Islamic religious education (IRE) in Europe has become a subject of intense debate during the past decade. There is concern that states are doing too little or too much to shape the spiritual beliefs of private citizens. State response to the concern ranges from sponsoring religious education in public schools to forgoing it entirely and policies vary according to national political culture. In some countries public schools teach Islam to Muslims as a subject within a broader religious curriculum that gives parents the right to choose their children's religious education. In the other countries public schools teach Islam to all pupils as a subject with a close relation to the academic study of religions. There are also countries where public schools do not teach religion at all, although there is an opportunity to teach about Islam in school subjects such as art, history, or literature. IRE taught outside publicly funded institutions, is of course also taught as a confessional subject in private Muslim schools, mosques and by Muslim organisations. Often students who attend these classes also attend a publicly funded "main stream school". This volume brings together a number of researchers for the first time to explore the interconnections between Islamic educations and public schooling in Europe. The relation between Islamic education and public schooling is analysed within the publicly and privately funded sectors. How is publicly funded education organised, why is it organised in this way, what is the history and what are the controversial issues? What are the similarities and differences between privately run Islamic education and "main stream" schooling? What are the experiences of teachers, parents and pupils? The volume will be of interest to scholars of Islam in Europe, policy makers of education and integration and teachers of religious education.

Against the backdrop of labour migration and the ongoing refugee crisis, the ways in which Islam is taught and engaged with in educational settings has become a major topic of contention in Europe. Recognising the need for academic engagement around the challenges and benefits of effective Islamic Religious Education (IRE), this volume offers a comparative study of curricula, teaching materials, and teacher education in fourteen European countries, and in doing so, explores local, national, and international complexities of contemporary IRE. Considering the ways in which Islam is taught and represented in state schools, public Islamic schools, and non-confessional classes, Part One of this volume includes chapters which survey the varying degrees to which fourteen European States have adopted IRE into curricula, and considers the impacts of varied teaching models on Muslim populations. Moving beyond individual countries’ approaches to IRE, chapters in Part Two offer multi-disciplinary perspectives – from the hermeneutical-critical to the postcolonial – to address challenges posed by religious teachings on issues such as feminism, human rights, and citizenship, and the ways these are approached in European settings. Given its multi-faceted approach, this book will be an indispensable resource for postgraduate students, scholars, stakeholders and policymakers working at the intersections of religion, education and policy on religious education.

Relations between Muslims and the public education systems of Europe are often characterised by tensions. There is often still a perceived incompatibility between the claims of individual Muslims or Muslim communities on the one hand and the aims of public education in Europe on the other. The relatively recent presence of Islam in much of Europe, the internal diversity of Muslim communities, the lack of a centralized, hierarchical church-like structure – different arguments are used to justify such a discriminatory treatment of one of the largest faith communities in Europe. Nevertheless, as this book aims to illustrate, there are already rich and diverse experiences throughout Europe of how to integrate Islam into the national and regional school systems, particularly in primary, but also in secondary education. Accordingly, this book provides some analyses of the ways in which Islam is integrated in education in certain regions of Spain, the Netherlands, France and England. These analyses are paralleled by empirical findings concerning the role of religion in the life of young Muslims, their views concerning religion in school, and the impact of religion in education and society in Spain, the Netherlands, Norway, Germany, France and England.

With new topics and contributions, this updated second edition discusses the history and contemporary presence of Islam in Europe and America. The book debates the relevance and multi-faceted participation of Muslims in the dynamics of Western societies, challenging the changing perception on both sides. Collating over 30 chapters, written by experts from around the world, the volume presents a wide range of perspectives. Case studies from the Muslim presence in the Iberian Peninsula between the Middle Ages and the modern age set off the Handbook, along with an outline of Muslims in America up to the twentieth century. The second part covers concepts around new conditions in terms of consolidating identities, the emergence of new Muslim actors, the appearance of institutions and institutional attitudes, the effects of Islamic presence on the arts and landscapes of the West, and the relational dynamics like ethics and gender. Exploring the influence of Islam, particularly its impact on society, culture and politics, this interdisciplinary volume is a key resource for policymakers, academics and students interested in the history of Islam, religion and the contemporary relationship between Islam and the West.

The scholarly contributors to this volume investigate various means to stimulate and facilitate reflection on new social relations while clarifying the contradictions between religious and social affiliation from different perspectives and experiences. They explore hindrances whose removal could enable Muslim children and youth to pursue equal participation in political and social life, and the ways that education could facilitate this process.