Not Quite In, Not Quite Out: Islamic Organizations in France and Germany and Their Ties to Their...

8Not Quite In, Not Quite Out:Islamic Organizations in Franceand Germany and Their Tiesto Their States of OriginBenjamin Bruce

Introduction1

Over the last decade in Germany and France, one Islamic organization hasemerged as potentially the most dominant in each country – respectively,the Turkish Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (Diyanet Isleri Türk Islam Bir-ligi, DITIB) and the Association of Muslims in France (Rassemblement desmusulmans de France, RMF). I argue in this chapter that the success of thesetwo organizations has not solely been due to the political and institutionalopportunity structures in the countries in which they find themselves, but inlarge part thanks to the support that they receive from their states of origin,Turkey and Morocco.2

This ‘home state’ support, also called ‘consular Islam’ or ‘official Islam’(Godard and Taussig, 2007, pp. 39–46; Laurence, 2006, p. 262) can proveto be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it directly provides theseorganizations with competent personnel, extensive experience, a solid orga-nizational structure, and in some cases significant financial resources, in anenvironment sorely lacking in all these aspects. Additionally, it confers adegree of legitimacy upon the organization in the eyes of local state author-ities as well as for many in the diaspora, especially among first generationmigrants. These ties can be understood as examples of immigrant transna-tionalism, defined as ‘the processes by which immigrants forge and sustainmulti-stranded social relations that link together their societies of origin andsettlement’ (Basch et al., 1994, p. 8).

However, the active involvement of Turkish and Moroccan state insti-tutions in the religious affairs of Muslims in Germany and France is notalways viewed positively. The transnational links between Islamic organi-zations and their ‘home states’ go beyond traditional interstate diplomatic

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10.1057/9781137305589 - Islamic Organizations in Europe and the USA, Edited by Matthias Kortmann and Kerstin Rosenow-Williams

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130 Different Response Strategies to Organizational Environments

channels, and consequently lead to various accusations, such as foreigninterference in internal affairs; political co-optation and instrumentalizationof the ‘community abroad’; or hampering the political and socioculturalintegration of immigrant groups.3

This is all the more pertinent considering the weight of each group in itsrespective national context: while approximately 67 per cent (2.5 million)of all Muslims in Germany are Turkish citizens or of Turkish origin (Hauget al., 2009, pp. 57–108), Moroccans and Franco-Moroccans account for25 per cent of all Muslims in France (around one million), representing thesecond largest ethno-national4 group following Muslims of Algerian back-ground (around 37 per cent) (Haut conseil à l’intégration, 2000, p. 26).However, in contrast to the latter, Muslims of Moroccan origin are muchmore likely to openly practise their religion and be active in associations:they represent ‘over 40 per cent of imams in France, the majority amongstthe 25 000 pilgrims who annually make the trip to Mecca, and the vastmajority of those who run places of worship’ (Godard and Taussig, 2007,pp. 40–1).

This chapter will examine the following questions: what role dotransnational ties play in the success of the RMF and DITIB – in otherwords, in their ability to federate and coordinate local mosque associations,and emerge as significant social and religious actors in their own right?Furthermore, how do these transnational ties affect the overall structura-tion of the French and German Muslim fields, and the efforts of the RMFand DITIB to establish themselves as legitimate and representative religiousactors? In order to answer these questions I will employ a perspective basedin the fields of political science and international relations, along with theBourdieu-inspired concept of ‘Muslim field’, in order to discuss the reach andthe limits of these organizations, especially with regard to their competitorsin the religious marketplace.5 The following pages are based on recent fieldwork (2009–2012) in France, Germany, Morocco, and Turkey, during whichI conducted over 40 interviews with members of the RMF, DITIB, and theirMoroccan and Turkish state partners. Drawing on these sources, as well asofficial reports and publications, I will argue that the RMF and DITIB owetheir current success to the symbolic and material capital which they receivethanks to their partnerships with their states of origin. Moreover, whilethese partnerships participate in the perpetuation of ethno-national divi-sions, they equally promote a specific vision of religious legitimacy withinthe French and German Muslim fields.

Muslim fields and their boundaries

In order to better grasp religious actors’ strategies it is necessary to under-stand the specific logics and interests which underlie their decisions. A pow-erful heuristic tool which can aid in this endeavour is Pierre Bourdieu’s field


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Benjamin Bruce 131

theory, which can help in envisioning the forms of competition and theframes of reference and authority which structure specific social domains.The concept of a specifically ‘Muslim field’ has been advanced by Frank Peterin the context of France, which he describes as a ‘relational structure of posi-tions which are defined and in turn determine the agents occupying themas part of the broader distribution of capital, i.e. potential sources of power’(2006, p. 708). Speaking of a Muslim field is thus a way to contextualizethe actions of Islamic organizations such as DITIB and the RMF, acknowl-edging the specificities inherent to this ‘religious field’ while examining theareas of overlap with other fields (political, economic, and so forth) and the‘convertibility of other forms of capital’ (Peter, 2006, p. 709).

Since field boundaries can be flexible, the difficulty lies in delimiting thisMuslim field in a way which is neither overly abstract, nor succumbs tothe dangers of methodological nationalism.6 For instance, state boundariesmay not prove to be as important for the religious field as perhaps imag-ined, meaning that even a term such as the ‘French Muslim field’ may bemisleading. Many studies on Islamic organizations in Western Europe focusexclusively on political opportunity structures (POSs) and pre-existing state–church regimes in order to explain the development of different models ofreligious governance (for example, Fetzer and Soper, 2004; for an overviewsee Maussen, 2007, pp. 47–52). Indeed, these factors do show that there arecountry-specific differences which can lead to the creation of a ‘national’Muslim field; however, this represents only one side of the coin.

