News Agencies – March 4, 2011 President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plans to hold a national debate on the role of Islam in French society has opened a rare rift in his centre-right party, potentially damaging his credibility ahead of a presidential election. Fears about the role of Islam in France’s secular society have become a key…
News Agencies – January 28, 2011 The recently appointed leader of France’s far-right National Front party has turned her attention toward Islam, saying it is “absolutely not compatible” with a secular society. Marine Le Pen, who took over as head of the party two weeks ago, has regularly faced accusations of Islamaphobia. “I think that France…
5 November 2010 Our dechristianized West is disturbed – to a greater or lesser degree – by the visibility of practising Muslims. Yet, whoever expects the secular state to treat different worldviews equally should not fear competition between value systems, writes the Islam expert Ludwig Ammann in this essay.
August 7 2010 Trouw reports that the way Muslims in the Netherlands celebrate Ramadan is changing, according to social scientists at the University of Amsterdam and the VU University in Amsterdam. Rituals which were previously internal to the community have come to adapt to the Dutch environment and engage the non-Muslim Dutch.This shift, according to…
Recent events in Europe, from the cartoon crisis in Denmark to the controversy over the construction of minarets in Switzerland, have brought the status of Islam in the secular public sphere to the forefront of European political debates.
