Cemeteries and Mosques: Muslim Collective Action in Switzerland and France
Carolyn M. Warner
Department of Political Science
Arizona State University
cwarner@asu.edu
paper prepared for presentation at the annual meeting of the Association for the Study of
Religion, Economics and Culture, Washington D.C. 2-5 April 2009. Copyright Carolyn M.
Warner
I thank Colin Elman, Miki Kittilson, Paul Lewis, and Ramazan Kilinc for helpful comments and
insights, Ali Ihsan Aydin and Diane Hässig for facilitating access to documents, and Kirsten
Pickering for research assistance.
Abstract
This paper studies the coordination efforts among Muslims in two areas across two countries.
The policy areas are attempts to obtain permission for Islamic burial practices at public
cemeteries and the establishment of full-service community mosques. In order to take into
account the variety of Muslim religious groups and ethnicities in Europe and to evaluate various
dimensions of religion, the paper analyses case studies of these topics within several cities in
France and Switzerland, across different religion-state regimes. This analysis of Muslim
collective action to obtain permission for Muslim burial practices in cemeteries and to establish
full-service community mosques finds support for the hypothesis that cooperation and conflict
between Muslims, and by extension, between interest groups, varies depending on whether the
resource being sought is a club or public good. The paper also finds some support for the claim
that conflict is demarcated by theological and ethnic differences. It does not find support for the
expectation that the nature of the religion-state regime affects cooperation and conflict.
Democracies tend to compel organized religions to act as interest groups at times in order to
obtain resources and legal permission for the exercise of specific practices of their religions
(Warner 2000). Catholics, Protestants and Jews have historically found this to be the case in
Europe and the United States. In recent decades it appears Muslims have as well. How does
religion affect organizational activity among religious groups? In particular, how does it affect
collective action among Muslim groups in Europe? Do the factors which have been argued to
affect collective action dynamics of Christians and Jews affect Muslims? The thrust of religious
sociology is that different movements and groups in Islam, such as, within Sunni Islam, the
Naqshbandi, Murids, Deobandi, Barelvi, Tablighi, Milli Görüs, Diyanet, and offshoots of the
Muslim Brotherhood, are likely to have different theological orientations that affect their
propensity to engage in collective action with other religious groups on public policy, and
influence what demands and compromises they will make. The economics of religion school, as
well as social movement theory, holds that material resources are necessary to sustain and
expand a religion (Gill 1998; Wald, Silverman and Fridy 2005). Movements and groups within
Islam should have material interests that affect their organizational survival, with the implication
that different Muslim groups would have interest-based disputes over the provision of resources
from the state even though they may share a basic interest in obtaining those state resources. I
extend these perspectives to suggest that variation in conflict and cooperation depend on what
kind of public resource is being sought -- is it a shared public good or a less divisible club or
private good -- and on ethnic and theological divisions.
Attention to Islam and politics has focused increasingly on the role of violent minority
factions (Berman and Laitin 2007; Kepel 2004; Lewis 2003). Little attention has been paid to the
less dramatic but equally important topic of organizational mobilization among mainstream
Muslims or the factors that facilitate or hinder efforts by Muslims in Europe to organize
effectively and promote their interests. Studies of Muslims and Muslim organizations in Europe
focus mainly on integration and the effects of state laws and policies on the ability of Muslims to
practice their religion or on their status as immigrants (Buijis and Rath 2002; Bleich 2003;
Laurence 2006; Laurence and Vaisse 2006; Cesari 2005; McLoughlin 2005; Fetzer and Soper
2005; Klausen 2005; Manço and Amoranitis 2005). Research has documented the multiplicity of
4
Muslim groups, ethnicities, and organizations in Europe and shown how they are often divided
on issues such as religious practices and control of community mosques (Maréchal, Allievi,
Dassetto and Nielsen 2003; Allievi 2003; Cesari 2005; Kepel 1997; Warner and Wenner 2006).
But we know very little about the conditions under which different Muslim groups collaborate to
pursue policy interests. Scholars and policy-makers alike speculate that the religion of Islam
itself matters, but have had little to say about how it matters. Given the increased politicization of
Islam in Europe and state efforts to regulate the religion, the empirical and theoretical lacuna
concerning how and what facets of Islam affect coordination and conflict among Muslim groups
is a glaring problem. We need to focus attention on the incentives different kinds of resources
give to groups to cooperate or compete, and we need to assess systematically how theological
differences interact with those incentives to affect cooperation and conflict.
This paper is an exploratory study of the coordination efforts among Muslim groups in
two policy areas in two countries. The areas are permission for Islamic burial rites at public
cemeteries and the establishment of full-service community mosques. In order to do a
preliminary test of how Muslims organize themselves to pursue policy goals pertaining to
cemeteries and mosques, I start with case studies of these topics in several French and Swiss
cities.1
There are good reasons to study collective action by Muslim groups directed at
cemeteries and mosques. First, efforts to obtain Muslim burial plots at public cemeteries should
prompt cooperation between different movements and ethnicities. Proper burial of the dead is a
shared concern of Muslims, including those who are not devout or seldom attend prayer services.
Despite diversity within Islam in many areas, basic burial rites are the same for all Muslims,
1
Due to the complexity of Islam and to space constraints, I use “movement” and “group” interchangeably. Islam has
branches, also called denominations, movements within branches, orders within movements, related faiths, religious
currents, and differing legal schools. Islamic burial rites, which stipulate burial in a shroud rather than a coffin,
alignment of the corpse with Mecca’s meridian, positioning the face of the corpse towards Mecca, separation of
Muslims from non-Muslims, and permanence of the remains in the grave, are at odds with European, Christianitybased cemetery standards and have been a source of friction. Cremation is not an option. Some scholars argue that
separation of Muslim plots from non-Muslims is not dictated by the Quran or by the Hadith, but rather by later
juridical traditions (Burkhalter 1999; Pieri 1995). Full-service community mosques require visible identification of
the facility as a mosque; space for both men and women to pray; ablution areas; educational and food preparation
facilities; and, often, space for cultural-religious celebrations, a minaret, and permission for call to prayer.
5
even as other aspects of the funeral ceremony may vary. Most European cemetery standards are
ultimately set or waived by the local municipality (Ansari 2007; Bowen 2007, 43-48; Renaerts
1986; Aldeeb Abu-Sahlieh 2002; Burkhalter 1999; Halevi 2007; Jonker 1996; Lemmen 1996;
Haut Conseil à l’ Intégration 2000, 43). Large-scale national level collective action is not critical.
Furthermore, cemetery policies, while not as newsworthy as headscarf laws, constitute a focal
point of the integration of Muslims in European societies, and a definitive feature of a state and
society’s religion-state relationship.
Second, an analysis of efforts to attain funding and planning approval for full-service
community mosques is important because mosques are the physical and community cornerstone
of Islam; as with Christian churches, mosques, through their mosque associations, can become
platforms for socio-political movements and organizations and a presence in the larger
community. Mosque proposals have also become politicized in public debates about integration,
multi-culturalism, religion in the public sphere, neo-colonialism, and delivery of government
social services. Muslims of different denominations and ethnicities sometimes attempt to
cooperate to obtain the resources to create a large community mosque, ranging from a
“neighborhood mosque” to a so-called “Cathedral mosque” (Maussen 2007). Research to date
has focused on state obstacles and state interests in managing and secularizing Islam and on
public reaction (Fetzer and Soper 2005; Laurence 2006; Cesari et al 2005), but not systematically
on the conditions under which adherents of different variants of Islam cooperate to propose and
run a full-service mosque. It is a project on which Muslims have strong incentives to collaborate,
as well as strong incentives to compete.
Both areas create collective action dilemmas. First, while religion can unite individuals
through common discourse, practices and institutions, providing a nearly ready-made community
as a mobilization resource, it can also divide. Major religious traditions have numerous divisions
within them, such that religious groups within the same tradition may vary in what they want,
with whom they can or will ally and how they can legitimate their interactions with other
religious groups. Autonomy of the group’s faith may be more important than physical facilities.
Second, religions face the usual concerns about free-riding; in the cases here, these would be
concerns about who puts up how much for financing, who meets with city officials, who does
6
other organizing work. Third, they have concerns about the resource itself: who controls it and
who has access to it?
I expect that there should be more cooperation and less conflict between Muslim groups
in the effort to obtain permission for Islamic burials in public cemeteries, and less cooperation
and more conflict between Muslim groups in the effort to obtain permission and funding for a
full-service community mosque. I hypothesize that this is due to the nature of the resource being
sought, and also due to differences in the theologies and orientations of the Muslim groups.
Mosques have many of the characteristics of a club good: the enjoyment of it by one group
diminishes or blocks the enjoyment of it by another, membership is voluntary and exclusionary,
and use can result in crowding within the resource (McBride 2007; Sandler and Tschirhart 1997;
Iannaccone 1998). It is a “concrete cultural resource” (Kniss 1996, 12; cf. Cesari 1993, 128-9).
The mosque is not a resource in isolation; it inheres in a community.2 Because mosques have a
significant role in the perpetuation and practices of the religious group but are not each a
divisible resource, access and control are major concerns–to wit, rotation of leadership between
groups, when it has been attempted, has resulted in knife fights and gun battles, not peaceful
coexistence.3 Muslim groups are concerned about membership and control of the mosque
committee; the latter usually hires the imam. They are concerned about whether they can exclude
rival groups and how to protect their control of the mosque. In addition, mosque requirements
vary somewhat across Muslim groups. For instance, the Nurcu movement is oriented towards
education—its interest is in creating cultural centers, not full-blown mosques; the Tabligh (Foi et
Pratique in France), however, is oriented towards individual piety. Its interest is in creating
traditional mosques in which to worship.4 Purpose-built full-service mosques are expensive
resources. Given religion-state regimes in Europe, they must be funded almost entirely by
2
As a Muslim in Marseille stated, “Islam is a whole. A mosque on its own doesn’t exist. The community has to
organize around the mosque” (in Cesari 1993, 114). This aspect may be heightened in Europe, where Islam is not
the majority culture.
3
Anne Devailly, “Le conflit pour le contrôle d’une mosquée de Nîmes dégénère en fusillade” Le Monde 21 Feb.
2008; Kepel 1997, 105; Shaw 1988, 149-153.
4
Mosques in countries in which Islam is not the dominant religion have a broader function than in Muslim majority
7
Muslims themselves. Cooperation between Muslim groups to pool resources to get permission
and funding to build a full-service community mosque should be difficult, and should break on
theological and ethnic divisions. As the literature on immigrant churches in the U.S. suggests,
because places of worship can be places of cultural solidarity, cooperation on mosques may be
difficult across ethnicities (Marti 2008; Ebaugh 2003; Manço 1997; Warner and Wittner 1998).
