"Not integration but “inter-creation”: How do Turkish imams and Qur’an teachers define integration in the Netherlands?"

Recently the Dutch celebrated 50 years of Turkish migration to the Netherlands. Today the children of the first Turkish immigrants who came with the temporary guest worker agreements in the 60’s are called ‘nieuwe Nederlanders’ or ‘the new Dutch’, subtly implying that the new citizens are still different than the natives. One major difference is their religion. With a total population of 397, 471 (Statistics Netherlands 2016), the Turks form the largest Muslim community in the Netherlands. When compared to the Moroccans, who are the second numerous Muslim minority, the Turks have stronger communal ties, greater number of communal organizations and higher levels of political participation (Van Heelsum, 2005). Moreover, recent studies point out to their high-levels of second generation religiosity (Fleischmann & Phalet, 2012), not declining even among highly educated Turks (Maliepaard, Lubbers & Gijsberts, 2010), accompanied by persistent isolationist tendencies (Huijnk & Dagevos, 2012) and socio-economic disadvantages (Gijsberts & Dagevos, 2010). In the light of findings like these, in 2014 the Dutch Minister of Social Affairs and Employment, Lodewijk Asscher has commissioned a research about the four major Turkish Islamic organizations in the Netherlands: the Süleymancı movement, Milli Görüş, Diyanet and the Gülenist Hizmet movement, and their effect on the integration of the Dutch Turks (Asscher, 2014). The results of the report indicate that very little is known about the activities of the mosques governed by these organizations, and that the lack of transparency in terms of their organization, practices and agenda calls for a more comprehensive research on the influence they have in the life of young Turkish Dutch Muslims (Sunier & Landman, 2014). In this study, I aim to provide perspectives on integration from the key figures of the Turkish Islamic communities in the Netherlands. The integration of Muslim immigrants is usually discussed as an institutionally defined regulation imposed top-down by the host countries rather than a process generated by the immigrants themselves. Often, the imams and the Qur’an teachers in the mosques are viewed as authority figures and role models who can have either aiding or frustrating role on the integration processes within the migrant community they belong to. Particularly the influence of the imams imported from Turkey without knowledge of the Dutch language and society is viewed as problematic (Boender, 2012). To what extent are imams’ and Qur’an teachers’ definitions of integration different than the official definition of integration of the Dutch authorities? This is the main question I address in this study. The study is based on qualitative content analysis of semi-structured expert interviews (N=37) conducted between July 2016 and January 2017. The respondents come from the four largest Islamic Turkish communities in the Netherlands, namely members of the Diyanet mosques, Milli Görüs mosques, the Süleymanci community and the Hizmet movement. In terms of expertise, the sample consists of stake-holders such as academics teaching in the Dutch Islamic theology programs, Turkish imams, Qur’an teachers, chairs of the Turkish religious organizations, and Dutch ministry and municipality officials. The analysis of the interviews shows that the Turkish imams’ and Qur’an teachers’ vision on integration shares a number of key issues with the institutional definition of the Dutch state. Most actors agree about the importance of linguistic proficiency, social participation and abiding the laws of the host country for successful integration trajectories. Differently than the Dutch state, however, the imams and the Qur’an teachers see integration as a reciprocal relation through which both the minority and the majority members adapt to each other’s culture and as a result, a new society is created out of the interaction of the different cultural and religious elements.