Introduction to Special Issue on “Exploring New Assemblages of Islamic Expert Education in Western Europe”

Abstract

What constitutes ‘relevant’ and ‘apt’ Islamic knowledge and expert education of future Islamic authorities in Western Europe? This central point of departure of this Special Issue is a burdened question in the current public and political debate in Western Europe. In the last decades, higher education on Islam in Europe has predominantly taken place in two domains: in the publicly funded university context as Islamic Studies, and in the privately funded context of mosques, madrasa’s and teaching institutes, often with strong links to Muslim countries of origin. In recent years, however, different answers have been formulated to this question; alternative initiatives have been taken—or are in the making—to train Islamic experts who are preparing for professional and academic careers in Europe. Publicly funded universities have started to organize imam training or Islamic theology programs, notably in Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries. Furthermore, private confessional Muslim institutes are now recruiting lecturers who also graduated from Western Islamic Studies university programs. This Special Issue focuses both theoretically and empirically on these new aspirations, initiatives, debates and practices of those various actors who navigate between and beyond. To understand these developments, we need a theoretical framework that is able to deconstruct the power related epistemological narratives constituting these dichotomies. Therefore, we will use this introductory editorial article to elaborate on how these spaces/places of departure are not absolute or analytically stable, but per definition uncertain, blurry and constantly ‘in the making’, constituted by what David Scott has called ‘a problem-space’. Moreover, in addition to thinking only in terms of ‘interstices’ in order to overcome these dichotomies by way of ‘bonding or bridging’, but which often seems to presume an essential character to both ends, we suggest to consider these alternative initiatives in terms of ‘assemblages’.