Table Of ContentMuslims in Interwar Europe
<UN>
Muslim Minorities
Editorial Board
Jørgen S. Nielsen (University of Copenhagen)
Aminah McCloud (DePaul University, Chicago)
Jörn Thielmann (Erlangen University)
VOLUME 17
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/mumi
<UN>
Muslims in Interwar Europe
A Transcultural Historical Perspective
Edited by
Bekim Agai
Umar Ryad
Mehdi Sajid
leiden | boston
<UN>
This is an open access title distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported (CC-BY-NC 3.0) License, which permits any
non-commer- cial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s)
and source are credited.
Cover illustration: European Muslim Congress, 1935. Family Archive, Mohammed Ali van Beetem;
Naaldwijk—The Netherlands. With gratitude to his grandson for giving access to the papers.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Muslims in interwar Europe : a transcultural historical perspective / edited by Bekim Agai, Umar Ryad,
Mehdi Sajid.
pages cm. -- (Muslim minorities ; v. 17)
Includes index.
ISBN 978-90-04-28783-9 (hardback : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-90-04-30197-9 (e-book) 1. Muslims--Europe--
History. 2. Islam--Europe--History. 3. Europe--Ethnic relations. 4. Europe--History--1918-1945. I. Agai,
Bekim. II. Ryad, Umar. III. Sajid, Mehdi.
BP65.A1M87 2016
297.094’09042--dc23
2015028931
This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering
Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more
information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface.
issn 1570-7571
isbn 978-90-04-28783-9 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-30197-9 (e-book)
Copyright 2016 by the Editor and Authors.
This work is published by Koninklijke Brill nv. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes
& De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing.
Koninklijke Brill nv reserves the right to protect the publication against unauthorized use and to authorize
dissemination by means of offprints, legitimate photocopies, microform editions, reprints, translations, and
secondary information sources, such as abstracting and indexing services including databases. Requests for
commercial re-use, use of parts of the publication, and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke
Brill nv.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
<UN>
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
List of Figures viii
1 Introduction: Towards a Trans-Cultural History of Muslims in Interwar
Europe 1
Bekim Agai, Umar Ryad and Mehdi Sajid
2 In Search of Religious Modernity: Conversion to Islam in
Interwar Berlin 18
Gerdien Jonker
3 Salafiyya, Ahmadiyya, and European Converts to Islam in the
Interwar Period 47
Umar Ryad
4 Conversion of European Intellectuals to Islam: The Case of Christiaan
Snouck Hurgronje alias ʿAbd al-Ghaffār 88
Pieter Sjoerd van Koningsveld
5 Muslim Bodies in the Metropole: Social Assistance and “Religious”
Practice in Interwar Paris 105
Naomi Davidson
6 Indonesian Islam in Interwar Europe: Muslim Organizations in the
Netherlands and Beyond 125
Klaas Stutje
7 Moros y Cristianos: Religious Aspects of the Participation of Moroccan
Soldiers in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) 151
Ali Al Tuma
8 Muslims of Interwar Lithuania: The Predicament of a Torn
Autochthonous Ethno-Confessional Community 178
Egdūnas Račius
<UN>
vi contents
9 Transnational Life in Multicultural Space: Azerbaijani and Tatar
Discourses in Interwar Europe 205
Zaur Gasimov and Wiebke Bachmann
Index 225
<UN>
Acknowledgements
We would like to deeply thank the German Federal Ministry of Education and
Research (BMFB), the BMBF research project “Europa von außen gesehen” at
the University of Bonn (2010-2014) and the Leiden University Centre of Islam
and Society (LUCIS) for their generosity and financial support to organize the
international conference “Islam in Interwar Europe and European Cultural
History” at the University of Leiden (13–15 September 2012). Special thanks are
due to the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMFB) for funding this
publication and facilitating it in Open Access. We should also express our grati-
tude to the European Research Council for funding the project “Neither visi-
tors, nor colonial victims: Muslims in Interwar Europe and European
Trans-cultural History,” currently conducted under the supervision of Umar
Ryad at Utrecht University—The Netherlands (2014–2019).