As Bowen (2004) asks in the title of his article: ‘Does French Islam haveborders?’, the symbolic and material resources which Islamic organizationsdraw on are not limited by the borders of the states in which they areprimarily located. DITIB and the RMF are well integrated into multipletransnational networks, and are especially linked to their states of origin,which has helped them establish themselves as dominant actors in theirrespective religious fields. In order to account for this, some authors, suchas Blätte (2011), simply integrate transnational resources (such as finan-cial or material support) into a broader vision of the resource-buildingcapacities of Islamic organizations, while Ögelman opens POS theory upto include a transnational dimension, which he defines as ‘a combinationof circumstances, arrangements and interrelations transcending sovereignnation-states and their constituent sub-units, which enhances the ability ofparticular actors to exercise power over others’ (2006, p. 170). Both theseapproaches effectively address the question of how to include transnationalresources in an analysis of Islamic organizations; however, I argue thatBourdieu’s field theory can take this analysis a step further and better explainthe persistence of ethnic cleavages by demonstrating the convertibility ofdifferent forms of cultural capital within the Muslim religious field. Cul-tural capital here refers to those customs (habitus), symbols, and institutionswhich are specific to a given society, knowledge of which is acquired through


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processes of socialization and education; it differs from religious capital inthat it is not equally valued, known, or even recognized by Muslims whocome from different cultural backgrounds.7

Given that immigration has been the main reason for the growth ofIslam in Western Europe, and the fact that many of these immigrants andtheir descendants have maintained ties to their countries of origin (lin-guistic, cultural, economic, and so forth), the borders of states such asFrance and Germany can be far more porous than the divisions which existbetween different ethnic immigrant groups within each country. Pushed toan extreme, these ethnic and linguistic divisions may at times seem so wellentrenched that the only thing ‘French’ or ‘German’ about the Muslim fieldin each country would be the particular mix of pre-existing ethno-nationalMuslim fields (Moroccan, Turkish, Pakistani, and so on). A contributing fac-tor may be that there is a certain overlap between ethnic differences and thedifferences between juridical schools (madhhab/mezhep): for example, prac-tically all Sunni Turks follow the hanafi tradition, while most Moroccansare maliki.8 Nevertheless, the reality of these divisions between communitieshas much less to do with juridical and theological differences than it doeswith cultural and ethno-national identities. In the words of Najib Binebine(Interview, Minister Plenipotentiary, Embassy of Morocco in France, 23 May2011), responsible for overseeing religious issues in France at the Moroccanembassy, ‘there are more problems with this Islam in France today due toethnic, rather than theological considerations’.

The Islamic organizations in Western Europe which have been able tobring together Muslims of diverse ethnic origins have largely been off-shootsof transnational movements emphasizing the global pan-Islamic commu-nity (the ummah) as well as a higher degree of religiosity (the MuslimBrotherhood, Salafist movements, the Jama’ at al-Tabligh, and others). Thesetransnational movements have succeeded in appealing to the uprooted feel-ing experienced by many immigrants and their descendants by a ‘questfor universality, rather than nostalgia for a country or a society which inany case are not positive models (such as Algeria and Pakistan), and fromwhich one flees in order to find a better life in Europe or in America’ (Roy,2004, p. 13).

While ethno-national influences are not always absent from these orga-nizations, they pose a distinct challenge to DITIB and the RMF becausethey propose a different approach to Islamic religiosity, founded on a fun-damentally different understanding of legitimacy and authority. Followinga Weberian (Weber, 1992, p. 6) understanding of these terms, many of theseorganizations found their legitimacy on ‘charismatic authority’, which isin direct contrast to the mix of ‘traditional authority’ and ‘rational–legalauthority’ which underlies the claims to legitimacy of DITIB and the RMF.The diversity among these groups is quite large: for apolitical neofundamen-talist groups such as the Salafists, the goal is often to sever or reduce contactwith the surrounding non-Muslim society. On the other hand, for groups


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Benjamin Bruce 133

such as the Union of Islamic Organisations of France (Union des Organisa-tions Islamiques de France, UOIF) and the Islamic Community Millî Görüs(Islamische Gemeinschaft Millî Görüs e. V., IGMG), which come from a tra-dition of political Islam, affirming their belonging to a universal Islamiccommunity can in fact lead them to embrace a ‘pro-integration’ discourse.9

For these groups, ethno-national identity comes second after religious iden-tity, and states of origin may be seen as illegitimately instrumentalizingreligion. The UOIF has often been quite vocal on this point: as its formersecretary-general Fouad Alaoui wrote concerning the organization of Islamin France, ‘it is a French issue, not an international one. States which havecitizens in France have no reason to intervene’ (2005, p. 117).

Despite the fact that organizations such as the UOIF and IGMG do repre-sent real competitors for the RMF and DITIB, the way religion and religiouspractice are understood constitutes a distinct axis within the Muslim field.As Tietze reports, many (Turkish) Muslims who frequent IGMG mosques donot go to DITIB mosques because they find the services to be too ‘soft’ (2000,p. 267); conversely, some Muslims will not attend IGMG mosques becausethey find them to be too political, and thus will turn to DITIB (for a differentperspective on this see Chapter 11, in this volume). While some Muslimsmay simply end up going to the closest (or only) mosque or prayer spaceavailable, regardless of the association’s affiliation, even in smaller commu-nities conflict between individuals and different movements can lead to thecreation of splinter groups, resulting in increased competition (Schiffauer,1997). In this sense, being ‘soft’ can at times turn out to be an advantage forDITIB in the religious marketplace. As Gibbon points out:

Its religious ‘products’ and social services may never appeal to those whohave a taste for more demanding sectarian faith, but by seeking to providelowest-common-denominator religious services it is possible to reach awider swath of the market than ‘niche’ organizations like Millî Görüs orthe Suleymancıs.

(2009, p. 26)

By providing a ‘soft’ religious supply with a high degree of cultural capital,DITIB and the RMF have gained considerable ground in securing their posi-tion in the Islamic organizational landscape of France and Germany. Thesupply itself, however, is the result of the active participation of the offi-cial religious institutions of their respective states of origin, which will bedescribed in greater detail in the following section.

