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Muslim youth have assumed a central, if complex, place in the politics and cultures and politics of the global South and North. Their cultural behavior can be understood as representing a new arena of contestation for power in a global era. In conventional wisdom, a combination of youth bulge, unemployment, marginality, and a general sentiment of deprivation has given Muslim youth an exceptional status. This chapter shows that although the majority of young Muslims share many common social, political, and economic misfortunes, they respond to their situations and express their youthfulness through remarkably diverse ways. Although groups of them have been drawn into radical Islam, others have embraced their religion more as an identity marker or lifestyle choice, whereas still others opt for secularism. Far from being “exceptional,” young Muslims in reality have as much in common with their non-Muslim global generational counterparts as they share among themselves. They are simultaneously objects, agents and victims on a world stage and are engaged in constant negotiation between being Muslim, modern, and young.

This chapter takes a look at the Muslimische Jugend Deutschland (Muslim Youth of Germany, or MJD), a small organization of not more than 1200 registered members. The MJD promotes Muslim youths of diverse backgrounds coming together to discover ways of becoming active and desirable members of German society. Young members of the MJD participate in discussions about how to represent Muslims and immigrants in the general elections; arrange trips to Auschwitz in order to shoulder the weight of German history and talk about its meaning for contemporary German society; and organize New Year's evening celebrations along with hip-hop concerts that are Islamically proper. Many born Muslim members confirm that through their participation in the MJD, they start to embrace their German identity in a wholehearted way and define themselves primarily as German rather than Turkish or Arab.

The current prevailing youth research articulates the “question of youth,” and Muslim youth in particular, as both a problem and an opportunity—problems associated with youth radicalism, disruption, deviance, and instability; and opportunity for the young to act as agents of political and economic change as the builders of the future. Although this chapter underlines the value of such approaches, it argues for more innovative methodologies that include ethnography, life histories, and comparative global (North and South), interdisciplinary, and intergenerational collaborations. It stresses the need to look at the young on their own terms, as a particular social group that is increasingly becoming the “new proletariat” of our times in an ongoing struggle for citizenship. Research in the area of youth necessitates not only research about the young, but collaborations and initiatives with the young. Combining cultural politics with political economy approaches, and viewing the young at the intersection of both local/national and global processes can provide invaluable ways to “know Muslim youth.”

This chapter is concerned with the debates and media constructions on the schooling of Muslim youth in France. First, it positions these debates in relation to the shifting bases of political power under the Fifth Republic. Second, it examines media constructions of Muslim youth in the larger debates on integration, social diversity, and multiculturalism. Third, it examines initiatives to establish Muslim schools over the backdrop of shifting class stratification and marked spatial segregation of the city and the suburbs. Fourth, it positions the founding of Muslim private schools over the larger backdrop of European political integration and the emergence of a “European space” of praxis in relation to which new forms of citizenship and political action are possible. The concluding section offers a reflection on the role schooling plays in constructing competing notions of Muslim youth within the larger context of a “transnational European” space.

This chapter demonstrates how two competing methods for the presentation of Muslim identity at a time of potential stigma coexisted and sometimes conflicted at the City Mosque. Such internal cultural friction resulted from the fact that these methods for managing stigma were rooted in two distinct models of public Muslim selfhood, one developed by the Legendz through the in-group processes of their small friendship group, and one constructed by the mosque leadership as their ideal model for Muslim American youth. While the mosque leadership method of presenting young Muslim selves centered on leading with and explaining Islam, demonstrating vulnerability to harassment, and developing concern for non-Muslims' perceptions, the method cultivated by the Legendz prioritized the development of a low-key Islamic self, an emphasis on locally valued American teenage behaviors, and the expression of individual autonomy and self-sufficiency. These differing logics of public identity management represented a significant rift between the Legendz and the leadership and sometimes even undermined the boys' faith and trust in the mosque adults. This development was a surprising and emotionally intense experience for the Legendz.

