Nico Landman,
Utrecht University

Dutch responses to Muslim religious practices

Presentation for the
Fachtagung der Katholische Akademie / Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung
Muslime in Europa — ein Ländervergleich
9–10 februari 2001

Introduction

A major part of Muslim religious practice takes place in the private sphere of the home, or within the four walls of a mosque, and go unnoticed by the public. However, some of the Muslim practices do enter the public arena. One reason for religious practices becoming the object of public attention is that legal questions are involved. E.g., the existing rules on slaughter in most western countries require stunning the animal before slaughtering, whereas the Muslim method of ritual slaughter is cutting the throat of a conscious animal, invoking the name of God. Next, many Muslim religious needs require some form of visibility in public space, like mosques and minarets, which are a part of the town planning and have to be negotiated with authorities. In other cases practical matters have to be sorted out with local institutions: burial of Muslims on public cemeteries, access of imams to Muslim patients, etc. A final reason for Muslim practices becoming a public affair can be the fact that pressure groups in society oppose these practices. Again, ritual slaughter is a case in point, since both animal protection groups and right wing political parties have claimed that Muslim practices in this area are a violation of animal rights.

The place of Muslim religious practices in the Netherlands is first and foremost shaped by the constitutional freedom of religion. This freedom, which is guaranteed by article six of the constitution, is not unlimited, as religious practices can conflict with other constitutional rights and obligations. Article one of the constitution prohibits any form of discrimination on the basis of race, religion or sex. If a religious practice or belief is regarded as a violation of this non-discrimination principle, the constitutional protection does not apply to that practice or belief. The freedom of religion also does not mean to freedom to insult other people. In particular discrimination or insulting homosexuals has in recent years been a reason for courts to limit religious freedom. Christian politicians have been sued by homo-organisations for critical remarks on homosexual behaviour. Recently a statement of a Rotterdam imam, claiming that homosexuality is a danger for Dutch society, led to a public debate on the acceptability of such remarks by religious leaders, and may lead to a new court case. In short, religious freedom is not unlimited. What the freedom exactly entails, or in other words, which practices, claimed to be religious, are protected by the constitution, depends on interpretation and sometimes on balancing this right against other rights.
The place of Muslim practices in the Netherlands is also determined by the place of religion in Dutch public life. The public role of religion has changed considerably during the 20th century by a process of secularisation. The history of the Netherlands is strongly connected to Christianity – with Calvinism as a dominant religious current and Catholicism forming a minority religion. This legacy shapes many features of daily life, like the public holidays. In some fields of social life, like education, and in some parts of the country, religious communities still exercise considerable influence. The Dutch state, however, is secular in the sense that there is no state religion, no specific ties between the state and specific religious communities, and no officially recognized religions. This secular character does not preclude contacts, cooperation and even financial support for specific activities of religious organisations. But these ties and subsidies must that in principle be open for other groups, religious or non-religious, which are in a similar situation.

Against this background it may be clear that Muslims are in principle free to follow the rules of their religion, but that their practices may be balanced against other considerations, and give rise to public debates and legal cases if other citizens claim that their interests are harmed. With these general remarks in mind, I will discuss some of the Islamic religious practices, to see how Dutch society responds to them.

Circumcision

Circumcision of boys is a Muslim practice that by and large is unnoticed by the Dutch public – and when it is noticed, nobody outside the Muslim community pays much attention to it. Only in the context of fierce debates about circumcision of girls –a cultural phenomenon which is common in some East-African Muslim countries but rejected by most Muslim authorities elsewhere – some columnist have questioned or ridiculized circumcision of boys. These critics have argued that circumcision is an unnecessary mutilation of the male body, and claimed that it reduces sexual sensitivity. However, apart from the odd columnist, this practice is being taken for granted as a part of the cultural and religious heritage of the Muslims, just as it since long has been for the Jewish community.

