Five years ago, in my book To Be a European Muslim, I recalled that the “new presence” of Muslims in Europe, as in North America, was a recent phenomenon that went back to the interwar period in the most advanced countries. Some of my critics then drew to my attention the fact that Muslims had been settled on those two continents for centuries and that this was nothing new. Without denying these well-known facts, I had in fact deliberately spoken of a “new presence” in order to mark a clear difference in nature between the past and the present: immigration and conversion in the West during the twentieth century have given rise to strong Muslim communities made up of millions of souls, more and more of them citizens, which makes it an entirely new situation. Today we are talking about substantial sectors of Western societies, and in many countries Islam has become the second religion in terms of numbers. Their numbers and the fact of their permanent settlement are completely new experiences for the Muslims themselves, as well as for the societies that originally welcomed them as temporary migrants, seasonal workers, or political exiles, without ever thinking that these immigrants and their children would one day be full citizens. The same is true of African Americans, with their reclamation of their past and their rights (remembering that they were treated as slaves, that they were ripped from their roots, and that they were denied the Muslim religion of their ancestors); we would say that in their case, and we might add to them the Muslims of Eastern Europe, their effort to reclaim their belonging to Islam and their desire to be faithful to it did not become widespread or attract many adherents until the past few decades.
Assets
One thing that is extraordinarily to the credit of this new presence is the rapidity with which an awareness of the issues and the seeds of new solutions became established. Within the space of a few years, in North America as well as in Europe, communities whose members were mostly of immigrant origin were grouping, organizing themselves, building mosques, setting up various organizations and institutions, and developing an impressively dynamic sense of belonging. It is true that one might have thought it entirely normal that first-generation immigrants would try to preserve their religion and culture but that in time their children would become assimilated by force of events. But the opposite has happened and continues to happen for a significant number of these children: they take up the baton and continue the enterprise begun by their fathers and mothers, and throughout the West we note with astonishment that the active practice of Islam among Muslim men and women is increasing and that they are becoming more and more “visible.” The same phenomenon is also at work among the “native Muslims”: the multiple African American Islamic organizaions (among them the very organizd and dynamic Muslim American Society of WD Muhammad) and the numerous converts (or “reverts”) are going through the same positive trend.
In fifty years, the growth in awareness has been phenomenal, and Muslim communities are everywhere witnessing renewed passion and enthusiasm. The passion is first for study: adolescents, students, parents, of all backgrounds and all ages, all together, are following regular courses in religion, Arabic, even history and culture. The demand usually exceeds what the Muslim organizations and institutions can supply. Some even decide to go for a few years education abroad, usually in an Islamic university or through direct contact with reputable scholars. These realities point to another and consequential asset: the children often know more about Islam than their parents, and knowledge itself is more widespread because of the obvious desire of these younger generations to learn. Translations of classical works and the production of books and audio- and videocassettes with varied content are multiplying exponentially in all languages. Western realities, as we have said, are forcing Muslims to reflect on their Texts in their context, and, more and more, initiatives on the part of ulama, intellectuals, and leaders of organizations are moving in the direction of this contextualized approach. People are searching, asking themselves questions, experimenting on the educational, social, political, and cultural levels: we are living in a time of deep intellectual ferment and transformation. For myself, I have not hesitated to speak of a “silent revolution” in Western Muslim communities because the dynamism, movements in gestation, and innovative perspectives are already tangible and will certainly surprise observers who pay little attention to these grassroots movements . . . too slow to attract the media but extraordinarily rapid for such a short period of history.
A third notable asset is undoubtedly the emergence of an awareness of citizenship in all the countries where Muslims have been present longest— notably in France, Great Britain, and the United States. In practice, it is a matter of a more fine-tuned and internal awareness of relational logics among the individual, the law, and the institutions in a state based on the rule of law. It is not simply a question of promoting the right to vote (which is in itself a notable asset), but one of claiming one’s rights of citizenship and at the same time being aware of one’s responsibilities and duties. In these three countries, more than elsewhere at present (though there are signs that citizenship movements are growing in other countries, too), Muslim citizens participate at various levels in social and political life and sometimes do not hesitate to demand respect for their religion and/or their origin as participants in a society that is, after all, theirs. This movement is still in its infancy, and we shall come back to it, but the direction it is taking here and now is of special interest.
One of the assets we shall also come back to at greater length is the new and strong participation of women in this process of reappropriation and affirmation of identity. Being more and more educated and experienced, some who are more capable of contributing in the area of religious regulations and cultural adaptations are increasingly taking part in religious, social, and cultural debates and also have an increasingly significant access to leadership. This movement is evident throughout the West, and many women, while affirming and often explicitly demonstrating their attachment to Islam through their style of dress, make themselves heard and enter into discussion as much about the so-called authentic Islamic ideas of their coreligionists (both men and women) as about the hasty and sometimes offensive views of their fellow-citizens. We shall return to this phenomenon, which everything indicates is growing.