Institutionally integrated abroad: The transnationalties of DITIB and the RMF

The point of emphasizing ethnic differences and their implications forIslamic organizations in France and Germany is by no means to assert that


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the boundaries between these groups are fixed and inflexible, but, rather, tohighlight a structural reality of the Muslim fields in France and Germany.This structural reality derives in part from the similar diplomatic networkswhich provide DITIB and the RMF with substantial resources and symboliccapital. To take this observation further, both organizations are institutionallyintegrated in the Muslim field of their respective countries of origin. In otherwords, for the state religious authorities in Morocco and Turkey, providingreligious services to the RMF and DITIB is seen as part of their general insti-tutional field of action. Moreover, it is an integral part of serving a distinctadministrative category: the ‘community abroad’, a term which has beenused increasingly by ‘home states’, implying ‘a remapping of the boundariesof belonging, [ . . . ] independent of territorial considerations’ (Ragazzi, 2009,pp. 389–90).

DITIB and the RMF share the distinction of having become one of thelargest Islamic organizations in Germany and France with regard to the pro-vision of Muslim religious services. They are both individually registeredas associations (eingetragener Verein for DITIB, association de loi 1901 for theRMF) and function as federations, in other words as coordinating umbrellaorganizations which bring together a large number of individual mosqueassociations. While DITIB states that it represents upwards of 900 affiliatedmosque associations (DITIB, No Date-b), the RMF comprises 550 mosqueassociations (Interview, A. Kbibech, President, RMF, 9 October 2012) andhas had the distinction of winning the last two elections (43 per cent in2008 and 62 per cent in 2011) and securing the presidency of the FrenchCouncil of the Muslim Faith (Conseil Français du Culte Musulman, CFCM), therepresentative Muslim body created by the French state in 2003.10 Both orga-nizations are partnered with the official state religious institution in theirrespective state of origin, namely the Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs(Diyanet Isleri Baskanlıgı, hereafter Diyanet) and the Moroccan Ministry ofPious Endowments and Islamic Affairs (Ministère des Habous et des AffairesIslamiques, hereafter MHAI). These institutions are responsible for the stateadministration and management of Islamic religious affairs, and, despite thelegal and historical differences between them, both have progressively takena more active role in the provision of religious services to their ‘communitiesabroad’.

There are significant differences regarding the political system and state–religion relations in each country. Though this issue cannot be ade-quately addressed in this chapter, the Turkish republican understanding ofsecularism (or laiklik) calls for the control of religion by the state, and has avery different intellectual and institutional history from the case of Morocco(see Berkes, 1964; Kuru and Stepan, 2012). In Morocco, Islam is the officialreligion of the state, and, despite moves toward a constitutional monar-chy, the king remains the most powerful political figure. Moreover, theking also holds the title of ‘Commander of the Faithful’ (amir al-mu’minin)


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Benjamin Bruce 135

(Articles 3 and 41 of the new constitution), and it is in this capacity thatKing Mohammed VI has launched a series of wide-ranging reforms of statereligious institutions over the last decade (Interview, M. Rifki, MinisterialCounsellor, MHAI, 31 May 2011). Despite these very significant differ-ences, Turkey and Morocco exhibit multiple similarities when it comes tothe institutional structures, the forms of interstate cooperation, and thetransnational networks which have been mobilized in order to effectivelyprovide religious services beyond their state boundaries.

Accordingly, transnational cooperation with their ‘home states’ is a well-rooted and shared characteristic of the organizational structure of both theRMF and DITIB. In Germany, as elsewhere abroad, DITIB is officially presidedover by a high-ranking Diyanet official who is sent abroad as the din müsaviri(religious counsellor) of the Turkish embassy, while Diyanet officials (includ-ing its president) and Turkish diplomats are listed in the association’s officialcharter as members of the advisory board (see §11, DITIB, 1984, p. 9).Though Moroccan diplomats play no official role within the RMF, the con-sular network upon which the RMF relies is quite similar to that of DITIB.In both cases there are officials responsible for overseeing religious issuesconcerning the ‘community abroad’ at the level of both the consulatesand the embassy (the Turkish religious attachés and counsellors, and theMoroccan counsellors for social affairs), as well as the first or second politicalcounsellor at the embassy (Interview, N. Binebine, Minister Plenipotentiary,Embassy of Morocco in France, 23 May 2011; Interview, E. Solakoglu, FirstCounsellor, Embassy of Turkey in France, 20 October 2011). Moreover, asidefrom the officials specifically responsible for the ‘community abroad’ withinthe Diyanet and the MHAI, there is also a subunit of each state’s Ministryof Foreign Affairs’ consular affairs department which is responsible for the‘community abroad’. In this fashion, the RMF and DITIB possess an extendednetwork of ‘home state’ institutions and officials which they can turn to forresources, as well as to promote their interests in negotiations with Frenchand German authorities.

For DITIB and the RMF, the resources which they receive from abroad givethem a crucial advantage over other Islamic organizations, as they wouldbe forced to depend solely on donations and membership fees otherwise.Though this aid was initially very limited in the first decades following thebeginning of Turkish and Moroccan labour migration to Western Europe inthe 1960s, it has substantially grown over time, and especially over the lasttwo decades. This reflects a general trend which has also seen both statessymbolically and financially support ministries, agencies, and programmesdesigned to serve the ‘community abroad’, with the goal of strengtheningties and ‘protecting their identity’ (Diyanet, 2011a, p. 26).11

One of the most significant differences between the RMF and DITIB is theirhistory. While DITIB was founded in 1984 and has expanded and grownmore organized and professional with time, the RMF was founded in 2006,


