The relationship between Islam & Europe continues to animate many political and academic debates. Recent events such as the violence in Palestine, European debates about Judeo-Christian tradition, the failure of multiculturalism and religion in the public sphere, continue to put Islam into the spotlights. This course will take students through an exciting journey through the Islamo-European landscape in history and the present.
The students will be enabled to engage and partly challenge three main narratives of Islam & Europe: Islam as a recent phenomenon, Islam as a phenomenon from outside and Muslims as a different people. The first is about Islam as a recent phenomenon in Europe with the influx of postcolonial and labour migrants from the 1950s onwards. The second, and that is an extension of the previous storyline: Islam comes from outside Europe. The idea is that Islam, unlike Christianity and Judaism, is not an indigenous European religion. Thirdly, Muslims are said to be different from European people who are referred to as native because of their colour, origin and religion. We take this three storylines as our point of departure to show the complexities of Islam & Europe and the relation between race, religion and secularism.
Learning objectives
- Describe the origin and history of Islam in the pre-modern and early modern European context
- Describe some general theories and basic concepts about religion / and Islam in Europe from a historical perspective
- Analyze different conceptualizations and borderings of ‘Islam’, ‘Europe’ and their relations with the entanglements of race and religion
- Explain how the history of Europe and Islam is linked to contemporary debates and developments