Even if a political entrepreneur cynically just wants to control a big mosque, I expect the
divisions along which he will break his group to be theological and/or ethnic.5
Public cemeteries function more like a public good. While space is ultimately finite, one
person’s use does not preclude another’s access to another plot in the cemetery nor undermine
the city’s agreement to allow Muslim burial rites in public cemeteries. Theological differences
among Muslims should not affect cooperation on getting Islamic burial spaces at public
cemeteries, as all are interested in having the same basic Islamic burial rites (Adler 2005; Jonker
1996; Burkhalter 1999; Renaerts 1986; Aldeeb Abu-Sahlieh 2002, 42-43).6 While Muslim
groups would face concerns about free-riding in organizing to petition city officials, we should
see less conflict between groups because of the common denominator of Muslim burial rites,
because the cost of the public cemetery is born by the entire municipality and not Muslim groups
themselves, and because the individual or group’s use of the resource is not diminished by
another’s use of it. On the latter, there are three reasons for that. First, the cities require finite
concessions, so that remains are removed after a set number of years and the plot is freed for a
new burial.7 Second, the specific content of a Muslim burial ritual by one religious group for one
countries.
5
When cities have promoted the establishment of a grand mosque, they have pushed for it to be something of a
public good–open to all (including non-Muslims), and managed by a committee which includes all (non-radical)
Muslim groups in the city. As we will see, the mosque’s role in the religion and communities has made it extremely
difficult for the city’s goal of a grand mosque as public good to be reached.
6
There may be variation in degree of insistence on separation of Muslim plots from other plots: some may want a
low wall, others may want a more distinct separation. Some may insist that the area be clearly marked as Islamic,
others may argue that while in Europe, because Muslims are in a situation of necessity, they can make exceptions to
these requirements (Kanmaz and Zemni 2005, 276).
7
This has been a contentious point of negotiation between Muslims (and Jews) and city officials. Due to space
constraints, cities so far have not allowed indefinite concessions. They are considering separate ossuaries for
Muslims, but I am not aware of one being created. Because death is something most people try to postpone for as
8
interment is not believed to detract from the ritual of a different Muslim group for another.8
Burials, while they may bring together a family and religious community, do not take place with
the regularity of Friday sermons or daily prayers, nor do cemeteries provide social gathering
spaces or education facilities. Third, on the question of Muslim burial areas within public
cemeteries, cities have not allowed Muslims to discriminate on the basis of religious orientation
within Islam.9
There are numerous ways to characterize the theological orientation of a religious group,
and the science of doing so is underdeveloped in political science. One way which has been used
productively to study community engagement of immigrant congregations in the United States is
that of Kniss and Numrich.10 They argue that a useful typology is one which distinguishes
religious congregations according to the emphasis they put on the collectivity or individual as the
source of moral authority, and the collectivity or the individual as the object of a moral project.11
If “[w]ho or what determines the nature of good, beauty and truth” is a group-based religious
tradition whose authority is “housed in a religious text or ecclesiastical hierarchy”, then the
religion is based on a model of collective authority (Kniss and Numrich 2007, 38, 40). An
individualist model of moral authority finds the basis of “ultimate values” in the individual’s
“reason or experience” or perception of experiences. Authoritative texts are open to reasoned
critique and re-evaluation of how they apply to new circumstances and contexts (38). They argue
that a religion for which moral authority is collective can nevertheless have the individual as the
target of the moral project: here they note that while Protestant Evangelicals regard the Bible as
long as possible, there is no rivalry in the usual sense of the public choice literature; thus, no one group really has an
incentive to be the first mover, filling the cemetery with their dead before others do.
8
Tests of this would be whether Sunni and Shia protest having to use the same cemetery, and whether they try to
exclude Ahmadiyya from access to the Muslim area of the cemetery.
9
The public cemetery which would be acceptable to Muslims is not a pure public good, because they wish to
exclude those of other religions (and atheists) from their particular area of the cemetery.
10
Theology, also sometimes termed religious ideology or religious cosmology, is a difficult variable to measure or
describe, and I am well aware of the complexities of religions, and how their theologies can change over time.
11
Their typology is based on the idea that any moral order, which any religion produces, has both a locus of moral
authority and a content for the moral project, with the latter addressing the question of “where moral action or
9
an infallible moral authority, the “most important moral project for these Protestant groups is
bringing individuals to a “born again” (evangelical) or “spirit-filled” (Pentecostal) experience”
(57). For the reverse (individual moral authority and collective project) they note reformed
Judaism and mainline Protestantism. The reasoning of Kniss and Numrich suggests that most
Muslim groups, being collectivist in their locus of moral authority and object of the moral
project, will be engaged in projects which work for the benefit of their community. Obtaining
permission for Muslim burials and establishing full-service mosques would seem to be
community-oriented projects; that is, projects which, while of course benefitting the individual
Muslim, are meant to maintain the religious community. Kniss and Numrich argue that collective
oriented groups are less likely to work collaboratively with other religious groups or civic groups
on these projects, as they are less able to recognize alternative perspectives, and because their
focus is their own community. Studies of Islam in Europe suggest that within Islam, there is
variation on the collective- individual dimensions for both authority and object of action and
Kniss and Numrich do note that while the source of moral authority in Islam tends to be
collective, and that the moral project is usually the community (religious collective), there are
interpretations, such as Sufism, which emphasize the individual religious experience (63). The
implication is that if a Muslim group sees its community as largely limited to itself, it may be
less likely to work with other Muslim groups toward a common goal.
What a mosque constitutes, and what permission for Muslim burial rites constitutes,
needs more thought. After all, many individualist religions (where the source and object of moral
authority is the individual, not the group) still have religious buildings. They may also argue for
permission for their burial rites, though they may be willing to accept that they can buried along
side someone of another creed or faith (or no faith); still others may be willing to adapt to
whatever the local legal restrictions are and not worry about cemeteries. There also is
considerable variation within Muslim movements in Europe on what their goals are, even if the
goals are collectivist. Kniss and Numrich would agree that the specific content is likely to vary
with the specific religious group, even though the broad outlines suggest that a group which sees
moral authority as inhering in a collectively held religious tradition and which has the
influence should be targeted” (Kniss and Numrich 2007, 56).
10
collectivity as the moral project is going to be engaged in projects which maintain and extend the
group.
Another classification used by some sociologists of religion to provide additional
leverage on the issue of cooperation and conflict might be more applicable to the questions under
consideration in this paper. This starts with a fairly simple division between those religious
groups with a theology that attempts to integrate their religious traditions with contemporary life,
and those that strive to adhere to traditional religious principles and rules (as they define them)
and shun integration. The first is characterized as flexible and modernist and the second as rigid
and orthodox (cf. Davis and Robinson 2001). We would expect to find that Islamic movements
vary in how restrictive they are about what is required in a mosque and what is required for
proper burial. The flexible and modernist will have fewer requirements than the rigid and
orthodox. One can hypothesize that groups will then vary along the dimension of engagement in
collective action: those more restrictive should be more engaged in efforts to obtain a full-service
community mosque, and be unwilling to settle for continued worship in a prayer room; likewise
for cemeteries, with those more restrictive more engaged in pushing for efforts to be allowed to
have the corpse face Mecca, and ensure permanence of the remains. However, those more
restrictive about mosques are likely to strive to have full control over the running of the mosque,
which may temper their willingness to engage in collective action with other Muslim groups. In
contrast, restrictiveness about cemeteries might not hinder willingness to engage in collective
action with other Muslim groups, because how the adherents of one group bury their dead at a
grave does not affect how adherents of another group do, and European cities, not the groups,
retain control over access to the cemetery spaces (where Muslim burials are allowed in public
cemeteries, the city’s criterion is that the deceased must be said to be a Muslim; Conseil d’État
2004, 327). The constructs of flexible/rigid, modernist/orthodox do not capture the range of
dimensions on which Muslim groups vary, or all the differences and similarities which the
groups may consider relevant for distinguishing between themselves (Maréchal 2003, 111-143;
El-Jisr 1993). The constructs are, however, useful for analytic purposes in this study (cf. Wood
1999). At a minimum, if religion as a theology makes a difference in willingness of groups to
cooperate in order to obtain services from governing entities, then its effect should show up, with
11
some variation, in these policy areas.
An important background variable, which does not vary in this study, is the structure of
the religion. Centralized, hierarchical religions have a greater capacity to mobilize for one goal,
and to enforce agreement at lower levels, than do decentralized, non-hierarchical religions
(Kalyvas Algeria article; Warner 2000; Warner and Wenner 2006). Islam, particularly Sunni
Islam, falls into the latter category. Preliminary research finds that religious diversity within
Islam, and the ethnic diversity of its adherents in Europe, are among the factors affecting the
capacity of Muslims to engage in short- or long-term cooperation for attaining public policy
goals (Warner and Wenner 2006; cf. Pfaff and Gill 2006). Because Islam is a decentralized
religion, it tends to allow and encourage the proliferation of diverse groups. This effect is
heightened in Europe, where individual and religious freedoms are fairly strong (Chaves,
Schraeder and Sprindys 1994).12 Various movements of Islam in Europe have differing views of
the role of mosques (e.g., strictly places of worship versus cultural centers showcasing the
religion versus simple neighborhood prayer rooms) and thus may pursue different mosque
proposals, a divergence which public officials sometimes exploit (Maussen 2007). As with other
structurally decentralized religions such as Judaism and evangelical Protestantism, Muslim
groups face an immediate barrier to collective action. There is no overarching bureaucratic
hierarchy within the religion to coordinate and control the affairs of different groups and
adherents, thus meaning that coordination may require comparatively more effort than it would
for a centralized and hierarchical religious organization such as the Catholic Church or Mormon
Church (Warner 2000; McBride 2007). As we shall see, states and cities sometimes try to
provide a focal point.
To summarize, due to the logic of collective action (informed by religious economics), I
am expecting, overall, to find that there is less conflict and more cooperation on cemeteries, and
more conflict and less cooperation among Muslim groups on mosques. Informed by both
religious economics and by ideational approaches, I am expecting that flexible and modernist
12
The Western members of the European Union, as well as Switzerland and Norway, are scored as “free” in civil
liberties and political rights, including religious freedoms.
http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=372&year=2007. See also Shadid and van Koningsveld 1995.
12
Muslim groups will be less demanding about mosque and cemetery features, so will be more
likely to compromise with other groups and with public officials, and that rigid and traditionalist
Muslim groups will be more demanding about cemetery and mosque features, so will be less
likely to compromise with other groups and with public officials.
While not a major focus of inquiry in this paper, it must be said that the resource richness
of any particular group will affect its capacity to engage in collective action. All other things
being equal, the groups which have a more educated and established membership with facility in
the host country language will be more able to engage in any collective action.13
It also needs to be pointed out that we see in these issues areas how government policy,
here mostly of cities, influences what kind of good groups might be trying to obtain. While
cemeteries may seem to be rivalrous and excludable, hence private goods, the state in France and
in parts of Switzerland, in conjunction with their cities, has made them public. They have done
so by granting only finite plot concessions (thus, preventing the cemetery from becoming
permanently full, preventing others from using it), by outlawing exclusion on the basis of
religious or other characteristics of the deceased or those who wish to visit that part of the
cemetery, and by providing the resource itself, including the upkeep.14 The one exclusion often
applied is that of residency in the city in question. But for groups within the city, that is not an
exclusion which affects them, thus the good remains public. Furthermore, because the city
retains control of the cemetery, groups do not vie for control of it as they might were it a club or
private good. We also see cities trying to have the grand mosque, at least, be a public good: open
to all Muslims and all others, with rotating leadership or a mosque committee representative of
all (of those deemed by the city to be non-radical) Muslims in the city. However, because
funding is only minimally derived from the city, and because control is in the hands of Muslims,
13
Other factors may affect conflict and cooperation between Muslims, including the structure of citizenship regimes,
which I control for in the case studies (cf. Giugni and Passy 2004), the number of veto players or lobbying points in
city governments, the size of the Muslim population and degree of hostility of local public opinion. I have tried to
select cases in which these factors are roughly similar. My point here is to explore whether the nature of the good in
question, and theological orientations of Muslim groups may have an independent effect.