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formed from a dissident branch of the National Federation of Muslims ofFrance (Fédération Nationale des Musulmans de France, FNMF), which had for-merly been supported by Morocco. The RMF is less centrally organized thanDITIB, and is ‘strongest at the regional level’: it currently presides over 19 outof 25 regional Islamic councils,12 and its national organization is ‘relativelylight’ (Interview, A. Kbibech, President, RMF, 9 October 2012). Nevertheless,the RMF marks a fundamental break with the FNMF past, as the organi-zation has positioned itself as the principal partner of the Moroccan state,and the latter has moved to centralize and channel its activities through theRMF’s national leadership. In 2011 alone the RMF received over �4 millionin direct funding from the MHAI in order to pay for the salaries of the firstcontingent of imams to be sent from Morocco for a period of four years,within the framework of a joint agreement concluded in 2008 with theFrench state. Moreover, the RMF has assumed primary responsibility for thecoordination of all religious personnel sent from Morocco, especially dur-ing the month of Ramadan, a task which had been principally conferredon the social counsellors of Moroccan consulates in the past. In 2011, thisincluded 128 temporary male and female preachers (wa↪idh) and Quran read-ers (mushafi↪un) sent from the MHAI; in 2012, along with those sent fromthe Hassan II Foundation (Fondation Hassan II, FHII, see below), the totalnumber rose to 210 (Interview, A. Kbibech, President, RMF, 9 October 2012;MHAI, 2011, p. 184).

This aid allocated to the RMF is directly linked to its status as belong-ing to the ‘national community’, and the annual ministerial reports filesit under ‘Management of the affairs of the Moroccan community abroad’(MHAI, 2011, p. 184). In addition to this, the RMF also receives financialaid, religious publications, and preachers for Ramadan from the FHII, anorganization presided over by King Mohammed VI’s sister, and which is ‘nota ministry, [though] its orientations are set by the [Moroccan] government’(Brand, 2002, p. 15). The king of Morocco himself also makes donationsdirectly for the construction of mosques for Moroccan religious associations,as recently was the case with a cheque for �787,000 for a new mosque inthe French city of Blois (Unknown, 2012). This institutional integration isperhaps most striking with the creation of the Council of Moroccan Ulemafor Europe (Conseil Européen des Oulémas Marocains, CEOM) in 2008, whichbrings together Moroccan Islamic leaders from across Europe and is basedin Brussels. The CEOM was founded by King Mohammed VI by dahir (royaldecree) as part of an extensive series of reforms begun in 2004 aimed at thereligious field in Morocco, following the logic that these reforms ‘extendequally to our community living abroad as a component and an integralpart of the Moroccan nation’ (Kingdom of Morocco, 2008, p. 1,641).

DITIB’s link with the Diyanet is first and foremost through its person-nel: the imams (din görevlileri, or ‘religious officials’) who are employed inDITIB mosques are all sent by the Diyanet, and are thus all public employees


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Benjamin Bruce 137

paid by the Turkish state, as is the case in Turkey. While additional imamsare sent abroad during Ramadan as well, in contrast to the Moroccan casethe focus since the 1980s has been on imams who stay for a longer periodof time (three to five years).13 The imams themselves are selected after anextensive period of examinations, and in general possess a degree of foreignlanguage skills in addition to having completed higher studies at a facultyof Islamic theology (Interview, M. F. Hamurcu, Director of the Departmentfor Turks Abroad, Diyanet, 11 November 2011). As opposed to Morocco,the Diyanet (and by extension the Turkish state) does not directly financemosque construction, either at home or abroad, even in the case of the cen-tral mosque of Cologne currently under construction (expected to cost over�30 million; DITIB, No Date-a). However, the provision of imams cost-freein and of itself saves DITIB associations a great deal of time and money – wellover �6 million in 2011 (Diyanet, 2011a, p. 79). Furthermore, it represents adistinct advantage over potential competitors, as their members are assuredthat their religious services will be provided by highly qualified profession-als. This enables DITIB and its associations to focus on a wide range of othersocial and cultural activities which help to broaden its appeal, already shoredup by the theological competency of its imams. As detailed in its annualreports, a fundamental reason for the Diyanet’s involvement in religiousactivities abroad is not to proselytize, but to provide ‘our citizens abroadwith religious services that will protect their identities and contribute totheir integration in the societies in which they live’ (Diyanet, 2011b, p. 26).

As with Morocco and the RMF, the Diyanet’s interest in playing a role inthe development of Islam in Western Europe is limited to that of their ‘com-munity abroad’. This stands in stark contrast to Islamic organizations linkedto non-state transnational movements, as well as the strategies pursued bythe Saudi World Muslim League (WML) and Gulf states. While both theMHAI and the Diyanet are internationally very active in promoting Islamicactivities in geographical areas with which they have both historical ties andcurrent strategic interests (Western Africa for the former and Central Asia,the Caucasus, and the Balkans for the latter), neither of them provides assis-tance to organizations which fall outside the ethno-national borders thatdelimit the Moroccan and Turkish Muslim fields abroad. In other words, thepartnership with the RMF and DITIB is implicitly understood as primarilyserving Muslims of Moroccan or Turkish origin.

Religious supply and demand and the axes of competition

This poses a distinct problem for the RMF and DITIB, especially as both orga-nizations have tended to think large. Winter (2008, p. 87) notes that ‘theRMF may well be a “consensual” organization, but it is also an ambitiousone, wanting from the outset to take over primary responsibility for train-ing imams, deciding the start of Ramadan, etc.’, and, though it has held the


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presidency of the CFCM since its creation, it has increasingly faced opposi-tion from the two other main French Islamic organizations (the GMP andthe UOIF) in the form of boycotts. As for DITIB, it states on its website that‘according to public surveys [it] represents 70 per cent of Muslims living inGermany’,14 while the Turkish version adds that it is the largest Muslim civilsociety organization (DITIB, No Date-b). Given its size, it has at times soughtspecial privileges, such as a veto right within the larger federative structureof the Coordinating Council of Muslims in Germany (Koordinationsrat derMuslime in Deutschland, KRM),15 and it and its regional branches have beentempted to take a solo approach in dealing with public authorities – a strat-egy which seems to have paid off in the state of Hesse, where DITIB (alongwith the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community) has been recognized as a ‘religiouscommunity’ and a ‘cooperation partner’ of the state in the introduction ofIslamic religion classes in the state school system (Hessisches Ministeriumder Justiz, 2012).

