"Can Islam Be French?"

Now, in the so-called "public sphere" dominated by such books and their sensationalist televised counterparts (Fox News, Envoye Special), very seldom do we hear from Muslims who are not in the business of denouncing their own kind - save the well-intentioned but not very effective pleas that "Islam is a religion of peace," as if that were a satisfying response to Disfigured and Submission and unceasing reports of terrorism training. ("Whom do you believe, me or your own eyes?") Left largely to the side - either out of their own prudence or out of the "public sphere's" decision that their voices are less interesting - is a broad middle group of Muslims who do not wish to renounce the possibility of just war (yes, jihad) and do wish to remain true to Islam's norms (yes, shar'ia), and who do tune in to scholarly opinions (yes, fatwas) - and who, all the while, living ordinary, nonterrorizing lives. They do so at the same time that many of their Catholic fellow citizens subscribe to doctrines of the just war, wish to enter heaven, and listen to what the pope has to say (as do, mutais mutandis, their Jewish and Baptist and Mormon neighbors).

It is a subset of these Muslims to whom I have been listening in France: scholars and educators and public figures who are trying to configure a set of teachings and norms and institutions that will anchor Islam in France, for now but especially for the next generation, and without renouncing the traditions of Islam. Theirs is the question that I intend in this book's title: Can Islam become a workable reality for Muslims who wish to live fulfilling social and religious lives in France? This book concerns some of their answers to that question.

-Can Islam Be French?: Pluralism and Pragmatism in a Secularist State (Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics) by John R. Bowen, pg. 4-5