14
Since the Revolution of 1789, cemeteries in France have belonged to the municipalities, with the mayor having
direct authority over them (Bouvier 2003, 16). See also, for instance, the 2006 law in Geneva, https://secure1.fer-
13
mosques tend to be club goods rather than public goods. They are club goods, not private goods,
because some can be excluded and benefits of the good accrue to the members, but each mosque
is non-rivalrous for those who attend–ones enjoyment of the mosque is not diminished, indeed
might be enhanced by, another’s enjoyment of it.15
Methodology: logic of case selection, operationalization of variables, data sources
This study is a qualitative comparison of several cases for two reasons. First, there is no
catalogue or database and code book of the efforts of Muslims in European cities to establish
full-service community mosques or get cemetery permissions, which groups collaborated, their
degree of success, the bases of conflicts, nor regression analyses of sources of variation in these
efforts. We do not have the data to create mean values on the independent and dependent
variables (public, club goods; theology of the group, cooperation and conflict). Second, to see if
the proposed mechanisms are connected to the outcomes, close analysis is necessary (Gerring
2007; George and Bennett 2004). It is unfortunately not possible to claim with authority that the
cases studied are representative of a larger population of cases. However, given that institutional
features of religion-state regimes apply to other cities, that mosques and public cemeteries are
club and public goods respectively in other cities, and that the dynamics within different versions
and ethnicities of Islam within France and within Switzerland are likely fairly consistent and not
unique to the Muslim groups within each city in those countries, it is likely that the dynamics
that come to light in the cities under study would be similar to dynamics in other cities, at least
within the same countries under the same religion-state regime. To the extent that these
dynamics and institutional features are present in other Western European countries, we may see
similar results elsewhere.
I have structured the study to compare outcomes under different institutional structures of
religion-state relations. Scholars of religion and politics in Europe use a basic typology of
ge.ch/wps/wcm/connect/92b0d38047ec863ab863b8235f68c1cd/PL09957.pdf?MOD=AJPERES
15
Exclusion techniques may vary and be somewhat limited: it is rare, if not unheard of, for a mosque to prevent
someone from attending prayer services due to being of another orientation or due to not donating funds to sustain
mosque operations (cf. McBride 2007; Prakash and Potoski 2007). It is more likely that exclusion occurs on the
basis of social pressure and on self-selection: one attends the mosque with which one feels most comfortable (or, in
14
“religion-state” regimes which evolved over centuries of political conflicts and compromises
between organized Christian religions and states. At their simplest level, the legal, institutional
and normative features are either “separationist” or “establishment,” with the former meaning
that there is a formal, constitutionally mandated separation of religion from the state, with the
latter meaning that the state supports and subsidizes organized (“established”) religions (Fetzer
and Soper 2005; Shadid and van Koningsveld 1995, 10-23).16 There are numerous variations on
these themes, yet for the purposes of this study, what matters as a variable is whether or not the
state (or city) is allowed to subsidize religion and accommodate religious practices in public
facilities (Friedner 2007; Ferrari and Bradney 2000).17 Typically, those states which subsidize
and accommodate organized religions are establishment states, though so-called separationist
states of the Netherlands and Belgium also have done so via other legal means. France and
Switzerland are the two European countries host to significant Muslim populations that have
both types of religion-state regimes. France contains Alsace-Moselle, which for historical
reasons is exempt from the 1901 and 1905 French laws on separation of church and state. The
region instead operates under the establishment regime, which thus offers Muslims the
opportunity, though not the guarantee, of permission and resources to establish a community
mosque and to be allowed burial rites at cemeteries (Basdevant-Gaudemet and Messner 2007,
104-106; Dufaux et al 2005, 401-458). In Switzerland the 26 cantons decide their own religionstate relations, and most of the French and Italian speaking cantons are separationist, though with
variation in the details. The Germanic cantons tend to be establishment (Cattacin, Famos
Duttwiler and Mahnig 2003; Bellanger 2003). The separationist regimes governing Grenoble and
Lausanne should require more coordination between Muslims in order for them to constitute an
rational choice terms, is closest to ones religious preferences).
16
Some scholars identify three categories: “a) systems based on the conclusion of concordats and agreements
between states and religious faiths; b) systems characterized by a state church or a national church; c) systems where
there is a separation between states and religious faiths” (Ferrari 2003, 219). In the western countries of Europe,
Portugal, Spain, and Italy are concordat states; Finland, Denmark, Greece, and England are national or state church
systems; and France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland and recently Sweden are separationist. Germany has
concordat and establishment features. Switzerland is a mix of concordat, establishment and separation; France as
indicated also is a mix due to the special status of the Alsace-Moselle region.
17For critiques of a “national model” approach, see Bowen 2007a and Bader 2007. While the efforts of Muslims to
establish mosques and obtain Muslim burial rites in cemeteries are pushing states to re-configure their models, the
15
effective lobbying force. The establishment regimes governing Mulhouse and Basel may see
more separate group demands for mosques and less coordination over cemeteries, due to a lower
threshold for getting support and permission.
I originally intended to do a paired comparison of two cities in France and two in
Switzerland, which I describe here. An information deficit, described below, prompted me to
include several other cities. Mulhouse (France) and Basel (Switzerland) are under religion-state
regimes that recognize the public role of religions, and grant rights to officially recognized
religions. Mulhouse, in the Alsace-Moselle region, is under a religion-state regime that
recognizes the public role of religions, and grants subsidies to officially recognized religions.18
Grenoble (France) and Lausanne (Switzerland) are under religion-state regimes which apply
strict rules of the separation of religion and state, and officially reject a formal public role for
organized religions. Basel and Lausanne have Muslim communities predominantly from the
Balkan peninsula and Turkey but also from South Asia. Mulhouse and Grenoble have Muslim
communities with roots mostly in North Africa but also Muslims from West Africa and Turkey
(Cesari 1994; Weibel 1990; Reeber 1996; Pahud de Mortanges and Tanner 2002; Fetzer and
Soper 2005; Mahnig 2002; Mahnig 2000). The balance of ethnicities in the French cities and in
the Swiss cities is approximately the same, with the main groups being Moroccan, Algerian and
Turkish immigrants and their descendants, and the religious demographics within Islam are
roughly similar in terms of movements present. Although Islam in Switzerland seldom makes
international headlines, these pairings of French and Swiss cites allow comparisons across
different sects and orientations (mystical, proselytizing, cultural traditionalist, fundamentalist,
political reformist) of Islam, while holding background conditions somewhat constant.19
Muslims in France constitute an estimated 5-8% of the population; in Mulhouse and
specifics of various religion-state regimes have been found to have specific effects.
18
Perhaps more commonly known as Alsace-Lorraine, the legal name of the region is Alsace-Moselle. The
governments in the region, which includes Moselle and the Bas- and Haut-Rhin departments (Mulhouse is in HautRhin; departments are territorially defined administrative units), are not subject to the 1905 separation law so can
subsidize in any manner any religion, even if not officially recognized. The criterion is that it be a legal entity, so it
usually is registered as a cultural association (FASLID 2006, 131).
19
Grenoble did make headlines in 1993 when a girl was expelled from school for wearing a veil. The two French
cities are host to, among others, Naqshbandis, Barelvis, Murids, ‘Alawiyyas, Salafiyists, neo-Sufists,Tablighi (Foi et
Pratique), Süleymancis, Ahl-i-Hadiths, Milli Görüs, affiliates of the Grande Mosquée de Paris (GMP), and the
Union des Organisations Islamiques de France (UOIF). The cities are within a population range of 100-160,000.
16
Grenoble it is approximately 10%. Muslims in Switzerland constitute about 4% of the
population, being about 3% of the population of the city of Zurich, about 4% of Lausanne, about
7% of Basel, and 3% of Neuchâtel (GRIS 2005, 15).
Anecdotal studies, mostly by cultural anthropologists and geographers, show that Muslim
actions, and those of the governments in these cities, are not unusual (Manço and Amoranitis
2005; Cesari 2005; Saint-Blancat and Schmidt di Friedberg 2005; Landman and Wessels 2005;
Jonker 2005; Barton 1986; Maussen 2007; Gale and Naylor 2002). In Mulhouse in 1990,
Muslims were encouraged by the city to form a committee with the promise that the city would
then grant subsidies and land so they could build a full-service community mosque. Negotiations
between Muslims on the committee broke down, prompting the city to abandon its effort. Since
then Mulhouse city government has focused on supporting neighborhood mosques, only one of
which appears to have been built. Secondary sources do not indicate what the status of cemetery
policy is. What happened in Grenoble is in line with expectations about what interest area would
be more difficult to achieve cooperation in: Muslims from different groups formed an association
to lobby for a mosque, but broke down over disagreements about the mosque proposal. In
contrast, they were successful in forming an association for cemetery rights, and the association
did not collapse. The time period in question is between 1988, the debut of concerted efforts to
have full-service community mosques and Islamic burial rites at cemeteries, and 2006, a few
years after the formation of the French Islamic Council (CFCM).20 Due to sketchy information
on some topics in some cities, I supplement the analysis of these four cities with discussions of
cemetery and mosque politics in Strasbourg and Marseille, and with Zurich and Neuchâtel.
Muslims in Europe
Europe’s Muslim populations are derived largely from the extensive, voluntary emigration from
former European colonies and Turkey which began on a large scale in the 1960s; at that time,
20
The effect of the Conseil Français du Culte Musulman (established 2003) on mosque cooperation is difficult to
disentangle here, given limited information. It could be significant yet in the direction expected by this paper’s
argument: that of less cooperation between groups and more competition. This is because representation on the
Council is related to the square footage of groups’ affiliated mosques. This alters cooperation incentives, and
requirements for mosques: the emphasis of some groups might shift to maximizing square footage.
17
European governments paid little attention to the possible long-term consequences.21 When in
the 1970s guest workers became something more like permanent residents, with family
reunifications permitted, “the desire [of the immigrants] to cultivate religious tradition and pass it
on to the next generation emerged” (Doomernik1995, 48). In the 1980s, as Islam became highly
politicized in many of the homeland countries, those conflicts and controversies were played out
in Western Europe by some of the immigrants and their organizations. European governments
could no longer view Islam as a peripheral trait of their so-called “guestworkers.” And the
immigrants began to realize that to gain for themselves the privileges accorded to Catholicism
and Protestantism, they had to organize. A noticeable percentage of the immigrant population
from predominantly Islamic countries has sought to practice its faith publicly, adhering to its
symbols, such as wearing the “Muslim headscarf,” following dietary prescriptions, prayer rituals,
marriage patterns, and seeking religiously-based education. Muslims in France mostly come
from North Africa, particularly Algeria and Morocco, while in Switzerland most come from
Turkey and states of the former Yugoslavia. In both countries, there are numerous other
nationalities and ethic groups for which Islam is the primary religion (if a religion is practiced–I
do not assume or mean to imply that all immigrants are Muslims, nor that all Muslims are
actively practicing).