This chapter details the everyday practices used by the Legendz and their friends to manage a specific cultural dilemma faced by Muslim American youth: how to participate in a religious tradition that carries expectations of deference to external religious authority and obligation within a modern American cultural landscape in which personal agency, autonomy, and reflexivity are core social values and widely held behavioral expectations. The Legendz responded to this challenge by engaging in practices associated with one particular cultural rubric (religious Islam) while applying discourses and behavior associated with the other (American individualism). In this way, they attempted to present themselves as agentive, autonomous, and self-reflexive American youth despite their regular fulfillment of externally imposed Islamic obligations. In altering the specifics of prayer through visible temporal delays, the boys attempted to demonstrate an autonomous yet Islamic self to themselves and each other. By invoking the specter of the “extreme Muslim” in conversation, they presented themselves as self-reflexive Islamic individuals—ones not unthinkingly beholden to strict religious requirements—while protecting the autonomy of their peers by displacing religious authority in interaction. In applying the speech patterns of urban braggadocio when recounting their participation in Muslim moral behavior, they attempted to infuse communally rooted norms with a sense of individual agency.

In this chapter the life satisfaction and general happiness of Muslims in Europe is examined, along with their well-being in several specific key areas of life, including income, health, education, employment, awareness of political information, and access to information sources. Data from the European Social Survey and the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights provide a new perspective on Muslims in France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, in demonstrating so many similarities between Muslims and other Europeans. While these data do not contradict the well-documented socio-economic marginalization of European Muslims, they demonstrate that Muslims are not isolated or dissatisfied with the major state institutions within which they conduct their lives. Their confidence in the educational, health and economic systems of their European state is not much different from that of their European neighbours, and in many areas is more positive. The data provide little, if any, support for the belief that Muslims are isolating themselves in Europe. Like their non-Muslim neighbours, Muslims support the institutions of the state, follow politics and the news, and utilize the internet. These attitudes and habits reflect their integration into Europe, not self-segregation into parallel societies.

This chapter examines a case study of faith activism among young Muslim men in UK. It explores how faith identity frames the public engagement and political activism of the British Muslim youth. The case study presented herein arises from a two-year qualitative study of black and minority ethnic young people's political engagement, particularly of a locally-based Muslim ‘justice movement’. In this chapter, the manner with which the faith identity and values influenced the political activism and the different scales to which this is expressed by these young men are explored. Attention is particularly given to the notion of ‘glocalised’ political sensibility which shapes their political concern and the terrains on which they are active. Apart from exploring the intersections between local and global terrains on which they are active, the chapter also reflects on how the identification with umma (the global community of Muslims) forms a significant dimension of young Muslim's renegotiation of their identities in relation to familial and cultural heritage and their localised living experience. This chapter begins with a discussion on the ways in which young British Muslims have featured in the public domain before it discusses the recent research on the forms of political and public engagement in Muslims, specifically on contemporary expressions of global Islam. The chapter ends with a discussion on how young activists relate to the public sphere by focusing on their personal engagement with faith and how this informs their identities and political action.

This chapter discusses the results of a study on two organizations: Muslim Youth Camp (MYC) and American Muslims Intent on Learning and Activism (AMILA). The MYC aims to bring Muslim families and individuals of diverse backgrounds together for a fun-filled week of Islamic living, learning, and inspirational experiences in nature. AMILA describes itself as “committed to spiritual enrichment, intellectual freedom, and community service.” Although the MYC and AMILA have very different structures, they have three common goals: 1) the need for a nonjudgmental environment in which to explore themselves and different ideas; 2) an environment that reflects an American Muslim culture; and 3) a need to contribute to the community in meaningful ways.

The chapter analyses young Swedish Muslims’ attitudes towards democratic processes in relation to Swedish political parties. Based on a survey among approximately 250 young Muslims that are affiliated to the Swedish youth organisation SUM (Sweden’s Young Muslims), the chapter outlines how young Muslims position themselves in relation to the political left-right spectrum. The survey’s findings lead us to conclude that the political left-right spectrum is hardly relevant to this group of young Muslims. The majority of the respondents self-identify as either somewhat or clearly to the left. However, in seven out of 25 specific political proposals, the group show a clear sentiment towards what could be called conservative values (usually considered to be located to the right of the political spectrum). The chapter shows that no party seems to fully correspond to the full range of sentiments held by the majority of respondents, effectively leaving them without a fully representative political alternative. If anything is a problem for this group of respondents, it is not a lack of interest or knowledge about politics, but rather one of representation.

