protectorate with the consent of colonial authorities (Vermeren 2010, 84–86). The
Qarawiyyin has been the principal centre of Islamic learning in Morocco since its foundation
in the 9th century, and its ulema have historically possessed a prestige unequalled in the rest of
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the country.61 It was administrated by a one of the three naḍirs of Fez, who was also responsible
for the habous buildings located in the Fez medina in general (other than the Zāwiya of Moulay
Idriss) (Le Tourneau 1949, 262–263). However, the university had not been spared from the
state of deterioration which characterized Moroccan habous at the beginning of the 20th
century. Due to the mismanagement of habous funds, most ulema had only erratically received
remuneration for their services since Moulay Abdelaziz had come to power in 1894, and a
survey carried out by the General Direction of Habous in 1913 found that only 54 of the 172
ulema in Fez were still actively giving classes (Luccioni 1982, 142). Meanwhile, out of nine
medrasas in the city, one lay in ruins, three were abandoned, and the remaining five, which
“lodged a total of approximately 400 students, required urgent renovations” (Résidence
générale de la République française au Maroc 1944, 10).62
Aside from some minor reforms in 1918, the most important changes concerning
Islamic education and the Qarawiyyin would occur under the impetus of Sultan Mohammed V
at the beginning of the 1930s. Following the creation by dahir of the High Council for the
Organization of Islamic Public Education at the Qarawiyyin in 1931, a large number of reforms
were enacted, including the formation of a new Administrative Council and a reorganization
of the university’s educational programmes (Luccioni 1982, 250–252). At the same time, the
Ministry of Habous began paying a large part of the Qarawiyyin’s expenditures (up to
1,300,000 Francs a year), which included the salaries of most of the ulema, as well as
renovating its installations, thanks to which the university could continue to function
(Résidence générale de la République française au Maroc 1944, 9–11). These reforms were
seen as necessary because, as Luccioni puts it rather bluntly, at the beginning of the French
protectorate the “organization of the university was simplified to the extreme, or rather, there
was no organization” (1982, 146). Students could come and go as they pleased, though it would
take them 10 to 12 years to become professors themselves, and only after having been named
by a royal dahir which granted them a tenfida, that is to say, the right to receive a monthly
allowance from the habous designated for that purpose (1982, 147–148). In sum, the reforms
of the Qarawiyyin, extended to the madrasa Ben Youssef in Marrakech, were solely concerned
with administrative and organizational issues and did not address the question of the content of
As mentioned above, the Fassi ulema constituted the most prominent group in the bay˓a ceremonies
which laid the foundation for the sultan’s political and religious legitimacy over the centuries.
Moreover, in the 1912 survey carried out by the Vizirat of Habous mentioned above, almost half of all
the ulema in Morocco were found to be living in Fez (172 out of 350) (Luccioni 1982, 142).
62
Though a madrasa is usually a centre of learning, in this case it refers to student dormitories.
61
150
the education provided. While they succeeded in shoring up the institutional structures, Salafist
tendencies had become increasingly influential, especially in contrast to the antiquated Maliki
juridical teachings which had long dominated the university.
Allal al-Fassi began his studies at the Qarawiyyin in 1924, becoming a recognized ʿalim
in 1934. While at the university he had been the student of Chouaïb ed-Doukkali, a theologian
who had been instrumental in spreading the thought of Muhammad ʿAbduh at the Qarawiyyin
(Vermeren 2011, 86). As opposed to earlier attempts to introduce Salafism in Morocco at the
end of the 19th century which had focused on reforming religious practice, Allal al-Fassi called
himself a “neo-Salafist” so as to highlight the active political outlook that he espoused; indeed,
for Allal al-Fassi, Salafism “was synonymous with nationalism” (Belal 2011, 29). Salafists had
been amongst the only critiques of French occupation in the 1920s, a period of time when the
nationalist movement “amounted to very little,” and as time went on their ideas became “of
paramount importance in the crystallization of Moroccan nationalist political and social
positions” (Zisenwine 2010, 10–11). Vermeren calls Salafism the “matrix of nationalism” in
Morocco (and more generally in North Africa), and equally highlights the integral role of this
current of Islam in the development of anti-colonial thought and the construction of national
identity for the new educated generation of “Young Moroccans” (2011, 67–89, 96–101).
While the revolt of Abdelkrim in the Rif had already attracted support from Allal alFassi, the most galvanizing moment for early modern Moroccan nationalism was the “Berber
Dahir” of 1930. This dahir removed the Berber population from the obligations of sharia law
and placed them under the juridical authority of their own councils (djemaa), while criminal
law fell under French law, thus removing them entirely from the sultan’s authority. The decree
caused an enormous backlash across the country led by the panarabist Chekib Arslan and the
“Young Moroccans,” who mobilized the press and the mosques, especially in Fez where the
“Ya Laatif” prayer set off large-scale demonstrations (Julien 2002, 130–132). 63 As Geertz
highlights, “it would seem that a policy able to threaten at once maraboutists, scriptualists [his
term for Salafists], royalists, and nationalists and drive them into one another’s arms would be
difficult to devise; but with the Berber decree the French managed to produce one” (Geertz
1968, 79–80). Though the “Berber dahir” was altered in response to these protests, the
nationalist movement continued to grow in the years thereafter. After waning at the end of the
1930s, when French authorities arrested and deported the leaders of the nationalist movement
63
The ya laṭīf prayer is used especially in situations of danger or crisis.
151
(Allal al-Fassi was sent to Gabon), the Istiqlal Party was founded in 1943 and “received the
blessing of […] the Makhzen,” as the sultan himself became increasingly active in state affairs
(Zisenwine 2010, 33).
As already mentioned, the arrival of American troops in Morocco during the Second
World War constituted a symbolic turning point, and greatly diminished the prestige of the
French, for whom many thousands of Moroccans were still fighting. It also “brought Sidi
Mohammed to the centre of the stage,” and following the end of the war he became a symbol
of the nationalist movement now led by the Istiqlal party, which had issued a manifesto in 1944
calling for an independent Morocco under a constitutional government with Mohammed V as
sovereign (Pennell 2003, 157–158). The Istiqlal party, though a coalition of different
tendencies itself (symbolized by the left-wing Mehdi Ben Barka and the Salafist Allal AlFassi), did not manage to appeal to all segments of Moroccan society, and in particular were
seen with growing suspicion by many of the Sufi orders and tribal leaders (Zisenwine 2010,
96). As Berque puts it, the rise of this young generation also meant that “maraboutist Islam,
which had long comprised a form of archaic resistance, was replaced, in the mobilization of
increasingly active crowds, by a reformist and modernist Islam” (1979, 104–105).
The antagonism that the Salafists displayed towards the Sufis had made them
increasingly wary, while the panarabist rhetoric fell on deaf ears amongst the Berber-speaking
tribes; according to one estimate, approximately 60% of the Moroccan population in the 1920s
only spoke a Berber language or was bilingual (Vermeren 2011, 50). But aside from these
issues, the most important danger the Istiqlal seemed to represent was that of a new generation,
looking to disrupt the traditional hierarchies which had managed to survive the French
occupation. This extended even to certain members of the religious establishment and the
ulema, in that Allal al-Fassi had shown himself to be hostile to Morocco’s Maliki school of
jurisprudence, which he saw as an impediment to the use of reason and an obstacle to a more
dynamic and active understanding of Islam (Belal 2011, 27–28). At the Qarawiyyin, three main
currents exemplify the stance of the ulema around the 1950s: the “old ulema,” who avoided
political debates and focused on their studies; the “young ulema,” led by the head of the
university Mohammed al-Fassi (also cousin of Allal al-Fassi) had the support of the king and
Istiqlal; and finally there was a third group, which supported the rival nationalist Parti
Démocratique de l’Indépendence (Democratic Party of Independence, PDI) (Vermeren 2011,
107–108).
152
The opposition between these groups came to a head with the destitution of Sultan Sidi
Mohammed V in 1953, when a petition calling for his removal was signed by hundreds of
pashas, caïds, and Sufi leaders, and handed over to the Resident General (Ganiage 1994, 542–
543). This group was led by one of the most important Berber tribal leaders of the south, the
pasha of Marrakech Thami El Glaoui, and the head of the Kitaniyya Sufi order (as well as a
prominent Fassi ʿalim) Abdelhay El Kittani, both of whom had been encouraged by French
colonial authorities. The crisis brought about by the exile of Mohammed V became untenable
as numerous sectors of society refused to recognize his erstwhile successor, Moulay Ben Arafa.
This included the majority of the ulema of the Qarawiyyin, despite the fact that the event had
been presented as a religious, rather than a political act (Belal 2011, 49–50). With the Algerian
war of independence beginning the following year, the French quickly decided that they could
not deal with two such conflicts. After holding a conference in 1955 at Aix-les-Bains with
representatives of El Glaoui, the protectorate, Istiqlal, and the PDI, the French came to an
agreement with the sultan that Morocco would become an independent constitutional monarchy
under his rule; the sultan returned to Morocco in November of the same year, and the French
and Spanish protectorates became an independent state over the course of 1956 (Pennell 2003,
160–161).64 Upon his return, the sultan decided to officially adopt the title “king” in order to
mark the change which had occurred, though he remained amīr al-mu’minīn.65
With the departure of colonial authorities, rivalries between the king and Istiqlal became
ever more pronounced. Istiqlal had been a fervent supporter of the sultan before independence,
largely because they had intended to sideline him and reduce him to a figurehead once the
French and Spanish had left. However, Mohammed V was quick to take action. In 1956, he
created a national police force and in 1957 the Forces Armées Royales (Royal Armed Forced,
FAR), under the command of Crown Prince Moulay Hassan; in both these cases and more, the
new institutions of the Moroccan state relied heavily on the former officers of the French and
Spanish colonial armies to fill their ranks (Vermeren 2010, 171). As a result, Istiqlal’s position
was weakened from the start: the creation of the police force left Istiqlal’s party militia (the
Shabāb Niḍām) redundant, while the FAR’s success in putting down rebellions in the Rif and
the south – in the process either absorbing or suppressing the Armée de Libération Marocaine
64
Territorial disputes with Spain over Ifni, Western Sahara, and Oued Edhahab (Río de Oro) would
continue over the next decades, while Morocco still contests Spanish sovereignty over the territories of
Ceuta, Melilla, and a number of smaller islands.
65
The new king adopted the number “V (5)” for its “beneficial value” rather than as a “sign of dynastic
continuity” (Ganiage 1994, 561)
153
(Moroccan Liberation Army, ALM), which the Istiqlal claimed to control – left the party with
very little direct control over the main instances of coercive power (Storm 2007, 15).
In fact, these moves were already part of a strategy that would work exceedingly well
in out-manoeuvring Istiqlal in the next few years. The king was aware that Istiqlal’s main bases
of support lay with the urban middle classes, and so decided to seek his support from the more
traditional rural bases of Moroccan society. These segments of the population were more
receptive to the historical legitimacy of the sultan, as well as generally suspicious of Istiqlal’s
projects for the future. Rémy Leveau has analyzed this development in detail, persuasively
arguing that the “alliance between the monarchy and the rural bourgeoisie has functioned as a
stabilizing system for the regime, containing the pressure of the urban middle class and assuring
the survival of a political game limited to élites, where the opposition evolves between
cooptation and prison” (1985, 245). Many of the pre-existing French colonial institutions,
which had similarly sought to rely on traditional Moroccan élites, were thus well-prepared to
be renamed and integrated into the king’s new political system.
This was the case with the Ministry of Habous, created in 1955, and which had
incorporated the former employees of the colonial Habous Inspection Service by 1956. At the
end of 1957, a dahir transferred the control over religious personnel and Islamic education from
the Ministry of Justice to the Ministry of Habous (Kingdom of Morocco 1958, 63–64),
reinforcing its control over the religious field, and explaining the addition of “Islamic affairs”
to the title of the ministry a few years later. King Mohammed V named Mokhtar al-Soussi as
the first Minister of Habous and minister of the crown, which was significant for two reasons:
as a renowned ʿalim and historian, his nomination seemed to indicate a “consecration of the
entire profession” of the ulema, and suggest that “their integration into the machinery of the
state would occur without difficulty” (Tozy 1999, 110).
Secondly, though he had a cabinet full of “young and unexperienced Istiqlal members,”
as Luccioni saw it (1982, 310), al-Soussi represented a current of Salafist-inspired thought
which did not reject popular expressions of Islam, and sought rather to reform the Sufi orders
(Vermeren 2010, 87). The frequent cooperation between certain Sufi orders and French
colonial authorities, infamously represented by al-Kettani who had played a central role in the
exile of Mohammed V, had had a delegitimizing impact on many tariqa leaders. At the same
time, the king recognized that it was not in his interest to discredit such a powerful tradition of
political and religious legitimation, especially when it had contributed to his own success.
154
Indeed, numerous authors comment on Mohammed V’s status as a “maraboutic king”: Belal
mentions the process by which Mohammed V became a saint in his people’s eyes, and brings
up the famous story by which the sultan’s face appeared on the moon before his return to
Morocco (2011, 63–65). As for Geertz, he states his doubt “that there is any other new nation,
if Morocco really is a new nation, in which the hero-leader of the revolution and independence
was as engulfed in religious authority, over and above the political, as Muhammed V was in
Morocco in 1956” (1968, 81; italics in the original). Despite the influence of Salafist currents
within the Istiqlal party, neither the king nor the modern Moroccan state would adopt policies
openly hostile to Sufism or saint-worship over the years to come; quite to the contrary, the
monarchy promoted this religious pluralism (Tozy 1999, 168). In the same fashion that the
king could rely on the rural bourgeoisie to function as an effective counterbalance to the urban
classes supporting Istiqlal in the political field, it was also in his interest to employ this
maraboutic tradition in the religious field to counter the Salafists and reinforce his legitimacy
in the eyes of the population.
In 1959, the Istiqlal party’s internal disputes led to an official split when Ben Barka, who
represented the left-wing of the party, left to found the Union Nationale des Forces Populaires
(National Union of Popular Forces, UNFP). Abandoning its initial project of becoming the
main political actor in the country, Istiqlal was gradually forced to accept the predominance of
the king as it became more concerned with securing its status as the dominant political party in
Morocco. The same year, the Parti Communiste Marocain (Moroccan Communist Party, PCM)
was dissolved in a court of appeal, on the grounds that “any attack on Islam is at the same time
directed at the Moroccan public order,” an argument that was tied directly to a speech by
Mohammed V in which he had said “materialist doctrines […] are incompatible with our faith,
our moral values, and our social structure […] Islam, thanks to its spirit of justice and tolerance,
is enough for us” (Belal 2011, 96–97). In other words, the religious authority of the king was
interpreted as carrying over directly into the political sphere, where it effectively acts as a
source of law.
This is another example of how the king’s political and religious authority in postcolonial Morocco were accepted as existing independently of state institutions, and in fact as
preceding them. During the six years after his return and until his death in 1961, Mohammed
V largely accomplished all that was necessary in order to ensure the centrality of the monarchy,
and of the amīr al-mu’minīn, to the Moroccan political and religious fields. Nevertheless, as
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his son Moulay Hassan acceded to the throne, the stability of the country was still far from
guaranteed.
D - The Reign of Hassan II: Authoritarianism and Religious
Legitimacy
King Hassan II ruled Morocco for almost 40 years. During this period of time, developments
in the country were heavily influenced by the international context of decolonization and
panarabism; tensions with Algeria; the perceived communism threat; the Iranian revolution;
and the end of the Cold War. One year after he assumed power a new constitution was approved
by referendum (97%), and in 1963, general parliamentary elections were held for the first time.
However, despite these seemingly democratic beginnings, in the face of domestic opposition
the king adopted a heavily authoritarian style of governing, earning the 1960s and 1970s the
moniker “the years of lead” (les années de plomb). Leftist groups were specifically targeted,
and following a series of riots which shook Casablanca in 1965 the king declared a five-year
state of emergency (état d’exception). With this tumultuous context as the backdrop, this
section will outline and comment on the main state reforms of the religious field which
occurred under Hassan II.
Hassan II would also be the target of two attempted coup d’état led by different factions
of the army in 1971 and 1972, and the purges carried out thereafter left the military high
command in disarray. Luckily for the king, the crisis over Spanish Sahara during the 1970s
gave him the opportunity to rally nationalist sentiment, thereby restoring his prestige and
reinforcing his position. The crowning achievement was the “Green March,” which mobilized
some 350,000 unarmed Moroccans, accompanied by 20 000 soldiers, to march across the
border near Tarfaya and symbolically occupy the territory. The diplomatic negotiations which
ensued culminated with the Madrid accords, signed the same year, which officially divided
Spanish Sahara between Morocco and Mauritania (and led to the protracted Western Sahara
conflict which has been ongoing ever since) (Ganiage 1994, 714–716). Nationalism had
likewise been successfully instrumentalized earlier on by the monarchy during the 1963 Sand
War against Algeria, and at frequent intervals concerning the Palestinian issue, with the same
result of shoring up royal legitimacy. Nevertheless, it was precisely during these two decades
that a contestatory Islamist movement began to form, disturbing the Moroccan state’s control
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over the religious field and leading it to enact significant reforms after the Iranian revolution
in 1979.
When Hassan II ascended the throne in 1961 he named none other than Allal al-Fassi as
State Minister of Islamic Affairs. Since Mokhtar al-Soussi in 1955-1956, there had been no
further ministers of habous or Islamic affairs, leading Darif to point out that it was not a
foregone conclusion that such a ministry would be a part of the Moroccan government (2010,
24). In a speech given one year later, the new king commented on the “creation” of this new
position, to which he assigned the duties of “spreading faith and maintaining it” as well as
promoting ties with “African states and other Muslim peoples” (CNRS 1964, 762). When Allal
al-Fassi and the other two Istiqlal ministers resigned from the government two years later,
Ahmed Bargach, the Minister of Habous since 1961, was put in charge of Islamic Affairs as
well (Habous and Islamic Affairs would not be separated thereafter).
Islam remained a powerful symbol for the king and the state, as it constituted a field in
which Istiqlal’s demands could easily be met and outdone, in essence undermining an
important part of its political platform by means of the king’s greater religious authority. This
was manifested multiple times during the 1960s: for instance, in 1965 numerous arrests were
made in order to enforce the practice of fasting during Ramadan (Adam 1966, 252). A year
later, the king began organizing and participating in a series of religious conferences during
Ramadan called the “Hassanian Conferences” (causeries hassaniennes), which (according to
the MHAI) have since become an “indispensable yearly event for the Moroccan ulema”; these
conferences often involve international invitees and their contents have been published,
translated, and sent abroad by the MHAI since 1967 (Adam 1967, 328; Belhaj 2010, 216).
Finally, in 1968 the king launched the “Qur’anic Schools Campaign,” which reintroduced the
msid as an integral element of the national educational system, as the king made it obligatory
for all Muslim children between the ages of 5 and 7 to attend a Qur’anic school for one or two
years before beginning elementary school (Adam 1969, 285; Vermeren 2010, 233–234).66
Ahmed Bargach remained Minister of Habous and Islamic Affairs until 1972, and it is
difficult to imagine that there were no moments of conflict with both Sufi movements and
traditions of local saint worship during this time. Allal al-Fassi’s Salafist convictions have
already been mentioned, while Bargach had already briefly been Vizir of Habous under the
Much of the information for the following pages comes from the “Social and Cultural Chronicle” of
Morocco of the Annuaire de l’Afrique du Nord, a yearly summary of first-hand materials which was
written for many years by André Adam.
66
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French protectorate (1950-51), during which time Luccioni recounts an episode where he
displayed his “puritanical” hostility by cutting off the habous funding to an important moussem
in Rabat (1982, 296–298). Nevertheless, the king’s interest in preserving the legitimizing
function derived from the “maraboutist” tradition and his direct involvement in the governing
of the religious field meant that neither Istiqlal nor more general Salafist tendencies came to
dominate the ministry. Evidence for this can be seen by the authorization given by state
authorities to numerous Sufi groups (such as the Aissawiya, Hamadcha, Gnawa, and Heddawa)
starting in the mid-1960s to hold public celebrations, a decision which was severely criticized
by Allal al-Fassi and Istiqlal’s newspaper, al-ʿAlam (Adam 1966, 253). Moreover, the king
personally received the Senegalese leader of the Tijaniyya order in 1966, during the latter’s
visit to the tomb of the Zāwiya’s founder in Fez (Adam 1967, 328). At the same time, in a more
general sense the traditional actors of the Moroccan religious field, the Sufi orders and the
ulema, no longer represented the powerful actors that they had in the past. While the Sufi orders
had lost an important degree of prestige due to their proximity with the French protectorate,
they had also been coopted and fragmented within Mohammed V’s strategy of rural alliances.
The ulema found themselves in a different situation. While there are a number of typical
carrier paths that they could follow (education, state administration, the legal sector, etc.), the
ulema in general represent a very diverse group whose shared characteristic is their function
(and title), meaning that they “do not constitute a homogenous corporation with a well-defined
profile and interests” (Tozy 1999, 104). Following independence, many had assumed they their
training and status would continue to give them access to positions of power; however, they
were quickly marginalized both within the existing political parties (Istiqlal, PDI, UNFP) and
within the administration in general (Agnouche 1992, 274). On the one hand, this was due to a
prevailing suspicion of both the ulema and the Sufi orders given their role in the destitution of
Mohammed V in 1953: all but one of the Fassi ulema had pronounced in favour of Ben Arafa,
and the Istiqlal party had gone so far as to establish a blacklist in 1956 of the ulema who had
collaborated with the French (Leveau 1980, 218; Tozy 1980, 225). On the other hand, this
decline was also due to their own tendency to become state agents, joining the ranks of the
qāḍīs and jurists starting in the 1930s, and consequently depriving themselves of the critical
leeway they once had as independent actors (Tozy 1980, 223–224).
When Hassan II became king in 1961, he sought out the bayʿa of the ulema, not because
they constituted an obstacle to his coronation but rather because he wanted to display continuity
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with the past (Tozy 1999) . This was driven home all the more clearly when the right of
succession by primogeniture (i.e. eldest male heir) was included in the constitution of 1962 as
article 20, dispensing entirely with the notion that the ulema had any say as to who would be
next in line. Moreover, article 19 of the constitution laid out officially the king’s status as amīr
al-mu’minīn for the first time, establishing his legitimacy as preceding that of the state itself,
and effectively countering any attempts to curtail his right to govern (a long-time goal of the
Istiqlal party) (Ḍarīf 2010, 21–22). The recognition of their precarious position led to the
creation of the League of Moroccan Ulema (Rābiṭa ‘Ulamā’ al-Maghrib, hereafter Rabita) by
300 ulema assembled in Rabat in 1960, an organization which was supposed to constitute a
“lobby” as well as a “high instance of al-ifta’ (consultation)” capable of contributing to the
elaboration of state religious policy, but which “in reality, has only shone by its absence” (Tozy
1999, 111). This absence was attributable to the ulema themselves, but also to the interests of
the monarchy: while the annual congress of ulema never managed to offer anything more than
general platitudes, in the decades thereafter the king at no moment officially addressed nor
consulted with the Rabita (Tozy 1999, 111; Agnouche 1992, 274).
The most important reforms of the 1960s which had an impact on the religious field took
place especially in the domain of higher education. Following independence in 1957, the
University Mohammed V was founded in Rabat, while the Qarawiyyin was subject to an
extensive series of reforms in 1963. The role of the latter is especially important when
discussing the ulema, as traditionally it has held the monopoly over higher education in Islamic
sciences in Morocco, and according to Tozy only its graduates (i.e. those who had received the
ʿalmiyya) were officially considered to be an ʿālim (1999, 104).67 The reforms of 1933 had
already established a scale setting out the grades and salaries for the professors at the
Qarawiyyin (Kingdom of Morocco 1934a, 286–287), and were followed by another dahir
outlining the strict disciplinary measures for all ulema who deviated from the accepted
practices in their teachings or actions (Kingdom of Morocco 1934b, 287–288). These changes
began a process by which the state gained greater control over the influential members of the
Fassi ulema, while at the same time integrating them into the state apparatus.
67
Luccioni mentions that the ijaza only permitted one to teach, and was not sufficient to enter the ranks
of the official ulema. This could only occur by receiving a dahir from the sultan, which raised one to
the lowest rank of the ulema (in Fez there were five ranks, in other cities three) and gave the recipient
the right to a monthly allowance from the habous of the Qarawiyyin (1982, 148).
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Due to strikes by Qarawiyyin students following independence, the Moroccan
government “formally stated that it would recognize religious education as an alternative to the
secular state schools” (Eickelman 2007, 142). A major step in this direction was taken when in
1963 a new dahir set out the main missions and institutional framework of the Qarawiyyin. The
university’s main tasks were listed as training specialists and promoting research in “Islamic
disciplines and the Arab language,” and the dahir divided the university into three faculties: the
Faculty of Islamic law (shari’a) in Fez; the Faculty of Arab studies in Marrakech (for language
and literature); and the Faculty of Theology (usul al-din) in Tetouan (Kingdom of Morocco
1963, 260). One the one hand, this profound transformation of the Qarawiyyin was
accompanied by a movement which sought to preserve its independence: despite numerous
plans to include the Qarawiyyin within the University Mohammed V, it fought to retain its
status as the highest instance of “traditional education.” It received a separate president in 1963
as well (beforehand only one president had been appointed to oversee both universities), and
in 1968 Allal al-Fassi succeeded in raising its budget and definitively securing the university’s
autonomy (Adam 1969, 286).
On the other hand, in 1964 a new Islamic institution of higher education was founded in
Rabat: the Dar al-Hadith al-Hassaniyya. Initially designed to train ulema in hadith and other
Islamic sciences, as well as “complement the training of public servants and students”
(Kingdom of Morocco 1968, 866), this institute opened its doors to a number of Middle Eastern
Islamist ulema, and in doing so served to offset the growing dynamism of panarabist currents,
which were inspired by Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser (Ḍarīf 2010, 38–39). Though nominally
linked to the Qarawiyyin, the graduates of this new institution also entered into direct
competition with those trained at the Qarawiyyin during the 1970s, following the creation of
the Association of Graduates of Dar al-Hadith al-Hassaniyya in 1967, founded as a
counterweight to the Qarawiyyin-linked Rabita (Tozy 1999, 106). With the Qarawiyyin’s
students divided between three different cities and its graduates preoccupied with conserving
their status in the face of new competition, this strategy of divide and conquer reinforced further
the king’s position vis-à-vis the Moroccan ulema. The overall aim of these changes was to
render the ulema “dependent and docile,” within an institutional framework designed to train
the ulema to be employees of the state (Dialmy 2000, 12–13). As Zeghal poetically puts it, this
“fragmented religious space” was to serve but one principal mission: to “reflect and reproduce,
as in a mirror, the religious dimension of the King” (Zeghal 2005a, 83).
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The 1970s saw the rise of the first Islamist movements in Morocco, influenced by the
writings of Egyptian Islamist intellectuals such as Hassan al-Banna (founder of the Muslim
Brotherhood) and Sayyid Qutb (the Muslim Brotherhood’s principal ideologue). One of the
first was the group Islamic Youth (al-Shabība al-Islāmīya / Jeunesse Islamique), led by
ʿAbdelkrīm Muṭīʿ and implicated in the assassination of left-wing politician Omar Benjelloun
in 1975. One year earlier, a former member of the Boutchichiya Sufi order and one of the first
inspectors of the Ministry of Education, Abdessalam Yassine, had sent an open letter to the
king entitled “Islam or the Deluge” (al-Islām aw al-Tūfān) in which he directly criticized the
king and called on him to abide by Islamic principles. Though the Islamic Youth was dissolved
in 1976 and Yassine soon thereafter found himself in an insane asylum, they are respectively
at the root of the two main Islamist movements in Morocco today: the Ḥizb ʿAdāla wa Tanmīya
(the Party of Justice and Development, PJD), the political party currently in power, and the
association ʿAdl wal Iḥsān (Justice and Spirituality), which remains outside of state control.
At the same time, Moroccan-style Salafism came into closer contact with Saudi Arabianinspired Wahhabism, which the Saudis began to increasingly promote abroad. An emblematic
figure of this movement is Mohammed Taqi al-Din al-Hilali, who Zeghal states was paid
directly by the Saudis for his activities in diffusing their “vision of Islam” (2005a, 289).
Another such individual is Mohamed Maghraoui, who studied at the Qarawiyyin and in Saudi
Arabia, and founded the Association for the Call to the Qur’an and the Sunna in 1976 in
Marrakech, which has expanded to include somewhere near 100 Qur’anic schools across the
country (Ḍarīf 2010, 118–119; Aboullouz 2011, 163; Boudarham 2013). The Moroccan state
initially viewed the growth of different Islamist currents with tacit approval, and only took
action when certain thresholds were breached, such as with the assassination of Benjelloun or
Yassine’s famous letter. The spread of these movements was seen as a positive counterweight
to panarabist Nasserism and Marxist movements, especially amongst students (Ḍarīf 2010, 35–
49).
Within the Ministry of Habous, Bargach was succeeded in 1972 by Mohammed Mekki
Naciri, a figure of the independence movement who had also been governor of Agadir. Naciri
represented a “religious current open to social change,” outside of the intellectual tradition that
followed Allal al-Fassi, and went on to be councillor to the king for religious affairs at the
beginning of the 1980s (Leveau 1980, 214). Two years later he was replaced by Dey Ould Sidi
Baba, a Mauritanian turned Moroccan who was also involved in the independence movement
and occupied numerous important diplomatic and governmental positions over his career (T.
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K. Park and Boum 2006, 273–274). The ministers of the MHAI during the 1970s all reflect a
very similar profile: loyal nationalists and close advisors to the king, they all had extensive
experience in government, administration, and diplomacy, and many had been active during
Morocco’s fight for independence. Following the elections of 1977, Sidi Baba was involved in
the founding of the Rassemblement National des Indépendants (National Rally of
Independents, RNI), decried by its critics as a “reservoir of ministerial portfolios” and an
“instrument of the administration and servile defender of the Palace’s policies” (Santucci
1979a, 391). The party had been established on the suggestion of King Hassan II himself as a
means of further securing his political dominance in the wake of the Green March, and was led
by Ahmet Osman, who had been prime minister since 1972.
The next Minister of Habous and Islamic Affairs, Dr. Ahmed Ramzi, was likewise a
member of this party. During the elections he had handily defeated in Agadir none other than
Abderrahim Bouabid, the leader of the Union Socialiste des Forces Populaires (Socialist Union
of Popular Forces, USFP), which came as an important set-back for the latter given that the
Souss region had voted heavily in favour of the UNFP in the 1963 elections (Santucci 1979b,
224, 227, 230–231).68 Under Ramzi, the discursive battle against a “triple enemy” consisting
of “socialism, Zionism, and Christianity” continued in the pages of the MHAI’s official
magazine, Daʿwat al-Ḥaq, reflecting a position which increasingly converged with that of the
sheikh Abdallah Guennoun (secretary-general of the Rabita) (Zeghal 2005a, 100), as well as
with the members of the Istiqlal party.
The main responsibilities of the MHAI were laid out in a dahir in 1976, which divided
its central administration between the secretariat-general; the department of habous; the
department of Islamic affairs; and the department of general affairs (Kingdom of Morocco
1976, 529). Up until this point the formal organization of the ministry had been based on a
series of texts left over from the days of the protectorate, dealing mostly with legal matters
concerning the management of habous property, as well as the 1957 dahir which returned the
oversight of religious personnel to the MHAI, and an organic law from 1961 for the “new”
state ministry for Islamic affairs (which does not seem to have been published in the official
journal) (MHAI in Souriau 1980, 346–348). This dahir is relatively unknown in the literature
on Islam in Morocco, and so I can only speculate as to the reasons for its promulgation at this
68
The USFP broke off from the UNFP in 1975 and has constituted the main centre-left party of the
Moroccan political spectrum since that date.
162
point in time: on the one hand, the two years beforehand had been marked by the end of the
cooperation between state authorities and group Islamic Youth, as well as Yassine’s open letter
to the king; these events may have convinced authorities to consider more carefully the role
played by the main state institution overseeing Islam in Morocco. At the same time, the dahir
came about at the same time as a number of others, all of which were aimed at reorganizing
governmental ministries in 1976. This corresponded to a triumphant moment for King Hassan
II, directly following the Green March and during a time period when phosphate prices had
greatly increased, leading the state to engage in large-scale hiring within the public sector as a
part of a “massive public investment programme” (Sater 2007, 82).
The legitimacy of the text is founded directly on the king’s religious authority,
“considering the mission conferred by God unto [him]” as amīr al-mu’minīn, as well as article
19 of the constitution. It details the need to fight “heretical beliefs” 69 while “guiding [his]
Muslim subjects to be capable of assuming their responsibilities as modern men,” and goes on
to outline the breakdown of each department and their specific responsibilities. The MHAI’s
control over all habous (including those of zāwiyas and shrines) is reiterated, as well as its
responsibility to oversee the naming of “competent” and “qualified” religious personnel;
interestingly, the MHAI’s responsibility to accompany and aid “Moroccans working abroad”
is also mentioned for the first time (Kingdom of Morocco 1976, 529–530). Another new
development was the creation of a division for the training of religious personnel within the
department of Islamic affairs, which Tozy argues was indicative of “a profound change in the
mentality of this administration, which for the first time recognized the need to train religious
professionals” (1992, 412). By the end of the 1970s the MHAI managed between 30-40
religious education centres and had financed over 600 training workshops (MHAI in Etienne
and Tozy 1980, 238).
Indeed, though the Iranian revolution would represent a watershed moment for the
Moroccan religious field, this dahir is a clear indication that it had by no means been neglected
by the king and the state in the years before. In the same vein, the support for Islamic education
continued throughout the 1970s: the introduction of natural sciences to the curriculum in 1973
permitted its graduates to enter the modern university system as well as the Qarawiyyin, while
new Islamic high schools were built across the country and the budget for Islamic education
The “heretical beliefs” during these years referred especially to the Baha’i faith, which had been the
object of a highly-mediatized court case in 1962-1963, known as the “trial of Nador.”
69
163
was increased to 65 million dirhams for the period 1973-1977 (Zeghal 2005a, 90). The effects
were very noticeable: the number of new Qur’anic pre-schools continued to rise each year by
the thousands (25,600 in 1979), and enrollments in both Islamic high schools and all three of
the Qarawiyyin’s faculties increased steadily throughout the 1970s, doubling for the former
and tripling for the latter (Adam 1980, 679; Tozy 1992, 411).
The increasing Arabization and promotion of Islam within Morocco’s national education
system had a wide-ranging impact on the generations born after independence. Along with the
repressive policies employed by the state, it successfully choked off the support that had existed
on university campuses for left-wing movements, just as had been intended by state authorities.
Unexpectedly however, it led to the metamorphosis of political contestation: criticism of the
state, society, and the king did not disappear, but rather began to be expressed through the
language of Islam. As Etienne and Tozy wrote at the time, this was the result of an important
shift during which Islamic obligations were reconceived and re-organized by religious actors
within the framework of civil society associations, with the goal of “creating a Muslim public
opinion” (1980, 247–248). As these associations began attracting new audiences, they
continued to pursue the goal of achieving social and political change in Morocco, posing a new
set of challenges for the monarchy’s tenuous monopoly over the religious field.
E - Recasting the State Monopoly: Royal Responses to Islamist
Contestation
Major institutional changes would occur in the Moroccan religious field at the beginning of the
1980s as a result of the Iranian revolution and the general growth of Islamic associations. As
mentioned above, the boom in Islamic associations during this period (many of them unofficial)
was the result of multiple factors: the policies favouring Arabization and Islamic education
enacted over the preceding years; the suppression of leftist movements; and the general loss of
legitimacy experienced by the ulema and Sufi orders (other than the boutchichiya).
At the same time, the success of the Iranian revolution served as an inspiration to
Moroccan Islamist leaders. Yassine openly admits the influence that the ideas of Ayatollah
Khomeyni had on him, which were reflected at the time in his magazine Al Jamaʿa (Zeghal
2005a, 200). Starting in 1980, after he had been released from prison (but while still under
house arrest), Yassine began to organize his movement in the form of an association. The group
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went through different versions (mostly due to the public authorities’ refusal to give their
authorization) until it took the name ʿAdl wal Iḥsān in 1987 (Ḍarīf 2010, 53–54). ʿAbdelkrīm
Muṭīʿ, who had been in exile since 1975 (and had been implicated in the attack on the Masjid
al-Haram in Mecca in 1979), also began to espouse increasingly radical positions against the
monarchy in 1980, which was also the same year of the “Zitouni affair,” in which a police raid
against a radical Sufi sect in Fez led to numerous deaths (Adam 1981, 697; Ḍarīf 2010, 77–
78).
During these years, Morocco was in the middle of a very difficult economic situation,
and when the price of bread and other basic subsidized commodities was raised in 1981, largescale riots broke out in Casablanca leading to many deaths. These riots were significant in that
“they were not controlled by the old political and union leadership and took place only two
years after a popular revolution had brought down the Shah of Iran” (Pennell 2003, 175),
heightening the monarchy’s suspicion of Islamist movements capable of channeling this
popular anger. These developments had the overall effect of convincing the monarchy that
there were numerous elements of the religious field which were moving beyond its control, and
that it was time to reassert its dominance over the field.
The first step taken by King Hassan II was to give a speech before an assembly of ulema
in 1980, in which he criticized their absence from Moroccan daily affairs; this, despite the fact
that it had been his own policies which had led to their marginalization (Zeghal 2005a, 201).
The royal pressure on the Moroccan ulema would lead them to issue a fatwa condemning the
Iranian revolution only a few months later – but things were not to stop there. In order to
“revivify” the role of the ulema, the king issued a dahir in 1981 creating Regional Ulema
Councils and an Ulema High Council, the latter consisting of the presidents of the former and
placed under the direct authority of the king. In the preamble to the dahir, the king expressly
states that he has “taken note of the dangers posed by foreign ideologies to the identity of the
Moroccan nation and its authentic values,” and that in order to counter this threat he “has
decided to pursue his action supported by an institutional framework in which the most eminent
doctors of the law [ulema] will organize and coordinate themselves, under [his] aegis and in
accordance with [his] commands” (Kingdom of Morocco 1981, 231–232). Indeed, as Tozy has
written, the marginalization of the ulema had created an ideological vacuum which had become
dangerous for the monarchy (1999, 112).
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However, the re-empowerment of the ulema brought with it other perils: writing shortly
after the dahir, Leveau remarks that this move could also remind Moroccans that the
contestation of royal power had been exerted by means of the ulema in the past. Moreover, in
the same fashion that the ulema were manipulated by the police and the administration of the
protectorate during the destitution of Mohammed V in 1953, a renewed and rejuvenated role
for the ulema could conceivably be instrumentalized by others forces in the future (Leveau
1980, 218). This eventuality was not lost on the king, who had already mentioned in his 1980
speech that the actions of the ulema ought not be in opposition to the government, as the
“government and the ulema belong to the same family” (in CNRS 1981, 896). As Dialmy points
out, “the politicization of Islam by Islamism led the king to politicize the ulema,” but only
insofar as they, “as state employees, defended the politico-religious interests of the Makhzen”
(2000, 13). As exemplified by the fetwa condemning the Iranian revolution, the return of the
ulema to political and public life was restricted to the religious justification of state policy.
Not all ulema were pleased with this new role. When rumblings of criticism began to
emerge from Dar al-Hadith al-Hassaniyya, the school’s administration responded by
increasing the surveillance of its students and their research topics, at times going so far as to
prevent certain students from finishing their studies and defending their theses (Tozy 1999,
106). For ulema such as Abdelaziz Ben Seddik, who strayed from their prescribed role and
openly expressed their opposition to state policies, the response was quick and brutal: they
were banned from the state-approved list of ulema and could be subject to arrest and
imprisonment (as was Ben Seddik in 1979) (Ḍarīf 2010, 59–61). The regional ulema councils
were an “effective tool” for this component of state supervision: they oversaw the naming of
preachers in mosques and during the month of Ramadan on the one hand, as well as the content
of the Friday khuṭba, which came under official state control during this time as well (Tozy
1992, 414; Tozy 1999, 113–114). The leadership of these regional councils was attributed to
allies of throne, such as the Sheikh Mekki Naciri (former minister of Habous and Islamic
affairs, and future head of the Rabita), whom the king made president of the newly-created
council of Rabat-Salé in his 1980 speech (CNRS 1981, 896).
Nevertheless, establishing such a far-reaching degree of control was no easy task.
Despite a religious personnel counting 20,481 individuals in 1979, according to the MHAI’s
own statistics there were upwards of 19,000 mosques in the country in 1980, of which only
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6,000 were overseen by the ministry (including 2,354 jāmiʿ). 70 Moreover, it was precisely
during these years (1979-1984) that the khuṭba became “one of the most spectacular
instruments of Islamist activities (daʿwa),” due to the influence of the recorded sermons of the
Egyptian Abdelhamid Kishk, whose style was adopted by numerous independent imams whom
Tozy calls the “free preachers” (prêcheurs libres) (1992, 414). These preachers, many of whom
gave their sermons in private mosques, represented precisely the kind of religious actors that
the state had decided to reign in, along with the followers of Muṭīʿ and Yassine. In 1984, a
series of measures were taken which struck out at these elements of Islamist contestation, while
providing the state with the institutional means necessary to control even further the physical
and symbolic spaces of official Islam.
At the beginning of the year, Abdelkebir Alaoui M’Daghri replaced Hachimi Filali as
Minister of Habous and Islamic Affairs. Filali had been appointed following Ramzi in 1981
and was not an RNI member, but rather another important figure of the independence
movement and the Istiqlal old guard. Filali’s nomination was a result of a cabinet shuffle in
November, which came about following the disintegration of the RNI (of which Ramzi was a
member), but it did not signal a stronger hand for Istiqlal so much as its cooptation. Following
the 1977 elections, members of Istiqlal had decided to join the government and stop contesting
the regime, instead “opt[ing] for a broadened dictatorship” (Storm 2007, 42–43). This was
further symbolized in 1982, when the party broke with tradition and invited no other political
parties to its 11th national congress, but did invite “the prime minister, a royal counsellor, and
the minister of the interior, a way of marking its integration into the structures of power”
(Santucci 1984, 594–595). In 1984, however, the arrival of M’Daghri at the helm of the MHAI
represented a change of generation: born in Meknes in 1942, he was a full thirty years younger
than his predecessor. M’Daghri had studied at all three faculties of the Qarawiyyin as well as
at Dar al-Hadith al-Hassaniyya, and would be the longest-serving Minister of Habous and
Islamic Affairs to date, staying in his position until 2002 (T. K. Park and Boum 2006, 25).
At the same time as he gave M’Daghri the task of studying how to fight the “numerous
destructive forces” in the country, the king took action himself through the Ulema High Council
and other state organs. One of the most important moves was the creation of 40 qaid positions
in the Ministry of the Interior specifically reserved for graduates of the Qarawiyyin’s Shariʿa
70
For the statistics in this paragraph see Souriau 1980, 653–654. The numbers concerning the religious
personnel include: 1,775 imam hatips, 5,361 regular imams, 241 preachers (rising to 1,200 during
Ramadan), 2,466 muezzin (prayer callers), 936 qayyim (mosque attendants), and 4,542 Qur’an readers.
167
Faculty who had also studied at the state School for the Professional Training of Public
Administrators (École de Perfectionnement des Cadres) in Kenitra (Santucci 1986, 902–903).
These “super-qaids” were appointed to serve under the governors of the provinces and
prefectures with the task of overseeing the recruitment of religious personnel; the construction
and management of mosques, zāwiyas, and other habous; and to act as interlocutors with the
local ulema (Tozy 1992, 413). While effective, the involvement of the Ministry of the Interior
was not appreciated by many religious actors. One imam expressed his indignation to Zeghal,
saying “it’s the moqqadem who watches over the mosque, and he’s at the bottom of the
hierarchy of the Ministry of the Interior” (Zeghal 2005a, 204).
The increased surveillance was accompanied by a series of court trials. One of the first
involved Abdessalam Yassine, who had been trying to unify the different currents of Moroccan
Islamism since the late 1970s. His group’s magazine, al-Jamaʿa, was officially banned in 1983;
when he resuscitated it shortly after under the name al-Subh, he was brought before a court and
sentenced to two years of prison and ordered to pay a fine (Khallouk 2008, 198–199). A few
months later, a large-scale trial in Casablanca against 71 supposed Islamists resulted for the
most part in death and life imprisonment sentences (many of which were given in absentia);
this trial, as with others that followed soon after targeted members of the group Islamic Youth
and followers of its exiled leader ʿAbdelkrīm Muṭīʿ, who was sentenced to death in absentia
for a second time in 1985 (Santucci 1986, 903; Dialmy 2000, 14).
In addition, at the end of year the king issued a new dahir concerning mosques and prayer
spaces, which made all Islamic religious buildings property of the state (many of the “free
preachers” had given their sermons in private mosques during the years beforehand). In
addition, it stipulated that all religious personnel must be appointed by the MHAI, after
consultation with the local governor and the regional ulema council, and set out strict rules for
the construction of mosques, requiring once again the approval of the local governor as well as
the MHAI (Kingdom of Morocco 1984, 386). This effectively marked the death knell for the
“free preachers,” and more generally the mosque as the main site of Islamist contestation. On
the one hand, the state became more proactive in using oppressive measures: some were
imprisoned, others were stripped of their title as ulema, and only those who were appointed by
the MHAI and local authorities were allowed to give sermons in mosques.71 On the other hand,
For a telling example, see Tozy’s portrayal of Zuhal, a “free preacher” who was in this fashion
effectively forbidden from giving sermons. He became the editor of the Islamist magazine al-Furqan
71
168
mosques were rendered physically inaccessible, since public authorities ensured they remained
closed between prayer times, as well as “ideologically” secure, when the MHAI began
distributing official khuṭba which were simply to be read aloud by the state-appointed khaṭībs
(Tozy 1992, 414; Zeghal 2005a, 208).
These official institutional reactions to Islamist contestation were reinforced by a twopronged strategy, which was steeped in the royal tradition of dividing and conquering. The first
element of this strategy was to reinforce the Wahhabist currents which the state had quietly
promoted since the 1960s, and which had originally served to counter the panarabist and leftist
groups in the country.72 The second element of this strategy was to ensure a distinct division
within the Islamist movement, by coopting the branch that was willing to recognize the
centrality and sacrosanct status of the monarchy, and inviting it to participate in electoral
politics. In this fashion, the king and state authorities aimed to doubly undermine any form of
Islamist contestation which refused to recognize the legitimacy of the regime in place,
increasingly reduced to Abdessalam Yassine’s movement.
State support for Wahhabism existed at two distinct levels. The first was within the
MHAI, where M’Daghri was given the task of promoting Wahhabist preachers within the ranks
of the state religious personnel, despite his own personal attachment to the Moroccan Maliki
tradition (Ḍarīf 2010, 120). In much of the literature on this period, as well as Moroccan public
opinion, M’Daghri is singled out and personally made responsible for the rise of Wahhabism
in Morocco during the 1980s and 1990s (Zeghal 2005a; Amghar 2011). In contrast, in an
interview given in 2004, M’Daghri placed the blame squarely on the Ministry of the Interior,
stating that he had been unable to exert any control over the Wahhabis – their schools, funding,
teachers, or imams – because they were being provided for and protected by local authorities
and state security services (in Ksikes 2004). An important figure in this evolution was
Mohammed Maghraoui, whose network of Qur’anic schools continued to grow while he wrote
multiple tracts attacking viciously the tenets of Yassine and his movement, ʿAdl wal Iḥsān
(Ḍarīf 2010, 121–124).
thereafter, until he was called up by an official from the Interior Ministry ten years later and was given
permission to officiate once again in 1995 (Tozy 1999, 230–233).
72
Wahhabism is a strict form of Islam based on the Hanbali School of jurisprudence. It was developed
by Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb in the 18th Century in what is today Saudi Arabia, and constitutes
the main current of Islam promoted by the kingdom at home and abroad.
169
The second level was within the educational system, most specifically in universities.
The foundations for this part of the strategy had been set up upon Istiqlal’s return to the
government at the end of the 1970s, when Dr. Azzedine Laraki, one of its members who had
the confidence of Hassan II, became the minister of education in 1977. Two years later, Laraki
“dismantled” the philosophy departments in the Moroccan university system and set up in their
place a new Islamic studies programme in order to “reinforce national identity” and further
marginalize the subjects which the king considered responsible for “corrupting young students”
with leftist ideas (Dalle 2011).
This Islamic studies departments would experience a huge success, growing from a total
of 2 223 students enrolled in 1984 to 11 834 in 1992, raising in turn another significant problem:
the Rabita refused to recognize the graduates of these programmes as ulema (Tozy 1999, 108).
Consequently, those who did not become religious education teachers or writers for Islamist
magazines often ended up unemployed, leading them to become the principal figures of what
Tozy calls the “free market of religious values” (1992, 412; 1999, 109). These Islamic studies
departments also provided the ideal structures for spreading Wahhabism. According to Darif,
the directors of these departments were given explicit instructions to hire professors who had
studied in Saudi Arabia, and as a result throughout the 1980s and 1990s “Moroccan universities
lived by the rhythm of the conflicts between, on the one hand, the Islamist students and the
Wahhabist professor, and on the other hand, between the latter and the other professors who
did not share his vision” (2010, 120).
The Wahhabist doctrine presented a very clear interest for the political powers in place.
This version of Salafism, like most, “is limited to teaching in schools and to publishing books,”
while “collective action or any other form of engagement in the public sphere is strongly
disapproved of” (Aboullouz 2011, 175–176). Such a pious, fundamentalist current of Islamic
thought seemed ideal for the monarchy, given that it ostensibly would not seek to challenge the
political authority in place. However, the Islamist currents which believed that Islam had a
political role to play were another matter altogether. In order to gain the upper hand over these
groups, the monarchy employed a second strategy which aimed at the integration of a
cooperative Islamist-inspired political party into the Moroccan electoral landscape, which
would become today’s Parti de la Justice and du Développement (Justice and Development
Party, PJD).
170
The roots for this party are to be found in a group of former members of the Islamic
Youth, who founded the association al-Jamaʿa al-Islamiyya (hereafter the Jamaʿa) in 1983.
Under the leadership of Abdellatif Benkirane, the Jamaʿa became one of the main Islamist
groups on Moroccan university campuses during the 1980s, in competition with groups led by
other Islamic Youth members as well as Yassine’s ʿAdl wal Iḥsān (Tozy 1999, 181). During
these years, the Jamaʿa and ʿAdl wal Iḥsān began concentrating on providing social services,
and became important actors within the educational and public health sectors. Though Yassine,
who remained hostile to the monarchy, had tried to rally the former members of Islamic Youth
around his movement, this had only partly succeeded. The mystical Sufi side of Yassine’s
movement was anathema for many of these young activist Islamists, who, as Benkirane states
had been “raised with the principles of salafiyya and whose beliefs came directly from the
Qur’an” and thus could not “digest” the vision promoted by Yassine (in Burgat 1988, 23–24).
A change had already begun to occur within the ranks of Benkirane’s group at the
beginning of the decade, when it began openly distancing itself from the exiled leader of
Islamic Youth, ʿAbdelkrīm Muṭīʿ. According to Benkirane, examples from other Arab
countries had convinced them that the most prudent course of action was not to destabilize the
regime (which could lead to a backlash against the movement), but rather to work with the
existing élites and within the existing structures in order to promote the Islamicization of
Moroccan state and society (in Burgat 1988, 195–196). The movement began to publicly take
position with regard to important political issues and embarked on a campaign seeking the
recognition of state authorities, most notably by its integration into the Moroccan electoral
process (Tozy 1999, 240). This development was in stark contrast to the evolution of Yassine’s
movement. Only four years after emerging from prison, Yassine was placed under house arrest
in 1989, while the five members of the group’s “Guidance Council” (Majlis al-Irshād) and
other followers were arrested not long thereafter. Ironically, however, this repression had the
opposite effect of what authorities had originally intended, leading rather to ʿAdl wal Iḥsān’s
exponential growth at the beginning of the 1990s (Belal 2011, 148–149).
In light of the elections planned for 1992, the Jamaʿa adopted a new strategy the same
year: first, it formally changed its name to al-Iṣlāḥ wal Tajdīd (Reform and Renewal), and then
a few weeks later it attempted to found a political party, the Ḥizb al-Tajdīd al-Watanī (National
Renewal Party). The change in name was significant because it was aimed at changing the
perception that the Jamaʿa desired to be the sole representative of all Islamic-inspired political
171
currents, which had often been the case due to its Islamic Youth roots and its very name.73 At
the same time, it was also intended to demonstrate a clear separation between the religious and
political spheres, and care was taken to avoid using religious vocabulary in the party’s name
and texts. Nevertheless, the Ministry of the Interior refused to recognize the National Renewal
Party, most likely because the state was more interested in conserving the movement’s potential
as a rival to ʿAdl wal Iḥsān in the religious field (Ḍarīf 2010, 82).
The actions taken by the Jamaʿa did not, however, go unheeded. At the beginning of the
1990s, with the Cold War finished, the Gulf War underway, and the Algeria Civil War brewing,
the echoes of these international developments were evident in Morocco as well. The Gulf War,
during which Morocco sent troops to Saudi Arabia, had given rise to popular protests, as well
as a fetwa condemning the war by a small group of ulema led by Driss al-Kittani, which came
to be known as the “Association of Free Ulema of Morocco” (Ḍarīf 2010, 63–64). This group
received support from the Graduates’ Association of Dar al-Hadith al-Hassaniyya, despite the
MHAI’s quick action to release a “counter-fetwa,” and proved once the necessity of creating
an effective public counterweight to such ‘unauthorized’ Islamic contestation (Zeghal 2005a,
206–207). In the political arena, the autocratic and repressive regime of Hassan II responded
to the demands of a broad coalition of parties called the Kutla al-Waṭaniyya (National Bloc)
by implementing measures aimed at democratizing the Moroccan political system, including a
new constitution in 1992 which gave more power to the parliament (Storm 2007, 54–58).74
Though the Jamaʿa’s attempt to form a party had been refused for the moment, their
leaders now had the attention of the monarchy. Benkirane and other leaders of the association
met with M’Daghri in 1990, and were invited to participate in a series of yearly meetings
organized by the MHAI called the “Islamic Awakening Summer University” (l’Université
d’été de la Sahwa islamique) at the king’s palace in Skhirat, where prominent Islamic scholars,
both Moroccan and foreign, were invited (this included Necmettin Erbakan, leader of the
The name al-Jamaʿa al-Islāmiyya, meaning “Islamic Community,” is ambiguous in that it can refer
to the entire Muslim community in general. It also has the concurrent implication that the Jamaʿa
represents the only “community” which can be called “Islamic,” in essence either attributing to itself
the right to represent all possible currents of “Islam,” or denying its diversity.
74
This coalition, much broader than the Kutla formed in the 1970s, included Istiqlal, the USFP, the
Parti du Progrès et du Socialisme (Party of Progress and Socialism, PPS), the Organisation de l’Action
Démocratique Populaire (Organisation of Popular Democratic Action, OADP), the UNFP, as well as
the national-level trade unions Union Générale des Travailleurs Marocains (General Union of
Moroccan Workers, UGTM, affiliated to Istiqlal) and Confédération Démocratique du Travail
(Democratic Confederation of Labour, CDT, linked to the USFP) (Storm 2007, 55).
73
172
Turkish Milli Görüş movement in 1998). According to M’Daghri, the idea was to create “a
space for dialogue between the institution of the ulema and Islamic groups,” aimed at “building
bridges” between the state and Islamist movements, and which succeeded in convincing these
Islamists to “abandon all form of withdrawal and radicalism” (in Chadi 1998; and Ksikes
2004). M’Daghri even mentions that he had attempted to convince Yassine to join in this sphere
of legitimate contestation, and that ʿAdl wal Iḥsān “was on the verge of becoming a political
party and participating in the 1992 elections” (in Ksikes 2004).
Despite the fact that ʿAdl wal Iḥsān opted to remain outside of the regime’s arena of
controlled political contestation, the monarchy’s strategy had paid off, creating a “cleavage
within the Islamist movement” between those who accepted to play by the king’s rules, “and
those who, such as Sheikh Yassine, refused” (Zeghal 2005a, 211). Those who decided to
cooperate with the king finally emerged as an accepted element of the political field between
1996 and 1998. This development was the result of a new set of alliances and name changes,
though still under the leadership of Benkirane. The first step moved to unify further the Islamist
associative movement: in 1996, al-Iṣlāḥ wal-Tajdīd joined with a coalition of three Islamic
associations collectively named the League of the Islamic Future (Al-Rābiṭa al-Mustaqbal alIslāmī) and created the Movement for Unification and Reform (Ḥarakat al-Tawḥīd wal-Iṣlāḥ,
MUR).
The following year, after months of negotiations and positive signals from the monarchy,
a deal was struck with the Popular Democratic and Constitutional Movement (Mouvement
Populaire et Démocratique Constitutionnel, MPDC) which saw members of the MUR running
for office on MPDC tickets during the 1997 elections (Willis 1999, 47–49). One year later the
transformation was complete: in 1998, the MPDC was renamed the Parti de la Justice et du
Développement (Justice and Development Party, PJD), and over the following years the old
guard of the MPDC progressively disappeared, being replaced by members of the MUR
(Zeghal 2005a, 216–217). At the same time, the MUR has remained a separate organization,
presided over by the ʿalim Ahmed Raissouni who has become the “guardian of the temple,”
while Benkirane and the other traditional leaders of his movement (Abdullah Baha, Mohamed
Yatim, Saad-Eddine Othmani) have made the transition to the political arena (Belal 2011, 229).
This double structure, aside from highlighting the distinction between religious daʿwa activities
and politics, also has the benefit of maintaining a legally recognized structure for the movement
in case the PJD were ever outlawed.
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The process by which the PJD became the loyal “opposition of His Majesty, not the
opposition to His Majesty” seemed for many commentators and analysts the proof of a
“Moroccan exception,” especially when compared with the chaos being wrought in
neighbouring Algeria. The death of King Hassan II in 1999 and the peaceful succession of his
son, who became King Mohammed VI, only served to confirm this hypothesis. However,
economic inequality and widespread poverty in Morocco’s poor urban suburbs proved to be
fruitful grounds for the development of new religiously-inspired dangers. Moroccans who had
been active during the Soviet War in Afghanistan (1979-1989) and who had remained tied to
Usama Ben Laden’s Al Qaeda network founded the “Moroccan Islamist Combatant Group” at
the end of the 1990s, and would be responsible for the 2003 attacks in Casablanca, as well as
the 2004 Madrid attacks (Ḍarīf 2010, 163–168). The shock provoked by these terrorist attacks
has led to a full-fledged “reform of the religious field,” which was launched by the king in
2004. This ongoing reform constitutes the current frame of reference for the Moroccan state’s
view of the religious field both at home and abroad.
F - The Reform of the Religious Field
When King Mohammed VI ascended the throne in 1999, Morocco was ready for change.
Hassan II had put in places numerous reforms throughout the 1990s, but the arrival of a young
king and the promise of greater democratic reforms was met with much enthusiasm in the
country.
Religious affairs were to take centre stage only a few years later. The 9/11 attacks were
followed in 2003 by the deadliest terrorist attacks Morocco had ever experienced, killing 45
people in Casablanca in multiple suicide bombings. The attack shattered the myth of a
“Moroccan exception” concerning Islamic terrorism, which had been especially reinforced by
contrast to the case of Algeria and its civil war during the 1990s. The fact that one year later,
the perpetrators of the 2004 Madrid train bombings included Moroccan nationals only
deepened further the impression that the Makhzen had lost control over the religious field.
In response, on 30 April 2004, King Mohammed VI pronounced a speech calling for
the “restructuration of the religious field.” The king evoked three main domains for reform in
his speech. The first was the institutional overhaul of the main state ministry in charge of
religious governance, the MHAI. This included the creation of two new departments for
174
mosques and traditional education, as well as a call for a more “modern” and “rational”
management of religious endowments (awqāf). Secondly, the king underlined the need to
reorganize local ulema councils so as to more effectively implement these religious reforms,
reaching out to youth and including women, while ensuring the monopolization of fatwas by
the Ulema High Council in order to prevent the influence of “intruders working outside the
legal institutional context.” Finally, the “keystone” of these reforms was to be seen in the
“rationalization, modernization, and unification” of Islamic education across the country,
which also singled out one institute, the Dar al-Hadith al-Hassaniyya, for significant
reorganization, notably bringing it under the administrative purview of the MHAI (King
Mohammed VI 2004).
These structural changes had already been preceded by the appointment of Ahmed
Toufiq as the new Minister of Habous and Religious Affairs in 2002, three years after
Mohammed VI came to power, which in itself had already constituted a significant message.
His predecessor, Abdelkebir Alaoui M’Daghri, had been “known for his more accommodating
views towards Wahabism [sic.]” and toleration of Saudi-trained imams during his twenty years
as minister, a stark contrast to the Sufi leader Toufiq who had been “demanding more state
control of religious public affairs” (El-Katiri 2013, 57).
A member of the boutchichiya Sufi order, Toufiq is also a university professor in history,
and has been reappointed as Minister of Habous and Islamic Affairs by the king in every
successive Moroccan government since his arrival. His appointment has led numerous scholars
to comment on the state’s move to “fight Islamic extremism with Sufism” (Al-Ashraf 2010) or
appeal to youth who have been attracted to this and other Sufi movement (El-Katiri 2013, 66).
Though generally known for its “political discretion,” the boutchichiya mobilized 250,000 to
300,000 during an enormous rally in favour of the new constitution promoted by the king in
Casablanca in June 2011, demonstrating both the impressive size of the order as well as its high
capacity to mobilize its followers (Hlaoua 2012). In promoting certain forms of Sufism, the
Makhzen has sought to create a clear model of “Moroccan Islam” in order to stave off the
advances of “foreign” visions of Islam, especially Wahhabism and Shi’ism. The Maliki School
and the Ashʿari doctrine equally serve to emphasize a distinctively national “Moroccan”
approach to Islam, which are ultimately all embodied by the king as amīr al-mu’minīn.
Toufiq’s continued presence has been made all the more possible due to the fact that the
MHAI constitutes a “sovereign ministry” (ministère de souveraineté). This status means that it
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is not the elected Moroccan government who appoints the minister, but rather the Moroccan
sovereign, who reserves himself the exclusive right to determine the ministries that should be
led by so-called “apolitical” individuals. The number of these “sovereign ministries” has
declined the last years, as Morocco has extended democratization reforms to different fields of
government. In 2007 there were still 10 sovereign ministries, while today there are only 3 that
remain: the Ministry of Defence, the Secretary-General of the Government, and, of course, the
Ministry of Habous and Islamic Affairs (Agoumi 2011).
Since 2004, the scope of the reforms targeting the religious field has been impressive.
The reform of the family code (mudawana), ratified in 2004, had been an early key element
underscoring the king’s use of his constitutional status as Commander of the Faithful, which
Tourabi considers has been “almost a return to the veritable moral, symbolic, and honorific
vocation” of the title (2011, 24). The mediatized use of the bayʿa and the continued support to
large-scale events such as the Hassanian Dialogues (causeries hassaniennes) during Ramadan,
similarly underscore the king’s role as the central figure in the Moroccan Muslim field. Indeed,
Elahmadi similarly stresses that bolstering the recognition of the king’s religious and political
centrality represents one of the main motivations for the reforms, along with promoting
“individual liberties” within a “democratic Morocco” and “reaffirming the collective identity
of the Moroccan people” (2010, 118). However, the “restructuration” has gone far beyond
symbolic moves and has targeted directly the main institutions and governance structures
regulating the relationship between the Moroccan state and the religious field. Modern
technologies have also been mobilized, such as the creation of an Islamic radio station in 2004
(which has remained one of the top radio station in the country ever since, see (A. Bennani
2013)), an Islamic television channel in 2005 (Assadissa, “the Sixth”), and the creation of
website for the MHAI in 2005. Moreover, in 2010 the king founded the Mohammed VI
Foundation for the Publication of the Holy Qur’an, which has been given the monopoly over
the publication and distribution of Qur’an copies within the country (Interview, Hamid
Hammani Al Youssi, 12 June 2011, Mohammedia).
