Governing Islam Abroad: Turkish and

Moroccan Muslims in Western Europe

Benjamin Bruce
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SERIES IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND POLITICAL ECONOMY

GOVERNING
ISLAM ABROAD
Turkish and Moroccan
Muslims in Western Europe

BENJAMIN BRUCE
The Sciences Po Series in International Relations
and Political Economy

Series Editor
Alain Dieckhoff
Center for International Studies (CERI)
Sciences Po - CNRS
Paris, France

Editorial Advisor
Miriam Perier
Center for International Studies (CERI)
Sciences Po - CNRS
Paris, France
The Science Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy
consists of works emanating from the foremost French researchers from
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globalized planet, the new political economy of the world has a decided
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More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14411
 Benjamin Bruce

Governing Islam
Abroad
Turkish and Moroccan Muslims in Western Europe
Benjamin Bruce
El Colegio de la Frontera Norte
Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico

The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy

ISBN 978-3-319-78663-6 ISBN 978-3-319-78664-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78664-3

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For Joyce and Alanita
 Acknowledgements

This book marks the end of a long journey that would not have been
possible without a great deal of help along the way. I am deeply indebted
to the many individuals who agreed to meet with me over the course of
the last years and share their visions of Islam, identity, and politics with
me. It is thanks to their time and hospitality that this book exists, and I
have endeavoured to present their perspectives and opinions as faithfully
as possible.
At Sciences Po, I am deeply grateful to Miriam Perier for believing
in this project and supporting it from the beginning, to Alain Dieckhoff
for accepting it in the Sciences Po Series in International Relations and
Political Economy. At Palgrave Macmillan and Springer Nature, thank
you to Anca Pusca, Katelyn Zingg, Prathipa Raju, and Azarudeen
Ahamed Sheriff for their professionalism and patience throughout the
later stages of publication.
My research would not have been possible without a doctoral fellow-
ship from the French Ministry of Higher Education, as well as travel
grants from Sciences Po Paris, the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies
and Research on Germany (CIERA), and the Franco-Germany Youth
Office (OFAJ). The nature of my subject has required a great deal of
international travel, during which I have been very lucky to receive insti-
tutional support in numerous countries. In particular, I spent time as a
visiting scholar at the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB) in the depart-
ment of Ruud Koopmans, the Middle Eastern Technical University
thanks to Zana Çitak, the French Institute of Anatolian Studies (IFEA)

vii
viii    Acknowledgements

led by Nora Şeni, and the Centre Jacques Berque under Baudouin
Dupret. My thanks go out to these scholars at each institution.
I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to Catherine Wihtol de
Wenden, whose guidance and encouragement have been key as I learned
the ropes as a young scholar. My sincere thanks to all the members of my
thesis committee: Jonathan Laurence, Olivier Roy, Matthias König, and
Bayram Balci, whose insightful observations have made this book bet-
ter and whose work has been an inspiration for me. A special mention
goes to Victor Hori for having planted the seed for this research many
years ago in a Montreal Buddhist Temple and to Jocelyne Cesari for
giving me the chance to participate as a member of the website euro-is-
lam.info. At my former research institute, the Center for International
Studies (CERI), my thanks go to Christian Lequesne, Riva Kastoryano,
Denis Lacorne, Elise Massicard, Stéphane Lacroix, and especially Hélène
Thiollet. Also at Sciences Po, I wish to thank the two semesters of stu-
dents of my Euro-Islam course who challenged me to consider new per-
spectives and ideas on Islam in Europe.
As well, I wish to express my thanks to Nadia Marzouki for the invi-
tation to participate in the ReligioWest Project, to Elizabeth Shakman
Hurd for the possibility to speak at Northwestern University, to Marc
Aymes and Nathalie Clayer for involving me in French national
research agency project “Transfaire,” and to Lea Müller-Funk and Félix
Krawatzek for bringing me on board their political remittances project.
These moments of scholarly collaboration have been crucial in keeping
this book project alive, relevant, and curious and have permitted me to
explore new paths while not losing track of the road I took to get here.
This book could not have been written without the ideal work-
ing conditions provided to me by the Mexican National Council for
Research and Technology (CONACYT) and El Colegio de la Frontera
Norte (El Colef ). I am grateful to José Manuel Valenzuela Arce and Luis
Escala Rabadán for encouraging my Old World research while I have
gradually adapted to my new surroundings.
I owe a special debt to the following colleagues and friends: Nicholas
Fescharek, Cihan Özpınar, Alexandre Maouche, Myriam Aboutaher,
Marie-Noëlle Carré, Guillaume Grégoire-Sauvé, Agnès Léger, and
Patrick Bruce; each one has contributed to making this book better in
their own way. I am immensely grateful to María Teresa Ortega and
Ezequiel Valdovinos for their boundless support and especially Ariel
Valdovinos for all the lunches and neighbourhood walks. To my mother,
 Acknowledgements    ix

Iris Bruce, and father, Donald Bruce: despite the distance, you are always
there for me and only you two would be brave enough to read the whole
manuscript one last time—thank you. Of course, any and all errors are
my own.
Finally, this book is dedicated to my wife Joyce, who has endured the
more stressful moments with grace, and our daughter Alana. Gracias mi
amor, you have been my partner every step of the way; we started this
journey together and it seems only fitting for it to end when an even big-
ger one is about to begin.
 Note on Translations and Interviews

This book uses sources in English, French, German, Turkish, and Arabic,
which comes with certain challenges. The titles of certain organizations or
institutions have at times been altered slightly so as to be rendered more
easily in English. All translations of secondary source material and inter-
views are my own, and all interviews have been rendered anonymous.
For the transliteration of Arabic words, I have followed the guide-
lines of the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies (IJMES).
This does not apply to certain words that are commonly used in English
(Ramadan, Eid al-Adha, imam, etc.). In cases where the Turkish and
transliterated Arabic spellings are close, I have opted for the one I con-
sider most prevalent in English (ulema and not ulama, Ramadan and not
Ramazan). In addition, certain terms specific to the countries studied in
this book have been left in the original language and indicated in italics.
This includes administrative units, such as the départements in France or
the Länder in Germany.
The first time an interview is quoted in a chapter, I provide the title
or institution of the interviewee, the date of the interview, and the loca-
tion. For all subsequent citations, only the title or institution is indicated
(Interview, Title). Roman numerals are used to differentiate in cases of
multiple interviews with the same person (Ambassador I, Ambassador
II), while letters are used to distinguish between different individuals at
the same institution (Interior Ministry A, Interior Ministry B).

xi
 Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 The Many Faces of Official Islam in Turkey 15

