Sport in Islam and in Muslim Communities

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 21:35 12 January 2017
Sport in Islam and in Muslim

Communities
As Islam’s visibility in global society increases, Muslim populations grow and Muslim
countries compete to take up positions at the heart of global sport, the interplay between
sport and Islam becomes ever more illuminating. Sport in Islam and in Muslim Commu-
nities is the first book to analyse this relationship through a pluralist lens, exploring the
questions it raises about contemporary Islam, globalisation and the challenges faced by (in
particular young) Muslims in negotiating their place in global society.
With contributions from Muslim and non-Muslim authors, the book approaches an array of
contemporary issues, from the role of sport in gender, youth and political identities in Islam
and Muslim societies to sport policy in Muslim countries, sport’s role among Muslim minori-
ties and sport marketing’s relationship to Muslim cultures.
Drawing on sociology, anthropology, political science, Islamic studies and sport studies,
Sport in Islam and in Muslim Communities not only examines the significance of sport in
Islam but also helps draw wider conclusions on religious identity in sporting settings and
the interplay among sport, gender, political ideology and consumer culture.
Alberto Testa is a senior lecturer in criminology at the Ealing Law School, University of
West London, UK. He has an academic background in sociology and is a certified soci-
ological practitioner who has gained international recognition as an applied sociologist.
Alberto’s research interests focus on the application of social behaviourism to make sense
of deviance and crime. Within this theoretical framework, his particular areas of expertise
are fourfold: football crowd behaviour and disorder; policing and civil liberties; European
neo-fascism and neo-Nazism; and radicalisation and Islamophobia. His current research is
on Italian Muslim youth, marginalisation and Islamophobia.
Mahfoud Amara is Assistant Professor in Sport Management and Policy at the College of
Arts and Sciences (Sport Science Program), Qatar University. Before joining Qatar Uni-
versity he was Lecturer in Sport Policy and Management and the Deputy Director of the
Centre for Olympic Studies and Research in the School of Sport, Exercise and Health
Sciences, Loughborough University. Dr Amara has a specific interest in sport business,
culture, and politics in Arab and Muslim contexts. He has published material on the politics
of the Pan-Arab Games, sport in colonial and post-colonial Algeria, sport and the business
of media broadcasting in the Arab world, the sport and modernisation debate in the Gulf
region; sport development and development through sport in the Arab World. His other
research interest is sport, multiculturalism and intercultural dialogue.
Routledge Research in Sport, Culture and Society
1 Sport, Masculinities and 8 Sport and Social Mobility

the Body Crossing Boundaries
Ian Wellard Ramón Spaaij
2 India and the Olympics 9 Critical Readings in

Boria Majumdar and Nalin Mehta Bodybuilding
Edited by Adam Locks and
3 Social Capital and Sport Niall Richardson
Governance in Europe
Edited by Margaret Groeneveld, 10 The Cultural Politics of
Barrie Houlihan and Fabien Ohl Post–9/11 American Sport
Power, Pedagogy and the Popular
4 Theology, Ethics and Michael Silk
Transcendence in Sports
Edited by Jim Parry, Mark Nesti 11 Ultimate Fighting and
and Nick Watson Embodiment
Violence, Gender and Mixed
5 Women and Exercise Martial Arts
The Body, Health and Dale C. Spencer
Consumerism
Edited by Eileen Kennedy and 12 The Olympic Games and
Pirkko Markula Cultural Policy
Beatriz Garcia
6 Race, Ethnicity and Football
Persisting Debates and Emergent 13 The Urban Geography of Boxing
Issues Race, Class, and Gender in the Ring
Edited by Daniel Burdsey Benita Heiskanen
7 The Organisation and 14 The Social Organization of

Governance of Top Football Sports Medicine
Across Europe Critical Socio-Cultural
An Institutional Perspective Perspectives
Edited by Hallgeir Gammelsæter Edited by Dominic Malcolm
and Benoît Senaux and Parissa Safai
15 Host Cities and the Olympics 24 The Global Horseracing
An Interactionist Approach Industry
Harry Hiller Social, Economic, Environmental
and Ethical Perspectives
16 Sports Governance, Phil McManus, Glenn Albrecht,
Development and Corporate and Raewyn Graham
Responsibility
Edited by Barbara Segaert, Marc 25 Sport, Public Broadcasting,

Theeboom, Christiane Timmerman and Cultural Citizenship
and Bart Vanreusel Signal Lost?
Edited by Jay Scherer and
17 Sport and Its Female Fans David Rowe
Edited by Kim Toffoletti and
Peter Mewett 26 Sport and Body Politics in Japan
Wolfram Manzenreiter
18 Sport Policy in Britain
Barrie Houlihan and Iain Lindsey 27 The Fantasy Sport Industry
Games within Games
Andrew C. Billings and Brody J.
19 Sports and Christianity
Ruihley
Historical and Contemporary
Perspectives
28 Sport in Prison
Edited by Nick J. Watson and
Exploring the Role of Physical
Andrew Parker
Activity in Penal Practices
Rosie Meek
20 Sports Coaching Research
Context, Consequences, and
29 Sport and Nationalism in China
Consciousness
Lu Zhouxiang and Fan Hong
Anthony Bush, Michael Silk,
David Andrews and Hugh Lauder
30 Rethinking Drug Use in Sport
Why the war will never be won
21 Sport Across Asia Bob Stewart and Aaron Smith
Politics, Cultures, and Identities
Edited by Katrin Bromber, Birgit 31 Sport, Animals, and Society
Krawietz, and Joseph Maguire Edited by James Gillett and
Michelle Gilbert
22 Athletes, Sexual Assault, and
“Trials by Media” 32 Sport Development in the
Narrative Immunity United States
Deb Waterhouse-Watson Edited by Peter Smolianov,
Dwight Zakus and Joseph Gallo
23 Youth Sport, Physical Activity
and Play 33 Youth Olympic Games
Policy, Interventions and Edited by Dag Vidar Hanstad,
Participation Barrie Houlihan and
Andrew Parker and Don Vinson Milena Parent
34 Safeguarding, Child Protection 42 Sport and the Social Significance
and Abuse in Sport of Pleasure
International Perspectives in Richard Pringle, Robert E.
Research, Policy and Practice Rinehart and Jayne Caudwell
Edited by Melanie Lang and
Mike Hartill 43 A Sociology of Football in
a Global Context
35 Touch in Sports Coaching Jamie Cleland

and Physical Education
Fear, Risk, and Moral Panic 44 Gambling with the Myth of
Edited by Heather Piper the American Dream
Aaron M. Duncan
36 Sport, Racism and Social Media
Neil Farrington, Lee Hall, 45 Inclusion and Exclusion in
Daniel Kilvington, John Price Competitive Sport
and Amir Saeed Socio-Legal and Regulatory
Perspectives
37 Football and Migration Seema Patel
Perspectives, Places, Players
Edited by Richard Elliott and 46 Asia and the Future of
John Harris Football
The Role of the Asian Football
38 Health and Elite Sport Confederation
Is High Performance Sport Ben Weinberg
a Healthy Pursuit?
Edited by Joe Baker, Parissa Safai 47 Football and Accelerated
and Jessica Fraser-Thomas Culture
This Modern Sporting Life
39 Asian American Athletes Steve Redhead
in Sport and Society
Edited by C. Richard King 48 Researching Embodied Sport
Exploring movement cultures
40 Pierre Bourdieu and Physical Edited by Ian Wellard
Culture
Edited by lisahunter, Wayne Smith 49 Female Fans of the NFL
and elke emerald Taking Their Place in the Stands
Anne Cunningham Osborne and
41 Reframing Disability? Danielle Sarver Coombs
Media, (Dis)Empowerment, and
Voice in the 2012 Paralympics 50 Sport in Islam and in Muslim
Edited by Daniel Jackson, Communities
Caroline E. M. Hodges, Mike Edited by Alberto Testa and
Molesworth and Richard Scullion Mahfoud Amara
51 Endurance Running 53 Beyond Sport for Development
A Socio-Cultural Examination and Peace
Edited by William Bridel, Pirkko Transnational Perspectives on
Markula and Jim Denison Theory, Policy and Practice
Edited by Lyndsay Hayhurst,
Tess Kay and Megan Chawansky
52 Mega Events and Globalization
Capital, Cultures and Spectacle 54 Ethics and Governance in Sport
in a Changing World Order The future of sport imagined

Edited by Richard Gruneau and Edited by Yves Vanden Auweele,
John Horne Elaine Cook and Jim Parry
This page intentionally left blank

Sport in Islam and in Muslim
Communities
Edited by Alberto Testa

and Mahfoud Amara
First published 2016
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2016 A. Testa & M. Amara
The right of A. Testa & M. Amara to be identified as the authors of the
editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sport in Islam and in Muslim communities / edited by Alberto Testa
and Mahfoud Amara.
pages cm. — (Routledge research in sport, culture and society ; 50)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Sports—Religious aspects—Islam. 2. Sports—Social aspects—
Islamic countries. I. Testa, Alberto. II. Amara, Mahfoud.
GV706.42.S6565 2016
796.0956—dc23
2015015847
ISBN: 978-1-138-81779-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-74548-0 (ebk)
Typeset in Times
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
To Franco and Giovanna, Rosalind, Sofia, Kristen, Rocky,

Giorgia and Anna for their continuous support and love. (AT)
Thanking Allah for His Many Blessings. To my wife Aicha,
my son and daughter Ayoub and Ikram-Houria, to my parent,
family and friends in Algeria and all over the world for their
continuous support and love. I also dedicate this book collec-
tion to Prof. Ian Henry and his wife Carol. My thoughts are
with the people of Palestine, Syria, Libya and Yemen. (MA)

Contents
Acknowledgements xiii
List of contributors xiv
Introduction 1
1 Sport in Islam: the complexities, controversies and context 3

A L B E RTO T E S TA AND MAHF OUD AMARA
PART I
Understanding sport in Islam 11
2 Engaging in sport: the Islamic framework 13

A L B E RTO T E S TA
PART II
Gender, body and culture 31
3 Sport participation of Muslim youths in Germany 33

U L R I K E B U R R MANN AND MI CHAE L MUT Z
4 Being and becoming tomboys: Muslim women, gender

identities and sport 50
S U M AYA FA R O OQ S AMI E
5 Women, Islamic feminism and children-only soccer in

Erdoğan’s Turkey: empowerment or discrimination? 66
I T I R E R H A RT
6 Football, war and masculinities on the Palestinian, Gaza Strip:

a nation without a proper state 81
GERD VON DER LIPPE
xii Contents
PART III
Sport and politics of identity 101
7 Sport and political transition in Tunisia: another terrain

of competition between Islamists and seculars 103
M A H F O U D AMARA
8 Contestations and dichotomies concerning women’s bodies

and sports in contemporary Turkey: from Aysun Özbek
to Neslihan Darnel 113
S E RTA Ç S E H L I KOGL U
9 The influence of the Nation of Islam and Islam on British-Muslim

ex-offenders: Malcolm, Muhammad, and redemption 124
AMIR SAEED
10 Muslim immigrants and football in Amara Lakhous’s fiction 141

Y O U S E F AWA D
PART IV
Sport development and sport for development 157
11 Sport and integration discourse in Norway: how do policy

makers perceive and respond to the sporting needs
of Muslim communities? 159
K R I S T I N WA L S E T H
12 Islamic sport marketing or sport marketing in Muslim cultures

and communities 176
G U I L L A U M E BODE T AND MAHF OUD AMARA
13 Sport policy and Islam in Malaysia 191

M O H D S A L L E H AMAN
14 Diplomacy and the beautiful game: Muslim footballers as

ambassadors of faith 205
OMAR SALHA
Conclusion 219
15 Research on sport and Islam: the way forward 221

M A H F O U D A MARA AND AL BE RTO T E S TA
Index 233
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Simon Whitmore (Routledge Senior Commissioning

Editor, Sport and Leisure) and William Bailey (Routledge Editorial Assistant,
Sport & Leisure) for their invaluable feedback during the book editing process.
This book project would not have been possible without the valuable contribu-
tions of Mohd Salleh Aman, Guillaume Bodet, Ulrike Burrmann, Michael Mutz,
Gerd von der Lippe, Itir Erhart, Omar Salha, Amir Saeed, Samaya F. Samie, Ser-
taç Sehlikoglu and Kristin Walseth.
AT: I would like to thank the Giovani Musulmani D’Italia for supporting my
research on the Italian Muslim community and on the issues of integration, dis-
crimination and Islamophobia and for their great work aimed to promote an Italian
society which is intercultural, interfaith and, more importantly, tolerant. I would
also like to thank my spiritual father, Padre Pio.
MA: I would like to thank my colleagues at the School of Sport, Exercise and
Health Sciences, Loughborough University.
Contributors
Mohd Salleh Aman is an Associate Professor of Sport and Recreation Manage-

ment and the director of the Sport Research Centre at the University of Malaya,
Malaysia. He has worked as a consultant for the Ministry of Youth and Sport in
Malaysia and as panel member for youth and sport in several states in Malay-
sia. Mohd Salleh Aman’s research interest includes sport and Islam; sport, tour-
ism and leisure policy, sport industry and facilities, and sport technology and
innovation.
Guillaume Bodet is a Professor of Sport Marketing and Consumer Behaviour
within the School of Sport Sciences at University Claude Bernard Lyon-1
(University of Lyon). He is a member of the Centre for Research on Innovation
in Sport (CRIS EA 647) and the Laboratory of Vulnerability and Innovation in
Sport (L-Vis). Until recently, he was Senior Lecturer in the SSEHS, at Lough-
borough University and he is now a visiting fellow of this institution. His
research primarily deals with consumer behaviour regarding sport organisa-
tions, sporting events and sport brands. He has published many articles in peer-
reviewed journals such as European Sport Management Quarterly, Journal of
Sport Management, and Psychology & Marketing and has also co-authored a
book titled Sport brands published by Routledge.
Ulrike Burrmann is Professor at the TU Dortmund University, where she teaches
sport sociology and sport psychology. Her main research topics have been the
sport socialisation of children and youth, questions of social inequality as well
as effects of sport on self-concept and identity. Currently, she is carrying out
a research project on body and sport practices of juvenile migrants within and
outside the school; within the aim of this project she is also investigating Mus-
lim youth and marginalisation.
Itir Erhart is an Assistant Professor at Istanbul Bilgi University, Department of
Media and Communication System. She is the author of the book ‘who Am I’
and several peer reviewed papers on gender, sports, Islam, human rights and
media. In 2009 she was featured on CC Turk’s ‘Turkey’s Changemakers’. She
was awarded ten outstanding Persons (TOYP) award in 2010. In 2014 she
became an ‘Ashoka Fellow’.
Contributors xv
Michael Mutz is Assistant Professor of sport sociology at the Georg-August-
University Göttingen. His teaching and research interests include various top-
ics of sport sociology, in particular ethnicity and diversity, social inequality
and social integration. He has published two books on sport clubs’ capacities to
foster social integration of immigrant youths. His research has been published
in leading national and international peer reviewed scientific journals.
Amir Saeed is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Media and Journalism
at the University of Huddersfield. He joined the University in September 2014.

He teaches modules in media theory, sport, PR and music. He is also an online
tutor at the MA Mass Communication (Media, PR) at the University of Leices-
ter. His recent publications include co-authored books on Sports Journalism and
Racism, Social Media and Sport and also journal articles on racism in football.
Omar Salha is a PhD Nohoudh Scholar, academic and writer. He is an Associate
Tutor at the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at SOAS Uni-
versity of London. His research examines the study of soft-power, diplomacy,
sport and integration of Muslims in British society. Other research interests
include Middle Eastern Politics, International Relations, Islamic Diplomacy,
Conflict Resolution, Public Relations and inter-faith dialogue. He is the Founder
of Ramadan Tent Project and advises on Muslim social and charitable causes
further afield.
Samaya Farooq Samie is a critical educator whose research interests are inter-
disciplinary and make a contribution to the fields of sociology, race and ethnic
studies, south Asian studies, women and gender studies, post-colonial femi-
nist epistemologies and sociology of sport and popular culture. Her published
work focuses not only on the complex identity work of young British Pakistani
Muslim men and their constructions of religious masculinities through sport
and physical education, but also explores the intersections of gender, ‘race’,
culture and religion in the lives of sporting Muslim women living in diaspora
communities in the ‘West’.
Sertaç Sehlikoglu is an affiliated lecturer in Social Anthropology at the Uni-
versity of Cambridge where she teaches anthropological and classical theory,
gender, belief and post-colonial theory. She works on subjectivity, gender,
sexuality, leisure and sports. Her research has long focused on Turkey, and the
Middle East more generally. Sehlikoglu has widely published on leisure, sports
and sexuality in the Middle East in collected volumes and in peer reviewed
journals, including Leisure Studies and Feminist Media Studies.
Gerd von der Lippe is Professor Emeritus of Sport Sociology at the Telemark
University College (Norway). Her research focuses on gender and power in a
sports sociology and historical context, and was the first in Norway that began
research on sport and gender. Gerd von der Lippe was central to the creation
of the Department of Sports and Outdoor Life, and was the Institute’s first sec-
tion leader.
xvi Contributors
Kristin Walseth is an Associate Professor at Oslo and Akershus University Col-
lege of Applied Sciences. She is teaching sport sociology and coordinating the
master program in PE and education science and she is leader of the research
group ‘body, learning and diversity’. Her major research areas has been the
sociology of sport, particularly sport among Muslim youth. She has published
article on Islam, Muslim youth, identity work and integration. Her current
research project is on sport, Islam and Muslim organizations in Norway.
Introduction

1 Sport in Islam
The complexities, controversies
and context
Alberto Testa and Mahfoud Amara
Regardless of differences in theological interpretation and political views (Sun-

nis vs. Shiites), Muslims consider Islam an important part of their everyday lives;
the Qur’an and Sunnah provide verbal modelling in which beliefs and values are
vehiculated, shaping behaviours and promoting community cooperation, sense
of refuge and comfort from the challenges of daily life. These traits have played
a positive role in the current worldwide increase of Muslim believers, which has
made Islam the second-largest religion after Christianity. This trend is coupled
with a significant increase in youth in Middle East, Far East and South Asia soci-
eties in which Muslims are the dominant social group and in Western societies in
which Muslims are a minority group. In 2030, Islamic youth will be 29 percent of
the youth world population (of 15- to 29-year-olds).1
Although Muslim youth and the rest of the Muslim population should not be
considered a homogenous group – as differences in geo-political contexts under-
line specific needs which must be satisfied – it is evident that Muslims (espe-
cially Muslim youth) are confronted by many ethnic, cultural and psychological
challenges as they develop their identities (Sirin & Fine, 2007, 2008). These chal-
lenges originate from the interplay of several factors: religious identity, which
in many instances can be considered salient, as it provides a source of meaning,
direction and community (Afridi, 2001; Cerbo, 2010;2 Zine, 2001) and may con-
trast hegemonic societal values (Testa & Armstrong, 2012); ethnic identity as the
second and third generations of Muslim youth are socialised by their parents in
group relationships and attitudes toward their ‘host’ countries (Hussain & Bag-
guley, 2005); citizenship expectations and the concomitantly perceived sense of
marginalisation; gender logic, which usually dominates the discourse on integra-
tion of Muslim communities into modernity and modern lifestyles, represented
by the (secular) values of modern sport practices; and resentments about negative
and stereotyped views of Islam and community marginalisation and discrimina-
tion. In the West, Muslims are facing multiple dilemmas concerning the complex-
ity of combining multiple identities: sense of belonging to the Islamic Ummah
(community of Muslim believers) and sense of belonging to host societies or
countries of birth. They are under pressure more than before to demonstrate their
loyalty to the Islamic religion on the one hand and to their nationality/citizenship
on the other. Césari (2004) explains this complex variety of belonging(s) as the
4 Alberto Testa and Mahfoud Amara
contradiction among individual, collective and national identities. Since the ter-
rorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Muslims have been perceived with fear and
suspicion (Sheridan, 2006), feeling socially excluded. Finally, the last factor is
related to religious rulings of Islamic scholars (Fatâwâ), which often are deliv-
ered particularly (but not exclusively) to youth via the ‘Virtual Islamic Environ-
ment’. In this regard, it is important to notice that many Islamic scholars who
interact via Fatâwâ websites are not accustomed to live in Western countries,
and their vision of the hosting countries is at times superficial and biased. Con-
sequently, many of their Fatâwâ are often at odds with the culture and values of
Western societies. To face these multiple dilemmas, Muslim scholars living in
the West, principally those who identify themselves as both Muslims and citizens
of the West, are calling today for the application of new forms of Ijtihad. The
term ‘Ijtihad’ indicates the endeavour of attaining a level of knowledge from the
Qur’an and Sunnah and applying it to real-world situations, taking into account
the specificity of addressing Islamic issues in Western liberal democracies, par-
ticularly in relation to the secular tradition of Western legislation, science and
values of human rights (Babes & Oubrou, 2002). Other scholars such as Tariq
Ramadan (in Europe) and Zaki Badawi (in North America) go as far as to claim
that the West now constitutes part of the Muslim world (c.f. the concepts of space
of safety and space of testimony); therefore, it is indeed possible to live in the
West according to Islamic principles. They thus solicit Muslim citizens to be
more visible in the public domain and to be fully active in all domains of Western
society, including in sport and leisure (Amara, 2012).
The reaction to the earlier-mentioned challenges is clearly mediated, as with
all human behaviour, by cognitive and most importantly by environmental differ-
ences; today’s world provides a difficult and challenging context in which particu-
larly Muslim youth develop their identities. For instance, some Muslim youth may
be involved in intellectual engagement and constructive political/social activism;
some may display a sense of marginalisation and lack of social integration and
may undergo alienation from the wider community and a possible process of radi-
calisation. The shift from constructive to destructive attitudes is certainly deter-
mined by political and social factors and determines whether equal-treatment and
social-integration policies are adopted by hosting countries. Although speaking of
integration in relation to citizens of Western countries (third and even fourth gen-
erations) of Muslim faith is in itself problematic, as it emphasises the ‘otherness’
of Muslim communities in the Western politico-media landscape. One should also
distinguish, however, between Islam as a religion and what Akbar (2008) refers
to as Muslims’ responses to the forces of globalisation, actions and strategies
Muslims are adopting as a result of their current political or economic situations
or as minorities in non-Muslim societies. Akbar categorises these responses into
‘accepting’ (reaching out to other faiths), ‘preserving’ (traditionalists) and ‘syn-
thesising’ (synthesising with other non-Muslim and secular systems).
So why is this book focusing on sport? Sport is an effective tool with which to
tackle social alienation (Vilhjalmsson & Thorlindsson, 1992), and because of this
function, its study in relation to Muslim communities is important. Sport in Islam
Sport in Islam 5
and in Muslim Communities emphasises the diversity of the Muslim population;
hence the diversity of sporting experiences with regards to gender, religion, cul-
ture, political and economic systems. In terms of geographical focus, this book
attempts to have an international understanding of sport meanings and practices
of sport in majority-Muslim countries and among minority-Muslim communities
in Europe and around the globe. This edited book specifically aims to critically
and theoretically inform the debate regarding the conceptualisation of religious
cultural norms of Islam in secular and non-secular contexts and the significance
and roles of sport in Islam, in Muslim societies and within Muslim communities
in the West. This work addresses Muslim sport experiences in different countries
and how their conception of sport is filtered by Islam and their religious identity
but also by the traditional Muslim cultures of their parents and countries and eth-
nic backgrounds.
This book also seeks to address the presence of Muslims and the increasing vis-
ibility of Islam at the centre of political debates and electoral campaigns in Europe
in relation, for instance, to the question of the veil in public spaces (e.g. schools,
sport clubs), citizenship, marginalisation and immigration. At the same time, the
book also focuses on the expression of religious identity in sporting settings and
in Muslim countries and the interplay among sport and the questions of gender,
body, political ideology and consumer culture and sport development. There is
growing competition among Muslim countries to be at the centre of global sport,
in the bidding and staging of international sport events and through direct invest-
ment in the business of sport, as evidenced today in the Arabian Peninsula (e.g.
Formula 1 in Bahrain and Abu Dhabi; the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar). Hence,
the desire of Muslim communities to be part of global sporting experience is real.
The participation of women athletes from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Brunei in the
2012 Olympic Games and the lift of the ban on the veil by international federa-
tions can also be a turning point with regards to women’s participation in sport.
To accomplish its aims, this book takes on a unique multidisciplinary perspec-
tive that positions Muslim and sport participation in a global context. Drawing
on research in sociology, anthropology, political science, Islamic studies, ethnic
and racial studies, migration studies and of course sport studies (sport history
and sport management and policy), it has a dual focus: it considers how sport
practices can be conceived using the Islamic frame and at the same time aims to
demonstrate how sport practices can be pertinent to Muslim communities within
and outside Western society. Moreover, this book focuses on both sport and Mus-
lim experiences, informing the debate regarding the conceptualisation of religious
and cultural norms of Islam – in secular and non-secular contexts – and the sig-
nificance and roles of sport in Islam, in Muslim societies and within Muslim com-
munities in the West.
As a whole, the book arises from the necessity for the first time to locate, com-
pare and contrast the social impact of sport on the lives of Muslims in different
local, national and international contexts. Using empirically grounded case stud-
ies, the manuscript provides an important new departure in the study of the social
impacts of sport in Muslim societies and communities, connecting themes and
research areas that have previously been studied separately from one another. This
strategy is timely due to the increasingly globalised nature of sport, the role of
sport in fostering social integration in Western countries, the mediated discourse
on political Islam, particularly in relation to the advance of Islamist parties in the
Arab World and the question of Islam in the West.
The contributions of this book are divided into four parts which focus around
four central themes: Part I: ‘Understanding Sport in Islam’ is started by Alberto
Testa’s chapter ‘Engaging in sport: the Islamic framework’, which aims to pro-
vide the starting point of the book analysis, explaining the Islamic conception of
sport participation and its complex and challenging relations with modern sport.
Moving from the religious and theoretical contexts which influence the rela-
tionship between Islam and sport, Part II: ‘Gender, Body and Culture’ illustrates
how the discourse on gender and particularly women’s bodies is at the centre
of the debate today on the modernisation of Islamic societies and communities;
hence their degree of ‘integration’ to/or ‘assimilation’ of modern sport values. It
begins with the chapter ‘Sport participation of Muslim youths in Germany’, writ-
ten by Ulrike Burrmann and Michael Mutz. This chapter identifies the barriers
Muslim girls encounter in Germany to practicing sport. In doing so, it examines
how Islam and involvement in a sport club are linked and influence each other.
Sumaya Farooq Samie’s chapter ‘Being and Becoming Tomboys: Muslim
Women, Gender Identities and Sport’ – grounded in the idea that identities are ‘con-
structions’ that are ‘continually produced and reproduced’ by political subjects –
draws on qualitative interviews with diverse British Muslim women to provide an
understanding of the politics of becoming and being a tomboy migrant Muslim
woman and the experiences of being a sporting tomboy.
The chapter ‘Women, Islamic Feminism and Children-Only Soccer in Erdoğan’s
Turkey: Empowerment or Discrimination?’ written by Itir Erhart analyses the topic
of Muslim women and sport in Turkey using as a framework Turkish feminism and
focusing on Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan’s gender politics and its influence
on sport practice. Gerd von der Lippe finishes Part II of the book with the chapter
titled ‘Football, War and Masculinities on the Palestine, Gaza Strip: a Nation with-
out a Proper State’, which analyses the discourses on football war and masculini-
ties in the Gaza Strip. The focus here is on how globalised football manifests itself
locally in social interaction among sporting youth in a nation – Palestine and its
influence on youth political identity formation.
Part III, ‘Sport and Politics of Identity’, examines how the lack of sport pro-
motion leads to negative social capital, excluding Muslim communities because
of cultural and religious differences which lead to sport clubs’ restrictions on
individual freedoms, gender distinctions, discrimination and marginalisation.
It provides analysis that can be adopted to study other socially excluded social
groups in sport around the globe. This section of the book focuses on Muslim
(religious) identity and specifically on how Muslim identity is constructed, nego-
tiated and contested in sport, considering issues related to politics, society and
culture. Part III provides theoretical constructions to make sense of Muslim iden-
tity formation processes, keeping as a point of reference sport involvement. It
Sport in Islam 7
starts with Mahfoud Amara’s chapter ‘Sport and Political Transition in Tunisia’;
in this work, the recent political turmoil in the Arab world and its impact on the
meaning of sport and particularly the resurgence of religious discourse are con-
sidered by Amara in relation to sport and the troubled political transition in Tuni-
sia. The chapter ‘Contestation and Dichotomies Concerning Women’s Bodies and
Sports in Turkey: From Aysun Özbek to Neslihan Darnel’, written by Sertaç Seh-
likoglu, focuses on Turkey, a country perceived as a bridge between Europe and
the Middle East; more specifically, Sehlikoglu examines the condition of young
Muslim women and sport participation in Turkey, using the case of Aysun Özbek,
a female volleyball player and former coach of the Vakifbank Gunes Sigorta, one
of the most successful female volleyball teams in Turkey. Geographically located
between Asia and Europe and going through political and economic transitions,
Turkey is positioning itself as a leader of the Muslim world, constructing its iden-
tity around post-Othoman glory and the unfulfilled project of integrating (accep-
tance into) the European Union.
Amir Saeed, in his chapter titled ‘The Influence of the Nation of Islam and
Islam on British-Muslim Ex-offenders: Malcolm, Muhammad and Redemption’,
examines the link between boxing and Islamic faith in relation to the UK prison
context and the importance of key figures such as the American former profes-
sional boxer Muhammad Ali and American Muslim minister and a human rights
activist Malcolm X in influencing ex-offenders in the South-Asian diaspora in
Britain. This study also focuses effectively on the power of Islamic religious sym-
bols and messages to rehabilitate young offenders.
The chapter titled ‘Muslim Immigrants and Football in Amara Lakhous’s Fic-
tion’, written by Yousef Awad, ends Part III, moving the analysis to the Italian
context and racism and Islamophobia in football, stressing the difficult at times
relationship between Italian identity and Muslim religious identity. This is exam-
ined through the work of Algerian Italian novelist Amara Lakhous, who dra-
matically stresses Italian football’s continual cross-cultural misunderstandings,
bigotry and fanaticism in relation to Muslim immigrants post–9/11.
The final part of this book, Part IV, ‘Sport development and sport for develop-
ment’, looks at examples of sport for development initiatives in Muslim coun-
tries as well as the growing business of sport and particularly sport marketing.
Part IV asks how the global consumerist values of sport are being absorbed or
adopted into local culture, including Islamic values taking into account the dif-
ferences within Muslim cultures and the political and economic context in North
Africa, the Middle East or East Asia. It opens with the topic of sport promotion
in Norway. Kristin Walseth’s chapter ‘Sport and Integration Discourse in Nor-
way’ reports on a study that focuses on sport, youth and Islam, referring to the
Norwegian context; the study highlights issues of social exclusion that emerge
in the provision of sport in this country and how policy makers perceived and
responded to the sporting needs of Muslim communities (in particular Muslim
girls) in Norway.
Guillaume Bodet and Mahfoud Amara’s chapter ‘Islam, Sport and Marketing
or Sport Marketing in Muslim Countries and Communities’ offers some theoretical
frameworks to the complex relationship between sport marketing and Islam in
Muslim contexts. It examines the principles of so-called Islamic marketing in
relation to marketing in secular Western contexts. The chapter analyses how
mainstream sport brands are adapting their marketing strategy to Muslim consum-
ers and the growing business of ‘halal’ (Islamically accepted) products (including
halal bears) in the Muslim world, which use sport as a means to expand their
customer base.
The chapter ‘Sport Policy and Islam in Malaysia’, written by Mohd Salleh
Aman, evaluates how Islamic ideals/tenets are shaping sport development poli-
cies at central and federal levels in multicultural Malaysia, stressing their main
challenges and debates. Malaysia, as an emerging economic power, has managed
to build an image of itself as a Muslim country that succeeded in reconciling
its Islamic culture and modernity, or the so-called Islam Hadhari, a political and
ideological campaign introduced by Abdullah Badawi shortly after he was named
prime minister in 2003 that stresses technological and economic competitiveness,
moderation, tolerance and social justice (Gatsiounis, 2006).
In the last chapter of Part IV, ‘Diplomacy and the Beautiful Game: Muslim
Footballers as Ambassadors of faith’, Omar Salha concludes with a chapter on
the challenges of international development through sport agendas in the Middle
East. The chapter makes reference to key theoretical underpinnings on sport and
social mobility from the works of Spaaij and Burdsey and extends on the per-
sonal experiences (‘Over the Wall’) of sport-based interventions, development
and community engagement in Egypt, Palestine, Jordan and Syria.
The editors and contributors hope this book will be an useful contribution to the
literature and that this work will contribute to propose different viewpoints on the
current debates on the topic of Islam, Muslims and modern sport; we hope this book
will become, in the future, a valuable reference for all those academics and practitio-
ners who would like to examine this fascinating – yet at times controversial – topic.
Notes
1 Cf. www.economist.com/node/18008022.
2 Cf. www.lib.ncsu.edu/resolver/1840.16/6232.
References
Afridi, S. 2001, Muslims in America: Identity, Diversity and the Challenge of Understand-
ing, Carnegie Corporation of New York, New York.
Akbar, A. 2008, Journey into Islam: The Crisis of Globalisation, Brookings Institution
Press, Washington.
Amara, M. 2012, Sport, Politics and Society in the Arab World, Palgrave and Macmillan,
London.
Babès, L. & Oubrou, T. 2002, Loi d’Allah, loi des hommes. Liberté, égalité et femmes en
Islam, Albin Michel, Paris.
Césari, J. 2004, When Islam and Democracy Meet: Muslims in Europe and in the United
States, Palgrave, New York.
Sport in Islam 9
Cerbo, T. 2010, Muslim Undergraduate Women: A Phenomenological Inquiry into the
Lived-Experience of Identity Development. (PhD Thesis) Higher Education Administra-
tion, Raleigh, North Carolina.
Gatsiounis, I. 2006, Islam Hadhari in Malaysia, Current Trends in Islamist Ideology: Vol-
ume 3, Hudson Institute, Washington, DC.
Hussain, Y. & Bagguley, P. 2005, “Citizenship, Ethnicity and Identity British Pakistanis
after the 2001 ‘Riots’”, Sociology, vol. 39, no. 3, pp. 407–425.
Sheridan, L. 2006, “Islamophobia Pre– and Post–September 11th, 2001”, Journal of Inter-
personal Violence, vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 317–336.

Sirin, S. R. & Fine, M. 2007, “Hyphenated selves: Muslim American youth negotiating
identities on the fault lines of global conflict”, Applied Development Science, vol. 11,
no.3, pp. 151–163.
Sirin, S. R. & Fine, M. 2008, Muslim American Youth: Understanding Hyphenated Identi-
ties through Multiple Methods, New York University Press, New York.
Testa, A. & Armstrong, G. 2012, “‘We Are Against Islam!’” The Lega Nord and the Islamic
Folk Devil”, Sage Open, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 1–14.
Vilhjalmsson, R. & Thorlindsson, T. 1992, “The Integrative and Physiological Effects of
Sport Participation: A Study of Adolescents”, The Sociological Quarterly, vol. 33, no. 4,
pp. 637–647.
Zine, J. 2001, “ Muslim Youth in Canadian Schools: Education and the Politics of Reli-
gious Identity”, Anthropology & Education Quarterly, vol. 32, no. 4, pp. 399–423.

PART I
Understanding sport in Islam


2 Engaging in sport
The Islamic framework
Alberto Testa
Introduction
Islam is not only a religion but also a modus vivendi, a complex belief system
that influences the individual in his social and spiritual totality. Because of its
popularity – by 2050 the number of Muslims will nearly be the equivalent of the
number of Christians around the world1 – Islam has been the focus of numerous
academic analyses aiming not only to unveil its tenets but also to explain the inter-
action dynamics of its believers within and outside Western societies (de Knop
et al., 1996; Kahan, 2003; Farooq & Parker, 2009). In Western societies, analyses
have tended to concentrate mainly on issues such as discrimination and social
exclusion of Muslim communities, Islamophobia, and radicalisation of Muslim
youth. Radicalisation and Islamophobia seem to be the most recurrent topics since
9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States; both issues can mainly be explained
by a lack of integration of Muslims into the social domains of the communities
where they are located. Radicalisation in particular can be promoted by percep-
tions of unfair treatments and distrusts in the political system of the country where
Muslim communities live. Consequently, the lack of integration, especially of the
second- and third-generation Muslim youth, is identified in the literature as one
of its strong determinants (Christmann, 2012). This poor social integration exac-
erbates community divisions and isolation.
Over the past ten years, sport participation of young Muslims has also received
considerable attention from the academic world. Well-devised sport programs are
able to appeal to youths and provide them with important cognitive and behav-
ioural benefits instrumental to tackle, for instance, the earlier mentioned problem
of radicalisation (Nichols, 1997; Agenfor Italia, 2013). Sport is also considered
in the literature as a suitable tool to facilitate society cohesion and the inclusion
of marginal social groups, such as immigrants and ethnic minorities, including
Muslim youth. The Council of Europe has established this concept in 2004 and
2010; it was also reiterated by the European Commission in 2007 (White Paper,
European Commission, 2007).2 However, despite its positive functions, sport can
also be divisive and elitist (Kennett, 2005); this depends largely on how it is pro-
moted. Modern sport, especially at the elite level, in fact, tends to be structured
and promoted according to the values of dominant social groups (Whitson, 1984;
Gruneau, 1988). Social minority groups, which do not express these values, risk
14 Alberto Testa
being marginalised and may face barriers to participation in sport. This assertion
is supported by studies that have highlighted how sport participation of minorities
such as Muslims (especially women) is low in Western societies. Representa-
tives of Muslim communities are also absent in professional sport, especially at
a managerial and leadership level (Amara & Henry, 2010; Burdsey, 2010). As far
as Muslim youth is concerned, sport can also be used as a radicalisation tool as
demonstrated, for instance, by the recruitment of Palestinian suicide bombers at a
football club in Israel in the nineties (Agenfor Italia, 2013).

Although research on young Muslims in Western societies has significantly
increased over the last decade, there are still few studies that, starting from differ-
entiating the concept of culture from religion, present a comprehensive analysis
of the Islamic vision of modern sport. The few studies that exist in the literature
lend themselves to criticisms because they often do not base their analysis on
Islamic texts and studies of Muslim scholars and/or do not sufficiently consider
the important distinction between cultural norms and Islamic practices, distort-
ing the representation of the Islamic conception of sport (Benn, Pfister & Jawad,
2010).
The aim of this edited book is to examine critically the significance and roles
of sport in Islam, in Muslim societies, and within Muslim communities in the
West. This chapter specifically aims to provide the starting point of this analysis,
explaining the Islamic conception of sport participation and its views on modern
sport. It will focus on two analytical streams. The first one concerns the participa-
tion in sports activities in accordance with the Shari’a, namely the moral, reli-
gious, legal, and social code of the Islamic religion that is based on the Qur’an,
the Sunnah, and in minor part on the Hadith. Particularly important is at this stage
to differentiate between the latter two; Sunnah means ‘way’ and it includes reli-
gious practices carried out and promoted by the Prophet Mohammad, which have
been passed down and authenticated throughout generations. The Hadiths are new
saying and statements that are transmitted by the Prophet’s companions and have
as focus the Prophet. They have been not universally confirmed, so they are not as
reliable as the Qu’ran or the Sunnah.3 The second analytical stream of this chapter
concerns the challenging relationship between Islam and modern sport.
Before commencing the chapter, it is opportune to focus briefly on the method-
ology which underpins it.
Methodological notes
Literature searches were carried out during September through October (2013–
2015) to retrieve international academic studies, including the works of Islamic
authors; to identify verses of the Qur’an, the Sunnah, and the Hadith related to
physical activity and sport; and to retrieve Fatâwâ (Fatwâ – singular). A Fatwâ
is an answer or ruling by an Islamic scholar on questions asked by Muslims who
are unclear if they follow the prescriptions of Islam. Generally, it is based on
religious sources such as the Qu’ran and/or Sunnah but can also focus on a cir-
cumstance that is not specifically mentioned by these Islamic official sources. In
Engaging in sport 15
this case the Islamic scholars will make a decision on the base of interpretations
and their knowledge of Islam. The Fatâwâ on sports and sports participation,
mentioned in this work, are easily accessible on the Internet and are published in
English by five major Islamic websites: Askimam.org, Islamweb.net, Islamicity.
com, IslamOnline.com, and IslamQA.info. The websites chosen by the author are
in competition with each other to be the most authoritative font of Islamic inter-
pretation. Although they are quite popular, the author of the paper acknowledges
that these websites do not represent the opinions of the entire Islamic world that
is characterised by very fragmented geopolitical, socio-legal, and cultural sce-
narios. However, the choice of the author to use these websites-and especially the
Internet as part of the data collection strategy was due to the important role they
play in socialising youth (Kutsher, 2009). From one side, the Internet and web-
sites, such as those mentioned in this chapter, have helped marginalised Muslims’
voices to express their beliefs; from the other side, the ‘virtual Islamic environ-
ment’ has shown its dark sides; the danger of radical virtual preachers is the most
obvious one, considering the success of the Internet Islamic State propaganda and
recruitment strategy.4 These websites are effective tools for the researcher, as they
allow immediate acquisition of data not mediated by interpretations, which are
not always free from preconceived visions of Islam.
The analytical strategy of this chapter was also strengthened by fifteen inter-
views with Italian Muslim youth who are members of the Giovani Musulmani
d’ Italia (the only major multi-ethnic Italian Muslim youth organization). Since
2012, the author of this chapter has engaged in a research focusing on Italian
Muslim youth, marginalisation, and Islamophobia, and he is currently collecting
data throughout Italy (c.f. Testa & Armstrong, 2012). The interviews were also
complemented by discussions with two Imams (spiritual leaders) of two major
Italian cities (Turin and Rome)
This strategy, which combines the virtual and the factual Muslim worlds,
attempts to achieve a research outcome which is trustworthy and authentic (Lin-
coln & Guba, 1985).
In terms of data analysis, the author has used the software Nvivo to make sense
of the data retrieved; each source in full text (in the case of participants, the tran-
script of the interviews) was evaluated, and the main findings of each source were
organised using table formats. The included sources focused on Islamic views of
popular sports and the Islamic teachings’ compatibility with modern organised
sport. The data retrieved from the interviews with Imams and participants were
collected; direct quotes were transcribed word by word, and then they were induc-
tively analysed and grouped into higher-order themes. Eight key themes were
identified which reflect nine frequent patterns that emerged from the respondents’
interviews, the spiritual leaders’ comments, the online Fatâwâ, and the excerpts
retrieved from the Qur’an, the Sunnah, and the Hadith. The key themes are indi-
cated in Table 2.1.
The results of the analysis were tested via participants’ validation and nega-
tive case analysis. The draft of the chapter was shared with members of the GMI,
British Muslim colleagues, and UK Muslim university students.
16 Alberto Testa
Table 2.1
Themes
Sport – HEALTH
Sport as a distraction to Islam
Sport and gender modesty (both genders)
Sport and Islamophobic sentiments
Sport and violence
Sport and obsession and commercialisation

Sport vs. Shari’a
Sport and counter-radicalisation
The framework: making sense of Islam

The term ‘Islam’ means peace, humility, and obedience.5 A Muslim worships
Allah (God) without any intermediaries like, for instance, the Catholic saints.
‘Being a Muslim means to submit to the will of Allah and to live by the Qur’an
words following as role model the Prophet Mohammad who is considered by the
Muslims as God’s final messenger to mankind’ (Imam – Turin mosque). Muslims
must observe the five Islam pillars, which are the basic obligations of Islam: they
must believe in one God (Allah) and that the prophet Mohammad is His Mes-
senger; Muslims must carry out the five daily prayers; they must offer the Zakat
(compulsory alms to help the poor and needy); they must fast during Ramadan;
and they must also travel (Hajj) to visit the holy Ka’ba (the house of God) in
Makkah at least once in their lives (Imam – Turin mosque).
Islam requests believers to conform to a set of laws of God (Shari’a), which
govern the behaviour of the individuals and Muslim communities. The Shari’a
does not only focus on the spiritual domain but also on the social, political, and
economic ones. The Islamic faith and its practices, laws, and jurisprudence are
represented by the knowledge which can be found mainly in the Qur’an and
Sunnah (and in the Hadith); these sources explain the way the Prophet Moham-
mad lived his life. Muslims consider the Qur’an the word of God revealed to
the Prophet more than fourteen centuries ago and expressed in Arabic. The third
source of precepts lies in the consensus of Muslim scholars in the absence of
explicit and decisive recommendations (Opeloye, 1995; Caner & Caner, 2002).
Despite Islam being one of the most followed worldwide religions, there are
many differences in the literature about its nature and its beliefs; this is due in
large measure to the existence of different representations of this faith mediated
by cultural and ethnic influences. The traditional distinction of Islam under differ-
ent names (especially the difference between the vision of Islam of the majority
Muslim Sunnis and the minority the Shiites)6 has made its analysis more complex.
At times, academic inquiries have also somewhat complicated this already intri-
cate situation. From time to time, Western academic interpretations of Islam have
re-defined this religion; this process has been reflected by the use of terms such as
‘everyday’, ‘scholarly’ Islam (Alam, 2007) or using adjectives such as ‘traditional-
ism’, ‘modernism’, ‘fundamentalism’, and ‘secularism’ (Walseth & Fasting 2003);
cultural and political connections destruct the understanding of the Islamic faith
and certainly do a disservice to its believers. So to understand really the authentic
Islamic belief system, scholars instead should focus only on Islamic teachings free
from any cultural and ideological influences, a task that is not always easy. This
strategy actually is in line with what the Qur’an affirms, which prohibits sectarian-
ism and encourages unity amongst Muslims (Qur’an, 3:103),7 and it can be carried
out by focusing on the Qur’an, the Sunnah, and, in a minor fashion, on the Hadith.
This study will adopt this strategy to make sense of the relationship among modern
sport, sport participation, and Islam.
Sport participation according to the Islamic framework

As mentioned earlier, according to the Qur’an, the purpose of humanity is to
worship Allah (the Creator). The Islamic concept of worship (‘ibadah) is very
broad and includes both spiritual practices (for example, prayer and fasting) but
also more routine affairs, such as business dealings, social interactions, personal
attitudes, and physical activity, which should be carried out conforming to the
guidance of Allah and the Islamic traditions (Kamali, 2012).
Islam’s power of symbolisation provides believers with meanings and pur-
poses of life via models and rules. Through its symbols (and its judgments), Islam
interprets the social context in which the followers live, managing environmental
influences on their lives (c.f. Bandura, 1976, 2003).
Islam is also a religion that strongly enhances the link between faith and action.
This tends to promote the salience of religious identity within the context of the
self-identity hierarchy of the individual (Wimberley, 1989; Stryker & Burke, 2000).
If being Muslim is predominant (salient), then the meanings associated with being
Muslim should correspond closely to the meaning linked with the ‘general self’,
contributing to influence significantly the behaviour of the believer. For instance,
one of the most important convictions of Islam is that the strict observance of the
teachings of Allah is closely linked to the belief in the afterlife, while having faith
and obedience are rewarded with Paradise (eternal life) and being disobedient is
punished with the Hell fire. A strong symbolic message like the previous one may
influence individuals with a salient Muslim identity and condition their choices
and behaviours. This creates potential obstacles to sport participation and exercise
if those are not in line with the Islamic prescriptions.
Unfortunately, the academic efforts to analyse the link between Islam and sport
participation are not without shortcomings, as many of these analyses are not
based on Islamic texts and on research of Muslim scholars. There is also an objec-
tive difficulty to finding research from the Muslim academic world, as topics
related to sport are generally not considered worthy of academic scrutiny, as the
Imam of the Rome mosque pointed out to the author of this study. Although sport
and exercise are not explicitly mentioned in the Qur’an, making it more difficult
to understand its stance on them, they can be included in expressions containing
18 Alberto Testa
the Arabic words lahw and la ib (Ismail, 2001), which indicate ‘entertainment’
and ‘play’. As a general principle, the Shari’a allows and encourages all activities
that are beneficial to the human body and at the same time prohibits all activities
that may cause damage to it (Islamqa Fatwâ, 3895). Islam demands a balanced
lifestyle neither extreme nor marked by laziness; the verses of the Qur’an mani-
fest a strong disapproval for activities that do not involve a real benefit for the
individual and the Ummah (the Muslim nation).
Although these activities are considered to be of secondary importance com-

pared to religious duties, Islam acknowledges the importance of taking care of the
body, encouraging practices that improve the individual at the same time mentally
and physically (Islamicity Fatwâ 38294); this position emerges from a number of
Hadiths. The Prophet, for instance, emphasises the value and importance of main-
taining good health and improving fitness. He praises physical strength, affirming
that the strong believer is better and more beloved to Allah than the weak one,
although both are good.8 This message is reinforced by an episode detailed by
Ali Al-Hashimi (1999); the Prophet was aware that Abdullah Ibn ‘Amr Ibn al-As
(a Prophet’s companion) was exaggerating with his prayers; he said, ‘Have I not
heard that you fast all day and stay up all night in prayer?’ Abdullah Ibn ‘Amr Ibn
al-‘As said, ‘That is true, O Messenger of Allah’. The Prophet replied to him, ‘Do
not do that. Fast and break your fast, sleep and get up. For your body has a right
over you, your eyes have a right over you, your wife has a right over you, and your
visitors have a right over you’ (p. 118).
Several physical activities were practiced and recommended by the Prophet
and his followers. The Prophet stated that ‘any action without the remembrance
of Allah is either a diversion or heedlessness excepting four acts: walking from
target to target (during archery practice), training a horse, playing with one’s fam-
ily, and learning to swim’ (Al-Qaradawi, 1999, p. 332). Uqbah Bin Amir, a com-
panion of the Prophet, stated that on one occasion he reinforced the importance
of archery for a ‘true’ Muslim, saying; ‘He who learnt archery and then neglected
it, is not from us . . . He has been guilty of disobedience . . .’9 In addition, he said,
‘The strong (active) believer is better and more beloved to Allah than the weak
believer, while there is good in both’.10 It is evident from the earlier-mentioned
statements that the Prophet encouraged those activities as a source of fun while at
the same time as preparatory work to religious worship and religious obligations
and as a fitness tool to keep believers healthy and prepared for war. Two Fatâwâ
aimed to address questions from young Muslims about the possibility of a career
in professional sport warn, though, that they avoid neglecting religious duties;
they state, ‘[sports participation] should not take much time for a Muslim, so to
make him known for this activity or considering sport as work’ (Islamqa.info
Fatwâ 4194; Islamicity.com Fatwâ, 38824). These Fatâwâ were supported by one
of the participants of this study, A’ishah from the city of Modena. A’ishah argued
that playing sports could not interfere to worship such as, for instance, the daily
prayers or respect and obedience to parents; if she was playing professionally and
there was a competition during Ramadan (religious fasting period), she could
have not eaten or drunk; being a true Muslim meant following these rules.
All the participants, who stated in the interviews that they considered their
religious identity prevailing, agreed with this statement. The Imam of the Rome
Mosque was also clear about this issue: ‘there is no contradiction between Islam
and sports providing is for personal, health benefits and does not make a Mus-
lim to “deviate” from the rightful path’. The term ‘deviate’ in this statement
indicates a caveat for the believer to conform to a specific set of behaviours;
the sanction for this deviation is to be labelled by the community as ‘not a true
Muslim’. Considering that modern sport requires individual dedication to the

‘athlete’ life, especially at the professional level, it is challenging for Muslims
not to deviate from the right path. To be professional sportsmen/women and at
the same time to fulfil their religious duties is very problematic because of the
conflictual relationship between the identity of an athlete and the Muslim identity.
Following this logic, even working as a sports analyst has its dark side, as the
following Fatwâ underlines. According to this Fatwâ, the danger lies in focusing
too much on modern sports, which are considered to be based on promiscuity and
materialism; a youth in this case will not only lose with this job his/her Muslim
identity and scope in life but also will serve to distract his/her fellow Muslims
(the Ummah) from its scope by promoting materialistic activities (Islamqa.info
Fatwâ, 106146).
Not only should ‘true’ Muslims not spend much time on sports, but also their
participation should not even lead to behaviour prohibited by Islamic law; this
brings the consequence of being considered deviant. This prescription affects
sports enthusiasts and those who watch sport competitions; it affects the place
where sport is practiced and the interactions between the sexes (Islamqa.info
Fatwâ, 159926). The latter issue has been analysed by numerous studies which
have focused though mainly on Muslim women without considering that these
limitations concern also Muslim men.
Gender, modesty, and the Kuffars’ symbols

Numerous studies and media coverage about Islam and sport have largely focused
on Muslim women (Aitchison, Hopkins & Kwan, 2007). Some academic analyses
focus more on the overall participation trend, arguing that participation or non-
participation of Muslim women in sports is used as an indicator of the level of
progress and secularisation or conservatism of Islamic societies, as well as the
degree of integration of Muslim minorities living in the West (Amara & Henry,
2010). To support this view, it is mentioned that the increase in female participa-
tion in athletics in the Middle East for more than two decades is linked to trends
of modernisation and reforming education in Muslim countries (Amara & Henry,
2010). Other studies have focused more on Muslim women’s experiences and at
times have represented Islam as a backward religion, questioning its doctrines
in relation to women’s rights (Al-Hibri, 2000; Moghissi, 2004) and its impact
on sport participation. De Knop and colleagues (as cited in Walseth & Fasting,
2003) found that Muslim girls were interested in sport; however, religious beliefs
prevented them from participating. It could be assumed from this type of study
20 Alberto Testa
that Islam does not allow women to participate in sport; however, the Imam of the
Turin mosque argues that ‘women are encouraged to practice sports as in Islam
it is encouraged to be healthy and to look after one’s body regardless of gender’.
It could be stated instead that Islam does not prohibit women from playing
sport; rather there are guidelines and boundaries that are in place to honour and
respect Muslim women. One of the guidelines relates to the well-known Hijab
and its role in sport (Hargreaves & Vertinsky, 2006; Benn, Pfister & Jawad, 2010).
The Hijab is a veil required to cover Muslim women’s hair, body, and bosoms in
the presence of men who are not part of the women’s family in order to preserve
decorum. This is prescribed in the Qu’ran:
Tell the believing women to reduce [some] of their vision and guard their
private parts and not expose their adornment except that which [necessar-
ily] appears thereof and to wrap [a portion of] their head covers over their
chests and not expose their adornment except to their husbands, their fathers,
their husbands’ fathers, their sons, their husbands’ sons, their brothers, their
brothers’ sons, their sisters’ sons, their women, that which their right hands
possess, or those male attendants having no physical desire, or children who
are not yet aware of the private aspects of women.
(Qur’an, Online; 24.31)11
So although it is a symbol of women’s modesty, the Hijab is still considered

by many Western analyses a symbol of women’s oppression, which underlines
that Muslim women have their rights compressed and their freedom of expres-
sion curbed; all these rights are instead guaranteed in modern Western society.
This negative conception of the Hijab is explained in Chapter 11 of this book
by Walseth, who focuses on how Norwegian policy makers address the sporting
needs of local Muslim communities emphasising how the Hijab is part of a nar-
rative in which Muslim women need to be saved from their religion; this position
completely neglects that in many cases, wearing the Hijab is a choice and not an
imposition (Franks, 2000). The use of the Hijab while engaged in sport is, though,
problematic not so much because it is seen as a tool for women’s oppression – the
majority of the women interviewed were happy to wear it, and they did not find
it limiting their freedom – but because wearing the Hijab was considered by the
participants to be a catalyst for Islamophobia and Islamic hate. As the Hijab is a
powerful symbol of Islam, it reinforces at the same time Muslimness (Muslim
identity) while becoming a signpost of ‘being different’. In this context, wear-
ing the Hijab means looking but most importantly acting as a Muslim publicly
promoting Islam. For this reason, Islamophobics may single out Muslim women
during sports events. All the female participants interviewed documented an
uneasiness about wearing the Hijab in public (especially while travelling in buses
and tubes in Italy) and while doing sport/physical activity (volleyball matches,
for instance); they would be often stared at and challenged about their choice by
members of the public, particularly by other women. Gazala (a participant from
Reggio Emilia), a keen karate player, was refused membership to a karate class
because of her Hijab, and this was justified as being an obstacle to training, even
if the World Karate Federation approves the use of the Hijab. The same situation
but in relation to a different sport, judo, occurred in Rome.
The religious guidelines on how a woman should dress when practicing sport
are certainly controversial. While the majority of Muslim scholars agree that cloth-
ing should conceal the whole body, excluding the face and hands, the definition of
Hijab has often been misunderstood. According to the Islamic Research Founda-
tion,12 the correct way to wear the Hijab is to cover the entire body without reveal-
ing the forms, so that the fabric does not have to be transparent and clothing should
not be attractive to men. However, many Western scholars associate the Hijab to
cover their heads (Limoochi & Le Clair, 2011), a view echoed by all those who
support the promotion of sport among Muslim women. Although this stance on
gender can be considered in Western societies a discriminatory practice, women
who want to fulfil their religious obligations and the canon of modesty see in it the
optimal solution for a wider participation in sport (Limoochi and Le Clair, 2011).
As Aadila and Kaleem (two female participants from Reggio Emilia) argue, the
Hijab is part of their identities:
It safeguards our dignity; when a men looks at us he will respect us because

know we value ourself more than anything. So it is important to be used when
we practice sport so that more girls like us who do not wish to give up their
religious practices can enjoy freely sport in Italy.
As mentioned earlier, the sport dress code and gender narrative tend to focus
on Muslim women, but this prescription concerns also men. Aalam (a partici-
pant from Modena) says, ‘when I practice sport and any physical activity, I am
required to cover my Awrah, which is anything that covers a persons dignity or
decency, and everything considered Haram’ (sinful). Fahd (a participant from
Rome) argued that men are required to lower their gaze so they do not fall into
sin when they see a woman. The Holy Qu’ran supports both statements: ‘tell the
believing men to reduce [some] of their vision and guard their private parts. That
is purer for them. Indeed, Allah is acquainted with what they do’ (Qur’an, Online,
24.30).13 The Imam of Rome argued that the issue of segregating Muslims when
participating in sports applies to both men and women; this is important because
it promotes discipline and morals, avoids vulgarity, and rejects the commodifica-
tion and sexualisation of the human body. The Imam continues, saying that this
message was rarely stressed by those who analyse Islam.
According to a series of Hadith, the Awrah for a man extends from the navel
to the knee and should not be left uncovered while practicing sport; so shorts
should cover the thighs (Islamqa.info Fatwâ, 34976; Askimam.org Fatwâ, 18090).
This certainly has an impact for those Muslims who have a religious salient iden-
tity and limit the practice of many sports, including professional bodybuilding
(Islamicity.com Fatwâ, 33713). In summary, Islam recommends that a high level
of modesty, humility, and self-respect should be followed at all times by both
sexes (Qur’an, Online, 24:30; 24:31).
22 Alberto Testa
However, it is important to point out that the dress code is not only stressed
because of preserving modesty but also because sports clothes promote sym-
bols that contrast with the Islamic tenets. A Fatwâ online clarifies this argument,
underlining how sports clothes can display Kuffar (non-Muslims, a derogatory
term) symbols, namely the emblems of Germany or Italy or the United States or
shirts with written names of what are defined as Kafir (non-Muslim a deroga-
tory term) players. If these symbols are linked to the religion of the Kuffar – for
instance, crosses – they cannot be sold or worn. If the symbols represent the effi-
gies of Kuffar players, they are Haraam (sinful). If on these sports clothes slogans
are reproduced which do not have anything to do with the veneration of Kuffar,
then they are allowed (Islamqa.info Fatwâ, 105416).
Combat sports and meditative practices

The Shari’a promotes the protection of the human body from everything ‘that can’
damage it, such as alcohol, drugs, and dangerous activities (Islamweb.net Fatwâ,
138817). This protection is based on the Qur’anic verse which reads, ‘do not throw
[yourselves] with your [own] hands into destruction [by refraining]’(Qur’an,
Online, 2:19),14 and on the following saying of the Prophet Mohammad: ‘it is
forbidden to inflict harm to themselves or to others – directly or indirectly’ (Sodiq,
2010, p. 358). Therefore, it prohibits any participation in sports that cause seri-
ous damage to the health of the athletes. A clear example is the prohibition of
professional boxing reported by several Muslim scholars (Islamicity.com Fatwâ,
33353); this is because boxing can cause irreparable damage to the athlete.
Moreover, the Prophet Mohammad said, ‘when any one of you fights, avoid
blows to the face’ (Islamicity.com Fatwâ, 3367). For this reason, a large number
of Muslim scholars are in favour of an official ban on practicing, for instance,
mixed martial arts.
It is important to note, however, that Islam does not condemn all the sport-
ing activities that involve the use of physical force even against an opponent,
as wrestling was regarded positively by the Prophet. There are of course excep-
tions; this occurs when boxing/sport is used as a powerful symbol to promote
the Muslim nation, as the boxer Muhammad Ali, supported by Malcolm X the
African-American Muslim minister and activist, demonstrated in his career. This
very interesting link between boxing and Islam is well explained in Chapter 9 of
this book by Amir Saeed.
Aalim (a participant from Rome) stated, ‘I like combat sports but only for self-
defence; there should be never the intention to harm the opponent and to knock
the opponent out’. This statement from a young male second-generation Italian
Muslim (which was confirmed by all the young Muslim male participants) and the
online Fatâwâ are important because they strongly stress the difference between
an ‘orthodox’ and an ‘extreme’ interpretation of the Qur’an on the topic of vio-
lence. The extreme, fanatic interpretation of Islam and its promotion of senseless
violence is currently popularised by the actions of the Islamic State militants. In
the case of the Islamic State, we have individuals who profess the same religion
and to be ‘true’ Muslim (many share also the same background of the participants
of this study – second- and third-generation Western-country Muslim youth) who
violate the most important precept of their religion. In relation to promoting sport
participation in Muslim communities, it is important, hence, to consider eliminat-
ing those ‘high-risk’ and dangerous (Islamqa.info Fatwâ, 3895) activities which
go against the teachings of the Qur’an.
Moreover, physical activities that involve rituals or values marked by religious
philosophies (Buddhism and Zen, for instance) can be in direct or indirect conflict
with Islam. Yoga, which finds its roots in ancient Hindu philosophy, is the first
example that falls into this category. According to several Fatâwâ, yoga consists
of movements accompanied by words and phrases that worship the sun (Islamon-
line.com Fatwâ, 161) and in this is in clear contrast to the monotheistic faith of
Islam (Askimam.org Fatwâ, 17533; Islamonline.com Fatwâ, 161). Martial arts
such as karate and kung fu and meditative practices that value philosophies and
religions such as Taoism and Zen are also in contrast with Islam. For example,
the rei (the ceremonial bow) of karate is forbidden because it imitates the Mus-
lim prayer requiring the believer to bow to Allah, an act of worship and humility
that is not permitted in circumstances that are not strictly religious (Askimam.org
Fatwâ, 17637; Islamqa.info Fatwâ, 121638). It is also important to consider that
Japanese martial arts are based on the bushido, which is the code of conduct of the
samurai and is heavily based on Zen Buddhism and Shintoism. However, Muslim
scholars point out that if a sport or recreational activity is modified to exclude
all actions not permitted, then it is allowed to be practiced (Imams of Rome and
Turin). From the secondary data gained by this study, the online Fatâwâ, the par-
ticipants, and the spiritual leaders interviewed, modern sport seems to be consid-
ered, hence, the bearer of more damages than benefits to those who practice it and
to society because of how it is structured and the values on which it is based. The
last section of the chapter will examine this point of view.
Islam and modern sport: conflict, identity, and dialogue?

The relationship between Islam and modern sport is undoubtedly problematic.
The reason is that modern sport tends to express Western values, which are at
odds with Islam being a traditionalist religion. Abushouk (2006) emphasises the
longstanding ideological clash between Islam and the Western ideals of modern-
ism and secularism, which is spreading under the banner of globalization.
To understand this difficult relationship, it is necessary to consider that the
origins of modern sport have been favoured by the advent of capitalism, indus-
trialisation, and secularism. Modern sport is a global phenomenon and most
importantly an industry, which has a significant socialisation power (Earnheardt,
Haridakis, & Hugenberg, 2012).
Sport is a powerful tool for the creation and strengthening of ideals such as
glory, fame, and wealth (Goral, Caliskan, & Yetim, 2009); Gruneau (1988) stresses
the orientation of modern sport towards the value of achievement and records,
which bombard the consumer or fan and socialises those who practice sport.
24 Alberto Testa
This ideological context creates friction with any interpretation of Islam. Sport
events, for instance, can promote disruptive practices such as doping (Islamon-
line.com Fatwâ, 133) or gambling but also national pride and nationalism at sport
events which is perceived to go against the value of Muslim unity preached by the
Qur’an (Qur’an, Online, 3:103).15
Sport may also be the location where violence and aggression are expressed; it
also promotes individualism and the ‘“veneration” of athletes/players’ (Imam of
the Rome Mosque).

While part of the Muslim world has accepted organised sport as a symbol of
modernization of Muslim societies (Amara, 2008), those who want to preserve
traditional Islamic teachings consider it a deviant activity which leads the believer
to neglect codes of conduct and values that should prevail in the Ummah. This
negative attitude may distract Muslims from important issues such as the Pales-
tine cause, the long-lasting crisis in the Middle East (Syria, Egypt, Libya, etc.),
and poverty in Africa. The commitment to just causes is crucial for a believer and
it is promoted in the Qur’an; ‘whoever comes [on the Day of Judgment] with a
good deed will have ten times the like thereof [to his credit], and whoever comes
with an evil deed will not be recompensed except the like thereof; and they will
not be wronged’ (Qur’an, Online, 6:160).16
This position is also stressed by the following Fatâwâ on sport: ‘the sport has
become a tool to entertain the people [and distract them from their religious obli-
gations], and this stuns them with games and entertainment. Instead, its main
purpose should be to improve their health . . .’ (Islamweb.net Fatwâ, 90949).
‘Sports fans devote all their time and energy into these activities, neglecting
many mandatory duties . . . If you reach this level – their behaviour – is undoubt-
edly haram [forbidden]’ (Islamqa.info. Fatwâ, 22636).
The values that modern sport expresses and teaches are not the only catalyst
points of contrast with Islam; the very nature of sport as a secular religion (Novak,
1994/1967) or as a popular religion (Price, 2001) needs also to be considered.
Novak (in Parry et al., 2007, p. 144) argued that ‘sports are religious in the
sense that they are organised institutions, disciplines, and liturgies; and also in the
sense that they teach religious qualities of heart and soul. Sports provide examples
of personal virtue and a moral code of conduct to live by’. As religions, concepts
such as faith, ritual, devotion, love, and immortality are also present in sports.
Sports have their priests, namely the athletes, who in their gestures are similar to
priests celebrating the mass – they both offer a sacrifice on behalf of others (the
fans); athletes approach the stadium (altar) representing the hope and fears of
their congregation, the fans (Novak,1994/1967). As Edwards (in Higgs, 1995,
p. 18) argues, sports has its ruling patriarchs, namely coaches and managers, who
control sport organizations; sport has its gods, such as the celebrity athletes who
have great influence on their believers (fans); sport has its own scribes, such as
sport journalists, who promote its beliefs; and sport has its symbols of faith, such
as trophies and, most importantly, money.
Furthermore, the official ceremonies (the opening and closure, for instance,
of the football World Cup or the Olympics) follow highly formalised rituals in
which this ‘secular religion’ is celebrated. Aside from the rituals and beliefs, what
make sport a secular religion are its followers, who blindly show their devotion;
sports have the same strong symbolisation power as Islam and, for this reason,
tend to promote a strong sense of collective and individual identity. Sports can
therefore be perceived as activities that meet the needs of the ‘spiritual’ person,
which replaces the traditional religious commitment while maintaining many
similar characteristics such as the value of unity and the expression of faith in the
rituals performed by the fans and promoted by its symbols (Goral, Caliskan, &
Yetim, 2009).
For this reason, modern sport and how it is interpreted may be perceived to be
in direct competition with traditional Islamic values, and this creates a dilemma for
those with a strong religious identity who may consider sport a danger which can
not only erase the unity within the Muslim nation but also embrace at the same
time the values of capitalism and individualism, which are in stark contrast with
Islamic traditional practices. This difficult relationship between modern sport and
Islam has been documented by many episodes; for instance, in the 2012 Olympics
in London, the supreme legal authority of Dubai, Sheikh Ahmed Al Haddad, had
to intervene and to issue a special Fatwâ (May 24, 2012) to allow the athletes of
the United Arab Emirates to break the fast during the Olympic Games and resume
once the big event was over.17
Moreover, some professional athletes may be regarded by the traditional
Islamic world to have compromised the fundamental aspects of their faith, such
as the Algerian athlete Hassiba Boulmerka, admired in the Western world for the
defence of women’s rights but seen as a ‘heretic’ by the traditional Islamic world
for contravening Islamic doctrine.18 Others are becoming models of Islam for
their refusal to obey to sport rules deemed to be in conflict with their beliefs.
In 2014, American basketball player Dion Waiters refused to sing the national
anthem because he was Muslim,19 while the Qatar women’s basketball team did
not play a match at the Asian Games because they were refused permission to
wear the Islamic Hijab.20
Although the positions taken in the field of sports by Islamic scholars who are
inspired by Shari’a and evaluated in this chapter do not completely reflect the
views of all Muslims, they are useful for understanding that a significant part
of the Muslim population wishes to practice sport but at the same time remains
puzzled between a quasi-religious, Western-value-oriented practise and their reli-
gious identity.
This makes sport a location where negotiations between modernity and tradi-
tion, between Western and non-Western visions of society (and life) take place,
where the values and beliefs of Islamic practices may be also challenged. This
dynamic complex of elements may have a strong limiting effect on the choices of
members of Muslim communities in terms of sport participation and having such
choices be made in accordance with the Islamic teachings. This is significant, as
sport can be use as a means to tackle social issues (Coalter, 2007; Tacon, 2007;
Muller et al., 2008); it is particularly significant for promoting multi-ethnic and
religious integration. Sport participation and sport events may become locations
26 Alberto Testa
via which diversity is celebrated and not pointed out and stereotypes and preju-
dices are challenged, promoting ‘social cohesion’, which is the ‘glue’ that keeps
‘different’ communities together by creating channels of communication based on
a collective sense of belonging and social solidarity based on agreed-upon values
(Kourouche & Maxwell, 2013). There are examples of how immigrants’ football
clubs have in Europe been used as integration facilitators; sports have been used
as interfaith dialogue catalysts to tackle Islamophobia and to counter radicalisa-
tion (Muller et al., 2008).

However, this integration function depends on how sport programmes are
devised and on the local social and political environment. In countries such as
Italy, this is quite an important issue as, for instance, what is considered ordi-
nary in other European countries – the use of separate sport facilities for Muslim
women (women-only gyms and swimming) – is still left to be organised by Mus-
lim youth organisations, which negotiate with local councils access and funds.
This negotiation, depending on the political parties which lead the council, can
be very difficult, as Muslims in many parts of the country are perceived as prob-
lematic by local policy makers for electoral reasons (anti-immigration and anti-
Muslim sentiments are always significantly present in the Italian electorate) and
by managers of sports facilities for economic reasons.
Therefore, sport programmes to promote social integration and social justice
need to be included in a strategy which considers the different social and religious
needs of the local communities and to address differences in a productive and
constructive approach.
As Aashif (from Rome) argues,
Those of are in charge to promote sport at local and national level should give
greater emphasis to sports participation of persons belonging to Muslim com-
munities especially youth like me who are proud to affirm their Muslim iden-
tity. The Qur’an says; ‘whosoever purifies himself shall achieve success.’
This means purifies the soul from corruption and doing good keeping in mind
the wish of Allah. Sport has all these potentials in improving an individual if
promoted respecting [and modified to fit] Islamic practises and rituals. Such
a strategy would enhance the potential of sport as a means to integrate instead
of divide.
Notes
1 Cf. www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010–2050/#projected-growth-
map.
2 Cf. http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/education_training_youth/sport/l35010_
en.htm.
3 The Sunnah have been classified according to rigorous tests of originality and other
historical analyses into: Sahih (authentic), Hasan (Acceptable), and Dhaif (weak). The
degree of classification and what is considered legitimate sources may differ between
Sunni and Sh’ia traditions as result of political and theological interpretations.
4 Cf. www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.614320.
5 Cf. http://alislam.org/islam/.
6 Cf. www.cfr.org/peace-conflict-and-human-rights/sunni-shia-divide/p33176#!/.
7 Cf. http://quran.com/3/103.
8 Cf. http://hadithcheck.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/sahih-strong-believer-is-better-and.
html.
9 Hadith: Riyad-us-Saliheen: The Book of Jihad, section 1334.
10 Hadith: Sunan Ibn Majah Chapter No: 1, The Book of the Sunnah, Hadith no: 79.
11 http://quran.com/24/31.
12 Cf. http://islam21c.com/islamic-law/2606-attractive-hijabs-a-shariah.
17 http://albawaba.com/sports/dubai-grand-mufti-exempts-uae-olympic-team-fasting-
426747.
18 http://bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16962799.
19 http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/11/08/dion-waiters-says-he-is-a-
muslim-plans-to-skip-national-anthems/.
20 www.gtheguardian.com/sport/2014/sep/24/qatar-womens-basketball-team-may-
withdraw-asian-games-hijab.
References
Abushouk, A. 2006, “Globalization and Muslim Identity Challenges and Prospects”, The
Muslim, vol. 96, no. 3, pp. 487–505.
Agenfor Italia. 2013, Sport, Radicalisation and Counter Radicalisation, Agenfor Italia, Rimini.
Aitchison, C., Hopkins, P. & Kwan, M. P. (eds) 2007, Geographies of Muslim Identities:
Diaspora, Gender and Belonging, Ashgate, London.
Alam, A. 2007, “ ‘Scholarly Islam’ and ‘Everyday Islam’ : Reflections on the Debate over
Integration of the Muslim Minority in India and Western Europe”, Journal of Muslim
Minority Affairs, vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 241–260.
Al-Hibri, A. 2000, “Muslim Women’s Rights in the Global Village: Challenges and Oppor-
tunities”, Law & Religion, p. 37–66.
Ali Al-Hashimi, M. 1999, The Ideal Muslim: The True Islâmic Personality of the Muslim
as Defined in the Qur’ân and Sunnah, International Islâmic Publishing House, Rihad.
Ali, A. 2000, The Holy Qur’an: Arabic Text with English Translation, Kitab Bhavan, New
Delhi.
Al-Qaradawi, Y. 1999, The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam, American Trust Publica-
tions, Drive Oak Brook, IL.
Al-Sheha, A. 2001, The Key to Understanding Islam. Available: http://d1.islamhouse.com/
data/en/ih_books/single2/en_key_to_understanding_islam.pdf.
Amara, M. 2008, “An Introduction to the Study of Sport in the Muslim World”, in Sport
and Society: A Student Introduction, ed. B. Houlihan, Sage, London, pp. 532–553.
Amara, M. & Henry, I. 2010, “Sport, Muslim Identities and Cultures in the UK, an Emerg-
ing Policy Issue: Case Studies of Leicester and Birmingham”, European Sport Manage-
ment Quarterly, vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 419–443.
Bandura, A. 1976, Social Learning Theory, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
Bandura, A. 2003, “COMMENTARY: On the Psychosocial Impact and Mechanisms of
Spiritual Modeling”, International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, vol. 13,
no. 3, pp. 167–173.
28 Alberto Testa
Burdsey, D. 2010, “British Muslim Experiences in English First-Class Cricket”, Interna-
tional Review for the Sociology of Sport, vol. 45, no. 3, pp. 315–334.
Caner, E. M. & Caner, E. F. 2002, Unveiling Islam: An Insider’s Look at Muslim Life and
Beliefs, Kregel Publications, MI.
Christmann, K. 2012, Preventing Religious Radicalisation and Violent Extremism. A
Systematic Review of the Research Evidence. Available: http://www.justice.gov.uk/
downloads/publications/research-and-analysis/yjb/preventing-violent-extremism-systematic-
review.pdf [2013, 06/15].
Coalter, F. 2007, “Sports Clubs, Social Capital and Social Regeneration: ‘Ill-Defined Inter-
ventions with Hard to Follow Outcomes’?” Sport in Society, vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 537–559.
de Knop, P., Theeboom, M., Wittock, H. & de Martelaer, K. 1996, “Implications of Islam
on Muslim Girls’ Sport Participation in Western Europe. Literature Review and Policy
Recommendations for Sport Promotion”, Sport Education and Society, vol. 1, no. 2,
pp. 147–164.
Earnheardt, A., Haridakis, P. & Hugenberg, B. (eds) 2012, Sports Fans, Identity, and
Socialization: Exploring the Fandemonium, Lexington Books, New York, Virginia.
Farooq, S. & Parker, A. 2009, “Sport, physical education, and Islam: Muslim independent
schooling and the social construction of masculinities.”, Sociology of Sport Journal,
vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 277–295.
Franks, M. 2000, “Crossing the borders of whiteness? White Muslim women who wear the
hijab in Britain today”, Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 23, no. 5, pp. 917–929.
Goral, M., Caliskan, G. & Yetim, A. 2009, “Relationship of Sports with Morality and Sports
Morality of Individuals Interested in Sports”, The Social Sciences, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 269.
Gruneau, R. 1988, “Modernization or Hegemony: Two Views on Sport and Social Devel-
opment”, in Not Just a Game: Essays in Canadian Sport Sociology, eds. J. Harvey &
H. Cantelon, University of Ottawa Press, Ottawa.
Hargreaves, J. & Vertinsky, P. 2006, Physical Culture, Power, and the Body, Routledge,
London.
Higgs, R. 1995, God in the Stadium: Sports and Religion in America, The University Press
of Lexington, Kentucky.
Ismail, H. 2001, Islam and Sport. Available: Cf. http://www.bandung2.co.uk/Books/Files/
Entertainment/Islam%20and%20Sport.pdfNovember 2013].
Kahan, D. 2003, “Islam and Physical Activity: Implications for American Sport and Physical
Educators”, Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, vol. 74, no. 3, pp. 48–54.
Kamali, M. 2012, Al-Maqasid Al-Shari’a. The Objectives of Islamic Law. Available:
http://www.aml.org.uk/cms/assets/Uploads/journals/3.1/Kamali-Maqasid.pdf [2013,
September/08].
Kennett, C. 2005, Sport, Immigration and Multiculturality: A Conceptual Analysis, CEO-
UAB edn., Barcelona.
Kourouche, F. & Maxwell, H. 2013, Sport and Community Harmony. Available: http://
affinity.org.au/images/stories/events/FatimaKouroucheandHazelMaxwell_Sportand
CommunityHarmony.pdf [2013, November/06].
Kutsher, J. 2009, “The Politics of Virtual Fatwa Counselling in the 21st century”, Journal
of Law and Technology, vol. 1, pp. 33–50.
Limoochi, S. & Le Clair, J. 2011, “Reflections on the Participation of Muslim Women in
Disability Sport: Hijab, Burkini, Modesty and Changing Strategies”, Sport in Society:
Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics, vol. 14, no. 9, pp. 1300–1309.
Lincoln, Y. & Guba, E. 1985, Naturalistic Inquiry. Sage, Beverly Hills, CA.
Moghissi, H. 2004, Women in Islam, Routledge, London.
Muller, F., van Zoonen, L. & de Roode, L. 2008, “The Integrative Power of Sport: Imag-
ined and Real Effects of Sport Events on Multicultural Integration”, Sociology of Sport
Journal, vol. 25, pp. 387–401.
Nichols, G. 1997, “A Consideration of Why Active Participation in Sport and Leisure
Might Reduce Criminal Behaviour.”, Sport Education and Society, vol. 2, no. 2, pp.
181–190.
Novak, M. 1994/1967, The Joy of Sports: End Zones, Bases, Baskets, Balls and Consecra-
tion of the American Spirit, Basic Books, New York.