Mosques in France are most typically constructed under an arrangement which had first
been used with the Catholic Church in the 1930s: that of a public entity, usually a city, granting a
lease of 18 to 99 years to the group wishing to build a mosque. The lease is typically for 80
years or more (up to 99), at a very low annual rent, with the stipulation that at the end of the
lease the building and land revert to the city if the religious organization does not wish to buy it
(or the city does not wish to sell). Building permits are also required, and cities often impose
additional criteria on completion time, architecture and sources of financing (Maurer 2004, 39).
The religious organization must be constituted in a legally recognized fashion, which most do
under France’s 1901 law of associations. That law permits organizations with a cultural purpose
to have corporate legal rights. If this option is chosen, cities can subsidize activities and
21In 1961, there were only 6,700 Turks in Germany (Peach and Glebe 1995, 35). In 2006, there were approximately
four million (Warner and Wenner 2006).
18
infrastructure provided the financing is for “cultural activities,” but not religious activities. Given
the difficulty of distinguishing between some “religious” and “cultural” activities, particularly
when the space for cultural activities may share a wall with the mosque proper, France’s high
court, the Conseil d’Etat, has recently commented that these arrangements may not be
compatible with the 1905 separation law which forbids state entities from subsidizing religion
(Conseil d’Etat 2004, 321). Mosque opponents have occasionally sued cities on the grounds that
a low rent lease constitutes a religious subsidy (Marongiu-Perria 2005, 228). In the AlsaceMoselle region, such arrangements are not legally questionable due to the establishment religionstate regime (Conseil Régional du Culte Musulman d’Alsace 2004). Mosque committees, to be
recognized as the legal entity which manages the mosque (the place of worship itself), need to be
registered as religious associations under the 1905 law (Basdevant-Gaudemet 2000, 107).
Technically, they need a separate association to be registered as a cultural entity in order to
manage the so-called cultural areas of the facility (Conseil d’Etat 2004, 320).
In Switzerland, mosques, in theory, can be built and the associations which run them can
be funded for cultural activities. Most cantons recognize the Catholic and Reformed Evangelical
churches as legal, public organizations (öffentlich-rechtlich Körperschaften/organisations de
droit public), which enables the religions to receive subsidies for the construction and
maintenance of places of worship, among other operational expenses (Cattacin 2003). No canton
has recognized an Islamic organization as a religious entity, thus, for mosque construction,
Muslims must buy the land and pay for the construction and maintenance with funds they raise
themselves (Mahnig 2002, 143). There are two full-service mosques in Switzerland: one in
Geneva, and one in Zurich, both built under exceptional circumstances and with generous
outside financing.22
Cemeteries in France are to be non-religious, save that religious symbols may be used on
grave markers but nowhere else. Cemeteries are the property of municipal governments and
“mayors are forbidden to establish any particular distinctions or prescriptions for religious
22Geneva from Saudi Arabia in 1978, Zurich from Pakistanis belonging to the Ahmadiyya movement in 1963, a
movement which has been disavowed by the Ligue islamique mondiale and thus the mosque is not used by other
Muslims (Mahnig 2000, 6-7, 10).
19
reasons about burial” (Basdevant-Gaudemet 2000, 108). On the logic and legal requirement of
preserving state neutrality towards all faiths, French cities outside of Alsace-Moselle are not
allowed to create cemeteries for different religions (Bouvier 2003, 16-18). Yet since 1975, the
Ministry of the Interior has encouraged mayors to allow for religious areas within public
cemeteries and to make exceptions for religious reasons for the position of tombs.23 Physical
separation of a religious area from the rest of the cemetery is not allowed. If the city has created
religious areas in its cemetery(ies), city officials are not allowed to verify whether the deceased
was of the religion associated with a particular burial area, nor require that the deceased be
buried in the religious area if he or she is of that religion. They need only adhere to the request of
the family or the prior request of the deceased that he or she be buried there (Conseil d’Etat
2004, 327; Bowen 2007b, 43; FASLID 2006, 102; Machelon 2006, 58-9). Health regulations
have blocked the ability of Muslims to be buried only in a shroud, and regulations on the
duration of cemetery concessions conflict with the Islamic requirement that the remains rest in
the burial plot in perpetuity (Conseil d’Etat 2004, 327).24 Private cemeteries are not allowed
(FASLID 2006, 103-5).
Cemetery policy in Switzerland is formulated at the level of the 26 cantons and in the
cities within each canton. Effective in 2000, the revised federal constitution governs cemetery
policy only by stipulating in Articles 7, 8 and 15, that the dignity of the human being must be
respected, discrimination on the basis of religion is prohibited, and freedom of religion is
guaranteed. It places no further requirements on cantons or cities.25 Prior to 2000, the
23In 1975, this applied to French citizens; after 1991, this applied to non-citizens as well. The city may provide
areas for different religions within a public cemetery via the mayor’s power to determine the location of the burial
plots (concessions). Mayors are not legally bound to provide any of these arrangements (FASLID 2006, 100-1).
24There is one Islamic cemetery in France, in the Paris suburb of Bobigny, established in 1935 to serve a hospital
which initially was required to treat “only Muslims who came from the French colonies” (Bowen 2007, 43). Such
persons were viewed as having illnesses peculiar to their status, and authorities did not want them to “mix” with the
French at other hospitals. The cemetery belonged to the hospital, thus did not quite so obviously violate the
separation law, and was also authorized as “part of the centenary celebration of the colonization of Algeria” (Bowen
2007, 44-47). In 1995 it was taken over by the city, which views the particular burial plots (the concessions) as
private property within a public space, thus allowing for religious symbols on the graves and religious burial rites at
the particular grave sites.
25Article 72 states that the federal state (confederation) and the cantons may take measures to ensure public peace
20
constitution had stated directly that cemetery policy was the responsibility of the civil authorities
and that every person had the right to a decent burial (Aldeeb Abu-Sahlieh 2002, 70). The federal
government interpreted that as saying that all burials in public cemeteries had to take place “in a
line” in chronological order of death, with no accounting to be made of religion, cause of death,
or other factors (quoted in ibid, 72; Conforti 2003, 83). Private cemeteries were allowed,
provided they were privately purchased and maintained, though the government had the right to
regulate them (Burkhalter 1999, 30-31; Ballenger 2003, 96). The revised constitution also does
not prohibit private cemeteries; it is within the cantons’ and cities’ jurisdictions to determine if
they will be allowed in practice. The cemetery policies of the 26 Swiss cantons are complicated,
even where one might think the policy would be clear cut. For instance, the canton of Geneva
has a strict separationist religion-state regime; one would think it would adhere to a strict
separationist policy on cemeteries. To wit, in 1876, the canton of Geneva outlawed separate
burial rites and separate burial grounds for different religions, declaring that just as all the living
are equal in the eyes of the state, so too are the dead. Once the separate burial grounds were full,
corpses were to be buried in the next available space, no matter what the religion of the deceased
and the religion of the neighboring corpses. In response, the Jewish community of the city of
Geneva coordinated to buy a private burial ground. They succeeded: in buying one in France,
just across the international border in 1920. The entrance to the cemetery is in Switzerland, but
the burial grounds are in France. A valid passport is required to enter (and the deceased must
have proof of canton of Geneva citizenship).26 In 1978, after some prominent Muslims requested,
the city of Geneva provided Muslims with a separate burial area within a public cemetery (PetitSaconnex). This situation lasted until 1992, when a new city manager, Michel Rossetti, decided
the city should adhere to the strict laic interpretation of the 1874 Swiss constitution and the 1876
Geneva constitution. He declared that once that area of the cemetery was full, Muslims would
have to be buried as everyone else: in a row according to chronological order of death with no
between “the members of the various religious communities.”
http://www.admin.ch/org/polit/00083/index.html?lang=fr
26One enters the burial grounds from the town of Veyrier, in the Geneva canton. The property is in Etrembières,
France. Swiss citizenship is first granted by canton, then recognized by the federal state. Many cemeteries have a
local residency requirement.
21
distinction made for religious difference (Burkhalter 1999, 28; cf Ville de Genève 2006, Article
27). Yet in 2007, the city granted Muslims and Jews the right to burial according to some of their
religious rites in one public cemetery (Saint Georges). It did not allow the remains to rest in
perpetuity, the concession being for 33 years renewable to 99, nor allow for separate areas. It
does allow the tombs to be oriented on the axis prescribed by the religion, thus not necessarily in
a straight line with the other plots.27 In Swiss-German Bern, as of 1997, the canton allowed all
faiths to be buried according to their own religious rites. In 1998, the canton funded the
establishing of an Islamic area within the cemetery of Bremgarten, near Bern. The canton of
Zurich does not allow special areas within public cemeteries (Mahnig 2000, 10). Muslim efforts
could be complicated by the insistence of some, notably in Zurich, that the “dissident” group, the
Ahmadiyya, not be allowed to buried in Muslim burial grounds, should cities grant such
cemetery permission (Aldeeb Abu-Sahlieh 2005, 10).
To reiterate the expectations of my argument, I expect that there should be more
cooperation and less conflict between Muslim groups in the effort to obtain permission for
Islamic burials in public cemeteries, and less cooperation and more conflict between Muslim
groups in the effort to obtain permission and funding for a full-service community mosque. I
hypothesize that this is due to the nature of the resource being sought, and also due to differences
in the theologies and orientations of the Muslim groups.
Evidence
What follows is a preliminary assessment of the hypotheses with a comparison of efforts to
establish a grand or “cathedral” mosque in the four cities and where possible, a comparison of
cemetery politics in the same cities. This choice of mosque type was dictated by my not yet
having been able to conduct field research, and the fact I had to derive evidence from secondary
sources and government documents available through interlibrary loan, Lexis Nexis, and the
internet. There is more information in those sources about grand mosques than about purpose
built, full-service neighborhood mosques. None of the sources enable me to assess the
hypotheses consistently across cases; I supplement the survey of Mulhouse, Grenoble, Lausanne
27Tribune de Genève 2 Nov. 2007; “A Genève, musulmans et juifs enterreront leurs morts en paix” Le Temps 26
May 2007.
22
and Basel with Strasbourg and Marseille in France, and Zurich and Neuchâtel in Switzerland.
Grand Mosques in France
In Mulhouse, Muslims by the 1980s found that neighborhood prayer rooms and small mosques
in rented spaces (none purpose built) were no longer meeting their needs for worship and related
activities. The city’s Muslim population numbered between 10-15,000 (Muller 1996, 255). In
1990 after the city assessed a report on integration, the city made available to Muslims for
Ramadan a vacated military barracks. Shortly thereafter, a group of Muslims claiming to be
unaffiliated with existing mosques asked the city if they could serve as interlocuters. They
argued that most Muslims were not of the tendencies or currents that ran the mosques and prayer
rooms in Mulhouse, and that this “silent majority” needed a “neutral” place of worship
(Meichler, Birot and Freyburger 1998, 227). Following on this, in 1991 the city proposed that
Muslim groups create an association to build and run a grand mosque, and to address other
concerns of Muslim groups as well as promote familiarity with “Islamic culture.”28 Signatories to
the accord creating the association, the Conseil Islamique de Mulhouse, headed by a French
Moroccan, Rabih Redad, had to agree to accept the “values and laws of the Republic.” The city
also asked that Muslims create an association to govern the cultural activities to be associated
with the future grand mosque, an Association des Amis du Conseil Islamique de Mulhouse. The
city stipulated organizational statutes which severely circumscribed the activities of the Conseil
Islamique: virtually every action it proposed had to be approved by the Association des Amis. It
was under a different leadership and that association also had representatives from the city
government on it. In July of 1992 when some of the Turkish Islamic groups complained about
North African hegemony in the Conseil Islamique, its leader Rabih Redad was replaced. To ease
concerns of dominance, they settled upon someone from a minority group, the Senegalese
Ousmane Niang. Sources indicate that conflicts persisted and most of the North African Muslim
associations left the Conseil Islamique and the Association des Amis within a year.