At this point it is important to highlight that it is not just “the state,” but rather the
Makhzen (i.e. major portions of the state bureaucracy along with additional structures
controlled by the royal palace) that has been driving these reforms. Elahmadi points out that
the reorganization of the MHAI has always taken place by “royal dahir and not by ministerial
decree” (2010, 125), which can be seen throughout the preceding pages as well. In Morocco,
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the place of the king in the religious field represents a fundamentally different vision of
religious governance than in Turkey: the king is presented as an irrefutable figure of religious
authority, and the MHAI and the Ulema councils execute their tasks under his authority.
In the case of the Turkey, there has been no ultimate Islamic religious authority above
the Diyanet ever since the abolishment of the Caliphate; conversely, the Diyanet is tied to the
office of the prime minister (an elected politician) while the Turkish Constitutional Court has
declared that is not a “religious institution” (see Chapter I). Moreover, the question of who or
what the Diyanet president represents in meeting with foreign political or religious leaders
remains an issue of contention in Turkey (Gözaydın 2009, 104–105); in Morocco, there is no
similar situation. Indeed, any challenge to the legitimacy of the king as the ultimate religious
authority in the Moroccan religious field is met with suspicion and hostility by state authorities.
Consequently, this issue marks a decisive limit for groups of unofficial Islam: they can either
be coopted and align themselves with the fundamental principles supporting the Makhzen’s
religious authority (as has been the case of the PJD), refute the king’s title as amīr al-mu’minīn,
but in a non-violent manner (such as ʿAdl wal Iḥsān), or take up arms within Islamic terrorist
groups (Salafiyya Jihadiyya / Groupe Islamique Combattant Marocain, etc.) (cf. Zeghal
2005a). Hakim El Ghissassi, a current consultant for the MHAI, formulates this in more
conciliatory terms: “citizens and actors of the religious field are call upon to respect the
foundations of the Moroccan state and its political choices as incarnated by the institution of
the Imārat al-mu’minīn and the path to democracy” (2006, 146).
Consequently, the king has been present at all levels, defining the content of “Moroccan
Islam” and delegating the execution of reforms to the MHAI, which is responsible for the
administrative governance of the religious field, and the Ulema councils, which are responsible
for the theological governance of the religious field (Interview, M. Rifki I, 30 May 2001,
Rabat). The Moroccan state has increasingly moved towards a system in which imams and
religious personnel are treated as public employees, a well-known configuration in Muslim
countries which had once been part of the Ottoman Empire, such as Turkey and Algeria, but
which hitherto had never been a distinctive feature of state-Islam relations in Morocco. An
important element of this has been an extensive educational programme called the “Ulema
Pact” (mithaq al-ʿulamā’), which was launched in 2008 in order to “raise the level” (mettre à
niveau) of the 44,000-46,000 imams across the country (El-Katiri 2013, 58–59). Within the
framework of this programme, approximately 1,500 official ulema – who are named by the
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Ulema High Council – organize two monthly meetings with 40 local imams in urban and rural
communities (Au Fait 2011; El Ghissassi 2008).
At the same time, another programme was created in 2005 in order to train a new
generation of religious leaders. 50 women and 150 men are selected every year for this 1-year
programme, during which they receive a scholarship of 2,000 dirhams (approximately 180
euros) a month and is assigned to work in a mosque or other Islamic institutions (Borrillo 2009,
8–9). These new religious officials assist the aforementioned ulema within the “Ulema Pact”
programme as well (El Ghissassi 2008). The training of female preachers (murshidat) has
attracted particular attention, and the first group finished their training in 2005. These female
religious officials were acclaimed by the Moroccan media as “the new face of Moroccan Islam:
moderate, tolerant, and modern” (in Dirèche 2010, 1000), and represent an important change
in asserting a female presence amongst religious authorities in the country, and raising
interesting possibilities for new directions in Qur’anic interpretation (Borrillo 2009, 24).
However, they also continue to represent the “Moroccan politico-religious situation in which
it is still the state that remains the sole legitimate actor for actions and decisions concerning the
slow emancipation of women” (Dirèche 2010, 111).
The role of imams in Morocco has been further defined in recent years by administrative
texts and royal decrees. For instance, a model work contract for imams and preachers to be
hired by the MHAI was published as a ministerial decree in 2006, and stipulates the work
conditions as well as the corresponding echelon within the public administration pay scale that
corresponds to religious officials (Kingdom of Morocco 2006). Furthermore, the MHAI has
elaborated a “Guide for Imams, Khaṭībs, and Preachers,” easily accessible online on the
MHAI’s website in both French and Arabic (Ministère des Habous et des Affaires Islamiques
2013a). As a top official of the MHAI told me, the “Guide for Imams” was written in order to
“better codify the role of the imam,” because the imam “is there to guide the prayers, he’s there
to enlighten people. But he’s not there to take hold of the mosque, he’s there to solve problems.
From that point of view, the imam can’t be a supporter of any [political] party, because he has
to be the imam of everyone” (Interview, M. Rifki I). However, some imams have complained
that this guide is “full of religious and political directives that are not precise,” and that the
MHAI uses it to justify the dismissal of “rebellious” imams (Hari 2012). Indeed, this aspect
has been especially reinforced recently with a new dahir in 2014, which prohibits imams from
being members of a union or political party while creating for the first time a “legal and
178
administrative framework” for religious personnel (officially called préposés religieux /
qayyim al-dīnī) (Bencherki 2014).
The ongoing “officialization” of imams has even been accompanied by street protests
from mosque imams for the first time in the history of the country (qualified as a “revolution”
by Al Jazeera and the magazine Telquel (Al Jazeera 2011; Hari 2012)). In 2011, a group of 50
imams from around the country calling themselves the “National Council of the Family of
Mosques” (Rābiṭa al-Waṭaniyya al-Usra al-Masājid) displayed slogans outside the parliament
calling for less strict surveillance of the Friday sermons and higher salaries (La Vie Éco 2011).
During my field interviews, MHAI officials were careful to emphasize that these were not
“salaries,” given that religious officials are not public employees (as in Turkey, Algeria, etc.).
Nevertheless, the MHAI provides different levels of “allowances” to imams in the country,
which have risen exponentially over the last years: from 60 million dirhams (5.5 million euros)
allocated to religious officials in 2004, the MHAI now spends 740 million dirhams (67.5
million euros) in allowances for imams and other religious personnel (Badrane 2014).
As reported on the MHAI’s website, this evolution was came about following a major
decision was made in 2009 that attributed an extra 541 million dirhams (49 million euros) to
“improve the situation of mosque imams” by providing an across-the-board increase of 300
dirhams to all categories of imams. The monthly sums received by the imams in Morocco
depends on the category to which they correspond: the first category are the mosque imams
who are fully taken in charge by the MHAI, representing between 8,000 and 14,000 individuals
out of the approximately 46,000 imams in the country (Hari 2012; Ministère des Habous et des
Affaires Islamiques 2009b). This first category of mosque imams receive a minimum
allowance of 1,100 dirhams a month, along with a 500-dirham supplement for those filled the
role of khaṭīb, while another 400 dirhams are allocated to imams who are equally muezzins,
that is to say who are responsible for performing the call to prayer. The second category,
comprising the 38,000 or so remaining mosque imams, are paid by the mosque association,
benefactors, or the local community through a “chart,” on top of which they receive an
allowance of 800 dirhams from state authorities (La Vie Éco 2011; Ministère des Habous et
des Affaires Islamiques 2009b); however, in many cases the state funds do not seem to have
materialized (Hari 2012).
After another revision in 2012, another 208 million dirhams (19 million euros) were
allocated “on high royal instructions” so as extend the monthly 800-dirham allowance to a total
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of 46,265 imams (Ministère des Habous et des Affaires Islamiques 2012b). In the years
thereafter, further increases have come for ulema council members (Jaabouk 2013a) and
muezzins (Le Matin 2014). Finally, aside from the numerous increases in financial allowances
to religious officials, a special foundation was created to respond to the social needs of religious
officials in 2010: the Fondation Mohammed VI Pour la Promotion des Oeuvres Sociales des
Préposés Religieux (Mohammed VI Foundation for the Promotion of the Social Conditions of
Religious Officials).
The MHAI’s Director of the Department of Mosques Abdelaziz Deriouche has stated
that the goal is not to turn mosque imams and religious personnel into state employees, and as
mentioned above numerous MHAI refuted this term during the interviews conducted for this
thesis. Deriouche goes on to add that “our country does not want the construction of mosques,
their management and their functioning, to be a prerogative of the state – as was done in Tunisia
and Algeria” (in La Vie Éco 2011). Nevertheless, considering the ever-rising direct financial
support provided by the state as well as the fact that thousands of imams hold a status as
contractual employees of the MHAI, it seems more than safe to argue that the current reforms
of the religious field have led to an increasing “officialization” of religious personnel as state
employees in Morocco.
Aside from the imams, the reforms of the religious field have targeted in particular the
Moroccan ulema. As El-Katiri point outs, the state has asked the ulema to be front and centre
in order to “provide guidance to Imams, and combat religious radicalism, Wahabism and
Shiism” (2013, 58). Indeed, the second volley of reforms of the religious field was officially
launched during a speech delivered by King Mohammed VI in front of the Ulema High Council
and the assembled provincial ulema council in 2008. Not only did the “Ulema Chart” begin
after this point, but the king also announced that the “League of Moroccan Ulema” was to be
reorganized and renamed the “Mohammadian League of Ulema” (though the dahir had already
been promulgated in 2006), with the goal of supporting scholarly research through its “13
research centers,” “7 journals and numerous themed books” (Personal Communication, Rabita
Mohammedia des Oulémas, 10 June 2011, Rabat). The reorganization and expansion of the
ulema councils had already begun in 2004, growing rapidly from 18 to 83 local councils by
2010 (Filali-Ansary 2010), and these councils were joined by the first such council outside
Moroccan borders in 2008, with the creation of the European Council of Moroccan Ulema
(Conseil Européen des Oulémas Marocains, CEOM) (for more, see Chapter VI).
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The question of fatwas has been a particularly difficult issue for the MHAI, which has
hesitated in the leeway that ought to be given to independent ulema. In 2008, the Wahhabi
Sheikh Al-Maghraoui came out with a fatwa authorizing the marriage of 9-year old girls,
drawing widespread media attention and condemnation (Aujourd’hui le Maroc 2008). In
response, the Minister of Habous Ahmed Toufiq stated that “it’s enough to put the author [of
the fatwa] in his place with proper scholarly response. On another level, it’s up to the judge to
decide the seriousness of these remarks to public order and peoples’ common conscious” (in
Filali-Ansary 2010). Al-Maghraoui’s Qur’an schools (mentioned above) had already been
closed or issued warnings in the past, and were shut down once again in 2013 by the MHAI
(El Azizi 2013).
The influence of “foreign fatwas,” such as those inspired by Saudi Arabian Wahhabi
currents, are looked on with suspicion by Moroccan state authorities. Consequently, they have
attempted to establish a more “institutionalized” framework for ijtihad (Islamic jurisprudence),
notably attributing the right to issue fatwas exclusively to the Ulema High Council (El-Katiri
2013, 59–60; cf. Toufiq in Filali-Ansary 2010). Nevertheless, at time the minister has still had
to play word games: for instance, when the Ulema High Council seemed at one point to endorse
execution for Muslim apostates, Toufiq was forced to re-explain the council’s position in
parliament, while also stating that it was “an opinion, not a fatwa” (Le Matin 2013). Indeed,
despite the division of labour between the MHAI (administrative issues) and the ulema councils
(theological issues) in the governance of religious affairs in Morocco, on more than one
occasion it has been made clear that it is the Minister of Habous who controls the religious
field and the direction of Moroccan religious public policies, as a proxy of the king.
The electoral victory that brought the PJD to power in 2011 has not had any far-reaching
impact on the restructuration of the religious field, which remains firmly under the control of
the king and the MHAI. On the one hand, the Islamic movement that is behind the PJD, the
Movement for Unity and Reform (MUR), came out in support of the state reforms in an official
statement released in 2005 (El-Katiri 2013, 64). On the other hand, religious affairs remain
essential to the establishing the legitimacy of the king (amīr al-mu’minīn), meaning that despite
the democratization of numerous domains of Moroccan social and political life, it is highly
doubtful that elected leaders will ever be able to wrest control over religious governance from
the king without challenging the very foundations of the monarchy (and the state) itself. As a
result, the Mahkzen remains in control of defining the limits between official and unofficial
Islam, as well as the content of legitimate religious authority in the Moroccan Muslim field.
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G - Conclusion
This chapter has provided an overview of relations between Islam and the state in Morocco,
focusing on official Islam, as represented by state religious institutions, and its relationships
with unofficial Islamic actors in the religious and political fields. The overall goal has been to
emphasize four main points, which are fundamental for understanding the religious policy
employed by both states towards Turkish and Moroccan communities abroad, and specifically
in Germany and France.
The first is that the content of official Islam is not static: the boundaries with unofficial
Islam are both unpredictable and circumstantial. Over the last century in both Turkey and
Morocco, “Islam” has been mobilized discursively by numerous actors in order to justify a
wide variety of (sometimes contradictory) ideas. The very diversity of claims which the Islamic
religion can ostensibly support demonstrates that no one given course of action can be
attributed to a supposed inherent quality of the religion. Instead, as is the case with most
political science research, I consider that the main focus must remain on the specific interests
of social and political actors, in light of the temporal and spatial contexts in which they operate.
Second, alliances change. Unofficial currents are not necessarily enemies of the state:
they may be temporary allies, indifferent outsiders, or may themselves be coopted and tolerated
– especially when the state is faced with more dangerous alternatives. As seen in the Turkish
case, all the actors of unofficial Turkish Islam have at some point been members of the state
religious establishment. Similarly, the Moroccan state support for Wahhabism starting in the
1960s may have derived in part from an older tradition of Salafism in the country, but the
decision to begin tacitly encouraging Wahhabism at that particular time was the result of a clear
political strategy against leftist movements. Similarly, abandoning this support after 2004 was
also the result of a political decision, this time based on national security concerns. Given this
analysis, I believe that the best definition for “official Islam” in the case of these two countries
is the form of Islam which best suits state interests at a precise moment in time, and which is
subject to changing political conditions. It may come as no surprise that official Islam remains
subordinate to state political interests in both Turkey and Morocco; however, my main point in
saying this is to state clearly at the beginning of this thesis that the content of official Islam can
and does change. Consequently, it is impossible to generalize on the position of Turkish or
Moroccan official Islam abroad without having a good grasp of the evolutions which affect the
political and religious fields in both these countries.
182
Third, despite the above emphasis on political interests, this chapter has also
demonstrated another central tenet of my thesis. Namely, that religious interests – that is to say,
interests specific to actors of the religious field – do exist, and notably can be seen in the
policies pursued by state instances of religious governance, such as the Diyanet and the MHAI.
This assertion is not meant to assume that religious actors cannot have political interests, or
that they are unaware of the political consequences of their actions. However, as Bramadat
states,
it is rather problematic to treat the religious claims of a group as though they in fact
represent political, economic, or idiosyncratic objectives […] that are secreted into
public discourse in the Trojan horse of religion” and believing that “ ‘such people’
are immature subjects incapable of seeing and employing distinctions between
religious, economic, and political categories of thought and behaviour” (2009, 15).
In this vein, I consider the concepts of religious interests and Muslim fields to be both necessary
theoretical tools for the analysis of my topic, as well as concepts which more appropriately
reflect the field work that I have conducted during this thesis.
Moreover, this perspective underlines the importance of understanding the internal
functioning of these institutions, the actors who make them run, as well as the policy
instruments they have at their disposal in order to carry out the missions that have been
attributed. For instance, the distinction between the Moroccan ulema councils and the MHAI
represents a division a labour within the governance of Islam that is reproduced abroad in the
transnational Moroccan Muslim field. More broadly speaking, the Makhzen’s strategy of
coopting non-state religious actors instead of developing more extensive institutions and
organizations has had a long-term impact on its approach to the Muslim field abroad; indeed,
this has only begun to change since 2004, along with the reform of the religious field. Finally,
the new theological outlook promoted by the state that portrays “Moroccan Islam” as a mix
between the Maliki School, the Ash’ari doctrine, elements of Sufism, and the central role of
the king (amīr al-mu’minīn), contributes directly to the properly religious debates that occur
within Muslim fields both at home and in Western Europe.
The following chapters will demonstrate further how I analyze the distinction between
religious and political interests; however, the last two chapters have already demonstrated how
this difference in vision may explain interministerial conflicts on specific issues, as well as the
numerous attempts by religious actors to organize themselves within and outside of statecontrolled structures. Each national context has its own specificities, but in both the Turkish
183
and Moroccan cases there is a recurrent tension concerning the legitimacy of religious
authorities and their relationship with state authorities. Movements of unofficial Islam that
openly contest the government in place run the risk of undermining their own legitimacy if they
begin to cooperate more openly with state authorities. This situation can obviously change if
and when the government itself changes.
At the same time, the state remains a formidable force of legitimization, and having the
rubber stamp of approval from a state religious institution can thus have the effect of conferring
legitimacy in the religious field as well. This mode of securing religious legitimacy is
reminiscent of Weber’s concept of legal-rational authority, in that the state-employed imam
does not necessarily need to be charismatic or have inherited his function from his ancestors in
order to be accepted by his mosque community. However, it includes the caveat that believers
must also more generally support the state. In the case of Morocco, this analysis is rendered
more complicated in that individuals may not think highly of politicians or ministers, but
nevertheless support the amīr al-mu’minīn, and the minister he appoints to lead the MHAI. In
Turkey, many believers are reassured by the fact that the Diyanet is a state institution, as it is
this quality which ostensibly ensures that it remains “neutral” and operates in the interest of
the general public, as opposed to other Islamic currents which pursue their own private
interests. These examples of state-linked strategies of legitimization for religious authorities
are highly significant, as they represent distinct national modalities which both Morocco and
Turkey have exported abroad to the Muslim religious fields of France and Germany.
In keeping with these national modalities, the fourth main point is that Islam remains
intricately tied to national identity, though with an underlying ambiguity and tension. Despite
the fact that the transnational ummah is acknowledged by state religious actors, the policies
pursued by Turkey and Morocco, both at home and abroad, do not go in this direction. Instead,
the principal goal of political actors using Islam in diaspora policies is to shore up home state
nationalism, something which is echoed by most state religious actors, for whom these ties
between religion and national identity are equally inseparable. Consequently, when it comes to
Turkish and Moroccan communities abroad, the result has been the promotion of a nationalized
vision of Islam, in which language, culture, and ethnicity are all mixed in, recreating national
boundaries within transnational religious fields. The pursuit of such policies has had significant
consequences for the development of the Muslim fields in France and Germany, and will be
explored in the next chapters.
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III - Post-War Migration and the Development of State
Religious Services Abroad
The story of the Turkish and Moroccan Muslim fields in France and Germany, and more
broadly in Western Europe, is intrinsically tied to the waves of labour migration that began at
the beginning of the 1960s. Following the Second World War, Western Europe experienced
rapid economic growth, which has since achieved legendary status as the Trente Glorieuses in
France and the Wirtschaftswunder in Germany. As a result, many Western European countries
found themselves facing significant labour shortages, especially in the industrial sector, which
could not be filled by the internal labour markets.
While countries such as France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom had already
seen migration from their colonial empires to the métropole at the beginning of the 20th century,
following WWII this phenomenon underwent an enormous change. This was due to the official
labour recruitment agreements which were signed between these Western European states and
the governments of their former colonies, as in the case of Morocco and France in June of 1963.
Furthermore, the scope of post-war labour migration extended far beyond colonial ties: in fact,
Morocco had already signed a similar agreement the same year with Germany one month
beforehand, followed by Belgium in 1965, and the Netherlands in 1969 (Daoud 2011, 41–43).
For Turkey, which had never been colonized by any European power, the first such
agreement was signed in 1961 with Germany. Germany already had experience in this domain,
as it had been receiving Gastarbeiter (“guest workers”) since 1955, thanks to agreements
concluded with Italy, Spain, and Greece. Turkey’s agreement with Germany was followed by
similar agreements with Austria, Belgium, and the Netherlands in 1964, France in 1965, and
Switzerland in 1967. However, the global economic downturn brought on by the oil crisis of
1973 pushed Western European states to unilaterally impose visa restrictions and bring a stop
to their foreign labour recruitment programmes in 1974. After this point, migration to Western
Europe from countries such as Turkey and Morocco continued as illegal immigration, or within
the framework of family reunification programmes. This latter development eventually led to
the permanent settlement of labour migrants and their families in Western European countries.
In Turkey, these labour migration agreements added an international dimension to an
ongoing “massive rural exodus” which had already begun in the 1950s (Guillou and Wadbled
2007, 12). The demographics of this first wave of migrants was thus geographically diverse,
185
including many different regions of Anatolia, but fairly uniform in that it was composed of
single or recently married men. The vast majority of these guest workers were not highly
educated, came from rural regions, and in general had no plans to settle abroad permanently.
Indeed, in the beginning both Turkish and Western European public authorities, as well as the
workers themselves, considered this labour migration to be a short-term affair, which would
end in a win-win situation for all sides. Thus it was assumed that the German (or French, etc.)
economy would have the extra labour force that its economy required, and Turkey would
develop faster thanks to the money, experience, and skills that its workers had gained abroad.
Indeed, this was the view of former Turkish Prime Minister and President Süleyman Demirel,
as he confirmed in an interview in 2008 (in Diekmann and Özkök 2008, 64). As for the workers
themselves, “their main aim was to earn and save money which would enable them to buy
property in the homeland and establish a better future for their families” (Yurdakul 2009, 26).
Small-scale Turkish immigration to Germany had already begun in the 1950s, tied to job
training and internship programmes led by the business community, and facilitated by private
groups, such as the Institute for Research in Turkish-German Economic Affairs, founded in
1959. However, this private sector involvement would be short-lived, as the German Federal
Agency for Employment and Social Insurance decided against relying on intermediaries, and
instead opted to regulate labour migration from Turkey directly through an interstate agreement
(Abadan-Unat 2007, 4). This agreement was signed following the 1960 coup d’état in Turkey,
which had led to a new constitution in which the right to travel freely was granted for the first
time to Turkish citizens. Once signed, the interstate recruitment programmes met with a
resounding success: by the end of the decade, the number of Turks in Germany had risen to
322,400, and by 1971 Turks had surpassed Italians, Yugoslavs, Greeks, and Spaniards to
become the largest group of foreign nationals in Germany, which has continued to be the case
to this day (in Statistisches Bundesamt 1974, 52). There are approximately 2.5 million people
in Germany today who either hold Turkish citizenship (1.5 million) or are German citizens of
Turkish descent (1 million), representing around 3% of the total population in Germany
(Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge 2009). The vast majority of these German-Turks
live in the Länder of former West Germany (Statistisches Bundesamt 2013a, 8), especially in
urban settings, while some cities are particularly well known for their Turkish neighbourhoods,
such as Berlin and Cologne (see Map III-1 below).
186
Figure III-1 “Foreigners in Germany, 1969-2012”
2500
Population (in thousands)
2000
Turkish
Italian
1500
Former Yugoslavia
Greek
Spanish
1000
Portuguese
Russian Federation
500
Moroccan
0
1969 1975 1980 1985 1995 2000 2012
The meaning of the term “former Yugoslavia” changed frequently during the 1990s. I have continued using it here
to refer to Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia, Croatia, and Slovenia. Statistics for the
Russian Federation begin in 1992. Elaborated by author. Sources: Statistisches Jahrbuch für die BRD, 1970-2013,
(Daoud 2011, 258), for the numbers on Moroccans in 1985.
187
Map III-1 “Turkish Citizens in Germany, 2013”
188
In the case of France, where the Convention de main d’oeuvre entre la France et la
Turquie had been signed in 1965, it was not until the 1970s that the number of Turks would
begin to rise significantly: whereas in 1968 there were only 7,628 Turkish nationals in France,
by 1975 there were 50,860 (INSEE 2013). The Turkish population continued to steadily rise
over the years, becoming the fourth-largest group of foreign nationals in France in 1999
(INSEE 2013). Nevertheless, the number of Turks has remained relatively small when
compared with migrants from former colonial French North Africa (Algeria, Morocco, and
Tunisia), as well as compared with Italians, Spaniards and Portuguese migrants.75According to
French statistics, there were 219,534 Turkish foreigners in France in 2011; on the other hand,
Turkish governmental sources systematically count dual nationals, explaining why there were
already 340,00 in 2003 (Baş, Gülçiçek, and Fatsa 2003, 20) and upwards of 580,000 in 2013
(Personal Communication, Turkish Diplomat, 4 April 2013, Paris). The majority of these
Franco-Turks are to be found in and around Paris, the Eastern region of Alsace-Lorraine, the
city of Lyon and the Rhône-Alpes region, and Lille and the North region (see Map III-2 below).
After Germany and the Netherlands, the third-largest community of Turks living abroad is
found in France.
This relative “rise” of Turkish citizens as one of the largest groups of foreign nationals in France is
also related to a lower relative number of naturalizations when compared with other migrants.
75
189
Map III-2 “Turkish Citizens in France, 2009”
190
Figure III-2 “Foreigners in France, 1968-2011”
900
800
Population (in thousands)
700
Algerian
600
Moroccan
500
Tunisian
Turkish
400
Italian
300
Spanish
200
Portuguese
100
0
1968
1975
1982
1990
1999
2011
Elaborated by author. Sources: INSEE 2013.
Moroccan labour migration was no different, in that neither workers, home state, nor
receiving state authorities believed that it would become a permanent phenomenon. As in the
case of Turkish migrants, these migration patterns were in fact the “extension of multiple
internal migration processes,” resulting from precarious economic conditions and substantial
demographic growth, which led to a rural exodus and rapid urbanization (Lamchichi 1999,
148–149). The workers who arrived in France between 1967 and 1980 were for the most part
unskilled labourers (47%) and specialized workers (36.7%), who generally came from poorer
regions of the country, such in the South and the East, and worked in construction (28%),
agriculture and forestry (21.5%), and other hard-labour industries (Granges 1982, 144–146).
In Germany, non-Francophone Berbers from the mountainous north-eastern Rif region made
up the vast majority of immigrants, as was the case in the Netherlands and Belgium. These
migrants had grown up under the Spanish protectorate, and thus had no prior link to France.
Representing over 70% of Moroccans in Germany in 1975, migrants from the Rif were valued
by recruiters searching for workers with experience in the mining industry (Schüttler 2007,
191
6,11). Moreover, Moroccan authorities saw migration as a “safety valve” for the notoriously
rebellious region, and hoped that it would “decrease unrest” (de Haas 2007, 8–10).
Moroccan migration to France before the 1960s had long existed under the protectorate,
but had been limited to education for the Moroccan élites and small-scale labour migration,
along with specific events such as the two World Wars. The 1963 agreement had an immediate
impact on the number of Moroccans in France, doubling the number of entries per year.
Between 1967 and 1974, on average 19,000 Moroccan workers arrived every year in France,
and the overall population rose from 16,458 in 1946 to 84,236 in 1968, and to 260,025 in 1975
– the year after labour immigration was officially halted (Granges 1982, 144; INSEE 2013).
Nevertheless, Moroccans in France (along with Tunisians) were perceived as part of the
category of “Maghrébins,” which was dominated in the French imaginary by the numericallysuperior Algerians. It was not until the 1980s that the number of Moroccan nationals would
equal that of other European migrant groups (Italians and Spaniards), and it was only in 1990s
that they rose to be on par with the two largest migrants groups in France (Algerians and
Portuguese) (INSEE 2013; see Figure III-2). Today, Moroccans citizens continue to represent
one of the largest immigrant groups in France. According to Moroccan consular services they
and their descendants number 1,146,652 in 2012, and French statistics show they Morocco
citizens are present in all major French cities: Paris and its suburbs, the Eastern regions of
Alsace and Lorraine, Lille and the surrounding north, Lyon, Bordeaux, all along the
Mediterranean coast, and in Corsica (see Map III-3 below).
192
Map III-3 “Moroccan Citizens in France, 2009”
193
In Germany, the Moroccan population was and remains relatively quite small when
compared with other migrant groups (see Figure III-1). Moroccan citizens represent
approximately 1% of foreigners in Germany today, having risen from an overall 22,400 in 1974
to 63,584 in 2012 (Statistisches Bundesamt 2013b, 40). Nevertheless, once dual-nationals are
included the number doubles to well over 120,000, meaning that Moroccans represent the
largest group originating from an Arab country and constitute the fourth-largest nationality
amongst Muslims in Germany (after Turks, Bosnians, and Iranians) (Bundesrepublik
Deutschland 2006, 8; Schüttler 2007, 7). According to Moroccan law, it is impossible for a
Moroccan citizen to renounce his or her citizenship. Moreover, citizenship is automatically
granted to the children of male Moroccan citizens, as well as to female citizens since the reform
of the Nationality Law in 2007. Since there are no legal means to renounce one’s citizenship,
as is in the case of other nationalities (most notably Turks), this state of affairs has simply been
accepted by German authorities, explaining the high number of dual nationals (Interview,
German Embassy Cultural Attaché, 5 June 2011, Rabat). The majority of Moroccans in
Germany live in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and Hessen, followed by Bavaria
and Baden-Württemberg (see Map III-4 below).
194
Map III-4 “Moroccan Citizens in Germany, 2013”
195
A - Labour Migration, Diasporas, and Muslim Fields
The large waves of Turkish and Moroccan migration to Western Europe that have occurred
since the 1960s have been at the heart of the creation of new diasporas. The word itself has
changed significantly in meaning over the last decades.
Having long referred to a shared traumatic experience and forced migration, such as in
the Jewish or Armenian cases, today the use of the term “ethno-national diasporas” has become
much more widespread. Moreover, especially in academic circles it is used at times to refer to
very divergent cases (Sheffer 2003, 8–13). As Gamlen highlights, the “current consensus” on
this term seems to be: “dispersion to two or more locations; ongoing orientation towards a
“homeland”; and group boundary maintenance over time” (2008b, 3–4). Nevertheless, the use
of the term diaspora itself is by no means innocuous. As opposed to scholars who use it to
simply describe a pre-existing state of affairs, Dufoix points out that there are important
political implications of employing such a term. In his research, he argues that the word
“diaspora” has become part of a distinct vocabulary used by states in order to imagine the
totality of their citizens living abroad as if belonging to one community (Dufoix, Guerassimoff,
and de Tinguy 2010, 51).
The decision to conceive of the “community abroad” in this fashion has important
implications, as it creates the appearance of shared group identity and a degree of
organizational unity, both for those who are ostensibly within the group and those outside it.
Not surprisingly, due to the lack of a territorial reference point, the political tension concerning
this question often revolves around the definitions used in order to include or exclude
individuals from membership. In keeping with Benedict Anderson’s characterization of
nationalism as an “imagined community” (1991), the debate in this context is over who is doing
the imagining, and for what purpose.
The postmodern novelty in this case is that the discursive and administrative creation of
these “diasporas” creates new transnational possibilities. On the one hand, these migrations,
along with globalization and its technological advances in transport and communications, have
made possible different forms of transnationalized belonging, which reinforce and preserve
nationalism outside of the nation-state’s borders. This development has been given different
names, depending on the goals and the types of situations in which such forms of nationalism
have arisen. In his typology of nationalisms, Gellner speaks of “diaspora nationalism,” though
for him it corresponds to a set of historical cases which are quite distinct from the guest worker
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migrants under discussion here. For Gellner, diaspora nationalism refers to economically wellpositioned minorities such as Jews, Greeks, or Armenians, who, when faced with the rise of
modern nationalism in the 19th-20th centuries, had to decide between assimilation or the
creation of their own brand of nationalism, with the ultimate goal of creating a nation-state
(1983, 101–109).
More recently, Anderson has spoken of “long-distance nationalism,” which focuses on
how ethnic and civil conflicts (Tamils in Sri Lanka, Catholics in Northern Ireland, Sikhs in
India) can be sustained by financial, material, and moral support, coming from ethnic kin
groups who reside in other countries (1992, 11–12). Basch et al. move beyond the sole question
of diasporas and conflict, and take a social anthropological approach to understanding the
“transnationalism” of “transmigrants,” in terms of lived experiences between “home” and
“host” countries and the formation of identities (1994, 8). Their work has been complemented
by Kastoryano, who provides the useful distinction between “diaspora nationalism,” which she
defines as nationalism which lacks a territorial reference point (such as in Gellner’s examples),
and “transnational nationalism,” where migrants’ nationalism is an extension of that of an
already existing territorial nation-state (such as for Turks or Moroccans) (2004b; 2006, 537–
539). Sheffer also points out this difference, using the terms “state-linked diaspora” and
“stateless diaspora” (2003, 23).
On the other hand, Gamlen argues that the formulation of policy towards diasporas
“(re)produce[s] citizen-sovereign relationships with expatriates, thus transnationalizing
governmentality” (2006, 4–5).76 This view is shared by Ragazzi, who proposes a Foucauldian
methodology for analyzing diaspora policies by focusing on the techniques used by states to
“know” and govern diasporas abroad (2009, 383–387). In this thesis, I follow the same general
philosophy, positing from the start that the Turkish and Moroccan diasporas are not simply
“there,” waiting to be looked after. I similarly posit that they are created, perceived, and acted
on by different logics of government, which are rooted in specific historical contexts and
channelled through different state institutions.
Speaking of a “diaspora” enables the state to formulate policies through the creation of
an administrative category. For the two home states which I consider in this study, this term
represents a fundamental point of comparison. In both cases, the “diaspora” in question has
“Governmentality” here is to be understood as theorized by Michel Foucault, that is to say “the means
by which a population is rendered governable, through the construction, machination, and normalization
of a set of governmental apparatuses and knowledges” (Gamlen 2006, 5).
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become a global phenomenon, driven by the globalization of the world economy and not solely
by historical frameworks related to earlier international ties or colonial pasts. As mentioned
earlier, this is one of the main reasons for why I do not focus on Algeria in this thesis. Despite
their very different histories, Turkey and Morocco are both faced with an extremely diverse set
of countries in which their citizens and their descendants now reside.
First and foremost, this refers to the large number of countries in Western Europe which
have significant populations of Turkish and Moroccan origin. On the other hand, this
“diaspora” has also grown to include “classical immigration countries” (Castles and Miller
2003, 5) such as the United States, Canada, and Australia, as well as the Middle East, which
has special economic and historical ties to both countries. This global diversity forces both
Turkey and Morocco to engage in a unique crossing of foreign politics and internal policy in
the formulation of its diaspora policies. In other words, once the “diaspora” has been created
as a distinct object of state action, a set of across-the-board policies can be subsequently
established, providing a general framework for the relations between the state and “its”
diaspora. This general framework of state-diaspora relations thus co-exists with the foreign
policy interests of the state, along with the potential for a variable degree of friction between
the two. To be clear, my usage of the term “diaspora” in this thesis is not an attempt to affirm
that Turks or Moroccans living abroad (along with their descendants) form respectively distinct
and homogenous communities. Rather, I use it in order to focus on the policies which have
been elaborated by state institutions on the basis of what the diaspora is believed to be.
Despite this caveat, it is true that the discursive creation of such diasporas has also been
the work of academics, who have similarly come to use this term as a way of coping with the
ethnic, linguistic, economic, and religious diversity of migrant populations. The history of this
“community abroad” is commonly presented through the “waves” of migration which have
been instrumental in its creation. In the case of the Turkish diaspora, one of its foremost
scholars, Nermin Abadan-Unat, identifies five main stages of development during each decade:
(1) individual and private initiatives in the 1950s, already mentioned above; (2) the interstate
labour agreements of the 1960s; (3) the halt of labour migration in the 1970s, and the beginning
of family reunification programmes; (4) the rise in asylum demands; visa requirements; and
issues related to initial settlement during the 1980s; (5) and the development of new laws,
identities, and methods of organization through associations in the 1990s (2011, 1–38).
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Ural Manço equally puts the emphasis on a few main distinguishing features: the initial
rural exodus of an underqualified labour migration starting in the 1960s; the settlement of
migrants abroad, and the increasing number of political exiles from 1973 and into the 1980s;
and the demographic impact of family reunification programmes, which ended what had once
been an overwhelmingly male-dominated labour migration and led to the definitive creation of
a Turkish minority in Europe (2012, 121–125). Indeed, the demographic shift that occurred in
the 1970s was so significant that in one article De Tapia presents just two phases of Turkish
emigration: before 1974, and after (1989, 256–257).
Despite many earlier antecedents in the French colonial context, the main waves of
migration which have contributed to the creation of today’s Moroccan “diaspora” follow a
similar pattern. As in the case of the Turks, the core was constituted by those migrants who left
as a result of interstate labour agreements in the 1960s and up until 1974, and those who
emigrated through family reunification programmes in the years thereafter. At the same time,
another important similarity was that each decade was “marked by a series of contestations”
within the country, and the oppressive measures adopted by the Moroccan state during the
années de plomb contributed to new forms of politically-motivated migration (Belbah and
Veglia 2005, 39). Well up until the 1990s, the migratory field abroad thus offered an opportune
space for contestatory political and religious movements that could not operate with the same
freedom in Morocco.
In both Turkey and Morocco, the construction of the “diaspora” by state institutions as a
distinct object of state policy similarly occurred from the 1960s onwards. However, given its
nature as a construct, an analysis of its content is necessarily dependent on a number of
contextual elements. This means, firstly, that I fully agree with Gamlen that diaspora policies
must be seen as a “constellation of institutional and legislative arrangements and programmes
that come into being at different times, for different reasons, and operate across different
timescales at different levels within home-states” (2006, 4). In order to avoid speaking too
generally about diaspora policies, it is necessary to adopt a “neopluralist” perspective which
recognizes the roles played by different state institutions and political actors, as well as the
“unequal power relations” between them (Fitzgerald 2006, 260). For instance, one initial
perspective adopted in both Turkey and Morocco considered this group of international labour
migrants as a boon in terms of potential economic gain – specifically in the form of remittances
and returning experienced workers. Accordingly, numerous home state institutions were
needed in order to coordinate the transfer of funds, the organization of practical issues for
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workers (visas, official documents, etc.), and potentially facilitate their return to the national
labour force after a period of time abroad.
On the other hand, the diaspora could represent a danger. It constituted an uncontrolled
space in which dissent could be organized and through which all manner of ‘foreign ideologies’
might be introduced back into the homeland. This meant a wholly different set of institutions
were needed, such as security and intelligence services, in coordination with the corresponding
home state ministries, which were given the task of keeping an eye on the activities of the
workers abroad. As shown in Chapters I and II, the 1970s and 1980s in Turkey and Morocco
marked a period of heightened security concerns for the state, which moved to coopt, stifle, or
outright destroy groups which were considered capable of posing a potential threat. The general
context of the Cold War, the Iranian Islamic Revolution, and the growing mujahidin movement
during the Soviet War in Afghanistan, all played a role in convincing state leaders that civil
society movements could not be left to operate outside the purview of state surveillance.
Indeed, such movements, whether taking their roots in ethnic identitarian claims (Berbers,
Kurds), Marxist ideology, or Islamic scripture – or a mix thereof –, were rarely seen as
genuinely emanating from some kind of civil society. Rather, they were cast as foreign agents,
operating on behalf of malevolent external powers, in an attempt to invalidate their demands
and strip them of all possible legitimacy.
The Turkish and Moroccan state perception of Islam within the diaspora replicated this
conflicting vision. As a result, changes in the state’s religious diaspora policy over time have
reflected both changes in the perceived composition of the diaspora, as well as larger
developments in internal politics and foreign policy in both countries. As already outlined in
Chapter I, the development of an official Islam employed by the state for political purposes in
both countries had been used to anchor the legitimacy of those in power, especially in Morocco,
and define a specific idea of national identity, especially in Turkey. Both states have attempted
to control the religious field (rarely successfully) by setting the rules, as well as the boundaries,
of what constitutes legitimate religious authority and the place it should occupy in society.
Consequently, I define religious diaspora policy as the set of policies adopted by specific state
institutions with the aim of determining what constitutes legitimate religious authority within
the Muslim field of “their” diaspora abroad.
This definition draws attention to the competition which emerged as labour migrants
found themselves in new Western European contexts where their religious practice was not
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pre-determined by prevailing social or institutional practices. The utter lack of any Islamic
religious infrastructure in the great majority of cases meant great difficulties for those who
wished to continue practising their religion, but it also offered opportunities for groups which
saw the potential for growth within a captive market. The extension of the Turkish and
Moroccan Muslim Fields to other countries meant the “transplantation” abroad of many
unofficial Islamic movement and currents (Dassetto and Bastenier 1984), a number of which
became well-organized within the diaspora years before home state linked mosque associations
grew in number. Indeed, though religion – in the form of official Islam – has become an
important element in the diaspora policies of Turkey and Morocco, in most cases the
development of these religious services abroad was in fact a reaction to the spread of unofficial
Islamic currents.
The demographics of Turkish and Moroccan migration during the 1960s and until the
mid-1970s had important implications for the development of Turkish and Moroccan Muslim
fields abroad. As Amiraux writes with regard to Turks, this was the “informal period,” during
which the main goal was to provide for the subsistence of Islam amongst “an uprooted, mostly
male population, in principle residing temporarily in Germany” (2001, 29–30). Concretely, this
meant that small groups would meet for daily prayers or for the Friday prayer, 77 most often
using makeshift spaces which had originally not been intended for religious use at all. Whether
in garages, hallways, or converted apartments, these prayer spaces were primarily intended to
be practical, responding to the most immediate religious needs of the local Muslim community.
These spaces could serve simultaneously as a meeting point for local immigrants, as an
associative “cultural centre,” as well as a prayer space, often invisible from the outside – all
factors which rendered difficult any attempt to provide precise figures on their number
(Beinhauer-Köhler and Leggewie 2009, 25–26). Commonly referred to as Hinterhofmoscheen
(“backyard mosques”) in Germany, or l’islam des caves (“basement cellar Islam”) in France,
the lack of financial means and the presumption of a temporary stay in Western Europe were
reflected in these religious spaces, which were often located in the same industrial or outlaying
urban zones in which Muslim migrants lived and worked.
Indeed, while many migrants did not have the time to organize or engage in religious
activities, most simply did not have the education nor experience necessary to create structures
Ṣalāt al-jumuʿah in Arabic, or Cuma namazı in Turkish, is the most important prayer of the week for
Muslims. It is also the moment when the imam hatip (khaṭīb / hatip) delivers a sermon (khuṭba / hutbe).
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larger than these small, informal groups. On top of this, until 1981 in France, foreigners wishing
to found associations were required to receive the express consent of the Ministry of the
Interior, while in Germany it was rare for Turks to possess the linguistic skills to do so.
Furthermore, the arrival in a foreign country, with its different culture and customs, meant
equally the detachment from the community and kinship networks which had served as frames
of reference for their lives before leaving. As Schiffauer points out, many Turkish migrants,
“used to a high degree of social control,” suddenly found themselves in a context “in which
social control barely exists,” and consequently they would justify their consumption of alcohol
or relations with prostitutes with the expression “this is Germany (burası Almanya)” (2010,
45–46). In contrast, the mosque became a place to preserve morals and cultural values. This
was especially the case after family reunification programmes began, and the mosque took on
the role of a meeting point for the community. The symbolic and strategic value of this space
was not lost on movements with political and/or religious agendas, meaning that the mosque
could also become a site of confrontation between opposing factions – or individuals – vying
for prominence in the local community.
While many aspects of the above description characterize Moroccan workers abroad as
well, their colonial background represented a distinct difference. For those in France, this
colonial history linking both countries meant that many Moroccans were far more prepared to
participate in French social life, thanks to their familiarity with the language and the institutions
of the country. This capacity increased with the arrival of educated Moroccan migrants,
especially after the Moroccan national students’ union (Union Nationale des Étudiants
Marocains, UNEM) was banned in Morocco in 1973 (Daoud 2011, 45). During the 1970s and
1980s, many Moroccans were involved in unions and workers’ associations, and participated
in strikes which targeted the factories in which they worked as well as the residences in which
they lived.78
Demands concerning religion, such as for prayer spaces, were initially amongst the least
voiced by migrant workers. However, as Jouanneau (2013, 37–48) highlights, they would come
to be instrumentalized by residence managers and factory owners for two main reasons. Firstly,
In France, many migrant workers lived in “migrant workers’ residences” (foyers de travailleurs
migrants), which were established by the state but run by semi-public companies. One of the largest
such companies was the Société Nationale de Construction de Logements pour les Travailleurs
(National Corporation for the Construction of Residences for Workers, SONACONTRA), now named
Adoma.
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religious demands were amongst the least costly to address, as they did not require any changes
in pay, benefits, or workers’ rights. Moreover, Islam was considered by those in charge to be a
“conservative religion, hostile to revolutionary ideologies and communism,” and thus held the
potential to undermine the collective organization efforts of unions – or, at the very least,
workers would spend more time praying than participating in union activities (Jouanneau 2013,
46–48). Secondly, responding positively to religious demands went in the direction of general
French state policy at the time, which favoured measures that would promote cultural ties
between the workers and their countries of origin.
This policy had the triple advantage of pleasing home states, encouraging and facilitating
return migration, as well as “favouring social peace by shielding migrants from” – once again
– “political and union activities à la française” (Weil 1991, 96). It was exemplified by a
memorandum “concerning cultural activities for immigrants” sent by the State Secretary for
Immigrant Workers Paul Dijoud to the French préfets on 29 December 1976. The
memorandum outlined a number of measures with the goal of “supporting the establishment of
prayer spaces,” including: the “attribution of imams and Arabic or Turkish language teachers;
provision of religious books; rental or reorganization of spaces for Islamic religious activities,”
all of which were to be studied by French authorities “in liaison with the government of the
countries from which Muslim immigrants originate” (in Kepel 1987, 142–143).
Morocco and Turkey both began sending small groups of religious personnel abroad for
the month of Ramadan in 1971, as detailed below. Nevertheless, religious issues were generally
considered of marginal importance, and the list of home state institutions concerned with
workers abroad reflected the overriding economic and security interests which accompanied
both states’ promotion of international labour migration. It is for this reason as well that the
“instrumentalization of imams” by state authorities in the 1970s was less effective than later
on, because at the beginning it did not receive the “institutional support of the countries of
origin” (Jouanneau 2013, 48).
These different sets of interests echo in and of themselves two separate forms of
governmentality which have co-existed in the diaspora policies of both states. Following
Ragazzi’s use of Foucauldian concepts, the first form is that of a “liberal governmentality,”
which sees the population of a country as a resource, which must be managed and deployed as
best befits the state (2009, 387–389). The second is that of a “disciplinary” modality of
government, which characterizes regimes that focus on national security and the territorial
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integrity of the state, and are inherently suspicious of all emigrants as potentially subversive
elements (2009, 385–387). The fact that religious issues were not initially included in these
frameworks of diaspora governmentality and only later took on a greater degree of importance
does not, however, mean that the modalities of governing changed once religion was
introduced. Rather, Islamic religious issues became an element of Turkish and Moroccan
diaspora policy precisely because they were found to be an effective tool for furthering these
forms of governmentality. This was especially the case once Turkish and Moroccan authorities
began considering the neglect of religious issues as being detrimental to home state interests.
The following two sections outline the development of Turkish and Moroccan religious
diaspora policy, focusing on institutional developments, competition from non-state actors, and
the consolidation of both states’ positions in the French and German Muslim fields.
B - Turkish Labour Migration and the Turkish Muslim Field Abroad
Though the Turkish state was directly involved in administering Islamic religious affairs in
Turkey, the issue of the Islamic religious needs of its citizens abroad was by and large
overlooked when guest worker programmes began in the 1960s. While the Turkish labour
ministry’s international office was founded in 1967 (Tapia 2002, 6), it would not be until over
a decade later that the Diyanet would spearhead the establishment of its network of foreign
branches in Western Europe.
Given this context, the religious vacuum which had existed initially amongst the Turkish
worker communities did not last long. Religious communities (cemaat) of unofficial Islam
from Turkey quickly moved in to fill the void, and began responding to the religious demands
of Turkish workers with the goal of establishing themselves as the main sources of religious
authority in this new extension of the Turkish Muslim field. At the same time, the creation of
branches abroad was also of great strategic interest for these movements. On the one hand,
contestatory Islamic movements, which faced continuous scrutiny and intermittent crackdowns from Turkish state authorities, found that they could operate with much greater freedom
in Western European countries than in Turkey. One the other hand, the Turkish migratory field
also represented a potential source of both new funds and recruits, with no competition from
the Diyanet in sight. Such a combination of push and pull factors thus made this international
expansion a veritable strategic move for many groups opposed to the Turkish state. This of
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course applied not only to contestatory Islamic movements, but to contestatory movements in
general: from Marxist-Leninists to Kurdish separatists, and from Alevis to right-wing
nationalists, the Turkish population abroad “reconstituted all the political, religious, and ethnic
cleavages of the homeland” (Manço 1997, 14).
An important development in Turkey which hastened this process was the military
intervention of 12 March 1971 (see Chapter I.D.). This development led to numerous leftists
leaving for Western Europe, and not long after the military also outlawed the recently-founded
Islamist Milli Nizam Partisi (MNP). Its leader, Necmettin Erbakan, fled briefly abroad to
Switzerland, and then Germany thereafter. Erbakan’s brief exile marked the beginning of the
implantation of Milli Görüş amongst the Turkish communities in Western Europe. A first
mosque community appeared in Braunschweig in 1972 under the name Türkische Union
Deutschland (Turkish Union Germany) (Amiraux 2001, 35), and over the following years the
movement spread throughout Germany through networks based on shared geographical
origins. This resulted in somewhat of a “snowball effect,” and the relatively quick growth of
interlinked mosque associations (Schiffauer 2010, 79).
A federation bringing together these Milli Görüş-linked mosque associations was
founded on 22 November 1976 as the Türkische Union Europa (Turkish Union Europe) in
Cologne, and headed by an Iraqi doctor, Yusuf Zeyn el-Abidin, who was close to the Muslim
Brotherhood (Binswanger and Sipahioğlu 1988, 90). Moreover, by 1978-79 it had branches in
Paris and the surrounding region (Çaymaz 2002, 211). Nevertheless, despite this rapid
expansion and the fact that el-Abidin was named president of the association (Vorsitzender) on
Erbakan’s suggestion, Schiffauer argues that the links with Erbakan’s Islamist party in Turkey,
as well as between the associations in Europe themselves, were still generally quite loose
during the 1970s when compared with the decade to come (2010, 79).
Even before Milli Görüş, the first group to appear amongst the Turkish guest workers
abroad was the Süleymancılar. According to Amiraux, they were already active in Stuttgart,
Germany in 1967 (2001, 32), while their association, the Islamisches Kulturzentrum (Islamic
Cultural Centre, IKZ) was founded on 15 September 1973 in Cologne (Lemmen 2000, 49). The
founder of the IKZ was none other than one Yusuf Zeyn el-Abidin; although not a member of
the movement, according to Binswanger and Sipahioğlu, he had been appointed by the head
sheikh of the Süleymancılar in Turkey, Kemal Kaçar, thanks once again to his close
connections with the Muslim Brotherhood, and the belief that he could secure funding from
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Arab states such as Kuwait (1988, 50). As in Turkey, the Süleymancılar were quick to open
Qur’an schools and focus on educational activities; however, they suffered from a generalized
perception that they represented the interests of a particular Islamic order (tarikat), and that
consequently they were not capable of representing Islam as a whole (Schiffauer 2010, 78). In
France, the first branch seems to have been founded in Metz in 1979 (Çaymaz 2002, 139).
As mentioned above, the most decisive development that would affect the Turkish
migratory field in Europe would occur in the middle of the 1970s, when Western European
states decided to bring their temporary workers programmes to a halt. Encouraged by Western
European politicians who were worried about the prospect of an increasing number of
unemployed foreign workers, many migrants did opt to return home in the wake of this
development. De Tapia mentions the impossibility of determining a definitive number;
however he cites estimates that put the total number of Turkish “remigrants” (Remigranten) or
“definitive returnees” (kesin dönüş) for Western Europe between 400,000 and 500,000 (1989,
257–258). Nevertheless, in most cases this turn of events resulted in the contrary of what most
receiving state politicians had expected, and family reunification programmes soon became the
main motor of immigration. Consequently, the percentage of women within the Turkish
migratory field would steadily rise until reaching near parity today: for instance, in Germany
it would rise from 33.6% of the total Turkish population in 1973 to 43.2% in 1987, and 47.8%
in 2011 (Statistisches Bundesamt 1974; Statistisches Bundesamt 1988; Statistisches
Bundesamt 2012).
The demographic change that occurred during the 1970s resulted in a fundamental
change for the Turkish Muslim field in Western Europe. The religious demands of Turkish
migrants underwent a major evolution: it was no longer good enough for Islam to subsist, as
had been the case when a return to Turkey had been perceived as relatively near at hand. Islam
came to be seen as an integral element in transmitting Turkish identity, culture, morals, and
values, all of which had now become exceedingly important given that a new generation of
Turkish children was going to grow up outside of their “homeland.”
This new necessity for Qur’an courses, summer schools, prayer spaces, and cultural
centres – spaces where not just Islam, but cultural practices and the Turkish language would
be perpetuated – resulted in an increasingly active network of associations attempting to
respond to the demand during the second half of the 1970s. In addition, the ongoing and
continually escalating political conflict in Turkey between leftists, right-wing nationalists, and
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Islamists, began to spill over within the Turkish communities abroad. By the end of the 1970s,
a wide variety of other groups had equally become more organized, from the ultra-nationalist
Turkish Federation (ADÜTDF), close to the far-right Turkish political party MHP and founded
in Frankfurt on 18 June 1978, to the mystical and Sufi-inspired Nurcu movement, in the form
of the association Jama’at un-Nur, founded in Cologne on 14 January 1979 (Lemmen 2000,
53–56).
A common thread amongst these associations was that they continued to share a
“homeland perspective” (Mügge 2012, 21–22), meaning that their primary goal was to
influence events ongoing in Turkey. Despite the progressive move towards property acquisition
and settlement abroad, the mirage of a potential return further off in the future continued to
influence the decisions of migrants and policy makers alike. The development of the Diyanet’s
activities abroad, especially following the 1980 coup d’état, shows how the conflicts imported
from the homeland continued to structure the Turkish Muslim field abroad, though on a new
playing field with different rules and opportunities.
1) The Development of the Diyanet’s Foreign Activities
Alongside the development of numerous non-state Turkish religious and political organizations
across Western Europe in the 1970s, the Turkish state gradually became involved in the
religious affairs of Turkish guest workers abroad.
The first religious officials seem to have been sent abroad in 1971, especially for
temporary occasions such as religious holidays. Officially speaking, the first permanent
religious officials were not sent directly by the Diyanet, but by the Ministry of Labour. A
written parliamentary query on the subject in 1978 led the labour minister to provide details
concerning the legal framework within the procedure occurred. On the one hand, there were
“permanent” religious officials (kadrolu din görevlileri), which the Ministry of Labour had the
right to choose and appoint abroad as “social assistants” after being proposed by the Diyanet,
thanks to a law passed in 1972 (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi 1978, 376; for the law, see
Türkiye Cumhuriyeti 1972a). On the other hand, “temporary” religious officials (geçici din
görevlileri), could also be sent abroad for “social and cultural activities” and to “organize
meetings and ceremonies during [religious] holidays (bayram günlerinde)” following new
legislation in 1975 (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti 1975, see).
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The father of one of my interviewees served as one of the religious officials sent by the
Ministry of Labour, and worked as an imam in Germany from 1974 to 1983. Both he and his
father experienced first-hand the development of the Turkish religious field during these years:
The Diyanet had no locations in Germany, it didn’t have any direct ties to Germany,
that’s why they were sent as religious officials (Religionsbeauftragter) by the
labour ministry, and that’s why they were placed under the labour attachés [within
the Turkish consulates in Germany]. According to state agreements they were
“social workers” (Interview, Konrad Adenauer Foundation [KAS] Employee, 14
November 2011, Ankara).
The number of these religious officials was generally quite small, and they were responsible
for large geographic zones. According to the former president of the Diyanet, Tayyar Altıkulaç,
the labour ministry had only 8-10 of these religious officials for all of Western Europe (2011,
378), which would explain why the interviewee’s father serving in the mid-1970s was the only
imam for the entire Land of North Rhine-Westphalia (Interview, KAS Employee). Since he
had been appointed by the labour ministry, the KAS employee’s father’s place of work was not
in a mosque, but rather in the office of the Turkish consulate’s labour attaché in Cologne. At
the same time, the nature of his work meant that he travelled a great deal:
Most mosques were in the back courtyards (Hinterhofmoscheen), and most didn’t
have an imam. He couldn’t led the prayers everywhere, so he tried as much as
possible in the area around Cologne […] to try and visit a different mosque every
week, especially of course for the Friday prayers. Fridays and Sundays were very
important back then. Sunday was important because the workers could come […]
(Interview, KAS Employee).
After the prayers there was usually a meeting with the community, which would invite the
imam to tea, coffee, or to have something to eat, and would then continue asking questions.
Alongside questions of a religious nature or concerning more general problems of living as a
Muslim in Germany, other questions focused more on family problems, such as marriage
relations or children. For Turkish communities abroad, then as now, these official imams are
the first people to contact when something happens, even before the consulate or the embassy,
because they are seen as “state employees, but who can serve as prayer leaders, have had
theological training, and thus can bring the two together. That’s why the institution is very
important” (Interview, KAS Employee). Indeed, for many Turkish migrants the imams’ ties to
both to the Turkish state and their religious competence complement each other and reinforce
their position as legitimate figures of religious authority.
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As a former head of foreign affairs for the Diyanet states, “at the beginning, the number
of religious staff members demanded and employed for religious services was only symbolic
and their stay at work temporary” (Dere 2008, 292). By the end of the decade, however, the
Diyanet had begun to pay more attention to the Turkish communities in Western Europe. A
watershed moment was the creation of the position of foreign religious services counsellor
(yurtdışı din hizmetleri müşaviri) in 1978, following which the Diyanet began proposing to
send imams to Turkish religious associations abroad for longer periods of time.
However, the sources become difficult to follow concerning this point. Den Exter speaks
of 19 imams who were initially sent to West Germany, and whose stay was extended from six
months to one year (den Exter 1990, 46). According to Ömer Yılmaz (2006, 62), these longerterm imams would be sent provided that the receiving associations paid for their salaries. Çakır
and Bozan (2005, 89) explain further that the Diyanet would pay for six-month stays, while the
local associations would pick up the tab for longer stays. Indeed, certain mosques such as the
Türkiye Mosque in Gladbeck, Germany, according to a former imam at the mosque, already
had an official Diyanet imam by 1978 (Topal 1999). On the whole, however, it seems that until
the beginning of the 1980s the sending of religious personnel abroad was undertaken on a caseby-case basis, and was the result of requests by individual mosque associations. This is to be
contrasted with the larger, more coordinated effort that would come in the years to follow.
The case of the Sultan Ahmet mosque in Zaandam, the Netherlands, reflects this pre1980 state of affairs. On the mosque association’s website, it indicates that the first Diyanet
official to arrive at the mosque was a müftü from the Turkish province of Burdur named Osman
Aldemir, who came to provide services for the month of Ramadan in 1978. Thereafter, during
a visit by then Diyanet President Tayyar Altıkulaç, the Sultan Ahmet mosque association along
with others requested that imams be sent to them from Turkey. As a result, in October of 1979,
İsmet Şahin, their “first official” imam, arrived for a period of four years (Sultan Ahmet Camii
HDV 2013a). From then on, the Sultan Ahmet mosque would continue to receive a new imam
every four years from the Diyanet. Besides the official Diyanet imam, the mosque also began
calling on the services of a volunteer imam named İsmet Koca in 1979, who as in many other
cases was a local guest worker who had experience working as an imam. Koca would fill in
whenever the Diyanet imam was unavailable or being replaced (Sultan Ahmet Camii HDV
2013b).
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Though this case reflects similar situations across Western Europe, it is difficult to
pinpoint the stages of the Diyanet’s increasing involvement abroad, especially given that
secondary sources on the subject are quite confusing. A number of Turkish authors (Küçükcan
2002, 113; Ruşen Çakır and Bozan 2005, 69; Kahraman 2007, 31; Gözaydın 2009, 136) echo
Cebeci (1996, 209), stating that the Diyanet first began providing religious services for Turks
abroad in 1971, by way of imams sent for the month of Ramadan and other religious holidays
(especially Kurban Bayramı). According to Yaşar, from 1968 to 1984 the Diyanet had sent
temporary religious personnel from other ministries to deal with these holidays, while it was in
1971 that it began sending its own personnel (2012, 41). The website of the French DITIB also
mentions these temporary Ramadan imams, specifying that the initiative was brought on by
requests from Turkish guest workers for official state imams (resmi din görevlisi), and
continued in this form until 1985 (Fransa DITIB 2012a).
Numerous Dutch scholars also highlight the year 1971 (Mügge 2010, 172), and
especially 1978-9 (den Exter 1990, 46; N. Landman 1997, 217). Pedersen (1999, 28) prefers
1975 as the starting date, which is also used in some Diyanet publications (Er, Bekaroğlu, and
Çekin 2010, 18), while 1978 and 1979 are mentioned as well for Germany (C. Tosun 1993, 24;
Amiraux 2001, 42). To make matters even more confusing, an article published in the
newspaper Hürriyet, based on interviews with members of the Diyanet’s Foreign Affairs
Department, asserts that before 1984, the “Diyanet did not even send one single imam abroad”
(Bildirici 2005).
Nevertheless, in the opening lines of the first edition of the Diyanet’s European
Magazine (Diyanet Avrupa Dergisi) the president of the Diyanet at the time, Mehmet Nuri
Yılmaz (1999), is unequivocal: the Diyanet’s overseas religious services began in 1971 in the
form of temporary imams sent abroad for the month of Ramadan, while the Diyanet’s network
of organizations abroad (yurtdışı teşkilatları) began in earnest in 1978. Still, the official
framework for long-term imams abroad was not fully established until the mid-1980s,
especially in what concerns the payment of the imams’ salaries. As recounted by the KAS
employee, during the 1970s when his father was one of the few religious officials appointed by
the Turkish state to Germany,
There wasn’t the possibility [of receiving a long-term imam paid by the Turkish
state]. There was only the possibility during Ramadan that every [mosque]
community that could afford it […] thanks to the money they raised after Friday
prayers, that the community could obtain an imam (Vorbeter) from Turkey. He
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would receive a tourist visa and come for one month to Germany, and take care of
the prayers during Ramadan (Interview, KAS Employee).
Mosque associations could, however, hire imams on their own, such as retired imams of the
Diyanet, or those who had finished their service in Germany. This is precisely what occurred
in the case of my interlocutor, whose father resigned from his position as state employee and
decided to stay in Germany with his family in order to avoid returning to the chaotic and
dangerous situation prevailing in Turkey at the end of the 1970s.
The personal story of my interviewee helps to explain the first reason for the surprising
degree of cacophony in the academic literature. The development of the Turkish state’s
religious activities abroad involved a number of state institutions, which for a number of years
operated either on an ad hoc basis or within a legal framework that underwent numerous
changes as the years progressed. Consequently, one tendency in the literature is to focus
exclusively on these institutional developments. Gözaydın (2009) presents them as the main
explicative factor in order to understand the evolution of the Diyanet’s foreign activities, and
Yaşar (2012) continues this approach in her thesis on the DITIB in Germany. These studies
have the clear benefit of showing the complexity of public policy-making in the religious
domain (as in any other for that matter), as well as the consequences of legal and institutional
frameworks for the enactment of specific policy measures, as in the case of the Diyanet’s
activities abroad.
