Issue of the Funding of Worship in Islam – Worship, Imams and Mosques, as Viewed through Texts and Practice

Raising the issue of public funding for faiths with regard to the internal laws of the major religious traditions can be the least, anachronistic, if we neglect to specify that these normative systems, and especially that of Islam, have often evolved in historical, religious and cultural contexts that were very different from those with which we are familiar in Europe today. This chapter says that subject-matter will be limited to clarifying the idea of faith from the Muslim perspective, what it includes in theory as in practice, what objectively are the places concerned and who the officials of the Muslim faith are. Then the discussion turns to some contemporary Muslim societies, in order to see how relevant the issue of public funding of faiths is for them today. By way of contrast, we will examine the corresponding situation in France.