When Europe loved Islam...

[Augustus]

From Foreign Policy magazine:

It’s an odd scene to imagine in today’s Germany, where the right-wing Alternative for Germany party has called for a ban on burqas and minarets, and more than half of Germans say they view Islam as a threat. But in the interwar period, Berlin boasted a thriving Muslim intelligentsia comprising not only immigrants and students from South Asia and the Middle East but German converts from all walks of life. Islam, at the time, represented a countercultural, even exotic, form of spirituality for forward-thinking leftists:Think Buddhism, in 1970s California.

Germans were no exception in displaying this kind of openness and even fascination with Islam. The early 20th century saw the emergence of the first Muslim communities and institutions in Western Europe and, with them, came converts in Britain and the Netherlands, as well. It’s a virtually forgotten period of history — but one of particular relevance today, as the relationship between Islam and Europe is increasingly marked by wariness and at times outright hostility.

Even the more nuanced discussions about Islam in Europe — those that take into account the structural factors that have marginalized the continent’s Muslim populations — still, for the most part, treat the presence of the religion as a new and thorny phenomenon, something foreign to European cultural and political life as we know it. But a look back at the early 20th century — primarily the period after the first wave of Muslim immigration to Europe in the wake of World War I — shows that not so long ago Western Europe and Islam had a very different relationship, one characterized by curiosity on the part of citizens and almost a sort of favoritism on the part of governments. At the same time that European citizens were experimenting with an exotic eastern religion, European governments were providing special treatment for Muslim citizens and catering to them in ways that might at first glance seem surprising: The secular French government spent lavishly on ostentatious mosques, while Germany sought to demonstrate its superior treatment of Muslims, when compared to France and Britain. Examining this past serves as a reminder that not only is this not a new encounter, but the relationship between Western Europe and Islam was not always what it is today and may not always look this way in the future...

Link


Thoughts?

 

[Godobeyer]

From Foreign Policy magazine:

It’s an odd scene to imagine in today’s Germany, where the right-wing Alternative for Germany party has called for a ban on burqas and minarets, and more than half of Germans say they view Islam as a threat. But in the interwar period, Berlin boasted a thriving Muslim intelligentsia comprising not only immigrants and students from South Asia and the Middle East but German converts from all walks of life. Islam, at the time, represented a countercultural, even exotic, form of spirituality for forward-thinking leftists:Think Buddhism, in 1970s California.

Germans were no exception in displaying this kind of openness and even fascination with Islam. The early 20th century saw the emergence of the first Muslim communities and institutions in Western Europe and, with them, came converts in Britain and the Netherlands, as well. It’s a virtually forgotten period of history — but one of particular relevance today, as the relationship between Islam and Europe is increasingly marked by wariness and at times outright hostility.

Even the more nuanced discussions about Islam in Europe — those that take into account the structural factors that have marginalized the continent’s Muslim populations — still, for the most part, treat the presence of the religion as a new and thorny phenomenon, something foreign to European cultural and political life as we know it. But a look back at the early 20th century — primarily the period after the first wave of Muslim immigration to Europe in the wake of World War I — shows that not so long ago Western Europe and Islam had a very different relationship, one characterized by curiosity on the part of citizens and almost a sort of favoritism on the part of governments. At the same time that European citizens were experimenting with an exotic eastern religion, European governments were providing special treatment for Muslim citizens and catering to them in ways that might at first glance seem surprising: The secular French government spent lavishly on ostentatious mosques, while Germany sought to demonstrate its superior treatment of Muslims, when compared to France and Britain. Examining this past serves as a reminder that not only is this not a new encounter, but the relationship between Western Europe and Islam was not always what it is today and may not always look this way in the future...

Link


Thoughts?

"Muslims had superior treatement in some Europe countries" !
How is that ?
For your opinion the citizenship in Europe suppose to be depend on religion ?

 

[Augustus]

"Muslims had superior treatement in some Europe countries" !
How is that ?
For your opinion the citizenship in Europe suppose to be depend on religion ?

