Panel: Muslims in Europe in the Interwar Years: A Trans-cultural Perspective. Annual Meeting of Middle East Studies Association (MESA)

Amr Ryad (Participant)

OFR - Islam and Arabic

Activity: Participating in or organising an event › Conference › Academic

Description

Muslim Religious Hypridity in Interwar Europe: European converts to Islam in Salafiyya and Ahmadiyya networks

Period	24 Nov 2015
Event type	Conference
Location	Denver, United StatesShow on map

Documents & Links

ithin the context of “spreading the message” in Europe, different intra-Islamic disputes emerged among Muslims taking sectarian shapes in their new European environments. Aspects of these sectarian conflicts were also molded by the new context and the quest of Muslims for searching for a space in Europe. Some Muslims in interwar Europe, especially European converts, have perceived of a universal Muslim community that should get priority above religious differences. In this respect, the paper argues that European converts played a prominent transcultural role in the development of modern Islamic thought in the interwar period, trying to bridge historically and geographically established and accepted divisions within the Muslim community, which they as newcomers did not inherit. Whereas many of them kept good connections with the Ahmadiyya missions in interwar Europe, they were also present in the debates in Salafi reformist pan-Islamic circles in Egypt. By dwelling on the materials embodied in two Muslim salafi magazines in Egypt, e.g. Al-Manar by Muhammad Rashid Rida (1865-1935) and al-Fath by Rida’s contemporary Syrian writer and activist Muhibb al-Din al-Khatib (1886-1969), the paper emphasizes that although salafi writers held strongly negative attitudes against the Ahmadiyya, their responses were not always homogenous. On the one hand, Muslim reformists harshly attacked the Ahmadiyya doctrines, but were ready to praise their missionary work in Europe in many cases on the other. After a short-term appraisal for the Ahmadiyya success in Europe, many disputes started to emerge on the surface, which finally deteriorated their relations; reaching a peak in the mid-1930s. Many converts left the Ahmadiyya missions and started to establish their own organizations and societies in protest to the Ahmadiyya’s refusal to recant Ghulam Ahmad’s beliefs altogether. The chapter shows although the multifold and deeply-rooted conflicts between the Salafiyya and Ahmadiyya were uncompromising, the presence of European converts as new engaging figures unconsciously created a certain commonality and religious hypridity between these disagreeing Muslim branches through their entwining role in Europe. They all had one goal in common, namely the relevance of Islam on European soils.