This institutional perspective helps to shed some light on the conflicting dates in the
literature. The first mention of a “Directorate of Foreign Services” (Dış Hizmetler Müdürlüğü)
within the Diyanet came as the result of a cabinet decision in 1971 (Gözaydın 2009, 75). This
administrative department later appears in the official government journal (Resmi Gazete) as
the “Directorate of Foreign Relations” (Dış Münasebetler Müdürlüğü) in the 1976, during the
first “Nationalist Front” government led by Demirel (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti 1976, 8). It was
under this government in 1975-76, that the parliament passed an important bill (1893, thereafter
1982) which included significant reforms for the Diyanet, including the creation of the position
of foreign religious services counsellor (Yurt Dışı Din Hizmetleri Müşavirlikleri).
However, neither the initial nor the subsequently revised bill was accepted by then
president Fahri Korutürk, leading to a battle between the legislature and the president, with the
president ultimately referring the matter to the Constitutional Court. In the meantime, the CHP
returned to power and according to the Official Journal, the cabinet of prime minister Bülent
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Ecevit approved the appointment of ten “foreign religious services counsellors” to the
Diyanet’s personnel in 1978, which conceivably would have laid the groundwork for the
Diyanet’s foreign activities (den Exter 1990, 46; Gözaydın 2009, 77; Türkiye Cumhuriyeti
1978a, 6). Regardless and independent of this cabinet decision, the Constitutional Court ruled
in 1980 that bill 1982 (which would have legally created the position of foreign religious
services counsellor) was unconstitutional. This left not only the foreign activities but the entire
institutional foundation of the Diyanet in a legal limbo for years to come, a situation which was
resolved only very recently in 2007 (for more details see Gözaydın 2009, 75–101, 136–147).
The second reason for the discrepancies in the literature is that alongside this legalinstitutional approach is another, which focuses on political interests and the competition
between the main religious currents at the time. However, at times this approach runs the risk
of greatly oversimplifying the actual situation. This political perspective is the dominant one
in the academic literature which makes mention of the Diyanet in Western Europe, and
generally is far less concerned with finding the documentation that attests to the development
of specific initiatives, as in the examples cited above. Rather, it contents itself with the image
of religious activities abroad as being imposed by a nebulous yet unitary Turkish state, with
the goal of controlling Turks abroad and reigning in non-state religious actors (especially Milli
Görüş and the Süleymancılar). While many elements of the narrative are true, this approach
ultimately reproduces the exaggerated dichotomy between “official Islam” and “unofficial
Islam,” against which I argue in Chapters I and II.
Both approaches share an important weakness: they take their own story too seriously.
In seeking to emphasize the competition between different groups, the political approach
glosses over details which point to the porous boundaries which in reality exist between the
Diyanet and other currents. At the same time, the institutional approach relying on official
documents unfortunately does not always tell us whether or not a decision made by the state
was actually carried out, and in what manner. These conceptual difficulties concern not only
a historical analysis of the Turkish or Moroccan state’s religious activities abroad, but also the
analysis of these activities today. As mentioned in the introduction, I have decided to privilege
the voice of the actors themselves in this thesis, insofar as I have judged them reliable and have
been able to crosscheck the information. In consequence, I will largely base the following part
of the historical narrative on information provided in the recently-published autobiography of
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former Diyanet president Tayyar Altıkulaç, with the goal of presenting a somewhat different
narrative than that usually found in the literature.
2) Change Comes from the Top: Diyanet President Tayyar
Altıkulaç
Altıkulaç became president of the Diyanet at the beginning of 1978, following the return of
Ecevit’s CHP government to power. A few months after his nomination, he travelled to
Western Europe during the month of Ramadan in order to visit the places of worship of Turkish
workers living abroad, and accompany them in their prayers. However, Altıkulaç emphasizes
that such places had become “centres of discord and dispute,” due to the profusion of
unqualified individuals who pursued political activities under the pretense of providing
religious services (2011, 378–379).
The “ruthless criticism of the Diyanet” came from, on the one hand, the Süleymancılar
(“who would not pray behind someone who was not one of their own”), and from the members
of the Milli Görüş movement (2011, 379). Altıkulaç uses the word fitne to describe the
activities of these groups, and highlights that Milli Görüş was “the source of fitne” in Western
Europe at the end of the 1970s (2011, 364). This echoes the reasons given for the Diyanet’s
initial involvement in Western Europe by a number of authors. Cebeci surmises that the goal
was to “prevent the acquisition of numerous imams (din görevlisi) by unofficial channels and
the constitution of groups around different viewpoints” (1996, 209). Den Exter equally shares
this view, seeing Turkish state intervention abroad as having been instigated by the “rapid
growth of fundamentalist currents in the Turkish community, especially in West Germany, in
the 1970s” (1990, 46).
While these antagonisms seem to have had the potential to escalate (Altıkulaç asserts
that a plan to physically assault him was abandoned at the last minute), it would be wrong to
believe that the differences between these groups constituted unsurmountable walls. During his
trip in 1978, Altıkulaç met with the then leader of the Milli Görüş movement in Germany, Dr.
Yusuf Zeyn el-Abidin, in order to discuss the position of Milli Görüş with regard to determining
the beginning of Ramadan (2011, 363–365). During his trip, he also received the help of
Turkish MSP senator Ali Oğuz (who also happened to be in Germany at the same time), who
acted as his intermediary, calling up local mosque leaders and organizing his visits (2011, 379).
Furthermore, not long thereafter during a trip to Saudi Arabia, Altıkulaç and a delegation of
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Diyanet employees were joined by a representative of the European Milli Görüş movement
(2011, 368).
One of my interviewee, whose father was one of first Diyanet imams in Western Europe,
recounts how by the late 1970s, his father had begun working independently as an imam for a
mosque in Germany. Moreover, he highlights how the end of the 1970s marked a turning point:
In 1974, the division wasn’t there yet, the division in the Islamic community in
Germany. […] Ok, the Nurcular and the Süleymancılar, it’s true that they usually
didn’t extend any invitations […] but they were small groups, that wasn’t such a
problem. But a division with Milli Görüş, that was a big problem. […] I can’t say
if it began in ’78 or ’79; let’s say that it was the first years of the 1980s that Milli
Görüş gradually took centre stage. And the Milli Görüş group, back then, as far as
my personal experience goes, they received important financial support from
foreign sources, essentially from Iran and Saudi Arabia, [that] they used to build
their own mosques (Interview, KAS Employee).
Milli Görüş’s increasing importance led to an increasing politicization of the Turkish Islamic
field, which has been described to me by members of Turkish Islamic communities in
numerous countries. One of the main characteristics was a particularly rigid separation between
groups, which divided themselves into different camps (kamplaşma) (Interview, President of
the Pape Mosque, 14 April 2014, Toronto):
Before… before there were mosques, they were just mosques. If one mosque was
more, let’s say because of the administrative leaders, if it leaned more towards
MHP, or leaned more towards Erbakan, that wasn’t a real problem, it was no
grounds for a cleavage. But the stronger Milli Görüş became, [the more] the
Turkish Islamic community in Germany gradually split between those that went
over to Milli Görüş, and those that didn’t. And then gradually the mosques weren’t
with Milli Görüş, they came to be frowned upon. [They said] they had imams sent
from the Turkish state, who preached the Kemalist system to them. They called
them Kemalist imams (Atatürkçü imamları) (Interview, KAS Employee).
The divisions progressed to the point that some mosques in Germany – which were registered
as local associations – approached German authorities to file restraining orders (Hausverbot)
to bar certain individuals from entering. Milli Görüş during this time did not just attack
“Kemalist imams,” but directed “inflammatory propaganda” towards the Turkish state itself
and its secular (laik) character (Interview, KAS Employee).
The conflicts in the Turkish Muslim field grew even more aggressive when Cemaleddin
Kaplan, a Milli Görüş imam and former Diyanet müftü of Adana, broke off to found his own
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separate group in 1983.79 Kaplan, nicknamed the “black voice” (kara ses) in Turkish media
due to his radical positions, was inspired by the Iranian revolution and called for the restoration
of the Caliphate in Turkey – he even proclaimed himself Caliph in 1994, though in Cologne.
After his death the following year his son Metin Kaplan succeeded him, but the organization
was increasingly under surveillance by the German interior intelligence services
(Bundesverfassungsschutz). It was officially banned in 2001, and Metin Kaplan was extradited
to Turkey, where was he was sentenced in 2010 to over 17 years’ imprisonment (Ministerium
für Inneres und Kommunales des Landes NRW 2014, 140–141). The split Kaplan provoked
within Milli Görüş had far-reaching consequences for the latter, which saw it as an early
traumatism (Schiffauer 2010, 85).
Unsurprisingly, when Altıkulaç returned from his trip to Germany in 1978, the overall
assessment was grim. Despite the fact that religious personnel was lacking in Turkey as well,
Altıkulaç states that “we had to try and put out the fire raging in Europe,” and arranged to meet
with prime minister Ecevit after his return. As a result of the meeting, Ecevit called on the head
of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Social Affairs Department (Sosyal İşler Daire Başkanı)
Ahmet Ermişoğlu to coordinate activities with the Diyanet (2011, 392). At the same time,
Altıkulaç gives a different version of how the Diyanet’s first foreign religious counsellor
positions (yurtdışı din hizmetleri müşaviri) were created. According to him, it was the Diyanet
itself which quietly succeeded in getting four foreign religious counsellors appointed thanks to
the connections of its members, without consulting with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
without “asking for help” from the ruling CHP (2011, 380). The first was Dr. Abdülbaki
Keskin, who was sent to Brussels in 1978. He was followed in 1979 by Lütfi Şentürk, who left
for Bonn, and Mehmet Kervancı who was appointed to the Haag. Finally, Dr. Fahri Demir was
sent to Sydney in 1980 (2011, 380). These appointments appear in the Official Journal, the first
signed by Ecevit and the following ones by Demirel (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti 1980, 13–14;
Türkiye Cumhuriyeti 1979, 3; Türkiye Cumhuriyeti 1978b, 49).80 Curiously, Altıkulaç makes
Kaplan’s association, the İslami Cemiyetler ve Cemaatler Birliği (Union of Islamic Societies and
Communities, ICCB) was founded in 1984. In keeping with the argument I advance in Chapter I,
Kaplan’s path from the Diyanet hierarchy to Milli Görüş, and finally to his own radical fundamentalist
Islamic organization, shows the difficulty of considering state “official Islam” as fully separate from
other currents. Similar to Fethullah Gülen and others, Kaplan occupied numerous positions within the
Diyanet before striking out on his own.
80
Demir is the only one for whom “foreign religious counsellor” has the word “social” (sosyal) placed
after “religion” (din) in brackets.
79
215
no mention of the ten foreign religious counsellors who were supposed to have been appointed
in 1978, and only mentions these four in his memoirs.81
Altıkulaç repeats a number of times in his memoirs that the Diyanet had absolutely no
personnel abroad before he became president, going so far as to contradict statements made by
his predecessor, Süleyman Ateş (2011, 389–390). He mentions only the “8-10 religious
personnel” for all of Western Europe who were placed under the authority of the Turkish
Labour Ministry’s consular attaché, and who were given the title “social assistant” (sosyal
yardımcı) (one of which was the father of my interviewee, see above); and religious instructors,
who had been sent to Belgium by the Education Ministry’s General Department of Religious
Education in order to teach Islam in schools (2011, 378,383). Under Altıkulaç, the Diyanet
became responsible for the sending of these religious instructors, who also worked as imams
in local mosques. Given that they were paid directly by the Belgian municipalities to which
they were sent, this proved to be a convenient arrangement for the Diyanet (2011, 383–384).
This was especially true given that the Diyanet initially had no real budget with which
to pay the personnel who were to carry out these foreign activities. In order to deal with the
financial costs, by the end of 1979, the Diyanet began cooperating with individual associations,
sending imams if the association agreed to pay a salary equivalent to 1,000 German marks a
month (2011, 380). Around the same time, seemingly by chance a former Diyanet president,
Tevfik Gerçeker, informed Altıkulaç and vice-president Sami Uslu that the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs had a special fund which could be used precisely to promote its religious activities
abroad. According to Gerçeker, it had been Atatürk himself who had included religious
personnel within the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ (MFA) “Funds for the Protection of
Turkish Cultural Heritage” (Türk Kültür Varlığını Koruma Giderleri) (Uslu in Altıkulaç 2011,
382–383).
Following this discovery, the Diyanet proceeded quickly to develop its cooperation with
the Turkish MFA so as to make use of these funds. However, the reticence of the latter to
promote the Diyanet’s foreign activities was apparent. Uslu stated that when he confronted his
counterpart, the head of the MFA Social Affairs Department Ahmet Ermişoğlu, about the
existence of these funds, Ermişoğlu “could not hide his discomfort.” He asked where Uslu had
found out about these funds, and then stated “we use that provision to send artists abroad and
Conversely, in a 1987 interview, he clearly makes mention of the ten as an example of how “our
position was recognized to be right” while Ecevit was in power (in Mumcu 1993, 237).
81
216
organize cultural events. Now we’re going to send imams?” (in Altıkulaç 2011, 382; Bursa
Büyükşehir Belediyesi 2012). The friction between officials of the MFA and the Diyanet is a
telling sign of the different organizational cultures which existed and continues to exist in both
state bodies. It also serves to nuance blanket statements concerning state action, and in this case
clearly shows that the Diyanet and its members were at the origin of the Turkish state’s
religious activities in Western Europe, even before the military coup of 1980.
A final example which demonstrates this point is what became known as the “Rabita
affair” at the end of the 1980s (for more see Mumcu 1993). In early 1980, Altıkulaç met twice
with the Secretary-General of the Saudi Arabian Muslim World League (Rābiṭa al-ʿālam alislāmī, MWL), and came to the agreement that the MWL would pay 1,000 U.S. dollars a month
per imam sent abroad, and thereby contribute financially to the Diyanet’s foreign activities.
Not to forget, these magnanimous petrodollars were still a relatively recent phenomenon at the
time. Saudi Arabia, a conservative Islamic monarchy, had been engaged since the 1960s in an
ideological conflict with Egypt and Syria, which were proponents of pan-Arab nationalism.
Religion was a central element in this rivalry: the MWL had been founded in 1962 in order to
promote Saudi Wahhabism, while Egypt’s Nasser made ample use of Al-Azhar fatwas to
support his “regime’s increasingly socialist policies” (Moustafa 2000, 7). Nevertheless, defeat
against Israel in 1967 had prompted the decline of Arab nationalism, while the 1973 oil crisis
had greatly enriched Saudi Arabia. Thanks to this new affluence in the 1970s, Saudi Arabia’s
ability to diffuse Wahhabism across the Muslim world was greatly increased, as seen in
Morocco (see sections II.D. to II.F.), as well as in Western Europe (for more see Kepel 1987,
211–215).
According to Altıkulaç, the selection and surveillance of these imams remained entirely
in the hands of the Diyanet, and the MWL’s “only authority and responsibility consisted of
sending money to the address and account numbers which we provided” (2011, 384–385).
Furthermore, out of the 28 imams whom the Turkish state sent to Western European countries
in 1980, only 4 were paid by the MWL (Altıkulaç 2011, 384–385). Though it is difficult to
accept this story at face value, the main point is that under Altıkulaç, the Diyanet had the means
and the initiative to develop a set of foreign policy instruments in the religious field, seeking
sources of financing and partnerships with actors as varied as Belgian municipalities, Turkish
workers’ associations, and the MWL. While these developments all received the approval of
the Turkish state’s top authorities, they were the result of policies that had been elaborated by
217
the Diyanet. This situation is notably in contrast to the evolution of Moroccan religious
diaspora policies (see below).
The role of Turkish central state authorities in the religious activities of its citizens
abroad underwent a significant evolution with the military coup of 12 September 1980. As
mentioned in Chapter I.E., it was during this time that the Diyanet became part of the regime’s
plan to promote the “Turkish-Islamic Synthesis,” and was given the constitutional duty to
promote “national solidarity and integrity.” The dangers that Kenan Evran and the MGK
perceived within Turkey seemed to be running rampant within the Turkish communities abroad
and consequently in their view posed a direct threat to the state. According to Mumcu, despite
the Diyanet’s new foreign activities under Atlıkulaç, they still managed to send no more than
twenty-six imams to Western European countries in 1979, which was far below the
Süleymancılar (150 imams), the Milli Görüş movement (150 imams), and the nationalist MHP
(100 imams) (1993, 132). Consequently, the Turks abroad were now perceived as a source of
concern. Far outside the state’s direct control, they could easily abet and harbour enemies of
the state, for whom they equally constituted a significant source of potential funding.
Moreover, Turkish citizens abroad were seen as isolated and disconnected from their
homeland, meaning that they were all the more susceptible to fall prey to “reactionary” (irtica)
groups that were hostile to the regime in power.
In terms of the types of diaspora governmentality mentioned at the beginning of the
chapter, this latter vision reflects the shift from a “liberal” style of governing to the
“disciplinary” modality. Whereas the governments of Demirel and Ecevit had focused on the
economic benefits of labour migration, the leaders of the military regime saw potential
enemies, reorienting the priorities of the state towards questions of national security. This was
coupled with a certain paternalism characteristic of Turkish state policy in general, leading the
state to adopt a point of view at once suspicious and ‘protectionist’ of its own population. In
the same vein, given that Turks abroad were more exposed to potential dangers, these leaders
believed that “the supervision of Turks in Europe ought to be even more efficient than that of
Turks in Turkey” (Akgönül 2005, 125–126).
This supervision became a constitutional obligation following the adoption of a new
constitution in 1982, notably in the form of article 62 entitled “Turkish Citizens Working in
Foreign Countries.” The article reads,
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The state shall take the necessary measures in order to ensure family unity,
children’s education, cultural needs, and social security of Turkish citizens working
in foreign countries, as well as to protect their ties with the motherland (anavatan)
and to help in their return home (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti 1982).
This article provides a telling picture of how the Turkish state conceived of its involvement in
the lives of its citizens abroad in the years following the coup. The domains of intervention are
potentially quite vast, and include responsibilities which necessarily require the cooperation of
the receiving state authorities. Interestingly, religion does figure explicitly in this article;
however, it has often been tacitly filed under “cultural needs,” something which was accepted
by certain French and German authorities as well (see below for the example of the ELCO).
A “secret” internal report on religion, put together by the top ministers of the military
regime in 1981 and made public by Nokta magazine in 1989, demonstrates the extent to which
disciplinary governmentality informed government policy. The report drew attention to the
“confused situation” (curcuna) abroad, in which anyone and everyone could criticize the
Turkish state and “the great leader Atatürk, his person and his principles,” and called for
numerous specific measures to be taken (Arslan, Kaplan, and Kılıçoğlu 1989, 16). One of the
first was to prevent unauthorized individuals from going abroad to give religious education,
followed by the need for the Diyanet to send temporary religious personnel for religious
holidays and Ramadan “from Western Europe to Australia” to serve the Turkish workers’
communities, and to ensure that all such personnel receive the obligatory approbation of the
Diyanet to do so (ibid.).
Moreover, as was the case in Turkey, Islamic religious education abroad was given
special attention: firstly, the report states that religious educational activities ought to be
included within the Foreign Ministry’s budget for educational activities, and paid for by the
aforementioned “Funds for the Preservation of Turkish Cultural Heritage” (Türk Kültür
Varlığını Koruma Giderleri). Secondly, the report recommends that the state investigate how
it might be able to provide Qur’an courses to the children of its citizens abroad (and thus taking
on the Süleymancılar’s domain of predilection). Finally, representatives of the state abroad are
called upon to keep track of those of Turkish citizens abroad engaged in “harmful activities”
(zararlı faaliyet), take the necessary steps to make them return to Turkey, and if that fails, calls
for them to be dispossessed of their citizenship (Arslan, Kaplan, and Kılıçoğlu 1989, 17). As
the article’s authors sum up, the goal of the report was to “protect secularism and bring religion
once again under the control of the state” (Arslan, Kaplan, and Kılıçoğlu 1989, 18).
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The viewpoints expressed in this report demonstrate one persistent interpretation of
Turkish secularism (laiklik): instead of the separation of religion and state, the goal is to ensure
that the state is in control of religion, or more precisely, has the capacity to determine which
actors involved in the religious field are legitimate. After having realized the extent to which
the Turkish Muslim field abroad had been “neglected” by the state, the military regime in power
moved to address the problem. That very year, the number of personnel abroad skyrocketed
from a mere 20 in 1980 to 115 in 1981, and the numbers would continue to rise significantly
in the years to follow: 179 in 1982; 270 in 1983; 430 in 1986; 797 in 1990 (Ruşen Çakır and
Bozan 2005, 92). 82 In 2011, 1,500 employees of the Diyanet were involved in providing
religious services abroad (Interview, Mehmet Fevzi Hamurcu I, 11 November 2011, Ankara;
for more, see Chapter V.C.).
The near-constant rise in Diyanet personnel abroad is remarkable when compared with
the informal and sporadic sending of imams during the preceding decade. Once it had become
a political priority of the military regime in power, this rapid growth was logistically made
possible thanks to a new strategy based on creating federative structures in each country with
a significant Turkish population. While the demand for religious personnel was an ongoing
reality, the organizational structures which emerged as a means of coordinating these religious
services were not the result of grassroots mobilization. Mounting a project such as founding a
mosque association was already a very substantial undertaking for the people involved,
especially given the lack of financial resources, prior experience, and time.
Most leaders of local mosque associations, then as now, were volunteers who had jobs
and families alongside their responsibilities at the mosque. Creating an even larger organization
on a regional or national level required knowledge of the pertinent legislation, connections with
possible partners and public authorities, as well as a long-term vision – characteristics that were
hard to come by at the local level. Moreover, in contrast to migrants coming from colonial
contexts (i.e. North Africans in France, South Asians in the UK, etc.), the majority of Turkish
first-generation migrants did not have the linguistic skills required to effectively interact with
local or higher-level public authorities in the countries to which they had migrated.
Consequently, the individuals charged with creating these new federative structures on the
82
Given the different modalities by which imams were sent abroad numbers frequently vary, even those
which come from official sources.
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ground were the Diyanet’s foreign religious counsellors and attachés, who now took on a
second role as the head of locally-registered associations.
3) The DITIBs and Diyanet Foundations
Increasing the size of the Diyanet’s personnel abroad was only part of the solution. In order to
ensure the successful management of these religious services, the Diyanet had from the
beginning envisioned the creation of “branches” in each country where a large enough number
of Turkish citizens resided. As Altıkulaç recounts, the original plan was to replicate the model
of the Turkey Diyanet Foundation (TDV), which had been created in 1975 and became
thereafter an exceedingly important source of institutional and financial support for the Diyanet
(2011, 391). In other words, these branches were originally all envisioned to function as
foundations.
A few months after the military coup, in December of 1980, Altıkulaç received
permission from the government to spend one month in Germany and Belgium in order to
create these locally-based Diyanet foundations. Upon arrival, he was contacted directly by two
representatives of the Cultural Affairs department of West Berlin, who informed him of the
“serious disturbances” which were affecting Turkish mosques in the city. They invited him to
Berlin, where he discussed with them the possibility of creating a Diyanet-led organization, but
as an association (dernek / Verband), and not as a foundation (vakıf / Stiftung) (2011, 395).
During the rest of the month, Altıkulaç shuttled back and forth between the Turkish embassies
in Bonn and Brussels, and the representatives of the Cultural Affairs departments of the
German Länder of West Berlin and NRW, with the goal of founding Diyanet foundations.83
However, there were two important problems to surmount. The first concerned the Turkish
foreign affairs ministry, while the second came from the local authorities in Germany.
In 1980, neither the Diyanet nor the TDV had any legal basis which permitted them to
expand their organization to foreign countries; any such evolution necessarily had to pass
through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs if it were to succeed. Unfortunately for the Diyanet,
the diplomats of the foreign affairs ministry were generally not well predisposed towards
83
North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) is the most populous state (Bundesland) in Germany, and is home
to the largest number of Turks in the country (as well as Muslims in general). According to a 2008
study, approximately 35% of all Turkish Muslims live in NRW, followed by Baden-Württemberg
(18%), Bavaria (14%), Hessen (8%), and Berlin (7%) (Haug, Müssig, and Stichs 2009, 107).
221
promoting religious activities abroad, and Altıkulaç complains frequently about the reticence
of the ministry and its members to cooperate with the Diyanet (2011, 395–397). A first step
forward occurred on 14 April 1981, when the Diyanet and the Turkish Ministry of Foreign
Affairs signed a memorandum outlining the general framework within which they would
cooperate in order to found “Turkish Diyanet Foundations in the Western European countries
in which workers are located” (see Annex 2 for the original memorandum). The language once
again clearly shows the reactive nature of the Turkish state’s actions: these initiatives were
intended to “fill the void,” “prevent exploitation and factionalism,” and “eliminate the disorder
that has emerged” in the religious field (in Altıkulaç 2011, 1331).
Aside from echoing the concerns of the military regime, the memorandum also reserves
an important place for the members of the MFA. It stipulates that the Diyanet foundations are
to operate directly under the authority of the Turkish ambassador, who is also to be honorary
president, and that “no foreign citizen will be given an equal or higher role” than the
representative of the Turkish Republic (in Altıkulaç 2011, 1332). This low-level power struggle
between the Diyanet and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs constitutes one of the major
differences when compared with the case of Morocco. This tension manifested itself again with
regard to the statutes of these foundations, a model for which had been drawn up by Altıkulaç
and the three European religious counsellors (Keskin, Şentürk, and Kervancı) in 1980 (2011,
397). Despite the approval received from state minister Mehmet Özgüneş, the foreign affairs
ministry attempted to modify the statutes and secure even greater control over the yet-to-becreated foundations, for instance proposing that the Supervisory Board (Denetim Kurulu) be
composed of the Turkish ambassador, the Consul General, and the local Mayor (!) (Altıkulaç
2011, 398–399). Ultimately, the Diyanet managed to resist these incursions. Nevertheless, it
provides a perfect illustration of the interministerial conflict which took place behind the
scenes, and has important implications for the orientation taken by these organizations created
in foreign countries. According to Altıkulaç, placing diplomats at the head of the Diyanet’s
foreign organizations could have been easily exploited by “certain circles,” given the fact that
diplomats were not at all known for their piety. His own view of the diplomats gives a good
indication of the cultural gap between the members of these state institutions:
I wanted to tell them “Because of your work you’re at a different cocktail every
day, raising your glass. Amongst you are people who don’t even know which
direction Mecca is in. The mosque community doesn’t want to see someone at the
head of a religious organization who [regularly] has alcoholic drinks in his hand,
but who doesn’t even come pray during bayram” (2011, 396).
222
The first of the Diyanet’s overseas branches was founded in Berlin on 12 January 1982
(Lemmen 2000, 34; Amiraux 2001, 42; Yaşar 2012, 60), taking the name Diyanet İşleri Türk
İslam Birliği (Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs, DITIB) and bringing together 15
different mosque associations (Perşembe 1996, 164; Halm and Sauer 2005, 23). A religious
attaché (din ataşesi), Ahmet Baltacı, had been sent to Berlin one year earlier, and after many
lengthy telephone conversations with Şentürk and Altıkulaç, they decided to found the
organization as an association, as had been originally suggested by the local German authorities
(Selçuk Eğitim Merkezi 2014; Altıkulaç 2011, 402). The MFA sent its approval of the statutes
by telegraph a few months later, and opened a bank account in the association’s name in Berlin
(Altıkulaç 2011, 402). The same year, the Belgian and Dutch Diyanet foundations were also
created (the Belçika Türk İslam Diyanet Vakfı on 3 September 1982, and the Hollanda Diyanet
Vakfı on 10 December 1982, see the websites of both organizations). Consequently, it is clear
that 1982 was the year in which the Diyanet laid the foundations for the transnational expansion
of its religious activities in Western Europe.
The founding of a second DITIB association in Cologne in 1984, which became the
central federative organization thereafter, has been a source of notable confusion in the
literature. DITIB-Cologne was founded on 5 July 1984. According to article §2 and §3 of its
original 1984 statutes (Satzung), its goal was to serve the “Turkish community living in
Cologne in all matters related to the Islamic religion” as well as “prepare and carry out Islamic
religious education programmes in schools in Cologne in cooperation with the Turkish
Ministry of Education and the Diyanet” (DITIB, 3). Binswanger and Sipahioğlu report that
numerous mosques with the name “DITIB” had already appeared in different cities in
Germany, and that one month before DITIB-Cologne was founded, the new religious
counsellor for Germany, Niyazi Baloğlu, had held meetings in Munich and Schwäbisch Gmünd
with a total of 47 leaders of local mosque associations on the subject of “uniting all TurkishIslamic communities and mosques in Germany under the roof of the Diyanet Foundation”
(1988, 78). Binswanger and Sipahioğlu were quick to criticize the incongruity of DITIBCologne’s original statutes, in which it presents itself as a local mosque association, as it was
clearly meant to become a dominant mosque federation in Germany (ibid, p.78). Indeed, at the
time of its founding, DITIB states on its homepage that it already represented 230 mosque
associations across the country (DITIB 2014b).
223
The move towards a more centralized associative structure in Germany was part of a
larger trend. The ultimate goal was to create an overarching transnational network which
included other Western European countries with significant Turkish populations, and link them
back to the Diyanet in Turkey. This can be seen once again in the original 1984 statutes of
DITIB-Cologne, where article §11 stipulates that the advisory council (Beirat) is to be
composed solely of the Diyanet’s religious personnel abroad (Religionsbeauftragte) – though
the Turkish Consul-General in Cologne can also be a member – and that it is presided over by
the president of the Diyanet, who is also honorary president of the executive board, according
to §10 (2).
Accordingly, when DITIB-Cologne was founded in 1984, its advisory board consisted
of the president of the Diyanet, the Turkish Consul General in Cologne, the religious counsellor
for Belgium, the religious counsellor for the Netherlands, the vice-president of the Diyanet,
and another member of the Diyanet’s religious personnel in the Netherlands.84 Local Turkish
mosque members were of course involved from the very beginning: the original list of founding
members of DITIB-Cologne includes only three “officials,” while the remaining fifteen
members are mostly “workers.”85 Nevertheless, as the meetings held by Baloğlu with mosque
leaders show, the drive to regroup and federate Turkish mosque associations in Western Europe
and include them in a formalized transnational network came clearly from above: the religious
counsellors of the Diyanet and the representatives of the Turkish state.
As Yaşar ironically notes, it is an “open question” how the Cologne-based DITIB can
list Lütfi Şentürk as its first president on its website, given that Şentürk returned to Turkey in
1983, the year before the association was technically founded (2012, 61). The answer to this
discrepancy is rather simple: as the last pages have shown, the creation of the DITIB was first
and foremost dependent on institutional and political developments in Turkey. Whether in
Berlin or in Cologne, or in the Netherlands or Belgium, the creation of the Diyanet’s overseas
branches depended on receiving the approval of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as
well as the other central figures of the Turkish government. Despite occasional assertions by
the DITIB that it was “brought into being by Turkish workers” (in Binswanger and Sipahioğlu
Respectively: Tayyar Altıkulaç, İlhan Yiğitbaşoğlu, Riza Selimbaşoğlu, Mustafa Yılmaz, Lütfi
Şentürk, and Hayreddin Sallı (DITIB, 14).
85
All the founding members are men, though their translator is a woman (interestingly, they explicitly
mention that they are “not fully fluent in German”). Of the eighteen founding members, three are
officials (Beamte); nine are workers (Arbeiter); three are merchants (Kaufmänner); two are employees
(Angestellte); and one is a doctor (DITIB, 2).
84
224
1988, 77), it is clear that this was not the case. I do not dispute that there were most likely a
number of demands on the part of Turkish Islamic associations in Western European countries
for support from the Diyanet, as Yaşar (2012, 62) brings up as well. Nevertheless, the creation
of the DITIB and the other overseas organizations was the result of a sustained effort on the
part of the Diyanet’s leadership, which was subsequently integrated into general Turkish state
policy following the military coup.
While this is clearly an example of a diaspora policy being employed by an emigrant
state, it is difficult to say at what point it constituted an act of foreign policy. The Diyanet’s
ability to operate in Western European countries was vouchsafed by the foreign affairs
ministry, but its interests did not go beyond the affairs of Turkish citizens. Indeed, the Diyanet
had no interest in proselytizing in Germany or elsewhere, and its relations with receiving state
authorities were restricted to gaining greater access and control over the Turkish Muslim field
in these countries. Nevertheless, operating at the international level meant that the Diyanet
itself now became an actor of international politics (Bruce 2009). Broadly speaking, the
Diyanet’s expansion abroad led to a change in which Islam was to take a place alongside other
bilateral issues managed jointly between Turkey and the countries where its citizens had taken
up residence. This evolution is at the heart of this thesis, as it represents the moment when
interstate cooperation became one of the primary instruments for governing the transnational
French and German Muslim fields.
4) Consolidating a Transnational Network
Altıkulaç’s memoirs have shown how German authorities in West Berlin were to be thanked
for the Diyanet’s decision to create its first branch abroad as a locally registered association.
At the same time, the Diyanet still hoped to create a foundation in Cologne.
However, this desire was effectively quashed by the authorities of the Land of North
Rhine- Westphalia in 1983, who declared that permission for the creation of a Turkish
foundation would only be given on the condition that Germans would be given the same right
in Turkey. This led the Turkish ambassador to tell the Diyanet’s representative Baloğlu: “They
want us to violate the Treaty of Lausanne. With this [condition] facing us, we can’t take another
step forward on the subject of creating a foundation. That business is finished. Decide on your
course of action accordingly” (in Altıkulaç 2011, 403). Though a setback, the ambassador’s
225
statement itself reflects the complex levels of competency at play: first, the Diyanet’s
constitutional duty to accompany all Turkish citizens in religious matters. Second, that it is
overseen by the MFA as a matter of foreign affairs. And third, its activities can be restricted
not only by German federal authorities, but those at the level of the Land.86 At the same time,
it shows that the Diyanet’s ability to determine its own “course of action” in foreign countries
was – within limits – recognized by Turkish diplomats.
The issue seems to have been brought up during the visit of German Interior Minister
Friedrich Zimmermann to Turkey in 1983, when the German Press Agency published an article
entitled “The Federal Government Supports the Construction of Mosques,” in which it reported
the following:
The Minister of the Interior Friedrich Zimmermann reached an agreement on
Wednesday at the end of his political discussions in Ankara, according to which
the Federal Government [of Germany] will support the Turkish wish for a
foundation (Stiftung), which will establish and maintain mosques and Qur’an
schools in the Federal Republic of Germany. A precondition for this will be the
establishment of a foundation for the Catholic and Protestant German churches in
Turkey. The Turkish government hopes that this foundation will facilitate state
supervision of Turkish religious personnel (Geistliche) in the FRG (cited in
Binswanger and Sipahioğlu 1988, 76).
Though Zimmermann, a member of the right-wing CSU Party, was generally known for his
comments encouraging Turks and Muslims to leave Germany, by engaging in direct talks on
the governance of Islam in Germany with Turkish authorities he was continuing a precedent,
as the Interior Ministry had already issued a memo in 1981 setting out the procedure for a
Turkish imam to enter the country (Amiraux 2001, 58).
Ultimately, the Diyanet was not able to set up a foundation in Germany, though the
manner by which this question was handled is highly instructive. The establishment of the
Diyanet’s branches abroad is a good example of how many Islam-related issues are far more
technical and far less esoteric than most public debates admit, and stumble more frequently due
to bureaucratic politics and institutional restrictions than as a result of an ostensible “clash of
civilizations.” Moreover, it shows how from the beginning this initiative provoked a curious
mix of internal politics and foreign policy for both receiving and home states – for instance,
the reciprocal request by German authorities for a church foundation in Turkey. On another
86
The public recognition of religious communities (Religionsgemeinschaften) and the attribution of the
status of cooperation of public law (Körperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts) fall under the responsibility
of the Länder in Germany. For more, see Chapter IV.
226
level, while the gradual “fragmentation” of foreign policy-making between different state
ministries has been remarked upon in the political science and IR literature (Devin 2002b), the
overlap in this case raises new questions given that the object of governance – Islamic religious
affairs – is the same. Consequently, the main issue becomes understanding how religious affairs
are perceived and administratively constructed by different state authorities, and the
consequences this entails for the development of Muslim religious fields.
The internationalization of the Diyanet became official in October of 1984, when its
Deparment of Foreign Affairs was created by cabinet decision (BKK 84/8610). While
Gözaydın criticizes the continued reliance on cabinet decisions as being without any legal basis
(2009, 137–138), Altıkulaç looks upon it positively, noting that it created the institutional
framework necessary for the Diyanet’s activities abroad (2011, 387). The website of the French
DITIB emphasizes that this decision represented a milestone, and mentions as well that it
created the positions of religious counsellor in Paris and religious attaché in Lyon – a full two
years before the French DITIB was officially founded (Fransa DITIB 2012a).
The Turkish governmental journal’s summary of the Diyanet’s personnel situation that
year also shows the concrete effects of this decision. Not only is there a “Director of Foreign
Affairs” (dış ilişkiler dairesi başkanı) in the Diyanet’s central structure in Ankara (Türkiye
Cumhuriyeti 1984, 191), but for the first time the Diyanet’s “foreign branch” (yurtdışı teşkilatı)
is clearly indicated. In 1984, the foreign affairs branch included a total of 143 employees, which
listed 16 religious counsellors and 17 attachés (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2008, 111), though
the vast majority of employees were given the title “social assistant” (sosyal yardımcı) (Türkiye
Cumhuriyeti 1984, 198–199).87 Compared to the earlier “Foreign Services Directorate” (Dış
Hizmetleri Müdürlüğü), which had existed in various forms since 1971, the new Department
of Foreign Affairs Department has remained a stable and ever-growing part of the Diyanet to
present day.
As seen above, funding problems had originally hampered the sending of imams abroad
and had led the Diyanet to pursue cooperation with a surprising array of different actors, such
as the MWL, Belgian municipalities, and the mosque associations themselves, which either
87
The Cabinet decision includes a list of 14 religious counsellor positions in Turkish embassies, some
of which had already existed beforehand: Bonn, Brussels, The Hague, Paris, Canberra, Mecca, Vienna,
Copenhagen, Bern, London, Baghdad, Stockholm, Washington, and Tripoli. The 17 attaché positions,
overwhelmingly located in Germany, are listed as follows: Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Cologne,
Munich, Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, Düsseldorf, Hannover, Nuremberg, Münster, Deventer, Sydney,
Melbourne, Marseille, Lyon, and New York (Durmaz 1995, 13–14).
227
paid the salaries directly, or contributed to a “monthly fund” (Altıkulaç 2011, 380–389). Until
1984, a number of these imams were sent abroad as “social assistants” by the Ministry of
Labour after being selected by the Diyanet.88 This issue was definitively settled in July of 1985
when the foreign ministry’s “Project for the Protection and Promotion of Turkish Culture
Heritage” (Türk Kültür Varlığını Koruma ve Tanıtma Projesi)89 became responsible for paying
the salaries of the imams sent abroad, and the finance ministry allocated the necessary funding
for an initial contingent of 320 imams (Baş, Gülçiçek, and Fatsa 2003, 85). The same year a
special imam hatip high school, the Beykoz Anadolu IHL, 90 was founded with the goal of
training religious personnel for the community abroad, offering specialized training in foreign
languages. Across Western Europe, the number of new Diyanet organizations grew rapidly
after this point: the “Sweden Diyanet Foundation” was founded in 1984; the “Denmark Turkish
Diyanet Foundation” in 1985; “DITIB-France” in 1986; and the “Turkish Diyanet Foundation
in Switzerland” in 1987 (see Figure III-3 below). 91 New cabinet decisions in the years
thereafter have led to the disappearance of certain religious counsellor positions, as well as to
the expansion of the Diyanet’s international activities to the Central Asia (Kazakhstan,
Kirghizstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan in 1992), the Caucasus, the Balkans, and
more (for more, see Chapter V.C.3.).
By the end of the 1980s, a well-organized and interconnected network of Diyanetlinked religious organizations had been founded across Western Europe and beyond. In the
During the Diyanet’s budget hearing in the Turkish senate in 1980, State Minister Muhammet Kelleci
provides the following numbers: the Diyanet’s overseas personnel included the 3 aforementioned
religious counsellors, and a total of 41 imams (din görevlisi) in Western Europe, who stayed for a period
of 6 months (16 in Germany, 16 in the Netherlands, 8 in Belgium, 1 in Austria). Another 17 were sent
to Belgium for a period of 3 years, presumably with the financial support of the local municipalities. At
the same time, thanks to cooperation with the Ministry of Labour another 7 were sent abroad, notably
to Germany (6) and Switzerland (1) (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi 1980, 243–244).
89
Another name for the “Funds for the Protection of Turkish Cultural Heritage” (Türk Kültür Varlığını
Koruma Giderleri), also sometimes called the “Fund for the Protection of Turkish Cultural Heritage”
(Türk Kültür Varlığını Koruma Fonu).
90
The Anadolu Lisesi are a special type of advanced high schools in Turkey. Despite the initial goal of
the Beykoz Anadolu IHL, the focus on training imams for Turkish communities abroad quickly fell by
the wayside as the school became a favourite of Islamic conservative politicans and business leaders,
including numerous children of AKP party members (such as those of Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdoğan) (Bozan 2000, 20).
91
Unsurprisingly, the arrival Diyanet’s religious counsellor usually preceeded the founding of these
associations. For example, the first din müşaviri in Denmark arrived in 1983 (Mehmet Koçer), in France
in 1983 (İrfan Şentürk, who seems to have arrived before the cabinet decision mentioned above), and
in Switzerland in 1984 (Prof. Dr. Fahri Kayadibi) (Danimark Türk Diyanet Vakfı 2014; Fransa DITIB
2014b; İsviçre Türk Diyanet Vakfı 2012).
88
228
process, the Turkish state’s religious administration had vastly expanded in order to cover the
global dimension which had emerged alongside the transnational expansion of the Turkish
Muslim field. In barely one decade, the Turkish state had managed to set up the infrastructure
necessary to catch up on almost two decades of neglect and position itself as one of the most
important actors in the developing Muslim religious fields of Western Europe.
Despite the competition from other Turkish Islamic groups in the Muslim field abroad,
the Diyanet-linked organizations benefited from home state-promoted religious and cultural
capital. Moreover, they benefited from the perception that they represented an “apolitical” and
“neutral” Islam, and came with the support of other Turkish state actors, such as the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs. For Turkish Islamic groups that had been established in Western Europe
longer than the Diyanet, the rivalry could be intense (Ruşen Çakır and Bozan 2005; Akgönül
2005; Amiraux 2001; Lemmen 2000). According to the former leader of Milli Görüş (and
nephew of Erbakan), Mehmet Sabri Erbakan, by the mid-to-late 1980s,
DITIB was the competitor bar none. All the others were far behind. DITIB found
an audience amongst the Turks, namely all those who were somewhat religious,
but who didn’t have any political or other cultural concerns. DITIB just came with
a very simple concept: only the preservation of traditions, and that, well, “wewon’t-get-mixed-up-in-anything” policy (wir-mischen-uns-nicht-ein-Politik) (in
Schiffauer 2010, 99).
By the end of the 1990s, a number of political changes occurred that would have an
impact on evolutions in the transnational Turkish Muslim field. In 1998, a coalition between
the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Greens came to power in Germany under Gerhard
Schröder, which would pass significant reforms of citizenship and nationality laws in the
country soon after. At the same time, the political party tied to the Milli Görüş movement in
Turkey, the Refah Partisi (Welfare Party, RP), began winning elections at numerous levels
during the 1990s, culminating with Necmettin Erbakan becoming Turkish prime minister in
1996. Though he did not stay in power long, only a few years later the AKP would sweep to
power, bringing with them fundamental changes to the place of Islam in Turkey, and relations
between Turkish Islamic actors in the religious field abroad.
Finally, starting in the 1990s and gaining force in the 2000s (especially after 9/11),
Western European states began to pay more attention to “institutionalizing” and “nationalizing”
Islam, at once challenging the perception that Muslims were foreigners and publicly demanding
for home state intervention to decrease. In France and Germany, these new policies towards
Muslims were made visible at the national level in the form of consultations between state
229
representatives and the leaders of Muslim mosque federations, and would lead to the creation
of the Conseil Français du Culte Musulman (French Council of the Muslim Faith, CFCM) and
the German Islam Conference (Deutsche Islam Konferenz, DIK). Despite the rhetoric of
politicians in both countries calling for an “integrated” Islam “free from foreign influences,”
the national DITIB branches in France and Germany have successfully established themselves
as the main Turkish Islamic federation in both national contexts, while cooperation with the
Diyanet has only grown stronger as the years have gone on. Chapter IV explores the reasons
for why interstate cooperation has remained as strong as it has; however, before proceeding,
the next section considers the case of the Moroccan transnational Muslim field and its
development abroad.
230
Figure III-3 “Diyanet Foreign Branches Worldwide”
Country
Diyanet-linked Organization
Year Founded
Germany
Diyanet İşleri Türk İslam Birliği
1982 ; 1984 (a)
Belgium
Belçika Türk Diyanet Vakfı
1982
Netherlands
Hollanda Diyanet Vakfı, Türk İslam Kültür
1982; 1979 (b)
Dernekleri Federasyonu
Sweden
İşveç Diyanet Vakfı
1984
Denmark
Danimark Türk Diyanet Vakfı
1985
France
Fransa Diyanet İşleri Türk İslam Birliği
1985
Switzerland
İsviçre Türk Diyanet Vakfı
1987
Austria
Avusturya Türk İslam Kültür ve Sosyal
1990
Yardımlaşma Birliği (ATİB)
Norway
Türk İslam Birliği (NORTİB), Norveç Türkiye
1990, 2011 (b)
Diyanet Vakfı
Japan
Tokyo Türk Diyanet Cami Vakfi
1997
England
İngiltere Türk Diyanet Vakfı (İTDV)
2001
Finland
Finlandiya Diyanet Derneği
2011
USA
Amerika Türk Diyanet Vakfı
2001
Sources: Internet homepages of individual Diyanet organizations. This list is not exhaustive: the Diyanet has also
been present for many years in Australia and Canada through individual mosques associations, and more recently
in Italy. (a) The dates correspond to the creation of DITIB-Berlin and DITIB-Cologne. (b) In a few cases, the
Diyanet has created both an association and a foundation. The Dutch case is particular in that the association was
in fact founded by Turkish migrants (see Sunier et al. 2011, 55–65).
231
C - Religious Diaspora Policies and Moroccan Workers Abroad
As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, the history of the Moroccan diaspora echoes that
of the Turkish guest workers, and many aspects of the demographics and settlement patterns
have changed in a similar fashion since the mid-1970s.
The Moroccan state had many reasons early on to pay attention to this diaspora. Both in
terms of economic importance as well as in terms of brute numbers, the weight of the Moroccan
diaspora compared to the overall population of the country is relatively much greater than in
the Turkish case. Already in 1979, the approximately 2% of the population living abroad
(530,000 individuals) contributed more to the economy through their remittances (3.2 billion
dirhams) than the phosphate industry (2.1 billion dirhams) or tourism (1.65 billion dirhams)
(U.S. Bureau of the Census 1980, 112–114; Belguendouz in Adam 1980, 686–687). Since then,
the number of Moroccans living abroad has continued rising in a spectacular fashion, and in
2010 corresponds to 3,300,000 people – that is to say, more than 10% of the country’s
population – who provide 53 billion dirhams in remittences transfers, equal to 9% of the total
GDP (Ministère Chargé de la Communauté Marocaine Résidant à l’Étranger 2010, 9).
However, the Moroccan state’s involvement in the religious affairs of its citizens abroad
initially did not occur with the same structural formality nor to the same degree when compared
to Turkey. Despite certain antecedents, Morocco’s direct involvement began later (during the
mid to late 1980s), and has seen a greater role played by the diplomats of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and Cooperation (Ministère des Affaires Étrangères et de la Coopération,
hereafter “foreign affairs ministry”) than the Ministry of Habous and Islamic Affairs (hereafter
Minister of Habous, or MHAI). The participation of other ministries, such as the Ministry of
the Moroccan Community Residing Abroad (MCMRE), and the state-linked Fondation
Hassan II (Hassan II Foundation, FHII), also contributes to rendering the institutional
landscape more opaque.
At the same time, Moroccan migrants abroad are less easily divided into specific
religious currents and political party affiliations than in the Turkish case. In general,
contestatory religious movements amongst Moroccan migrants were less widespread, and
leftist workers’ associations played a much greater role in structuring the associative landscape
than for Turks. When it came to religious practice, many Moroccans joined up with other
French or Arabic-speaking migrants to form Muslim associations, something which also
occurred much less frequently amongst Turks due to cultural and linguistic differences.
232
Nevertheless, national identity continued to play an important role. According to statistics cited
by Daoud, the majority of Moroccans in Western European countries today continue to “live
amongst themselves, just as they most often marry amongst themselves” (2011, 107–108). In
the political or religious associations which adopted a home state-oriented perspective, the
dividing line for many years was between supporters and opponents of the monarchy, a tension
which has greatly decreased since the 1990s.
1) The Amicales and the Early French Muslim Field
Following the signing of the first labour migration agreements with Germany and France in
1963, the Moroccan government followed an “excessively emigrationist policy, the goal being
to export the largest number of workers possible, essentially to Europe, so as to receive in
return the maximum amount of [foreign] currency” (Belguendouz 2006, 3). As in the Turkish
case, the “liberal governmentality” that had given rise to this situation was accompanied by a
“disciplinary governmentality” that kept a close eye over Moroccans abroad, treating them
simultaneously as potential threats as well as valued sources of income.
In France, the organization which symbolized this potential threat was the Association
of Moroccans in France (Association des Marocains en France, AMF), founded by Mehdi Ben
Barka and other left-wing Moroccan leaders in 1960. The AMF initially maintained close ties
to the UNFP, but later became more independent, and served as a rallying point for the
numerous exiled opponents of the Moroccan regime from independence onwards (Dumont
2007, 211). However, the AMF’s success was limited to a “fraction of Moroccan workers,
almost exclusively in and around Paris,” and by 1973 a rival association close to the Moroccan
state had been founded: the Federation of Moroccan Workers’ and Merchants’ Friendship
Societies in France (Fédération des amicales de travailleurs et de commerçants marocains en
France, hereafter FATCM or simply amicales) (Belbahri 1989, 74). 92 The rivalry between
these two organizations throughout the 1970s reproduced the political struggles going on at
home, leading Dumont to characterize the Moroccan migratory field in France as an
The amicales (or widdadiyat in Arabic) translate as “friendship societies.” They were originally
established by the Algerian government in 1966 to watch over its citizens abroad, a model which was
followed by Morocco and Tunisia thereafter (Jouanneau 2013, 49–50). The Moroccan amicales network
was established in the Netherlands and Belgium the same year as in France (van Heelsum 2002). There
are also Turkish associations which include the word amicale, for instance the Amicale des travailleurs
turcs in Garges-lès-Gonesse, but these amicales are tied to DITIB, and not to a larger non-religious
federation, such as the FATCM.
92
233
“exopolity,” in the sense given by Dufoix: “a space of opposition and struggle against the
regime in place in the country of origin” (in Dumont 2007, 212–213). Indeed, the kidnapping
and murder of Ben Barka in Paris in 1965, apparently on the orders of the Moroccan Minister
of the Interior Mohammed Oufkir (Pennell 2003, 169), had already set the tone as to the dangers
incurred by those who openly opposed Hassan II’s regime – no matter where they might be.
In the context of this conflict, Islam was seen by state authorities as a remedy to the
danger posed by contestatory leftist movements. This occurred on both sides of the
Mediterranean, whether in the case of the Moroccan state’s tacit cooperation with the Islamic
Youth movement until 1975, or as clearly evidenced by Dijoud’s memorandum in 1976 (see
above). Nevertheless, other than in these moments when it was used to promote a “precise
political cause,” Islam and religious issues were generally ignored by most state authorities
(Kepel 1987, 117).
There is very little information concerning the Moroccan state’s first religious activities
abroad. The first mention that I have found dates from 1971, when a group of ulema was sent
to “France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and [Germany] in order to assist Moroccan emigrants
during the month of Ramadan” (Adam 1972, 412). The following years the king sent a group
of 20 ulema for Ramadan in 1972, and another 33 ulema in 1973 (Adam 1973, 401; Adam
1974, 496). There is no mention of the numbers or frequency of the practice in the years
thereafter; however, it is very likely that this represents the beginning of the Moroccan state’s
annual practice of sending temporary religious officials abroad during the month of Ramadan
for Moroccans living in Western Europe. Indeed, though my interviewees at the MHAI
themselves could not tell me the precise year these overseas activities began, they confirmed
that the practice of sending imams, preachers, and ulema abroad has continued unabated since
the first migrant worker communities left for Western Europe in the 1970s (Interview,
Mohammed Rifki I; Interview, Hakim El Ghissassi, 8 June 2011, Rabat; Interview, Abdellah
Boussouf, 9 June 2011, Rabat).
The task was carried out by the Minister of Habous, which has “always had a division in
charge of religious affairs outside of Morocco, in one form or another” (Interview, M. Rifki I).
After their arrival in France, these ulema and imams were looked over by the consulates and
the amicales, which were in charge of organizing the religious events they were to preside over
and deciding to which mosques they were to be sent. These activities were carried out with the
full knowledge of French officials, in particular the Central Office for Religions (Bureau
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Central des Cultes, BCC) of the Interior Ministry, which kept tabs on the relations between the
consulates, the FATCM, and the mosque associations (Jouanneau 2013, 279–280). It is
important to note that the amicales were not predisposed for any particular reason to be
involved in religious issues, other than the fact that they were in charge of keeping a watchful
eye over Moroccan workers on behalf of Moroccan state authorities. Religion thus represented
one amongst a number of fields of activities: by 1989, the 128 chapters of the FATCM had
control over 152 prayer spaces across France, but they were also running 128 Arabic languages
classes for children (and some for adults); 95 soccer teams; and “organized cultural events on
the occasion of Moroccan national holidays” (Belbahri 1989, 74).
During the 1970s, in the rare moments when Moroccan authorities were attentive to the
question of Islam in Western Europe, it was often with regard to developments in France at the
Great Mosque of Paris (Grande Mosquée de Paris, GMP). The GMP was built during the first
half of the 1920s in the heart of Paris (the 5th arrondissement), and was presented by French
authorities as a way of rendering homage to the thousands of Muslim colonial soldiers who had
fought and died for France during the First World War. The mosque has a fascinating history,
showing the paradoxes of how French laïcité coexisted with France’s colonial self-image as a
“Muslim power” (puissance musulmane) during the 4th Republic (for an in depth study see
Boyer 1992; and Chapter 2 and 7 in Kepel 1987).
The funding for the mosque had come directly from the French state, which passed a law
allocating 500,000 Francs for its construction in 1920, and the city of Paris, which granted a
subsidy of 1,620,000 Francs for the purchase of the land, and was run by the Société des Habous
et des Lieux Saints de l’Islam (Society of Habous and Islamic Holy Places, hereafter Société
des Habous), founded in Algiers in 1917 (Kepel 1987, 66,69). At the same time, a substantial
sum was also donated by the Sultan of Morocco Moulay Youssef, who inaugurated the mosque
in 1926, and whose counsellor, Si Kaddour Benghabrit,93 became the mosque’s first president
(recteur).94 Despite the fact that the GMP later became the bastion of the Algerian state, this
93
Benghabrit, born in Algeria but granted Moroccan nationality, occupied high-level positions in the
French colonial administration prior to becoming head of the GMP. Benghabrit’s role in saving Jews
during WWII has also attracted notable attention (see Aïssaoui 2012).
94
In this thesis, I translate the term recteur as “(mosque) president,” or leave it in the original French.
Indeed, the position is especially interesting considering that there is no real equivalent in Muslim
countries: the recteur is usually the president of the mosque association that runs the mosque or prayer
space (thus my translation). Nevertheless, the title confers an important degree of responsibility and
public visibility on the individual who holds it, and who at times may also exercise the office of imam
or imam hatip.
235
initial involvement has not been forgotten: during my interviews, the majority of my Moroccan
interviewees made allusion at some point in our conversation to the Moroccan origins of the
mosque.
The GMP became a symbol of the conflict between France and Algeria under its next
president, Si Hamza Boubakeur. Si Hamza kept the GMP on the side of France throughout the
Algerian War of Independence, and oriented the GMP’s activities towards the community of
“French Muslims” (Français musulmans).95 Though Morocco joined the ranks of Si Hamza’s
critics when it issued a joint declaration with Algeria and Tunisia in 1974 (Le monde 1974), it
also tried to take advantage of the situation. In 1977, Si Hamza changed the statutes of the
Société des Habous, and the Moroccan government was briefly designated as the beneficiary
of the GMP in the event of cessation of activity; however, only three years later this article was
changed yet again in favour of Algeria, followed by the City of Paris, leaving Morocco in third
place (Kepel 1987, 90). The return of Algeria became official with the nomination of Sheikh
Abbas, a unilingual Algerian state employee working for the Algerian amicales network, as the
head of the GMP in 1982. It was notably under Sheikh Abbas that Algeria accomplished its
reconciliation with the harkis in the 1980s, as the GMP became a symbol of the Algerian state’s
interests in the French Muslim field (Kepel 1987, 313–352).
During this initial period, many prayer spaces run by Moroccans both inside and outside
the workers’ residences and factories came under the influence of the transnational Tabligh
movement. Founded in 1926 in India by Muhammed Ilyas al-Kandhalwi, the speciality of this
movement is in “reislamizing” Muslims who have lapsed in their religious practice, through a
form of communitarian proselytization. The Tabligh movement in France began in earnest in
1968 and had a very important structural effect on the French Muslim field. After coming into
contact with the Tablighis, many Muslims in France “rediscovered” their faith and became
engaged in Islamic associations. While some remained within the movement, for many others
it served as a stepping stone towards other Islamic groups. This was especially the case for
those who were frustrated by the Tabligh’s refusal to become involved in politics, or others
who were disappointed by its lack of intellectual depth (Kepel 1987, 207–208). As the years
have gone by, the ranks of the Tabligh in France have counted an increasingly high number of
95
This term is used to refer to the harkis: Muslims who fought for the French during the Algerian War
of Independence and who were then “repatriated” to France after the war.
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Moroccans, which has led to direct cooperation with the main Moroccan associations and home
state authorities on numerous occasions (Godard and Taussig 2007, 64–65).
Many of those who sought a more politicized or intellectual Islam had come to France
as students and not workers, and gravitated around the Association des Étudiants Islamiques
en France (Association of Islamic Students in France, AEIF). The AEIF was founded in 1963
by a Pakistani professor named Muhammed Hamidullah, and counted amongst its members the
future Iranian President Abolhassan Banisadr and Sudanese Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi
(Godard and Taussig 2007, 337–338), as well as a number of Moroccans, such as Abdellah
Boussouf, who have played an important role in the Moroccan Muslim field abroad and in
Moroccan state insitutions. The association remained close to the Syrian branch of the Muslim
Brotherhood in the years thereafter, and while it had an important influence on a number of
Moroccan Muslim associative leaders in France, it nevertheless remained limited to a smaller
intellectual élite, as opposed to the Tabligh’s vision of preaching to the masses (Kepel 1987,
96, 191–192).
While the GMP, the Tabligh and the AEIF were all well-established by the end of the
1970s, the practice of Islam in France remained a very local affair. Aside from the Great
Mosque of Paris, there were no other mosques in the country which were identifiable as such
and had been built for that purpose, and very few Muslim groups were officially organized in
the form of associations. Changes in both French and international politics were to have a direct
impact on this situation. In 1981, the French law on associations was modified, and the
requirement for associations founded by foreigners to be approved by the Ministry of the
Interior was repealed. At the international level, the influx of petrodollars from Saudi Arabia,
Libya, and Gulf states such as Kuwait, was followed by the Iranian revolution of 1979. The
involvement of these states in the religious affairs of Muslims in Western Europe resulted in
new possibilities for the development of Islam, but also attracted suspicion from local
authorities and the public. On the other hand, these new actors also had the potential to upstage
(and upset) states such as Algeria, Morocco, or Turkey, which had a vested interest in keeping
abreast – and in control – of their citizens’ activities abroad.
The translation of foreign rivalries to local contexts could have unexpected
consequences. For instance, leadership struggles within mosque associations could encompass
a wide variety of political, ideological, and personal differences, as seen in the case of Mantesla-Jolie below. Nevertheless, until the mid-to-late 1980s, the Moroccan state continued to deal
237
only indirectly with the religious affairs of its citizens abroad, despite the important measures
that had been taken to reinforce the state’s control over the religious field in Morocco itself
(see Chapter II.D.).
The reason for this is simple: given the reigning disciplinary mode of governmentality
during the années de plomb, the Moroccan state was first and foremost concerned with potential
sources of political opposition, and very few were to be found in the religious field. As Dumont
highlights for the case of France, during the first half of the 1980s, “the two poles which
consistently structured the mobilization of Moroccan migrants in France were the secular left
and the amicales” (Dumont 2007, 297). The potential of Islam to do the same would occur by
the end of the decade.
2) Early Diaspora Policies and International Rivalry
As Moroccan migrants began settling abroad permanently, many Moroccans became more
involved in their adopted local contexts. Permanent resident status had already been obtained
in the Netherlands and Belgium in 1975, and France in 1981-1982; this was especially
important given that the majority of Moroccan migrants arrived through informal networks,
rather than formal recruitment (de Haas 2007, 11–12). Many opted for naturalization in their
adoptive countries, especially after the Schengen accords of 1985 heightened visa restrictions,
while movements fighting for the right of foreigners to vote in municipal elections mobilized
numerous “politicized” Moroccans (Daoud 2011, 49). Perhaps the most important example is
the famous marche des beurs, which brought a large number of first and second-generation
migrants into the street across France, denouncing racism and discrimination and ending with
a rally of 100 000 in Paris in 1983.96 Wihtol de Wenden and Leveau (2001) in particular have
studied the emergence of a “beurgoisie” in France, in other words a new (bourgeois) middle
class of Arab (beur) origin, as well as the role played by their involvement in local associative
life.
Unions and labour movements continued to occupy an important place amongst
Moroccan migrants. This was especially true in France, where a series of large-scale strikes
The official name of the movement was the Marche pour l’égalité et contre le racisme (March for
Equality and Against Racism). The word beur means Arab in verlan slang, and emphasized the
participation of migrants and their descendants in the movement. Subsequent marches were organized
in 1984 and 1985, the latter by the association SOS Racisme, close to the Socialist Party.
96
238
involving Moroccans hit the automotive sector between 1981 and 1984. At the same time, a
division within the AMF that had begun at the end of the 1970s led to the breakaway of a group
which then formed the Association des Travailleurs Marocains de France (Association of
Moroccan Workers in France, ATMF) in 1981. The ATMF rapidly emerged as the more
dynamic of the two, remaining a major figure in the opposition to the Moroccan state while
also becoming a “Moroccan community union,” as a result of its success in mobilizing migrants
during the strikes in the automotive and mining industries (Dumont 2007, 283).
Meanwhile, the amicales continued to keep watch over contestatory movements, and
“during the 1970s and 1980s, it was not unusual for political troublemakers who lived in Europe
to be harassed while visiting family and friends in Morocco” (de Haas 2005). Alongside the
secular leftists and union members, small groups tied to ʿAbdelkrīm Muṭīʿ’s movement Islamic
Youth and its armed wing seem to have been present in Western Europe, especially in France.
However, according to a contemporary observer, not only were these Moroccan Islamists
splintered amongst “hundreds of different small groups,” but their activities were overall
discrete and their “audience remained very limited” (Terrel 1986, 20). Kepel, relying on the
same source, claims that this religious activism was kept to a minimum due to an important
degree of “self-censorship” imposed by the Moroccan migrants on themselves, as well as their
suspicion towards any group that openly expressed its opposition to the monarchy, because
they “knew all too well the cost” (Terrel 1986, 21; Kepel 1987, 283).
As settlement became permanent, the Moroccan monarchy did not hide its hostility
towards the integration of its citizens in Western European countries. The combined
disciplinary and liberal governmentalities which underlay diaspora policies during this time
left little room for nuance: in the view of the former, obtaining a new citizenship and
permanently settling abroad was tantamount to betraying one’s homeland; meanwhile for the
latter, it meant the potential loss of financial remittances. The issue of voting in local elections
gave rise to particularly clear statements on the part of Hassan II that demonstrate this position.
