A boom in sales of halal products, including alcohol-free bubbly and goose liver paté approved by Islamic law, is being driven by the emergence of an affluent middle class of young Muslims in France. Known as the beurgeois – a play on bourgeois and the word beur, slang for a French person of North African…
By Jennifer Selby Earlier this week, a 32-member French parliamentary panel recommended that several limitations be placed on niqab and burqa-wearing Muslim women. Led by André Gerin, former mayor of the city of Venissieux, the 130-page report suggests barring fully-covered Muslim women from citizenship, social benefits and from access to the country’s public sphere. The…
In the eastern Bosnian town of Bjeljina, 1,200 Serb residents signed the petition which calls for the reduction of the volume of the ezan (call to prayer) as it apparently creates a disruptive “noise” for the local Serb population. Harun Karcic, a graduate researcher at the Roberto Ruffili Faculty of Political Science thinks that this…
A district of derelict warehouses, red-brick terraces, and vibrant street life on the canals near the centre of Brussels, Molenbeek was once known as Belgium’s “Little Manchester”. These days it is better known as “Little Morocco” since the population is overwhelmingly Muslim and of North African origin. By day, the scene is one of children…
Five years ago bombings and riots fuelled anxiety that Europe’s Muslims were on the verge of mass radicalisation. Those predictions have not been borne out. A district of derelict warehouses, red-brick terraces, and vibrant street life on the canals near the centre of Brussels, Molenbeek was once known as Belgium’s “Little Manchester”. These days it…
