The so-called “Muslim question” of the twenty-first century has come to replace the so-called “Jewish question” of the twentieth, placing ethno-religious minorities at the center of debates over who and what can belong to post-Enlightenment Europe. Mosques in the Metropolis: Incivility, Caste, and Contention in Europe turns this question on its head—focusing instead on the question of Europe through an ethnography of two urban mosques, The East London Mosque and the Şehitlik Mosque, Berlin. Bringing nineteenth-twentieth century Jewish thinkers into conversation with the everyday lives of these ... More

The so-called “Muslim question” of the twenty-first century has come to replace the so-called “Jewish question” of the twentieth, placing ethno-religious minorities at the center of debates over who and what can belong to post-Enlightenment Europe. Mosques in the Metropolis: Incivility, Caste, and Contention in Europe turns this question on its head—focusing instead on the question of Europe through an ethnography of two urban mosques, The East London Mosque and the Şehitlik Mosque, Berlin. Bringing nineteenth-twentieth century Jewish thinkers into conversation with the everyday lives of these mosque communities, the experiences of practicing Muslims speak to enduring questions over the material and sociocultural boundaries of Europe. The postcolonial/postimperial positionality of Muslims in Europe is further theorized as an undercaste, revealing the power of labeling with incivility, which castes Muslims as insider-outsiders, what Georg Simmel termed “strangers,” like Jews before them. Here the mosque and the metropolis emerge as intertwined spaces and places, where collective identities, as well as opportunities to cross superimposed social boundaries are both rooted and made. Mosques in the Metropolis moves between the macro and micro-levels of society, shedding light on Europe’s lasting struggles with its ethno-religious minorities, and yet also a sense of hope found in the metropolis, when Muslims are understood as makers of Europe’s future, present, and past.