Not only did he express his “displeasure” when the Dutch granted foreigners local voting rights
in 1986, but in 1989 he went so far as to say that participating in French elections would be “in
a sense, a betrayal of one’s origins” (in de Haas 2007, 19–20).
In order to “protect” the identity of its citizens abroad, Morocco signed a series a bilateral
agreements with the main countries of emigration concerning the instruction of the Arabic
language and Moroccan culture (with Spain in 1980, the Netherlands and France in 1983,
239
Belgium in 1986, and Germany in 1991) (Belguendouz 2006, 12). The notion of ‘protecting’
the culture or origins of migrants through such educational programmes parallel similar efforts
by Turkey (cf. article 62 of the 1982 Constitution, see above), as well as numerous other states
from which the waves of labour migration departed in the 1960s and 1970s. In France, a
memorandum in 1975 had paved the way for receiving state institutions to accommodate such
classes, and a European Union directive in 1977 “on the education of the children of migrant
workers” (77/486/EEC), stated that
Member States shall, in accordance with the national circumstances and legal
systems, and in cooperation with States of origin, take appropriate measures to
promote, in coordination with normal education, teaching of the mother tongue and
culture of origin (Council of the European Economic Community 1977).
In France, this became institutionalized under the name Enseignements de Langues et de
Cultures d’Origine (Instruction of Languages and Cultures of Origin, ELCO), and concerned
eight different countries. Despite their relatively low impact (usually no more than three hours
of classes per week, with a high rate of absenteeism), the ELCOs were criticized as a Trojan
Horse, which in fact propagated foreign nationalism and Islamic religious education under the
guise of language and culture classes in French schools (Lorcerie 1994, 6–8). However, in the
case of Moroccan textbooks, Lorcerie argues that religion was not “taught” outright, but was
“mentioned” as an example of good morality and included as part of a general cultural frame
of reference (1994, 13–16).
The ELCO programme represents an interesting point of comparison, considering how
it has remained relatively less important for Morocco with regard to religious affairs, while it
constituted the main vehicle through which the Algerian state sent its imams to France starting
at the end of 1980s and throughout the 1990s. Indeed, Jouanneau explains how French officials
created the category of the so-called “ELCO imams” in order to ensure greater control over
religious officials coming from abroad, especially in the case of Algeria, where a vicious civil
war involving factions of political and radical Islam broke out at the beginning of the 1990s.
This interstate cooperation was carried out with Algerian diplomats and the GMP, and was
perhaps one fo the best examples of the “temptation to externalize” the governance of Islamic
affairs to home state governments (Jouanneau 2013, 280–303), which Laurence has also called
the “outsourcing” of religious governance (2006).
The “ELCO imam” model was never broadened to include Turkish Diyanet imams;
however, on occasion there has been some ambiguity, when teachers sent by the Turkish
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Ministry of National Education have given classes in mosques. Nevertheless, this is justified
by Turkish authorities on the basis of space constraints. For instance, one Turkish diplomat
highlighted the fact that many mosques double as “cultural centres,” and that in some
jurisdictions the ELCO teachers may not be able to find a room in a local school or municipal
building, and so classes may take place in DITIB mosques (Interview, E. Solakoğlu, 20 October
2011, Paris). The idea of expanding the “ELCO imam” model was even less relevant for
Morocco, where imams, hatips, preachers, and other religious personnel, where not
institutionalized to the same degree in state structures until the recent reforms of the religious
field launched in 2004. Even in the case of Algeria, the the practice of the using the ELCOs
programme to bring in imams was discontinued by the early 2000s (Interview, B. Godard, 17
Septemer 2010, Paris), largely due to its ambiguous legal status.
Until the late 1980s, the Moroccan state’s implication in the religious affairs of its
citizens abroad was thus limited to the aforementioned sending of small groups of imams
during Ramadan, and the system based on control and surveillance within which a large number
of mosque associations (and their imams) were overseen by the amicales and the Moroccan
consulates. In the meantime, other states such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, and Libya had
started courting Muslim associations in Western Europe, which were generally all in great need
of funding for mosque construction and religious activities. The Saudi MWL founded the
European branch of its World Supreme Council for Mosques in Brussels in 1975, and its Paris
branch followed in 1977 (Kepel 1987, 214–215). The MWL is often associated with the
mosque of Mantes-la-Jolie, one of earliest “mosquée cathédrale” to be built in France,97 which
hosts the official representation of the MWL. However, the history of the mosque is more
complex.
As de Galembert relates, the genesis of this mosque is in many respects unique, given
the dearth in similar mosques built in the years thereafter, and because of the key role played
by local municipal politics, and two individuals in particular: the Socialist Mayor Paul Picard,
and the president of the association promoting the mosque project, Ali Berka (2005, 1141–
1142). Though the Union Islamique des Yvelines (Islamic Union of the Yvelines Department)
included a number of different nationalities, the main group led by Berka was comprised of
Literally “cathedral mosque,” this colourful expression makes reference to large-scale mosques with
a high degree of visibility (often including a minaret). “Cathedral mosques” also attract attention due to
their size, their architectural and decorative merits, and the significant financial costs required for their
construction. While the comparison with a masjid jāmiʿ is mostly accurate, many small mosques which
do not share these characteristics nevertheless function as masjid jāmiʿ in France.
97
241
Moroccans who were “members or supporters of the amicales” (Kepel 1987, 287–289). The
architectural style of the mosque is also Moroccan, and a group of Moroccan specialists were
brought over to supervise the final stages of the mosque’s construction (Kepel 1987, 290). On
the other hand, the primary donor for the construction of the mosque was Libya (along with
Kuwait and Saudi Arabia), which at the beginning of the 1980s had hoped to gain influence
amongst French Muslims thanks to its petrodollars (Godard and Taussig 2007, 104).
When the mosque was inaugurated in 1981, 26 ambassadors and the president of the
GMP Si Hamza Boubakeur were in attendance; however, after refusing Libya’s request to
name the mosque after Kadhafi, the leaders of the association increasingly took their distance
from Libyan authorities (de Galembert 2005, 1151, 1156). Still, according to Kepel, a proLibyan group of Moroccans took control of the mosque after its inauguration, but then “went
into hibernation” after the Oujda Treaty of 1984 between Morocco and Libya, thanks to which
“Tripoli ended its support to Moroccan Islamist groups hostile to the monarchy” (1987, 292).
To complicate matters further, it seems that Ali Berka’s support for the Moroccan opposition
figure Moumen Diouri at the beginning of the 1980s had led to internal conflicts in the
association (Auffray 1995b), and by 1987 he had lost control of the mosque.
His opponent was a fellow Moroccan, Driss Ichchou, who was said to be close to both
the representatives of the Moroccan state and an “Islamist” group named Young Islam Action
(Action Jeune Islam), which had come out in support of the female high school students who
had been expelled for wearing the hijab during the first “headscarf affair” (affaire du foulard)
in 1989 (Auffray 1995a). This conflict made even more newspaper headlines due to the
controversial figure of Tayeb Bentizi, an imam at the mosque and tae kwan do instructor who
was deported from France in 1994, and was implicated later in the 2003 attacks in Casablanca
(Robert-Diard 2007). In order to settle the leadership struggle, an election for control of the
mosque association’s administrative council was organized in 1995, under the watchful eye of
French authorities. Berka’s electoral list had the support of both the French Ministry of the
Interior as well as the Moroccan consulate and swept the election (18 out of 22 seats), shutting
out two rival harki lists entirely and defeating Ichhou’s list, which won the remaining four seats
(Auffray 1995b; Cesari 1998, 32). Two years later, Berka received a visit of Saudi Prince Abdul
Aziz bin Fahd, after which the mosque began receiving yearly funding and extra preachers for
Ramadan from the MWL (though the main imam remained Moroccan), and in 1999 the mosque
242
officially became the property of the MWL (Abdi 1997; Laurence and Vaïsse 2007, 147;
Godard and Taussig 2007, 104).
The case of Mantes-la-Jolie holds many general lessons for attempting to understand the
influence of foreign politics in the French Muslim field, as well as in the Muslim fields of
Western Europe in general. The first is that the situation is rarely static. More to the point,
alliances can change in surprising ways, such as Berka’s wavering between support and
opposition to the Moroccan monarchy, depending on the situation. Another lesson is that the
local context is always of great importance (i.e. the mayor’s early support for the mosque), and
that conflicts within mosque associations may have nothing to do with religious questions, but
rather political or personal rivalries. As Cesari points out, in the case of Mantes-la-Jolie, the
clash between Berka and Ichchou was not due to “ideological differences concerning Islam,”
but rather to “personal conflicts exasperated by the Moroccan political game” (1998, 31).
This citation points, however, to an important caveat: despite the importance of the local
context, it is rare for local actors to possess enough resources, in terms of organizational
capabilities, financial backing, and religious authority, so as to be able to impose themselves
(or rarely herself) without resorting to the support of an outside actor. This is, in a sense, the
very purpose of my use of the concept of field in this thesis with regard to Turkish and
Moroccan Islamic religious affairs in France and Germany. The lack of pre-established
religious infrastructure and sources of authority in these countries brings about frequent
competition between different actors who have an interest in defining who or what constitutes
a legitimate religious authority. These “reinventions of religious authority in a migratory
context” (Jouanneau 2013) pose a double challenge for home states such as Morocco and
Turkey. On the one hand, there is a routinized element which consists in both home states
exporting their own structures of institutionalized religious authority, which then is faced with
the necessity of adapting to a new context and new demands. On the other hand, the kind of
interstate competition seen above shows how foreign policy considerations join the fray, with
the result that issues concerning religious authority become highly politicized and subject to
political considerations that extend well beyond the religious field.
Religion increasingly became a part of Moroccan diaspora policy as a result of this
competition, but also due to the fact that Islam became an increasingly significant means to
mobilize Moroccan migrants at the end of the 1980s and especially during the 1990s. By 1985,
a federation of Muslims had emerged with the goal of taking on the Algerian-dominated GMP,
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something which caught the attention of Moroccan authorities. At the same time, a new
Moroccan-led “cathedral mosque” project in France eventually succeeded in receiving the first
direct funding from the Moroccan state. This turn of events was facilitated by institutional
developments in Morocco, as the country slowly emerged from the années de plomb on
introduced democratic reforms, in turn significantly altering the stakes for opponents of the
regime abroad.
3) Establishing a Religious Base Abroad: The Évry Mosque and the
National Federation of French Muslims (FNMF)98
The institutional landscape for diaspora policies in Morocco underwent a number of significant
changes in the 1980s and 1990s. One initiative led to the creation of five new electoral districts
in 1984 covering the main countries of Moroccan emigration, which sent representatives of the
Marocains Résidant à l’Étranger (Moroccans Residing Abroad, MRE) to the Moroccan
parliament for almost a decade, until these provisions were discontinued in 1992 (for an indepth presentation and analysis (Belguendouz 2006, 26–30). The next important step was the
founding of the Ministère de la Communauté Marocaine Résidant à l’Étranger (Ministry of
the Moroccan Community Residing Abroad, MCMRE) as well as the Fondation Hassan II
pour les Marocains Résidant à l’Étranger (Hassan II Foundation for Moroccans Residing
Abroad, FHII), both in 1990.
The creation of the MCMRE and the FHII effectively undercut the role played by the
Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which had been the main bodies of the
Moroccan state responsible for affairs concerning Moroccans abroad up until that point. The
advent of the MCMRE particularly irritated the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which succeeded
in progressively undermining the MCMRE thereafter, eventually absorbing it entirely in 1997
(for more details on this “bureaucratic infighting” see Brand 2006, 74–80; Belguendouz 2006,
5–7). In contrast, the FHII – which is “not a ministry, but has its orientations set by the
government” (Brand 2006, 81) – has become an important actor of the Moroccan religious field
abroad in the years since its establishment, in particular with regard to mosque funding and the
sending of imams.
98
The Fédération Nationale des Musulmans de France (FNMF).
244
At the same time, this means that until 1990, the amicales remained the main instrument
by which the Moroccan state exercised control and surveillance over the ‘diaspora’ in Western
Europe. However, aside from the suspicion the amicales elicited amongst many Moroccans
living abroad, they had no potential to become full-fledged actors in the religious field.
Moreover, as already mentioned, maintaining a direct presence in the religious field had not
even been a main concern of Moroccan diaspora policy; at least not until Islam began emerging
as a significant force for mobilization amongst migrants and their descendants in France by the
end of the 1980s.
Kepel is one of the first to allude to this evolution, stating that the beur movement had
“run out of steam” by the end of the 1980s, while its former followers replaced their
communist-inspired vocabulary with terms derived from Islam (1987, 373–377). The shift from
“beur” to “Muslim” has been noted by numerous scholars as marking a fundamental evolution
in the “reference identity” of immigrants and their descendants in France, and had acquired
greater visibility by the 1981-1984 strikes (Mouriaux and Wihtol de Wenden 1988; Laurence
and Vaïsse 2007, 117–122). This phenomenon was particularly noticeable through the
staggering rise in the number of Muslim associations and prayer spaces during the 1980s – in
no small part thanks to the 1981 change in the law on associations. Islamic places of worship
rose from 100 in 1970, to 500 in 1985, and to 1,279 in 1992, paralleled by a similar rise in the
number of the Muslim associations (Godard and Taussig 2007, 102; cf. Kepel 1987, 227–235).
These new mosques and prayer spaces were no longer located in factories and workers’
residences, but in the outlying working class residential areas where immigrant Muslim
families lived (Jouanneau 2013, 72–73). This reflected the demographic evolution which had
taken place within the ranks of the Muslim population in France, as elsewhere in Western
Europe, from the solitary male workers of the 1960-70s to the increasingly settled families of
the 1980s.
The Moroccan state’s involvement in the French Muslim field eventually took shape
around two separate yet interconnected religious actors: the Mosque of Évry-Courcouronnes
and the FNMF. However, the stories of both do not begin with direct Moroccan state
involvement, in the same way that this was the case with the DITIBs and Diyanet foundations
in the Turkish case. Rather, they are examples of how Morocco’s strategy has long been based
on flexible alliances and cooptation, replicating its approach to the religious field at home.
Despite the impressive longevity of this strategy, it began to change during the 1990s, when
the MCMRE and especially the FHII came into the picture. This tendency has been further
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accentuated since King Mohammed VI announced the reform of the Moroccan religious field
in 2004. Overall, this evolution shows how the Moroccan state has come to privilege Islam as
an essential component of its diaspora policies, and how its actions have had direct
consequences for the evolution of other Muslim fields, such as that of France.
a) The Mosque of Évry-Courcouronnes: Changing Alliances
The Évry mosque has come to be seen as one of the most representative mosques of
Moroccan Islam in France – a large picture of the mosque even hung in the main meeting room
of the General Secretariat of the European Council of Moroccan Ulema (CEOM) in Rabat
during my two visits there in 2011 and 2012. At the same time, the mosque and its history are
emblematic of Morocco’s longstanding tendency to favour cooperation with Saudi Arabia in
order to destabilize the dominant position occupied by Algeria in the French Muslim field
thanks to the GMP.
The story of the mosque begins with at the creation of the Association culturelle des
musulmans d’Île-de-France (Cultural Association of Muslims of Île-de-France, ACMIF) in
1981 by two Moroccans, Khalil Merroun and Abderrahmane Ammari. Merroun, a technician
at the French aeronautics company SNECMA, had already been active in the Association des
Marocains de l’Essonne (Association of Moroccans of the Essonne Department), and after
submitting a petition for a prayer space in 1978, he received the authorization from the Local
Planning and Development Authority to purchase a site. 99 After knocking at the doors of the
Tabligh and the GMP, Merroun even managed to meet with the Moroccan Minister of Habous
Hachemi El Filali, but left empty handed each time (Aïnouche 1990; Merroun and Lévy 2010,
90–91).
The literature on the funding of the Évry mosque is rather murky. For instance, Laurence
and Vaïsse (2007, 147) write that the MWL contributed a total of 9 million euros to the mosque
between 1984 and 1995, based on numbers provided by Thiolay and Lahouri (2002); however,
in a recent set of extended interviews, Merroun refutes that Saudi Arabia participated at all,
stating that they “remained totally outside of this project” (Merroun and Lévy 2010, 92).
Nevertheless, according to Aïnouche (1990) at the time Merroun met Ammari, the latter was
99
The case of Évry compared to other municipalities is distinct, in that it was one of five sites chosen
for “new cities” (villes nouvelles) which were constructed around Paris starting in the mid-1960s.
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working for the MWL’s Paris office and subsequently managed to use his Saudi connections
to find donors for the purchase of the site (620,000 francs from an initial campaign in Middle
Eastern newspapers, followed by another 800,000 francs raised during a trip to Saudi Arabia
in 1982).
Kepel, relying on a different source, reports the exact same figures, and adds that this
Saudi fund-raising tour had been conducted with the support of one of the top religious
authorities in the country, the future Mufti Ibn Baz (Kepel 1987, 219–220, 394 n. 14). At the
same time, Merroun claims the money for the land came from the donations of the local Muslim
community (Merroun and Lévy 2010, 91–92); this information also appears in an article in
Maroc Hebdo International (Tossa 1996), which has been used by other scholars as a source
(for instance Cesari 1998, 29–31).
Regardless of how the land was bought, the abovementioned article sheds a good deal of
light on the main source of the problem. The construction of the mosque, which began in 1984
and finished in 1990, necessitated many millions more. This gave rise to an agreement between
the MWL and ACMIF in 1986, whereby the MWL became the official owner of the mosque
in exchange for a loan of 1,250,000 U.S. dollars from the Saudi Islamic Bank of Development,
as well as the guarantee that the MWL would find the funds necessary to finish the mosque if
more was needed (Tossa 1996, 34). More money came from the Kuwaiti Ministry of Religious
Affairs, as well as from the Syrian-Saudi businessman Akram ʿAjjah, a multiple recipient of
the French Légion d’honneur and well-known intermediary for arms sales between France and
Saudi Arabia (Aïnouche 1990; Feuerstoss 2013, 328–329).
However, once construction of the mosque was completed in 1990, it seems that the
MWL reneged on its promise to find additional funding for the interior decorations.
Consequently, Merroun and ACMIF approached the new MCMRE, which officially accepted
responsibility for the mosque in January 1992 and secured the necessary funding from the FHII.
Not long thereafter, the Moroccan ambassador to France began talks with the MWL in order
to transfer the ownership of the mosque to Morocco “in order to preserve the mosque’s
Moroccan character” (Tossa 1996, 34). These talks were complicated in 1996 when a group of
Algerian harkis led by Laredj Nizar, a Muslim chaplain at the prison of Fleury-Mérogis,
occupied the mosque and accused Merroun of financial mismanagement. The occupation of
the mosque led to both a physical confrontation as well as a number of legal battles, all of
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which were lost by Nizar’s group, and a month and a half after the beginning of the conflict
Merroun was back in control (Abdi 1996a; Bertrand 1996; Abdi 1996b).
This clash was perceived as a wake-up call by Moroccan authorities concerning the
French Muslim field, and pushed ambassador Mohamed Berrada to write directly to the
Moroccan prime minister on the subject of “sav[ing] Moroccan Islam in France” (Tossa 1996,
34). While some sources mention the varied ethnic and associative backgrounds of the Évry
dissidents (Grémion 2012, 223), the paradigm of Algerian-Moroccan rivalry loomed large in
the interpretation given by Moroccan authorities; indeed, Nizar remains the president of the
Association of Algerians of the Essonne département to this day (Ville de Ris-Orangis 2014).
At the same time, aside from whatever personal animosities there may have been, two
evolutions in the French Muslim field were also root causes of these events. On the one hand,
observers such as Soheib Bencheikh (the son of Sheikh Abbas, former recteur of the GMP)
mention less this inter-ethnic rivalry and attribute the aggressive take-over of the mosque by
Nizar and his followers to their ties with the Haut Conseil des Musulmans de France (High
Council of French Muslims, HCFM), a short-lived group created in 1995 by harkis who were
in opposition to the GMP and who aimed to create a representative body for all French Muslims
(Devinat 1996; Bencheikh 1998). On the other hand, two months earlier the Évry mosque
(along with the mosque of Lyon) had been officially given the authority to authorize halal
butchers by the French Ministry of Agriculture (JO 1996, 9787–9788), thus giving them access
to a very lucrative market, which had been entirely controlled by the GMP up until that point.
In other words, the conflict at the Évry mosque stemmed on one level from the grievances of
individual local Muslims, but also from the ongoing rivalry between Muslim groups for
recognition on the French national level, along with important financial and symbolic
considerations concerning the halal meat market.
Nevertheless, for the Moroccan ambassador Berrada, the conflict served to show “the
fragility of our community in this domain [Islam in France]” when faced with the “pressure of
different religious tendencies – harkis, Muslim brothers, and others” (in Tossa 1996, 35).
Consequently, he took it upon himself to contact directly the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs
and the Ministry of Interior to alert them of the “gravity of this situation, which presents the
risk of developing into an inter-ethnic conflict (conflit inter-communautaire)” (ibid.).
Meanwhile, the Moroccan Minister of Habous M’Daghri dispatched two delegations, one to
Mecca and another to Paris, in order to discuss directly with the MWL concerning the future
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of the Évry mosque (ibid.). Despite the positive results of these meetings reported in Tossa’s
article, this moment marked the beginning of a lengthy legal battle which finally ended in 2009,
whereupon the Évry mosque officially became the property of the MHAI (Merroun and Lévy
2010, 92).
The Évry mosque is a perfect example of how international, national, and local level
politics crisscross in the governance of Islamic affairs in France. As Godard and Taussig write,
the mosque’s “turbulent history displays the complexity of the financial circuits of such largescale establishments” (2007, 104), which is largely understandable given the lack of financial,
organizational, and symbolic resources in the French Muslim field. However, it is also an
example of how such a complex situation is interpreted through the lens of foreign policy. The
Moroccan state’s diplomats are naturally trained to focus on questions of national interest, and
this vision is all the more understandable when examples such as the mosques of Mantes-laJolie and Évry clearly show that the French Muslim field has involved competing international
and transnational actors from the start. Nevertheless, this perspective has a formative effect,
simplifying complex situations to the parameters employed by foreign policy analysts, who see
evolutions in the French Muslim field in terms of ongoing international rivalries. This vision,
if nothing else, has contributed to rendering ethno-national divisions within the religious field
more permanent than they may have been otherwise, as seen in the case of the FNMF hereafter.
b) The National Federation of French Muslims (FNMF) and the
Reorientation of Diaspora Policies towards the Religious Field
The FNMF was not originally considered as close to the Moroccan state. At the beginning, its
main purpose was to provide a unified opposition to the dominance of the Algerian GMP in
the French Muslim field. Thanks to this very general criterion it was able to reunite very
different groups, from the Tabligh to the French branches of Milli Görüş, from French converts
to the Moroccan amicales, and all with the financial and moral support of the Saudi MWL.
Even rivals such as the Union des organisations islamiques en France (UOIF), founded in
1983 and close to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, and the AEIF, close to the Syrian Branch
of the Muslim Brotherhood, were both founding members.
The emblematic figure of this new association was a French convert named Daniel
Youssef Leclercq. Leclercq had come to Islam by way of the Tabligh and the AEIF, and in
1983, he founded the association “Tayibat” with the goal of establishing a state-recognized
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commission for the regulation of halal meat and products (Kepel 1987, 354–359). After being
turned down by the Ministry of the Interior due to “lack of representativeness,” Leclercq
decided to spearhead a movement to federate Muslims in France and counter the GMP’s
privileged position: over one hundred Islamic associations sent representatives to two
congresses organized under the auspices of the MWL, and in late 1985 the FNMF came into
being (Kepel 1987, 359–364).
The FNMF’s main connection to Morocco at the start existed in the form of one of its
most important members: the Évry mosque. Merroun goes so far as to say that “it’s [the mosque
of] Évry which founded the FNMF! […] We didn’t want to take centre stage, because what
we’re interested in is concrete actions” (in Telhine 2010, 232). Indeed, Cheikh Abbas of the
GMP declared in 1986 that the GMP “knows that this initiative [the founding of the FNMF]
was the work of the Moroccans” (in Kepel 1987, 364), once again placing the AlgerianMoroccan rivalry at the centre of preoccupations concerning Islam in France.
However, despite such characterizations Morocco, in fact, continued to remain aloof
from direct involvement. According to a Moroccan imam whom I interviewed, upon his arrival
in France in 1986, the Moroccan religious field was still quite unstructured. In contrast to the
model of interstate cooperation and long-distance control that was being put in place by the
Turkish authorities at precisely the same moment, informal kinship networks did most of the
work for Moroccan imams who went abroad. In the case of my interviewee, he had been
contacted by a family member living in France, who had told him that a local association was
looking for an imam. After a brief hesitation due to his mother’s objections, he nevertheless
decided to emigrate “due primarily to financial considerations,” and has remained in France
ever since (Interview, F. Darrouf, 12 April 2012, Paris). This case supports Dumont’s argument
that in the religious field “ ‘Moroccan’ associations remained essentially local until 19851986,” because “Moroccans had no national structure to organize the practice of Islam” (2007,
287)
A change was in the works, however. During a speech in France in 1985, King Hassan
II had already made known his displeasure with the “favoritism and nepotism” that reigned
within the amicales, and admitted that they “had not done their job in serving the needs of the
community” (Brand 2006, 73–74). The amicales were criticized openly again in 1991 by the
new Minister of the Moroccan Community Residing Abroad, Rafiq Haddaoui, who stated that
they were “no longer adapted to the situation” (in Belguendouz 2006, 9). Though the amicales
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did not all disappear thereafter, they were gradually displaced as the main relay of Moroccan
state influence in the religious field abroad by religious associations (this development has been
noted as well by (Lacroix, Sall, and Salzbrunn 2008, 8). Indeed, when asking about cooperation
with local associations, the vice-consul in charge of social affairs at the Moroccan consulate in
Marseille told me: “Yes, on request, we attend their events sometimes, or we give them books.
But listen, it’s been a long time now that there aren’t any more amicales!” (Interview,
Consulate of Morocco in Marseille, 15 March 2012, Marseille).
In France, the FNMF and the Évry mosque were at the centre of this new strategy, as
was the Taqwa mosque association in Germany, founded in 1989 in Frankfurt. The creation of
the MCMRE and the FHII in 1990 facilitated this change in orientation greatly, and by 1992
the FHII began “bringing its support to the organization of the religious life of Moroccans
living abroad” (Fondation Hassan II 2014a). Indeed, between 1992 and 1995, “ties were
established between former amicales members, representatives of the FHII, and new
associative leaders,” and many amicales “converted themselves into cultural, religious, or
migrants’ rights associations” (Dumont 2007, 338).
The change in Moroccan diaspora policies was also part of a general move towards
greater civil liberties in Morocco that marked the end of the années de plomb at the beginning
of the 1990s. A critical report by Amnesty International and the book Notre Ami le Roi (Our
Friend, the King) (Perrault 1990) had drawn international attention to the poor state of human
rights in Morocco. King Hassan II responded by founding the Conseil Consultatif des Droits
de l’Homme (Consultative Council for Human Rights, CCDH) and liberating many prisoners,
and most importantly declared a general amnesty in 1994 (D. Bennani 2012). The repercussions
for Moroccans abroad were numerous: instead of a political threat, migrants were now seen as
a political tool; integration and dual citizenship were encouraged; a bank (Al-Amal) was
founded for them; and even the official vocabulary changed, as the former term Travailleurs
Marocains à l’Étranger (TME) was replaced by the new Marocains Résidant à l’Étranger
(MRE) (de Haas 2007, 21–23). This enormous shift in Moroccan politics also had the corollary
effect of bringing an end to the long-standing rivalry between the amicales and leftist workers’
associations abroad, such as the AMF and the ATMF in France (Dumont 2007, 329).
At the same time, the international controversy surrounding Salmon Rushdie’s book The
Satanic Verses and the first French “headscarf affair” in 1989 increasingly put Muslim issues
under the spotlight in many Western European countries. The timing of these two events was
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a boon for sensationalist tendencies in the French mass media, which “allowed commentators
to link Iran, the chador, and book-burning to the plight of the three girls at the middle school”
(Bowen 2007a, 84). The “headscarf affair” also became a Moroccan issue, because two of the
three girls who refused to remove their headscarf in the classroom were of Moroccan origin.
Later the same year, French journalists interviewed King Hassan II on the show L’heure de
vérité (The Hour of Truth), where the king was questioned on the subject and his opinion was
requested as a religious authority, given his status of amīr al-mu’minīn.
During the interview, Hassan II states how he “personally requested […] through the
intermediary of my ambassador, that the girls put an end to this affair which they had
unintentionally caused” (Antenne 2 1989). The two girls complied and returned to school,
while the third girl, of Tunisian background, continued to wear her headscarf and was expelled
(Bowen 2007a, 86). The direct intervention of the king in this matter is fascinating, not only in
that it contradicted the position taken by the FNMF, which had come out in support of the three
girls, but because Hassan II was able to exert his influence as a religious and political authority
beyond the borders of the country. The king’s authority was not limited by French state
sovereignty, but bypassed it given that it was diffused through a larger transnational Moroccan
religious and political field which included these two high school students (or perhaps more
appropriately, their parents). Moreover, the fact that the king was able to have an influence
over the two students of Moroccan origin, but not over the student of Tunisian background,
constitutes a telling example of the factors that truly constitute boundaries between different
transnational Muslim fields in France.
The “Moroccanization” of the FNMF started at the beginning of the 1990s, and became
a central element of Morocco’s evolving diaspora strategies. After the initial enthusiasm had
passed, many associations left the FNMF in the years following its creation. This included the
UOIF and the French branch of Milli Görüş, after the latter had briefly presided over the
federation under Mustafa Doğan in 1991-1992. This left the way open for Moroccan authorities
to push Mohamed Bechari to the presidency of the FNMF, along with the help of Merroun’s
group at the Évry mosque and the MWL, and members of the amicales in the north of the
country, where Bechari was living (Godard and Taussig 2007, 369). According to El Ghissassi
(2005) and Godard and Taussig (2007, 246–247), Bechari early on had the support of the
Moroccan Ministry of the Interior Driss Basri and the Minister of Habous M’Daghri, and could
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rely on the network that was being established between the FHII, the amicales, and Moroccan
Muslim associations.
The dahir founding the FHII states clearly that members of the Moroccan amicales
abroad are to be on the FHII’s board of directors, as well as on the regional boards, alongside
the social councillor or attaché of the embassy in question (Kingdom of Morocco 1990, 396–
398). Officially, the main mission of the FHII is to “contribute to maintaining the fundamental
ties between [Moroccans residing abroad] and their homeland (patrie) and helping them
overcome the difficulties they face due to their emigration” (Kingdom of Morocco 1990, 396).
One of its main tasks is “cultural promotion,” which includes paying for teachers to be sent
abroad to instruct the Arabic language and Moroccan culture; organizing summer vacation
camps for Moroccan children; and religious activities (animation religieuse), which consists in
sending religious personnel and theology professors abroad, mostly during the month of
Ramadan (Fondation Hassan II 2014a).100
Brand speculates that one reason for the FHII’s creation was to “influence the MREs
more thoroughly, especially in religio-cultural matters, in order to “vaccinate” Moroccans
abroad against militant Islam,” especially in light of the rapid rise of the Front Islamique de
Salut (Islamic Salvation Front, FIS) in neighbouring Algeria (2006, 81). It is likely that it was
during this period that the sending of imams to Western European countries started to become
more structured, especially considering that it represented one of the main tasks of the FHII.
For instance, a newspaper report from 1991 recounts how a Moroccan imam was turned away
from the Belgian consulate in Rabat since he did not have a certificate from the Ministry of
Habous, and was essentially told to “come back with the paper, then Brussels will decide”
(Haquin 1991).
Furthermore, according to Telhine, during the 1980s Moroccan groups such as Muṭīʿ’s
Islamic Youth, Benkirane’s Al-Jamāʿa, and Yassine’s ʿAdl wal Ihsān, all began appearing in
places such as the Ad-daʿwa mosque of Paris (also known as the Stalingrad mosque) (2010,
310), potentially raising alarms for Moroccan authorities in France. Moreover, the terrorist
attack carried out by a group of Franco-Moroccans and Franco-Algerians at the hotel Atlas
Asni in Marrakech in 1994 seems to have involved the participation of a former member of
100
It is also charged with providing legal and social assistance; promoting economic cooperation;
establishing partnerships and funding the activities of Moroccan associations abroad; and carrying out
and promoting research on the Moroccan community abroad (see Fondation Hassan II 2014b).
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Islamic Youth’s armed wing, who had acted as a recruiter in the banlieue of Paris (Tozy 1999,
232).
The rise of militant Islamism in Algeria and amongst the MRE most likely contributed
to the Moroccan state’s decision to deploy a more structured and organized approach to the
religious field abroad. Nevertheless, this more engaged approach needs to be nuanced. In the
first place, though the FNMF and the Évry mosque were under the influence of Moroccan
authorities, they were not directly controlled by them; as opposed to the Turkish case, no
members of the MHAI were dispatched to France or elsewhere to take the helm of religious
associations. In the second place, until the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York (2001) and those
of May 16th in Casablanca (2003), the Moroccan state was not hostile to radical Islamic currents
as long as they were thought to be apolitical (Tozy 2009, 76–77). This included a very diverse
panoply of religious actors, from Islamist leaders such as Ghannouchi or Benkirane who were
invited to the “Islamic Awakening Summer Universities” organized by the MHAI (see Chapter
II.E.), to more radical Salafi jihadists groups, which were tolerated due to their own
antagonistic stance towards the increasingly successful PJD and ʿAdl wal Ihsān (Tozy 2009,
77).
All this to say that despite the reorientation of Morocco’s diaspora policies towards the
religious field, it had neither the necessary means nor the political desire to impose a unified
vision of Moroccan official Islam for its citizens abroad. On the one hand, this weakness has
been strategically used by Morocco to its favour on numerous occasions. For instance, Weil
notes that at the end of the 1970s, Morocco was “far more predisposed to signing international
agreements concerning the control of [migratory] flows” because it knew it did not have the
ability to enforce them and that “they would have no concrete effect”; such accords were
nothing more than a way to give “formal satisfaction” to the French and gain an extra
bargaining chip in negotiations with Algeria (1991, 152). In this fashion, the affairs of
Moroccan migrants abroad were viewed in terms of their potential to be instrumentalized for
foreign policy interests within a larger context of international relations, as seen in the case of
Évry above.
On the other hand, Morocco’s position towards the religious field abroad is not surprising
as it constitutes a reflection of Moroccan state religious policies at home: as long as Islamic
groups do not question the religious authority of the monarchy, and do not engage in violent
activities, practically any movement has the potential to be deemed tolerable and coopted by
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the state. This approach has been at the base of Morocco’s new network of religious
associations abroad, and has had important consequences for the evolution of Muslim fields
where Moroccans constitute one of the largest migrant groups. This is especially the case in
France, where it represents one of the main reasons for the FNMF’s victory in the first elections
of the CFCM held in 2003, and the continuing success of Moroccan formations in all the
elections thereafter. At the same time, the shock caused by the Casablanca bombings in 2003
led the new King Mohammed VI to announce an official reform of the religious field. The
reforms undertaken since then have resulted in yet another change in strategy, bringing the
Moroccan state even closer to exerting direct influence over the Moroccan Muslim field
abroad.
D - Conclusion
Broadly speaking, this chapter has been concerned with one specific historical moment,
ranging from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, which corresponds to the years during which
the majority of Turkish and Moroccan guest worker migrants and their families became settled
in France and Germany. The challenges brought on by this unexpected development confronted
actors on all sides: receiving state authorities, home state authorities, as well as the migrants
themselves – though the interests and means at the disposal of each varied greatly. Another
element was added to the mix when, as a result of the lack of Islamic religious services abroad,
a number of transnational religious movements and foreign states moved in to fill the void. As
a result of these developments, Turkish and Moroccan authorities both began to re-evaluate
their diaspora policies and started focusing more specifically on issues of religious governance
abroad.
The narrative I have provided here tells the story of the actors and institutions which
have been central to the rise of the religious frame of reference for migrants and state
authorities. With regard to the questions posed in this thesis, the rise of this religious frame of
reference is primarily significant because it has been singled out by home state authorities as a
means of maintaining and extending influence over the “diaspora” abroad. My main argument
is that given the restrictions imposed by distance and state sovereignty, the religious field has
emerged as a space of unparalleled opportunities for home state institutions. It is perhaps the
sole domain in which receiving states have no claim to legitimacy and generally lack the
necessary infrastructure. While many Muslim migrants comment favourably on practising their
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religion in Western European countries because of greater civil liberties, Western Europe is
not where they look for legitimate religious authorities. Indeed, Islamic sciences are perhaps
the only domain in which the universities of the Muslim world are invariably held in higher
esteem than their counterparts in receiving states.
There is another, more particular, argument that I advance after having presented this
narrative. The differences in how Turkey and Morocco have gone about fashioning their
religious diaspora policies have been the result of which actors have been involved, along with
the specific interests of these actors related to their respective religious and political fields. The
most striking difference between the two examples presented here is that in the Turkish case,
the Diyanet and its religious bureaucracy have proved to be a quasi-independent entity,
operating at times fully on its own initiative. The Diyanet is of course responsible to the Turkish
Prime Minister, and its foreign activities are undertaken in coordination with the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs; however, the Diyanet is ultimately a religious institution, and its primary
interests lie in the religious field. That it can be instrumentalized for political purposes is not
under debate here – I believe that I have provided enough examples already to show that this
is often the case. Nevertheless, the Turkish state’s success in setting up a transnational network
of religious associations abroad has been the result of the Diyanet’s institutional efforts, and
the fact that its interests lie within the religious field.
There is one mistake that is frequently made in the literature, which, though seemingly
innocuous, points directly to a central difference between Turkish and Moroccan religious
diaspora policies. Many sources on Muslim associations in Western Europe state that the head
of the Diyanet’s branches abroad is a diplomat; insofar as a diplomat is a trained member of a
state’s foreign services, this is false. It is true that the Diyanet’s top personnel abroad have,
depending on their status and the country, certain diplomatic privileges. However, and without
exception, they all share the same profile: they are educated theologians who have gone through
Turkey’s imam hatip schools and theology faculties, many of whom have had prior experience
as a Diyanet imam abroad. In other words, from the beginnings until the present day, the
overwhelming majority of the Turkish state’s personnel involved in the Turkish religious field
abroad are to be considered first and foremost actors of the religious field.
In contrast, in the case of Morocco it truly has been a diplomat, that is to say a member
of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who has been given the task of overseeing the religious
affairs of the MREs at the local level of the consulates. The evolution described in this chapter
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is significant: the shift from the amicales network to Muslim associations at the beginning of
the 1990s constitutes a real change in the way diaspora affairs were managed by Moroccan
authorities. However, while the FHII did manage to join the fray, it is only recently that the
MHAI has become directly involved in the management of these affairs. Conversely, the
gradual displacement of the amicales by Muslim associations did nothing to change the
centrality of the Moroccan MFA, an institutional actor which is firmly situated in the political
field. For Moroccan diplomats, such as Mohamed Berrada, the religious affairs of the
Moroccans living abroad were seen through a prism of foreign policy and international
relations, if they attracted any attention at all. I believe this difference constitutes a major reason
for the distinct development of Turkish and Moroccan religious diaspora policies.
Ultimately, this chapter has raised two of the main theoretical questions of this thesis:
are Turkish and Moroccan religious diaspora policies a modified form of internal politics,
foreign policy, or both? And moreover, at what point is it possible to speak of a religious field
independently of the political considerations which inevitably arise from such forms of social
mobilization? Before addressing these questions, the following chapter will consider the role
played by receiving state institutions in France and Germany, and offer a schematic view the
partial governance structures that limit their involvement in the religious field.
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IV - Emerging Muslim Fields in France and Germany:
Partial Governance and Public Policy Instruments
This chapter will address two main themes. The first concerns the partial governance of Muslim
fields in France and Germany, and the policy instruments which the French and German states
make use of in order to have an impact on the Muslim religious field. The second concerns the
prospect of interstate conflict or tension as a result of the political search for a “national” Islam
in France and Germany. These two themes will provide an additional theoretical basis for the
analyses which will be presented in the final two chapters. Furthermore, they continue the
chronological progression which was presented in the first part of this thesis, picking up the
story of the Turkish and Moroccan Muslim fields abroad around the end of the 1990s. Despite
the shift in perspective to better focus on French and German state authorities, I will continue
to emphasize the role played by Turkish and Moroccan diplomatic and religious actors within
both contexts due to their central importance to developments in the religious field.
The first part of the chapter will begin with a discussion of partial governance and its
policy instruments, emphasizing the fact that religion rarely if ever exists as a distinct field of
state action in France and Germany. The second part will analyze the effects of this state of
affairs with regard to the most visible state-led attempts to “institutionalize” or “integrate”
Islam in both countries: the creation of the Conseil Français du Culte Musulman (French
Council of the Muslim Faith, CFCM) and the two phases of the Deutsche Islam Konferenz
(German Islam Conference, DIK). These examples reflect the paradox that greater state
involvement in Islamic religious affairs in France and Germany has not led to a decrease but
rather an increase in the level of participation of Morocco and Turkey in the religious field
abroad. The third part will examine the effects of the partial governance of Islamic religious
affairs at the regional and local levels in both countries, with a special focus on the cases of the
DITIB central mosque in Duisburg-Marxloh, and the Great Mosque of Strasbourg. In doing so,
the goal will be to distinguish between different levels of government and governing, as well
as highlight the dynamics of competition and cooperation that offer opportunities for outside
actors to intervene in the religious field as a consequence of partial governance.
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A - The Partial Governance of Muslim Fields in France and Germany
As stated in the introduction, I prefer the term “religious governance” to denote state attempts
to control and regulate religious fields. On the one hand, this may seem misleading because my
emphasis is on state action, whereas “governance” generally refers to a “broader concept” that
“refers to mechanisms for steering social systems towards their goals,” in which states are but
one of many competing sources of authority (Rosenau 2006, 108). For Rosenau, along with a
host of scholars, the concept of governance makes the most sense with the word “global” in
front of it, due to the fact that the lack of a central political authority at the global level means
that certain transnational issues (the environment, migration, financial markets, etc.) require
hybrid forms of cooperation between disparate types of actors. Indeed, it almost seems
unnecessary to use the term governance if my focus is primarily on government, i.e. state
actors. However, quite to the contrary, the first three chapters have demonstrated that no state
has complete control over any religious field. In fact, my focus on state actors and institutions
has shown how parapublic and non-state actors are routinely coopted or mobilized in order to
promote state interests within the religious field.
At the same time, these actors peripheral to state power are by no means passive
subordinates, and their interests play an important role in determining the changing dynamics
of competition within the field. Given the limits of state power in the religious field, and
especially in the transnational contexts under consideration here, my study must equally take
into account the interests of Muslim groups which may have ties to home states, but which
cannot be understood as state actors. Accordingly, I agree with Bader that the term religious
governance “implies some regulatory capacity from outside and above […] or through selfregulation” by “public non-state actors and a variety of semi-public and private actors” (2007b,
50). On the other hand, there is a significant difference in the cases which I consider in this
thesis. In both the Turkish and Moroccan Muslim fields abroad, it is the transnational context
which engenders the “shift from government to governance,” opening new windows of
opportunity for a profusion of different actors, and not “policies of deregulation and
privatisation” (2007b, 50). Indeed, my use of the concept of religious governance in the cases
of Turkey and Morocco is initially to imply something more, namely that both states conceive
of religious affairs as a distinct domain of state policy. This is demonstrated by the existence
of distinct state religious institutions and parapublic religious actors, along with specific policy
instruments employed in order to govern the religious field. However, the transnational context
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forces both states to rely even more on parapublic and non-state actors than is the case at home,
thus necessitating the use of a broader term such as governance.
Partial governance, on the other hand, is the term which I argue corresponds best to the
situation of France and Germany. The first and more important reason is that unlike Turkey
and Morocco, neither France nor Germany conceives of religious affairs as an administrative
category within state policy in such a holistic manner. Religion and religious affairs in both
countries are subject to different regimes of state-church cooperation or separation, a topic
which has been the focus of much comparative research over the last decades. Many of these
studies have sought to group certain states and national traditions together within distinct
categories, though they adopt different perspectives. In general, legal institutionalist and
political science approaches dominate (Minkenberg and Willems 2003; Bader 2007b; Fox
2008; Monsma and Soper 2009), which some religious studies scholars have employed along
with methods borrowed from economics (Chaves and Cann 1992; Stark and Iannaccone 1994;
Iannaccone 1998). Bader (2007b, 49–61) and Minkenberg (2003, 197–202) both give good
overviews of these categories, which usually focus on whether there are constitutionallyestablished churches or state religions; legal procedures for the recognition of religions; the
status of religious education in public schools; and the special benefits which may derive from
being recognized as a religious group.
The historical background of these national “models” of state-religion relations reflect
important traditions of political philosophy that have had a lasting impact on the concepts of
citizenship as well as the delimitation of what is considered to constitute the private and public
spheres in each country. As Koopmans et al. write more generally with regard to research on
immigrant rights, one strand of theorizing in this domain “predicts cross-national convergence
toward greater inclusiveness because of the diffusion of supranational norms and shared
commitments of democracies to liberal principles. The second emphasizes national political
processes, in particular path-dependent policy traditions and electoral factors” (2012, 1203).
Bowen highlights a similar tension between what he calls “aggregative and
disaggregative approaches” to the theoretical construction of models (2007b, 1004): the former
emphasize the uniqueness of specific (national) case studies, while the latter focus on the
similarities which exist with regard to specific issues. These distinctions are important to keep
in mind. The difficulty in discussing these topics is in pinpointing exactly what aspect of
religious affairs is under consideration, while taking care to distinguish between the official
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discourse on state-religion relations, and the reality of actual practices. Accordingly, in this
thesis I seek to emphasize particular national political processes and path-dependent policy
traditions, but with regard to the governance of Islam as a part of Moroccan and Turkish
diaspora policy. At the same time, one of my goals is “disaggregative,” in the sense of
analyzing the transversal phenomenon of interstate cooperation as a tool for governing
transnational Muslim fields.
1) France
In studies on state-religion regimes, France often serves as a benchmark case, symbolized by
the term laïcité.101 From the 1905 law (loi de 1905, named after the year it was enacted) on the
separation of church and state – and which famously does not include the word laïcité – to the
second article of the 1958 constitution of the 5th Republic, which declares that “France is an
indivisible, secular (laïque), democratic, and social Republic,” the French model of religious
governance has ostensibly been one of strict separation.
Nevertheless, the reality is more complicated. In Fox’s worldwide study of state-religion
regimes, though France is described as officially “separationist,” its level of “Government
Involvement in Religion” is actually higher than that of Germany (Fox 2008, 108).102 This may
not come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the inner workings of state-religion relations in
France, but given the prominence of a discourse in France and abroad equating the ‘French
model’ with the strict separation of the state and religion, these details are far from common
knowledge. Indeed, at times the actual practices of the state and its institutions seem wholly
incongruent with this discourse, which has been adopted especially by politicians who have
taken pains to portray Islam as incompatible with French laïcité. This is primarily because
laïcité, like other national models, is normative and not explanatory: it is a “political
instrument, devised and transformed with specific goals in mind. Politicians develop [national
models] in order to change social reality, not to reflect it” (Bowen 2007b, 1005).
Laïcité is often translated as “secularism” in English, but due to different historical, political, and
philosophical traditions which this term implies, I will follow other authors and simply use it in the
original French. For more on the concept, its history, and its current misuses, see especially the work of
Jean Baubérot (Baubérot 2004; Baubérot 2010; Baubérot 2012).
102
In his study, Fox uses two scales – Government Involvement in Religion (GIR) and Separation of
Religion And State (SRAS) – in order to quantitatively analyze the variety of relationships that exist
between the state and religion across the globe.
101
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The list of “exceptions” to the characterization of France as a country which strictly
separates the state and religion is relatively long (for similar lists, see Minkenberg 2003, 204;
Laurence and Vaïsse 2007, 172–175). First, there is a geographical aspect. When the 1905 law
was passed it was not extended to French overseas colonies, most notably French Algeria,
where the state remained in control of Islamic religious institutions. Articles 72-74 of the
constitution of the 5th Republic also reserve special provisions for French overseas territories,
which have permitted for instance that in Mayotte, qāḍīs have been named by the prefect and
paid by the general council (conseil général) (Hopquin 2011).103 Moreover, in French Guiana
26 Catholic priests, along with the bishop, are all paid as state employees, in keeping with the
only law regulating state-religion relations: a royal decree dating from 1828.104
Another well-known exception is that of Alsace-Moselle, comprising the départements
of Bas-Rhin, Haut-Rhin, and Moselle, which has a separate local law (droit local) which exists
alongside normal French law. This is due to the region’s particular history: annexed by the
German Empire following the Franco-Prussian war (1870-1871), it was returned to France after
WWI. Given these circumstances, in 1919 French central authorities decided to recognize the
validity of earlier French laws which had been preserved in Alsace-Moselle, but repealed in
France itself in the meantime. One of the most important elements of these earlier laws is a
system which officially recognizes and subsidizes religions, modelled on the Concordat signed
between France and the Vatican in 1801. For this reason, Alsace-Moselle has frequently
occupied a particular place in discussions concerning Islam in France, as well as in this thesis.
Moreover, given the large size of the Turkish and Moroccan populations in the region, it has
become the centre of numerous new initiatives promoted by the Turkish and Moroccan
governments (for more, see later in this Chapter IV.C. and Chapter VI.C.).
Following these geographic caveats come a host of others. The famous 1905 law, entitled
“Concerning the Separation of Churches and the State,” seems clear enough, until one reads a
little further. The first article declares that the state ensures freedom of religion, while the
second article clearly states that “the Republic does not recognize, remunerate, or subsidize
103
The situation is currently changing as a result of Mayotte having become the 101 st French
département. As a supplemental condition, the inhabitants of Mayotte also had to renounce polygamy.
For more on the situation of the nearby island of Réunion, see Mourrégot 2010.
104
This issue has been the subject of a recent court case. At the end of April 2014, the general council
of Guiana decided to stop paying the 26 Catholic priests (though not the Bishop). The Bishop challenged
this decision in court, which led the local administrative court to order the general council to resume
the payment of the priests’ salaries in June 2014 (Farine 2014; Ferrarini 2014).
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any religion.” However, the second article goes on to stipulate that the state is responsible for
the salaries of chaplains in public establishments, which has since been institutionalized within
prisons, hospitals, and the army, and administered respectively by the ministries of Justice,
Health, and Defence. Until recently this applied only to Catholicism, Protestantism, and
Judaism, but Muslim chaplains were recently admitted to this club in 2006. These, along with
other questions concerning religion, equally fall under the purview of the Bureau Central des
Cultes (Central Office for Religions, BCC), a division of the sub-department of public liberties
within the French Ministry of the Interior. The BCC is responsible for relations between the
state and religious communities, following a precedent which began during the 19th century,
during which religious affairs came under the responsibility of the interior ministry (for more,
see Bourgin 1924). At the same time, since 1920 there is also a counsellor for religious affairs
within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who traditionally has been in charge of relations with
the Vatican and Middle-Eastern Christian churches (Interview, R. Dubertrand, 8 June 2012,
Paris).
As a result of articles 12 and 13 of the 1905 law, all religious edifices built before that
year became state property, meaning that their upkeep since that date has also become a
responsibility of the state. These measures were taken in the spirit of the law’s first article, that
is to say ensuring freedom of religion; however, articles 12 and 13 in particular have meant
substantial funding for Christian (mostly Catholic) religious edifices, while Muslims in
particular had no such buildings before 1905. Though religious education does not exist in
French public schools (aside from in Alsace-Moselle), private schools can qualify for public
funding, and many of these schools are religious. Catholic private schools account for “15 per
cent of the nation’s students” (Minkenberg 2003, 204) and according to the website AlKanz.org (2013), the number of Muslim private schools in France in 2013 was 38 and growing.
Religious associations in France are organized as publicly declared associations, for
which they can be registered under the association law of 1901 or within the scope of the 1905
law already mentioned. While the latter status is exclusively designed for religious (cultuel)
associations, the former is much broader, and can apply to any kind of non-profit organization.
The exception in this case arises when, as in the case of the vast majority of Muslim
associations, religious associations decide to register under the 1901 law. Despite lacking the
fiscal advantages granted to those founded under the 1905, 1901 law associations are relatively
easier to found and manage, and can be involved in a wider scope of activities, while 1905 law
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associations are obligated to restrict themselves to religious affairs (Interview, B. Gaume, 13
May 2009, Paris).
For the majority of migrants who founded the first Muslim associations in France,
cultural and religious elements were complementary. Indeed, a very large number of these
associations include the words “Islam” and “culture” together, along with the name of the city
the association is based in and/or the predominant ethnic group. The fact that they have the
status of 1901 law associations and they engage in cultural activities opens a door for public
funding, most notably from local municipalities, which can thus openly support these cultural
(and not religious) associations. Another way involves renting out publicly-owned spaces to
Muslim associations for very low or symbolic prices, such as the city of Paris did with the
former office of the CFCM in the 15th arrondissement (Personal Communication, French
Interior Ministry Y, 6 November 2013, Paris).
As if all this were not enough, there is another example that rarely fails to provoke a
smile: in 2009-2010, the French army began organizing the hajj for its Muslim soldiers, going
so far as to provide a military plane for the pilgrims and organizing their housing and guides
with the Saudi Defence Ministry (Sachs 2009). As surprising as this may seem in the context
of French laïcité, it is only fair given that the army has also been organizing the pilgrimage of
Catholic soldiers to Lourdes since 1958 (Magassa-Konaté 2013)! This latter case may also
confound analysts such as Fox, who despite rating it higher than Germany on his GIR scale,
nevertheless characterizes France as “hostile to religion” (2008, 135). The reality, however, is
that state institutions and ministries can have their own interpretation of laïcité corresponding
to their own interests, as long as it falls within the acceptable legal parameters.
Grey zones for the principle of laïcité have appeared over the last decades, most notably
with regard to Islamic headscarves (ḥijāb in Arabic, also voile or foulard in French). In his
book on the subject, Bowen also mentions the paradoxes of laïcité and the numerous domains
in which the French state plays a role in the religious field, and subsequently emphasizes that
the headscarf issue is symptomatic of a shift in French society, which increasingly began to see
Islam and Muslims as a threat after 1989; as he puts it, “it is never just about scarves” (2007a,
66). The first “headscarf affair” in 1989 has already been mentioned (see Chapter III.C.), but
the issue continued to occupy an important place in public debates throughout the 1990s. In
1994, the minister of education François Bayrou issued a directive banning “ ‘ostentatious’
signs from schools,” and in 2000 the Haut Conseil à l’Intégration (High Council on Integration,
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HCI) released its report “Islam in the Republic,” which also discussed the issue (Bowen 2007a,
87–92). A few years later in 2003, a commission on the “application of the principle of laïcité
in the Republic” was put in place by President Jacques Chirac – often called the “Stasi
Commission” after its presiding member, the state ombudsman (médiateur de la République)
Bernard Stasi. The report rendered by the commission at the end of the year was instrumental
in providing support for the famous law which banned religious symbols in public schools –
including headscarves – a few months later in March 2004. This was followed by a law in 2010
banning burqas and niqabs in public spaces, which came on the heels of a poorly handled and
heavily criticized debate on “national identity” that had been launched by the centre-right UMP
government the year before.
These examples constitute clear instances of state intervention in the religious field. The
French state is thus a central actor in the religious governance of the Muslim fields on its
territory; however, its action is partial because it is limited by more than just political and legal
considerations. The state’s authority over the religious field is generally derivative of other
considerations, primarily related to security issues and potential dangers to public order, as well
as the constitutional obligation to ensure freedom of religion. Consequently, it has no
legitimacy as a religious authority as such, and cannot be said to operate as an actor of the
religious field. Rather, the French state constitutes an actor of the political field whose vision
of the religious field is wholly conditioned by questions of interior politics and foreign policy.
It is for this reason that interstate cooperation with the Turkish and Moroccan (and Algerian)
governments has also been welcomed: these states can intervene in areas where the French
state cannot, with a (religious) authority that it does not possess, and in a fashion which
generally corresponds with interior political exigencies and foreign policy objectives.
2) Germany
In the case of Germany, though the prevailing state-religion regime is different, when it comes
to the governance of Muslim fields the result is similar. The key word used to describe the
German regime of state-religion relations, often repeated in the field work interviews as well,
is partnership. Though there is no state church in Germany, and freedom of religion is assured
by article 4 of the constitution (Grundgesetz, GG) religious groups can obtain official
recognition thanks to special legal status, which confers unto them a number of distinct
privileges. These and other aspects of state-religion relations are covered by article 140 GG,
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which is in fact comprised of five articles from the earlier Weimar Constitution. The status in
question is that of “corporation of public law” (Körperschaft des Öffentlichen Rechts), which
falls within the jurisdiction of the individual federal states (Länder), more specifically that of
the Kultusministerium (Ministry of Education, more on this below).
Alongside Germany’s federal structures, it is the Federal Ministry of the Interior which
is officially responsible for relations with religious communities (as in France), though its
competencies are very different. Despite the fact that there is a department (Referat) of the
Ministry of the Interior called “Churches and Religious Communities” (Kirchen und
Religionsgemeinschaften), which is responsible for coordinating and overseeing this issue, the
individual Länder have full competency over the question. A good example of this relationship
is provided in a document published by the University of Trier in 2005 and written by this
department, which gives a summary of the religious communities that have received the status
of corporation of public law in the country. The foreword is quite unambiguous, stating that
the federal level has no capacity to pronounce definitively on the subject, and that the list,
provided by the Interior Ministry itself, may be incomplete or inexact: for more precise
information, “an inquiry at the level of each particular Land is necessary” (BMI 2005).
The status of corporation of public law is the basis on which the above mentioned
partnership can occur, as it represents the state’s recognition of a given religious group as an
official interlocutor. This status is held across the country by the Catholic Church, numerous
Protestant (Evangelisch) denominations, the Jewish community, and many other Christian
groups (including Orthodox churches, and in some cases Jehovah’s Witnesses). Aside from
being a symbolic stamp of approval from the state for the individual religious community, it
also confers numerous concrete advantages. One of the most well-known is that it gives the
group in question the right to levy a “church tax” (Kirchensteuer), which is administered on its
behalf by the state amongst the members of the group for a fee. Though the tax is only paid by
the members of the religious community and not the general population – “every taxpayer can
opt out of this church tax by formally leaving the religious community in question” (Robbers
2007, 344) – it constitutes a formidable instrument for collecting funds. In 2006, it “provided
about 7.8 billion euros to the Catholic and Evangelical churches, which amounted to about 80
percent of their total income,” opening the door to the critique that “the principle of neutrality
is being violated since the coercive power of the state is being put at the disposal of the
[recognized] churches” (Monsma and Soper 2009, 184–185). Nevertheless, no Muslim groups
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have yet obtained this status in Germany, which has led to mounting criticism of the selective
and partial nature of formal state-church partnerships.
Alongside the status of “corporation of public law,” and distinct from it, is the status of
a particular group as a “religious community” (Religionsgemeinschaft). Religious communities
dispose of constitutional rights concerning religious education in public schools, which is
generally confessional or interconfessional in nature (for more, see Monsma and Soper 2009,
189–192). Following article 7 GG, religious education “form[s] part of the regular curriculum
in state schools” and, “without prejudice to the state’s right of supervision, religious instruction
shall be given in accordance with the tenets of the religious community concerned” (BRD
2012). In other words, this means that the religious communities which are recognized by the
Land in question are considered legitimate partners in determining the content of these religion
classes. As already mentioned, it is the Kultusministerium (Ministry of Education) at the Land
level which has the ability to confer this status on religious groups. The Kultusministerium is
generally responsible for relations with religious authorities – indeed, “Kultus” originally
referred to religion (cf. French “culte,” English “cult”). However, it is more often translated as
“education” in this context because these ministries have become the administrators of the
public education system after having taken over responsibility from the earlier church-run
school systems. Education, cultural, and religious affairs are coordinated between the Länder
by the “Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs”
(Kultusministerkonferenz, hereafter KMK). The KMK is consequently an important instance
for the coordination of issues concerning Muslim groups in Germany; indeed, it had already
pointed out the “necessity of establishing Islamic religious education” in German schools back
in 1984 (Bock 2007, 3).
The difficulty for German authorities with relation to Muslim religious instruction has
been in determining which of the myriad Muslim associations represents a legitimate partner
for the state. In turn, the fact that this possibility exists has oriented Muslims associations’
mobilization toward gaining the necessary status and repeated calls for equal treatment,
reflecting Fetzer and Soper’s argument that “pre-existing Church-State practices and
institutional arrangements structure the politics of state accommodation of Muslims’ religious
needs in each country” (2007, 933; see also 2005). At the same time, these practices and
arrangements not only structure but limit the state’s action in the religious field to certain
particular domains.
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This returns to my argument that the religious governance of Muslim fields in Germany,
as in France, does not benefit from the same kind of centralized state institutional support as in
Turkey and Morocco, entailing that the state’s action in the religious field remains partial and
derivative of the main object of interest (see Figure IV-1.). By derivative, I mean that even in
the instances when a religious affairs become the object of governance for French and German
state authorities, it is because certain elements overlap with more familiar policy domains, such
as health, education, public security, etc. This focus on policy domains enables an
understanding of the actors and processes that motivate decisions by state actors, in the sense
that a policy domain is “a component of a political system that is organized around substantive
issues” (Burstein 1991, 328). In this sense, there is no “policy domain” that corresponds to
Islamic issues in France and Germany, meaning that they generally cannot be governed in their
entirety. Due to the fact that the French and German states has no direct competence with regard
to religious affairs, only “derivative” aspects of the issue are treated – as opposed to the case
in Turkey and Morocco.
Religious groups in Germany that do not have the official status of “religious
community” or “corporation of public law” – in other words, the vast majority of Muslim
religious groups –usually have the status of “registered associations” (eingetragener Verein, or
e.V.). As with the aforementioned French associations (law of 1901 or 1905), this status confers
a juridical personality on the group after having adopted a number of administrative structures
and procedures and pending approval of the responsible authorities – the Ministry of the
Interior in France, and the local court (Amtsgericht) in Germany. These registered associations
can and very often do receive state funding, given that the “German government relies
extensively on private nonprofit organizations to deliver most of the social services that are the
hallmark of the German welfare state”; however, Muslim associations are nowhere near as
organized or subsidized as the main nonprofit welfare associations (Wohlfahrtsverbände), such
as the Diakonisches Werk (Evangelical), Caritas (Catholic), or the Central Welfare Association
for Jews in Germany (Monsma and Soper 2009, 197–200), which are of course recognized as
corporations of public law. Indeed, in his famous study, Katzenstein called the churches in
Germany “semisovereign institutions,” attesting to their autonomy and importance (1987).
Nevertheless, as in France, it is the cultural component of these Muslim associations that has
at times permitted funding from state sources, as was the case for the construction of one of
Germany’s largest mosques, the DITIB central mosque in Duisburg-Marxloh (covered in
greater detail below in 4.C.).
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In Germany, the existence of these pre-established official forms of recognition has had
an important impact on the demands and actions of Muslim federations. They serve as
benchmarks to be attained in order to show that “Islam” has been veritably “integrated” in the
country, or at least that it is treated equally to the other main established religious groups. The
fact that the Länder are the actors that are competent to attribute these official statuses reveals
the importance of scales of partial religious governance, rendering generalizations at the
national level more complicated. At the same time, this is perhaps not surprising, considering
that local or regional politics often have greater explanatory power when it comes to particular
elements of Muslim religious governance.
