Governing Islam in Austria and Germany: From Colonial Times to the Present

In this talk, Farid Hafez discusses his latest book on the legacy of colonialism in the governance of Islam in contemporary Austria and Germany. Based on the experience of Austro-Hungarian rule over Bosnia and Hercegovina and the German Kaiserreich’s rule in Tanzania, Togo, and Cameroon with respect to its Muslim subjects, he shows the continuities and ruptures with the Nazi Reich’s incorporation of Muslims in its polity as well as contemporary Islam policies or Islampolitik in postwar Austria and Germany. Hafez discusses the institutionalization of Muslim representative bodies and Islamic education from the late 1870s until the early 2020s. He introduces the coloniality of Islampolitik as a form of racialized politics that aims to regulate and govern a racialized version of Islam and Muslims.