Circumcisions of Muslim boys living in the Netherlands, happens in three ways. In the first place it can be done by a professional circumciser in the country of origin of the parents during holidays. For Moroccan Muslims this is still the prevalent way to do it. Second, Muslim organisations, mostly Turkish ones, arrange collective circumcision ceremonies, carried out by a professional circumciser who is invited from the country of origin. In both case, the circumcision is accompanied by recitations and prayers, and other symbolic acts like dressing the boy like a prince. In this way, the importance and religious meaning of the ceremony is stressed.
The third possibility is to have the children circumcised in a hospital. Here it becomes an operation, carried out by a doctor who is usually not a Muslim, after the child is hypnoticized. It is interesting to see that hospitals are very happy to provide this service. The Utrecht Academic Hospital even developed some new instruments to make it an easier job. Hospitals offering this opportunity are probably not motivated by multicultural ideals. They have simply discovered a new market. An increasing number of Muslim parents chose this option. About 6000 circumcisions per year take place in Dutch hospitals. The advantage of this choice is that cleanliness and safety can be guaranteed. The disadvantages are the costs, which are much higher – and the lack of religious symbolism surrounding the operation. This way of arranging the circumcision is very clinical, and religious acts are not part of it, or rather, they have to wait until the child is returned to the parents

There are some local initiatives to find an institutionalized way to have circumcisions outside the hospitals, but using the expertise of medical specialists. In Rotterdam, a Muslim organisation specialized in organizing circumcision. In Utrecht, a hospital offers circumcision services outside the hospital. At the national level, there was a marginal government involvement in the organisation of circumcision by Muslims, as the state sponsored an inventory study to the current situation. The author of this study recommended co-ordinated efforts on the national level like a training program for circumcisers and the introduction of an officially recognized diploma for them. However, these proposals were not translated into concrete policies, and the praxis of circumcision has not yet fully been institutionalized in the Netherlands.

Dress codes

Like in other European countries, the headscarf of Muslim women or girls has been a reason for conflicts and the subject of public debates. An early case was the headscarf affaire in the town of Alphen aan den Rijn, where the alderman for education in 1985 forbade Muslim girls to wear headscarves in public schools, because he believed this to be an obstacle to their integration. An Arabist from Leiden University supported this policy by questioning the quranic basis of the obligation to wear a headscarf. Protests by an interest organisation for migrants led to a discussion in parliament, which concluded that the prohibition had no sound legal basis. It was not up to local authorities to decide how the Quran was to be interpreted and to limit the religious freedom of Muslim girls arbitrarily. Alphen aan den Rijn had to reverse their policies and admit the headscarves in the public schools.
Since then, other conflicts about dress codes have arisen in schools, mostly during lessons of gymnastics or chemistry, when girls are requested to put of the scarf for safety reasons. Usually a compromise is found, consisting of another form of head covering, which is considered to be safe. Similar disputes have arisen in swimming lessons, which are obligatory in Dutch primary education, and which are given to mixed groups of boys and girls. Cases in which Muslim girls refused to appear in these lessons in bath suites uncovering their legs and arms have led to discussions on the local level. In most cases, a compromise have been found, either by exempting Muslim girls from attending these lessons, or by arranging separate swimming lessons for girls, of by allowing the girls to wear training suits that cover the body.
Legally, there is a significant distinction between public schools and private schools. For public schools, the Alphen aan den Rijn case has shown that the school authorities have no right to prohibit headscarves. But private schools are in another position. They can impose their own dress codes on children and expel children who do not comply with these rules.
Another field, in which headscarf disputes have arisen, is occupation. Employers often ask their female Muslim employees to put of their headscarf. The reason is usually commercial. Being aware of anti-Islamic feeling in the public, they fear that the headscarf, as a symbol of Islam, will drive away their clients. Another reason can be, that the headscarf cannot be combined with a company uniform. The Muslim women who insists on wearing the scarf is to some extend protected by anti-discrimination laws. Violations of these laws can be put before a Commission for Equal Treatment who then will judge the case. In 1999 a Muslim women who had be refused a position as a trainee at a public primary school successfully put her case before the commission. The commission decided that the school board had unrightfully used the headscarf as an indication of a strict religious attitude. This and similar court decision suggest that employers may not fire Muslim women, or refuse to hire her, for the one and only reason of her wearing a scarf.
In practice, this legal protection does not mean so much, because the employer can usually find other reasons for not hiring her: he can claim to have other candidates who are better qualified for the job.
Therefore, legal protection is not the only factor, which determines the future of Muslim dress codes in the Netherlands. Social acceptance is another point. In general, this acceptance seems to be growing, as more and more institutions and companies wish that the outward appearances of their staff reflect the multicultural society. The police have for several years been trying to recruit members of the ethnic minorities and in this framework seriously consider introducing Sikh turbans and Islamic headscarves as a variation of the policy uniforms. Companies located in areas with large concentrations of Muslims are beginning to see the Muslims as potential customers, and therefore adapt their policies concerning the outward appearance of their personnel. The official policy of a large chain of supermarkets in the Netherlands is now, that the appearance of their personnel must reflect the plurality of the public, including Muslim women with a scarf.
On the other hand, a number of cases in early 2001 show that the headscarf issue is far from solved in the Netherlands. First, the chief editor of the feminist monthly magazine “Opzij” claimed that there would be no place for women with headscarves in her team, because the headscarf was a symbol of oppression of women. These statements provoked angry reactions among some Muslim women and led to public debates in which many hostile sentiments towards the Muslim dress codes were expressed. Secondly, a Muslim law student of Turkish origin applied for a position as clerk of a court in the town of Zwolle and was refused because she had expressed her intention to wear a headscarf during her work. She then put her case before the Commission for Equal Treatment, who will have to decide whether the Zwolle court’s refusal is legal. The Zwolle court claims that no visible expression of religious affiliation, including cruciferae, is allowed for judges and staff members who are present during the court cases, because they violate the absolute impartiality of the court. The Muslim student argues that a prohibition to wear the scarf as a staff member of a Dutch court will exclude a significant group of women from functions within the judicial system. The fact that this Muslim law student is capable of defending her own case, not just before the court, but also in front of television camera’s shows a growing self-confidence of a group of young Muslim women who insist on following the Islamic dress codes and simultaneously have a successful social carrier.
In general we can conclude that some Dutch organisations and individuals are reluctant in accepting Muslim headscarves, but more often a pragmatic attitude prevails. This pragmatism is further stimulated by anti-discrimination laws and that the Commission for Equal Treatment has interpreted these laws in favour of Muslim women following the dress codes. Although Dutch opponents of the scarf have argued that is a symbol of repression, it is very uncommon to depict them as indications of political Islam – as it is often done in France. In a current Ph.D.-research, the controversies about the Muslim headscarves in the Netherlands are compared with those in France. This study may shed more light on the reasons why the Dutch approach by and large has been pragmatic, whereas the French approach was stricter.

