The Moslimas: Pushing the Limits of Dutchness and Processing the Religious Experience of Muslim Women in the Netherlands: Amsterdam in the Early 21st Century

This work is a case study focused on the Netherlands and the lives of its Muslim women. The Netherlands has specific accuracies, affected by the historical memory of the country as one of tolerance regarding divisions between different religious groups and historical events related to society and immigration . Combined with negative ideas in the Western hemisphere regarding Islam historically contributed to the development of a dichotomy between Dutch identity and Islam. This dichotomy renders the two identities irreconcilable, and comprises part of those born and raised Muslim in the Netherlands as well as ethnically Dutch converts to Islam. The emergence of Muslim communities in the Netherlands is the result of newly arrived groups of Muslim immigrants. The difficulty of reconciling Dutch and Muslim identities is due in part to the perception of Muslims as different, foreign, and as “the other’’. Through the stories of converted native Dutch this paper will emphasize the difficulty of reconciling two seemingly different identities embodied in one woman: A Dutch Muslim woman, (“Moslima”). This study focuses on the lives of Dutch Muslim women who chose to practice Islam which is often considered by the native Dutch population as a religion oppressive to women. How do these Dutch Muslim women build their identity in a way that it is both Dutch and Muslim? Do they mix Dutch parameters in their Muslim identity, while at the same time intersplice Islamic principles in their Dutch senses of self? This study argues that in the context of being Dutch and Muslim, these women express their agency, which is their ability to choose and act in social action. They push the limits of archetypal Dutch identity while simultaneously stretching the meaning of Islam to craft their own identity influenced by themes of immigration, belongingness, knowledge, gender, and more.