Opeloye, M. 1995, “The Theology of God’s Word from the Biblical and Qur’anic Perspec-
tives”, Islamic Culture, vol. 69, no. 1, pp. 1–19.
Price, J. L. 2001, From Season to Season: Sports as American Religion, Mercer University
Press, Macon, GA.
Stryker, S. & Burke, P. 2000, “The Past, Present, and Future of an Identity Theory”, Social
Psychology Quarterly, vol. 63, no. 4, pp. 284–297.
Tacon, R. 2007, “Football and Social Inclusion: Evaluating Social Policy”, Managing Lei-
sure, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 1–23.
Testa, A. & Armstrong, G. 2012, “‘We Are Against Islam!’ The Lega Nord and the Islamic
Folk Devil”, Sage Open, vol. 2, no 4, pp. 1–14.
Walseth, K. & Fasting, K. 2003, “Islam’s View on Physical Activity and Sport: Egyptian
Women Interpreting Islam”, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, vol. 38,
no. 1, pp. 45–60.
Whitson, D. 1984, “Sport and Hegemony: On the Construction of the Dominant Culture”,
Sociology of Sport Journal, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 64–78.
Wimberley, D. 1989, “Religion and Role Identity: A Structural Symbolic Interaction-
ist Conceptualization of Religiosity”, The Sociological Quarterly, vol. 30, no. 1, pp.
125–142.
Fatâwâ
• Islamqa.info Fatwâ, 3895 (http://islamqa.com/en/ref/3895)
• Islamicity.com Fatwâ, 38294 (http://islamicity.com/qa/action.lasso.asp?-db=services&-
lay=Ask&-op=eq&number=38294&-format=detailpop.shtml&-find)
• Islamqa.info Fatwâ, 106146 (http://islamqa.info/en/106146)
• Islamqa.info Fatwâ, 4194 (http://islamqa.info/en/ref/4194/doc)
• Askimam.org Fatwâ, 18090 (http://askimam.org/public/question_detail/18090)
• Islamicity.com Fatwâ, 33713 (http://www.islamicity.com/qa/action.lasso.asp?-db=services&-
• Islamweb.net Fatwâ, 138817 (http://islamweb.net/emainpage/index.php?page=articles&
id=138817)
• Islamicity.com Fatwâ, 33353 (http://islamicity.com/qa/action.lasso.asp?-db=services&-
• Islamicity.com Fatwâ, 3367 (http://www.islamicity.com/qa/action.lasso.asp?-db=services&-
30 Alberto Testa
• Islamonline.com Fatwâ, 161 (http://islamonline.com/news/articles/161/Yoga-its-origins-
and-the-ruling-on-practising-it.html)
• Islamonline.com Fatwâ, 133 (http://islamonline.com/news/articles/133/Ruling-on-
taking-performance-enhancing-drugs-in-sp.html)
• Islamweb.net Fatwâ, 90949 (http://islamweb.net/emainpage/index.php?page=showfatwa&
Option=FatwaId&Id=90949)
PART II
Gender, body and culture


3 Sport participation of Muslim
youths in Germany
Ulrike Burrmann and Michael Mutz
In place of an introduction – several brief portraits

of Muslim youths
To start this chapter, we put five stories of Muslim youths in Germany to the
centre. These short portrayals illustrate how participation in sport is defined by
inclusion in a social and cultural context, independently of personal inclinations
and interests. The stories also show that culture and most importantly religion can
foster but also restrain the path to sport clubs and to a career in sport, that ‘West-
ern’ forms of sport can provoke contradictions and conflicts, while also offering
the potential for personal development and social integration.
Ahmed (24) has practiced taekwondo with great ambition and success since
he was eight years old. At 17, he moved away from his family to attend a sports
boarding school. His parents support his sporting career. Ahmed generally can
combine education and daily training flexibly. Nevertheless, he admits it is some-
times difficult to reconcile the sport and his studies. However, his ambition seems
to be paying off, as his national and international sporting success can attest. In
the future, he even dreams to participate in the Olympic Games. Ahmed grew
up with the Muslim faith and considers himself as very religious. He has fasted
during Ramadan since he was 11 years old. Prayers before his competitions give
him faith in his performances. But also aside from taekwondo, Ahmed takes inner
strength and determination from his religion, he says.
Diego (18) has played football since he was seven, and his performance is
currently considered to have Bundesliga level. Motivated by friends, his football
career began in a migrant sport club. During his time at school, he always pri-
oritised his training, so that he even had to repeat a grade. After completion of
school, he now spends all his energy to make football his career. Diego was raised
with the Muslim faith. However, he asserted himself early towards his parents
concerning religious obligations that made the pursuit of his sport difficult. He
only prays occasionally, for instance, prior to league matches, and while he would
like to go to a mosque, he doesn’t find the time. Diego has a younger sister. How-
ever, he couldn’t say if or which sport his sister does.
Melek (22) initially was the only girl in the football team of her school. At 17,
she switched to a newly founded women’s team of a Turkish club. She played
football there, with her two sisters. The parents never missed their daughters’
34 Ulrike Burrmann and Michael Mutz
games. The appeal of sport in a club was, in particular, the way in which everyone
on the team got on well and the players have grown together like a big family.
Melek is a devout Muslima who was raised very religiously. She exercises her
faith gladly and freely. Shortly after the first interview with her, Melek travelled to
Mecca and has since then worn a headscarf. At 15, Melek could not imagine a life
without football and dreamed about playing for the Turkish national team. After
this travel, however, football no longer plays a role in her life.
Fatima (18) was raised in a strictly religious, Islamic home with close ties to
the Turkish culture. Already as a child, she would have liked to join a dance group
or take part in swim training. Because of religious dress requirements and laws
on gender separation, this was not acceptable for her parents. A few times, she
made use of the special opening hours for women only at a public pool, but it
was always too crowded for her taste. Swimming lessons at school were always a
torture for Fatima. However, since her parents didn’t want trouble with the school,
their daughter was to ‘suffer through it’. Fatima would love to go out dancing;
however, her religion forbids this, and due to its role in her life, she is willing to
make these “sacrifices.” She has a cross-trainer in her tiny room, a gift from her
father so that she might fulfil her wish to do sports and keep her figure in shape.
Büsra’s (16) attention was drawn to boxing when an acquaintance accompanied
her to a first training session. She discovered she enjoyed the sport and started train-
ing against the will of her parents. Upon completing her secondary school, Büsra
would love to move out, take her A-level exams (Abitur) in another city and later
study. She works at a bakery to save money for her big dream of studying abroad,
possibly in Australia. When it comes to school and boxing, she is very ambitious.
She finds self-confidence, power and strength in her boxing training. Sport gives
her footing in life; she literally fought for her freedom through boxing. In contrast
to her mother, Büsra is not really religious and does not pray. Her mother wears a
headscarf and expects her daughter to dress less revealingly; however, Büsra does
not wish to be constrained in this regard. She finds herself increasingly questioning
the values and attitudes of her parents and does not hesitate to make further deci-
sions about her future life alone and against the will of her parents, if necessary.
We already analysed the stories of these and other youths with a migration back-
ground in a previous study (Burrmann, Mutz & Zender 2015). In this chapter, how-
ever, we will turn once more to the interviews with Muslim adolescents, whereby
the three leading questions are (1) What significance does religion have as a cultural
system in the lifestyle of the interviewees? (2) How are the practice of Islam and the
involvement in a sport club connected? (3) How do religious imperatives intersect
with gender – that is, what are gender-specific meanings and effects of religious
norms? Thus, we take a closer look at specific barriers in place for Muslim girls
which potentially prevent them from indulging their wish for more sport activity.
However, we begin with a brief overview of the life situation of Muslims living
in Germany. We continue with representative data on sport club involvement of
Muslim youths in Germany. Then existing research on the influence of Islamic
confession on the sport (club) involvement of youths is summarized and the quali-
tative analysis is presented.
Participation of German Muslim youth 35
Muslims in Germany: an overview
Currently, about 4.8 million Muslims live in Germany,1 representing 5.8 percent
of the population. The majority are immigrants from Turkey or the children of
Turkish immigrants. Although Muslims only represent a minority among the large
group of individuals with a migration background,2 they continue to move to the
centre of attention in current socio-political debates on immigration and integra-
tion, which are held in Germany as controversially as in many other European
countries (Hafez & Richter 2007; Spielhaus 2009). This has resulted in heated
discourse on the introduction of Islamic religion lessons in schools, the wearing
of headscarves by public employees, the building of mosques, the introduction of
Muslim holidays or the participation of Muslim students in school swimming or
sexual education lessons. At their core, these debates circle around the subject of
integration: On the one hand, how much should German society open up to allow
Muslims the exercise of their faith and its associated values? On the other hand,
which adjustments to dominant cultural normative notions in Germany could or
should be expected of Muslim migrants?
Research findings on life situations of Muslims in Germany are, however,
exceedingly rare. We characterise the life situation of Muslims below in a brief
overview based on the few existing surveys (Brettfeld & Wetzels 2007; Bertels-
mann Stiftung 2008; Haug et al. 2009).
(1) Indicators on socio-structural integration first reveal a lower level of edu-

cation among Muslim migrants. Compared to Germans without a migration
background but also compared to non-Muslim migrants, they rarely have a
completed higher education (Brettfeld & Wetzels 2007; Haug et al. 2009).
However, this lower education level has historical reasons, above all. For
instance, the migrant workers (‘Gastarbeiter’) who came to Germany in the
1960s from Turkey were explicitly hired for simple, unqualified, manual
labour in industry. Similar findings can also be seen in employment figures,
wherein particularly Muslim women stand out with an especially low employ-
ment ratio, which remains significantly below the values for Muslim men.3
Roughly 20 percent of all Muslim migrants in Germany live in a household
which is completely dependent on state aid money (Haug et al. 2009, p. 234).
(2) Concerning the cultural integration of Muslims in Germany, there is no uni-
form pattern. Two thirds of German Muslims gauge their own German lan-
guage skills as good; conversely, nearly 10 percent of Muslims claim to speak
German ‘poorly’ or ‘not at all’ (Haug et al. 2009, p. 238). With respect to
religion, roughly one-third of all Muslims regard themselves as very religious
(Brettfeld & Wetzels 2007, p. 243). About two thirds indicate they pray daily
and observe Muslim dietary laws pertaining to food and drink (Haug et al.
2009, p. 137ff ). Significant differences were, however, revealed between
countries of origin and Muslim confessions: Muslims from Turkey are more
inclined to observe religious norms than are Muslims from Iran or South-
eastern Europe. Furthermore, Sunnis and Shiites regard religious laws (dress
rules, dietary regulations etc.) as more binding than Alevi (Bertelsmann Stif-
tung 2008, p. 28).
(3) The social integration of Muslims in Germany can be evaluated as follows: Fre-
quent inter-ethnical contact with Germans (among friends, the workplace or in
the neighbourhood) is normal for a majority of Muslims. The share of Muslims
in regular closer contact to Germans varies between 54 percent (Brettfeld &
Wetzels 2007, p. 94) and 75 percent (Haug et al. 2009, p. 264). Among non-
Muslim migrants, these values are at a higher level. Clear differences concern
behaviour regarding marriage: Muslims almost exclusively look for marriage
partners within their own religious group; only 3 percent live with someone
who has no migrant background (Haug et al. 2009, p. 268). In this regard, there
are great differences compared to other non-Muslim migrant groups, in which
the choice of a partner is less fixated on the own ethnical or religious group.
(4) Findings on identificational integration are mixed: Roughly one third of Mus-
lims feel more strongly tied to Germany than to their country of origin. For
two thirds of Muslims, the connection to the country of origin is about equal
to or stronger than the connection to Germany (Haug et al. 2009, p. 299). In
this characteristic, Muslims differ from non-Muslim migrants, as the latter
identify with Germany far more strongly.
In comparison to non-Muslim migrants, the average situation for Muslims in

Germany can be summed up as follows: They are disadvantaged within the edu-
cation system and in the employment market, have less contact with Germans
without a migration background, frequently search for partners exclusively within
their own religious group and distinguish themselves by stronger ties to their soci-
ety of origin. Beyond that, a greater proportion of Muslims can be considered very
religious, that is, religious norms are considered binding and are respected in daily
routines. It is thus reasonable to suppose that these structural, social and cultural
peculiarities could also influence the sport participation of young migrants.
Sport participation of Muslim youths in Germany

The sport participation of young migrants in Germany has been evaluated exten-
sively during recent years through representative surveys (e.g. Mutz 2009;
Mutz & Burrmann 2015). Data on sport participation which explicitly focuses on
Muslim migrants is, however, rare. In what follows, we evaluate a large-scale rep-
resentative youth study, the AID: A-Survey (Rauschenbach & Bien 2012), in order
to report on some differentiated information, at least for adolescents, regarding
the (club-organised) sport participation of Muslims. To facilitate the interpretation
of the findings, we also indicate values for the population without a migration
background. Furthermore, we differentiate between genders, like in earlier studies
on the sport participation of migrants, to draw attention on striking gender differ-
ences (Mutz 2012).
(1) The percentage of youths who are daily active in sport is shown in Figure 3.1.
Roughly half the boys without a migration background (46 percent) and a
Boys Girls
100%
90%
80%
70%
56%
60%
46%
50%
40%
26%
30%
20% 14%
10%
0%
Ethnic majority Muslim immigrants
Figure 3.1 Daily exercise and physical activity. Muslim immigrants (age 13 to 17)
compared to youths of the ethnic (German) majority
Note: AID: A-Survey 2009, author’s calculations.
quarter of girls without a migration background (26 percent) do sport daily. It

is therefore particularly noteworthy that Muslim boys are particularly active
in sport (56 percent), while this only applies to a small minority of Muslim
girls (14 percent). The Muslim group thus differentiates itself by a high sport
affinity for boys and greater detachment from sport for girls.
(2) From a health perspective, even the percentage of individuals who exercise
never or only very rarely is relevant: Among Muslim boys, it is only 2 per-
cent; however, among Muslim girls, it lies at 26 percent. One quarter of Mus-
lim girls thus do not do sport during leisure time. This percentage is by far
above comparative values for German girls (13 percent) and German boys
(8 percent). These findings are particularly relevant in consideration of a rising
prevalence for overweight and obesity among migrants in Germany (Kurth &
Schaffrath Rosario 2007).
(3) Especially for children and youths, the more than 90,000 existing German
sport clubs (Breuer 2015) represent the first contact point for sport activity.
Figure 3.2 shows the percentage of youths who are members of a sport club.
Roughly two thirds of youths without a migration background are involved in
a sport club – 67 percent of the boys and 63 percent of girls. Muslim boys are
also frequently involved in sport clubs (69 percent). It is an entirely different
Boys Girls
100%
90%
80%
69%
67%
70% 63%
60%
50%
40%
30%
16%
20%
10%
0%
Ethnic majority Muslim immigrants
Figure 3.2 Sport club membership of Muslim immigrants (age 13 to 17) compared to
youths of the ethnic (German) majority
Note: AID: A-Survey 2009, author’s calculations.
matter among Muslim girls, among whom only 16 percent are members of a
sport club. Sport clubs thus reach Muslim boys very well, while girls of the
same religious confession are strongly underrepresented.
According to quantitative data, Muslim girls can be depicted as a group which

is only marginally included in sport clubs and where the daily practice of sport is
not the rule but an exception. However, these girls often express the wish to do
more sport (Boos-Nünning & Karakaşoǧlu 2003). One must therefore enquire
why this wish for practising sport usually cannot be realised. Religious impera-
tives and their gender-specific interpretation and implementation may help further
explicate these general patterns (c.f. Chapter 2 written by Testa and Chapter 11
written by Walseth in this book).
Islamic religiousness and organised sport

The general underrepresentation of migrants in organised sport in Germany (as
well as in other Western societies) may be attributed to cultural and religious dif-
ferences and socio-economic disparities (Elling & Knoppers 2005; Pfister 2010;
Mutz 2012). Additionally, from the perspective of sport organisations, theories of
social closure and institutional discrimination also provide meaningful explana-
tions (Seiberth, Weigelt-Schlesinger & Schlesinger 2013; Maxwell, Foley, Tay-
lor & Burton 2014). As we are dealing with Muslim youths, theoretical approaches,
however, should be able to explain the striking gender differences regarding sport
involvement. Hence, this chapter focuses on Islamic religion and on the implica-
tions that Islamic norms and values may have for the sport participation of boys
and girls .
Exercise and physical activity are considered important in Islam; thus one finds
many references in religious documents to swimming, riding, archery, running,
wrestling or hunting (Sfeir 1985; cf. Chapter 2 in this book). Particular forms
of exercise are also an elementary component of Muslim religious practice, for
instance the active movements while praying, the ritualised walking during the
pilgrimage to Mecca, or the ritual (dervish) dances (Hassan & Schwendemann
2005). Whereas Islam regards exercise and sport generally as something posi-
tive, striving towards extreme sport performance, the commercialisation of elite
sport and the conscious damage to the body in sport, for instance through doping,
are also viewed critically. Likewise, the exaggerated deification of sports idols is
regarded as sinful (Dahl 2008). Although there are generally positive perspectives
concerning the body, there are many religious norms in Islam which directly refer
to bodily practices, for instance the fasting period of Ramadan, ritual washing
prior to prayer, abstinence from alcohol or the norm to cover the body. A hierarchy
between body and soul can be identified within these norms, that is, bodily needs
should be disciplined through spirit and soul. Furthermore, sport and exercise are
clearly secondary to religion; they may neither collide with religious laws nor lead
to the neglect of religious duties (de Knop et al. 1996; Strandbu 2005; Dahl 2008;
Farooq & Parker 2009).
Some religious duties and norms in Islam are gender specific. This explains
why there are only minimal implications for boys and men in regard to the exer-
cise of sport and larger ones for girls and women. Muslim boys are more fre-
quently encouraged to be physically active. The strict interpretation of Islam
associates the masculine role with dominance, activity and strength, while girls
grow into a woman’s role characterised by subordination, passivity and domestic-
ity (Bröskamp 1994; de Knop et al. 1996). Concerning sport, there are, further-
more, explicit dress codes for girls. While the law of dressing ‘decently’ applies
to both genders, the rules for women are far stricter than for men, that is, they are
more strictly interpreted. In keeping with a conservative interpretation of Islam,
women should cover their bodies nearly completely, even for sport, which conse-
quently limits participation in many sports. This can be contrasted with a liberal
view, according to which it is up to the individual athlete how she wishes to dress.
Many female Muslim competitive athletes agree with this view and forego veil-
ing their entire bodies during sport without considering it to be in conflict with
Islam (Dahl 2008; Pfister 2010). Among German Muslims, however, both liberal
and conservative views are prevalent (Wippermann & Flaig 2009). Additionally,
the law of gender separation within sport must be maintained. A joint, bi-gender
pursuit of sport, especially when sport interactions include physical contact, is
often not tolerated for girls. Such a strict interpretation of Islam only allows girls
and women to be active in female sports groups, from which male viewers must
be excluded. Religious requirements regarding dress codes and single-sex envi-
ronments are also discussed with regard to the participation of Muslim girls in
physical education (Dagkas, Benn & Jawad 2011; Barker et al. 2014).
Hence, in a strict interpretation of Islamic rules, religious upbringing of Mus-
lim girls appears incompatible with most types of sport and their pursuit within
sport clubs. Especially laws on gender separation, supervision and covering the
body during the course of puberty are at the foreground of a parental ban of
sports (Kay 2006; Walseth & Strandbu 2014). Aside from sport, scholars have
also pointed to a strict ‘leisure monitoring’ in many families with a Turkish
origin (Reinders 2003). Particularly, girls have less freedom to organise their
leisure activities independently and without parental control. The minority of
Muslim girls who stay involved in the sport often chooses sports in which the
body can be mostly covered. Kleindienst-Cachay (2007) thus concludes that
sport like swimming, rhythmic gymnastics, dance as well as track and field are
only rarely pursued by young Muslim women. At best, such sports are tolerated
during childhood but not during adolescence. These conclusions confirm the
finding of a quantitative survey on sport club participation of young migrants
in Germany (Mutz 2015). Based on multiple regression analyses, it finds that
younger Muslim girls can reconcile sport club involvement with the Islamic
religion very well. Among 12-year-old Muslim girls, religiousness is even
positively associated with sport club affiliation. However, this pattern changes
among Muslim females aged 16 or older. In this age, higher religiousness is
negatively associated with participation in a sport club. Nevertheless, even
among very religious Muslim girls, there are a few – roughly 10 percent – who
are involved in club sport.
To sum up, Islamic religion does not per se attach little value to sport and exer-
cise. However, gender-specific norms may conflict with the routines of German
sport clubs. These gender-specific barriers may help to produce the striking gen-
der differences in physical activity and sport club affiliation reported in the previ-
ous chapter. Hence, the intersections of gender, ethnicity and Islamic confession
were further explored in 22 qualitative interviews with young Muslim immigrants
in Germany.
Islam and sport – findings from a current study

The findings in this chapter result from a qualitative study carried out in Dort-
mund and the Ruhr area in Germany with a multi-ethnic and multi-religious
population. The study applied to the interpretative tradition. In sum, 22 inter-
views with Muslim youths (14 girls, 8 boys) aged 16 through 26 were conducted
and examined. Its aim was to identify the meanings of religion for young Mus-
lims and to retrace the reconcilability of sport and religion. Eighteen interview-
ees were (former) members of a sport club; however, this includes ‘regular’
German sport clubs, sport groups located in mosques as well as migrant sport
clubs. The sport types pursued were limited to football, track and field and com-
bat sport (Burrmann, Mutz & Zender 2015).
Different meanings and interpretations of religion

As already described elsewhere (Walseth & Strandbu 2014), religious norms and
obligations can be regarded as a matter of course, deeply internalized and unques-

tionably obeyed. However, under societal conditions of modern rationality, they
may also be scrutinized and questioned and become a matter of reflexivity. In the
latter case (some) religious traditions may become ‘invisible’ (Luckmann 1967),
that is, individualized, privatized, marginalized or even neglected. Our sample
included youths who described themselves as rather liberal, ‘Western orientated’
and less religious as well as devout believers from very religious families who
very much emphasised Muslim traditions and religious duties. While in the first
group, a conscious re-interpretation and negotiation of Islamic religious norms is
the rule, in the latter, religion is regarded as an unquestionable authority.
Dejan, a wrestler, and Hülya, a Muslim who is barely active in sport, represent
the first type. Both admitted they observe religious laws only sporadically, pray
less regularly and rarely visit a mosque. Their interpretation of religion is different
and more liberal than that of their parents. At the same time, it was also frequent
that the parents themselves did not always follow every law; at least, this was how
the children justified their own minimal religious practice.
DEJAN: I don’t fast. It’s just one of those things. My parents sometimes get upset,
because I don’t fast. Ok, they also don’t do the praying thing so they don’t
say anything about that.
Moreover, Hülya distanced herself explicitly from wearing a headscarf, which

in her view represents an outdated tradition, while at the same time stressing that
this is not meant as a distance from Islamic religion in general.
HÜLYA: Yes, I’m religious, but there’s no one in our family who wears a headscarf
or something. But just because I don’t wear a headscarf doesn’t mean I’m not
religious. You could say I am religious . . . We believe in God and are religious
and pray, and we occasionally fast, but we don’t do everything so strictly.
Strong faith is often demonstrated by adhering to periods of fasting, reading

the Quran, regularly praying, and frequently visiting a mosque. Some girls (typi-
cally aged 15 or 16) must also wear a headscarf and cover their bodies, although
the views on this diverge. For some girls, especially those who practice sport in a
mosque club, the headscarf is seen as a sign of a strong faith; for others, it does not
represent a significant criterion for religiousness. The reaching of sexual maturity
is commonly seen as the proper time for wearing a headscarf. Interviews also
revealed that religious Muslims are expected not to scrutinize religious norms, as,
for instance, Fatima’s statement on dressing regulations illustrates.
FATIMA: I think there are many topics for which one doesn’t need arguments,
you just do it. But I think covering oneself, that’s simple, it’s a part of Islam.
That’s a reason good enough for me. It’s like this: it depends on how strongly
you’re defined by your faith. I think that’s what it comes down to. But I think
it’s just that I don’t need to present myself . . . It’s just an attitude thing, or a
matter of conscience and I think it belongs to the religion, and if you go ahead
and belong to the religion, you should follow it.
Azize presents an exceptional case, as she consciously reflects on many Islamic

norms that are passed forward by parents and religious leaders as well as their
right interpretation. However, these reflections rather strengthen her commitment
to Islam and her belief to live according to the true meaning and spirit of religious
obligations. For example, regarding dress codes for women, she argues that wear-
ing a headscarf or not should not be put at the core of a debate on decent dressing,
because this is by far not the only sign of decency.
AZIZE (SPORADICALLY ACTIVE IN SPORTS): I don’t need a headscarf to prove

something. Nowadays I see women and girls, they’re wearing a headscarf,
but also have such tight clothes on and high heels. They’re not actually
supposed to draw attention to themselves, but when I see that, that makes
me really angry, because that way they draw far, far more attention to
themselves.
While boys only rarely talk about dress codes, the subject is often discussed by
girls. Some girls reveal that their parents worry that they will be put at a disadvan-
tage in school or during the search for an apprenticeship if they wear a headscarf
or refuse to take part in swimming lessons. Further on, many interview statements
point to the influence of peers, which seems to be as important as that of the par-
ents. Lina, a former club football player, is a good example.
LINA: Now I have a lot more friends who are also Islamic, who also have an
Islamic culture. And through them I also became more religious than before
and my whole thinking changed a lot through it, too. In the past, I used to
think, “Ah, I’m Moslem, ok.” But now I can actually really commit myself
to it.
Hence, meanings and interpretations of religion vary considerably, and also the
relations of Islamic religion and sporting activities reveal some heterogeneous
patterns: (1) religion as a ritual and provider of strength, (2) sport as a constraint
on religious practices and (3) religious practices as a constraint on sport. These
patterns are elaborated in what follows.
Religion as a source of strength in training and competition
The religious youths involved in competitive sporting activities were only boys in
our sample. They often reported they gain strength and self-confidence from reli-
gion in order to pursue sporting activities and to prevail in competitions. Ahmed,
an aspiring athlete in taekwondo, prays regularly before competitions and high-
lights Islam as a provider of strength and power.
AHMED: I believe in myself and the religion and know what good things come
from prayer or when you say, yes God, give me strength now and give me the
support, I’ve worked so long, now give me your support. That gives you a
sense of security, you’re, how shall I say, you have this strength behind you.
While similar associations are mentioned by many of the boys who practice
competitive sport, they are only sporadically addressed by some girls. However,
among girls, the topic of religion as a provider of strength is sometimes related to
situations outside sport, for instance, educational success and social support, as
in Merve’s case.
MERVE: In the first years when I prayed regularly, everything went well. I started
to change, got more friends. My grades got better, I only had top scores. And
when you’re really into something, you also get a lot of friends. I was very
happy in that time.
To sum up, many of the interviewees attest that religion serves as a source of
strength and provides orientation and footing in life. Particularly among the boys,
this function of religion is directly and frequently experienced in the context of
training and competition in sport. Among the girls, this topic is less frequently
made a subject of discussion and, if at all, is then related to situations outside
sport.
Sport limits the practice of religion

The idea that sport is a limiting factor for the practice of Islam is sometimes pres-
ent in the interview material and in line with what Testa documented in Chapter 2
of this book. The competitive activities lead to (unavoidable) compromises in the
practice of religion. When the interviewer asks whether sport involvement limits
the practice of religion, James states,
Yes, I would say my sport limits my religion to some extent, because I say
hey, I’m not in the mood, no time, no energy to deal with that now; maybe it
would be different if I wouldn’t do competitive sport. Maybe I would grab a
bible and just read some stuff and think about it. But when I come home at
night, I have zero interest in that and someone who grows up differently, with
the Quran, Bible or Torah, or what’s it called?
Religion as a restriction in the pursuit of sport
Especially fasting is viewed among the interviewed youths as constraining for
their sport, even if differing viewpoints and experiences become apparent. Some
admit to feeling better and mentally stronger when they persevere in fasting.
Hence, fasting fosters their belief in their inner strength and determination, which
may also turn out as an important feature of success in sport. Ahmed is the prime
example for this standpoint.
AHMED: Since I was 11, I’ve always fasted. And in part I had training twice a day.
I had such a dry mouth and always tried to direct my thoughts elsewhere,
back and forth, and, and, and. But that also did me good. I felt clean, fresh,
and a reason for fasting is to cleanse the body.
However, other interviewees perceive a conflict, for instance, between fasting

and sporting performance and thus recommend one shouldn’t do things halfway
and choose either sport or religion. Generally, most Muslims engaged in competi-
tive sport make compromises in agreement with their parents and trainers: Fasting
periods are shortened, mosque visits and Quran study are postponed or training
hours are changed.
Dress codes were addressed by many Muslim girls and women involved in
sport. Only a few boys address the subject on their own. Diego and Arda, two
football players, perceive Muslim girls to be more constrained in sport than boys
due to religious norms and laws.
ARDA: I wouldn’t say sport is inconvenient, but it can be an obstacle, because in

our religion women should actually cover themselves. And sport is in fact
more revealing. Now, in the Turkish athlete’s club, we have those with mini
shorts, women running around with tight clothes. It’s not so dramatic that we
say no, girls can’t do that, but maybe the girls don’t feel so comfortable doing
their thing.
Concerning the sport activity of girls, it tends to be less of an issue of dress codes
which prevents Muslim girls from participating but rather the social context and
organizational framework, such as mixed-gender classes or the lack of women’s
locker rooms. The girls from the mosque club also argue that it’s due to the gender
separation realized in their sport group, which only permits the exercise of combat
sport in harmony with their parents’ wishes. Büsra, a 16-year-old Muslima, is prac-
tising boxing in a sport club with mostly male members. She also admits that this
situation is regarded as inappropriate by her parents and her relatives. On the one
hand, she keeps training in this club against the will of their parents; on the other,
however, she argues that more girls and women would possibly join the boxing
club if the club would provide special training facilities for women only.
BÜSRA: We have a 90 percent share, or even more, of boys and men in the club. If
those were only women, more women would come. Some of my friends even
say that. We don’t have a proper women’s locker room. We actually have one,
but it’s almost never used, because we’re so few and almost all live close-by.
Despite the over-representation of males in her club, Büsra never questions her
own pursuit of boxing. Although she is sure that no one in her family really sup-
ports her boxing, she is very self-confident, as if her parents had no say, which
is astounding considering her young age. This behaviour is typical for puberty
but rather untypical for Turkish girls, who normally try to avoid conflict with
their parents and rarely attempt to rebel against the will of their parents (Boos-
Nünning & Karakaşoğlu 2005).
The changing significance of religion in adolescence

Furthermore, many female interviewees also point out that their relation to sport
significantly changed from childhood to adolescence. During childhood, parents
tolerated or even actively encouraged sporting activities; however, at a later age,
Islamic norms are perceived as more binding and obligatory. Hence, particularly
in early adolescence, many girls felt social pressure to quit sporting activities or,
at least, to change to those types of sport that were considered more appropriate.
Fatima, who never in her life actively participated in a sport club, explains in the
interview that already in her childhood, she was told that her wish to pursue sport-
ing and dancing activities would only be accepted in her family until a certain age.
FATIMA: As a child, I really wanted to dance. I thought, at least while I’m younger,
I can dance and let loose . . . in such a dancing group or something. But I was
aware that I would not be able to do so later. This dancing thing . . . it didn’t
fit so well to us. My father didn’t want it, because he said – I was still younger
then – he said: ‘Yes you have to decide, you can dance when you’re twelve
but with sixteen you have to stop’. I guess you just have to make quite a few
sacrifices when you have a particular faith.
Melek and Dilara, two former football players in an all-girls team, are another
example for the age-related relevance of religion. As a child, Melek already
showed an interest in sport in primary school, and her parents had nothing against
her playing football at the local club. “However, when she became 15, she was pre-
vented by her father to intensify her sport involvement and to play in another club
of a higher league”. This demonstrates that the parents tolerate the sport engage-
ment only up to a certain point but do not support a performance-orientated sport
career. Melek has accepted this. Her demonstrated self-perception as a rebel (she
compares herself to the main character in Bend It Like Beckham) does not fit
to her actions, which take place within the scope defined by her parents. After
a pilgrimage to Mecca, Melek has quit football and devoted herself completely
to her religion. Dilara was also a highly aspiring football player in her youth
but from the very beginning had to overcome her parents’ concerns against her
sport involvement. After her marriage at a rather early age, she quit football, too.
According to her, housework and family obligations leave no time for football or
other sporting activities. Dilara’s story perfectly illustrates the tight intermingling
of religious beliefs and cultural values, in her case, gender role expectations.
All in all, the interviews illustrate that the Islamic religion is hardly seen as
a restraint for sport by the boys, whereas the girls implicitly or explicitly admit
that some religious norms conflict with the pursuit of sport and thus pressure the
girls to decide either to comply with the perceived religious duties and the social
expectation of their family or – against perceived obstacles – to stand by their

sport and maintain their sporting ambitions.
Conclusion
There are hardly any indications from the interviews with Muslim boys, like
Ahmed and Diego, that sporting activity in the club is made more difficult by
religious norms and practices. One exception, perhaps, is fasting during Ramadan,
which can, among other things, lead to a decline in performance. The boys chose
to do this voluntarily, though. Even when the practice of their religion (i.e. regular
prayer, mosque visits, fasting) was limited by regular training and participation
in matches, this usually occurred with the consent of the parents. The boys inter-
viewed primarily spoke of predominantly positive effects, such as that faith leads
to strength and self-confidence, which helps them attain good (competitive) sport
results. However, the practice of Islam can prevent girls from gathering sport expe-
rience outside obligatory school sport, as demonstrated in many examples. Access
to sport clubs was never actively sought by many of the female interviewees –
sometimes, as in Fatima’s case, because it was anticipated that sport could not be
reconciled after a certain age with (perceived) religious obligations.
The interviews also show that sport involvement among devout Muslims was
not always prevented or stopped because of faith or religious practice. Even the
very religious girls could pursue sport inside a secured space, such as under cer-
tain social and organizational conditions (gender separation, female trainers, pri-
vate showers etc.) that are seldom fulfilled in German sport clubs. In our own
research, we found, for instance, that a large share of Turkish girls is involved
in extra-curricular sports activities offered in schools (Mutz & Burrmann 2009;
Mutz 2012). Compared to club-organized sport, these school-organised activities
are usually free of charge, they are not performance oriented, are usually run by
teachers with whom parents as well as pupils are familiar with and take place in the
afternoon and not evening hours. These contextual factors may be crucial in regard
to the participation of Muslim girls. Hence, the inclusion of female migrants and
particularly Muslim girls and women into sport highly depends on the social and
organizational context. In terms of intercultural sensitivity and awareness, German
sport clubs are just at the beginning to change their organizational culture.
What comes up short in the present sample is the question of participation of
very religious Muslim girls in competitive-oriented club sport. Here we must point
out the limitations of this study. It was extremely difficult to find any young female
club athletes with Muslim confession and then to convince them to participate in
the interview. These difficulties in the sample selection can also be interpreted as
a confirmation of quantitative findings presented earlier in this chapter: If Muslim
girls are inclined to leave the sport club upon reaching puberty, there are only a
few Muslim female athletes left to interview. Additionally, it has to be noted that
the reconstruction of religious orientations and respective habitual dispositions
is not simple, especially since religious Muslims quickly feel an urge to defend
or at least justify their religiousness in the presence of ‘non-believers’ (Zender
2015). Although our goal was to avoid any artificiality in the interview situation,
the constellation of dialogue partners and the emotionally highly charged topic of
religion made this task sometimes difficult.
Notes
1 www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/01/15/5-facts-about-the-muslim-population-in-
europe/.
2 This group includes all individuals who were either not born in Germany, whose mother
or father was not born in Germany, or who have foreign citizenship (Federal Statistical
Office 2014).
3 The following employment rates can be observed for the largest groups of origin (Haug
et al. 2009, p. 211): Muslim women from Turkey aged 16 to 64 are employed up to
43 percent, those from Southeastern European countries up to 35 percent and those from
the Middle East up to 23 percent. Among Muslim men, the employment rate is signifi-
cantly higher; for these countries of origin, it lies between 58 percent and 70 percent.
References
Barker, D, Barker-Ruchti, N, Gerber, M, Gerlach, E, Sattler, S & Pühse, U 2014, Youths
with migration backgrounds and their experiences of physical education: an examination
of three cases, Sport, Education and Society, vol. 19, pp. 186–203.
Bertelsmann Stiftung 2008, Religionsmonitor 2008, Verlag BertelsmannStiftung,
Gütersloh.
Boos-Nünning, U & Karakaşoğlu, Y 2003, Kinder und Jugendliche mit Migrationshinter-
grund und Sport. In Erster Deutscher Kinder- und Jugendsportbericht, eds W Schmidt,
I Hartmann-Tews & WD Brettschneider, Hofmann, Schorndorf, pp. 319–338.
Boos-Nünning, U & Karakaşoğlu, Y 2005, Viele Welten leben. Zur Lebenssituation von
Mädchen und jungen Frauen mit Migrationshintergrund, Waxmann, Münster.
Brettfeld, K & Wetzels, P 2007, Muslime in Deutschland, Universität Hamburg, Hamburg.
Breuer, C (ed) Sportentwicklungsbericht 2013/2014, Analyse zur Situation der Sportver-
eine in Deutschland. Köln: Sportverlag Strauß.
Bröskamp, B 1994, Körperliche Fremdheit. Zum Problem der interkulturellen Begegnung
im Sport, Academia, Sankt Augustin.
Burrmann, U, Mutz, M & Zender, U (eds) 2015, Jugend, Migration und Sport. Kulturelle
Unterschiede und die Sozialisation zum Vereinssport. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden.
Dagkas, S, Benn, T & Jawad, H 2011, Multiple voices: improving participation of Muslim
girls in physical education and school sport, Sport, Education and Society, vol. 16, pp.
223–239.
Dahl, D 2008, Zum Verständnis von Körper, Bewegung und Sport in Christentum, Islam
und Buddhismus, Logos, Berlin.
de Knop, P, Theeboom, M, Wittock, H & de Martelaer, K 1996, Implications of Islam
on Muslim girls’ sport participation in Western Europe, Sport, Education and Society,
vol. 1, pp. 147–164.
Elling, A & Knoppers, A 2005, Sport, gender and ethnicity. Practices of symbolic inclusion
and exclusion, Journal of Youth and Adolescence, vol. 34, pp. 257–268.
Farooq, S & Parker, A 2009, Sport, physical education, and Islam: Muslim independent
schooling and the social construction of masculinities, Sociology of Sport Journal,
vol. 26, pp. 277–295.
Federal Statistical Office 2014, Bevölkerung und Erwerbstätigkeit. Bevölkerung mit

Migrationshintergrund. Ergebnisse des Mikrozensus 2013, Statistisches Bundesamt,
Wiesbaden.
Hafez, K & Richter, C 2007, Das Islambild von ARD und ZDF, Aus Politik und Zeitge-
schichte, no. 26–27/2007, pp. 40–46.
Hassan, S & Schwendemann, W 2005, Sport und Islam – Ein paar Bemerkungen zu einer
ungewöhnlichen Verhältnisbestimmung, in Interkulturelle Erziehung im und durch
Sport, ed P Gieß-Stüber, LIT, Münster, pp. 7–15.
Haug, S, Müssig, S & Stichs, A 2009, Muslimisches Leben in Deutschland. Bundesamt für
Migration und Flüchtlinge, Nürnberg.
Kay, T 2006, Daughters of Islam: Family influence on Muslim young women’s participa-
tion in sport, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, vol. 41, pp. 357–373.
Kleindienst-Cachay, C 2007, Mädchen und Frauen mit Migrationshintergrund im organ-
isierten Sport, Schneider Verlag Hohengehren, Baltmannsweiler.
Kurth, BM & Schaffrath Rosario, A 2007, Die Verbreitung von Übergewicht und Adipositas bei
Kindern und Jugendlichen in Deutschland, Bundesgesundheitsblatt-Gesundheitsforschung-
Gesundheitsschutz, vol. 50, pp. 736–743.
Luckmann, T 1967, The Invisible Religion, Macmillan, New York.
Maxwell, H, Foley, C, Taylor, T & Burton, C 2014, Social inclusion in community sport:
a case study of Muslim women in Australia, Journal of Sport Management, vol. 27,
pp. 467–481.
Mutz, M 2009, Sportbegeisterte Jungen, sportabstinente Mädchen? Eine quantitative Anal-
yse der Sportvereinszugehörigkeit von Jungen und Mädchen mit ausländischer Herkunft,
Sport und Gesellschaft – Sport and Society, vol. 6, pp. 95–121.
Mutz, M 2012, Sport als Sprungbrett in die Gesellschaft? Sportengagements von Jugendli-
chen mit Migrationshintergrund und ihre Wirkung, Beltz Juventa, Weinheim.
Mutz, M 2015, Wie wirken sich Religion und Religiosität auf die Sportbeteiligung aus? in
Jugend, Migration und Sport eds U Burrmann, M Mutz & U Zender, VS Verlag, Wies-
baden, pp. 111–129.
Mutz, M & Burrmann, U 2009, Schulische Arbeitsgemeinschaften als Kontexte für Freizeit-
aktivitäten: Beteiligungschancen für sozial benachteiligte Jugendliche? Zeitschrift für
Soziologie der Erziehung und Sozialisation, vol. 29, pp. 174–196.
Mutz, M & Burrmann, U 2015, Zur Beteiligung junger Migrantinnen und Migranten am
Vereinssport, in Jugend, Migration und Sport eds U Burrmann, M Mutz & U Zender, VS
Verlag, Wiesbaden, pp. 69–90.
Pfister, G 2010, Outsiders: Muslim women and Olympic Games – barriers and opportuni-
ties, The International Journal of the History of Sport, vol. 27, pp. 2925–2957.
Rauschenbach, T & Bien, W (eds) 2012, Aufwachsen in Deutschland. AID: A – Der neue
Survey, Beltz Juventa, Weinheim.
Reinders, H 2003, Interethnische Freundschaften bei Jugendlichen 2002, Verlag Dr. Kovač,
Hamburg.
Seiberth, K, Weigelt-Schlesinger, Y & Schlesinger, T 2013, Wie integrationsfähig sind Sport-
vereine? Eine Analyse organisationaler Integrationsbarrieren am Beispiel von Mädchen
und Frauen mit Migrationshintergrund, Sport und Gesellschaft, vol. 10, pp. 174–198.
Spielhaus, R 2009, Media making Muslims: the construction of a Muslim community in
Germany through media debate, Contemporary Islam, vol. 4, pp. 11–27.
Strandbu, A 2005, Identity, embodied culture and physical exercise: stories from Muslim
girls in Oslo with immigrant backgrounds, Young, vol. 13, pp. 27–45.
Walseth, K & Strandbu, A 2014, Young Norwegian-Pakistani women and sport: How does
culture and religiosity matter? European Physical Education Review, published online
before print, doi: 10.1177/1356336X14534361.
Wippermann, C & Flaig, B 2009, Lebenswelten von Migrantinnen und Migranten, Aus
Politik und Zeitgeschichte, no. 5/2009, pp. 3–11.
Zender, U 2015, “Man muss einfach einiges opfern, wenn man einen bestimmten Glauben
hat.” Zum Einfluss von Religion und Religiosität auf das Sportengagement von Mädchen
mit türkischen Wurzeln, in Jugend, Migration und Sport eds U Burrmann, M Mutz &
U Zender, VS Verlag, Wiesbaden, pp. 291–311.
4 Being and becoming tomboys
Muslim women, gender identities
and sport
Sumaya Farooq Samie
Introduction
Scholarship on women’s enactment of gender has increased understanding of
the ‘normative female’ (read: white, straight and middle class) and her ingenuity
to perform, display and re/invent multiple manifestations of her gendered self
(Bucholtz, 1999, p. 16). Discussions about Muslim women’s gendered perfor-
mances, however, are frequently animated around a monolithic notion of ‘Their’
stoic compliance to and performance of femininities that are only informed by
paternal, cultural and religious expectations (Siraj, 2012). Typically, this results
in talk of Muslim women’s gendered performance being confined to domestic
and parental duty, traditionalist discourses of motherhood and/or a preservation
of ‘self’ that rests on being modest, chaste and/or passively heterosexual. Over
time, this traditionalist focus has impacted knowledge of Muslim females in two
ways. First, it has dichotomized thinking pertaining to Muslim women’s gendered
identities in ways that imply that ‘They’ either retreat into positions of helpless-
ness and subservience brought about from traditional life-scripts and burdens of
expectations from within their own cultural and religious communities (Anth-
ias and Yuval, 1992) or seek ways to dissociate themselves (‘break away’) from
such expectations to embody more ‘Western’ ideas about being feminine (Pfister,
2000). Second, it has strengthened claims about migrant Muslim girl/womanhood
as somehow only ever being intricately tied up with women’s in/ability to un/
successfully cope with and maneuver gendered demands from within their own
ethnic and religious groups. The ways in which such women’s gendered identities
may evolve out of alternative discourses (such as fashion, popular culture etc.)
remains under-researched (c.f. Samie, 2014).
This qualitative research explores the construction and expression of tomboy-
ism among a cohort of Muslim women who live in diaspora communities across
the United Kingdom. Focusing on the racialized and situational politics of being
and becoming a migrant Muslim tomboy, the chapter recovers knowledge about
Muslim females’ ingenuity to forge and perform alternate gendered identities.
Such a focus helps move thinking about the gendered identity work of racial-
ized and religionized female subjects in a direction where analytically unhelpful
dichotomies, which have too often obscured information about alternative forms
Being and becoming tomboys 51
of gendered identities being forged, can be replaced with an empirical and theo-
retical focus that is attentive to the situational and socially complex nature of
migrant Muslim women’s identity work. While the discussion draws attention to
the women’s engagement in sport, the chapter is not about sport per se, but about
the lived experiences of becoming and being sporting tomboys.
Understanding tomboyism
Where tomboy gendered identities were once shunned as ‘wild’ (boisterous) and
deviant (disobedient, out-of-control, rebellious) forms of feminine identity (Hall,
2008), there is evidence of them being celebrated as modern (Yamaguchi and Bar-
ber, 2011) fashionable and cool (Skerski, 2011). Increasingly, tomboy personas are
being accepted as natural, healthy and empowering forms of selfhood for girls and
women (Abate, 2011; Ahlqvist et al., 2012). For instance, Peachter and Clark (2007,
pp. 343–351) found that tomboy girls were increasingly respected for being ‘hard’
(read: tough, strong, competent and capable), and vocal and assertive (read: able to
defend themselves both verbally and physically by shouting or swearing at and/or
pushing their aggressors). In fact, with greater attention being devoted to the mul-
tifaceted and situational nature of tomboy identities, there is also talk of the label
‘tomboy’ being adopted to define a woman’s sense of personality (read: her charac-
ter, nature, disposition, temperament and persona) and explain her choice of cultural
activities without necessarily being related to her gendered or sexual identity or her
dismissal of femininity (Bailey et al., 2002; Craig and LaCroix, 2011; Peachter and
Clark, 2007). Some of the more contemporary research alludes to this, highlight-
ing how tomboy identities are manufactured for their functional merit in shielding
individual girls and women from the negative aspects of patriarchal culture and the
lesbian stigma while according them greater (and protected) access to traditionally
‘male-only’ cultural spaces (Craig and LaCroix, 2011, p. 451).
Physical activities and ‘masculine’ sport in particular comprise cultural spaces
that have long been associated with the construction and performance of ‘tom-
boyism’ (Harris, 2005; Mennesson, 2000; Obel, 1996). Some researchers have
reasoned that this is because masculine sports, especially activities like football/
soccer, bodybuilding, boxing, basketball and rugby, require players to be physically
assertive, aggressive and boisterous: qualities that are all seen to be at odds with
performing hegemonic versions of femininity (Mennesson and Clement, 2003).
Much of the empirical evidence on tomboys, however, has been drawn from con-
versations with white European and American Caucasian women. Despite some
scholarly interest in the intersection of race and ethnicity in tomboy constructions
(c.f., Lale-Steele, 2011; Whitam & Mathy, 1991), there are only a handful of stud-
ies that allude to migrant Muslim females’ perception of tomboyism.
Migrant Muslim girls and tomboyism

Scholarship on migrant Muslim girls’ perception of tomboyism is limited, but
when attention has been devoted to this topic, information has often been gleaned
52 Sumaya Farooq Samie
from conversations between researchers and adolescent Muslim girls who have
comprised a fraction of the overall research sample. In Reay’s (2001, pp. 160)
research, for instance, a 7-year-old Bengali Muslim school girl (Shamina) is said
to describe ‘tomboys’ as being ‘naughty’ and ‘bad’ when compared to ‘girlies’ like
herself (read: girls who perfectly encapsulated conventional femininity with all its
limitations and constraints) and ‘nice girls’ (read: ‘hard-working, well-behaved’
girls who were criticized for being boring and lacking toughness and attitude).
Paechter and Clark (2007, p. 352) found that two adolescent Muslim female foot-
ballers – Lindsey and Nilay – implies that the girls, who are ‘comfortable with
the idea of being tomboys’ but come from restricted environments in which their
‘movements about the neighborhood’ are constrained, admire and yearn for mas-
culine physicality to empower themselves. In the study, both girls are depicted
as articulating a desire to be boys, arguing that it would not only accord them
a greater freedom of movement but also make them physically stronger so they
could defend themselves in troublesome situations with ‘big men’ who could, in
Lindsey’s opinion, ‘do anything’ to hurt girls. Although contemporary research
has associated, indeed praised, such a tomboy persona for empowering women,
Peachter and Clark attribute this desire to the girls’ “conservative Muslim”
upbringing, stating that it stems from the fact that “women are (often) restricted”
in these circumstances. Finally, in Siraj’s (2012) study of Muslim female gen-
dered identity construction, Ishrat, a Pakistani mother, is depicted as disliking her
daughters unfeminine and ‘tomboy’ mannerisms. Specifically, Ishrat is quoted
talking about deterring her daughter from acting like a boy by requesting that she
“walk without thumping her feet”, “sit upright” and “not leave open the top but-
ton of her shirt”. Siraj (2012, p. 193) attributes Ishrat’s regulation of her daughter
to her unrelenting acceptance of women’s roles as “recipients of cultural, familial
and religious messages about appropriate feminine behavior”. Whilst there is evi-
dence that lends supports to this claim (see Anthias & Yuval-Davis, 1992; Dwyer,
2000; Werbner, 2005), there is no (further) evidence in the paper to suggest that
Ishrat’s preference for her daughter to be ‘feminine’ stems from a specific cul-
tural or religious affiliation. That Siraj only chooses to understand Ishrat’s reason-
ing through a specific ethnic and religious framework is problematic, because it
implies that being a tomboy is somehow at odds with being a ‘Muslim female’
and portrays unmarried Muslim girls as lacking any active agency to challenge
parental expectations about gendered behavior.
That being said, although Muslim women’s nonstoic gendered performances
and identities have rarely been discussed in the academic literature, their stylized
presentation of self is gaining some recognition across diverse (social) media plat-
forms. From the #Mipsterz and the ‘Somewhere in America’ video, which depicts
hipster-wearing, high-heeled skater Muslim girls (Ahmed, 2014), to the photo-
graphic exhibition of Marrakesh’s only girl motorbike gang, infamously known
for donning polka-dotted veils, Nike djellabah and heart-shaped sunglasses (Haj-
jaj, 2014) and the abaya-denouncing ‘buyas’ (aka boy-girls/tomboys) of Saudi
Arabia who have multiple piercings, wear men’s perfume and accessorize with
heavy, decorated chains and make-up (Le-Renard, 2013), Muslim women’s
protest against dominant forms of femininity is happening. In this chapter, I dis-
cuss Muslim women’s presentation of tomboyism, taking into account the politics
of being and becoming tomboys and the use of sport in this process.
Methodology
Gendering performances are said to be “discursive formations, constituted within
particular social, cultural and economic relations” (Dwyer, 2000, p. 476) and con-
tingent upon “multiple determinations” (Brah, 1993, p. 443). This is exemplified
quite well by von der Lippe, who in Chapter 6 of this book, focuses on notions
of masculinities in the Gaza strip male footballers, coaches and managers in nine
football clubs in Khan Younis and Gaza City.
These multiple discursive formations of gender likely evolve as women situate
themselves and are situated by others vis-à-vis dominant gendering discourses.
Indeed, it is the complexity by which Muslim women may re/negotiate and re/
construct their gendered selves while concomitantly also dealing with multiple
hierarchies of dominance and subordination that make them an important site and
‘resource’ for analyzing the emergence and formation of tomboy identities in this
research (Brah and Phoenix, 2004, p. 79). This qualitative research consulted
30 British-born (second- and third-generation) Muslim women from diverse cul-
tural communities across the UK between 2007 and 2014. All women defined
themselves as either ‘British’ or ‘British Muslim’. Ten of these women were aged
21 to 27 and had family roots in either rural communities or the more affluent
cities of; nine had grand/parents who had grown up in Peshawar, Pakistan; six
were Yemeni Arab; and five women, aged 22 to 24, had parents who were born
in Bangladesh. At the time of the research, all participants were actively engaged
in some kind of physical activity (e.g., basketball, football [soccer], taekwondo,
cricket and crossfit) although participation in sport or physical activity was not a
criterion for sample selection in this research. All were outspoken, articulate and
defiant women who favored ‘individual choice’ and personal freedom.
Two 90-minute qualitative interviews were conducted with participants between
June 2007 and July 2014. A flexible (albeit semistructured) interviewing style
was adopted whereby the focus was on ‘dialogue and conversations’ as well as
stories about lived experiences so as to give participants “ample opportunities
to speak about and for themselves” (Samie, 2013). In terms of understanding
tomboy identities, I adopted a relational approach whereby I collected qualitative
‘knowledge’ that was contextual, interpersonal and attentive toward women’s
multiple subject positions and individual realities. This allowed me to better
grapple with the degree to which tomboy personas (behavioral expressions and
actions) evolved out of, through and perhaps in opposition to wider social, cul-
tural and other expectations, as well as from internal politics of difference rooted
in women’s sensibilities and personal aspirations. Participant observations were
conducted when women were either socializing, at home hosting families and
friends and/or when they were playing sport together. Emphasis was placed
on making sense of the daily politics of self-identifying as and being tomboys
(e.g., how they talked, behaved and interacted). This personalized and dialogic
approach constituted 100 hours of in-depth looking, listening, note-taking and
critically analyzing a/typical events and behaviors to capture the wholeness of
women’s lives as tomboys and gain a more intimate sense of what it was like to
be, live, act and dress as a tomboy Muslimah.
Data analysis was a synthetic and iterative process in which I oscillated between
data (re)production and (re)comprehension so as to “think with” emerging data
(Hammersley and Atkinson, 1995, p. 210) while “(re)-constructing observed and

spoken data into a meaningful language for the reader” (Samie, 2013). The empir-
ical discussion that follows offers a snapshot of the lived experiences and the
racialized politics of becoming and being a tomboy of migrant Muslim female
positioning during different phases of my participants’ lives (childhood, adoles-
cence and adult life). This organization, however, should not be viewed as an
attempt to categorize experiences relating to the construction and enactment of
my participants’ tomboy identities according to age. Rather, it is a way to demon-
strate the dominant experiences that my participants had in regards to forging and
engendering their own versions and meanings of tomboy selfhoods.
Becoming and being a tomboy: Muslim women’s

lived experiences
For this paper, identities are understood as “constructions” that are “continually pro-
duced and reproduced” by political subjects (read: sites of resistance and political
agency; Bhambra & Margree, 2010, pp. 59–60; Mohanty, 2000). Hence, when ana-
lyzed, identities can reveal something about the way in which political actors under-
stand, interpret and explain the social world and its constitutive relations of power
(ibid., 62). In this chapter, insight into participants’ ‘interpretation/s’ of the world
and its impact on women’s identity work is gleaned through a focus on becoming
and being a Muslim female tomboy. Traditionally, the term ‘becoming’ has been
used to illuminate identities that are evolving (or changing). However, I use it to
denote the process/es by and through which participants construct and embrace the
physical, social, cultural and political manifestations and expressions of self and
character. Such a definition allows me to move beyond reductionist definitions of
‘being’ as a static or finished identity project. Instead, because I view identities as
constantly changing, the term ‘being’ refers to those sociocultural manifestations
that were engendered and performed by my participants both during my research
and at various points in their lives but that could change in time (e.g., in the future).
Strong and athletic women

In keeping with traditional scholarship on tomboy personas, a number of partici-
pants reduced their tomboy expressions to avoiding feminine activities, rejecting
the color pink (McHale et al., 2004) and playing with boyish toys, wearing pants
and/or generally acting like or expressing a desire to be a boy. This was par-
ticularly true for Javeriah, whose ‘tomboy journey’ began at the age of 9 when
she started to physically imitate older boys she knew. Javeriah had grown up in
a ‘free-spirited family’. Her mother, a former hockey and badminton player in
Pakistan, encouraged her to try new things and follow her sense of curiosity. As a
consequence, Javeriah rode bikes, specifically a ‘black and red BMX bike’ instead
of the ‘pink one with streamers and stabilizers’. She experimented with roller
skates and skateboards and invented the game ‘stunting’ whereby friends would
compete with each other by performing physically challenging tasks (or ‘stunts’)
set by the opponents instead of ‘flimsy hop scotch and hula hoops’. With her
pocket money, she purchased toy cars and books on how to invent things instead
of tea sets, costumes and dolls. When other girls sat on the swings, she rode them
on her stomach, trying to perform acrobatic flips while the swing was in motion.
By age 11, she had had her hair cut short, played games with local boys in her
school and insisted people call her ‘Jav’ (a popular abbreviation for the male name
‘Javed’). When asked if this performance was underpinned by a desire to be/come
a boy, Jav paused to reflect a while before shaking her head and stating that it
was a way to simply ‘have fun’: ‘Honestly speaking, I was 9 and at times I sulked
about the fact that boys could do stuff I couldn’t, but deep down I . . . was a little
girl who wanted to just have some fun’.
I wanted to know if, for Jav, ‘fun’ was derived from actually impersonating
boys or from doing the things that local boys did. Previous research on migrant
Muslim women and tomboys did not allude to this specifically but did attribute
Muslim girls’ desire to emulate boys and/or embrace masculine behavior as a
deliberate attempt to accrue physical strength, power and freedom (because of
living in restricted and controlled Islamic households; Peachter and Clark, 2007).
Meanwhile, scholarship on non-Muslim tomboys intellectualized this behavior
as a rebellious rejection of femininity and a glorification of masculinity (Francis,
2010). My discussions with Jav revealed that none of these analyses applied. For
her, imitating boys was both fun and functional, because it allowed her to both
develop and unleash her boisterous personality and frantic energy and accorded
her privileged entry to pursue activities (in many spaces where) she had grown
up noticing the absence of girls. This included the ‘dangerous spots’ in the play-
ground, park and school (e.g., monkey bars, climbing frame) and passage to a
range of ‘boyish’ sports and thrill-seeking. adventurous games. While her ado-
lescent enactment of what she called ‘typically tomboyish’ behavior served as a
conduit between one space and an/Other (read: places where boys hung out and
engaged in pursuits that Jav desired), in later life, it defined her choice of activities
and demeanor. As she grew older, she actively sought out opportunities to play
sport. Adolescent Jav dominated sports, playing netball, hockey and handball at
school (the only sports offered to girls at her school). She served as captain and
vice captain for sports day and enjoyed basketball, racing and cricket outside
school. Reflecting on her childhood penchant for boyish activities, Jav reasoned
that becoming a tomboy was, in fact, never about rejecting femininity (read:
‘unbecoming a girl’) or glorifying masculinity but simply about being like ‘strong
people’ (both men and women alike), whom she admired. Sport and physically
active pursuits extended her a physical and cultural space within which she could
nurture this strong character and ‘satisfy’ her hunger for adventure and energy.
It also legitimized her persona, since it was among the few places where she
could be tough/er and (more) competitive, agile and athletic without apologizing
for possessing these traits. According to Craig and LaCroix (2011), the tomboy
identity temporarily excuses masculine-typed behavior in girls and women and, in
doing so, protects women from presumptions about sexual reputation and sexual
orientation. Perhaps this is why Jav was able to dabble freely in masculine sport,
which legitimizes the display of physicality and movement, and has traditionally
been associated with proliferating the tomboy phenomenon.
Laiyba (21) explained how she adopted the tomboy label once people defined
her to be ‘athletic’. At first, Laiyba reasoned that this was a conscious decision
to ensure that her behavior was more ‘in line’ with what others expected from
‘sporty people’: ‘Where I grew up, girls were girls and boys were mostly boys . . .
but if you were the kind of girl that did boy things, you were a tomboy’.
To bolster this identity, Laiyba wore caps, track suits, baggy T-shirts, hoodies
and trainers on a daily basis. She even commented on how she preferred ‘men’s
sizes’ because they were not ‘crotch-clutching’ like women’s tracksuit bottoms.
She never refused to play sport and dabbled in aggressive sports like rugby, foot-
ball, boxing and martial arts even if she did not care much for the activity itself.
I recall how she strolled around freely with a swagger in her step: if per chance
others tried to emulate this behavior, she would hoot with laughter, clicking her
fingers and wolf whistling. She had a lot of male friends and recalled how in
class, she would pull her hoodie over her head, defy the teachers’ orders in search
and generally look for ways to infringe on school rules and receive detention. In
many ways, I came to learn how Laiyba’s behavior allowed her to claim autono-
mous agency and power over her ‘self’. Defying sociocultural norms and those
in positions of authority extended Laiyba the privilege to decide upon her own
lifestyle. Also implicit in her response was not only the awareness and existence
of tomboys in her community but also the dominance and uncritical acceptance
of social constructionist discourses pertaining to masculinity and maleness being
separate from and opposite to femininity and femaleness. So pervasive were these
beliefs throughout Laiyba’s adolescence that girls who transgressed the masculinity-
femininity nexus were automatically situated as ‘tomboys’, even if this was not
how they identified themselves. Though it is beyond the remit of this chapter to
explore in detail local attitudes and perceptions of tomboys, Laiyba’s admission
to adopting the tomboy label, so as to not puzzle a majority gaze acclimatized to
gender differences being natural as opposed to being socioculturally constructed
elements of one’s lived experiences, is very telling. It indicates that girl’s curiosity
to explore beyond the local (indeed universal) limits of femininity must also be
within bounded ways of being ‘alternative’. It is not (good/acceptable) enough for
Laiyba to have simply been a girl who enjoyed sport, nor was it enough that she
was an athletic female. She had to self-identify as a tomboy and adapt her persona
vis-à-vis bounded (or reductionist) ways of conceptualizing physical competence
in women so as to appease others. Hence, despite identity being an evolving inter-
personal, psychic and bodily experience, for Laiyba, her tomboy identity is both
like a costume she wears and an act she performs. Its existence rests on Laiyba
internalizing fixed knowledge (and alleged truths) of ‘who’ she is based on her
choice of activities, as well as the activities she was good at.
In other cases, it was unclear whether women believed girls accrued a strong
image from being tomboys or from engaging in rough sports. Over time, I came to
realize it was both, because although playing sport was not identified as a prereq-
uisite for becoming or being a tomboy, for many of my participants, it bolstered
their image as ‘hard’ girls. Talking about her teenage experiences, for instance,
Humaira stated that she was well-liked at school (frequently regarded as a ‘nice
girl’) but wanted to assume positions of authority and responsibility (e.g., house/
form captain and school prefect). She became a tomboy after realizing that a
‘nice’ image would thwart her abilities to effectively perform in these leadership
positions since, in her experience, ‘. . . really nice girl(s) were the timid ones who
spoke just above a whisper and smiled if people asked her anything . . . whereas
being a tomboy meant becoming bad ass’.
The transition to tomboy did not occur overnight, nor was it a straightforward
process in which Humaira simply moved from ‘nice girl’ to ‘tomboy’. Taking up
a tomboy image meant, first, questioning the basis upon which her former identity
was animated and began with Humaira taking aim at a set of gendering discourses
that revered kindness and gentility in women as ‘nice’ and concomitantly associ-
ated this form of (physical and emotional) passivity in females as ‘good’. For
Humaira, this was a bad thing, because it meant women were rewarded from
being passive. Against this backdrop, the term ‘bad ass’ was not a pejorative label
depicting ‘bad’ women but an emancipatory and empowering term to depict a
tough, independent and assertive feminine attitude. It also meant taking up rough
sport so as to allow her to build a strong character. Rough sport allowed Humaira
to experience physical prowess as opposed to focusing on technique, presentation
and appearance, which many scholars have argued is what female activities are
about (Cockburn and Clarke, 2002). Salwar and Fatima, both Yemeni and former
‘girly girls’, could identify with Humaria’s narrative, indicating that they too took
up sports after becoming tomboys so as to ‘be taken more seriously’ (Fatima).
For Fatima, this was important, as she was troubled by how hyper-feminine per-
formances of ‘girly girls’ reduced women to ‘silly bimbos’. As with my previous
research on Muslim women’s self/bodywork, the term ‘bimbo’ was a derogatory
label for women who, by enacting an idealized ‘super-girly’ feminine identity,
were deemed to be “silly, naïve (and) childish” (Samie, 2013, p. 265). To Fatima,
it was a symbol of women’s weakness: ‘People thought I was ditzy and stupid . . .
no one ever took me seriously even if I was popular’.
In previous research with Caucasian girls, hyperfeminine motifs of ‘girly girl’
femininity were trivialized and associated with ‘bimbo’ and ‘ditzy’ as a way for
intelligent girls to deflect or mediate their cleverness so as to remain popular
(Francis, 2010), yet here, Fatima expressed a desire to move away from being
seeing this way. Toughening her image was specifically animated around not pas-
sively complying and was compounded by adopting a tomboy identity, taking
up sport and creating opportunities for other women to take up sport, especially
self-defense and boxing. Fatima designed posters for this event, inviting women
to ‘Fight like a Man’ and ‘Kick his Ass’, suggesting that her classes would teach
women to defend themselves against physical (male) aggressors. For Fatima, the
latter move was about carving women into conventionally masculine territories
and structures and inadvertently also challenging the parochial and conservative
politics of space that labeled male spaces as taboo for women. Although this was
an important step toward challenging the cultural continuity that limited women’s
entry into certain spaces, it was also animated around an uncritical acceptance
of traditional discourses in which (a) rebelliousness, defiance and bravery were
somehow all constructed as typically ‘masculine’ (see Francis, 2010) and (b) girls
were depicted as needing protecting, and masculine toughness was regarded as
offering the route or source for (female) protection. Meaning as much as women
tried to move beyond some gendered and gendering discourses, they inevitably
reconstructed their new identities around others.
On being rebels: feminism and sport

Tomboy personas have frequently been depicted as rebellious and deviant iden-
tities that are compounded by a rejection of femininity and a glorification of
masculinity (Sandberg and Meyer-Bahlburg, 1994; Scraton et al., 1999). In psy-
choanalytical studies, tomboyism has been characterized as ‘gender bouncing’
or depicted as a ‘developmental anomaly’ (Harris, 2000; Sanchez and Crocker,
2005), fuelling concern about tomboy personas being unnatural or atypical for
females and accentuating the stigma that tomboy females are peculiar, lesbians,
transsexuals and/or androgynous women (Peachter and Clark, 2007). As adult
women, my participants were aware of these perceptions and vehemently rejected
the idea of being boys or androgynous females. Instead, they used terms like
‘confident women’, ‘leaders not followers’, ‘ahead of the game’ and ‘talented’ to
describe themselves. Talking about what inspired them to become tomboys, all
alluded to the struggle to accept the set of patriarchal and sexist interpretations in
which males were automatically privileged as relationally superior to women. A
disgruntled Hafsa lamented, ‘I didn’t get how boys got to be labeled courageous
or strong even when they weren’t . . . whereas girls had to earn those kind of titles’.
Mehreen and Maliyah, both British Yemenis, were angry that boys were
ascribed active, physical and “domineering personalities” (Mehreen) compared
to girls who were both depicted and encouraged to develop “more compassion-
ate, nurturing traits” (Maliyah). Interestingly, though, while women understood
the root of their contention, all confessed not knowing how to communicate this
concern to others in their maternal language. Abiyah’s narrative was particularly
enlightening. We met on a rainy Sunday after she had finished playing a foot-
ball match. Huddled beneath an umbrella on the sidelines of a muddy football
pitch, Abiyah, a confident, assertive and outspoken 24-year-old tomboy, was short
and stocky with broad shoulders and muscly legs. Her face was red, and beads
of heavy sweat dripped off her brow as we began talking. Her disfigured pony-
tail hung loosely to one side. As an adult, Abiyah defined herself to be an avid
feminist, who was “inquisitive and curious”. She raised “questions” and partici-
pated in “stimulating debates” about taken-for-granted aspects of life and one’s
gender roles in it, as opposed to “calmly accepting (ones) circumstances”. During
her childhood, she was angered by the favoritism shown to boys both within and
beyond her own Pakistani Muslim community (Haw, 1998; Hutnick et al., 2010)
but stutter and mumble comments such as “I’m a different type of girl” or “I’m
a rebel” to members within her own community and family because she did not
know how else to explain the root of her ‘tomboy’ and feminist inklings. ‘I was a
tomboy . . . and a strong feminist . . . but I just didn’t have the cultural repertoire
to explain this . . . I said I was a rebel instead but look back now and cringe’.
To accept Abiyah’s self-positioning as a ‘different girl’ would be a “fallacy of
social constructionist readings of gender” (Francis, 2010, p. 483), but it did reveal
her desire to perform gender in nonreductionist ways. Sport became her ‘go-to’
space because it confirmed her identity as a rebel. People would comment about
her “messy (and) sweaty appearance” jeering that her untidiness was “unladylike”
and “unattractive”. Cockburn and Clarke (2002) allude to this in their research,
stating that women’s sweaty, untidy appearance in sport is seen not only as a
deliberate violation of the expectations of femininity but as a female’s “public . . .
flaunting of (their) non-conformist behavior”. While other females would be upset
by this labeling, Abiyah accepted that not appearing ‘prim and proper’ was an
essential part to her feminist struggle against sociocultural and gendered conven-
tions. Actively working on her body by “pumping and toning” her muscles was an
active manipulation of the wider cultural codes about how to perform gender in
culturally acceptable ways. On many occasions, her ‘unladylike’ appearance and
the muscularity of her body were criticized for being too androgynous and ‘gay’.
Although engaging in sport exacerbated these concerns, Abiyah stated that it also
helped her ‘deal’ with these tensions because it immersed her into a cultural space
in which a competitive fighting spirit and perseverance were essential to winning.
The confidence she gleaned from playing sport and from knowing what she could
accomplish if she persevered gave her the fortitude to stand up for herself in life
(Halim et al., 2011). It was as if she was ‘competing’ for her life and her identity
as opposed to for an award. The fighting spirit also gave her the agentic capacity
to deflect and resist the image of females being the ‘weaker and less competent’
sex. In time, she states people understood and were not so quick to mislabel her
as ‘queer’.
For Hafsa, Maliyah and Mehreen, physically demanding sports like crossfit
and boxing were places women could demonstrate and perfect their strength by
pushing their physical bodies to extreme limits. Given the wealth of research
that alludes to the dominant position of men and masculinity in South Asian,
Middle Eastern and Islamic culture, it is tempting to intellectualize this rebellion
as a desire for restricted women to escape or ‘break away’ from their cloistered
and constrained positioning in their religious culture. Previous research on Mus-
lim girls’ gender identity and analyses of tomboyism has certainly made these
claims and is pertinent in Le-Renard’s (2013) analysis of Saudi Arabian tomboys
begrudging of the social, cultural and religious politics that subordinated women
by denying them the right to drive, to move freely and to (not) wear certain femi-
nine clothing (such as the abaya). However, speaking intimately to the women
allowed me to move beyond these superficial assumptions to realize that women
were not simply using their bodies to question and thwart a gendered status quo
in which females were shunned as the inferior sex. Rather, they were using the
female body as a ‘gift’ from God in their struggle for empowerment. Maliyah
stated, ‘In Islam we accept that men and women have different strengths, women
can bear the physical toil of childbirth but men aren’t designed to handle such
physical challenges . . . the female body is designed with sheer capabilities and
strength, not limitations’.
In accepting this reasoning, Maliyah embraced sport for its empowering ability
to further strengthen her body so that when the time arose, she could better per-
form tasks that set her apart from men (e.g., childbirth). For her, while using the
word ‘tomboy’ was convenient because people understood tomboys to be ‘athletic
women’, she also found it problematic. In part this was because it implied that
“girls were willingly impersonating boys” and thereby playing a part in stabiliz-
ing the persistent unequal gendered relations that hierarchically constructed ‘girls’
as the inferior and relational ‘Other’ to ‘boys’. Behaving as ‘Them’ would give
“men credit”, this was something she did not want to do since ‘they’ were so often
the reason why “women were in marginalized positions”. Certainly the women’s
use of sport as “physical work” to accrue strength and respect challenges previous
claims in which Muslim females are represented as only ever passively defending
their social status to be/seen as honorable in stoic ways (Begum, 2008).
Fad fashions and heterosexual appeal