To be honest, I have very little knowledge about how Muslims were treated in early 20th C Europe. What you mention relates to this passage though:

"During World War I, France and Britain relied on their colonial subjects — many of whom were Muslim — to serve on European battlefields, and so they paid a great deal of attention to the needs of these troops. Imams were attached to regiments, and Muslims in the armies received special halal provisions: Instead of pork and wine, they were given couscous, coffee, and mint tea. (Jewish regiments, on the other hand, received no such special treatment.) On the German side, the country’s first mosque was built in a prisoner of war camp in Wünsdorf to accommodate captured Muslim soldiers and demonstrate to them how much better Germans treated them than the French or British. The result, they hoped, would create unrest among Muslim populations in the colonies of Germany’s two rivals."

Also:

"But European governments also tried to win over Muslims through the soft power of propaganda. In 1926, more than two decades after affirming its commitment to secularism, or laïcité, in a 1905 law, the French state relied on a variety of loopholes to finance the construction of the Grande Mosquée de Paris — an act that left many of the nation’s Catholics outraged at the state’s preferential treatment toward Muslims."

 

[Nietzsche]

It should be specified that the Islam that gained traction in early 20th century Germany was a very western-friendly, Turkish(well, Ottoman) derived Islam.

 

[YmirGF]

Very interesting. I've never argued that part of the problem in the world today is the military and political interference done by "western" powers seeking to benefit from unwary Muslims. That said, in years gone by the political leaders were not dealing with frothing at the mouth terrorist factions either...

Islam, at the time, represented a countercultural, even exotic, form of spirituality for forward-thinking leftists:Think Buddhism, in 1970s California.

This is a rather interesting observation. Birds of a feather determined to change the world into their own utopian image?

 

[Augustus]

This is a rather interesting observation. Birds of a feather determined to change the world into their own utopian image?

Again, I don't have enough knowledge of this topic to really add much, but the article also mentions this:

Converts like Hugo Marcus, a gay Jewish philosopher, show Islam wasn’t just present in Europe in the years after World War I — for some, it played a vital role in discussions about what the continent’s future should look like. Marcus, who helped run the Wilmersdorf mosque, was born in 1880 and moved to Berlin to study philosophy. He converted in 1925, after tutoring young South Asian Muslim immigrants. Adopting the Muslim name Hamid, Marcus wrote articles for the mosque’s publication, Moslemische Revue, in which he engaged with the philosophers popular at the time — Goethe, Nietzsche, Spinoza, and Kant — to argue that Islam was a necessary component in crafting the “New Man.” Used to describe an ideal future citizen, the “New Man” was a trendy philosophical concept taken up by everyone from the socialists to the fascists and was central to both Soviet and National Socialist imagery. For Marcus, Islam, as the monotheistic successor to Judaism and Christianity, was the missing component at the heart of this “man of the future.”

 

[Pastek]

To be honest, I have very little knowledge about how Muslims were treated in early 20th C Europe. What you mention relates to this passage though:

You can watch this video to have an idea but in general people weren't that well treated.
Some people were never payed for fighting in WW2.

 

[firedragon]

From Foreign Policy magazine:

It’s an odd scene to imagine in today’s Germany, where the right-wing Alternative for Germany party has called for a ban on burqas and minarets, and more than half of Germans say they view Islam as a threat. But in the interwar period, Berlin boasted a thriving Muslim intelligentsia comprising not only immigrants and students from South Asia and the Middle East but German converts from all walks of life. Islam, at the time, represented a countercultural, even exotic, form of spirituality for forward-thinking leftists:Think Buddhism, in 1970s California.

Germans were no exception in displaying this kind of openness and even fascination with Islam. The early 20th century saw the emergence of the first Muslim communities and institutions in Western Europe and, with them, came converts in Britain and the Netherlands, as well. It’s a virtually forgotten period of history — but one of particular relevance today, as the relationship between Islam and Europe is increasingly marked by wariness and at times outright hostility.

