Journey into Europe: Islam, Immigration, and Identity.

• Author: Huseyinoglu, All
• Position: Book review

Journey into Europe: Islam, Immigration, and Identity

By Akbar Ahmed

Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2018, 592 pages, $34.99, ISBN: 9780815727583

Journey into Europe: Islam, Immigration, and Identity is the last installment of a four-volume series written by Prof. Akbar Ahmed. The text is composed of three parts and nine chapters. It starts by outlining the historical presence of Islam in Europe and continues elaborating theoretical discussions about modernity and tribalism in respect to the (re) construction of European identity and the formation of nations from ancient times to the present. The second part is about various types of Muslims, i.e. natives, immigrants, and converts, and their struggle to locate their Islamic identity within the broader European one. The final part highlights a number of lessons derived from the whole research and proposes a more pluralist European identity respecting ethnic, religious, and cultural diversity. It concludes with ten steps as "solutions to the crisis facing Muslims in Europe" (pp. 507-516).

In addition to serving as the former high commissioner of Pakistan to Great Britain and Ireland, Professor Akbar is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington DC. In his earlier three works that started after 9/11, Ahmed elaborated a vast array of matters regarding the presence of Muslims, primarily in the American context, thus contributing to the growing academic scholarship about the West and the Muslim world. This is his only book dedicated to issues of Muslims living in Europe. It is the product of four years of intensive and meticulous work which Prof. Ahmed conducted together with a team of researchers between 2013 and 2017. The methodology of the book has to do more with the disciplines of sociology and anthropology than history or political science. Yet, as Ahmed underscores, this cannot be counted as a "standard textbook of anthropology" (p. 34). Theoretically speaking, the book reflects upon the main discussions of Max Weber's understanding of modernity and modern nations, and Ibn Khaldun's take on tribalism; it takes both intellectuals' interpretation of identity into account in order to understand the main dynamics of European identity.

One of the strongest aspects of this study is that it is primarily composed of extensive ethnographic fieldwork, insightful observations, and face-to-face semi-structured interviews with hundreds of Muslims and...