Muslim identity between the “religious pluralism" and "perception of ab-solute religion" in Europe

Year 2015, , 708 - 714, 01.07.2015

Sıddık Ağçoban

https://doi.org/10.24289/ijsser.279149

Abstract

The “religious pluralism” constitutes one of the main parts of the sociology of the European continent. Today, different religions which practiced in Europe, makes the “religious pluralism” necessary for a harmonious social structure. Theoretically, we can assume that the Europe's secular democratic structure provides a suitable environment to religious pluralism.  But when it comes to Muslim population, activity of this population as an effective subject, force us two-sided analysis including the Muslim population and Europe. We begin the analysis by asking the following question: Can Muslims living in Europe develop a discourse based on religious pluralism? In the light of recent researches- although has increased partly compared to the past- it is understood that the pluralistic religious discourse has not been developed yet. The idea of the absolute religion which carried out over times never looses its influence in the mindset of Europeans against the pluralist approach. Islamic discourse that has been covering a wide area of daily life presses the Muslims between the religious freedom and rules of the secular democratic structure often.  Most of the European Muslims strictly believe that their freedom of religion is being restricted. Besides that there's seems a serious softening among European Muslims about participate in rituals carried out by members of other religions. It could be said about Muslim identity in Europe: On the one hand there continue the tenet of religious pluralism to remain under the strong influence of traditional Islamic discourse but on the other hand discourse based on religious tolerance is now developing rapidly.

Keywords

Europe, Islamic identity, religious pluralism, absolute religion discourse