Muslim bodies in secular European cemeteries

Muslims face many difficulties in burial spaces, some of which stem from a long history of secularisation of church cemeteries. While the process of secularisation made it possible for the bodies of Muslims to be placed in the denominational sections of municipal cemeteries in many Western European countries, it also maintained their biases in favor of majority customs, which are de facto places of Christian tradition. In both France and Germany, Muslims increasingly prefer to be buried in places that had been traditionally secularised rather than being returned to their countries of origin. Within this framework, a constant religionization is taking place, which, on the one hand, gives Muslims access to certain rights but, on the other hand, also brings with it the danger of the reification of their traditions and of their increasing public problematisation. I argue that Muslims who choose for themselves or for their relatives to be buried according to Islamic customs in European cemeteries become political as they become part of the public space with their differences visible to all. They commit ‘acts of citizenship’, mostly unconsciously, while claiming their rights for universal citizenship through manifesting their religious/cultural particularities. They enter and modify from within the materiality, affects, and sensibilities of the secular in European deathscapes.