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Francophone Islam: A Dynamic Debate
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By
Hadi Yahmed
IOL Correspondent in France
Translated by Abdelazim R. Abdelazim
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26/07/2004
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Is it an interim phase in which “French Islam” will be
recognized?
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The
call to wear the bandana as an alternative to the hijab, the governmental
prerequisite that mosque imams speak French fluently, the French Islamic rap
songs that the second generation of French Muslim youth listen to…. Is all of
this an omen to the emergence of what could be called “French Islam” or
“Francophone Islam”?
Is
it a refashioning of the relationship between the French State and Islam, so
that Muslims, considered a new cultural composition, be fully merged into the
French Judeo-Christian culture and heritage? Is it an interim phase in which
“French Islam” will be recognized and will no longer be considered a foreign
religion-a label that has stuck to it since the 1950s when the first waves of
North African workers reached the country? Or is it a process of Westernizing
and Christianizing Islam, a process that aims at stripping it from its
political, cultural, and social particularities so that it falls in line with
the Western concept of religion, the secular concept that religion is but an
individual affair.
In
his book The France of Mosques, Xavier Ternisien sees that the birth of a
“French Islam” is inevitable but will take some time, maybe a decade or two.
The great majority of the new Arab-Islamic generation who were born in France,
he believes, do not speak Arabic; but most of them are keen on their religion,
as manifested in their dress or daily dealings. The manifestations of a
“French Islam” have begun to be more sharply outlined in the emergence of
French-Muslim media, such as the Reflection newspaper, published by some
Parisian Muslim youth, and the francophone oumma
Web site, which briefs the
status quo of Islam and Muslims in France.
Sarkozy
and the Three Steps
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The expression invisible Islam, mentioned in the hijab-ban legislation |
In
this context, to grasp France’s standpoint toward Islam, one cannot ignore the
most important expression maintained throughout the whole discussion-“French
Islam.” This expression was uttered for the first time by the former Interior
Minister and current Industry Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, on April 19, 2003,
during the twentieth Conference of the Union of Islamic Organizations of France.
On that same day, Sarkozy-the most outstanding candidate for the 2007
presidential elections-kindled an on-going debate on the issue of hijab and on
his attending the Conference of the Union of Islamic Organizations; he being the
first interior minister to have done so. That visit had been described by
Jean-Marie Le Pen, head of the extreme-right National Front, as “a visit to
the wasps’ nest.”
There
is no doubt that Nicolas Sarkozy, by whose support the first council
representing Muslims in France has been founded,1 was mindful of the reaction of
the thousands listening to his speech that day, when he said, “We don't want
Islam in France; we want a French Islam.” He then declared that on the
national identity card, the cardholder must be photographed bare-headed, which
triggered protests from hundreds of hijab-wearing women who interrupted his
speech by loud screams.
One
year after Sarkozy’s speech, the meanings implicit in the phrase “French
Islam” were crystallized more accurately and clearly. The French government,
despite the ministerial change in which Dominique de Villepin succeeded Sarkozy
as interior minister, has managed to tackle French Islam through three steps:
The
first step is a legislation banning hijab in public schools and institutes
through a vote on February 10, 2003, known as “protection of the law of laїcité.”
This was the most important governmental reaction to a report by the Stasi
Commission, which was set up by President Chirac in order to examine compliance
with secularity in France.
The
second step is the bringing forth the issues of the mosque imams and the
necessity of founding a French body whose mission is to prepare such imams. Once
the hijab issue had cooled off, the issue of banishing the Salafi imam
Abdul-Qader bin Zayn to Algeria2 flared up, after he stated in a local magazine
in Leon that “beating wives might be permissible.” The imam issue has been
put forward by the French Interior Ministry-considered the negotiating party in
religious matters-for the Islamic organizations to discuss because, according to
Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin, “There is no place for mosque imams
who do not speak French fluently and who do not respect its basics.”
The
third step taken by the French government manifests itself in supporting the
liberal trend in the Muslim community, so that it becomes “French Islam’s”
mouthpiece. Dalil Abu Bakr, head of the French Council for the Islamic Faith and
dean of the Mosque of Paris, has taken upon himself to play that role, he being
backed up on the media level by the writer Malik Shubayil and the Algerian-born
thinker Mohammed Arkon. On the public societies level, Fadila Imara, chairwoman
of the “no prostitution, no submission” movement, presented herself as the
invincible barrier against the hijab proliferation in French cities and
districts.
Essential
Prerequisites
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Some of the French authorities’ fears toward the influences of “political Islam” |
There
is no doubt that the French government’s treatment of the issue of Islamic
presence in France is influenced by a present necessity to contain that
fast-growing religion whose rank (based on the number of its followers) has
become second to Catholicism, surpassing both Protestantism and Judaism. The
French government, seeing that the Muslim population is about six million and
originally from Morocco, North Africa, and Turkey, has thought to incorporate
Islam into the republic, emphasizing two essential prerequisites.
The
first is that a French form of Islam would never clash with the values of the
republic, such as the absolute equality between man and woman and the freedom of
partner choice. The question has been raised here of the refusal of some French
hijab-wearing females to see male doctors in hospitals3 and the question of
endowing French girls of North African origin the right to choose their future
husbands-a French survey has shown that 70,000 girls are being forced by their
parents to marry men they do not like.