Ritual slaughter and halal food

The issue of ritual slaughter has been settled quite early in the Netherlands, but not without hot public debates. What was at stake is the Islamic prescription of slaughtering the animal by slitting its throat of the animal, while uttering the invocation “In the name of God”, after which it bleeds to death. This happens both for daily consumption and on special occasions, in particular the annual Feast of Sacrifice. Problems arose in the 1960s and early 1970s, were twofold: 1. Lack of coordination and organization, 2. Dutch law that prescribes stunning before slaughtering. After on proposals from the first Federation of Muslim Organisations, the government adapted the “Decree on the Inspection of Meat” in 1977 to permit slaughter according to Islamic rules. A similar exemption from the slaughtering rules had existed for the Jewish community since 1920. According to the new decree on the inspection of meat ritual slaughter was allowed exclusively in abattoirs designated by the authorities. In 1999 the number of designated abattoirs was 115. The decree also opened the possibility to exempt Islamic butchers from the obligation to have officially recognized certificates of professional skill. This exemption may be given to one butcher for every thousand Muslims living in a specific area, if his skills meet some minimum standards.
In 1986 the Netherlands ratified the 1982 European Treaty regarding the Protection of Slaughter Cattle, which stated in article 13, that in the case of ritual slaughter of animals of the bovine species, they must be restrained before slaughter by mechanical means. As a consequence, the abattoirs had to acquire the equipment to restrain cattle, and most of them also bought similar equipment for smaller animals.
The regulation of Islamic ritual slaughter has been strongly opposed by animal protection activists, who argued that the Islamic way made the animals suffer unnecessarily. The extreme rightist Centre Party jumped on this bandwagon to stimulate anti-Islamic sentiments. However, the Jewish precedence was a very strong argument in favour of the Muslim claims. Islamic ritual slaughter was, therefore, accepted and attempts were made to regulate it in a way, which limits unnecessary suffering.
For the annual Feast of Sacrifices, the National Cattle and Meat Inspection has elaborated strict rules, which are published in Dutch, Arabic and Turkish and distributed among Muslim organisations. One of these rules is that persons who wish to sacrifice an animal need to register at the abattoir some days before the feast, so that the sequence can be determined and chaos prevented, which otherwise can occur if hundreds of Muslims arrive with their animals at the same time early in the morning. The regulation also states that only two Muslim butchers, who work under the supervision of a veterinary surgeon and must prove their skills, are allowed to perform the ritual of cutting the throat, after which others, who must be professional butchers, will do the rest of the slaughtering. Only one person, representing the family or group who sacrifices the animal, may attend the ritual, whereas others have to wait outside. This last measure was a compromise between the Inspection who for reasons of hygiene did not want the public to be present at the ritual, and the Muslim organisations. Additional rules concern the transport of the animal and the inspection of the meat.
In spite of the strict regulation, every year some incidents of illegal slaughter are reported, which Muslim organisations ascribe to the limited capacity of the designated abattoirs. An additional problem can be the date of the feast of sacrifice, which depends on the lunar calendar. A fixed date, which has to be agreed upon by the Inspection, the abattoirs and the Muslim organisations long before the feast of sacrifice, is a condition sine qua non for the regulation. In practice, however, the actual beginning of the feast is every year rather unsure due to disagreement among the heterogeneous Muslim communities in the Netherlands as to when exactly a new lunar month has begun. As a result, the Inspection has been forced in some years to revise the date at short notice and to adjust their arrangements accordingly.