3 The Makhzen and the Religious Field 45

4 The Development of State Religious Services Abroad 73

5 Creating a National Islam? Partial Governance

and Public Policy Instruments 115

6 Exporting Imams 165

7 National Interests in Transnational Muslim Fields 219

8 Conclusion 283

Index 297

xiii
 List of Figures

Chapter 5
Fig. 1 The DITIB Central Mosque of Duisburg-Marxloh 150
Fig. 2 The Great Mosque of Strasbourg 156
Chapter 6
Fig. 1 Moroccan Religious Personnel and Moroccans in Western
Europe 2012 181
Fig. 2 Diyanet Religious Personnel Abroad, 1979–2014 192
Fig. 3 Diyanet Imams and Turkish Population in Western Europe
2002–2003 202
Chapter 7
Fig. 1 Students Enrolled in the Diyanet’s International Theology
Programme and Main Countries of Origin 249
Fig. 2 Habous Ministry Subsidies to Moroccan Muslim Associations
in Western Europe (2010–2015) 268

xv
 List of Tables

Chapter 5
Table 1 German Public Policy Instruments with an Impact on the
Religious Field 124
Table 2 French Public Policy Instruments with an Impact on the
Religious Field 125
Table 3 Home State Transnational Religious Public Policy Instruments 126
Chapter 7
Table 1 Moroccan Financial Subsidies Abroad 2015 267

xvii
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

In 2015, Turkey had over 1800 imams serving in foreign countries. The
vast majority of these state-employed religious officials are appointed to
mosques in Western Europe to provide religious services to local Turkish
communities. The same year, Morocco not only sent hundreds of imams
abroad during the month of Ramadan for its diaspora communities, but
also provided over 10 million euros in funding to Moroccan mosques
and religious associations across the continent. Governing Islam abroad
is nothing new for either state; in fact, it has become an increasingly
common practice since the 1970s. These overseas religious activities take
place especially in Germany and France, respectively, the two coun-
tries where the majority of both home states’ citizens reside, but also in
many other countries in Western Europe and further afield. The purpose
of this book is to understand how this phenomenon has arisen, the rea-
sons for its longevity, and the implications it holds for the development
of Islam in Western Europe.
Since I first began studying this subject in Paris in 2007, the involve-
ment of home states in funding, organizing, and controlling religious
activities abroad has seemed to me a fundamental missing element in
the debates on Islam that has remained hidden in broad daylight. Public
opinion in France, Germany, and other Western European countries
has taken little notice of it; popular essays on “integrating Islam” rarely
mention it; and the few scholars who have touched on the subject have
not explored its implications or delved into the political and diplomatic

© The Author(s) 2019 1

B. Bruce, Governing Islam Abroad, The Sciences Po
Series in International Relations and Political Economy,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78664-3_1
2 B. BRUCE

details that make it possible. Conversely, when I began my field work

this situation changed. What had come across to my colleagues and
friends as an esoteric approach to the question of “Islam in the West”
found an echo in every consulate, embassy, and ministry that I visited.
While media commentators focused on Qur’an verses to explain terror-
ist acts or the ostensible failures of immigrant integration, state officials
and ­diplomats quietly made decisions that truly had an impact on the
development of Islam in Western Europe.
Over the last decades, the governance of Islamic affairs has become
an issue of public debate in Western Europe; however, these debates
have responded more to each country’s internal struggles over national
identity than have actually sought to dialogue with Muslim actors (cf.
Marzouki 2017). At the same time, Islam has emerged as an essentialized
explanatory category that discursively simplifies complex social, cultural,
and economic issues that involve migrant populations and their descend-
ants and randomly associates them with geopolitical conflicts the world
over. The unfortunate irony of this development in popular discourse has
been that local Muslims are held accountable for supremely unrelated
foreign events, while little attention is given to the problematic issues
that actually do exist in governing religious affairs and involve delicate
questions of international affairs.
My intention with this book is thus not to support any one position,
but rather to challenge the terms of the debate. In the following pages,
I do not present a normative argument: home state involvement in for-
eign countries is not fundamentally good or bad; it is, however, a real-
ity of Islam in countries such as France and Germany. Furthermore, it
would be disingenuous to propose a meaningful discussion on “integrat-
ing Islam” without first truly analyzing the genesis and consequences of
how Islam has been governed by state actors up until now. The first step
in this analysis is to refocus attention on the main national groups that
comprise Muslim diaspora communities in Western Europe, along with
the home and receiving state actors involved in supervising their religious
activities.
Turkish and Moroccan communities have come to constitute two of
the largest Muslim diaspora groups in Western Europe. They are spread
across multiple countries, while the social, political, economic, and cul-
tural transnational ties between them go beyond the national boundaries
of the states where they live and connect them with the evolving reali-
ties of the countries from which they or their parents came. As a result,
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

the religious affairs of these communities cannot be understood inde-

pendently of the national traditions and specificities that define them.
For instance, the governance of Islam in both Turkey and Morocco is
institutionalized at the level of the state, as is the case in practically all
Muslim countries. In Turkey, the main state actor of the religious field is
the Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı (Presidency of Religious Affairs, hereafter
Diyanet); in Morocco, the king is considered the top religious authority
in the country while the public management of Islam is carried out by
the Ministère des Habous et des Affaires Islamiques (Ministry of Habous
and Islamic Affairs, hereafter Habous ministry). These state institutions
have been in charge of overseeing the religious affairs of their citizens
abroad since the first guest workers arrived in Western Europe in the
1960s and 1970s.
By the beginning of the 2000s, “integrating” and “institutionalizing”
Islam had become catchwords in both France and Germany, as ­councils
and committees of Muslim representatives were assembled by state
authorities with the goal of establishing a single interlocutor from the
large diversity of mosque associations and Islamic organizations that had
emerged over time (Laurence 2012). However, these and other meas-
ures have in no way led to a decline in the involvement of home states
in French and German Islamic affairs. Quite to the contrary, Turkey and
Morocco have both substantially increased their activities abroad since
the beginning of the twenty-first century and are today more than ever
indispensable actors to the governance of Islamic affairs in France and
Germany. The goal of this book is to understand why.

