Islam, Religious Liberty and Constitutionalism in Europe
Islam, Religious Liberty and Constitutionalism in Europe

Author: Mark Hill KC

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2024-02-08

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 1509966978

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For centuries, since the Roman Empire's adoption of Christianity, the continent of Europe has been perceived as something of a Christian fortress. Today, the increase in the number of Muslims living in Europe and the prominence of Islamic belief pose questions not only for Europe's religious traditions but also for its constitutional make up. This book examines these challenges within the legal and political framework of Europe. The volume's contributors range from academics at leading universities to former judges and politicians. Its 19 chapters focus on constitutional challenges, human rights with a focus on religious freedom, and securitisation and Islamophobia, while adopting supranational and comparative approaches. This book will appeal not merely to academics and law students in the UK and the EU, but to anyone involved in diplomacy and international relations, including political scientists, lobbyists and members of NGOs. It explores these contested relationships to open up new spaces in how we think about religious freedom and co-existence in Europe and the crucial role that Islam has had, and continues to have, in its development.

Religions and Constitutional Transitions in the Muslim Mediterranean
Religions and Constitutional Transitions in the Muslim Mediterranean

Author: Alessandro Ferrari

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2016-09-13

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 1317067126

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This book investigates the role of Islam and religious freedom in the constitutional transitions of six North African and Middle Eastern countries, namely Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Turkey, and Palestine. In particular, the book, with an interdisciplinary approach, investigates the role of Islam as a political, institutional and societal force. Issues covered include: the role played by Islam as a constitutional reference – a "static force" able to strengthen and legitimize the entire constitutional order; Islam as a political reference used by some political parties in their struggle to acquire political power; and Islam as a specific religion that, like other religions in the area, embodies diverse perspectives on the nature and role of religious freedom in society. The volume provides insight about the political dimension of Islam, as used by political forces, as well as the religious dimension of Islam. This provides a new and wider perspective able to take into account the increasing social pluralism of the South-Mediterranean region. By analyzing three different topics – Islam and constitutionalism, religious political parties, and religious freedom – the book offers a dynamic picture of the role played by Islam and religious freedom in the process of state-building in a globalized age in which human rights and pluralism are crucial dimensions.

Islam and Political-Cultural Europe
Islam and Political-Cultural Europe

Author: W. Cole Durham

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-05-06

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 1317112598

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Islam and Political-Cultural Europe identifies the sometimes confusing and often contentious new challenges that arise in daily life and institutions as Islam settles deeper into Europe. Critiquing past and recent assimilation efforts in the fields of education, finance, and security, the contributors offer prospective solutions to diverse contemporary problems. Exploring the interactions of Muslim, Christian and secular cultures in the context of highly pluralized contemporary European societies, this book offers a valuable tool for those within and outside Europe seeking to understand the far-reaching implications of combining cultures, the struggles of the Muslim-Christian-secular transition, and the progress which the future promises.

Religious Freedom and the Neutrality of the State
Religious Freedom and the Neutrality of the State

Author: W. A. R. Shadid

Publisher: Peeters Publishers

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 9789042910898

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The permanent presence of Islam and Muslims is a comparatively recent phenomenon in most countries of the European Union. Over the last few decades many initiatives have been launched by Muslim communities in the European Union to create infrastructural provisions for their religious life, within the existing legal and social frameworks. In fact, all countries of the European Union share the principles of religious freedom and non-discrimination in their respective Constitutions. However, the precise way in which these principles are interpreted and applied to Islam depends largely on the historical traditions concerning the relation between State and Religion, which differ from one country to another. These differences are reflected in recent developments in the communication between the States and their Muslim communities, both at national, regional and municipal levels. They are also reflected in recent developments in legislation and jurisprudence concerning the most essential Islamic core-values, such as dietary laws, the precepts on modest dress, Islamic burial practices and the possibilities to found Islamic cemeteries, as well as the observance of Friday prayers and annual holidays. Looking at the legal position of Islam in the countries of the European Union, the authors of this volume discuss the challenges posed by the presence of Islam to the Western European system of relationships between law and religion. They argue, that these challenges necessitate reforms within the relevant European legislation, but differ as to their precise nature. They also discuss the difficulties of this task, as these adjustments will alter a longstanding balance of rights and privileges recognised by different religious denominations. Legal reforms, however, are not sufficient. The creation of a truly multicultural Europe also necessitates fighting against the negative image of Islam and Muslims (anti-Muslimism or Islamophobia) prevailing in most of its member states.