One analysis states that there were disagreements over how to advance the project of
28The following draws upon Frégosi 2001, 101-110, Caprili 1997 and Meichler, Birot and Freyburger 1998, 227230.
23
constructing a mosque, especially with regard to financing and to managing the different groups
involved, and that there were difficulties due to differences in theology regarding how various
aspects of Islam should “function” in Mulhouse (Caprili 1997, 52). Caprili also cites power
struggles, and Muller (1996, 259) notes concerns over who would ultimately manage and run the
mosque. Some involved said the city hadn’t given sufficient financial support, betraying its
ambivalence towards the success of the organizations and the mosque project (Meichler, Birot
and Freyburger 1998, 229). The head of the Association des Amis thought the problem was that
those on the Council and in the Association “were too preoccupied with politics” and did not
address the concerns of Muslims who had to “pray at home” (in Meichler, Birot and Freyburger
1998, 229). The President of the Conseil Régional du Culte Musulman of Alsace, Abdelhaq
Nabaoui, commented in 2005 that it was time imams and mosque committees in the region end
their quarrels, “with each wanting to maintain an unworkable monopoly in his domain” (ORIV
2005, 34). Thus, Mulhouse appears to support the general idea that ethnic and religious
differences are an impediment to cooperation on mosques, but we do not know if it is in the way
hypothesized (more rigid and traditional requiring more features in a mosque and also being less
inclined to work with other groups). It also supports the argument that it is harder to get groups
to cooperate over a creation of a club good, here the mosque. Interests in control over a scarce
(rivalrous) and not easily divisible resource hinder cooperation.
Mulhouse, while trying to accommodate the religious interests of Muslims, did so by
forcing onto Muslims a structure that wasn’t likely to work. The city seems to have viewed the
Council and its Association des Amis as a test of Muslims’ governance capacities. The mayor,
Jean Marie Bockel stated “The day when the partners of Islam in Mulhouse can work together,
the question of a [grand] mosque and its location will be solved by itself” (Meichler, Birot and
Freyburger 1998, 229). The city gave up on promotion of a grand mosque and instead responded
to a well-organized effort by one Muslim group, the pietistic and missionary movement of
Tablighi (Foi et Pratique), to build a full-service community mosque which the Tabligh alone
would run. The city has since indicated it is willing to consider case by case requests from
specific groups (Frégosi 2001, 125). The city, due to being under the religion-state regime of
Alsace, has offered to finance up to 10% of construction costs. This does not seem to have made
24
construction of a grand mosque any easier than it is under a separationist regime.
In Strasbourg, the city had four main mosques by 1995, none of which had been purpose
built and each of which had become too small for its community. These mosques, unlike the
eight other mosques run by religious associations, were open daily and gave religious lessons as
well as courses in Arabic. Two were frequented by North Africans (the mosquée de Strasbourg
and the mosquée de la Gare), two by Turks (Eyub Sultan Camii and mosquée Fâtih) and could
accommodate between 200-500 people during Friday prayer (Frégosi 1995, 957-8). While the
idea of a grand mosque had been voiced in earlier years, serious efforts began in the mid-1990s,
with the arrival of a sympathetic socialist mayor, Catherine Trautmann. In contrast to Mulhouse,
city officials did not initially try to unite Muslims around a single grand mosque project; instead
it appears the twelve organizations which ran mosque associations (‘lieux de cultes”) formed an
organization in the early 1990s (Conseil de Coordination des Associations Islamiques de
Strasbourg) with which the city could negotiate about festivals, halal food in public facilities, and
about Muslim cemetery requirements.29 Leadership and meeting locations rotated on an agreed
upon schedule. The Coordination Council seems to have broken up, because by 2000 there were
competing mosque proposals and the city mayor lamented the absence of a representative
interlocuter for Strasbourg Muslims.
By 2003, Strasbourg had a population of 80,000 to 100,000 Muslims, with Moroccans
then Algerians and Turks dominant.30 A number of neighborhood mosques had been established
in temporary facilities, and the Milli Görüs, of the Turkish community, had established a large
mosque, Eyub Sultan, in an old hanger. There are indications that working on common projects
among mosques was difficult; one member of the mosquée de la Gare (affiliated with the UOIF)
29Some argue that the provenance of the association lay in efforts by Muslim associations to find a location in
Strasbourg where Muslims could observe together the prayers of l’Aïd el-Kébir and l’Aïd el-Fitr. Others claim credit
should go to three of those organizations, l’Association Islamique de l’Est de la France, l’Association Culturelle
Islamique Turque, and the Association des Étudiants Islamiques de France. The following draws upon Frégosi 2001,
113-124; and Frégosi 1995, 961-962.
30This of course does not mean they are all actively practicing. Reeber (1996, 250) estimates 30-40% practice
privately, 11-18% of men attend Friday prayers, and 55-65% observe Ramadan. One might argue that prayer
attendance might be higher were mosque facilities better and more accessible; and certainly these percentages will
have changed over 10 years.
25
noted that when a particular organizer had difficulties of working within the Strasbourg mosque
he left to help develop the mosquée de la Gare (Abdoun et al 2004, 81). Another member of that
mosque commented that when there is a “mosque war” and one group is chased out of a mosque
by another, the losing group comes to the mosquée de la Gare, it allegedly having as its mission
to welcome everyone (Abdoun et al 2004, 82).
Divisions became clear when by 2000, two groups had proposed grand mosques. Because
the mayor wanted the grand mosque to go to the group which seemed most representative of
Strasbourg Muslims, both groups claimed to have the support of most of the mosques and
Muslim groups in the city. One project was headed by Abdellah Boussouf, which was said to
have better financing. Boussouf is a member of the Association des etudiants islamiques de
France (AEIF) and supposedly close to the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Boussouf’s grand mosque project was in the name of the Coordination des Associations
Musulmanes de Strasbourg, created for the purpose. The rival group, led by Ali Bouamama,
protested that they were representative of a republican, French Islam, and argued that Boussouf’s
group was representative of a more fundamentalist, integrationist Islam. Bouamama seems to
have created an association, the Institut musulman d’Europe, and used that to organize his
mosque project. Moroccans were allegedly behind Boussouf, and the Algerians behind
Boussouf. The Turkish Muslims decided, after initially supporting Boussouf’s project, to focus
on pressing the mayor to help them upgrade the existing Eyub Sultan mosque. The Harki leader
Mohamed Ghiatou (of the Fédération des Français d'origine Nord-Africaine d'Alsace et de
Lorraine) supported Bouamama’s project, with his organization viewing Boussouf’s group as
representative of radical Islam.31 Both proposals started in the 1990s and had a clear symbolic
purpose: to say that Islam was a major religion in Strasbourg. Both proposals initially sited the
grand mosque opposite the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.32 Bouamama
benefitted from the support of the mosquée de la Gare, which is affiliated with the UOIF (which
had its roots in the Muslim Brotherhood) though is dominated by Moroccans (not Syrians).
31Une communauté divisée” L’alsace 14 Jan. 2001
32Le Monde 13 June 1998.
26
There were differences between the two proposals over the purpose: Bouamama’s (the one
claiming to be true to French republican values) would have included a cultural and scientific
center. Boussouf’s project was exclusively for a very large mosque. The mayor’s office was
divided: the office of liasons with religions supported Boussouf’s project, the office in charge of
integration supported Bouamama’s project.33 The then mayor eventually chose a project headed
by Boussouf. In 2000, the city council was majority socialist, but elections in 2001 brought in the
conservative Gaullist party, which began imposing further requirements on the project. The then
mayor, Fabienne Keller, tied a claim that Strasbourg’s Muslim groups had done nothing to
reduce juvenile delinquency in the city to his demand that financing for the mosque not come
from any of the Gulf states. The city did agree to put up 10% of the financing of an estimated
cost of 6 million euros.34 The three departments of the Alsace-Moselle region agreed to each
contribute 8% of the financing. The rest was to come from individual contributions. Though
Bousssouf’s project was approved and the first symbolic stone placed in 2004, financing
problems slowed construction. It took another two years before construction got underway. 35
Construction had stopped in January 2008 due to a dispute with the contractor over payment and
at the time of writing had not resumed.
The city required the project to be reduced in size, from a 5000 square meter mosque and
a 28 meter high minaret, to 2000 square meters and no minaret. The city official in charge of
relations with religions commented that the original project was a bit “pharaonic” and financially
unrealistic; others might argue that the removal of the minaret had nothing to do with finances
and everything to do with appeasing voters. As has been noted of other grand mosque projects
(Muller 1996, 259; Maussen 2007), the city’s view was that the mosque was to “be that of all
33Xavier Ternisien, “La ville de Strasbourg soutient la construction de deux grandes mosquées” Le Monde 24 May
2000. Strasbourg has had a “mosque of Strasbourg”, run by Boussouf, and located in a former foie gras factory. On
Boussouf and city politics, see Frégosi 2001, 123.
34See also Stéphanie Le Bars, “En Alsace et en Moselle, les avantages du Concordat” Le Monde 7 June 2007.
35Thomas Calinon, “Strasbourg paie la première pierre de sa grande mosquée” Libération 30 Oct. 2004; Anon. “Le
chantier de la grande mosquée de Strasbourg débutera en septembre” Agence France Presse 21 June 2006.
27
Muslims of Strasbourg”, even as many Muslims disassociated themselves from that project.36
Earlier research on Muslims in Strasbourg provides several reasons the Turks
disassociated themselves with the grand mosque project. In comparison to North African
communities, the Turkish communities had been more voluntarist, more organized in initiating
projects, and better able to raise money for those projects. While they were noted for being in
close contact with North African groups, and with having something of a pan-Islamic approach
to some projects, when it came to financing mosques, it is possible that their circumstances (on
average, better off than North Africans) enabled them to focus on their own mosque (Frégosi
1995, 952). Frégosi states that linguistic differences were not barriers to cooperation on larger
projects.
The Nurcu, a Turkish-origin movement, didn’t have a mosque of their own and tended to
attend the Strasbourg Mosque (also called the mosquée de l’impasse de mai). That mosque had a
translation facility so that Friday prayer sermons, delivered in Arabic, could be heard in French
(Frégosi 1995, 995, 957). The Nurcu movement tends to focus on social issues such as education
and economic development and its interest is more in opening cultural centers than mosques.
Nevertheless, the Turks did not all unite to build their own mosque, because they have internal
differences on Islam. The Nurcu movement, for instance, may not be an easy fit with Milli
Görüs, which is much more oriented towards political action.