1  Research Questions and Muslim Fields

The central questions addressed in this study can be expressed as fol-
lows: how and why do home states govern Islam outside of their national
boundaries? Moreover, what are the consequences of home state reli-
gious policies for the development of Islam abroad?
By understanding the interests that motivate interstate cooperation
in governing Islamic affairs and ascertaining the impact of this form of
governance for Muslim actors on the ground, I hope to contribute to
refocusing the parameters of the debate so that they correspond more
judiciously to the real challenges that actors on all sides must face.
Consequently, the primary focus of this book is on state actors and pol-
icies on both sides of the Mediterranean in order to examine how Islam
4 B. BRUCE

has become an object of international relations between Turkey and

Morocco, and France and Germany. In addition, I analyze the dialectic
that these actors maintain with non-state religious movements that are
transnational, in that they are active across multiple state borders. My
approach challenges the classical division between internal and exter-
nal politics and adopts a theoretical perspective wary of what Wimmer
and Glick-Schiller call “methodological nationalism” (2002), which has
caused scholars to “see like states,” in the sense of “identifying with
the interests of a nation-state and view[ing] social processes from that
perspective” (Glick Schiller and Levitt 2006, 12). Studies on migratory
phenomena are particularly prone to this tendency when they focus
exclusively on either immigration or emigration, which typically reflect
the interests of receiving or sending states. In addition, such perspec-
tives are rarely able to provide more than a truncated view of transna-
tional actors’ activities and interests given their self-imposed theoretical
boundaries.
Much literature on “Islam in the West” has presented this latter
problem. For instance, the political opportunity structures of receiving
countries (Soper and Fetzer 2005), their “models” of religious gov-
ernance (Bader 2007), or even the construction of gendered forms of
European Muslim piety (Jouili 2015) are all valid and fascinating subjects
of study; however, I argue that these issues cannot ignore the impact
of home state institutions and transnational actors in their interpretive
frameworks. Even several of the best studies that draw attention to the
evolving power hierarchies and transnational realities of Islam in Western
Europe (Bowen 2004; Peter 2006) neglect to take into account home
state religious authorities and their influence on Islam abroad. Other
than Laurence (2006, 2012), whose work has been an inspiration for my
research, the few scholars who have approached the subject have done so
from the particular viewpoint of a home country (Çitak 2010, 2011 for
Turkey; Tozy 2009 for Morocco).
In order to better understand the dynamics of transnational religious
governance between Turkey and Morocco, and France and Germany, I
privilege the concept of “religious field” as part of a more holistic theo-
retical framework for this study.1 The religious field is “relatively autono-
mous” and is characterized by “the constitution of specific instances that
are conceived for the production, reproduction or distribution of reli-
gious goods,” which can become the object of competition, conflict, or
cooperation between different actors (Bourdieu 1971). Despite frequent
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

cases of overlap, religious institutions and actors base their authority on

sources of legitimacy that can differ from those used by actors active in
other fields. Following Weber’s (1968) classification of types of authority,
state religious actors tend to rely on traditional and legal-rational forms
of authority, while they remain deeply wary of non-state charismatic reli-
gious figures, whom they perceive as potential dangers to the established
order.
Consequently, I postulate that religious actors active across state
borders can be understood as operating within transnational religious
fields, which can be delimited due to a certain internal coherence based
on shared practices, beliefs, and references. Moreover, I contend that
there are multiple transnational Muslim fields and that they can be dis-
tinguished from each other on the basis of linguistic, national, or ethnic
criteria. In other words, I begin this book with the following premises:
that there is a Turkish Muslim field and a Moroccan Muslim field; that
both form part of larger global Muslim fields to different degrees, espe-
cially for historical and linguistic reasons; and that both have become
transnational Muslim fields as a result of the large-scale migration and
settlement abroad. Finally, as I explain in greater detail in Chapter 4, reli-
gion constitutes a potent policy instrument of diaspora politics for both
Turkey and Morocco, which seek to maintain ties with citizens and their
descendants abroad for a host of social, cultural, economic, and political
reasons.
Assuming that a religious field can be delimited by ethno-national
boundaries comes with its own difficulties. Not only does it raise the
danger of resuscitating methodological nationalism, but it may also
underestimate religion’s capacity to transcend other social and political
boundaries. It may also run the risk of assuming an overly large homo-
geneity within the population of one country and glossing over internal
ethnic or linguistics distinctions (especially Kurds in Turkey and Amazigh
in Morocco) that can have implications for differences in religious prac-
tice. Nevertheless, and with all these caveats in mind, I employ the con-
cept for two main reasons.
The first is in order to reflect the reality that in both countries the
Muslim field is structured by historically derived forms of religious
governance that are based on the central role of state religious institu-
tions and the ambiguous relationship the state maintains with “unoffi-
cial” (non-state) religious currents, whether they be sects, associations,
or political parties. The existence of a national Muslim field thus makes
6 B. BRUCE

reference to the totality of state and non-state actors that promote their
understanding of Islam within the limits of specific state-defined borders
and take national imaginaries and state structures as frames of reference
for the development of their activities. The second is that it serves to
explain the persistence of certain ethno-national cleavages within Muslim
fields abroad, even amongst the second and third generations.
If nationally delimited Muslim fields can be said to exist in Morocco
and Turkey, where Islam has been practised for centuries, what about
France and Germany? Peter’s (2006) work on the concept of “Muslim
field” in the context of France has been influential to my approach, nota-
bly with regard to the shifting value of different kinds of capital (espe-
cially religious and cultural) as sources of power for religious actors in a
post-migratory religious field. Speaking of a Muslim field is thus a way
to contextualize the actions of Islamic organizations, acknowledging the
specificities inherent to the religious field while examining the areas of
overlap with other fields (political, economic, etc.) and thus the convert-
ibility of forms of capital. Frégosi (2004) has similarly demonstrated how
the emergence of new figures of Islamic leadership in the French Muslim
field has given rise to competition between the very sources of capital
on which they base their authority. In this book, I argue that the persis-
tence of ethnic cleavages in the religious field can best be understood by
the convertibility of different forms of cultural capital. Cultural capital
here refers to those customs (habitus), symbols, and institutions which
are specific to a given society, knowledge of which is acquired through
processes of socialization and education; it differs from religious capital
in that it is not equally valued, known, or even recognized by Muslims
who come from different cultural backgrounds.
Since field boundaries can be fluid and flexible, the difficulty lies in
determining if and when a term such as the “French Muslim Field” may
be misleading. Given that migration has been the main reason for the
growth of Islam in Western Europe, and the fact that many of these
immigrants and their descendants have maintained ties to their countries
of origin, the borders of states such as France and Germany can be far
more porous than the divisions that exist between different immigrant
groups within each country’s religious field. Pushed to an extreme, these
ethnic and linguistic divisions may at times seem so well-entrenched that
the only thing “French” or “German” about the Muslim field in each
country is the particular mix of transnational Muslim fields (Moroccan,
Turkish, Pakistani, etc.). Nevertheless, I follow Peter’s assertion that it
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

is possible to speak of a French Muslim field since the late 1980s, and
I would argue a German Muslim field since the 1990s, in the sense
that the limits of a field correspond to whether “the objective relations
between a group of actors generate effects that impact the functioning
of each of them” (2006, 711). At the same time, due to the interpene-
tration and overlapping with transnational home state Muslim fields, the
value of different forms of religious and cultural capital has become even
more contingent on changing internal dynamics and the evolving vision
of new generations of French and German Muslims.
At the same time, the French and German Muslim fields are char-
acterized above all by a lack of resources, in terms of financial as well
as religious capital. Home state religious authorities, as well as trans-
national non-state religious movements, are keenly aware of this situa-
tion, and accordingly propose an evolving offer of religious services that
plays a key role in shaping the demands and vision of legitimate religious
authority in France and Germany. Indeed, home states are conscious of
their own interest in extending their governance over the religious affairs
of their citizens abroad for internal as well as foreign political reasons.
Consequently, both allocate significant resources in order to secure sym-
bolic as well as structurally important positions for themselves within
their own transnational religious fields with the concurrent result that
they obtain similar positions within Muslim fields abroad.