Several of the women highlighted that while they wanted to be respected as
tough girls, they were mindful not to appear ‘too tough’. Indeed, some of the
women I allude to in earlier segments of the discussion would dress in masculine
sports gear all the time, and others made more of a conscious effort to be ‘trendy’
(Fatima). During my encounters with Fatima, for instance, she wore slouchy,
mid-rise, ripped or tassel-holed ‘boyfriend’ jeans, sneakers and double-layered
hooded jackets, whereas Salwar enjoyed layering camouflage camis underneath
short jackets and mainly wore capri pants and cropped combats with wedge-
heeled loafers or flat ankle booties. Both women accessorized their look with
feminine jewelry (e.g., four or five bangles on one wrist with a single bracelet or
watch on the other). Salwar’s nose was pierced, and she wore a small black stud
through it. Both sported black or dark painted nails, glossy cheeks and heavy eye
make-up. Neither wore a veil but experimented with different head coverings,
from braided berets, croquet beanies and sports caps to bandanas. Clearly both
women were invested in feminine aesthetics, sociability and the maintenance of
the heterosexual matrix (see Samie, 2013), trying to feminize and beautify the
tomboy image through the use of feminine accessories and make-up. The major-
ity of these tomboys played loud hip-hop music and were curious about sport but
did not invest copious amounts of time practicing sport (Saeed, 2014, talks more
about the use of hip-hop by Muslim women). Instead, they described themselves
to be spectators who would watch enthusiastically from the sidelines, shouting or
protesting with their own commentary. This connection to sport was an impor-
tant way the women could glean the social support from males as ‘cool’, without
compromising their immaculate appearance or putting themselves at risk of being
called ‘butch’ or manly women. Hence, these conscious and meticulously well-
thought-through acts of rebellion enabled women to both be like and unlike “spe-
cific sorts of women” (Skeggs, 1997, p. 98). On the one hand, their performances
of tomboyism “unapologetically re-defined tomboy identity . . . and its rebellious
spirit . . . as purely a matter of aesthetics” (Skerski, 2011, pp. 471–472), and on the
other, it was a novel enactment in/through which women like Fatima and Salwar
could deconstruct rigid constructions of tomboys as some kind of rebellious and
disobedient “gender benders” (Fatima). In this way, it was transforming the tom-
boy identity as a ‘gendered Other’ to an identity that was more familiar.
For Mareena and Haniah, two Afghani women, this identity politics was about
winning heterosexual appeal. They explained how people and boys in particular
called them ‘sassy’ and ‘independent’ when they adopted tomboy trends or tried
to play sport. Mareena chuckled that when she went ice skating, for instance,
she would often play down her skating skills, pretending to slip and slide on the
ice so she could win the assistance of an attractive male onlooker. Her appear-
ance and her interest in sport would often be a good conversation starter, and she
would easily accrue male friendship this way. Haniah explained that being sassy
meant being viewed by others as being more assertive in questioning, resisting
and navigating around ‘traditionalist’ parental and cultural expectations. Both
women suggested people viewed them as skilled mediators capable of navigat-
ing multiple cultural impulses – social, cultural, religious, ideological, economic,
familial and personal. Hence, contrary to research indicating that tomboyism
among Muslim women is pathologized as a bad thing, for Mareena, it was a
‘cunning’ way through which she could position herself as an autonomous agent
vis-à-vis her parents and ‘Other’ people in positions of authority who may have
demanded the right to decide aspects of her lifestyle (Werbner, 2005, p. 45).
However, the extent to which her ‘cool’ and ‘edgy’ tomboy performance was
compounded by a commitment to the latest fashion trends cannot be overlooked.
Skerski’s (2011, pp. 471–472) investigation into the contemporary ‘tomboy chic’
trends’ popularizing of ‘gender ambiguous clothing’ for young (often single, het-
erosexual) females is useful here, because it alludes to the heterosexual appeal
of fashion-driven, fad-based performances of tomboyism that may encourage
women to experiment with androgynous clothing but ultimately rest on these
women ‘doing femininity’ in ways that are more compliant with the deluge of
messages pertaining to what it means to be, dress, appear, behave and act as a
woman. Meaning despite wearing various forms of masculine attire, tomboy chic
girls “re-stabilize gender relations and the heterosexual matrix . . . by interpel-
lating women repeatedly and ritualistically into the knowing and self-reflexive
terms of highly-stylized (and hetero-sexualized) femininity”, as opposed to
overtly challenging it (ibid., 472).
Conclusion
By seeking to analyze the expression and manifestation of tomboyism among
Muslim females, this chapter sheds light into an underresearched topic and makes
visible those women ousted from traditional discussions on being and/or becom-
ing tomboys. Specifically, we learn something about how Muslim women, as
political subjects, understand, interpret and act upon the constitutive relations
of power that arose from women being underprivileged vis-à-vis reductionist
notions of gender. Findings focused on how Muslim women turn to tomboyism

so as to move beyond their status as the gendered ‘Other’, read here in multiple
ways. Unlike traditional gender research that criticizes the Othering of females to
males, here the gendered ‘Other’ is not literally the female but specific sorts of
females that my participants felt thwarted their political agency to be seen as hier-
archically better. For example, those females who (are viewed as) possess(ing)
less courage, energy and/or sense of adventure when compared to males and those
females who adopt heteronormative matrices of femininity so as to become the
‘typical’ ‘girly girl’ are perceived to be inferior types of femininity that my par-
ticipants try to escape by becoming tomboys. In these instances, Muslim women
adopted tomboy identities in order to move up from being in a step-down position
to boys and typical girly girls, and their becoming tomboys was not animated
around becoming less female and more male, as is often depicted in the traditional
readings of tomboyism. Contrary to existing scholarship on Muslim tomboys,
the empirical discussion on Muslim women’s lived experiences and testimonies
of unbecoming the gendered ‘Other’ rarely alluded to cultural or religious dis-
courses of confinement and/or domestic and parental surveillance as contributing
to their desire to become tomboys. Nor did the women indicate that they were
passive objects of surveillance from members within their own ethnic minority
communities. That being said, all lived in communities in which gender was typi-
cally intellectualized in reductionist ways, manifesting itself in local girls (the
material subjects, their character and disposition) being relationally juxtaposed
as being or becoming the opposite of/to local boys or being labeled tomboys.
Perhaps because of this dichotomized form of thinking about women’s persona as
either being ‘girly’ (read: completely unlike a boy) or ‘tomboyish’ (read: slightly
like a boy), a number of my participants scrutinized how ‘tomboyish’ they would
appear, and took precautionary measures so as to not appear too tomboyish.
Hence, even as active political agents, some aspects of women’s tomboyism is
compounded by the desire to perform gender in passive, compliant ways (e.g., not
becoming too tomboyish). The degree to which this passage of self-discovery in
gender-complicit ways may have been compounded by fear from being labeled a
boy, or indeed as a gendered Other, needs critical scholarly attention, especially as
I was unable to investigate local attitudes toward tomboyism (and other forms of
gender transgression) in this chapter.1 While the focus of the chapter was not on
the role or use of sport in the construction of a specific (type of) tomboyism per
se, the empirical data did highlight how women were using sport in a functionalist
way to bolster their image as certain types of tomboys or win male support. On
the one hand, this is reflected in how women were able to either negotiate access
to sport or increase their interest in sport based on their tomboy personas, and
on the other, we witness women adopting the tomboy label to explain or justify
their athleticism. While in some cases the tomboy identity allowed women to gain
some privileges to spaces for which masculinity is an unspoken requirement, in
other cases it burdened them with an obligation to take up sport (even if it did not
interest them).
Note
1 A gendered Other in this instance may be a transsexual, read here as someone who either
identified fully with the opposite sex or as someone unusual whose identity and persona
cannot be explained vis-à-vis available discourses.
References
Abate, M. A. 2011. Introduction: Special Issue on Tomboys and Tomboyism. Journal of
Lesbian Studies, vol. 15 (4): 407–411.
Ahlqvist, S. et al. 2012. The Potential Benefits and Risks of Identifying as a Tomboy: A
Social Identity Perspective. Self and Identity, 1–19.
Anthias, F. and Yuval-Davis, N. 1992. Racialized Boundaries: ‘Race’, Nation, Gender,
Color and Class in the Anti-Racist Struggle. London: Routledge.
Bailey, J. M., Bechtold, K. T., and Berenbaum, A. A. 2002. Who Are Tomboys and Why
Should We Study Them? Archives of Sexual Behavior, vol. 31 (4): 333–341.
Begum, H. 2008. Geographies of Inclusion/Exclusion: British Muslim Women in the East
End of London. Sociological Research Online, vol. 13 (5): 1–22. Accessed online at:
www.socresonline.org.uk/13/5/10.html (12.10.2009)
Bhambra, G. K., and Margree, V. 2010. Identity Politics and the Need for a ‘Tomorrow’.
Economic and Political Weekly, vol. xlv (15): 59–66.
Brah, A. 1993. ‘Race’ and ‘Culture’ in the Gendering of Labour Markets. New Communi-
ties, vol. 19 (3): 441–458.
Brah, A., and Phoenix, A. 2004. Ain’t I a Woman? Revisiting Intersectionality. Journal of
International Women’s Studies, vol. 5 (3): 75–86.
Bucholtz, M. 1999. Bad Examples: Transgression and Progress in Gender Studies. In M.
Bucholtz, et al. (Eds.). Reinventing Identities. OUP.
Cockburn, C., and Clarke, G. 2002. Everybody’s Looking at You: Girls Negotiating the
‘Femininity Deficit’ They Incur in Physical Education. Women’s Studies International
Forum, vol. 25 (6): 651–665.
Craig, T. and LaCroix, J. 2011. Tomboy as Protective Identity. Journal of Lesbian Studies,
vol. 15 (4): 450–465.
Dwyer, C. 1998. Contested Identities: Challenging Dominant Representations of Young
British Muslim Women. In T. Skelton., and G. Valentine. (Eds). Cool Places: Geogra-
phies of Youth Cultures. London: Routledge.
Dwyer, C. 1999. Veiled Meanings: Young British Muslim Women and the Negotiation of
Differences. Gender, Place and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography, vol. 6 (1):
5–26.
Dwyer, C. 2000. Negotiating Diasporic Identities: Young British South Asian Muslim
Women. Women’s Studies International Forum, vol. 23 (4): 475–486.
Francis, B. 2010. Re/Theorising Gender: Female Masculinity and Male Femininity in the
Classroom? Gender and Education, vol. 22 (5): 477–490.
Halim, M. L., Dalmut, E., and Greulich, F. K. et al. 2011. The Role of Athletics in the Self-
Esteem of Tomboys. Child Development Research. Volume 2011, 9 pages. New York:
Hindawi Publishing Corporation, doi:10.1155/2011/830345.
Hall, J. M. 2008. Tomboys: Meanings, Marginalization, and Misunderstanding. Issues in
Mental Health Nursing, vol. 29 (2): 555–565.
Hammersley, M. and Atkinson, P. 1995. Ethnography: Principles and Practises. (2nd Edi-
tion). London: Routledge.

Hutnick, N., and Street, R. C. 2010. Profiles of British Muslim Identity: Adolescent Girls
in Birmingham. Journal of Adolescence, vol. 33 (1): 33–42.
Lale-Steele, L. 2011. Studs and Protest-Hypermasculinity: The Tomboyism within Black
Lesbian Female Masculinity. Journal of Lesbian Studies, vol. 15 (4): 480–492.
Le-Renard, A. 2013. The Fashion for Boy-Girls. Le Monde Diplomatique. Accessed online
at: www.exacteditions.com/read/diplomatique/september-2013–36600/4/3/ March 23rd
2015.
McHale, S. M., et al. 2004. Developmental and Individual Differences in Girls’ Sex-Typed
Activities in Middle Childhood and Adolescence. Child Development, vol. 75 (5):
1575–1593.
Mohanty, S. P. 2000. The epistemic status of cultural identity: On Beloved and the post-
colonial condition. In Reclaiming identity: Realist theory and the predicament of post-
modernism, Ed. P.M.L. Moya and M. R. Hames-Garcia, 29–66. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Paechter, C., and Clark, S. 2007. Who Are Tomboys and How Do We Recognize Them?
Women’s Studies International Forum, vol. 30 (4): 342–354.
Pfister, G. 2000. Doing Sport in a Headscarf? German Sport and Turkish Females. The
Journal of Sport History, vol. 27 (30): 497–523.
Reay, D. 2001. ‘Spice Girls’, ‘Nice Girls’, ‘Girlies’, and ‘Tomboys’: Gender Discourses,
Girls’ Cultures and Femininities in the Primary Classroom. Gender and Education,
vol. 13 (2): 153–166.
Saeed, A. 2014. Hip-Hop Islam and Woman in Postcolonial Islam. In Hacket, S. and Nash,
G. (Ed). Postcolonial Islam. London: Routledge.
Samie, S. F. 2013. Heterosexy Self/Body Work and Basketball: Invisible Sporting Women
of Pakistani Muslim Heritage. Journal of South Asian Popular Culture, vol. 11 (3):
257–270.
Samie, S. F. 2014. Heterosexy Self/Body Work and Basketball. In Thangaraj, S., Burd-
sey, D., and Rajinder Dudrah, R. Sport and South Asian Diasporas. Playing Through
Time and Space. London: Routledge.
Sandberg, D. E., and Meyer-Bahlburg, H.F.L. 1994. Variability in Middle Childhood Play
Behavior: Effects of Gender, Age, and Family Background. Archives of Sexual Behav-
ior, vol. 6 (4): 645–663.
Scraton, S., Fasting, K., Pfister, G. and Bunuel, A. 1999. It’s Still a Man’s Game? The
Experiences of Top-Level European Women Footballers. International Review for the
Sociology of Sport, vol. 34 (2): 99–111.
Siraj, A. 2012. ‘Smoothing Down Ruffled Feathers’: The Construction of Muslim Wom-
en’s Feminine Identities. Journal of Gender Studies, vol. 21 (2): 185–199.
Skeggs, B. 1997. Formations of Class and Gender: Becoming Respectable. London: Sage
Skerski, J. 2011. Tomboy Chic: Re-Fashioning Gender Rebellion. Journal of Lesbian Stud-
ies, vol. 15v (4): 466–479.
Werbner, P. 2005. Honor, Shame and the Politics of Sexual Embodiment amongst South
Asian Muslims in Britain and Beyond: An Analysis of Debates in the Public Sphere.
International Social Sciences Review, vol. 6 (1): 25–47.
Whitam, F. L., and Mathy, R. M. (1991). Childhood Cross-Gender Behavior of Homosex-
ual Females in Brazil, Peru, the Philippines, and the United States. Archives of Sexual
Behavior, vol. 20: 151–170.
Yamaguchi, L., and Barber, K. 1995. Introduction. In Tomboys! Tales of Dyke Derring-Do.
Ed. Lynne Yamaguchi and Karen Barber. Los Angeles: Alyson, 1995. 9–14.
5 Women, Islamic feminism
and children-only soccer in Erdoğan’s
Turkey
Empowerment or discrimination?
Itir Erhart
Introduction
On 20 September 2011, around 41,000 fans in yellow-and-navy jerseys flocked
outside Fenerbahçe’s Rüştü Saraçoğlu Stadium. As soon as the doors opened, the
women and children bid goodbye to the men accompanying them. While they
pushed into the stadium entrance, the men were escorted away from the gates by
security. Once inside, the women and children started chanting the usual rhymes
“Here is the team, here is the champion”; “This is Kadıköy, there is no way out”;
“Anywhere and everywhere Fener is the greatest, If you sit you support Cim-
bom”.1 On occasion, the men joined them in chanting: they screamed “yellow”
outside, while the women and children responded with “navy” inside. About 50 min-
utes before kickoff, an announcement was made over the loudspeaker: “Marathon
terraces are full; if you do not have a ticket please proceed to the Migros terraces”.
Another announcement asked the mothers to keep their children close and not let
them lean over the barriers. Amidst these announcements, the Fenerbahçe play-
ers, led by then-captain Alex de Souza, entered the pitch, greeting the cheering
fans and tossing roses at them along the way. The opposing team’s players also
received a warm welcome and returned it with flowers. The all-female Fener-
bahçe band cheered both the players and the enthusiastic spectators on with popu-
lar chants and marches. The women, in a wide range of accessories (glasses, hair
accessories, wigs) in Fenerbahçe colours, also welcomed supporters of Besiktaş
and Galatasay in.
This unusual atmosphere at the stadium was actually the indirect result of
crowd violence during a pre-season, friendly game that Fenerbahçe had hosted
against Shakhtar Donetsk of Ukraine the previous July. During this game, several
Fenerbahçe supporters invaded the pitch, which prompted the Turkish Football
Federation (TFF) to take action. They originally ordered Fenerbahçe to play two
of their home matches behind closed doors but later amended the rules so that
women and children could attend instead. In other words, males over the age of 12
would be barred from entering or attending the games in question. The representa-
tives of both the federation and Fenerbahçe announced this as an historic decision.
Turkish association Deputy Chairman Göksel Gümüşdağ declared that this was
what Turkish football needed.
Sport, feminism in today’s Turkey 67
This regulation remained in effect for three seasons (2011–2012, 2012–2013
and 2013–2014), during which 58 matches were played in front of women and
children only. At the beginning of the 2014–2015 football season, the Federation
announced that it was reverting to the FIFA Disciplinary Code (2011) for fan
trouble. No specific reason was provided.
The data presented in this chapter were gathered during these three seasons
when the ‘women and children only’ policy was in effect. The fieldwork involved
participant observation at the matches as well as qualitative interviews with

10 female fans who went to at least one women-and-children-only game. When
I went to the games I also documented the photographs, banners and posters dis-
played by the women as well as their attitudes inside and outside the stadium. I
also monitored their interactions with the men who took them or picked them up
from the stadia. Although the subjects of my interviews and observations were
female fans, I also documented the traditional media and social media coverage
of this new regulation. I monitored Ekşi Sözlük (Sour Times), the satirical, hyper-
text, online dictionary and social networking site with around 50,000 contributors
and 14 million monthly visitors, and Twitter closely for comments on the new
regulations. In examining the reactions to the new regulations, I focus primarily
on the data I gathered interviewing and observing female fans. I will also refer-
ence media coverage and discussions on Ekşi Sözlük and Twitter as appropriate.
The constructivist grounded theory method of Charmaz (2001) was applied in
the analysis of the interviews. I transcribed the interviews verbatim and read each
transcript to identify common themes. Emerging codes from the interviews and
from the ethnographic data collected were grouped together into more abstract
themes. In this chapter, I explore these themes through the lens of the history
of Turkish feminism and the ruling Justice and Development Party as well as
Erdoğan’s gender politics.
Equal under patriarchy

Following the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, the modernization
process started. Among other things, it aimed to eliminate the Islamic politi-
cal order in Turkey and better the status of women. Turkish Civil Code, which
replaced the Ottoman Civil Code, outlawed polygamy and granted women equal
rights in matters of divorce and child custody (Korkut & Eslen Ziya 2011, p. 316).
The Republican elite also hegemonized the discourse on the women’s move-
ment, claiming that they were now equal citizens, “sisters” of the Republic, freed
by them from the oppressive Ottoman rule and Islamic way of life (Coşar &
Yeğenoğlu 2011, p. 558). These liberated sisters had been assigned the sacred
(and gendered) role of bringing up the next, generations who would carry the
Republican ideals forward. They were also positioned as the providers of sons in
the military (White 2012, p. 178).
According to Sehlikoglu, republican – State – feminism, which did not allow for
independent feminists or feminist movements to flourish, dominated the discourse
68 Itir Erhart
on women’s rights until the 1980s (cf. Chapter 8 of this book) . It was only after
this time that the rise and the proliferation of feminist as well as Islamist move-
ments in Turkey could be observed (Ayata & Tütüncü 2008, p. 367). Islamist femi-
nists positioned themselves in opposition to State (secular) feminists and began to
organize and challenge republican secularism that excluded them from the public
domain (Korkut & Eslen-Ziya 2011). Islamist feminists who became politically
very active in the mid-1990s also “challenged the parameters within which women
were expected to practice Islam, to engage in politics, and to promote their self-
interest” (Arat 2005, p. 115). Through active involvement in politics as enlightened
women and conscious practitioners of Islam, they also turned the State construct of
the suppressed, backward Islamic woman on its head (White 2003, p. 321).
Both the Republican feminists and the Islamist feminists had something in
common, though: neither of them challenged the “care giving, marriage and
motherhood, nurturing, and self-sacrificing roles of women” (Eslen-Ziya & Kor-
kut 2010, p. 318–319). Instead, they both idealized the honourable, chaste, hard-
working housewife as well as the holy family.
AKP’s gender politics

The conservative and gendered morals of the AKP (Justice and Development
Party) that came into power in 2002 were built on the sanctity of tradition, faith
and family (Coşar & Yeğenoğlu, 2011). Family honour was linked to women’s
controlled virtue (Erman 2001), and a great emphasis was put on their familial
roles as caregivers, mothers and wives (Ayata & Tütüncü, 2008, p. 378). The
members of the party stressed these traditional roles and values frequently. For
example, in 2014, then-Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç declared that
women should not laugh loudly in public and should preserve their decency at all
times (Izadi, 2014).
These decent women were assigned the sacred role of guardians of the tradi-
tional heterosexual family, which is highly central in AKP’s conservative poli-
tics. They were there to prevent its disintegration and to ensure the birth of at
least three children per woman for the benefit of future generations and economic
growth in Turkey. In a speech he made in 2008, Erdoğan’s discourse revealed his
desire to micromanage society through pushing gender norms;
At this stage the West is crying, you shall never fall in that trap. If the same
trend continues, in 2030 most of the Turkish population will also be above
60 years of age. My dear sisters, I am not talking as a Prime Minister, I am
talking as your distressed brother. Never fall in this trap. We have to keep our
young population as it is. The essence of economy is people. [. . .] What do
they want to do? They want to put an end to the Turkish nation. If you do not
want our population to cease, a family must have three children. Our popula-
tion is young now, but they will get old in 2030 and this is a danger for us.
(Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, March 2008,
cited in Eslen-Ziya 2013)
Erdoğan also advised his ‘sisters’ against abortion and caesarean births for they
were plots designed by foreign enemies to stall Turkey’s economic growth and
wipe the Turkish nation off the world stage.
I am a Prime Minister who opposes caesarean births, and I know all this is
being done on purpose. I know these are steps taken to prevent this country’s
population from growing further. I see abortion as murder, and I call upon
those circles and members of the media who oppose my comments.

(Hürriyet Daily News, 28 May 2012)
Melih Gökçek, the Mayor of Ankara, took Erdoğan’s advice a step further
and suggested that a mother who considers abortion should “kill herself instead
and not let the child bear the brunt of her mistake” (Radikal Daily News, 2 June
2012).
In order to educate women to be ‘good’ and ‘healthy’ mothers and housewives
and prevent them from going astray, seminars were organized by the State. These
seminars set the rules for gender-appropriate behaviour Eslen-Ziya (2013) but
also stigmatized the women who make non-traditional choices. Women outside
the traditional heterosexual family, lesbian women, single women, sex workers,
transsexual women and the women who challenged the conservative, patriar-
chal state were ignored, marginalized, criticized and sometimes even ridiculed.
These marginal women and feminism as an ideology were seen as threats to the
status quo. The declaration by the Presidency of Religious Affairs, a governmen-
tal organization, exemplifies this approach in AKP’s gender policy and view on
feminism:
[F]eminism leads to grave consequences in moral and social respects. Above

all, the woman who falls into the feminist movement, [by acting] through
the principle of unconditional freedom ignores many of the rules and values,
which are indispensable for the family.
(cited in Gürsözlü-Süslü, 2008)
Erdoğan criticized feminism on similar grounds, that is, not understanding the
importance of one of these quintessential values, motherhood, in the speech he
delivered at Women and Justice Summit hosted by the Women and Democracy
Association (KADEM).
Our religion [Islam] has defined a position for women [in society]: Moth-
erhood. Some people can understand this, while others can’t. You cannot
explain this to feminists because they don’t accept the concept of motherhood.
(Hürriyet Daily News, 24 November 2014)
Journalist Ali Bulaç of the Zaman Daily went so far as to claim that Mus-
lim women cannot be feminists. Such statements are aimed at strengthening and
naturalizing the discourse on the holy heterosexual family (Uğur-Tanrıover &
70 Itir Erhart
Güvenli 2009, p. 109) as well as the gender division of labour (Coşar &
Yeğenoğlu 2011). On a similar note, Erdoğan stated that equality between sexes
was not possible:
Some ladies2 talk about gender equality on TV. If this means equal rights we
are fine with that. But the other goes against creation. You should first solve
the problem of inequality among women. You fell short of doing this. Where
is justice?
(Simurg 17 October 2010)
Here ‘the other’ refers to gender equality, and Erdoğan states that ignoring
or negating the ‘natural’ differences between men and women would go against
the creation [myth].3 Here the assumption is that the differences between men
and women are creational, hence basic and unchangeable. They need to be seen
as the natural order of things, as part of ‘God’s plan’. In a speech he made in
2014, he clarified this point and openly stated that equality would be against
nature:
You cannot bring women and men into an equal position; this is against
nature . . . You cannot make women do everything men do like the communist
regimes did . . . This is against her delicate4 nature.
(Today’s Zaman, 24 November 2014)
Dick and Nadin (2006) refer to this notion as the natural differences discourse
and see it as fundamental in subordinating women and establishing the notion
that inequality between the sexes cannot be avoided. For instance, the defenders
of this view would be likely to say that because women are naturally associated
with the domestic sphere, and we should not complain about the gap between men
and women in the workforce. Smith (1979) argues that the naturalness discourse
in which women have clearly defined roles because of their innate qualities and
characteristics is also dominant in contemporary Muslim writing. The following
section will further discuss this discourse and argue that it also was the working
idea behind the so-called historic decision.
Natural differences and the historic decision

The natural differences discourse constructs woman as delicate, fragile, gentle,
soft-spoken, domestic and loyal and, as such, the better parent. Men, on the other
hand, are constructed as brave, tough, strong, angry, competitive and determined
and, as such, better fit for the public sphere. Bourdieu (1977, p. 206) talks about
the arbitrariness of naturalness and argues that power structures need the appear-
ance of naturalness to assure their power. Repeated physical and verbal acts
produce the appearance of substance and naturalness (Butler, 1990, p. 43). The
naturalization of differences in return is used to justify the current state of affairs
like gender inequalities. This discourse is highly dominant in Erdoğan’s and the
AKP’s gender politics. Lawyer and activist Hülya Gülbahar of KA-DER5 reacts
to Erdoğan’s use of natural differences discourse:
Erdoğan’s claim that men and women can have the same rights but have dif-
ferent functions in society is a propaganda tool for trapping women inside
the house to take care of the children, the old, the disabled and the needy.
Erdoğan needs to explain which policies will stem from these natural differ-
ences. For instance, is childcare something only women can do and hence
should be responsible for? Can’t men take care of children? Cook? Do laun-
dry? Or let us ask it the other way around, can’t women be involved in poli-
tics? Be as successful as men in business, arts and sports?
(Simurg, 17 October 2010)
It is not only Erdoğan and the AKP who use this discourse. Many conservative
writers and journalists also adopt it. For instance, Ali Bulaç, whom I mentioned
earlier, stated that men could marry up to four women “for it was in their nature” on
a TV show. When the host of the show, Enver Aysever, asked him whether women
should do the same, he responded, “They cannot, because they are monogamous
by nature. That is how God created them” (Direnişteyiz 24 June 2014).
The ‘natural differences’ discourse is also highly dominant in football. The
sport newspapers are filled with stories of unruly behaviour by male fans. These
men terrorize the passers-by before or after the games, vandalize the stadia, tear
the seats and smash bathroom mirrors. These actions, which arise from the desire
to prove strength and dominance, are often associated with male nature.
Female representations associated with football are very different. Cameras
often focus on the highly made-up partners of the players and other ‘hot female
fans’. Another common image is the woman who does not get what the offside
rule is. You often see men struggling to explain the rule to the women in their
lives in TV shows and commercials. For instance, a recent Vodafone commercial
targeting Turkish audiences chooses to use a man who tries to explain the offside
rule to his girlfriend on the phone to sell their economic plan.
The representation of football as a ‘naturally male’ sport which women do not
get and in which masculinity is valorized keeps female fans away from the stadia.
The highly misogynistic atmosphere in which the players and referees are often
abused by references to their wives, mothers, sisters or partners does not help
either (Erhart, 2013). As a result, women make up only 20 percent of the stadium
attendants in Turkey (FSTATS & Alstats, 2006).
The crowd restrictions, also known as the ‘historic decision’, aimed at encour-
aging female attendance and reducing violence, has roots in this dominant natu-
ral differences discourse. Men were barred from attending games, for they were
believed to be ‘natural’ troublemakers, whereas women and girls and boys under
12 were allowed, for they were believed to be ‘naturally’ well behaved. The fol-
lowing section will focus on how this discourse and the stereotypes about female
fans and women in general were recreated by football players, male fans and the
media coverage of women-and-children-only football.
72 Itir Erhart
‘Ladies’ night’ at Fenerbahçe
The female fans who were allocated free tickets for the first ‘women and children
only’ match, which was played between Fenerbahçe and Manisaspor, were often
referred to as ‘ladies’ by the football community as well as in the traditional and
social media. ‘Lady’ and its Turkish counterpart ‘bayan’ is often used a polite
euphemism for ‘woman’. It aims to strip sexuality off the word, and as Kocaman
(2012) argues, on occasion, serves as a “public virginity test.” The word also
carries the connotations of passivity, fragility and defensiveness. Female foot-

ball fans who come in their jerseys to support their team on the terraces are not
immune to this stereotyping, either. “We have to thank the ladies for coming to
support us,” said the Fenerbahçe defender Joseph Yobo, who was at the time on
loan from Everton.
In his and many others’ words the ‘we hosted the ladies’ discourse was domi-
nant. Men, who are the real owners of the Fenerbahçe stadium, were left out
and these unusual, well-behaved lady-guests had temporarily filled it with strange
sounds, sights and smells. Manisaspor midfielder Ömer Aysan praised the “fun
and pleasant atmosphere.” Fenerbahçe captain Alex de Sousa announced that the
memory of the night would stay with him forever.
Some writers and fans described olfactory qualities of the stadium and the sur-
rounding neighbourhood in detail. Rahşan Gülşan of daily Habertürk, for one,
wrote that, during that special evening, Kadıköy “smelled of perfume”. Many users
on Twitter picked it up and added “instead of B.O.”. The smell of the roses the
players threw at the female fans was also mentioned on Twitter and Ekşi Sözlük.
As Caudwell demonstrated (2011, p. 125–126), sound is also a significant
dimension of spatiality. What constructed hegemonic identities in this case, how-
ever, were not the sounds produced inside the stadium. Sonic spatiality of the
stadium attracted a lot of attention from outside the stadia, and descriptions of
the sound space contributed to the subordination of female fans. Turkish sports
media described the “unusual” soundtrack from the stands, as “high decibel” and
“high-pitched”. On a similar note, Andrew Das (2011), writer for the New York
Times soccer blog, likened the roar after Fenerbahçe’s goal to that of the moment
the lights go down at a Justin Bieber concert. One male fan on Twitter likened it
to the sound of a vuvuzela and asked his fellow Fenerbahçe supporters what they
preferred, “Vuvuzela or stadium filled with women?”
In the eyes of many writers and male fans, these high-pitched ladies smelling
of perfume were not there for the football but for a ‘night out’ with other women.
In fact, ‘Ladies’ Night’ was the most frequently used headline to describe the
evening. To devalue women’s fandom, reporters mentioned other activities these
women would be willing to engage in while at the stadium. On Ekşi Sözlük, a
commentator wrote, “If they sold high-heeled shoes and bags at Fenerium [the
official Fenerbahçe store] the club can become the richest in Europe in a couple
of hours. This chance should not be missed”.
Another image which was dominant, especially in social media, was that of the
old hag. She was another misfit at the stadium with her old-fashioned ways and
eroding mental capacities. For instance, a writer on Ekşi Sözlük wished a speedy
recovery for Fenerbahçe players, who will play in front of 35,000 women and
children. He described the possible sounds as “crying, nagging, and bickering”.
He also asked the players to protect themselves against flying slippers which may
land on one’s head any time.6 Another posted a joke with similar undertones of
sexism and ageism: “The announcer has been trying to teach the chant ‘Yellow-
Blue, Champion Fener’ for the past 45 minutes. The old lady keeps asking what
the announcement is for”.

These ladies and hags and had one thing in common, though. They were clue-
less about the offside rule. Samet Güzel, a translator for Portuguese-speaking
football players in Turkey and a TV reporter, wrote, “I’m wondering about the
reactions to possible offside situations today when only women will occupy the
stands. I just sent out a tweet about women and the offside rule before the game.”
Almost all the newspapers reporting on the game the next day referred to the fact
that women took the offside situation for a goal and cheered.
It was not only members of the sports media or male football fans on social
networking sites who implied that the women were just guests and/or misfits at
the stadium. Many women who were watching the game held up signs suggesting
that gender roles were reversed for one night only: “Tonight I left dinner on the
stove and came to support you. For a change, I’m here, my dad is home”.
When I asked her about these signs and whether the fans themselves internal-
ized the stereotypes, Ayça claimed that they were prepared by men who wanted to
devalue female fans: “The signs are prepared by fan groups. They are discrimina-
tory. They imply that women’s place is the house. It is like saying ‘we changed
roles for one day’. The stadia normally belongs to men”.
In the following three sections, I will examine the positive and negative reac-
tions to these new sanctions. Before discussing whether the ‘women and children
only’ policy was perceived as discrimination or empowerment, I will focus on the
re-creation of the natural differences discourse around this issue.
We insist, there must be natural differences!

Before the first match in front of women and children, there were ID checks by
an all-women police squad, ensuring that the male fans older than 12 were not
allowed in the stadium. Turkish media reported that, despite these security mea-
sures, at least one man, disguised under a headscarf and women’s clothing, made
it into the stadium. International sports media also shared the story (Der Spie-
gel, 21 September 2011). The picture of this alleged intruder accompanied the
news articles. It was also reported that swearing and ‘ugly chants’ were heard
during this women-and-children-only game. The immediate reaction was to bring
these two ‘facts’ together and jump to a quick conclusion: the other possible male
intruders were probably responsible for this masculine behaviour.
Political authorities also endorsed this theory. After the match, Suat Kılıç, Min-
ister of Youth and Sports, serving in the third cabinet of then-Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdoğan, announced that he was very proud to see women and children
74 Itir Erhart
inside the stadium. When asked about the swearing, he responded, “I heard it
through social media sites. Looks like some men infiltrated the stands. I have seen
some pictures in the newspapers today. This must be their doing. It can’t be women’s
doing. Turkish women do not sing ugly chants” (NTVSPOR, 21 September 2011).
A couple days later, the Fenerbahçe fan who both the newspapers and the min-
ister referred to as ‘the male intruder’ turned out to be a woman wearing the
hijab. Kılıç’s and the media’s non-hesitant explanation for the anomaly – ‘ugly
chants’ being heard in a stadium filled with women and children – exhibits belief
in natural, dimorphic gender differences. It also suggests adherence to universal-
ized gendered norms of femininity and womanhood.
This ‘anomaly’ was detected during the following women-and-children-only
matches as well. Under the new sanctions, Bursaspor was ordered play against
Galatasaray in front of women and children only. Accordingly, adult men could
not enter the stadium on 8 January 2012 when the match was played. Recon-
figuring the gender expectations of some commentators, Bursapor fans chanted
the homophobic slur against Galatasaray players: “Cimbom (Galatasaray) what’s
going on, your ass and head keep moving”, which was even audible on live cover-
age. A similar incident occurred on 2 February during the Beşiktaş versus Mersin
İdman Yurdu match played in Istanbul. This time the chant did not target the team
they were playing against but their deadly rival, Fenerbahçe: “Here I’m, up on
the stone, my legs spread out, come Fener, go down on me and suck my balls”.
During the Fenerbahçe versus Beşiktaş derby7 on 3 May, the homophobic chant
“Fener fags, you can’t be champions” was so loud it could not be blamed on the
imaginary ‘male intruders’ or go undocumented. As a result, Beşiktaş was fined
60,000 TL (about $30,000), this time for female fan trouble.
The female fans I interviewed, on the other hand, displayed resistance to the
natural difference discourse of the politicians, football authorities and mainstream
media even before these incidents occurred and were shared. The following com-
ments highlight this point:
If men have violent tendencies so do women. When I arrived there I saw

women fighting security and breaking windows to get in. I was worried for
my children. I left after the first half.
(Deniz)
I was at the game which led to this punishment. I was not among those who
entered the field but I can understand why they did it. This has nothing to do
with being a man or a woman.
(Funda)
When we got there it was chaos; there were women and small children every-
where, but the gates were so overcrowded and there was no order at all –
everyone was pushing and shoving and it was slightly scary.
(Charlotte)8
During the matches, both women and men get angry and overreact. This is
not a masculine or feminine trait. It is a human trait. I know female fans who
swear or throw shoes at the players.
(Ayça)
As such, although they were there to watch the first women-and-children-only

game, they were well aware that not allowing adult men in the stadia would not
prevent fan trouble.
I don’t think this [the new sanctions] this will help prevent violence. You
heard the chants during the 61st minute. Women react the same way.
(Funda)
Here, Funda is referring to the women-and-children match Fenerbahçe played

against Trabzonspor. During the 61st minute, Fenerbahçe fans chanted, “Trabzon
fags, you can’t be champions”. The video shot during this chant was ‘proudly’
shared on YouTube and several Fenerbahçe fan pages and forums. As these videos
and news stories became more visible through social media platforms, the natural
differences discourse used by the media and politicians in relation to the new
sanctions subsided into silence.
Discrimination, marginalisation or empowerment?

During the three seasons it was in effect, the women-and-children-only policy
received multiple reactions from both the sports community and the fans. The new
crowd restrictions were criticized by many on the grounds that they discriminated
against women. Sports writer Tanıl Bora, for instance, was opposed to what he
referred to as the “card of innocence” which placed women right next to children
under 12 and denied them full adulthood (Bora, 2014). He also mentioned that on
the match fixture, the restrictions continued to be referred to as seyircisiz (with-
out spectators). It was assumed that everyone knew ‘without spectators’ actually
meant ‘women and children only’. The wording suggests a symbolic annihilation
of female fans and their contribution to the sport as spectators and supporters.
Since the tickets were also given away for free, their monetary support was also
denied.
A fan interviewed by Radikal Daily’s Demet Bilge before the 11th match
Fenerbahçe played in front of women and children, which also happened to
be the championship match for the 2013–2014 season, was very upset that the
team decided to celebrate the following week when the real fans, men, would be
inside the stadium: “Allowing women in to punish the team discriminates against
women. Actually, we did not feel like coming. But we did not want to leave the
team alone. They keep othering us” (Bilge, 2014).
Another fan, Hülya Bozkurt Doğan, mentioned discontent about the use of the
term bayan (lady) while referring to female fans. “When they call me ‘bayan’ I
correct them. I say ‘I’m a woman (kadın). I came to the stadium even when I was
pregnant. We are fans too” (Bilge, 2014).
76 Itir Erhart
These fans, although they were there to support their team, felt they were deval-
ued in the hegemonic football culture, which is dominated by mainstream media,
commentators, club owners and the football federation. In their view, the new
crowd restrictions contributed to the othering of female fans and helped re-create
the natural differences discourse. The following comments by the fans I inter-
viewed emphasize this point:
Discrimination is wrong. If you want to punish the team there must be a way
other than allowing women in and saying “now, let the women show men
how to behave” . . . The team is punished because of a violent fan group.
Because of them you punish men who decently watch the game. This is not
about being a man or a woman.
(Ayça)
This is a very discriminatory decision . . . This is similar to closing the school

for all students after a handful of them fight during recess and re-opening it
to girls only. The management which cannot locate and punish those who are
responsible for fan violence is trying to punish a random group.
(Yeliz)
It is worth noting the intensity of these women’s narratives and the metaphor
Yeliz used. Her narrative illustrates how she feels when attending these games and
sees it as discriminatory not only against women but also against men. The natu-
ral differences discourse positions men naturally as active, violent and aggressive.
The fans were suggesting that such labelling was unfair because not all men were
involved in fan violence and not all women were well-behaved pseudo-adults. In
our conversation, Yeliz also underlined the unifying aspect of football and told me
that fandom annihilated all differences – economic, social, ideological, gender – and
crowd restrictions in fact do harm to this unified public sphere. When I asked her
whether the new regulations would do any good, Gülçin put forward a parallel idea:
“I don’t think this will solve the issue. However, I believe that pulling women and
children to the stadia, in one way or another, will help reduce violence” (Gülçin).
Like Gülçin, many fans I talked to seemed to have internalized the natural dif-
ferences discourse and argued that the new regulations would draw more women
to the stands, which would, in return, reduce violence. Some also mentioned
that it would disrupt the male hegemony in football: “Football is a sport heavily
favoured by men. This may help balance things out” (Meltem).
As such, most women did not see the new regulations as discriminatory, and
some suggested it was discrimination out of necessity: “This is positive discrimi-
nation for women. We can say it is negative discrimination for men but I don’t see
a problem” (Esma).
Karen Espelund, women’s delegate at the UEFA executive committee, was also
in favour of the crowd restrictions because she believed that they would eventu-
ally lead to more female support inside the stadia:
The answer has been quite clear that the more families you have in the stands,
the better the atmosphere you get . . . I think this has the potential of filling up
the stands, but it’s definitely also a strategy of having a slightly different type
of atmosphere . . . In this case, it obviously has worked.
(ESPN, 21 September 2011)
As can be observed from the data collected, there were two dominant dis-
courses. Those who had adopted the natural difference discourse, which is cham-
pioned by the politicians, claimed that the well-behaved, smelling-of-perfume,
delicate, high-pitched crowds would teach the out-of-control male fans how to act
while watching football. This, in return, would have a positive effect on Turkish
football culture and reduce violence. Those who opposed the new regulations, on
the other hand, argued that these discriminatory measures would have no positive
effect whatsoever, because fan violence could not be attributed to men only. They
also argued that juxtaposing women with children and playing in front of them
when the team is being punished amounted to de-valuing them and would help
re-produce the stereotypes about women.9
Conclusion
If we widen our scope, if we zoom out from football, we will note that the natural
differences discourse is being used to legitimize several ‘women only’ spaces in
Turkey. For instance, Fethiye Atlı, the AKP mayor of Keban, Elazığ has started
a women-only bus service in her town because she wanted to make sure that
“women can travel comfortably” (Haber Sol 2014). Tamer Kırbaç, Minister of
Education Local Administrator in the northern province of Trabzon, also implied
that co-ed situations are inherently promiscuous:
Male and female students stay at the same building on different floors. The
fact that they are using the same staircase on the way to their rooms has been
bothering me for two years. It is a source of unrest for me.
(Bianet, 24 September 2013)
Following Kırbaç’s comments, a state dormitory in Kırklareli implemented a

new set of regulations in an effort to keep boys and girls away from each other in
common areas like cafeterias and social facilities.
The segregation of women was sometimes presented as an empowerment strat-
egy. AKP mayor of Antalya Menderes Türel, for instance, defended the women-
only beaches they opened in Kemer as liberating:
We had segregated beaches in 1930s as well. I must say I’m very happy to
promote our culture of positive discrimination in favour of women 80 years
later.
(Cumhuriyet, 17 July 2014)
The promotion of these and similar segregated spaces by AKP officials and local
representatives triggered anxiety in women’s rights activists in Turkey. Combined
78 Itir Erhart
with Erdoğan’s public claim that men and women cannot be equal because they
were created differently, they were seen as signs of the process of conservatism.
The women I talked to had similar concerns in relation to the football regulations,
which were in effect for the last three years. The football fans were worried that
the natural differences argument would be used to segregate men and women in
other public spaces like parks and playgrounds as well.
Of course, there is a dissimilarity between women-and-children-only football
and other spaces like beaches and busses reserved for women. In the case of foot-
ball, women watch men who throw flowers at them play. Yet this difference did
not prevent women from worrying about further public segregation of women
and men.
Whether the female fans were justified in their concern remains to be seen.
The fact remains that for three seasons, women watched the games with their
children as a team was being punished for fan violence. This highly contro-
versial regulation has been abandoned. However, the Radio and Television
Supreme Council (RTÜK) keeps sending documentaries to the channels to be
broadcast in place of the suspended programs as punishment for violations of
broadcasting laws.
Acknowledgements
This work could not have been done without the support of and conversations
with numerous people. In particular, I would like to thank Alp Ulagay for his
advice and support for gathering the data on the matches and Curtis Erhart for
proofreading my chapter.
Notes
1 Nicknames for Galatasaray of the ‘Big Three’ Turkish teams where Fenerbahçe and
Beşiktaş also belong.
2 The ladies he is referring to are the representatives of women’s groups and women’s
NGOs. He refrains from calling them ‘women’.
3 My parentheses.
4 My italics.
5 The Association for the Support and Training of Women Candidates (KA-DER) aims
to raise awareness on equality between women and men to counter male domination in
social and political life.
6 ‘Flying slippers’ refers to behavior stereotypically ascribed to angry Turkish mothers,
who would throw slippers to their children in an attempt to punish them.
7 The matches played among the ‘Big Three’ of the Turkish League: Beşiktaş, Fenerbahçe
and Galatasaray.
8 Taken from the interview she gave to the Guardian after the Fenerbahçe-Manisaspor
match. What, football matches with only women spectators?
9 One comment I read fit neither of these discourses. Famed comedy writer Gani Müjde
mentioned the ‘masculinizing’ effect of the stadia and wrote that he was terrified of his
wife, who was on her way back from the game: “Belma is at the game with the children.
She just sent a message: ‘We’ll go on a tour after the match man’. Maybe I should not
have let her go. She will come home all agro. Should I fake sleeping?”
References
Arat, Y 2005, Rethinking Islam and Liberal Democracy: Islamist Women in Turkish Poli-
tics, State University of New York Press, Albany.
Ayata, A & Tütüncü, F 2008, ‘Party politics of the AKP (2002–2007) and the predicaments
of women at the intersection of the Westernist, Islamist and feminist discourses in Tur-
key’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 35, no. 3, pp. 363–384.
Bilge, D 2014, ‘Cezayı cezalandırdılar!’ Radikal 27 April. Available from: www.radikal.
com.tr/spor/cezayi_cezalandirdilar-1188920. [1 December 2014].

Bora, T 2014, ‘Seyircisiz, yani sırf kadınlarla çocuklar!’ Radikal 26 March. Available
from: www.radikal.com.tr/yazarlar/tanil_bora/seyircisiz_yani_sirf_kadinlarla_cocuk
lar-1183246. [1 December 2014].
Bourdieu, P 1977, Outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge University Press, London.
Butler, J 1990, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Routledge, New
York.
Caudwell, J 2011, ‘Does your boyfriend know you’re here? The spatiality of homophobia
in men’s football culture in the UK’, Leisure Studies, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 123–138.
Coşar, S & Yeğenoğlu M 2011, ‘New Grounds for Patriarchy in Turkey? Gender Policy
in the Age of AKP’, South European Society and Politics, vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 555–573.
Das, A 2011, ‘In Turkey, Game Day Becomes Ladies’ Night’. New York Times 21 Sep-
tember. Available from: http://goal.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/21/in-turkey-gameday-
becomes-ladies-night/?src=tp. [1 December 2014].
Dick, P and Nadin, S 2006, ‘Reproducing gender inequalities? A critique of Realist
Assumptions Underpinning Personnel Selection Research and Practice’, Journal of
Occupational and Organizational Psychology, vol. 79, pp. 481–498.
Erhart I 2013, ‘Ladies of Besiktas¸: A Dismantling of Male Hegemony at Inonu Stadium’.
International Review for the Sociology of Sport, vol. 48, pp. 83–98.
Erman, T 2001, ‘Rural Migrants and Patriarchy in Turkish Cities’, International Journal of
Urban and Regional Research, vol. 25, pp. 118–133.
Eslen-Ziya, H 2013, ‘Social Media and Turkish Feminism: New Resources for Social
Activism. From Veiling to Blogging: Women and Media in the Middle East’, Special
Issue of Feminist Media Studies, vol. 13, no. 5, pp. 860–870.
Eslen-Ziya, H & Korkut, U 2010, ‘Political Religion and Politicized Women in Turkey:
Hegemonic Republicanism Revisited’, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions,
vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 311–326.
FIFA Disciplinary Code 2011. Available from: www.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/
administration/50/02/75/discoinhalte.pdf. [1 December 2014].
FSTATS & Alstats 2006, ‘Fan Profiles in Turkey.’ Available from www.medyaradar.
com/haber/medyagunlugu-24499/gsarayli-kadinlar-sosyetik—besiktasli-kadinlar-pro
testocu-fenerli-kadinlar-macodur-reha-muhtardan-cok-tartisilacak-yazi.html [23 June
2014].
Gürsözlü-Süslü, S 2008, ‘Feminizm Ahlak Dersinden Kaldı!’ Biamag 13 March. Avail-
able from: http://bianet.org/biamag/bianet/105540-feminizm-ahlak-dersinden-kaldi.
[1 December 2014].
Haber Sol 2014, ‘AKP’li belediye başkanından ilk icraat: Kadınlara mahsus otobüs’,
11 April. Available from: http://haber.sol.org.tr/kent-gundemleri/akpli-belediye-bas
kanindan-ilk-icraat-kadinlara-mahsus-otobus-haberi-90846. [1 December 2014].
Izadi, E 2014, ‘Turkey’s President Says Women Are Not Equal to Men’, Washington
Post 24 November. Available from: www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/
80 Itir Erhart
wp/2014/11/24/turkeys-president-says-women-are-not-equal-to-men/?Post+generic=
%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost. [1 December 2014].
Kocaman, C 2012, ‘Dili Cinsiyetsizleştirmek mi?’ Bianet 29 February. Available from: www.
sendika.org/2012/02/dili-cinsiyetsizlestirmek-mi-ceren-kocaman-bianet/. [1 December
2014].
Korkut U & Eslen-Ziya H 2011, ‘The Impact of Conservative Discourses in Family Poli-
cies, Population Politics, and Gender Rights in Poland and Turkey’. Social Politics,
vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 387–418.
Smith, JI 1979, ‘Women in Islam: Equity, Equality, and the Search for the Natural Order’.
Journal of the American Academy of Religion, vol. 47, no. 4, pp. 517–537.
Tanrıöver H U & Güvenli G. 2009, Ders Kitaplarında İnsan Hakları, Istanbul, Türkiye
Toplumsal ve Ekonomik Tarih Vakfı Yayinlari.
White, JB 2003, ‘State Feminism, Modernization and the Turkish Republican Woman’,
National Women’s Studies Association Journal, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 145–159.
White, JB 2012, Muslim Nationalism and the New Turks, Princeton University Press,
Princeton.
6 Football, war and masculinities
on the Palestinian, Gaza Strip
A nation without a proper state
Gerd von der Lippe
Introduction
Tales and myths of war, victory and defeat are embedded primarily in traditional
masculine memories, ambitions and hope (Enloe, 1990; Whitehead, 2002; Von
der Lippe, 2010a, 2010b, 2014b). In Gaza, a narrow Palestinian strip blockaded
by Israel and Egypt, notions of masculinity in football are tied to a nation without
a proper state, war and blockade, relations to family, teammates and fans as well
as the performances of the team and the player himself.
A phenomenology of everyday life forms the backdrop for a theoretical per-
spective on how masculine identities in football have been experienced and con-
structed among sporting youth in Gaza during the blockade. Theories of ‘everyday
life’ are well established in the social sciences since Ben Highmore’s book Every-
day Life and Cultural Theories from 2002. It points to the landscape closest to
us; what happens. In Gaza, however, the focus is on that world which is disrupted
by what we would call the unfamiliar. When neither Israel nor Egypt wanted the
‘Strip’ to exist, it is according to Filiu (2014) a territorial entity ‘by default’. But-
ler (1990) argues that people project gender daily by situationally constructing
masculinity and femininity as active agents. As a result, a masculine identity is a
consequence of a man’s practices in his everyday life in a given context given that
gender is produced through bodily acts.
Most of the footballers I interviewed believe that the Palestine people, wher-
ever they reside, constitute a single and united people and form an integral part
of the wider Arabic and most importantly Muslim world. Gaza is the smallest
part of the people with its 1.6 million beings and a ‘self-governing’ entity of the
occupied territory on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The small strip
of land – 360 sq km, 41 km long and from 6 to 12 km wide – borders Egypt on the
southwest and Israel on the southeast and the north.
Methodology1
Why and how did I start with this research? We were 20 people who were chosen
to take part in the Norwegian ‘Freedom Flotilla’ to Gaza in 2011. It was organized
by the Free Gaza Movement and the Turkish Foundation for Human Rights and
82 Gerd von der Lippe
Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief IHH, carrying humanitarian aid and construc-
tion materials with the intention of breaking the Israeli–Egyptian blockade of the
Gaza Strip. Just before the departure from Norway, we ‘lost’ a ship; the Turkish
Mavi Marmara were outsourced to Israel and not returned to us. Then the Nor-
wegian leaders decided to draw a lottery due to the fact that only half of us could
travel. I did not win this lottery. So another woman and I decided to enter Gaza via
Rafah. Thus, I made a scientific project on sports and got in contact with a doctor
at the Muslim University of Gaza, who helped me to get an invitation to the Strip.
One of the interpreters of my interviews in July did not speak English very well
and the other did not know much about football, so part of the data collection was
not reliable. These interviews, however, contributed to making a good network
of football players and leaders, which I used for my interviews in November the
same year. In November, the interviews and the quality of translation produced
much better and more reliable evidence.
I interviewed male athletes, coaches and managers in nine football clubs in
Khan Younis and Gaza City in July 2011 and also conducted 18 qualitative inter-
views with footballers in the three top leagues on November 20 to 27, in Rafah,
Kahn Younis, Gaza City and Shati Refuge Camp. The qualitative interviews with
the best players consist of the footballers who were in Gaza and were able to
answer the mobile. According to Mostafa Syam, a sports journalist in Gaza, those
who were interviewed were among the best ones in the 2010 and 2011 seasons,
except for one. Seventeen of 18 players belonged to clubs in the Premier League
and one in the Third League in Gaza. The players’ club affiliation is from 2011. I
have also included in the end a narrative of the football player from Gaza, Mah-
moud Sarsak, an elite player from the blockaded strip who was in jail for three
years due to his travel to the West Bank to sign a contract. This part of the project
is categorized as a form of action research.
The theme of this chapter focuses on how globalized football manifests itself
locally in social interaction among sporting youth in a nation with an incomplete
state in a context of war and blockade.
My methodological approach to the interviews consists in an analysis of the
texts and contexts in view of bringing forth subtexts of precarious masculinities.
In line with this view and inspired by Nick Crossley (2001), the footballers are
understood in terms of embodied agency.
Football in a nation without a proper state2

The complex relationships among sport, colonialism and modernity are crucial for
understanding sports in Palestine (Sorek, 2007). The idea of an imagined national
community seems to be a reality during international sporting competitions
(Hobsbawm, 1992, Iorwerth et al., 2014). International sporting competitions are
mostly held between nation-states (Iorwerth et al., 2014). Thus, there is an exten-
sive literature that explores sport’s associations with national identities. A doxa
here is often that relevant sports associations also exist in non-state nations. The
situation in Gaza and on the West Bank is in a middle position; PA (the Palestine
Football and masculinities in Gaza 83
Authority on the West Bank) performs many state-like functions on behalf of the
occupiers. Thus, PA might be seen as a quasi-state and not as a proper state. PA’s
role as a police force of the occupation includes the legitimate force against its
own citizens. What about the role of Hamas in Gaza? They won the election in
2006 and have the right to defend their people against Israeli bombs; however,
their police force towards their own citizens is heavily criticized. A nation-state is
a modern institution, which has the monopoly on using legitimate force to defend
itself and seeks to unite its people (Guibernau, 1999). Gaza, as a nation with an
incomplete state, is part of Palestine, defined ‘as a cultural community sharing a
common past, attached to a clearly demarcated territory, and wishing to decide
upon their political future’ (Guibernau, 1999, p. 1). To be recognized as a nation
usually implies the right to self-determination. In contrast to the case in Catalonia,
the Basque Country, Wales and Scotland, Palestine has never previously been an
independent state. In the case of Gaza, it is a question of a population split from
the rest of Palestine and Palestine refuges as a result of the UN resolution of 1947
and the following Israeli wars against the Palestine people.
Information about the politics in general from 1914, then

the politics of football
According to Jean-Pierre Filiu (2014), Gaza is a central component of the history
of Palestinian contemporary nationalism. By 1914, the Ottoman Empire had been
driven out of nearly all of Europe and North Africa. It still controlled millions
of people in modern Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan and Iraq (Broad-
berry & Harrison, 2013). It took three murderous battles in 1917 for the Brit-
ish Empire to conquer Gaza from the Turkish-German alliance (Whittal, 2014).
Once it was done, the whole of Palestine fell in a matter of weeks to the colonial
British forces. Palestine was never a unified administrative entity during the Otto-
man Empire. After the capitulation of the Empire in 1918, the land became a
British League of Nations Mandate of Palestine in 1922 and remained out of
control of the Arabs. The powers of the Mandate were limited to the ability to
administer the areas under the supervision of the League of Nations, transferring
to the United Nations (UN) in 1945 (Butenschøn, 2009). In practice, there was
little difference between the ways empires governed colonies and mandate areas,
although in terms of international law, the difference was crucial (Butenschøn,
2009). Therefore the unwinding of the mandate power over Palestine had to be
decided by the UN. In 1918, more than 90 percent of the inhabitants were Arab
people and less than 10 percent Jewish (Butenschøn, 2009). During WWI, the
British had promised Palestine both to the Palestinians and to the Jewish (Waage,
2013). According to the Balfour Declaration of 1917, however, the land was to be
given to Jewish people as a national home and at the same time to be understood
‘that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of
the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine’ (Yapp, 1987). This declaration
was seen as the point of departure of the conflict between the Palestinian and the
Zionist movement. As late as in 1922, Churchill assured the Palestinians that they
should not be afraid of a Jewish dominance (Butenschøn, 2008). According to
the League of Nations plan, both the Palestine and the Jewish people were to live
side by side in the area. After the Palestinian rebellion from 1936, the British Peel
Commission of 1937 was the first concrete plan for a two-state solution. Most of
the land was to be given to the Palestine people south of Nablus with the excep-
tion of the area around Jaffa/Tel Aviv. From then on, a two-state solution was seen
as the only alternative. In 1947, the UN adopted a partition plan for a two-state
solution in Palestine, quite different from the Peel plan. The plan was accepted by
the Jewish Agency but rejected by the Arab leaders, and Britain refused to imple-
ment the plan. On the final British withdrawal, the Jewish Agency for Israel
declared the establishment of the State of Israel according to the proposed UN
borders. The Arab Higher Committee did not declare a state of its own. From then
on, conflicts and wars increased, and Israel conquered more and more of the land
of the Palestine people.
Israel has occupied Gaza from 1956 to 1957 and 1967 to 1994. The former
Israeli prime minister and general Ariel Sharon’s plan from 2003 was to withdraw
from the area, while Egypt and Israel were to control the border with their coun-
tries in order not to allow the 1.5 million inhabitants in Gaza to travel anywhere
(Waage, 2013). According to Whittal, the people of Gaza made their own his-
tory, no matter how their leaders had decided. This was the case in 1957, when
they imposed Egypt back into the Gaza Strip, and in the 1987 intifada, which
started in Gaza, forced the Muslim Brothers to launch the Hamas movement. In
2005, Israeli settlers were evacuated from the Strip. Thus, Sharon created a power
vacuum in the area. Hamas won the elections in 2006, and from 2007, the Strip
was governed by this Islamic political movement, which was founded in 1987 as
an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Israel and Egypt then imposed
a blockade on sea, air and land on Gaza, on the grounds that Fatah, the competing
party which now governs the West Bank, were no longer providing security in
Gaza. During 22 days from 17 December until 18 January, 2009, Israel bombed
the Strip again in their Operation Cast Lead, destroying the police station of Gaza
city, schools, hospitals, UN warehouses, mosques and sports facilities. Due to the
economic, naval and land blockade, farmlands decreased by 35 percent between
2007 and 2012, while fishing restrictions at sea have rendered 95 percent of Gaza
fishermen dependent on international aid (www.internal-displacement.org).
‘The member of a nation lacking a state of their own regard them as alien’
(Guibernau, 1999, p. 16). This is the case, for instance, with several people in
Catalonia, Quebec, Scotland, the Basque Country and Flanders. Unlike the Pales-
tinians, they belong to a state insofar as they are able to travel with a passport of
the state. The Palestinians are not alien to their incomplete state. Palestine Nation-
alist movements have been actively involved in ‘state building’. Since the UN
literally gave more than half of their territory away to Israel, Mahmoud Abbas
(president of the Palestinian National Authority, or PNA) now seek a recognition
of Palestine as state member by the UN. In 2012, the State of Palestine was granted
non-member observer status by the UN. Later on that year, Palestine was upgraded
from an observer entity to a ‘non-member observer state’ within the UN system
(Charbonneau, 2012). On 27 September 2013, 69.4 percent of the 193 member
states of the UN recognized the State of Palestine (UN General Assembly Session
67, Agenda 37). In the autumn of 2014, the Swedish government acknowledged
Palestine as a legitimate state.
Sport and politics in Palestine

Sport was included in the British ‘modernising’ project for Palestine from the first
decade of the 20th century (Sorek, 2007). In the anti-colonial struggle against the
British and Zionism, however, sports was assigned the double mission of nurtur-
ing muscular capital against the enemy and serving as a representation of genuine
Palestinian modernity. This was in line with the politics of the colonizers all over
the globe (Sugden & Bairner, 1993). Soccer is seen to be one of the most impor-
tant modernizing forces in most of the Arabic countries (Wagg, 1995). Amara
(2012), however, suggests that the commitment of formerly colonized nations,
including countries in the Arab world, to the international sporting community
was not straightforward. The boycott of the Olympic Games in 1972 was, for
example, used to denounce apartheid in South Africa. The strategy of boycott
against Israeli football is also on the agenda today of pro-Palestinian movements
to denounce imprisoning and harassing of Palestinian athletes in Gaza and on the
West Bank.
Football players cannot move freely between Gaza and the West Bank through
Israel; if a footballer from Gaza gets a permit from the Civil Liaison Office (DCO)
in Israel, they might, however, be thrown into an Israeli jail by the Security Forces
in Erez. Facing obstructions at the border – if they manage to travel in Israel –
may result in players missing their flights to important competitions in neighbour-
ing countries. Football is the only sport which has a Gaza-wide federation. Young
people in Gaza have few choices to stage themselves as real men while living and
thus create an accepted masculine identity: either as a member of the Izz ad-Din
al-Qassam Brigades (one of Hamas military forces) created in 1991, as a hero
freed from Israeli prison or as a football player
There is officially one football federation in Palestine today, the Palestine Foot-
ball Association (PFA). The first Palestine Football Association was created in
1928, mainly as a Jewish federation. Although 16 percent of its members in the
first year were Arab clubs, the PFA rapidly became a Zionist association. The
Israelis renamed the original football organization the Israeli Football Association
in 1948. A new Palestine Football Federation was founded in 1952. With the set-
ting up of PA in 1994, the PFA was re-established, but Palestine was not admitted
to FIFA until 1998 as a result of the proposed two-state solution linked to the Oslo
Accords. The West Bank has the president, Jibril Rajoub, and Gaza the vice presi-
dent, Ebrahim Abu Salim. There is, however, little communication between them
because of the Fatah and Hamas relationship and the fact that it is nearly impos-
sible for the leaders to meet physically. There are four leagues of football in Gaza
according to the vice president:3 Gaza Strip Premier League and the First, Second
and Third Leagues. In 2011, the Premier League and the First League consisted
of 12 clubs, the Second League of 14 clubs and the Third League of 16 clubs.
The leagues of the West Bank are much better organized than those in Gaza. The
2010–2011 season marked the creation of the first professional league in the West
Bank, whereas there is so far none on the Gaza Strip supported by FIFA and Asian
Football Federation.
A phenomenological perspective on everyday life

When I was a student in the 1960s and in the beginning of the 1970s, everyday life
and the epistemology of subjectivity were marginal both in classical philosophy
and in dominating research in the social sciences. If science did not build on the
rationality of objectivity, it was understood as bad science. Not so any more. Fem-
inist researchers like Simone de Beauvoir, who was inspired by phenomenologists
like Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, contributed to this process of changing. A bodily
interaction with the world precedes, according to the founder of phenomenology,
Husserl, the conscious knowledge of the world. In order to think, it is, accord-
ing to Merleau-Ponty, necessary to see or to sense, because any thought which
is familiar to us occurs to the flesh (Chernyakov, 2014). Edmund Husserl (1970)
is known for his notion of lifeworld (Lebenswelt) and ‘the everyday world’ (die
alltâgliche Welt). Distinctions between the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty and
that of Husserl are not significant for this study. The case that follows applies
some perspectives from both of them, together with the interpretations of Nal-
ivaika and Tin. Our living bodies situate us at the subjective centre of the world, as
a zero point of our existential projects (Nalivaika & Tin, 2014). Our life consists
of an organic temporal continuum. Thus, the point of departure of growing up in
the world is in line with Merleau-Ponty, ‘I can’ (interact with the world), rather
than the Descartes’s ‘Dubito, ergo cogito. Cogito, ergo sum’; I doubt, therefore
I think. I think, therefore I am’. The reason we become aware of the world is
because we are bodies with senses and are able to explore and interact with the
world and with other bodies (Tin, 2014). Therefore, everyday life, which is what
is most familiar and closest to everyone (Nalivaika & Tin, 2014), is what we are
first and foremost; at work, at leisure, awake, at sleep and in private body-based
existence. It is our daily routine, and it also includes the extraordinary.
There are multiple ways of grasping the everyday, such as, for instance, sociol-
ogy, politics, literature and linguistics. Phenomenological research in sports, a
field in which meaning and movement are inextricably bound, offers excellent
opportunities for reflection (Kerry & Armour, 2000). So far, sociological studies
of the sporting body using the resources of phenomenology are scant (Kerry &
Armour, 2000; Hockey & Collison, 2007). Football is of course a very bodily
praxis along with the subjective fear of bombs, the impossibility of the bodies to
travel to important competitions and meeting with relatives on the West Bank,
Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt. Thus, the present of the footballers always extends
into the immediate past and into the future. Here I will use the term ‘everyday life’
to refer to the complex fabric of lived everyday experiences and concurrent socio-
cultural and historical processes drawing on real-life examples of the footballers,
which they told me in Gaza in November 2011. Their experiences happened in the
past. Thus, they have already been reflected on. Their fear of bombs was, how-
ever, embodied and still seen in some faces as they told their stories. According to
the phenomenologists, the living body has a motor ability; ‘I can’. This statement
is seen as a very contradictory reality in the everyday life of the Gaza footballers,
because they are situated in what is often called an outdoor prison. We often take
an everyday life without wars and sufficient food supplies and the possibility
to choose among many different sports for granted and pass it without a critical
distance, like a doxa. For the Gaza footballers, their everyday life puts them in a
very difficult situation.
The perspectives of masculinities

The idea of a nation is often tied to the praxis of sporting masculinities (von der
Lippe, 2010a, 2014a). The aim of this study is to tie a structural position of the
idea of masculinities to an individual and subjective everyday life. Most literature
on masculinities has for many years taken the point of departure as Tim Carri-
gan, Robert/Raewyn Connell and John Lee (1985), who laid the foundation for
the analysis of gendered power relations among men. This is also the point of
departure of this chapter, but with a broader focus on performances of masculine
subjectivity (Bergren, 2014); hence the preference for basing the analysis in a phe-
nomenological approach. Hegemonic masculinity is constructed as the dominating
one in a culture in relation to women and subordinated masculinities. Hegemonic
masculinity and marginalized masculinities do not consist of fixed character types
but are understood as configurations of practice generated in particular situations
in changing structures and relationships (Connell, 1995). Thus, we are doing gen-
der in culturally specific ways (Butler, 1990). Therefore, masculinities are plural
and multiple. This is also the case in Muslim and Islamic cultures. They differ over
space, time, context, age and ethnicity (Whitehead, 2002). It is important to capture
the diversity of ‘being’ and ‘acting’ ‘manly’. There is no one way of practicing a
hegemonic masculine logic (Archetti, 1999). It is most likely different ways of
behaving as a heterosexual businessman, a football player, a father and a friend.
In line with Pierre Bourdieu, the point here is that masculinities are structured and
structuring. Thus, the idea of a masculine identity is neither exclusively closed
nor open but negotiable, adaptable and also individual. A precarious masculinity
offers a means of understanding how certain embodied knowledge and praxis cre-
ate uncertainty and might threaten the occupants, because Palestinian male football
heroes are tied to the idea of a nation denied its statehood.
Arab masculinity (rujulah) is acquired, verified, and played out in risk taking,
the brave deed and in expressions of assertiveness and fearlessness (Peteet, 1994).
It is attained by willingness to defend the community from external aggression
and to uphold and protect the practices of hegemonic masculinity by honourable
actions. Several researchers have referred to the concept of honour as a defin-
ing frame for masculinity. Among the Egyptian Bedouin, the notion of control
is crucial in the idea of ‘real men’ (Peteet, 1994). Among the Berbers in Algeria,
accepted masculinities are tied to honour, potency and virility in contrast to
accepted femininity (Bourdieu, 2000). In a logic of duality, hegemonic masculin-
ity is regarded in contrast to accepted femininity. Mobility, safety and daily rou-
tine are out of control of Palestinians under occupation (Peteet, 1994), in contrast
to places and countries in time of peace. Detention is framed as a rite of passage
in the construction of first and foremost adult men, but also of boys and women.
The Israeli policy and practice of imprisoning young Palestine males in the Occu-
pied Territories is understood as constitutive of gender and power (Peteet, 1994).

