Machine summary:
Produced as a serious work of research, this volume represents one of the first attempts to examine systematically the status and nature of Muslim collective life in the western diaspora as seen from the theoretical perspective of the majority-minority relationship.
recent immigrant arrivals in Europe, Australia, and North America as well as the indigenous followers of Islam in the Balkans, living within communal collectivities of .
Despite a diversity of academic orientation, the essays are all highly stimulating, and the quality of the contributions are all equallysuperior, The overarching dilemma, identified by the authors as the culprit responsible for the Muslims' difficulties, is the demonization of Islam and the Islamic people in the western worldview.
The selections on Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, Spain, and Portugal analyze immigrant Muslim communities whose rapid growth constitutes a serious challenge both to the host societies and the newcomers.
The book points out that Muslims in the United States and Canada, having been admitted under selective immigration policies, "are among the most highly educated" (p.
157) operating in the labor market The essays in the collection are replete with references to the preservation of Islamic identity as the paramount concern of Muslims, as they are embraced ever so tightly by the aggrandizing western culture.
Indisputably, Muslims "have come to believe that the Islamic identity of their children, as well as their rich cultural and religious heritage can only be preserved by establishing their own schools" (p.