The author reminds us of the truism that the Muslims of Europe have different visions of their religion, of what is Islam, sometimes they are almost opposed. Their attitudes range from the strictest forms of practice to a critical rejection. While some young Muslims are deeply religious, because they believe in being concerned citizens and are politically active, numerous others do not use their faith as the only prism through which they look at their everyday lives and are active within society. Being a Muslim does not necessarily mean having a life centred only on religion; therefore the Muslims do not only mobilise to achieve religious goals. The chapter compares these various forms of mobilisation in order to underline the main diverging and converging lines between them in terms of social involvement (conflicted or consensual mobilisation), related or not with claims of citizenship (minority or civic mobilisation), and political partnerships with others social and political forces. The author points also to those individuals of Muslim background who have become activists against Islam.

Chapter 8 deals with the twin issues of language and education. Regarding the provision of education for ethnic minorities in Hong Kong, this chapter shows how multitudes of Muslim youths are faced with academic challenges and underscores the concerns of some ethnic minority families with regard to education policies in Hong Kong towards non-Chinese-speaking youths. In addition, apart from looking at the everyday ‘language lives’ of the respondents, it examines Cantonese-language media consumption and suggests that many juvenile Muslims are in fact immersed in local Hong Kong popular culture.

This chapter considers the narrative of an alleged “identity crisis” among young Muslim Americans, whereby they are torn between seemingly irreconcilable worlds of home/community/Islam and a secular society and that presumably puts them at risk for radicalization. The chapter dissects this narrative, then examines the theoretical landscape for identity formation and constructs an alternative synthesis that serves as the theoretical framework for this book. The chapter then explores the participants’ self-narrations of how they see themselves through recountings of childhood experiences at home, school, college, and as adults. This chapter argues that rather than suffering from this pathologized “identity crisis,” young Muslims struggle with issues of normal development, recognizing the difficulty of being a young person marked in American society by multiple differences (race, ethnicity, and religion); but they learn to navigate that challenging course and construct a sense of self that incorporates all the different “parts” of themselves, as one of the participants put it.

This chapter elaborates on Al-Shabaab’s gains between 2010 and the present. While Al-Shabaab was losing in south central Somalia it gained allies outside the country, and expanded in Kenya, as well as renewing its activities in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Uganda. Al-Shabaab was regionalized, with affiliates such as the Muslim Youth Centre emerging, and with the frequency of terror attacks in Kenya increasing. There were traces of Al-Shabaab influence inside Tanzania. In Ethiopia and Uganda, terrorist court cases that involved Al-Shabaab were held, but the general human-rights situation in these countries made it hard to say what was really going on, and if the government used accusations of being Al-Shabaab to delegitimize opposition. This chapter also traces Al-Shabaab expansion in the Puntland region of Somalia and within Somaliland.

This chapter puts the growth of jihadism in Germany within its larger context—namely, the development of global jihadism since 2001 and the internationalization of jihadist ideology, strategies, and social base. The internationalization process had been a complex interplay seen primarily between Western intervention in Muslim states and the increasing attractiveness of internationalist ideology among young Muslims themselves. A catalyst for the growth and expansion of jihadism was the foreign policies implemented by the United States and its allies, which stirred up a fervor for a “classical” jihadist call to duty to fight against foreigners occupying Muslim territory. Another factor was the Muslim diaspora residing in Europe, whose disconnect from the Middle East made them good candidates for carrying out jihadist activity on an international scale. And, of course, the accessibility of jihadist propaganda on the Internet made it even easier to gather up new recruits among the Muslim youth.

This final chapter summarizes the points made in the previous chapters and closes with the vision of the project collaborators for the future, including the role they see for themselves and their community in society and on the world stage. The chapter demonstrates the interwoven nature of the four narratives explored in this book, which circulate locally, nationally, and internationally; it has examined their role in shaping the perspectives of both individuals and collectives in the Muslim community.