The powerlessness of Palestinian men is pronounced given their occupation by
a military power. Since the beginning of the occupation in 1967, resistance has
been common. Males begin to acquire the understanding of the meaning of being
a real man around the age of 20. The Palestinians are denied a national identity
in a partial-state nation, yet to be fulfilled. To construct themselves as real men,
some of the young male inhabitants of Gaza aim at playing on the Palestine foot-
ball team. Thus, I will use the concept of a precarious masculinity as a point of
departure of the praxis of the Gaza footballers.
Organized football is still regarded first and foremost as a male preserve in
most countries, especially in cultures in which hegemonic masculinity is tied to
football in contrast to accepted femininity. Sport provides a context for men’s
emotional connection with other men (Messner, 2007). Male football players are
not supposed to cry when losing or scoring goals on the field (Von der Lippe,
2010b). If they do, they can be understood in terms of subordinated masculinities
with a flavour of the feminine in northwestern countries.
Masculinities and local football experiences

Tales from six football players about what they ‘can’ and what they ‘cannot’ do,
what they love and what they are afraid of in their everyday life, on the field, after
victories and in connection with the Israeli bombing of Gaza in 22 days at the
end of December 2008 and the beginning of 2009, are presented here. In the end
comes the experience of one of the best football players of Gaza in 2009, Mah-
moud Sarsak, who was detained by Israeli authorities for three years on admin-
istrative detention; in which football, masculinities and war are integrated in this
narrative of one young man.
In 2011, the football players were between 20 and 30 years old, which are
crucial years of becoming a Palestinian man. Globalized football manifests itself
very differently on the Gaza Strip in relation to most countries in the northwestern
areas and in the rest of the Middle East. Organized football in Gaza is an entirely
masculine field. Only men are able to compete in the PFA on the Strip in contrast
to the West Bank, and only boys and men are spectators and fans. Due to the
Palestine/Gaza nation without a proper state, the Israeli view of the Palestinians
as the collective and occupied other, the question of a Palestine national football
identity is problematic after 2007.
Moheeb, born in 1981, entered his first football club at the age of 13. Due to his
age, he was able to play football for the Palestinian national team in Jordan and
Egypt before Israel and Egypt started the blockage of Gaza in 2007. ‘Earlier this
year (2011) the national team planned to play friendly matches against Cameroon
and a team in Egypt. We applied ten times to travel (out of Gaza) from Erez (in
Israel and north of Gaza). At last FIFA helped us. It was a great relief’.
To play for a club abroad is sometimes admitted, but not for the national team
anymore.
Amed was born in 1985. He is training three to four times a week when there
are no air strikes. His position is a left striker, and he was ambidextrous (playing
equally well with each foot).
I played at the Palestine team in 2004 in Qatar in Doha in the Asian Olympic
Games, but it is impossible to represent Palestine to-day. Very, very sad. [His
face showed it.] I cannot travel or visit people at the West Bank. Five differ-
ent teams there want me to join their club. So what do I do? I am playing in
the best club on this strip.
Because he loves football, it is very sad for him not to be able to play for the
Palestinian team. His living body situates him in a here and now. Because of
all the borders, the creativity of the local football players of Gaza seems to be
great due to the blockade and the Israeli policy of denying young men the abil-
ity to travel out of the Strip to play for a club on the West Bank. Players arrange
different cups with names that represent their national collectivity without civil
‘right to play’, a global organization with the Norwegian former Olympic win-
ner Jan Olav Koss as president. Players from both Gaza and the West Bank were
unable to form a national team for Palestine which could compete at the World
Cup in South Africa in 2010. Therefore his club arranged ‘the Small World Cup
Tournament’ at the same time as the World Cup was going on in 2010. Two
senior players took part in each team. Sixteen teams, symbolically from differ-
ent nations like Spain, Italy, Brazil, Ireland and Germany, took part. ‘The best
match was that between Ireland and Spain. It was so even. The scores were 1–2
to Ireland’.
Ahmed (13) was born in 1990, and his position on the team is a right back. He
was one of the players of the Small World Cup tournament in 2010.
Our team was ‘Egypt’. Normally we lose most matches. This was a special
competition, so I did not think back in my head that we were going to lose,
after all. The whole team was well prepared. I played very good – and so
did all the others. We managed to make a draw. So, we took part in several
matches in this cup. I remember we won 4–0 over ‘Algeria’. [. . .] Later on –
in 2011 – we arranged ‘the Revolutionary Cup’. In these matches, too, we
played symbolically from different national teams.
This is an example of how globalization is not always a dialectical process: the

Gaza footballers are influenced by the World Cup but not the other way round.
Associations with war and blockade seem to be everywhere; Ahmed was told that
his family asked him and his friends to go out and play a football match in the
memory of the dead and to call the competition ‘the Martyr Cup’, which they did.
I was lucky to be chosen to represent the Palestine Youth team of football

for the Youth Olympic Games in 2010 and I was so happy and was looking
forward to play on the national team. We were 20 players from the West Bank
and Gaza. But Israel after a while only admitted six players to travel, then
three and after a long time, none.
Abdul (18) was born in 1988 and played with the national youth team in Leba-
non in November, 2010. About 2005–2006, he was elected to play in that team in
the United Arab Emirates, but the two team members from Gaza were not allowed
to travel by the Israelis.
I am a mid-field striker and I am able to play with both legs. I used to get help
from a coach from Gaza City, but now we have no contact, because the coach
has moved outside Palestine. Now [November 2011] I am not training any
more, because the club had no money to pay the coach. Earlier, I was working
out three - four times a week, in addition to playing with friends.
Ziad (17) was born in 1981 and joined his first club at the age of 13. For the last
year, he has been training four times a week when there is no war or bombs, each
time for 2 to 2.5 hours. When he is not working out with his club, he is training
alone.
My best competition was during the final in the Gaza Cup in 2003. The result
was a draw – 3–3 [. . .] and I scored the first goal and for a long time the
result was 1–0. [. . .] I felt so happy that I started to cry. – [smiling a little]
and I cried for a very, very long time. In the end, some of my teammates said
gently: ‘You have to stop crying, so we can get on with the game’.
A football-derived hegemonic masculinity of Gaza 2011 accepts crying young

males on the field. The referee and his mates were patiently waiting for him to
stop crying. Telling me this – a northwestern woman – in front of a translator he
had never seen before, did not seem to make him uneasy; rather the contrary.
Hamada (11) was born in 1981 and is the captain of the team. He plays both as
a left striker and in defence. He is training four times in addition to a match every
week during the season. He has played for the Palestinian team in the Asian Cup,
and he has several offers to play on teams on the West Bank, but he is not allowed
to travel back and forth through Israel.
My best match was the ‘Gaza Cup of 2010’. Our team won the final with
10,000 more or less ecstatic spectators outside the Gaza Stadium. The final
started at 2.30 pm and the spectators queued up from 10am. We played
against Al-Salah in the final and we won 2–0. The club arranged a party in
the refugee camp. For two days we celebrated the victory. The team just got
hold of the cup a few minutes until the fans took it. Different fans borrowed
the cup during the celebration days and nights with dancing, music and cakes.
[. . .]. That’s normal. [. . .] When we got it back, the top of the cup was gone,
the captain said with a smile, ‘It’s good to see how our fans enjoys our victo-
ries. We want everyone to be happy’.
It is no need for audience building (Messner, 2007) among males in Gaza; it

is the only entertainment except for weddings and celebrations of different kinds
on the Strip.
Moheeb was the only one I interviewed who was fully employed in a paid
job (at the Ministry of Sport). All the others are depending on money from their
fathers or from social welfare from Hamas or international aid organizations. As
Moheeb belongs to a rather rich family, he was able to pay for medical support to
make a full recovery from a football injury, which is very rare.
I was training three times a week [2011], each two hours. Our stadium at
the Al Salom Club north of Gaza was bombed by Israel. The size we got
was 20 × 40 square meters on asphalt, seldom on grass. When I got a shoul-
der injury, there was no help from the club. So I had to go to Egypt. It cost
100,000 Norwegian Crowns.
Because of injury, several players have to quit the sport due to having no medi-
cal service.
Football and war4

I interviewed these men in November 2011, only about two years after Israel
bombed Gaza for 28 days. All included memories of football and war as their
lived experiences. All of them were gathering together with their families at night,
crying and wondering if they would live to see the next morning. Some of them
are still stopping playing football, when they hear a plane or a drone. Thus, war,
blockage and occupation are understood to be imprinted on their young bodies as
a powerful rite of passage into manhood.
Ahmed told me that his coach often tells them to forget the war and the block-
ade and instead concentrate on football.
– Do you manage to do that?

– No, but I am managing to hide these thoughts away during matches. When
training with the guys, I forget football when I see airplanes or hear them
flying. Then, I am thinking about war.
– How do you connect football with war?
– Our field is just nearby the police station. It was bombed during the war
[2009–2010] in the middle of the day when the policemen were out in posi-
tion, waiting for their diplomas.
Also, Moheeb from the same club as Ahmed told me that the coach insisted
that they should try to forget the war and blockade during training. Sometimes
he manages.
Sometimes my mind focuses on war instead of football. Then, pictures from

the war overwhelm me. I am in our house together with my family. Next-door
neighbours enter our house and we are sitting together. The house is filled up
with people. We are all afraid and we are crying together. Then, a bomb fell
down during the day: Ten metres from our door. I felt the blow/pressure when
the bomb exploded. Five kids were killed. I drove them to the hospital. All of
us are helping others. Israel is bombing every month. I dream about it two-
three times a week. I can never forget this. They kill without reason. [. . .]
Sometimes the thoughts just return while I am playing football, but football
helps keeping the thoughts away.
The war is embodied in Moheeb’s everyday life. His sense of war and death
is nearly everywhere: on the football field, in and just outside his home, in the
streets and in the car driving killed kids to the hospital.
Ziad (17) lives in the fourth floor in a house in Rafah, near the tunnels.
During the war – no club training – I climbed over the fence to the club field
and trained alone, not so much with the ball. Instead – I was running around
as quickly and as long as possible to get my aggressiveness out of the body
to forget the war. [. . .] Every time a bomb hit one of the tunnels, one of
the windows in the house, where we are living, was smashed, and often some
material from the roof fell down. I cannot remember that I slept during the
nights when the windows cracked. We gathered around candles and took care
of the kids. For 10 days we had no food, except sometimes I was able to eat
a small piece of bread. We had no money, but we had water. Coming home
from the running, I was able to get some drops of water on my body. We got
some food from family members.
Young men gathering in the dressing room, making jokes during the shower,
seems like a dream. Instead, Ziad ran home after working out, got some drops of
water on his body and had sometimes to go to bed without food. Doing sport is an
accepted way of getting one’s aggressiveness out of the body all over the world,
including the civilians on the Gaza Strip. Running, as an alternative to football
during the war, is also regarded as a hegemonic masculine alternative. In the fol-
lowing text, we see that football activities were also used to ease the stress by
trying to forget the war.
Abdul (18), too, did workouts during the war.
Sometimes I went out on the field to play football in order to forget the war. I
felt tired, but I hung out to football as often as possible. [. . .] Between two and
three months after the war it was impossible to do some workouts with the team,
because the field was destroyed/demolished. The whole family (six boys, six
girls and parents) was always sleeping together during the war(s). When the
bombs were hitting just by our house, I thought they had hit our home, but the
nearest bomb was 100 metres away. After the explosions, boys and men went
out to see if anyone needed help. The females were still in the house. [. . .] I do
not feel safe, because planes, drones and rockets are still often in the air. The dif-
ferent kinds of noise scares me. I am afraid they will bomb my home.
Again, we see the feeling of fear as if it was embodied in a footballer’s mascu-

line identity. Israeli planes, drones and rockets contribute to making a precarious
masculinity of young males.
Bassim’s (no. 13) tale of football war is highly emotional:
During the 28 days war I did not play football due to the memory of all the
dead people. Israel bombed the house of our neighbours, so they stayed in
our house, because here it was only the windows that were smashed. Israel
has no right to bomb our town (Khan Younis), because we did not send any
rockets to Israel. [. . .] The nights were terrible with all the planes, bombs and
terrible, intense noise. I could neither sleep nor train and I thought: When are
they going to shoot us? – When will they ever stop? When will I be able to
get out of the house and live a life? I did not play until 40 days after the war,
because of all the burial ceremonies. In the end my parents told me to get out,
play football and have a life.
His fear of dying is not only his own; it belongs to his family and his neigh-
bours as well. To be able to tell me – the listener – about his fright of dying as
a victim, I did not expect with point of departure of the hegemonic masculine
behaviours of Scandinavian men in a so far peaceful corner of the globe.
Ahmed (13) adds that he stops playing football immediately if he hears planes
or rockets in the sky, in contrast to Hamada (11);
If we are going to stop playing every time we are detecting a plane, we can-
not play continuous. So we just go on playing. [. . .] After the war our coach
told us this: We have all experienced war, our stadium is destroyed, but we
have to go further.
The feeling of living in an iron cage is inscribed in the bodies of several foot-
ballers in Gaza since 2007.
Now, the tale of and about one who tried to escape from what could be labelled
an outdoor prison.
A short tale on and of Mahmoud Sarsak

The last young football player I interviewed on 30 July 2011 looked so sad. There-
fore, I asked him after finishing the interview if he needed anything from me to
become a better player. At first, he was unsure, but when I told him that I knew a
former vice president of UEFA, he decided to tell me the following tale:
Sarsak, another football player and me [from Gaza] were going to travel
from Erez to the West Bank to play in a club there on July, 22nd, 2009.
He had already got a contract with Balata Club and was going to play both
for this club and the national team. We were so happy, because we had got
a permit [from the Department of Interior in Israel]. When we got to the

border, the soldiers picked out Sarsak and told the two of us that we were
going to be arrested, if we ever tried to enter the West Bank again. [. . .]
Now, one of my best friends is in jail and we have not heard anything from
him. We hope to see him again, but – now – after two years – we are afraid
to lose him.
When I returned to Norway, the national newspaper, Aftenposten, inter-

viewed me about Sarsak, and I started to write articles in newspapers about
his imprisonment. This is how the snowball started. In November, I returned to
Gaza and visited his family in Rafah together with another Norwegian woman.
There we managed to talk to him on a telephone, which he only could use for
himself twice during the three years of imprisonment. He asked if we knew
several Norwegian football players he had met in Oslo in 2003, when he was
the best player on ‘the Peace Team of Israel and Palestine’ in the Norway Cup.
I did not dare to ask the questions I wanted, because I knew that we were under
surveillance.
– Are you still doing work outs?

– Yes, as often as possible, but it is difficult. I miss the food of my mum, espe-
cially on my birthdays. She makes such good and tasty cakes. We are trying to
celebrate birthdays in one way another.
– Hope to see you soon in Gaza. Then, I’ll travel from Norway.
– Yes, thanks and good bye.
At that time, I did not know that he was tortured. This he told me and my stu-
dents in Bø on 17 April 2013. But, first, how he got out of prison. The Norwegian
Palestine Committee started to work on this case after I had joined the organiza-
tion in November 2011. The leaders got in contact with our former Minister of
Foreign Affairs, Jonas Gahr Støre. On 11 June 2012, he sent a note to the Minister
of Foreign Affairs in Israel asking him to set Sarsak free and stop building walls
and settlements on Palestine soil. At that time, Sarsak had been on hunger strike
for about 65 days. His fate was now known by several football players and mem-
bers of Palestine committees in different countries of Europe. People in many
countries collected names, urging the Israeli to free him. The Norwegian Palestine
Committee arranged some demonstrations, and I was constantly in contact with
my friends in Gaza and sent copies of arrangements and articles supporting him to
them in order for them to tell Sarsak about his support. In the end, Eric Cantona,
Michel Platini and Sepp Blatter set him free on 10 July 2012. On 12 July, I talked
to him on a telephone and asked, among other questions, as follows:
– How did you manage to stay alive in Israeli jail in three years before and after
your hunger strike?
– Because of the support by women and men and my belief in my God I managed
to stay alive, but when I had been on hunger strike for more than about 70 days,
I was ready to die.
Israeli authorities won the battle of destroying Sarsak as a promising elite foot-
ball player by torturing him in jail. He told my students that the banana method
was one of them. He was commanded to sit on a stool with chains on his ankles
hooked to the floor and his body bending over the stool like a banana, his arms
stretched over his head and down to the floor hooked in the same chain by both
his wrists. This torture could last for two days and nights. Both his lungs and his
back are not in shape anymore. This is just the physical effects of the torture; the
psychological ones might perhaps turn out to be worse in the future. So far, how-
ever, he has an excellent mental capacity.
Gaza and Palestine lost a national football player; instead, they got a hero
of another kind. Thus, detention is framed in his body as a rite of passage and
will stay there as long as he lives. His will to live and die is constructed in the
hegemonic masculinity of Gaza men. He is also understood as fearless and
assertive. An effect of his practices is that the Arab masculinity (rujalah) is
certainly acquired, verified and played out. His body contains both the com-
ing football hero in a civil field and a warrior where he used both his body
and mental capacity as a weapon. His tale is now a brave history among the
Palestine people.
Conclusion
How did globalized football manifest itself locally in social interaction among
sporting youth in a nation without a proper state in a context of war and block-
ade? How were my interviews able to bring forth texts and subtexts of precarious
masculinities?
Global sports contain the potential for creating a world in which a great number
of cultures and nations become known and interact with each other. Not so with
the sporting Palestine people of Gaza. This context of limitation and restrictions on
women’s and men’s lives on the Strip since 2007 is embodied in experiences of the
local footballers’ everyday life. Although and perhaps due to the fact that the coaches,
technical and tactical strategies of football are underdeveloped and travelling outside
the Strip to play football is impossible for seniors, the creativity flowers. The players
and their coaches arrange cups for males like ‘the Martyr Competition’ of 2009, ‘the
Small World Cup Tournament’ of 2010, ‘the Revolutionary Cup’ of 2011 and ‘the
Gaza Cup’ every year. In doing so, they perform the nation in mimetic international
competitions where Palestine competes against the elite of global football. The ‘I
can’ of Merleau-Ponty links this mimetic international football experience with the
frustrated nationhood of occupation, colonisation and, in Gaza, of siege and block-
ade where the nation is performed in spite of the hegemon’s denial of its existence.
Perhaps the very denial of Palestinian nationhood gives in part Hamas and Islamism
the credibility to claim and speak for the Ummah. Because this concept refers both to
‘a nation’ and to Muslim people with a common ideology and culture, Hamas might
somehow make up for the loss of a Palestine state.
What is exceptional in Gaza football is the close relationship between the play-
ers and the fans. The spectators were allowed to borrow the cup during two days
of celebration. It was no problem that the fans lost the top of the cup. Coaches,
players and fans were eating and drinking as if they were guests at the same party.
There are few victories to celebrate, so most males hang on to everything accept-
able that can give them some joy in a very restricted life. Thus, celebrations of
victories are understood as an important rite of passage in football. These victo-
ries express potency, honour and hope in a powerless football culture of Gaza,
due to the blockade and the inability to create their lives as free citizens. These
creative arrangements are also seen as embodied in the footballers as a fundamen-
tal feature of their being and perception as an indication of their knowledge of the
world of Gaza.
Ziad’s (17) crying seems to be understood as a matter of course for him. Thus,
showing feelings like he did seems to be one of several accepted actions of this
precarious masculinity in the field of local football. This way of showing feelings
is first and foremost tied to accepted femininities in most cultures and must be
understood in connection with several wars on the Gaza Strip and the way family
members are coping with their fear of dying: sitting together, crying, both males
and females, old and young. They sense the smell and pressure of bombs, drones
and rockets which most of us just see and hear on news reports. Like Abdul, sev-
eral of them did not feel safe. For Bassim, the nights were the most terrifying. All
the 18 players I interviewed told the same story of crying, especially when bombs
and rockets were falling down during the nights, as a body-based understanding
of their everyday life. These happenings seem to contribute to developing pas-
sionate bodies of brotherhood. Ziad’s emotional reaction is understood in how
norms and subjectivity are constantly negotiated on the football field. Thus, it
gives a wider interpretative repertoire of an individual masculine identity. His
friends and the referee allowed him to cry and to open up for his lived body,
inhabiting the football field in this way.
The only Gaza, male, heroic praxis, except for what is called terrorism and
victims of administrative detention, is to excel in cultural activities like football
(Von der Lippe, 2014a). Even this is denied by the occupiers, because they are
not going to allow the construction of a peaceful, national Palestinian identity.
The Israeli official politics of today seems to be in a process of silencing and
trying to make the very word ‘Palestine’ invisible, thus crushing their hopes of a
better future by preventing the development of a nation state. The nationalist dis-
course in Gaza is very much based on a feeling of dehumanization and rejection.
If the people were allowed a nation state, they would most certainly have been
better integrated in global sports, culture, economics and politics. Does it not
really matter for the Western world that a Palestinian state is illegitimate? If so,
could this contribute to denying the legitimation of the existence of Israel? Thus,
it seems to be a logic of orientalism that is grounded in a perception of regional
practical politics (‘real politic’). The Gaza football players are often understood
as the collective others, whose civil rights do not matter, because their rites of
passage are defined and delimited by Israel in presenting Palestinians as both
impotent people and potent terrorists. This is in contrast to the embodiment of the
Gaza footballers helping and caring about each other. Thus, their living bodies
situate them as the subjective centre of an outdoor prison with destroyed football
fields, as the zero point of their existential football projects. There are few victo-
rious tales of becoming a living man in Gaza. There is, however, one man whose
actions are tied to all the characteristics of a real man – honour, potency, virility
and power – Mahmoud Sarsak, but he lost his bodily ability to develop into a
possible football player of an international standard, because the Israelis tortured
him and destroyed his dream and career. Anyhow, his body contains the best part
of an Arabic masculinity – rujulah- which nobody can wipe out. This form of a
football masculine identity is understood as a dynamic, embodied and creative
entity that strives to attribute meaning and value to the lives of the individuals in
tight surroundings and in an environment not open for a variable praxis, trans-
forming it into an everyday life that is a coherent ‘world for me’.
Notes
1 I published an article in The International Journal of the History of Sport in 2014 on the
same footballers but with other questions and in another context.
2 I do not use the term ‘non-state actors’ (NSA), because this concept includes, for exam-
ple, organizations like the WTO, World Bank and EU. The term ‘an incomplete state’ is
from Malcolm Maclean in an email, December 1, 2014.
3 Interview with Ebrahim Abu Salim, 12 October, 2013.
4 In relation to the role that football may play in conflict resolution and aid, cf. Omar Sal-
ha’s chapter titled ‘Diplomacy and the Beautiful Game: Muslim Footballers as Ambas-
sadors of Faith’ in this book.
References
Amara, M 2012, Sport, Politics and Society in the Arab World. Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Archetti, E P 1999, Masculinities. Football, Polo and the Tango in Argentina. Oxford: Berg.
Baumann, R & Stengel, F A 2014, Foreign Policy Analysis, Globalization and Non-State
Actors: State – Centric After All? Journal of International Relations and Development,
vol. 17, no.4: 489–521.
Bergren, K 2014, Sticky Masculinity: Post-Structuralism, Phenomenology and Subjectiv-
ity in Critical Studies on Men. Men and Masculinities, vol. 17: 231–252.
Bourdieu, P 2000, Den masculine dominance. Oslo: Pax Forlag A/S.
Broadberry, S & Harrison, M 2009, The Economics of World War I. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press.
Butenschøn, Nils A Midt-Østen: Imperiefall, statsutvikling, kriger. 2nd ed. Oslo: Univer-
sitetsforlaget, 2009.
Butler, J 1990, Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York and
London: Routledge.
Carrigan, T, Connell, R and Lee, J 1985, Toward a New Sociology of Masculinity. Theory
and Society, vol. 14, no. 5: 551–604.
Charbonneau, L 2012, Palestinians win implicit U.N. recognition of sovereign state. www.
reuters.com/article/2012/11/29/us-palestinians-statehood-idUSBRE8AR0EG20121129
Chernyakov, A 2014, ‘The Phenomenology of Time Revisited: Husserl and Merleau-Ponty’.
In Karel Novotny et al: Corporeity and Affectivity. Dedicated to Maurice Merleau-Ponty.
Leiden, Boston: BRILL.

Connell, R W 1995, Masculinities. Cambridge & Oxford: Polity Press & Blackwell
Publishers.
Crossley, N 2001, The Social Body. Habit, Identity and Desire. London et al.: Sage
Publications.
Enloe, C 1990, Bananas, Beaches and Bases. Making Feminist Sense of International Poli-
tics. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Filiu, J-P 2014, GAZA. A History. London: Hurst & Company.
Guibernau, M 1999, Nations without States. Political Communities in a Global Age.
Oxford: Polity Press.
Hobsbawm, J. 1992, Nations and Nationalism since 1780 (2nd Ed). Cambridge: Cam-
Hockey, J & Collison, JA 2007, Grasping the Phenomenology of Sporting Bodies. Inter-
national Review for the Sociology of Sport, vol. 42, no. 2: 115–131. http://irs.sagepub.
com/content/42/2/115
Husserl, E 1970, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology.
An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy. Translated by D. Carr. Evanston, IL:
Northwestern University Press.
Iorwerth, H et al 2014, Nation, State and Identity in International Sport. National Identities,
vol. 16, no. 4: 327–347 (Special Issue: Sporting Nations without States, Guest Edited:
Malcolm MacLean).
Kerry, D S & Armour, K M 2000, Sport Sciences and the Promise of Phenomenology:
Philosophy, Method, and Insight. Quest, vol. 52, no. 1: 1–17.
Messner, M A 2007, Out of Play. Critical Essays on Gender and Sport. Albany: State Uni-
versity of New York.
Nalivaika, I & Tin, M 2014, ‘General Introduction’. In Ina Nalivaika & Mikkel Tin: Phe-
nomenology of the Everyday. Oslo: Novus Press.
Peteet, J 1994, Male Gender and Rituals of Resistance in the Palestinian Intifada: A Cul-
tural Politics of Violence. American Ethnologist (online), vol. 21, no. 1: 31–49.
Sorek, T. 2007, Arab Soccer in a Jewish State: The integrative Enclave. Cambridge: Cam-
Sugden, J & Bairner, A 1993, Sport, Sectarianism and Society in Divided Ireland. Leices-
ter: Leicester University Press.
Tin, M 2014, ‘Maurice Merleau-Ponty: Embodiement’. In Schrumpf, E., Working Class
Children and their Homes. In Ina Nalivaika & Mikkel Tin (Eds.) Phenomenology of the
Everyday: Oslo: Novus, pp. 32–38.
United Nations General Assembly Session 67 Agenda item 37. Question of Palestine
A/67/L.28 26 November 2012. Retrieved 11 June 2014. and United Nations General
Assembly Session 67 Resolution 67/19. Status of Palestine in the United Nations A/
RES/67/19 29 November.
von der Lippe, G 2010a, ‘Et medieskapt maskulint begjærs- og idrettsidol’. In Hans-Ivar
Kristiansen & Odd Nordhaug (eds.): Retorikk, idrett og samfunn. Oslo: forlag1.
von der Lippe, G 2010b, Et kritisk blikk på sportsjournalistikk. Medier og idrett i en glo-
balisert verden. Kristiansand: ij-forlaget.
von der Lippe, G 2014a, Football, Masculinities and Health on the Gaza Strip. The Inter-
national Journal of the History of Sport, vol. 31, no. 14: 1789–1806.
von der Lippe, G 2014b, ‘En kritisk medieanalyse av Marit Breiviks seire og tap fra 1998–
2008 i et kjønnsmaktperspektiv’. In G. von der Lippe & Hans Hognestad (eds.): Kjønns-
makt i Idrett og Friluftsliv. Oslo: Novus.
Wagg, S 1995, Giving the Game Away. Football, Politics and Culture on Five Continents.
London & New York: Leicester University Press.

Waage, H Henriksen 2013, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk I Midtøsten. Oslo: Cappelen
Damm Akademisk.
Whitehead, S M 2002, Men and Masculinities. Key themes and New Directions. London:
Polity Press et al.
Whittal, D. 2014, Gaza: a history, interview with Jean-Pierre Filiu. Retrieved from www.
redpepper.org.uk/gaza-a-history/ [1 October 2014]
Yapp, M E 1987, The Making of the Modern Near East 1792–1923. Harlow, England:
Longman.

PART III
Sport and politics of identity


7 Sport and political transition
in Tunisia
Another terrain of competition
between Islamists and seculars
Mahfoud Amara
The aim of the chapter is to uncover the discourses on sport and political transition
in Tunisia. The transitional government and the newly elected parliament domi-
nated by the Islamist party Ennahda (up until 1014) have managed to maintain the
inherited institutions of the Tunisian state despite all the drawbacks, including the
resurgence of the Jihadi Salafi movement in the political scene and the opposition
of secular movement toward the so-called Ennahdha’s project of “re-Islamising
Tunisia”. The chapter examines how the discourse on religion and religiosity is
debated in the sport media in post-Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the ousted long-time
ruler of Tunisia following the 2011 popular uprising. The debate surrounding the
participation of Tunisian athletes in the 2012 Olympic Games in London and par-
ticularly the performances of El-Melouli and Ghribi, respectively gold medallist
in 10 km swimming and silver medallist in the 3,000 meter steeplechase in the 2012
London Olympics, is the focus of this study.
Sport and secular state ideology in Tunisia

Starting from its recognition as a member of the International Olympic Commit-
tee (IOC) on 23 September 1957, Tunisia has engaged in a systematic policy for
hosting major sport events, organizing the World Military Boxing Championship
(CISM) in 1965, the 3rd African Basketball Championships (April 1965), the 5th
African Nations’ Football Cup (1965), the African Volleyball Championships
(1967), the pre-Olympic (Africa group) Handball Tournament in March 1972, the
first Pan African Festival of Youth and Sports (July 1973) and two Cross-Country
World Championships in 1969 and 1972. According to Errais (2004), the decision
to organise the 5th Mediterranean Games in Tunis in September 1965 is an evidence
of the strong willingness of Tunisia to take an active role in the international sport
community and to strengthen its tie with European, African and Asian countries.
This is despite being confronted internally with more pressing priorities such as
the setting up of an institutional and judicial foundation for the new state, ensuring
order and security through the nationalization of the army and police forces and
decolonization of administrative structures. The Tunisian strategy of international
relations through sport took a step further with the election of Mohamed Mzali
(who was the head of the Tunisia Olympic Committee and the head of the Tunisian
104 Mahfoud Amara
Football Federation) as an IOC member in 1965. He became a member of the IOC
executive board in 1973 and vice president of the executive board in 1976. He was
nominated as prime minister in Tunisia in 1980 and general secretary of the Dous-
tourian Socialist Party (the regime’s party). Errais continues by stating that from
the beginning, Tunisia has associated sport, in addition of being a political means
for the diffusion of the state’s ideology symbolised by the nation’s leader, Habib
Bourgiba, with its strategy of development and in particular with the promotion of
Tunisia as a tourist destination. This was evident in the political discourses around
the staging of the Mediterranean Games: “Tunisia, a welcoming land”, “Tunisia a
friend”, “Fraternal Tunisia” and “Tunisia a land of meetings”. With 8 million tour-
ists a year (before the 2011 uprising), tourism is one of the main sources of reve-
nue for the economy. It is estimated that Tourism contributes 7 percent of Tunisia’s
GDP and employs more than 400,000 people, both directly and indirectly.
Investment in the Mediterranean theme in the construction of Tunisian identity
continued during Ben Ali’s era with the organization of the 2001 Tunis Mediter-
ranean Games. In Abbassi’s (2007, p. 129) words,
The Mediterranean theme, and the plural identity it represents, has imposed
its ideological hegemony on other identity themes (Maghrebin, Arab, African
and Muslim). A politically neutral horizon – neither oriental nor occidental,
or it is both oriental and occidental – the Mediterranean Sea appears to be an
ideal symbolic place for Tunisian identity and a basis of union between the
Tunisian Diaspora and their land of origin.
In political terms, more than even before, the 2001 Mediterranean Games had a
highly symbolic significance for the Tunisian regime. The Games received a par-
ticular political attention with the building of a modern sport arena in the “Medi-
terranean” city of Radès, named “7th November sport city” in reference to the
date of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s arrival to power on 7 November 1987 (Abbassi,
2007, p. 134). The strategy for staging international sport events has continued
after Zine El Abidine Ben Ali came to power in 7 November 1987. Tunisia hosted
the Africa Cup of Nations in football in 1994 and 2004, the African Handball
Cup in 1994 and 2004, Judo World Championship in 2001, the African Seniors,
Juniors and U-17 Athletics in 2002, Men’s Handball World Cup Finals in 2005,
Women’s World Basketball Cup finals for U-20 in 2005 and the African Nations
Handball Finals for men and women seniors in 2006.
If we consider demography and socio-economic variables, one could argue that
Tunisia seems to be ahead of the other neighbouring countries considering its per-
formance since its independence in continental, Mediterranean and international
competitions. This may be explained by the legacy of Tunisia’s policy (particu-
larly under Ben Ali) for staging regional and international sport events as well as
the systematic strategy for detecting young talents, which mobilise schools and
centres of sport excellence at local, regional and national levels.
After the 2011 uprising, which toppled Ben Ali’s regime, one of the challenges
of the transition period under the of governance of the so called troika, a coalition
Sport & political transition in Tunisia 105
between Islamist and secular forces that had opposed the former regime, led by
Ennahda Islamist party, has been to maintain Tunisia’s status as a leader in elite
sport in the region. Questions have been raised about the competence of the newly
formed government in managing the national sport system and even its ideologi-
cal position on the role of sport itself in society, particularly with regards to oppo-
sition to Western and secular norms of sport practice.
Sport under Ennahda-led transition government

Since Tunisia’s uprising began on 17 December 2010, the Arab region is under-
going a dramatic change; this may be one of its most drastic transitions since the
end of colonialism in the 1950s and 1960s. Regimes which ruled their countries
for more than 30 years (41 years for Gaddafi) collapsed in a matter of months as
a consequence of popular demonstrations, in the cases of Tunisia and Egypt, and
military conflict in the case of Libya. The events since 2011 have changed politics
in the region and will have a profound and lasting impact. Having not been able to
express themselves in the past, different movements are coming to the fore today
to claim their legitimacy on intellectual, ideological, or revolutionary platforms.
The drive is to be part of the new power dynamics. This is not always happening
in a smooth and peaceful manner.
Among those movements which were oppressed during the one-party state’s
era are representatives of political Islam, or so-called Islamism. In addition to
a return to religious practice, Islamist movements seek a reactivation of Islamic
solidarity as a possible solution to modern individualism perceived as “dangerous
oxygen coming from the Occident, in its loss of identity” (Bekkar, 1992). Further-
more, Arkoun (1995) defines Islamism as a type of discourse or collective affir-
mation linked to a category of actors who share a strong willpower/determination
to re-establish “religious” (Islamic) values and a “religious” model of societal
organization. The application of hybrid modernity in the Arab world has created,
according to Arkoun, a “psychological split” (or a shock) in the collective imagi-
nation between elements of applied (and imposed) modernity in non-European
context on the one hand and local cultures and traditional social structures on the
other. In this context, Islamism or political Islam, depicted also as Islamic funda-
mentalism, neo-reformism and neo-fundamentalism (in comparison to the early
reformism of Tahtaoui, Afghani and Abdou), has emerged as a response to the
failure of modernity, reflected in poverty, social injustice and dominance of the
one-party states and of nationalist (secular) projects for development.
According to their interpretation of Islamic tradition, Islamist movements can
range from traditionalist through salafist to reformist. Or they can vary according
to their national contexts, including, for instance, the historical nation-state for-
mation and contacts with Western modernity, which determine specific forms of
social, cultural and political activism: the Islamic Brotherhood in Egypt, Jordan
and Kuwait; Ennahda in Tunisia; FIS, the Movement for Peace in Society and
Islah, in Algeria; the Party for Justice and Development in Morocco; the Jus-
tice and Development Party in Turkey; Jamaat Islami in Pakistan; the Prosperous
106 Mahfoud Amara
Justice Party in Indonesia; Hizb Allah in Lebanon; Hamas and Djihad Islami in
Palestine; and Tabligh and Hizb ut Tahrir in Europe.
For these movements, sport can be seen as a means of strengthening young
Muslims physically and of mobilizing them around the political project of Islamic
parties. This is evident in Tunisia today with the promotion of the new martial
art Ezzamktal, said to be inspired by Islamic teaching, developed by a Tunisian,
Cheikh Mounsef Ouarghi, while in jail during the Ben Ali era. This emerging
combat sport has been visible during political rallies organised by the Salafi Jihadi
movement led by Ansar Al Sharia (before its ban in 2013).1 Sport can also be per-
ceived as another symbol of Western “hyper-consumerism” and thus as “opium
for the masses” – something that distracts Muslims from the (more serious) pur-
suit of the political realities of the Ummah (Muslim nation).2
As a consequence of regime change, sport emerged at the centre of public
debates. For some, the time had come to judge those who benefited from the past
regime’s favours; to evaluate the level of intervention from the former regime
and its business lobby in the corruption of the national sport system; and to judge
those in the sport community who opposed regime change. Having myself wit-
nessed Tunisian revolution, like most Arab people, on TV (Al Jazeera news) and
social media (Twitter, YouTube and Facebook), the most striking incident I recall
with regard to regime change is symbolised by a video posted on YouTube show-
ing the personnel of the Ministry of Youth and Sport expelling the minister from
his office, obliging him to leave, walking, from the backyard gate. In this process
of debenalisation of state and non-state institutions, the legitimacy of board mem-
bers of all Tunisian sport federations was under scrutiny. Demands were made to
elect, gradually and democratically, new members of sport federations – who are
not linked with the former regime – in order to manage the new Tunisian sport
system and to prepare for Tunisia’s participation in international sport competi-
tions and the 2012 Olympic Games in particular.
The first challenge for the new sport authority was to maintain the same level
of performance of Tunisia in international sport competitions while imposing, as
explained earlier, a break with past regimes. Furthermore, the additional challenge
was to avoid any conflict with international sports federations and the IOC, as
well as with the public, particularly the large community of football fans in Tuni-
sia. In a tactical move and to show their good intention of reconciling with sport
and football lovers in particular – who represent also a non-negligible electorate –
the Ennahda-led government nominated Tariq Diab, the star of Tunisian football
and a famous football analyst in the former Qatari state-owned channel Al Jazeera
Sport3 (rebranded recently as beINSports), as the new Minister of Sport. Separat-
ing Youth Affairs and Sport Affairs was also a political message sent to the sport
community in Tunisia about the importance the Ennahda-led government was
giving to the sport sector. The nomination of Tariq Diab was not welcomed by
everybody. The minister was accused of serving the political agenda of Ennahda
rather than sport. It was reported in the media that he once declared that he is
“Nahdhaoui [follower of Ennahda party] . . . I am proud of Ennahda party and
its project for the country . . . This government is successful because it is led by
Djebbali [Prime Minister] and Merzouki [President], who are the sons of Tunisian
revolution” (translated from Arabic by the author; bracketed information added).
His competence was also questioned because he did not have previous experience
in managing sport nor a university degree (Alkhabar, 23 December 2011).
In addition to tackling corruption, the new Minister of Sport and the Ennahda-
led government had to deal with the growing issue of violence in football. The
2011–2012 football season witnessed organizational problems due to the popular
revolt. The season ended in September, giving the players less time to prepare for
the next season, which resumed in November. To a lesser degree than in Egypt,
where the death toll among supporters post-Mubarak reached an alarming level,
football in Tunisia saw a distressing level of violence, pushing the sport and foot-
ball authorities to impose a ban on public access to football stadia. Minister of
Sport Tariq Diab accused the former regime, represented by Salim Chiboub, the
stepson of deposed Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, former president
of the National Olympic Committee and president of Espérance Sportive de Tunis
for 19nineteen years, of being behind “the pollution” of Tunisia’s sport system:
Salim Chiboub and his guards controlled the totality of sport sector in Tuni-
sia. They are behind the violence in football stadium. We need to be reminded
that the civil servants working at the Ministry of Youth and Sport were in
connivance with Salim Chiboub and fulfilled all his desires.
Having worked in Al Jazeera Sport as a football analyst for a number of years

before his appointment as Minister of Sport in the transition government under the
banner of the Ennahda party was beneficial in negotiating a deal with the chan-
nel to broadcast the Tunisia–Cameroun match for the 2014 World Cup qualifica-
tion tournament free to air (Mousa, arabia.Eurosport.com, 08 October 2013). The
former Al Jazeera Sport (now beINsports), owned by the state of Qatar, has the
exclusive rights to televise major sport tournaments and leagues to North Africa
and the Middle East. Qatar was accused of financing and influencing the political
and electoral process in Tunisia in favour of the Ennahda party (Kaush, 2013).
El-Melouli, Ghribi and the Olympics – “Halal” or “Haram”

The London 2012 Olympic Games were a test for both the government coali-
tion and the democratic transition of Tunisia post-Ben Ali. It was the first mega
sport event after the popular uprising in a number of Arab countries. For Post-
Gadhafi Libya, it was a historical moment as the new Libyan flag was raised for
the first time in an international competition. The then-Tunisian President Moncef
Merzouki attended the opening ceremony of the Games and was also invited to
a reception at Buckingham Palace for heads of state. In addition to the politi-
cal symbolism, the 2012 Olympic Games coincided with Ramadan, the month
of fasting for Muslims. This was widely discussed in the press. Questions were
raised about the challenges of fasting and the summer heat to the performance of
Muslim athletes. Religious scholars intervened to discuss the obligation of fasting
108 Mahfoud Amara
for Muslims (one of the five pillars of Islam), in contrast to the duty of athletes
to represent their nations at the Olympics and to participate with the optimum
bodily and mental conditions for high competition. About 3,000 Muslim athletes
were faced with similar challenges (The Guardian, 2012). There was a consensus
among religious authorities in Muslim countries to grant athletes permission to
break the fast during the competition and to fast after the month of Ramadan for the
days they had to eat. Even more, the London Games were the first in the history of
modern Olympics in which all participating teams had women athletes. The last
countries to send women athletes to the Olympics were Qatar, Saudi Arabia and
Brunei. This was possible thanks to the changing rules adopted by international
federations to allow athletes with headscarves (hijab) to compete. According to
Farooq and Sehlikoglu (2014, p. 1), “Muslim sportswomen, their sporting bodies
and their presence at the Olympic Games was, typically, discussed, defined and
represented to Western audiences through a manifold process of constant ‘Other-
ing’”. These two contexts, Ramadan and the presence (or visibility/invisibility) of
Muslim women (with or without the veil) in the Olympics, had an impact on the
question of sport and politics (and religion) in post-secular Tunisia, as discussed
in the following section.
Tunisia participated in the London Games with 83 athletes; among them 20
were women, competing in 17 sports including three collective sports (handball,
basketball and volleyball) for the first time. It was the best Arab performance and
the best performance for Tunisia in the Olympics, with one gold and one bronze by
Oussama El-Melouli in 10 km and 1,500 m swimming, respectively, and one silver
by Habiba Ghribi in the 3,000 m steeplechase.4 For El-Melouli, as he explained
himself,5 winning the two medals was important to prove that he is not “the athlete
of Ben Ali”. His gold medals for the 2010 World Swimming Championship and for
the 2011 Arab Games were extensively used by the Ben Ali regime to promote an
image of Tunisia as a model of stability and progress in the Arab World.6
The picture of El-Melouli drinking water after his victory in the 10 km race was
ill interpreted by some Tunisians; it was reported in the press as a form of defiance
of Ramadan fasting. The press in Europe and in Arab countries was quick to report
that a Fatwa (or religious edict) to excommunicate El-Melouli for apostasy was
published in a forum of the Tunisian Salafi Jihadi movement Ansar Al-Sahriaa. A
Facebook page named Ansar Al-Sahriaa in Kairouan posted the following message:
This Kafir [unbeliever], follower of the Tajamou [the party of Ben-Ali, Social-
ist Destourian Party], the pernicious, who drink water publicly in front of the
Muslim Ummah. We asked for the destitution of his nationality because he
is dishonourable to the Ummah and we do not want his medals. You are dis-
graceful, disgraceful to Tunisia. [Our demand] is a legal/religious duty. [Here
the word Katl – to kill – is not clear] is a religious duty. We do not accept
dishonour.
(Translated from Arabic by the author;
bracketed information added)
This was reported in the Arabic version of Eurosport webpage on 10 August
2012 with the spectacular title “The Islamic group in Tunisia calls for the
killing of El-Mellouli” (Fouad, 2012). The title is misleading, as there is
no armed movement with the banner “Islamic Group” in Tunisia (similar to
Islamic Group in Egypt or GIA in Algeria), and the word “killing” or “to kill”
is not clear in the text. The same article was then copied by a number of online
news websites. To put an end to the stories, a delegation of Ansar Al-Sahriaa
led by “Sheikh Abu Ayadh” invited El-Melouli and offered him some gifts,
which included religious Salafi literature and al-Wa’ad, the official publica-
tion of the movement. He was also called to spread Islamic Daawa (to preach
Islam) in Los Angles, where he resides. A video of the meeting, which took
place in the Hussein mosque, was posted on social media.7 The movement,
founded officially in 2012, which adheres to so-called Salafi Jihadi doctrine,
understood the importance of sport to appeal to the youth as well as being a
political tool to position itself in post-Ben Ali Tunisia, in competition with
other Salafi movements (representing the scientific branch of Salafism) and
Ennahda. The three camps have been accused by the secular parties of having
the same goal, which is “creating an Islamic state ruled by a fundamental-
ist interpretation of sharia law that would purge Tunisia of its Western-style
modernity” (Merone and Cavatorta, 2012). In 2013, after the killings of Chokri
Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi, the Ansar al-Sharia movement was designated
a “terrorist group” by the Tunisian government, and an arrest warrant was
issued against Sheikh Abu Ayadh “for allegedly inciting an attack on the U.S.
embassy in Tunis in September 2012, which killed four people” (BBC News,
27 August 2013).
Similarly to Algerian runner Hassiba Boulmerka in the 1992 Olympics in
Barcelona,8 the appearance and performance of Habiba Ghribi in the 3,000 m
steeplechase offered another debate about Muslim women’s bodies and sport and
women’s position in Tunisia. Aware of the symbolic dimension of her victory,
Habiba Ghribi announced that her medal “is for all the people of Tunisia, Tuni-
sian women, and the new Tunisia” (Africa Top Sport, 7 August 2012). Reference
to “the new Tunisia” is interesting here. For some, “the new Tunisia” of the post-
Ben Ali regime should be celebrated as a new transition toward democracy inclu-
sive of different political doctrines. For others, “the new Tunisia” would mean
the end of “secular Tunisia”. The emergence of Ennahda as a political power
in the parliamentary elections was perceived by secular movements as a threat
to the unique tradition of Tunisian constitution in the Arab world, which granted
the legal principle of equal position between men and women. Tunisian women
were called to demonstrate in the street after the elected parliamentary assembly
adopted in August 2012 article 27, which stipulates that “the state insures the
protection of women rights under the principle of complementarity [the term
“complementarity” replaced that of “equality” in the previous constitution] with
men in the family and as associate of men for the development of the nation”
(translated from French by the author; bracketed information added). Organisers
110 Mahfoud Amara
of the demonstration denounced also the mounting Islamist pressure against the
Olympic athlete Habiba Ghribi
We call for the withdrawal purely and simply of the article [article 27] which
constitutes a violation against women rights and their humanity, declared
Ahlem Blehadj, President of Women Democrats Association (. . .) far away
from being anecdotal this polemic intervenes when a number of women are
denouncing the growing pressure of Islamists and midst of another debate in

the internet between Islamists and seculars about the short of Athlete Habiba
Ghribi, Tunisian medallist in the London Olympics. Radicals are even calling
for the destitution of her nationality.
(Libération, French newspaper, 11 August 2012,
translated from French by the author)
Similarly, it was reported in the press that some radicals (without naming
them) declared they were offended by her “denuded and indecent attire . . . with
her short and [denuded] tight and belly, Habiba Ghribi brings shame to Tuni-
sian women” (Agence France-Presse, cited in La Press, a Canadian newspaper,
14 August 2012). Another newspaper close to the far-right movement party in
France (National Front) reported in an article titled “Tunisia: Islamists do not like
Olympic Champions” that Islamists – without offering further precision of who
they are and representing which movement – declared, “Tunisia is not need of
medals won by an indecent and denuded woman. We all call for the destitution of
Tunisian nationality of a woman who revealed her evil character and immorality”
(Nationspress.info, 17 August 2012, translated from French by the author).
Conclusion
Sport in Tunisia, which was an important feature of Ben Ali’s regime (and,
before him, Bourguiba) policy to promote the country as modern, secular and
Mediterranean, has been at the centre of political debate of “the new Tunisia”
between Islamists on the one hand, represented by the Ennahda party and Salafi
movements, which want to play a political role in Tunisia’s transition process
after decades of being silenced, and the secular movement on the other hand, rep-
resented by the left parties, the old Doustourian party and feminist movements,
which want to preserve the secular tradition of the Tunisian state. The success
of El-Melouli and Gharbi in the Olympics was celebrated as a success by these
two parties, but for different reasons. For the Ennahda party, it was important
to maintain Tunisia’s status in elite sport; for the secular movement, their suc-
cess was celebrated as defiance against the “Islamisation” of Tunisian society
and particularly against the mounting Jihadi Salafi group in Tunisia. One could
argue also that the conflicting position between Islamists and seculars over sport
is exaggerated in the press and presented in an essentialist and polarising man-
ner. The coalition of Islamist and secular parties in the troika government from
2012 to 2014 is a good example of co-existence and a model so far of democratic
transition in the Arab world. Although it still strongly represented in the elected
parliament, the influence of the Ennahda party in the executive power was too
short (having lost the 2014 presidential election) to leave a significant footprint
in the sporting sector.
Notes
1 Videos of Ezzamaktal demonstrations posted by Ansar Al-Shariaa are available on
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJipmrX7kLw. A documentary on Aljazeera

news was devoted to this new emerging sport post-Tunisia revolution: www.youtube.
com/watch?v=ialwg0f4uYY.
2 For sport under the Hamas Party’s rule in Gaza, cf. Chapter 6, and on sport under
Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party, cf. Chapters 5 and 8 of this book.
3 Qatar has been accused by secular movements in Tunisia, but also by neighbouring Gulf
countries, of financing the Ennahda party in Tunisia and Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
4 The silver may turn to gold, as the gold medallist from Russia was recently tested posi-
tive for doping.
5 Oussama El-Mellouli: I am the champion of Tunisia and not Ben-Ali’s champion: www.
youtube.com/watch?v=NOrDi9CMNLs (retrieved 15 March 2015).
6 A picture depicting Ben Ali with El-Melouli at the VIP lounge of the International Cart-
age airport in Tunis: www.turess.com/fr/letemps/51145 (retrieved 30 March 2015).
7 Video of the meeting is available in the following link: www.youtube.com/watch?
v=4wh6Kt1NBhs.
8 See Interview of Hassiba Boulmerka to BBC News: Arnold, C. (BBC News, 11 Febru-
ary 2012), Hassiba Boulmerka: Defying death threats to win gold. Retrieved from www.
bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16962799.
References
Abbassi, D 2007, Sport et usages politiques du passé dans la Tunisie des débuts du XXIe
siècle, Politique et Sociétés, vol. 26, no. (2–3), pp. 125–142.
Africa Top Sport (7 August 2012), JO 2012/3000m steeple: Habiba Ghribi première femme
tunisienne médaillée olympique. Retrieved from: www.africatopsports.com/2012/08/07/
jo-2012–3000m-steeple-habiba-ghribi-premiere-femme-tunisienne-medaillee-
olympique-4/ (accessed 1 February 2015).
Alkhabar newspaper (23 December 2011), [Tariq Diab Mina El Koura Ila El Ouizara] Tariq
Diab: from football to the Ministry. Retrieved from www.al-akhbar.com/node/28291
(accessed 15 February 2015).
Arkoun, M 1995, Clarifier le passé pour construire le future, Confluence Méditerranée,
vol. 16, pp. 17–31.
Arnold, C 11 February 2012, BBC News: Hassiba Boulmerka: Defying death threats to
win gold. Retrieved from www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16962799 (accessed 11 Feb-
ruary 2012).
BBC News (27 August 2013), Tunisia declares Ansar al-Sharia a terrorist group. Retrieved
from: www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-23853241 (accessed 1 March 2015).
Bekkar, R 1992, Taking up space in Tlemcen: The Islamist occupation of urban Algeria,
Middle East Report, vol. 179 (22), no. 6 (November–December), pp. 11–15.
Erraïs, B 2004, Discours sportif à vocation méditerranéenne: l’exemple tunisien, 1956–
1985, Confluences Méditerranée, vol. 50, pp. 59–73.
112 Mahfoud Amara
Farooq, S and Sehlikoglu, S 2014, Strange, Incompetent and Out-Of-Place, Feminist
Media Studies [online, DOI:10.1080/14680777.2014.947522].
Fouad, Z. (Eurosport Arabia.com, 10/08/2012), [Jamaate Islamiya Fi Tounes Touhil Dam
El-Melloui], The Islamic group in Tunisia calls for the killing of El-Mellouli. Retrieved
from: arabia.eurosport.com/swimming/olympic-games-london/2012 (accessed 10 March
2015).
The Guardian (22 July 2012), Ramadan and the Olympics: to fast or not to fast? Retrieved
from: www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/jul/22/ramadan-olympics-fasting
(accessed 10 March 2015).

Kausch, K 2013, ‘Foreign funding’ in post-revolution Tunisia, FRIDE (a European think
tank for global action). Retrieved from: fride.org/download/WP_Tunisia.pdf (accessed
30 March 2015).
Lapress.ca (14 August 2012), Deux athlètes tunisiens visés par les islamistes. Retrieved
from: www.lapresse.ca/international/afrique/201208/14/01–4565023-deux-athletes-
tunisiens-vises-par-les-islamistes.php (accessed 1 April 2015).
Libération (11 August 2012), Les Tunisiennes appelées à défendre leurs droits face aux
islamistes. Retrieved from: www.liberation.fr/monde/2012/08/11/les-tunisiennes-
appelees-a-defendre-leurs-droits-face-aux-islamistes_839227 (accessed 1 April 2015).
Merone, F and Cavatorta, F 2012, Salafist mouvance and Sheikh-ism in the Tunisian Dem-
ocratic Transition, Working Papers in International Studies, Centre for International
Studies, Dublin City University.
Mousa, H (Eurosport Arabia.com, 08/10/2013), [Tarik Diab Yatawasal Litifaq Maa Aljazeera
Linaql Mubarat Tounes Ala Alqanat El Meftouha] Tarik Diab reached an agreement with
Al-Jazeera to televise Tunisie’s match on free-to-air. Retrieved from: arabia.eurosport.
com/football/world-cup-qualification-caf/2014 (accessed 20 March 2015).
Nationspress.info (17 August 2012), Tunisie: les islamistes n’aiment pas les champions
olympiques. Retrieved from: www.nationspresse.info/presse-media/revue-de-presse/
tunisie-les-islamistes-naiment-pas-les-champions-olympiques (accessed 1 April 2015).
8 Contestations and dichotomies
concerning women’s bodies and
sports in contemporary Turkey
From Aysun Özbek to Neslihan Darnel
Sertaç Sehlikoglu
Introduction
By centralising “the case of Aysun Özbek”, a media debate over an alleged trans-
formation of a female volleyball player in Turkey, this chapter discusses the con-
tested bodies of Turkish sportswomen. Aysun Özbek is a female volleyball player
and former coach of the Vakıfbank Güneş Sigorta, one of the most successful
female volleyball teams in Turkey. The reason she attracted media attention, how-
ever, was not because of any of her sports successes but the rumour that she
quit her profession and started observing a religious lifestyle, including wearing
the Islamic headscarf. The chapter starts with analysing the media jargon and
discourse of a particular piece of news footage1 that was broadcast on a popular
Turkish TV channel at the time of the debate. I open up each one of the symbolic
and discursive meanings of the highlights in the footage and try to link them to
the contestation among sports, women’s public visibility, public sexuality, secu-
larity, and Islamic religion in the context of Turkey. During my case analysis,
I will be drawing attention to those discursive traditions about women’s public
visibility, physical exercise, secularity, and piety that are common to both “the
case of Aysun Özbek” and my previous fieldwork done in 2008. Juxtaposing and
comparing the aforementioned cases and their entailed discourses is a fruitful
exercise which will inform us regarding the nationalist, traditionalist and religious
discourses surrounding women’s volleyball in contemporary Turkey.
Women’s sporting bodies and nationalism in Turkey

The process of nation formation in the Middle East can be said to involve the
production of certain discourses as much as institution building at its core. Sports
participation was overloaded with patriotic meanings in the context of republican
Turkey. Being a sportsman was defined as a Turkish characteristic. According to
this new Turkish nationalism, participating in sports activities was an important
duty for anyone who loved his/her nation. Inevitably, sportswomen were perceived
by the state elite not as sexual bodies or as women intervening in a male zone but
rather as heroic figures who were devoted to their nation. The Turkish Republic
has focused on modernisation, civilization, and secularism as cornerstones of its
114 Sertaç Sehlikoglu
political project, expressed in part through discourses and definitions attached to
women’s liberated, visible, and fit bodies (Baydar, 2002; Atalay, 2007b). There-
fore, when it comes to male bodies, it is possible to claim that transformation
through sports was largely concerned with creating strong bodies fit for different
kinds of “service” to the country. However, in the case of women, their healthy,
fit, and urban-looking bodies were discursively portrayed as the physical repre-
sentation and manifestation of the new country, which had cut its ties from the
Ottomans and “turned its face to the West”. The sportswomen of the early Repub-
lican period were also the mothers of a fit and “pure” next generation of the nation
with their bolstered reproductive capability and mothering skills. Reproducing a
pure nation, according to eugenics discourse – which, as I have suggested, has
influenced some of Kemal Atatürk’s thinking – is “an honor and privilege, if not
a duty” (Kevles, 1995, p. 184) for any woman who has the capacity to give birth.
In short, the Republican state turned women’s bodies into both the arena and the
subject of Turkish identity formation.
Although it was part of the national project, women who were involved in Western
sports were only those who could afford the membership fees of the sport clubs. After
the 1920s, a very limited number of women from elite families became involved in
Western sports both as professionals and as amateurs. Managers of national sport
clubs were encouraged to have female members by Atatürk himself. There are anec-
dotes about managers who sought to find female members through their male mem-
bers to satisfy Atatürk’s request (Atalay, 2007a). Eventually, the women who were
first involved in sports in Turkey were elite women who could afford the member-
ship fees of the clubs and usually happened to be female relatives of the men who
were either on the managerial boards of the clubs or were regular members.
Women who were professionally involved in sports came from wealthy, edu-
cated, and prestigious families, and most of them had other professions as well.
One of the leading sportswomen in Turkey was Sabiha Rıfat, who became the first
female volleyball player in 1929. She was one of the very few female members
of a national (and men’s) sport club, Fenerbahçe. Rıfat was an educated woman
from an elite family and was part of the construction team for Anıtkabir, Atatürk’s
mausoleum, as Turkey’s first female engineer. This particular history started an
imaginative germination process in the minds of the public, locating women’s
involvement in sport as an upper-class act.
Navaro-Yashin (2002) focuses on daily political discussions and disagreements
about the content of “Turkishness” that took place in the mid-1990s and speaks of
two types of Turkish women that appeared in republican discourses: one of them
short haired, the other black veiled. Navaro-Yashin uses these images to illustrate
the discussions around what was deemed to be the most appropriate public appear-
ance of a “Turkish” woman and thereby questions the content of “Turkishness”.
Thus, what I call the Early Republican split not only shaped women’s aspirations
related to education and fitness but also placed them under contestation in the sub-
sequent years. Clearly, the bifurcation of the views related to the content of what it
takes to be the ideal Turkish woman in this period evolved and got complicated over
time. Yet body and gender roles have remained at the center of this contestation.
Women’s bodies and sports in Turkey 115
The new Turkish women: Olympic Games and exposure
to Western gaze
A special issue of the popular Turkish daily newspaper Hürriyet, published on
the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Republic in 1998, focused on sports
and women in the early Republican period in an article title “From the Wooden
Cage2 to the Track” (Kafesten Pistlere).3 The transformation of women’s rural-
looking, veiled, “unhealthy”, and therefore uncivilized bodies into civilized,
disciplined, and liberated bodies was perceived not only as an indicator of

the Westernization and modernization of the country but also as a way to cre-
ate and define the new ideal Turkish woman (Kandiyoti, 1989; Göle, 1996;
Alemdaroğlu, 2005).
Women’s participation in professional sports was regarded as an opportunity to
prove and showcase the physical transformation of Turkey. The Turkish reform
was therefore embodied and represented in the bodies of Turkish elite sports-
women. International games provided an opportunity to showcase the archetype
of the modern Turkish woman, where the transformation of Turkey was presented
to the ideal global (Western) audience. The presentation of Turkish female bodies
to Western audiences was consequential for the Republican project to confirm its
success in the eyes of the idealized other. The following quote is from a resource
on Turkish women’s involvement in the Olympic Games and has been cited by
several researchers:
The Turkish Republic, which proceeds on the pathway of modernization with

giant steps, should have shown the world that the Turkish woman now is no
longer under the black veil (çarşaf ) or behind the wooden curtain (kafes).4
(Arıpınar et al., 2000, p.7)
Women’s participation in sports was perceived as a way to represent and

demonstrate to the global (especially Western) gaze that the Turkish nation
was succeeding in modernizing itself (Yarar, 2005; Talimciler, 2006; Atalay,
2007b). In her article on the emotive aspects of Turkey’s EU negotiations,
Ahıska suggests the term Occidentalism “to conceptualize how the West fig-
ures in the temporal/spatial imagining of modern Turkish national identity”
(Ahıska, 2003, p. 353). She argues that, “in theorizing the construction and
representation of Turkish modernity, we can neither unproblematically her-
ald the Western model nor dismiss the fantasy of ‘the West’ that informs the
hegemonic national imaginary” (Ahıska, 2003, p. 353). In her account, the
Republican reforms of Turkey are not aimed at simply addressing contem-
porary political and social problems in Turkey but are also concerned with
presenting Turkey to Europe. In other words, the reforms are “part of a perfor-
mance geared for the gaze of the West” (Ahıska, 2003, p. 355). Similarly, elite
sportswomen of the Early Republican era were presented for a “Western” gaze,
reflecting the ways in which Turkey has developed a hegemonic yet inferior
relationship with “the West”.
The smash of the year!
The video footage was broadcast in the evening news on the nationwide TV
channel Star TV, presented by the famous anchor Uğur Dündar. The news
was about Aysun Özbek, who had decided to quit her professional sports life.
According to the news, the reason behind her decision was that she was now
observing the Islamic headscarf. Throughout the day, Star News advertised,
with video footage, that it would host Özbek on the channel for the evening
news. The footage was a composition of scenes from different games with
Özbek in it, accompanied by a background thriller soundtrack; the narrator
spoke over it with an appetite for scandal and gossip evident in his voice. The
highlighted sentences were in the following order: “The smash of the year!;
The Sultan of the Net Adopted the Islamic Veil!; Once the pride of the secular-
ist Turkey, she is under kara çarşaf5 [the black/dark full veiling]!” This part of
the narrative was accompanied by the scenes of Egyptian volleyball players,
most of whom were wearing headscarves, with the question, “Are we becom-
ing like this?; The so-called national volleyball player who will shock Turkey
is on Star News Only”.
The headscarf as a non-national element

In the evening news, Özbek’s story began with the current political debates
regarding the headscarf: “Amidst the discussions on whether the veil should
enter the university campuses or not, it landed in the middle of the sports
circles/communities”. The news had several highlights, some of which were
contradictory. According to the news, Özbek was from a family of Arab origin
whose female family members were observing kara çarşaf. She was wearing
the headscarf for a very short period before she began her professional sports
life. The presenter also mentioned that Özbek – according to the claims – met a
woman who wore kara çarşaf in Istanbul – Çengelköy and began to attend reli-
gious gatherings a short while ago and started wearing a headscarf from time to
time supposedly because of their influence; then, as of that day, she had decided
to adopt the Islamic headscarf. Although these two claims are somewhat contra-
dictory, there is a common theme between the lines: that the Islamic headscarf
is not a national form of dress and that its adoption needs to be triggered by an
outside factor, either by a mysterious woman and her larger circle or by some
kind of genetic throwback traced to one’s Arabic origin. The news also men-
tions that after her decision to adopt the Islamic headscarf, her family life went
into crisis, her relationship with her husband was damaged, and she moved
out of their marital home. In other words, this sudden change, according to the
news, had damaged her private life as well. Further analysis of this news foot-
age and related events at that time opens up multiple themes that are entangled
in between women’s public visibility, sports, public sexuality, secularity, and
religion in Turkey. I will now sketch the various themes that run through the
narrative concerning Özbek.
Women’s sexuality and sports in Turkey
The first theme is the centrality of the sexualities of women involved in sports
when they are watched – or gazed at – by male audiences. This theme is thoroughly
analysed by Walseth in Norway (cf. Chapter 11 of this book) and Erhart in Turkey
(cf. Chapter 5 of this book). Unlike other sports such as tennis or swimming, in
which women wear revealing outfits, volleyball tournaments take place in public
courts. However, tennis, for instance, is played in expensive sports clubs that are
only accessible to the elite class. In order to prevent any harassment, women who
wear swimsuits also prefer private or women-only beaches or pools. Since the
practices and the tournaments mostly take place in courts that are open to the pub-
lic, female volleyball players have long been harassed by male spectators, till the
mid-80s. In 2001, Firdevs Hoşer from the Library of Women’s Work (Kadın Eser-
leri Kütüphanesi) and the sports historian Cem Atabeyoğlu published a valuable
document on women’s sports in Turkey. There, Hoşer criticizes the way in which
female volleyball players were perceived as “baldırı çıplak (naked legs)” by male
spectators and harassed accordingly. She shares the following anecdote, which
illustrates public attitudes towards women’s sports as sexual acts: “1978 Women’s
National Volleyball Championship was taking place in Adapazarı Indoor Sports
Facility. The room had capacity for 3000 audiences, where no empty seat was left.
All of the audiences were men, throwing U-shaped threads with rubbers to the
court. Some of the players’ legs were bleeding”.
This anecdote above reveals the violent forms of sexual harassment through the
exposure of women’s bodies during physical activity. It also reveals how surpris-
ing a female volleyball player’s decision to adopt the Islamic veil can be for the
public.
Bodies that do not matter

The second theme is the dominance and centrality of ideological discourses in
women’s image in Turkey. On the one hand, the secularist state and media institu-
tions in Turkey dictate modernization from the top down for women through a
dress code. In this code, the veil is seen as the ultimate symbol of backwardness
and fundamentalism. On the other hand, the Islamist circles and media glorify
the veil as a symbol of the noble struggle for modesty and piety. As such, Aysun
Özbek’s case was a perfect litmus test to illustrate and observe the ideological
contestations surrounding the female body.
The Islamic media in Turkey published numerous news pieces about Özbek
calling for respect for her choice of veiling. Zaman, one of the leading Islamic
conservative newspapers, published transcription of a very short phone interview
with Özbek without including any of her recent or old photographs. It is important
to note that there had never been any other form of support or praise for Özbek in
the Islamic media when she was a successful volleyball player; the interest and
support came only after she began wearing a headscarf. This support was about
defending the right of wearing the headscarf rather than the personal choices and
the rights of sportswomen. The Islamic media6 had never published such exten-
sive news pieces about women in volleyball until Özbek decided to wear a scarf.
The secularist media, on the other hand, had glorified Özbek’s volleyball career
and focused on her sports life as “national pride”; they now ridiculed or pitied
her decision to veil. Özbek’s case illustrates the dichotomies and ideologically
circumscribed responses when it comes to women’s freedom and liberation. It
was Özbek’s body and public sexuality that were under contestation. Both sides
neglected several other aspects of her life in order to highlight this one particular
aspect. This case shows how difficult it is not only to embrace every aspect of a
famous person’s life at the popular level but also to speak outside the established
discursive jargons without decoding them.
Being the focus of attention but still being invisible

and unheard
The third theme is the silence and absence of Aysun Özbek in the middle of all
this heated debate. During the news footage, we, as the listeners, do not get to see
Özbek in her new attire in any of the news. The only veiled photograph of Özbek
disseminated in the mentioned news footage as well as in other newspapers is a
PhotoShopped photograph, with a headscarf transposed over Özbek’s head.
Özbek refused to appear on TV or in newspapers during that period. Her invis-
ibility is very ironic, especially when her transformation carries several symbolic
meanings related to her public visibility. Her transition from a publicly visible
figure – a successful volleyball player who embodies national pride – to a private
person – a retired ex-professional who has decided to become a mother – attracted
huge public attention; yet her avid audience do not get to see her. Moreover, her
refusal to talk with any of the news outlets and politely requesting respect for
her personal choice draws our attention further to understanding the silence of a
subject who is being discussed, criticized, applauded, rejected, and accepted for
different reasons by different groups. Considering the ideologically and histori-
cally loaded concepts surrounding women’s sports, public visibility, modernity,
national pride, piety, and sexuality, her refusal to speak is to revert those multifac-
eted instruments of power surrounding and acting upon her. The whole fuss that
revolved around her decision and transformation seemed to make Özbek herself,
her voice, and even her silence invisible, while the furore created the illusion that
the public knew a lot about her. This element of silence and absence deserves fur-
ther analysis in itself. Thus, a closer ethnographic look at the relationship between
self and culture in the lives of pious women needs to take the multiplicity of their
subject positionings into consideration, and this consideration can also be framed
as an attempt to “rediscover women’s voices” (Smith-Rosenberg, 1985, p. 11).
The iron cage of the secularist–Islamist dichotomy

The fourth theme I need to analyse in this case is the necessity of women’s agency
in addressing and overcoming the challenge of double patriarchy and ideology.
The societal expectation for Özbek is an “either–or” solution that does not leave
room for a physically active woman who can be both the national pride and a
pious woman observing Islamic headscarf outside the volleyball courts. This
dichotomous perception resurfaced when, a year later, Özbek decided to return
to the volleyball courts. Her return was heralded with the news headline “Threw
the Veil and Ran to the Nets”.7 During her one-year break, she had a baby, which
may have been the conventional reason for her break from her professional life.
The crucial point in this case is, we do not read or hear about her pregnancy
and motherhood in any part of these debates, except between the lines. Despite
the societal importance given to motherhood in Turkey, this aspect of Özbek’s life
does not seem to fit into the dichotomous and ideologically loaded perceptions
concerning sportswomen. The more ideologically loaded and heated the discus-
sions and the public debates are, the more is the necessity for ethnographic field-
work to understand the situation. Thus, I would like to argue that ethnographic
fieldwork will provide a deeper understanding and a more multidimensional pic-
ture of women highlighting the voices, feelings, and desires related to sports,
body, and public sexuality.
The nationalist, Islamist, and secularist propaganda has evolved from and
through highly sexualized and gendered principles in the context of the sports.
I will be encountering each one of the meanings attached to sports, fitness, and
physical exercise in the field. All these public debates and the fuss, as in the exam-
ple of Özbek, are mere reflections of the ways in which women’s public sexuality
in sports is imagined versus veiling. The ideological camps’ (nationalist, Islamist,
and secularist) expectations from women’s public sexuality in relation to sports
are manifestations of the dominance of the two seemingly opposing sets of patri-
archal values in Turkish society. One expects the woman to stay at home, and the
other expects her to participate in sports and games. Pious women’s involvement
in professional and amateur sports is against these dichotomies, which is why it
may be difficult for those who are not familiar with the debate or the context or
anyone who has considered observing her religion while continuing to play sports
to comprehend it.
The new Turkish pride: the Iron Lady

Six years after Özbek’s case took place, in 2014, we witness a new form of objec-
tification regarding female sporting bodies. The London Olympics was a signifi-
cant moment in the history of the Olympics, as female athletes from all of the
participating countries were present at the event. For the Turkish national team,
in fact, women not only outnumbered men in participation (66 women out of
114 participants) but also in the amount of medals (three out of five Turkish med-
als were won by women).8 While the world was thrilled about opening up the path
both to civilization and to liberation for Muslim women through sports during the
London 2012 Olympics, Turkey had yet another agenda for the same events. The
Western media’s exclusion of Turkish (non-veiled) female Olympians from their
lists of “Muslim” sportswomen was not necessarily perturbing for Turkey. Turkish
Olympics committee members and the Minister of Youth and Sports, Suat Kılıç
were, however, concerned about the new Turkish female image, which was pre-
sented by the flag bearer Neslihan Darnel during the opening ceremony. On 20 of
July, Kılıç himself announced Darnel as the Turkish flag bearer for London 2012.
She was selected from four candidates. The other three were basketball player
Nevriye Yılmaz, taekwondo player Bahri Tanrıkulu, and wrestler Rıza Kaya.
The jury was willing to select a female athlete as the flag bearer for Turkey, and
Yılmaz was in fact a strong candidate, but she was recently married,9 and unlike
Darnel, she did not have children yet. We learn from Kılıç’s following words that
childbearing was considered as a criterion for the flag bearer of Turkey:
Other Olympians are also very important for us. However, Neslihan is
selected to be the face of Turkey. She is a sportswoman and a mother. Her
selection brings forward the significance of family.10
Western media introduced this tall, beautiful volleyball player as “the Iron
Lady”, as suggested by the media outlet distributed by the Turkish Olympics com-
mittee. According to the outlet, Darnel was “a shining example of a woman and
mother for all the young athletes that will follow her during the event”.11 Follow-
ing in the footsteps of their secularist republican predecessors, the new Turkish
state still continues to invest in women’s sports as a tool to create an ideal woman.
Today, elite sportswomen are not only upholders of national pride or the symbolic
mothers of the young nation but also actual mothers and family bearers. In a way,
in contemporary Turkey, the tension on the bodies of sportswomen is not eased
but perhaps further enhanced.
Kılıç’s interpretation of Darnel was in line with Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdoğan’s pro-natalist propaganda, launched over the last few years. Fol-
lowing the lead of the Turkish prime minister, it became routine for MPs, minis-
ters, or heads of local authorities who are invited to act as wedding witnesses to
tell the young couple (in public) to have at least three children (Sehlikoglu, 2013b).
This once took place at the London Olympics reception during my fieldwork, in
the presence of the press, when Kılıç told Nevriye Yılmaz within earshot of every-
one present, including members of the media, “I want a child from you”. Quite
amusingly, the sentence has the same double meaning in Turkish as in English. It
is unclear whether he wants to father the baby or is just encouraging her to become
a mother. I was dining with Nevriye and six other basketball players, and Nevriye
was sitting right across from me. I immediately turned to Nevriye to see how she
would respond but neither she nor other players presented any surprise at such pub-
lic intervention into her private life or to the sexual innuendo (and how private is
the body of a national athlete anyway?). She responded, “inşallah” (God willing).
Conclusion
This case study aims to understand the ways in which women’s bodies are circum-
scribed by several discursive traditions (Asad, 1996). Quoting from Mahmood
(2005): “Tradition may be conceived as a particular modality of Foucault’s dis-
cursive formation in which reflection upon the past is a constitutive condition for
the understanding and reformulation of the present and the future” (115). She then
draws our attention to interpersonal and pedagogical aspects of the discursive
tradition, which also enables its practitioners to interact with each other with cer-
tain codes and concepts as reference points. Therefore, while accepting Turkish
secularism as a constructed discursive tradition, I also question the possible ways
of talking against this tradition in order to pursue anthropological work. In other

words, although I agree with Mahmood (2005) that “the past is the very ground
through which the subjectivity and self-understanding of a tradition’s adherents
are constituted” (Mahmood 2005, p. 115), I also urge the importance of under-
standing whether and how the practitioners play with and play around the limits
established by the discursive traditions. Thus, this chapter holds a critical position
against patriarchal ideologies inscribed over women’s bodies within the frame-
work of sports, physical exercise, and public visibility. By patriarchal ideologies,
I mean what Saba Mahmood calls “nationalist, religious, medical, or aesthetic”
characteristics that “work by objectifying women’s bodies and subjecting them to
patriarchal systems of representation, thereby negating and distorting women’s
own experience of their corporeality and subjectivity” (2005, p. 158). I hold that
the secularist project of Turkey is no less patriarchal than Islamist ideology, and
accordingly, I aim to frame the historically loaded meanings of women’s physical
exercise from a post-structuralist feminist perspective.
The case of Aysun Özbek illustrates the dominance and centrality of ideological
discourses, expectations, and perceptions surrounding veiling and sports and may
give us indices as to the perception of the issue of veiling as an “Islamic stigma
symbol” (Göle, 2003) and sports and the challenges its carriers face because of
the perceptions. This case shows the discursive difficulties that surround several
forms of women’s physical activity and visibility, including sports. Again, in
Özbek’s case, her invisibility and absence go unnoticed due to the fuss. It is this
fuss that makes her unuttered remarks possibly much richer and multiple than the
dichotomous debates and the fuss evolving around her. It is therefore necessary to
remove ourselves from the debates and get closer to her to hear her voice. What
is being relegated to second place in such debates is the voice of Muslim women
who are the topic of discussion: Muslim women about and on behalf of whom
researchers, journalists, the media, and Westernized and Islamist men continu-
ously speak and whom they feel at liberty to commend, advise, and order as to
their appearance.
The state seeks to build the bodies of its citizens through its myriad institutional
and discursive apparatuses. As Das and Poole (2004) have pointed out, “sovereign
power exercised by the state is not only about territories, it is also about bodies”
(p. 10). Putting women’s bodies at the center of nationalist debates, in effect,
makes them embodied representational subjects of certain national identities.
Thus, it is not surprising for the contemporary Turkish government to continue
this tradition and use sportswomen’s bodies as tools to present their new(ed) iden-
tity. Alas, nationalist dispositions are shared by both.
Notes
1 www.dailymotion.com/video/x5fz2w_aysun-Özbek-voleybol-uyur-dundar-st_news
2 The mashrabiyya, or in the Turkish case kafes, which can be translated as ‘wooden
cage’, was previously used when gender segregation was being practiced. It ensured
that women would not be seen by men, while women could watch the men in such
places as mosques, palaces and certain houses.
3 http://dosyalar.hurriyet.com.tr/fix98/75yil/82ekl.htm
4 “Çağdaşlık yolunda dev adımlarla ilerleyen Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, Türk kadınının da
artık çarşaf altından ve kafes arkasından çıkmış olduğunu dünyaya göstermeliydi”.

