Esra Ozyurek

Excellent book, thoroughly recommend. Even if you are not European, you will find plenty of similarities to your own cultural experience. Wonderful, honest interviews with German Muslims of many different backgrounds. The introduction is rather academic jargon laden, but once you get past that, the writing style is very engaging and intelligent.

The drawbacks of this book are 1) she only covered Berlin- but one can't cover everything and 2) needs some updates.

Updates:
1. Huge influx of Syrian and Iraqi refugees (fleeing civil wars) demanding amnesty status and putting a huge strain on the German social system. This has drawn increasing support for the far right-wing, anti-immigrant groups. Also may have taken the luster off the 'Arab' appeal.

2. Islam not recognized at the federal level as an official religion. If the German government did that, then they would have to recognize all the holidays for everyone, i.e. Christians would get off on Eid. Furthermore, the government might maybe even deduct church/mosque tax (8%). Currently, 40% of the mosques in Germany are supported by the state of Turkey. Many German Muslims might not want to pay a tax to support a mosque they do not feel comfortable attending.

3. Religious education in public schools. Ozyurek writes that in Berlin religious education is restricted to Christianity and Judaism (atheists take an ethics class). In Bavaria, students must take religious education and Islam is one of the options. We own two of the textbooks used by the Bavarian state to educate our own children about Islam. (Saphir published by Kosel)… (lisätietoja)