2  Religious Governance in Turkey and Morocco

Since independence, Turkey and Morocco have both been countries in
which a great degree of diversity has been overshadowed by a militant, at
times oppressive, nationalistic discourse emphasizing unity and homoge-
neity. Religion, tied to nationalism, has been seen by generations of state
leaders as a primary means of affirming this unity, to the point that being
Turkish or Moroccan is considered synonymous with being Muslim.
While Muslims may constitute the overwhelming majority of the pop-
ulations of both countries, this tells us very little about the organization
of their religious fields. The ostensible homogeneity that Islam seems to
represent masks not only a great degree of ethnic, social, and individual
difference, but also a religious field in which countless different actors
and tendencies compete for religious legitimacy. This competition has
frequently overlapped with political considerations, rendering the ques-
tion of religious governance of utmost importance to the state. Due to
8 B. BRUCE

the lack of an institutionalized church in Islam, in the sense of an recog-

nized religious organization such as the Catholic church, as well as the
lack of the accompanying notion of a clergy (at least in Sunni Islam),
there is no one universal standard for religious governance in Muslim
countries. Even apart from the distinction between Sunnis and Shias,
the four schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence (maḍhab),2 and the
numerous Sufi-inspired Islamic currents (tarīqa), the role of the state in
Islamic religious governance varies a great deal across the Muslim world.
Moreover, the state’s role in the religious field is also conditioned by
its perception of local religious movements, especially if and when such
movements use religion in order to mobilize opposition to the ruling
regime.
In Sunni contexts, the transversal elements that do exist are often the
result of early historical legacies. The rise of Islamic theologians (ʿulamā˒,
hereafter “ulema”) as élites from the ninth century onwards established a
precedent that “made the ulama, and not the caliph, the arbiters of reli-
gious authority” (Berkey 2003, 128). These religious élites used their
religious knowledge “as a kind of cultural capital that became a source
of religious authority,” giving them the ability to control “entry into the
academic and legal establishment” (Hatina 2010, 2). In the tenth cen-
tury, the madrasa spread across the Islamic world as the primary site of
Islamic education, especially for instruction in Islamic law (fiqh), and
became a key component of the state’s administrative and legal systems
by training the next generations of preachers and Islamic scholars. The
madrasa, as well as many other important institutions of Islamic civili-
zation (mosques, travellers’ inns, hospitals, etc.), were financed by pious
endowments called waqf (vakıf in Turkish).
The Turkish and Moroccan systems of religious governance all under-
went significant changes as both became modern states; nevertheless
many traditional elements have survived within the state apparatus.
Together, these institutions represent “official Islam,” referring to the
kind of Islam that is promoted and sanctioned by the state. As part of
the state apparatus, the Diyanet and the Habous ministry—along with
other actors of official Islam—are already ensured to occupy a posi-
tion of authority within the national religious fields of both countries.
It would be mistaken, however, to assume that the content of official
Islam is static: on the contrary, what is deemed official corresponds to
the prevailing interests of the state at a specific moment, which in turn
means that it is contingent on the changing interests of political actors
 1 INTRODUCTION 9

over time. The representatives of official Islam are presented as the most
legitimate religious authorities in the country and are contrasted with the
religious actors of “unofficial” or “parallel” Islam.
The similarities between Turkey and Morocco can thus be summa-
rized by two fundamental factors that permit a large-scale comparison:
the first is the existence of an “official Islam” and powerful state reli-
gious institutions; the second is the presence of a diaspora that covers a
large number of Western European countries. By contrast, other Muslim
countries with significant diasporas in Western Europe do not display the
same comparable characteristics, though they remain interesting cases for
further research. For instance, the religious affairs ministries in Pakistan
and Bangladesh have much more limited competencies than those of
Turkey and Morocco. They are also not nearly as involved with their
diasporas abroad, which is also the case of Tunisia. As for Algeria, the
focus of its religious diaspora policies remains almost exclusively oriented
towards France, though it has expanded its network of religious officials
abroad in recent years.

3  Field Research
This book draws on a corpus of over 120 in-depth qualitative inter-
views with diplomats, politicians, religious bureaucrats, imams, associ-
ation leaders, and mosque members. These interviews were conducted
between 2009 and 2017 in France, Germany, Morocco, Turkey, and
Canada, and generally lasted between one and three hours. In addition,
I have analyzed thousands of pages of official documents in Turkish and
Arabic published by the Diyanet, the Habous ministry, and other state
institutions, not all of which are available to the public.
The interviews were conducted in French, German, Turkish, and
English, and the majority were recorded with the consent of the inter-
viewee using a digital voice recorder. During the course of my field
work, I was confronted with individuals concerned that I may in fact be
a journalist, part of a far-right organization, or a member of the police or
secret services; however, in the vast majority of cases I was well received
by my interviewees and was invited to numerous cups of Turkish çay or
“Moroccan Whisky” (mint tea) as the conversation went on. In general,
my interlocutors were males between 35 and 60 years of age, though not
exclusively: I also spoke with German, Moroccan, and French diplomats,
as well as Turkish mosque association leaders, who were women.
10 B. BRUCE

My interviewees’ perception of me often depended on the frequency

with which they themselves gave interviews. For many I was first and
foremost a student or researcher, which was perceived much more pos-
itively than being a journalist, which says a great deal about how Muslim
religious actors in France and Germany perceive the media. Several
reminded me of my responsibility as a social scientist to dispel stereo-
types concerning Muslims and present an objective picture of reality.
Since I was a Canadian-German male in my late 20s, my interviewees
occasionally commented that they had children my age, and depend-
ing on the country I was assumed to be French or German until asked.
Many of the religious actors were more interested in my religious beliefs
than nationality and assumed that I was Christian. In other interviews, I
had to take care to demonstrate some prior knowledge of Muslim beliefs
or run the risk of receiving a lengthy introductory lecture on the five pil-
lars of Islam.
During my visits to religious institutions and mosque associations I
was also able to participate in a number of events, ranging from religious
services in local mosques to official dinners organized by the Diyanet in
Turkey. These events have constituted privileged moments during which
I was able to speak with a variety of actors in more informal settings and
observe the everyday reality of what “providing religious services” to
diaspora populations concretely means. Though not the central focus of
this book, these informal interactions have exerted a subtle yet undenia-
ble influence over the perspective I develop in the following pages.

