ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the politics of Islamic identities in Western Europe, North America, Australia, the Middle East, and Asia. It provides a brief overview of the historical developments that have taken place with respect to Muslims, and how their changed situation implicates their current position. The chapter examines the claim of a growing transnational Islamic identity by reviewing the evidence on religiosity for Muslim identities, along with a discussion of multiple forms of identification. According to J. Schwedler, for those who fear the mobilising potential of Islam, as they watch the number of Muslims increase daily, the concern is not ‘Islamic’ identity but ‘Islamist’ identity. V. Saroglou and F. Mathijsen found that the high scores of religion among immigrants in Belgium reflected a deepening of association with Islam as a way of protesting against marginalisation or against Western values.
