Islamic religious education at the heart of the secular problem-space in Belgium

Abstract

This article aims at providing an answer to why and how, during the entire history of Islamic institutionalization in Belgium, Islamic education has remained at the centre of discussions concerning the place of Islam in Belgian society and in the formation of Belgian Muslim citizens. This question is differently approached in the northern/Flemish and southern/francophone part of the country, depending on specific historical sensibilities. By placing the figure of the Islamic teacher in the longer history of Belgian federalization and school struggles over the ‘soul of the child’, this article will simultaneously provide a reflection on Belgian secularism as a continuous ‘problem-space’ in which new and old ‘secularizers’ and ‘sacralizers’ are constituted and sustain the very question of politics’ relation to religion and vice versa.