Consequently, the question is how far both organizations can go inbecoming leaders in the French and German Muslim fields if their own activ-ities are strongly limited by ethno-national considerations. According toBraud (2002, p. 53), social struggles revolve around how ‘dominant [groups]impose their definitions of what is legitimate, in a given field’, and this cor-responds to the attempts by both the RMF and DITIB to be perceived as alegitimate religious authority in the French and German Muslim fields. Thedifficulty in taking this endeavour a step further can be better understood byemploying the notion of religious capital, which raises the question of thetarget audience and potential competitors of these organizations. FollowingBourdieu, the nature of religious capital (1) depends on the religious sup-ply (religious services that are more orthodox or heretical) and the religiousdemand (‘the religious interests of different groups or classes of laypeople’)and (2) has a direct impact on the strategies which religious institutionsemploy in order to ‘satisfy their own religious interests as well as the func-tions which they fill in the division of religious work’ (1971, pp. 318–9).In other words, if the religious capital which DITIB and the RMF provideis already pre-marked as ‘home state approved’, this will have an effect ontheir appeal to potential members, as well as on the strategies they employin order to counter rival Islamic organizations.

The religious demand on the part of Muslims in France and Germany hasgone through multiple phases, and underwent a marked change with theend of the bilateral labour migration programmes in the 1970s and a shift toimmigration resulting from family reunification programmes. The ensuingdemographic change led to a rise in religious demands, which accompanieda desire to preserve the parents’ mother tongue and reinforce a certain visionof traditional identity among their children (Schiffauer, 2007, p. 72). Lan-guage, culture, religion, and, to varying degrees, ‘home state’ approval havethus become intricately interwoven as elements which complement each


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other in establishing the authority of certain Islamic organizations’ religiouscapital. In other words, Turkish and Moroccan cultural capital is more thansimply convertible: it is a necessary element in effectively responding to thereligious demands of target audiences.

In the charter of the RMF, responding to Muslims’ ‘spiritual and culturalneeds’ is listed alongside the goal of ‘putting into place and coordinat-ing training and educational activities in order to improve the culturallevel of Muslims and assure them a better level of social integration’ (RMF,2007, p. 1). The FHII has undertaken many such activities, which focuson strengthening ties between the Moroccan community abroad and their‘country of origin’ through ‘the teaching of Arabic language classes andMoroccan culture’, summer camps in Morocco, and religious activities andthe ‘preservation of religious values’ (El Moukhi, 2008, p. 11). Moreover,the official Moroccan state discourse surrounding the creation of the CEOMcalls for the ‘establishment of a Moroccan religious frame of reference inEurope for the Moroccan Muslim community’ (Kingdom of Morocco, 2008,p. 1,641). This has been pursued to the extent that the recently createdMohammed VI Foundation for the publication of the Holy Quran, which hasbeen given a monopoly over Quran printing and distribution in Morocco,sent 25,000 copies of Moroccan-style Qurans (characterized by their warshcalligraphy and qira’at, or recitation method) to France in 2011, to be dis-tributed by the consulates and the RMF (Interview, H. Hammani, Director,Mohammed VI Foundation, 12 June 2011).

DITIB mosques equally offer a wide array of social and cultural pro-grammes, including integration courses, language courses, and professionaltraining seminars, as well as sports activities (DITIB, No Date-b). The scopeand scale of their non-religious activities have expanded as a result of com-petition from organizations such as IGMG, which have long offered suchactivities, considered a way of appealing to younger Muslims (Rosenow,2010, p. 178). As noted by Rosenow and Kortmann, ‘these activities are rel-atively clearly separated from [religious ones]’ (2011, p. 59) when comparedwith other Islamic organizations; however, they nevertheless reflect the‘Turkish–Islamic synthesis’ (for more see Sen, 2010), which, on the one hand,blurs the boundaries between culture and religion and, on the other hand,emphasizes the Turkish ethno-national dimension within Islam, excludingMuslims from other backgrounds. DITIB mosques will thus celebrate cer-tain Turkish holidays, such as the anniversary of the battle of Gallipoli(Çanakkale Savası), and will even hold competitions for the best recitationof the Turkish National Anthem (Istiklal marsı güzel okuma yarısması), ulti-mately indicating that their religious supply is clearly characterized by aheady mix of nationalism, religion, and culture, in which these elementsare seen as complementary.

This close connection to the state of origin, whether through its institu-tions or its cultural practices, is not perceived negatively by leaders of the


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RMF and DITIB. This is not surprising, as these transnational connectionsand the symbolic and material religious capital gained thanks to them pro-vide the RMF and DITIB with a formidable claim to religious legitimacy intheir respective Muslim fields. This is even more important given the generallack of recognized religious authorities in the French and German Muslimfields – in the words of one DITIB spokesperson, ‘a relationship [with theDiyanet] is important, if not we wouldn’t have any partners to work with.There are no [Muslim] theologians in Germany [ . . . ] should we work withEgypt, or Iran?’ (Interview, E. Çetin, Spokesperson, DITIB Berlin, 2 March2011). The relationship is also seen to a certain extent as ‘natural’: whiledenying that the RMF is dependent on the MHAI, the president of the RMFAnouar Kbibech states that ‘the RMF reflects in fact the reality of FrenchIslam, where almost 80% of places of worship are run by people of Moroccanorigin’ (Elmidaoui, 2008, p. 36). While 80 per cent may seem somewhathigh, as mentioned above, Moroccans do run the vast majority of places ofworship in France, while imams of Moroccan background account for some-where between a third and a half of all imams in the country (Godard andTaussig, 2007, pp. 40–1, 141–2).