Milli Görüs shares with the Arab-based UOIF an intellectual heritage in the writings of
Sayyid Qutb, though UOIF is more transnational, whereas Milli Görüs is national, and
specifically Turkish. These two groups illustrate that having in common an orientation towards
political action and having some similar intellectual roots is also not sufficient for cooperation:
Milli Görüs has its own mosque and has not participated in the efforts to construct the grand
mosque in Strasbourg.
Various interviewees from mosques in Strasbourg comment that there were often ethnic
or nationality-based conflicts over control of mosques. Yet they also note the extent to which the
mosque is a social club (“some individuals make the mosque into a club”; Abdoun 2004, 82), in
36Quote from Arnaud Lacheret, office of relations with religions, in Thomas Calinon, “Strasbourg paie la première
pierre de sa grande mosquée” Libération 30 Oct. 2004
28
which case social organization dynamics may be at play. Individuals and the group would not
want to put effort into a grand mosque project because they prefer their own smaller group with
which they have greater affinity. That a group prefers that appears not to be a function of it
having a more rigid or more flexible theology, but just a function of interpersonal and group
dynamics (Abrahms 2008).37 Theology and nationality may be links and identifiers of members
of that “club” but not the main reason the group would conflict with others or not get involved
with others in a larger mosque project.
The fact that Strasbourg and Mulhouse are under an establishment religion-state regime
does not seem to have led to the success of grand mosque efforts. The cities are allowed to
contribute to the cost of construction, and to subsidize activities once the mosque is built, but the
divisions between Muslims and the unwillingness of cities and some Muslim leaders to turn to
foreign states for financing (namely, the Gulf states) have hindered common proposals in the
case of Mulhouse, and sufficient financing in the case of Strasbourg. I do not have sufficient data
to tell whether the absence of restrictions on subsidizing religions has made it easier for Islamic
movements to establish their own mosques and thus eschew cooperation for a grand mosque. To
put this in perspective, various scholars have observed that in contrast to Paris and nearby
departments, there are fewer disputes and tensions among Muslims in Alsace (Reeber 1996, 249;
Frégosi 1995, 962; Frégosi 1997, 31).
Separationist Grenoble has a number of mosques and prayer rooms, none purpose-built,
which serve a variety of religious and cultural orientations. The city, led by a Gaullist mayor for
much of the 1990s (and convicted of corruption, Alain Carignon), did not promote the idea of a
grand mosque, and it wasn’t until 2003 that a number of Muslim organizations began meeting to
start planning such a facility. The concept had initially been promoted by the leader of a
neighborhood mosque who was described as being “distanced from conflicts” and was formally
endorsed by the city council in 2003. Various city officials described the effort as one which
would “unite the numerous small prayer rooms in the city” (FASLID 2006, 320). The limited
37There are arguments that the more rigid or “strict” versions of a religion will be more successful at maintaining
their clubs because they can more easily exclude free-riders (through monitoring and through self-selection
(Iannaccone 1992; Berman and Iannaccone 2006; McBride 2007).
29
information on the subject indicates that the effort failed due to disputes among different groups,
which broke along ethnic and religious lines, about future control of the mosque. While twelve
organizations had discussed the grand mosque idea, a number of others desisted, noting that they
preferred to focus on improving mosque facilities and social conditions in the neighborhoods
(FASLID 2006, 319). This would be consistent with observations of local Muslim activists, one
of whom stated that “The Islam of Grenoble is like the Islam of France: profoundly divided and
marked by quarrels of chapels between nationalities and currents more or less radical. The
discourse is of a variable geometry: poised and reassuring to the public powers, muscled and
very politicized for the adherents.”38 When the issue of a grand mosque was taken up by the
regional Muslim council (the Conseil Régional du Culte Musulman, or CRCM) sometime
between 2006 and 2008, the CRCM Rhône-Alpes concluded that while the major cities in the
region should each have a grand mosque, what was most urgent was upgrading the existing
mosque facilities.39
One of France’s largest cities, Marseille, has long had a North African immigrant
population and has one of the largest Muslim populations outside of Paris.40 The grand mosque
in Marseille has a long history, not yet successful though apparently under construction. In 1989
the mayor declared that Marseille should have a grand mosque, though he described it as if it
were almost a museum object.41 Soon after, the director of the Mediterranean beef markets
38Maxime Meuneveaux and Adrien Potcnjak, “L’islam à Grenoble” L’Express 13 March 2003, n. 2697, p. 10.
39Data at this level do not indicate whether this report had the unanimous support of CRCM members. Given the
composition of the CRCM Rhône-Alpes, with associations that have been known to have sharp disagreements in
other regions and nationally, conflicts are certainly possible. As of June 2008, this CRCM has Ditib, the
Rassemblement des Musulmans de France (mostly Moroccan origin), and the UOIF, the RAM, independent
mosques and the Communauté Islamique du Milli Görüs. Reports such as the one on mosques need only obtain a
simple majority in the council’s bureau of 6 to be approved and published by the CRCM. http://www.crcmra.org/reglement.php http://www.crcm-ra.org/pdf/construction_mosquees.pdf
40In 2007, it was estimated to be between 150,000-200,000. Anon. “Nouveau retard pour la construction d’une
grande mosquée à Marseille” Le Monde 17 April 2007.
41“I want it to be beautiful. In the first place for the city. Moreover, such a mosque must be a symbol for the
Muslims of Marseille. A bit like the Cathedral is for the Christians. Mosquées-hangars are perhaps still necessary,
but they are disgraceful. I want that the people, the Marseillais, the tourists, the foreigners will go and see that
mosque, and not only the Muslims. That it will be an object of curiosity.” October 1989 Interview with Robert
30
proposed a grand mosque project, which was to be far more than a mosque: the project included
a commercial sector with boutiques, restaurants, and hotels, as well as a cultural center. This
project immediately elicited protests from other Muslim associations; one derided its commercial
aspect (“one shouldn’t use the minaret to attract chicken vendors”), another while supportive of
the grand mosque idea, argued the focus should be on religious practice. The mayor’s office
opened negotiations with a variety of groups, and imposed conditions on the mosque: it had to be
only a place of worship, the imam had to be of French nationality and financing had to be
diversified and mostly domestic. Furthermore, it had to be the result of an entente between the
Islamic associations of Marseille (Cesari 1993, 109, 116-118). As in Mulhouse, the city at first
imposed its view of what Islam in France was to be: united, moderate and confined to the place
of worship. The commercial project also elicited protests from Marseille residents and was
politicized by the Front National. Faced with the public outcry and dissension in the Muslim
communities as well, the city gave up on the project (Maussen 2007, 995).
The divisions between Muslim associations in Marseille were complicated. When in the
early 2000s another grand mosque project was proposed, the city insisted on interviewing and
selecting the members of the committee which was to run the mosque and in having unanimity
among Muslim associations before the mosque project would proceed. Yet there was a division
between two blocs of Muslims in Marseille: those involved in the Council of Imams of Greater
Marseille (created in 1999) and those supporting the self-named “mufti of Marseille,” Soheib
Bencheikh, affiliated with the Grand Mosque of Paris and thus Algerian and somewhat proFrench Republicanism. The Council of Imams, linked to the very large (1000 square meters)
mosquée Islah near the flea market, and the Coordination des musulmans de Marseilles, argued
that the mayor’s office was poorly positioned to select the representatives of Marseille’s
Muslims. Bencheikh’s group argued that the mosque should be similar to the Grand Mosquée de
Paris, which has an extensive cultural center associated with it (the Institut du Monde Arabe),
and which is liberal and open to non-Muslims. The Council of Imams had a different vision for
the mosque: it was to be a place of worship, religious education and meditation, but not a cultural
center with activities for all comers (Maussen 2007, 996). With the creation of the CFCM in
Vigouroux, quoted in Maussen 2007, 994. Italics in original.
31
2003 and regional and national elections for it, the city found it could not dictate terms. The head
of the Islah mosque, Mourad Zerfaoui, supported by the UOIF, won the election, not the city’s
preferred candidate. The associations linked to the Grand Mosque of Paris were far behind. With
its preferred organizations marginalized in the CFCM and the regional council, the city set aside
the grand mosque project. Two years later, the politics of the CFCM elections again changed
dynamics, with the Islah mosque and the UOIF having parted ways (the UOIF more focused on
political action), a moderate, Abderrahmane Ghoul, won the election to the presidency. The
mayor (UMP Jean-Claude Guadin) jettisoned the notion of Muslim unity around a grand mosque
and instead decided to work with Ghoul’s supporters. Ghoul was able to convince the UOIF and
other associations to unite in an association to build and run the mosque, the “association
mosquée de Marseilles”. In 2007 that association signed a 99 year lease agreement with
Marseille for an 8000 square meter plot of land, with the mosque projected to accommodate
2000-5000 (sources vary on the figure) worshippers, and at a cost of about 8 million euros.42 The
project has yet to be fully funded.
It appears that the mosque association for the grand mosque project has been able to
avoid the internecine warfare that has accompanied other grand mosque projects only by
deliberately deferring the question of choosing a rector and an imam.43
Grand Mosques in Switzerland
It’s been said that Switzerland, with 26 cantons, has 26 different ways of regulating religion.
What seems to be common to all cantons is an absence of funding for mosque construction, even
in cantons with establishment regimes. This seems to be because the establishment cantons allow
funding for the constitutionally recognized religions but not for others. Cultural centers may be
subsidized, though subsidies have been small. Thus, Switzerland has only two purpose built
mosques, one in Geneva (1978) and one in Zurich (1963), both with exceptional financing:
Geneva’s thanks to funds from Saudi Arabia, and Zurich thanks to an isolated (one might say
42Karine Portrait, “La grande mosquée enfin sur les rails?” La Provence.com 2007.
43Stéphanie Le Bars, “Après un premier échec, les élus de Marseille doivent voter” Le Monde 17 July 2007.
32
disowned) Pakistani based group of Ahmadiyyas. The reader will recall that Geneva is under a
separationist regime; Zurich establishment. The Grande Mosquée de Genève has the advantage
of its on-going operations being financed by Saudi Arabia and being in a well-to-do community
of Muslims (from the world of diplomacy and finance). In contrast, the effort to build a mosque
through the development of an Islamic socio-cultural center in separationist Lausanne (the
“Centre socioculturel des musulmans de Lausanne), though approved by the Swiss federal
tribunal, the canton and city (with a socialist mayor) in 2003, ran out of money. That effort was
spearheaded by the Swiss-Arab founder of the Swiss Muslim league (Ligue des musulmans de
Suisse), whose wife founded the Swiss Muslim women’s association in La Chaux-de-Fonds. The
mosque/cultural center was to be built in a former furniture store, after extensive remodeling, but
construction never got under way because the association created to finance and build the center
(Association des musulmans de Lausanne) was 50% short of having enough funds to buy the
building (owned by Banque Cantonale Vaudoise).44
Zurich, with a population of 15,000 Muslims, had as of 2000 eleven Islamic
organizations representing a wide range of nationalities or ethnic origins (Turkish, Arab,
Pakistani, Bosnia and Albanian). When they separately began pressing the city for permission to
build a large mosque, (and asked for cemetery permission) the city insisted they form an
association with which the city would negotiate. They did, in 1996 creating the Vereinigung der
Islamischen Organisationen in Zürich (VIOZ, Union of Islamic Associations of Zurich), but were
nevertheless turned down on both issues. I do not have data enabling me to delve into the
questions of cooperation and conflict.45 The situation was quite similar in Basel (Mahnig 2000;
Baumann 1999). The city has about a dozen mosques and prayer rooms; recently one Islamic
association has pressed again for a grand mosque but has been turned down, and repudiated by
44Lausanne is in the separationist canton of Vaud. “Comment l’islam prend ses quartiers en Suisse romande” Le
Temps 5 Dec. 2003. There is no information on what groups may have been involved in the efforts.