Religious Freedom and the Position of Islam in Western Europe
Religious Freedom and the Position of Islam in Western Europe

Author: W. A. R. Shadid

Publisher: Peeters Publishers

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 9789039000656

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The permanent presence of Islam and Muslims (approximately 7 million) is a comparatively recent phenomenon in most countries of the European Community. By far the greater majority of them consists of former inhabitants of the Muslim world who migrated to the West for economic or political reasons after the Second World War. Over the last decades many initiatives have been launched by Muslim communities to create infrastructural provisions for their religious life, within the existing legal and social frameworks. In fact, all countries of the European Community share the principles of religious freedom and non-discrimination in their respective Constitutions. However, the precise way in which these principles are interpreted and applied to Islam depends largely on the historical traditions concerning the relations between State and Religion, which differ from one country to another. The present book is mainly based on the numerous articles and books concerning the public status of Islam in the various countries of Western Europe which were published between 1987 and 1994. First of all, a comparative study is offered of the relation between State and Religion, according to the constitutional traditions of the member states of the European Community. Secondly, the authors discuss the opportunities and obstacles in the realization of an organizational structure by the Muslim communities. Attention is paid, among others, to the foundation of mosques, the position of imams, and the attempts to create representative bodies on the national level which can serve as negotiating partners with the national governments. In a separate chapter, attention is paid to Islam as a minority religion from a theoretical point of view. Then follows a discussion of the possibilities for the observance of islamic customs and rituals, such as religious holidays, dietary laws and dress rules. With regard to Islamic religious education attention is paid in the last chapter to religious education within mosques, public, Christian and Islamic schools. At the end there is an extensive bibliography with an index of subjects and countries.

Islam, Europe and Emerging Legal Issues
Islam, Europe and Emerging Legal Issues

Author: W. Cole Durham

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-05-06

Total Pages: 355

ISBN-13: 1317112369

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Islam, Europe and Emerging Legal Issues brings together vital analysis of the challenges that Europe poses for an expanding Islam and that Islam poses for Europe, within their ever-evolving religious, legal, and social environments. This book gathers some of the best thinking on Islam and the law affecting current and contested issues that can no longer be ignored, particularly as they have found their way before the European Court of Human Rights. Contributors include leading authorities who are working at the heart of this generation's law and religion questions in Europe and across the world. This book outlines implications for all those who look to Europe-from both within and without-for models of human rights implementation and multi-cultural accommodation.

Freedom of Religion
Freedom of Religion

Author: Renáta Uitz

Publisher: Council of Europe

Published: 2007-01-01

Total Pages: 183

ISBN-13: 9287162018

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The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights proclaim that everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including freedom to manifest their religion or belief in worship, teaching, practice and observance. Even today, in democratic societies too, this fundamental right is still sometimes restricted and meets with hostility and intolerance. Using concrete examples, the author compares and analyzes the protection of the right to freedom of religion in the case-law of European constitutional courts and of the European Court of Human Rights of the Council of Europe, in order to establish whether there is such a thing as general European law in this sphere.--Publisher's description.

Legal Integration of Islam
Legal Integration of Islam

Author: Christian Joppke

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2013-04-15

Total Pages: 198

ISBN-13: 0674074939

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The status of Islam in Western societies remains deeply contentious. Countering strident claims on both the right and left, Legal Integration of Islam offers an empirically informed analysis of how four liberal democracies—France, Germany, Canada, and the United States—have responded to the challenge of integrating Islam and Muslim populations. Demonstrating the centrality of the legal system to this process, Christian Joppke and John Torpey reject the widely held notion that Europe is incapable of accommodating Islam and argue that institutional barriers to Muslim integration are no greater on one side of the Atlantic than the other. While Muslims have achieved a substantial degree of equality working through the courts, political dynamics increasingly push back against these gains, particularly in Europe. From a classical liberal viewpoint, religion can either be driven out of public space, as in France, or included without sectarian preference, as in Germany. But both policies come at a price—religious liberty in France and full equality in Germany. Often seen as the flagship of multiculturalism, Canada has found itself responding to nativist and liberal pressures as Muslims become more assertive. And although there have been outbursts of anti-Islamic sentiment in the United States, the legal and political recognition of Islam is well established and largely uncontested. Legal Integration of Islam brings to light the successes and the shortcomings of integrating Islam through law without denying the challenges that this religion presents for liberal societies.

Religious Freedom in the Liberal State
Religious Freedom in the Liberal State

Author: Rex Ahdar

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2013-03-21

Total Pages: 528

ISBN-13: 019164871X

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Examining the law and public policy relating to religious liberty in Western liberal democracies, this book contains a detailed analysis of the history, rationale, scope, and limits of religious freedom from (but not restricted to) an evangelical Christian perspective. Focussing on United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and EU, it studies the interaction between law and religion at several different levels, looking at the key debates that have arisen. Divided into three parts, the book begins by contrasting the liberal and Christian rationales for and understandings of religious freedom. It then explores central thematic issues: the types of constitutional frameworks within which any right to religious exercise must operate; the varieties of paradigmatic relationships between organized religion and the state; the meaning of 'religion'; the limitations upon individual and institutional religious behaviour; and the domestic and international legal mechanisms that have evolved to address religious conduct. The final part explores key subject areas where current religious freedom controversies have arisen: employment; education; parental rights and childrearing; controls on pro-religious and anti-religious expression; medical treatment; and religious group (church) autonomy. This new edition is fully updated with the growing case law in the area, and features increased coverage of Islam and the flashpoint debates surrounding the accommodation of Muslim beliefs and practices in Anglophone nations.