Source: French to English Tester Published on: 2026-03-30
Source: The Conversation – France in French (3)– By Ali Mostfa, Senior Lecturer, HDR in Sociology of Islamic Studies, UCLy (Lyon Catholic University)
In a context where Islam is regularly presented as a challenge to national cohesion, the Great Mosque of Paris publishes a guide,Muslims in the West. Unchanging religious practice, adapted presence, intended to “adapt” the Muslim presence to the French framework. His interpretation of terms such as separatism, jihad, secularity, or Islamophobia shifts the understanding of what Islam is — and is not. For example, the guide repositions secularity within an Islamic genealogy, or considers “separatism” as a phenomenon external to the doctrine.
The Great Mosque of Paris, through the so-called “religious” commission responsible for drafting the guide, offers an interpretation of certain central terms in the debate on Islam in France through its guideMuslims in the West. Unchanging religious practice, adapted presence. Heir to a history of institutionalization closely linked to the State, the Great Mosque occupies an interface position: it presents itself as a partner of public authorities to oversee an Islam compatible with the secular and republican framework.
At the same time, it is under tension, or in competition, with other centers of representation (federations, movements, successive national bodies), which relativizes its capacity to speak on behalf of “Islam of France.” Its undertaking of redefinition is particularly interesting concerning certain controversial terms such as separatism, jihad, secularism, or Islamophobia.
Separatism
When the word “separatism” is invoked in the public debate, it refers to the idea of an Islamist counter-society threatening national cohesion. In thespeech in Les Mureaux on October 2, 2020, Emmanuel Macron designates a politico-religious project aimed at exempting certain groups from common law and weakening republican unity. The term functions as an encompassing category: it links radicalization, foreign influences, community withdrawal, and security threats within the same interpretive framework.
The Great Mosque neither disputes the existence of withdrawal phenomena nor the legitimacy of the State to intervene. But it maintains that the notion, as it is used by political leaders and the media, does not have a doctrinal equivalent in the classical Islamic tradition. The medieval categories sometimes invoked to suggest an intrinsic logic of separation, such asdar al-islamanddār al-ḥarb, are placed back into their historical and geopolitical context.
By mobilizing legal adaptation principles, such as thenecessity(the necessity) or the search for theproblem(the common interest), as well as scriptural references, notably verse 14 of surah 49 which values the plurality of peoples, the guide defends a clear thesis: separatist withdrawal is not derived from any religious obligation.
The move is decisive. Where political discourse tends to inscribe “separatism” in a structural problematic related to theIslamismand, more broadly, to the organization of religion, the guide actually makes it a contingent phenomenon, external to doctrine. Without denying the term, he circumscribes it and makes it a social or political issue, through the concept of “Muslim citizenship” (station),comprises as the affirmation of the compatibility between religious practice and adherence to democratic values, while depriving it of theological foundation. In doing so, the Grand Mosque does not directly oppose public action, it redefines its religious implications.
Jihād
A comparable mechanism appears regarding the “jihad,” another word that has become central in security representations.
In the media space, it is largely equated with armed violence. The guide offers a reading based on classic textual and legal uses: it first recalls the etymology (“effort, struggle”) and highlights the internal fight against one’s own weaknesses, often referred to in tradition as the “greater jihad.” The Quran moreover describes once thejihadof “great” (Q 25:52). The armed dimension, referred to as “lesser jihad”, is not denied, but strictly regulated: defense against aggression, protection of the oppressed, respect for precise limits forbidding any indiscriminate violence (Q 2:190). This approach does not erase the history ofviolent uses of the term, she disputes its doctrinal centrality. In other words, what structures public perception, violence, becomes a secondary and conditional dimension, while the moral effort is presented as the normative core of the concept.
In this perspective, the war is not designated byjihadin the Quranic text, which rather usesfight(“armed combat”), even toWar, to designate war in the strict sense. However, conflictuality never appears there as an autonomous horizon: it is conceived in a normative tension with the notions of peace and reconciliation –school,ṣalāḥwhereislah– which aim to restore order in the face offasād(“disorder, corruption”).
On the other hand,jihadhas been the subject, throughout the history of Islamic thought, of sustained interpretative investment, to the point of becoming aplace of controversiesand onefield of interpretation conflicts.