45Most Muslims in Zurich are migrants or their recent descendants, and there are many more cultural associations
than there are associations with religion as their primary focus (Mahnig and Wimmer 2001.
33
other Muslim groups for not speaking for the rest of them.46 Information on conflict and
cooperation dynamics, and the role of particular groups and their theologies, is not available in
the absence of field research. In contrast to cities in Alsace-Moselle, the establishment regime
cities of Zurich and Basel do not extend funding to religious associations which are not
recognized by their cantons’ respective constitutions (Cattacin et al 2003; Mahnig 2000).
An Albanian from Kosovo explained how his co-religionists coped in Geneva, where he
noted it was not possible to pay 5000 Swiss francs a month to rent a storefront for a prayer room.
They made arrangements with the Grande Mosquée to use a room there for the month of
Ramadan, during which they bring in an imam from Macedonia to give the prayers in Albanian.
This seems to be typical, with the associations operating on a shoe-string budget. As the head of
the small Centre islamique de Crissier-Renens stated, “Each month, we conduct a collection in
order to pay the rent.”47
Cemeteries in France
The scant secondary information on cemetery politics in Mulhouse and Strasbourg indicates that
there were few conflicts over coordinating to press the city to establish Muslim burial sites in
public cemeteries, and that nevertheless there were conflicts over rules about exactly how the
corpse should be placed in the tomb. Some state that the first Islamic section of a cemetery in
Mulhouse was established in 1957, in a Catholic cemetery, others state it was first established in
1984, within a Protestant cemetery. The space was offered by the Protestants; there are no details
on who asked (Bouvier 2003, 9, 50). In Strasbourg there have been conflicts due to memories of
local (homeland) customs and because the Harki have wanted to be buried separately from other
Muslims (Bouvier 2003, 38).48 The former head of Strasbourg’s funeral department stated that
there are different customs: the one stipulates the corpse should be on its back and in a straight
line oriented towards Mecca (so that if the corpse sat up it would be facing Mecca), the other that
46Matthias Halbeis, “Basel: Keine Grossmoschee” Sonntags Zeitung 6 May 2007.
47“Comment l’islam prend ses quartiers en Suisse romande” Le Temps 5 Dec. 2003.
48The Harki are French-Algerian Muslims who fought for the French in the Algerian War, and their decendents.
34
the corpse should be on its side with the face oriented towards Mecca, and that because this
affects the siting of the burial plot itself, this has hindered the creation of Muslim burial areas.49
Sources indicate that in Grenoble, Muslims in the 1990s were able to cooperate to press
the city to establish Islamic burial sites in public cemeteries. They established a department-wide
association “des cimetières musulmans en Isère.” There were no internal disagreements about the
goal; the problems stemmed from cities being reluctant to do so out of concern for violating
France’s law of separation of church and state, of the issue being politicized (FASLID 2006,
337-8). Officials also voiced doubts that Muslims would use the cemeteries, since repatriation of
the corpse was much more common (Monteiller and Chaouite 2001, 44). As part of its mandate,
the regional Muslim council established in 2003 (as part of the structure of the national CFCM)
took up the issue of Muslim cemeteries in the Rhône-Alpes (of which Grenoble is a part). In a
report dated March 2008, the CRCM Rhône-Alpes stated that facilities were inadequate: there
were 300 places for 300,000 Muslims in the region. Even with finite concessions, those would
not be sufficient as an increasing number of Muslims preferred to be buried in France rather than
in their country of ancestry. It is not possible to tell from this source if the report and the efforts
have the unanimous support of the CRCM or of Muslim associations which do not participate in
the CFCM or CRCM.50
Cemeteries in Switzerland
In Switzerland, differences in the religion-state regimes appear to have made little or no
difference in how the cities handled the issue of Islamic burial rites, nor in how Muslims
organized. Establishment regime Zurich and separationist Neuchâtel handled the cemetery issue
similarly: first, in having the local agency in charge of foreigners field requests and handle
discussions, second in telling the Muslim communities that they would have to form a single
group in order to have a discussion with the city, third in including the discussions about
cemetery permission with other issues of concern to Muslims. Muslims in both cities organized
49ORIV, Volet B, Chapitre VII: Religion(s)/Fiche n. 39 Oct. 2006; also Bouvier 2003, 38 and illustration on p. 44.
50http://www.crcm-ra.org/pdf/carres_musulmans.pdf. Because I was unable to find information on cemetery
35
similarly, creating the requested organization. In addition, despite the wide diversity of Muslim
groups represented, they were united on their demand for Islamic burial rites in public
cemeteries. All insisted on the same things, including what was a major sticking point for the
cities (and cantons): that the Islamic burial plots be separated from all the other plots in the
cemeteries (Burkhalter 1999, 67-83; Mahnig 2000, 8-9; von Kaenel 1996, 11-13). In
establishment regime Basel, the city differed only in having the agency responsible for
cemeteries (rather than for foreigners) deal directly with the Islamic association the city had
required be formed in order to entertain negotiations (Mahnig 2000, 3-4). All Muslim groups, no
matter the theology or ethnicity, agreed with Hani Ramadan that “We are a community into the
hereafter” and thus demanded separate burial areas (in Burkhalter 1999, 83).51
Results have been mixed, though the coordinated, cooperative action of Muslim groups in
each city appears to have been similar. In Basel, the city issued a brochure informing Muslims
of how to go about obtaining a Muslim burial in a public cemetery, though separate areas within
the cemetery are not provided. In Zurich, while the city said it was willing to allow separate
areas within its public cemeteries, it said a cantonal law prohibited it from doing so. The city and
the interlocuter group (VIOZ) concurred that a private cemetery would be a solution, but the
group would have to raise its own funds, something it has not been able to do. In Neuchâtel, the
topic has been “under study” for quite a few years, and given the strict separationist
interpretation the city and canton give to their respective constitutions, unlike France, Neuchâtel
has not allowed Muslim style burials in public cemeteries, nor has it allowed Muslims to pursue
a private cemetery option. The demand for Muslim burials in Switzerland exists and is
organized; one cannot assume that most prefer to be buried in their country of origin. Some
Muslim leaders argue that if Muslims are being buried in their country of origin, it is only
because “the situation in Switzerland requires it” (in Burkhalter 1999, 91).
Even though, as Burkhalter and others stress, “death is not only governed by religion; it
politics in Marseille or Lausanne, I am not able to cover those cities here.
51That was the argument of the Catholic Church over 100 years earlier as it protested equal plots in public
cemeteries (Kselman 1993, 199). French Third Republic deputies supporting reforms in 1881 claimed that the
Church’s effort to keep the dead of different religions separate would “prolong the quarrels of the living beyond life
itself, provoke these strange conflicts over human remains even in the field of common rest” (in Kselman 1993,
36
has social and cultural implications” for ritual requirements (1999, 88; Halevi 2007), Muslim
groups were united in their efforts to obtain permission for Islamic burial rites, including
separate areas within public cemeteries.
Discussion and Analysis
The evidence above provides tentative support for the hypothesis that, due to the nature of the
good being sought, cooperation was easier to attain for Muslim burial rites than for grand
mosques. With cities retaining control of the public cemetery and not allowing any Muslim
group to decide who among Muslims gets to have a Muslim burial, groups had no reason to vie
for control. With grand mosques, though cities tried to force Muslim groups to cooperate and be
on the same mosque committee, because cities did not retain control of running the mosque or
giving the Friday prayer sermons, Muslim groups vied for control of grand mosque projects. Yet
it’s also the case that on theological grounds, there is less reason for dispute about cemeteries
than about mosques: Muslims of all variants believe they require the same basic burial rites.
Nevertheless, because control of the good was not in contention, there was not disagreement
about which Muslim group would get to run the cemetery, with its potential for exclusion on the
basis of to which variant of Islam the deceased belonged.
The evidence available in the absence of field research has not allowed me to test the
hypothesis that the more flexible and modernist Islamic groups would be more likely to
cooperate on mosques due to having fewer requirements for what the mosque would be like.
There are indications that the issue is less that of how many requirements the group has than
what the requirements are (for instance, is the priority on getting cultural and educational
facilities or on a spacious place of worship?), and also how ecumenical the group is–and the
latter is bounded by theological orientation and practices, and ethnic or at least linguistic
considerations. In addition, support for a grand mosque may flag among some groups due to a
strong preference for an upgraded mosque in the neighborhood.
The sources indicate that theology plays a role in conflict and cooperation at the basic
level of theological differences; in most of these cases, it appears disagreements about overall
orientation were enough to hinder cooperation (when theology was significant). That is, the
198).
37
disputes were not about what would go into a mosque, but over who would control the mosque.
Those more interested in pressing for a grand mosque were those more interested in controlling
the Muslim communities of their city; they were not necessarily those more rigid and traditional
or devout. This effect seems to have been exacerbated in France by the creation in 2003 of the
Conseil Français du culte Musulman (CFCM), which apportions elected delegates to the regional
and national councils on the basis of square footage of mosques.
City officials, most notably mayors and those responsible for liasons with religious
groups and/or with immigrants, did affect the parameters in which Muslims interacted. In some
instances, the grand mosque was first proposed by the mayor or other city officials, and in all
cases the mayors and city officials initially insisted that Muslims form a committee representing
all (moderate) Muslim groups before proceeding with discussions about the grand mosque. The
latter fact will result in findings of extensive non-cooperation, given that initially the stakes were
all or nothing and numerous groups were being asked to collaborate to put forward a single
proposal. When I am able to study more modest mosque requests, it is possible that I will find
more cooperation among Muslim groups because fewer groups will be involved in putting forth
each request.
It was not a hypothesis nor a finding of this paper that a grand mosque is the goal of all
Muslim groups; I only examined cooperation and conflict over this kind of mosque due to there
being more data available on that topic than on efforts to establish full-service community
mosques. The latter are not laden with the social and political baggage of a “grand” or
“cathedral” mosque.
The empirical section underscores the diversity of views within Islam and within Muslim
communities in Western Europe about what the mosque is. Academics and public officials have
tended to assume a univocal Islam, and that certain types of mosques are indicative of a certain
type of Islam: the grand mosque is indicative of a European Islam, accepting of European values,
and representative of all Muslims; prayer rooms in apartments and old shopping malls are
marginalized or radicalized Islam (Maussen 2005). Muslims also deploy these terms, depending
on their goal. The Mufti of Marseille, in his effort to discredit his rivals, spoke of “houses of
worship where no daylight penetrated” that were inspired by “forces of darkness”. A grand
38
mosque would “get Islam out in the open, to leave the forces of darkness behind and to go
towards the light so as to organise our religion” (in Maussen 2007, 995). As Vincent Geisser has
noted of Islam in Marseilles, Islam in France is an “Islam of parishes”, “practiced in different
neighborhoods where each ethnic and religious community has its own houses of worship”
(quoted in Maussen 2007, 997). Some, such as the UOIF, interpret this as normal and as
indicative of integration, others, such as Nicolas Sarkozy, interpret it as the ghettoization of
Islam. The truth is probably somewhere in between.