<UN>
List of Figures
1.1 European Muslim Congress, 1935 2
2.1 Hugo Hamid Marcus (1929) 37
2.2 Rolf Umar Ehrenfels (1926) 37
2.3 Faruq H. Fischer (1934) 37
3.1 Sheikh Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā (1865–1935) in his Al-Manār Office
in Cairo 52
3.2 Id-ul-Fitr day at Woking, 10 July 1918 58
3.3 Muslim group at the Woking Mosque 62
3.4 al-Fatḥ 10, no. 476 80
6.1 A Muslim Marriage in the City Hall of the Hague 1935 146
6.2 Van Beetem and Indonesian Students in Cairo 1935 147
7.1 Granada Muslim cemetery 175
8.1 Sample of the requested stamp of the Rectorate of Kaunas Mohammedan
Parish, 31 October 1923 192
8.2 Kaunas Muslim Society’s stamp, on a document dated 9 September 1937 192
<UN>
chapter 1
Introduction: Towards a Trans-Cultural History
of Muslims in Interwar Europe
Bekim Agai, Umar Ryad and Mehdi Sajid
The study of Muslims in interwar Europe is a rising and intriguing field of
research. With the exception of two edited volumes, Islam in Interwar Europe
by Nathalie Clayer and Eric Germain and Transnational Islam in Interwar
Europe by Götz Nordbruch and Umar Ryad,1 the history of Muslims in Europe
during this period is still fragmented into various fields of study as a side aspect
of other issues. Some of these works deal with Muslims in interwar Europe as
part of Middle Eastern and Asian history, colonial studies or briefly as related
to European migration history.2 Other historians deliver nationally focused
narratives of the Muslim presence in western, central, and eastern European
territories focused on specific countries, framed within a national history.3
1 Nathalie Clayer and Eric Germain (eds.), Islam in Interwar Europe (London: Hurst & Company,
2008); Götz Nordbruch and Umar Ryad (eds.), Transnational Islam in Interwar Europe:
Muslim Activists and Thinkers (New York: Palgrave, 2014).
2 See, for example, Martin Seth Kramer, Arab Awakening and Islamic Revival: The Politics of Ideas
in the Middle East (New Brunswick, nj: Transaction Publishers, 2011), 103–111; William
L. Cleveland, Islam against the West: Shakib Arslan and the Campaign for Islamic Nationalism
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014): Juliette Bessis, “Chekib Arslan et les mouvements
nationalistes au Maghreb,” Revue historique 526 (1978): 467–489; Stéphane A. Dudoignon,
Hisao Komatsu, and Yasushi Kosugi, Intellectuals in the Modern Islamic World: Transmission,
Transformation, Communication (London: Taylor & Francis, 2006); Manuela Williams,
Mussoliniʼs Propaganda Abroad: Subversion in the Mediterranean and the Middle East, 1935–1940
(New York: Routledge, 2006); Gilbert Achcar, The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli
War of Narratives (London: Saqi, 2010).
3 See, for example, Alexandre Popovic, L’Islam balkanique: Les musulmans du sud-esteuropéendans
la périodepost-ottomane (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1986); Alexandre Popovic, The Turks of
Bulgaria (1878–1985) (Society for Central Asian Studies, 1986); Nathalie Clayer, “La Ahmadiyya
lahori et la réforme de l’islam albanais dans l’entre-deux-guerres, in Véronique Bouillier &
Catherine Servan-Schreiber,” De l’Arabie à l’Himalaya. Chemins croisés en hommage à Marc
Gaborieau (Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 2004), 211–228; Humayun Ansari (ed.), The Making
of the East London Mosque, 1910–1951 (Cambridge University Press, 2011); Humayun Ansari,
“Between Collaboration and Resistance: Muslim Soldiers’ Identities and Loyalties in the two
World Wars,” Arches Quarterly 4 (2011): 18–29; Humayun Ansari, “ʽBurying the Deadʼ: Making
Muslim Space in Britain,” Historical Research 80/210 (2007): 545–566; Humayun Ansari, “The
© bekim agai, umar ryad and mehdi sajid, ���6 | doi �0.��63/978900430�979_00�
This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported (CC-BY-NC 3.0) License.
<UN>
2 Agai, Ryad and Sajid
Figure 1.1 European Muslim Congress, 1935. Family Archive, Mohammed Ali van Beetem;
Naaldwijk – The Netherlands. With gratitude to his grandson for giving access
to the papers
The present volume puts the trans-cultural perspective on Muslims in interwar
Europe into focus. It is the outcome of an international symposium entitled
“Islam in Interwar Europe and European Cultural History,” which was held at
Leiden University (13–14 December 2012). It was organized by the three editors
Woking Mosque: A Case Study of Muslim Engagement with British Society since 1889,”
Immigrants & Minorities 21/3 (2002), 1–24. Gerhard Höpp, Arabische und islamische
Periodika in Berlin und Brandenburg 1915 bis 1945: geschichtlicher Abriss und Bibliographie
(Berlin: Das Arabische Buch, 1994); Gerhard Höpp (ed.), Mufti-Papiere: Briefe, Memoranden,
Reden und Aufrufe Amīnal-Ḥusainīs aus dem Exil 1940–1945 (Berlin: Schwarz, 2001); Gerhard
Höpp, “Arab Inmates in German Concentration Camps until the End of World War ii,” in
Wolfgang Schwanitz (ed.), Germany and the Middle East, 1871–1945 (Madrid u.a.:
Iberoamericana, 2004); Gerhard Höpp, “Zwischen Entente und Mittelmächten: arabische
Nationalisten und Panislamisten in Deutschland (1914 bis 1918)”, Asien, Afrika, Lateinamerika:
Zeitschrift des Zentralen Rates für Asien-, Afrika- und Lateinamerikawissenschaften in der
DDR5 (1991): 827–845; Gerhard Höpp and Gerdien Jonker, In fremder Erde. Zur Geschichte
und Gegenwart der islamischen Bestattung in Deutschland (Berlin: Verlag Das Arabische
Buch, 1996).
<UN>