5 The word kara çarşaf also embodies secularist anxieties, as it is considered the most
extreme form of Islamic veiling. The word kara, which means dark or black, has a
more negative connotation than its synonym siyah.
6 Islamic media refers to the media (newspapers, journals, and TV/radio channels)
owned and run by the religious groups of Turkey, targeting the religious groups of
Turkey. Their shared characteristic is to avoid non-Islamic depictions, and they often
have programs or pages discussing religious matters – even if the publication is not
necessarily religious. Yeni Şafak and Zaman are two major daily newspapers in that
category.
7 “Tesettürü attı, filelere koştu” – headline in major newspapers including Milliyet.
8 One gold in athletics, women’s 1,500 m event, to Aslı Çakır Alptekin and two silvers;
one to Gamze Bulut in the same event and one to Nur Tatar in Women’s 67 kg event in
taekwondo.
9 The minister Suat Kılıç was her nikâh şahidi (one of the two official marriage cer-
emony witnesses).
10 His exact words in Turkish were, “Olimpiyata katılan diğer sporcularımız da bizim için
çok önemli ancak Neslihan Türkiye’nin yüzü oldu. Hem sporcu, hem anne, hem da aile
vurgusu ön plana çıktı”.
11 My personal archive, collected in London throughout the Olympics as a researcher and
a blogger, 25 July, 2012.
References
Ahiska, M. 2003. Occidentalism: The Historical Fantasy Of The Modern. The South Atlan-
tic Quarterly, 102, 351–379.
Alemdaroğlu, A. 2005. Politics Of The Body And Eugenic Discourse In Early Republican
Turkey. Body & Society, 11, 61–76.
Aripinar, E., Cem Atabeyoğlu, And Tuncer Cebecioğlu 2000. Olimpiyat Oyunlarında Türk
Kızları, İstanbul, Olimpiyat Komitesi Yayınları.
Asad, T. 1996. The Idea Of An Anthropology Of Islam. Poznan Studies In The Philosophy
Of The Sciences And The Humanities, 48, 381–406.
Atalay, A. 2007a. Osmanlı Ve Genç Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Döneminde Sporda Batılılaşma
Hareketleri (Movements To Westernize Sports In The Age Of Ottoman Empire And In
Young Republic Of Turkey). Spor Yönetimi Ve Bilgi Teknolojileri Dergisi, 2, 30–35.
Atalay, A. 2007b. Türkiye’de Osmanlı Döneminde Ve Uluslaşma Sürecinde Kadın Ve Spor
(Women And Sports In Turkey During Ottoman Time And In Process Of Nationaliza-
tion). Spor Yönetimi Ve Bilgi Teknolojileri Dergisi, 2, 2.
Baydar, G. 2002. Tenuous Boundaries: Women, Domesticity And Nationhood In 1930s
Turkey. Journal Of Architecture, 7, 229, 244.
Das, V. & Poole, D. 2004. Anthropology In The Margins Of The State, Santa Fe, New
Mexico, School Of American Research Press.
Göle, N. 1996. The Forbidden Modern: Civilization And Veiling, Michigan, The University
Of Michigan Press.
Göle, N. 2003. The Voluntary Adoption Of Islamic Stigma Symbols. Social Research, 70,
809–828.
Kandiyoti, D. 1989. Women And The Turkish State: Political Actors Or Symbolic Pawns?
In: Yuval-Davis, F. A. A. N. (Ed.) Woman-Nation-State, London: Macmillan.
Kevles, D. J. 1995. In The Name Of Eugenics: Genetics And The Uses Of Human Heredity.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Mahmood, S. 2005. Politics Of Piety: The Islamic Revival And The Feminist Subject,
Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press.
Navaro-Yashin, Y. 2002. Faces Of The State: Secularism And Public Life In Turkey, Prince-
ton, NJ, Princeton University Press.
Sehlikoglu, S. 2013. Vaginal Obsessions In Turkey: An Islamic Perspective. Open Democ-
racy, 50, 50.
Smith-Rosenberg, C. 1985. Disorderly Conduct: Visions Of Gender In Victorian America,
Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Talimciler, A. 2006. İdeolojik Bir Meşrulaştırma Aracı Olarak Spor Ve Spor Bilimleri
(Sports And Sport Sciences The Ideological Agent Of Legitimization). Spor Yönetimi Ve
Bilgi Teknolojileri Dergisi, 1.
Yarar, B. 2005. Civilized Women And Light Sports: Modernization, Women And Sport In
The Early Republican Period Of Turkey. Kadın-Woman, 2000, 12.
9 The influence of the Nation of
Islam and Islam on British-Muslim
ex-offenders
Malcolm, Muhammad, and redemption
Amir Saeed
Just as the civil rights and Black consciousness movements have inspired human
rights activists around the world, the Nation of Islam’s (NOI) rhetoric has been
a motivating symbol for many non-white and minority communities across the
globe (Marqusee,1999, 1995). Malcolm X’s and Muhammad Ali’s images are
increasingly employed in contemporary youth culture (Saeed, 2011b).
This chapter examines why Ali and Malcolm X have been such key figures for
many non-white communities and especially for the Muslim and South-Asian
Diaspora in the UK (Saeed, 2003). This argument is based upon empirical work
conducted with British-Pakistani ex-offenders who trained in a gym in the North
of England. This work was funded through a grant received by a mosque in the
North of England that wanted to address the issues of an ever-increasing Muslim
presence in UK prisons.
This analysis will be framed employing a subjective and auto-ethnographic
approach to understanding why these British Muslims were so passionate about
boxing and Islam.
The offenders specifically spoke with pride of how Malcolm X, Muhammad
Ali and the NOI in general provided them with the impetus for exploring Islam
and raising self-esteem. The participants were well aware that the NOI theology
was not strictly Islamic (Dyson, 1995). However, they argued given the NOI’s
prominence in youth culture, especially hip-hop and sport (Saeed, 2013), it pro-
vided an influential role in influencing young British Muslims.
Given the anti-Muslim rhetoric espoused by leading social commentators fol-
lowing 9/11 (Saeed, 2007), the NOI’S appeal and message of social justice seems
more relevant than ever. Recent anti-war demonstrations in the UK saw Malcolm
X’s image employed by young British Muslims demonstrating against what they
perceived as social injustice being committed against Muslims around the world
in the name of fighting terrorism (Saeed, 2003, 2004, 2011a, 2011b).
Sport, ‘race’ and society

Marqusee (1999, p. 4) notes one of the defining principles of modern sport is the
concept of the level playing field. In short, for sport to be seen as a truly egali-
tarian competition, all the participants must operate within the same rules and
Boxing and the Nation of Islam in the UK 125
boundaries. Failure to do this diminishes the quality of the sporting contest, and
the outcome may be surrounded with an air of suspicion or uncertainty.
Gilroy notes that, although sport can at times be understood as an anti-political
sphere, deficient of the directions of ‘respectable politics’ (2005, p. 112), sporting
events follow the design of racialised politics, and political debates are replicated
in the discourses of sporting events (Bernstein & Blain, 2003). As many research-
ers have pointed out (Balibar, 1991; Gilroy, 1987, 1993; Miles, 1993; Pilkington,
2003; Solomos, 2003), it is no longer relevant to talk of racism as a fixed, static,

all-encompassing concept but rather to examine it in terms of specific racisms. In
short, the focus should be on how different racisms manifest themselves as they
affect specific groups in various locations and times.
One could suggest that the continuation of hierarchical sporting stereotypes, or
classical racism, has hindered the performances of some ethnic groups in sport.
The ‘natural ability’ stereotype implies that some ‘races’ are more genetically and
anatomically adept at some sporting actions over others. Problematically, though,
this unfounded ideology harbours a darker meaning, indicating that those with
‘natural ability’ are not only lazier but are physiologically closer to nature, less
evolved and, ultimately, intellectually lacking (Hoberman, 1997).
As a consequence of this, the early Black boxing pioneers were more than just
fighters; they automatically became symbols of their communities. Hence, sport
can be seen as a reflection of current society.
Sport and Muslims

One consequence of the post-9/11 world is an interest (that borders on and encom-
passes a sense of fear) in Muslims that has become almost institutionalised in media
and society (Fekete, 2002; Saeed, 2004). Muslims in Europe are attempting to create
cultural, social, and political spaces for themselves as ethnic and religious groups
and are also at the forefront of anti-racist and anti-imperialist mobilisations (Saeed,
2008). For example, in today’s Britain, especially after the events of 9/11 and the
beginning of the so-called War on Terror, British Muslims have been identified as
a group of potentially ‘false nationals’ and systematically constructed as the Other.
A discourse has been produced which directly links European Muslims with sup-
port for terrorism, fundamentalism, ‘illegal immigration’ and Orientalist stereotypes
(Saeed, 2007). European Muslims are repeatedly asked by voices in the media and
by politicians on all sides to make more strenuous efforts to integrate into Western
society and re-assert their loyalty to the nation states in a manner never asked of
other non-Muslim groups (Saeed, 2009, 2011a, 2014). Many social commentators
have noted that media language has been fashioned in such a way as to cause many
to talk about a ‘criminal culture’ (see Modood, 1997; Saeed, 2007; Wahab, 1989).
Amara (2013, p. 644) directly links this process of social exclusion and stig-
matisation to sport’:
Sport is becoming the space to test the success of “integration” policies

of minorities into the host society and to question the loyalty of Muslim
126 Amir Saeed
minorities to the “host” nation. Muslims of immigrant origin are caught
between affirming their (multiple) identities while avoiding and combating
stigmatisation both in their country of birth and country of origin.
On the other hand, sport can be seen as a celebration of multiculturalism,

although it must be noted that even this is a contested term (Modood, 2005).
Amara and Henry (2010) discuss how the London Olympics 2012 bidding and
event were underlined by an expression of cultural diversity and optimism. Com-

ing so soon after the 2011 UK riots (Bridges, 2011) and with the spectre of the
2005 London bombing still evident in the public consciousness (Manley and Silk,
2014) the celebration of multicultural diversity could be seen as an attempt to
adopt a more inclusive version of ‘Britishness’.
Authors have noted that sport can be employed to garner social cohesion and
allow ostracised communities like British Muslims to participate in the social and
public spheres (Yassim, 2013).
Boxing and society

Migration, mobilities, and diaspora play out in distinctive ways in boxing. Boxing
is a sport with a culture which attracts migrant people and, especially, young men
from diasporic communities and which has strong associations with poverty and
economic disadvantage. Boxing is still perhaps one of the most widely known
sports in the world. It has transcended the globe and is practised in various guises,
such as gypsy bare-knuckle boxing in Europe, the various styles of kickboxing in
the Far East, and even what has been termed ‘dirty’ boxing in the United States.
Hence, it can be seen that boxing can carry social meaning and economic cultural
value for people. As a result, it has an impact upon people’s identity and their
understanding of the world that surrounds them.
As Sugden (1996) notes, if defined in simple terms as people fighting with fists,
then boxing, along with running, could be thought of as one of the oldest sports in
the world. Early (1998) argues that the reason for boxing’s enduring popularity is
that it can be understood as a metaphor for the human condition in wider society.
Boxing can provide discipline, respect, and some level of personal control that
can lead to the development of a positive social identity.
More than this, boxing can be discussed as a sub-culture in which individuals
create, sustain, and develop identities in a world that is, at times, closed to the
general public. Wacquant’s (1992, 2004) ethnographic study of a boxing gym in
Chicago showed how the boxers employed the social world of the boxing gym as
a refuge from the intense social pressures of outside life.
Wacquant’s (1995, p. 521) analysis shows that deciding to dedicate oneself to
boxing is related to class and ‘race’ in America:
“Don’t nobody be out there fighting with an MBA . . . if you want to know
who’s at the bottom of society, all you gotta to do is look at who’s boxing”,
observed a trainer coach at the gym. While boxers themselves said: “I wish
I was born taller, I wish I was born in a rich family, I . . . wish I was smart,
an’ I had the brains to go to school an really become somebody important . . .
I never had nobody helping me. If it was not for boxing I don’t know where
I’d be.”
(cited in Wacquant, 1995, p. 523)
These contradictory and mixed feelings about the sport that they practised may
seem odd. Wacquant (1995) uses the term ‘coerced affection’ to comprehend this
feeling, but he further notes that these opinions are connected to the dynamic of
class and ‘race’. In short, they excelled at the sport because being a young poor
Black man in America ‘was no bed of roses’ (Wacquant, 2004, p. 38).
In relation to minority groups and boxing, Woodward (2014, p. 54) eloquently
notes:
Boxing all too often opens up possibilities for the production and reinstate-
ment of racialized stereotypes and exclusionary classifications of racial-
ized and ethnicised expressions. Boxing and the migrant and marginalized
people who box do not always, or even often, occupy visible public spaces
though . . . Such boxing cultures are distinctive in many ways and although
they have synergies with other boxing traditions and practices, they also have
cultural and social specificities.
It could be suggested that the association of boxing with a backward primate

culture can be related to Said’s (1978) theory of Orientalism – that is, boxing is
both native and foreign to the ‘Western world’. It is native in that authors have
noted the historical development of boxing in Europe (Sugden, 1996) but also
foreign in that it is practiced successfully in large numbers by fighters who are
perceived as the other. Boxers are in many ways ‘Othered’ (borrowing on Said’s
terminology) because they are overwhelmingly from the lower social classes, and
their ethnic composition reflects groups oppressed historically.
Boxing, Islam, and Muhammad Ali

The specific history of Islam and boxing is not a well-documented story. Kham-
ouch and colleagues (2007) provide a fascinating analysis of how physical train-
ing and fighting skills around the Muslim world have developed. Citing martial
arts and classical kung fu practiced by Chinese Muslims to the popularity of box-
ing amongst Muslim minority groups in the West as examples of Muslims rela-
tionship with the fighting arts. They also cite Islamic theological assertions that
highlight the importance of physical and mental fitness in Islam, (cf. Chapter 2
of this book). Researchers have noted that ‘traditional’ boxing grew in popular-
ity has an “imported colonial sport” much like cricket during the age of empire
(Dasgupta, 2004; Dunzendorfer, 2013).
128 Amir Saeed
However, in more modern times, the popularity of boxing in Muslim
communities – and indeed, it could argued, even in wider mainstream culture –
was down to the appeal, charisma, and skill of Muhammad Ali. What is clear is
that long after Ali left center stage, he remains a phenomenon hard to define with
the terms of ordinary language.
The cover of Muhammad Ali a Reader (Ed G Early) (1998) notes, “Fighter,
celebrity, draft dodger, activist, poet, victim, inspiration, champion – pick a year
and choose a label. Muhammad Ali has been them all’.

A discussion of Ali’s influence cannot be fully appreciated if his original men-
tor and confidant, Malcolm X, is not discussed. It was Malcolm X who gave Ali
the confidence to beat Sonny Liston and become world heavyweight champion in
1964 (Saeed, 2003).
Marqusee (1995, p. 12) notes that Malcolm X saw in Ali (then named Cassius
Clay) a symbolic power and convinced Ali that he could harness this power in the
ring. Malcolm X is quoted as suggesting,
This fight is the truth, I told Cassius. It’s the Cross and the Crescent fighting
in the prize ring – for the first time. It’s a modern crusade . . . Do you think
Allah has brought about all this, intending for you to leave the ring as any-
thing but the champion?
A note on method
This subjective analysis of Ali and boxing may for some be problematic. Given
that for some academia is supposed to be rational, objective, and scientific, the
approach and conclusions may be open to criticism. However, the writing of
As’ad Abukhalil (2002, describing his most recent book, on Bin Laden, Terrorism
and Islam) may provide some thought to critics of a subjective approach:
The style and tone of this book are emotional, and may strike the academic
reader as odd. But hiding behind the cloak of objectivity is often used more
to conceal than to reveal.
(AbuKhalil, 2002, p. 11)
In contrast to much of mainstream research that generally seeks to attain value

neutrality, feminist researchers will often integrate personal experiences into
their research. Personal experiences are not perceived as making the methods
and results of research worthless. Rather, many feminists view them as serving to
validate their research:
Feminist women must deliberately . . . integrate their repressed, unconscious

female subjectivity, i.e. their own experience of oppression and discrimina-
tion into the research process.
(Maria Mies in Reinharz, 1992, p. 263)
Reinharz (1992) notes that feminist researchers may use these experiences
to inform their research questions, to guide their involvement in the research
process, and to help test and interpret results. In this way, their own personal
experiences appear to be assets in their work. Linked to this, the work presented
here adopts a subjective approach (I admire, Ali and I practice boxing – I love
them both, and they are important parts of my identity) combined with an auto-
ethnographic approach on British Muslims and how they see boxing and faith
combine in their identities.
Auto-ethnographic approach
The vast majority of the work cited in this piece comes from a publicly funded
project that examined the employment of sport to stop re-offending amongst ‘low-
level’ males. The research specifically addressed how faith and sport can be uti-
lized by British Muslim re-offenders to give them more purpose and also divert
them from becoming ‘career criminals’.
The responses discussed are one part of this research that the researcher ‘stum-
bled upon’ in the context of the wider goals and objectives of the investigation.
In this case, the research team assumed that the participants would wish to talk
about Islam and boxing straight off. After spending time with them in the gym
and attending boxing classes and so on, it became clear that for the participants
it was a personal interests in Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, and the current politi-
cal climate that sparked their interests and development in both boxing and also
politics – both contemporary and historical. Some of the boxers also noted the
influence of Amir Khan and his popularity with British Pakistanis in particular
(Kilvington et al., 2012).
Again, this may be open to academic criticism, but this self-reflexive approach
allows details to emerge that from the outset seemed peripheral or non-relevant.
Because it is an emerging practice, there has been much discussion and suggestion
as to the nature and form of auto-ethnographic research. Whereas all agree that
it is an exploration of self within a social context (Anderson 2006; Denzin 2006;
Ellis 2004; Neumann 1996; Spry 2001), it is the form that is the subject of most
debate. In The Ethnographic I: A Methodological Novel About Autoethnography
(2004, p. 37), Carolyn Ellis defines the practice she terms ‘evocative ethnogra-
phy’ as
an autobiographical genre of writing and research that displays multiple lay-

ers of consciousness . . . Back and forth auto-ethnographers gaze: First they
look through an ethnographic wide angle lens, focusing outward on social
and cultural aspects of their personal experience; then they look inward,
exposing a vulnerable self that is moved by and may move through, refract,
and resist cultural interpretations.
In contrast, Leon Anderson (2006) offers a frame of analytic auto-ethnographic

inquiry in which “The five key features [. . .] include (1) complete member
130 Amir Saeed
researcher (CMR) status, (2) analytic reflexivity, (3) narrative visibility of the
researcher’s self, (4) dialogue with informants beyond the self, and (5) commit-
ment to theoretical analysis” (p. 376) both in design and in practice.
The evocative nature of auto-ethnography as suggested by Ellis seems relevant
here, and this complements the analytic reflexivity mandated by Anderson’s prac-
tice. Hence at times I draw upon my own thoughts on Malcolm X, Ali, and Islam
whilst describing and analysing the thoughts of the participants.
From a personal point of view, Ali fights were received with great anticipation
in my family household. Quite simply, Ali belonged to us, and we would look on
with a mixture of awe and envy, especially at how ‘White people respected Ali
the Muslim’. Thus, Ali became a household name and celebrity to us because he
provided an inspiration. He was the oasis for us in a world where being non-white
meant being constantly subject to abuse, taunts, and ridicule. Ali provided us with
respite.
By us, I mean here a part of the global Muslim diaspora, and it was through
Ali’s conversion to Islam that we were introduced to Malcolm X.
Initially, our knowledge of Malcolm was vague. My parents, like so many
other first-generation immigrants, warned us that Malcolm believed in violence
and that we must, instead, turn the other cheek when confronted with racism.
My brothers and I would listen to our parents’ wishes but secretly admired Mal-
colm’s stance. Here was a Black man who dared to challenge colonialism in
a white-dominated culture. Reading his speeches, my brothers and I began to
feel a strong affinity for African Americans and all colonized people who had
endured racism. Malcolm helped us gain pride, an internationalist outlook in
our politics, and an understanding of the link between racism and capitalism
(Saeed, 2014).
The gym and the boxers

The boxing gym is located in the North of England several miles from the town
of Darlington. The area is a typical aspirational, working-class environment, and
the gym is open seven days a week. They provide a variety of classes and also run
‘taster’ and educational sessions for schoolchildren in the community.
The gym’s main coach and owner is Sadiq (a pseudonym). Sadiq is in his late
30s and is an Amateur Boxing Association (ABA) qualified instructor. He has
been boxing or practicing martial arts since he was 10. Visually, Sadiq is the
embodiment of the British Muslim living in a globalized world. He adopts the
beard and skullcap worn by many devout and practicing Muslims. This is accom-
panied by T-shirts that are emblazoned with various fighters from across the globe
(from the contemporary to the yesteryear of boxing), and all of this is topped off
with a broad Northern English accent.
After I was introduced to him and explained that I wished to talk to British
Muslims who had a criminal record but were attempting to re-build their lives,
Sadiq was enthusiastic about the research and was willing to help on conditions
of privacy.
The gym had opened 10 years previously, and whilst it is not a great financial
success, it manages to stay economically afloat.
When asked why he ran a gym, Sadiq noted that “its not about the money . . .
It’s the love of jab, cross . . .”
This small phrase actually echoes the comprehensive ethnographic work of
Wacquant (1992). Wacquant argues in series of work in boxing gyms across the
United States that, for many working-class people, even the ownership of a gym
is like performing a service. Indeed, Wacquant (1995, p. 492), he calls this the
‘romance of pugilism’, meaning the sacrifice (economically and physically) that
boxers make for the love the art.
The gym itself provides a visual story of globalization or modern multicultur-
alism. Alongside the expected and usual paraphernalia of weights, punch bags,
medicine balls, and skipping ropes, the gym also openly celebrates the history
of global boxing. The walls are adorned with replicate posters of classical fights
from yesteryear and the more recent past. These include fighters from across the
globe alongside profiles of various fighters cut and pasted from boxing maga-
zines and the like. Furthermore, national flags donated by fighters from across the
globe who have trained there cover the walls. Thus, alongside a Union Jack and
the American Star and Stripes are flags from Pakistan, India, Thailand, Poland,
Greece, and even Cuba.
This celebration of the world nations provides a hint of the inclusive nature of the
politics of the gym. This narrative is visually exhibited overtly. The gym also fea-
tures posters of Muhammad Ali with Malcolm X, posters with Malcolm X quotes,
images of the Black Panther Party, images of the Palestinian resistance against
Israeli occupation, anti-war posters, and also posters calling for action against rac-
ist and far-right groups such as the British National Party and the English Defence
League.
Within this mix, Sadiq introduced me to four British Muslim fighters who all
had been in trouble for ‘low-level’ or petty crime in the past. Sadiq insisted that
I keep their real identities private for the sake of their and their families’ ‘izzat’ –
reputation. Given that the Muslim population in Darlington is relatively small
(according to the 2011 census, it amounts to 0.9 percent out of a population of around
105,000),1 I could understand this request for privacy.
Hence these are not the fighters’ real names. Two of the fighters were of Paki-
stani extraction, one was Nigerian, and the other was a White Muslim convert.
Iffy is a 25-year-old Muslim of Pakistani extraction who had received cautions
for handling stolen goods and for public disorder. He was single and had started
boxing 3 years previously.
Salim is 28, a Muslim of Pakistani descent, married with two children under 5,
and had a conviction for fraud. He had been boxing for 10 years but, in his own
words, only “seriously for the last 2”.
Kazeem is 21 and of Nigerian background and boxed for 5 years. He had been
in prison for violent disorder.
Bilal is 28 and White. He converted to Islam 2 years ago and had convictions
for dealing drugs. He had been boxing for 15 years.
132 Amir Saeed
This participant actually asked to be called Bilal. Scholars of Islamic history
may sense a hint of irony that this White man wished to be called Bilal, who is
widely considered to be one of the first Black African converts to Islam and a
close friend of the Prophet – PBUH (Mamiya, 1982).
I do appreciate that these are all male Muslims. The gym did have two young
female Afghan Muslim boxers who were refugees, but unfortunately they did not
wish to participate in the project.
My interest in speaking with Muslim ex-offenders was sparked by accusations

of Muslim criminal gangs and the rise in the Muslim population in UK prisons
that once again initiated debates about “problem minority groups” in the UK
(Milling, 2013; Tufail & Poynting, 2013).
However, it seems little attention is given to the role of faith or other organiza-
tional pursuits that could divert minority groups from crime. In the United States,
data show that the pseudo-Islamic group the Nation of Islam (NOI) has been suc-
cessful in attracting ex-criminals and gang members with its regime of strict rules
and observations (Gardell, 1996).
Data collection
Over the course of 6 weeks, I met these participants in the gym. The background
of the gym provided a naturally relaxing environment for the participants that
allowed them to just be themselves.
Ethnographic and self-reflexive research clearly suggests the importance (and
advantage) of a natural environment rather than artificial creations (Hansen et al.,
1998; May 1993).
Similar to Wacquant (1995), I boxed with them, sweated with them, and also
at times engaged in physical contact in the ring itself. However, given the limited
duration of contact that I had with the participants in this project (6 weekend
classes and two times a week in the evening), I realized that as a purely eth-
nographic study it had clear limitations. Wacquant’s classical work (1995) was
achieved over several years.
Thus on two occasions when the gym was closed, we conducted a focus group
in the ring (with the owner’s permission), where I specifically asked questions
that were of direct interest to me. These provided a wealth of data, and the par-
ticipants, along with Sadiq (the owner), clearly relished the opportunity to debate/
discuss and voice opinions about issues that they were animated and passionate
about.
At some points, there was hardly any hesitation on the part of most respon-
dents, and this enthusiasm to be a part of the discussions resulted in a variety of
views and opinions based on the questions asked. This was very beneficial to the
study because points were made by some that prompted others in the group to
seize the opportunity to discuss varying opinions and topics.
According to Liebes and Katz, (1990, p. 29), however, the dynamics of
groups closely mimic real life in that opinions and participants are not always
going to be equal, and there will always be instances when some people have a
disproportionate influence on others. Opinions arise out of interaction, and ‘opin-
ion leaders’ often have a disproportionate influence. Nevertheless, in order for
the focus group to produce data that are deemed useful, the moderator (I) needs
to ensure that he/she has active input to keep things structured and on the right
path. Hence, at times I would allow the discussion to progress, as it was clear
that certain issues mattered; however, on other occasions, by employing probes, I
would attempt to get back to the issues the research was more closely about. This
self-reflexive approach also allowed me to triangulate findings with other theories

and data to investigate the opinions made.
‘Fighting talk’: some findings

As previously mentioned, my own interest in boxing stemmed from my own
interest in Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X.
During the course of my time at the gym, I asked each of the participants, ‘why
boxing?’
Why boxing?
All the men noted that it provided an avenue for their tensions and stress. They
could go the gym and ‘let go’. This in itself is not unique. However, further prob-
ing in the focus groups and through general talk revealed a deeper role of boxing
in their lives.
Bilal:
I started boxing to help me beat people up and show how hard I was. That’s
the truth . . . It was only later I realized I had not really learnt anything . . .
yeah I could fight and batter people . . . but I was still not happy . . . I was
using my skills right . . . boxing is as much about evading as it is hitting and
violence. Now I box and actually ‘evade’ trouble outside the ring . . . outside
I be ducking and diving . . . Ali called himself a scientific boxer. I am now
scientific outside the ring.
When boxing is mentioned in popular circles, the narrative of violence, blood,

and sweat is rarely far away. Wacquant (1995, p. 495) reminds us that for those
who are uneducated in the ‘science of boxing’ it (boxing) “resembles nothing
more than a miniature realization of Hobbes’s state of nature . . . a brutish clash
of bodies”.
However, the hint of Ali here is interesting and one that both Iffy and Salim
expand on.
Iffy:
I loved Ali – end of . . . I loved everything about him . . . his patter, his fun
and of course let’s face it he was the best . . . and he was a MUSLIM (loudly)
A MUSLIM man . . . wow.
134 Amir Saeed
Salim:
The greatest and the greatest was a Muslim . . . means so much and he was
just . . . wow . . . I wished I was him I really do.
These quotes clearly demonstrate three aspects of Ali’s popularity: the impor-
tance of Ali in sport, the importance of Ali to global Muslim identity, and also
how, in cultural terms, Ali’s appeal can be characterised in terms of celebrity
culture as well. Furthermore, given that Islam frowns upon worship of idols or
icons, it could be argued that this public display of adoration could in some Mus-
lim circles be seen as ‘un-Islamic’. However, Sadiq (2011, p. 250) notes;’ It is
important also to note that despite evidence of increasing religiosity among Brit-
ish Muslim young people (Gilliat-Ray, 2010; Lewis, 2007) the majority remain
only ‘cultural Muslims’, that is to say non-observant, practising their faith only
very occasionally.
For Marqusee (1999, p. 4), Ali’s was and is a ‘global constituency who belonged
not to America but to the world’.
Indeed, Ali was also aware of his popularity in Islamic countries:
I can’t name a country where they don’t know me. If another fighter’s going
to be that big, he’s going to have to be a Muslim, or else he won’t get to
nations like Indonesia, Lebanon, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Syria, Egypt
and Turkey – those are countries that don’t usually follow boxing.
(Early, 1998, p .158)
It is evident that for both Iffy and Salim that Ali’s religious identity held an
important appeal. Iffy and Salim also explained that Ali’s appeal crossed gender
and generational differences, stating that their parents loved Ali, as did female
members of their households, despite boxing being associated with a predomi-
nantly male domain.
Salim notes that he ‘wished he was Ali’, a comment and feeling the writer
echoes. It seemed apparent that for many Muslims, Ali provided an avenue into a
fantasy they could escape into. While being a visible minority faced with various
racisms (Saeed, 2011a) was a daily struggle, Ali showed us what could be and
what we wished we were – in short, that we could gain respect from the Western,
White establishment.
Malcolm and the NOI

Iffy and Salim also both noted that Ali did not bow down, and that, to them was an
important aspect. Ali’s assertiveness and his willingness to stand up for his rights
were further discussed by the group.
Bilal:
I loved that Ali at times was ‘rude’ . . . I mean he did not lie down. He
believed . . . I mean he stood up and wanted to say ‘no’ even if that was not
right . . . look at how Malcolm and Ali were friends (points to the poster of
Ali and Malcolm X walking around Harlem) . . . I mean people said to him
Malcolm was bad for his career but . . . NO . . . Ali was happy to be with him.
At this point Kazeem and Sadiq joined in.

Sadiq:
No Malcolm no Ali it was that simple . . . Malcolm was the father of Islam in
the USA and Ali the son . . . they were just amazing. I mean ‘turn the other’
cheek . . . HA HA no way. I am not violent but self-defense is crucial . . . I mean
those Nation (NOI) were Baaaaaad dudes . . . they new Karate and stuff.
Kazeem:
Malcolm X was just like Ali . . . he was not American . . . no he was everyone
and in Africa we love him even now . . . he told us Black is beautiful, black
is good. He connected Islam and Africa . . . made it happen . . . yeah Black
power, Panthers man.
Van De Burgh (1992, p. 2) notes, “Malcolm X was/is arguably the most impor-
tant single figure as far as the liberation of blacks (worldwide) is concerned, he
‘became a Black Power paradigm-the archetype, reference point, and spiritual
advisor in absentia for a generation of Afro-American activists’ ”.
This ‘psychic conversion’ touched all aspects of the Black community. Black
culture was radically changed to reflect the changing consciousness. In politics,
music, and, of course, sport, the influence of Malcolm X was directly felt. Black
consciousness was invoking new pride in Black culture. This echoes what Kazeem
what stating and the point that Iffy makes – ‘no Malcolm – no Ali’.
Storey (2004, p. 7) has argued that “the study of popular culture amounts to
something more than a simple discussion of entertainment and leisure” and that
one can define popular culture as “the culture that originates from ‘the people.’
In this sense, the Black consciousness movement produced among the rank and
file of the African American community a new sense of pride that was reflected
in Black popular culture.
What is also interesting is that despite the NOI being more a pseudo-Islamic
cult and at odds with mainstream Islam, the respondents clearly can see a con-
nection between the NOI and their own Islamic identity. Even the mention of
the secular Black Panther Party (BPP), which ideologically was at odds with the
NOI, seemed not to matter. For these respondents, what appeared crucial was that
Malcolm, the NOI, and the BPP were standing up to racism.
Boxing gives you values, Islam gives you values

The previous discussion clearly indicates that this willingness to voice protest is
important.
136 Amir Saeed
Iffy:
Malcolm, Ali stood up and wanted to be counted . . . they took risks but cause
they believed in them . . . funny thing is Ali took risks in the Ring and outside it.
Bilal:
Every time you go in the Ring you take a risk but it makes you stronger men-
tally as well . . . you have to be fit physically or you are wasting what Allah
gave you.
Salim:
Billy [the ‘joke name’ for Bilal] that’s deep man . . . HA HA . . . but your right
if you fit and stand up for whats right . . . that’s what we are here for. Yes we
all make mistakes but we learn from them and do the right thing. We need to
help the brothers and sisters around the world.
Kazeem:
We need to help everyone who is poor man . . . everyone . . . that’s what Islam
is about . . . That’s why we are seen as extremists HA HA.
Whilst it is not clearly mentioned, the foregoing extract seems to show that the
respondents respected Ali and Malcolm because they were willing to struggle and
voice what they believed in. For the respondents, this was a global struggle, and
the fact that they were young and fit seemed to make them more determined to,
as Salim says, ‘do the right thing’. Yet they were ironically aware that this opened
them up for scorn and ridicule.
In a similar manner, the Islamic challenge or struggle has been popularised in
media as being intrinsically violent. For example, the use of the term ‘jihad’ con-
jures up images of violent, irrational terrorism. However, ‘jihad’ does not necessarily
mean a call to arms and a prelude to bloodshed. A jihad (greater or lesser) can be per-
sonal and may include debate, reasoning, marching, and, indeed, voicing concern in
a written format (Noorani, 2002). Unfortunately, the fundamentalists’ interpretation
of Islam that is conservative and exclusive is emphasised by an equally conservative
media, thus implying cultural conflict as inevitable and natural (Saeed, 2007, 2011).
Certainly, Islamic scholars may argue that social justice and challenging
oppression are the cornerstones of Islam:
What is wrong with you that you do fight in the cause of Allah and for those
who are weak, ill treated and oppressed among men, women and children and
whose cry is: Our Lord! Rescue us from this town whose people are oppres-
sors and raise for us from You one who will protect us and raise for us from
You one who will help.
(Al Quran 4, p. 74)
Concluding comments
Muslims in Europe number about 15 million and have all the worst social indi-
cators in terms of housing, health, and education. We are effectively ‘economic
slaves’ in Fortress Europe (Bates & Saeed, 2009). Malcolm X was fighting a simi-
lar situation at his time, and because of his single-minded nature he was labelled
an extremist and a militant. If he had been alive today, he would have been called
a terrorist and would probably have been incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay or at
her majesty’s pleasure in Belmarsh or Woodhill in the UK. The current incar-
ceration of Muslims in these prisons is, in a sense, a source of hope for us, since
another Malcolm may well be serving his time before his release (Saeed, 2008).
Malcolm X’s key protégé Ali also provides a fascinating commentary on the
current neo-liberal, globalised world. At time when Ali’s Islamic faith is seen as
a challenge to the West, Ali the individual has become more acceptable. In short,
it could be argued that Ali has once again become a different symbol to different
people – a symbol of American neo-liberalism yet, at the same time, an icon to a
generation for his political, social, and religions beliefs.
Boxing is a useful site for the examination of diaspora and ethnic minority
identifications. This is, in certain respects, unexpected, because boxing might
seem to be one of the most traditional and least flexible and changing of all sports.
However, in the context of the globalized world and challenges that influence eth-
nic minority identifications, boxing does offer some stability, and boxing cultures
have both routines and disciplines that provide a sense of purpose and of belong-
ing. Woodward (2014, p. 62) notes, “The legacy of securing self-esteem through
embodied disciplines and routines has always been a valued dimension of boxing.
Boxing can offer a strong framework for gaining control of who you are through
control of the body”.
This snapshot of a boxing gym in the North of England provides a brief glimpse
of how contemporary diasporic identities are a combination of history and current
social and political climate alongside a love of sport that requires dedication and
pain simultaneously. What is also evident is that social influences also marry the
personal narratives of each boxer, and, in many ways, all these participants can be
called (to borrow Ali’s phrase) ‘scientific boxers’.
Note
1 Cf. http://localstats.qpzm.co.uk/stats/england/north-east/darlington.
References
Abukahlil, A 2002, Bin Laden, Islam and America’s New ‘War on Terrorism’, Open Media
Books, New York.
Amara, M 2013, Sport, Islam, and Muslims in Europe: in between or on the Margin? Reli-
gions, volume 4, 644–656; doi:10.3390/rel4040644
Amara, M & Henry I P 2010, Sport, Muslim Identities and Cultures in the UK, an Emerg-
ing Policy Issue: Case Studies of Leicester and Birmingham, European Sport Manage-
ment Quarterly, 10:4, 419–443, DOI: 10.1080/16184742.2010.502743
138 Amir Saeed
Anderson, L 2006, Analytic Autoethnography. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography Vol-
ume 35 Number 4. August 2006.
Bates, D and Saeed, A 2009, in ‘Radical Politics and British Muslims’ in Jonathan Pugh
(ed) Radical Politics Today with Foreword by Tony Benn, Routledge, London.
Balibar, E & Wallerstein, I 1991, Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities, Verso, London.
Bernstein, A & Blain, N 2003, ‘Sport and the media: The emergence of a major research
field’, in A. Bernstein and N. Blain (eds) Sport, Media, Culture: Global and Local
Dimensions, London, Frank Cass.
Bridges, L 2011, Four days in August: the UK riots in Race & Class Vol. 54(1): 1–12.
Ellis, C & Bochner, A P (Eds.) 1996, Composing ethnography: Alternative forms of ethno-
graphic writing (pp. 172–198). Walnut Creek, CA: Alta Mira Press.
Darlington Census Demographics Local, 2012, Darlington Census Demographics United
Kingdom in http://localstats.qpzm.co.uk/stats/england/north-east/darlington (last accessed
24/12/2014).
Dasgupta, S 2004 ‘An inheritance from the British’: The Indian boxing story, The International
Journal of the History of Sport, 21:3–4, 431–451, DOI: 10.1080/09523360409510549
Denzin, N. (2006) Analytic Autoethnography, or Déjà Vu all Over Again. Journal of Con-
temporary Ethnography Volume 35 Number 4. August 2006.
Dunzendorfer, J 2013, Ethnicized Boxing: The Tale of Ghana’s Boxing Roots in Local
Martial Art, Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics, DOI: 10.1080/
17430437.2013.838350
Dyson, M, 1995, Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X, New York,
Oxford University Press.
Early, G 1998, The Muhammad Ali Reader, London, Yellow Jersey Press.
Ellis, C (2004). The Ethnographic I: A Methodological Novel about Autoethnography,
Walnut Creek, CA, AltaMira Press.
Fekete, L 2002, Racism, the Hidden Cost of September 11, London, Institute of Race
Relations.
Gardell, M 1996 Countdown to Armageddon: Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam,
London, Hurst.
Gilliat-Ray, S 2010. Muslims in Britain: An Introduction, Cambridge, Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Gilroy, P 1987, There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack, London, Hutchinson.
Gilroy, P 1993, Small Acts: Thoughts on the Politics of Black Cultures, London, Serpent’s
Tail.
Hansen, A & Cottle, S & Negrine, R 1998, Mass Communication Research Methods, New
York, New York University Press.
Hoberman, J 1997, Darwin’s Athletes: How Sport Has Damaged Black America and Pre-
served the Myth of Race, Boston, MA, Mariner Books.
Khamouch, M 2007 1001 Years of Missing Martial Arts. Foundation for Science, Technol-
ogy and Civilisation. Manchester UK.
Kilvington, D & Farrington, N & Price, J and Saeed, A 2012, ‘Race,’ Racism and Sports
Journalism, London, Routledge.
Lewis, P 2007. Young, British and Muslim, London, Continuum Press.
Liebes, T and E Katz, 1990, The Export of Meaning: Cross-Cultural Readings of ‘Dallas’.
New York, Oxford University Press.
Mamiya, L 1982, From Black Muslim to Bilalian: The Evolution of a Movement, in Jour-
nal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Jun., 1982), pp. 138–152.
Manley, A and Silk, M 2014, Liquid London: Sporting Spectacle, Britishness and Ban-
optic Surveillance. Surveillance & Society 11(4): 360–376. http://www.surveillance-
and-society.org.
Marqusee, M 1995 ‘Sport and stereotype: From role model to Muhammad Ali’, Race and
Class, vol 36, pp 1–29.
Marqusee, M 1999, Redemption Song: Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties, Lon-
don, Verso.
May, T 1993, Social Science Research Methods, London, OU Press.
Miles, R 1993, Racism after ‘Race Relations’, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Millings, M 2013, The Enduring Role of the Police in Young British Asian Men’s Situated
Negotiation of Identity and Belonging in British Journal of Criminology 53, 1075–1092.
Modood, T, 2005, Remaking Multiculturalism after 7/7 (September 29, 2005) www.open
democracy.net/conflict-terrorism/multiculturalism_2879.jsp (last accessed December
14, 2014).
Modood, T, 1997. Ethnic Minorities in Britain: Diversity and Disadvantage, London, PSI.
Neumann, M. (1996). Collecting ourselves at the end of the century. In C Ellis & A P Boch-
ner, Composing ethnography: Alternative forms of ethnographic writing (pp. 172–198).
Walnut Creek, CA, Alta Mira Press.
Noorani, A 2002, Islam and Jihad, London, Zed Books.
Reinharz, S, 1992, Feminist Methods in Social Research, New York, Oxford University
Press.
Sadiq, Hamid 2011 British Muslim Young People: Facts, Features and Religious Trends in
Religion, State and Society, 39:2–3, 247–261.
Saeed, A 2003, ‘“What’s in a name?” Muhammad Ali and the Politics of Cultural Identity’,
Culture, Sport and Society, 5:3, Autumn.
Saeed, A 2004, 9/11 and British Muslims in John Carter & David Morland (eds.), Anti-
Capitalist Britain (pp. 70–81), London, New Clarion Press.
Saeed, A 2007, ‘Media, racism and Islamophobia: The representation of Islam and Mus-
lims in the media’, Sociology Compass, vol. 1, pp. 443–462.
Saeed, A 2008 ‘Between Marx and Muhammed: Class Politics and British Muslims’,
Soundings Online Debates (available at http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/journals/soundings/
class_and_culture/saeed.html).
Saeed, A 2011a ’9/11 and the Increase in Racism and Islamophobia: A Personal Reflec-
tion’, Radical History Review, pp. 210–215.
Saeed, A 2011b ‘“Worthy of all praises”: Muhammad Ali, and the politics of Muslim iden-
tity’, Soundings, 47.
Saeed, A 2014, Hip-Hop Islam and Woman in Postcolonial Islam, edited by Sarah Hackett,
London, Routledge Press.
Said, E, 1978, Orientalism, London, Penguin. (republished 2003 and 2005).
Solomos, J 2003, Race and Racism in Britain (3rd ed.): Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.
Spry, T. 2001 Performing Autoethnography: An Embodied Methodological Praxis Qualita-
tive Inquiry December 2001.
Storey, J 2004, Introductory Guide to Popular Culture, London, Arnold.
Sugden, J, 1996, Boxing and Society: An International Analysis, Manchester, Manchester
University Press.
Tufail, W & Poynting, S 2013, A common ‘outlawness’: criminalisation of Muslim minori-
ties in the UK and Australia. International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democ-
racy, 2(3), pp. 43–54.
140 Amir Saeed
Van Deburgh, W, 1992, New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American
Culture, 1965–1975, Chicago, Chicago University Press.
Wacquant, J 1992, ‘The social logic of boxing in Black Chicago: Toward a sociology of
pugilism’, Sociology of Sport Journal, vol 9, no 3, pp. 221–254.
Wacquant, J 1995, ‘The Pugilistic point of view: How boxers think and feel about their
sport’, Body and Society, vol 24, no 389–535.
Wacquant, J 2004, Body and Soul: Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer, Oxford, UK, Oxford
University Press.
Wahab, I 1989, Muslims in Britain, London, Runnymede Trust.

Woodward, K 2014, The Globalization of Boxing, London, Bloomsbury Press.
Yassim, M. (2013) “Cricket as a vehicle for community cohesion: Building bridges with
British Muslims.” Journal of Islamic Marketing, 4:2, 218–227.
10 Muslim immigrants and football
in Amara Lakhous’s fiction
Yousef Awad
Johan, forget Italy, you won’t learn anything from the Italians. Remember, that’s
the country that invented catenaccio! That system of defensive lockdown [that]
would have killed the game, if the Dutch hadn’t invented total soccer.
(Amara Lakhous 2006, p. 84)
This chapter investigates the representation of football in Algerian Italian novelist

Amara Lakhous’s fiction. In Lakhous’s three novels, namely Clash of Civiliza-
tions Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio (2006), Divorce Islamic Style (2010)
and Dispute Over a Very Italian Piglet (2013), football is presented, albeit humor-
ously, as a site over which socioeconomic, political, historical and cultural issues
converge. Lakhous employs football to ‘narrat[e] the Italian society without hold-
ing back and without fear’ (2014, xi). Specifically, Lakhous’s three novels are
populated with Muslim immigrants whose stories reflect the interconnectedness
of football with their daily experiences in different Italian cities. Lakhous strategi-
cally uses football’s international popularity to depict various complications that
Muslim immigrants have to undergo and cope up with, especially after the deadly
events of 9/11.
Lakhous draws on football’s gruesome aspects to remind the reader that foot-
ball is a site of continual cross-cultural misunderstandings, bigotry and fanati-
cism, and it can also be a site to challenge this, as Salha (in Chapter 14 of this
book) demonstrates when highlights the determination of some football players to
tackle these misconceptions and prejudices.
In Lakhous’s fiction, the notorious Italian defence technique of catenaccio
becomes a metaphor for a xenophobic mindset that demonizes foreigners and
attempts to push them beyond the nation’s borders. The discourses on football
in these novels are entangled with local and global socioeconomic and political
forces. In other words, the novelist takes into account multidimensional endog-
enous and exogenous powers that shape football locally, regionally and interna-
tionally. Thanks to his position as an Italian of Algerian origin, Lakhous explores
from the position of an insider/outsider the local and international socioeconomic,
political, historical and cultural factors that shape contemporary discourses on
football. As immigrant characters discuss their football affiliations, reminisce
142 Yousef Awad
about renowned football scandals and draw on the mis/fortunes of their favourite
footballers, they unveil their own ambitions and aspirations, express their fears
and apprehensions and give the reader an idea about what it means to be a Muslim
immigrant in Italy after 9/11.
Clash of Civilizations narrates the stories of a number of mainly non-European
characters who live in Piazza Vittorio. The main character in the novel is Amedeo,
an Algerian immigrant who is mistakenly taken by almost all characters as Italian.
Amedeo is a charismatic character who has gained everyone’s trust and admira-
tion. Italian and non-Italian characters pour out their troubles to Amedeo, who in
turn is happy to shoulder their burdens and to give uplift to them. As other char-
acters speak to Amedeo, football emerges as a recurrent theme that is approached
differently by characters of various backgrounds. Overall, football in this novel is
a site of misunderstanding and miscommunication. Similarly, in Divorce Islamic
Style, football is a recurrent motif that almost shapes the structure of the novel,
which depicts the experiences of Muslim immigrants in Italy after 9/11. Italian
secret police (SISMI) are after a dormant terrorist cell in Rome’s Viale Marconi
neighbourhood. To uncover the purported terrorists, an Arabic-speaking secret
agent is implanted among Muslim immigrants. Significantly, football emerges as
one of the main topics some of the characters are glad to discuss and chat about.
Eventually, the whole story turns out to be a hoax designed by SISMI to examine
the prospective secret agent’s ability to adapt and work under pressure. Likewise,
Lakhous’s third novel, Dispute Over a Very Italian Piglet (2013), portrays the
precarious position Muslim immigrants occupy in Italy after 9/11. The novel, set
in the northern Italian town of Turin, tells the story of an Italian piglet video-
taped inside a mosque. In response, Muslim community leaders who are infuri-
ated at desecrating their sacred worshipping place are determined to punish the
piglet’s owner, who happens to be a Christian Nigerian immigrant. The conflict is
resolved amicably when it is discovered that a twelve-year-old boy is the person
who staged the pig’s walk through the mosque.
The outline of each novel’s plot is by no means adequate to reflect how each
of the three novels depicts different aspects of the contemporary multi-cultural
Italian society. The novels reflect how in modern-day Italy, socioeconomic, politi-
cal, historical and cultural issues are intricately entangled and entwined. In fact,
Lakhous’s novels, especially Clash of Civilizations, have been examined by many
critics, whose overall evaluations and reviews are positive. Grace Russo Bullaro
(2014) argues that the novel is not only about immigrants and their place in the
host country and how they negotiate questions of identity, ‘it is fundamentally an
exploration of the elusive and multi-faceted nature of truth’ (pp. 15–16). Some
other critics (Mari and Shvanyukova 2012 and Wilson 2011) have examined the
novel from a linguistic perspective and highlighted the innovative techniques the
novelist employs to show the nation’s linguistic diversity in a world of immigra-
tion, mobility and globalization. Federica Mazzara (2012) argues that as the title
of the novel indicates, Lakhous is interested in investigating the limitations of
cross-cultural communications through ‘disseminat[ing] ambiguities and misun-
derstandings about the characters’ names, identities and origins’ (p. 81).
Sport and migration: fictional tales 143
Few other critics have examined Lakhous’s second novel, Divorce Islamic
Style. For instance, Spackman (2012) examines how Lakhous’s book appropriates
classical Italian cultural productions to connect ‘nineteenth-century European
migrations to Egypt and the Hijaz’ with the Italian secret police’s infiltration of
Muslim communities in Italy. Similarly, Palladino (2014) argues that Lakhous’s
employment of intertextual references along with the use of irony, the slippage
of self into other and the recuperation of past histories ‘complicate homogenous
notions of national identity, national history and language’ (p. 300). Lakhous, Pal-
ladino concludes, ‘offers innovative narratives and verbal strategies of intercul-
tural enunciation which both problematize normative discourses on migration and
propose alternative ethics of communication among cultures’ (p. 300). Overall,
critics have focused on how Lakhous’s novels paint a realistic picture of the lives
and experiences of immigrants in contemporary Italy.
In this chapter, I will focus on Lakhous’s representations of the experiences of
Muslim characters in Italy, especially after 9/11. As these characters move within
the fictional spaces of the novels, the reader is made privy to their private lives as
they are subjected to bigotry, abuse and maltreatment. Specifically, these Muslim
immigrants are discriminated against, and their private lives are violated. Inter-
estingly, in the three novels, football is at the heart of this mayhem and disorder.
In fact, in the three novels, football is a site for cross-cultural misunderstanding,
bigotry and fanaticism. In other words, Lakhous strategically employs football
to depict socioeconomic, political, historical and cultural circumstances under
which Muslim immigrants live in Italy. In short, football becomes the prism
through which the reader sees the daily experiences of these Muslim charac-
ters. To a large extent, football permeates the three novels and illuminates the
themes that Lakhous presents. Taking into consideration the important role foot-
ball plays in contemporary Italy, it is unsurprising that football is the tool that
Lakhous employs to draw a real-life image of Muslim immigrants.
Lakhous confesses that in his novels, ‘there is a metaphor, almost obsessive,
regarding soccer’ (2014, p. xi). Lakhous maintains that he uses the metaphor of
football to portray different aspects of contemporary Italian society. In his fiction,
he does not confine himself to depicting the experiences of one segment of soci-
ety, but he presents a wide array of Italian characters with diverse socioeconomic,
political and cultural backgrounds: ‘Using a metaphor from the world of soccer
[. . .] I will say that readers and critics expected me to play a defensive game [. . .]
Instead I played offense, narrating Italian society without holding back and with-
out fear’ (2004, xi). In fact, Lakhous maintains that writing is like playing a game
in attack mode, and hence, he thinks of himself as a coach who does not succumb
to defensive tactics but believes in relentless attack:
I also happen to think of my role as a writer to be much like that of the

coach who rejects catenaccio and prefers total soccer, totalvoetbal, playing
in attack, conquering the field, not being afraid of the opponents, staying in
motion, playing to win, entertaining the audience.
(xi–xii)
144 Yousef Awad
For Lakhous, football is a multi-dimensional cultural field that demands critical
and analytical reading and interpretation. In his novels, football is a terrain replete
with miscommunications, misunderstandings, misinterpretations and misconcep-
tions. In Clash of Civilizations, for instance, Lakhous brilliantly employs humour
to highlight the dilemma of immigrants in contemporary Italy. As European and
non-European immigrants encounter Italians, ‘their “cultural differences” lead to
a number of domestic quarrels [. . .] translated into nothing more than a series of
unfortunate, but ultimately comical, misunderstandings’ (Mari & Shvanyukova

2012, p. 118). In the novel, Italian people think that Johan Van Marten, a Dutch
student, means ‘“I am rude”’ when he says, ‘“I am not gentile!”’ (p. 33). In fact,
the student is referring to ‘the surname of the former player for Juventus and
for the Italian national team that won the world championship in 1982 in Spain’
(p. 85). For Johan, Claudio Gentile, a player well known for his aggressiveness
and for man-to-man marking on the football pitch, is ‘the ultimate symbol of
catenaccio [. . .] That’s why I keep saying “I am not GENTILE”’ (p. 85). In this
sense, the ill-famed Italian football defending technique of catenaccio becomes a
metaphor for a prejudiced mentality that dehumanizes foreigners and keeps them
at bay. At the same time, football is a domain replete with miscommunication and
misunderstanding.
Lakhous was born in Algeria and lives now in Italy. He published three novels
in Italian that were translated into several languages. The three novels vividly
portray the experiences of Muslim immigrants in different Italian cities through
drawing on football’s international popularity. Thanks to his existence in between
cultures, he explores from the position of an insider/outsider the local and inter-
national socioeconomic, political, historical and cultural factors that shape con-
temporary discourses on football in Italy. Just like many other Muslim authors in
diaspora, Lakhous has responded to an increasing interest in Muslim cultures after
9/11 by vividly depicting various aspects of the experiences of Muslim immi-
grants. Through representing the socioeconomic, political, historical and cultural
dynamics that govern the lives of Muslims in diaspora, these writers seek ‘to
educate Euro-Americans about Arabs and Muslims’ by highlighting discrepan-
cies between ‘the quotidian experiences of everyday Arabs and Muslims and [. . .]
the free-floating and intransigent mainstream discourses of Arabness and Islam’
(Gana 2013, p. 19). In this way, Muslim writers in diaspora help subvert miscon-
ceptions about Muslim cultures and act as bridges that facilitate communications
between seemingly two discrepant worlds.
In this context, it is unsurprising that Muslim writers in diaspora draw on a
global game like football to express their opinions about a host of issues that
have a direct bearing on Muslim cultures. Richard Giulianotti and Roland Rob-
ertson describe football ‘as one representation – indeed, manifestation – of glo-
balization’ (2004, p. 547). Giulianotti and Robertson maintain that football’s
contemporary globalization is marked by increasing tensions between different
forces that are ‘associate[d] with the elemental reference points of individu-
als, national societies, international system, and humankind’ (p. 561). Although
football ‘has exhibited similarities with the way it has developed and become
part of the social fabric in other lands’, in Arab and Muslim communities, Alon
Raab asserts, ‘it has also achieved its own character and flavour, a result of the
region’s unique history and multiplicity of religions, cultures and peoples’ (2012,
p. 620). Islam, Raab maintains, has and continues to influence ‘the development
and character of the game’ (p. 623). While many religious leaders and believers
have viewed football ‘as a dangerous western import that encourages political
reforms, destruction of family life and abandonment of the faith’, other promi-
nent clerics ‘see no contradiction between the game and the Islamic faith and
practices’ and have used the game ‘to spread the faith and help adherents in their
spiritual and moral development’ (p. 623).
Sport sociologist Mahfoud Amara investigates the relationship among sport,
Islam and Muslims in Europe. In Arab and Muslim countries, Amara argues, sport
is a site of contest:
The Arab and Muslim World has, on the one hand, accepted modern sport as
a symbol of modernization in society [. . .] and as a privileged (propaganda)
tool for nation-state building [. . .]. On the other hand, [. . .] representatives
of Islamist movements – are wary of modern sport as a symbol of secularism
and a deviation from ‘authentic’ societal concerns of the Ummah (the nation
of Muslim believers).
(Amara, 2012, p. 508)
Amara argues that for Muslims in Europe the domain of sport is a terrain which
manifests the complexity of combining multiple identities (2013, p. 645). Amara
elaborates:
Demands are being made by Muslim communities – in the name of democ-

racy, citizenship, and rights to cultural and religious differences – to accom-
modate specific times for Muslim women and young girls at local leisure
centres, to allow men to wear long swimming trunks in public swimming
pools, and to allocate specific training/nutrition programmes for professional
athletes to meet their religious duty of fasting during the Month of Ramadan.
For Muslim Europeans, sport is another field to explore (or to ‘conquer’)
in order to reconcile their multiple identities, or succeed. For conservative-
nationalist movements and states authorities in Europe sport is another public
(secular) space to safeguard from the over-expression, or over-visibility, of
Islamic identity in Europe.
(p. 645)
Seen from this perspective, the domain of sport is a strongly contested one over
which discourses of democracy, religious affiliation, secularism and racism con-
verge. Moreover, sport is a site where Muslim immigrants in Europe express their
national, cultural and, most importantly, religious identities.
Amara’s argument may explain the recent interest by Muslim novelists in
depicting sports in their works. In fact, a number of Arab and Muslim novelists
146 Yousef Awad
in diaspora have highlighted the role football plays in Muslim societies both at
home and in diaspora. In a recent article on the representation of football in Arabic
literature in diaspora, Awad (forthcoming) notes that there is a recent interest by
novelists to depict scenes on/about football which may be read within a context
of growing Arab involvement in international football over the past few years, the
emergence of international football superstars of Arab descent, the direct and indi-
rect influences of football on socioeconomic and political transformations in Arab
countries, including the Arab Spring, and FIFA’s controversial decision to stage
the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Awad shows how Arab novelists in diaspora
highlight the relationship between the individual and nation through a number of
football-centred metaphors and episodes.
Similarly, in his three novels, Lakhous presents a series of football-centred
metaphors and episodes to portray the experiences of Italy’s Muslim immigrants.
Immigration to Italy has witnessed a substantial increase since the 1970s. Accord-
ing to Stefano Allievi (2010), permits of stay issued to foreigners stood at 146,989
in 1970, but at the end of 2008, the number of immigrants in Italy reached around
4 million. Allievi reminds us that ‘religion lived collectively and on the commu-
nity level, has its space and role in the construction of individual and collective
identity of large numbers of immigrants’ (p. 86). Since 1986 (the year in which
the first Italian immigration law was issued), successive governments have tried
to respond to the dramatic rise in the number of immigrants. The Bossi-Fini law
of 2002, for instance, was ‘widely considered inappropriate for the regulation
of migration’ (p. 94). According to Allievi, it is during this period that ‘the anti-
Islamic discourses have emerged dramatically in the public space [. . .], making
Italy one of the countries in Europe where Islamophobic discourses have been
more openly promoted by media and politicians’ (p. 94).
The presence of Islam in Italian territories is not exactly new from a historical
perspective (Allievi 2003, p. 143). However, from a sociological point of view,
Allievi argues, ‘the Islamic presence is a new phenomenon: and it is directly
related to the presence of immigrants’ (p. 144). Muslims in Italy represent, accord-
ing to Toronto (2008, p. 62), about 33 percent of the country’s immigrant popula-
tion and 2 percent of the total Italian population. Toronto maintains that the Islamic
community in Italy is ‘in its infancy’ when compared to Islamic communities in
other European countries like Germany, France, Great Britain and the Netherlands
(p. 62). The steady influx and permanent status of Islamic immigration in Italy
began only 15 to 20 years ago, while Muslim immigration to these four countries
has been underway for up to 50 years (p. 62). The vast majority of Muslims in Italy
are, therefore, first generation, although a second generation is just beginning to
appear and play a significant role.
Toronto outlines a number of factors that shape the lives of Muslims in Italy:
Factors that impede the efforts of Muslims to achieve integration in the Ital-
ian religious landscape include the diversity and divisions found within the
Muslim community, deep-seated mistrust of Islam in Italian society, media
coverage that tends to be biased and inaccurate, and ambivalence on the part
of the Catholic Church hierarchy toward Islam and other religious minorities.
Among the factors that portend eventual accommodation of Muslims in Italy
are the relatively tolerant attitudes among Italians toward immigrants and
religious minorities, the increasingly effective measures adopted by Muslims
to promote their cause in the public arena, the role of second-generation Mus-
lims in reconstructing Islamic identity for the Italian context, and examples
from the history of religion that illustrate how religious minorities in other
societies have been successfully integrated.

(p. 79)
Toronto’s words are quite interesting and illuminating since they help illustrate
the socioeconomic, political, historical and cultural context that Lakhous draws
on to depict the lived experiences of Muslims in Italy. For instance, in the three
novels, the Muslim characters are diverse and heterogeneous: there are Egyptian,
Algerian, Tunisian, Senegalese and Bengali Muslim immigrants. These charac-
ters have different experiences and surely dissimilar socioeconomic, political and
cultural backgrounds. Lakhous brilliantly illustrates this diversity through depict-
ing the different experiences these characters undergo. Interestingly, many of the
episodes that involve Muslim characters in these novels revolve around football.
In this context, it is helpful to cite sport sociologist Mahfoud Amara, who high-
lights the crucial role sports play in shaping the experiences of Muslim immi-
grants in Europe. Amara argues:
Sport is becoming the space to test the success of ‘integration’ policies of

minorities into the host society and to question the loyalty of Muslim minori-
ties to the ‘host’ nation. Muslims of immigrant origin are caught between
affirming their (multiple) identities while avoiding and combating stigmati-
sation both in their country of birth and country of origin.
(p. 654)
In other words, involvement in sports is a barometer to measure the success of

the integration of Muslim immigrants into European socio-political and cultural
tapestry. Seen from this angle, it is unsurprising that football occupies a viable
space in Lakhous’s novels as he depicts the experiences of Muslim immigrants in
Italy since Italian football, as Agnew (2013) succinctly puts it, ‘has reflected the
society in which it has been played’ (p. 69).
Agnew highlights the importance of football in Italian politics. He argues that
‘the nexus between power, politics and football in Italy is nowhere better illus-
trated than in the persons of Mussolini and Berlusconi because after all, they both
ended up running the country and not without the help of football’ (p. 72). As
Kassimeris (2012) puts it, in Italy, the ‘development of football [. . .] was held
captive by obscene nationalistic aspirations emanating from an innately xenopho-
bic political environment that sought to attain control over every cultural aspect
of the country’ (p. 685). In Italy, Kassimeris maintains, ‘the manipulation of foot-
ball was [. . .] a well-conceived strategy devoted entirely to the promotion and
148 Yousef Awad
reinforcement of a distinct national identity’ (p. 685). In this sense, football is a
crucial component of Italy’s social fabric and has been often used by politicians
to manipulate and mobilize the masses. Agnew argues that since WWII, ‘Italian
public life was rocked by a mix of violent political struggle and recurring pub-
lic scandals’, and in this sense, Italian football is not an exception since it ‘has
been besmirched by a bewildering series of outrages as well as violent and racist
episodes’ (p. 69). Moreover, Agnew finds a parallelism between Italian football
and Italian society and asserts that football may be viewed as ‘the looking glass
through which we observe reflections of the socio-economic concerns of the [Ital-
ian] society’ (p. 68).
As a cultural artefact, football is implicated in Italian socioeconomic and his-
torical life, and it reflects society’s attitudes, prejudices, values and mores. As
Agnew succinctly puts it:
Known to football fans worldwide for its ultra-defensive ‘catenaccio’ mental-

ity (a tactical system that first won trophies in the 1950s and 1960s), Italian
teams at both club and national level often remain true to defensive and cau-
tious mindset [. . .] It often means for Italian teams, the first tactical concern
is not how to score but rather how not to concede a goal.
In that, too, Italian football merely reflects the cautious, pragmatic nature
of many Italians.
(p. 71)
Agnew’s words on Italian football provide a helpful socio-political context to

explain how Lakhous employs football, for instance, in Clash of Civilizations to
‘offer a microcosm of the intercultural reality of contemporary Rome’ (Wilson
2011, p. 240). For Lakhous, the way Italy is trying to seal off its borders to pre-
vent immigrants from entering the nation echoes the infamous Italian football
technique of catenaccio. In the novel, Dutch student Johan Van Marten thinks that
catenaccio is ‘not just a defensive tactic in soccer but a way of thinking and living,
a result of underdevelopment, of locking the chain and throwing away the key’
(p. 85). Johan’s words link one of the most important themes in the novel, namely,
the intolerant position Italian governments take to curb inflowing immigration, to
a notorious defensive Italian football technique.
In this sense, Italian football comes to represent a political and cultural mindset
that seeks to keep foreigners at bay. Johan’s words in fact can be read within the
context of the ‘“politicization of football”’ and the ‘“footballization of politics”’
in Italy (Kassimeris 2012, pp. 685–686). Kassimeris’s thoughts are quite help-
ful in understanding the link between football and politics in Italy and are worth
quoting at length:
The ‘politicization of football’ [. . .] contribute[d] towards its rapid develop-

ment [. . .] The ‘footballization of politics’, on the other hand, proved detri-
mental for the course of the game, given the political connotations embedded
in the objectives of both the ultràs and, sure enough, the extreme right-wing
formations. Distorting with relative ease and in an admittedly preposterous
manner the actual substance of socio-political issues pertaining to domestic
divisions or immigration has already compromised the integrity of a game that
has the capacity to promote integration under much different circumstances.
(pp. 685–686)
This passage is also important because it draws attention to the role ultràs
played and continue to play in shaping the game. For instance, Lazio’s fans ‘revel
in their racist identity and take pride in Italy’s Fascist legacy’; Lazio fans are also
known for ‘their anti-Semitic views, usually aired at the expense of city rivals
Roma fans’ (Kassimeris 2012 p. 683; cf. Testa & Armstrong 2008, 2010).1
Lakhous’s Clash of Civilizations provides an interesting example of how the
football–politics nexus is played out in Italy. In the novel, Sandro, a Roma fan,
confidently tells Amedeo, the main character in the novel, that ‘last year during
the Roma-Naples game there was a banner that said “Welcome, Naples fans, wel-
come to Italy!”’ (p. 100). In fact, before Sandro confides in Amedeo, he makes
sure that Amedeo is neither a Neapolitan nor a fan of Lazio (p. 94). Sandro is
jubilant when Amedeo becomes a fan of Roma who does not miss a game at the
Olympic Stadium (p. 94). When confronted with the news that Amedeo is an
immigrant, Sandro is shocked: ‘Don’t say that Amedeo is an immigrant, it gives
me a headache’ (p. 96). However, Sandro atones for his guilt by declaring that
as a Roma fan, he does not hate foreigners: ‘Wasn’t the greatest players of all
time [. . .] foreigners? These players were the glory of Roma, and so they deserve
respect, appreciation and esteem’ (p. 96). Sandro’s position exemplifies the con-
tradictions football fans usually experience as they try to strike a balance between
local loyalties and global affairs. On the one hand, Sandro highly appreciates
the contributions foreign players have made to render Roma an internationally
recognized team; on the other hand, Sandro is unable to hide his own prejudices
and anti-immigration sentiments. As a football fan, Sandro’s position is greatly
influenced by Italian right-wing parties’ ‘persistently secessional, xenophobic
campaigns’ (Kassimeris, p. 685). Overall, the novel draws a pessimistic picture
about Italy’s policies on immigration, and hence, it is logical to say that Lakhous
depicts football as a terrain imbued with racism, manipulation and prejudice. In
this context, one may bring to the picture recent incidents involving Italian striker
Mario Balotelli, who was racially abused by Italian fans on more than one occa-
sion. As Mark Doidge puts it, Balotelli has been constructed by Italian national
football team supporters as ‘a symbol of otherness and un-Italian’ (forthcoming).
In fact, football emerges as a recurring motif that Lakhous strategically
employs in his two other novels to depict the lived experiences of Muslim immi-
grants in Italy. In Divorce Islamic Style, one may argue that Lakhous uses foot-
ball as a central metaphor that governs the structure of the novel itself. In other
words, the strategy the Italian secret police employ to unveil the purported ter-
rorist Islamic cell is likened at several points to a football match. In fact, as the
novel opens, secret police agent Captain Tassarotti, alias Judas, tells the informer
he implants in the Muslim community in Rome, Christian Mazzari, alias Issa,
150 Yousef Awad
that they are ‘“playing in the Cesarini zone”. In other words, there’s no time to
waste, the game is about to end’ (p. 16). Judas draws on football to illustrate the
threat Muslim immigrants pose to Italian secret police since he makes a refer-
ence to Italian Argentine footballer Renato Cesarini, who was well-known for
scoring last-minute, decisive goals. In other words, the match between the two
teams (the Italian secret police and the purported terrorists) has entered a critical
stage, and whichever team scores right now will win the game/battle. Elsewhere,
Judas reminds Issa that they have to unveil the terrorist group before it is too late:
‘“We’re playing the last round. We have to get busy before it’s too late, agreed?”’
(p. 139). Issa responds to Judas’s incessant demands for information on Muslim
immigrants by saying, ‘The warmup phase has already lasted too long; I have to
enter the game’ (p. 14).
In fact, when Judas offers Issa the job, Issa’s response draws on football’s polit-
ical history in Italy. Issa states,
To tell the truth, the word ‘country’ gives me shivers only when I hear the
national anthem at international matches; outside a soccer game I have trouble
understanding the meaning of it. It’s banal, I know, but it’s the truth. Maybe
in our imagination it’s hard to detach ‘country’ from ‘war’ – like Benito Mus-
solini, just to be clear.
(p. 23)
Issa’s words here reveal how football in Italy ‘appears greatly related to the
country’s historical background and contemporary political developments’
(Kassimeris 2012, p. 684). In other words, Issa’s words foreground how Italian
politicians have traditionally ‘tak[en] advantage of football’s mass appeal while
oversimplifying social and political phenomena that command far greater atten-
tion’ (p. 686).
In this sense, Lakhous’s novel draws attention to the game’s political implica-
tions in Italy. Specifically, football here is employed to demarcate national bor-
ders and construct an Italian national identity through demonising and vilifying
Muslim immigrants. Once implanted in the Muslim community in the Roman
neighbourhood of Viale Marconi, Issa uses his knowledge of football to social-
ize with other Muslim immigrants. For instance, in a café frequented by Muslim
immigrants, Issa talks about football with a Tunisian immigrant:
We talked about this and that, from the war in Iraq to the latest offers for
prepaying your cell phone, from Italian politics to the Tunisian soccer cham-
pionship. I pretend to be a fan of the Taraggi, a sort of Tunisian Juventus.
Luckily I’m better informed about Tunisia than many real Tunisian immi-
grants. I always manage to amaze people, including myself.
(p. 51)
Football seems to be a safe topic that Issa uses to endear himself to Muslim
immigrants. Practically, football helps Issa socialize with Muslim immigrants at
the café, and more significantly, it enables him to approach and even befriend
some Muslim immigrants at the flat he shares with them.
In fact, Saber, one of the Muslim immigrants Issa shares a room with, is a foot-
ball fan. It does not take long for the two to become close friends:
He [Saber] is constantly talking about girls and soccer. His great dream is
to become a famous soccer player. Next to the bed, on the left, is a poster of
Paolo Maldini. Saber is a fan of Milan. I, like many Sicilians, root for Juve.
Luckily, I don’t have to hide this passion. I’m not in the least worried: there
are plenty of Juventus fans among the immigrants.
(p. 71)
For Saber, football is not merely a game that he is fascinated with; it is a lifeline
he tightly holds on to survive and to keep his dreams alive. Significantly, Saber
thinks football will facilitate his integration in the Italian society:
First: become a legal immigrant. Second: break in as a soccer player, prefer-

ably for Milan, but the important thing is to play in Series A. Third: get on TV
a lot, in order to attract attention, ideally as a regular guest on some famous
soccer talk show. The ultimate would be to get a part in a comedy with Chris-
tian De Sica. Fourth: win the heart of Simona Barberini.
(p. 72)
As the quotation shows, Lakhous enters Saber’s mind to reveal his hopes and
dreams. In this sense, Lakhous draws on football’s international popularity to
draw a realistic picture of Muslim immigrants in Italy.
In addition, the novel seems to draw attention to discourses on sport that
highlight the ambivalence with which sport is usually received in immigrant
communities. As sport sociologist Mahfoud Amara (2013) succinctly puts it,
‘[s]port is at the centre of the debate on integration and national identity of
immigrant communities in Europe, and since 9/11 the debate is now centred on
immigrants of Muslim faith or culture’ (p. 653). In this way, Lakhous presents
a realistic picture of Muslim immigrants whose lived experiences in Italy are
marred by prejudice, bigotry and racial discrimination. As Toronto (2008) puts
it, the image of Muslims in Italy ‘remains negative and feelings of Islamopho-
bia run deep in Italian society’ due to a ‘long-standing association of Muslims
with danger and terror in the Italian psyche’ (p. 68). Toronto maintains that this
negative image has been ‘confirmed and deepened by the events of 9/11’ and
a strong perception among Italians ‘that most Muslims retain strong loyalties
and cultural ties to foreign countries’ (pp. 68–69). Moreover, Toronto points out
that ‘[t]he treatment of Islam in the Italian media has also exerted an extremely
adverse impact on opinions in the public sphere [. . .], perpetuating biases and
misperceptions’ (p. 69). In addition, Muslim immigrants in Italy have to put
up with right-wing political party La Lega Nord’s nationalistic, xenophobic
and separationist agenda that ‘employ[s] anti-immigrant, racist language to
152 Yousef Awad
prey on Italians’ latent fear of foreigners, defined as non-Europeans and non-
Christians’ (p. 69).
In this context, Lakhous’s most recent novel, Dispute Over a Very Italian Pig-
let, brilliantly captures this tense socio-political context that Muslim immigrants
in Italy experience. Just as he employs football in his previous two novels, Lak-
hous capitalizes on the game’s international popularity to depict the experiences
of Muslim immigrants. The main character in the novel, Enzo Laganá, is a south-
erner whose ancestors immigrated to the northern city of Turin. Like many other
immigrants in the city, he is a self-confessed ardent Juventus fan who admires,
among other players, Zinédine Zidane (p. 22), a French football superstar of Alge-
rian descent. In fact, the protagonist of the novel feels jubilant that the son of the
French footballer is named Enzo. Enzo Laganá elaborates:
The son of Zizou, the mythical Zidane, a pedigreed Marseillais, is also named
Enzo. It seems that this name became famous in Marseilles after the success
of the Uruguayan player Enzo Francescoli, who had an Italian background,
on the Olympique de Marseilles team. An undisputed champion. As a Juven-
tus fan I say only: too bad he chose to wear the Turin Toro jersey in the early
nineties.
(pp. 25–26)
Enzo’s playful meditation on names inevitably makes him bring up the Derby
della Mole, which is played out between the city’s top two teams, namely Juventus
and Torino. Traditionally, Italians of southern roots and immigrants form the for-
mer’s fan base, while latter draws its supporters from a local fan base and hence
stands to represent the ‘original’ spirit of Piedmont region. Lakhous makes clear the
link between immigration and football when Enzo brings to the picture the name of
Juventus’s superstar ‘Trezeguet, a player who’s the son of Argentine immigrants’
(p. 26). Having established the historical link between football and immigration,
Lakhous employs football to depict the lived experiences of Muslim immigrants.
The first Muslim immigrant that shows passion for football is Sam, a Moroccan
immigrant who arrived in Turin, ‘the city of Fiat and Juventus’ (p. 56). Luan, the
purported Albanian gangster, draws on football’s international popularity to pres-
ent himself to the Italian audience: ‘I have a very large family, six brothers and
five sisters. I’m number ten, like Diego Armando Maradona’ (p. 59). In addition
to these quick references to football, Lakhous elaborately uses football to depict
the lived experiences of Muslims in Italy. In fact, the central conflict in the novel,
which Lakhous uses as a title for his novel, involves, or rather revolves around,
Muslim immigrants. Gino, a piglet owned by a Nigerian immigrant, is videotaped
inside a mosque. Moreover, ‘Gino is a Juventus fan: he wears a Juventus scarf
around his neck’ (p. 63). When rumours spread that Muslims will murder Gino
for desecrating their worshipping place, Joseph demands Enzo Laganá’s support
because the latter is a Juventus fan: ‘Enzo, please do something. Remember that
Gino is a Juventus fan like us and we Juventus fans are all brothers, we have to
help each other out’ (p. 66).
Drawing on a long history of rivalry between the two big football clubs of the
northern Italian city of Turin, namely Torino and Juventus, Joseph suggests that
Torino’s fans are certainly behind this scandal:
‘I’ve discovered who wants to frame us, me and Gino’.