The slaughtering of meet for daily consumption follows similar rules, since the same abattoirs are available throughout the year. A number of meat suppliers and Islamic abattoirs distribute halal meat through a network of about 530 Islamic butchers. There is, however, considerable doubt about the question whether the meat sold by Islamic butchers is really slaughtered in compliance with Islamic prescripts. The Foundation Halal Service Benelux therefore developed a certificate for halal butchers, which they can receive after inspection of their products. I will not discuss this in detail, as they are internal Muslim matters, and hardly receive any attention by the Dutch public or authorities.

The availability of halal food in institutions like prisons and the army, however, did, and sometimes still does, raise problems. The army solved the question by two measures. The first was allowing soldier to eat outside the barracks. Secondly, vegetarian meals are offered. In the prisons, Jews and Muslims have the right to special nutrition. A proposal to provide this food on their own costs only was turned down in 1984.

Religious holidays

Religious holidays of Muslims and other religious minority groups have quite often appeared on the political agenda. Dutch law does not recognize the Friday as a Muslim holiday, and Muslim employees have no legal right to take leave for attending the Friday prayers. Only in specified situations, like in prisons and in the army, the Friday is recognized as a holiday for Muslims. Also, an adaptation of the law on closing times of shops permitted shop owners to close on Fridays and be open on Sundays.

Since the early 1990s, some politicians have flirted with the idea of recognizing some holidays of religious minority groups as national holidays. The Christian Democrat MP Krajenbrink suggested in 1992 to introduce a new national holiday devoted to the multicultural society. He was prepared to give up one or more of the “Christian” holidays in exchange, e.g. the second day of Pentecost or Easter. Alternatively, employees could give up one day of their summer holiday. Obviously, however, this one extra holiday would not fit into the religious calendars of the various religious and ethnic minorities, and the suggestion was not given much attention in the media. More recently, the Dutch Prime Minister Kok also indicated that recognition of one or more religious holidays of ethnic minorities was an option that should be explored. Just like the suggestion of Krajenbrink a decade age, these statements are rather non-committal. Recognition of feasts like the end of Ramadan, or the feast of sacrifices as national holidays will only be accepted in the Netherlands if feasts of other religious minorities like Jews and Hindus will be recognized as well. This inevitably means the abolishment of some of the traditional Christian holidays. The number of people for whom Pentecost has any religious meaning is very limited. Without the support of survey data I would suggest that the average teenager in Amsterdam knows more about Ramadan than about Pentecost. Nevertheless, it is very doubtful whether the Dutch public is ripe for giving up the current national holidays.

On the other hand, a more pragmatic form of actual recognition of Muslim holidays occurs already on schools with a large concentration of Muslim children. Some of these schools close during the feast of sacrifices for the simple reason that more than half of the children would not come anyway. “Religious duties” are a legally recognized reason for non-attendance at school.

While recognition as a national holiday may be one step too far, enabling religious minorities to celebrate their own holidays and giving them the right to have a day off is a more feasible option. In most cases this is a matter of consultation between an individual Muslim employee and his or her employer. The issue also has come up in negotiations between labour unions and organisations of employers about the collective labour agreements (CLA). In some CLA’s employees received the right to take a day off for the holidays of their religion. In the 2000 CLA for the wholesale trade in foodstuff and tobacco can chose between the “Christian” holidays and the holidays of another religion. But not everywhere the issue is settled, and conflicts can arise when employers refuse requests of their Muslim workers for a day off. A number of these conflicts have been brought to court and create jurisprudence in this field. The Supreme Court has ruled in 1984, that an employee may request a day off because of a religious holiday and that this request may only be denied if this holiday would seriously harm the interests of the company. However, the Supreme Court also stressed that the religious holidays of religious minorities did not have the same status as the Christian holidays like Christmas and Eastern, as they have been accepted as national holidays for everyone regardless his religious affiliation. By this ruling the Court abolished a ruling of a lower court, which had placed legal rights concerning Muslim and Christian holidays on an equal footing, saying that forcing a Muslim to work on an Islamic holiday must have the same foundation as forcing a Christian to work on a Christian holiday. The ruling of the Supreme Court protects Muslim employees but not on the same grounds as their Christian colleagues.
Chaplaincies