4  Outline of Chapters
Chapter 2 provides an overview of the religious field in Turkey and its
evolution since the founding of the Turkish republic in 1923. Unlike
most studies on Islam and politics in modern Turkey, this chapter focuses
on the role of the Diyanet and its relationship to unofficial Islamic cur-
rents in the Turkish religious field. I introduce and describe the histor-
ically complex relationships between state and non-state actors within
the Turkish religious field at home and advance the argument that the
categories of “official Islam” and “unofficial Islam” are and have always
been contingent on the changing political interests of state actors. At the
same time, I provide a detailed picture of the Diyanet as an administra-
tive institution and explain how the Turkish state governs Islam at home
before beginning my analysis of how it governs Islam abroad.
 1 INTRODUCTION 11

Chapter 3 takes up the question of the public management of Islam

in the context of Morocco. I argue that modern religious governance
in Morocco has developed from the institutionalization of traditional
Islamic structures during the French protectorate and that these struc-
tures have been closely controlled by the king and the Moroccan state
ever since. The chapter similarly focuses on state religious institutions,
following the evolution of the Habous ministry and other state bod-
ies that have been given the mission of governing the religious field.
Once again, I demonstrate the ambiguous nature of official Islam, while
emphasizing the effectiveness of the state’s strategy of co-opting poten-
tial challengers to the king’s political and religious authority.
After these first chapters have described and analyzed the mecha-
nisms of religious governance at home, Chapter 4 charts the extension
of Turkish and Moroccan religious governance to include Islamic affairs
in both France and Germany. I show how the historical development of
these home state religious activities abroad followed the waves of labour
migrants that left for Western Europe and how Turkish and Moroccan
diaspora policies were influenced by the interests of receiving states and
the tense political climate at home. In particular, I detail how home state
religious activities abroad arose as a reaction to the expansion of non-
state religious actors to the countries of the diaspora, which collapsed
the distinction between internal and foreign politics by anchoring the
perception of the religious field abroad as part of a single transnational
religious field. The chapter finally argues that the specific way by which
Turkey and Morocco have institutionalized religious governance abroad
has had a structural effect on how Islam has developed in the French and
German Muslim fields.
In Chapter 5, I develop a conceptual model that explains the dif-
ferent modes of religious governance employed by receiving states and
home states through the lens of public policy studies. By considering
religious governance as a policy instrument, I contend that France and
Germany are only capable of partially governing the Muslim fields that
exist within their borders. I employ this conceptual model in the anal-
ysis of receiving state initiatives at the national level in the form of the
French Council for the Muslim Faith (CFCM) and the German Islam
Conference and thereafter consider examples at other levels of govern-
ance. In doing so, I argue that there are both structural and political rea-
sons that favour the expansion of home state religious governance over
the Muslim fields in both countries and introduce the concept of cultural
capital in explaining local tensions in the field.
12 B. BRUCE

The focus of Chapter 6 is exclusively on one instrument of religious

public policy: the exporting of imams abroad. I explore the diplomatic
and administrative processes related to the sending of Moroccan and
Turkish imams to foreign countries while explaining the similarities and
differences in both states’ approaches in order to highlight the impor-
tance of specific policy instruments in determining their strategies over-
seas. A major contribution of this chapter is providing a clear picture
of the stages and actors that regulate this activity, which simultaneously
serves as evidence for my argument that the rationalization of religious
affairs as part of the state administration facilitates its transformation into
a standardized object of bilateral diplomatic cooperation.
Chapter 7 returns to the potential for tension between home states
and receiving states in cases where national interests diverge. First, I con-
tend that the securitization of Islam in Western Europe is instrumen-
talized by home states to delegitimize non-state religious actors while
analyzing recent interstate agreements on imams sent by Turkey and
Morocco to France. Second, I examine home state initiatives to estab-
lish a new set of religious authorities abroad and argue that, despite
signs to the contrary, partial governance continues to hamper France
and Germany’s attempts to govern the Muslim fields in their territory.
Finally, the chapter shows how home state political events and cultural
capital both continue to exert a direct influence over religious fields
abroad, underscoring the structural consequences of nationally bounded
transnational Muslim fields for the development of Islam in France and
Germany. Finally, Chapter 8 concludes by presenting a summary of the
main findings of this book.

Notes
1. Given my focus on Islam in this book, I will use “religious field” and
“Muslim field” as synonyms.
2. The four main Sunni schools are the Ḥanafī, Shāfiʿī, Mālikī, and Ḥanbalī.
As mentioned, the Mālikī maḍhab is the dominant school in North Africa
while the Ḥanafī maḍhab is the main school in Turkey.

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Berkey, Jonathan Porter. 2003. The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in
the Near East, 600–1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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the Diyanet in the Conseil Français Du Culte Musulman.” Journal of Ethnic
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———. 2011. “Religion, Ethnicity and Transnationalism: Turkish Islam
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———. 2012. The Emancipation of Europe’s Muslims: The State’s Role in Minority
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 CHAPTER 2

The Many Faces of Official Islam

in Turkey

Islam and politics have maintained a complicated relationship since the

Turkish republic was founded in 1923. As Bein rightly notes, “The
debates in present-day Turkey concern contemporary issues, but their
historical roots may be traced almost invariably to the late Ottoman
period and the early years of the republic” (2011, 155). This chapter
gives an overview of the main evolutions in the Turkish religious field in
the decades since the end of the Ottoman Empire and the Caliphate
to present day. The two principal goals are to present the structures
and mechanisms that underlie religious governance in Turkey, as well as
to argue that the boundaries between “official” and “unofficial” Islam
are more ambiguous and volatile than is often imagined. In order to
give focus to this argument, I will consider in particular the Presidency
of Religious Affairs (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı, hereafter Diyanet) and its
relationships to non-state religious actors.