Secularism
The guide reproduces the legal reference definition of thesecularism– freedom of conscience, neutrality of the State, law of 1905 -, but he puts it in parallel with Quranic verses and with theMedina Charter (622), presented as a historical precedent of coexistence between religious communities under a common authority. This rapprochement does not aim only to demonstrate a formal compatibility. It seeks to reframe secularism within an Islamic genealogy, suggesting that pluralism also stems from resources internal to the tradition.
Through this shift, the glossary editors reconfigure the framework of evaluation. Secularism no longer functions solely as an external norm to which Islam should conform, but as a principle that can be aligned with categories internal to the tradition. The implicit relationship of asymmetry is thereby transformed: Islam is no longer merely required to prove its compatibility, it is presented as already having resources to conceive coexistence within a common political framework.
Islamophobia
The entry “Islamophobia” reveals another aspect of this endeavor. The term is defined there as a form of discrimination targeting people because of their real or supposed affiliation with Islam, anchored in anti-discrimination law. However, the public authoritiesoften privilegethe expression “anti-Muslim acts”, considering that “Islamophobia” can blur the distinction between criticism of a religion, protected by freedom of expression, and hatred towards individuals. This reservation contrasts with the recognition of the term in certain international bodies, as illustrated by the establishment by the United Nations of aInternational Day to Combat Islamophobia.
In this context, the guide does not elaborate extensively on this controversy, but it integrates it in its own way by including in the glossary the neologism “muslimophobia,” presented as a less controversial alternative, because it focuses on people rather than on the religion. This choice reveals the overall approach. Aware of the resistance the term provokes, the authors prefer a substitute word that preserves the discriminatory reality while defusing the semantic debate, thus illustrating, on the scale of a single word, the very logic oftrophy(“adaptability”).
Adaptability or Islam of France?
These redefinitions follow an overall logic, whose key to understanding is the notion of “adaptability.” The guide expresses it through the concept oftakyīf, which it presents as an ability to adjust the application of norms to the context and concrete situations, and in fact the second entry of the glossary. The adjustment to the context is presented there not as a concession to Western modernity, but as a requirement inherent to the Islamic legal tradition. Islam does not appear there as a fixed block in confrontation with the Republic, but as a tradition endowed with an internal capacity for interpretation and adjustment.
The choice to place “adaptability” (takyīf) at the heart of the approach is not insignificant in the face of the notion of “Islam of France,” central in recent political discourse. The two notions encompass distinct logics.
The “Islam of France” implies a normative reformulation, where it is Islam itself that is called upon to structurally redefine itself and internalize norms external to its tradition. The “adaptability” (intensification) proceeds from a completely different approach: adjusting the modes of presence to the French context by drawing on the inherent resources of the Islamic tradition. In the first case, the impetus comes from outside; in the second, it is claimed as internal.
Change the terms of the debate?
The guide of the Great Mosque of Paris will certainly not put an end to disagreements. However, it makes an important gesture by refusing that the categories forged in the political arena alone define the meaning of the terms that structure the public debate on Islam. This intervention comes at a moment when Islam is grasped in the public space through an inflation of denominations that are not limited to isolated words, but often take the form of recurring phrases – radical Islam, moderate Islam, religious Islam,political Islam– progressively forming a terminological micro-system that organizes this debate. In this dynamic, each new category acts as an act of naming: it selects certain traits, excludes others, and helps establish a particular representation of Islam in French society. The debate therefore concerns not only social realities but also the discursive operations through which these realities are constituted as public issues.
In a political context where these appointment operations tend to multiply, the question also arises about the very addressee of this glossary. In many respects, its implicit recipient does not seem to be the Muslims of France so much as the public actors with whom the very terms of the debate are negotiated. The act of redefining these words thus appears less like a simple internal clarification than as an attempt to intervene, through language, in the way Islam is characterized and governed.
Ali Mostfa does not work for, advise, hold shares in, or receive funds from any organization that could benefit from this article, and has declared no affiliation other than his research institution.
–ref. Separatism, jihad, secularism: the battle of words around the Islam of France –https://theconversation.com/separatism-jihad-the-city-the-battle-of-words-around-the-islam-of-france-276898