Preface

This book emerges from my long-standing work on Islam and Muslims in contemporary Europe, but its genesis can be traced to discussions surrounding the new Islam Act implemented in Austria in 2015. This legislation introduced a novel framework for regulating the relationship between the state and its Muslim communities. It provoked significant criticism, largely due to its discriminatory treatment of Muslims compared to other religious groups. The original Austrian Islam Act of 1912, however, is deeply rooted in Austria’s history as a conquering empire, dating back to the Austro-Hungarian monarchy’s occupation of Bosnia and Hercegovina. Conversations with my friend the legal historian Rijad Dautović further sparked my interest in the longue durée of Austria’s Islam-related policies and their underlying colonial logic. While Austro-Hungarian politicians recognized the colonial nature of their policies, contemporary Austrian society largely fails to acknowledge the empire’s colonial legacy. Historian Jürgen Zimmerer refers to this as Germany’s “colonial amnesia”—a denial and neglect of its colonial past. This phenomenon is even more pronounced in Austria, where both “colonial amnesia” and “racism amnesia” prevail.1 Anthropologist Fatima El-Tayeb aptly describes this dual erasure as “a constant dialectic of racist moral panics and the suppression of the historical presence of racialized populations in Europe.”2 When colonial histories are dismissed or forgotten, suppressed narratives hinder meaningful reflection and dialogue about Europe’s past and its enduring legacies.