1  Early Antecedents: From Empire to Republic

The founding of the modern Turkish state had far-reaching conse-
quences for the place of Islam in Turkish society. This new state began as
a resistance movement to the occupying Allies of the Triple Entente
following World War I, but also in opposition to the Ottoman govern-
ment of Sultan Mehmed VI in Istanbul. The new Turkish government in
Ankara rejected the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres and rallied behind the

© The Author(s) 2019 15

B. Bruce, Governing Islam Abroad, The Sciences Po
Series in International Relations and Political Economy,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78664-3_2
16 B. BRUCE

“National Pact” (Misak-i Milli) of 1920, which “advocated not Turkish

national sovereignty but that of all Muslim Ottomans” (Zürcher 2004,
139). With Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s forces emerging victorious three
years later, the Turkish War of Independence ended with the Treaty of
Lausanne in 1923, by which time the Turkish Parliament had already
passed a bill abolishing the Sultanate. The Ottoman Empire officially
ceased to exist when the constitution was amended on 29 October 1923
and Turkey was proclaimed a republic, modelled on Enlightenment
ideals and Western European notions of statehood.
The abolishment of the Ottoman Empire and the Sultanate crys-
tallized tensions concerning the place of religion amongst the factions
vying for power within the new Turkish state. For over 400 years the
Ottoman sultans had also held the title of “Caliph,”1 and when abolish-
ing the Sultanate, Atatürk had been careful to distinguish one from the
other so as not to arouse opposition from religious allies. However, in
1924 the Turkish Parliament passed three crucial laws that fundamen-
tally altered relations between religion and the state, the first of which
abolished the Caliphate. The second concerned a significant reorgani-
zation of the education system, including religious education. The third
law founded the Diyanet İşleri Reisliği (i.e. the Diyanet), which replaced
the Ministry for Sharia and Pious Foundations that had existed within
Atatürk’s provisional government since 1920. The latter ministry had
been modelled after its Ottoman predecessor, the Şeyhülislamlık, but the
laws passed in 1924 led to a much greater rupture with the past.
In the Ottoman past, religious governance had been characterized
by the millet system, which had divided members of the empire accord-
ing to their religious affiliation, and which accorded a degree of auton-
omous self-government to non-Muslim minorities.2 Beginning in the
late sixteenth century, the grand mufti3 of Istanbul had come to occupy
the highest position of religious authority amongst Muslim clerics under
the title Şeyhülislam. One of the most powerful figures in the Ottoman
state system, he represented one of two pillars of the traditional Ottoman
system—the Grand Vizier being the other—reflecting the “ruler’s dual
functions as Sultan-Caliph” (Berkes 1964, 97). The Şeyhülislam was the
leader of all the professors, religious administrators, and judges, mean-
ing that he supervised all the domains of state activity that today cor-
respond to the justice ministry, the education ministry, the Directorate
of Foundations and the Diyanet (Erdem 2008). Indeed, this was all the
more important, considering that by the sixteenth century “virtually
 2 THE MANY FACES OF OFFICIAL ISLAM IN TURKEY 17

all legal scholars [ulema] who presided over a medrese classroom or

a şeriat court in the Turkish-speaking areas of the empire, along with
imperial appointees everywhere, were ranked, graded and pensioned
under central state auspices” (Zilfi 2006, 210, 213). The state’s involve-
ment in creating and sustaining a religious bureaucracy is thus part of
a long-standing tradition of religious governance that goes back many
centuries.
This position of the Şeyhülislam underwent significant changes dur-
ing the Tanzimat reforms of Sultan Mahmud II and all throughout the
nineteenth century, as the Ottoman state moved to reform its admin-
istrative and educational structures. When the Young Turks came to
power, they excluded the Şeyhülislam from the cabinet and removed
numerous domains from his authority: religious courts were turned over
to the ministry of justice; pious foundations (evkaf) were to be overseen
by a state minister; and the medrese were placed under the authority of
the ministry of education. All that was left for the Şeyhülislam was reli-
gious affairs. During the Turkish War of Independence, the Şeyhülislam
continued to exist as a part of the lingering Ottoman government in
Istanbul; however, its active engagement against the nationalists sealed
its fate. The last representatives issued fatwas against Atatürk and the
leaders of the Turkish national movement and endorsed the Treaty of
Sèvres, galvanizing even further the division between the traditional fig-
ures of Ottoman religious authority and the rising nationalist leadership.
The office of Şeyhülislam ceased to exist with the resignation of the last
Ottoman cabinet in 1922 (Bein 2011).
Consequently, the laws of 1924 represent a milestone in the develop-
ment of the modern Turkish state. This is especially the case with regard
to the development of secularism, or laiklik (from the French laïcité).
In contrast to other definitions of secularism, however, for Atatürk and
his Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP), “secu-
larism meant not so much the separation of church and state as the sub-
jugation and integration of religion into the state bureaucracy” (Zürcher
2004, 233). Secularism was an integral element of the Turkish state’s
foundational ideology, which has since come to be known by the term
“Kemalism,” and which was at the heart of a vast modernization pro-
ject of state and society asserting the primacy of the Turkish nation-
state over the now discredited multi-ethnic and Islamic Ottoman
Empire. The law abolishing the Caliphate justified itself by stating that
“the meaning and notion of Caliphate is essentially inherent in that of
Another random document with
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guilds (trade-unions) performed plays that were based on religious
subjects, although more or less comic. The trade-guild of water-
drawers, who delivered water from door to door, liked to give the
Deluge! The story goes: Mrs. Noah objected to going aboard the ark
with her husband and children, because she did not want to leave her
friends, “the gossips”; she even tells Noah to get himself another
wife, but her son, Shem, forces her into the ark, and when she finally
enters, she slaps Noah’s face!
The subjects were not always comical, some were beautiful and
inspiring, like the Passion Play still given in Oberammergau,
Germany, every ten years.
 Masques

During Henry VII’s reign (1485–1509), which began the Tudor

period, the moralities and religious pageantry were at their best, and
the Masques began. Nobles, who appeared at balls in gorgeous
costumes with masked faces, danced, had a jolly time, and usually
surprised the guests with an elaborate entertainment in pantomime
with much music and dancing. This became more and more
important until it combined poetry, instrumental and vocal music,
scenery, dancing, machinery, splendid costumes, and decorations in
the Masque.
The greatest masques were written in the reigns of the Stuarts
(17th century), by Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and John
Milton. Comus and Shakespeare’s Tempest were set to music in this
form. While the Italians were experimenting with Dramma per
Musica (drama with music), England was finding a new musical
entertainment in the masque, and opera was its direct descendant.
The custom of masking for the ball came from Italy, and before
that, the actors in the Greek drama (400 B.C.) wore masks, and that is
why the mask is used in art to represent the theatre.
 Italian Opera’s Beginnings