Nevertheless, the federal state ultimately has a decisive impact on the national Muslim
field through a surprising tool: its foreign policy. While the most mediatized initiative of the
federal state has been the creation of the DIK, discussed in greater detail below, the main
instrument which continues to exert a decisive influence on the development of the German
Muslim field has been the federal state’s continued close cooperation with the Diyanet and
Turkish diplomats. In a similar fashion to the French case, German authorities do have a
number of policy tools at their disposal which allow them to have an impact on the country’s
Muslim fields, but these tools are limited to specific domains and are not the object of a
centralized form of policy-making due to the nature of the federal system. On the other hand,
the federal state’s monopoly over foreign affairs provides them with an indirect means of
promoting the current of Islam which has become the most visible and wide-spread across the
country: that of the Diyanet and its partner, DITIB.
3) Partial Governance and Public Policy Instruments
There are two summary conclusions which I would like to make at this point concerning the
notion of partial governance. The first is that the state’s involvement in religious affairs in
France and Germany is by no means negligible; however, it remains circumscribed to specific
domains in which religion is in fact not the main object of governance. Indeed, insofar as public
order and the laws of the state are respected, religious actors in both cases are constitutionally
guaranteed full autonomy with regard to state authorities, which are obligated to adopt an
impartial and neutral stance towards them. This reflects the first aspect of partial governance:
though the state’s actions have an impact on the religious field, the state in France and Germany
can hardly be called an actor of the religious field. In order do so, it would have to detain the
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capacity to pronounce on religious issues, and thus either be considered or consider itself to be
a religious authority.
This leads to the second summary conclusion: given that there is no part of the French
and Germany states which considers itself an authority of the religious field, there is also no
comprehensive understanding of the religious field in the country. The state’s view of the
religious field, including the Muslim fields under consideration in this thesis, is inevitably
partial and limited: it rarely has the necessary tools to effectively intervene, and the information
it possesses is spread across numerous state ministries, institutions, and levels of governance.
This leads to innumerable cases in which the proverbial right hand does not know what the left
hand is doing. The lack of a holistic view of the religious field means that its dynamics are only
partially understood by the particular subdepartments of the state which are concerned by its
derivative aspects: security issues; association law; integration or cultural outreach
programmes, etc. This also means that a particular perspective, such as that focused on national
security and public order, can easily come to dominate the state view concerning the
governance of Muslim fields.
Another way of stating this is to say that France and Germany do not have a religious
public policy, while Turkey and Morocco do. This theoretical viewpoint has a number of
implications for my analysis of transnational Muslim fields which are important to highlight
here. The ways by which states intervene in the religious field involves the use of specific
instruments of governing, in the sense developed by Lascoumes and Le Galès, and inspired by
Weber and Foucault. For them, a public policy instrument
Constitutes a device that is both technical and social, that organizes specific social
relations between the state and those it is addressed to, according to the
representations and meanings it carries. It is a particular type of institution, a
technical device with the generic purpose of carrying a concrete concept of the
politics/society relationship and sustained by a concept of regulation (2007, 4).
Consequently, I argue that the instruments used by Turkey and Morocco to intervene in the
French and German Muslim fields are an extension of a pre-existing religious public policy, in
which religion exists as a rationalized administrative category that is regulated by its own
bureaucratic actors, with their own practices and procedures. By contrast, the instruments
employed by the French and German states which have an impact on the religious field stem
from other fields of public policy, which possess their own particular viewpoints and sets of
interests. This fact is of great importance, as it subsequently colours both the demands and
271
expectations of state authorities in their interactions with Muslim groups (for a partial summary
of these instruments and their policy domains, see Figures IV-1 and IV-2).
The practical consequences of partial governance are also recognized by Turkish and
Moroccan authorities, who must understand them and integrate them in order to carry out their
religious activities abroad. As one Turkish diplomat in Berlin told me:
Religious issues? They’re partially an issue for the [German] interior ministry.
When it has to do foreigners [in Germany]. Or the [German] foreign ministry, when
it has to do with religious officials coming here [from Turkey]. When has to do
with educational issues, for instance Qur’an courses in schools, Turkish language,
culture, or religion classes, then it’s the education senator (in Berlin). Of course,
there’s no [federal] education ministry in Germany, it’s on the basis of the Länder,
so it’s a subject for the [Berlin] education senator. […] There isn’t just one ministry
or one set of competent authorities (Interview, I. Okyay, 7 April 2011, Berlin).
Whereas Turkey and Moroccan both have such competent authorities in order to govern and
manage religious affairs, in Germany and France the multitude of policy domains which they
touch on results in a large and varied number of interlocutors at different levels of government
depending on the issue under consideration.
272
Figure IV-1 “German Public Policy Instruments with an Impact on the Religious Field”
Instrument
Public Policy Domain
Actor
Official recognition
Education / statereligion relations
Kultus ministries of the Länder
Church tax
Public finances
Federal finance and interior ministries
Religious instruction
Education
Kultus ministries of the Länder
Registered
association
Civil society
associations
Local courts (Amtsgericht)
Cultural subsidies
City / regional
development plans
Local municipalities, Länder, BAMF
Halal meat
production
Animal protection,
religious freedom
Nature and Agriculture ministries of the
Länder
Right of pre-emption Urban planning
Local municipalities
Religious dress
codes in schools
Delimitation of private
and public spaces, state
neutrality
State courts, school employees
“Import imams” –
entry
Foreign policy (visas),
bilateral relations
Consular system, foreign affairs ministry
“Import imams” –
extended stays
Foreigner laws
(residency permits)
Foreigners’ registration pffices
(Ausländerbehörde), interior ministry
German Islam
Conference (DIK)
Immigrant integration
Multiple (organization by the interior
ministry)
Illegal organizations
and terrorist activity
Public safety, national
security
Local police, Landesverfassungsschutz,
Bundesverfassungsschutz
Source: elaborated by author.
273
Figure IV-2 “French Public Policy Instruments with an Impact on the Religious Field”
Instrument
Public Policy Domain
Actor
Official recognition (only
Alsace-Moselle)
Education / state-religion
relations
French Prime Minister,105
parliament, interior ministry
Chaplains (aumônerie
nationale)
Health, correctional
services, armed forces
Ministries of Health, Justice,
and Defence
Religious building
renovations and upkeep
Heritage and historic
monuments
Ministry of Culture
Declared association (1901
law or 1905 law)
Civil society associations
Ministry of the Interior
Cultural subsidies
Urban development
Local municipalities,
départements, regions
Religious dress codes
Delimitation of public and
private spaces (laïcité)
State courts, school
employees
“Import imams” – entry
Foreign Policy (visas),
bilateral relations
Consular system, Ministry of
Foreign Affairs
“Import imams” – extended
stays
Foreigner law (residency
permits)
(prefectures, intelligence
services, BCC)
Halal accreditation
Public health
Ministry of Agriculture
Right of pre-emption
Urban planning
Local municipalities
Illegal organizations and
terrorist activity
Security
Local prefectures, interior and
exterior intelligence agencies
Institutionalization – CFCM
Immigrant integration,
state-religion relations
According to a ruling of the Conseil d’État (the highest body for administrative law in the country),
the French Prime Minister has the ability to recognize by decree (décret) male and female religious
congregations in Alsace-Moselle (Conseil d’État 1993).
105
274
The importance of employing an approach “emphasizing the political sociology of policy
instruments” is to “stress power relations associated [with] instruments and issues of
legi[ti]macy, politicization, or depoliticization dynamics associated with different policy
instruments” (Lascoumes and Le Galès 2007, 4). The notion of power here is particularly
important. One of my goals in the second half of this thesis is to provide a more nuanced
analysis of state action in the Turkish and Moroccan transnational Muslim fields, in particular
by focusing on the instruments that are employed. My understanding of power in this instance
is based on the work of the political geographer John Allen, who argues that power is “not in
things” but rather is “the outcome of an ongoing process of resource mobilization” (2003, 108
see also introduction).
Given the limits imposed on Turkish and Moroccan state action by the transnational
context, both have focused on deploying specific instruments which mobilize resources that
are essential for the religious actors competing in these transnational Muslim fields. Religion
constitutes a resource in and of itself for the diaspora policies of both states, but to be more
precise this strategy is only as effective as are the specific instruments which are used in order
to promote this aspect of diaspora policy. These instruments include: the provision of religious
services, notably by sending imams abroad; the provision of organizational support and knowhow; direct and indirect financial contributions; diplomatic support vis-à-vis receiving state
authorities; and the diffusion of religiously-sanctioned cultural capital. These instruments
provide resources which are in high demand in the religious field, and represent forms of
symbolic capital which support specific forms of legitimate religious authority.
Lascoumes and Le Galès argue for the following distinctions when analyzing public
policy: an instrument is to be understood as a “social institution” (i.e. census taking, statutory
regulation); a technique is a “concrete device that operationalizes the instrument” (i.e.
statistical nomenclature, a type of law or decree); and a tool is a “micro device within a
technique” (i.e. statistical category, the type of obligation provided for by a legal text)
(Lascoumes and Le Galès 2007, 4). These distinctions can also be applied to the instruments
mentioned above. For instance: the provision of religious services abroad is an instrument of
religious public policy; the technique employed is the sending of religious personnel to foreign
countries; and the tools correspond to the day-to-day tasks performed by these individuals, such
as giving the Friday sermon (hutbe) (for more examples see Figure IV-3). This case is also a
telling reflection of Allen’s conception of power, which is always “mediated in space and time”
(2003b, 11), meaning that state power can only be understood in the specific contexts in which
275
it manifests itself and is exercised. Due to this last consideration, the more rigorous approach
concerning public policy instruments and the consequences of their usage is by no means
intended to diminish my focus on the main actors. Indeed, once the main structural constraints
are taken into account, these actors and their interests are ultimately the main vectors which
determine how and when particular instruments are mobilized.
276
Figure IV-3 “Home State Transnational Religious Public Policy Instruments”
Instrument
Technique
Tools
Actor
State religious
services abroad
Sending of religious
personnel (imams) to
foreign countries
Mosque services:
leading prayers, giving
sermons, providing
religious education
Religious
personnel
(imams)
Organizational
support
Foundation of statelinked religious
associations abroad
Coordination and
organization of
activities between
groups, writing of
association statutes
Religious
counsellors,
attachés,
diplomats
Diplomatic support
Interstate cooperation
Bilateral agreements
Diplomats
Religiouslysanctioned cultural
capital
Combining linguistic
and cultural heritage
with religion
Visits by state leaders,
cultural events in
mosques, celebration of
national and religious
holidays
Diplomats,
political,
religious, and
cultural actors
Financial aid (Turkey
excluded)
Identifying recipients
and allocating
monetary support
Loans, direct deposits
State religious
ministries,
parapublic
institutions
Religious intellectual
production
Publication and
diffusion of religious
materials
Free distribution of
Qur’ans and other
religious publications,
audio-visual materials,
international television
and radio stations
State religious
ministries,
parapublic
institutions
277
These summary conclusions are not meant to be static. Indeed, the CFCM and the DIK
represent two policy instruments by which the French and German states have attempted to
exert a greater impact on the religious field in order to facilitate a specific political project: the
so-called “integration of Islam.” However, due to their compartmentalized relations with
religion and the pervasiveness of a perspective overly concerned with national security issues,
these attempts have met with mixed results. The following section will elaborate on these two
cases of institutionalization, while presenting and analyzing the views of Turkish and
Moroccan diplomatic and religious actors faced with this development in France and Germany.
B - “National” Islam vs. Interstate Cooperation?106
The last decades have seen calls by state leaders in Western Europe for a “national” Islam: free
of foreign ties, speaking the national language, and practised by integrated citizens.
In turn, academic literature on the topic has employed the expression “institutionalizing
Islam” as a way of alluding to policies adopted by Western Europeans states in order to
accommodate Islamic religious practices and/or symbolically recognize them in the public
sphere. Brigitte Maréchal describes the institutionalization of Islam as being a question of “its
official recognition by state agencies” as well as the “processes of constitution of organisations
representing Muslim communities in their relations with various European states” (2003, 151).
Kastoryano (2004a, 1245) and Laurence (2006, 265) both speak of the “incorporation” of Islam
by the state, or of “integrating Islam” (Laurence and Vaïsse 2007), while others such as de
Galembert and Belbah use the expression “normalization” of Islam, in the “double sense of
rendering it commonplace and applying norms” (2005, 76). In a similar vein, Nicolas Sarkozy
himself stated that what was needed was “the dedramatisation of the problem [of Islam]” (in
Çitak 2010, 623). Finally, Bowen et al. (2013) have taken these developments as the starting
point for a new perspective on the subject, arguing for an “institutional approach to framing
Muslims in Europe,” which has been echoed by Koenig and de Galembert with their focus on
the role of the judiciary in religious governance and the role of supranational jurisdictions
(2014).107
106
Parts of the following section have been published in Bruce 2011 and Bruce 2010.
This new research builds on Koenig’s earlier work and integrates transnational considerations in a
different fashion than I do in this thesis. Koenig detaches his point of view from specific national
“models” in order to argue that the incorporation of Muslims in numerous Western European countries
(especially the UK, France, and Germany) is equally affected by transnational human rights discourses
107
278
There are three main ideas behind policies that aim to “integrate” Islam: the first is that
the state and its institutions need to undertake some kind of action in order to deal with practical
daily issues that arise from Islamic religious practice. The second is the creation of a
representative organization, capable of acting as spokesperson for Muslims in their relations
with the state. Symbolic recognition is to be found somewhere between the two, and largely
depends on whether there is an official procedure by which the state is able to recognize
religious groups within each particular regime of state-religion relations. Though the first
decades of Muslim presence in France and Germany gave rise to numerous instances of
adaptation to Islamic religious practice, the creation of formal venues of dialogue between the
state and Muslim actors is a more recent phenomenon. Initiated by state authorities in both
countries, these highly mediatized national consultation processes have resulted in the creation
of a representative national council for Muslims in France (the CFCM), and a federal-level
forum for dialogue in Germany (the DIK).
The third implicit idea concerns the place of foreign states in local Muslim fields. Indeed,
“integrating Islam” is generally presented as a process opposed to the involvement of these
states, whether they are home states such as Morocco, Algeria, or Turkey, or interested third
parties, such as Saudi Arabia or Qatar. Indeed, one of the former Islam counsellors of the
interior ministry called the CFCM a “weapon against foreign control” (Boyer 2005, 12). For
Laurence, there have been two main phases that characterize the strategies employed by
Western European states towards Islam: first, the “laissez-faire policy of ‘outsourcing’ stateIslam relations to Muslim diplomats (1974-1989)” and second, the “pro-active policy of
‘incorporation’ (1989-2004), whose goal is to co-opt the competing representatives of both
‘official’ and ‘political’ Islam” (2006, 265). Though this chronology reflects best the case of
France, the general vision of mutual exclusiveness can be widened to a broader set of Western
European countries: the acceptance of Islam as a ‘national’ religion is seen as a concession
granted by receiving state authorities on the condition that Muslim immigrants decrease their
ties abroad.
The debate on “integrating Islam” is a fascinating look into unspoken assumptions about
immigrant integration, Islam, and fifth columns in Western Europe. However, while it is
undeniable that a policy shift has occurred over the last thirty years in France and Germany
with regard to immigrants and Islam, this shift has not resulted in the rejection of interstate
(Koenig 2005) and supranational norms, such as at the level of the European Union (Koenig 2007;
Koenig 2003).
279
cooperation as a means of controlling local Muslim fields. In the cases of German and France,
political discourse on “national” Islam has become increasingly disjointed from actual state
practices: while demanding that Muslims “ ‘de-transnationalize’ the practice of Islam”
(Laurence 2006, 271), they themselves continue to rely on foreign policy when it suits them.
At the same time, Turkey and Morocco have become better organized and more established in
their role as providers of religious services to “their” communities across Western Europe (and
to a less degree, Algeria with regard to its community in France), while Saudi Arabia and the
Gulf states of Qatar and Kuwait still represent important sources of funding. The CFCM and
the DIK are both exemplary cases of this paradoxical situation, in which the discursive policy
goal of ‘nationalizing’ Islam not only co-exists with, but has in fact led to an increase in
interstate cooperation with Morocco and Turkey concerning Islamic affairs in France and
Germany.
1) Institutionalizing Islam in France: The French Council of the
Muslim Faith (CFCM)
a) Consultations and Establishment
The creation of the CFCM has been lauded by one of its architects, Alain Billon, as an issue
where “public authorities proved themselves loyal to their commitments and capable of
transcending traditional political cleavages to attain an objective for the national interest”
(2005, 35). Indeed, throughout the 1990s, the alternation between centre-right and centre-left
politicians at the head of the Ministry of the Interior did not impede the process begun by Pierre
Joxe (PS, centre-left), which was taken up again by Charles Pasqua (RPR, centre-right) and
carried on by Jean-Pierre Chevènement (MDC, centre-left), and finally Nicholas Sarkozy
(UMP, centre-right).108
In 1989, Joxe launched the 15-member Conseil de Réflection sur l’Islam en France (the
Council for Reflection on Islam in France, CORIF), bringing together a diverse group of
religious leaders and Muslim public figures, representing many different currents of French
Islam. Laurence highlights a number of contemporary events which motivated this new
initiative: the 1989 headscarf affair; the fatwa over Salmon Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses;
108
For a more complete list of the intervening interior ministers and their contributions to the creation
of the CFCM, see (Laurence 2005, 51; or Laurence and Vaïsse 2007, 181).
280
the growing influence of Algerian Islamism; and Joxe’s “hav[ing] been unsettled by the fact
that President Mitterrand did not receive any Muslim representatives for his annual new year’s
wishes to France’s religious communities” (2005, 47). Though the CORIF did not bring about
many concrete changes itself, it was the trigger that set off a 14-year long process that would
ultimately lead to the founding of the CFCM in 2003.
Charles Pasqua, on the other hand, attempted to re-centre the administration’s focus on
the GMP. Controlled by a recteur dispatched from Algeria since 1981, the departure of Tedjini
Haddam for Algeria in 1992 had opened the way for Dalil Boubakeur, a doctor and the son of
Si Hamza Boubakeur, to be the first French citizen to become director of the GMP. Pasqua’s
decision to privilege the relationship with the GMP, most notably by granting it a lucrative
monopoly in halal meat certification, succeeded in bringing about the creation of a “Charter of
the Muslim Religion” (Boyer 2005, 14) – one of many attempts to contractually outline the
relationship between Muslim groups and the state. However, the focus on the GMP was
disputed by other associations, most notably the now Moroccan-dominated FNMF, which
eventually led to the failure of the initiative. The next interior minister, Jean-Louis Debré,
began to move away from the exclusive focus on the GMP, and the mosques of Évry and Lyon
(funded by Saudi Arabia, close to Algeria) were also recognized by the state as competent
authorities in the certification of halal meat.
It would ultimately be Jean-Pierre Chevènement, newly arrived as Minister of the
Interior in 1997, who would set in motion the process leading to the creation of the CFCM with
the “Consultation” (or Istishāra in Arabic). The cornerstone of this consultation was the signing
of a text, largely based on the earlier “Charter of the Muslim Religion.” This text obliged the
Muslim leaders present to “solemnly declare their attachment to the fundamental principles of
the French Republic” (République française 2000), and essentially served as the “entry ticket”
for the associations which had been invited to participate in the Consultation; at the same time,
it also responded to “the need for Islam to catch up” with the other organized religions in France
(Billon 2005, 26–27). In other words, in an odd twist the foundational document of the CFCM
was based on the official recognition of the state and its laws by Muslim leaders, and not the
recognition of the Islam by French state – legally prohibited by article 2 of the law of 1905
(other than in the case of Alsace-Moselle).
The entry ticket for the consultation had been accepted by three different categories of
actors. First came the large associative federations: the GMP; the UOIF; the FNMF; two
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organizations linked to the Tabligh movement (Faith and Practice, and Tabligh wa Da’wa);
DITIB, which was re-organized as the Comité de Coordination des Musulmans Turcs de
France (Coordination Committee of French Turkish Muslims, CCMTF) – to the detriment of
Milli Görüş, which was not invited; and the Fédération Française des Associations Islamiques
d’Afrique, des Comores et des Antilles (French Federation of African, Comorian and West
Indian Islamic Associations, FFAIACA). Secondly, the independent mosques of regional or
local importance that were not officially linked to any association: the mosques of Évry,
Mantes-la-Jolie, Lyon, Islah (Marseilles), and Saint Denis de la Réunion. And finally, six
“independent, qualified individuals, including one woman,” intended to represent currents that
may be overshadowed by the federations and mosques that were invited (for the above, see
Billon 2005, 28–30).
While the GMP, FNMF, and UOIF have already been mentioned (see Chapiter III), the
CCMTF requires a special aside. The CCMTF serves as the official representation of the DITIB
within the CFCM, mainly because French officials were uncomfortable with inviting the DITIB
as a “French” Muslim association. The reason for this was the fact that DITIB is presided over
by the Diyanet’s religious services counsellor, who holds diplomatic immunity as a member of
the Turkish diplomatic mission. Accordingly, members of the French Ministry of the Interior
“created” the CCMTF “in the office of the BCC” during conversations with Turkish officials
(Interview, Bertrand Gaume and Bernard Godard, 13 May 2009, Paris), and placed at its head
a Francophone DITIB employee who had been the interpreter of the organization, Haydar
Demiryurek. In my interview with him, Demiryurek emphasized the unique nature of the
CCMTF compared to other European countries, stating that
The DITIB is the official representation of the Diyanet in France, like elsewhere.
[…] The CCTMF – there’s no equivalent in other countries – is a union of
associations that participate in the CFCM, and vote in the regions. The majority are
part of DITIB, but there are independent associations as well (Interview, Haydar
Demiryurek, 22 April 2009, Paris).
Moreover, Demiryurek emphasized that the CCMTF represented a distinct approach that was
focused on issues pertaining to the Turkish Muslim field in France:
Let’s say that for France it was a desire to affirm a French presence […]. Limiting
the expression and future of the Islamic religion of French Turks to an international
vision would be distorting the debate […]. The Turks of France need to have a role
as Turks of France (Interview, H. Demiryurek).
282
As true as this might be, the president of the CCMTF did not seek to hide the fact that he was
still a DITIB employee, and that the CCMTF was located at DITIB’s headquarters for Paris.
Indeed, there is a little mystery surrounding the CCMTF’s role as a manifestation of DITIB
that corresponds better to the demands of French authorities. This is underscored by certain
higher-placed Turkish officials, such as the president of DITIB for whom the CCMTF is “the
channel through which DITIB’s relations with the CFCM are conducted” (Interview, I. Er, 19
October 2011, Paris), as well as the first counsellor of the Turkish embassy, who simply stated
that “it’s important that local authorities, including the ministry, feel comfortable towards these
[organizations]. […] If [dealing with the CCMTF] makes life easier for them, all the better”
(Interview, E. Solakoğlu).
The next step in the consultation was the permanent establishment of the council, both
centrally in the form of the CFCM, as well as regionally, with the creation of the Conseil
Régionaux du Culte Musulman (Regional Councils for the Muslim Faith, CRCM). The
legitimacy and representativity of these councils was based on the organization of elections in
order to determine their composition. This course of action led to two significant problems. On
the one hand, the intransigence of Dalil Boubakeur and the GMP, which potentially had the
most to lose, and on the other hand, the difficult practical questions surrounding how to
determine the number of delegates from the different regions and mosques.
The first problem would be overcome following the direct intervention of the new
Minister of the Interior, Nicolas Sarkozy, and thanks to an agreement between the main three
federations (GMP, UOIF, and FNMF). This compromise took place at Nainville-les-Roches,
where Sarkozy assembled the leaders of these federations for a two-day meeting in December
2002. During this meeting, Sarkozy conferred the presidency of the future CFCM to the GMP,
the two vice-presidencies to the UOIF and the FNMF, and the position of secretary-general to
Haydar Demiryurek of the Turkish CCMTF – no matter the outcome of the upcoming elections
(Frégosi 2010, 298–300; Laurence 2012, 178–179). According to an official at the interior
ministry, there was a moment when Sarkozy considered attributing a position to Milli Görüş
as well; however, this was contested by Demiryurek, and was later dropped after the Turkish
ambassador himself called directly to discourage Sarkozy from doing so (Interview, B.
Godard). This balance within the CFCM, especially between the main three federations, “was
established as a rule not to be violated” (Godard and Taussig 2007, 172), though it of course
undermined the democratic legitimacy of the organization.
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The second problem concerning the electoral process constituted a major difficulty, as
each federation attempted to push for the system most favourable to its particular
circumstances. The final decision was that the number of delegates for each place of worship
would be proportional to the surface area of the mosque or prayer space in question, with a
bonus conceded to the GMP; moreover, due to special restrictions, the majority of prayer
spaces in workers’ residences (foyers) were not included (for more on the electoral process, see
IV.C.1.).
Once more, this would be a highly contested decision as the surface area did not
necessarily reflect the number of people attending; moreover, differences in living conditions
raised concerns over a possible ethnic bias to the vote. As Kepel points out, the exclusion of
prayer spaces in the foyers from the vote led to the underrepresentation of Muslims from SubSaharan Africa. On the other hand, Moroccans were generally overrepresented, since their
mosques are generally larger, thanks to the fact that they often live in smaller or peripheral
urban areas, unlike many Algerians, who frequently live in urban centres where the price of
land is more expensive (2012, 152).
However, given that French laïcité prohibits the creation of official lists based on
confessional background, and the fact that the prayer spaces, on the other hand, could be
“counted,” due to their status as declared associations, this system was finally unanimously
agreed upon, because “no one managed to propose another more simple and operational
system” (Billon 2005, 30). The elections are overseen by special regional and national electoral
committees (respectively the CORELECs and CORELEN), which have established lists of all
the places of worship in the country and in each region, and validate their participation in the
elections (for instance, 1,316 were accepted in for the 2003 elections, while over 300 prayer
spaces in foyers were excluded for “non-conformity with the [CFCM] statutes”) (Godard and
Taussig 2007, 116–117).
b) Elections and Home State Involvement
The results of the 2003 CFCM elections came as a shock to the GMP, which came trailing in
third place behind the FNMF and the UOIF.
According to Godard (under his pseudonym Hervé Terrel), the GMP’s defeat was due
primarily to the fact that the network of Algerian mosques in France had difficulty in
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recognizing the Algerian government’s official representative as their own. At the same time,
and on a more practical level, the victory of the FNMF showed the numerical domination of
Moroccans in places of worship, while the UOIF reaped the rewards of its activism and its
tactical alliances with other federations (2008, 91). The UOIF was by far the most organized
federation, with youth groups and an Islamic training institute (the Institut Européen des
Sciences Humaines, European Institute of Human Sciences, IESH) with two branches located
in Château-Chinon and Saint-Denis, and notably received support from Milli Görüş in eastern
France, as well as from Tabligh groups and the independent Islah mosque of Marseille (Frégosi
2007).
For the president of the UOIF, Fouad Alaoui, “the CFCM is a French issue, not an
international one. States which have citizens in France have no reason to be involved. It is up
to French Muslims to organize their religion, not the states” (2005, 117). His remarks are
unsurprising given that the campaign period saw a significant mobilization of the Moroccan,
Algerian, and Turkish consulates (Billon 2005, 34). Indeed, this development does not stop
there. As Godard and Taussig point out, “the elections led to a reinforcement, if not the
constitution of a new influence of home states over the places of worship. [...] This return of
the chancelleries and the consulates, still discrete in 2003, would become obvious in 2005”
(2007, 175). The irony and paradox of this situation is striking: the very institution that was
created to bring about ‘French’ Islam seems to have acted as a Trojan horse, paving the way
for even greater foreign interference in the affairs of the French Muslim field.
However, such an interpretation neglects the fact that foreign states had been involved
at all stages of the earlier consultations. For instance, according to the Turkish ambassador at
the time, Uluç Özülker, Sarkozy met regularly with the ambassadors of the main countries of
origin of French Muslims (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey) in the lead-up to the
creation of the CFCM – “though this is not a well-known fact.”109 The meetings took place
either at the French Ministry of the Interior or during dinners organized at the ambassadors’
residences. For Özülker, international considerations were entirely present from the very
beginning. Foreign interference in the French Muslim field was something which
“extraordinarily bothered Sarkozy, as interior minister.” On the one hand, there were states
such as Saudi Arabia or Iran, which despite having very few nationals in France could still
109
Unless otherwise indicated, all citations in the following paragraphs are from Interview, U. Özülker,
23 November 2011, Istanbul.
285
acquire an important degree of influence thanks to their substantial funding of specific
associations or mosque projects.
On the other hand, this issue took second place when compared with the much more
complicated situation involving the Algerian and Moroccan states. According to Özülker,
“despite the fact that they were French… Algerians and Moroccans [in France] were either
always receiving help or under continuous pressure from their embassies,” and “this also
bothered Sarkozy.” The fact that the Algerian and Moroccan communities constituted by far
the majority of Muslims in France meant that the stakes for these ambassadors were
substantially different: they had both more to gain, and more to lose; moreover, they were
“more submissive than the others.” Sarkozy’s own behaviour towards these North African
diplomats was also different: he was aware of “both the colonial past and their numerical
superiority,” and thus could adopt at times a more “liberal tone during the talks,” while at other
times becoming severe and “imposing.” In the end however, “the goal was to arrive at a solution
which received the support of the embassies while promoting cooperation.”
In light of these statements, it seems clear that the French state, as represented by the
interior minister Sarkozy, was in fact not in favour of the continued influence exerted by foreign
states over the French Muslim field. However, at the same time it was obligated to proceed in
a manner fundamentally different from other issues of interior politics. In this instance, the
French state could not rely solely on state sovereignty as a means of ensuring that its policies
were going to work, as with the case of the 2004 law on religious symbols. Instead, it had to
work through diplomatic channels in order to secure the support it needed for the CFCM.
For example, both the Algerian and Moroccan ambassadors were openly critical of the
2004 law banning religious symbols in schools during a meeting with Sarkozy, stating “you
can’t outlaw the headscarf.” The Turkish ambassador was equally critical when asked by
President Jacques Chirac about his opinion on the issue, stating that it is impossible to ban an
article of clothing; at the same time, he also provided a more nuanced view of public space,
arguing that the line should be drawn when it comes to public employees (as in several German
Länder): “in front of the counter, everyone is free and does what they want; behind the counter,
there... there it’s normal to have limits.” The newly-created CFCM also voiced its opposition
to the bill, and Sarkozy himself was initially against it. Nevertheless, “Chirac exerted a greater
deal of pressure” in favour of the law and it was eventually passed.
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In terms of interior politics there is nothing surprising here: individual ministers and
foreign envoys may not be in favour of a particular bill, but if there is a majority government,
real political will, and enough pressure coming from the top, the bill usually becomes a law.
The 2004 law on religious symbols shows that the French state is capable of having an impact
on the religious field, notably by defining the limits of religious expression with regard to what
it considers as public space. The state has the power to pass such a law, and enforce it – though
as Bowen writes, this stage comes with its own set of reinterpretations at the different levels of
enforcement (2007a, 143–152).
On the other hand, as argued above, the state has no authority when it comes to
interpreting this law within the religious field: it has no clerics or state religious institutions to
turn to either. Hypothetically, the CFCM may have been able to play this role – despite the fact
that it was envisioned as a representative institution for French Muslims, and not as a
theological council (i.e. it cannot issue fatwas). However, in an odd twist, which in some ways
resembles the intervention of King Hassan II during the first “headscarf affair” in 1989,
Sarkozy decided to bypass the newly-created CFCM entirely.
During a visit to Egypt at the end of 2003, Sarkozy consulted instead with Mohamed
Tantawi, the head sheikh of Cairo’s Al-Azhar university. The sheikh gave his assent, stating
first that “the veil is a divine obligation,” but that if French authorities decided to enact a law
against it he could not oppose it, because respecting the laws of the country in which one lives
takes precedence (Abdelhadi 2003). This perplexing approach of seeking religious legitimacy
for state policies from an Islamic authority far removed from the French Muslim field is another
manifestation of the French state’s partial governance of the religious field.
There is a degree of political expediency at play here: by Sarkozy’s own admission, he
had decided to “talk to the most moderate” of Egyptian religious authorities (in République
française 2003b), while he also managed to avoid involving those countries with significant
populations in France.110 This example is emblematic of the French state’s structural lack of
authority when it comes to having influence in the religious field, and ambivalence towards
recognizing such an authority at the level of the CFCM. As one French Muslim leader stated
to me,
110
Zeghal (2005b) point outs how Tantawi succeeded in cultivating a degree of ambiguity in his
statements, though to a much lesser degree than when Jean-Pierre Chevènement tried the same tactic in
1998 (Guibal 2003).
287
On the topic of Al-Azhar… what’s interesting is that when people speak of French
Islam (Islam de France), independent of home states, of foreign countries, etc., and
then French Muslims express an opinion contrary to what people want to hear, they
have a tendency to go looking abroad (Interview, H. Demiryurek, 22 April 2009,
Paris).
The CFCM thus represents an even more complicated case. Given that most of the main
Muslim federations in France receive aid from their respective home states, it is impossible to
treat this issue solely as a matter of internal politics. Consequently, in order to secure the
participation of these federations, Sarkozy’s interlocutors at the foreign embassies had just as
much if not more clout than the leaders of the mosque associations. If the goal ever truly had
been to diminish the role of home states with regard to ‘French’ Islam, the catch-22 here is
obvious: by directly involving the home states in the creation of the CFCM, this led to the
immediate consequence that the CFCM itself was to remain an object of French foreign policy
as much as French interior politics.
It is difficult to say whether this was a miscalculation or whether it was seen as an
unavoidable first step. On the one hand, due to the partial governance structures in place, the
French state does not have the legal capacity to create such an organization, and has limited
means at its disposal to incite – or force – the main Muslim federations to cooperate. On the
other hand, there is a long-standing institutional precedent which treats Islamic issues in France
within the framework of foreign policy, meaning that it would be both tactless as well as naïve
to imagine that a representative council for Muslims in France could be created without
involving home state authorities.
Conversely, for the Moroccan diplomat in charge of religious affairs in France, Najib
Binebine, the CFCM was never really meant to work:
When you look at the statutes of the organization, its configuration, […] everything
was done to make sure that the whole mess would get blocked! […] They didn’t
manage to – how should I put this – emancipate themselves from the ethnic aspect.
[…] In my opinion, this was done intentionally because the French might not have
any interest in there being an organization, an institution, which speaks for Muslims
(Interview, N. Binebine, 23 May 2011).
The disappointment over the CFCM is a generalized phenomenon, and is particularly due to
the incessant rivalry between Muslim federations as a result of the aforementioned “ethnic
aspect.” While certain French Muslim websites run paranoid articles accusing the French state
of employing a “divide and conquer” strategy in order to weaken the Muslim community (see
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Ben-Badis 2014), it nevertheless is hard to directly blame the French state for a rivalry that
stems from international considerations.
This rivalry is most pronounced between Morocco and Algeria, for whom winning the
CFCM elections carries an element of symbolic prestige, and which has thus led to a greater
involvement of their diplomatic services. Indeed, with more than a little foreshadowing, the
High Council on Integration had already noted this fact in 2000, writing that “personal rivalries
and battles of influence, notably between Algeria and Morocco, play a predominant role in the
absence of a federation capable of representing French Islam in a consensual manner” (2000,
34).
c) Moroccan Islam in the CFCM: Dominant yet Unstable
The result of the five CFCM elections that have been held so far (2003, 2005, 2008, 2011, and
2013) has been the clear emergence of Moroccan Islam as the dominant current in the French
Muslim field (Frégosi 2007; Godard and Taussig 2007, 40–42) (see Figure VI-4). At the same
time, these elections have been marked by boycotts from two of the main federations (the GMP
and the UOIF), as well as by a rising level of indifference amongst French Muslims. The
recurrent electoral victories of the associations close to Moroccan authorities also raise two
important questions. First, to what degree is this Moroccan current actually unified, and second,
do its CFCM electoral victories have an impact on the French Muslim field?
289
Figure IV-4 “CFCM Election Results (2003-2013) – Administrative Council Seats”
35
Number of Seats
30
25
FNMF/RMF
20
UOIF
GMP
15
CCMTF
FNMF
10
Other
5
0
2003
2005
2008
2011
2013
In 2006, the RMF broke off from the FNMF, taking the majority of the latter’s support in the process. The GMP
boycotted the elections of 2008 and 2011, and the UOIF boycotted the elections of 2011 and 2013, though in both
cases certain lists still decided to participate. The category “other” generally corresponds to the FAIACA,
Reunion, the Tabligh, and other smaller groups, including Milli Görüş in 2013. The total number of elected seats
on the council is 41, other than in 2005 (43) and in 2013 (42). Elaborated by author. Sources: Godard and Taussig
2007; Telhine 2010.
The federation which has represented the Moroccan current of Islam within the CFCM was
initially the FNMF until 2005-2006, when it was replaced by the Rassemblement des
Musulmans de France (Rally of French Muslims, RMF).
As explained in Chapter III, it was during the 1990s that the FNMF came to be seen as
the Muslim federation closest to Moroccan authorities, especially after Mohamed Bechari
became president in 1993. During the 1996 crisis concerning the Évry mosque, the Moroccan
ambassador Mohamed Berrada set out a strategy for the coming years so as to “save Moroccan
Islam in France” (in Tossa 1996, 35). This “global strategy” took note of the internal disputes
between figures such as Bechari and Merroun (of the Évry mosque), as well as the pressure
exerted by other Muslim associations and French authorities, and listed amongst its first two
recommendations reinforcing the ability of the Moroccan embassy and the consulates to
oversee Islamic affairs in France (in Tossa 1996, 35).
290
It was this consular network which helped mobilize Moroccan mosques in the CFCM
elections, leading to the FNMF’s impressive victories. However, the FNMF was never a
coherent structure and more often than not resembled a temporary alliance, with the result that
observers and competitors frequently criticized it as an “empty shell” (El Ghissassi 2005).
Indeed, in the 2005 elections, a large number of the FNMF’s delegates were not officially part
of the federation, prompting the UOIF to dispute the former’s claim to electoral victory
(Godard and Taussig 2007, 185).
Not long thereafter, the tension within the FNMF became visible when Bechari’s
position was openly challenged by a group of delegates called the Rassemblement des Élus du
CFCM (Rally of CFCM Delegates, REC) led by Abdellah Boussouf and Abderrahim Berkaoui.
Bechari was accused of embezzlement, a charge for which he was cleared in June 2006, but
already in January of the same year his opponents had founded a new federation, the
aforementioned RMF. According to the president of the RMF, Anouar Kbibech, this new
Muslim federation was created for those “who didn’t identify themselves with the other
federations […] which represented French Muslims” (Interview, A. Kbibech I, 9 October 2012,
Paris). Kbibech goes on to explain the rupture in the following terms:
What happened was that […] in 2003, when the CFCM and CRCMs were created
and set up, there was no RMF. There was a federation called the FNMF – which is
still called the FNMF – which wanted to federate together the mosques that were,
quote unquote, run by individuals of Moroccan origin. […] I was president of the
CRCM [Île-de-France East] in 2003, and there were other CRCM presidents, about
a dozen, so practically half of the regions, […] who were at the head of the CRCMs,
but who didn’t identify with the FNMF, or the UOIF, or the GMP, and so we said,
“well, why not create something new?”
It’s true that there was at a certain moment the question of whether the FNMF…
because clearly the FNMF was an empty shell, and there was a whole lot of history
that wasn’t very glorious, let’s say, to make it simple. […] There were some FNMF
members who asked if […] we shouldn’t work within the FNMF and reform it.
[…] From the beginning, I felt that we needed to create something new. […] There
were some top members of the FNMF who joined the RMF, but there was no desire
to… I mean, the RMF was not created against the FNMF. The FNMF still exists
even. (Interview, A. Kbibech I).
While Kbibech emphasizes the evolutions at the level of Muslim associations in France,
other sources maintain that this dispute had been brought on by changes in Morocco. In
particular, Telhine highlights King Mohammed VI’s decision to dismiss the powerful interior
minister, Driss Basri, who had supported Bechari as head of the FNMF, and speaks of “a clanBenjamin Bruce – “Governing Islam Abroad” – Thèse IEP de Paris – 2015
291
like settling of scores” (2010, 331). Though Bechari had won his court case and was thus still
acting head of the federation, he had lost the support of Moroccan authorities, who were in
favour of Boussouf and the new RMF. Despite hoping to regain his former position in June
(Bamba 2006), by September, Bechari had been replaced as vice-president of the CFCM by
Boussouf. According to the Merroun, the recteur of the Évry Mosque, during a CFCM council
meeting in September 2006, the GMP and UOIF announced “coldly” that they had decided
together to drop Bechari. They had only supported him “with the goal of deepening the
divisions in the Moroccan camp,” not to mention the fact that his opponent, Boussouf, was a
former member of the AEIF, a rival of the UOIF (in Telhine 2010, 332). Finally it seems that
even the French interior ministry had lost confidence in Bechari (Telhine 2010, 332). This turn
of events led Bechari to criticize “Place Beauvau,” claiming that it was “instrumentalizing the
CFCM in preparation for the presidential election in 2007” (in Nouvel Observateur 2006).111
This complicated mix of personal rivalries, international relations, and French interior
politics continues to characterize the developments within the CFCM. As mentioned in Chapter
II, the involvement of Moroccan citizens in a number of terrorist incidents, most notably in
Casablanca in 2003 and Madrid in 2004, was a fundamental factor in the Moroccan state’s
decision to increase its control over its religious field abroad as part of Mohammed VI’s
extensive “reform of the religious field.” This heightened involvement abroad has translated
into a close partnership with the RMF, helping it dominate the CFCM and many of the CRCMs
until recently, as well as successfully securing the presidency of the CFCM in 2008, following
the GMP’s electoral boycott.
The RMF’s success has also been thanks to the shortcomings of its two main rivals, the
GMP and the UOIF. The GMP has been slow to develop a country-wide federation of mosque
associations, and even in places where Algerians greatly outnumber Moroccans, such as
Marseille, it has been unable to secure solid support. Algerians, or French citizens of Algerian
origin, are on the whole less involved in religious affairs and are less observant Muslims than
their Moroccan counterparts (Laurence and Vaïsse 2007, 116–117). This has obvious
consequences for the elections, which as earlier mentioned, also favour Moroccans for other
reasons. Moreover, the GMP suffers amongst younger French Muslims from the poor image
of its leader, Dalil Boubakeur, who aside from not being a religious authority himself, is
“Place Beauvau” is a metonym for the French interior ministry derived from the location of the latter
in Paris, just as “Bercy” refers to the finance ministry, and the “Quai d’Orsay” to foreign affairs.
111
292
criticized for being too close to French authorities and too far from the daily realities of most
French Muslims (Laurence and Vaïsse 2007, 131–134). At the same time, the president of the
GMP voiced his criticism of French authorities in an interview with the author, mentioning
how he had to “fight” to ensure that the number of imams sent from Algeria was not decreased,
and that it had been French authorities who had privileged contact with the embassies over
contact with Islamic federations in France. According to Boubakeur, in many instances the
French state had managed to indirectly put pressure on him through “through diplomacy” by
talking to Algerian authorities and diplomats, who would in turn would exert pressure on him
to make certain decisions (Interview, Dalil Boubakeur II, 7 December 2011, Paris).
As for the UOIF, it has also suffered set-backs due to its former close ties with a major
political figure: former Minister of the Interior and President Nicolas Sarkozy. During the
creation of the CFCM, Sarkozy had decided to recognize and involve the UOIF instead of
following the existing policy of “containment by favouring the Algerian-Moroccan alliance”
(Zeghal 2005b). The relationship between Sarkozy and the UOIF – described initially as “love
story” by media and certain scholars – was reflected in UOIF’s position on a number of issues
from 2003 to 2007: from calling on its members not to protest against the 2004 law on religious
symbols to its 2005 “fatwa” against the riots in the Parisian suburbs, the UOIF “largely
supported the security policies employed by the interior ministry in working-class
neighbourhoods” (Geisser 2012).
For the UOIF’s grassroots members and younger generations of French Muslims, these
stances have provoked a crisis of legitimacy, and have undermined its status as the principal
movement of political Islam in France (Amghar 2009, 387–388). Following this, the UOIF
decided to distance itself from Sarkozy and came out in favour of the centrist candidate
François Bayrou during the 2007 elections (Bahri 2007). However, in doing so it only drew the
ire of Sarkozy, now president, who would not hesitate over the next years to place obstacles in
the path of the UOIF. In 2012, this included banning six of the UOIF’s main speakers from
entering France, including the renowned Egyptian theologian Yusuf al-Qadarawi, for its annual
congress, the Rencontre Annuelle des Musulmans de France (Annual Meeting of French
Muslims, RAMF) at the Bourget just outside of Paris, as well as personally writing a public
letter admonishing the head of the UOIF, Ahmed Jaballah (Barthe 2012; Sauvaget 2012).
The CFCM has had a few success stories: its role in helping to free French hostages in
Iraq in 2004 is often brought up in the literature, and several of my interlocutors have
mentioned that it has been a factor in facilitating the construction of mosques across the country
293
(Interview N. Binebine; Interview, H. Demiryurek; Interview, A. Kbibech I). At the same time,
Laurence and Vaïsse point out that even the Iraq mission was fraught with conflict between
Bechari of the FNMF, Alaoui of the UOIF, and the representative of the GMP, and like many
scholars they finish their chapter on the CFCM wondering whether it will survive at all (2007,
194–198).
On another level, several observers and actors maintain that the frequent paralysis at the
national level has not stopped the regional CRCMs from playing a more important role. To a
certain degree this is not surprising, given that a division of labour had been envisioned from
the start: as the government stated in response to a question in parliament in 2003, “the role of
the CFCM is to define the general directions, while that of the CRCMs is to implement them,
and to work together with local public authorities” (République française 2003a). However,
the verdict is often much more severe: before becoming secretary-general of the CFCM,
Kbibech himself stated that “the CFCM is the weak point of the CRCMs. […] Instead of
preparing the issues, showing the way to the CRCMs, and dealing with certain questions at the
national level, it uses all of its energy managing internal dissensions, far removed from the
concerns of the French Muslim community” (in De Sauto 2005).
Instead of representing a full-fledged actor of the French Muslim field, the CFCM seems
rather to be an object of contention, reflecting the complex interplay of the interests of Muslim
federations, home state authorities, French politicians, and interior ministry bureaucrats. The
last round of elections in 2013 was preceded by an extensive reform of the CFCM’s statutes,
which provoked an electoral boycott from certain CRCMs, as well as the UOIF (though they
had initially supported the reform). The official goal of these reforms was to render the CFCM
more “collegial,” and accordingly the current plan is for the presidency and all the other top
positions to rotate between the top three federations – the RMF, the GMP, and the CCMTF –
for three two-year periods, until the end of the mandate in 2019 (CFCM 2013b). However, the
boycott of the UOIF, new dissensions amongst Moroccan groups such as the RMF and the
UMF (see Chapter VI.D.1.), and the debacle surrounding the beginning of Ramadan in 2013
(see Chapter VI.D.2.), all represent more clouds on the horizon for the CFCM.
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2) The Deutsche Islamkonferenz (DIK): The Politics of Dialogue
a) The “Paradigm Shift”
The road to the German Islam Conference (DIK) began with the reform of the country’s
citizenship laws in 1999-2000, under the new SPD-Green government led by Gerhard
Schröder. This move had great symbolic importance, breaking with the policies employed
under CDU chancellor Helmut Kohl, which had unceasingly emphasized that “Germany was
not a country of immigration (Deutschland ist kein Einwanderungsland)” (Herbert 2001, 249).
The former SPD Spokesperson for Interior Affairs Dieter Wiefelspütz emphasized the
importance of this moment during my interview with him, calling it a “paradigm shift” in
German integration policies. Moreover, according to Wiefelspütz, it would take the CDU/CSU
half a decade to catch up on the SPD’s lead in the matter (Interview, D. Wiefelspütz, 6 April
2011, Berlin).
The changes in the citizenship laws also meant that Islam would no longer represent a
“foreign” religion: in its response to the “major enquiry” (Große Anfrage) submitted by the
CDU/CSU concerning the status of Islam in Germany in 2000, the federal government
highlighted that the process of immigrant naturalization now entailed that “Islamic religious
beliefs would be increasingly less identifiable with the status of [being a] foreigner” in
Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland 2000, 3).
The preamble to the government’s response also highlights that the assimilation of
foreigners is not a goal of the state; that Islam is not a monolithic block; and most importantly,
that the state’s ability to “gain insight into the inner workings of religious communities” is
highly limited, both by the constitution and the federal structure of the country (Bundesrepublik
Deutschland 2000, 2–4). A final passage of the preamble could even serve as a definition for
“partial governance,” as I argue in this chapter: “the questions [asked by the CDU/CSU inquiry
concerning Islam in Germany] can thus only be answered insofar as they concern issues which
permit the intervention of the state, or make such intervention necessary”; indeed, the
government’s response emphasizes once again that in the German free democratic system
(freiheitlich demokratische Grundordnung), religious communities “are not the object of state
surveillance” (Bundesrepublik Deutschland 2000, 4).
The 96-page report is perhaps the most extensive and coordinated government document
on the subject at the time, treating an extensive list of questions related to Islam: the number
of Muslims and Muslim associations in the country and their origins; legal questions
295
surrounding specific issues such as the call to prayer, headscarves, halal meat, etc.; religious
instruction at all educational levels; chaplain services in state institutions; the legal status of
religious groups; and much more. In each instance, the government provides information from
the Länder, foreign consulates, and offers comparisons with other European states (the UK,
France, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, etc.).
The report is also a fascinating demonstration of what certain parliamentarians and
perhaps members of the public think the state ought to know and what, institutionally and
legally-speaking, the German state can know. A large number of responses begin with “it is
not the duty of the federal government to…,” after which the government nevertheless
sometimes provides certain details, at other times guesses, or simply states that it does not have
the information. The report gives multiple examples of cooperation between the Länder and
Turkish consulates concerning religious affairs, especially with regard to Islamic instruction
and chaplain services in prisons, and shows that the federal state has no illusions concerning
DITIB: “Turkey exerts influence over the association […] DITIB, based in Germany, through
its state ‘Presidency for Religious Affairs’” (Bundesrepublik Deutschland 2000, 74).
Nevertheless, it neglects to mention the role of the German federal state in facilitating the
religious services provided by the Diyanet in Germany.
A similar major enquiry was submitted in 2002 by the liberal FDP party to the
government of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) – the most populous in Germany,
and the state with the largest Muslim population. The ruling SPD/Green government’s 86-page
answer makes frequent reference to the federal enquiry of 2000, and similarly responds that it
is incapable of addressing a large number of questions because it does not have the necessary
information, or because it does not have the legal competence to collect such data.
Indeed, while “foreigner” exists as a broad, across-the-board statistical category, it is not
necessary to divulge one’s religious affiliation in all realms of social life – indeed, nor should
it be. For instance, during the debate on the enquiry in the NRW parliament, the SPD politician
Rainer Bischoff criticized the thinking behind many of the questions that had been posed to the
government, and asked the FDP if it really wanted all university students to declare their
religion. Moreover, he defied the FDP to answer whether it itself knew how many members of
its party were Muslims, “because we don’t know ourselves in the SPD, and we want to keep it
that way” (in Landtag Nordrhein-Westfalen 2002, 5552).
296
The debate here echoes to some degree the more virulent one on ethnic statistics
(statistiques ethniques) in France, where proponents argue that such information is necessary
in order to measure and fight against discrimination, while opponents argue that it infringes on
personal privacy rights, or worse undermines the transversal notion of citizenship by reifying
categories such as ethnicity or religion. What is interesting, however, is the approach taken in
these enquiries on Islam in German federal and state parliaments: the dearth of information
concerning Muslims and their religion seems to have motivated these politicians to privilege
religion as an explanatory category in any and every domain of social life. The questions asked
attempt to ascertain the number of Muslims in every union, sports club, or political party – not
to mention the number of unemployed and incarcerated Muslims.
On the other hand, the spectre of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism continued to
dominate discussions. In 2004, the CDU/CSU attempted to pass a motion entitled “Fighting
Political Islamism – Supporting Muslims Loyal to the Constitution” in the Bundestag, which
called for heightened surveillance of “Islamists,” the “recognition of the constitution” by
“immigrants,” and greater state efforts to create and oversee Islamic educational facilities
(CDU/CSU et al. 2004). The following year, interior minister Otto Schily gave the task of
promoting dialogue with Muslim groups to the Bundeskriminalamt (Federal Criminal Police
Office, BKA) and the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (Federal Office for the Protection of
the Constitution, BfV), which began talks with the ZMD, VIKZ, and DITIB in order to
encourage cooperation between Muslims and security authorities (Hermani 2010, 28–30).112
This security perspective continued to play a central role in the years thereafter, and became a
notable source of conflict with the representatives of Muslim federations.
After becoming chancellor of a CDU-SPD grand coalition in 2005, Angela Merkel
launched the first “Integration Summit” (Integrationsgipfel) in 2006. DITIB was the only
Muslim federation invited, which the head of the Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge
(Federal Office for Migration and Refugee, BAMF) Maria Böhmer justified by saying that the
meeting had a secular orientation and that she had a good working relationship with DITIB’s
spokesperson, Bekir Alboğa. For Yaşar, this shows that German “state authorities prefer the
DITIB over other Islamic associations due to its connection to Turkey” (2012, 95).
112
The BKA coordinates policies agencies at the national level and is responsible for questions
concerning international terrorism, while the BfV is the interior intelligence agency of Germany. The
BfV is seconded by similar agencies at the Land level or by a division of the local interior ministry.
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Integration and immigration issues had long been discussed by special councils at the
local and regional levels, originally called “foreigner councils” (Ausländerbeiräte). These
councils had been founded as far back as the 1970s with the idea of “giving migrants a political
voice,” though they were equally heavily criticized for their lack of influence (TGD 2010).
After the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992, which gave local voting rights to EU citizens (and thus
to the large Greek, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese communities), the foreigner councils
became “essentially a Turkish matter,” and Milli Görüş and the VIKZ increasingly became
involved in competing for seats on these councils (Amiraux 2001, 176–183). The minor
enquiry (kleine Anfrage) of the far-left PDS in the federal parliament in 1995 drew attention to
the activities of the MHP-linked ADÜTDF on these councils; at the same time, the German
government highlighted rather that it was the Kurdish PKK that had been attempting to use the
councils “for its needs” (Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1995, 5).
The 2006 integration summit was followed a few months later by interior minister
Wolfgang Schäuble’s call for a conference on Islam. Indeed, the coalition agreement between
the SPD and the CDU/CSU stated that the government would
Engage in intensive dialogue with the large Christian churches and with Jews and
Muslims. Interreligious and intercultural dialogue is not only an important
component of integration policies and civic education; it also serves to prevent and
combat racism, antisemitism, and extremism. Dialogue with Islam has an
especially important role to play in this context. (…) This dialogue will only be
successful if we socially and professionally better integrate in particular young
Muslims (CDU, CSU, SPD 2005, 117–118).
The government was reminded of this focus on Muslims when yet another major enquiry on
the “Status of the Equal Legal Treatment of Islam in Germany” was submitted by the Green
Party in June 2006, consciously repeating many of the same questions the CDU/CSU had asked
themselves when they had been in the opposition in 2000. The 125-page governmental
response (BRD 2006) once again gives a fascinating overview of the state’s competencies and
knowledge (or lack thereof) with regard to Islam and religious issues. However, perhaps even
more importantly, it attests to the growing perception that religion constitutes a primary
category for integration policies. As the coalition agreement mentions, it is not young Germans
of Turkish or Moroccan background, but rather “young Muslims” whom the state needs to
integrate.
These developments which occurred during the 2000s at the federal level were already
visible at the local and regional levels, where most of the “foreigner councils” had
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progressively been renamed and reorganized as “integration councils” (Integrationsbeiräte),
with the idea of bringing together a larger panoply of state and civil society representatives
alongside migrants. At the same time, the move towards a more specific focus on Islam had
already begun in 2002, with the organization of an “Islam Forum” at the federal level as well
as in a large number of Länder by an association called the Intercultural Council in Germany.
The exact composition of these councils varied in each instance, but they generally
brought together representatives of the main (especially Turkish) Islamic federations, churches,
unions, and public authorities, especially representatives of the federal and state interior
ministries and security agencies (BfV) (Interkultureller Rat in Deutschland e.V. 2014). One of
the last of these Islam Forums was founded in Berlin in November 2005, where the current
representative of the DITIB, Pınar Çetin, is also the Turkey representative on the Berlin
integration council (Beauftragter für Integration und Migration Berlin 2010; Beauftragter für
Integration und Migration Berlin 2014).
b) The First Phase of the DIK: 2006-2009
The German Islam Conference (hereafter also DIK or Islamkonferenz) began its first phase in
September of 2006, and brought together fifteen state representatives with fifteen
representatives of German Muslims in order to form workgroups and establish a “continuous
dialogue […] since Muslims in Germany no longer represent a foreign population, but rather
have become a part of our society” (Schäuble in DIK-Redaktion 2010). This changing
perspective, especially amongst the centre-right in Germany, has now began to recognize
Muslims as a “component of [German] society” (Schäuble in Frankfurter Allgemeine 2006).
This development has been encompassed by one of the mottos of the DIK: “Muslims in
Germany – German Muslims” (BMI 2011). This sentence evokes both the legal evolution of
Muslims from foreigners to citizens, while also underscoring their national identification with
Germany, instead of with former countries of origin, such as Turkey.
Whereas in the case of France, the goal of the successive consultations had been to
create a body such as the CFCM, the Islamkonferenz has never been envisioned as anything
other than a forum for discussion and dialogue. Indeed, the German state sees it as a “unique
process in Europe,” and different from the “French model,” which is perceived as having been
put in place by the French state itself (Bundesrepublik Deutschland 2006, 125). The
organization of the conference has been the responsibility of the interior ministry, within which
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a special department (Referat) was created for this purpose, and for which the DIK is
understood as “the arena, in which the fundamental sociopolitical questions concerning Islam
in Germany are addressed” (Interview, BMI, 22 February 2011, Berlin).
The composition of the participants was designed to reflect this vision. The fifteen state
representatives were drawn from the main federal ministries concerned with issues pertaining
to Islam (Interior, Foreign Affairs, Justice, Family, and Labour), alongside a representative of
the chancellor and the head of the Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) the
interministerial committees of the Länder governments – especially those concerned with
interior affairs, integration, and Kultus (education and religion); and municipal government
associations. The mix of different levels of government is on the one hand necessary, given
Germany’s federal structure, but also contrasts with France, where the consultations were
consistently dominated by the interior ministry.
The fifteen “Muslim” representatives include five members from the main Muslim
federations, as well as ten other “Muslim” public figures. When the conference was initially
created, the five federations represented were DITIB, the ZMD, VIKZ, the Alevi Community
of Germany (AABF), and the Islamrat (IRD), a federation heavily dominated by Milli Görüş.
They were joined by associative leaders, such as the president of the Türkische Gemeinde in
Deutschland (Turkish Community in Germany, TGD), Kenan Kolat, as well as authors,
lawyers, doctors, and scholars, including the outspoken sociologist Necla Kelek. Interestingly,
this means that practically none of the so-called Muslim representatives were religious actors
(i.e. imams, theologians, preachers); moreover, a number of the “non-organized Muslims,”
such as Kelek and the lawyer Seyran Ateş, were perceived quite critically by the Muslim
federations. For instance, during the field work for this thesis one DITIB representative told
me that the group of non-organized Muslims “have nothing to do with religion, they mess
everything up. It’s not good for the Muslim side” (Interview, B. Ezer, 2 March 2011,
Düsseldorf). At the same time, a top Milli Görüş official commented that they came across as
“token Muslims,” who were “sent forward to say things that were in fact positions held by the
interior ministry, but which would’ve led to an outcry had the interior ministry expressed them”
(Interview, E. Karahan, 29 September 2011, Cologne).
From the beginning, the official position of the Turkish authorities towards the DIK
was positive. One diplomat at the Turkish embassy in Berlin stated that “we believe that the
DIK is a necessary initiative in the name of creating a ‘German Islam,’ ” and that “it is possible
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to say that it was an appropriate step with regard to passing the message that Muslims are a
part of the country and strengthening dialogue with Muslims in the country” (Written
correspondence, I. Okyay, 20 April 2011).
The Diyanet’s director of foreign relations was also well aware of the limits of the
conference, pointing out how in Germany religious communities are legally autonomous, and
saying “can something else be done? No, it’s just an initiative. There needs to be a foundation
for the relationship (ilişki zemini) (Interview, A. Dere, 17 March 2009, Ankara). At the same
time, Turkish authorities have for years held the position that DITIB should be recognized as
the main interlocutor for the German state with regard to Islamic religious affairs, and the DIK
appeared to be a step in the right direction (Interview, S. Kartal, 10 November 2011, Ankara).
This perception runs counter to that of the German interior ministry, which clearly sees
the DIK as a forum designed for German Muslims, and not foreign representatives. During my
interview with the official from the interior minister, my multiple questions regarding contact
with Turkish or Moroccan institutions such as the Diyanet and the MHAI began to exasperate
my interlocutor, who told me,
It is foreign to the German constitutional understanding of religion that religious
matters are dealt with through a [diplomatic] attaché. For us the two are separate,
so we’re much more interested in speaking with people that have nothing to do
with the state level. […] For us, the emphasis is not on having contact with foreign
state institutions, but – and I’m repeating myself here – to the Muslims here
(Interview, Germany Interior Ministry).
Indeed, it is true that in the first years of the DIK, DITIB was generally represented by members
who were well established in Germany, such as Mehmet Yıldırım or Bekir Alboğa.
Nevertheless, by 2010, the DITIB’s representative at the DIK was the former head of the
Diyanet’s foreign affairs division, Ali Dere, who had been appointed by the Turkish state as
the religious services counsellor to Germany the same year. Dere, who speaks fluent German
and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Göttingen, continued to represented DITIB at the
Islamkonferenz for the duration of the second phase. Nevertheless, the discrepancy with the
above statement from the representative of the interior ministry is all the more striking,
considering that DITIB represents the largest and most important of the Muslim federations
present at the DIK. The contradiction posed in this instance displays once again the difficulty
of separating internal politics from foreign policy when treating the question of Islam in
Germany, and the fact that even top German state officials – such as my interlocutor – may
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either be unaware of the background of the individuals with whom they meet, or rather are
unwilling to state it too loudly.
Even more to the point, the interior ministry “considered it important to enter into
intensive dialogue with Turkey alongside the consultations in the German Islam Conference
[and]
closely cooperated in
this regard with
the [German]
foreign ministry”
(Bundesministerium des Innern 2009, 358). Two rounds of talks were thus held in October
2007 in Istanbul and May 2008 in Berlin, bringing together Turkish and German officials
(including then vice-president of the Diyanet Mehmet Görmez in 2007), as well as a number
of Turkish and German academics. The second meeting in Berlin included a presentation by
the head of the DITIB (and Turkish religious services counsellor) Sadi Arslan, and
unsurprisingly DITIB and its connections to the Diyanet and Turkey was often the subject of
conversation.
In its summary of these talks, the interior ministry stated its satisfaction that
complicated aspects of state-religion cooperation in Germany could be discussed in such detail
with Turkish authorities. The ministry also emphasized how the issue of DITIB’s ties to the
Turkish state had been broached, “and how this could represent a legal obstacle, if [DITIB]
sought to become a partner of the Länder in the provision of Islamic religious instruction”
(Bundesministerium des Innern 2009, 360). This point had already been raised the year before
with regard to Islamic religious instruction in the DIK’s interim report, which emphasized that
the German state cannot “grant a foreign state sovereign powers that, according to the
constitution, it does not have itself” (Deutsche Islam Konferenz 2008, 25). At the same time,
the report concedes that this “does not preclude foreign dignitaries from having influence over
religious communities, even if they simultaneously hold state positions,” and only includes the
caveat that foreign state influence must be independently desired as “an expression of the
religious community’s self-understanding,” and not externally imposed (Deutsche Islam
Konferenz 2008, 25–26). This very broad and pragmatic view allows both sides to save face,
while the interior ministry expressed the view that the aforementioned rounds of bilateral talks
“created the foundation for long-term dialogue based on trust with the most important country
of origin concerning the organization of Islamic communities in Germany,” and went on to cite
DITIB’s recent creation of Land-level associations as an example of its evolution towards a
better compliance with Germany’s federal structure (Bundesministerium des Innern 2009,
360).