Nevertheless, both the RMF and DITIB officially state that they do not rep-resent solely one ethno-national group. The first article of the RMF’s charterindicates that it is ‘above all ethnic or racial considerations’ (2007, p. 1),while its president Anouar Kbibech affirms that ‘when an imam comes fromMorocco to guide prayers in a mosque, he does it for all believers, whetherthey be of Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian, or French origin’ (Elmidaoui, 2008,p. 36). Similarly, DITIB’s website states that its ‘doors are open not only forTurks, people of Turkish origin, or Muslims, but for all’ (DITIB, No Date-b).Ultimately, however, due to the reality of linguistic barriers and their closeconnections to the Moroccan and Turkish states, the RMF and DITIB arelargely perceived as the representatives of official Moroccan or Turkish Islamwithin the French and German Muslim fields. In arguing for the existenceof a French Muslim field, Peter states that actors make competing claims‘to the correct understanding of Islam [ . . . ] [which] happens both throughattempts to include oneself and exclude others and attempts to set oneselfapart from other groups’ (2006, p. 711). The downside for the RMF andDITIB is that, in basing their religious legitimacy on their relationship to for-eign state institutions, they restrict their field of action to the ‘communityabroad’ and reduce their ability to present themselves as religious authoritiesrepresenting a broader ‘French’ or ‘German’ Islam.

This can be seen when considering potential competitors: along oneaxis, competition occurs only within the extended Muslim field linked toethno-national origins. Thus, DITIB in France may find itself in compe-tition with Millî Görüs, but will never lose members to the RMF. By thesame token, the Central Council of Moroccans in Germany (Zentralrat derMarokkaner in Deutschland e. V., ZMaD) speaks to a different audience thanDITIB in Germany; ethnic differences have already determined the potential


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Benjamin Bruce 141

members of both organizations. On the other hand, the heavy use ofTurkish cultural capital in DITIB mosques can contribute to pushing KurdishMuslims from Turkey to IGMG mosques, where the emphasis is given topromoting a non-ethnic pan-Islamic identity (Interview, E. Karahan, DeputySecretary-General, IGMG, 29 September 2011). This reveals the second mainaxis of competition in the French and German Muslim fields: Islamic orga-nizations which focus on a ‘universal’ Islamic identity are able to competeoutside the parameters set by ethnic considerations and traditional culturalcapital, and instead offer a religious supply based on a different conceptionof Islamic authority and legitimacy.

In opposition to these ‘charismatic’ organizations, the RMF and DITIB pro-mote their own interpretation of religious legitimacy. This vision is bestcharacterized by Weber’s idea of ‘office charisma’ (Amtscharisma), withinwhich charisma has been separated from ‘the person, and [is linked] with theinstitution and, particularly, with the office (Amt)’ (Weber, 1968, p. 1164).Charismatic authority is thus ‘routinized’, leading either to ‘a bureaucracyvested with rational-legal authority’ or by the resurgence of traditionalstructures (Marshall, 1994, pp. 50–1). In the case of the RMF and DITIB,tradition is mobilized mainly through different forms of cultural capital,and more broadly through their ‘lowest-common-denominator’ interpreta-tion of Islam, which Gibbon also calls ‘vanilla Islam’: ‘little that could becalled exciting or innovative, [ . . . ] but it is consistent’ (2009, p. 27).

Alongside this, however, is another argument, based on the rational–legal authority of the Diyanet and the MHAI. The religious offer whichthey provide is professional, erudite, and considered a public service; thisis contrasted with the danger posed by the ‘self-proclaimed imams’ of thecompetitors and their potentially false interpretations of Islam (Interview,A. Boussouf, Secretary-General, CCME,16 9 June 2011; Interview, A. Dere,Director of Foreign Affairs, Diyanet, 17 March 2009). As Peter points out, thecurrent competition between Islamic organizations ‘is to a large degree aboutdefining the profile of the legitimate leaders of the future French Islam’(2006, p. 730) – and, I would add, German Islam. In emphasizing these tra-ditional and rational–legal types of authority embodied by their religiousoffer, the RMF and DITIB take an important step in putting forth their visionof what ought to define religious legitimacy in the French and GermanMuslim fields.

New transnational initiatives for new transnational Muslims?

While the vision of religious legitimacy proposed by the RMF and DITIBhas been well received by public authorities in France and Germany, aneven greater challenge awaits in the form of the new generations of Frenchand German Muslims. Having grown up as part of a religious minority insocial, cultural, and linguistic contexts different from those of their par-ents and grandparents, the religious demands of these Muslims can differ


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substantially from those of earlier generations. Consequently, in order toappeal to these populations, Islamic organizations have sought to integratelocal (‘French’ or ‘German’) cultural capital into their religious offer (Peter,2006, p. 726). One way to do so has been to offer a larger variety of activitiesand courses aimed at attracting younger Muslims. Another has been to bet-ter train the religious personnel, and both the Diyanet and the MHAI haveincreasingly been promoting the foreign language skills of their imams whoare to be sent abroad (Interview, A. Boussouf, Secretary-General, CCME,9 June 2011; Interview, M. F. Hamurcu, Director of the Department for TurksAbroad, Diyanet, 11 November 2011). However, solely promoting the lin-guistic skills of imams is not enough to adapt the religious offer to thedemands of young French and German Muslims, and so both the RMF andDITIB have developed new transnational initiatives in coordination withtheir respective Moroccan and Turkish state partners.

In the case of Morocco, as mentioned above, an interstate agreement hasled to the sending of a contingent of 30 imams to France in 2008 for afour-year period. Following up on this, the RMF has already begun a sec-ond campaign in order to hire a further 30 imams – with funding comingfrom the MHAI – the difference being that these additional 30 will alreadybe based in France. In this fashion, there would be no need to worry aboutformalities such as visa restrictions, while the imams will be expected alreadyto be francophone and well integrated in French society. Following this, theultimate goal is the creation of an RMF institute in order to train imamsin France (Interview, A. Kbibech, President, RMF, 9 October 2012; Inter-view, N. Binebine, Minister Plenipotentiary, Embassy of Morocco in France,23 May 2011; MHAI, 2011, p. 184).