A rather new phenomenon in the Netherlands is the emergence of Muslim chaplaincies, or rather the participation of Muslims in multi-religious and multi-cultural chaplaincies in prisons and hospitals. In both institutions the spiritual care have since decades moved beyond occasion visits of priests and ministers to the prisoners or patients belonging to their parish. It has become an integrated part of the services provided by the institution, and falls under the responsibility of the institution’s authorities. In the case of prisons, this is the Ministry of Justice. In the case of hospitals, this is the local hospital board. These authorities appoint and pay the chaplains, after a nomination by a local or regional representative body of a religious community.
With the rising number of Muslims prisoners and patients in these institutions, the call for Muslim chaplains has become louder. So far, the response to these calls has been to ask imams from local mosques to come to the prisons or hospitals to visit the Muslims. Often they were salaried on a freelance basis. The last decade, attempts are being made to meet the religious needs of Muslim prisoners and patients in a more structured and permanent way. The Ministry of Justice has appointed Muslim chaplains and in consultation with a Muslim organisation (the Platform of Muslim Organisations in Rijnmond) experimented with a training program to prepare the candidates for work in a prison environment. Some hospitals also appointed imams to participate in their teams of spiritual workers, which also include Protestant ministers, Catholic pastoral workers, and Jewish and Humanist councillors. As I already indicated, these developments are rather new, and in an experimental stage. It is obvious that appointing Muslims in these functions not just solves problems, but also raises questions about the content of their task, the attitudes needed to do this work in a satisfactory way, and their role in the institution. Christian chaplains in hospitals have claimed that Muslim prisoners prefer them above the imam, because they expect the imam only to condemn their crimes, whereas the Christian chaplain has an open ear for their needs. This claim should not be taken as a general rule, but it points to the fact that the emerging Muslim Chaplaincies in prisons and hospitals cannot function in isolation but that relations with the existing Chaplaincies will have to be sorted out.
To give just one example: the imam of the Academic Hospital in Utrecht, who was appointed in 1998, became a member of a team of chaplains from different religious or humanistic affiliations, who in spite of their difference closely work together. Because the religious backgrounds of the patients is not registered when they enter the hospital, the chaplains cannot limit their work to patients of their communities, but each have a part of the hospital where they will visit all the patients. They will only involve the colleague belonging to the same religious community as a patient if there is a special reason to do so, e.g. an explicit request from the patient. This exchange of “clients” obviously presupposes close co-operation and mutual trust between the members of this team. The chaplains also work together by mutual supervision and regular meetings in which the work is discussed. Contrary to the existing praxis, the newly appointed imam concentrates his work on the Muslim patients. However, he did become member of this team and has to discuss his work with Christian and Humanist colleagues. Also he is expected to communicate with doctors and nurses about questions of medical ethics and to mediate between Muslim patients or their families and the hospital staff. It may be clear that these activities require skills, which do not belong to the standard equipment of an imam trained in a Moroccan madrasa. Both this imam and his Christian and Humanist colleagues enter a terra incognita and have to learn a lot. The first experiences in the Utrecht example show that in this learning process difficult questions arise about very basic religious ideas and feelings concerning life and death. These experiences also show that there are fascinating possibilities of intercultural and inter-religious cooperation here.

Burial

Most Turkish and Moroccan Muslims in the Netherlands still chose for burial in their countries of origin, often in family graves, although deceased children sometimes are buried in Dutch graveyards. Surinamese Muslims and Dutch converts to Islam, on the other hand, have already for decades opted for burial in the Netherlands. The number of these two groups of Muslims is relatively small, though. As a result, in a big city like Rotterdam only 70 Muslims are buried each year.