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Despite the assertions in the interview cited above, it is clear that German federal
authorities were more than careful to keep in contact with their Turkish counterparts in order
to inform them of the developments within the DIK, as well as discuss directly with them
questions pertaining to the status and internal organization of DITIB. This shows two separate
yet complementary aspects concerning the governance of Islam in Germany: on the one hand,
Germany’s decision to promote a “national” Islam did not result in conflict with Turkey
because the issue did not leave the sphere of bilateral foreign policy and interstate cooperation.
On the other hand, interstate cooperation itself remained a central instrument of religious
governance, permitting German authorities to bypass local Muslim associations and negotiate
directly with representatives of the Turkish state.
The first phase of the DIK lasted three years, and comprised the plenary session, three
working groups (Arbeitsgruppe), and a special discussion group (Gesprächskreis) on security
and Islamism. The three working groups focused on the “German Social Order and Value
Consensus”; the question of “Religion in German Constitutional Law”; and “Business and
Media as a Bridge.” The members of each group were different depending on the topics under
discussion and counted around 25 people, while the discussion group on security and Islamism
was smaller, and was presided over by the head of the public security division of the interior
ministry, Gerhard Schindler (Hermani 2010, 46–48). Schindler has incidentally gone on to
become head of the German foreign intelligence services (Bundesnachrichtendienst). The
results and proposals of the different groups were presented in the yearly plenary sessions, and
took the form of “Interim Reports” (Zwischenresümees).
Though the DIK has no executive power itself, many initiatives and developments have
been undertaken within the framework or as a result of the conference. A list of these
accomplishments is easily consultable on its very professional and informative website:
“deutsche-islam-konferenz.de.” The website itself stands out for its numerous rubrics and large
store of documents, including all the major reports and documents of the DIK, as well as its
accessibility in German, Turkish, and English. The contrast with the CFCM is once again
striking, given the mediocre state of the CFCM’s online presence (“lecfcm.fr”); however, the
fact that the DIK website is run by German authorities largely explains this difference. Indeed,
the large number of publications, reports, and information available concerning the DIK has
been made possible due to the active involvement of the interior ministry and its affiliated
agency, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), which at one point had an
entire branch organizing and running the DIK (Interview, German Interior Ministry). The
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BAMF has also played a central role thanks to its research division, which published two
studies commissioned by the DIK that have since become quasi-canonical sources on the topic:
“Muslim Life in Germany” (Haug, Müssig, and Stichs 2009) and “Islamic Community Life in
Germany” (Halm et al. 2012)..
The DIK’s first phase came to an end in 2009, and the public policy recommendations
of its working groups on issues such as Islamic religious education in public schools, mosque
construction, the training of imams, and more, were published in its last interim report. These
recommendations were on the whole endorsed by all participants, except for the Islamrat,
which decided not to sign the final declaration of the working group “German Social Order and
Value Consensus,” nor that of the discussion group on security and Islamism (Deutsche Islam
Konferenz 2009, 5, 30). Out of all these recommendations, one of the only domains where the
federal government had the competency to act itself was concerning the establishment of
Islamic theology study programmes at German universities. This recommendation shortly
thereafter also received the approval of the Wissenschaftsrat (German Council of Science and
Humanities, WR), the federal state’s advisory council for higher education, and consequently
the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (Federal Ministry of Education and
Research, BMBF) moved to create such programmes at the universities of Münster, Osnabrück,
and Tübingen in 2010. As a result, the BMBF also became a participant of the second phase of
the DIK. The number of universities involved has since been enlarged, while 20 million euros
have been allocated for these new courses of study.
c) The Second Phase of the DIK: 2010-2013
The second phase of the DIK began on 17 May 2010. The new stage came following the federal
elections in September 2009, which saw the end of the grand coalition and the formation of a
new CDU/CSU government with the FDP.
After having “succeeded in reaching a consensus for the foundation of our work in the
first round,” especially with regard to the respect of the constitution, “we want to make the
whole thing more practical now, and ask the Muslims, [for instance,] so how are things looking
with religious education?” (Interview, German Interior Ministry). Two members of the interior
ministry responsible for organizing the DIK also emphasized the fact that a 2010 survey had
shown that more non-Muslims had heard of the Islamkonferenz than Muslims, and so the
practical orientation was also with the goal of encouraging a “stronger engagement (stärkere
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Auseinandersetztung) of Muslims with the [DIK].” Consequently, the second phase “thus more
clearly bears the mark of the Muslims participating” than during the first three years (Busch
and Goltz 2011, 40–41). A new preparatory commission (Vorbereitungsausschuss) was created
and the “role of the Länder and municipalities was strengthened” in order to increase efficiency
and promote a more “pragmatic approach,” while the conference now focused on three main
thematic points: institutional cooperation, gender equality, and the prevention of extremism
and radicalism (Busch and Goltz 2011, 32–33, 40–43).
Now under the direction of interior minister Thomas de Maizière, the second phase
nevertheless ran into a number of problems. The first was the suspension of the Islamrat from
the conference, due to an investigation launched by the Munich public prosecutor against Oğuz
Üçüncü, the secretary-general of the Islamrat’s most important member, IGMG. The Islamrat
rejected this explanation, claiming that the “actual reason… must certainly be the decidedly
critical position taken by the Islamrat during the former Islamkonferenz” (Kızılkaya in IGMG
2010a). The IRD consequently refused the interior ministry’s offer of a suspended membership
(ruhende Mitgliedschaft) until the charges were cleared, and decided to drop out of the DIK
altogether. The investigation also targeted Ibrahim El-Zayat, the head of the Islamische
Gemeinschaft in Deutschland (Islamic Community in Germany, IGD), an organization tied to
the Muslim Brotherhood and part of both the ZMD and the pan-European Federation of Islamic
Organizations in Europe (FIOE).
El-Zayat created a minor uproar when he attended a meeting during the first phase of
the DIK upon the invitation of Ayyub Axel Köhler, president of the ZMD, but otherwise
unannounced to state officials. The “Islam expert” of the CDU, Kristina Köhler (unrelated to
the above), expressed her anger in an interview thereafter, stating that El-Zayat had come
“contrary to the desire of the interior ministry.” Moreover, she emphasizes that he “was not
and never would be a participant in the DIK” because he – “like the Turkish Milli Görüş” –
was a political Islamist who represented a “very radical position” (in Krüger 2007). Moreover,
both Milli Görüş and the IGD have long been under surveillance by the German federal and
state interior intelligence services.
The charges against Üçüncü were dropped after 19 months, but new charges of financial
mismanagement were brought forward by the public prosecutor of Cologne not long thereafter.
Moreover, in 2010 the German interior minister prohibited the association Internationale
Humanitäre Hilfsorganisation (International Humanitarian Aid Organization, IHH), which had
multiple ties to Milli Görüş, for providing support to the Palestine organization Hamas
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(Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz 2012, 307–308). A spokesperson for the interior ministry
evoked both these cases in order to explain the change in position regarding the Islamrat (in
Preuß 2010), while I was similarly told “we can hardly send the minister into a discussion with
Muslim representatives, when those representatives are being watched by the [interior
intelligence services] or when criminal charges have been brought against them,” and then went
on to make direct reference to the case of Milli Görüş (Interview, German Interior Ministry).
The de facto exclusion of the Islamrat led the ZMD to refuse to participate as well,
which also cited other reasons such as the lack of a clear goal, the underrepresentation of
Muslim communities, and the unwillingness on the part of the interior ministry to seriously
combat Islamophobia (Köhler 2010). Though the absence of two of the largest federations in
the country ran the risk of delegitimizing the process itself, the interior ministry attempted to
turn the situation around by replacing the Islamrat and the ZMD with two other Muslim
organizations, one Bosnian and the other Moroccan, and thus “directly taking into account the
second and third largest groups of origin of Muslims in Germany” (Busch and Goltz 2011,
35).113
According to deputy secretary-general of Milli Görüş, many members of DITIB were
reticent to join in the second phase as a result of these developments. For this reason, the
German interior ministry spoke with Turkish authorities, which thereafter gave DITIB an
“order” to participate, while the Diyanet was unable to intervene in any way because the
Turkish foreign affairs ministry had the upper hand. Following “massive pressure” from the
Turkish ministry of foreign affairs and the German interior ministry, DITIB eventually did
agree to participate in the second phase of the DIK, “after holding out for a month” (Interview,
E. Karahan).
When I asked other DITIB members or Turkish diplomats, the majority generally
repeated instead that DITIB was autonomous in its inner administration, or that they simply
had no information on the particular subject. One Diyanet member found the idea incredulous,
and reformulated my question by asking “so you mean to say that the same German authorities
who question the relationship between Diyanet and DITIB [would ask] Diyanet if it can put
pressure on DITIB? Is that logical?!” (Interview, F. Hamurcu I). Nevertheless, if true this case
113
The two associations are the Islamische Gemeinschaft der Bosniaken in Deutschland (Islamic
Community of Bosnians in Germany, IGBD), tied to the main Muslim organization in Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Islamska Zajednica u Bosni I Hercegovini (Islamic Community in Bosnia and
Herzegovina, IZ); and the Zentralrat der Marokkaner in Deutschland (Central Council of Moroccans
in Germany, ZMaD), directly linked to the MHAI and the FHII in Morocco.
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would constitute yet another instance where, quite to the contrary, the “nationalization” of
Islam pursued by state authorities in Western Europe has led paradoxically to the reinforcement
of interstate cooperation as well as the position of home state authorities in the religious field
abroad.
An additional problem came about as a result of a small cabinet shuffle, which saw the
Bavarian CSU parliamentarian Hans-Peter Friedrich become interior minister in March 2011.
Barely a few days into the job, Friedrich decided to contradict what had been repeated by both
his CDU predecessors, as well as the new German president Christian Wulff, and bluntly stated
“I don’t accept that Islam is a part of our culture. […] To be clear, the leitkultur in Germany is
the Christian-Jewish-Western culture. It is not Islamic and won’t be in the future either” (in
Carstens 2011).114 Given that the majority of my interviews with German Muslim associative
leaders were conducted just after this event, my interlocutors invariably commented on
Friedrich’s statement and all expressed a great deal of disappointment and criticism. In the
months thereafter, Friedrich focused his ministry’s attention on security and radicalization
issues with regard to Islam, leading to the creation of the “Initiative Security Partnership” in
June 2011. However, despite all the pictures of smiling police officers and imams, the only
Muslim federation listed as a partner on its website is the Alevi AABF. 115 The Spiegel
magazine called it “Friedrich’s false start” (Reimann 2011), while the SPD integration
spokesperson Aydan Özoğuz even called on Muslim participants to boycott the conference
(Spiegel-Online 2011).
The general tone of the public debate has not helped. The year before, SPD politician
Thilo Sarrazin had caused an enormous uproar with the publication of his book Deutschland
schafft sich ab (“Germany’s Doing Away with Itself”), in which he criticized multiculturalism
and Muslim immigrants in particular as being opposed to integration. Moreover, a study
commissioned by the interior ministry on the radicalization of young Muslims in Germany was
released in 2012 to the tabloid newspaper Bild, which duly sought out the most alarming slant
possible and published it as a “shock study” that showed that “young Muslims” and “20% of
all Muslims refuse integration in Germany” (see Solms-Laubach 2012). In reaction, Friedrich
stated his opposition to “religious-fanatical views” and Sarrazin “felt vindicated,” much to the
Leitkultur here refers to the “core culture” of the country, and has been at the centre of a debate for
numerous years concerning integration and Islam in Germany. For more on the “Leitkultur debate” see
Rosenow-Williams 2012, 146–149.
115
See www.initiative-sicherheitspartnerschaft.de/ (last accessed 29 November 2014).
114
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consternation of Wolfgang Frindte of the Friedrich Schiller University, one of the main
researchers involved in the study (in Schulte von Drach 2012).
A few voices pointed out that Friedrich had become more “moderate” a year after he
had become interior minister (in Reimann 2012). For instance, in March-April 2012 a number
of media reports began focusing on Salafist activities in Germany – most notably Qur’an
distribution – and Friedrich’s decision not to focus on Salafism in the DIK, despite pressure
from political allies (Carstens 2012), could be seen as an example of this. However, by the end
of the second phase of the DIK, the majority of media and participants were critical of how the
conference had evolved under Friedrich (Jacobsen 2013; Die Zeit 2013; Preuß 2013).
According to the representative of the Moroccan ZMaD, Khalid Hajji, “there wasn’t really a
strong will to reach any results. More like dialogue for dialogue’s sake” (Interview, Khalid
Hajji, 15 June 2013).
Moreover, the fact that during the same time period, the German police had uncovered
the existence of a neo-Nazi terrorist group (the “National Socialist Underground,” NSU)
responsible for the murder of one Greek and eight Turkish immigrants from 2000 to 2006,
called into question the government’s focus on Islamic terrorism and its negligence of rightwing extremism. Kolat of the Turkish Community in Germany accused the German security
authorities of institutional racism (Die Zeit 2012), and the KRM put together an “NSUDossier,” which is available in three languages on its website.116 The affair has been closely
followed in Turkey as well: Turkish prime minister Erdoğan brought up the murders on
numerous occasions, such as during his speech in Cologne in May 2014, when he spoke of
them in relation to “growing racism in Europe” (in Gezer and Kazim 2014).
Following the latest round of elections in 2013 and the return of the grand coalition
(CDU/CSU – SPD), Thomas de Mazière once again became Minister of the Interior and plans
for a third phase of the DIK were announced. Invitations to all the main Muslim federations
were sent out in January 2014, including to the Islamrat and ZMD; moreover, both the minister
and the main Muslim federations have expressed the desire for a new format for the conference
(Süddeutsche Zeitung 2014). According to Karahan of the IGMG and Islamrat, the new
approach seems promising, especially given the fact that “security issues will no longer occupy
centre stage” (2014). At the same time, one of the results of the DIK has been the realization
116
Available at www.koordinationsrat.eu (last accessed 29 November 2014).
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by all actors of the limits of the federal level, leading to the spread of increasingly successful
initiatives at the level of the Land. This is the subject of the next section of this chapter.
C - Partial Governance in Practice: The Effects of Multiple Levels
One of the most evident observations that can be drawn at this stage concerning the partial
governance of the French and German Muslim fields is that the level of government under
consideration makes a great deal of difference. This is more the case in Germany than in France,
due to the federal structure and the specific competencies of the Länder with regard to
education and the recognition of religious communities, though it is true that the CRCMs in
France are based on the main administrative regions of the country. More important yet,
however, for the majority of concrete issues of local Islamic religious governance, is the local
level of the municipality.
As the cases of the CFCM and the DIK have shown, dialogue between public authorities
and Muslim federations at the national level comes with its own mix of symbolic and personal
politics that at times loses sight of the everyday realities affecting Muslim communities on the
ground. Consequently, the following section will focus on the regional and local levels of
governance. While the potential benefits offered by cooperation at the regional level have led
to changing alliances between Muslim groups, the lack of necessary resources at the local level
has brought about novel international solutions, such as in the cases of Duisburg and
Strasbourg, each home to one of the largest and most important mosques in each country.
1) Evolving Constellations of Regional Religious Governance
a) Muslim Federations and Islamic Religious Instruction in
Germany
A recurring difficulty showcased by the Islamkonferenz is the complicated relationship
between Muslim federations and the state. In many instances, state authorities have encouraged
the formation of a unified federation, with the goal of having a single interlocutor for stateIslam relations. Two of the main Muslim umbrella federations invited to the DIK had in fact
been originally created with this goal: the Islamrat, established in 1986, though dominated by
Milli Görüş since 1990; and even more so the ZMD, which had started as a loosely organized
group called the Islamischer Arbeitskreis in Deutschland (Islamic Working Group in Germany,
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IAK) in 1988, but then lost its two most important members (DITIB and Milli Görüş) when it
decided to take its current name and become an official association (e.V.) in 1994 (Lemmen
2000, 85–88).
At the same time, the fact that the Land constitutes the most important level of
government for the majority of issues related to religion began to be reflected during the midto-late 1990s and early 2000s, when different local Muslim associations starting banding
together to found regional federations. These associations, often named “Schura” (Hamburg,
Lower Saxony, Bremen) or “Islamic religious community” (Hessen, Schleswig-Holstein)
included a complex mix of different local mosque associations that reflected the variable
dynamics of the religious field in each regional context (Lemmen 2000, 75–84). In 2005, a
large number of federal, regional, and local Muslim groups (except DITIB) came together in
the so-called “Hamburg Process,” with the goal of forming a unified organization with the
name “Islamic Religion Community” (Islamische Religionsgemeinschaft).
The idea was for this new organization to bring together all Muslim associations at both
the federal and state levels, while it would also include federal and regional ulema councils
(Rosenow-Williams 2012, 358–359). In certain respects, this initiative seems to resemble the
CFCM-CRCM model, or that of the Islamic Faith Community of Austria (Islamische
Glaubensgemeinschaft in Österreich, IGGiÖ), in which the different ethnic and religious
currents of the country agree to participate in a common representative body by means of an
electoral process. However, DITIB’s decision not to participate convinced the VIKZ to back
out, and left the ZMD looking for another way to bring together the main federations (Azzaoui
2011, 250–252). Indeed, instead of promoting cooperation with other Muslim associations,
DITIB often seemed reticent to become involved, while a top DITIB spokesperson declared
the same year that “we are the largest association, we account for 72% of Muslims, and we are
ready to represent all Muslims” (Alboğa in Kusicke and Lerch 2005).
A solution was worked out during the sessions of the German Islam Conference, and in
March 2007 the Koordinationsrat der Muslime (Coordinating Council of Muslims, KRM) was
created. The KRM brought together the four main Muslim federations that had invited to the
Islamkonferenz (DITIB, the ZMD, the VIKZ, and the IRD), though it left out the Alevis
(AABF). Ayyub Axel Köhler, head of the ZMD at the time, acknowledged during an interview
the importance of the Islamkonferenz as a triggering factor in the creation of the KRM (in Lau
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2007), and both CDU and SPD politicians praised the creation of this new group (in Blätte
2011, 220).
Nevertheless, Rosenow and Kortmann point out that the establishment of the KRM
effectively blocked the initiative begun by the regional “Schura” groups in Hamburg, while the
relationship of each the four main federations to the KRM remains quite ambivalent (2011,
68). The KRM is not an official association and thus has no statutes (Satzung), but merely a set
of procedural rules (Geschäftsordnung), and functions more than anything as a coordinating
body for the four aforementioned federations. Despite its six-month rotating presidency,
DITIB’s special privileges are clearly visible: not only does it have three representatives in the
general assembly (Mitgliedsversammlung) compared to two for the other federations, but even
more importantly, it is the only member to have veto power (Koordinationsrat der Muslime in
Deutschland 2007, § 5).
Kortmann highlights that the perception of the KRM and its future varies depending on
the federation: the multinational Islamrat and ZMD are much more positive about developing
its structures and increasing cooperation even further; the VIKZ is more reserved; and
especially DITIB “relativizes cooperation in the KRM […] and thus finds itself in opposition
to the other KRM members” (2011, 181). Nevertheless, in my interview with the deputy
secretary-general of Milli Görüş, the KRM is not perceived as opposed to earlier efforts at
unifying Muslim associations at the regional level, but rather as the continuation:
The reason for the creation of the KRM [is to] establish religious communities at
the level of the Land (Landesreligionsgemeinschaften). It wasn’t founded to be an
interlocutor for Islamic religious instruction in NRW, and I say that as someone
who’s involved in these talks (Interview, E. Karahan).
The interview took place shortly after a declaration of intent (Absichtserklärung) had been
signed between the KRM and state authorities in NRW concerning Islamic religious
instruction, which marked a very significant development with regard to cooperation between
the state and Muslim federations as much as with regard to cooperation between the federations
themselves. It was followed by a law on 22 December 2011, which officially established
Islamic religious instruction for the first time in German public schools.117
117
More specifically, it altered the existing legislation on schools to allow for the inclusion of a special
council (Beirat), which has the status of partner of the state in the elaboration of the curriculum for
Islamic religion courses that are to be given in schools across the Land (NRW Parliament 2011).
311
Before continuing, this point needs to be nuanced. The question of Islamic religious
instruction in Germany has been at the heart of debates across the country for years, and has
given rise to many different compromises, initiatives, and “trial programmes” over the years.118
Khorchide outlines three models, and lists the Länder in which they existed in 2005: the first
is that of “consular instruction” (Konsularunterricht), where the contents and teaching
personnel are determined by the states of origin (Baden-Württemberg, Saarland, Berlin, and
Schleswig-Holstein). The second model is displayed by religious instruction within the
framework of native language complementary education programmes (muttersprachlicher
Ergänzungsunterricht) (Bavaria, Hessen, Lower Saxony, NRW, and Rheinland-Pfalz). Finally,
the third model is more specific, and refers to a specific “Islam studies” programme
(Islamkunde) developed in North Rhine-Westphalia (Khorchide 2009, 55–56). Kiefer similarly
mentions that the consular education model, referring mainly to Turkey and Morocco, was
dominant until well into the 1980s (2008, 173–174). Nevertheless, the federal government’s
response to the 2006 major enquiry (Große Anfrage) on Islam in the German parliament only
mentions the Turkish consulate with regard to religious education in two Länder: Berlin and
Schleswig-Holstein (Bundesrepublik Deutschland 2006, 66,68).
On the whole, many different combinations co-exist in the different Länder due to
frequent changes and the creation of pilot projects at specific schools. These courses are
sometimes given exclusively in German, at other times exclusively in one or a number of
“native languages” (Turkish, Arabic, or Bosnian). Moreover, depending on the context in
which it the courses are taught, state authorities can have little to total control over the
curriculum and the hiring of instructors (Bundesrepublik Deutschland 2006, 65–68; for an
overview, see the table in Kiefer 2005, 88).
Beginning in the mid-2000s however, a new trend began in Bavaria, Rheinland-Pfalz,
and Lower Saxony. In these Länder, local or regional Muslim federations began to play a larger
role as interlocutors for the state concerning religion courses, though only in the framework of
very small “test situations” (Kiefer 2005, 18). Complicating the situation yet further, the citystates of Berlin and Bremen both represent constitutional exceptions: in the former, religious
instruction is the responsibility of the religious communities, and is thus not part of the core
118
In addition, I am not considering here the private religion courses offered by individual mosque
associations.
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curriculum (ordentliches Lehrfach) in public schools; in the latter, it is the exclusive
responsibility of the state (Khorchide 2009, 53).119
It is for this reason that the recent developments in NRW have constituted a major
evolution in the history of Islamic religious instruction in Germany. In the 2006 major enquiry
(Große Anfrage) on Islam in the German parliament, the main problem expressed by all the
Länder with regard to this issue was the lack of single Muslim interlocutor (Bundesrepublik
Deutschland 2006, 73–75). Consequently, the creation of the KRM holds the potential – at least
on paper – to offer a single interlocutor for the state, and with whom public authorities could
work out solutions to issues such as Islamic religious education. However, the KRM has no
branches at the regional level, given that it is not an actual independent organization. The fact
that the four main federations represented by the KRM all are headquartered in Cologne also
means that, in a sense, the KRM can be seen as based in NRW in a way that does not work for
other Länder.120
Meanwhile, initiatives to achieve similar results in the states of Lower Saxony and
Hessen led to very different constellations: in the former, the regional Schura organization and
DITIB constituted a Council (Beirat) in 2011 that was recognized by state authorities at the
beginning of 2012; in the latter, DITIB decided to apply on its own for recognition as a religious
community, which it received by the end of 2012 (along with the Ahmadiyya community). In
other words, at practically the same point in time, DITIB organizations followed three entirely
different strategies.
The explanation for this situation begins with DITIB’s ties to the Turkish state. For
years, DITIB had been hostile to the idea of Islamic religious instruction in any language other
than Turkish, though this position became increasingly flexible in the 2000s. According to
Kiefer, this change came largely as a result of a joint declaration between the Turkish Minister
of Education Metin Bostancıoğlu and the NRW Minister of Education Gabriele Behler in 2002
(Interview, M. Kiefer, 18 March 2011, Düsseldorf). In the declaration, the two ministers called
119
This is the reason why the federal administrative court (Bundesverwaltungsgericht) ultimately ruled
in favour of the Islamische Föderation Berlin (Islamic Federation Berlin, IFB), close to Milli Görüş,
and its request to provide Islamic education in Berlin – despite the express opposition of the Berlin
senate (Kiefer 2005, 19). After a legal battle lasting almost 20 years, this ruling gave the IFB the right
to provide Islamic religious instruction starting in 2000 (Rosenow-Williams 2012, 109). The IFB was
followed by the Kulturzentrum Anatolischer Aleviten (Cultural Centre of Anatolian Alevis), which
received permission to give religious instruction in 2002.
120
I am indebted to Michael Kiefer for this observation.
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on “parents of Turkish origin” to make sure that their children learnt German (and Turkish),
and especially “to trust [German] schools with regard to religious education; register their
children for Islamic instruction; and ensure their regular attendance” (in City of Duisburg
2002).
At the same time, the AKP’s rise to power later the same year had an important impact
on DITIB’s attitude towards cooperation with other Muslim federations, and in particular with
Milli Görüş. The 2003 memorandum issued by foreign minister Abdullah Gül had already
launched this process, while I have observed first-hand in my field work the rapprochement
between DITIB and Milli Görüş mosque communities around the world in the years since (see
Chapter VI.D.I.). Rosenow-Williams also highlights this factor in relation to the creation of the
KRM: according to one of her DITIB interviewees, the president of the Diyanet Ali Bardakoğlu
“was present […] and actually almost initiated it or introduced the establishment,” which she
interprets as “official support for its initiation” (2012, 365).
Nevertheless, at the same time DITIB began a process of restructuration in the latter
half of the 2000s, focused on the creation of regional associations (Landesverbände) that would
have the necessary organizational structure to be recognized as a religious community by state
authorities. The first model statutes were drawn up in 2005 by DITIB’s legal representative,
which was followed by the decision to implement the new structure in 2007, and finally led to
the foundation of the DITIB Land-level associations in 2009 (Interview, M. Günet, 23 March
2011, Cologne). Not to forget that in the summary of the two bilateral conferences held between
Turkish and German state authorities in 2007 and 2008, the German interior ministry explicitly
mentions the creation of these regional associations as a positive development. Consequently,
this poses an important dilemma for DITIB: in responding to the German authorities’ need for
an interlocutor at the Land level, it now has the choice between maintaining its organizational
autonomy and dealing with state authorities on its own, or establishing ties with other local or
regional Muslim associations in a Land-level umbrella organization.
First off is the question of whether the DITIB regional associations are even intended
to function as a part of a federative group, following the “regional religious community” model
of the so-called “Hamburg Process” (see above). The example of Islamic religious instruction
in NRW seems to show that even in this instance of cooperation, DITIB prefers to maintain its
autonomy and coordinate with the other main Muslim federations in the framework of a
council, in which each of the four federations of the KRM is represented. In the case of Lower
314
Saxony, where the Schura has been the main interlocutor of the Land for years, the
spokesperson of the group had mentioned explicitly that DITIB was not a member due to its
ties to “controlling influences from abroad” (Vladi 2005, 94). Indeed, Kiefer mentions how the
DITIB in the case of Lower Saxony had long insisted on having a special role, and how “instead
of local DITIB representatives, it would always be someone from the [Turkish] general
consulate in Hannover” who would come to meetings (Interview, M. Kiefer).
Nevertheless, a few years later the Schura and the DITIB regional association formed a
joint council (Beirat), which was recognized as the official interlocutor for the state when the
Lower Saxon Ministry of Culture (Kultus) decided in 2012 to become the second German state
to implement Islamic religious education (Schura Niedersachsen e.V. and DITIB
Landesverband Niedersachsen - Bremen e.V. 2011; Niedersächsisches Kultusministerium
2012). Despite the similarities with the NRW example, it is clear that the weight of DITIB here
is far more pronounced, as it constitutes half of the 4-member council. Also different from the
NRW case is the fact that the state has no ability to determine who sits on the council, whereas
half the seats of the 8-person NRW council are to be selected on a consensual basis between
the federations of the KRM and NRW state representatives (NRW Parliament 2011; Kiefer
2013, 222).
Finally, there is the example of Hessen, where the culture (Kultus) ministry’s website
affirms that it is the first state to “implement confessional Islamic religious instruction on the
basis of article 7 paragraph 3 of the Grundgesetz,” and provides in pdf-format the curricula
prepared by both DITIB and the Ahmadiyya (Hessisches Kultusministerium 2014). This
assertion is technically true, given that NRW and Lower Saxony both opted for “transitional
provisions” (Übergangsvorschriften) by deciding to work with councils, and did not actually
recognize any individual group as a religious community (NRW Parliament 2011).
In Hessen, talks began when the Minister of Culture Dorothea Henzler organized a
“round table” to discuss Islamic religious instruction with the representatives of DITIB, VIKZ,
the Moroccan ZMaD, and the Ahmadiyya community in 2009. Meanwhile, the MinisterPresident of Hessen Roland Koch travelled to Turkey with the Minister of Justice and
Integration Jörg-Uwe Hahn in 2009, where they met with Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan,
who “expressed great interest in Hessen’s integration policies” (Hessische Staatskanzlei 2014).
After the meeting, Koch stated that both sides had emphasized “the importance of language
[issues] and the handling of religion [affairs] for the integration of Turks living in Germany”
315
(Hessische Staatskanzlei 2014). The following year, Hahn returned to Turkey to promote
bilateral ties, and also met with the dean of the Islamic theology faculty of Bursa University to
discuss the training of imams and Islamic religious instruction in Hessian public schools (Land
Hessen 2010).
After almost two years of round table discussions, the DITIB and the Ahmadiyya decided
to apply for the status of religious community on their own in 2011. This move led to conflict
with the other two groups involved, which for a time considered applying themselves as well
(Toepfer 2011). When asked about this turn of events, a representative of the DITIB central
organization was quite practical:
The KRM is not organized in Hessen, not as the KRM. But the Muslims that are
represented in the KRM at the federal level, they have their branches there. And
they are involved in this process concerning Islamic religion instruction. However,
they couldn’t apply for the status of religious community, because the organization
doesn’t exist yet. That’s why DITIB said, alright, we’ll do it, and applied
(Interview, B. Alboğa, 23 March 2011, Cologne).
Alboğa also stated during the interview that DITIB “does not plan to go it alone”; however, the
apparent decision to do so in Hessen became a “heavily debated subject” amongst the members
of the KRM, according to the Milli Görüş and Islamrat representative (Interview, E. Karahan).
This is especially the case given that DITIB is seen by the Hessian government as the
representative for all adherents of Sunni Islam, whereas the Ahmadiyya are seen as a separate
group, in the same way that Alevis have been offering their own religious instruction in Hessian
schools since 2009/2010.
Alevis in Germany have on the whole stayed outside of the competition between Sunni
Muslim groups for official recognition, side-stepping the debate on the role of the Turkish state
and playing up their image as ‘liberal’ and ‘moderate’ Muslims. The first recognized Alevi
religious education began in Hamburg in 1998, followed by Berlin in 2002. The distance and
at times hostility between the Alevis and other Sunni Muslim federations is clearly visible in
the decision to pursue a separate path for religious education in Germany. This stance has been
promoted by the main Alevi federation, the AABF, which “unlike the Sunni Islamic
organizations […] was officially recognized by the German decision-making bodies as the
religious organization that represents Alevis in Germany” (Rosenow-Williams 2012, 109).
Between 2000 and 2003, the AABF applied for religion community status in BadenWürttemberg, Bavaria, Hessen, NRW, Saarland, and Schleswig-Holstein (Bundesrepublik
316
Deutschland 2006, 69–70). In order to find a general solution, the Kultus ministers of BadenWürttemberg, Bavaria, Hessen, and NRW set up a joint working group and commissioned a
report by Dr. Ursula Spuler-Stegemann (and NRW a subsequent report by Dr. Stefan Muckel),
which came to the conclusion that Alevi religious education should be considered an
“independent denomination” (eigenständiges Bekenntnis), or not be included as part of a
general curriculum on Islam. As a result, Alevis have been granted religious community status
and have begun offering religious courses in a large number of Länder, including: Hamburg
(1998); Berlin (2002); Baden-Württemberg (2006); NRW, Bavaria (2008); Hessen (2009);
Lower Saxony, Saarland (2011); Rheinland-Pfalz (2013) (AABF 2014).
As many studies have shown (Soper and Fetzer 2005; Kortmann 2011; RosenowWilliams 2012), political opportunity structures have had an important effect on the
development of Muslim organizations. This observation is equally valid for the development
of Islamic religious education in German public schools, where the particular competencies of
the Land in Germany represent distinct opportunities and challenges for the main Muslim
federations. These federations have accordingly developed forms of organization at the Land
level, facilitating dialogue and cooperation with state authorities, but also creating new
opportunities for competition between themselves. Groups such as the Alevi and the
Ahmadiyya emphasize their non-Sunni specificity in order to secure state recognition, and
effectively place themselves outside of any potential competition with the large federations.
Meanwhile, DITIB has equipped itself with an organizational structure giving it the
capacity to bypass cooperation with other local Sunni Muslim associations, or at the very least
obtain specific advantages so as to hold a leading or controlling position in joint ventures. Of
course, it is not only the structure that is important here, but also the identity of the actor putting
it in place. Despite a few unmistakable warnings concerning foreign influence in the summary
conclusions of the DIK, DITIB continues to occupy a privileged position unrivalled by other
Muslim federations, as shown by the bilateral meetings held with Turkish authorities that ran
parallel to the Islamkonferenz.
The praise for DITIB’s new regional structures at the end of these meetings represents
an unambiguous signal from German to Turkish authorities as to the preferred organizational
development of the association. Moreover, it also demonstrates the continued centrality of
foreign policy for federal authorities as a means of influencing the German Muslim field. This
extends even to regional state authorities, who discuss their policies on integration and religion
317
with their Turkish counterparts during their frequent trips to Turkey – as in the case of Hessen,
the first German Land to have recognized a regional DITIB association as a religious
community. These examples show how interstate cooperation remains an instrument of
German authorities at the national and Land levels, capable of palliating the difficulties posed
by partial governance.
b) France: The CRCMs and the CFCM Electoral Procedures
In the case of France, the regional level is perhaps one of the least important for addressing
state-Islam relations. This is a result of the highly centralized structure of the state on the one
hand, and the importance of the local context for most specific issues concerning Islam on the
other.
In the case of the GMP, the fact that the mosque has been recognized as a historical
monument since 1983 means that the Direction Régionale des Affaires Culturelles (Regional
Authority for Cultural Affairs, DRAC) was involved in the appraisal of renovation costs in
2003-2004. The DRAC, a regional division of the French Ministry of Culture, contributed
800,000 euros from the ministry’s budget for the restoration work, alongside the city of Paris
(800,000 euros); the region of Île-de-France (400,000 euros); Algeria (600,000 euros); and
Qatar (1,000,000 euros) (République française 2004b). However, because the GMP is the only
mosque which benefits from this status in France, this case remains as exceptional as it is
symbolic.
At the same time, it is important to note how the panoply of actors involved in the
financing of the GMP reflects this state of partial governance. For both practical and political
reasons, the three (central, regional, and local) levels of French state authorities share the
burden of the renovation costs with international actors who are interested in participating for
their own national interests. One of the only other moments where the region contributed a
similar degree of financial support was in the case of the Great Mosque of Strasbourg (GMS),
where the regional council of Alsace provided a substantial sum for the mosque’s construction
(see below).
However, aside from these examples, the administrative divisions of the French state
that play a far greater role than the region are the département and the municipality. Legal
questions concerning foreigners (droit des étrangers), as well as financing from abroad both
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fall under the responsibility of the departmental prefecture, while most issues concerning the
construction of mosques involve municipal authorities and the prefecture. Indeed, with regard
to these issues, there are many similarities to the case of Germany. The major difference is that
those issues concerning state-Islam affairs which are dealt with at the Land level in Germany,
namely religious education in public schools and the attribution of recognized statuses for
religious groups (religious community and corporation of public law), do not exist in France
(other than in Alsace-Moselle). As a result, the regional level remains relatively less important
in France with regard to the governance of Muslim fields.
On the other hand, the regional level is significant when it comes to the regional
components of the CFCM: the 25 CRCMs are based on the 22 administrative régions of France,
though with three councils for the region of Île-de-France and another for Reunion. At this
level, a regional dynamic can be seen in the alliances that have been formed between certain
Muslim federations during the elections for the CFCM and CRCMs. This is all the more the
case given that there is no direct election for the CFCM, but rather a system of multiple
designations and appointments that is based on the results of the regional CRCM elections.
This procedure was thoroughly altered as part of the CFCM reforms in December 2012
(mentioned above), but before addressing this I will first outline how the elections were carried
out between 2004 and 2012.
The electoral procedure is rather complicated. 121 It begins with the nomination of a
certain number of delegates for each place of worship, which is the responsibility of each
individual association that has been validated in advance by the regional electoral committees
(CORELEC). The number of these delegates per place of worship is based on the “usable
surface area,” which is defined as the sum of “surface area of the prayer space(s) and 20% of
other spaces used for religious purposes,” such as libraries, classrooms, and ablution facilities.
There are ten categories which attribute a minimum of 1 to maximum of 18 delegates to each
place of worship: prayer spaces and mosques up to 800m2 receive between 1 and 9 delegates;
“great mosques” (grandes mosquées) larger than 800m2 are given 15; and the GMP gets a
bonus for being the GMP, at 18. These delegates are the only individuals who can vote, and
they vote for regional lists that reflect the national federations or an alliance between them.
121
All information hereafter concerning the elections for the CFCM and CRCM and their composition
come from CFCM 2004 unless otherwise indicated.
319
However, in some cases there are also “independent” lists that are not affiliated with the main
federations.
Given the fact that the CFCM and the CRCMs are all registered as 1901 associations,
they are all composed of three main bodies: a general assembly, an administrative council, and
an executive board. For the CRCMs, the general assembly is simply the totality of electoral
delegates in the region. Once they have all voted for the list of their choice in their particular
region, a number of different formula outlined in the statutes determine how many people from
which list are appointed to which body. In other words, there is only one round of voting for a
regional list which determines the composition of both the CRCMs and the CFCM.
The general assembly of the CFCM is the largest, bringing together 194 individuals, of
which 150 are elected from the regions and the rest are representatives of the seven federations
(24) and five mosques (10) present during the “Consultation” (see IV.B.I), along with 10 other
“qualified” individuals. A special ratio determines the number of seats in the general assembly:
1 for every 27 electoral delegates. In turn, the number of seats in the CFCM general assembly
determines the size of the administrative council of each CRCM: for regions with only one
seat, their administrative council is set at 5 people; for those with more, the council is set at
three times the number of general assembly seats.
The CFCM’s administrative council counts 65 members, of which two-thirds are
elected from the regions (43), while the rest once again represent the federations (12) and
mosques (5) of the consultation, and “qualified” individuals (5). Each CRCM has between 1
and 3 seats on the CFCM administrative council depending on the number of their seats in the
general assembly of the CFCM. Another formula determines the size of the CRCM executive
board, while the CFCM executive board is elected by the administrative council and counts
between 11 and 17 members. However, as mentioned above many of the top positions have at
different times been attributed in advance.
The reforms of 2012 of the CFCM statutes which led to a rotating “collegial presidency”
between the RMF, the GMP, and the CCMTF, also led to changes in the electoral procedures
in 2013.122 Most notably, this includes decreasing the overall number of electoral delegates for
each place of worship (now between 1 and 8), and giving less importance to the surface area
criterion. Other new conditions are now taken into consideration, such the presence of an imam;
122
For the information in this paragraph, see CFCM 2013a.
320
the provision of Islamic education; and the size of the city. In addition, the five “great mosques”
(Évry, Lyon, Mantes-la-Jolie, Islah of Marseille, and that of Saint-Denis in Reunion) which
signed the new statutes are in the second-to-top category with seven delegates each, while the
GMP remains in a category of its own as the only place of worship with eight delegates.
The reforms have brought about a few other important changes, such as making the
members of the general assembly the same as those of the administrative council, and setting
the total number at 90 individuals. While half of these seats are for elected members of the
CRCMs, the other half are distributed following a predetermined agreement between the main
Muslim federations.123 The overall effect is a rise in the number of appointed representatives
from the national federations, and a relative decrease in the number of elected members.
Nevertheless, the fact that elections are first and foremost a regional issue has not changed.
As mentioned, the regional aspect of the elections has led to alliances that in some cases
are to be expected – such as the UOIF with Milli Görüş (“political Islam”), or the GMP and
DITIB-CCMTF (“official Islam”) – but not always. In 2005, for instance, the GMP gained the
presidency of the Alsace region thanks to an alliance with Milli Görüş (Godard and Taussig
2007, 118), while the UOIF succeeded in doing the same by joining up with the CCMTF (i.e.
DITIB) in Bourgogne (Coroller 2005). Even more surprising was the battle in PACA the same
year, where the Algerians were determined to gain the presidency despite a clear electoral
victory by the independents of the Al-Islah mosque. They only succeeded by forming an
alliance with their two main rivals, the FNMF and the UOIF.
Indeed, as Frégosi mentions, all the typical cleavages such as between “an ostensibly
modern Islam and the supporters of fundamentalism, […] were shaken up by the electoral
game” (2007). Concretely, this may have translated into unexpected cooperation between
certain Muslim federations in specific regions, but on the whole it has not led to any
fundamental changes within or amongst the main federations. Electoral victories in the CFCMCRCM elections do not reflect changing opinions on the part of an electorate, they do not lead
to the formation of new movements, and most importantly, they have a very limited impact on
the symbolic and financial capital of Muslim federations and mosque associations in France.
123
This includes 9 representatives each for the RMF, GMP, and UOIF; 6 for the CCMTF; 3 for the
FFAIACA; 1 each for the Tabligh, Foi et Pratique, and Milli Görüş; and 1 for each of the five great
mosques mentioned above (CFCM 2013a, 8).
321
On the other hand, relations with public authorities can be facilitated by the CRCMs.
Examples at the level of the region are rare, and I am personally only aware of an “experimental
guide” written by the three CRCMs of the Île-de-France region (comprising Paris and its
suburbs) “under the auspices” of the regional prefect in order to ensure that meat sold during
Eid al-Adha was halal (CRCM Île de France Centre, Est et Ouest 2009). In general, for the
more active CRCMs their main interlocutors are to be found in the local municipalities and the
departmental prefectures. For instance, the CRCM of Lorraine lists a large number of
accomplishments on its website, the majority of which have been the result of coordination
with such local public authorities (CRCM Lorraine 2014), while the CRCM of Rhône-Alpes
provides similar information concerning its role in facilitating the construction of mosques and
delimitation of Muslim burial spaces (CRCM Rhône Alpes 2010).
Nevertheless, the impact of the CRCMs remains extremely variable. The dynamism of
a CRCM depends a great deal on that of its members, and in many local contexts it remains a
peripheral actor, or simply an extension of the more important local mosque associations.
Consequently, in order to better demonstrate some of the effects of partial governance in France
and Germany at the local level, the following section will consider two specific and emblematic
cases of mosque construction in Germany and France: the mosques of Duisburg and
Strasbourg.
2) Partial Governance at the Local Level
As has been the case throughout this chapter, the partial governance of Muslim religious affairs
at the local level in France and Germany is rarely, if ever, related to the existence of religion
as a separate administrative category. In general, religious issues are – at least officially –
derivative of other public policy considerations. This means that when a mosque is shut down
or a foreign imam expelled, it can never be for religious reasons, given that both states assure
freedom of religion and state neutrality, insofar as the norms of public order and safety are
respected. Nevertheless, there can be a fine line between determining what constitutes a threat
to society, and using it as an excuse to influence the Muslim religious field.
For example, mosques and other places of worship in France are officially considered
“establishments open to the public” (établissement recevant du public, ERP), meaning that they
must respect a number of criteria pertaining to safety and accessibility regulations. The prefect
322
is responsible for the creation of a special consultative commission (the commission
consultative de sécurité et d’accessibilté) in each département, and similar commissions at
lower administrative levels as well (i.e. the arrondissement in bigger cities, the commune, etc.),
in order to carry out the required inspections (article 1, République française 1995). However,
these commissions are only consultative, and when it comes to delivering building permits or
ordering the closure of a mosque, the ultimate decision lies with the mayor – a fact even some
members of parliament seem to be unaware of (cf. République française 2005). Financial
donations from foreign benefactors are fully legal and are covered by French tax law, though
the authorization of the departmental prefect is required in the case of donations which involve
property transfer (République française 2004a).
Contrary to what official laïcité might suggest, many municipalities have found ways
to subsidize Muslim prayers spaces. Thanks to their status as 1901 associations, many mosques
and prayer spaces have received funding for their “cultural” activities from local municipalities,
while another frequent method is to offer Muslim associations long-term leases (bail
emphythéotique) at greatly reduced rates, if not practically free.124 Indeed, Roland Ries, former
and current mayor of Strasbourg, explicitly mentions the long-term lease option as an
exemplary solution to the question of providing aid to Muslim groups while still respecting
both French and local Alsatian law (2010, 316).
On the other hand, municipalities must still take care to operate within the parameters
of the 1905 law. For example, the Averroes mosque in the city of Montpellier, which opened
in 2004, had officially been constructed and rented out as a “multi-purpose space” to a local
Franco-Moroccan association, though the municipality was fully aware that it was being used
as a place of worship. Two years later, an administrative court nullified the city’s decision and
declared that this situation was in contravention of the principle of laïcité (Lazrak-Toub 2008,
13). This led the Montpellier municipal council to turn to the aforementioned long-term lease
as a solution in 2012, while for clarity’s sake the association renamed itself the “Association
Mosquée Averroès de Montpellier” (Conseil Municipal de la Ville de Montpellier 2012, 6–14).
The long-term lease seems to represent a policy tool as discussed at the beginning of
this chapter, capable of being used by public authorities in the religious field in lieu of more
direct forms of financial aid, which are not legally permitted. At the same time, similar tools
124
For a recent alarmist and sensationalist overview, which nevertheless has the merit of showing that
these measures are far from isolated, see the special report released by the Islamophobic “Observatory
of Islamicization” on the “80 mayors who help Islam” (Véliocas 2014).
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can be hijacked for quite the opposite purpose. For instance, the tactics that some municipalities
employ in order to prevent the construction of mosques can range from quietly discouraging
land owners to sell to mosque associations, to illegally employing the “right of first refusal”
(droit de préemption), which only applies in cases where a prior project of public or general
interest has already been planned for a particular site (for more see Herrgott 2004a).
In Germany, there is a federal law concerning building norms (Baugesetzbuch) and each
Land has its own state building code (Landesbauordnung), which is overseen by specific
instances (Bauaufsichtsbehörde) at the level of the district (Kreis) or city. In NRW, for
instance, there are no special regulations for mosques, and according to the state government
they are to be treated the same as churches and other “places of assembly”
(Versammlungsstätten): that is to say as “special buildings” (Sonderbau), meaning that they
are subject to a more extensive safety inspection by public services (Landesregierung NRW
2001, 14). Moreover, in the 2001 parliamentary major enquiry on Islam in NRW, the question
of whether local urban planning departments factor mosques into their urban development
programmes is also raised, leading to the NRW state government’s response that such questions
are an exclusive competency of the municipal level (Gemeinde), and that it has no information
on the subject (Landesregierung NRW 2001, 14).
The problem, however, is that the first article of the federal legislation on urban
planning specifically states that municipal authorities are to “especially take into account […]
the recognized needs of churches and religious organizations of public law for church services
and pastoral care” (article 1, s 6.6, Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1960). Moreover, another
article stipulates that the right of first refusal (Vorkaufsrecht) cannot be invoked when
“churches or religious organizations of public law” have bought the land for their own needs
(article 26, s 2b, BRD 1960). Of course, since no Muslim federation in the country has obtained
this status, these special regulations do not apply.
In his appraisal of the situation for the DIK, Oebbecke points out that current
jurisprudence has helped Muslim organizations get closer to this status, but highlights the limits
of a purely legal perspective. For him, it is important to distinguish that when a court allows a
minaret to be constructed, it is not addressing symbolic considerations: “In the legal discussion,
the issue at hand concerns construction projects, as well as freedom of religion, but not
questions of self-representation or recognition. […] If ethno-cultural fears are hidden behind
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urban planning arguments, that has no bearing on the ruling of the court” (2009, 235–236, 239–
240).
Indeed, beyond political opportunity structures and the prevailing legal institutional
framework, it is clear that the favourable predisposition of the municipality towards a mosque
project is one of the most important factors in whether or not it will be built. The two following
examples illustrate this clearly, while also showing how the limits of partial governance invite
other outside actors to assume a greater role in local religious affairs.
a) Duisburg: The “Wonder of Marxloh”
The DITIB central mosque in the working-class district of Marxloh, in the city of Duisburg
(NRW), is currently the largest mosque in Germany. It stands out in Germany precisely for the
lack of conflict surrounding its construction, which has led to it being nicknamed the “Wonder
of Marxloh” by press and public authorities. Moreover, unlike the vast majority of mosques in
Germany, it is one of the first and only mosques to have benefitted from not only state funding,
but funding from the European Union as well.
The mosque association was founded in 1985 in an old canteen for coal workers in the
northern part of the city, which is dominated by the steel and coal industries. When the mosque
association began to consider how best to renovate or rebuild the mosque around 1996-1997,
the city was going through a particularly hard time. Deindustrialization and a crisis in the steel
industry had led to the loss of thousands of jobs during the 1990s, and the population of the
district of Marxloh begun to decrease considerably: from 26,000 at the end of the 1980s to
around 18,000 in 2009 (Eichholz 2009, 60). By the end of the 1990s, five districts of Duisburg
had been included in a joint federal – Land programme entitled “Social City” (Soziale Stadt)
(EG - DU 2014). This programme was aimed at improving urban areas with “particular renewal
needs” – which “in good German, just meant city districts with a high level of foreigners”
(Interview, Z. Yılmaz, 10 November 2010, Duisburg). This led to the creation of a local public
corporation, the Entwicklungsgesellschaft Duisburg (“Development Firm Duisburg,” EG-DU)
in 1999, and funding for different projects at the local level.
It was precisely at this moment that the members of the DITIB-Marxloh mosque
association were trying to come up with ideas for how to finance their new mosque. An
advantage of this particular association was the prominent involvement of a “young, pragmatic
325
generation of women and men between 30 and 40 years old, who had grown up in the
Ruhrgebiet and knew the rules of the game and the codes of their German homeland” (Spiewak
2009). One of the most prominent members of this group was Zülfiye Kaykin, who became
manager of the mosque’s meeting centre (Begegnungsstätte) in 2005, and then state secretary
for integration in the NRW state government in 2010.
As in most cases in Germany, plans for financing the mosque’s construction focused
on a mix of bank loans and the contributions from association members, the local community,
and potentially other mosques. However, with the overall budget set at around 7 million euros,
the limits imposed by this kind of fund-raising gave rise to other ideas. Given the particular
context of state-funded urban renewal projects, the leaders of the association decided to see
what kind of support they could find from public authorities. The manager of mosque’s meeting
centre summarized it to me in this fashion:
So when the executive board [of the association] here had the idea, “we want to
build a mosque,” the [possibility of receiving funding from the European Union],
that was the idea of Ms. Özmal, who’s now the integration commissioner of the
city of Duisburg. She worked for EG-DU at the time, and she knew Ms. Kaykin.
So they sat down together, and the executive board asked if it would be possible to
receive government funding, because… well, 7 million [euros] is a lot of money.
And then Ms. Özmal had the idea: “don’t build a normal mosque. If you make a
meeting centre out of it, that would be something special. And then we could also
get money for it from the European Social Fund, the ESF, through the Objective 2
Funding.” And that’s how it happened, through the city of Duisburg, pretty much.
Without them nothing would have been possible (Interview, Z. Yılmaz).
At the same time during the 1990s, an important conflict had emerged in the city
surrounding the question of the Islamic call to prayer (ezan) at two different mosques, which
ended up involving a very large number of different social and political actors (analyzed
extensively in Schmitt 2003, 275–346). The DITIB-Marxloh association clearly learnt from
this experience, and beyond not touching the issue of the call to prayer, they early on sought to
involve a wide variety of local actors in the stages leading up to the construction of the mosque.
With this goal in mind, a council (Beirat) was formed by the DITIB-Marxloh
association and its partners in 2002, in order to act as a “permanent advisory board,” bringing
together “local institutions, associations, Christian churches, political parties, the University of
Duisburg-Essen, business people, neighbours, and the EG-DU” (D. Yilmaz 2010). The DIK
and mass media reports all emphasized the importance of this council, which ensured that
members of the local community participated in the planning process of the mosque, avoiding
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problems before they started and promoting cooperation and transparency (Kölner StadtAnzeiger 2006; Jenkner 2008; Spiewak 2009; Topcu 2009).
Construction for the mosque began in 2005 and was completed in 2008. Both the
ground-breaking ceremony as well as the official opening ceremony were attended by the NRW
minister-president (Peer Steinbrück in 2005; Jürgen Rüttgers in 2008) and the president of the
Diyanet Ali Bardakoğlu, while the opening ceremony attracted 10,000 visitors and 160
members of the press (D. Yilmaz 2010). In 2006, the meeting centre was founded as a separate
association, meaning that once built, the mosque housed two different associations: the DITIB
mosque association (DITIB Türkisch Islamische Gemeinde zu Duisburg-Marxloh e.V.), which
was in charge of religious services and counted around 900 families as members, and the DITIB
meeting centre (DITIB Begegnungstätte Duisburg-Marxloh e.V.), which was responsible for
educational, outreach, and dialogue activities. This distinction is important, because a mosque
association as such would not have been eligible for state and EU funding, whereas an
intercultural meeting centre promoting integration and education fell perfectly within the
criteria of the European Social Fund and the NRW “Social City” programme. As a result, the
DITIB meeting centre received a total of 3.2-3.4 million euros from the ESF and NRW, while
the rest of the 7 million euros came from the fundraising activities “across Europe” and the
contributions of the members (Z. Yılmaz 2010).
Transparency and cooperation were repeatedly emphasized by the leaders of the project,
and even the mosque’s architecture was intended to reflect these characteristics. During a tour
of the mosque, a member of the meeting centre’s council explained that the tall windows lining
all sides of the building were to enable greater visibility and show the surrounding community
that there is “nothing to hide” inside the mosque, while the same windows in the library
intentionally permit a direct view of the nearby Catholic church.
Interreligious dialogue and cooperation are also given centre stage in the library,
symbolized by three small domes, each decorated with different flowers: roses for Muslims;
seven-leafed olive branches for Jews; and lilies for Christians (Personal Communication, G.
Holtmeyer, 10 November 2010, Duisburg; see below for photographs). The mosque had
attracted over 60,000 visitors during the construction phase, and since then receives
approximately 2,000 visitors a week, who come from all over Germany and the world for tours
of the mosque (Interview, Z. Yılmaz). At the same time, the meeting centre continues to focus
on education and social work with local women, youth, and seniors, ranging from German
327
language, literacy, or computer classes to women’s self-defence classes with a local police
officer as instructor (Interview, Z. Yılmaz).
However, not long after construction of the mosque had been completed, a conflict
broke out between the meeting centre and the mosque association. The head of the mosque
association, Mehmet Özay, resigned after his colleague and friend Mustafa Küçük was
dismissed from his position as spokesperson by the executive board. The vice-president of the
association, Muhammed Al, became president, and soon came into conflict with Kaykin, who
by May 2010 was either pushed out or decided to leave herself, depending on who tells the
story. As the manager of the meeting centre stated, “there really was a war, I didn’t find it very
nice. [People were] really… washing dirty laundry in public. This one would accuse that one
[here], or that one [there]; it was a bad situation. It lasted months and got to the point where it
bothered us and we couldn’t work well any more” (Interview, Z. Yılmaz).
328
Figure IV-5 “The Duisburg-Marxloh DITIB Central Mosque”
From left to right, top to bottom: the exterior of the mosque with its tall rows of windows and the four flags at rest
(the EU, Germany, Turkey, and DITIB); the richly decorated interior of the mosque with a capacity of
approximately 1,200 people (800 men and 400 women); an EU plaque, which reads: “Meeting Centre in the
Mosque. European Union. Investment in our future. European Fund for Regional Development”; the view of the
nearby Catholic church (the field in between is currently the object of the new project for a rose garden, sponsored
by the mosque and its partners); and the three painted domes in the library symbolizing interreligious cooperation:
seven-leafed olive branches for Judaism, roses for Islam, and lilies for Christianity. All photographs taken by the
author.
329
In any event, the new executive board only succeeded in attracting negative press: the
decision to scale back on German classes led to a protest by thirty women of Turkish origin in
front of the mosque in March (Schwerdtfeger 2010a), and a commemorative event held in the
mosque in April for Alparslan Türkeş, founder of the far-right Turkish political party MHP,
led to accusations of sympathy for Turkish fascists (Interview, Z. Yılmaz).
To top it all off, only a few days after my visit, the mosque was featured in Henryk M.
Broder and Hamed Abdel-Samad’s satirical television show “Entweder Broder – Die
Deutschland-Safari.” 125 The programme shows mosque president Al refusing the hosts an
interview and subsequently threatening to call police if they do not leave. Apparently the
members of the mosque association were worried that Broder and Abdel-Samad were just
“looking for trouble”; however, the association’s approach did not help: the 3-minute segment
succeeds in putting in doubt all the work accomplished at the mosque, with Broder grumbling
that no one there is interested in integration and that they have a “double agenda” (“Entweder
Broder - Die Deutschland-Safari” 2010; Schwerdtfeger 2010b).
When asked about the problems between the two associations at the mosque, the
manager of the meeting centre told me:
It was a question of power. Not like how the newspapers reported it. Mr. Al is a
founding member [of the association]. He’s been involved with the mosque for
over twenty years, and he was also a founding member of the meeting centre. In
other words, he was a part of it then. He also wasn’t newly elected, he was on the
executive board already, and Ms. Kaykin had even supported that he be elected on
the board. He moved up [in position].
But, after he got to this position of power, he didn’t want to do everything the same
way as our [the meeting centre’s] executive board. There were discussions. It was
a question of power. He said, “I’m the head of the bigger group, so I should be in
charge.” The meeting centre said “no, we’re actually the brains of this institution,
we’ve had the leadership of it” and then there was a fight. And that was the
problem, to the extent that Ms. Kaykin left (Interview, Z. Yılmaz).
This question of power between the two associations was intimately linked to the resources
that both possessed. The fact that the meeting centre, with ten times fewer members than the
125
Henryk M. Broder is a German journalist and writer of Polish-Jewish background, and Hamed
Abdel-Samad is a German-Egyptian writer who participated in the second phase of the German Islam
Conference in 2010. The television show “Entweder Broder” was produced between 2010 and 2012 by
the public broadcaster ARD, and generally shows the two driving around the country in a garish car
decked out with stuffed toys, an Israeli flag, and leopard upholstery, as they provoke Neo-Nazis,
Communists, and most anyone else who gets in their way – which is also the likely reason for the
suspicion of the Duisburg mosque members.
330
mosque association, could presume to be the “brains” of the Marxloh mosque, is tied to how
its members (and especially Zülfiye Kaykin) had managed to construct an important network
of social and political allies at the local and regional levels – and even at the supranational
level, thanks to EU funding.
At the same time, the meeting centre is not a Muslim association. Very few members of
the mosque association are also members of the meeting centre, and “the idea was that it
wouldn’t be too ‘Muslim-influenced’; there are Catholics, Protestants – this is a meeting
centre” (Interview, Z. Yılmaz). In other words, the potential for conflict between these two
associations – beyond the question of interpersonal problems – exists given their different
interests: one group is primarily focused on providing religious activities and staying within
the religious field, and another sees the mosque as a centre for a wider scope of activities.
Perhaps more to the point, I argue that the reason why this conflict could even emerge is
because of the genesis of the project: in this case, there was an initial power imbalance between
the meeting centre, with its particular German cultural capital, symbolized by its partnerships
with other social actors and political connections as well as its tangible financial capital, and
the mosque association, with its overwhelmingly larger membership size. This imbalance
changed after the mosque was constructed. As Yılmaz explains:
Before, it was more so the case that the meeting centre had the power, and we
decided. And then for a while the mosque, that is to say Mr. Al, said “no, we
decide.” Now, it’s basically balanced. Now we sit together, divide things, say
“that’s your area, that’s that, and we do this,” and we speak with another. That’s
important. At the moment it’s balanced (Interview, Z. Yılmaz).
The evolution of this conflict concerning who “had the power” was also affected by changes
in the financial resources of both sides. The funding which the meeting centre had received
from the EU and NRW was only for the construction and the initial start-up phases; “since that
moment, we’ve had financial problems” (Interview, Z. Yılmaz). These difficulties were most
likely also caused by numerous instances of financial mismanagement, which later cost Kaykin
her job as NRW state secretary for integration when they became the object of a court case
against her. 126 Yılmaz herself had been dismissed from her earlier position as educational
126
Accusations against Kaykin began in earnest at the end of 2011. Though some newspapers reported
that upwards of 2.8 million euros of state funding had presented “anomalies” (Schraven 2013), the
Duisburg public prosecution focused its case on a mosque caretaker who had been paid under the table
while he continued to receive unemployment benefits. Kaykin was dismissed from her government
position at the end of 2013, and accepted to pay a 6,000 euro fine imposed by the court in March 2014
(Hüwel 2014).
331
advisor (Bildungsreferentin) at the beginning of 2010 due to the centre’s financial difficulties,
but she was re-hired by the end of the year as manager of the centre, because
There was the danger, in a sense, that if no one was there any more, who would
push for dialogue and education here, that the mosque association would just take
the whole thing over and there would be no meeting centre any more. And that
wasn’t wanted” (Interview, Z. Yılmaz).
The centre has since been able to keep afloat thanks to help from the outside Mercator
Foundation, and has pursued collaboration with other partners such as the nearby university in
order to apply for government grants. Nevertheless, the unequal institutional status of Muslim
groups is frustrating for Yılmaz, for whom “the structural obstacles in Germany, they’re
horrible. You do good work, but since you’re not a welfare association (Wohlfahrtsverband,
see above), you don’t get any funding” (Interview, Z. Yılmaz).
This statement raises an important point. As already mentioned, the role played by
recognized religious and non-religious welfare associations in the provision of social services
in Germany is extremely important, and these associations are linked to groups that have the
status of corporation of public law or that have been recognized as being of public utility
(gemeinnützig). DITIB, along with the rest of German Muslim federations, has not received
this status, and understandably criticizes this as a case of structural discrimination. Despite the
steps forward taken by multiple Länder governments towards finding interim situations
concerning Islamic religious education (NRW, Lower Saxony), or outright recognizing certain
groups as religious communities (such as in Hessen, or in the case of the Alevis), German state
authorities are in no hurry to extend the status of corporation of public law to Muslim
federations.
Consequently, these organizations cannot be “seen” by German public policy as
religious groups. The case of the DITIB mosque in Duisburg-Marxloh is especially instructive
in this regard, because the funding from both German state authorities and the EU was for an
“education and meeting centre inside a mosque,” and not for a mosque. The distinction is
important because it demonstrates first-hand the effects of partial governance on the German
Muslim field. On the one hand, structural impediments result in a situation where Muslim
religious governance in Germany is only possible insofar as it concerns non-religious elements.
In Duisburg, similar to the case of the country-wide DITIB ProDialog project, which also
received EU funding, it is only when the activities of religious actors are not exclusively
religious that state authorities find a way to finance them. At a more theoretical level, not only
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did the meeting centre gain prominence through its mobilization of its local partnerships and
networks within broader German society, i.e. its German social capital, but its activities in and
of themselves represent a pole of German cultural capital within the mosque, promoting
education and integration in the country.
