Premium
Pan‐Islamic ideals and national loyalties: Competing attachments amongst early Muslim activists in France
Author(s) -
Dazey Margot
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
nations and nationalism
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.655
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1469-8129
pISSN - 1354-5078
DOI - 10.1111/nana.12655
Subject(s) - islam , cosmopolitanism , homeland , politics , national identity , vanguard , identity (music) , political science , assertion , gender studies , political economy , sociology , law , history , ancient history , physics , archaeology , acoustics , computer science , programming language
Islamist movements are often considered the epitomes of transnational movements; however, little is known about the concrete workings of their transnational ambitions. In investigating the evolution of Muslim activists in France from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, this article shows that their embrace of pan‐Islamic ideals initially conflicted with strong investment in (Arab) homeland politics. Later on, their engagement with a French Islam signalled less the emergence of a de‐territorialised, de‐culturalised Islamic identity than it did the assertion of new nationally bounded (French) attachments. Overall, the analysis sheds light on a stimulating puzzle regarding cosmopolitanism: the persistence of national forms of identification in movements that aspire to bypass national affiliations.