‘Who?’
‘The Toro Ultras. I’m sure’.
‘Soccer fans? Come on!’

‘Ever since Juventus ended up in Series B we’ve become easy targets for
everyone. No one respects us anymore’.
‘But what does soccer have to do with this?’
Joseph tries to convince me that maybe it’s a joke, a nasty joke on two Juventus
fans, that is, him and his Gino. Why was only Juventus punished? Why
did Milan, Inter, Lazio, and the other teams come out of it unscathed? I
have to admit that this conversation gets to my black-and-white pride.
‘Enzo, I’d like to ask a big favour’.
‘What?’
‘Get in touch right away with the Juventus Ultras’.
‘Why?’
‘To ask for help. Gino and I can’t make it on our own’.
(pp. 118–119)
Although the conversation between Joseph and Enzo seems ridiculous and
even farcical, underneath, the conversation shows how football deeply entwines
with Italian socioeconomic, political, historical and cultural life since the two
clubs traditionally represent two different positions on immigration issues and the
definition of Italian national identity. Apparently, football, Joseph suggests, erases
ethnic boundaries and serves as the basis for a cross-cultural camaraderie between
a Nigerian and an Italian.
Moreover, the episode shows how football can be easily turned into a site on
which issues of immigration, bigotry, economics and politics converge. As Kas-
simeris (2012) succinctly puts it:
The ultràs are actually a very accurate reflection of Italy’s polarized society in
the 1970s, although their racist conduct pertains to the sudden influx of immi-
grants during the 1980s. The sheer existence of political parties generating a
strong sense of nationalistic fervour and intolerance, eventually, produced the
necessary grounds for extreme groupings such as the Irriducibili to surface.
[. . .] this hard-core group of football fans simply survived – thrived rather –
by targeting immigrants and all things not Italian. [. . .] The effects on football
notwithstanding, politics seem to blend well with the popular game in Italy.
(pp. 685–686)
Seen from this perspective, the conversation between Joseph and Enzo shows
how football can be easily politicized. This idea is reinforced when new groups
154 Yousef Awad
get involved in this controversy. Mario Bellezza, who is lobbying to close all the
mosques and prayer rooms, gets in touch with Enzo and explains his concerns
that if the Muslims murder Gino, they will eventually control the neighbourhood
and implement Islamic law. Bellezza tries to convince Enzo that Gino should be
protected and saved:
Bellezza shows me a series of flyers. Right in the middle of each one is the
image of a piglet wearing a green scarf. The captions, however, vary: Don’t
touch Gino! Gino is one of us! All for Gino! Hands off Gino! Gino the Italian
piglet! Gino the very Italian piglet! Gino a piglet of the Po!
(p. 96)
As Enzo brilliantly puts it, ‘[t]here are too many players in this game and they
all want to be in charge. Poor Gino’s going to end up as the ball’ (p. 110). Eventu-
ally, Gino becomes a ball every player in the game kicks.
Lakhous’s representation of football is multi-dimensional and reflects the
game’s entanglements with socioeconomic, historical, political and cultural
domains. In his novels, Lakhous depicts football, albeit humorously, as a site of
continual cross-cultural misunderstandings, racism and fanaticism. In the three
novels, football occupies a central stage, and Lakhous brilliantly employs football
to explore complicated issues that are at the heart of contemporary Italian socio-
economic, political and cultural spheres. In Clash of Civilizations, for instance,
the novel’s theme is in fact embodied by the notorious Italian defence technique
of catenaccio, which becomes a metaphor for a xenophobic mindset that demon-
izes foreigners and attempts to push them beyond the nation’s borders. Further-
more, football is the metaphor that controls Divorce Islamic Style and governs its
structure: Italian secret police’s endeavour to unveil a purported Islamist terrorist
group is presented as a football match which the Italian secret police should win.
Moreover, the central dispute in Lakhous’s third novel, Dispute Over a Very Italian
Piglet, involves a Juventus piglet caught inside a mosque. Although the conflict is
resolved amicably, the novelist strategically employs football-centred metaphors
and episodes to depict the precarious position Muslim immigrants occupy in Ital-
ian society. Overall, in the three novels, football is presented as a site on which
socioeconomic, political, historical and cultural discourses converge.
In Lakhous’s three novels, football is central and pivotal. In this sense, Clash of
Civilizations, Divorce Islamic Style and Dispute Over a Very Italian Piglet show,
to use John Foot’s words, ‘football history and Italian history simply cannot be
separated’ (2006, p. 27). What is quite interesting in these three novels is that Lak-
hous employs football to depict the experiences of Muslim immigrants in Italy. As
the characters move within the fictional spaces of the three novels, Lakhous draws
a realistic image of Muslim immigrants whose lived experiences are marred by
prejudice, bigotry and discrimination. Through football, the three novels portray
the heterogeneity of Muslim immigrant communities and present to the reader
a more realistic image of a group of people typically vilified and demonized,
especially after 9/11. In the three novels, for some Muslim immigrants, football
is an effective tool through which they integrate into Italian social fabric; yet for
others, it is a domain exploited by politicians to glean votes and to distract people
from more urgent issues. No matter how these characters perceive it, football in
Lakhous’s novels is a culturally imbued site that impels attentive reading and
careful examination.
Note
1 For a better understanding of neofascism in the Italian football terraces, cf. Testa and
Armstrong (2010), Football, Fascism and Fandom: The Ultras of Italian Football, and
Testa and Armstrong (2008), ‘Words and Actions: Italian Ultras and Neo-fascism’.
References
Agnew, P 2013, ‘Italy: Football as Politics – Mussolini to Berlusconi’ in The Cambridge
Companion to Football, eds R Steen, J Novik & H Richards, Cambridge UP, Cambridge,
pp. 68–82.
Allievi, S 2003. ‘Sociology of a Newcomer: Muslim Migration to Italy – Religious Vis-
ibility, Cultural and Political Reactions’, Immigrants & Minorities, vol. 22, no. 2/3, pp.
141–154.
Allievi, S 2010, ‘Immigration and Cultural Pluralism in Italy: Multiculturalism as a Miss-
ing Model’, Italian Culture, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 85–103.
Amara, M 2012, ‘The Middle East and North Africa’ in Routledge Companion to Sports
History, eds SW Pope & J Nauright, Routledge, Oxon & New York, pp. 498–509.
Amara, M 2013, ‘Sport, Islam, and Muslims in Europe: in between or on the Margin?’
Religions, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 644–656.
Awad, Y (forthcoming), ‘Football in Arabic Literature in Diaspora: Global Influences and
Local Manifestations’, International Review for the Sociology of Sport.
Bullaro, GR 2014, ‘Building an Identity in the New Italian Pluricultural Society: Compet-
ing Theories on Europe’s Future and Lakhous’s Clash of Civilizations over an Elevator
in Piazza Vittorio’ in Shifting and Shaping a National Identity: Transnational Writers
and Pluriculturalism in Italy Today, eds GR Bullaro and E Benelli, Troubador Publish-
ing Ltd, Leicester, pp. 1–22.
Doidge, M (forthcoming), ‘ “If You Jump Up and Down, Balotelli Dies”: Racism and
Player Abuse in Italian football’, International Review for the Sociology of Sport.
Foot, J 2006, Calcio: The History of Italian Football, Fourth Estate, London.
Gana, N 2013, ‘Introduction: The Intellectual History and Contemporary Significance of
the Arab Novel in English’ in The Edinburgh Companion to the Arab Novel in English:
The Politics of Anglo Arab and Arab American Literature and Culture, ed N Gana, Edin-
burgh UP, Edinburgh, pp. 1–35.
Giulianotti, R & Robertson, R 2004, ‘The Globalization of Football: A Study in the Glo-
calization of the “Serious Life”’, The British Journal of Sociology, vol. 55, no. 4, pp.
545–568.
Kassimeris, C 2012, ‘Fascism, Separatism and the Ultràs: Discrimination in Italian Foot-
ball’, Soccer & Society, vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 677–688.
Lakhous, A 2014, ‘Preface: for a Total Literature: Writing as a Team Sport’ in Shifting and
Shaping a National Identity: Transnational Writers and Pluriculturalism in Italy Today,
eds GR Bullaro & E Benelli, Troubador Publishing Ltd, Leicester, pp. xi–xiii.
156 Yousef Awad
Lakhous, A 2013, Dispute Over a Very Italian Piglet, trans. A Goldstein, Europa Edition,
New York.
Lakhous, A 2010. Divorce Islamic Style, trans. A Goldstein, Europa Edition, New York.
Lakhous, A 2006. Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio, trans. A Gold-
stein, Europa Edition, New York.
Mari, L & Shvanyukova, P 2012, ‘Linguistic Encounters Now and Then: Amara Lakhous
and Tahar Lamri Engage in the Debate on (Dis)United Italy’ Carte Italiane, vol. 2, no. 8,
pp. 115–139.
Mazzara, F 2012, ‘Beyond Italian Borders: Amara Lakhous and the Mediterranean Alter-
native’, Crossings: Journal of Migration & Culture, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 71–87.
Palladino, M 2014, ‘Divorce and Dialogue: Intertextuality in Amara Lakhous’, Divorzio
all’islamica a viale Marconi’, Language and Intercultural Communication, vol. 14, no. 3,
pp. 287–303.
Raab, A 2012, ‘Soccer in the Middle East: an Introduction’, Soccer & Society, vol. 13,
no. 5/6, pp. 619–638.
Spackman B 2012, ‘Italiani DOC? Passing and Posing from Giovanni Finati to Amara
Lakhous’ California, Italian Studies, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 1–15.
Testa, A. & Armstrong, G. 2010, Football, Fascism and Fandom: The Ultras of Italian
Football, London, A&C Black.
Testa, A & Armstrong, G 2008, ‘Words and Actions: Italian Ultras and Neo-fascism’,
Social Identities, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 473–449.
Toronto, JA 2008, ‘Islam Italiano: Prospects for Integration of Muslims in Italy’s Religious
Landscape’, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 61–82.
Wilson, R 2011, ‘Cultural Mediation through Translingual Narrative’, Target, vol. 23, no. 2,
pp. 235–250.
PART IV
sport for development

Sport development and

11 Sport and integration discourse
in Norway
How do policy makers perceive and
respond to the sporting needs of
Muslim communities?
Kristin Walseth
Introduction
That sport can be a venue for integration work has been a central idea in Norwe-
gian integration policy since the 1990s. The claim for sport was based on the idea
that there was a link between civil society and democracy, and sport associations
were thought to be a form of mini-democracies. Further, it was argued that immi-
grants can learn the majority group’s values and norms easily by participating
in sports characterized by fair play and democratic values. Moreover, sport was
often described as an open and inclusive activity in which young people could
develop a network of friends with similar interests.
The discourse about sport as a tool for integration has led to the establishment
of sport and integration projects and a national policy regarding sport and inte-
gration issues. Despite these initiatives, research shows that youth with minority
backgrounds are still less involved in sports than majority youth, and Muslim
girls seem to be particularly underrepresented in sports (Strandbu & Bakken,
2007). The experiences of minority youth in sport clubs have been studied exten-
sively in Norway (i.e. Andersson, 2008; Strandbu, 2005; Walseth, 2006), but little
research has focused on the majority group and the policy makers. Amara and
Henry (2010b) underline that an understanding of diversity and its implication for
policy is critical to those charged with delivering sport services in culturally plural
societies. This chapter reports on a research project that focused on how policy
makers perceived and responded to the sporting needs of Muslim communities
in Norway. The project was inspired by a research project in the UK with similar
objectives (Amara & Henry, 2010a, 2010b). As a context for understanding the
sport and integration discourse, in the following, the Norwegian immigration and
sport context will be introduced.
The Norwegian immigration context

Immigration to Norway commenced more than a thousand years ago. However,
it was not until the 1960s that Norway started to receive immigrants from non-
Western countries when, like other European countries, Norway had a need for
an expanded labour force. If one looks at the situation in Europe after the Second
160 Kristin Walseth
World War, Norway is an extraordinary case in the sense that the country was
only marginally affected by the immigration waves that reached Europe (Borch-
grevink & Brochmann, 2003). One of the largest groups of labour immigrants
came from Pakistan. In 1975, Norway imposed an immigrant stop. This resulted
in an immigration population now mainly consisting of labour immigrants from
Eastern Europe or refugees or members of an established immigrant’s family
being granted a residential permit. Statistics from 2014 show that Norway cur-
rently has about 633,100 immigrants, corresponding to approximately 12 percent

of the total population.1 The largest groups of immigrants to Norway are from
Poland (mainly men searching for work; SSB, 2014).
Among Muslims, migrants from Pakistan and Somalia constitute the largest
groups. Muslims have initiated their own religious organizations, and in 1991,
the umbrella organization called the Islamic Council of Norway was established,
which has representatives from 41 Muslim organizations in Norway and repre-
sents approximately 60,000 Muslims (IRN, n.d.). A report by Hagelund and Loga
(2009) says that Muslim organizations in Norway have developed in two differ-
ent directions. On the one side, the organizational landscape has become more
diverse, with more Muslim organizations and mosques based on ethnicity and
different theologies. At the same time, more cooperation among the organizations
has been established, thereby creating umbrella organizations such as the Islamic
Council of Norway and Muslim organizations for youth that cater for young peo-
ple of different ethnic backgrounds.
The Norwegian sport model

According to Skille (2008), the Norwegian sport model draws on three interde-
pendent ideas. First, Sport for All is the official goal of the Norwegian Confedera-
tion of Sports (NOC), the only national umbrella organization for sport, which
implies an explicit goal that all children and youth who are interested in sports
should have the opportunity to participate, independent of, for example, gender,
ethnicity, and disabilities. Second, there is a strong tradition of NOC being inde-
pendent from the state’s intervention; the sport clubs are perceived as grassroots
organizations in which voluntary and unpaid work is an important basis for the
clubs. Third, participation in sports taking place during leisure time, is conducted
voluntarily, and is competitively oriented at every level.
Organizationally, participation in sports is based on membership in a sport club,
and the sport club is linked to the NOC system. Despite the tradition of inde-
pendence, NOC receives public funding from the state. The largest amount of
money stems from a national gambling agency, whose revenues are the basis of
public funding for sport. The revenues go directly from the gambling agency to
the Department of Sport Policy (DSP) assigned to the ministry of Cultural Affairs
and are not an object of political discussion in Parliament, as would be the case
for the rest of the national budget. The DSP and the NOC are dependent on one
other; the DSP administers the essential financial resources, while the NOC has
practical capacity to implement sport strategies.
Sport and integration in Norway 161
The tradition of considering sport as a tool for integration can be dated back
to the first White Paper on sport (1991–1992). This logic is widely adopted in
Europe (for instance, Burrmann and Mutz, in Chapter 3 of this book, detail Ger-
many’s experience with all its contradictions) and in Asia-Malaysia (cf. Aman in
Chapter 13).
In the report, the government emphasized the limitations of conventional sport
in terms of realizing the goal of Sport for All. One solution to address this problem
was to initiate a sport and integration project (originally named the Sport City
Program). The project was perceived as a success and is still financed by the DSP,
now under the name “Inclusion in Sport Clubs”. The state budget for 2014 allo-
cated NOK 10.5 million to the NOC for this project. The government states that
this funding should result in the development of activity and social integration in
sport clubs. The target group has been specifically limited to children and youth
with immigrant backgrounds, with a particular focus on girls. Projects aiming to
recruit immigrant parents to do voluntary work for the sport clubs can also be
financed.
Integration
In Norway, the official integration policy is presented in White Papers. These are
value documents that have launched new objectives for integration. The official
Norwegian integration policy changed from assimilation to multiculturalism in
the 1970s. Today, policy makers perceive assimilation as an illegitimate power
NIF
Joint administration of all
sports in Norway
Regional confederation National federation

Joint administration of all National administration of
sports in the county a specific sport
Sport councils Regional federation

Coordinating body for all clubs County or regional body for
within a county a specific sport
Club
Group
Clubs participating in
a specific sport
Discipline
Team The discipline in which the group
Team playing within participates, e.g.
a league cross-country skiing
Figure 11.1 Organizational chart NIF/NOC (NIF, n.d.)

162 Kristin Walseth
strategy, and there is a shared understanding that integration, as a strategy, should
not do violence to the immigrants’ cultural background. As such, the official inte-
gration policy of today promotes a “tolerant, multicultural society” through equal
rights and duties for individuals regardless of cultural or religious background.
The terminology used to describe integration policy has not been stable. With
the introduction of the 2003–2004 White Paper, the term “inclusion” replaced
“integration” in official policy documents. The government stated that the con-
cept of inclusion was used instead of integration because the government saw
it to be a broader concept. Moreover, the government found it difficult to use
the concept of integration when describing the situation of second-generation
immigrants who had been born in Norway. Today, the integration concept seems
to have been re-introduced, as the title of the most recent White Paper suggests:
“A Comprehensive Integration Policy”. The paper defines integration in the fol-
lowing way:
Integration is a process which includes those who live in Norway as well as

those who arrive here. New inhabitants must adapt to the society and partici-
pate in the workforce and community life. Those who live in Norway, must
recognize and relate to the fact that the population is changing and becomes
more plural.
(St.meld. No. 6, 2012–2013, p. 9)
Regarding sport, the 2012–2013 White Paper extends the ideas expressed in
previous reports arguing for the use of sport as an arena for social integration.
The report states that next to school, the sport arena is the most important meeting
place for many children and youth: ‘Through leisure time activities and through
participation in voluntary organizations, one develops trust, social skills and
social networks’ (St.meld. No. 6, 2012–2013, p. 75).
In accounting for the low level of participation in sport by young minority
women, the newest report points to research suggesting that this may be explained
by social class, lack of knowledge about how leisure-time activities are organized
in Norway, and cultural differences such as varying gender roles (St.meld. No. 6,
2012–2013). Regarding immigrant organizations, the same report concludes
that ‘Immigrant organizations are important resources for those that participate
in them, and they are important cooperation partners for the public sector and
for other voluntary organizations . . . The government sees it as desirable that
cooperation is strengthened between immigrant organizations and other voluntary
organizations and local agents’ (St.meld. No. 6, 2012–2013, p. 126).
The paper also stresses, ‘It is assumed that participation in immigrant organiza-
tions, where members have the same country of origin, might be a problem for
their participation in the society in general. However, research shows that this
does not have to be an opposite’ (White Paper, 2012–2013, p. 126). This shift in
attitudes towards minority clubs2 is new. As we will see later, earlier White Papers
have expressed a skepticism towards minority organizations (St.meld. No. 17,
1996–1997).
Previous research
Stokke’s (2012) “A Multicultural Society in the Making” focused on multicultur-
alism discourses in Norway. Based on an analysis of four empirical case studies
from “integration debates” in Norwegian national newspapers between 2006 and
2010, Stokke (2012) reveals four multiculturalism discourses: two hegemonic
discourses presented by the majority group, which he labels “confrontational
liberalism” and “dialogical liberalism”, and two discourses presented by the
minority group, called “anti-racism multiculturalism” and “minority communi-

tarianism”. Dialogical liberalism and anti-racism multiculturalism are dialogical
discourses that interact and negotiate with each other. In contrast, confrontational
liberalism and minority communitarianism seem to use their own interpretation
of values as a standard and are less dialogue oriented. The majority discourses
are hegemonic discourses, while the minority discourses are perceived as resist-
ing discourses.
In the case of the hijab debate, a dominant majority perspective was that of
confrontational liberalism, perceiving Norway as a nation of gender equality,
contrasted to a strong discourse in the Norwegian society of Muslim women as
oppressed. As such, many Norwegian feminists sought to “save” Muslim women
from their men, their religion, and their culture, probably unaware of their con-
tribution to replicating colonial ideas and policy (Stokke, 2012). Stokke’s study
reveals a gap between the Social Democratic Labour Party government’s policy
and attempts at dialogical liberalism and a more populist majority perspective that
was more in line with confrontational liberalism.
Amara and Henry’s (2010a) study of how local policy makers perceived and
responded to the sporting needs of Muslim communities in Leicester and Bir-
mingham revealed two main elements of the sport discourse of members of the
policy community: religious identity and the adoption of faith groups as policy
targets, and gender as “the” problem of Muslim sports participation. According to
Amara and Henry (2010a), the Equality Standard outlined in Sport England makes
clear reference to promoting diversity and equality of opportunity in ways that are
sensitive to religion or belief. However, when the specifics of what was required
by the legislation were identified, there was no mention of religious difference
as being a dimension to which policy action should be addressed. There were
some initiatives, however, addressing Muslim women, the problems related to
community cohesion, disaffected young people, and the engagement of the reli-
gious schools. The representatives were cautious about whether religious affilia-
tion should be used as a means of defining target groups. Although the members
of the policy community referred only rarely to the sporting needs of religious
groups, the one area which attracted regular comment and attention was that of
Muslim women. The “problem” of Muslims’ sport needs was often reduced to the
question of how to deal with the position of women in Muslim communities and
how to facilitate gender-segregated sport provisions. Separate provision for each
sex implied added cost, and practical rather than ideological issues were cited as
reasons for not providing such services.
164 Kristin Walseth
Sport integration as “a discourse”
The term “discourse” has been applied widely and can today be understood as
anything from a historical monument to a policy or language per se. In this article,
I will apply one definition that has become popular among critical discourse anal-
ysis (CDA) researchers (Wodak & Meyer, 2009). CDA sees discourse – language
used in speech and writing – as
A form of “social practice”. Describing discourse as social practice implies

a dialectical relationship between a particular discursive event and the
situation(s) and social structure(s), which frame it: The discursive event is
shaped by them, but it also shapes them. That is, discourse is socially con-
structive as well as socially conditioned – it constitutes situations, objects of
knowledge, and the social identities of and relationships between people and
groups of people. It is constitutive both in the sense that it helps to sustain
and reproduce the social status quo, and in the sense that it contributes to
transforming it. Since discourse is so socially consequential, it gives rise to
important issues of power. Discursive practices may have major ideological
effects – that is, they can help produce and reproduce unequal power relations
between (for instance) social classes, women and men, and ethnic/cultural
majorities and minorities through the ways in which they represent and posi-
tion people.
(Fairclough & Wodak, 1997, p. 258)
As such, power is a concept that is central in CDA. CDA often analyses the
language and practices of those in power. CDA researchers are interested in the
way discourses (re)produce social domination.
The chapter is based on a “top-down” analysis, which seeks to uncover aspects
of policy actors’ world views, their understanding of policy approaches, and the
ways in which they perceive themselves and these policies as serving the needs
of Muslim communities (Amara & Henry, 2010b).3 Our research focused on
unpacking the perspectives, the “assumptive worlds” (Wolman & Ford, 1996)
of the interviewees from the policy community rather than on obtaining an
“objective record” of policy initiatives. The perspective of the interviewees, who
were selected based on their role in policy development and execution within
these bodies, was sought rather than an “objective” description of the projects
themselves.
Method of data collection and analysis

The data are based on discourse analysis of sport and integration documents
(White Papers, letters from the department to the sport federation, information
brochures, reports), as well as five interviews. The interviews were conducted
with policy makers, representatives of the public sector and sport federations,
including the Department of Inclusion and Diversity, the Department of Sport and
Culture, the National Sport Federation, the National Football Association, and the
Oslo Sport Council. The sample was chosen based on their central role in devel-
oping a sport and integration policy, that is, their role in funding and providing
sport activity for minority groups in Norway.4 The departments and organizations
that participated in the study are not anonymous, but the representatives them-
selves have been kept anonymous. The sample consisted of five men and two
women, all white, native speakers of majority background.
The discourse analysis is conducted with reference to Neumann’s (2008) three

phases of discourse analysis: selection and delimiting of discourses, mapping the
discourse’s representations, and layering the discourse.
In the first phase, the discourse was delimited to a wide but manageable range
of sources. The sport and integration discourse is not entirely detached from
all other discourses. For example, the discourse is strongly influenced by shifts
in the official integration discourse and the general discourse on sport. In Nor-
way, the idea of sport as a tool for integration can be dated back to the 1990s
and has continuously been repeated in policy documents addressing issues of
immigration or multiculturalism (St.meld. No. 17, 1996–1997; St.meld. No. 49,
2003–2004; St.meld. No. 6, 2012–2013). The discourse is materialized in the
annual announcement of sport and integration funds by the Sport Councils, in
the sport clubs’ reports to the Sport Council, and in regular seminars with sport
and integration as a topic. In this chapter, the discourse has been limited to focus
on the sport and integration discourse represented by policy makers. Previous
papers based on the study have focused on the Muslim organizations (Walseth,
unpublished).
Second, the transcribed text from the interviews and the text from the docu-
ments was coded and categorized according to emerging representations. Accord-
ing to Neumann (2001), a discourse usually contains a dominating representation
of reality and one or more alternative representations. A representation can be
understood as socially reproduced “facts”. At this stage in the analysis, the task
was to search out and identify these various representations and possible asym-
metries between them.
Third, these representations were then discussed in relation to their layering.
Not all representations are equally lasting. They differ in historical depth, in varia-
tion, and in degree of dominance/marginalization in the discourse. In principle,
the discourse will carry with it the “memory” of its own genesis; often it is possi-
ble to find a prehistory to the main representation (Neumann, 2008). In this phase
of analysis, the task was to demonstrate the different representations’ strengths
and historical roots.
Emerging representations
The study revealed three representations regarding sport and integration: “chil-
dren should mix across ethnic and religious divides”, “immigrant parents do
not contribute to sport clubs”, and “religiosity is not a problem; cultural dif-
ferences are”.
166 Kristin Walseth
Children should mix across ethnic and religious divides
A central representation of the sport and integration discourse found in this study
is that children and youth should mix across ethnic and religious differences. The
1996–1997 White Paper states,
Through sport, people meet at an arena where play and physical development
is the goal, and where the players get to know each other’s culture, language
and behavior. Sport will therefore play an important role in the integration
process.
(St.meld. No. 17, 1996–1997, p. 83)
As seen before, this attitude is echoed in the most recent white paper on inte-
gration, which states that next to school, the sport arena is the most important
meeting place for many children and youth (St.meld. No. 6, 2012–2013). The
understanding that children should mix across ethnic and religious divides seems
to influence the representatives’ attitudes towards minority sport clubs based on
ethnic or religious belonging. When asked about their feelings towards minority
sport clubs, most of the representatives are skeptical, focusing instead on includ-
ing minorities in what are labelled “ordinary clubs”.
From the Department there have not been any guidelines concerning minor-
ity organisations involvement in sport and integration projects, these deci-
sions are taken by the NOC. I know that some Sport Councils do not want to
support the establishment of ethnic minority clubs, they prefer to incorporate
the inclusion idea within [majority] sport clubs. Some Sport Councils believe
that the establishment of minority clubs is negative for the local community.
But it’s a challenge because we at the same time want to include as many as
possible in sport activities.
(DSP)
The representative from the Department of Inclusion and Diversity (DID) adds,
As point of departure, I don’t think there is much integration in minority

clubs, but it might be an OK way to start before moving on [to majority
clubs]. They might participate in a football club with only immigrants, that’s
not our problem, but our job is to work with the Norwegian football clubs so
they are open and welcoming when they [ethnic minorities] are approaching
them.
(DID)
The idea that minority clubs can be the first step into the arena of sport was also
stressed in one of the first White Papers on integration (St.meld. No. 17, 1996–
1997): ‘for newly arrived immigrants the local immigrant organizations, which
focuses on the ethnic groups social and cultural needs, will play an important role.
They can provide a network for newly arrived immigrants’ (p. 84).
However, the skepticism towards minority clubs is also present in the same
White Paper. The paper states, ‘Even though ethnic clubs and segregated training
parties for people with immigrant background can increase the number of immi-
grants who participate in sport, it can also reduce solidarity and cooperation which
are positive effects of sport participation’ (St.meld. No. 17, 1996–1997, p. 83).
The way the representative from DID talks about minority clubs indicates
that he perceives immigrant-only football clubs as a problem. The controversies
around these clubs are also underlined in the interview with the representative
from the NOC. He states,
Segregated clubs [minority clubs] can apply for funding for sport and integra-
tion work, but I am not sure if the Sport Councils want to support them. The
goal is to include new groups within ordinary sport clubs, not to establish new
segregated teams. Integration implies that there should be a mix of majority
and minority members within a team . . . We are focusing on inclusion only.
We have tried gender-segregated activities, but we prefer pure integration.
We prefer ethnic Norwegians and minorities in the same group.
(NOC)
The concept of “ordinary clubs” is often used by the interviewee, indicating

that well-established sport clubs run by the majority group are perceived as “ordi-
nary” activities. His statements explicitly equate the integration concept and the
mixture of minority and majority members; he even labels this mixture “pure inte-
gration”. One can see that a dichotomy is made between what is labelled “Nor-
wegian clubs” or “ordinary clubs” that contribute to “pure integration” on the one
hand and what is labelled “segregated clubs” that do not contribute to integration
on the other hand.
Similar attitudes towards minority clubs are found in the interview with the
representative from the National Football Association, who states,
Some places, ethnic minority groups wanted to establish their own team for
children, but then the local football association intervened and stated that
these children would benefit more from playing in ordinary sport clubs together
with their [ethnic Norwegian] friends from school and their neighbourhood
area. We want children to play on sport clubs in the area they live instead of
being transported somewhere to only play with children with similar ethnic
background . . . Some ethnic groups have their own teams for children when
they are having ethnic festivals and children’s tournaments etc., but these
children are playing in ordinary teams too, so then it’s OK.
The representative from the DID also stresses the importance of making sport
clubs more sensitive to diversity:
We want to include all children in ordinary clubs, so we have to make the

ordinary clubs so open and welcoming as possible. To establish separate
168 Kristin Walseth
teams are against our values, it’s the same with homosexuals, we have some
teams for homosexuals, and I guess there are good reasons for the establish-
ment of these teams, but I would like to develop the ordinary clubs so that
everyone can take part in these clubs.
(DID)
The use of possessives in this statement is interesting. That separate teams are
against “our” values raises the question of who has the power to define integration
policy. The majority group’s power of definition, their ability to shape consensus
on the meaning of the world around as well as the power to define the foundation
for integration, is rarely questioned.
None of the representatives mention religiously based sport clubs. When asked
specifically about Muslim clubs, the representative from the DID replies,
I have heard, or some has discussed that religious organizations have a lot
of activities which lead youth to stay in the milieu and [they] do not get to
know the Norwegian [context/society], and I think it’s important that they get
to know the Norwegian . . . I think the football federation and most football
clubs are cultural sensitive [willing and able to include Muslims].
(DID)
The representation “children should mix across ethnic and religious divides”
seems to be based on the idea that to be integrated implies that immigrants have
a social network and friends of ethnic majority background. The establishment of
minority clubs is met with skepticism and perceived as in opposition to the Nor-
wegian sport model. This perception does not seem to be affected by new research
indicating that participation in ethnic minority organizations does not have to be a
barrier to participation in society in general (Ødegaard, 2010).
I will argue that this representation has its origins in the Nordic Social Democ-
racy Model. In the golden age of Social Democracy in Scandinavia (1945–1970),
the countries developed a state comprehensive school system, which was different
from those established in other European countries. The school was understood to
be an extension of the state’s duty to provide equal opportunity to all members of
the society. Consequently, there was no room in the Nordic egalitarian philosophy
for elite schools. The comprehensive school was perceived as a stage in a pupil’s
democratic socialization, as it placed them within a community where all classes
of society would meet (Telhaug, Mediås, & Aasen, 2006).
The need for consolidating and unifying people of different social classes in
sports was strengthened by the German invasion of Norway in the 1940s (Gok-
søyr, 2010). In this period, the Social Democratic Labour Party was influential
in developing the Norwegian sport model. “Sport for All” became a goal, and
later during the sport revolution in the 1970s, three times as many people became
members of sport clubs, a figure which included women, children, and youth.
In line with these arguments, I will argue that the representation focusing on
sport as a meeting place for children of various backgrounds has solid roots in
Norwegian history and culture, which may explain why this representation is not
easily affected by new research (Ødegaard, 2010). The representation appears to
be strong and not easily transformed.
Immigrant parents do not contribute to sport clubs

A unique trait of Norwegian sport policy is that sport organizations are volunteer
based (unpaid). The amount of voluntary work conducted in Norwegian sports is

estimated to be NOK 8 billion. In 90 percent of Norwegian sport clubs, 90 percent
of the work conducted is done on a volunteer basis (Enjolras, Seippel, & Waldahl,
2005). Examples of voluntary work include being the coach or manager for the
team, working in the sport club’s café, selling different products (drinking bottles,
cakes, lottery tickets, calendars, etc.) at shopping malls, or calling door to door.
Recently there has been an increased focus on parents of ethnic minority back-
ground and their lack of involvement in voluntary work within the sport clubs.
This trend is referred to in the most recent White Paper on integration: ‘In aver-
age, immigrant parents tend to be less involved in their children’s leisure activities
than other parents’ (St.meld. No. 6, 2012–2013, p. 76).
Parents’ lack of engagement is also an explicit theme in the interviews. The rep-
resentative from the Sport Council states, ‘We have to get the parents’ involved.
‘It is not only that they have to contribute to the voluntary work, but they also
have to be included in the social activities. Sports are amazing arenas for social
activities’ (Sport Council).
The issue is further elaborated by the representative from the Football
Association:
It has been a challenge within sport clubs to include minority parents, some
clubs even state that they don’t want to recruit more children with minority
background because the parents don’t contribute . . . I think we have to link
this to socio-economic challenges, some immigrants live in detached houses
while other live in deprived areas [arguing that there are differences within
the group of immigrants, and that immigrants that belong to higher socio-
economic classes seem to contribute more to voluntary work].
(The National Football Association)
To meet this challenge, the NFF hired a research group to map parents’ involve-
ment in football clubs in areas with a high density of immigrants. The report shows
that 80 percent of the football clubs report that [immigrants’] lack of knowledge
about how Norwegian football clubs are organized is an important barrier when
trying to recruit parents with immigrant background (Comte Analyse, 2012).
The representation that “immigrant parents do not contribute to sport clubs” is
a quite new representation. It is first mentioned in the 2012–2013 White Paper,
though the 1991–1992 White Paper already mentioned the challenge of recruit-
ing managers and coaches from the immigrant population. It seems like the rep-
resentation has become stronger as the immigrant population has grown in big
170 Kristin Walseth
cities like Oslo. The representation has its origin in the experiences of football
club managers in clubs in Oslo, where the percentage of players with immigrant
background is high. As such, it seems to be a representation grown out of the
football field and the meeting between the majority group (club leaders) and the
immigrant population (players and parents).
When describing the challenges, the immigrant group is mainly perceived as
a homogenous entity. The danger of describing the immigrant population in such
general statements as the White Paper and the NFF report do is that one might con-
tribute to the stereotypical idea of “clash of civilization” (Huntington, 1996). The
idea that voluntary work is a typical trait of Norwegian culture and, as such, some-
thing immigrants do not understand, is widespread and nourishes the idea of cultural
clashes. Even though this representation is new, it appears fairly strong because it
can be anchored in popular notions of “cultural clashes” between immigrants and
the majority group. It also appears that this representation is linked to the next one.
Religiosity is not a problem; cultural differences are

Religion and religiosity are rarely mentioned by representatives from the sport
organizations.5 When asked specifically about Islamic guidelines for sport prac-
tice or cooperation with religious organizations, different opinions and experi-
ences are expressed. The representative from the department states: ‘We have not
had any contact with religious organizations in this work. Religion is not part of
the discussion when we discuss limitations or target groups’ (DSP).
The Sport Council representative expresses a similar understanding:
Religion is not an issue. I think most barriers are linked to cultural differ-
ences, not religion . . . We have some gender-segregated swimming groups
and aerobic groups for Muslim women. The swimming hall is closed to
other groups and the windows are covered . . . I participated at a project with
minority women and learned that there are more cultural barriers, one of the
women was afraid of training because she thought she could get diabetes
from sweating.
(Sport Council)
The statements illustrate that religion is silenced. It is “taken for granted” that
sport clubs can facilitate for religious diversity. Not to be sensitive to religious
needs is perceived as a form of racism and, as such, a taboo. The statements do
also reflect an understanding that it is easier to solve religious differences and
respond to religious needs than to cultural ones. As such, cultural differences and
lack of knowledge among minorities are seen as barriers for sport involvement,
while religion is not. The statements made by the interviewees link the question
of religiosity to the issue of gender.
When it comes to recruiting girls with minority background we have few prob-
lems before puberty. After puberty, it is difficult to recruit minority girls. When
it comes to Muslim women we have succeeded with many sport projects. We
have to adjust the time schedule so no men are present, then it works . . . We
have not had a special focus on religion, but we have defined religion as a
special challenge when it comes to inclusion. Religion and culture, it’s like the
chicken and the egg, difficult to know what contain the largest challenge. We
have said that it’s not religion, but culture that is the challenge. Culture makes
it difficult to recruit girls. A healthy sport club is religious sensitive.
(NOC)
This passage indicates an understanding of culture and religiosity as separate

entities that might sometimes affect one another. Such a conception may be prob-
lematic, since culture and religiosity both are embodied entities, and as such, are
difficult to separate (Benn, Dagkas, & Jawad, 2011; Walseth & Strandbu, 2014).
To define religion and cooperation with religious organizations as irrelevant when
conducting sport and integration work seems problematic if one wants to meet the
sporting needs of Muslim communities.
The National Football Association representative provides some nuance on the
matter:
I have to admit that this [religion] is something we should have focused more
on. How to adapt or change the hot dog parties was an issue many years
ago, but now the market forces have solved this problem [possible to buy
halal sausages]. Ramadan is practiced different from person to person; Moa
[a famous player] postpone it [fasting] until the season was finished. One of
the players did not want to postpone it, he struggled a lot, it was very hot, but
he wanted to do both. It is quite rare to hear about religious challenges . . . It
has of course to do with knowledge within different sport clubs, some might
need a prayer room in the club house, some Muslims don’t drink beer, etc.
(NFF)
The representative from NFF illustrates how sport clubs can be sensitive to reli-
gious differences. At the same time, he argues that religiosity is a private question
that needs individual solutions and adaptations. In this way, he downplays the role
Muslim organizations can play as consultants for sport clubs. When discussing
sport and integration, two examples are given of what the representatives perceive
as successful integration:
In Akershus [a region] we had a very successful project where Muslim

women started swimming with Muslim women only, then they progressed
and swam together with ethnic majority women. Today they swim together
with men! This is a good example of successful integration.
(NOC)
Those who work internationally in Iraq with women’s participation in

football can tell about several success stories from conservative religious
172 Kristin Walseth
communities, where girls now are playing together with boys! We are trying
to transfer knowledge from this project to Norway.
(NFF)
These examples of successful integration raise some important question. First,

the example indicates an understanding that all Muslims are the same, and that the
challenges faced by girls and women in Iraq and Norway is the same. As such,
the national contexts do not seem to matter. The second question it raises is; how
is the concept of integration understood in praxis? The above examples indicate
an understanding of integration that has much in common with an assimilation
policy. Particularly, it seems like gender mixing in sports is seen as an important
goal for policy makers. This might be seen as controversial from an Islamic point
of view, where gender segregation often is described as an ideal (Amara, 2008).
Particularly, gender mixing in swimming is highly problematic since this arena
often is associated with nudity. If religiosity is understood as an embodied praxis
(Benn et al., 2011; Walseth & Strandbu, 2014), it is easy to see that assimilation to
Norwegian standards of gender mixing can be perceived as a violation of religious
freedom. As the examples indicate, when religiosity is discussed, it is mainly in
reference to the gender issue and how to recruit more Muslim women to sport
clubs. This is also found in Amara and Henry’s (2010b) study from England.
The representation “religiosity is not a problem; cultural differences are” likely
has its origin in the idea of “cultural clashes”, where cultural differences are a
barrier for integration. This understanding is also found in other Scandinavian
research (Fundberg, 1996). In contrast, religiosity is perceived as an individual
question, and religious needs are perceived as easier to handle than cultural bar-
riers. Moreover, the representation may be embedded in an understanding of reli-
gion as something individuals can be freed from. This is seen in the examples of
gender-segregated swimming, in which the women gradually became liberated
from their cultural/religious constraints. The same theme of liberating is seen in
the case of the international work through which girls in conservative Islamic
communities were freed to play football with boys.
The representation that religiosity is not a problem is quite new, and it is rooted
in a view of religion as an individual issue that can be adjusted. As seen, the idea
that cultural differences are a challenge is older and stronger because it can be
linked to the theory of “clashes of civilizations” (Huntington, 1996).
Concluding discussion
When discussing the role of sport organizations in the integration process, the mes-
sage is mixed. At one level, the representatives talk about the importance of giving
ethnic minorities real influence in the sport organizations – for example, by becom-
ing board members. Some also emphasize that ethnic minorities should “come as
they are” and that they should not be forced to assimilate. Still, when the examples of
good practice and successful integration are given, it becomes apparent that assimila-
tion in terms of adapting to the notion of gender mixing in sport is an implicit goal.
As such, the sport and integration discourse implies strong aspects of assimilation.
When comparing the findings to the UK study, several similarities are found.
Policy makers in both countries are reluctant to perceive religion or Muslims as a
target group. Moreover, gender seems to be “the” question when discussing how
to meet the religious needs of the Muslim community. At this point, the countries
do also differ. Norway seems more reluctant to accept gender segregation as part
of the sport and integration policy. While a lack of gender-segregated sport offers
in the UK may be explained by practical rather than ideological issues (Amara &
Henry, 2010a), in the Norwegian context the reluctance is ideological. The lack
of willingness to facilitate gender-segregated activities can be understood as an
expression of the “confrontational liberalism” discourse, in which representatives
tend to use their own interpretations of values as the standard view. The “hijab
case” in the Norwegian integration debate revealed a similar majority perspective
when many Norwegian feminists sought to liberate Muslim women from their
men, their religion, and their culture (Stokke, 2012).
Another difference found between the two countries is that Norway seems
reluctant to accept the establishment of minority clubs, whereas in the UK, the
existence of minority clubs is widespread. In popular sports like football, there is
even a Muslim league. The Nordic Social Democracy model, which has stressed
the importance of unity and equality before individualization and diversity, can
partly explain this difference in policy and discourse.
One effect of the sport and integration discourse in Norway is a restrictive
policy concerning the financing and establishment of minority clubs. Implicitly,
it is communicated to the minority population that sport and integration work
is something the majority group is responsible for – and that it is something
only the majority group has the necessary competence to conduct. This mes-
sage can be read as a sign of mistrust towards minority clubs. This message
is strengthened by the finding that none of the representatives from the policy
makers interviewed in this study had a minority background. As such, it is the
members of the majority group that possess the power to define the content of
the sport and integration policy. The gap that is found between policy intention,
which stresses that immigrants should “come as they are”, and the implicit goal
of sport and integration initiatives of liberating Muslim girls from their religion
and culture shows that the official Norwegian integration discourse is challenged
by an assimilation discourse that is stronger and more deeply rooted within the
arena of sports.
Notes
1 In this statistic, both immigrants and children of immigrants are included.
2 Here, a minority club is defined as a sport club established and organized by members of
the minority group. In the White Papers, the terms “immigrant”, “minority”, and “ethnic
organizations” are used interchangeably.
3 The project has a similar objective as the UK study.
4 In this chapter, the sample will be referred to as policy makers, representatives, and
interviewees.
5 For an in-depth analysis of the link between Islam as a religion and sport, cf. Chapter 2
in this book.
174 Kristin Walseth
References
Amara, M. (2008) An introduction to the study of sport in the Muslim world. In: Houlihan,
B. ed. Sport and society. A student introduction. 2 ed. Sage, Los Angeles, pp. 532–552.
Amara, M. and Henry, I. (2010a) Sport, Muslim identities and culture in the UK: Case
studies of Leicester and Birmingham. Loughborough University, Loughborough.
Amara, M. and Henry, I. (2010b) Sport, Muslim identities and cultures in the UK, an
emerging policy issue: Case studies of Leicester and Birmingham. European Sport Man-
agement Quarterly, 10 (4), pp. 419–443.

Andersson, M. (2008) Flerfarget idrett: nasjonalitet, migrasjon og minoriteter. Bergen,
Fagbokforlaget.
Benn, T., Dagkas, S., and Jawad, H. (2011) Embodied faith: Islam, religious freedom and
educational practices in physical education. Sport, Education and Society, 16 (1), pp.
17–34.
Borchgrevink, T. and Brochmann, G. (2003) Comparing minority and majority rights:
Multicultural integration in a power perspective. Comparative Social Research, 22, pp.
69–100.
Comte Analysebyrå (2012), Fotball og frivillighet Foreldredeltagelse i Groruddalen.
NFF, Oslo.
Enjoleras, B., Seippel, Ø., and Waldahl, R. H. (2005) Norsk idrett – organisering, felless-
kap og politikk. Akilles, Oslo.
Fairclough, N. and Wodak, R. (1997) Critical discourse analysis. In: Dijk, T. A. v. ed. Dis-
course as social interaction. Sage, London, pp. 258–284.
Fundberg, J. (1996) Møten på fotbollsplan. En studie av den mångkulturella idrotten.
Mångkulturellt centrum, Norsborg.
Goksøyr, M. (2011) Idrett for alle. Norges idrettsforbund 150 år 1861–2011. Asche-
houg, Oslo.
Hagelund, A. and Loga, J. (2009) Frivillighet, innvandring, integrasjon. En kunnskapso-
versikt. Research Report 1. Oslo, Senter for forskning på sivilsamfunn and frivillig
sektor.
Huntington, S. P. (1996) The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order. Simon
and Schuster, New York.
IRN (n.d.) Islamsk råd Norge [Internet], IRN. Available from: www.irn.no. [Accessed
10 December 2014].
Neumann, I. B. (2001) Mening, materialitet, makt: En innføring i diskursanalyse. Fagbok-
forlaget, Oslo.
Neumann, I. B. (2008) Discourse analysis. In: Klotz, A. and Prakash, D. eds. Qualitative
Methods in international relations. A pluralist guide. Palgrave Macmillan, Houndsmills,
pp. 61–77.
NIF (n.d.) The Norwegian Olympic and Paralympic Committee and Confederation of
Sports (NIF) [internet], NIF. Available from: www.idrett.no/english/Sider/english.aspx.
[Accessed 10 February 2015].
Ødegaard, G. (2010) Foreningsliv i et flerkulturelt lokalsamfunn. En studie om integrasjon
og sosial kapital. Research Report 6. Senter for forskning på sivilsamfunn and frivillig
sektor, Oslo.
Skille, E. (2009) State sport policy and voluntary sport clubs: the case of the Norwegian
Sports City Program as social policy. European Sport Management Quarterly, 9 (1), pp.
63–79.
Stokke, C. (2012) A multicultural society in the making. How Norwegian Muslims challenge
a white nation. Ph.D. thesis for the degree of Philosophiae Doctor, NTNU-Trondheim.
Strandbu, Å. (2005) Identity, embodied culture and physical exercise. Young, 13 (1), pp.
27–45.
Strandbu, Å. and Bakken, A. (2007) Aktiv oslo-ungdom. En studie av idrett, minoritetsbak-
grunn og kjønn. Research Report 2, Oslo, NOVA.
Telhaug, A. O., Mediås, O. A., and Aasen, P. (2006) The Nordic model in education: Educa-
tion as part of the political system in the last 50 years. Scandinavian Journal of Educa-
tion Research, 50 (3), pp. 245–283.
Walseth, K. (2006) Young Muslim women and sport: the impact of identity work. Leisure
Studies, 25 (1), pp. 75–94.

Walseth, K. and Strandbu, Å. (2014) Young Norwegian-Pakistani women and sport: How
does culture and religiosity matter? European Physical Education Review, pp. 1–19 (4):
489–507.
White Paper No. 41 (St.meld.) Om idretten. Folkebevegelse og forlkeforlystelse. 1992.
White Paper No. 17 (St.meld. nr. 17). Om innvandring og det flerkulturelle Norge. 1996.
White Paper No. 49 (St.meld. nr. 49). Mangfold gjennom inkludering og deltakelse, Kom-
munal og regiondepartementet. 49. 2004.
Wolman, H. L. and Ford, C. C. (1996) The assumptive world of local political elites. Urban
Affairs Review, 32 (1), pp. 87–108.
12 Islamic sport marketing or sport
marketing in Muslim countries
and communities
Guillaume Bodet and Mahfoud Amara
Introduction: General ethos of marketing and sport

marketing in liberal (secular) context
As naming is categorising and, in turn, categorising is excluding, there have
been many discussions about the respective definitions of marketing and sport
marketing, their differences, their communalities, their practices, and therefore
their practitioners. However, this lively debate is not close. Consequently, asking
whether there is such a thing as “Islamic marketing”, “sport Islamic marketing”,
and “Islamic sport marketing” necessitates first defining the concept of market-
ing, its meanings, and related representations or extension to sport marketing.
Before providing this definition, it is relatively important to keep in mind that
marketing developed in contexts of free-market economies where various compa-
nies and offers compete to attract consumers, compete to make them try and expe-
rience their products and services, compete to satisfy them, and create sustainable
relationships with them. In monopolistic situations, marketing is hardly needed as
the provider and the offer are evident. In the absence of alternatives, this “market-
ing” could be considered more like propaganda.
In terms of definition, a consensus is difficult to reach because practices and
perspectives evolve with time, but many academics and practitioners support the
one provided by the American Marketing Association: “Marketing is the activ-
ity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and
exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society
at large” (American Marketing Association, 2013).
This definition identifies several components. On the one hand can be found
various offerings (e.g. ideas, products, services, brands) representing the supply
side, and on the other hand can be found customers, clients, partners, and society
at large representing the demand side. Marketing sits between these two elements
trying to adjust one to another to fulfil various heterogeneous goals. This defini-
tion, however, does not mention the objectives behind these processes, although
earlier definitions did. This issue is key because it will determine the nature of
marketing approaches and tactics implemented and the way they are perceived
by the public at large. In this regard, many consider that objectives do not belong
to marketing but to the organisations using marketing. In that sense, marketing
Sport marketing in Muslim cultures 177
can be considered neutral. If marketing is used by for-profit organisations, it may
help them make money and sell more products and services. If public authori-
ties use marketing, then marketing will help them achieve, for instance, health
and safety, prevention, or good citizenship objectives. We can, for instance, think
of campaigns promoting the reduction of tobacco and alcohol consumption, the
respect of speed limitations, or the promotion of physical activity and better eat-
ing with the “Change For Life” campaign in the United Kingdom. The same can
be said about charity organisations that actively use marketing to collect money
and resources to achieve what are almost unanimously considered noble goals,
such as the “Wear It Pink” breast cancer campaign or “Red Nose Day” for Comic
Relief.
However, everyone does not share this vision, and many people believe that
marketing has an essence, an underlying project, and that marketing is the right
arm of capitalism and neo-liberalism as illustrated by the bestseller No Logo
(Klein, 1999). In this vein, marketing is considered as an ideology, a way of think-
ing that goes beyond a simple pack of techniques and shapes people’s minds and
ways of interacting with the world and that relies upon considering that there is
always a competition and that individuals have a single face, the consumer one,
creating a culture of consumption and a culture of consumers whose mentality is
named consumerism (Marion, 2004). Consumerism is the by-product of market-
ing, and we could wonder, in this case, if it does not constitute a contradiction
with certain religious values, as it promotes the advent of new definitions of what
is sacred and profane – objects and brands becoming new gods in this consumerist
religion. In this sense, we can wonder if Islamic marketing is not an oxymoron, as
marketing promotes, directly or indirectly, consumerism that is not ordinarily or
explicitly promoted by Islam. This is one of the aspects to uncover in this chapter,
in addition to the debate around sport marketing and the growing market of the
“halal” brand or label. The first section of this chapter is devoted to definitions
of marketing and sport marketing, followed by a discussion on the principles of
“Islamic marketing”. Finally, we discuss, using some examples from the media,
what can be termed halal and haram sport marketing.
Defining marketing and sport marketing

Marketing is generally defined as comprising two components: a strategic com-
ponent and an operational component, also called “mix marketing”. Strategic
marketing is classically made of three stages: segmentation, which consists in
clustering the market in groups of homogeneous consumers; targeting, which
consists in identifying which of these groups the organisations should focus on;
and positioning, which consists in defining how organisations and their offerings
should be perceived by the consumers and how they distinguish themselves from
competing offers. What should be almost constantly added to these three stages is
an identity stage preceding all three. This foundational stage consists in identify-
ing and defining what the organisation is, what its values are, and what it aims
178 Guillaume Bodet and Mahfoud Amara
to achieve. This stage directly refers to the nature of the organisation (i.e. com-
mercial, public, not-for-profit, Islamic, etc.) and will logically drive the following
stages. Once these stages are completed, the operational dimension of market-
ing can be defined and implemented. These operations are structured around the
famous four Ps – product, place, price, and promotion (McCarthy, 1964)– and
aim to characterise the exact nature of the offerings, the way they are distributed
and made accessible to the consumers, their price, and the ways they will be
promoted. When dealing with services, the mix marketing has been extended to
seven Ps, adding people, physical evidence, and process (Booms et al., 1981) to
describe the people involved in the service delivery or supporting it, the physical
settings and environment of the service consumption, and the process through
which the consumers experience and consume the service. As for the definition
of sport marketing, the question consists in identifying whether these components
that define marketing can be found and relevant in the same way when it deals
with sports, sport products, sports services, and brands.
As for marketing, sport marketing has been defined in relatively different ways
by various authors, but less consensus is possibly found. Beech and Chadwick
(2007, p. 47) defined sport marketing as follows:
It is an ongoing process through which contests with an uncertain outcome

are staged creating opportunities for the simultaneous fulfilment of direct
and indirect objectives amongst sport customers, sport businesses and other
related individuals and organisations.
At first, this definition seems to describe a process through which opportuni-

ties are offered to various sport demand constituents in order to achieve both
direct and indirect objectives. This principle does not seem that different from the
adjustment process previously highlighted in the definition of marketing. How-
ever, we can note a new element that is the uncertainty of outcome. Here the
authors directly refer to sport contests and competitions and to the fact that nei-
ther offering organisations nor consumers know in advance the result of sporting
contests and that this feature shall distinguish marketing from sport marketing.
Two comments can be made regarding this perspective. First, it seems reduction-
ist to define sport only as a contest, a competition, or a spectacle. For many, sport
is also, if not first of all, about participation, and a definition of sport market-
ing should include this component. In the same vein, sport products should also
be included in a sport marketing definition. In a sense, defining sport marketing
should also consist in defining what sports are and what sports are not, and the
exercise is extremely difficult, as sports are extremely diverse, changing, and con-
textually defined. This is particularly the case when considering specific regions
and, for instance, some from the Muslim world. In the Middle East and the Gulf
region, falconry or camel races are considered as sports (Amara, 2012), although
this perception is not universally shared around the world. Consequently, as sport
marketing depends on the definition of what sports are, it is difficult to argue that
there is only one universal sport marketing.
Second, we can wonder whether this uncertainty-of-outcome issue is truly accu-
rate, as even if it may appear true at a micro level (i.e. one event, one athlete, one
game), this is very often exaggerated and romanticised by journalists and com-
mentators, although at a more macro or long-term level, uncertainty is relative
and certainly not absolute. We can think, for instance, of tennis athletes, and even
if, on a day everyone can beat anyone, the long-term analysis of performances
demonstrates that only a few of them win tournaments. Moreover, is uncertainty
of outcome exclusive to sport? This is likewise a feature of the entertainment

industry and live spectacles. Therefore, we can wonder if this definition is that
relevant and whether sport marketing is that different from marketing in general.
There is no doubt the sport contexts bear particular characteristics, but the same
could be said about many other industries. Consequently, it seems more appropri-
ate to consider sport marketing as the application of general marketing principles
and practices in specific contexts without over-thinking its uniqueness, which
would reduce benchmarking and innovative approaches. For instance, despite the
specific characteristics of professional sports and spectacle, a growing number of
sport organisations use yield-management techniques to maximise their capaci-
ties and ticket sales (i.e. ticket prices can fluctuate based on the moment of pur-
chase or weather conditions), which were directly inspired from other industries
and particularly transport industries, which bear similar characteristics, although
many would consider them distinct.
Now that we have explained the nature and values of marketing and character-
istics of sport marketing, the subsequent section will be dedicated to discuss the
emerging concept of “Islamic marketing” and to revealing the different facets of
marketing, including sport marketing, in Islamic and Muslim contexts.
General principles of “Islamic marketing”

A new scholarly literature on the field of Islamic marketing is emerging. Islamic
marketing examines Islamic branding and positioning, Islamic lifestyles, current
trends in Islamic markets (e.g. Islamic banking), and marketing segmentation
of Muslim consumers, as well as Islamic ethics of business and marketing. It
is targeting global brands entering the Muslim world and brands (ranging from
food to fashion) produced in the Muslim world around Islamic ethics entering the
global market. The Muslim population constitutes 1.6 billion (to reach 2.2 billion
by 2030; Pew Research Centre, 2011), including millions living in non-Muslim
countries. According to some estimates, well over half of Muslims today are
under the age of 25. They are basically potential consumers that brands cannot
ignore. According to an article in the Guardian devoted to “Brand Islam”: “the
global expenditure of Muslim consumers on halal food and lifestyle sectors is
estimated at $2.3tr (£1.4tr); and Islamic financial assets are growing at 15–20%
a year” (Wilson, The Guardian, 18 February 2014). The paper continues, stat-
ing that while globalisation trends of consumption behaviour and lifestyles are
palpable, as with other niche segments, there is evidence, however, “to show that
there are patterns of higher consumption and greater loyalty, when aligned with
Islam”. Hence the question of “what makes Muslims tick and how we should be
advertising to them in a way that resonates?” becomes the million- (or trillion-)
dollar question for brands” In the same vein, The New York Times revealed that
according to some experts, “the next big market is the Muslim market. There’s
this huge group of people who have been relatively untapped in terms of what
they want and need, and they represent a tremendous opportunity”. The article
provides examples of global corporate companies understanding the market value
of speaking directly to Muslim consumers:1
Other companies are taking steps to reassure consumers that all of their
products – not just food – are halal, or permissible under Islam, by having
them officially certified . . . Colgate’s products now bear the halal logo, which
also is featured in the company’s television commercials. The mobile phone
industry has also started focusing on Muslim consumers, with the introduc-
tion of a number of applications, including religious calendars and Koran
downloads . . . Nestlé was one of the first multinationals to pursue the global
halal market, worth an estimated $2.1 trillion annually.
(Liz, The New York Times, 12 August 2010)
Alserhan (2011, p. 4) numerates the reasons Islamic perspective on commerce

is increasingly gaining momentum. These are (1) Islam, being a practical religion
with clear daily procedures to follow, shapes the attitudes and behaviour of its
adherents. As an example here is the consumption of date palm, which, in addition
to being a fruit, was also recommended by the Prophet of Islam for its nutritional
quality, for instance to break the fast during the month of Ramadan. Accordingly,
the per-capita consumption of dates in the Kingdom of Saudia Arabia (KSA) is
the highest in the world (36 kg/year) (El-Habba and Al-Mulhim 2013, p. 2) as a
result of the oil boom, as well as other factors, many Muslim countries are becom-
ing the most affluent consumers in the world; (2) the level of foreign investment
in Muslim countries is increasing; (3) increased level of religiosity in Muslim
countries; (4) the globalisation of the world economy makes it a requirement
for world business to be familiar with Islamic codes to understand the need and
behaviour of Muslim consumers. This is applicable to requirements on halal food.
To this end, halal meat is becoming one of New Zealand’s major exports, with
the billion-dollar industry exported to 75 countries2 (3news, 23 November 2013).
The other competitors are Brazil and the United States, which control more than
85 percent of the market (The National, UAE, 8 February 2015).
As for other practices and code of conducts, Muslim consumption and market-
ing of products should be informed by Shari’a, or the Islamic pathway. These are
(1) the Islamic ontology of Tawhid, the Islamic belief in the absolute Oneness of
the Creator; the Islamic source of jurisprudence; parameters of Islamic morality
including the forbidden, blameable, permitted, recommended, and obligatory in
Islam (Halal and Haram); public good (Istislah); overall promotion of social,
economic, and cultural justice (Adl). Marketing departments and branding and
advertising industries should be aware of these principles of Islamic creed so as to
not offend Muslim consumers and to meet their religious requirements. As stated
by Luqmani and colleagues (1987, in Fam et al., 2004: p. 538), “provocative
and unconventional advertising strategies and advertisements must obtain prior
approval from religious authorities. Failure to do so will result in alienation of a
wide segment of the conservative Saudi public”. From a pragmatic perspective,
the same could, however, be said about numerous countries and cultures, and this
is the purpose of international marketing: to identify and adjust to local contexts,
values, and beliefs in order to avoid creating any offenses which would be detri-
mental for products and brands.
Nevertheless, Fam and colleagues (2002) examined whether there is a rela-
tionship between religious beliefs and offence towards the advertising of certain
controversial products and whether intensity of religious belief (including in
Islam) has an impact on offence towards the advertising of controversial products
(including cigarettes, alcohol, contraceptives, underwear, and political advertis-
ing). The study shows there is a statistical distinction between Islam and the other
three religions in relation to advertising of these products. For the authors of this
study, “Islamic followers still follow their traditional beliefs and values, even
though the other religions have reassigned these priorities in line with the modern
ways of living, entertainment and lifestyles” (Fam et al. 2002, p. 548). Although
some of the findings are interesting, the quantitative nature of the paper does not
allow further qualitative analysis which takes into account the distinction between
religion and cultural practices in different countries and regions. However, the
media are full of similar anecdotes on offense expressed by Muslim communities
(including for sport products): “Muslim community in Birmingham has protested
about a poster for Adidas, featuring the sprinter Dwain Chambers naked except
for a pair of trainers fitted with explosives in the heels, which was displayed out-
side a mosque” (Whitehead, BrandRepublic, 2 April 2003); “Oxford University
Press bans sausages and pigs from children’s books in effort ‘to avoid offence’”
(Strike and Wilkinson, The Daily Mail, 13 January 2015).
Nike is to recall a range of sports shoes carrying a logo that offended Mus-
lims in America. It has agreed not to sell the new line in Britain . . . the Coun-
cil on American-Islamic relations (CAIR) will urge the Muslims around the
world not to boycott Nike products. The company also agreed to donate a
$50,000 playground to an Islamic elementary school in the United States. A
row broke out after the company used a logo meant to look like flames on a
line of basketball shoes to be sold this summer, with the name “Air Bakin”,
“Air Grill,” and “Air B-Que”; some Muslims claimed the logo resembled the
word “Allah” written in Arabic script.
(Jury, The Independent, 25 June 1997)
Similarly to the discussion between marketing and sport marketing, one could
argue that Islamic marketing is, above all, marketing, a set of principles with
particular applications. As discussed, marketing is about adjusting offerings and
demands, whether we talk about Islamic or non-Islamic organisations, targeting
Muslims or non-Muslims, in Muslim countries or not. In that sense, marketing is
pragmatic and adapts to the various organisations’ and publics’ needs, and Islamic
rules could be simply considered another set of cultural rules marketers should
follow to target new consumers. On the other hand, one could argue that this
specific knowledge is key, particularly because the Muslim world and Muslim
communities are diverse, which requires an in-depth knowledge of these contexts
and the marketing practices that suit them. It is important to note here that this
question is not completely neutral, as the answer defines what is legitimate and
what is not. In that case, generic marketers will tend to minimize the specifici-
ties of Muslim contexts and, consequently, Islamic marketing, although experts
of Islam (or neo-experts) will tend to emphasize the uniqueness of this emerging
field, creating for them legitimacy and consequently a dominant position.
We will move now to reveal some examples of what can be termed Halal (law-
ful) and Haram (unlawful) marketing in sport. Our classification of “halal” and
“haram” here is not theological per se. We acknowledge both the common ref-
erence to Islamic pathway (Shari’a) in the Muslim world explained earlier as
well as different socio-cultural practices at community and individual levels. The
principles of sport marketing and global consumption can sometimes clash with
Islamic tradition and culture. However, one should also recognize that for Mus-
lim youth watching the NBA, supporting FC Barcelona or Real Madrid in coffee
shops in Tangier, Riyadh, or Algiers, and wearing top sports brands such as Nike
and Adidas are among the few opportunities (for the majority) to be part of a
global consumer society. This explains the strategy of global sport brands to be
present in this vast market.
Haram sport marketing

Due to globalisation of sport brands, global mobility of sport athletes of Muslim
culture, or the increasing religiosity of Muslims in the West who want to be visible
in the public domain, a number of cases were reported in the media about athletes
refusing to wear, for instance, football shirts sponsored by gambling and alcohol
companies or protesting against the legalization of sport betting.
Malaysian government permission to offer betting service on international
sports for Ascot Sports, a company which was first linked to Malaysian tycoon
Vincent Tan (the owner of Cardiff FC), and since 2010 was bought ($163.9 mil-
lion) by another Malaysian gaming group Berjaya, provoked a movement of pro-
testation in Kuala Lumpur. The government response was that legalizing sports
betting for non-Muslims only would offer a gain of up to $1.2 billion in tax rev-
enues to the state (Associated Press, 14 May 2010). Government officials have
said they plan to channel the revenue generated from legalised betting into sports
development. Interestingly, “Visit Malaysia” is the naming sponsor of the match-
day shirt of Cardiff FC. It is unknown the real economic impact of the branding
of destination Malaysia in the premiership, but this poses another controversy
about the indirect contribution of the betting-related industry toward the Malay-
sian tourism economy.
On the same issue of gambling, former West Ham striker Frederic Kanoute was
allowed by Sevilla to wear an unbranded shirt while the club were sponsored by
gambling company 888.com.
On the question of illegal interests (ribaa, or usury in Islam), a row started in
2013 between Senegalese Papiss Cisse and his employer Newcastle FC over the
club’s new sponsorship deal with payday loan firm Wonga. While other Muslim
players in the club at that time (Hatem Ben Arfa, Cheik Tioté, Moussa Sissoko,
and Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa) indicated that they had no problem with the new spon-
sor, Cisse told his employer that he was unwilling to wear the shirt, as it conflicted
with his religious beliefs. The player was allegedly photographed in a casino,
which made his position weak toward the club, the fans, and the Muslim com-
munity in the UK. He finally agreed to wear the branded kit (Taylor, The Guard-
ian, 25 July 2013). According to Salha, “as issues pertaining to cross-cultural and
interfaith dialogue are of paramount importance in today’s world, Muslim elite
sportspeople practicing ‘soft-power’ as a tool of attraction with respect to their
Islamic faith is an unexplored occurrence” (cf. Chapter 14 of this book).
On alcohol and sport sponsoring, Faward Ahmed, an Australian of Pakistani
origin, the spin bowler of the Australian cricket team, expressed discomfort about
wearing the logo of a major sponsor because of its association with alcohol. He
was allowed on the ground of respecting personal beliefs to wear an unbranded
shirt (Sygall, The Sunday Morning Herald, 3 September 2013).
These examples shed light on some legal and ethical issues. Professional sport
clubs and sport governing bodies are willing to allow for exemptions on the ground
of personal beliefs to avoid facing potential disputes and discrimination proceed-
ings while at the same time protecting their interests and those of their business
partners (sponsors and investors). They also want to avoid opening the doors for
legal precedent, as for the three cases there were no provisions in contracts for
objections to sponsors. Also, these issues do not have the same importance across
countries, and while in some countries, these exceptions may be accepted with
more tolerance, it may not be the case in countries with a strong secular culture.
In more multi-cultural and multi-religious societies (as for the case of Malaysia),
you have to strike the right balance among personal religious beliefs, business,
and the state’s economic interests, as well as general public interest. As rightly
addressed by Joe Favorito, an expert in strategic communication and marketing:
The issue of objections to brands on religious or even social reasons could

become messy in the States and is something that will have to be taken in
account as the jersey sponsor comes to reality. Several WNBA teams have
casinos for example . . . could a player object who is against gambling? What
if a devout Mormon objects to wearing Coca-Cola or Pepsi, some prime
national jersey sponsors, because his religion forbids the use of caffeine?
Could a player who has had a drinking problem in the past turn his back on
Budweiser? [. . .] Like gambling and spirits, and even other aggressive plat-
forms like e-cigarettes and condoms, leagues and teams will have large scale
financial decisions to make on what is acceptable and what is not, and as
sport becomes more global, a wide range of factors like religious and social
beliefs may have to be factored in more and more.
(Favorito, Sport Marketing Blog, 7 September 2013)
Similar concerns may occur now that more Muslim countries are competing
to host major sport events. Alcohol and betting companies are major sponsors
of international sport federations such as FIFA. Qatar, the first Arab and Mus-
lim country to host the FIFA World Cup in 2022, is already facing this dilemma
over, for instance, the country’s prohibition on alcohol, “a major source of rev-
enue, including by World Cup beer sponsor Budweiser which would hurt stadium
revenue during the event” (Brandchannel, 14 November 2014),3 and the overall
sponsorship deal with FIFA. The debate over alcohol sales at World Cups is not
limited to Qatar. Russia, which is hosting the 2018 World Cup, prohibits alcohol
at stadiums and nearby stores. Brazil had to change its legislation prior to the 2014
FIFA World Cup to allow beer consumption in football stadia after 11 years of
ban. Similarly, in response to mounting criticism and lobbying from the alcohol
industry, it was reported in the press that the Qatari government agreed to sell
alcohol in fan zones for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
Halal sport marketing

According to some estimates, the current market value of the global halal industry
is US$547 billion a year. The size and complexity of the market is clearly high-
lighted in the mission statement of the World Halal Forum:
It became increasingly clear that the stakeholders in the Halal market – the
producers, processors, manufacturers, logistics providers, retailers, restau-
rants, food service providers and others, actually constitute a new kind of
industry in their own right; a diverse, complex, yet integrated industry with a
global reach that crosses geographic, cultural and even religious boundaries.
(World Halal Forum, 2015)
Sport brands and industries, which their brand is strongly associated with sport
(event, lifestyle, products and spectacle), want also a chunk of this lucrative market.
Despite the controversy about alcohol consumption in sport arenas and the lob-
bying of Budweiser against Qatar’s 2022 FIFA World Cup (allegedly on the
grounds of labour rights), the number of halal beer products and brands that are
offered to Muslim consumers is becoming a noticeable phenomenon. Advertise-
ment of non-alcoholic halal beer products, including around sport TV programmes
(match events and talk shows), is visible even in countries labelled conservative,
such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, where religious opinion about the consumption of
non-alcoholic beer is not clear cut. The Economist states that the Middle East now
accounts for almost a third of worldwide sales by volume of non-alcoholic beer.
In Iran, alcohol consumption is now reportedly four times as high as in 2007.