In Italy during the second half of the 16th century, a group of

people tried to combine music and drama to fit the new ideas of art.
The Renaissance had influenced poetry, sculpture, painting,
architecture, and now it was music’s turn to profit by the return to
Greek ideals. The Florentines and the Venetians felt that the
madrigal was not the best form to express the feelings and emotions
of the subjects of their plays. In the Middle Ages, the subjects were
always Biblical, but now, as a result of the new learning they were
chosen from Greek mythology and history. From the first operas at
the close of the 16th century, to those of Gluck in the 18th, the names
of Greek gods and heroes are used as the titles of operas: Orpheus,
Euridice, Daphne, Apollo and Bacchus. These first operas were a
combination of early ballets, and a sort of play called a pastorale.
Torquato Tasso, the Italian poet of the 16th century, wrote several
pastorales, and was interested in music with drama. Like Ronsard in
France, Tasso wrote beautiful poems for madrigals, which were set to
music by the composers. He was a friend of Palestrina and of Don
Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, a famous patron of art, particularly of
music. In the Prince’s palace at Naples, a group of men met to spread
and improve the taste for music. They also wished to create music
that would fit the stage-plays better than the polyphonic or poly-
melodic style imported from the Northern countries. They wanted
melody and they wanted it sung by one voice alone, as were their
popular songs, accompanied by the lute, called frottoli, vilanelles,
etc. Tasso, no doubt, talked over his ideas with composers from
Florence who had formed a club, and who were directly responsible
for the first opera in Italy, Daphne by Jacobo Perti.
 The Camerata

This Florentine club was called the “Camerata”; it met at the home
of Count Bardi, himself a poet, and among its members were
Vincenzo Galilei, an amateur musician and father of the famous
astronomer; Emilio del Cavalieri, a composer and inventor of ballets;
Laura Guidiccioni, a woman poet; Giulio Caccini, a singer and
composer; Ottavio Rinuccini and Strozzi, poets; and Peri, a composer
and singer. They must have had wild times at their club meetings, for
the musicians who were not amateurs did not want the popular song
with lute accompaniment to replace polyphonic music, which was
the “high-brow” art of that time. But the poets and singers and less
cultured musicians won the day. Pretending to return to Greek music
drama of which they knew less than nothing, they made a series of
experiments which led to the invention of the artsong, or
homophonic style (one voice, or melody, instead of polyphonic—
many voices), which seemed to satisfy the Italian’s natural love for
melody.
Galilei set a scene from Dante’s Inferno, for solo and viola da
gamba, an instrument of the violoncello type. Following this, Peri
invented the “speaking style” of singing now called recitative. This
was a very important step in the making of opera and oratorio, for it
did away with spoken words, and instead, the conversation was sung,
or intoned, to satisfy the poets who wanted the meaning of their
words made very clear. It was accompanied by simple chords on the
lute, and later, the harpsichord.
Here were all the parts needed for a real opera,—the solo song, or
aria; the recitative, or story telling part; the chorus or ensemble,
which was the old madrigal used in a new way; and the
accompanying instruments which grew into the orchestra. Peri was
the first to put all these parts together in an opera for which
Rinuccini wrote a real play based on the Greek story of Daphne.
Caccini and his daughter Francesca sang it, and no doubt made many
suggestions as to how it should be done. Its first private performance
(1597) was an important event for the closing of an important
century. The audience thought that it was listening to a revival of
Greek music drama, but we know that it was another case of
Columbus’s passage to India! Although the Greek drama was not like
this, after 2000 years it helped to create modern music.
Its success led to an invitation in 1600 for Peri and Rinuccini to
write an opera, Euridice, for the marriage festivities of Henry IV of
France and Marie de’ Medici. Several noblemen, probably members
of the “Camerata,” took part in the first performance; one played the
harpsichord, and three others played on the chitarrone (a large
guitar), a viol da gamba, and a theorbo (double lute). The orchestra
was completed by three flutes. This orchestral score was notated in a
sort of musical shorthand called figured bass which shows the chords
to be used as accompaniment to a melody by means of a bass note
with a figure above it. Peri and his colleagues seem to have been the
first to use this, but it was adopted by all composers into the 18th
century, including Bach and Handel. It was called basso continuo or
figured bass or thorough-bass.
Caccini also wrote an opera which he called Euridice, but it was in
the style of a pastoral ballet with songs, dances, and recitatives. This
work was probably the result of his having helped Peri in working out
his ideas at the meetings of the “Camerata.” This same year, 1600,
which finished the 16th century, saw the presentation of Emilio del
Cavalieri’s mystery play, or oratorio, La Rappresentazióne di ‘Anima
e di Córpo (Representation of the spirit and body), for which Laura
Giudiccioni wrote the text. This oratorio, with very elaborate
decorations, was sung and danced in the oratory of a church. It must
have been very like the operas except that it was based on a religious
idea, and was performed in a church, while the opera by Peri was
performed at the Pitti Palace and was from Greek mythology. The
orchestra was composed of a double lyre, a harpsichord, a double
guitar, and a theorbo or double lute.
 Baif’s Club in France

While the Italians were trying to find the old Greek and Latin
methods of combining drama and music, there was a movement in
France to write poetry in classical verse. Following Ronsard’s
example, Baif influenced the composers to write music that should
express the feeling of poetry, and also imitate its rhythm. They also
tried writing madrigals arranged for a single voice with
accompanying instrument, or group of instruments. While the
Italians invented the recitative, the French developed a rich fluent
rhythmic song form, musique mesurée à l’antique, or, music in the
ancient metre.
Baif formed a club or an Academy of poets and musicians much
like Bardi’s “Camerata” in Florence. They worked hard to perfect
mensural or measured music, and opened the way for the use of
measures and bars, which in the 16th century were unknown. We are
so accustomed to music divided into measures by means of bars, that
it is hard to realize what a great step forward was made by Baif’s
Academy. They were struggling to get rid of the plainchant which
lacked rhythm as we know it, and which for centuries had used
“perfect” or “imperfect” time.
Two prominent composers of this group were Jacques Mauduit
(1557–1627), also a famous lute player, and Claude Le Jeune (1530–
1600), who worked with Baif to bring “measured” music into favor,
composer of many chansons and of a Psalm-book used by all the
Calvinist churches (Calvin was a church reformer in Switzerland) in
Europe except in Switzerland! It went through more editions than
any other musical work since the invention of printing. Le Jeune was
a Huguenot, and on St. Bartholomew’s eve (1588), he tried to escape
from the Catholic soldiers carrying with him many unpublished
manuscripts. They would have been burned, had it not been for his
Catholic friend and fellow-composer, Mauduit, who rescued the
books, and saved his life. The title appears for the first time in history
on one of his pieces, “Composer of Music for the King.”
(Compositeur de la musique de la chambre du roy.)
 During the second half of the 16th century, in spite of serious
political and religious troubles, the most popular form of
entertainment at the French court was the very gorgeous ballet. No
expense was considered too great, and no decoration too splendid for
these ballets in which nobles and even the kings and their families
appeared “in person.” They were like the English Masques, and were
the parents of the French opera. Baif, Mauduit and Le Jeune,
together composed (1581) Le Ballet comique de la Reine (Queen’s
Comedy-Ballet) which was produced at the Palace of the Louvre in
Paris.
Beaulieu and Salmon are often named as the composers of this
ballet because in those days, one composer wrote the parts for voices,
and another for instruments, so probably the musicians worked with
the poets and dramatists to produce it. The characters in this musical
drama were Circe and other Greek gods and demi-gods.
With Marie de Medici and Cardinal Mazarin from Italy, Italian
opera came into France. But this did not happen until the 17th
century.
 Monteverde and Heart Music

