Introduction

Over a decade ago, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research attracted headline attention when it announced that it was going to spend around €18 million over five years on the establishment of programmes of Islamic theology in five universities. Albrecht Fuess optimistically suggested that:

The academic and research posts being funded in this manner have been filled (see Agai and Engelhardt and Dreier, Chapters 5 and 6, respectively, this volume), but it is still much too early to judge whether Prof. Fuess’ dreams are likely to become anything approaching reality.

In this chapter I provide an overview of the development of Islamic studies in Europe till the end of the twentieth century, and then look at recent developments in the subject in universities and in interaction with Muslim students and organisations. First, I shall briefly indicate some of the heritage of the Islamic studies which have been opened to question in the latter half of the twentieth century. Britain was one of the countries where change first took place, so a closer look at the process in the field over recent decades follows. Given that a major driver of change has been the settlement of Muslim communities, a survey of responses to pressures for training imams and teachers comes next. Finally, I shall sketch some reflections on the implications of all this for Islamic studies as a European university subject.

It makes sense at this stage to briefly sketch where we have come from, in other words, how Islamic studies entered European universities and what it meant in practice. There is an extensive history of European intellectual responses to Islam virtually as old as Islam itself (Daniel 1960; Rodinson 1988; Irwin 2006; Thomas 2009–13).