Iran has Delster, brewed by Behnoush, and Barbican, produced by Aujan, is
successfully promoted as a malt-based soft drink and popular in Saudi Ara-
bia and the United Arab Emirates. Others include Laziza in Lebanon, along
with Birell, Fayrouz and Moussy . . . After Hamas, a Palestinian Islamist
movement, won a landslide election victory in Gaza in 2005, a local brewer
launched an alcohol-free “halal” version of its beer.
(The Economist, 11 August 2013)4
What is relevant for this chapter is that The Economist explained in the same
paper the growth in the sales of non-alcoholic beer in the Middle East as a result
of “growing consumer aspirations” but also as result of associated “glamorous
image” and “smart packaging”. The brand manager of Laziza, a Lebanese non-
alcoholic beer, explains that “it [non-alcoholic beer] taps into a popular desire
for a globalised lifestyle that neither fruit juice nor even Coca-Cola can offer”
(Your Middle East, 10 October 2013). Interestingly in this case, Islamic market-
ing is promoting a lifestyle or a cliché (male, sport, beer) which is originally
Western and one could argue is they consequently intrinsically at the opposite
of what the Muslim worlds could defined as desirable and authentic images.
This is applicable to the German Holsten (member of the Carlsberg Deutschland
Group), sponsor of the premier league, with its unique (sophisticated) knightly
character brand and recognizable green or black bottles. Holsten is also the spon-
sor of the Holsten Fantasy Football League in partnership with MBC (Middle
East Broadcasting Company), one of the largest commercial TV networks in
the Arab World, owned by Waleed Al Ibrahim, a Saudi Arabian businessman.
Its Facebook page for the Arab World “Holstenarabia” uses football as a central
feature of its brand association between football and (masculine) Arab culture, as
represented in the following hashtags devoted to international, continental, and
domestic football leagues:
#elClassico this Sunday Did your team win”
#ElClassico” is Better with #Holsten
Who will #win the #Gulf_CupFinal?
Interestingly, associating the brand with the brand Halal is a double-edged

sword for beer companies. The risk for them to lose customers in their traditional
(non-Muslim) market is real, as was the case for the Australian beer company
Coopers, which was “accused of ‘supporting terrorism’ and ‘lowering yourself
to a minority’ because it received halal accreditation for its malt extract prod-
ucts” (Barila, The Advertiser, 2014). However, tapping into new markets for these
companies possibly represents an opportunity they cannot afford to ignore when
states increasingly regulate the advertising of alcohol and beer and their possible
associations with sports due to public health considerations.
As for other products, we explained elsewhere how global brands are using
sport and the associated positive values around sport to establish themselves in
the Middle Eastern Market. Following is the example of Nestlé Milo Health and
Nutrition sponsoring of Manchester United Football Academy in Dubai:
Through its sponsorship of MU, Nestlé Middle East is advertising the Nestlé
family products (maggie, milk, cream, fitness, and Nido) with a message in
Arabic and in English of wellness and healthy life style (highlighted in the web
page under the motto of Shine – “ashriki” – good food, good life) to appeal to
mothers in the Arabian Peninsula.
(Amara and Theodoraki, 2010, p. 147)
Because Muslim countries are not immune to globalisation trends, the global
norms of marketing and sport marketing are integrated into Muslim consumer cul-
ture. Sponsoring sport events and sport clubs worldwide is becoming an integral
part of the global strategy, particularly of countries in the Arabian Peninsula (UAE,
Qatar, and Bahrain), for (postmodern) branding of the region as a place where
“modernity” and (Islamic) “authenticity” can co-exist (Amara, 2005). Rather than
being passive, they want to contribute as Arab and Muslim countries in the globali-
sation process through sport. Their increasing visibility in the international sport
circuit (football, Formula 1, and tennis, to name a few) is welcomed with mixed
feeling (Borja and Amara, 2014). For some, their investment in sport (as spon-
sors or direct investors) is an opportunity for the expansion of the sport market
and hence the widening exposure of brands associated with sport. For instance, El
Clásico between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, watched by millions around the
world, is becoming also El Clásico between Qatar Airways and Emirate Airlines,
two companies from the region with the ambition to become the world leader of air
transportation. For others, the money coming from these (Arab-Muslim) Gulf States
can be a threat to neo-liberal values, the essence of marketing, and sport marketing.
Countries such as Qatar are being accused of using sport marketing for political
reasons, to gain “soft power”, and to diffuse “Islamist” (“Wahabi doctrine”) into
European cities. For National Front, the far right party in France, Qatar’s invest-
ment in the French capital’s football club, Paris Saint Germain, is perceived as “a
vector toward the entry of the Islamic Emirate to France” (L’Express, 25 October
2012). Real Madrid’s decision to remove the traditional Christian cross from its
logo after signing a 3-year with the National Bank of Abu Dhabi could be viewed
as a sign of the “Islamisation” of European football (The Guardian, 27 November
2014) and simultaneously a sign of de-Christianisation of Western countries if such
a removal does not affect enough Spanish and other fans of Real Madrid to express
a strong dissatisfaction which could terminate their fanship.
Conclusion
As for Islamic banking or other initiatives aiming at introducing Islamic ethics into
economics, business, and politics, marketing and sport marketing is a complex
phenomenon and a multi-billion-dollar industry. There are different stakehold-
ers involved: states, including states from the Muslim world which are directly
investing in sport, such as Qatar and the UAE; sponsors representing different
products, including products that are deemed non-Islamic, such as alcohol and
gambling; national and international sport governing bodies, such as FIFA, one of
whose major sponsors is a leading of alcoholic beverage producer, Budweiser; TV
networks benefiting from the popularity of sport product and its attraction to large
audiences/consumers and investors to increase their revenue (for example beINS-

ports, the Qatari state-owned sport TV network, which is present in addition to the
MENA region in France, the United States, Indonesia, and Australia); last and not
least, private owners of professional sport clubs, including from Muslim countries
(for instance PSG and Manchester City).
At state level, there is pressure to be part of the global economy while pre-
serving national cohesion, which involves respecting the values and identity
of the majority as well as of minorities. As evident in Malaysia, a country with
majority Muslim population and a non-Muslim minority, integrating the norms of
sport marketing would mean applying different rules to Muslim and non-Muslim
consumers. For states with Muslim minorities, the norms of sport marketing are
adapted to accommodate to the religious requirements of Muslim citizens. This
depends, of course, on the level of secularisation of these countries and interpre-
tation of religion (including Islam) in the public sphere. Muslim states with an
ambition to host international sport events have to deal with external pressures to
accommodate the cultural and consumer (and consumerist) values of non-Muslim
fans and the hegemony of global brands.
For sport products such as Nike and Adidas with an ambition to have a global
presence, including in Muslim-majority countries, different branding strat-
egies would take into account different political and cultural sensitivities to
avoid religious offence and counterproductive publicity – a minefield for these
brands, as a misinterpretation of symbols and rumours can lead to campaigns of
boycott. This was highlighted in this chapter with the controversy over Nike’s
logo “logjam” or “Air Bakin” (controversies around a shoe with a design on
the heel similar to the Arabic word for God or Allah). The same is true for
other products, which should balance between maintaining profit and sales in
their traditional market while expanding to other markets with different socio-
cultural structures. As the Muslim world with its growing population is becom-
ing a lucrative market, the halal brand or label is also becoming attractive, as is
the case with non-alcoholic beers that are reproducing similar brand association
with sport (male) culture while “Islamizing” their products. We can therefore
wonder if this label or brand is not losing its true and original meanings, as it
is increasingly associated with an increasing number of products and brands
whose ethics are controversial and questionable (e.g. can products be labelled
halal when they are made by Muslim children in countries such as Bangla-
desh under appalling working conditions?). We can also wonder is this trend of
“halalisation” of products is sustainable – if it will last when, except for prod-
ucts that are haram by essence, all products will be labelled halal. This can also
be a risky marketing strategy, as the term “halal”, outside its traditional mean-
ing, can be perceived by non-Muslim consumers as a political-ideological sign
and thus a threat to Western secular values. Finally, we can wonder if Islamic
marketing is not the Trojan horse of Western ideologies and lifestyles, as con-
suming halal products and halal brands is still an expression of consumerist val-
ues which convey the illusion that happiness can be found through possessions,
which seems a priori in opposition to Islamic values.
Last and not least, national and international governing bodies of sport are
now adapting their marketing strategies to be inclusive to the new demand
for local and global governance of sport (1) to cater for the need of emerging
investors from Muslim countries keen to be visible in the global sport arena as
sponsors or hosts of major sports events; (2) the demand of individual Mus-
lim athletes increasingly expressing their religious (Islamic) belief in the pub-
lic domain (in the form, for instance, of resisting wearing club or national kit
shirts sponsored by products that are interpreted as haram); and (3) securing
the interests of other business partners more accustomed to neo-liberal values
of marketing. European football clubs such as Real Madrid, FC Barcelona,
and Paris St Germain, to name few, are facing the same dilemma of making
concessions (i.e. de-Christianisation) on their own identities to attract wealthy
sponsors from the Middle East while trying to preserve their roots with their
local communities.
Notes
1 Colgate-Palmolive, for instance, claims to be the first international company to have
obtained halal certification in Malaysia for toothpaste and mouthwash products.
2 3news.co.nz (23 November 2013) Demand grows for halal meat exports. Retrieved from
www.3news.co.nz/business/demand-grows-for-halal-meat-exports-2013112316#ixzz3
UwEsYyUN (accessed 3 February 2015).
3 Brandchannel (14 November 2004) FIFA is Feeling the Heat From Brand Partners Over
Qatar World Cup. Retrieved from www.brandchannel.com/home/post/141104-FIFA-
Emirates.aspx (accessed 20 February 2015).
4 The Economist (11 August 2013) Why are sales of non-alcoholic beer booming?
Retrieved from www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/08/economist-
explains-3 (accessed 3 February 2015).
References
Alserhan, BH 2011, The principles of Islamic marketing. Retrieved from www.gowerpub
lishing.com/pdf/samplepages/the-principles-of-islamic-marketing-ch1.pdf (accessed
2 February 2015).
Amara, M 2005, 2006 Qatar Asian Games: A ‘Modernization’ Project from Above?, Sport
in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics, vol. 8 (3), pp. 493–514.
Amara, M 2012, Sport, Politics and Society in the Arab World, London: Palgrave and
Macmillan.
Amara, M and Theodoraki, E 2010, Transnational network formation through sports
related regional development projects in the Arabian Peninsula, International Journal of
Sport Policy and Politics, vol. 2 (2), pp. 135–158.
American Marketing Association 2013, Definition of Marketing. Retrieved from www.
ama.org/AboutAMA/Pages/Definition-of-Marketing.aspx (accessed July 2013).
The Associated Press, The Jakarta Post 14 May 2010, Malaysian Muslims protest sports
betting. Retrieved from www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/05/14/malaysian-muslims-
protest-sports-betting.html (accessed 14 February 2015).
Barila, G The Advertiser, 2014, Coopers defends Halal accreditation for malt-extract prod-
ucts. Retrieved from www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/coopers-defends-
halal-accreditation-for-maltextract-products/story-fni6uo1m-1226823960243 (accessed
4 February 2015).
Beech, J and Chadwick, S 2007, The Marketing of Sport, Harlow: Prentice-Hall, Pearson
Education Limited.
Booms, Bernard H and Bitner, Mary Jo 1981, Marketing strategies and organization struc-
tures for service firms, in Marketing of Services, James H. Donnelly and William R.
Geaorge, eds. Chicago: American Marketing Association, 47–52.
Brandchannel 14 November 2004, FIFA Is Feeling the Heat From Brand Partners Over
Qatar World Cup. Retrieved from www.brandchannel.com/home/post/141104-FIFA-
Emirates.aspx (accessed 20 February 2015).
The Economist 11 August 2013, Why are sales of non-alcoholic beer booming? Retrieved
from www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/08/economist-explains-3
(accessed 3 February 2015).
El-Habba, MS and Al-Mulhim F 2013, The competitiveness of the Saudi Arabian date
palm: An analytical study, African Journal of Agriculture Research, vol. 8 (3), pp. 5260–
5267 [Online: www.academicjournals.org/article/article1384759553_El-Habba%20
and%20Al-Mulhim.pdf]
Fam, SK, Waller, DS, and Erdogann, ZB 2004, The influence of religion on attitudes
towards the advertising of controversial products, European Journal of Marketing,
vol. 38 (5/6), pp. 537–555.
Favorito, J, Blog: Sport Marketing and PR Roundup 7 September 2013, As sport becomes
more global, sponsor issues arise. Retrieved from http://joefavorito.com/2013/09/07/as-
sport-becomes-more-global-sponsor-issues-arise/ (accessed 15 February 2015).
The Guardian 27 November 2014, Real Madrid drop Christian cross from club crest in
Middle East. Retrieved from www.theguardian.com/football/2014/nov/27/real-madrid-
christian-cross-abu-dhabi-crest (accessed 1 March 2015).
Jury, L The Independent, 25 June 1997, Nike to trash trainers that offend Islam.
Retrieved from www.independent.co.uk/news/nike-to-trash-trainers-that-offended-
islam-1257776.html (accessed 16 February 2015).
Klein, N 1999, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, Toronto: Knopf Canada, Picador.
L’Express 25 October 2012, Le PSG “vecteur de l’entrisme de l’émirat islamique en
France” pour le FN. Retrieved from www.lexpress.fr/actualite/sport/football/le-psg-
vecteur-de-l-entrisme-de-l-emirat-islamique-en-france-pour-le-fn_1179538.html#
5djBYAVVO50Iw3wX.99
Liz, G, The New York Times 12 August 2012, Advertisers seek to speak to Muslim con-
sumers. Retrieved from www.nytimes.com/2010/08/12/business/media/12branding.
html?_r=0 (accessed 4 February 2015).
Luqmani, M, Yavas, U and Quraeshi Z. 1987, Advertising in Saudi Arabia: content and
regulation, International Journal of Advertising, vol. 6 (1), pp. 59–71.
Marion, G 2004, Idéologie Marketing: Mal du siècle?! Paris: Eyrolles – Editions
d’Organisations.
McCarthy, JE 1964, Basic Marketing. A Managerial Approach, Homewood, IL: Irwin.
The National, UAE 8 February 2015, Halal food imports into the GCC will reach $53.1 bill-
ion by 2020, according to The Economist Intelligence Unit. Retrieved from www.
thenational.ae/business/economy/global-mark-of-quality-for-halal-food-begins-with-
australia-and-new-zealand-exports-to-uae (accessed 1 February 2015).
Pew Research Center 2011, The future of the global Muslim population, Pew Research Cen-
ter’s Forum on Religion & Public Life. Retrieved from www.pewforum.org/2011/01/27/
the-future-of-the-global-muslim-population/ (accessed 1 January 2015).
Strike, K and Wilkinson B, The Daily Mail 13 January 2015, Oxford University Press bans
sausages and pigs from children’s books in effort “to avoid offence”: Bizarre clamp-
down branded “nonsensical political correctness”. Retrieved from www.dailymail.
co.uk/news/article-2908910/Oxford-University-Press-bans-sausages-pigs-children-s-
books-avoid-offending-Jews-Muslims.html#ixzz3UwmHneAi
Sygall, D, The Sunday Morning Herald 3 September 2013, Muslim Spinner given leave
to keep a sponsor off his back. Retrieved from www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/muslim-
spinner-given-leave-to-keep-a-sponsor-off-his-back-20130902–2t13m.html (accessed
1 February 2015).
Taylor, L, The Guardian 25 July 2013, Papiss Cissé stands down in Wonga row and agrees
to wear branded kit. Retrieved from www.theguardian.com/football/2013/jul/25/papiss-
cisse-newcastle-wonga-row (accessed 1 February 2015).
Whitehead, J, BrandRepublic 2 April 2003, Muslims complain about Adidas “explosive
shoes” poster. Retrieved from www.brandrepublic.com/article/175997/muslims-complain-
adidas-explosive-shoes-poster#kLevEHZEe52WCfl9.99 (accessed 10 February 2015).
Wilson, J, The Guardian 18 February 2014, Brand Islam is fast becoming the new black
in marketing terms. Retrieved from www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-net
work-blog/2014/feb/18/islamic-economy-marketing-branding (1 February 2015).
Your Middle East 10 October 2013, Beer is conquering the Middle East. Retrieved from
www.yourmiddleeast.com/business/beer-is-conquering-the-middle-east_18596 (accessed
3 February 2015).
13 Sport policy and Islam
in Malaysia
Mohd Salleh Aman
Introduction
Malaysia has a largely secularised economy and polity but seeks to develop a
‘Malaysian way’ in promoting sport by exalting the virtues and values of the
Islamic faith. Since 1957, Malaysian governments have been pursuing Western-
style economic progress with global economic participation, as well as ‘pushing’
toward sports for achievement, while honouring Islamic principles. Central and
local government are equally subordinated to meeting these objectives. Although
Malaysia is making a conscious effort to maintain national cultural practices
enriched by Islamic values, the influence of globalisation is fast spreading into
this country, to the extent that it affects sport policy formulation and practice. In a
society composed of a plurality of ethnic cultures, Malaysian government seeks to
promote some common cultural practices as part of nation building. In particular,
recognising the potential of ethnically distinct sporting activities to divide and
exaggerate differences between peoples, the government favours nation-building
sport policies as a way of unifying peoples.
Introducing Malaysia
Located between 1 and 7 degrees north of the equator in the heart of Southeast
Asia, Malaysia covers 330,000 square kilometres and consists of two distinct
parts. Peninsular Malaysia is the long finger of land extending down from Asia
as if pointing towards Singapore and Indonesia. Malaysia has a typically tropical
climate – it is hot and humid the year round and almost always sunny. The tem-
perature rarely drops below 20° C even at night and usually climbs to 30° C or
more during the day. Rainstorms tend to be short and sharp and are soon replaced
by more sunshine. At certain times of the year, it may rain all day. Malaysia is
part of the region possessing the most ancient rainforests in the world; these have
remained virtually unchanged for many millions of years. In just one country, it
is possible to see the entire spectrum – from extensive lowland rainforest tracts to
the summits of several mountainous areas.
The earliest Proto-Malay inhabitants occupied the Malay Peninsula between
2500 and 1500 BC. Then, around 300 BC, the Deutero-Malays, offspring of
192 Mohd Salleh Aman
Proto-Malays who had inter-married with the people of Chinese, Indian, Arabic
or Siamese origins, began to form the next wave of migration (Wong, 1994). With
the emergence of sea trade through the Straits of Malacca came Indian and Chi-
nese traders. In the north, the peninsula was often invaded by the Siamese. In the
16th century, Europeans came in search of new trading posts as well as to acquire
new lands for their monarchs. The Portuguese were the first to arrive. They were
ousted by the Dutch, who monopolised trade in the region. The British took power
from the Dutch when the latter’s homeland was invaded by the French in the late
18th century, and from then on, the country came under British colonial power
except for a brief invasion by the Japanese during World War II. After the war, the
British returned to rule until the country’s independence in 1957.
Malaysia is a multi-racial and multi-religious society. Malays, Chinese and
Indians make up the three main ethnic groups in this nation. Out of 22 million
Malaysians, the Malays are the dominant group (60 percent of the population
are Malays, Chinese 30 percent, Indian 8 percent and others 2 percent, includ-
ing indigenous Orang Asli). These groups, with different cultural backgrounds,
are free to practise their culture, religion and languages. While all Malays are
nominally Muslims and Islam is the state religion, other ethnic groups are given
religious freedom (Malaysia Official Yearbook, 1997). Other religious affilia-
tions include Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, Hinduism and some pagan beliefs.
Arising from this diversity of religions is a multitude of cultural festivals, which
are celebrated throughout the year. Equally diverse are the languages and dialects
spoken in Malaysian society. Malay (Bahasa Melayu) is the national and official
language, but both Malay and English are used by the different ethnic groups.
English is spoken more commonly among city dwellers, elites and educated peo-
ple from the middle class.
Malays, associated with Malaysia, and before that Malaya, are the most numer-
ous ethnic group of the nation. According to the 16th-century Sejarah Melayu (The
Malay Annals), the term Melayu (Malay) was derived from the name of the river
which flowed from Palembang’s sacred mountain, the birthplace of the rulers who
went on to found Melaka (one of the states in Malaysia). The concept gradually
broadened to include all those who spoke the Malay language, professed Islam
and practised Malay customs. These days, the term is even more widespread and
is used to describe the indigenous people of the entire archipelago.
Malaysia straddles the dominant trade route to the Far East, and small commu-
nities of Chinese, Indians and other foreigners have existed in most trading cen-
tres since ancient times. If Malaysian demographics had not had been so radically
altered during the British colonial era, these races would still be very small minor-
ities. The British Empire was interested in seeing Malaysia’s economy boom. In
order to extract the vast amounts of tin and tap the miles of rubber trees needed
to keep the coffers full, thousands of workers were needed and obtained. It was
not difficult to recruit Chinese, for they were only too pleased to escape the cycle
of poverty into which they had been born. Nineteenth-century figures record the
spectacular explosion of the Chinese population in Malaysia; community num-
bers in the 1830s rarely exceeded 500, but in 1870, there were 10,000 miners in
Sport policy and Islam in Malaysia 193
Sungai Ujung alone. Kuching, which was a Malay village in 1840, was a Chinese
town by the end of the 19th century.
Most of Malaysia’s Chinese are the descendants of 19th-century immigrants,
and although they have been in Malaysia for generations, they have preserved
their languages and culture intact. Every city and town has its Chinatown, even
the predominantly Malay states of Kelantan and Terengganu. The streets are lined
with southern-Chinese-style shop houses adorned with calligraphy, where thriv-
ing family businesses sell sharks’ fins, birds’ nests and medicines.
In common with the early Chinese communities, the Indian groups were primar-
ily based in port towns (e.g. Port Kelang). Their numbers were small compared
to Malays, until the great migrations began under British rule. These saw the size
of the Indian community explode from a few thousand to the present 8 percent of
Peninsular Malaysia’s population. At first, indentured Indian labourers from South
India were brought in to build roads and railways or to work on plantations. This
proved unpopular and was replaced by the kangani system. Overseers in India
recruited workers who came freely to work in Malaya, where they ensured the suc-
cess of the rubber industry. However, compared to the urban Indian merchants and
moneylenders, the estate workers rarely ventured far from plantations. Although
many of their descendants have now successfully entered into all walks of Malay-
sian life, others remain a depressed minority unable to break away from life on the
estates. Like Indians the world over, Malaysia’s Indian community proudly keeps
up its traditional customs and religions, and its members speak their own dialects.
Since independence in 1957, and except for the race riots on 13 May 1969, the
Malays, Chinese and Indians have lived in considerable harmony in Malaysia.
Ethnic relations have played a prominent role in the political process and out-
comes in this country. As time goes by, each ethnic group learns to understand,
respect and tolerate others’ cultures and religions, or at least, that is the hope of
the Malaysian government.
Malaysia is a democracy, as demonstrated by regular elections (the latest on
29 November 1999), but with little tolerance for opposition. After years of colo-
nial rule and with just a few decades of experience as an independent country, dif-
ficult compromises had to be made in this multi-racial nation. The 1969 race riot
prompted the Malaysian government to take more control and prevent discussions
of sensitive issues (e.g. race relations) for fear that they might create more tension.
Control of the media and of academics was deemed necessary. Most newspapers
and television stations are owned and controlled by the party in power.
In general, interest groups are distrusted, and participation in politics is not wel-
come. The government believes that at the present stage of development, authori-
tative institutions should be stronger than participative ones. Public consultation
is not a common practice in Malaysia. Sport policy, like other social policies, is
generally not established on the basis of the wishes of the communities but more
according to the wishes of the government authorities (Aman, 2005). Until now,
this ‘authoritative’ approach to democratic government has provided quite stable
government and has contributed to the confidence of foreign investors and helped
the economic recovery of the country.
The Malaysian government is aware of the difference in cultural backgrounds
among people. The five principles of Malaysian Nationhood were introduced in
1970, and the people pledge their united efforts to abide by them. These are:
1 Belief in God
2 Loyalty to King and Country
3 The Supremacy of the Constitution
4 The Rule of Law

5 Mutual respect and good social behaviour
(Malaysia Official Yearbook, 1997, p. 23)
Islam in Malaysia
Islam arrived in Malaysia in the 14th century. Muslim traders brought Islam to
the country at the end of the 13th century and many of the residents, includ-
ing the Sultan of Malacca (now, Melaka) in the 15th century, embraced the reli-
gion. Malaysia now is a multi-confessional country, with Islam being the largest
practiced religion, comprising approximately 61.3 percent Muslim adherents, or
around 19.5 million people, as of 2013. Sunni Islam of Shafi’i School of jurispru-
dence is the dominant branch of Islam in the country. Islam is made the religion
of the federation, but there is freedom to other communities to practise their own
faiths in peace and harmony. However, Malaysia’s law and jurisprudence is based
on English law. Shariah law is applicable only to Muslims and is restricted to fam-
ily law and religious observances. The adoption of Islam as the religion of the
federation does not convert Malaysia into an Islamic state. The Constitution and
not the shariah is the supreme law of the land.
For Muslims, Islam is a complete and comprehensive way of life covering all
fields of human existence; Muslims believe that Islam is the religion of truth and
the embodiment of the code of life. It is a religion of moderation and peace (cf.
Chapter 2 of this book). Yet Islam is most misunderstood and much maligned
(Ushama & Moten, 2006). As non-Muslims are a dominant portion of Malaysian
population, it is essential to understand their views toward Islam, including on
sport policy and practices. According to Ushama and Moten (2006, p. 203) in the
study of “Non-Muslim Views about Islam and Muslims in Malaysia”:
Nearly 40 percent of the respondents refrained from giving any feedbacks on

Islam. Their silence could mean that they have negative opinions about Islam
but do not want to express it publicly. It could also mean that they are follow-
ing the “golden rule” inherent in the “power sharing” formula practised in
Malaysia of not commenting upon “sensitive” issues like the religion of oth-
ers. Alternatively, these respondents have not made up their mind one way or
the other. Irrespective of interpretations, the percentages in the “no comment”
column suggest that Muslims have a lot to do in order to endear themselves
to their non-Muslim counterparts in Malaysia.
Practising the faith of Islam in Malaysia is strongly associated with Malay
life. Islam is inseparable from being Malay, and it is so interwoven that Muslim
converts are often said to ‘become Malay’ (masuk Melayu) when they adopt the
Islamic faith. All Malaysian Malays are Muslims, and it is forbidden by law to
convert them to another faith. In theory, all Malay culture is governed by the code
of Islam, and the tenets of the faith are looked upon as the guidelines of Malay
life. The day revolves around the five daily prayers, which to the average Malay
are a natural part of their everyday routine. Yearly activities are determined by the
fasting month of Ramadan, the Hari Raya (Eid) celebrations at its close and other
important Islamic dates.
The Malays have always been good at accepting new things and incorporating
them with the Islamic values. According to Cubitt and Moore (1995, p. 36), for
example:
These days a BMW-driving executive, who lives in an air-conditioned apart-

ment, still finds time to return to his ancestral kampung (village) at festive
times (Eid) to fulfil his family obligations, and has no problems adjusting to
the simple village lifestyle. Although he wears a suit and tie to the office, when
he relaxes at home, and attends the mosque for Friday prayers, he dresses in
the traditional chequered sarong and wears his characteristic brambles, a fez-
like cap, known as a songkok (praying cap). He may make the odd foray to
McDonald’s to give the children a treat, but if given a choice he would defi-
nitely prefer the hot and tasty cuisine of his forefathers.
Except for a small minority of high-profile city businesswomen, most Malay

women dress in the traditional baju kurung, a flattering, ankle-length suit, usually
made of colourful silky fabrics, and cover their hair with a matching scarf or a
short veil. The Malays are most numerous on the Peninsula, especially in the rural
areas and the East Coast. Nowadays the previously Chinese-dominated city areas
boast sizeable Malay populations as young people educated in the villages flock
to the cities for better job opportunities. As many senior family members still
live in their ancestral kampung (village), at the end of Ramadan, there is a huge
exodus of city dwellers making the pilgrimage back to the family home; nothing
beats celebrating Hari Raya (Eid) in the countryside. If home is where the heart
is, Malay’s soul is in the kampung.
According to Cubitt & Moore (1995, p. 35),
the real Malay is courageous. He quotes proverbs, never drinks intoxicants

and is rarely an opium smoker. He is by nature a sportsman, proud of his
country and his people, venerates his ancient customs and traditions and has
a proper respect for constituted authority.
This statement shows that despite their imperialist attitudes, the British colo-
nists liked the Malays. They admired their refined culture and their courtesy, and
they stereotyped the Malay personality in a positive light and admit that Malay
are sportsmen in nature.
Sport in Malaysia
Sport involves participants ‘choosing’ to be bound by the sets of rules which dis-
tinguish sports and games. Sport is one manifestation of leisure that may become
so completely self-contained in its meaning that the rest of the world seems to dis-
appear (Kelly, 1996). The union of mind and body in co-ordinated movement, the
rhythm and grace of developed skill and the drama of structure and uncertainty
make sport a very special kind of experience. According to Haywood and col-
leagues (1991), sport is identified as ‘recreation’ and involves the active produc-
tion of leisure experience, with participants having some control over the process.
This applies to participation in sport by a player or performer. However, sports
extend beyond this active involvement of ‘producers’ to include consumption by
non-participants. Hence sports might, in some manifestations, more accurately be
described as a form of ‘entertainment’, in the case of spectators of sports events
or for television viewers.
Sports are also the object of an extensive gambling industry through foot-
ball pools and betting on horses or greyhounds (Haywood et al., 1991) and
an integral focus of much contemporary tourism (for instance, the 2014 Asian
Golf Tour of Malaysia). Many localities or regions market themselves as tourist
attractions through the sporting opportunities provided. For example, Tereng-
ganu promoted itself via ‘Monsoon Cup’ (sailing) and Langkawi via ‘Le tour
de Langkawi’ in the lead-up to the cycling competition. Sports involve the
consumption of goods, services or products provided commercially. Addition-
ally, sports can be an element of education, and some sports can be considered
art forms (for instance, dance) or as an aspect of countryside recreation (for
instance, outdoor pursuits).
One must also recognise that, for some participants, sport is a career and
professional in nature. Sport participation may represent full-time or part-time
employment for professionals who demonstrate or teach skills in some contrac-
tual arrangement for financial reward (Kelly, 1990). It is hardly ‘free-time activ-
ity’ for Malaysia’s national football players, for example, to play night after night,
often ‘on the road’ and at times when their ‘work’ represents a leisure occasion
for spectators. A sport is hardly ‘leisure’ when the athlete has engaged a lawyer to
represent his or her interests and when their employment is contingent on playing.
Certain role expectations may reduce the freedom of choice in some sport partici-
pation. When peer and parental expectations are overpowering, a student may join
a team primarily as a duty. Institutional constraints may make real choice and the
question of personal satisfaction irrelevant. In other cases, requirements for gain-
ing or maintaining a necessary level of health or fitness may lead to participation
in a sport that is not enjoyed for any reasons of intrinsic satisfaction. Therefore,
sport in Malaysia may be meant differently depending on the context an as com-
pare to other society’s perspective.
Historical development of sport in Malaysia
Sports are a part of Malaysia’s traditional heritage, and there are a variety of
Malay and other indigenous pastime activities and traditional games. They are
interwoven with the local culture. According to Ungku Aziz (in Aman, 2005), ‘as
a community that developed in this country over so many years, the Malays lived
at sungai (the river), and they are sea men, river men and women. They don’t live
in the jungle. They can all swim . . .’
The Malay Annals in the fifteenth century reported sepak raga was played in
Malacca (Abdul Rahim Ahmad, 1987). Top spinning, kite flying, buffalo races
and traditional beauty contests are among other Malaysian indigenous pastime
activities; these are included in Sabah and Sarawak, during ‘harvest festival’.
Until the end of the nineteenth century, these activities, representing Malaysian
culture, were largely unstructured and spontaneous in their expression.
By the end of the nineteenth century, many sport and recreational activities had
become more structured under the influence of British colonial rule in Malaya
(Malaysia after 1963). In the 1880s, the British established sporting clubs in sev-
eral states in Malaya. Cricket, tennis and football (soccer) were among the ear-
liest sports introduced. An athletic tournament was held in Penang in 1887. In
1906, the First Malaya Athletic was held in Ipoh, Perak, and badminton became
popular in the 1930s. By the end of the 1940s, Malayan sports had become more
organised. Not only were sports clubs now increasingly common, but their organ-
isation into national bodies had begun. Malayan athletes began to participate in
international events. Malaya became a world champion in badminton, taking the
Thomas Cup in 1949, and also won its first gold medal, for weightlifting, in the
1950 Commonwealth Games (Khoo, 1996).
During the 1950s, many national sporting associations were formed in Malay-
sia in preparation for the 1956 Olympics. Most of the sports associations, for
example, the Malaya Swimming Association (1956) and the Malaya Weight Lift-
ing Association (1956), became affiliated to the Federation of Malaya Olympic
Council (FMOC). The FMOC was registered in 1953. Its main function was to
promote and encourage sporting activities, and it became the coordinating body
for the governing associations for the various sports in Malaysia. At this time,
however, government involvement in this sector was very rare and indirect.
After independence, the government supported the development of sport
because it believed that sport could integrate people and therefore fulfil national
objectives of promoting national unity, the well-being of the people, their sense
of nationhood, national identity and political stability (Aziz Deraman, 1984).
Although Tun Abdul Razak stated that the formation of the Olympic Council of
Malaysia (OCM) in 1963 was not designed to control and dominate any sports
organisation in Malaysia (Sieh, 1998), the government was in fact concerned to
see that sports development was tied to political changes and national objectives.
Malaysia’s most popular sports are uneven in their apparent capacity to bring
together the country’s different cultural communities. People of all ethnic back-
grounds enjoy soccer and badminton, each in its own way the national sport.
Most other leading sports, however, are identified in varying degrees with specific
groups: Malays dominate sepak takraw, Chinese are the most active in basketball
and table tennis, and field hockey is primarily an Indian game, but one which has
succeeded in attracting multi-ethnic support.
In 1986, the National Sport Council (NSC) and its affiliates successfully organ-
ised an interstate sports competition – the first Malaysian Games (SUKMA).
Before that, national sports championships were contested separately by
national associations (Douglas, 1989). In the games, some 4,000 male and
female athletes competed for 600 medals in 16 sports, including tennis, field
hockey, track and field, basketball, swimming, sepak takraw, volleyball and
netball. The Federal Territory won the gold medal tally; the states of Selan-
gor and Sarawak finished second and third, respectively. Rural states such as
Terengganu, Pahang, Negeri Sembilan, Kelantan and Perlis fared worst in the
competition. (This event will be biennial and hosted by each state in turn.)
This inter-state competition is deliberately ‘engineered’ to ensure that ethnic
group differences are minimised. Such events also provide opportunities for
that particular state to develop sport provision and facilities to a high, prefer-
ably international standard.
The national sports policy of Malaysia

Though Malaysia’s achievement in sport before the 1970s had been encouraging,
the 1980s saw a decline in international achievements, particularly in badminton.
Malaysia won the 1967 Thomas Cup but lost the title in 1970. Since then, Malaysia
has always been ‘behind’ China and Indonesia, as measured by success in major
sporting competitions relevant to these three countries. The Asian and Olympic
Games held during this period saw disappointing performances by Malaysian ath-
letes, and there was a great deal of concern in the mass media (Salman, 1997). A
complete overhaul of the sports system was demanded. The Ministry of Youth and
Sport put its efforts into running a National Sport Convention, 1986, to discuss
formulating a national sport policy.
The Malaysian Cabinet adopted the National Sports Policy in 1988. The
policy takes into account sports performances and achievements over the years
and provides guidelines and plans to ensure systematic growth through scien-
tific approaches, together with an effective administration. Sport for all and elite
sports performance received equal emphasis as the two prongs of the policy. The
policy is based on the Olympic ideal of participation in competitive sports by
high-performance athletes as well as by the general public (Ministry of Youth and
Sports, 1988). It proposes that the efforts of the government be directed toward
the entire population with the aim of developing a healthy, disciplined and united
society through greater participation and better opportunities in sports.
The Ministry of Youth and Sport carried out most of the sports activities on a
competitive basis, although the mass sport programme, Malaysia Cergas, which
was launched in 1982, was still in progress. To produce high-performance athletes
and promote mass sports among Malaysian youth, attention was paid to planning
and co-ordination, the training of professional and qualified personnel, the provi-
sion of incentives, adequate funding and providing proper facilities. In all this,
the Ministry of Youth and Sports and various sports bodies work in unison with
the federal and state government to implement the policy. Although the Olympic
Council of Malaysia, the Malaysian School Sports Council and National Sports
Institute have specific roles to play, the need for an overall co-ordinating machin-
ery in the form of a standing committee, to ensure greater rapport among these
organisations, has been met by a division of policy responsibilities between the

National Sports Council (high-performance sport) and the Sport Division, Minis-
try of Youth and Sports (for mass sport programmes).
Sport for All, based upon competitive mass sports, is not necessarily good for
all. Such a policy effectively ignores a large number of citizens, for the majority of
Malaysians do not choose to engage in leisure activities that are governed by rules
and schedules and that require special equipment, facilities or skills (Cousineau,
1995). In recognition of this situation and to correct it, the Ministry’s Sports Divi-
sion established the Malaysian Leisure and Recreation Council (MARFIMA) in
1992. The Council acts as an umbrella organisation in an advisory capacity to the
government on matters related to non-competitive sports. The Council is chaired
by a Ministry official and includes government officials from other ministries,
presidents of national nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), university repre-
sentatives and other individuals.
In line with National Sports Policy 1988, the Ministry of Youth and Sport and
the Sports Association in Malaysia continue to encourage participation and run-
ning sports events. Concurrent with preparation for the Commonwealth Games
which were scheduled in 1998, Malaysia hosted conferences, including the First
Asian Conference of the International Council for Health, Physical Education,
Recreation, Sport and Dance in 1994, first Asian Conference on Women and
Sports held in Kuala Lumpur in December 1994 and the International Confer-
ences for Sport for All in Langkawi, 1997. The Ministry of Youth and Sport saw
that there was a need to improve the way sports were being developed and admin-
istered in the country.
Prior to the 1998 Malaysian Commonwealth Games, the government empha-
sised elite sport in its promotion of sport facilities (e.g. National Sport Complex)
and activities (e.g. identification of potential athletes, selection of athletes, a more
vigorous training and testing programme). Priority was given to the development
of competitive sports, especially those that have been identified as having a good
chance of winning medals for Malaysia, such as badminton, bowling and boxing.
The National Sports Policy, 1988, undoubtedly helped raise the standard of sport
in Malaysia in domestic and international competitions and also furthered the
development of sport in the interests of nation building.
Sport policy and Islam in Malaysia

Islam influences sport in Malaysia in ways unfamiliar to most other countries
and their ‘secularised’ sporting provisions. Islamic communities have their own
religious rules, beliefs and traditions which impact upon sport. According to
Shaikh (in Aman, 2005),
There are three factors which determine whether sport participation should
be encouraged or not by both Muslim men and women. First, the concept
of ‘aurah’(Muslim dressed code) must be observed. Second, the ethics of
socialisation must be followed. Third, the responsibility as a Muslim must be
adhered to (e.g. prayer time). If all these factors could be taken care of, there
would not be any problem for Muslims being actively involved in sports.
Although Islam is an official national religion, Christianity, Hinduism, Bud-

dhism and Taoism are widely practised by various groups in Malaysia. As in the
West, many religious activities take the form of celebrations or festivals, and as
such, they provide not only spiritual benefits but also the enjoyment found in
many sport activities. Several religious events are occasions for socialising with
friends and relatives, indulging in good food, dressing up, viewing parades and
playing games. Malaysia is known for its many celebrations that are sponsored by
its various religious and ethnic groups (Cousineau, 1995).
Aman (2005) provided more information regarding sport-related activities:
[I]n city areas like Kuala Lumpur, people are happy to associate themselves
with sport and active lifestyles – ‘I’m sweating’, ‘I love jogging’, ‘I work in
the gym’ and ‘this is my new racket’. The University of Malaya, for example,
has gazetted that every Saturday morning is a ‘walking day’ for the universi-
ty’s staff. Similarly, after 5pm in the weekdays, I observed many individuals
and families involved in physical activities, occupying open spaces around
Kuala Lumpur such as at Perdana and Titiwangsa Lake Gardens. Malaysians
seek to associate themselves with communal activity, often centring on food
and eating, and they value religion.
The introduction of Western sports by the British colonists in Malaysia meant

that they brought with them their own set of cultural influences, too. Since sport is
generally based on Western interpretations, many regulations, such as dress codes,
do not acknowledge Islamic principles, and this may make it difficult for people,
especially for Muslim women, to participate (Salman, 1998). Certain contact sports
such as boxing and rugby were associated with aggression; swimming and gymnas-
tics with ‘indecent’ sporting attire; golf and cricket as time-consuming games which
could affect Muslim athletes’ ability to perform their daily prayer at set hours. There
is, then, a ‘tension’ for Muslims regarding involvement in sport activity in Malaysia.
Nevertheless, sports continue to develop in Malaysia and become infused with
Islamic as well as Eastern values. Shaikh (in Aman, 2005) explains,
[I]n Islam, we [Malaysians] should not specify that you cannot wear this
[referring to the dress code]. We cannot stop people from doing that. What
we should do is to provide an alternative, an example, or a practical way and
indirectly they will be followed. We should educate people and I mean this
to include non-Muslims. They will then realise the rationale behind it and
will start thinking about change. We don’t want to and cannot enforce ways
of dressing, as people have a right to wear what they like and in the way they
like. By providing an alternative they can change. Banning, for example is an
approach which is not good all the time.
Islam has a ‘liberal’ attitude in Malaysia, but it influences sport behaviour, roles
and policy in this country. At the level of government and policy, Islam is given
respect: prayer calls (azan) are broadcast five times a day on the national TV
channel; Muslim events are the basis of holidays, for example, Ramadan; prayer
rooms are provided in every public venue including sporting complexes, shop-
ping malls, hotels and so on. At the individual level, however, the practice is not
rigid. The individual is free to choose his or her own way of life, with due respect
to the public right. There are individual Muslims (e.g. Nor Saiful Zaini, Malay-
sian National Hockey Team captain, 1990–2000) who have obeyed Muslim dress
code while participating in international tournaments. There are also Muslims,
especially women, who participate in sport in isolation, with the family, for fun
and not for competition.
One must not deny that there are many Malaysian Muslims who ignore sport
because they interpret Islamic values and sports as antithetical. This position is
contested Ungku Aziz (in Aman, 2005):
Melayu duduk tepi sungai (Malay lives on the river bank). So, at one time all
Malaysians could swim. Now they can’t swim because of ‘Islamic concerns’!
[The dress-code – aurat – restricts swimming] This is wrong. Swimming is
good and one of the best exercises. So, although, we don’t ban swimming we
don’t encourage Malays to do it. I think there is a loss of water sport from
Malay society and it is now dominated by the Chinese. I don’t think Islam
helps here. I am not a sort of mad secularist but there are things I draw the
line at. I think it is a backward step, when you move from being a society that
could swim to a society where the majority cannot swim.
This statement indirectly explains how the teaching approach of Islam influ-
ences the way people understand and perceive sport. Although in principle Islam
encourages sport, in practice people see the ‘rules and ethics’ that determine par-
ticipation as constraints on their opportunities to participate. Under the Malay-
sian education system, Islamic values were emphasised more in the 1980s than
previously. The time allocations for the Islamic religious education of Muslim
students were increased to 13 percent of the total time for all subjects (Ministry of
Education, Malaysia, 1984). Concurrently, non-Muslim children take the ‘moral’
subject, which is compulsory. Both subjects basically stress ethical and moral
values. Changes in the school curriculum include practices in the schools’ physi-
cal education and sports. Muslim girls are encouraged to wear track bottoms with
a scarf covering their hair, and they have separate physical activities from boys.
Islam helps in completely eliminating racial pride, prejudices and ethnic supe-
riority. As former Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad stressed (New Straits
Time, 2002); ‘racial harmony is achieved in Malaysia because of Islam and
because the majority of the people here are Muslims’. This statement is perhaps
true to the extent that since 1970, the interracial cooperation party (Barisan Nasi-
onal), which is led by a Muslim politician, has been successful in sustaining polit-
ical stability and maintaining racial harmony. The government ensured people
abide by Rukunegara (Malaysian ideology), which is philosophically based upon

the pillars of Islam.
In places and on occasions where the ratio of Muslims to non-Muslims is high,
Islamic influences can be readily observed in sport practices, including use of the
Islamic dress-code, inclusion of prayer times in the program schedule and serving
of halal food as well as availability of prayer facilities or rooms at the venues con-
cerned. Many of these observations do not hold in situations where non-Muslims
prevail, but even here, official night-time sporting events usually start after the
Isyak prayer call (about 8.45 p.m. Malaysian time), and any activity pauses for a
while when the participants hear ‘azan’ (the call for prayer from the mosque, espe-
cially in Maghrib – the period of dusk). Malaysia requires such observances on
the grounds that they are ethical actions intended to respect Islam and the Muslim.
Recently, on 7 December 2014, the official playing time of Suzuki’s semi-
final football tournament between Malaysia and Vietnam was moved earlier to
8 p.m. from 8.45pm (after Isyak) to accommodate the need of international’s TV
and broadcasting. This shows that sport policy in Malaysia is rather flexible and
can be mediated by the globalisation. Although the way Islam is interpreted in
Malaysia is more ‘liberal’ and accepting of some globalisation values, such as the
Olympic movement, Islamic values do ‘filter’ and ‘reject’ what are seen to be the
‘negative’ effects of globalisation. To some extent, the influence of Islam in sport
roles and policy in Malaysia mediates globalisation processes, although there is
no necessary contradiction between the two.
The ultimate desire of all public policy in Malaysia, including sport policy,
is achieving national unity. This desire is based on Islamic values and Eastern
tradition. Malaysian Eastern traditions view a person as a member of a family,
dependent on others and, as a result deriving his or her identity as a member of
a close-knit group. Group or communal feelings supersede the incentive to excel
over and above others. The basis of establishing contacts with other people is
initially to cultivate good and friendly relationships. These values are translating
directly and indirectly into sport policy and practices. In the meantime, Malaysia
has embraced many aspects of the global sport culture, and its interpretation of
Islam is moderate and pragmatic, more geared to providing a values base for pro-
moting ethnic harmony and nation building.
Nation building is equated with achieving ethnic harmony, the well-being of
the people and political stability. The aim is to achieve the status of a developed
nation by 2020. The role of Islam, the promotion of Islamic values and the formu-
lation of government policy in keeping with these values are central to Malaysian
nation building. Malaysian policy statements are able to be much clearer about the
‘directive’ intent of government, which is to produce a healthy, united and disci-
plined society through greater participation and better opportunities in sport. Wira
(hero) status is no longer conferred on the basis of one’s efforts in fighting against
the colonial power but is measured by one’s achievement in raising the country’s
profile worldwide, whether this is in business, politics or sport. All aspects of
local authority development in Malaysia, including sport sectors, are framed by
‘overriding’ national objectives concerned with ‘nationhood’. ‘Vision 2020’ is but
a recent manifestation of a long practice in this regard.
Conclusion
We can draw a number of conclusions from an examination of the sport policy
and Islam in Malaysia. It involved fitness but did not directly involve leisure and
recreation. Second, the government’s involvement via sport policy in admin-
istering and funding sports development, both ‘sport for all’ and ‘elite sport’,
has increased significantly over time. While the policy is clear, its implemen-
tation suffers from a number of difficulties. Political leaders dominate policy
formulation, and the approach to sports policy in Malaysia is top down. Third,
the Malaysian government has a large influence on sport organisations, but in
a much more direct way. Sport policy is not administered at arm’s length via a
Quango. Fourth, Malaysia, from the time of Independence, has always been far
more pro-active in using sport policy to promote the values of Islam through
nationhood goals, notably the pursuit of harmonious multiculturalism. Fifth,
undoubtedly, Islam has been respected in the sport policy in Malaysia; however,
due to the globalisation influences and considering different perspectives from
non-Muslims, modifications and adjustments ought to be made in the implemen-
tation of the sport policy.
References
Abdul Rahim Ahmad. (1987). The role of government in development of sports and recre-
ation in Malaysia. In the Proceeding of the 1987 Convention of the Physical Education
Association of Malaysia: UPM.
Aman, Mohd Salleh. (2005). Leisure policy in New Zealand and Malaysia: A comparative
study of developments in sport and physical recreation. PhD Thesis. Lincoln University,
New Zealand.
Aziz Deraman. (1984). The development of culture, communication and education in
Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur: Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports, Malaysia.
Cousineau, C. (1995). Leisure and recreation in Malaysia: An interpretative overview.
World Leisure and Recreation, 37(4), 5–22.
Cubitt, G. & Moore, W. (1995). This is MALAYSIA. London: New Holland (Publishers) Ltd.
Douglas, S. A. (1989). Sport in Malaysia. In E. A. Wagner (eds.). Sport in Asia and Africa:
A comparative handbook (pp. 165–182). London: Greenwood Press.
Haywood, L., Kew, F., & Bramham, P. (1991). Understanding leisure. Cheltenham: Stan-
ley Thornes Ltd.
Kelly, J. R. (1990). Leisure (2nd Ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Kelly, J. R. (1996). Leisure (3rd. ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Khoo Kay Kim. (1996). The historical developments of sports in Malaysia. (Occasional
paper). Kuala Lumpur: History Department, University of Malaya.
Malaysia Official Yearbook. (1997). Information Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur: Berita Publication.
Ministry of Education, Malaysia. (1984). Laporan Jawatankuasa Kabinet: Mengkaji per-
laksanaan Dasar Pelajaran Kebangsaan 1979. Kuala Lumpur: Ministry of Education.
Ministry of Youth and Sports, Malaysia. (1988). National Sports Policy. Kuala Lumpur:
Ministry of Youth and Sports Malaysia.
New Strait Times [Dr Mahathir Mohamad]. (2002, April 12). Islam reason for peace in
Malaysia, p. 10
Salman, N. W. (1997). Sport in Malaysia: Opportunities and barriers for women. Unpub-
lished Master’s Thesis. Leeds Metropolitan University: Leeds.
Salman, N. W. (1998). Women and sport in Malaysia: Islamic perspective. In Abdullah M.
Syafiq et al. (Eds.), Proceeding of the 11th Commonwealth & International Scientific
Congress (pp. 123–131). University of Malaya, September 1998. Kuala Lumpur.
Sieh, Kok Chi. (1998). History of the Olympic Council of Malaysia 1953–1998. Kuala
Lumpur?: Olympic Council of Malaysia.
Ushama, Thameem & Moten, Abdul Rashid. (2006) Views about Islam and Muslims in
Malaysia: An empirical study. Image of Islam-Intellectual Discourse, 14(2), 203–215.
Wong, Lai Ping. (1994). Defining leisure and recreation in Malaysia. PhD thesis. Oregon
State University. UMI Dissertation Services: A Bell & Howell Company.
14 Diplomacy and the beautiful game
Muslim footballers as ambassadors
of faith
Omar Salha
Across regions where the luxury of sport is eclipsed by the struggle of everyday
life, including revolutions, wars, poverty, unemployment, injustice and occupa-
tion, sport can still play an influential role for positive change. The ability to tran-
scend cultural, religious and political borders, fostering a culture of friendship and
mutual respect whilst combating stereotypes, are some of the key features we often
associate with sport. In the last three decades, discrimination against Muslims in
Europe has become more explicit, detrimental and damaging. The mass media
obsession with Islam is prevalent in all sections of our society, albeit dominated by
a type of thinking we still call today Orientalist. The frequent exclusion of Muslims
from economic, social and public life in Europe and their victimisation by discrim-
ination and harassment have never been greater (Amnesty International, 2012).
As issues pertaining to cross-cultural and interfaith dialogue are of paramount
importance in today’s world, Muslim elite sportspeople practicing ‘soft power’ as
a tool of attraction with respect to their Islamic faith is an unexplored occurrence.
This chapter will explore and analyse these practices by Muslim football players
acting as ambassadors of faith. The first segment of the chapter will look at the
globalisation of sport as an influential contributor to global popular culture in our
time. Subsequently, there will be a focus on the practice of diplomacy in light of
technological advancement and public perception. The third and final part will
look at empirical case studies of Muslim football players practicing soft power in
the Premier League and introduce a new theory of Islamic diplomacy respectively.
The power of sport

Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire, it has the
power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language
they understand. Sport can create hope, where once there was only despair. It is
more powerful than governments in breaking down racial barriers. It laughs in the
face of all types of discrimination.
(Nelson Mandela, Inaugural Laureus Lifetime
Achievement Award, Monaco, 2000)1
As the local rapidly transforms into the global, the universal application of
benevolent goals underpinned by organisations such as the United Nations does
206 Omar Salha
not only lie in the hands of nation states but also other various forums propa-
gating worldwide integration. The international community has endorsed this
phenomenon in a matter reflected through the International Year of Sport and
Physical Education, with 125 UN member states involved: 20 international and
more than 18 regional conferences organised connecting the role of sport with
the issues of development, health, culture, environment, peace, gender and edu-
cation (IYSPE, 2005).2 Elsewhere, there are more countries recognised by the
Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) and the International

Olympic Committee (IOC) than those in the United Nations (Political Geog-
raphy Now, 2011)3. The English Premier League is the most-watched league
in the world, attracting more than 4 billion viewers (Premier League, 2014)4.
The FIFA World Cup Finals attract the most sought after multi-billion-pound
contracts with corporations like Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Sony as previ-
ous sponsors and partners. A few other examples in which corporations have
invested greatly in sport can be seen in the National Basketball Association
(NBA) with Adidas sponsoring all 30 NBA jerseys in the Western and Eastern
Conferences. Additionally, the English Premier League (EPL) is known as the
Barclays Premier League and the Indian Premier League (IPL) has also had its
name branded as the Pepsi Indian Premier League. These leagues attract the
best available players worldwide to play for teams in their respective leagues,
thus making the sporting industry one of the richest in the globe. Since sport
has become a multi-billion-pound industry consumed by large corporations and
multi-national organisations, it continues to be tasked with curing and alleviat-
ing the very social problems it is part of.
Today sport is an essential part and process of globalisation (Holt & Cro-
nin, 2003), because it is constituted by and constitutive of many dimensions in
our society, yet the historical realities and nature of sport are often overlooked.
Stretching as far back as the ancient Olympics and Roman gladiatorial games,
sport for centuries has been a popular form of leisure, with athletes and gladi-
ators participating in various competitions as well as bloody combat compris-
ing warfare-like skills. Athletes, including gladiators, were awarded positions of
legendary status and respect for their championship and victory; others were left
to feel humiliated or face death. It is important to note here that as much as sport
unites, it also divides. We see the same culture of conflict in sport is evident in
the 21st century, admittedly not as graphic as the Roman Empire. Nevertheless
references made to competition and victory through marketing and advertising
continue. One need only pay attention to the language used in the Adidas advert
for the 2014 FIFA World Cup Final (held in Rio De Janeiro on the 13 of July
between Argentina and Germany): ‘One billion eyes watching, the mother of all
cups. Two teams. One trophy. Give everything, regret nothing. Find something to
die for, and live for it. Hunt. Or be hunted. Grab your fourth star or be the greatest
of all time. Go down in history, or go home. They will scream your name, one
way. Or another. Rule. Or be ruled. This is your day, the nation is with you. Ahead
kings will bow. Forever or never. Who wants it more?’ (The Final, FIFA World
Cup Adidas, 2014)5.
Muslim footballers as ambassadors 207
We also see that the world of sport certainly does not escape the very social
problems it is used to tackle (poverty, education, health). Often drug misuse, rac-
ism, xenophobia, violence from fans and hooliganism are reinforced and ongoing
in the world of sport. It is evident that the subject at hand has not entirely divorced
itself from scepticism and cautious analysis concerning the impacts discussed.
Therefore, we must not disregard the realities of sport in the face of social prob-
lems as a cure, as the UN uses it to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
The same can be said about the number of cases of discrimination and hostility
towards Muslim players and fans in football. We will come to discuss later in this
chapter the efforts of some football players to tackle Islamophobia and allevi-
ate misconceptions and prejudices that may exist among fans, players, staff and
management.
It is important to note at this stage of introduction that although sport does not
offer a comprehensive solution for social problems, the space it occupies shares a
common language that is recognised, practiced and understood across the globe,
as emphasised in the quote by Mandela. Not only sporting events or competitions
but also players and athletes have the strong ability to represent their governments
and people to global audiences. With that in mind, it will be argued in this chapter
that Muslim football players who view themselves as ambassadors of their faith
aim to raise awareness and present the principles, values and culture of Islam
through the practice of symbolic expressions and actions in sport.
Winning the heart and minds in a new age of diplomacy

Winning the hearts and minds, along with combating extremism and stereotypes
(and the ignorance that breeds them), educating public, creating understanding and
inspiring trust, has become far more than a mere cliché, embedded as it is now in
the policies of nations and groups, great and small.
(Riad Nourallah, 2006)
Sportsmen and -women, celebrities, artists, general practitioners, teachers, stu-

dents and professionals can nowadays practice diplomacy. The term ‘diplomat’
is no longer held accountable to traditional agencies like government embassies,
cultural attachés and formal communiqués between heads of states, rather, the
modern day diplomat is above all a model citizen capable of playing the role of a
communicator and mediator. There are an increasing number of innovated forms
of diplomatic practices today. It seems the word ‘diplomacy’ can be used in any
context whilst maintaining the purpose to win the hearts and minds of people. In
order to conceive the advancement and practice of diplomacy today, we must be
familiar with three important traditional categories of diplomatic practice.
More recently, scholars have delineated various levels of diplomacy, and we
will come to explore later in this chapter the Islamic stance on diplomacy. Track I
diplomacy is a ‘technique of state action, [which] is essentially a process whereby
communications from one government go directly to the decision-making appa-
ratus of another’ (Said, 1995, p. 69). Typically this track of diplomacy involves
208 Omar Salha
official state representatives, foreign affairs officials and heads of state. Track II
diplomacy can be defined as ‘unofficial, informal interaction between members
of adversarial groups or nations with the goals of developing strategies, influenc-
ing public opinions and organizing human and material resources’ (Montville,
1991, p. 262). This track of diplomacy aims to influence foreign public percep-
tion of the state outside official government channels. Examples of this may
include sport, arts, music, student exchange programmes, food and culture. Track
III diplomacy, otherwise known as ‘people-to-people diplomacy’, is the involve-

ment of ‘unofficial third parties working with people from all walks of life and
sectors of their society to find ways to promote peace in settings of violent con-
flict’ (Chigas, 2003). This track of diplomacy is aimed at connecting and forming
relationships among people in communities, exercised at a grassroots level, as
opposed to enhancing the public image of a state. It is important to note that the
three tracks of diplomacy can be used intermittently and simultaneously; hence
the term ‘multi-track diplomacy’. As defined by Gareth Evans, the development
of diplomacy has encompassed the ‘exercise in persuasion and influence that
extends beyond traditional diplomacy by leveraging a much larger cast of play-
ers both inside and outside government’ (Evans & Grant, 1995, p. 66). Of these
players outside of government (non-state actors), sports players will be our focus
in this chapter. The terms ‘ambassador’ and ‘diplomat’ are employed to ‘officially
represent the interests of a state abroad’ and ‘managing negotiations with the host
country building mutual understanding whilst presenting the policies, values and
culture of the state’ (United States Diplomacy Center, 2014).6 The same terms
might be expressed outside the realms of traditional state-centred diplomacy in
the capacity of ‘goodwill ambassadors’, such as David Beckham for UNICEF,
Cristiano Ronaldo for Save the Children or Gary Lineker for Sport Relief. It is
evident that new actors are reconceptualising the art of persuasion and negotiation
covering a wide range of disciplines and channels, including the Internet.
Diplomacy in a digital world

The rapid growth of technology and television coverage allows fans the chance to
watch live games and sporting spectacles at home in addition to following their
favourite athletes on social media via Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Digital
diplomacy, otherwise known as ‘e-diplomacy’, has introduced a new phenomenon
surrounding ‘netizens’, a portmanteau of the words ‘citizen’ and ‘Internet’. These
‘netizens’ are able to communicate and participate through social media sites via
Twitter, Instagram and Facebook as individuals from the broadest spectrum of
parties with the diplomatic community (Track II). For example, a sport celeb-
rity like Cristiano Ronaldo speaks to a much broader audience, evidenced by the
number of followers he has on Twitter (more than 30 million). Although he plays
for Real Madrid FC and his native Portugal, the World Player of the Year 2013
and 2014 tweets about a much broader array of subject matters including football
news, current affairs, family and personal life. In summary, as sports figures gain
popularity and celebrity status, we may also see an increase in non-sport-related
tweets that tell us about various aspects of their ordinary lives, thus incorporating
a stronger affective relation between sport figures and their respective fans. Twit-
ter and Instagram, among other social media avenues, enhance the access of fans
to athletes. Given the increasing number of athletes, organisations, civil servants
and political figureheads on Twitter, the impact and use of technology will con-
tinue to expand with unprecedented access to their respective followers and fans.
Therefore, the innovation of technology also makes international sport an
important tool for public diplomacy. When governments use international sport
as a tool of public diplomacy (Track II), it involves ‘hoking’ – which sees pub-
lic diplomacy ‘as a form of soft power, the power to attract’ (Pigman, 2013).
It also entails a government seeking ways to have the public’s support for its
relationships and diplomatic engagements. In recent times, international sport-
ing events have been seen by governments as an opportunity to showcase their
countries, especially their tourism industries. With global media coverage, these
tasks are made much easier. We come to learn that international sport can affect
a nation’s public diplomacy through the success/failure of a country’s domestic
sporting league. On one hand, host governments reap the benefits and successes
of these leagues (such as the English Premier League and the National Basketball
Association), and on the other hand, scandals – like those in the Italian football
leagues in 2006 and 2011 – may paint a bigger picture by linking them with Italy’s
difficulties in dealing with corruption. Moreover, a serious issue in a country,
such as the 2011 protests in Bahrain, forced the management of Formula One to
cancel the Grand Prix because of heightened security risks. Consequently, this
portrayed Bahrain in a negative light in its public diplomacy efforts. Therefore the
significance and continuous relevance of public diplomacy as part of a nation’s
foreign policy domain is growing in importance and increasing in large sporting
events globally, as Nourallah alluded to in the quote (‘. . . now in the policies of
nations and groups, great and small’). Also important to note is that not only do
states use sporting mega-events to show the world their cities, people and cultures
but athletes themselves can also use sporting events, leagues and competitions
to increase their media visibility and promote their cause through ‘affective rela-
tions’ with fans. Let us look at some of these examples in which Muslim football
players have exercised their social capital as an opportunity to attract public atten-
tion surrounding their faith.
Ambassadors of faith
Maybe the increasing presence of Muslim players in our national sport will help
reduce the fear, uncertainty and prejudice that sometimes appears to follow Islam.
That can only be a good thing. Perhaps the increasing presence of black players
over the last few decades has helped to reduce racial intolerance outside football.
(Digital Spy, 2013)7
The ability and potential to utilise the attraction of sport to promote international
understanding and friendship, as well as dispel stereotypes and prejudices through
210 Omar Salha
symbolism, is a significant phenomenon practiced by Muslim footballers in recent
times, as suggested by the football fan from the quote. Elsewhere, we find similar
representations made in reference to football’s interconnectedness with Muslim
immigrants by Awad in Italy (Chapter 10 of this book). To further explore these
occurrences, two key conceptual frameworks will be addressed in this chapter,
Joseph Nye’s theory of ‘soft power’ and Pierre Bourdieu’s work on ‘symbolic
power’. As we come to understand Nye’s use of ‘soft power’, we learn that ‘if I am
persuaded to go along with your purposes without any explicit threat to exchange
taking place, in short, if my behaviours are determined by observable but intangible
attraction – soft power is at work’ (Nye, 2004b, p. 2). For example, the reactions of
Yahya Toure (Ivorian international and Manchester City FC) and Demba Ba (Sen-
egalese international and ex-Chelsea FC) as they were presented with champagne,
respectively, a symbolic gesture for the ‘Man of the Match’ award, ensued into an
embarrassing and damaging faux-pas for Sky Sports and the Premier League. The
consumption of alcohol is forbidden in Islam; hence as the bottle of champagne
was presented to Toure, his reply on live television in front of millions of fans was,
‘I don’t drink because I am Muslim, so you keep it’ (Gallagher, 2012).8
Likewise, Demba Ba, playing for his previous club, Newcastle United FC,
refused to accept the champagne and instead offered it to his non-Muslim team-
mate. Subsequent to these symbolic gestures, a change of action from the Football
Association resulted in modifying one of the oldest traditions of English football:
the champagne prize was permanently replaced with the current ‘Barclays Man of
the Match’ trophy and the following comments from a Premier League spokesper-
son were made: ‘We have players from all over the world and are watched all over
the world. This is a sensible move and we support it’ (Sridharan, 2012)9. These
occurrences are the acknowledgement of the ‘other’ and ultimately the acceptance
and recognition of Muslim athletes in sport. It is also important to note here the
motives of the Premier League behind such decision in upholding and preserving
its commercial interest and branding which attracts billions of viewers from dif-
ferent faiths, cultures and beliefs outside the UK and Europe.
Elsewhere in the English Premier League, there have been an increasing num-
ber of symbolic gestures made with reference to the Islamic faith in recent years.
Undoubtedly one of the key factors of this has been due to the increase of Muslim
football players in the league. A variety of case studies include the use of words,
actions or acts of resistance, as we will come to explore. On 19 August 2012, dur-
ing the Islamic celebration of Eid-ul Fitr, Manchester City defeated Southampton
3–2 at the Etihad Stadium. One of the goal scorers, Samir Nasri (French Interna-
tional and Manchester City FC), celebrated by lifting his shirt to show the mes-
sage ‘Eid Mubarak’ (translated as ‘Blessed Eid’), a traditional Muslim greeting
exchanged during the Eid ul-Fitr and Eid ul-Adha celebrations.
One of the most frequent Islamic expressions seen is the symbolic prostration
to the ground made after a goal is scored, most notably orchestrated by Demba Ba.
Major world religions practice prostration as an act of submissiveness to God, and
this is familiar in the teachings of Islam during prayer. The ‘sajdah’ or ‘sujood’
(prostration) is used to humble oneself before God and is a symbol of gratitude.
The popularity of this global symbolic gesture is exemplified by ‘children playing
football in the parks of Newcastle . . . spotted falling to their knees as if in prayer
themselves after scoring a goal’ (Cowling, 2013).10 This is a sign that Muslim
practices are becoming more familiar in the UK, even if the audience or those imi-
tating do not understand the reason behind such actions. We also find this practice
being celebrated in the globally popular FIFA video game when players score a
goal (Abdul-Nasir, 2015).11 Elsewhere we see similar examples and cases of the
‘sajdah’ presented abroad in both Muslim and non-Muslim majority countries and
shared widely on social media sites.
Arguably one of the most noteworthy symbolic actions made by Muslim foot-
ball players in the Premier League is fasting during the holy month of Ramadan.
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar and a time when Muslims
fast from dawn to dusk. Muslims believe the Holy Qur’an was first revealed to
the Prophet Mohammad during this month. Ramadan is one of the five pillars of
Islam. Muslim football players who wish to perform the fast during Ramadan face
many challenges with their respective clubs and employers. Players insist on fast-
ing despite the pressures and expectations of performing at optimal level without
any food and water. As Arsenal FC midfielder Abou Diaby says, ‘Arsenal would
prefer me to not fast, but they understand this is a special moment for me and they
try to accommodate things to make me better’ (Cowling, 2013).12
More so, Frederic Kanoute (retired professional football player) shares his
experience when questioned about the reasoning behind fasting from teammates
and staff as an opportunity to engage and raise awareness about Islam which is
subjected to prejudice and misrepresentation.
They’re quite curious, yes. They wonder why I don’t eat and ask all these
questions, but you have to answer them. It’s good also because it’s witnessing
the religion and we can talk about that. They see me praying in the dressing
room, I don’t think of how people look at me, I’m just natural and it’s my
way. Islam has helped me to be this way, so this is normal. It’s a path you
take to keep you calm, to help you think about the place you live in, to love
your neighbour. It’s strange when I hear about all these problems of terrorism
because it’s the opposite of what I understood for Islam.
(Din, 2011)13
We also see outside of football other examples of flying the ambassadorial flag
of Islam and inter-faith dialogue in English Cricketer Moeen Ali (interviewed by
Mehdi Hasan).
Ali sees his beard, which he first grew at the age of 18, as an “identity thing”.
Is he then, in his own way, trying to rebrand the big Muslim beard? Perhaps,
as the beard that should not be feared? “Yeah, definitely. That’s whole beauty
of it. If I can play, and change the mind of one person about being a Muslim
player and having a beard, then I’ll feel as if I’ve done my job”.
(Hasan, 2014)14
212 Omar Salha
Although the general attitude towards Muslim football players and athletes by
teammates and fans is non-violent, we must not neglect cases of discrimination
and xenophobia, which are reinforced in sport.
Sport continues to invoke racial and ethnic differences while also in some ways
trying to erase them. This leads to reinforcement of group boundaries outside
sport with negative implications for community engagement and settlement. As
Hutchins argues, ‘any attempt to use sport to promote community engagement
and settlement must be informed by a critical awareness of its strengths and lim-
itations as a social practice and cultural form’ (Hutchins, 2007, pp. 170–181).
Sporting encounters can provoke hostility and confrontation between oppos-
ing sides. In doing so, group boundaries and inter-group tensions are reinforced
instead of breaking them down. For example, despite the increase of Muslim foot-
ball players in the Premier League, incidents of Islamophobia are evident. The
case between Middlesbrough FC versus Newcastle United FC on 26 August 2007
found that Islamophobic values were ‘heavily embedded’ in football, and with-
out extensive intervention programmes there is a risk that the football world will
continue to absorb such values (Millward, 2008). The game finished in an enter-
taining draw. However, the event was particularly noteworthy because a number
of Newcastle United fans had repeatedly aimed chants of Islamophobic nature
at Middlesbrough’s Egyptian striker, Ahmed Hossam ‘Mido’, shouting: ‘Mido,
he’s got a bomb you know’ (Stewart, 2007).15 Mido was subjected to abuse in the
same corresponding fixture on the 29 November 2008 and in addition to playing
for Tottenham FC earlier in his career when West Ham United fans chanted, ‘Your
mum’s a terrorist’, and, ‘Shoe, shoe, shoe bomber’ (Jacob, 2005).16 Elsewhere
on 7 December 2013, Middlesbrough FC were involved in another Islamopho-
bic incident, only this time their fans were responsible for ripping pages of the
Holy Qur’an at an away game against Birmingham FC. From these examples, we
come to understand that opportunistic presentation of racism conveys the rival-
ries between fans as dualistic struggles. In other words, fans from a particular
club (i.e. Newcastle, Middlesbrough and West Ham) are not inherently racist but
engage in racist acts solely to subjugate their rivals.
Football fans will try and find ‘some externally identifiable characteristic’ of
their rivals and seek to berate them for this (King, 2003). Such anti-racist disposi-
tions are opportunistic ways of attacking rival fan groups.
There is no such thing as friendly banter, it’s abuse and this action plan is a
long time coming. There needs to be a more effective mechanism when deal-
ing with anti-Semitism and Islamophobia and we want strict liability, with
clubs being held responsible for the actions of supporters.
(Faith Summit findings, 2008)17
Nonetheless, an interesting finding revealed that football fans did not want
‘unfriendly banter’ eliminated from the game, although such behaviours could
further pronounce football grounds and training pitches as non-Muslim spaces
(King, 2003). Football is the manifestation of societal values and, at least by
origin, Islamophobia is probably not football’s problem, even though it is some-
times used in an unsavoury way to attack supporters. However, as underlined in
this section, a small group of Muslim players, enacting the role of ambassadors
of faith, could play a modest role in the success of meaningful anti-racist strate-
gies, using sport as a site of struggle. The Football Association has acknowledged
this need as it seeks ‘to create role models of Muslims involved in football’ and
in order to do this, ‘a champion of Muslim involvement in the game needs to be
appointed and resourced’ (FA Taskforce on Tackling anti-Semitism and Islamo-

phobia, 2010).18
Islam, diplomacy and sport: ‘Islamic swaggering’

The term ‘Islamic diplomacy’ emerged with the creation of the Organisation of
Islamic Cooperation (OIC) with little difference ‘from other types of diplomacy,
in terms of rules, principles, foundations and general framework’ (Altwaijri,
2009, p. 15). In light of this, my definition of Islamic diplomacy can be speci-
fied as the practice of inviting, demonstrating and presenting the values, ethics
and principles of Islam through a diplomatic agenda (exercised by state and non-
state actors). Muslims, in their early history and under the leadership of Prophet
Mohammad, propagated diplomatic relations ‘to obviate conflict, aid conquest,
negotiate settlements, release prisoners, obtain alliances and sustain livelihood
and trade, among other worldly concerns’ (Nourallah, 2006, p. 47). Besides the
overall goal of winning the hearts and minds of people, the Prophet’s diplomacy
is centralised on moral ethics and values, a feature of diplomacy discussed earlier
which can be practiced by ordinary citizens and, conveniently for this chapter, by
Muslim sportspeople.
We see many examples of soft power performed by Muslim athletes today,
or what I would like to define as ‘Islamic swaggering’, borrowing Robert Art’s
and Kevin Freeman’s theory of ‘swaggering’ and ‘sport swaggering’, respec-
tively. Art addresses the effectiveness of military power through four key factors:
‘defence, deterrence, compellence and swaggering’ (Art, 1980, pp. 4–11). All are
inclined to exercise the use of force except that of swaggering, ‘the deployment
of military power for reasons other than the three aforementioned ones’ (Art,
1980, pp. 1–4). According to Art’s concept of swaggering, it can be best put
into practice through the showcasing of military arsenal at a national-day parade
or through the trading and strengthening of military equipment and technology.
Effectively, what is hoped to achieve through this process is an enhanced sense
of national pride and reputation among other state actors in international rela-
tions (Nye, 2004a). Freeman makes a case for applying the term in the paradigm
of sport. Freeman argues the because Art’s original definition of swaggering
‘remains both pervasive in international relations and elusive to describe’ (Art,
1980, p. 11) and the expected outcomes of prestige and recognition are intact,
this can be transferred outside the realm of military force (Freeman, 2012). As a
result, Freeman engineered the evolution of Art’s theory from military swagger
to swaggering in sport.
214 Omar Salha
Sport swaggering, as defined by Freeman, is ‘displaying a country’s athletic
prowess at international sport events’ or ‘buying and building modern state-of-
the-art sporting facilities and the infrastructure to support them’ (Freeman, 2012,
p. 1263). The definition upholds the criteria used for Art’s original definition of
swaggering and focuses primarily on the international reputation of the state and
national pride, yet through the means of sport culture. Freeman highlights three
key examples in which sport swaggering is practiced: (1) the national pride of a
state at international sporting events (such as the Olympics, FIFA World Cup),
(2) the competition and prestige in hosting these mega-sporting events (South
Africa 2010, London 2012, Sochi 2014, Brazil 2014), and (3) the role of non-state
actors in utilising sporting events, leagues and the media to bring to light their
cause or to send a message, be it political, social or economic (Freeman, 2012). An
illustrative example is the fashioning and branding of the Premier League today:
When you watch a Premier League game and the commentator says ‘here at
the Etihad’ or ‘their third successive win at the Emirates’ naming stadiums
and shirt sponsorship has become enormously effective. Brands are being
seen around the world in newspapers and on TV, day in, day out. The core
of these strategies is about investing to put these states on the map, getting
talked about and discussed.
(Smith, 2014)19
Drawing a parallel, the same can be said about professional Muslim football
players who are employed by clubs in the Premier League. As millions, if not, bil-
lions of viewers witnessing Islamic expressions – like prostrating to the ground,
or reading a prayer on the pitch – can be a key strategy by players to put Islam
on the map. Bringing to light their belief and values and getting talked about and
discussed among fans, commentators and TV pundits is an example of the power
of attraction and practice of soft power.
For the purpose of analysing the methods used by Muslim athletes to win the
hearts and minds of fans and the general public, Bourdieu’s notion of symbolic
power is principally useful in this context.
Symbolic power has to be based on the possession of social capital. The

power to impose upon other minds a vision, old or new, of social divisions
depends on the social authority acquired in previous struggles. Symbolic cap-
ital is a credit; it is the power granted to those who have obtained sufficient
recognition to be in a position to impose recognition.
(Bourdieu, 1989, p. 23)
For Bourdieu, the notion of symbolic power (like soft power) was formed to
obtain recognition through the tools of communication, only without necessarily
the use of words. By broadening the definition of an act of power, the concept
of symbolic power can be used as a vehicle to explore a number of important
enquiries, which have been discussed in this chapter with reference to Islamic
expressions and actions in sport.
The practice of sport swaggering by Muslim football players as ambassadors
of Islam is to inform and create a favourable image among the audience and gen-
eral public and shape their perceptions through religious expressions (symbolic
power: prostrating, raising hands in prayer). In accordance with Art’s and Free-
man’s criteria, their aim is to attain a level of prestige and recognition, however,
based on the pride in their faith rather than nation. Therefore, this form of diplo-
macy is faith based and, I would argue, a development from Freeman’s theory
of sports swaggering to Islamic swaggering. It is important to note that sporting

events and celebrated victories are by their very nature short-lived events and
almost always with ample temporal spaces between them. In addition to this, the
integrative and linking functions of sporting events at the international level are
reliant on success. In between moments of victory, symbolism is likely to disap-
pear if no real changes in society are apparent. Symbolism, after all, does not
denote true change. The reliance on victory also implies that symbolism is an
instrument that can only be selectively used, meaning its effectiveness and influ-
ence is determined by winning, that is scoring a goal, being presented with the
Man of the Match award or in moments of glory as highlighted in the examples
of Ba, Toure and Nasri. Elsewhere, it is important to note within this context,
the perception of players and agents involved has greater weighting in how they
are perceived by the media, general public and audience as opposed to how they
perceive themselves. Like Ba, Toure, Nasri, Kanoute, Abou Diaby, Moeen Ali
and other prominent Muslim public figures, enacting the role of an ambassador
extends from the public eye to private life. Therefore, players looked up to as
role models or ambassadors of their faith are followed both on and off the field –
making their every move scrutinised.
The increasing pattern of professional Muslim football players in the Premier
League expressing their belief and faith in stadiums, which is caught on camera
and instantaneously beamed through international media stations to millions of
fans across the globe, including post-match interviews and social media sites, is a
key formula of exchange and practice of soft power. If we come to understand that
the theory of soft power is the attraction, exchange and influence of perception
without coercive action and that public diplomacy is the practice, then sport – and
in particular Muslim footballers practicing ‘Islamic swaggering’ – is the tech-
nique used to achieve this. Using this three-tier mechanism (theory, practice and
technique), we are ultimately filling a major gap in the literature that does not
account for the wide array of soft-power techniques (such as art, music and cul-
ture) and in particular their application in the overlapping realm of sport, religion
and diplomacy. To conclude, it is such newly adopted approaches that are impera-
tive for a deeper and more interactive perception of Muslim football players and
athletes in their own form of ‘diplomatic strife’.
Notes
1 Cf. Nelson Mandela, Inaugural Laureus Lifetime Achievement Award, Monaco, 2000
http://db.nelsonmandela.org/speeches/pub_view.asp?pg=item&ItemID=NMS1148
(16 September 2014).
216 Omar Salha
2 Cf. International Year of Sport and Physical Education, 2005 www.un.org/sport2005/a_
year/fact_sheet.pdf (17 September 2014).
3 Cf. Political Geography Now, 2011 www.polgeonow.com/2011/04/how-many-coun
tries-are-there-in-world.html (4 October 2014).
4 Cf. Premier League 2014 www.premierleague.com/en-gb/about/the-worlds-most-
watched-league.html (28 September 2014).
5 Cf. Adidas ‘The Final’, FIFA World Cup, 2014 www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnL_
8H22NuA (28 September 2014).
6 Cf. United States Diplomacy Center, 2014 http://diplomacy.state.gov/discoverdiplo
macy/diplomacy101/people/170341.htm (23 September 2014).