On the other hand, this prominence given to German cultural capital brought about a
conflict between two groups with different visions of the primary role that a mosque should
fulfill, and also which forms of cultural capital are to be emphasized. My argument here is not
that the two such groups cannot cooperate; indeed, as Yılmaz mentioned, the two associations
“have to work together, like a married couple. [We] live under one roof; [we] have to get along”
(Interview, Z. Yılmaz). Furthermore, though Muhammed Al comes across as a “resolute
Turkish patriarch” in Broder’s television programme, and generally seems to represent the
“conservative forces” in the mosque community – especially those close to the AKP –
conservatism is hardly a surprising trait for a mosque community (Deuter 2011). Other portraits
of Al, a member of the centre-right liberal FDP (FDP 2009), emphasize rather his role as a
mediator and “de-escalator” of conflicts between the perennially competing factions of the
local Turkish community, in this case secularists, pro-AKP religious conservatives, and
ultranationalists (Stoldt 2010).
For such a group, DITIB’s traditional mix of Turkish nationalism and Turkish cultural
capital represents a “neutral” approach capable of unifying currents that can at other times be
vociferously opposed to one another. Given this situation, and the fact that half the members
of the mosque association are senior citizens (Interview, Z. Yılmaz), it should not be surprising
that the meeting centre’s temporary dominance and emphasis on German cultural capital
eventually gave rise to opposition from members of the mosque association. While the DITIB
mosque remains a space in which religious capital is legitimately detained solely by the imams
of the Diyanet, cultural capital can represent a bone of contention.
Indeed, the example of Ender Acar, one of the mosque’s two imams, who was appointed
in 2012, illustrates this well. Acar, a “very different” imam, who composes Sufi (tasavvuf)
music and has released three albums, attracted attention due to his artistic talents, which Al
stated would be especially beneficial to the youth and children who attend the mosque (in Ergül
2012). Though somewhat unorthodox, the combination of religious capital infused with
Turkish cultural capital represents the kind of response which a “conservative” such as Al
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might offer in order to appeal to younger generations of German Turks, as opposed to the
approach taken by the meeting centre.
The case of the DITIB central mosque in Duisburg-Marxloh is instructive concerning
the German Muslim field for numerous reasons. First, it shows how a lack of financial
resources at the local level can be compensated by sufficient social capital, in other words the
network of social and political actors (especially municipal authorities) that succeeded in
securing funding from the EU and NRW. Second, the overall lack of resources in the field,
coupled with the structural ramifications of partial governance, left actors active in the field
particularly susceptible to the effects of outside intervention. Finally, the case of Duisburg
demonstrates how the limited ability of outside actors to influence the content of religious
capital resulted in an exclusive focus on sociocultural considerations. As a result, the conflict
in the Marxloh mosque was more concerned with the forms of cultural capital most acceptable
in the mosque and its appropriate role in the community than anything else. In other words, it
was not a conflict over what constituted legitimate religious capital, but rather what cultural
capital was legitimate in the religious field.
b) Strasbourg: The Genesis of the Great Mosque
The case of the Grande Mosquée de Strasbourg (Great Mosque of Strasbourg, GMS) offers a
number of similarities with that of Duisburg. Both mosques are amongst the largest mosques
to be built in Western Europe over the last decade, and are thus also symbolic of the difficulties
and challenges that Muslim communities have faced across the continent in their attempts to
build representative and visible places of worship.
The cases are also similar in that both projects began in the 1990s with favourable
municipal governments, and with important home state involvement. While the DITIBMarxloh central mosque had the tacit backing of the Turkish state, one third of construction
costs for the GMS came from the Moroccan MHAI, which continues to fund it directly.
Nevertheless, there are also important differences to highlight: on the one hand, the GMS
became the object of a political battle between alternating municipal governments, and on the
other hand, the position of the Moroccan state with regard to the mosque evolved greatly over
the years.
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Strasbourg, capital of the département of Bas-Rhin, is equally the capital of the Alsace
region (comprised of the two départements of Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin) and is home to the
European parliament, thus representing one of the capitals of the EU. Moreover, in Alsace and
the neighbouring Moselle département, relations between public powers and religious
communities are distinctly different than in the rest of France, due to the fact that they were
not part of France when the law of 1905 was passed. In these three départements, relations
between religion and the state are regulated by local law (droit local), which permits religious
instruction in public schools and state funding of recognized religious groups.
The local context of Strasbourg is particular in that Turks and Moroccans stand out as
the most numerous and visible national groups amongst Muslims, both of which arrived more
recently in France (mid-1970s) than their Algerian counterparts (1945-1962) (Frégosi 1995,
950). The “over-representation” of Turks is striking: in 1999, “one out of five foreigners in
Alsace is Turkish,” whereas “at the national level, Turks represent only 6.4% of foreigners”
(Observatoire régional de l’intégration et de la ville 2003, 3). In 2009, Turks represented the
largest group of foreigners in Bas-Rhin (16,632), while Moroccans (7,489) remained far ahead
of Algerians (4,769) (INSEE 2013). 127 This phenomenon is accentuated by the fact that
naturalization rates in Alsace amongst Turks are lower (25%) than amongst Moroccans (42%)
and Algerians (35%) (Morel-Chevillet 2006, 6). This has generally meant that there has been
more interaction between Turkish and Maghreb Muslim groups than elsewhere in France, while
the predominance of Turkish and Moroccan Islamic currents stand out as two separate poles in
the local religious field (Frégosi 1995, 951–953) – perhaps even more so today than when
Frégosi noted it in 1995.
The story of the GMS begins in the early 1990s, when Abdellah Boussouf, hailed as the
“founding father” of the mosque by the mayor of Strasbourg Roland Ries (2010, 311), became
president of the main (non-Turkish) mosque association in the city. Boussouf, originally from
Nador in the North-East of Morocco, had just finished a Ph.D. in history at the University of
Strasbourg and was convinced that Strasbourg, as “capital of Europe, owed it to itself to possess
a mosque worthy of its European stature” (Edom and Bâ 2008, 12). The former mosque was
located in an ex-foie gras factory in the centre of the city, and was either called simply the
mosquée de Strasbourg or the mosque of the impasse de mai (the street in which it was located).
127
In neighbouring Haut-Rhin, Turks still remain the largest group of foreigners (10,871) though
Algerians are more present (8,442) and Moroccans less (4,805).
335
The building of the former mosque had been bought in 1982 by the AEIF (see Chapter III.C.),
of which Boussouf was a member. According to Frégosi, in 1995 the mosque of the impasse
de mai was the only mosque in the city identifiable as such from the outside, and by the mid1990s the AEIF Strasbourg branch was generally designated by the increasingly Moroccan
FNMF as its local representative (Frégosi 1995, 954).128
In 1993, the Socialist Mayor of Strasbourg Catherine Trautmann came out in favour of
a grande mosquée, and over the next years the first meetings and consultations took place,
including a presentation of the project at the European Parliament during the conference “Islam
and Muslims in Europe” in 1996 (Herrgott 2004b, 5). These decisions were following a
precedent, given that the local branch of Milli Görüş had long maintained a good relationship
with city authorities.129 Their first mosque had received the approval of the mayor and assistant
mayor in the 1970s, and with help from the city they moved to a new location in the early
1990s. The 10,000m2 former factory which they bought at this time was transformed into the
Eyyüb Sultan mosque, which opened in 1996 as one of the largest mosques in all of Europe –
though it still resembles a factory more than a mosque from the outside (CIMG - Strasbourg
2014).
By 1997, Boussouf had created a group called the Coordination des Associations
Musulmanes de Strasbourg (Coordination of Muslim Associations of Strasbourg, CAMS),
which officially submitted the project to the city the following year. According to Jean-Claude
Herrgott, the chief of staff (directeur de cabinet) for both mayor Trautmann and her successor
Roland Ries, the city of Strasbourg had begun negotiations with Boussouf due to his federative
role in the local community, but also thanks to his close ties to the other local religious
communities (2014, 8). These good relations were once again on display in 1998, when the
representatives of the four recognized religions in Alsace (the Catholic, Lutheran, and
Reformed churches, and the Jewish community), issued a joint statement in favour of the GMS
project. The mosque project backed by Boussouf gave rise to an important local debate, and
was frequently instrumentalized by the far-right Front National (National Front, FN) and its
supporters. At the same time, it was also contested by a rival project proposed by a university
128
Though Frégosi mentions that the GMP also claimed that the Strasbourg AEIF was their
representative (Frégosi 1995, 954).
129
Until recently, Milli Görüş constituted the main current of Turkish Islam within the city of
Strasbourg, while DITIB (founded in 1985 in France) was more present in the rest of the département.
This has changed since DITIB has opened its new İlahiyat Fakültesi (Theological Faculty) in Strasbourg
(see Chapter VI.C.2.).
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professor, Ali Bouamama, head of the Institut Musulman Européen (Muslim European
Institute, IME), who promoted a centre more focused on cultural than religious activities, and
who was portrayed as a representative of Muslims of Algerian origin and harkis (Français
musulmans) as opposed to the mainly Moroccan CAMS.
In 2000, during a tumultuous meeting under the protection of riot police, the municipal
council voted in favour of Boussouf’s project. The proposition for the association included the
long-term lease of a property in the neighbourhood of Heyritz and a public contribution of 10%
of the mosque’s construction costs (Herrgott 2004b, 6). Shortly before, Boussouf had managed
to rally to his cause both Milli Görüş and the COJEP, the former local youth branch of Milli
Görüş, while Bouamama had lost much of the support of the Algerian Muslim groups (Gauthier
2000). This development seemed to tilt the balance in Boussouf’s favour, and later that year
the design proposal of Paolo Portoghesi (architect of the mosque of Rome) was chosen for the
future Great Mosque of Strasbourg after an international architectural design competition was
held.
However, this was without counting on the fact that the division between Boussouf and
Bouamama was in fact a reflection of a larger political battle between political parties at the
municipal level. Ries, interim mayor from 1997 to 2000 while Trautmann was a government
minister, was faced with criticism within his own party and was eventually pushed to accept
Bouamama’s proposal as well – so long as there actually was one (Frégosi 2001, 124). Indeed,
according to a member of the local prefecture, Bouamama “really had no project,” but was
supported by the “tandem” of Robert Grossman and Fabienne Keller, two local centre-right
politicians who sought to gain support in the upcoming municipal elections by relying on
Muslims of Algerian origin (Interview, French Interior Ministry Z, 7 April 2014, Paris).
Bouamama was frequently presented by these politicians and local media as the symbol
of an integrated, “French” Islam, while Boussouf and the CAMS were denounced as
fundamentalists who supported a “foreign” Islam (Frégosi 2001, 124; Gauthier 2001). Keller’s
victory in the municipal elections of 2001 furthered this antagonism, as she and Grossman (now
mayor and deputy mayor of Strasbourg, respectively) openly expressed their displeasure with
the GMS project. After arguing that they had no obligation to honour the prior agreements
passed with the CAMS, they stated that foreign donations would not be accepted – despite the
fact that the municipality has no legal capacity to prohibit such transactions – and that they
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wished the mosque to represent a “French Islam,” and to be under the control of state authorities
(Herrgott 2002).
Nevertheless, the new municipal government likewise came to the conclusion that the
only viable project was that of Boussouf and the CAMS, which they proceeded to “completely
overhaul” (Herrgott 2004b, 7–8): the minaret disappeared; the prayer centre shrunk from
1,500m2 to 1,000m2; and the cultural centre was entirely removed (Edom and Bâ 2008, 13;
Gauthier 2002). The original plan for the GMS had been similar to that of Duisburg, in that
two separate associations were to be respectively responsible for the religious and cultural
activities of the mosque. The cultural activities were the responsibility of the association
“Averroès,” which thereafter continued to use the former mosque building of the impasse de
mai for this purpose, as it does to this day (Interview, Saïd Aalla, 30 November 2012,
Strasbourg). However, the mayor viewed this as a “breach of confidence,” and went on to
accuse the mosque association of not doing enough to fight criminality during a meeting in
November 2003 (Boussouf had already left in June) (Herrgott 2004b, 9).
Two days later, the city sent a three-page letter to the association demanding that
sermons be in French and not Arabic, and demanding that the leaders of the mosque project be
more visible in fighting crime “given the people that you are in contact with” (Gauthier 2003;
Ternisien 2003). The letter attracted national attention and was met with consternation and
outrage, putting on full display once again the double-standards of French public authorities
when it comes to dealing with Muslim religious issues. On the one hand, there is the
incongruence of such demands in a region where Christian religious services are held in
numerous languages (including Alsatian), as well as the obvious amalgamation between
Muslims and criminals.
On the other hand, Keller seems to have been deploring the failure of Islam as a means
of assuring “social peace,” along the lines of the policies pursued in the 1970s. The intervention
of French state authorities in the religious field and their expectations of what “Islam” ought to
offer in return for public support at times appear surprisingly incongruent with the spirit of the
law of 1905. Indeed, the recurrent call for “French Islam,” such as in the case of Strasbourg,
puts on display demands from state authorities which bear a greater resemblance to French
colonial policies on Islam than that of official laïcité. The expectation that the Strasbourg
mosque project be accompanied by a “veritable social programme” targeting the suburbs
(Godard and Taussig 2007, 113–114) is surprising only when one forgets that the discourse on
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republican values and laïcité is also used as a smokescreen by public authorities who are in fact
operating outside of their limits. Even before Keller became mayor, Frégosi had warned about
creating “yet another official Islam,” and “falling back into the political instrumentalization of
Islamic religious symbols by reproducing the current situation of many Muslim countries”
(2001, 137). The actions of the municipal government in Strasbourg under Keller shows the
full range of policy tools at the disposal of local authorities in France that wish to intervene in
the religious field, even when they are on the borderline of legality.
The first stone for the mosque was laid in November 2004, but the persistent difficulties
with the municipality were followed by a 14-month battle with a contractor in 2008, and
construction resumed only in 2009. The most important change was the return of the Socialist
Roland Ries as mayor in 2008 thanks to a new round of elections, which immediately had a
positive impact on the project. Saïd Aalla became president at this time, with the mandate to
“finish the construction of the mosque,” put in place a “global strategy,” and “find the funds
necessary to keep it running” (Interview, Saïd Aalla). Public funding for the mosque was shared
between the city of Strasbourg (858,400 euros), the departmental general council (686,500
euros), and the regional council (685,500 euros), which together accounted for 22% of the total
cost. 130 The local community and fund-raising efforts over the years had generated
approximately 25% of what was needed for the mosque, which in the end cost over 10 million
euros (Grande mosquée de Strasbourg 2012, 8–9).
Foreign funding ended up representing slightly over half of what was needed to
construct the mosque, with the lion’s share coming from Morocco: 3,934,000 euros from the
Moroccan MHAI, followed by Saudi Arabia (900,000 euros) and Kuwait (500,000) (Grande
mosquée de Strasbourg 2012, 8–9). On the website of the MHAI, the article dedicated to the
GMS proudly states that the mosque had been built “largely thanks to Morocco” and the
“significant contribution […] decided by His Majesty King Mohammed VI, Commander of the
Faithful” (Ministère des Habous et des Affaires Islamiques 2012d). Indeed, with 2 million
euros still needed when construction resumed in 2009, Morocco was quick to step up with a
700,000 euro contribution (Le Point 2009; L’Express 2009). With this funding assured and a
130
The original plans had foreseen that the city would contribute 10% of the final cost, alongside the
general council (8%) and the regional council (8%). These percentages had been calculated on an earlier
estimation before extra costs were later taken into account, explaining the lower level of public funding
than had been previously announced (Grande mosquée de Strasbourg 2012, 8)
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favourable local government back in place, the mosque was finally completed and officially
opened its doors in September 2012 (though it had already opened for prayer in 2011).
Morocco’s contribution to this mosque is, however, not as straight-forward as it seems.
The first aspect that needs to be underlined is that Moroccan authorities were in fact not in
favour of the project back when it was in its initial conceptual stages during the 1990s.
According to a member of the French interior ministry, it was entirely “Boussouf’s project, to
be sure, and Trautmann was alone on it,” considering that the interior ministry was sceptical,
and especially Moroccan authorities were not interested. This was because the idea for the
project came about during the time that Moroccan King Hassan II had adopted a hostile position
towards the integration of his subjects abroad, “and the GMS was a sign of that integration”
(Interview, French Interior Ministry Z).
The ascension of Mohammed VI as new king in 1999 signaled an important change.
For Mohammed VI, the GMS was a “symbol of European Islam,” that equally stood out thanks
to the favourable position of the local municipal authorities (at the time). In order to discuss
further the details of the project, a representative of the city of Strasbourg travelled to Morocco
in 2000 with a mandate to secure the support of Moroccan authorities. Meetings were held with
the heads of the MHAI and the FHII, as well as with one of the king’s counsellor. The main
goal was to propose a particular type of funding to Moroccan authorities, modelled after that
which had been used to fund the European parliament, and in doing so ensure that the mosque
would be able to have the financial resources needed for its construction. However, due to the
change in the Strasbourg municipal government, this plan was never carried out (Interview,
French Interior Ministry Z).
The role of public authorities here is even more striking than with the DITIB central
mosque in Duisburg-Marxloh. Unlike the German case, where favourable municipal authorities
had helped to secure funding from the EU and NRW state levels, in Strasbourg municipal
authorities took it upon themselves to approach directly Moroccan state instances so as to
negotiate on the mosque’s behalf. This shows once again how interstate cooperation in the
domain of Islamic religious affairs is not only grudgingly accepted by French and German state
authorities as a temporary solution, but is actively pursued by different levels of state actors as
a means of governing Muslim religious fields. The example of Strasbourg is also similar to that
of Duisburg in that French and German state authorities in both cases were actively involved
in the direct funding of the mosque construction, despite the fact that the association backing
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the mosque project did not possess the official legal status reserved for recognized religions in
both contexts.
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Figure IV-6 “The Great Mosque of Strasbourg”
From left to right, top to bottom: the exterior of the GMS; the interior of the main prayer space (capacity of 1,000
men and 500 women); the plaques in French (left) and in Arabic (right) that hang on either side of the main
entrance; the finely-crafted minbar and zellij tiles behind it, gifts from Morocco; the Qur’ans donated by the
Moroccan Mohammed VI Foundation, written in Moroccan-style Arabic script and beginning with a preface by
“His Majesty the King of Morocco […] Commander of the Faithful”; a road sign integrating the mosque into the
local urban landscape. All photographs by the author.
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The cooperation between the French and Moroccan states with regard to the GMS is
best symbolized by two plaques written in French and Arabic and placed on either side of the
main entrance. The plaques state that the mosque was inaugurated by the French interior
minister Manuel Valls as representative of French President François Hollande, and the
Moroccan Minister of Habous and Islamic Affairs Ahmed Toufiq as representative of King
Mohammed VI; the Arabic version includes his title as “Commander of the Faithful,” while
the French version noticeably does not. Once again similar to the case of Duisburg, the
architecture of the mosque integrated elements specific to the local context along with Islamic
symbolism.
For instance, the mosque is meant to “symbolically represent a flower that is opening
at the water’s edge” (the mosque is located next to the river Ill) and uses local sandstone; the
eight outside pillars represent petals; and the dome establishes a link with the sky and the
heavens in the form of an octagon (Muhlbach 2013). This repeats the number eight, which has
symbolic importance in Islam, given that “paradise has eight doors and eight angles carry the
celestial throne” (Muhlbach 2013). At the same time, the interior has a distinctly Moroccan
flavour. The craftsmanship of the minbar and the zellij tiles are there thanks to Moroccan
donations, as are a large number of Qur’ans, which were produced by the new Mohammed VI
Foundation for the Publication of the Holy Qur’an and which begin with a dedication from
King Mohammed VI, whose title of “Commander of the Faithful” is once again included (see
above for photographs).
The opening ceremony for the GMS was attended by 1,200 people representing the
local community and religious groups, different levels of the French state, the EU, and the
foreign states that had supported the mosque. Unsurprisingly, the far-right FN denounced the
foreign donations as “intrusions and uncontrollable pressure” (Le monde 2012). At the same
time, the government itself did not make much of an effort to publicly show its gratitude.
Indeed, in Valls’ speech, thanks are given to everyone except Morocco, Kuwait, and Saudi
Arabia, though the representatives of these states stood right next to him at the ceremony.131
By contrast, Valls repeated the term “French Islam” (Islam de France) fourteen times
during his speech, and exhorted it to “take up its responsibilities and organize itself so as to
take care of real problems [together] with the state.” He also mentioned that he wanted to
For the citations of Valls’ speech hereafter see Ministère de l’Intérieur 2012 for the video and Valls
2012 for the text.
131
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relaunch the Fondation pour les Oeuvres de l’Islam de France (French Foundation for Muslim
Works, FOIF), created by Dominique de Villepin during his stint as interior minister (20042005). Though it has not yet managed to become functional in any way, the FOIF potentially
represent a means of financing of Islamic affairs in France that would interpose itself between
home states and the French Muslim associations.
Valls’ speech showed that in 2012, the politics of “French Islam” involves towing a
careful line: condemning the positions of the far-right FN and Islamic fundamentalists;
showing respect to the “generation of immigrants who built (bâti) French Islam”; and speaking
to their children, because “it’s with young French Muslims that the Republic has to build
(construire) French Islam, and it’s with them that the Republic needs to keep its promise.” The
silence with regard to the role of home states and other foreign Muslim states is as symbolic as
it is ironic: while Valls accentuates the role played by immigrants and young French Muslims
in “building” French Islam, the mosque he stands next to was built in large part thanks to
foreign donations.
The former president of the GMS was well aware of the risks posed by such foreign
funding, even though it remains a necessity:
Our approach was clear and transparent from the beginning. We decided that we
would appeal to all Muslim countries without distinction. […] The second thing
was that we determined as well that we would not accept funds that came with
conditions. The funding needed to be spontaneous with the goal of helping the
Muslim community so as to have a place of worship, but without there being any
particular conditions behind it. That’s what led us to appeal to everyone.
The countries that answered, and which didn’t ask questions, they didn’t impose
any conditions on the funding, were Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. […]
Today the [Great] mosque [of Strasbourg] is a French mosque, a European mosque,
which is governed by French laws, and is managed by people of French nationality,
so there’s no risk that these countries… there you have it. We will appeal to them
of course to help us, in terms of funding, always, as long as there are no particular
conditions (Interview, S. Aalla).
The issue of conditions poses an interesting question: what if the condition is simply the
acceptance of the donation? Though the GMS does not architecturally resemble a typical
Moroccan mosque, the funding and other donations accepted from the Moroccan state are in
and of themselves elements which colour and influence the form of Islam presented at the GMS
(as shown in the pictures above). This includes one of their two main imams, who was sent by
the MHAI for a four-year period in 2008 and is paid by funds sent from the MHAI and
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administered (until recently) by the RMF (Interview, S. Aalla). The distinction here is that none
of these donations were imposed: they were actively solicited by local Muslim actors and
readily accepted once proposed.
For Moroccan authorities, the local framework no longer poses a problem as it had in the
past; indeed, the hostility of Hassan II to the integration of his “subjects” has given way to a
new diaspora policy in which religion plays a key role. Moreover, it is important to underline
in this case that Morocco has no need to impose any conditions. The goal of this policy is to
maintain the legitimacy of the prevailing structures of religious authority amongst Moroccans
abroad by ensuring their reproduction. In order to do succeed in this task, Moroccan authorities
employ particular policy instruments that provide resources that carry an important degree of
traditional religious authority, and which above all are sorely lacking in particular religious
fields abroad. Allen’s (2003) analyses of power highlight an important aspect of this strategy:
power is also the ability of seduction and cooptation, in which political control may be
exercised without a high degree of confrontation, but in which the asymmetry of the
relationships involved is never questioned.
D - Conclusion
The goal of this chapter has been three-fold. In the first part, I revisited many elements of statereligion relations in France and Germany, demonstrating that public authorities in both
countries have multiple opportunities to intervene in the Muslim religious field. This is thanks
to the simple fact that religion affects a wide range of social issues, and that state authorities
have numerous policy instruments at their disposal to formulate responses accordingly.
The ultimate purpose of this approach was to underline that these policy instruments all
share a similarity: they do not directly address religion as such, but only derivative aspects of
religion which can be treated by other fields of public policy. In this thesis I have decided to
call this state of affairs “partial governance,” especially to contrast French and German policies
concerning Islamic affairs with those of Morocco and Turkey, for whom religion exists as a
distinct policy domain and administrative category within the state apparatus.
The second part of the chapter investigates the notion of partial governance at the
national level, and in particular the repeated desire of French and German governments to
“nationalize” or “institutionalize” Islam. The analysis of the CFCM and the procedure leading
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to its creation, as well as the two phases of the German Islam Conference, shows first off the
difficulty of identifying and developing policy measures capable of addressing the main issues
affecting Muslims in both societies. There the simple fact that many questions discussed under
the heading “religion” are in fact systemic problems which stem from a host of factors,
including poverty, discrimination, low education, or poor urban planning. Additionally, many
issues which do directly affect religious practice are not the responsibility of any one
centralized state body, which consequently requires a complicated degree of coordination
between multiple levels of government. Moreover, political interests are never absent: as
Frégosi points out, “public authorities are more often interested parties than impartial arbiters”
(2010, 319).
Finally, a broader consequence of partial governance in the religious field is that despite
the many areas in which French and German state authorities do have the capacity to intervene,
there will always be others where they will be at a loss. In other words, even if state authorities
in both countries were able to help Islam “catch up” with the other established (mostly Christian
and Jewish) religious groups, they cannot create ex nihilo a set of religious authorities
considered legitimate by Muslims. This is what leads to the ultimate paradox of the policies
aimed at ‘nationalizing’ Islam: due to the lack of local religious capital and the prevailing state
suspicion of many local Muslim actors, French and German state authorities are forced to deal
with this problem by increasing their levels of cooperation with Morocco and Turkey
concerning religious affairs. The second part of this chapter thus focused in particular on the
roles and voices of Moroccan and Turkish diplomats who were or are involved as partners of
French and German state authorities with regard to the Muslim religious field.
Finally, the third section continued the analysis of French and German partial
governance at two other levels. First the regional level, which is relatively of greater
significance for Germany due to its federal structure, and demonstrated by the example of
Islamic religious education in public schools. In France, the creation of the CRCMs has had a
minimal impact on regional dynamics in the Muslim field and competition between Muslim
federations, especially given that the regions form the electoral backbone of the CFCM. At the
same time, the CRCMs’ limited success stories involving public authorities have been as a
result of their cooperation with individual municipalities and the departmental prefectures,
attesting to the greater importance of the local level when it comes to analyzing partial
governance in practice in France.
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The second sub-section considered the local level in both countries through two case
studies: the DITIB Duisburg-Marxloh central mosque and Great Mosque of Strasbourg. Both
of these examples demonstrated the crucial role played by municipal authorities in the
successful completion of large-scale mosque projects. This is true both when the municipality
can exert a degree of executive control, such as issuing building permits, as well as when it
cannot, and instead intercedes on behalf of local religious actors by contacting outside actors.
For Duisburg, this was not just a result of the partial governance of religious fields, but reflected
rather the kind of strategies adopted by cash-strapped municipalities that have learnt to
diversify their sources in order to promote different kinds of urban development projects.
Nevertheless, the decision to involve the EU and the state of NRW had important consequences
for the dynamics in the local Muslim field, and a conflict over legitimate kinds of cultural
capital in the mosque arose as a result. In the case of Strasbourg, interviews with local public
and associative actors showed how municipal authorities took it upon themselves to promote
the mosque project in Morocco, and – once the mayor favourable to the GMS had returned to
power – how the rapid influx of foreign donations permitted the mosque to be finally
completed.
This chapter has sought to demonstrate how the partial governance of the Muslim
religious field in France and Germany not only creates opportunities for Turkish and Moroccan
authorities to extend their religious governance abroad, but that this involvement is actively
solicited by French and German state authorities as well. Despite the potential for conflict
represented by ten to twenty years of political discourse calling for a ‘national’ Islam, interstate
cooperation continues to be at the heart of the governance of Islam in France and Germany.
Indeed, it has been the steady rise in Islamophobic and xenophobic attitudes which has forced
politicians and state officials to adopt an official tone that is much less accommodating and
pragmatic than their daily practices reveal them to be. These long-standing interstate practices
are by no means secret, but by the same token they are rarely the subject of in-depth
examination with relation to their impact on the religious field. Consequently, the following
chapter will investigate the longevity and inner workings of interstate cooperation as a policy
instrument of religious governance by focusing on its main actors: diplomats and religious
officials.
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V - Interstate Cooperation and Diplomacy: Exporting
Imams Abroad
This chapter will examine the two sets of actors who are involved in organizing and providing
religious services abroad: diplomats and state religious officials. When religion becomes an
object of state policy, it also becomes an issue that can be integrated into the same agendas,
bullet points, and evaluation schemes, as any other public policy issue. The process of
rationalization is reflected in the perspective adopted by state employees in their day-to-day
management of religious affairs. The actors of these policies may or may not be devout
believers themselves: indeed, at times this may have an influence on their opinions and actions
with regard to particular situation.
On the other hand, an individual actor’s religiosity has no bearing on the fact that
integrating religion as a specifically delimited administrative category contributes to the secular
manner by which religion is managed. Sacredness is not at issue: budgets, strategic plans, and
logistics are. This perspective plays an important role in the way that Islamic issues are
integrated into the diplomatic and consular services of Turkey and Morocco. Grouped together
under a special heading in departmental titles and institutional reports, religious services abroad
are the subject of studies, meetings, and bilateral talks, and are handled to different degrees by
a long list of ministerial departments, parapublic institutions, and the diplomatic networks of
consulates and embassies.
The main question that I address in this chapter concerns the weight of administrative
decision-making procedures and interstate diplomacy as structural factors within the Moroccan
and Turkish Muslim fields in France and Germany. In other words, to what degree are the
dynamics of these fields influenced by the routine practices of state employees and institutions,
as opposed to the political decisions of government leaders? I argue here that certain structural
dynamics of the Turkish and Moroccan transnational Muslim fields can be explained by the
historical models of state religious governance prevalent in Turkey and Morocco, and are not
only the result of circumstantial political decisions.
I base my analyses on three main sources: first, over a dozen interviews with Moroccan
and Turkish diplomats and another twenty interviews with members of the religious
bureaucracy of both countries that I carried out between 2009 and 2014. These first-hand
sources will be complemented by other interviews that I conducted with French and German
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diplomats and state officials. Second, the activity reports and other official publications issued
by the Diyanet and the MHAI, generally accessible only in Turkish or Arabic. Third, I will
refer to numerous official communiqués and media reports in order to provide additional
details.
Especially since 9/11, the explosive and highly politicized nature of issues concerning
Islam has meant that the Turkish and Moroccan diplomats have increasingly had to address
such issues with the media and their counterparts in French and German state ministries. On
the other hand, the actual day-to-day work of organizing and supervising religious affairs is
carried out by consular officials in the case of Morocco (named “social affairs attachés”), and
employees of the Diyanet in the case of Turkey (the religious counsellors and attachés). Back
in both Morocco and Turkey, these networks abroad are coordinated by departments of the
religious bureaucracy that are responsible for overseeing the organization of religious activities
for the community abroad. The vision and perceptions of these two categories of actors will be
analyzed with regard to one of the most direct ways by which they influence the Muslim fields
of France and Germany: the sending of imams abroad.
A - Religious Authorities Abroad: Theory and Definitions
1) Situating Diplomats and Religious Bureaucrats
International Relations theory is generally divided on what to do with diplomats and members
of the state bureaucracy. Modern IR theory and especially traditional school of realism reduced
both sets of actors to cogs in the general machinery of foreign policy, which was presumed to
be determined by a unitary state actor led by rational leaders.
For instance, while the grandfather of the realist tradition, Hans Morgenthau,
acknowledged that ministries of foreign affairs and diplomats had the potential to influence
foreign policy (1948, 421–425), his main argument was that following the Second World War,
diplomacy “has lost its vitality, and its functions have withered away to such an extent as is
without precedent in the history of the modern state system” (1948, 425). Waltz’s neorealism
went a step further and developed its theories on the systemic level, influencing other major
currents of IR theory such as Wendt’s constructivism or Rosenau’s transnationalism (Battistella
2006, 323–324).
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This has had the net result that employees of foreign affairs ministries are infrequently
considered major actors of international politics by the main IR theories, which concentrate on
top decision-makers or systemic factors. Put another way, the issue goes even further and
revolves around whether to consider individuals or states as the main actors of foreign policy.
This debate ultimately asks if decisions of foreign policy are on the whole to be attributed to
micro (individual, interpersonal) or macro (systemic, structural) factors, influencing the
rationality and decision-making processes of the actors involved – also summarized as the
“behavioural model” and the “billiard ball model” of IR (Walker, Malici, and Schafer 2011,
23). The answer to this question has an impact on yet another: while a micro perspective may
pay more attention to events going on inside a country, the macro systemic models argue that
there needs to be a distinct separation between internal and foreign politics, given that the latter
is primarily influenced by the unique characteristics of the international system.
In this vision, the religious officials of the Diyanet or the MHAI are confined to the realm
of internal politics; or, if admitted to that of international affairs, it is with the caveat that they
ultimately matter little in the grand scheme of things. This mainstream IR perspective reflects
a very restricted understanding of global politics, which is ultimately only concerned with socalled “high politics,” or questions of war and peace. As mentioned in the introduction, the
foreign activities of different categories of state actors (subnational entities, metropolises,
ministries and state agencies, etc.) as well as non-state actors (NGOs, transnational companies,
criminal networks, etc.) has forced IR theory in new directions. The impetus has often come
from other fields, such as transnational migration studies, and poses a real challenge in the
sense that it questions the specificity of the discipline. If individuals and substate actors now
share the stage with heads of state and national interests, how can we disentangle foreign and
internal politics, and explain the behaviour of state and non-state actors at the global level?
The issue of diaspora politics is at the heart of such ontological difficulties. In particular,
the transnational relations at the heart of diaspora politics render the theoretical impermeability
between foreign and internal politics far more difficult to maintain. Decisions taken by Turkish
and Moroccan authorities with regard to their populations abroad need to be seen from multiple
perspectives, which take into account a large numbers of factors: interstate relations; home
state relations with the diaspora(s); and internal politics in the countries affected.
For the purposes of the questions I ask in this thesis, the macro systemic perspectives
mentioned above explain only part of the story. For instance, they might explain that Turkey
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and Morocco wish to use their diaspora as a kind of lobby in order to promote specific national
interests, and that interstate cooperation in the domain of religious affairs is possible thanks to
the general framework of good relations between all the states under consideration. On the
other hand, macro systemic perspectives might also not consider this topic to be a relevant
issue, similar to feminist IR theorists, who have had to argue that they are “really ‘doing’ IR”
(Tickner 1997, 615).
Putnam’s classic “two-level games” approach is an interesting IR attempt to account for
differing sets of interests and actors in terms of internal and foreign politics, which “recognizes
that central decision-makers strive to reconcile domestic and international imperatives
simultaneously” (1988, 460). However, for all the merits of his “two-table metaphor” (1988,
434) and criticism of state-centric perspectives, his approach is completely blind to the
dynamics of transnational relations. The goal of reconciling domestic and international
imperatives demonstrates that decision-makers understand that there is a relationship between
the two, though of course the degree and quality of this relationship will depend on the issue
under consideration. Nevertheless, the distinction between domestic and foreign with Putnam
is still too heavy-handed and artificial to deal with situations where there are transnational
players who sit at both tables but are from the same group (such as between DITIB and the
Diyanet, or with transnational religious actors such as Milli Görüş, the Fethullahçılar, ʿAdl wal
Iḥsān, etc.). Moreover, it is difficult to speak of two separate tables when home state institutions
such as the Diyanet and the MHAI both openly integrate foreign activities into their budgets
and standard fields of operation.
The distinction between domestic and foreign affairs continues to be of great
significance, but not always in the ways that might be expected. For instance, based on the
results of my field research has I understand the “international system” first and foremost as an
extensive network of institutionalized interstate relations, in which the main actors are
diplomats and consular officials, operating following certain international legal conventions
(i.e. the Vienna Conventions of 1961 and 1963). This interstate system has direct implications
for the organization of religious activities abroad, because it creates an additional layer of
interstate governance. For states such as Germany and France, which otherwise have no
capacity to have direct influence over the religious field (see Chapter IV), this provides them
with an indirect means of control that can be just as political as it can be technocratic. The
actors of this layer of governance are rarely politicians, and are usually career diplomats or
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members of other state ministries, including the Diyanet and the MHAI. It is a level of
governance with precise rules and protocols, where competencies are defined in advance and
religion loses much of its esoteric qualities to become a routine administrative issue.
Consequently, in order to gain a better understanding of how Turkey and Morocco provide
Islamic religious services abroad, in this chapter I will focus on diplomatic relations and
interstate cooperation.
The IR subdiscipline of Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) gives more weight to diplomats
and state bureaucrats, focusing on the “executive management styles” of decision-makers as
well as the main models of decision-making, as elaborated by Graham Allison over fifty years
ago (cf. Breuning 2007, 85–113). Allison’s (1969) analysis of the US foreign policy-making
during the Cuban missile crisis cemented the realization that foreign policy decision-makers
are limited and influenced by the organizations that provide them with their information, and
of which they themselves are members. Such organizations (state ministries, agencies,
departments, etc.) function according to pre-established internal standard operating procedures
(model II), as well as the dynamics of inner political struggles between members of the state
bureaucracy itself (model III). The FPA perspective and models of decision-making are
ultimately vested in a form of process tracing, which unsurprisingly necessitates a good grasp
of who is responsible for what in order to explain the changes and continuities concerning a
given element of policy. These analytical perspectives help in understanding the organizational
dynamics at work behind the foreign religious activities which are presented in this thesis, and
permit a more concrete view of the actors and institutions under consideration.
The specific policy instrument of religious services abroad which I will consider in this
chapter is the sending of Turkish and Moroccan imams to France and Germany. I will present
and analyze the procedure by which this takes place, and discuss more generally the questions
of how and why Islamic affairs are included within the scope of diplomacy and interstate
relations between these countries. This perspective follows an approach that distinguishes
between sectorial governance and central democratic government (Héritier and Lehmkuhl
2008), meaning that it draws attention to the differences between individual branches of state
bureaucracy and elected government officials – the latter being both state representatives as
well as politicians with political careers to keep in mind.
The international system, as I am describing it here, refers specifically to interstate
diplomatic and consular networks. Indeed, I agree that foreign affairs ministries have “never
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had the exclusive control over foreign policy and diplomacy,” and that they can be in conflict
with other branches of the state, such as finance, trade, or defence ministries, “which are
equally interested in asserting their prerogatives in external affairs” (Devin 2002b, 218–219).
This is likewise the case of sub-national entities in federal states, or even major cities, which
are interested in promoting their own particular interests abroad. Nevertheless, foreign
ministries are still at the centre of state-led activities abroad, and constitute a focal point of
organization and coordination. This is equally the case when it comes to relations with
diasporas, quite simply because they are the only state representatives to be found outside of
the state’s boundaries. It is at this moment when the difference between foreign and interior
politics is theoretically reflected in the ostensible division of labour between ambassadors and
consular officials: the ambassador wines, dines, and serves as the official representative of the
state for his or her foreign counterparts, while pursues issues of national interest. In contrast,
consular employees are left responsible for more mundane affairs, including handling the
administrative concerns of their citizens abroad; issuing visas for foreigners; or promoting trade
with local businesses.
Academic research on consular affairs has grown in recent years, though the subject
remains rarely treated in IR literature. This is perhaps not surprising, as “consular business has
always been more deeply entrenched in domestic affairs than any other aspect of MFA
[Ministry of Foreign Affairs] work” (Melissen 2011, 6), and thus flies low under the radar of
most IR theories. According to Melissen, the growth in foreign travel, migration, and crime as
a result of globalization have all resulted in a “true explosion in the demand for consular
services” in recent years, and this in turn has led to an “increasingly service-oriented” approach
(2011, 4–5). Indeed, a report comparing MFAs in six European countries states that they have
“lost their traditional status that to a large extent set them apart from the rest of the central
government,” and that “they are now public service organisations,” in which “the classic
distinction between high-priority sovereign representation and the relatively low-priority
services tasks of the MFAs and their representations is no longer accepted” (Christensen and
Petersen 2005, 4,41).
The focus on “service” is especially important in the cases of Turkey and Morocco, given
that both states consider religion to be a public service. This position is visible in the legal and
institutional frameworks concerning Islamic affairs in both countries, which reinforce the
prevailing model of legal-rational religious authority. The perception of religious services as a
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responsibility of the state is also tied to certain philosophical and ideological positions that
reflect the individual historical trajectories of both states, as explored in Chapters I and II.
Consequently, the exportation of these activities abroad has been the task of the consular
networks in coordination with religious bureaucrats, and has been complementary to the
structures that both states have established within diaspora communities in foreign countries.
In the case of Turkey, religious bureaucrats have been directly incorporated into these consular
networks from the very beginning; for Morocco, the MFA plays a more direct role in
coordinating religious activities abroad (see Chapter III).
Of course, Melissen’s assessment that there has been a recent expansion in consular
affairs is entirely relative to the cases under consideration. For Turkey and Morocco, similar to
other countries that have experienced mass labour emigration, overseas consulates have long
functioned as makeshift government offices. They are staffed with representatives from
numerous ministries and are responsible for a wide variety of public services for their citizens
abroad to a degree rarely experienced by most cases considered in studies on consular affairs.
Indeed, while some cases display similarities with Turkey and Morocco in terms of diaspora
relations, none share the distinctive feature analyzed in this thesis: the provision of religious
services abroad by home states and the governance of transnational religious fields.
2) Religious Public Policy Instruments Abroad
If religion is considered as a public service in Morocco and Turkey, then it goes without saying
that it has its own public policy instruments (see Figures IV-1, IV-2, and IV-3). These
instuments are integral the rationalized understanding of religious governance displayed by
state religious institutions, which integrates Islamic affairs as an administrative category into
the functioning of the state. The last chapter provided a summary list of these instruments in
comparison to the cases of Germany and France; this chapter will now go into greater detail
concerning one specific instrument, by focusing on the procedures and actors involved.
There is an important asymmetry between Turkey and Morocco concerning these
instruments: for the former, the sending of religious personnel abroad represents by far the
most important activity it organizes in the Turkish Muslim field abroad. Moreover, the creation
of Diyanet national-level umbrella organizations in foreign countries has been tied to this
activity. For Morocco, religious personnel are generally only sent abroad for the month of
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Ramadan, and consequently constitutes a relatively smaller and less extensive operation –
though it still involves hundreds of individuals and a great deal of coordination. On the other
hand, Morocco’s practice of providing direct financial aid to Islamic associations and mosque
construction projects abroad means that it occupies a unique position in Muslim fields abroad,
capable of wielding important influence by dint of its generous donations. Finally, both states
are involved in the distribution of religious publications, which underscore the importance of
home state religious institutions as legitimate instances of religious authority.
These activities constitute the most important religious public policy instruments in
terms of their lasting impact on the Turkish and Moroccan Muslim fields abroad. Furthermore,
the different levels of diplomatic interactions they necessitate make them the perfect
illustrations of interstate cooperation in Islamic religious governance. Indeed, diplomatic and
organizational support have been essential to the development of both states’ transnational
networks abroad (Chapter III), as well as with regard to the creation of the CFCM and the DIK
(Chapter IV). In both cases, it is clear that these forms of support play an important role in
anchoring both states’ partner associations as amongst the most important actors in Muslim
fields abroad, especially in the eyes of French and German authorities. Nevertheless, high-level
interstate discussions on issues of religious governance between government leaders – as
occurred concerning the CFCM and the DIK – are generally quite rare. The sending of imams
to foreign countries, on the other hand, represents a systematized institutional practice.
Despite my focus on religious services aimed at diaspora communities in this thesis, I
cannot overlook the fact that the Turkish and Moroccan states equally incorporate Islam into
their foreign policy concerning other regions. In these cases, though the actors and the policy
instruments involved are similar, the lack of significant migrant populations situates them
outside the considerations of diaspora politics. The Diyanet and the Turkish Diyanet foundation
have sent religious personnel, built mosques, and established theological faculties from the
Balkans through the Caucasus and across Central Asia, and have hosted international
conferences bringing together top religious officials from “Eurasia” (Avrasya) and Africa. As
for Morocco, the MHAI has important ties to many West African countries: it has funded the
construction of numerous great mosques in West African capitals; it provides scholarships for
West African students to attend Moroccan Islamic institutions; and it is currently in the process
of training 500 Malian imams over the course of two years (Ministère des Habous et des
Affaires Islamiques 2014a). Nevertheless, these international religious activities raise
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questions regarding foreign policy issues in other geographic regions and towards different
populations. Consequently, they fall outside the perspective adopted in this thesis and will not
be considered in detail.
3) State Religious Services for the Community Abroad: Exporting
Imams
This section will provide an in-depth analysis of how imams are sent abroad from Morocco
and Turkey, and to France and Germany in particular. On the one hand, my goal is to point out
the similarities in the procedure, especially with regard to the diplomatic interaction involved.
On the other hand, I consider it important not to brush over the details that distinguish both
cases. These details are essential to understanding the institutional differences of Turkish and
Moroccan religious governance abroad, as well as their particular consequences.
For starters, the term “imam” itself can already give rise to confusion. As already
mentioned, in Islamic practice an imam is simply a male member of the community who leads
the prayer, coming from the Arabic root which means “in front” or “ahead” (amām). In other
words, the term “imam” does not necessarily correspond to a permanent position, and applies
rather to a temporary function exercised by someone who may come from almost any walk of
life. In official reports in Turkey and Morocco, the administrative term which is more
frequently used can be broadly translated as “religious official”: respectively “din görevlisi” in
Turkey, “qayyim al-dīnī” or “préposé religieux” in Morocco. This is a more neutral designation
which recalls other similar administrative titles, and covers a number of grades within the
bureaucratic hierarchy, depending on training and function. The Turkish and Moroccan states
are filled with görevli, qayyim, and préposé, and naming them in this fashion has no basis in
Islamic religious tradition, but rather corresponds to the rationalization of religious activities
within the state administration.132
132
Nevertheless, there are some noticeable differences. The Turkish term is much more common than
its counterparts: the word görevli (“employee, attendant, official”) refers to someone who is given a
“duty” or “task” (görev), and is used in many contexts to describe employees and officials who are
responsible for many kinds of activity. By contrast, the Moroccan qayyim (“guardian, warden,
custodian”) is a not a standard term when referring religious personnel in Arabic – an Al Jazeera article
on imams in Morocco even makes a point of mentioning the expression (Al Jazeera 2011) – and has
limited parallels with other semantic fields concerning the word “official” (the Turkish equivalent of
the term is employed for mosque attendants). Similarly, the word préposé in French is not frequently
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Of course, the term “religious official” is most often understood in both countries as
meaning a state-approved imam, though even here there are distinctions to be made. The main
three divisions are between neighbourhood or local imams, who as mentioned above frequently
exercise another profession; imam hatips, who deliver the Friday sermon; and preachers (wāʿiḍ
/ vaiz) – indeed, these are the main three categories mentioned by the MHAI in its “Guide for
the Imam” (see Chapter II). The educational background and hierarchical rank of these three
rises from first to last: neighbourhood imams may simply local individuals who have attended
a Qur’an school, while imam hatips and preachers (especially the latter) have generally
completed studies in Islamic theology. In many cases in Morocco, the imam may also fulfill
the role of muezzin, depending on the personnel available. In Turkey, the Diyanet has four
official categories for religious employees: imam hatips, Qur’an teachers, müezzin-kayyım, and
preachers. Thereafter, there are also those who are higher up in the administrative hierarchy,
such as members of Ulema Councils in Morocco, and district and provincial müftü in Turkey.
“Religious official” is also a gender-neutral term. When I asked the current director of
the Diyanet’s foreign affairs, Mehmet Paçacı, why this particular term was favoured, his first
response was quite straight-forward: saying “imam” would exclude the Diyanet’s female
religious personnel (Interview, M. Paçacı, 23 November 2011, Istanbul). Indeed, both the
Diyanet and the MHAI send female religious personnel abroad as well, though not to lead the
prayers (and thus not as imams). In both Turkish and Moroccan cases, the need for professional
female religious services has been only addressed quite recently, with the opening of new
positions in both states’ religious administrations for female preachers. In Morocco, the
feminine form of the word preacher (wāʿiḍat) or guide (murshidat) is used to designate them,
while in Turkey the terms “female religious official” (bayan or kadın din görevlisi), and
“female preacher” (vaize) are used. Given these differences, I will continue to use the term
“imam” when speaking of imam hatips or those who would lead the prayer; “preacher” for the
wāʿiḍ and wāʿiḍ at (vaiz and vaize), as well as the murshid and murshidat; and “religious
personnel” or “religious official” for a general term applying to all these groups.
For a religious official to be sent abroad (imam or otherwise), the first step occurs when
a mosque association in a foreign country makes a request. This request is submitted at the
level of the consulate, which is responsible for maintaining contact with the associations of the
used other than for referring to mail carriers, though it can be used as a general term for “agent, clerk,
assistant,” especially in Québec.
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local community, and usually has a list of all the Turkish or Moroccan associations in the
district it covers. Aside from the embassy, Morocco has sixteen consulates in France and two
in Germany, while Turkey has five consulates in France and thirteen in Germany, all of which
are responsible for a certain geographic district. At the level of the consulates, the Turkish
religious attaché and the Moroccan attaché for social affairs are generally in charge of receiving
these requests and including them in a report which is sent up through the diplomatic hierarchy.
After being brought to the attention of a high-ranking diplomat and that of the
ambassador, the requests are transmitted back to Rabat or Ankara and the foreign ministry’s
division of consular affairs, to the section in charge of citizens abroad. For Morocco, the
division for Moroccan Abroad is within the Department of Consular and Social Affairs
(Direction des Affaires Consulaires et Sociales, DACS), while in Turkey there is an assistant
general directorate for citizens living abroad (and real estate) (Yurtdışında Yaşayan
Vatandaşlar ve Emlak Genel Müdür Yardımcılığı, KEGY) within the General Directorate for
Consular Affairs (Konsolosluk İşleri Genel Müdürlüğü). Once the information has been
processed by the necessary levels at the MFA, the foreign ministry informs the religious
authorities (the Diyanet or the MHAI) of the number of requests for religious personnel that it
has received from the community abroad.
The second step takes place at the level of the religious authorities, who have the task of
determining the number of religious personnel that will be sent abroad at that particular
moment. Similar to other branches of state bureaucracy, this decision is mainly the
responsibility of a specialized administrative department, which then receives approval from
higher placed authorities. In the Turkish religious bureaucracy, this specialized department for
the community abroad is called the Yurtdışında Yaşayan Türkler Şubesi Müdürlüğü (Branch
Directorate of Turks Living Abroad), which is part of the Diyanet’s Dış İlişkiler Genel
Müdürlüğü (General Directorate of Foreign Affairs). In Morocco, it is the Service des Affaires
des Marocains Résidents à l’Étranger (Department of the Affairs of Moroccans Living
Abroad), part of the Division de la Coopération et de la Communication (Cooperation and
Communication Division), within the MHAI’s Direction des Études et Affaires Générales
(Directorate of Studies and General Affairs). The “Islamic Affairs” division of the MHAI also
has a department of religious services for Moroccans residing abroad (Service de
l’Encadrement Religieux des Marocains Résidant à l’Étranger), and one of the minister’s
cabinet members is in charge of this issue.
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My interviewees at the Diyanet and the MHAI both emphasized that responding to this
demand is no easy task: there are numerous financial costs as well as an extensive
administrative selection procedure for the religious personnel who are to be sent abroad
(Interview, F. Hamurcu I; Interview, M. Rifki I). Moreover, some states impose a limit as to
the number of imams that can be sent (this is in particular the case between France and Turkey,
see below). These factors all have an influence on the number of individuals that are ultimately
sent abroad. It becomes more difficult to generalize at this point, because the religious
personnel that both Turkey and Morocco send abroad correspond to different categories and
do not stay the same length of time. Consequently, the following two sections will consider
both states separately.
B - Morocco
1) Categories and Selection
Morocco primarily sends religious personnel abroad for the month of Ramadan, an initiative
which concerns the FHII, the MHAI, and the foreign affairs ministry. Moroccan financial
support for imams who are permanently based in foreign countries or who stay abroad for
extended periods of time has been much less the norm. The FHII at one time provided funding
for upwards of 21 “permanent” imams across Western Europe; however, by 2008 this had
dropped to only seven, of whom five were in France; one in Spain, and one in the UK (El
Moukhi 2008, 20). At the same time, 2008 was the same year when for the first time the MHAI
sent a contingent of 30 imams to France for a 4-year period, an initiative which I will discuss
in greater detail in the next chapter.
Turkey also sends a large contingent of religious personnel abroad specifically for the
month of Ramadan; however, in contrast to Morocco it also has some 1,500 imam hatips
serving in foreign countries for much longer periods of time – generally three to five years. In
addition to the religious personnel for Ramadan, both the MHAI and FHII give financial
support to selected Islamic theologians for occasional trips to attend events and give lectures
in mosque associations abroad. The diplomat in charge of religious affairs at the Moroccan
embassy in Paris described these missions in the following manner:
During the year different associations, those who manage the mosques, come
knocking on the door of the MHAI asking them to send ulema, scholars, for
conferences organized by these associations. And these scholars come and give
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talks, etc. as was the case for example in Forbach [where the CRCM Lorraine,
presided by the RMF, organized its 4th annual conference], in the east of France.
Or the annual conference I went to last weekend, in Argentueil, where I saw
scholars who came to give talks (Interview, N. Binebine, 23 May 2011, Paris).
The accent here is once again on the demands formulated by the associations in question,
though in most cases the networks that organize these conferences are already well established.
Indeed, the conferences that Binebine mentions are focal points, which put on display the many
facets of these transnational religious networks that link Moroccan state religious institutions
and their associative partners abroad. For example, during the CRCM Lorraine’s annual
conferences in Forbach, the RMF invites a large number of Islamic theologians, some of whom
are members of the European Council of Moroccan Ulema (CEOM) and are imams at different
mosques in France (or Belgium, Germany, etc.), while others come directly from Morocco.
Amongst the latter group there are some names which never seem to fail at RMF conferences,
such as Abdallah Belmadani, member of the ulema council of Beni Mellal; Said El Kamali,
preacher at the Sunna mosque in Rabat; and Laayoun Al-Kouchi, a famous Qur’an recitor and
imam of the Al-Andalus mosque in Casablanca. All three individuals equally appear regularly
on the state religious channel As-Sadissa (“The Sixth”) created in 2005, and are emblematic
figures of state-promoted religious authority in Morocco today.
Aside from these temporary missions, the delegations of religious personnel sent during
Ramadan represent the most important and routine religious activity carried out by Moroccan
religious authorities abroad. Beyond the fact that Ramadan is spiritually the most important
month for Muslims, it also entails certain logistical challenges. Mosque attendance during
Ramadan is higher than during the other months of the year, which means that the need for
religious personnel is even greater. This corresponds above all to a specific activity: the tarāwīḥ
(Turkish: teravih) prayers, which occur every night during the month of Ramadan, and during
which the totality of the Qur’an is recited. In Islamic jurisprudence, the tarāwīḥ prayers are not
obligatory (farḍ), but they are nevertheless practised by large numbers of Muslims.
Consequently, the individuals who lead these prayers during Ramadan need to be capable
of reciting the entire Qur’an, requiring a degree of Islamic training that many local imams in
migratory contexts often do not have. This includes special and complex pronunciation
techniques (tajwid) that must be used when reciting, which in turn derive from the 10 schools
of recitation (qiraʿat), each of which have two narrations (riwāyat). For instance, Turkish
religious authorities follow the school of imam ʿᾹṣim using the Ḥafṣ reading (one of the most
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widespread in the Muslim world).133 On the other hand, Moroccan religious authorities favour
the Warsh reading of the school of imam Nāfiʿ, and have been promoting its usage as an
element of Moroccan Islamic identity (Interview, H. Hammani, 12 July 2011, Mohammedia).
These additional needs are the reason why Ramadan represents a singular moment for
the sending of religious personnel abroad. For Moroccans, the tarāwīḥ prayers are principally
given over to the mushafiʿi (reciters), imams who have the required degree of religious
knowledge to recite the entirety of the Qur’an. They are accompanied by male and female
preachers (wāʿiḍ, wāʿiḍat), who have had a higher degree of theological training, and who are
responsible for religious teaching, guiding, and counselling activities during the month of
Ramadan (Interview, M. Rifki I). Finally, Morocco also sends university professors who are
specialists of Islam to give special conferences (causeries religieuses or durūs) in mosques for
the community abroad. The costs of sending these professors, preachers, and reciters are shared
between the FHII and the MHAI.
In general, the delegations sent abroad by the MHAI are primarily composed of Qur’an
recitors for the tarāwīḥ prayers, while the number of male and female preachers is much
smaller. The training of murshidats (female preachers) began in the wake of the reforms of the
religious field, and graduates of the MHAI’s training programmes were sent abroad for the first
time in 2008. The number of murshidats was initially much smaller in comparison to their male
counterparts, but has gradually risen every year. The largest increases have been amongst the
Qur’an reciters, which accounts for the overall growth of these delegations since 2008, despite
noticeable fluctuations in the number of male preachers sent abroad (see Figure V-1).
The Diyanet’s course outline for teaching this recitation style states that approximately 90% of the
Muslim world uses this school and reading, which “the Turks took as the foundation for the reading
style of the Qur’an […]. The Hafs narration of the ʿᾹsim school of recitation has been taught and recited
for centuries in these lands” (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı. Eğitim Hizmetleri Genel Müdürlüğü 2011, 2–
3).
133
362
Figure V-1 “MHAI Ramadan Delegation Abroad by Category (2008-2013)”
400
Number of Individuals
350
300
250
Murshidat
200
Preacher
150
Recitor
100
50
0
2008
2010
2011
2012
2013
Sources: Ministère des Habous et des Affaires Islamiques 2009a, 131; Ministère des Habous et des Affaires
Islamiques 2011, 200; Ministère des Habous et des Affaires Islamiques 2012a, 184; Ministère des Habous et des
Affaires Islamiques 2013c. The activity report for the year 2009 does not include the numbers for these categories.
Elaborated by author.
The most striking change recently has been the increasing involvement of the MHAI,
whose contingent of religious personnel for Ramadan has grown to equal or surpass that of the
FHII since 2008. Though the MHAI has always been involved in sending imams and preachers
abroad in some form since the 1970s, the creation of the FHII had led to a redistribution of
tasks during the 1990s. However, since the beginning of the century and the reforms of the
religious field announced by King Mohammed VI, the MHAI’s involvement has grown
substantially (see Figure V-2).
363
Figure V-2 “Moroccan Religious Personnel Sent Abroad During Ramadan (1997-2014)”
400
350
300
250
200
FH II
150
MHAI
100
50
1997
1998
1999
2000
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
0
The numbers for both institutions represent the total of all categories (i.e. Qur’an reciters, male and female
preachers, university professors). I have not found statistics for the MHAI predating 2005. Sources: Activity
Reports of the MHAI (2005-2011); ccme.org.ma; habous.gouv.ma; atlasinfo.fr, fh2mre.ma. Own elaboration.
The selection of this religious personnel is the responsibility of another level of religious
administration: the Ulema High Council and the Ulema regional councils. Mohammed Rifki,
who is responsible for the religious affairs of Moroccans residing abroad in the cabinet of the
Moroccan minister of Habous and Islamic affairs, explained the selection process in the
following fashion:
The Ulema [High] Council asks these regional councils to propose both reciters
(psalmodieurs), meaning Qur’an reciters (récitateurs de Coran), which they
propose on the basis of knowledge; that is to say that they can have tests, make
choices, deliberate at the level of the council, and propose 2 or 3 or 4, it depends.
And preachers, meaning those who are specialized in religious affairs.
So they [the regional councils] propose [these individuals] and they make them
available to the [Ulema high] council; this council establishes a list, which it makes
available to the Ministry of Habous. Based on this list we try to make choices,
choices to respond to the needs of the Moroccan community living abroad, so based
on the requests that have been made. And each time we update this information
(Interview, M. Rifki I).
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Rifki also explained in my interview with him that neither the MHAI nor the FHII carry out
any examinations of the religious personnel to be sent abroad; rather, this is a task incumbent
on the ulema councils and occurs during the selection process, which begins with a call for
applications. According to a member of the MHAI who prepares the delegations to be sent
abroad, the ulema councils “demand minimal standards” of the religious officials, such as good
knowledge of Islamic sciences and basic linguistic knowledge of the countries they are to be
sent to. However, above all they require that the imams and preachers follow “the right path”
(la bonne voie): “there can’t be any extremism, it can’t be someone who’ll say ‘don’t eat French
meat’ or ‘don’t speak French’ (Interview, H. Jaafar, 16 June 2011, Rabat).
For a cabinet member of the Ministry of the Moroccan Community Residing Abroad
(MCMRE), these criteria ensure that only veritable religious scholars are sent to foreign
countries: “the imams sent by the MHAI, they’re academics, they know foreign languages, etc.
This [imam], he goes abroad for a precise assignment, especially during Ramadan, and he’s
responsible for what he says. There, it’s official” (Interview, B. Ounir, 9 June 2011, Rabat).
Indeed, the religious officials sent abroad are all ostensibly capable of speaking the language
of the country they are sent to, though aside from some of the higher-educated preachers and
the university professors this is highly doubtful.
Once the list of selected religious personnel has been approved by the Ulema High
Council and the MHAI, the individuals on the list are divided between the FHII and the MHAI
for administrative and financial purposes. Indeed, though both the FHII and the MHAI send
religious personnel abroad for Ramadan,
There is no difference at all. Because the selection of those who are sent is carried
out by the ulema councils. The two lists are validated by the ulema council, they
are proposed by the ulema councils. It’s for technical and organizational reasons
that one part [of the religious personnel] is sent by the FHII and the other by [the
MHAI]. Because the FHII has limited budgetary means. It can’t send more than
the number it sends each year.
And clearly the ministry [of Habous and Islamic Affairs], it needs to take on the
responsibility for a part [of the religious personnel], given that it falls under its
domain of competency, its prerogatives. But the two lists, they’re validated and
proposed by the regional councils, and are validated by the High Council in Rabat.
That’s what’s important. It’s simply that the administrative and financial
management is separated (Interview, A. Boussouf, 9 June 2011, Rabat).
It is thus impossible to speak of competition between the FHII and MHAI according to
Boussouf and Rifki; indeed, as the latter pointed out to me, the MHAI is on the FHII’s board
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of directors, and can thus be considered a part of the FHII (Interview, M. Rifki I). This is all
the more the case considering that the foundation and the ministry send the same individuals
abroad. Indeed, if there is a difference, it is to be found in the composition of the two
delegations.
According to the most recent comparable data available, the delegation sent by the FHII
in 2012 comprised a much higher percentage of preachers (36%) and university professors
(33%) relative to Qur’an reciters (labelled as “imams”) (31%) (FHII 2012); in the case of the
MHAI, Qur’an reciters account for between 70% and 80% of the delegation (see Figure V-1).
This difference was confirmed by a diplomat of the DACS at the Moroccan foreign affairs
ministry, who mentioned that the FHII sends more academics abroad (Interview, S. El Hassani,
18 June 2012, Rabat). The high level of education of the religious personnel sent by the FHII
stands out, indicating perhaps one element of the division of labour between the FHII and the
MHAI. Nevertheless, the university professors quota has declined in the FHII’s Ramadan
delegations over the last years, while in contrast the number the preachers and imams has risen,
meaning that the differences between the MHAI’s delegations and that of the FHII have
become even less noticeable today (see Figure V-3).
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Number of Individuals
Figure V-3 “The Evolution and Composition of the FHII’s Ramadan Delegations, 19982014”
The blue line represents “university professors,” the red line “preachers,” and the green line “imams,” while the
purple line indicates the total. The most visible trend over the years is the decline in the number of university
professors, though the overall total has continued to rise due to larger number of preachers and imams. Source:
(Fondation Hassan II 2014).