Even the more nuanced discussions about Islam in Europe — those that take into account the structural factors that have marginalized the continent’s Muslim populations — still, for the most part, treat the presence of the religion as a new and thorny phenomenon, something foreign to European cultural and political life as we know it. But a look back at the early 20th century — primarily the period after the first wave of Muslim immigration to Europe in the wake of World War I — shows that not so long ago Western Europe and Islam had a very different relationship, one characterized by curiosity on the part of citizens and almost a sort of favoritism on the part of governments. At the same time that European citizens were experimenting with an exotic eastern religion, European governments were providing special treatment for Muslim citizens and catering to them in ways that might at first glance seem surprising: The secular French government spent lavishly on ostentatious mosques, while Germany sought to demonstrate its superior treatment of Muslims, when compared to France and Britain. Examining this past serves as a reminder that not only is this not a new encounter, but the relationship between Western Europe and Islam was not always what it is today and may not always look this way in the future...

Link


Thoughts?

Do you know that in 2006 the most known word in the whole world was O.K (Okay), 2nd most known was coke.

Its Marketing.

 

[AsianActivist]

When Europe loved Islam:

 

[Nietzsche]

When Europe loved Islam:

Ohohohoho. How did I not see this?

People love to throw that picture around. Hitler meeting with the Grand Mufti. And yet, Hitler was still supporting Mussolini's Italy, which intended to conquer the Middle East as part of its "Spazio vitale" within the greater "Mare Nostrum". A New Rome for a New Age, and all that, with the Regina Marina operating as far as the Indian Ocean.

No. What that was, was nothing more than an attempt to cause trouble in British possessions in the Middle East. Should I start posting pictures of Azad Hind meeting with Japanese officials and also supported by Hitler? I've got them.

 

[LuisDantas]

While it is most obvious in the UK and the Nordic countries, Europe as a whole seems to have very much overgrown theological notions.

So much so that its does not even feel any particular need to discourage its own Christian past and present legacy, since the people have learned well that Christianity is not to be given anything resembling the impressive political influence of centuries gone. Making a point of denying it influence would probably only embolden it needlessly.

It turns out that Islam at its core is a theocratic ideology. The reform movements seem to me to be almost clandestine, but they may conceivably be succesful eventually. Still, at present and predictable future it remains theocratic. That is a mindset that can't really be accepted by Europeans anymore, and we all are that much better for it.

Word has it that the 1979 revolution in Islam was a surprise to many observers. I would say that it was also a sobering call for Europeans and others about how deeply rooted the theocratic ideas still persist in the Islamic populations. Before that it was way too easy to underestimate the contrasts with Christian populations of current times. Islam did not present any obvious major divergences from the Christian template, and there was no clear reason to expect it to be measurably more totalitarian, influential or unreasonable than, say, Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

But it has become apparent since then that Islam is the last real stronghold of theocracy supporters. Worse still, it has become increasingly apparent that the excesses of Islam won't be contained or counteracted at all effectively from within. And as that realization keeps dawning in, the need to balance the good will towards religious diversity with realistic expectations likewise settles itself.

I suspect that many or most Muslims by their turn fail to fully grasp how extraneous their worldview is and will remain being for Europeans. Islam presents itself as the natural successor of Christianity, but Christianity has become a cultural curiosity with a questionable maintenance cost. It is not very likely to need a successor at all.

With populations measured in the tenths of millions upwards to billions, there will always be odd cases and outliers, but those seem to me to be the general trends.

 

[paarsurrey]

From Foreign Policy magazine:

It’s an odd scene to imagine in today’s Germany, where the right-wing Alternative for Germany party has called for a ban on burqas and minarets, and more than half of Germans say they view Islam as a threat. But in the interwar period, Berlin boasted a thriving Muslim intelligentsia comprising not only immigrants and students from South Asia and the Middle East but German converts from all walks of life. Islam, at the time, represented a countercultural, even exotic, form of spirituality for forward-thinking leftists:Think Buddhism, in 1970s California.