The
second entails the giving-up of all expressions and rulings preached by the
“Arab Islam.” There is no room in “French Islam” to discuss the
enforcement of the Shari`ah (Islamic Law) and its punishments. One recalls here
the live dialogue held between the Swiss thinker Tariq Ramadan and then Interior
Minister Nicolas Sarkozy4 on the issue of lashing some types of criminals in
Islamic Law. Tariq Ramadan, Hassan Al-Banna’s grandson5, was tongue-tied in
embarrassment before thousands of his youthful followers in Paris before he said
briefly that “the matter requires a pedagogic work” without being decisive
on that issue. It must be noted that Ramadan has been preaching “a European
Islam” in his writings, a form of Islam which would adapt to its environment,
though would not be fully separated from the “Arab Islam.”
Searching
for a Model
Rejecting
any form of non-French Islam is considered the main guarantee for the birth of a
“French Islam,” which would bear its own French peculiarities and republican
values and would merge into the French social and cultural composition. Olivier
Roi, a French specialist in Islamics, explained to IslamOnline.net, “The
problem now is that newly-born Islam is still searching for a model to follow, a
problem which has its own historical roots. The Muslim presence in the West, for
the first time in Islamic history, is that of a minority, a status quo very
different from past historical phases.” Is then, the coinage “French
Islam” simply an attempt to secularize Islam and adapt it to French
principles, alienating it from its collective spirit and incorporating it into
the designated Western sense of religion-an individual affair?
Shouldn’t
it be obvious then, that wearing hijab is an individual affair? In fact, the
hijab-ban law has triggered protests from Christian and Jewish men of religion,
a huge number of French intelligentsia, and many specialists in “French
Islam,” such as Cebrino Itianne, Olivier Roi, and François Bourger, and has
elicited different points of view among French parties. It seems, therefore,
that it is a must for “French Islam,” which would be deemed in line with
French values, to be “invisible”-an adjective included in the text of the
law on the laїcité and dug out from the La Rousse dictionary by
the collective effort of the 20 “sages” who made up the Stasi Commission.
But does not the word invisible, in its essence, contradict the Right of
Difference, which is one of the main pillars upon which the French Revolution is
based?
Nobody
doubts that the freedom enjoyed by French Muslims surpasses in many instances
the freedom they enjoyed in their countries of origin. It is also widely known
that France hosts many figures affiliated with North African religious movements
persecuted in their countries of origin, such as the Algerian Rescue Front and
the Tunisian Renaissance Movement.
Fears
and Analysis
Some
of the French authorities’ fears toward the influences of “political
Islam” on the French community stem originally from the notable influence of
the Moroccan Islamic movements on French Muslims. The Moroccan Justice and
Charity movement (Al-Adl Wal Ihsan) has an apparent influence on immigrants of
Moroccan origin, while the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood on the Union of
Islamic Organizations in France is evident as well. Abu Jara Sultani, head of
the Algerian Peace Society movement, was the most outstanding guest of honor
during the Union’s 21st conference in the Paris precinct of Bourges6.
If
the French model of Islam is the one which would distance itself from the
influence of non-French Islam, “it should be independent and inconsistent with
political Islam,” stated John-Paul Vit, chief editor of the French magazine The
World and Religions, to IslamOnline.net. “It would be an Islam which would
not embrace any political or social project, because it is presumed that the
Republic and its values are the sole project which contains any other project,
culture and/or religion. The 1905 legislation maintains that the French State
does not adopt any religion, and guarantees the freedom to embrace any religion
at the same time.”
The
expression invisible Islam, mentioned in the hijab-ban legislation,
represents the French authorities’ view of the desired Islam, an “inner
Islam” that does not manifest itself in religious symbols that might hurt the
public taste and violate secularism. The invisible or inner Islam is but the
Sufi form of Islam. Eric Geoffrey, one of the most distinguished members of the
French Council of the Islamic Faith, a convert to Islam and a
professor-instructor at the University of Luxemburg, predicted to
IslamOnline.net that “the future of French Islam is but a Sufi future.” Is
not religious Sufism, in its deepest sense, one of laїcité's
expressions, in that it represents an individual yearning to the absolute and to
religion, away from the community's coercions and from the social aspects of
religion?
Regardless
of the one color of Islam that France would like to authorize, there is no doubt
that an Islam with its own unique characteristics is being incubated, one
which would neither be severed from its Arab-Islamic roots nor cut off from its
Western, secular, French environment: in effect, a Francophone Islam.
[1]
In May 2003, the first meeting for the foundation of the French Council of the
Islamic Faith was held. This was the first body to represent French Muslims
before the French authorities.
[2]
A French court later ruled that he return to
France
.
[3]
Report of Bernard Stasi’s commission, mandated by President Chirac.
[4]
100 Minutes Persuasion, TV program broadcast on the French Channel 2, November,
2003.
[5]
The Swiss thinker Tariq Ramadan is grandson to
Hassan
Al-Banna
, founder of the international Muslim Brotherhood group.
[6]
Bourges
is an area north of
Paris
where the annual conference of the Union of Islamic Organizations in
France
is held.
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