The relationship between the MHAI and the FHII concerning religious personnel sent
abroad during Ramadan is that of a convenient “arrangement” which suits both parties,
especially since both delegations of imams and preachers sent abroad go to serve in Moroccan
mosques (Interview, M. Rifki I). Both Rifki and Boussouf, the vice-president of the CCME,
agree that the greater involvement of the MHAI in managing this issue in recent years has been
due to a rise in the number of requests for religious personnel coming from associations abroad,
and the fact that the FHII simply does not have the necessary means to respond to these
requests. Binebine, at the Moroccan embassy in Paris, also mentions the limited resources of
the FHII, and states that the situation had arisen as a result of the reforms of the religious field
in Morocco and the nomination of Ahmed Toufiq as minister of Habous and Islamic affairs,
after which the MHAI began to become more involved in sending delegations of religious
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personnel abroad for Ramadan. For Binebine, the relationship between the FHII and MHAI
resembles rather an “entanglement” (enchevêtrement) which must be better harmonized, but
which at the same time has not caused any real problems (Interview, N. Binebine). The
explication for this comes from Boussouf, who emphasizes that what matters most is the
centralization of the procedure:
I don’t think it poses any problems, clearly the management is centralized. It’s
centralized at the level of the selection and of the choice of lists. And it’s centralized
at the level of visa applications, etc. by the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
So that’s that. No matter whether it’s carried out by the FHII or the MHAI, it
doesn’t change anything. That’s the internal organization (Interview, A. Boussouf).
The growing role of the MHAI compared to the FHII in the Moroccan religious field abroad
concerns its financial contributions as well. Though the FHII stepped in to fund the emblematic
Évry mosque at the beginning of the 1990s, the MHAI has superseded it by far in this role in
recent years. Whether concerning the religious personnel abroad or these financial
contributions, Boussouf relates that,
When it was created, the Foundation wanted to take on everything related to
Moroccans abroad. But its resources are limited, it can’t cover everything. […] The
most important thing is that it’s the state that is responsible for all this. In an
organized and concerted framework (Interview, A. Boussouf).
The fact that the FHII is assimilated to the state by Boussouf belies Rifki’s assertion that the
FHII is an “NGO” (Interview, M. Rifki I), although considering that Rifki himself mentions
that the MHAI is a member of the FHII, and that it is presided over by King Mohammed VI’s
sister, it is clear that are no illusions concerning its proximity to the state. As explained earlier,
it is impossible to consider the FHII as an organization independent of the Moroccan state. The
example of the Turkish Diyanet Foundation (TDV) is perhaps a more suitable comparison,
though the latter is currently in much healthier financial shape, and maintains much closer ties
with the Diyanet than the FHII does with the MHAI. Indeed, as far as the “internal
organization” mentioned by Boussouf is concerned, the FHII does indeed operate on its own
with regard to sending religious personnel abroad (Interview, H. Jaafar), and has its own
separate budget for religious, cultural, and social activities, which is not overseen by the MHAI.
The centralized nature of the procedure, as highlighted by Boussouf, is important in
order to understand the different levels of control exercised by the Moroccan state. Not only is
the religious personnel sent by the FHII subject to oversight ahead of time at the religious level
of the ulema councils and the MHAI, but once the list of this religious personnel is established,
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it is also transmitted to both the interior and foreign affairs ministries (Interview, M. Rifki I).
This ensures that a second round of centralized political and administrative control occurs later
on, which can have important consequences. According to Jaabouk (2013c), citing the
Moroccan newspaper Al-Masā’, 45 imams were removed from the Ramadan delegation in
2013 after they received a letter from the Interior Ministry stating that “the nation has need of
your services” – but not abroad. Jaabouk’s article draws a direct link between the intervention
of the interior ministry and the MHAI’s recent policy of “targeting religious personnel who
support the MUR, the PJD network, or Adl wal Ihsane” (2013c), which seems supported by the
MHAI’s suspension of five imams in February 2013 for having prayed for Sheikh Abdessalam
Yassine (the founder of ʿAdl wal Iḥsan) in their sermons a few days after the latter’s death
(Lakome 2013; Al-Masa’ 2013).
Considering that the image and reputation of the Moroccan state is at stake with each
delegation, authorities are careful that the religious personnel sent abroad abides by certain
rules. This is explicitly set out by the MHAI:
The preachers we send, we have them sign a kind of document, where they commit
themselves to scrupulously respect the task that they have been assigned, namely
preaching. And to respect the laws of the country, and to not interfere in the affairs
of the country. You’re there for a specific task, you will accomplish it and come
back, period (Interview, M. Rifki I).
This document comes in addition to the clear rules in the MHAI’s “Guide for the Imam,” which
states that imams must avoid speaking of “personal, political, or media conflicts while giving
a sermon,” and that indeed this would be “an unforgivable error” (MHAI 2013). This has been
made even more strict with a new dahir promulgated in July 2014, which formally forbids
imams from being members of political parties and unions (Ali 2014).
The salaries of the religious personnel are predetermined by their official status, which
has undergone very significant changes since the reform of the religious field began (see
Chapter II). In addition to their salaries, all imams sent to foreign countries receive a special
allowance for the duration of their time abroad. When I spoke with M. Rifki in 2011, the total
allowance was “about 30,000 dirhams,” coming to “close to 1,000 dirhams, or about 90 euros,
a day” (Interview, M. Rifki I). In addition to this, the MHAI or the FHII pay their plane tickets
and travel costs, including that of the visa, while the local mosque community generally
provides accommodation. It is possible that the sums mentioned by Rifki were not yet fully
institutionalized at the time of the interview, considering that in 2012 the MHAI drafted a
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decree officially raising the travel allowance from 4,500 to 30,000 dirhams (Ministère des
Habous et des Affaires Islamiques 2012c; Laaboudi 2013). This stipend of 1,000 dirhams per
day was criticized by one Moroccan newspaper as a “luxury Ramadan for expatriated imams”
(Aujourd’hui le Maroc 2012).
Mustapha El Khalfi, minister of communication and government spokesperson,
announced that the decree in question (2-12-357) was adopted by the Moroccan governmental
council in July 2012 with the goal of “covering [the religious personnel’s] travel costs abroad,
in addition to their two-way plane tickets” (Khalfi 2012, 12; Kingdom of Morocco 2012). It
was followed by another decree in February 2013 which augmented the monthly allowance of
the presidents of regional ulema councils and their members, and another in March 2013 which
raised the Ramadan bonus for imams across the country (Jaabouk 2013a; Kingdom of Morocco
2013a; Kingdom of Morocco 2013b). These increases are in keeping with the extensive
financial sums that have been dedicated over the last years to increasing the wages of religious
personnel in the country.
2) Visas and Preparation
Once selected, the MHAI organizes meetings in order to prepare the religious personnel for
their time abroad, which for a time were given by Abdellah Boussouf (now vice-president of
the CCME). Considering his background as former head of the main mosque association in
Strasbourg and vice-president of the CFCM, the MHAI most likely could not have found a
more suitable individual for the task. Otherwise, the MHAI also organizes meetings with the
different groups of religious personnel to deal with their administrative documents.
During these sessions, the religious personnel obtain instructions for their time abroad,
and each individual receives an official mandate (ordre de mission) from the Moroccan state.
This document is sent along with the normal visa application forms, and serves as a formal
guarantee of the official nature of their assignment. The information on this document includes
the name of the individual; the dates during which he or she will be abroad; the means of
transport (“by plane”); and the location, specified by a sentence explaining that the individual
is being sent abroad “for the religious supervision (encadrement religieux) of the Moroccan
Community in [name of city/town].” Moreover, the mandate is issued by the office of the prime
minister, and states that all charges will be covered by the MHAI, along with a signature from
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the secretary-general of the MHAI. 134 Rifki confirmed that “the Ministry [of Habous and
Islamic Affairs] acts as guarantor, so they [the authorities of the countries to which the religious
personnel are sent] have all the guarantees concerning the conditions of their stay during the
month” (Interview, M. Rifki I).
Unlike Turkey and many other states, Morocco only issues two kinds of passports:
normal (green) and diplomatic (red). This means that Moroccan religious personnel are subject
to the exact same visa and travel requirements as any other Moroccan citizen, and only the
diplomatic personnel of the consulates and embassies travel with a different passport. The main
differences occur in the actual application procedure. Once the list of selected religious officials
has been transmitted to the Moroccan foreign affairs and interior ministries, and assuming both
have approved it, the foreign affairs ministry (more specifically the DACS) notifies the
consulates and embassies of the countries concerned. The embassies receive an official note
verbale, which includes the same list of the imams and preachers being sent abroad, while the
consulates concerned with processing the individual visa applications receive the
aforementioned formal mandates and visa applications in addition to this information
(Interview, H. Jaafar I; Interview, DACS, 15 June 2011, Rabat).
In essence, all the necessary documents have already been organized by the time they
reach the DACS at the foreign affairs ministry, including all the individual applications which
are thereafter transmitted to the appropriate consulate (Interview, DACS). For instance, France
has six consulates in Morocco which process the visas depending on the region each individual
applies from; German consular services are located in Rabat; and the Belgian general consulate
is in Casablanca (Interview, M. Rifki I). The French ambassador’s personal secretary
confirmed that after receiving the note verbale, transmitting the information to the consulates
is necessary “so that there are no problems with the visas” (Interview, V. Mayot, 17 June 2011,
Rabat).
At the level of the embassy, the French hold yearly meetings with members of the MHAI
to ensure that the organizational details concerning the delegations sent abroad are established
in advance. According to the French diplomat in charge of media and interior politics, “calling
it a meeting (réunion) is perhaps an exaggeration, but yes we do meet every year to deal with
all the practical issues: who’s to be sent where, which consulate takes care of which person,
134
I was given the opportunity to consult these documents during my first interview with H. Jaafar.
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mostly all with the goal that everything goes smoothly” (Interview, K. Ben Cheikh, 14 May
2012). Within the embassy, it is usually the second counsellor who is responsible for
overseeing this issue, given that it involves coordinating multiple consulates (Interview, K. Ben
Cheikh). In anticipation of these meetings at the French embassy, the MHAI prepares its lists
divided in advance according to the relevant consulate. Moreover, the MHAI informs French
authorities as to the exact arrival time and locations of the individual religious officials once
the airplane tickets have been bought (Interview, M. Rifki I). All this goes to show that the
level of confidence and coordination between French and Moroccan authorities is impressively
high. Furthermore, it is another of the many examples that demonstrates that interstate
cooperation with regard to the sending of religious personnel has become so routine that the
actors involved primarily consider it as a technical and administrative issue.
Interestingly, when the note verbale arrives at the German embassy in Rabat, I was told
that officials are always uncertain as to whether it should end up on the desk of the political
counsellor or the cultural counsellor – so copies are given to both. However, as in the case of
the French “there’s not much to do,” and afterwards the visa applications are dealt with at the
level of the consular services. There is no special status and the visas given are normal tourist
visas that allow the imams to stay for the month of Ramadan. There have never been any real
problems, “maybe just once, when a number of them seemed a little too young, and we asked
ourselves, how well educated they could be,” but in general “everything is quite trouble-free”
(Interview, German Cultural Counsellor, 6 June 2011, Rabat).
In many ways, the perspective presented by this last diplomat encapsulates the entire
process. The confusion as to who should receive the list of religious personnel demonstrates an
initial effect of partial governance in Germany and France (see Chapter IV). Religious affairs
are only understood by the state as a part of another policy domain for which it already has preestablished administrative categories. In this case, religious affairs fall on the line between
“cultural” and “political” affairs, each of which comes with its own potential slant.
However, it is unnecessary to overstate these different perceptions of religious affairs at
this stage, because ultimately the entire process can be translated into even more practical
technical terms in which religion need not even be mentioned. These imams and preachers
represent individuals with a formal state mandate and ministerial backing. They are sent to
foreign countries in order to accomplish a specific task, as set out by the Moroccan state,
concerning Moroccan citizens living abroad. Indeed, in the case of France, the involvement of
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the embassy’s second counsellor is primarily due to yet another administrative factor, namely
that this issue involves coordinating the different consulates concerning the visa applications
(Interview, K. Ben Cheikh).
According to the overwhelming majority of my French, German, and Moroccan
interlocutors, there is practically never any trouble concerning the religious personnel sent
abroad. On the one hand, there is the impressive degree of cooperation and confidence between
these state partners, and as Rifki explains “it’s between friends, between partners. France
counts a lot for Morocco and Morocco counts a lot for France. […] There’s a relation of
fraternity, there’s history, all that” (Interview, M. Rifki I). This is seconded at the French
embassy, where the sending of religious personnel abroad for Ramadan
…is something that we encourage, because it’s an important period and Moroccan
Islam, Maliki Islam, is very tolerant. So it’s better for us that there’s supervision
(encadrement) with competent and reliable individuals. So it’s cooperation, and
it’s been going very well, the sending of imams” (Interview, V. Mayot).
On the other hand, this relationship of trust is so well established that French and German
authorities know that they can depend on the Moroccan state to vet and scrutinize its own
religious personnel. Indeed, as one German diplomat stated, “the king has no interest that there
be any problems here; you won’t find any hatemongers (Haßprediger) in their ranks”
(Interview, German Cultural Counsellor).
Despite this generally rosy picture, on occasion Morocco has been accused of interfering
in local affairs in several Western European countries, which has had an impact on the sending
of religious personnel. This has especially been the case with the Netherlands, which has
frequently perceived Moroccan diaspora policies as an obstacle to the integration of Dutch
Moroccans (de Haas 2009). In one such case, a month and a half before Ramadan in 2008,
numerous members of the Dutch lower house came out “fiercely against imams from Morocco”
(Groen 2008). One labour MP stated that Morocco’s “paternalistic behaviour must stop,” while
a Socialist MP denounced “the long arm of the Moroccan king,” and others joined in “rejecting
Morocco’s offer of seven imams” (Volkskrant 2008). This occurred in the midst of a tense
debate on dual citizenship in the country, which had focused repeatedly on figures such as
Moroccan-Dutch labour MP Kadhija Arib, who was also a member of the Moroccan CCDH.
Another similar case occurred in Spain in 2011, when the newspaper El País reported that
Spanish intelligence services had sent out a confidential memo to the interior, foreign affairs,
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and defence ministers, stating that Morocco was using Islam in order to influence and control
its citizens abroad (Cembrero 2011).
In the case of the Netherlands, regardless of the vocal disapproval of Dutch MPs,
according to the reports of the MHAI, five Qur’an readers and two preachers (one male, one
female) were nevertheless sent to the Netherlands for Ramadan in 2008. However, three years
later there was a sudden change: from 13 religious officials sent in 2010, this suddenly dropped
to zero in 2011. The following year, the number rose once again to 20 imams and preachers
(see Figure V-4 below). The difficulties that occurred concerning the sending of religious
personnel to the Netherlands during Ramadan in 2011 were explained during the interviews as
having nothing to do with the kind of political declarations mentioned above. Jaafar mentioned
that he had followed the issue personally, and that there had been no real problems (Interview,
Jaafar). Rifki, his superior at the MHAI who was in charge of handling the case, put the blame
squarely on administrative misunderstandings:
We have a very good relationship with the Netherlands. However. What there is,
is that the manner that the visa applications are processed, it changes from country
to country. For the Netherlands, the Dutch tradition is that every time a ministry
expresses a formal request – for example we send them preachers – on the Dutch
side there has to be an association, or an organization, which formulates an official
request there as well, with the same name.
Because visa applications are managed directly by the […] immigration authorities,
and [they] have to give their authorization. And the visa departments [of the
consulates] here, they’re independent, they wait for an answer. So if the request is
not made in Amsterdam, in The Hague, it’s normal that there’s a refusal here. So,
for this year we know that… we [will] make a request here, but [first] we [must]
make a request [to start the visa application over] there. Usually it goes well. And
people thought it was due to some kind of stance adopted [by the Dutch]; no no,
there’s no such position (prise de position). Our relations are very good (Interview,
M. Rifki I).
According to Rifki, the reasons for the problems in 2011 were thus “technical,” and not tied to
any ongoing political debates. Indeed, the division between these two domains is quite clear
for Rifki, who gives multiple examples of administrative procedures that must be followed for
each individual state. For instance, for Sweden and Denmark, the law requires that religious
officials be paid for giving sermons, so the local religious association in question must first
prove that the imam or preacher who comes will be sufficiently paid in order to receive a visa.
Language can pose a difficulty at times, but even more important are the official requirements.
For instance, for Belgium, a personal invitation is required for every single imam:
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The other consulates don’t ask for this, but the Belgians do! […] Logistically
speaking, we are required to manage this issue while taking into account the
particularities of each country. It’s not easy. […] Just for Europe it’s complicated.
Simply because there’s no Ministry of Habous, or because there’s the separation
of church and state. So, it’s either a department in the [Interior] Ministry that
handles it, or in the Justice Ministry, and every country has its own tradition in the
management of this issue. It’s not easy. And us, from here, we have to understand
everything. […] That’s our daily bread (Interview, M. Rifki I).
Rifki’s statements demonstrate that there is no one model for religious authorities in
Morocco when dealing with state authorities in Western Europe. In the case of Morocco’s
delegations of preachers and imams during Ramadan, certain states like France may organize
meetings to work out details concerning the administrative procedures to follow. However, in
general religious officials sent abroad receive no separate or special treatment from authorities
in France, Germany, or elsewhere. The fees for each visa are the same as for any other
Moroccan citizen, and the papers and documents demanded are entirely the same.135
Indeed, the international state system seems best understood here as a set of relatively
complicated administrative procedures, which, if not properly respected, result in refused visas.
This explains perhaps why political readings of events are so readily dismissed by members of
MHAI, who have been forced to become experts of international visa and immigration policies.
At the same time, the formal mandates the religious officials submit along with their
applications clearly put them in a separate category. Moreover, the cases mentioned above also
show that the politicization of these religious activities abroad by foreign politicians or
governments is also tied to the general perspective that they adopt: namely, either considering
these delegations as promoting a tolerant, non-radical Islam (as in France and Germany), or
viewing them as posing an obstacle to integration and social cohesion (as in the Netherlands).
3) Destinations
The delegations of imams and preachers sent abroad for Ramadan are all sent to serve
Moroccans living abroad. Unlike Turkey, which dispatches imams to Central Asia, the
Caucasus, and the Balkans, Morocco does not send religious personnel to help in providing
religious services to non-Moroccan populations, even though it does finance mosques and train
135
Visa fees are approximately 60 euros for France; close to 150 euros for the UK; and up to 175 euros
for Scandinavian countries. German is the only state that does not charge for its visa (Interview, M.
Rifki I).
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imams in a number of Western African countries. Unsurprisingly, the largest number of
Moroccan imams and preachers are sent to France, where the largest number of Moroccans
living abroad resides. Despite an extraordinary rise in the number of Moroccans living in Spain
and Italy over the last twenty years, France still represents the most important country of
Moroccan emigration in the world.
In Europe in 2012, the largest Moroccan populations are to be found in six countries:
France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. The largest delegations of
religious personnel are also sent to these six countries, while smaller groups are sent to
Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, the UK and Switzerland. As shown Map V-1 (see below),
the number of religious personnel sent abroad generally reflects the size of the Moroccan
community in each country. There are exceptions to this rule: for instance, the number of
Moroccans in Germany in 2012 was smaller than in every other of the main six countries;
however, the number of religious personnel that it received was larger than every country other
than France.
This fact is most surprising when confronted with the numbers in Italy and Spain, where
there are respectively four and six times the number of Moroccans than in Germany. However,
Moroccans in Italy and Spain are still a relatively recent immigrant group, and that the MHAI
has only begun accounting for this change in recent years. Indeed, while the delegation sent to
France continues to grow every year and is always 3 to 4 times larger than the delegations sent
to its neighbours, the relative importance of the other five main countries for the MHAI in
terms of the size of the Moroccan population has changed markedly (see Figures V-1 and V3).
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Map V-1 “Moroccan Religious Personnel and Moroccans in Western Europe, 2012”
The recent growth of the Moroccan population in Italy and Spain has been reflected in
the constant growth in the size of the delegations sent to these countries by the MHAI since
2008. In contrast, countries where Moroccans have been established for a longer period of time
(Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany) have grown at a slower rate, or have even decreased.
Considering that the number of Moroccans in Italy and Spain has risen far beyond that of the
other three countries, and continues to rise today, it would not be surprising if the size of the
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delegations of imams and preachers sent by the MHAI continued to rise in coming years as
they have in France. From “around 60” individuals during the early 2000s (Interview, M. Rifki
I), the MHAI’s delegation to France has grown every year, reaching 160 imams and preachers
in 2014 (Ministère des Habous et des Affaires Islamiques 2014b; see Figure V-1 for the full
breakdown). Indeed, I have decided not to include France in Figure V-4 (see below) as its
Ramadan delegations are relatively so much larger than those of the other countries’, that it
renders invisible the two trends that can be observed in the graphic: a rapid increase for Spain
and Italy, compared with only gradual growth or a small decline for Belgium, Germany, and
the Netherlands.
Figure V-4 “Five Largest MHAI Ramadan Delegations in Europe (Without France)”
50
45
Religious Personnel
40
35
BE
30
ES
25
IT
20
DE
15
NL
10
5
0
2008
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
Sources: MHAI reports 2008-2013, habous.gouv.ma. Elaborated by author.
In the rest of Europe the size of the MHAI’s Ramadan delegations remains relatively
quite small: often only 1 or 2 religious officials, while those of Denmark and Sweden are
slightly larger (9 and 6 respectively in 2014). The imams and preachers sent by the FHII differ
very little: the main six countries accounted for almost 80% of its delegation in 2012 (for the
MHAI it was 93%). Other than Western Europe, Moroccans are present in many other countries
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across the globe. However, the only non-European countries to which the MHAI and the FHII
send religious personnel are Canada and the United States in North America, and Senegal and
Ivory Coast in Africa.136 Other than Canada, where the number has been growing and has now
reached a dozen religious officials, the delegations to these countries remain quite small:
usually only a few individuals, and sometimes none at all (such as for Senegal in 2011 and
2012).
The geographic destinations of Moroccan religious officials sent abroad during Ramadan
clearly reflect the fact that this policy is aimed at reaching the Morocco diaspora. The size of
these delegations has adapted to the changing migration patterns of Moroccans in recent years,
while also revealing an across-the-board rise, and now concerns over 500 imams, preachers,
and professors sent around the world. Consequently, this operation requires an important
degree of coordination and organization, which in France and Germany is assumed by the local
consulates and the main Moroccan religious associations.
4) Organization of the Stay Abroad
In general, the religious personnel sent by Morocco arrive directly in the region where they are
to officiate and are looked over by the local Moroccan consulate, and more specifically the
social affairs counsellor. The social affairs counsellor, who operates as a member of the DACS,
is an individual with numerous responsibilities. As one counsellor explained, these can be
divided into “social, cultural, and religious activities.” The social activities are relatively
extensive, and can include many different services: organizing the repatriation of deceased
citizens to Morocco for burial; helping Moroccan couples who are having problems in their
relationship or with their children; visiting Moroccan prisoners incarcerated in local jails, or
patients in local hospitals; or accompanying Moroccans who are due to be expelled from the
country.137
The cultural activities include the organization of summer camps in Morocco, or the
coordination of Arabic language programmes with teachers sent from Morocco, both of which
136
There are large Moroccan communities in Algeria, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia as well.
The information for these and the following paragraphs comes from three interviews with social
affairs counsellors: Interview, Social Affairs Counsellor, 13 November 2010, Düsseldorf; Interview,
Vice-Consul Marseille; Interview, K. Ghachi, 27 October 2010, Paris; along with the information
provided on consular websites (cf. Kingdom of Morocco 2010a).
137
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are paid for by the FHII. This is part of their general mission to oversee the programmes
established by the FHII and the Foundation Mohammed V. Finally, religious activities refer in
particular to the coordination of imams and preachers who come for Ramadan, but include as
well the distribution of Qur’ans sent from Morocco and the processing of Saudi Arabian visas
for the pilgrimage to Mecca. In the case of Turkey, all these religious activities are under the
responsibility of the religious counsellors and attachés, demonstrating once again the clear
structural differences between these two states in the organization of religious activities abroad.
When the imams and preachers arrive during Ramadan they receive their assignment and
schedule from the social affairs counsellors. The counsellors have lists of all the Moroccan
mosques and religious associations located in the geographic region covered by their consulate,
along with the names of the association presidents and their contact information. For instance,
I was shown one such list during my visit to the consulate in Düsseldorf, which included all
the Moroccan mosques in contact with the consulate in the state of NRW. As the head of
religious affairs at the Moroccan embassy in Paris mentioned, “the social affairs attaché, he’s
the one who deals with religious affairs. Because he manages all the Moroccan associations.
Including the religious ones, the ones which manage the mosques. It’s within this framework”
(Interview, Binebine).
As mentioned above, the social affairs counsellors are often involved from the beginning
in the process of sending religious personnel abroad, given that they are the ones who receive
requests from associations for imams and preachers. Once the religious officials have arrived,
these counsellors also “take the initiative to contact the different religious associations in order
to find out which ones require extra help for the Ramadan services” (Interview, K. Ghachi).
Thereafter, they are responsible for establishing the schedule for the religious officials during
their stay abroad: for instance in NRW the counsellor and his or her co-workers indicate to the
imams “these days here, these days there, covering the entire state: Wuppertal, Duisburg,
Dortmund, etc., for the 56,000 Moroccans in NRW” (Interview, Social Affairs Counsellor).138
Moreover, it is usually thanks to coordination with the local mosque associations that the
religious officials are offered their housing while abroad.
138
According to the 2012 statistics of the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this has grown to
62,552 (DACS 2012, 1).
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The consulates are responsible for supervising the religious personnel and ensuring that
they carry out the assignment they have been sent to accomplish. As the chief of staff of the
minister for Moroccans living abroad related,
He [the imam or preacher] is supervised by the consulate or the embassy, he’s
accompanied. [The consulate] watches over his work, it writes a report for him,
saying if it’s someone who has carried out his duty. I mean, we don’t send them
over there for tourism! There are cases, you know… there’s the imam you send
who gives one class a week, and the other who gives a class every day (Interview,
B. Ounir).
Given that the religious officials sent abroad have already been screened by numerous
ministerial departments at this point, it is perhaps not surprising that the most difficult problems
concern imams who spend too much time sight-seeing and not enough time in the mosque.
Ounir, who was also a consul-general and a department head during his 23-year career at the
foreign affairs ministry, explained that these reports were in fact quite summary:
As for the reports, it’s more of a confirmation of their presence, saying that Mr. X
was there, when he started his service, so that he deserves the [financial] bonus that
he receives. If you go over there [Europe, etc.], you’re given a month-long
mandate. If the consulate has only seen you two days… well hey. They’re not
reports on his activities or if he’s worked well or on the content of his talks. That’s
more so the community that sees to that. They can tell you and yes, you can see it
in the requests the year after: “we want this imam, we don’t want that one”
(Interview, B. Ounir).
The feedback which the consulate receives from the different mosque associations concerning
the imams and preachers can thus also have an impact on the composition of future delegations.
Moreover, the report prepared by the consulate also seems tied to the paperwork for the bonuses
the religious personnel receives. The financial aspect (and the aforementioned bonuses) comes
full circle once the religious officials have fulfilled their mission and returned to Morocco: at
the bottom-right of the formal mandates they receive, “there’s a little corner for the finance
ministry, [which] signs and stamps the documents once the assignment has been completed”
(Interview, H. Jaafar I).
This describes the standard procedure for Moroccan religious officials sent abroad
during Ramadan from Morocco. Given the short period of time they spend abroad, these imams
and preachers are generally only in contact with members of the local mosque associations and
the consular services of the Moroccan foreign affairs ministry, and thus are infrequently in
contact with French or German authorities. Indeed, for all legal intents and purposes there is
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no reason for any such contact, given that they all have already received their visas before
arriving, and do not stay longer than their assignment requires.
However, since 2008 there have been a number of important changes in this procedure.
The MHAI has strengthened its partnership with specific religious associations in each country,
which has been further cemented by the financial donations which it provides on a yearly basis.
This has been the case of the RMF in France – which was replaced by the UMF in 2013 – and
the ZMaD in Germany, or the Union of Islamic Cultural Centres of Catalonia in Spain. On the
one hand, the MHAI has come to hold a more central role in the sending of religious personnel
abroad in Morocco when compared with other ministries and institutions. On the other hand,
its partner associations in foreign countries have begun to take on the tasks carried out in the
past by the social affairs counsellors of the consulates concerning the organization and
supervision of the Ramadan delegations. These developments have occurred within the general
framework of the ongoing reform of the Moroccan religious field. Moreover, they have been
accompanied by the sending of 30 permanent imams to France, the founding of the European
Council of Moroccan Ulema (CEOM) in Brussels, and general increased Moroccan state
involvement in the funding of mosques and religious associations abroad, which I will consider
in Chapter VI.
5) Organizational Support: Studies and Reports
I consider organizational support to represent a policy instrument that permits home state
institutions to structure the inner workings of Islamic associations active in the French and
German Muslim fields. Organizational support can be presented through the techniques it
employs: symbolic actions reinforcing ties to home state actors and institutions; the
establishment of hierarchies and routinized channels for the exchange of information; and the
production of specialized knowledge concerning the Muslim field abroad. Finally, the
respective tools of these techniques can be considered their tangible manifestations, such as the
visits by state officials to mosques abroad, the hiring of religious actors abroad by home state
institutions, and the drawing up of studies and reports evaluating pre-existing activities and
policies.
Whereas the Diyanet has directly extended its institutional framework abroad, the
MHAI has employed a more diffuse logic, relying instead on cooptation and the establishment
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of changeable alliances. Though the amicales may no longer occupy the central place they used
to, the strategy employed by the MHAI in the organization of religious activities abroad has
followed a similar model. The Moroccan state’s organizational model abroad continues to rely
in part on the foreign affairs ministry, in the form of high-ranking diplomats and consular
employees, and on the other hand, on Muslim associations with which the MHAI cooperates
in France, Germany, and elsewhere in Western Europe. I believe that the explanation for this
indirect approach in terms of organizational support (when compared with Turkey) is twofold:
first, the Moroccan state’s historical tendency to coopt religious actors (see Chapters II and
III); and second, its capacity to employ another policy instrument that Turkish authorities do
not have at their disposal: direct financial support.
In terms of symbolic visits, the Minister of Habous and Islamic Affairs Ahmed Toufiq
has been present at the opening ceremonies of large mosques in France that have been largely
paid for by Morocco, such as the Great Mosques of Saint-Étienne and Strasbourg in 2012. The
MHAI counsellor for Moroccans abroad Mohammed Rifki also regularly visits Muslim
associations in Western Europe, such as the RMF in France, or the ZMaD at the Al-Taqwa
mosque in Frankfurt, and other employees such as Ghissassi and Jaafer have travelled abroad
to accompany preachers or promote cooperation with local associations. On another level, the
CCME’s working group on “religions and religious education” organized a large conference
in Strasbourg in 2010 on the training of imams in Europe, following two conferences on similar
themes held in Fez and Casablanca the years before. The CCME does not work directly with
Muslim associations in Western Europe, but the secretary-general of the organization, Abdellah
Boussouf, has many personal ties due to the positions he has held as president of the Great
Mosque of Strasbourg and vice-president of the CFCM.
Nevertheless, a glance at the conferences of the RMF over the last years does not reveal
any employees of the MHAI, but rather two other sets of actors: on the one hand, diplomats
such as the local Moroccan consul-general. On the other hand, there is a select group of reciters
and preachers such as Belmadani, El Kamali, and El Kouchi, who are linked to regional ulema
councils and important mosques in Morocco, and others who are members of the CEOM, such
as Amine Nejdi (France) and Tahar Toujgani (Belgium).
The same constellation appears during the public iftar offered by the Moroccan
embassy and the CEOM in Belgium in 2012 (CEOM 2012), where speakers included the
Moroccan ambassador and Khalid Hajji, the secretary-general of the CEOM. Another similarly
383
telling example is the reception held for Moroccan Ramadan imams sent to France by the
MHAI and the FHII in 2014, which took place at the Évry mosque. Once again, the speakers
included the local Moroccan consul-general and associative leaders: Khalil Merroun, president
of the Évry mosque, and Mohammed Moussaoui and Mohammed Mraizika, respectively
president and secretary general of the Moroccan-linked Union of Mosques in France (Union
des Mosquées France, UMF). However, no MHAI employees seem to have been present
(Labzioui 2014).
In terms of studies, the first place to look are the annual activity reports of the MHAI,
which have been made available on its internet website. It is possible to access them back to
2004, though they are only available in Arabic. Recently, entire sections have been upload
straight to the MHAI’s website as well. These yearly reports are divided into the following
sections: mosques; Islamic affairs; awqāf; religious education; and general management.
Information and data on religious activities abroad is to be found in “general management,”
more specifically under the subheading “cooperation and communication,” in a separate
section on “Communication with the Moroccan Community Abroad.”
The MHAI’s 2004 activity report (nashrat al-munjazāt), the earliest report that I been
able to consult, provides little information: it mentions the participation of children of the
community abroad in Qur’an recitation contests, along with the attendance of a group of ulema
“representative of the Moroccan community [abroad]” in the Hassanian talks given during
Ramadan, and the distribution of Qur’ans copies and ministerial publications (Ministère des
Habous et des Affaires Islamiques 2005, 81). All the reports of the years thereafter continue to
mention these points, but progressively they begin providing more information on a number of
other activities. Starting with information on the number of preachers and imams sent abroad,
the reports also mention special conferences organized by the MHAI for the Moroccan
diaspora, and beginning in 2009, they give precise figures on the financial aid sent to Muslim
associations in Western European countries. These activities correspond to the
abovementioned new initiatives that will be treated in the next chapter.
Though they may exist, I have found no studies carried out by Moroccan theologians
or academic production by religious institutional actors on the state’s religious activities
abroad. The ministerial reports mentioned by my interviewees usually turned out to be the
yearly activity reports mentioned above, while at other moments they were internal reports to
which I was not given access. In fact, one of the sole moments where I have seen these state
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religious employees speaking in foreign contexts was during a conference held at Princeton
University in 2007 on “The Many Ways of Being Muslim.” During this conference, numerous
academics spoke alongside the MHAI’s director of Islamic affairs Ahmed Kostas, who gave a
talk on Moroccan Sufism; the president of the Mohamadia League of Moroccan Ulema Ahmed
Abbadi; and a “Moroccan murshida,” who was the closing speaker (Princeton University
2007). The FHII equally has its own internal reports concerning the religious officials it sends
abroad, but dozens of unanswered phone calls and two last-minute cancelled interviews have
precluded me from gaining access to these documents. The closest I have found is a 63-page
report by a master’s student (El Moukhi 2008), who worked as an intern at the foundation for
two months and carried out a general evaluation of their principle activities.
The CCME’s working group on “religions and religious education” has organized three
large conferences that have brought together top European academics and practitioners on the
themes related to Islam in Europe. The first conference was held in Fez in 2008 on the legal
status of Islam in Europe; the second was in Casablanca in 2009 on the models for Islam in
Europe; and the third conference took place at the European Parliament in Strasbourg in 2010
on the training of imams in Europe. The papers presented at all three conferences were
published the year after the conference, and represent a who’s who of scholars, public figures,
and religious association leaders involved in Moroccan Islamic affairs in Western European
countries (Conseil de la Communauté Marocaine à l’Etranger 2011a; Conseil de la
Communauté Marocaine à l’Etranger 2011b; Conseil de la Communauté Marocaine à
l’Etranger 2010).
Indeed, according to Boussouf, the CCME’s vision is that “no one has the solution to
these problems [concerning Islam in Europe]” and so the goal is to promote dialogue between
“three categories of actors: Muslim actors who on are the ground, political or public officials,
and academics,” because “we have an interest in working together, reflecting together, asking
questions, and let’s try to come up with answers, because I believe we’re all concerned in the
same way” (Interview, A. Boussouf).
The CCME has held many similar conferences on the Moroccan community abroad,
focusing on themes such as language, sports, and youth, with the support of the Ministry for
the Moroccan Community Residing Abroad (MCMRE). In addition, the CCME has notably
commissioned a study carried out by the research institute BVA on Moroccans living in six
European countries (France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherland, and Germany) and their
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transnational relations in 2009 (BVA 2009), and another survey more focused on Moroccan
youth abroad in 2010 (BVA 2010). At times, these conferences and studies seem to overlap
those promoted by the FHII, though a look at the foundation’s yearly report “Marocains de
l’extérieur” and its publications on MREs display its central focus on economic questions and
development (Fondation Hassan II 2014c).
Moroccan state institutions that provide organizational support to religious actors active
in the Muslim fields of France, Germany, and other Western European countries most likely
take into account the studies of the CCME and the FHII at some stage. However, in general
there are few ties between the CCME and religious activities abroad, and even the FHII’s
participation is limited to the payment of its contingent of Ramadan imams and occasional
speakers. The MHAI remains a “sovereign ministry” (see Chapter II) led by a figure close to
the king, whose activities and relations with Muslim associations abroad continue to include
an important structural role played by the foreign affairs ministry.
The creation of the CEOM in 2008 and the increasing delegation of authority to
associations abroad are symbols of a new dynamic in the structuration of the Moroccan
transnational religious field by state authorities. Nevertheless, despite the importance of both
organizational support and the sending of imams, the main instrument by which King
Mohammed VI and the MHAI have structured the Moroccan transnational Muslim field in
recent years has been financial. The monetary support provided by the MHAI – or the king
himself – for mosques and Muslim associations abroad constitutes the most visible
manifestation of the politics of the Moroccan Muslim field. The decision about whom to fund
is never random, and reflects a highly calculated choice involving higher state officials and
royal counsellors who must determine the MHAI’s position concerning the numerous groups
abroad with affinities to the PJD, ʿAdl wal Iḥsān, the Tabligh, and Salafist movements.
C - Turkey
1) Categories and Selection
Turkey’s religious personnel abroad can be divided along three axes: length of stay (short term
vs. long term); hierarchical position (imam hatip; coordinator imam; attaché; counsellor); and
geographical region. Unlike Morocco, the Turkish state cannot provide direct funding to
386
mosques (inside or outside the country); on the other hand, the Diyanet is far more organized
when it comes to its religious personnel.
Short-term delegations are sent by Turkey for two major events: Ramadan and Kutlu
Doğum Haftası (Holy Birth Week), the latter of which is also known as Mawlid in Arabic and
celebrates of the birth of the prophet Mohammed.139 For Ramadan, the needs are the same as
in the Moroccan case, which means imam hatips; a group of preachers, which is given the name
“guidance team” (irşat ekibi); and cooks, who help in the preparation of the iftar, the meal
which breaks the fast at the end of the day (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2010b, 59; Yaşar 2012,
45). Mawlid is an interesting holiday that demonstrates both national divergence in Islamic
traditions as well as the influence of religious institutions. While Eid al-Mawlid is an official
holiday in Morocco, Turkey is the only country to celebrate a week of festivities, which Yaşar
attributes to an idea of the Turkey Diyanet Foundation (TDV). For Yaşar, “the creation of a
new Islamic tradition through the Diyanet Foundation, its adoption by the Diyanet and its
spread across the world through the Diyanet’s organizations abroad, illustrate how influential
the Diyanet network can be” (2012, 44).140
Precise numbers are hard to come by, especially since the activity reports of the Diyanet
do not consistently provide the same information. For instance, the Diyanet’s yearly activity
reports during 2008-2013 sometimes give separate numbers for both events (2008, 2009);
sometimes only mention one of them (only Mawlid in 2010; Ramadan “and other events” in
2011); at other times include both added together (2013); or do not give any information at all
(2012). This makes it very difficult to gain a clear picture. Nevertheless, the total number of
temporary religious personnel for these two events usually hovers between 200-300
individuals, with between 100-200 for Ramadan and 80-150 for Mawlid.141 According to the
Diyanet’s current strategic plan, this number is to increase by 15 on a yearly basis, coming to
Also mevlit in Turkish (i.e. Mevlit Kandili), sometimes mīlād (there are numerous transliterations),
the word simply means “birth” in Arabic. This holiday is disputed by some Islamic scholars and Salafist
currents which maintain that it is bidʿa, i.e. a human innovation which does not correspond to divine
precepts.
140
Despite the veracity of this statement, Yaşar’s choice of word in calling this a “new Islamic tradition”
(neue islamische Tradition) might be disputed by the Diyanet because it could imply that the Diyanet
was innovating new Islamic traditions (bidʿa) (cf. the preceding footnote).
141
See Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2008, p.62; Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2009, p.59; Diyanet İşleri
Başkanlığı 2010, p.47; Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2011, p.44; Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2012a, pp.44–
45; Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2013b, p.59.
139
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a planned total of 322 “speakers and religious officials” serving abroad for “special occasions”
in 2016 (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2012b, 62).
The religious personnel sent abroad for Ramadan and Mawlid are temporary, sent only
for the period of the holidays in question, just as with their Moroccan counterparts. However,
there is another type of temporary religious personnel, who are named “short-term” (kısa
süreli) religious officials in the Diyanet’s reports, in contrast to the “long-term” (uzun süreli)
religious officials who constitute the bulk of the Turkish state’s religious personnel abroad.
These short-term imams are sometimes counted together with those sent for Islamic holidays
(Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2012e, 44; Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2013b, 62), but actually serve
a different purpose. In general, they are sent to respond to a shortage of imams in a given
country; however, in some contexts they can also represent a technique by which the Diyanet
can bypass the official limits that may be imposed by the receiving state on the number of
Diyanet imams. This is especially the case in France, where the number of long-term Diyanet
imams has been capped by a quota established by the French authorities. These short-term
imams enter the country with a “special” (hususi damgalı) passport, thanks to which they can
automatically receive an entry visa without having to apply from Turkey every time.142
On the other hand, these short-term imams must leave the country every few months and
re-enter in order to receive another visa. This is why one of the most extensive reports on the
subject in Germany names them “three-month-imams” (Drei-Monats-Imame), though in the
German context it is normally Milli Görüş that is forced to resort to this course of action, and
less so the Diyanet (Halm et al. 2012, 9, 422, 435). French authorities have been keen on putting
an end to this practice, and explicitly mention it as a goal in the declaration of intent signed
with Turkey in 2010 (see Chapter VI.C.1.). Turkish religious authorities themselves seem to
be in full agreement, and in the current strategic plan the overall number of short-term imams
– 266 in 2011 – is projected to decrease by 100, and then 50 per year, until there will be none
left in 2016 (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2012b, 63).
Nevertheless, during a visit to a mosque that recently changed from Milli Görüş to DITIB
in the French city of Montfermeil, I was informed that the aforementioned quota was the reason
why the community had not yet been able to have an “official imam” (imam cadre). Instead,
142
There are four different kinds of passports in Turkey: normal passports (umuma mahsus pasaport),
which are navy blue; service passports (hizmet damgalı pasaport), which are grey; special passports
(hususi damgalı pasaport), which are green; and diplomatic passports (diplomatik pasaport), which are
red.
388
the mosque community had to content themselves with an imam who had to leave the country
every three months (Interview, DITIB Kuba Mosque, 29 May 2014, Montfermeil).
Consequently, it may be difficult for the Diyanet to achieve its goal of phasing out its shortterm imams if the number of demands for long-term imams abroad continues to grow, while
the quota in France remains to be in place.
The Diyanet’s personnel abroad is thus divided into the following categories: the
counsellors (müşavir), the attachés, and their assistants, who all serve for 4 years abroad; “longterm religious officials” (uzun süreli din görevlisi), who stay for either 4 or 5 years (depending
on the country); “short-term religious officials” (kısa süreli din görevlisi), who stay abroad a
total of 2 years; those sent for Ramadan, Kurban Bayramı (Eid al-Adha), including “guidance
officials” (irşat görevlisi), who are groups of preachers; and “other” (see Figure V-5 for the
breakdown).
Figure V-5 “Total Diyanet Personnel Abroad by Category, 2002-2013”
Other
Guidance
Kurban
94
48
130
Ramadan
1545
Short-term
3322
Long-term
Assistant attaché
Attaché
Counsellor
3784
11
93
47
Source: Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2014d.
Long-term religious officials represent the lion’s share of the Diyanet’s personnel
serving abroad (41.7%). This trend will most likely become even more noticeable in the coming
years, given that the current strategic report indicates that the number of short-term religious
389
officials is set to decrease dramatically, as mentioned above. The number of women within the
group of long-term religious officials remains exceedingly low: only 132 individuals, or 3.5%
of the total, meaning that the overwhelmingly majority are imam hatips. The number of these
imams has continued to grow since they were first sent abroad at the end of the 1970s, and
there is no sign that their numbers will decline any time soon. They all serve in mosques
affiliated with the national DITIB or Diyanet Foundation umbrella organizations, and they are
under the responsibility of the regional religious services attaché (din hizmetleri ataşesi) at the
level of each Turkish consulate. These attachés are themselves overseen by the religious
services counsellors (din hizmetleri müşaviri), who are appointed to Turkish embassies abroad.
As already mentioned, none of these individuals are diplomats: they are all members of
the Diyanet, officially sent to foreign countries for the purpose of providing religious services
to the community abroad. On the other hand, since the attachés and the counsellor are appointed
to serve in Turkish consulates and the Turkish embassy, they are considered to be covered by
the Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic (1961) and Consular (1963) relations (other than
recently in the case of Germany, see Chapter VI.C.2.). This means, for instance, that the
Diyanet’s religious attachés and counsellors hold diplomatic (red) passports, have diplomatic
licence plates on their official vehicle, and benefit from diplomatic or consular immunity
(Interview, Turkish Religious Attaché, 17 March 2011, Düsseldorf). Normal imams do not
benefit from any kind of diplomatic immunity and do not hold diplomatic passports, but as
state employees working abroad hold either green (special) passports or grey (service)
passports. The former grant more travel privileges than the latter, and are given to public
servants with the grade of 1, 2, or 3, while those who have 4 are given grey passports (Paragraph
14, Passport Law 5682, 1950).
Since attachés and counsellors are appointed as representatives of their own ministries
in the consulates and embassies abroad, they receive their salaries directly from the ministry
they represent. Conversely, given that state employees appointed to work in foreign countries
are there to serve Turkish citizens, they are viewed differently and their salaries are paid by the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As one embassy diplomat explained to me,
It’s quite different [from the attachés], [the religious personnel] are sent to provide
a service. That is to say, both [Turkish language] teachers and imams are sent
abroad to provide a service to Turks, to our citizens here. […] It’s just like the
official who issues a passport at the consulate in Düsseldorf – the nation provides
a service to a Turkish citizen. That’s why they’re our personnel. It’s a question of
foreign affairs, because providing services to Turkish citizens abroad is a duty of
390
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, not the Diyanet (Interview, I. Okyay, 7 April 2011,
Berlin).
This perspective is above all interesting for its emphasis on the word “service” (hizmet).
Moreover, the idea that Islamic affairs constitute a public service, along with its implications,
could not be more clearly expressed.
According to this view, the imam officiating in a mosque is providing a service to citizens
in the exact same way as the Turkish language teacher, or the consular employee issuing a
passport. Moreover, considering that these public services provided by the state all fall under
the purview of the foreign affairs ministry once the border is crossed, it is a logical consequence
for this diplomat that imams sent abroad should also be included in the MFA’s general budget.
The overarching framework of laws, directives, and practices here all show that the Turkish
state’s treatment of religion as a public service cannot simply be cynically brushed away as
discursive camouflage. No matter the political interests that may be involved, this conception
of religious services is the result of a process of administrative rationalization.
This administrative logic was on full display during the Turkish presidential elections of
2014, during which Turkish citizens in foreign countries were given the right for the first time
to vote from abroad. Given that polling booths and vote collection require both organization
and personnel, running elections in foreign countries for the first time ever represented a
challenging task. Consequently, the Turkish state turned to the employees it already had on the
ground: the teachers sent abroad by the education ministry and the imams of the Diyanet.
According to a Diyanet official, both groups were given the task of manning the polling stations
out of necessity “since they are state officials (devlet görevlisi ya),” and many imams even had
their stays abroad extended an extra month for this reason, and in case there was a second round
of voting (Interview, F. Hamurcu II, 12 August 2014). As pointed out by my interviewee, no
matter whether they are teachers, imams, or diplomats, for the Turkish state they are first and
foremost state employees.143
The first diplomatic counsellor at the Turkish embassy in France was somewhat more
practical in his view of the imams’ salaries:
143
This ostensibly straight-forward administrative decision was accompanied by criticism from the leftwing newspaper Sözcü, which published an article asserting that hundreds of individuals affiliated with
the centre-left CHP party in Germany were not accepted by the High Electoral Council (Yüksek Seçim
Kurulu) (Gülen 2014).
391
It’s a little… it’s a budgetary technique that’s a little different. For us, when a state
employee goes abroad, their salary becomes part of the budget of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs. That’s external affairs. It’s about the same thing for the French
too. We pay their salaries – the imams, the teachers, etc. or even police officers
from time to time, for security, etc. They become, for a more or less set period of
time, employees (salariés) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But administratively
speaking, they are of course tied to their counsellor, the counsellor is tied to us, and
the Diyanet, when they go back. So he [the imam] returns to the ranks of the
Diyanet afterwards, he does not go to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Interview,
E. Solakoğlu, 20 October 2011, Paris).
The administrative process which leads to imams becoming temporary employees of the MFA
is compared here not only to other similar cases (teachers, police officers), but also to that of
France and its management of foreign affairs. The fact that religion is under discussion here is
secondary – at least for administrative purposes. Indeed, the most important difference is
perhaps the “budgetary technique” that is used, but the general idea is the same: it is a question
of a state employee going abroad. At the same time, Solakoğlu’s statement is clearer in
highlighting that the imams might receive their pay from the MFA, but never stop being
members of the Diyanet.
The salary paid by the MFA represents a separate allowance which is received in
addition to the religious officials’ regular salary, which they continue to receive throughout the
duration of their time abroad. Consequently, this aspect has long been held to explain the
inordinate interest on the part of the Diyanet’s religious personnel to serve abroad. These
considerable financial gains were most likely a driving factor for many imams during the 1980s
and 1990s, a time period when the Turkish economy was frequently unstable. Many religious
officials were in fact following the same logic as their fellow compatriots, and going abroad as
Diyanet imams was the first step in a larger migratory project in the search for better living
conditions for themselves and/or their families. This was especially the case for many imams
who decided not to return to Turkey after finishing their time as Diyanet imams abroad, at
which point a large number were recuperated by the Milli Görüş network.
However, since the beginning of the 2000s, the Turkish economy has experienced
unprecedented growth, which has equally had an impact on the motivations of Diyanet imams
for serving abroad. While the financial benefits involved are by no means negligible, the imams
with whom I spoke during my field work emphasized other factors, such as the possibility to
continue their education in foreign institutions, or the desire to travel and get to know new
cultures (Interview, Diyanet Imam, 10 March 2011, Berlin; Interview, Diyanet Imam, 15
392
March 2011, Münster). Indeed, while discussing with one Diyanet imam in Toronto, Canada,
about his motivation for going abroad, he pointed out that the extra pay allowance in North
America is in fact lower than in Western European countries. Though he had been offered the
possibility of going to Cologne, his main desire for himself and his family was to be in an open,
multicultural country where the local Turkish community was more educated, and in particular
where the main language was English. Consequently, he had applied for Canada, the USA, and
Australia (in that order), while also thinking of the potential opportunities for his two children
– one of whom had been accepted to a prominent Canadian university at the time of the
interview (Interview, Diyanet Imam, 18 April 2014, Toronto).
Salaries for Turkish imams are standardized along the same lines as other state
employees sent abroad. The most frequent comparison, as in the case of Morocco as well, is
with teachers. Teachers have been sent abroad by the education ministries of Turkey, Morocco,
and numerous other countries, for just as long as imams have. Their task has been to teach
“culture and language of origin” (ELCO) courses to the children of immigrant families in
Western European countries (see Chapter III.C.2), and the procedure concerning their entry
and stay is in many respects the same as that for religious personnel. Indeed, culture and
religion become intimately entwined at this juncture. For the FHII, sending teachers and
religious personnel abroad are both filed under “cultural promotion” (Fondation Hassan II
2014b), while the social affairs attachés at the Moroccan consulates are responsible for
overseeing both religious personnel and teachers (Kingdom of Morocco 2010a; Kingdom of
Morocco 2010b).
In Turkey, a cabinet decision in 2003 (BKK 2003/5753, see Türkiye Cumhuriyeti 2003)
set out the legal and administrative framework for all personnel who are sent abroad with the
goal of “making known, spreading, and protecting Turkish culture abroad, and protecting the
cultural ties of our citizens and kin (soydaşlarımız).” This cabinet decision also established an
interministerial commission called the Ortak Kültür Komisyonu (Joint Culture Commission,
OKK), bringing together representatives from the finance, education, culture, and tourism
ministries, while the Diyanet “participates in the commission in the procedures and affairs
concerning religious officials” (Article 4). This commission represents the last step in a long
line of examinations which concern all religious personnel (and teachers) who apply for a longterm appointment abroad.
393
The selection process for long-term religious officials sent abroad is extensive. It
comprises an initial written examination, followed by an interview in person with a committee
put together by the Diyanet’s Branch Directorate for Turks Abroad. Those who are successful
after this stage then go on to a final oral interview with the OKK, though once the Diyanet has
given its approval there is rarely an objection from the other ministries. The written
examination includes questions convering a wide range of subjects:
There are many questions about other religions, not just Islam. For example there
are questions about Buddhism. Even if someone’s going to Europe, you have to
know about Buddhism, because there might be followers of such big religions, you
have to know their lifestyle. Religious subjects are very sensitive subjects. If you
don’t watch out, it’s possible that the things you say might offend other people.
Of course, because it’s Europe there are many questions concerning Christianity.
Already, when you study theology (ilahiyat), a lot of information is given on
Christianity. But nevertheless, because they’re going abroad we ask more specific
questions, nuances […]. Questions for religious professionals, Qur’an, hadith,
tafsir, fiqh, those kinds of questions. As well as general knowledge, Turkish
history, European history, Ottoman history, general world geography. Philosophy..
sociology, psychology questions too. (Interview, F. Hamurcu I).
The interest amongst the Diyanet’s personnel for serving abroad is extremely high: during the
examinations held in 2011, between 15,000 and 20,000 applications were received, and close
to 4,000 individuals were accepted for the interview stage. The entire process from application
to selection and departure abroad takes between one and one and a half years, and clearly
constitutes a major part of the work carried out by this department (Interview, F. Hamurcu I).
The level of education of these imams is higher than that of the majority: according to
Hamurcu, only university graduates are sent abroad, and competency in foreign languages
(German, English, French, etc.) is given special attention. The higher educational qualifications
of the personnel sent abroad stands out when compared with the educational level of the
Diyanet’s general personnel. In both cases a very large number have completed a 2-year higher
educational degree (ön lisans); however, amongst religious personnel sent abroad over half
(55%) held a bachelor’s degree (lisans) or higher, compared to slightly under 1/5 of the
Diyanet’s general personnel (18.7%). Moreover, while almost a third (27.9%) of the Diyanet’s
general personnel have only completed high school education (or less), this is not reflected at
all amongst religious officials abroad (2.7%); even within this small group, the great majority
are either short-term or temporary personnel (83%) (see Figure V-6 below).
394
Figure V-6 “Educational Qualifications of the Diyanet’s Personnel Abroad vs. General
Personnel”
Percentage (%) of Total Personnel
General Personnel
Personnel Abroad
53,5
43,2
42,3
26,5
9
11,8
9,7
2,7
PhD or
Master's
Bachelor's
2-Year Higher
Education
Degree
High School
1,4
0
Primary or
Junior High
School
The numbers used for the personnel abroad are those of the total sent abroad between 2002 and 2013, while those
for the Diyanet’s overall personnel are from its 2013 activity report. Sources: Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2014d, 4;
Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2014e, 17. Elaborated by author.
The aforementioned 2003 cabinet decision also establishes the salaries of the personnel
sent abroad, in the relevant currency by country, and divided into two categories: slightly less
for religious officials and teachers, and slightly more for higher-ranking educational personnel.
As of 2009, Turkish religious officials sent to France or Germany (or any other Eurozone
country) receive 1,875 euros per month, paid by the MFA, which also covers all initial and
final travel costs (see article 10). There are slight variations for other countries: for instance,
2,000 U.S. dollars for the United States, and 1,500 pounds for the UK (see Annex 3 for a
complete list).
Along with many other work-related details, such as parental or sick leave and salary
advances, the cabinet decision prohibits all state employees from receiving extra payments, and
stipulates that doing so may results in an inquiry and the termination of the appointment (article
16). Moreover, the article on “special appointees” abroad cites solely religious officials, thus
applying for temporary religious personnel sent for Ramadan, Mawlid, or to accompany
pilgrims on the hajj, and limits their time abroad to two months, after which time their payments
395
are to be cut off (article 18). This establishes a clear difference between this group of temporary
religious personnel and the short-term imams mentioned above, who do not seem covered by
any article in the cabinet decision.144
The total number of Turkish state personnel abroad appointed by the OKK is not to
exceed 3,000 individuals per year (article 6). This seems borne out by the MFA’s website,
which states that there are “currently 1.618 Turkish language teachers, 112 Turkish language
lecturers [… and] 1.282 religious officers […] posted to countries where the members of the
Turkish community live,” coming to a total of 3,012 (Turkey Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2011).
However, this 3,000-person limit appears less relevant when all official Diyanet documents
from 2008 to 2013 put the number of long-term imams abroad at between 1,400 and 1,650
(including the 35-56 attachés and counsellors, who are paid by the Diyanet and are subject to
a different appointment procedure).
The latest statistics on the number of long-term Diyanet imams abroad are from 2012
and 2013, though they vary between 1,427; 1,525; and 1,641, depending on which source is
consulted (respectively Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2013b, 62; Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2012c,
54; Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2012b, 42). The problem is often that temporary imams and longterm imams are counted together, and sometimes apart, while at times certain contingents are
(or are not) counted, based on the geographic region to which they are sent. Indeed, given the
disparate information even in official reports, it is no surprise that the information on the
number of the Diyanet’s imams abroad in media, academic, and administrative sources is at
times inconsistent.
144
Similar details regarding pay, holidays, passport issues and more, are covered by a lengthy Diyanet
circular (number B.02.1DİB.0.65.02-010.06.02-920) issued on 6 August 2007.
396
Figure V-7 “Diyanet Religious Personnel Abroad, 1979-2013”
2000
1800
1600
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0
1975
1980
1985
Çakır and Bozan
1990
1995
2000
Academic and Official Reports
2005
2010
2015
2020
Strategic Report 2012-2016
Sources: M. Z. Aydın 2002; Başaran 2006; Baş, Gülçiçek, and Fatsa 2003; Bengin 1983; Bildirici 2005; Ruşen
Çakır and Bozan 2005; den Exter 1990; Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2013b; Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2012c; Diyanet
İşleri Başkanlığı 2012b; Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2011c; Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2010b; Diyanet İşleri
Başkanlığı 2010a; Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2009b; Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2008; Gibbon 2009; Kalemli 1995;
Karakaşoğlu 1994; Karaman 2004; N. Landman 1997; Manço 1997; Pedersen 1999; Tavukçuoğlu 1992; Ö.
Yılmaz 2006. Elaborated by author.
Figure V-7 (see above) displays all the numbers which I have found from the
aforementioned sources. I have added together all subcategories of religious personnel (longterm; short-term; holiday –Ramadan, Mawlid, Eid al-Adha –; those paid by mosque
associations; etc.) covering all geographic regions in order to come to a total number for each
year. The first blue points correspond to the numbers given by Çakır and Bozan (2005), based
on the Diyanet’s own documents; the red squares come from media, academic, and official
sources, including parliamentary reports and the Diyanet’s activity and performance reports;
and finally the green triangles reflect the projected numbers from the Diyanet’s 2012-2016
Strategic Report.
Similar to the general situation, the number of long-term imams in 2013 corresponded
to what was envisioned in the 2012-2016 Strategic Report (1,427 imams), but the number of
397
short-term and temporary holiday religious personnel did not; this accounts for the difference
which appears above (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2012b, 62–63; Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2013b,
62). Moreover, the numbers given by some sources, such as the Turkish foreign affairs
ministry, often only include the religious personnel sent abroad by the OKK. These figures do
not include short-term religious officials who are not selected by the OKK; in other words,
state religious officials whose salaries do not come from the Turkish state, but rather who are
paid directly by mosque associations abroad, which corresponded to 253 individuals in 2010
(Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2010a).
The above figure clearly demonstrates that despite all divergences, the number of imams
sent abroad has not stopped rising since 1979. It also shows that after an initial decade which
saw very rapid growth (from 20 in 1980 to 797 in 1990), the number of imams rose more slowly
during the 1990s (by approximately 300), and has risen more rapidly in the decade since the
AKP came to power in 2002 (by approximately 500 between 2003 and 2013). It is interesting
to note how consistent this growth has been over the decades, regardless of changing
governments in Turkey, economic crises, or the recent nationalization policies of Western
European states, which purport to limit foreign influence over local Muslim fields.
2) Visas and Preparation
When it comes to international administrative procedures, the foreign affairs department of the
Diyanet is just as much an expert as the MHAI, if not even more so. The vast majority of the
Diyanet’s religious personnel abroad stays in the country to which they are appointed for a
period of 4 to 5 years, which requires a great degree of interaction with foreign authorities at
different administrative levels. Aside from the initial visa, the “Turks Abroad” division of this
department is also responsible for “all official procedures during the period of time that they
[religious officials] are [abroad]: the payment of salaries, health expenditures, etc.; all issues
concerning personal benefits” (Interview, F. Hamurcu I). Despite the decades of experiences
that the Diyanet and its foreign counterparts have in this domain, these practical issues are often
(ostensibly) at the origin of the difficulties faced by the imams and preachers on the ground.
Once selected, the same department is also responsible for preparing the religious
officials who are to be sent abroad. This includes providing them with the reports written by
their predecessors, or at times setting up meetings between them; providing language and
398
culture courses, which in the case of France and Germany have been organized in cooperation
with both states; and finally, ensuring that all formal administrative issues with foreign
authorities proceed smoothly. For instance, on the website of the department there are
numerous documents for religious personnel sent to Germany, explaining the necessary
requirements for a German visa for both the imam and his family, as well as a bilingual TurkishGerman application form for a German residency permit (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı 2013d).
The “Turks abroad” division of the Diyanet’s foreign affairs department prepares an
official letter that is addressed to the ambassador of the relevant foreign country, which is
submitted along with each religious official’s visa application. Quite similar to the mandate
prepared by the MHAI, the letter provides all the necessary information for the consular
officials in charge of issuing the visa so as to be sure of the formal and transparent character of
the request. The object of the document is indicated as “visa and residency permit,” and begins
with the following sentence:
The Presidency for Religious Affairs intends to appoint the following individual,
whose personal and professional information is indicated below, as a religious
official (imam) under the supervision of (the religious affairs attaché of) the
Turkish Consulate in [name of city] (Hamurcu 2011).
It includes the name of the imam; his total length of stay (4 years in the case of France, 5 years
for Germany); the name, location, and contact information of the association to which he is
assigned; and the amount of his salary – both in Turkey and the extra allowance for serving
abroad. The letter also attests that the Diyanet will cover all health care costs, and that the local
religious association will provide housing for the imam (see Annex 4).145
The information laid out in the Diyanet’s formal letter and the rest of the visa application
serves the primary purpose of complying with the obligatory administrative and bureaucratic
requirements. However, it also plays an important role as a symbol of transparency, as the
Diyanet indicates clearly all the circumstances and conditions under which its employees will
operate abroad. The high level of trust that exists in Turkey’s interstate relations with the
countries where it sends its religious personnel is fully on display here, and similar to Morocco
it assures foreign authorities in its letter that the religious official in question “will not be
involved in any kind of work outside of religious services” (Hamurcu 2011). The only aspect
145
I was provided with copies in French, German, and Turkish, which can be consulted in Annex 4.
There are very slight variations between these versions; my translations here correspond rather to the
letter written in Turkish.
399
that seems to break with the administrative language used is the addition of the word “imam”
or “imam hatip” after the more formal “religious official” (din görevlisi / Religionsbeauftragter
/ fonctionnaire religieux). Though the Turkish state has found a way to integrate religious
actors into the public service both bureaucratica

Governing Islam Abroad - Spire

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