Muslim Dilemmas in the Republic of Ireland: Anti-Extremism and Self-Regulation in the Context of Super-Diversity

ABSTRACT

Since the 1990s, a very small Muslim community in the Republic of Ireland has expanded rapidly and become increasingly diverse. For all that research has identified growing expressions of anti-Muslim racism, mainstream Irish political discourse and political responses to Ireland’s Muslim communities have not reflected the antipathy towards Islam that is identifiable in a number of other European countries. The response of the Irish state towards Muslims has been one of apparent neglect, benign and otherwise, whilst Muslims, for their part, appear to have lived unobtrusively. We examine the position of Muslims in Ireland through the lens of three issues that have been debated within Muslim communities in recent years: the alleged threat of terrorist activity within Muslim communities; calls for regulation of Muslim/Islamic activities; and a 2018 controversy relating to comments made by a leading Islamic figure in Ireland on the topic of female genital mutilation. Our analysis, framed by Steven Vertovec’s concept of super-diversity, emphasizes the need for policymakers to avoid presumptions of homogeneity.

KEYWORDS:

• Muslims
• Islam
• Ireland
• super-diversity
• integration
• Islamophobia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Bryan Fanning http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8844-0259

Notes

1. The evidence presented in this article from print media coverage of debates involving significant Muslim individuals and issues is based on a thematic analysis of: (1) All Irish publications captured on the Nexis media database for the period 7–19 February 2018 with the terms ‘FGM OR (FGM) OR Female Circumcision’ or ‘Selim’ or ‘Ali Selim’; (2) All Irish publications captured on the Nexis media database for the period of November 2015–November 2017 with the terms ‘al-qadri AND qadri AND al* qadri’; (3) All Irish publications captured on the Nexis media database for the period of November 2015–November 2017 with the term ‘Sheikh Halawa’.

2. By ‘critically located’ we mean close to and knowledgeable about the diversity of Islamic practices amongst different Muslim communities in Ireland. For the purposes of anonymity, details on the backgrounds of these individuals will not be provided here.

3. For critical discussions of Prevent and similar securitization policies, see Kundnani (2014) and Islamic Human Rights Commission (2018).

4. We are critical of terms such as ‘radical’ and ‘radicalized’, as we are of notions of ‘moderate’ or ‘good’ Muslims/imams. We use these terms here because of their prevalence in public debates but do so recognizing the negative political associations of such language; hence the inclusion of quotation marks around such terms.