SearchMy accountHelpBasket0 items

Muslims in IrelandPast and Present

By Oliver Scharbrodt, Tuula Sakaranaho, Adil Hussain Khan, Yafa Shanneik and Vivian Ibrahim

Format

£24.99

In stock

About this book

The first complete study of a little-known Muslim presence in Europe

  • Makes an important and original contribution to understanding the diversity of Muslim presences in different national contexts across Europe
  • Combines historical, sociological and ethnographic research methods to provide a rich and multi-faceted study of the Muslim presence in Ireland in its historical and contemporary dimensions
  • Provides insights into the dynamics of interaction between Muslims and state and society in one of the least secular societies in Europe
  • Illustrates the central role European networks of the Muslim Brotherhood have played in organising and representing Muslim communities in Europe, with Ireland being a prime example
  • Read a feature about Muslims in Ireland in The Irish Times

Since 9/11, the interest in Muslims in Europe has increased significantly. There has been much public debate and academic research focused on Muslims living in larger Western European countries like Britain, France or Germany, but little is known of Muslims in Ireland. This book fills this gap, providing a complete study of this unexplored Muslim presence, from the arrival of the first Muslim resident in Cork, in the southwest of Ireland, in 1784 until mass immigration to the Republic of Ireland during the ‘Celtic Tiger’ period from the mid-1990s onwards.

Muslim immigration and settlement in Ireland is very recent, and poses new challenges to a society that has perceived itself as religiously and culturally homogeneous. Ireland is also one of the least secular societies in Europe, providing a different context for Muslims seeking recognition by state and society. This book is essential for anyone who wants to understand the diversity of Muslim presences across Europe.

Reviews

A very helpful book to start to flesh out the reality of the Muslim communities in Ireland... For those of us who are part of a religious minority, looking at how Ireland engages with a new religious minority helps us to understand better our own context.'- Stephen Skuce, Irish Methodist Newsletter
Set on the margins of Europe, Ireland is different - and this extends to its Muslim communities. In this first full-scale account the authors present a middle-class, professional community, of immigrant origin certainly but more reminiscent of the situation in the US than in Europe. This is a valuable new perspective on the subject of Islam in Europe.
‘A comprehensive analysis of the Muslim experience in Ireland by combining historical, sociological, political, and ethnographic research approaches to better understand this complex topic.’
Table of contents

List of illustrations

Introduction
Oliver Scharbrodt

Part I. History of Muslim Presence and Immigration to Ireland
1. Sailors, Merchants, Migrants: From the Sack of Baltimore to World War II
Vivian Ibrahim
2. Muslim Immigration after World War II
Oliver Scharbrodt

Part II. Mosques, Organisations and Leadership
3. Early Mosques and Muslim Organisations
Adil Hussain Khan
4. Political Islam in Ireland and the Role of Muslim Brotherhood Networks
Adil Hussain Khan
5. Mosque Communities and Muslim Organisations in Dublin and Other Cities
Adil Hussain Khan, Oliver Scharbrodt and Tuula Sakaranaho

Part III. The Governance of Islam: Freedom of Religion and Islamic Education
6. Religious Freedom and Muslims in Ireland
Tuula Sakaranaho
7. Education and Muslim National Schools in Ireland
Tuula Sakaranaho

Part IV. Diaspora and Identity
8. Muslim Women in Ireland
Yafa Shanneik

Conclusion: Being Irish, Being Muslim
Oliver Scharbrodt

Bibliography
Index.

About the contributors

Oliver Scharbrodt

Oliver Scharbrodt is Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Chester. He is the author of Islam and the Baha’i Faith: A Comparative Study of Muhammad ‘Abduh and ‘Abdul-Baha ‘Abbas (London and New York: Routledge, 2008) and editor of the Yearbook of Muslims in Europe (Leiden: Brill).

Tuula Sakaranaho

Tuula Sakaranaho is Professor of Study of Religions at the University of Helsinki. She has published extensively on methodological issues in the Study of Religions and on Muslims in contemporary society and is the author of Religious Freedom, Multiculturalism, Islam: Cross-reading Finland and Ireland (Leiden: Brill, 2006).

Adil Hussain Khan

Adil Hussain Khan is Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at Loyola University, New Orleans. His study of the history the Ahmadi Muslim community is forthcoming as From Sufism to Ahmadiyya: A Mulim Minority Movement in South Asia (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015).

Yafa Shanneik

Yafa Shanneik is Lecturer in Islamic Studies at the University of Birmingham. She researches the dynamics and trajectories of gender in Islam within the context of contemporary diasporic and transnational Muslim women’s spaces. Currently, she is working on a project which explores women’s narratives of transnational marriage practices performed by Iraqi and Syrian women who have settled in Europe or other countries in the Middle East since the 1980s. The project focuses on the historical developments and contemporary understandings and approaches of marriage practices among displaced Iraqi and Syrian Muslim women and foregrounds questions of identity, home and belonging of women constituted through local, national and transnational scales of migration experiences.

Vivian Ibrahim

Vivian Ibrahim is Croft Assistant Professor of History at the University of Mississippi. She is the author of The Copts of Egypt: The Challenges of Modernisation and Identity, 2nd ed. (London: IB Tauris, 2013) and co-editor of Political Leadership, Nations and Charisma (with Margit Wunsch, London and New York: Routlegde, 2012).