The Politics of Believing and Belonging: Increasing Diversity Among Muslim Immigrants in Germany

Abstract

While the arrival of large numbers of migrants from Syria has transformed the German Muslim scene in recent years, we still know very little about “how” and “to what degree.” Equally lacking is information on how existing Muslim-majority communities have experienced this transformation and what kind of relations they have established (if at all) with the “newcomers.” In search for answers to these questions, this article focuses on intercommunity and intracommunity dynamics among Muslim immigrants from Turkey and Syria in Germany. Through 20 in-depth, semistructured interviews, and participant observation in a mosque in Lower Saxony, it looks at how different identity markers influence the construction of symbolic boundaries in these communities. By doing so, it moves beyond the simplifying dichotomy of “Muslim immigrants versus non-Muslim hosts” and highlights other markers of difference, which differentiate incoming populations not only from receiving populations but also from each other.