This is not to disregard how Muslims see grand mosques. Some view them as symbols of
acceptance of Islam by the host city and country. Speaking of Marseille, one Muslim said “for
us, the grand mosque will be a symbol of existence and will enable us to regain our dignity”.
Others in Marseille spoke of the project as being a question of “recognition,” “integration,”
“acceptance,” “anchoring”52 and a “symbol for future generations” (in Cesari 1993, 111). In
Grenoble the president of a French-North African organization and professor of public law at the
university said that a grand mosque was an important way to unite Muslims, “otherwise one will
witness the multiplication of micropowers in the city.”53 Others in Marseille spoke of it as a
necessity but just one of many and stressed that the priority should be on building and repairing
neighborhood mosques. Still others noted that “people are more interested in an Islam close to
where they live,” a sentiment echoed by some in Grenoble.54 Many, including ultimately the
UOIF in Marseille, rejected the “cathedral mosque” concept. As the representative of one
Muslim association in Marseille stated, “The sociologists who want to establish beautiful and
visible mosques do not interest us. We know what they want: beautiful monuments which
remind them of foreign countries, which remind them of their holidays in Morocco... This gives
them the impression that they have accepted us. But we, we want something which is functional:
adequate in terms of hygiene, safety, and where there is enough space to receive women, that is
52Stéphanie Le Bars, “Après un premier échec, les élus de Marseille doivent voter, lundi, la concession d’un terrain
pour l’édification d’une ‘mosquée cathédral” Le Monde 17 July 2007.
53Maxime Meuneveaux and Adrien Potcnjak, “L’islam à Grenoble” L’Express 13 March 2003, n. 2697, p. 10.
54Stéphanie Le Bars, “Après un premier échec, les élus de Marseille doivent voter” Le Monde 17 July 2007;
39
all. Why should there be a minaret when there is no call to prayer?” (Quoted in Maussen 2007,
997). For a member of a small mosque in Strasbourg (mosquée de la Meinau), the mosque serves
a civic engagement purpose: “one shouldn’t just be satisfied with the five prayers, one should
also get busy and aid our community.” For that believer, the mosque “is a way of communicating
with people.” The grand mosque project instead “divided the community” (in Abdoun et al 2004,
94). Another member of that same mosque said that his concern wasn’t “to have a minaret” but
to have a place to work on social and cultural matters and to pray. He saw the grand mosque
project as a separate project (in Abdoun et al 2004, 96).
The institutional context of the religion-state regime did not noticeably alter cooperation
and conflict between Muslim groups, even if that variable has effects in other areas (Fetzer and
Soper 2005). As comparisons within France and Switzerland each indicated, whether cities could
subsidize the cost of building a mosque or not, Muslim groups found cooperation difficult.
Likewise, Muslims were by and large united in their pursuit of Islamic burial areas within public
cemeteries, whether the city in question was under a separationist or establishment regime.
Thorough field research likely will find that there are permutations in cooperation and conflict
depending on the kind of regime, but seems less likely to affect the overall outcome. I suggest
that this is because whether separationist or establishment, the good being sought, a grand
mosque, is a singular resource which some Muslim groups have a strong preference to control
and because theological differences hinder agreement on the purpose of the mosque and who
should run it. Public cemeteries are public goods; because the cities run them, Muslim groups
have no reason to vie for control, and because there are not theological differences on the basics
of Islamic burial rites, theological differences do not hinder cooperation. Indeed, theological
agreement facilitated cooperation.
The one indication that the establishment regime in Alsace-Moselle may facilitate
demands for separate burials among Muslim groups comes from the observation mentioned
above that the Harki did not want to be buried next to other Muslims. Unfortunately, at this point
I lack information on Harki demands and actions in the separationist regime cities so cannot
assess this possibility.
Maxime Meuneveaux and Adrien Potcnjak, “L’islam à Grenoble” L’Express 13 March 2003, n. 2697, p. 10.
40
The discussion also supports Cesari’s argument that “The obstacles to the organisation of
Islam within the Republic’s framework are political in nature and linked to rivalries between
groups and people in a struggle to win leadership of Islam in France. These rivalries can be
written into a complex dialectic between the different local Islamic associations, the national
federations, and their positioning towards local and national public authorities” (2005, 1038-9).
There are indeed rivalries; these play out at the level of the mosque as well as in other arenas;
what this study has hoped to understand is why there can be more cooperation in some issue
areas (here cemeteries) and less cooperation in others (here mosques).
I have not theorized nor focused systematically upon city politics, or other levels of
government which could affect dynamics. For instance, if public opposition and the city council
were strongly against a grand mosque project, it would likely be harder for any set of groups to
mobilize, just given the external barrier to success. I also did not disaggregate formal decisionmaking institutions and processes by city, though it has been hypothesized by some scholars of
interest group politics and party politics that whether a group allies with others or goes it alone in
lobbying or legislative coalitions depends upon the number of points of contact and other
institutional features. I also did not (for now, for lack of information) assess the level of
resources each group had to devote to grand mosque and cemetery projects, though this variable
has been shown to affect which groups get involved in collective action.
While I have not focused on it, in almost all of the French mosque cases discussed, the
Front National has filed suits against the cities, usually using the argument that the terms of the
land lease amount to an illegal subsidy. In Alsace, where the state can subsidize religion, if the
FN was on the city council, it opposed the subsidies, and launched public protests. The data
sources available to me are not sensitive enough to assess what effect the FN’s actions had on
cooperation and conflict over grand mosques among Muslim associations.
Conclusion
The evidence gives some support to the expectations that the nature of the good targeted for
collective action, and theological differences among groups affect cooperation and conflict
between Muslim groups on cities’ cemetery and mosque policies. Theological differences on
41
their face seemed to matter more than the content of those differences (in contrast to earlier
expectations about differences between flexible and modernist and orthodox and traditional
groups). Yet, to repeat, the data are not fine-grained so have not allowed a careful evaluation of
that expectation.
One of the notable features of Muslims’ efforts to gain permission for Islamic burial rites,
including Muslim plots in cemeteries, is that they are asking for cemetery privileges which
Catholics, Protestants and Jews lost about 100 years ago in France and Switzerland, as well as in
some other countries (Kselman 1993; Clark and Kaiser 2003; Aldeeb Abu-Sahlieh 2002). For
that reason alone Islam is compelling European states to revisit their conceptions of secularism,
and reconsider the religion-state regimes which grew out of earlier conflicts and compromises.
Yet it is also challenging those arrangements due to Muslims’ efforts to obtain religious facilities
(here, mosques). A short summary cannot do justice to the politics of those earlier conflicts and
the reasons behind the various laws which resulted. For the purposes of this paper, what is
important to note is that in declaring that cemeteries were to be public and plots in them open to
all regardless of religion or cause of death, France and Switzerland both sought to put an end to
burial policies and practices which discriminated, sometimes violently, against religious
minorities, suicides, unbaptized infants, stillborn babies, apostates, the excommunicated, women
and atheists.55 It was also a policy which fit with broader efforts of the era to prevent religion
from being a defining feature of an individual and community’s identity (Kselman 1993; Weber
1976; Clark and Kaiser 2003).
Cemetery politics in France appears to have gone through the looking glass of 19th
century church-state conflict. In 2003, Nicolas Sarkozy, when Interior Minister, justified his
support of separate burial areas in public cemeteries for Muslims with the explanation that
“Everyone ought to be able to bury their dead, pray for them, honor them, love them in light of
their religion and culture. In death, we are all equal. The pain of a Muslim is the same as that of a
55In 1886, the Swiss Federal Council stated in a ruling that “it is beyond a doubt that a common cemetery, without
religious distinctions, is the system which best conforms to the equality of citizens and is the best system by which
to moderate religious conflicts in life.” Quoted in Aldeeb Abu-Sahlieh 2005, 3, from Feuille fédérale 1886 I 811.
See also Kselman 1993.
42
Catholic, a Jew or a Protestant.”56 At the end of the 19th and turn of the 20th centuries, it was
precisely that logic of “we are all equal in death” which was used to justify banning religious
differentiation within public cemeteries. The French state has demonstrated considerable
ingenuity in maintaining that allowing Muslims (and Jews) to have separate areas in public
cemeteries is not a violation of the requirement that the state be neutral towards religion.
However, Catholics and Protestants are not accorded such areas, and for public health and
pollution reasons Hindus are forbidden from following their religiously prescribed rituals of
having open pyre cremations and pouring the deceased’s ashes into streams and rivers. In a 2006
report, the state ingeniously stated that cities were actually not creating separate areas for
Muslims; rather, the separate areas were instead the sum of individual choices to be in particular
locations (Machelon 2006, 59).
Most Swiss cantons have not gone quite so far, though there is some verbal legerdemain.
Geneva in allowing (as of 2007) Jewish and Muslim burial plots in public cemeteries,
nevertheless refuses to call them “areas” even though the plots are grouped together and distinct
from all the others in the same cemetery. These cases point to the fact that cemetery and mosque
politics are changing the content of what constitutes the secular state in Western Europe while
states pretend the packaging, ergo the contents, is the same.
In taking religion seriously, but also understanding that Muslims are compelled to act as
interest groups in order to obtain state resources, we can bring the study of Islamic religious
groups into the mainstream study of religious groups. They are not exotic, their dynamics are
similar to other groups (cf Kniss and Numrich 2007, Davis and Robinson 2001; Warner 2000).
Further, to the extent that they act as interest groups, this research informs that literature, which
could benefit from a micro-analysis of institutions and incentives. This paper contributes to
efforts to learn what fosters and hinders the entry of European Muslims into mainstream social
and political processes. Our knowledge of the influence of religious orientation and interests on
cooperation and conflict between groups as they negotiate with political authorities is scarce. Yet
also scarce is knowledge and theorizing about how that conflict and cooperation may vary with
56Speech to the 20th annual meeting of the UOIF at Bourget, France, 19 April 2003. Text at
http://www.religioscope.info/article_143.shtml
43
the public resource being sought. Scholarly interest in Islam has focused on the European
management of and reaction to Islam, on broader questions of whether there can be a “European
Islam” or if Islam is compatible with democracy (Göle 2005; Hurd 2008; Roy 2007; Minkenberg
2007). Little, if any, systematic research has been done on the resources and actions of Muslims
themselves or on how their varying religious beliefs and interests shape their actions where they
live. This analysis of Muslim collective action to attain space in cemeteries and to establish fullservice community mosques will begin to add to our understanding of Muslim communities in
Europe and, more broadly, to our understanding of how religious orientations enter into and
affect conflict and cooperation among different religious groups in civic life and politics.
Furthermore, in proposing that Muslim groups are affected by and exhibit interest group
dynamics, this paper contributes to theories of interest group behavior, where there has been a
lacunae in understanding how the nature of the resource in question affects groups’ willingness
to work in concert, and in how the group’s ideology also affects that willingness. While this
study cannot be definitive, its findings should be of significant interest to scholars of religion and
politics, the sociology of religion, and collective action more generally.
44
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