7 Cf. Digital Spy, 2013 http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1847703 (5 Octo-
ber 2014).
8 Cf. Gallagher, I 2012, ‘Man of the match? Here’s your rosewater and pomegranate:
Premier League offers non-alcoholic alternative to champagne to avoid offending Mus-
lim players’ www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2193671/Man-match-Premier-League-
offers-non-alcoholic-alternative-champagne-avoid-offending-Muslim-players.html
(5 October 2014).
9 Cf. Sridharan, V 2012 ‘EPL to give pomegranate juice to Muslim footballers’ www.
ibtimes.co.uk/english-premier-league-football-muslim-islam-champagne-378057
(5 October 2014).
10 Cf. Cowling, R 2013 ‘Premier League: How Muslims are changing English football
culture’ www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/23159023 (5 October 2014).
11 Cf. Abdul-Nasir, A 2015 ‘Demba Ba’s prostration debated among Muslim scholars’
http://ummahsports.net/2015/01/20/demba-bas-prostration-debated-among-muslim-
scholars/ (10 February 2015).
12 Cf. Cowling, R 2013 www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/23159023 (5 October 2014).
13 Cf. Din, T 2011 ‘Fasting and football: How do top-flight Muslims cope?’ www.inde
pendent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/fasting-and-football-how-do-top
flight-muslims-cope-2342187.html (13 July 2014).
14 Cf. Hasan, M 2014 ‘Moeen Ali Interview: ‘I Am A Muslim, Yes, But I Am Also Very
English’ www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/09/11/moeen-ali_n_5803422.html (21 Octo-
ber 2014).
15 Cf. Stewart, R 2007 ‘Racist chants were ridiculous, says Mido’ www.telegraph.co.uk/
sport/football/2319982/Racist-chants-were-ridiculous-says-Mido.html (14 October
2014).
16 Cf. Jacob, G 2005 ‘Mido taunted by West Ham fans’ www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/sport/
football/clubs/westham/article2310067.ece (14 October 2014).
17 Cf. Faith Summit findings 2008 http://nav.thefa.com/sitecore/content/TheFA/Home/
TheFA/WhoWeAre/NewsAndFeatures/2008/seminar_review (14 October 2014).
18 Cf. FA Taskforce on Tackling anti-Semitism and Islamophobia 2010 www.antisemi
tism.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Football-Association-Taskforce-on-Tackling-Anti-
Semitism-and-Islamophobia-by-John-Mann.pdf (21 October 2014).
19 Cf. Smith, B 2014 ‘Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Dubai: New centre of the sporting world?
www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/30180206 (21 October 2014).
References
Adair, D (2012) Beyond boundaries? Race, Ethnicity and Identity in Sport, International
Review for the Sociology of Sport, 45:251.
Altwaijri, A (2009) Islamic Diplomacy: At the Service of Dialogue and Peace, Islamic
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Rabat: Morocco.
Amnesty International. Choice and prejudice: discrimination against Muslims in Europe.
24 avril 2012, N° d’index: EUR 01/001/2012
Art, R (1980) To What Ends Military Power? International Security, Vol 4 Issue 4, p 3–35.
Ashcroft, B (2001) Edward Said: Routledge Critical Thinkers, Routledge 3rd Edition.
Bourdieu, P (1979) Sport and social class, Social Science Information, Vol 17, No 6.
Bourdieu, P (1986) The Forms of Capital, in J. Richardson ‘Handbook of Theory and
Research for the Sociology of Education’, New York: Greenwood.
Bourdieu, P (1989) Social Space and Symbolic Power, Sociological Theory, Vol 7 No 1
p 14–25.
Bourdieu, P and Wacquant, L (1992) An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, Chicago, Uni-
versity of Chicago Press.

Bull, H (1977) Systems of States, Leicester University Press, Leicester.
Burdsey, D (2011) Race, Ethnicity and Football, London, Routledge.
Carter, N (2006) The Football Manager: A History, London, Routledge.
Chigas, D (2003) Track II (Citizen) Diplomacy, Beyond Intractability, Conflict Information
Consortium, Boulder: University of Colorado.
Coaffee, J (2008) Sport, Culture and the Modern State: Emerging Themes in Stimulating
Urban Regeneration in the UK, International Journal of Cultural Policy, 14.
Coalter, F (2007) A wider social role for sport, London: Routledge.
Coalter, F (2008) Sport in development: Development for and through Sport in M. Nich-
olson and R. Hoye, Sport and Social Capital, Oxford: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann.
Cooper, A (2008) Global governance and diplomacy: worlds apart?, Palgrave Macmillan,
Basingstoke.
Diamond, L and McDonald, J (1991) Multi-track diplomacy: A systems guide and analysis,
Iowa Peace Institute.
Freeman, K (2012) Sport as Swaggering: Utilizing Sport as Soft Power, Sport in Society:
Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics, Vol 4 15 Issue 9, p 1260–1274.
Giroux, H A (2004) Edward Said and the Politics of Worldliness: towards a ‘Rendezvous
of Victory’ in: Critical Studies Vol 4.
Goldblatt, D (2007) The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football, Penguin.
Hill, J (2002) Sport, Leisure and Culture in Twentieth Century Britain. Basingstoke:
Palgrave.
Hill, J (2006) Sport and the literary imagination: essays in history, literature and sport,
Oxford: Peter Lang.
Holt, R and Cronin, M (2003) The Globalisation of Sport, History Today, Vol 53 Issue 7,
p 26–33.
Hutchins, B (2007) The Problem of Sport and Social Cohesion. In J. Jupp and J. Nieuwen-
huysen, Social Cohesion in Australia, Cambridge University Press: Melbourne.
Iqbal, A (1975) The Prophet’s Diplomacy: The Art of Negotiation as Conceived and Devel-
oped by the Prophet of Islam, Claude Stark and Co, Massachusetts.
Istanbuli, Y (2001) Diplomacy and diplomatic practices in the early Islamic era, Oxford
University Press, Oxford.
Jarvie, G (1991) Sport, Racism and Ethnicity, Falmer, London.
Jarvie, G (2006) Sport, Culture and Society, London: Routledge.
Kaya, A (2009) Islam, migration and integration: the age of securitization, Palgrave Mac-
millan, Basingstoke.
Kaye, D (2007) Talking to the enemy: Track two diplomacy in the Middle East and South
Asia, Rand Corporation.
Keech, M and Houlihan, B (1999) Sport and the end of apartheid, The Round Table: The
Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs, 88.
King, A (2003) The European Ritual, Ashgate: Aldershot.
218 Omar Salha
Kuper, S (2003) Football Against the Enemy, Orion.
Linton, R (1943) Nativistic Movements, American Anthropologist 45. No 2 April-June.
Malik, I. H (2004) Islam and Modernity: Muslims in Europe and the United States, Lon-
don: Pluto Press.
Melissen, J (2005) The New Public Diplomacy: Soft power in International Relations,
Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
Millward, P. (2008) The Rebirth of the Football Fanzine: Using E-zines as Data Source,
Journal of Sport and Social Issues 32 (3):299–310.
Montville, J. (1991) Track Two Diplomacy: The Arrow and the Olive Branch, The Psycho-
dynamics of International Relations, 2(1):66–81.
Murray, S (2012) The Two Halves of Sport-Diplomacy, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 23:3.
Nourallah, R (2006) Beyond the Arab Disease: New Perspectives and Culture Routledge,
New York.
Nye, J (2004a) Power in the Global Information Age, Londres, New York, Routledge.
Nye, J (2004b) Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics, Public Affairs: US.
Phillips, R (2009) Muslim spaces of hope: geographies of possibility in Britain and the
West, Zed Books, New York.
Pigman, G & Rofe, S (2013) Sport in Society, Sport and Diplomacy: an introduction, Routledge.
Poole, E (2002) Reporting Islam: Media Representations and British Muslims, London.
Porter, D and Smith, (2004) Sport and national identity in the post-war world, London:
Routledge.
Ramadan, T (2001) Islam, the West and the Challenge of Modernity, Leicester.
Redeker, R (2008) Sport as an opiate of international relations: The myth and illusion
of sport as a tool of foreign diplomacy, Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media,
Politics, 11:4 494–500.
Said, A (2006) Contemporary Islam: dynamic, not static, Routledge, London.
Said, A. S (1995) Concepts of International Politics in Global Perspective, Englewood,
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Said, E (1981) Covering Islam, Routledge, London.
Schulenkorf, N (2013) Sport for development events and social capital building, Journal
of Sport for Development, 1:1.
Spaaij, R (2010) The Social Impact of Sport: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, London, Routledge.
Spaaij, R (2011) Sport and Social Mobility: Crossing Boundaries, London, Routledge.
Spaaij, R (2012) Building Social and Cultural Capital among Young People in Disadvan-
taged Communities: Lessons from a Brazilian Sport-based Intervention Program, Sport,
Education and Society.
Spaaij, R (2013a) The Ambiguities of Sport and Community Engagement, La Trobe Uni-
versity, Ethos: Vol 21, No 2.
Spaaij, R (2013b) Cultural Diversity in Community Sport: An Ethnographic Inquiry of
Somali Australians’ Experiences, Sport Management Review 16(1):29–40.
Strong, P and Posner, L (2010) Selves in play: Sports, scouts, and American cultural citi-
zenship, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Vol 45:3.
Tajfel, H & Turner, J. C (1986) The social identity theory of inter-group behaviour, Psy-
chology of Intergroup Relations, Chicago: Nelson-Hall.
Tyrer, D (2013) The politics of Islamophobia: race, power and fantasy, Pluto Press, London
Weisbrode, K (2013) Old diplomacy revisited: a study in the modern history of diplomatic
transformations, Palgrave Pivot, New York.
Conclusion

15 Research on sport and Islam
The way forward
Mahfoud Amara and Alberto Testa
This book collection distinguishes among three types of endeavour relating to

sport and Muslim thought. These are (a) sport in Islam, including the question of
sport in Islam in the West among Muslim minorities, (b) sport in majority-Muslim
societies and (c) sport and Islamism or political Islam.
Distinction should be made between Islam as a belief system and Islam as
a cultural form, interpreted, conceived and manipulated by nation states, politi-
cal movements and different interest groups to legitimate their political agenda,
social conduct and traditions (sometimes pre-Islamic or even practices that are
deemed non-Islamic; Arkoun, 2002, 2003). In other words, we have to take into
consideration the religion, the religiosity (daily practice) of Muslim populations,
as well as socio-cultural interpretations of Islam as a tradition. Despite similarities
in the Muslim world (common references to Islam), studying sport in majority
Muslim societies would raise different issues than studying sport among Muslim
minorities in majority non-Muslim countries. There are also differences among
Muslim countries that follow different interpretations (school of thought or fiqh)
of Islam (Sunni, Shi’a, Ibadi) and different politico-ideological doctrines. The
complexity of the Muslim world is also an evidence of its plurality (not in the
sense of fragmentation), which goes against the essentialist and monolithic repre-
sentation of Islam and Muslims recurrent nowadays.
Sport in Islam
To undertake an Islamic study of any phenomenon, including the study of modern
sport, one should consider the fundamentals of Islamic belief, or at least the inter-
nal logic and the core of Islam as a monotheistic religion. A primary condition
is to understand the Muslimness of a Muslim believer (Homo Islamicus). This
involves the following (the list is not exhaustive):
1) the Islamic ontology of Tawhid or the Islamic belief in the absolute Oneness
of the Creator and the Islamic sources of jurisprudences: these are (a) the
teachings of the Quran; (b) Sunna, the authenticated sayings of the Prophet
Mohammad and the precedents he set; (c) the consensus of learned opinion,
called ijma‘; and (d) reasoning by analogy (called qiyas) to help Muslims
222 Mahfoud Amara and Alberto Testa
decide how to deal with new situations that arise in new places or with the
passage of time.
2) Principles of Islamic Shari’a or Islamic path. The domain of belief, morality
and law. Its formulation and codification take two forms: law (al Hukm), and
Fetwa. The law is a fixed norm, while Fetwa is a mobile norm. The sum of
laws and Fetwas are classified into five degrees or levels: obligations, recom-
mendation, permission, undesirability, prohibition.
3) Islamic parameters which guide the process of Ijtihad or the endeavour of

attaining a level of knowledge from the primordial texts, Quran and Sunna,
and applying it to real-world situations. It is guided by a set of parameters
including the forbidden, blameable, permitted, recommended and obligatory
in Islam (Halal and Haram); public good (Istislah); and overall promotion of
social, economic and cultural justice (Adl).
It can be stated that Islamic legal judgments in relation to modern sport prac-
tices may depend on many variables such as the purpose and the individual and
societal benefits of the sporting activity. Furthermore, the type of sporting activ-
ity or the place and the cultural settings where it is taking place may also be
relevant. There are universal principles or values in Islam which are unchange-
able (Thabit) and not affected by time and space and others that are subject to
change (Mutaghayir), changing from one cultural setting or society to another.
Put in other terms, in Islam, everything is permitted except that which is explic-
itly forbidden by an undisputed text (Gresh & Ramadan, 2002). There are matters
where the margin of interpretation is virtually nil, for instance questions related
to pillars of Iman (Islamic belief or creed in the Oneness of Allah, prophethood,
angels, Hereafter, destiny) and other issues in which the scope for the exercise of
reason and creativity is vast (Oubrou, 2002; Ramadan, 2004). As a general rule,
Islamic scholars agree that Islam permits the Muslim (both genders) to practise
sports as long as such sports are balanced and beneficial for the person’s physical
fitness, not against the tenets of Islam and practiced in a suitable environment
(for instance, in a non-gender-mixed setting). The argument usually put forward
is that Islam encourages a Muslim to be healthy and to seek the means of strength
(Walseth and Fasting, 2003).
Having discussed the general norms and principles, one should take into account
the circumstances Muslims are living in. Because of history of colonialism/
decolonisation and as a consequence of current global mobility millions of Mus-
lims are living as minorities in non-Muslim societies, which offer different sets of
questions and challenges in relation to the study of sport.
Sport in Islam in the West

Muslim settlements in Europe and America have given rise to intense debate over
the legal conditions connected to Muslim minority status in non-Muslim societ-
ies. Principally, questions are being raised around the reconciliation between the
exigencies of Islam with secular life without losing Islam’s soul (Césari, 2004,
Sport and Islam: the way forward 223
p. 160). Including concerns regarding the application of the (Shari’a) Islamic path
in non-Muslim context:
• Personal law (marriage, inheritance, citizenship, protection of faith, investment);

• The practice of Islamic rituals (fasting, prayer, Halal meals, burial);
• The subject of dress code, particularly for Muslim women, in a public space.
A number of European countries have recently (on the ground of security and
face recognition) imposed a ban and restrictions on wearing the Burqa (full
face cover) in public;
• Participation of Muslims in the political life and democratic debates of their
societies;
• The institutionalisation of Islam in the West through the establishment of
Islamic councils representing different Islamic tendencies in the public
domain (e.g. Muslims Executive of Belgium, Islamic Commission of Spain,
French Council on Islam, Muslim Council of America etc.);
• The question of loyalty to religion versus loyalty to the nation-state. Post–
9/11 Muslims in the West are more than ever being asked reaffirm their loy-
alty to their host society and country of birth in opposition to their country
(and even their culture) of origin (Livengood and Stodolska, 2004). Muslim
diaspora in Europe are being labelled as fifth column to Jihadi groups. This
is well depicted in the writing of Algerian Italian novelist Amara Lakhous’s
fiction, presented in Chapter 10 of this book.
New questions are being raised in relation to Muslim culture and the practice
of sport in the West. Demands are being made by Muslim communities – in the
name of democracy, citizenship and rights to cultural and religious differences –
to accommodate specific times for Muslim women and young girls at local leisure
centres, to allow men to wear long swimming trunks in public swimming pools
(Silverstein, 2002; Tabeling, 2005; Walseth, 2006). Moreover, to allocate specific
training/nutrition programmes for professional athletes to meet their religious
duty of fasting during the month of Ramadan. The demand by Muslim players
in the French national football team to provide halal meals during training camps
caused a national debate in the French media about sport institutions in the coun-
try and the respect of French (laïque) republican values.
These demands have been widely met in countries such as Germany (cf. Chap-
ter 3), where integration of Muslim communities is historically established, while
they are controversial in countries such as Italy, which suffers a serious delay in
terms of political and social integration of the Muslim communities; these dynam-
ics are often reflected in terms of sport participation and development, as under-
lined in Chapter 2 of this book.
It should be said that the question of sport practice among Muslim communities
is not always that of conforming the practice of modern sports to religious exigen-
cies (although not all Muslims by cultural heritage who are living in the West want
to be categorised in relation to their faith – perceived by some as a private matter –
in their everyday social relations). There are other cultural, socio-economic and
even historical variables (e.g. history of colonialism and decolonisation) that need
to be taken into account:
• The complex forms of self-affirmation of the ‘Muslim’ population (local/

trans-national, religious/secular);
• The status of religion in Western societies, organised according to Césari
(2004) into three main types: (a) the cooperation between church and state
(Austria, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Germany); (b) the existence of state-
sponsored religion (Great Britain, Denmark and Greece); (c) or the total
separation of religion and politics (France);
• Differences in the needs and aspirations of generations. For the young gener-
ations, the question of ‘integration’ is not or should not be a concern, because
they already are members of the national community (born and raised in the
West);
• Place of origin (nationality, region, urban/rural) (Baillet, 2003; Fleming,
1994). This is relevant to the first and second generations of immigrants. The
practice of institutionalised sport practice tends to be higher in urban settings;
• Forms of migration (economic or forced). In particular, the differences in
the socio-economic status and cultures (including the desire to practise sport
and leisure activities) between well-established ethnic minorities and the
so-called newly established minorities or newcomers (refugees and asylum
seekers; Henry et al., 2004);
• Contemporary policy discourses in Europe about citizenship and integration
of ethnic minorities. The idea of pluri-ethnic and pluri-religious Europe is
challenged today by two antagonistic and conflicting definitions of national
identity and citizenship. The first is based on a demand by immigrants and
ethnic minorities for a more inclusive and comprehensive conception of citi-
zenship and thus one which is more sensitive to their particular circumstances
and cultures (including their religion). This demand in sport finds challenges
even in social democratic countries such as Norway, as explained in Chapter
11, where the significance of being equal and the importance of social cohe-
siveness – which is a safeguard for minority rights – create paradoxically a
barrier to instances of diversity, having as a result the difficulty for minorities
to establish minority sport clubs which are more in tune with their religious
and cultural needs. The second is claimed by so called nationalist (anti-
globalisation and anti–EU) movements, defenders of the well-established
national sovereignties and ‘national preference’, for more exclusionary forms
of citizenship (Barry, 2001; Benhabib, 2002). A conception which excluded
de facto any demand to accommodate sporting practice to cultures that are
portrayed as ‘foreign’ (not corresponding to ‘native’ conception of sport and
national unity);
• The question of girls’/women’s participation in sport. We have to be aware
of the difficult position of Muslim women who have to deal today with both
family and community environments in a crisis of identity and in search of
new cultural references and representations of their collective ‘self’; that is,
a re-definition of what it is to be a member of a community. This is exempli-
fied in Section II of this book and particularly evident in Chapter 4, which
explained the construction and expression of tomboyism considering a group
of UK Muslim women. It is also important to stress that gender issues related
to Islam and sport cannot be exemplified – as done often in the literature,
focusing on the females and femininity dynamics; Islamic sporting masculin-
ity is equally important. For an in-depth analysis of the topic, Chapter 6 in
this book has tried to offer an examination of this aspect in relation to football
and the Palestinians’ struggles for independence.
To face these multiple dilemmas and challenges, Muslim scholars living in the
West, principally those who identify themselves as both Muslims and citizens of
the West, are calling today for the application of new forms of Ijtihad which take
into account the specificity of addressing Islamic issues in Western liberal democ-
racies (i.e. in relation to the secular tradition of Western legislation, science and
values of human rights). Groups of Muslim scholars are demanding the applica-
tion of exceptional jurisprudence (Fiqh or epistemology of minority rights) based
on the Islamic ethical principle of maslaha or common benefit, which can be
divided in terms of priority and individual/societal needs into the indispensable,
the necessary and the aesthetic (Oubrou, 2002). For instance, if we were to apply
the notion of Maslaha into sport context, then the practice of sport to prevent
health problems would be seen as indispensable, while for instance bodybuilding
would be perceived as aesthetic, although if it was concerned with vanity, it is
consequently discouraged.
Others reject the necessity of minority law, which they regard as a sign of
ghettoisation (ethnisation) of Islam, and instead believe that the West now
constitutes part of the Muslim world (i.e. space of safety, space of testimony),
and therefore it is indeed possible to live there according to Islamic principles
(Ramadan, 2004, p. 77). They, thus, encourage Muslim citizens to be more vis-
ible in the public domain and fully active in all domains of (their) Western soci-
ety (in politics, economy, sport, media, art . . .). The concept of ‘sport diplomacy’
as described by Salha in Chapter 14 of this book is pertinent. More individual
Muslim professional athletes want to be visible in the West ‘as a model citizen
capable of playing the role of a communicator and mediator’. Sport and specifi-
cally Boxing – as Chapter 9 argues – can be a location where the diaspora and
Muslim identities can emerge in all their strength, as they provide a sense of
belonging and purpose.
Sport in Muslim countries

To examine the question of sport in Muslim countries means studying sport in
socially and historically changing contexts – in other words, to examine sport
in nation-states where Islam represents the religion (faith, form of identity and
cultural reference) of the majority of the population. The purpose of what follows
is to highlight some of the parameters we believe are significant for such a study.
The Islamic world is a heterogeneous group of cultures, histories and tradi-
tions belonging to the same civilization and fundamental principles of/or common
reference to Islam. Despite the shared sense of belonging to the Islamic faith,
Muslim countries can be divided in relation to the practice of Islam as a source
for their legislation into:
a) Revolutionary-modernist: such as Tunisia, Algeria, Turkey, Syria, Libya,

Malaysia and Indonesia, as well as Muslim countries of the ex-Soviet Union

(Ba-Yunus, 2002). Ranging from semi-secularist to secularist (e.g. Kemal-
ism, in reference to Kamel Ataturk’s forced secularisation of the Turkish
society), they adopt a hybrid judicial system inspired by Shari’a law (par-
ticularly in relation to questions of civil law, such as inheritance, property and
family) and heavily influenced by the western juridical system. Still in these
countries, considered the more political progressive, there are issues related
to women and civil rights; the two chapters (5 and 8) on Turkey documented
that women are excluded by these debates, and this is reflected in the creation
of segregated sport spaces supported by the current Turkish government;
b) Conservative or ‘traditionalist’: Iran, Sudan and Afghanistan. These states
claim to adopt an ‘Islamic system of governance’ and the rule of the Islamic
court inspired from Shari’a law (including criminal law);
c) Monarchy states, such as Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain,
Morocco and Jordan, which rely in their political systems on the traditional
legitimacy of the ruling family, a legitimacy according to Kamrava (1998,
p. 76) deeply rooted in the history and Arabo-Islamic cultural heritage of the
country. This heritage takes a different (religious) dimension in Morocco,
Jordan and Saudi Arabia, where dynastic rulers justify their positions on the
grounds of being descendants of the prophet (Sharifs) and, for the Saudi fam-
ily, the guardian of Islam and its two holiest cities (Mecca and Medina).
Muslim countries can be divided also in terms of their Madheb of Islamic

schools of thought. These are: Sunni which includes the majority of Muslim coun-
tries; Shi’aa in Iran and Ibadi in Oman. Each of these has its own Shi’aa, Sunni,
Ibadi, ‘non-orthodox’ Muslim and non-Muslim minorities (e.g. Alawi Shi’a in
Syria, the Zaydis Shi’a in Yemen). There are also multi-religious countries in
which Muslims are the majority such as in Lebanon, Malaysia (in this country – as
Chapter 13 pointed out – government sport policies are used to reinforce Islamic
tenets and values), Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, or representing the second biggest
majority, as in the case of Nigeria, where Muslims are the majority in several
states. There are also Muslim countries where the population, in addition to shar-
ing the same Islamic identity or belonging to the same Islamic doctrine (or, for
the case of Iraq, to both Sunna and Shi’aa), form different ethno-linguistic groups
such as in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Algeria, Morocco and Malaysia.
Malaysian government policy to authorise gambling in sport for the non-Muslim
population only, as discussed in Chapter 12 on sport marketing, is an example
of the challenges government of countries with majority Muslim population and
with non-Muslim minorities have to deal with. They have to take into account
religious values of the majority and cultural practices among minorities, as well
as the international norms of business and trade.
The other important element that needs to be addressed while studying sport in
Muslim societies is the history of modernisation and different responses toward
Western modernity. These include the colonial and post-colonial histories and
post-colonial endeavour for nation-state formation, which have had important
effects on the social organisations and governance of (ex-colonised) Muslim

societies. This latter has also influenced the debate on authenticity and moder-
nity, and thus ‘Islamisation’ (versus Westernisation) of the society. For instance,
the diffusion of modern sport in the Arab world happened primarily as a result of
the various forms of colonial and foreign presence. This is not to say that there
was not a culture of physical activities in the Arab world prior to colonialism or
foreign presence in the region (we should emphasise here that not all Arabs are
Muslims and not all Muslims are Arabs). Arab traditions of racing horses, camels
and sailing boats, chess, polo, fishing, water diving and hunting are just some
to serve as testimony to the richness of the physical culture of the Arab people.
Nonetheless, modern sport in its Western rationalised and competitive format has
been assimilated (without negotiation) and used for different purposes during
the colonial and post-colonial eras. The case of Algeria with the FLN football
team established in 1958 to internationalise the Algerian cause of independence
from France and Palestine today where the acceptance of Palestine in FIFA and
the IOC could serve toward the recognition of Palestine by the United Nations,
although the political and sporting divides between the non-recognised gov-
ernment in Gaza and the Palestinian authority in the West Bank, in addition of
course to the continuous Israeli occupation, would put this endeavour on hold
(Amara, 2012).
As in other contexts, sport became in the post-colonial period a tool par excel-
lence for party-state regimes and kingdoms in Muslim countries in their projects
of popular mobilisation around nation-state building and integration into the inter-
national bi-polar world system (see Amara & Henry, 2004; Fates, 1994, 2004;
Henry et al., 2003; Morgan, 1998; Sfeir, 1985;). As for today, in the era of glo-
balisation, sport is an ingredient of the general strategy of transformation to ‘the
market economy’. The use of sport as a branding tool is an integral part of sport
development strategy of countries in the Gulf region, Qatar, the UAE and Bah-
rain in particular. These countries are investing in sport marketing (sponsorship,
naming of stadia) to increase their visibility in the global sport arena. However,
integrating the neo-liberal norms of sport marketing may also lead to instances
of clash with Islamic values. This is highlighted in Chapter 12, for instance, in
relation to the sponsoring of club kit with a visible Christian symbol (e.g. Real
Madrid FC) or the hosting of the FIFA 2022 World Cup in Qatar and the ques-
tion of alcohol drinking, which is a dominant (sub) culture of sport and spectacle
in the west. In addition, companies of alcohol beverage such as Budweiser and
Heineken are among FIFA’s and UEFA’s principal business partners. There is
also the issue of gambling, which is another source of revenue for sport industry.
Hence, the investment of Muslim countries in global sport could be perceived as a
threat to ‘Western’ norms of sport and as a sign of ‘Islamisation’ of sport.
The other domain worth investigating is the history of Muslim countries’ partic-
ipation, including by women athletes, in international events. Turkey was the first
Muslim country to send women athletes to the Olympic Games, followed by Iran
in 1964 (it was the first and last time until the Atlanta Games). Algeria, Libya and
Syria did so in 1980 and Egypt in 1984 (Aldeeb, 2004). The first gold medal for
a Muslim woman, Nawel Moutawakel, in the 1984 Los Angles Olympic Games,
announced the beginning of a new era in their participation in international sport-
ing events. It could be argued that the 2012 Olympic Games in London were a
milestone. They witnessed the participation of women athletes from Brunei, Qatar
and Saudi Arabia for the first time in the history of the modern Olympics. This
was also possible due to the changes of rule about the headscarf by most Inter-
national Sport Federation members of the Olympic movement. As a result of the
withdrawal of the Qatari women’s team from the 2014 Asian Games basketball
competition after the team was denied permission to wear Islamic headscarves,
the International Basketball Federation decided to introduce a two-year ‘testing
phase’ on what players can wear.
In an attempt to rebuild the sense of Islamic unity, shaken by severe political
crisis among Muslim countries, and to reinforce the universal values of Islam and
its global status as the second-largest religion in the world, new games with an
Islamic banner are being held: Women Islamic Games in Iran, the Islamic Solidar-
ity Games organised under the patronage of the Organisation of the Islamic Con-
ference (OIC) and the Islamic Solidarity Sports Federation based in Saudi Arabia
(the first edition was organised in Saudi Arabia in 2005, the second in Indonesia
in 2013 and the third will be held in Azerbaijan in 2017).
Sport and Islamism

It can be argued that, in the era of globalization, the discourse of the ‘Islamists’
is torn today between fascination with sport, seen as a means of strengthening
young Muslims physically and of mobilizing them around the political project of
Islamist movements, and a condemnation of sport, perceived as another symbol
of Western ‘hyper-consumerism’ and thus as ‘opium for the masses’ – something
that distracts Muslims from the (more serious) political realities of the Ummah.
Sport as discussed in Chapter 7 is another terrain of competition between secu-
lar people and Islamists over political legitimacy as evidenced in so called Arab
Spring countries, particularly in post–Ben Ali Tunisia during the transition gov-
ernment led by the Ennahda party (2012–2014). For Ennahda, maintaining Tuni-
sia’s dominant position in elite sport in the region is seen as a positive legacy
for the party’s participation in the democratic transition of Tunisia. For secular
movements outside the Troika (the government coalition of Ennahda and other
leftists’ parties), both Ennahda and the Jihadi Salafist movement have the same
goal, which is the Islamisation of the society and abolishing the foundations of
secular Tunisia. It is interesting here to compare the Ennahda project to reform
sport in Tunisia and that of the short experience of Islamic Brotherhood–led gov-
ernment in Egypt. The Islamist Party in Turkey is also being accused, as high-
lighted in Chapters 5 and 8, of imposing a new (neo-Ottoman) moral discourse
in sport. The position of the Hamas party in the besieged Gaza Strip is another
interesting context of the use of sport for internal Palestinian political legitimiza-
tion in competition with the Fatah-controlled West Bank. The strip is a home of
Al Shate (representing Al Shate refugee camp, a mixed team of Hamas and Fatah
members) and Al Salah Islamic Association (a team aligned with Hamas; Mon-
tague, 2009). The remaining sports facilities, the central stadium in Gaza, were all
bombed by Israeli airstrike in the last 2014 war, claiming that they were used by
the Palestinians as rocket launch sites.
Future research agenda

Sport in its modern form emerged largely in the 19th century in codified forms
such as association football and was promoted and developed in the early 20th
century under Western cultural hegemony through organisations such as the IOC,
FIFA and the IAAF. Overall, the key question concerning sport in/and Islam –
that this book aimed to stress – is how such an essentially ‘Western’, ‘modern-
ist’ and ‘secular’ form of cultural practice repeatedly identify in the literature as
a quasi-religion can articulate with what is portrayed as ‘non-Western’, ‘non-
secular’ and ‘traditionalist’ worldviews. We attempted to analyse this issue using
critical frameworks from a number of social sciences, disciplines such as history,
sociology, philosophy, anthropology and religious studies. The major challenge
encountered was to provide the reader with an analysis that takes into consider-
ation the socio-environmental contexts in which Muslim communities go about
their daily lives. This was an arduous task, because as part of their host societies,
Muslims face different challenges from country to country: the battle of the Hijab
in France, marginalisation and cultural policy in Italy, the socio-economic segre-
gation in Britain and the challenge of poverty, conflict (occupation) and inequality
in Muslim developing countries. However, further research could be undertaken
to explore sport in Muslim East European societies, especially in countries such
Russia – where there is a growing resentment of non-Muslims on the perceived
expansion of this religion symbolically represented by the needs to construct
more Islamic religious buildings and because of the shortage of these the increas-
ingly promotion of Islamic festivals (Foreign Affairs, June 2014). Azerbaijan and
Muslim countries of former Yugoslavia such as Bosnia and Kosovo are keen to
use sport for country branding in the global stage for the former (Azerbaijan,
Land of Fire, shirt sponsor of Atletico Madrid Football club) and for international
recognition and nation-state building for the latter.
This book, in its modest contribution, has tried to make sense of the lived sport-
ing experiences of Muslims, focusing not only on Muslim youth but keeping its
focus on an intergenerational approach. While we acknowledge in this book the
condition of Muslims as passive victims of prejudice and marginalisation, we
think there is still the need for further research on the impact of sport on Islam
focusing on the pervasiveness of Islamophobia in sport but also considering
sport as a means to radicalise and de-radicalise Muslim youth.
Further analysis should also focus on the role that sport development and
policies have in promoting full sport participation among Muslim communities
respecting their religious duties and beliefs as expressed in Chapter 2 of this book.
In this respect, it is worth examining the impact of mega events and globalisation
on sport in Muslim countries and communities, sport development and sport for
development, and the engagement of Muslim countries with the Olympic move-
ment and international sport organisations. At the time of writing this book, Jorda-
nian Prince Bin Ali Al Hussein, the current FIFA vice president representing Asia,
who was influential in lifting FIFA’s ban on the headscarf, was the only candidate
to compete with Blatter for the election of FIFA president, which was held 29 May
2015. He is also candidate for the next election to replace Blatter, who resigned
from office. His sister, Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein, was the head of the Inter-
national Equestrian Federation from 2006 to 2014.
To conclude, the editors and contributors of this book hope they have provided an
analysis of sport in/and Islam that is inclusive to plurality. To accomplish this task,
we employed a geographical, in-depth enquiry covering both the majority-Muslim
countries in the Middle East and Asia and minority-Muslim communities in Europe
and the United States, combined with a predominant analysis of Muslim scholars
and references taken from Muslim scholarly production. We hope this strategy has
made this contribution unique and, most importantly, has explained to the reader the
problematic relationship among Islam, Muslims and the global sport arena.
References
Aldeeb Abu-Sahlieh (2004) Limites du Sport en Droit Musulmans et Arabe. Limites du
sport en droit musulman et arabe. Confluences Méditerranée, N°50, Eté .
Amara M. (2012) Sport, Politics and Society in the Arab World. London: Palgrave and
Macmillan.
Amara, M. and Henry, I. P. (2004) Between Globalization and Local Modernity: The Diffu-
sion and Modernization of Football in Algeria’. Soccer and Society, 51, pp. 1–26.
Arkoun, M. (2002) The Unthought in the Contemporary Islamic Thought. London: Saqi
book in association with Institute of Islamaili Studies.
Arkoun, M. (2003) Rethinking Islam Today. ANNALS, AAPSS, 588, July, pp. 18–39.
Baillet, D (2003) Pratiques sportives et jeunes issus de l’immigration maghrébine.
Migrance 22 (2) 2003, pp. 60–69.
Barry, B. (2001) Culture and Equality, An Egalitarian Critique of Multiculturalism. Lon-
don: Polity.
Ba-Yunus, I. (2002) Ideological Dimensions of Islam: A Critical Dimension. In Hasting, D.
(ed.). Interpreting Islam. London: Sage Publications, pp. 99–110.
Benhabib, S. (2002) The Claims of Culture, Equalities and Diversity in the Global Era.
Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Césari. J (2004) When Islam and Democracy Meet: Muslims in Europe and in the United
States. New York: Palgrave.
Fates, Y. (1994). Sport et Tiers Monde, Pratiques corporelle. Paris: Presses University of
France.
Fates, Y. (2004) L’islamisme algérien et le sport: entre rhétorique et action. Conflu-
ences Méditerranée N°50, Summer. Available online http://confluences.ifrance.com/
numeros/50.htm. Retrieved October 2004.
Fleming, S. (1994) Sport and South Asian Youth: The Perils of ‘False Universalism’ and
Stereotyping. Leisure Studies, 13 (3), pp. 159–177.
Foreign Affairs (June 2014) Russia’s Muslim Reality. Retrieved from: www.foreignaffairs.
com/articles/141221/vasily-rudich/russias-muslim-reality (accessed 1 April 2015).
Gresh, A., & Ramadan, T. (2002) l’Islam en Questions. Paris: Babel.
Henry, I. P., Al-Tauqi, M., Amara, M. (2003) ‘Sport, Arab Nationalism and the Pan Arab
Games’. International Review of the Sociology of Sport, 38 (3), pp. 295–310.
Henry, I., Radzi, W., Rich, E., Shelton, C., Theodoraki, E., & White, A. (2004) Women,
Leadership and the Olympic Movement. Loughborough: Institute of Sport and Leisure
Policy, Loughborough University & the International Olympic Committee.
Henry, I., Amara, M., Aquilina, D., Coalter, I., Taylor, F. (2004). The Roles of Sport and
Education in the Social Inclusion of Asylum Seekers and Refugees: An Evaluation of
Policy and Practice in the UK. Loughborough: Institute of Sport and Leisure Policy,
Loughborough University and Stirling University.
Kamrava, M. (1998) Democracy in the Balance: Culture and Society in the Middle East.
London: Chatham House Publishers.
Livengood, JS, Stodoloska, M (2004). The effects of discriminations and constraints nego-
tiation on leisure behaviour of American Muslims in the Post- September 11 America,
Journal of Leisure Research, 36, 2, pp. 183–208.
Montague, J. (CNN, 29 October 2009) Football in the firing line: The Gaza Cup final.
Retrieved from: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/SPORT/football/10/21/football.gaza.
hamas.fatah/index.html?iref=mpstoryview (accessed 11 November 2010).
Morgan, J. W. (1998) Hassiba Boulmerka and Islamic Green: International Sports, Cultural
Differences, and Their Postmodern Interpretation. In Rail, G., (ed.). Sport and Postmod-
ern Times. New York: State University of New York Press, pp. 345–366.
Oubrou, T. (2002) Shari’a de minorité: réflexions pour une intégration légale de l’Islam. In
Frégosi. F (éd.) Lectures Contemporaines du Droit Islamique: Europe et Monde Arabe.
Strasbourg: Presse Universitaire de Starsbourg, pp. 205–230.
Ramadan, T. (2002) Musulmans d’occident: Construire et Contribuer. Paris: Tawhid.
Ramadan, T. (2004) Western Muslims and the Future of Islam. London: Oxford University
Press.
Sfeir, L. (1985) The Status of Muslim Women in Sport: Conflict between Cultural Tradition
and Modernisation. International Review for Sociology of Sport, 20 (4), pp. 283–303.
Silverstein, P. A. (2002) Stadium Politics: Sport, Islam and Amazigh Consciousness in
France and North Africa. In Magdalinski, T. (ed.). With God on Their Side, Sport in the
Service of Religion. London: Routledge, pp. 37–54.
Tabeling, P (2005) Muslims and Swimming Lessons: Separating the Boys from the Girls,
translation from German John Bergeron, translation from German John Bergeron,
Qantara Newsletter 30 August. www.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-478/_nr-
322/i.html (accessed September 2005).
Walseth, K. (2006) Young Muslim Women and Sport: The Impact of Identity Work. Lei-
sure Studies, 25 (1), pp. 75–94.
Walseth, K., Fasting, K. (2003) Islam’s View on Physical Activity and Sport, Egyptian Women
Interpreting Islam, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 38/1, pp. 45–60.

Index
Abbas, Mahmoud 84 assimilation 6, 161, 171–3

Abukhalil, As’ad 128 Association for the Support and Training
accessories, feminine 60 of Women Candidates (KA-DER) 71,
activism: Afro-American 135; cultural 78n8
105; human rights 7, 22, 71, 124, 128; Atabeyoğlu, Cem 117
political 4, 105; social 4, 105; women’s Atatürk, Kemal 114, 226
rights 77 athletes: globalisation of 182; as goodwill
Afghanistan 226 ambassadors 208–13; Muslim 208–13;
Africa 24 professional 19; veneration of 24, 39,
Ahmed, Faward 183 206; see also women athletes
AID: A-Survey 36 Atlı, Fethiye 77
AKP see Justice and Development Party auto-ethnographic method 129–30
(Turkey) Ayadh, Abu 109
Al Haddad, Ahmed 25 Aysan, Ömer 72
Al Jazeera Sport 106, 107 Azerbaijan 229
Al Salah Islamic Association 229 Aziz, Ungku 201
Al Shate 229
alcohol: at sporting events 184, 210, 227; Ba, Demba 210, 215
and sport sponsorship 183–4, 187, 227 Badawi, Abdullah 8
Alevi 35 Badawi, Zaki 4
Algeria 226, 227 badminton 197
Ali, Moeen 211, 215 Bahrain 5, 186, 209, 226–7
Ali, Muhammad 7, 22, 124, 128–31, 133–7 Balotelli, Mario 149
Allievi, Stefano 146 Barclays Premier League 206
Alptekin, Aslı Çakır 122n8 basketball 206, 209, 228; Chinese
Amara, Mahfoud 145, 147, 151 involvement in 198; corporate
Amateur Boxing Association 130 investment in 206; International
American Marketing Association 176 championships hosted by Tunisia 103,
Anıtkabir 114 104; in the London Games 108; as
Ansar Al-Sahriaa 108–9 masculine sport 51; Muslim women’s
anthropology 5, 229 participation in 53, 55; and national
anti-Islamic/anti-Muslim discourse 26, diplomacy 209; Nike shoes 181; in the
124, 146 Olympics 120; Qatari women’s team
Arab people, physical culture of 227 25, 228
Arab Spring 146, 228 beaches, women-only 77
Arabian Peninsula 5; see also Bahrain; Beauvoir, Simone de 86
Qatar; Saudi Arabia; UAE Beckham, David 208
Arınç, Bülent 68 Bedouin (Egyptian) 87
Art, Robert 213 beer products, halal 184–5
Ascot Sports 182 beINsports 106, 107
234 Index
Belaid, Chokri 109 ceremonies 23, 24
Ben Ali, Zine El Abidine 104, 107, 110 Cesarini, Renato 150
Ben Arfa, Hatem 183 chess 227
Berbers (Algeria) 87–8 Chiboub, Salim 107
Berjaya 182 children, as spectators 66–7
Bilge, Demet 75 Cisse, Papiss 183
bimbos 57 citizenship issues 3, 5
Black consciousness movement 124 civil rights movement 124
Black Panther Party (BPP) 131, 135 Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in
Black Power 135 Piazza Vittorio (Lakhous) 141–2, 144,

Blatter, Sepp 94 148–9, 154–5
Blehadj, Ahlem 110 Clay, Cassius see Ali, Muhammad
body: care of 18, 20; protection of 22 colonialism 224, 227
bodybuilding 21, 51, 225 combat sports 22–3; see also boxing;
Bora, Tanıl 75 contact sports; judo; karate; kung
Bosnia 229 fu; martial arts; mixed martial arts;
Boulmerka, Hassiba 25, 109 taekwondo
Bourdieu, Pierre 87 Commonwealth Games, Malaysian 199
Bourguiba, Habib 104, 110 Connell, Robert/Raewyn 87
boxers as community symbols 125; constructivist grounded theory 67
see also Ali, Muhammad consumer culture 5, 186
boxing: and Ali 127–9; and Islam 7, consumerism 177, 188, 228
127–8; in Malaysia 199, 200; and the contact sports 200; see also boxing;
migrant community 124, 126, 225; and combat sports; judo; karate; kung
the minority community 125–6, 130–7; fu; martial arts; mixed martial arts;
prohibition of 22; social value of 137; taekwondo
and society 126–7; values of 135–6; Council of Europe 13
women and 34, 44–5, 51, 56, 58, 59 cricket 127, 183, 197, 200
Brahmi, Mohamed 109 critical discourse analysis (CDA) 164–5
British National Party 131 crossfit boxing 59; see also boxing
British Pakistanis 129 cross-training 34
British-Pakistani ex-offender study 7; culture: Arab 185; black 135; of boxing
boxing gym research 130; conclusion 126–7; consumer 177, 186; criminal
137; crossfit 59; data collection 132–3; 125; local 105; in Malaysia 191–3, 195,
findings 133–4; importance of boxing 197; Muslim 5, 144–5, 151, 163, 182,
133–4; and the Nation of Islam 124; 187; Norwegian 169; popular 135, 205;
participants 131–2 secular 183; and sport participation 171,
Brunei 108 202, 205; white-dominated 130; youth
Buddhism 23 124–5
Bulaç, Ali 69, 71 cycling 196
Bullaro, Grace Russo 142
Bulut, Gamze 122n8 dance and dancing 40, 45, 196; dervish 39
Burqa 223; see also dress codes Darnel, Neslihan 120
bus service, women-only 77 Das, Andrew 72
bushido 23 date palm consumption 180
‘buyas’ 52 de Souza, Alex 66, 72
de-Christianisation 186, 188
camel racing 178, 227 decolonisation 224
Cantona, Eric 94 Department of Inclusion and Diversity
capitalism 25, 130, 177 (DID; Norway) 164, 166–7
Cardiff FC 182 Department of Sport Policy (DSP;
Carrigan, Tim 87 Norway) 160
catenaccio 141, 148, 154 dervish dances 39
CDA (critical discourse analysis) 164–5 Descartes, René 86
Index 235
Diab, Tariq 106, 107 everyday life, in Gaza 81, 86–8, 92, 95–7
Diaby, Abou 211, 215 Ezzamktal 106
diaspora: Muslim 124, 225; Muslim
writers 144–6; South Asian 7, 124 Facebook 106, 208
dietary regulations 36; see also fasting faith see religion
diplomacy: digital 208–9; Islamic 205, falconry 178
213–15; public 209; three tracks of fans see sports enthusiasts
207–8; see also sport diplomacy fasting 17, 18, 39, 41, 44, 46, 107–8, 145,
discrimination 3, 6, 192 171, 195, 211, 223; see also Ramadan
Dispute Over a Very Italian Piglet Fatah 229

(Lakhous) 141–2, 152–5 Fatâwâ (Fatwâ) 14–15, 18–19, 22–5;
Divorce Islamic Style (Lakhous) 141–3, against El-Melouli 108; websites 4
149–51, 154–5 Favorito, Joe 183
Djebbali (Tunisia) 107 FC Barcelona 182, 186, 188
Djihad Islami (Palestine) 106 Fédération Internationale de Football
Doğan, Hülya Bozkurt 75 Association (FIFA) 5, 67, 85, 86, 89,
Doidge, Mark 149 146, 184, 187, 206, 211, 214, 227, 229,
doping 24, 39; see also drug misuse 230
Doustourian party 110 Federation of Malaya Olympic Council
dress codes 35–6, 200; for girls and (FMOC) 197
women 20–1, 39–40, 42, 44, 110; liberal femininity: ‘girly girl’ 57, vs. masculinity
vs. traditional interpretation of 39; for 55–6, 88; see also women and girls
men 20; for swimming 201, 223; see feminism: Islamist 68; post-structuralist
also Burqa; headscarves; hijab 121; republican (state) 67–8l; and sport
drug misuse 207; see also doping 58–60; in Tunisia 110; Turkish 6, 67, 69
Dündar, Uğur 116 feminist research 128–9
field hockey 198
East Asia, Islam and sports in 5 FIFA (Fédération Internationale de
e-diplomacy 208–9 Football Association) 5, 67, 85, 86, 89,
education: reform of 19; religious 201 146, 184, 187, 206, 211, 214, 227, 229,
Egypt 8, 84, 226, 229 230
Eid-ul Fitr 195, 210 fishing 227
Ekşi Sözlük (Sour Times) 67, 72–3 Foot, John 154
El-Melouli, Oussama 108, 110 football (soccer) 33, 45, 51, 197; in the
empowerment of women 52, 59–60, 75–7 fiction of Lakhous 141–55; in Gaza
English Defence League 131 85; globalized 95; Islamisation of 186;
English Premier League (EPL) 206, 209, and Italian politics 147–9; masculinity
210 and 88–91; matches played before
Ennahda Islamist party (Tunisia) 105, 109, women and children 66–7; as metaphor
110–11, 111n3, 228 143, 144, 154–5; as modernising
Equality Standard (Sports England) 163 force 85; in Palestine 82–6; as part
Erdoğan, Recep Tayyip 6, 73; gender of the international sports circuit
politics of 67–8, 78; pro-natalist 186; politicization of 148, 154–5; as
propaganda of 120 representation of globalization 144–5;
Espelund, Karen 76 role of in Muslim societies 146;
Espérance Sportive de Tunis 107 violence in 107; and war 91–3
ethnic and racial studies 5 football clubs see sport clubs
ethnicity, as factor in sport participation 40 Formula 1 racing 5, 186
ethnography, evocative 129–32 Free Gaza Movement 81
eugenics 114 Freeman, Kevin 213
European Commission 13
Evans, Gareth 208 gambling: as disruptive practice 24; in
Everyday Life and Cultural Theories Malaysia 182–3, 196, 226; and sports
(Highmore) 81 sponsoring 183–5, 187
236 Index
Gaza Cup 90, 95 lifting of ban on 5; as non-national
Gaza football player study: football and element 116; Özbek’s decision to wear
war 6, 91–3; football in a nation without 115–19; and sports participation 20–1;
a proper state 82–6; Mahmoud Sarsak’s as symbol of Islamic stigma 121, 122n5;
story 82, 88, 93–5, 97; masculinities as symbol of modesty 117; wearing in
and football 88–91; methodology 81–2; Olympic competition 108; wearing of 5,
perspectives of masculinities 87–8; 41–2, 60, 113, 228, 229
phenomenological study of everyday Hindu philosophy 23
life 86–7; sports and politics in Palestine Hizb Allah (Lebanon) 106
85–6 Hizb ut Tahrir 106

Gaza Strip: 227, 229; everyday life in 81, hoking 209
86–8, 92, 95–7; identity in 81; political Holsten brand 185
history of 83–5 hooliganism 207
Gaza Strip Premier League 85 horse racing 227
gender(s) 5–6; and equality between sexes Hoşer, Firdevs 117
70, 163; as factor in sport participation Hossam, Ahmed ‘Mido’ 212
36–40; interaction between 19; natural housewives, idealization of 68; see also
division of 69 women and girls
gender logic 3 human rights 4, 7, 124, 225
gender politics 6, 67 humility 16, 21, 23
gender segregation/separation 21, 34, hunting 227
39–40, 44, 46, 122n2, 163, 170–2, 201 Hussein, Bin Ali Al (Prince of Jordan) 230
Germany: examples of Muslims youths in Hussein, Haya Bint Al (Princess of Jordan)
33–4; Muslim migrants in 35–6; sport 230
clubs in 6, 37–8; sport participation of Husserl, Edmund 86
Muslim youths in 6, 36–8 hyper-consumerism 228; see also
Ghribi, Habiba 108–10 consumerism
girls see Muslim women and girls
Giulianotti, Richard 144 IAAF 229
globalisation 89, 228; effect on Ibdi 226
consumption and marketing 179–80; Ibrahim, Waleed Al 185
effect on sport in Malaysia 202–3; and ice skating 61
football 144–5; in Muslim countries identity/ies: of an athlete 19; collective 4;
186; and the needs of Muslim development of 3, 4, 6; ethnic 3; ethnic
consumers 180; of sport 205–7; of sport minority 137; gender 6; gendered 52,
brands 182 58; individual 4; multiple 145; Muslim
Gökçek, Melih 69 6, 7, 19, 134, 225; of Muslim girls and
golf 200 women 50–2, 224–5; religious 3, 5, 6, 7,
Gülşan, Rahşan 72 17, 19, 163; self- 17; tomboy 51, 53–62;
Gümüşdağ, Göksel 66 Tunisian 104; Turkish 121; see also
Güzel, Samet 73 national identity
gymnastics 200 Ijtihad 4, 225
illegal interests 183
Hadith 14–17, 19 immigrants: cultural background of 162;
halal products 8, 180, 184, 202 football clubs of 26, 33; inclusion of 13;
Hamas (Palestine) 83, 84, 85, 96, 106, 229 in Italy 7; see also immigration; Muslim
handball 108 immigrants in Norway
Hasan, Mehdi 211 immigration 5; anti-immigration
head coverings see hijab sentiments 26; in Norway 159–60, 165;
headscarves see hijab see also immigrants
heterosexual appeal 61 Indian Premier League (IPL) 206
Highmore, Ben 81 individualism 24, 25, 105
hijab; athletes foregoing 39, 119–20; ban Indonesia 226
on wearing 25; debate in Norway 163; Instagram 208–9
Index 237
integration: cultural 35; identificational Israel 14, 81–5, 88–97, 131, 227, 229
36; and the Muslim faith 4; in Norway Italy: immigrants in 7, 146–7, 151, 154–5;
161–2, 163, 165, 171–2; socio-structural Muslim identity in 7; national identity
35; and sports involvement 25–6, 147, in 148
159, 161–2, 164, 166; see also social
integration Jamaat Islami (Pakistan) 105
International Olympic Committee (IOC) Jewish Agency for Israel 84
103–4, 206, 229 jihad 136
international sporting events 5, 197, 214, 228 Jihadi Salafist movement 110, 228
International Year of Sport and Physical Jordan 8, 226

Education 206 judo 21
IOC see International Olympic Committee Justice and Development Party (Turkey;
Iran 226 AKP) 67, 77, 105; conservative and
Islam: and boxing 7, 127–8; on the care of gendered morals of 68; gender politics
the body 18, 20; core values of 221–2; of 68–70, 71
differing interpretations of 221–2; and
the elimination of ethnic and racial KADEM see Women and Democracy
prejudice 202; five pillars of 16; flag Association (KADEM)
of 211; fundamentalist interpretation of KA-DER (Association for the Support
126; ghettoisation of 225; importance and Training of Women Candidates) 71,
of exercise in 39; influence of Sunnah 78n8
in 3, 4, 26n3; Sunni vs. Shiite 16; as Kanoute, Frederic 183, 211, 215
lifestyle 13, 17–18; in Malaysia 8, karate 21, 23
194–6, 199–203; negative/stereotyped Kaya, Rıza 120
views of 3; and the role of women 69; Khan, Amir 129
varying interpretations and practices of Kılıç, Suat 73, 120, 122n9
41–2, 187, 224; in the West 6; see also Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) 108, 180,
Muslims; Qur’an; religion 226
Islam Hadhari 8 Kirbaç, Tamer 77
Islamic Brotherhood 105, 229 Kosovo 229
Islamic Council of Norway 160 Koss, Jan Olav 89
Islamic festivals 229; see also Muslim Kuala Lumpur 182
holidays Kuffar symbols 22
Islamic fundamentalism 105; see also kung fu 23, 127
Islamism
Islamic issues, in Western democracies 4 La Lega Nord 151
Islamic marketing 8; conclusions 186–7; Lakhous, Amara 7; Clash of Civilizations
general principles of 179–82; Halal Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio
sport marketing 184–6; Haram sport 141–2, 144, 148–9, 154–5; Dispute
marketing 182–4 Over a Very Italian Piglet 141–2, 152–5;
Islamic pathway 180–2 Divorce Islamic Style 141–3, 149–51,
Islamic Research Foundation 21 154–5
Islamic scholars, religious rulings of 4 League of Nations 83–4
Islamic societies, modernisation of 6 Lebanon 226
Islamic Solidarity Games 228 Lee, John 87
Islamic Solidarity Sports Federation 228 leisure monitoring 40
Islamic studies 5 liberalism 163, 173; see also neo-liberalism
Islamisation 110, 227–8 Libya 107, 226
Islamism (political Islam) and Islamists 10, Lineker, Gary 208
110; in the Arab World 6; in Gaza 96;
and sport 228–9; in Turkey 68; varying Mahmood, Saba 120
degrees of 105 make-up 60
Islamophobia 13, 151, 212–13, 207, 230; Malaysia 226; ethnic diversity in 192–3,
in football 7; and the Hijab 20 202; goal of national unity in 202;
238 Index
history and demographics 191–4; history modernisation 19, 227; in the Turkish
of sport in 197–8; Islam in 7, 194–6; Republic 67, 113–14, 115
national sports policy of 8, 198–9, 203; modernism 3, 23
religious diversity in 192, 200; sport and modernity: in the Arabian Peninsula 186;
Islam in 199–203; sport in 196; sport in the Arab world 105; and Islamic
marketing in 187; sports associations culture 7; in Palestine 85; vs. tradition
in 197; tourism economy in 182–3; 25; in Tunisia 109; Western 227
traditional sport competitions in 197 modesty 16, 19, 117; and the Hijab 20–1;
Malaysia Cergas 198 for both sexes 21
Malaysian Games (SUKMA) 198 Mohamad, Mahathir 202

Malaysian Leisure and Recreation Council Mohammad (prophet) 14, 22, 213
(MARFIMA) 199 Morocco 226
Malaysian School Sports Council 199 mosques: in Germany 35; visits to 33, 41,
Malcolm X 7, 22, 124; influence of 44, 46, 195
128–31, 134–7; and the Nation of Islam motorbike gang, female 52
134–5 Movement for Peace in Society and Islah
Manchester United Football Academy (Algeria) 105
(Dubai) 186 multiculturalism 126; anti-racism 163; in
marginalisation 3–6, 75–7, 229 Norway 162, 163, 165
marketing: of controversial products 181; Muslim Brotherhood (Muslim Brothers)
defined 177; ethos of 176–7; link with 84, 111n3
capitalism and neo-liberalism 177; and Muslim countries: foreign investment
the need to avoid giving offense 181; in 180; increased religiosity in 180;
as propaganda 176; see also Islamic three Islamic schools of thought 226;
marketing; sport marketing three types of 226; see also individual
martial arts 22–3, 56, 106, 127; see also countries by name
Ezzamktal Muslim diaspora 124, 225
Martyr Competition (Gaza) 90, 95 Muslim holidays 35; see also Islamic
masculinity: Arab 87, 97; and crying 88, festivals
90, 96; football and 88–91; hegemonic Muslim immigrants in Norway 159–60;
87–8, 90, 95; honour and 87–8; as aspects of sport participation 165;
objectionable behaviour 73; social children mixing across ethnic and
constructionist discourses of 56; religious divides 166–9; conclusions
traditional male roles of 39 172–3; data collection and analysis
Mazzara, Federica 142 164–5; focus on cultural differences
MBC (Middle East Broadcasting 170–2; and the integration process
Company) 185 161–2; lack of immigrant parents
media: Islamic 118, 122n6; secular 118 volunteering in sport clubs 169–70;
meditative practices 23 research on sport participation 163;
Mediterranean Games 103, 104 sport integration as discourse 164
men see masculinity Muslim population, diversity of 3, 5
Merleau-Ponty 86, 96 Muslims: Chinese 127; and club-organised
Merzouki, Moncef 107 sport 36; discrimination against 3;
Middle East: 7, 8, 24; see also individual diversity of population 3, 5; in Germany
countries by name 35; increase in believers worldwide
Middle East Broadcasting Company 3, 13; in Italy 146– self-affirmation
(MBC) 185 of 224; and sport 5, 125–6; see also
migration studies 5 Muslim immigrants in Norway; Muslim
Millennium Development Goals 207 women and girls; Muslim women in the
Ministry of Youth and Sport (Malaysia) UK; Muslim youth; Muslim youths in
198–9 Germany
minority communitarianism 163 Muslim unity 24
#Mipsterz 52 Muslim women and girls: controlled virtue
mixed martial arts 22 of 68; discursive traditions related to the
Index 239
bodies of 113–20; dress codes for 39, national pride 24, 213–14
42, 44, 117; empowerment of 52, 59–60, National Sport Convention (1986,
75–7; on fashion and heterosexual appeal Malaysia) 198
60–2; and gender identity 6; gendered National Sports Council (Malaysia) 198,
performance of 50–1; idealization of 199
68; as ‘ladies’ 72–3, 78n2; lesbian 69; nationalism 24; in Turkey 113–14, 121;
in motorbike gang 52; and the natural Palestinian 84, 96
discourse theory 73; participation in natural differences discourse 75–7
sport 7, 44, 201, 224; protest against neo-fundamentalism 105; see also
dominant forms of femininity 52–3; Islamism

public sexuality of 117–19; religious neo-liberalism 137, 177, 186
constraints on sport participation 45–6, neo-reformism 105; see also Islamism
200; sexual harassment of 117; single Nestlé Milo Health and Nutrition 186
69; as spectators and fans 61, 66–7, netball 198
74–5; study of engagement in sport Nigeria 226
53–8; traditional roles of 39, 46, 52, Nike logo controversy 181, 187
69, 74; transsexual 69; using sport to 9/11 terrorist attacks 4, 7, 13, 124, 125,
challenge masculine culture 59; see also 141–4, 151, 154, 223
femininity; Muslim women in the UK; No Logo (Klein) 177
women athletes; women in Turkey; nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)
women’s rights 199
Muslim women in the UK: conclusions Nordic Social Democracy 168
of study 62–3; fad fashions and North Africa, Islam and sports in 7;
heterosexual appeal 60–1; methodology see also Egypt; Libya
of study 53–4; as rebels 58–60; as strong Norway: assimilation in 173; immigration
and athletic 54–8; tomboy identity of in 159–60; Muslim girls in 7; social
51–63; women’s lived experiences 54 exclusion in 7; sport and Islam in 224;
Muslim writers, in diaspora 144–6 see also Muslim immigrants in Norway
Muslim youth: demographics of 3; and Norwegian Confederation of Sports (NOC)
identity development 4; radicalisation 160
of 4, 13, 14, 26, 230; sport participation
boys vs. girls 36–7; see also Muslim obesity 37
youths in Germany Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) 197,
Muslim youths in Germany: brief 199
portraits of youths 33–4; changing Olympic Games 25; 1972 boycott 85;
significance of religion in adolescence 1992, Barcelona 109; 2012 London 106,
45–6; conclusions regarding girls’ 107, 119–20, 122n8, 126, 228
participation in sport 46–7; degrees Oman 226
of integration 35–6; differing Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)
interpretations of religion 41–2; Islamic 213, 228
religiousness and organized sport Orientalism 126, 205
38–40; religion as a restriction on sport Other(s): boxers as 126; collective 97;
44–5; religion as source of strength 43; gendered 62, 63n1
sport limited by religious practice 43; Ouarghi, Mounsef 106
sport participation of 36–8 outdoor pursuits 196
Mzali, Mohamed 103 overweight 37
Özbek, Aysun 7, 113, 116–18, 121
Nasri, Samir 210, 215
Nation of Islam (NOI) 124, 132 Pakistanis, British 129; see also British
National Basketball Association (NBA) Pakistani ex-offender study
206, 209 Palestine 24, 227, 131; political history
National Front (France) 186 of 83–5; sport and social mobility in
national identity: Italian 148; and sport 4, 8; sports and politics in 85–6; youth
82, 113–14 identity formation in 6
240 Index
Palestine Football Association (PFA) 85 Rajoub, Jibril 85
Palestinian National Authority (PNA) 84, Ramadan, Tariq 4
227 Ramadan 16, 18, 33, 39, 46, 107–8, 145,
parents, influence of 41–2, 45–6 171, 180, 195, 201, 211, 222, 223
Paris St Germain 188 Real Madrid 182, 186, 188, 208, 227
Party for Justice and Development religion: changing significance of in
(Morocco) 105 adolescence 45; as diversion from crime
Peel Commission 84 132; gender-specific laws and duties 39;
peer influence 42 in Malaysia 192; as a restriction in the
Pepsi Indian Premier League 206 pursuit of sport 44; as source of strength
PFA (Palestine Football Association) 85 in training and competition 43; in
phenomenology 86 Western society 224; see also Islam
philosophy 229 religiosity, evidence of 41–2
physical activities: harmful to the body religious studies 229
22–3; involving religious philosophies research: ethnographic 129–32; feminist
23; see also sport 128–9; future agenda for 229–30
piercings 60 Revolutionary Cup (Gaza) 89, 95
Platini, Michel 94 rhythmic gymnastics 40
PNA (Palestinian National Authority) 84, Rıfat, Sabiha 114
227 rituals 23, 24–5
political activism 4 Robertson, Roland 144
political science 5 Ronaldo, Cristiano 208
polo 227 rugby 51, 56, 200
polygamy 67 running 90; see also track and field
post-colonialism 227; see also colonialism
power: Black 135; gender and 87–8, 97; of sailing 196, 227
policy makers 164, 168, 173; relations ‘sajdah’ gesture 210–11, 214–15; see also
of 164; sharing of 194; soft 183, 186, prayer(s)
205, 209, 210, 213–15; sovereign 121; Salafi Jihadi movement 106, 108–10
of sport 205–7; symbolic 210, 214–15; Salafism, scientific branch of 109
of symbols 7, 17 Salim, Ebrahim Abu 85
prayer calls, in Malaysia 201, 202 samurai 23
prayer(s) 16–18, 23, 33, 39, 41, 43, 46, Sarsak, Mahmoud 82, 88, 93–5, 97
154, 171, 195, 200, 202, 210, 214, 215, Sartre, Jean-Paul 86
223 Saudi Arabia 108, 180, 226
professional boxing 22; see also boxing secularism 23, 68
propaganda, marketing as 176 self-defense 58, 135
Prosperous Justice Party (Indonesia) 105–6 self-identity 17
self-respect 21
Qatar 226; financing Islamist groups by sepak takraw 197, 198
111n3; sports broadcasting in 107; sex education 35
sports sponsoring in 186, 187; women sex workers 69
Olympic athletes from 108; women’s sexual harassment 117
basketball team 25, 228 Sharia, Ansar Al 106
Qur’an 14–17, 16, 26; and combat sports Shari’a 16, 25, 222, 223; effect on
22–3; influence of 3, 4; on Muslim unity consumption and marketing 180, 182;
24; reading of 41 and sports participation 14–15
Shi’aa 226
Raab, Alon 145 Shiites 35
racism 125, 130, 134, 135, 145, 149, 154, Shintoism 23
170, 207, 212 Sissoko, Moussa 183
radicalisation 4, 13, 14, 26, 230 Small World Cup Tournament 89, 95
Radio and Television Supreme Council soccer see football
(RTÜK; Turkey) 78 social alienation 4
Index 241
Social Democracy, in Scandinavia 168 37–8; in Turkey 114; volunteer parental
social exclusion 13, 39, 125, 205 participation in 169–70
social integration 4, 6, 13, 26, 33, 36, 161, sport diplomacy 207–8, 225; digital
162, 223 208–9; Islamic 205, 213–15; see also
social justice 124, 126 diplomacy
social media sites 208; see also Facebook; sport events, international 5, 197, 214, 228
Twitter sport history 5
social sciences 229 sport management and policy 5
socio-economic segregation 229 sport marketing 177–9; Halal vs. Haram
sociology 5, 229 177, 182–6; in Muslims contexts 7–8; in

soft power 183, 186, 205, 209, 210, 213, Muslim countries 186–8
214, 215 sport studies 5
‘Somewhere in America’ video 52 sport swaggering 213–15
South Asian diaspora (UK) 7, 124 sports analysts 19
Soviet Union, former countries of 226 sports enthusiasts 19, 24–5; misbehaviour
sport: as agent of inclusion 13, 23; by 66–7, 74–6, 207
aggression in 24; and the body 5; as sports sponsoring 182–8, 206, 214, 227,
branding tool 179, 180, 182, 186, 187, 229
210, 214, 227, 229; as a career 196; steeplechase 108, 109
colonial 127; commercialization of stigmatisation 125
39; disruptive practices in 24; divisive Støre, Jonas Gahr 94
aspects of 13, 206; egalitarian nature Sudan 226
of 124–5; emphasis on achievement Sunnah 3, 4, 14–17, 26n3
and records in 23; as entertainment/ Sunni 35, 226
distraction 19, 24, 106; global power swaggering 213–15
of 205–7; globalisation of 205–7; and swimming 40, 108, 117, 198, 200
international development 8; in Islam swimming lessons 34, 35, 42
5–6, 221–5; and Islam in Malaysia Syam, Mostafa 82
199–203; in Islam in the west 222–5; symbols of Kuffar 22
and Islamism 228–9; limiting factor in Syria 8, 226
religious practice 43; in Malaysia 196–9,
203; as means of strengthening young table tennis 198
Muslims 106; in the Middle East and Tabligh 106
Gulf region 178; minority participation taekwondo 33, 43, 120, 122n8
in 13–14; multicultural nature of 126; in Tan, Vincent 182
Muslim countries 225–8; and Muslim Tanrıulu, Bahri 120
immigrants in Europe 147; and Muslims Taoism 23
125–6, 205; and national identity 82, Tatar, Nur 122n8
113–14; as opportunity for integration tennis 117, 186, 197
25–6; as radicalisation tool 14; rough Tioté, Cheik 183
57; as secular religion 3, 24–5; as site tomboyism 51, 226; and the empowerment
of contest 145; stereotypes in 125; as of women 52; expressions of 54–62; and
unifying agent 13, 23, 06, 191, 206; as migrant Muslim girls 51–3, 54, 62–3;
vehicle for integration 25–6, 147, 159, psychoanalytical characterization of 58
161–2, 164, 166; violence in 24, 66, 71, torture, in Israeli prison 94
75, 107; and women 6, 59–60; see also Toure, Yahya 210, 215
athletes; international sporting events; track and field 40, 198; see also running
sport clubs Tunisia 226, 228; international sporting
sport associations see sport clubs events hosted by 103, 104; Islamist
sport clubs: de-Christianisation of 186, party in 105; revolution in 106–7;
188; democratic nature of 159; in see also Tunisian sports and politics
Gaza 82; for homosexuals 168; for Tunisian sports and politics 7, 103,
immigrants 26, 33; minority 166–7, 173; 110–11; Olympic athletes from Tunisia
minority youth in 159; participation in 107–10; reorganisation of sport
242 Index
federations 106–7; sport and secular walking, on pilgrimage 39
state ideology 103–5; sport under War on Terror 125
transition government 105–7 water diving 227
Türel, Antalya Menderes 77 weightlifting 197
Turkey 226, 229; gender norms in 68–9, West Bank 82–6, 88–90, 94, 227, 229
74; modernisation in 67, 113–14, 115; Western gaze 115
nationalism in 113–14; secularisation Western values 105, 185; consumerism
of 226; women’s sport participation in 228; and the ‘halal’ designation 187–8;
7; see also Turkish women athletes; and sports 23, 25
women in Turkey women and girls see Muslim women and

Turkish Football Federation (TFF) 66, 67 girls
Turkish Foundation for Human Rights and Women and Democracy Association
Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief 81–2 (KADEM) 69
Turkish Republic see Turkey Women and Justice Summit (Turkey) 69
Turkish women athletes: Aysun Özbek women athletes 5, 53, 224; boxing 34,
113, 116–18, 121; conclusions 120–1; 44–5, 56, 58–9; increase in 19; in
and exposure to Western gaze 115; and ‘masculine’ sports 51; as Olympic 108,
the headscarf issue 116; ideological 228; playing football 33–4, 52, 58;
contestations of the female body public sexuality of 117–19; separate
117–18; at the Olympic Games 115, sport facilities for 26, 34, 44, 46, 223
119–20, 228; and the secularist-Islamist women in Turkey 117–19; and feminism
dichotomy 118–19; sexual harassment 6; ‘ladies’ night’ at Fenerbahçe 66–7,
of 117; sexuality and sports 117; viewed 72–3; rights of 67–8; sport participation
as patriotic 113–14 6–7; status of 67–8; two types of 114;
Twitter 208–9; about the women-and- at women-and-children only football
children football games 72; and the games 66–7
Tunisian revolution 106; as source of Women Islamic Games 228
data 67 women’s rights 19, 25; activism for 77; in
Tunisia 109–10; in Turkey 67–8
UAE 186, 187, 226 World Cup Tournament (FIFA) 5, 89, 107,
UK see British Pakistanis; British 146, 206
Pakistani ex-offender study World Karate Federation 20–1
Ummah 3, 24, 96, 106, 228; see also wrestling 22, 120
Muslims
United Nations 83, 84, 205–6 xenophobia 147, 151, 154, 207, 212
unity: Islamic 24, 228; in Malaysia 202
usury 183 Yanga-Mbiwa, Mapou 183
Yılmaz, Nevriye 120
values: of boxing and Islam 135–6; Yobo, Joseph 72
consumer 7; French 223; Islamic 201–2, yoga 23
228; neo-liberal 137, 177, 186; see also YouTube 106
Western values Yugoslavia (former) 229
veil see Burqa; hijab
Virtual Islamic Environment 4, 15 Zaini, Nor Saiful 201
volleyball 108, 113, 114, 117, 120, 198 Zen 23
Zen Buddhism 23
Wahabi doctrine 186 Zidane, Zinédine 151
Waiters, Dion 25 Zionist movement 83, 85

Sport in Islam and in Muslim Communities

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Sport in Islam and in Muslim Communities

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 21:35 12 January 2017

Sport in Islam and in Muslim

1 Sport, Masculinities and 8 Sport and Social Mobility

2 India and the Olympics 9 Critical Readings in

7 The Organisation and 14 The Social Organization of

Edited by Barbara Segaert, Marc 25 Sport, Public Broadcasting,

35 Touch in Sports Coaching Jamie Cleland

in a Changing World Order The future of sport imagined

This page intentionally left blank

Edited by Alberto Testa

To Franco and Giovanna, Rosalind, Sofia, Kristen, Rocky,

This page intentionally left blank

1 Sport in Islam: the complexities, controversies and context 3

2 Engaging in sport: the Islamic framework 13

3 Sport participation of Muslim youths in Germany 33

4 Being and becoming tomboys: Muslim women, gender

5 Women, Islamic feminism and children-only soccer in

6 Football, war and masculinities on the Palestinian, Gaza Strip:

7 Sport and political transition in Tunisia: another terrain

8 Contestations and dichotomies concerning women’s bodies

9 The influence of the Nation of Islam and Islam on British-Muslim

10 Muslim immigrants and football in Amara Lakhous’s fiction 141

11 Sport and integration discourse in Norway: how do policy

12 Islamic sport marketing or sport marketing in Muslim cultures

13 Sport policy and Islam in Malaysia 191

14 Diplomacy and the beautiful game: Muslim footballers as

15 Research on sport and Islam: the way forward 221

We would like to thank Simon Whitmore (Routledge Senior Commissioning

Mohd Salleh Aman is an Associate Professor of Sport and Recreation Manage-

at the University of Huddersfield. He joined the University in September 2014.

This page intentionally left blank

Regardless of differences in theological interpretation and political views (Sun-

personal Violence, vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 317–336.

This page intentionally left blank

Understanding sport in Islam

This page intentionally left blank

football club in Israel in the nineties (Agenfor Italia, 2013).

Sport and obsession and commercialisation

The framework: making sense of Islam

Sport participation according to the Islamic framework

Although these activities are considered to be of secondary importance com-

Muslim’. Considering that modern sport requires individual dedication to the

Gender, modesty, and the Kuffars’ symbols

So although it is a symbol of women’s modesty, the Hijab is still considered

It safeguards our dignity; when a men looks at us he will respect us because

Combat sports and meditative practices

Islam and modern sport: conflict, identity, and dialogue?

the Rome Mosque).

tion (Muller et al., 2008).

tion of the American Spirit, Basic Books, New York.

Gender, body and culture

This page intentionally left blank

In place of an introduction – several brief portraits

(1) Indicators on socio-structural integration first reveal a lower level of edu-

In comparison to non-Muslim migrants, the average situation for Muslims in

Sport participation of Muslim youths in Germany

quarter of girls without a migration background (26 percent) do sport daily. It

According to quantitative data, Muslim girls can be depicted as a group which

Islamic religiousness and organised sport

Islam and sport – findings from a current study

Different meanings and interpretations of religion

obligations can be regarded as a matter of course, deeply internalized and unques-

Moreover, Hülya distanced herself explicitly from wearing a headscarf, which