James Gibbon. Forthcoming. “Religion, Immigration, and the Turkish Government in Germany: Reexamining the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB),” in Living Islam in Europe, ed. by Dietrich Reetz (Boston, MA: Brill Academic Publishers). [pdf]
Institutional ties between Muslim migrants in Europe and their countries of origin are often viewed with suspicion, but sending states remain involved in migrant religious affairs even as European states increasingly seek partnerships with local representatives of Muslim communities. The largest Muslim organization in Germany is the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB), a branch of the Turkish government’s Directorate of Religious Affairs. Hundreds of imams are sent to mosques in Germany by the Directorate and they follow policies set by administrators in Ankara. In this way, a Turkish government agency plays a key role in shaping migrant religious practices on foreign soil, but there is currently no research that explicitly connects developments at the Directorate in Turkey with DITIB’s actions and rhetoric on the ground in Germany. Drawing on participant-observation in DITIB mosques and interviews with DITIB personnel in Germany and religious officials in Turkey, this paper situates DITIB in its proper context by showing how new leadership of the Directorate of Religious Affairs and events such as 9/11 have altered DITIB’s approach to integration and Turkey’s role in German religious affairs.
James Gibbon. 2008. “God is Great, God is Good: Teaching God Concepts in Turkish Islamic Sermons.” Poetics 36:389-403. [pdf]
Cognitive scientists have argued that concepts such as gods and ghosts are found the world over because they violate a small number of ontological expectations, making them distinct, memorable, and highly transmissible. These concepts are known as minimally counterintuitive (MCI) and are theorized to be essential components of religion. Previous studies have explored MCI concepts in Christianity, Hinduism, Ancient Rome, and a variety of imaginary alien civilizations, but none have addressed the world’s largest religion, Islam. This study applies research on MCI concepts, together with work on theological correctness, to a dataset of 295 Islamic sermons from 2001 to 2006 prepared by the Directorate of Religious Affairs, a government agency in Turkey charged with managing the country’s mosques and religious education. Using content analysis, this paper tests whether counterintuitive god concepts are as sparse as MCI theory would predict (they are) and whether god concepts vary as expected in contexts of prayer (they do). Comparison of god concepts in sermons written before and after the arrival of new leadership at the Directorate shows that institutional change has altered religious discourse, decreasing the presence of intuitive but not counter-intuitiveconcepts.
Becky Hsu, Amy Reynolds, Conrad Hackett, and James Gibbon. 2008. “Estimating the Religious Composition of All Nations: An Empirical Assessment of the World Christian Database.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 47:678-693. [pdf]
The international religious data in the World Christian Database (WCD), and its print predecessor, the World Christian Encyclopedia (WCE) have been used frequently in academic studies and the popular press. Scholars have raised questions about the WCD’s estimates categories, and potential bias, but the data have not yet been systematically assessed. We test the reliability of the WCD by comparing its religious composition estimates to four other data sources (World Values Survey, Pew Global Assessment Project, CIA World Factbook, and the U.S. Department of State), finding that estimates are highly correlated. In comparing the WCD estimates for Islamic countries and American Christian adherents with local data sources, we identify specific groups for which estimates differ. In addition, we discuss countries where the data sets provide inconsistent religious estimates. Religious composition estimates in the WCD are generally plausible and consistent with other data sets. The WCD also includes comprehensive nonreligious data. Recommendations regarding the use of the WCD are given.