News and Analysis on Islam in Europe and North America
Bernard Godard, co-author with Sylvie Taussig of “Les Musulmans en France” (Muslims in France, Hachette 2009), is interviewed here on his perspectives on Islam in France. Godard comments that there has been an institutionalization of Islam in France in the last ten years. Before mayors rarely supported mosque construction, for instance, and this attitude has
Tareq Oubrou, imam in Bordeaux, has published a new book on his vision of “Occidental Islam” in Profession Imam (Albin Michel, 2009). Raised in Morocco in a non-practicing family, fifty-year old Oubrou claims that this Islam is capable of secularization theologically-speaking. He advocates a “minority Shariah” adapted to French laicite, wherein in the Western world
In his new book Profession imâm (“The Imam’s Profession”, Albin Michel, 2009) Tareq Oubrou, theologian and Imam in Bordeaux, argues that “Muslims must adapt their practices to French society.” Oubrou claims that the privatization of religion in France encourages Muslims to emphasize their faiths, contributing to their social marginalization. He points to how Muslim women