Postcolonial Austria

Abstract This chapter discusses postwar Austria’s approach to Islam and Muslims. It introduces the most important state institutions and political figures that have shaped religion politics and the state’s approach to Islam and Muslims. Two policy fields are specifically analyzed: religious bureaucracy and education. Austria’s legal recognition of a Muslim community based on the Islam Act of 1912, its usage during the Cold War and the post-9/11 era in cultivating the image of the good Austrian Muslim, and the subsequent shift to the far right are highlighted. The chapter discusses the restructuring of Islamic religious bureaucracy in 2015, which introduced a form of religious institution-building that was under strict state control, accompanied by more surveillance of and crackdowns on Muslim civil society. It also discusses the institutionalization of Islamic religious education to better control the content of Islamic teachings in public schools and to train the ideal future Austrian Muslim theologian.