The Turkish side has been even more ambitious. In 2006–2007 an ‘Inter-national Theology Programme’ was created by the Diyanet, based at thefaculties of theology at the University of Ankara and Marmara Universityin Istanbul. The programme was tailor-made for young members of theTurkish community abroad who wish to pursue studies in Islamic theol-ogy, and had already attracted 140 students from nine countries in 2009,including 67 from Germany (Diyanet, 2011c). The ultimate goal of the pro-gramme is for its graduates to be hired as imams in DITIB mosques followingtheir studies, something which was rendered legally possible by the Turkishconstitutional reforms of 2010 (Interview, M. F. Hamurcu, Director of theDepartment for Turks Abroad, Diyanet, 11 November 2011). Moreover, theDiyanet has been promoting cooperation between Turkish theology facultiesand Islamic studies programmes designed to train imams at German univer-sities, and through DITIB France it has founded an Islamic Theology Facultyin Strasburg in 2011, and is planning to open a private Islamic high school(Interview, I. Er, President, DITIB France, 19 October 2011).

In both cases it is clear that the role of ‘home state’ institutions is notdiminishing. Turkey and Morocco today both endeavour to reinforce the ties


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Benjamin Bruce 143

of their ‘communities abroad’ to their ‘homeland’, regardless of citizenshipand territorial borders, by emphasizing a certain state-sponsored understand-ing of Islam as a key component of the ‘national’ identity. In doing so, theyattempt to prevent ‘assimilation’ (decried as a ‘crime against humanity’ byTurkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Unknown, 2010) as well asthe perceived danger of transnational identities, such as those promoted byIslamist movements who stress identification with the global ummah.

It is especially interesting to take note of this fact in light of the multi-ple attempts by the French and German interior ministries to ‘domesticate’(Bowen, 2004, p. 43) or ‘de-transnationalize’ (Laurence, 2006, p. 270) Islam,either by creating an official Muslim body (the CFCM) or through a peri-odic, semi-formal conference system (the DIK) in order to find interlocutorsfor the state. Yet, as noted by Godard and Taussig for France, ‘the para-dox of the creation of the CFCM, intended to provide the Muslim religionwith a French representative organ, is that the elections led to a reinforce-ment, perhaps even a new hold of states of origin on places of worship’(2007, p. 175). Similarly, the recent changes within the DITIB leadership inGermany, where Izzet Er, a former vice-president of the Diyanet and headof the DITIB in France, has replaced Ali Dere, the former head of foreignaffairs of the Diyanet, seems to fly in the face of the German government’sobjections in 2010 to the nomination of Dere as president of DITIB due tohis initial diplomatic status as religious counsellor at the Turkish embassy(Interview, A. Dere, President, DITIB, 28 September 2011).

Nevertheless, this paradox is, in fact, no paradox at all, as thoseIslamic organizations which enjoy the best relationships with French andGerman public authorities are precisely those which are supported by theirstates of origin. While IGMG remains under surveillance by the GermanVerfassungsschutz (the interior intelligence agency) (BMI, 2011) and theUOIF sees its international invitees forbidden to enter French territory(Laurent, 2012), DITIB and the RMF continue to benefit from the diplomaticnetworks and the friendly bilateral relations that exist between their new andold ‘home states’. Consequently, transnational ‘home state’-sponsored ini-tiatives such as the Diyanet’s international theology programme, or the ‘sub-sidies’ from the Moroccan state to help the RMF employ imams in France,will have a continuing impact on the emerging French and German Muslimfields: first, by perpetuating a religious frame of reference linked to spe-cific ethno-national traditions, and second, by contributing to the broaderdefinition of which religious actors ought to be considered as legitimate.

Conclusion

This chapter has sought to demonstrate how transnational ties have playeda pre-eminent role in providing the symbolic and material capital necessaryfor the RMF and DITIB to establish themselves as among the most important


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Islamic organizations in France and Germany. While numerous studies focusexclusively on POSs or on pre-existing state–church arrangements solelywithin the receiving country, I argue that the success of ‘home state’-linkedIslamic organizations such as the RMF and DITIB is due to their beingintegrated into two internal institutional structures, occupying a positionwhich is both inside and outside traditional nation-state boundaries. Fur-thermore, I contend that these blurred boundaries can best be understoodby Bourdieu’s field theory, which moves beyond the reification of nationalborders and instead shows how divisions occur within and between religiousfields, depending on the religious capital which is mobilized.

By positioning themselves in the religious marketplace as purveyors of a‘vanilla Islam’ (Gibbon, 2009, p. 27) the RMF and DITIB effectively appeal tothe majority of Muslims who remain tied to traditional forms of authority,and an Islam infused with elements of cultural capital. Both organizationsare prudent concerning their public image: faced with the accusation thattheir approach hampers integration by reinforcing ethno-national bound-aries, leading to ‘parallel societies’ and ‘communitarianism’, both play downtheir transnational ‘home state’ ties in media interviews. However, despiteperiodic cries of ‘foreign interference’ from local politicians, both the RMFand DITIB know that the French and German states are reassured by the‘home state’ backing which they receive. The existing framework of inter-state cooperation is a result of shared interests, and French and Germanauthorities recognize that it is not in the interest of either Turkey or Moroccoto be associated with groups perceived as radical or fundamentalist.

Building on their strengths, the RMF and DITIB continue to follow‘home state’-sponsored transnational initiatives which promote their visionof a ‘rational–legal’ religious authority delimited by national and culturalboundaries. Nevertheless, as Peter emphasizes in the case of France, ‘it isthe profoundly ambiguous value of cultural capital in the post-migratoryMuslim field [ . . . ] that has led to an intense competition between Muslimactors in their relation to the state and believers’ (2006, p. 730). Conse-quently, it remains to be seen whether the strategies adopted by the RMFand DITIB, quite successful in establishing them as among the most impor-tant Islamic organizations in the French and German Muslim fields today,will continue to work just as effectively with regard to future generations,for whom the link with the ‘home state’ is increasingly distant.

