ABSTRACT
In the past decades the role of religions, religious identities or religious organizations in the different stages of migration processes have been overlooked by scholars from different disciplines, be they migration and development researchers or sociology of religion scholars. In recent approaches to migration, however, multiple identities, new communities, networks and the constitution of transnational spaces are more and more elaborated on and, thereby, the role of religion in transnational activities is increasingly analysed (see Casanova 1997; Levitt 1998, 2003). Sociology of religion scholars demonstrate that as a result of modernization and/or development religion is not a disappearing phenomenon, neither in the West nor in the Global South, and they especially refer to new, often transnational religious movements and organizations such as the transnational Sufi movements (Grillo 2001) or the Tablighi Jamaàt, which is prominent in Europe (Masud 1999). These movements increasingly challenge being restricted to the so-called private sphere through constituting a public sphere of reference and debate. In addition, these movements and institutions have an important role in structuring globalization, migration and development processes.
