Muslims are more difficult to integrate than other immigrant groups. Or rephrased: they don’t integrate to the same degree as other groups do. Even when taking into account country of origin, level of education and other factors, the difference still remains. Why is that? 

In today’s episode I’m speaking with Ruud Koopmans, who is probably one of the most qualified of all to answer this question. He’s a sociologist, a professor at Humboldt university of Berlin, who has focused his research on migration, integration and transnationalization, which led him to look into the role of religion as well. He’s conducted several very large surveys in a number of European countries to compare attitudes and other factors of majorities and minorities. And he’s repeatedly found the worrying result that a large proportion of the muslim population in Western countries have fundamentalist or islamist attitudes.

I first wrote about his findings in 2015, and since then he’s published a book on the subject: Het vervallen huis van de islam which was originally published in Dutch in 2019. It was translated into German and Danish the year after, and the year after that into Norwegian. Not into English or Swedish, so I read it in Danish with the title: Islams forfaldne hus (Forlaget Pressto 2020). It could maybe be translated as The decayed house of Islam. In it he traces the problems within the muslim communities in the West back to their countries of origin. As he writes:

The causes of the Islamic crisis can be summarized in three key problems: The lack of separation between religion and state, the discrimination against women and the lack of respect for secular knowledge.

Today’s episode is about this and more. If you are interested in reading more by Ruud Koopmans, you can find many of his writings here.

I also want to thank Henrik Höjer at Kvartal for writing a series of very interesting articles based on Ruud Koopmans books and articles. Read them here:

* Man kan vara islamkritisk utan att vara islamfientlig (Kvartal 21/5)

* Integrationen och islam (Kvartal 22/5)

* “Islamologer har angripit min person” (Kvartal 28/5)

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