Can they organize lessons, sermons, courses, and youth gatherings? Can they collect aid for the oppressed in places like Palestine or Sudan? Can they meet with political leaders together with other mosques and Muslim civil society organizations to address shared concerns? Can they say, “We are part of this society,” and bring their demands to parliaments? When elections approach, can they form a voting bloc and say, “If you want our votes, you must pay attention to these issues”?

For Europe’s far-right, anti-immigrant, and openly anti-Islam parties, the “honest” answer to all these questions is a resounding no. According to them, immigrant Muslims do not belong here in the first place, and Muslims of European origin have already “abandoned their Europeanness.”

But the issue is not limited to the far right. Each of the questions above is one that mainstream European politics also struggles to answer. Although most centrist and left-leaning political traditions do not express explicit hostility, there is still a subtle threshold regarding how visibly a Muslim may exist as a Muslim in the public sphere.

This is precisely where the distinction between the “good Muslim” and the “bad Muslim” appears.

What is a “Good Muslim”?

Mahmood Mamdani discusses this distinction in his work Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, where he analyzes it primarily through the lens of U.S. foreign policy discourse and security paradigms. Yet the logic he identifies is reproduced today, in different forms, within European domestic politics as well.

A “good Muslim” is someone who keeps their religion at the level of cultural folklore, does not bring it into public life, and makes no political claims or attempts at collective agency. As long as they do not make their identity visible or disrupt the majority’s habits, they are accepted. Such Muslims are presented as “successful examples of integration,” because their presence does not demand change and does not question the existing order.

And the “Bad Muslim”?

This category is shaped not by a person’s actions but by the fears others project onto them. A Muslim who appears visibly in public, does not feel the need to hide their faith, speaks about the concerns of their community, or seeks a place as a political agent is suddenly seen as “too organized,” “too confident,” or “too different.” Sometimes this label is triggered by nothing more than a headscarf, a call for solidarity, or a simple political demand.

“Badness” here is not a moral judgment—it is the name given to the boundary where the majority begins to feel uncomfortable.

A Muslim who speaks on behalf of their community is described as “divisive,” even though the same behavior by another group would be celebrated as “part of democracy.” Muslim organizing around their own issues is often examined through a security lens, subjected to a suspicion no other community faces. When a Muslim expresses concern for Palestine, it may be read not as a human response but as a potential sign of radicalization.

This brings us back to the initial questions. The fact that the legal answer is “yes” does not mean that the sociological reality is the same. In an atmosphere where the “good Muslim–bad Muslim” distinction circulates silently, the problem is not the law but the conditional terms attached to Muslim presence in the public sphere. And questioning these conditions becomes possible only by asking these questions aloud.

Are Muslims seen as part of these societies?

If so, at what scale?

Is it a membership whose visibility is restricted, whose political agency is muted, and whose demands are reduced to the “harmless” category?

Or is it a genuinely equal belonging?

Ahmet Said Aydil
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