Germans were no exception in displaying this kind of openness and even fascination with Islam. The early 20th century saw the emergence of the first Muslim communities and institutions in Western Europe and, with them, came converts in Britain and the Netherlands, as well. It’s a virtually forgotten period of history — but one of particular relevance today, as the relationship between Islam and Europe is increasingly marked by wariness and at times outright hostility.

Even the more nuanced discussions about Islam in Europe — those that take into account the structural factors that have marginalized the continent’s Muslim populations — still, for the most part, treat the presence of the religion as a new and thorny phenomenon, something foreign to European cultural and political life as we know it. But a look back at the early 20th century — primarily the period after the first wave of Muslim immigration to Europe in the wake of World War I — shows that not so long ago Western Europe and Islam had a very different relationship, one characterized by curiosity on the part of citizens and almost a sort of favoritism on the part of governments. At the same time that European citizens were experimenting with an exotic eastern religion, European governments were providing special treatment for Muslim citizens and catering to them in ways that might at first glance seem surprising: The secular French government spent lavishly on ostentatious mosques, while Germany sought to demonstrate its superior treatment of Muslims, when compared to France and Britain. Examining this past serves as a reminder that not only is this not a new encounter, but the relationship between Western Europe and Islam was not always what it is today and may not always look this way in the future...

Link


Thoughts?

Thanks and regards

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I don't know why people act like Islam and Europe are mutually exclusive. I guess they've never heard of the Bosniaks, who have been Muslim for centuries. Guess they've never heard of Albanians, either. Europe's always been a mixture of religions and cultures.

 

[The Emperor of Mankind]

I don't know why people act like Islam and Europe are mutually exclusive. I guess they've never heard of the Bosniaks, who have been Muslim for centuries. Guess they've never heard of Albanians, either. Europe's always been a mixture of religions and cultures.

Both those groups were converted by the Ottomans who practised a form of Islam that probably wasn't nearly as aggressive (relatively) as Wahabism or Salafism are today. It's important to remember the Ottomans actually held their religious leaders in check for at least some of their history; something others have clearly failed to do.

 

[Glaurung]

I don't know why people act like Islam and Europe are mutually exclusive. I guess they've never heard of the Bosniaks, who have been Muslim for centuries. Guess they've never heard of Albanians, either. Europe's always been a mixture of religions and cultures.

I've had nothing but good interactions with Albanians. I used to have a few of them as co-workers back at my past job. Yeah, they were Muslim but they were very laid back about their faith. They even had beers with us at the company Christmas break-up dinner. The big difference is that Albanians seem to be European in cultural outlook despite Islam.

Both those groups were converted by the Ottomans who practised a form of Islam that probably wasn't nearly as aggressive (relatively) as Wahabism or Salafism are today. It's important to remember the Ottomans actually held their religious leaders in check for at least some of their history; something others have clearly failed to do.

The problem isn't really Islam per se. If the practice of Islam is to mean praying three times a day, attending mosque and observing halal and Ramadan then that's all harmless enough. If that is what someone wants to do then have at it. The problem is a particular brand of middle-eastern Islam gaining currency and being imported around the world that has no intention of integrating in any meaningful way to the societies it forces itself into. In fact it demands submission. See the pro-Sharia protests in London for example. It takes some really determined PC-ness to deny that there is a real problem here. And that the collective power that these people will hold will only increase in the coming decades as we flood Europe with people who hold that mindset. How many polls have been done that show that Wahabist (and the like) leanings among European Muslims are not constrained to the ultra-fringe?

 

[Nietzsche]

Both those groups were converted by the Ottomans who practised a form of Islam that probably wasn't nearly as aggressive (relatively) as Wahabism or Salafism are today. It's important to remember the Ottomans actually held their religious leaders in check for at least some of their history; something others have clearly failed to do.

Wahabism was fought by the Ottomans. The only reason it became a big deal was because the Entente decided to support them so they could revolt against Ottoman rule during the GreatWar.