For the transport of a corpse to a foreign country a numbers of practices have emerged, which are partly determined by regulations of the countries concerned. The dead body must for the protection of public health be embalmed or preserved in an alternative way. After that, the ritual purification and the takfin (covering the body with a winding sheet) take place, in a hospital, at a funeral agency, in a mosque, or sometimes at home. Next, a funeral prayer often takes place in a mosque.
Before the transportation by airplane, the dead body must be put in a coffin with a sink cofferdam, after which the lid must be soldered. Transportation is only allowed after the municipality from which the body will be transported has issued a death-certificate indicating the name of the deceased and the destination.
Transporting dead bodies by plane is an expensive matter and most Muslims are insured against it. Insurance companied, associated with the main mosque federations, also play an important role in the organisation and administration of the transport. In many cases, the insurance also includes reimbursement for one person accompanying the dead body on the same flight.

For local burial according to Islamic prescripts the Dutch the burial law was adapted in 1991. The most important change was the permission to bury without a coffin – as is custom in the Muslim world. Although funeral agencies protested because they believed this to be harmful for public health, the government felt that religious traditions had to be respected. Before this change of law an illegal practice had emerged in which Muslim families opened the coffin before burial, or even removed the dead body from the coffin. A second adaptation concerned the legal requirement that burial may only take place after three days from the moment of death. To enable Muslims to follow the Islamic tradition to bury the deceased as soon as possible, an exemption from the general rule became possible. This exemption is given by local authorities that first must have established that there are no public health risks or a suspicious cause of death, which might necessitate postponement of the burial.
A recent doctoral research showed that Muslims in the Netherlands nowadays do use coffins, even though they are not longer obliged to do so. The most common practice is that the grave has a wooded framework in which the coffin is placed. Both the coffin and the framework are covered with a wooden lid. Alternatively a coffin with a double wooden frame is used, which among funeral agencies has become known as a “double-decker”. The reason for this construction is the conviction that the deceased will have more room in the grave during his of her interrogation by the angels Munkar and Nakir. The doctoral thesis also states that the imams of the mosques in the Dutch town Amersfoort discussed the method of burial and agreed that the “double-decker” was the most preferable way.

Independent Muslim cemeteries do not yet exist in the Netherlands, and the first initiatives to create one are did not produce concrete results. The main reason is financial, because buying the ground will need an investment of millions. The most common practice in the big cities is, that a specific section of a public cemetery is reserved for the Muslims. In smaller towns and villages, the Muslim deceased are not buried in a specific and separated section, but are more or less place in one area.
In the cemeteries with specific Muslim sections, some practical and some principle questions have arisen and dealt with locally. One of them is the question of who is to decide whether a deceased may be buried in the Muslim section. In The Hague, this question is solved by giving eight different mosque organisations their own section on the graveyard. In some other towns, there is only own Islamic section on the cemetery, but by lack of coordination between Muslim organisations the director admits any Muslim family. This is likely to raise problems in the future.

Concluding remarks

Muslim religious practices have found their way in the Netherlands – like in other European countries – not only in the private sphere of the home and the mosques, but also became visible in the public sphere and recognized by the authorities. In some cases, this recognition went smoothly and without much opposition. The adaptation of the burial law is a case in point. The constitutional freedom of religion is an important factor, which makes this development possible. But in some fields Muslim practices meet more opposition, because opponents claim that these practices violate the rights or the freedom of others. These may include equality of the sexes, which has been an argument to oppose Islamic dress codes. They also include animal rights, which played a role in debates on Islamic ritual slaughter. As stated earlier, the constitutional right of religious freedom does not settle all disputes, but the way this right is translated into praxis depends on negotiations. Overseeing the Muslim practices as they evolve in the Netherlands, one can conclude that this is a relatively smooth process, even though stereotypes about Islam – like associations with violence, intolerance and oppression of women – are widespread. This negative general image is, however, not translated in a constant questioning of the democratic capacities of Muslim migrants – a fact which may be explained the presence of a well educated, well integrated and well placed group of Muslims, including local councillors and MPs, who contribute to a more positive public image of the Muslim community.
Another factor, which works in favour of a smooth integration and acceptance of Muslim practices, is the strong tradition of equal treatment of all religious groups. This consideration has increased in importance in connection with the new constitution of 1983, which guaranteed freedom of religion but abolished ties between the state and specific religious communities. The principle of equality between Christian, Jewish, Muslim and non-religious groups has played a key role in disputes about ritual slaughter, recognition of holidays, and facilities in prisons and the army. Equal treatment was also behind a bill which put the Islamic call to prayer on an equal footing as the ringing of church bells. Muslim claims for support or recognition in specific areas cannot easily by denied if a precedent for another religious community exists.

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