Islamic Theology at Western European Universities:Articulating Ikhtilāf in the Netherlands, Germany, United Kingdom and Austria

In recent years, several Western European universities have started academic programs in Islamic theology. The opening of public universities for the confessional study of Islam is unprecedented in Western European modern history. This book analyses the scholarly output of scholars working in this new field, taking stock of the academic knowledge production across four countries: Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The study answers a much-debated question: How do Islamic theologians at Western European universities face the challenging task of administering, elaborating and developing Islamic knowledge through academic discourse? The book systematically describes the debates about the academic, socio-political and religious legitimacy of Islamic university theology in these four countries between 2010 and 2018. It will become clear how the scholars, first and foremost, want to use the academic space to mobilise a paradigm shift that focuses on plurality and pluralism. By embracing plurality as inherently rooted in the Islamic discursive tradition, they aim to offer European Muslims comfort and certainty to deal with the challenges of modern life. The study will explain this by using the concept of ikhtilâf, an Islamic legal term that, at its broadest, can be defined as the recognition of diversity in opinions.