Notes

1. All translations in this text, unless otherwise indicated, are my own. I wouldlike to thank Kerstin Rosenow-Williams, Matthias Kortmann, and TheresaBeilschmidt for their perceptive critiques and helpful comments.

2. While the literature on transnational migration usually employs the conceptualpair ‘sending state’ and ‘receiving state’, other terms such as ‘home state’ and‘host state’ are sometimes used as synonyms. There is a troubling expediency in


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Benjamin Bruce 145

continuing to use these terms, considering the fact that ‘sending states’ have notofficially ‘sent’ any migrants since the end of bilateral recruitment programmesin the 1970s, while speaking of a ‘host’ state seems inappropriate for individualswho are or have become French or German citizens. Nevertheless, states suchas Turkey and Morocco actively perpetuate the idea that they represent the true‘homeland’ for individuals of Turkish and Moroccan ancestry, and for this reasonI will use these terms with quotation marks.

3. Though such direct accusations usually come from civil society groups in Franceand Germany, including other Islamic organizations and politicians (cf. Tosun,2009), even government ministers from both sides of the political spectrum havementioned their desire for Islam to be ‘free from foreign supervision’ (FrenchMinister of the Interior Manuel Valls in (AFP, 2012); for another example fromGermany see Chapter 11 in this volume).

4. I employ the term ‘ethno-national’ in this chapter to refer to the mainstream,‘home state’-sponsored, national identity. This includes its customs, cultural tra-ditions, language, and holidays, which constitute some of the most visible andmobilizing elements of each ‘ethnic’ immigrant group. The term ‘ethnic’ by itselfis often used in English to refer to national origins and identities in the contextof immigration (‘ethnic groups/minorities’ – Fenton and May, 2002, p. 10). How-ever, this can lead to confusion in cases like Morocco and Turkey, where a state-lednation-building project has contributed to giving rise to a strong national identitywhich co-exists, with varying degrees of tension, with supra- (Arab; Turkic) andsubnational (Amazigh, tribal; Turkmen, Laz, Kurdish, and so on) ethnic identities.

5. Following Olivier Roy, I consider the use of the term ‘religious marketplace’, andsimilar vocabulary derived from the field of economics, to be very illustrativeas metaphors; however, any ‘interpretation that tries simply to transpose eco-nomics theories, as do Rodney Stark and Laurence Iannaccone, quickly finds itsown limits’ (2008, p. 207).

6. Methodological nationalism is ‘understood as the assumption that thenation/state/society is the natural social and political form of the modern world’,and I refer here especially to its ‘third variant’: ‘the territorialization of social sci-ence imaginary and the reduction of the analytical focus to the boundaries of thenation-state’ (Wimmer and Glick Schiller, 2002, pp. 301, 307).

7. This characterization is based on Roy’s definition of culture (2008, p. 43) andBourdieu’s explanation of cultural and symbolic capital (1979, 2011, pp. 302–3).

8. Two of the main four schools of Islamic law. The hanafi school is practised gen-erally in the Middle East, Central and South Asia, while the maliki school ispredominant in North Africa and in some Gulf states. Alongside differences inIslamic legal jurisprudence, there are also differences concerning the performanceof Islamic rituals and dietary restrictions.

9. On the distinction between neofundamentalism and political Islam, seeRoy (2004).

10. The legitimacy of this victory has been called into question, as both electionswere boycotted by the other main French Islamic organizations: the federationled by the Great Mosque of Paris (Grande Mosquée de Paris, GMP) and linkedto the Algerian state boycotted both elections, and the UOIF boycotted the 2011election. Nevertheless, the 2003 and 2005 victories of the FNMF, of which theRMF had been a main component, had already ‘broken the myth of an Algerian-majority Islam in France’ and drawn attention to the dynamism of MoroccanIslam (Godard and Taussig, 2007, p. 42).


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11. This includes the Ministry for Moroccans Living Abroad, originally founded in1990 and ‘re-founded’ in 2007, and the new Turkish Department for Turks Abroadand Related Societies, founded in 2010 and represented by the same minister whoalso oversees the Diyanet. For more on the administration of the ‘communityabroad’, see Brand (2002) on Morocco and De Tapia (2002) on Turkey.

12. Conseil régional de culte musulman (CRCM), the regional version of theCFCM.

13. The number of years has often changed over the decades, depending on negotia-tions at the interstate level. The current agreed-upon length of stay in Germanyis for five years, which characterizes the situation of the vast majority ofDiyanet imams; however, due to the lack of personnel, there are imams whostay for shorter periods of time, often entering with tourist visas (the so-called‘three-month-imams’; Halm et al., 2012, pp. 273–7).

14. While obviously too high, this figure does reflect DITIB’s tendency to ‘think large’.Conversely, according to the study ‘Muslim Life in Germany’, 44 per cent ofMuslim respondents had heard of DITIB, and of those 67 per cent said that theyfelt partly or fully ‘represented’ by DITIB – nevertheless, these were the highestresults compared with the other Islamic organizations in Germany (Haug et al.,2009, pp. 173–81).

15. The KRM was founded in 2007 and brings together DITIB, the Central Coun-cil for Muslims in Germany (Zentralrat der Muslime in Deutschland e. V., ZMD),the Islamrat (Islamic Council) and the Association of Islamic Cultural Centres(Verband der islamischen Kulturzentren e. V., VIKZ), with the goal of creating a‘unified representative structure for Muslims in Germany’ and gaining state recog-nition as a ‘religious community’. For more see Rosenow and Kortmann (2011),pp. 68–72.

16. CCME: Council of the Moroccan Community Abroad (Conseil de la communautémarocaine à l’étranger).

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Not Quite In, Not Quite Out: Islamic Organizations in France and Germany and Their Ties to Their...

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