Wouldn’t you be proud if you could compose a whole book of

music at the age of sixteen? Monteverde did and besides he made
music grow by composing things that had never been done before.
Claudio Monteverde (1567–1643) was born in Cremona, a town
made famous by the great makers of violins. Monteverde was one of
the first great innovators in music, and he brought new ideas and
vast changes into music as an art. His teacher, Marc Antonio
Ingegneri, Chapel Master at the Cathedral, taught young Monteverde
all the tricks of counterpoint and of the great polyphonic masters,
and also gave him lessons on the organ and the viol. He must have
been a very talented pupil, for he could play any instrument, and at
the age of sixteen, published his first book of madrigals,—Canzonette
a tre voci (Little Songs in Three Voices). The last song in this book
has these charming words: “Now, dear Songs, go in peace singing
joyously, always thanking those who listen to you and kissing their
hands, without speaking.” Evidently, little Italian boys were brought
up to say nice things!
Even in this first book of madrigals and the four books that
followed, Monteverde tried experiments in harmony and wrote
music that sounded harsh to 16th century ears. He was trying to
create a style that would combine the best points of the old school of
polyphony (many voices) with the new school of monody (one
melody), and this is why he is called the originator of the modern
style of composition, which is, melody and accompaniment. Since his
time there have been many originators of new styles in music, and
when first heard they have usually been received with harsh words by
the many and liked by the few. Monteverde was severely criticized in
a book that appeared in Venice, in 1600, on the short-comings of
modern music, (and they are still writing “on the short-comings of
modern music” today!). The book was written by the monk, Artusi,
who liked the old-fashioned music and believed that Monteverde’s
work was against all natural musical laws. But if we search we will
find that music grows through experiments that are made by the
composers, who “go against natural laws,” then after the natural laws
are broken, comes a learned theorist who shows that no law was
broken at all, and so we go on stretching the boundaries of “natural
law,” and music goes on changing all the time. This is what we mean
by the growth of music.
In 1590, Monteverde became viol player and singer to Vincenzo di
Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, a patron of arts and letters. At one time
he took the poet Tasso from an insane asylum; he was patron of
Galileo, the astronomer, who was considered to be a heretic because
he said that the earth revolved around the sun, contrary to the
teachings of the Bible; he also invited the great Flemish painter
Rubens, to visit his court; and probably influenced Monteverde to
write operas. The Duke engaged many musicians at his court, who
formed a little orchestra to play dance music, solos, or parts in the
madrigals. These were no longer sung alone, but were accompanied
by instruments, or sometimes played by the instruments without
voices, (see how music grows up!) because in Italy, the composers
had not yet begun to write special music for instruments as they had
in France.
The composer went with the Duke on many travels, even into
battle, and in the evenings between military encounters, they sang
madrigals and played on instruments!
The next trip with the Duke was pleasanter, for it gave Monteverde
the chance to visit Flanders, where he heard the beautiful “new
music” of Claude Le Jeune, Mauduit, and others. It impressed him so
deeply that he began to write heart-music instead of head-music. He
was one of the most successful in breaking down old rules and
traditions and was enough of a genius to replace them with new
things that were to point the way for all the opera writers and most of
the composers that came after him.
Monteverde must have heard the music composed by the members
of the “Camerata,” but he was too much of a musician to brush aside
all polyphonic writing and to value words above music. However,
their work opened the way for his. Up to 1607, he had written
everything in the form of vocal madrigals, but his last book seems to
have been composed for string instruments instead of being
madrigals for voices. These sounded as though composed for viols
and lutes and not for voices, and were dramatic and full of deep
feeling as if written for an opera! No wonder they sounded strange to
the audience—even as Stravinsky, Schoenberg and Milhaud do to
most people today.
Until Monteverde was forty years old he had never written an
opera, the greatest work of his life! He probably would not have done
so then had it not been at the command of his patron, Vincenzo di
Gonzaga. His first and second operas, Orfeo and Arianna, followed
each other quickly and were epoch making. Without the work of the
“Camerata,” they might never have been written, but they were much
better than the best work of the “Camerata” (Peri, Caccini, and
Cavalieri). Monteverde was wise enough to adopt their melodramatic
form which he improved by his use of the devices of the Italian
madrigalists and organ composers, and the airs de cour (songs of the
court) and the ballets of the French composers.
Also, following the French ideas, Monteverde used a large
orchestra of forty pieces, including two clavichords; two little organs
called organi di legno, which sounded like flutes; a regal, also a kind
of small organ; a bass viol; a viol da gamba; two very tiny violins
called pochettes, because they could be carried in the pockets of the
French dancing-masters; ten violes da bracchia or tenor viols;
ordinary violins, two chitarroni or large lutes, and the usual
trumpets, cornets, flutes and oboes. In this Monteverde was a
pioneer for he had no other works to guide him, and had to find out
for himself the effects of combining different instruments. Today
many of his musical effects sound crude to us, but he had no
symphony concerts, at which to hear an orchestra, for such a thing
did not exist. Neither were orchestral scores written out, but only
indicated, and when instruments were used, their parts were made
up at the moment and played, according to the “figured bass.”
During the 16th century, the musicians had learned that
trombones and cornets made a wonderful effect in scenes of the
underworld (Hades, Inferno, Hell), of which there were many. They
discovered, too, that trumpets and drums made battle scenes and
war songs real; that flutes, oboes and bassoons gave a pastoral, or
shepherd-like effect; that viols were for scenes of love and of sadness;
and that to represent Heaven, they needed harps, lutes and regals.
Monteverde brought them all together, and studied how to simplify
the orchestra to give it a better balance in tone and variety. It must
have been a wonderful time to live in this “young manhood” day of
music.
The opera Arianna was written a year after Orfeo, to celebrate the
wedding of the Duke’s son. It must have been a sad task for
Monteverde, as he had just lost his wife to whom he was very
devoted. Ottavio Rinuccini, poet of the “Camerata”, was his librettist
(the writer of the words), and a famous Italian architect, Vianini,
built an immense theatre in the castle for the first performance in
1608. Six thousand people assembled, the largest audience that had
ever heard an opera! Nothing remains of the opera today, but the
text, or words, some published accounts of the performances, and a
very touching and beautiful Lamentation in which Arianna expresses
her grief at being left by Theseus. This one piece is enough to show
Monteverde’s genius, also how freely he expressed human feelings in
music. Not a house in Italy with either a clavichord or a theorbo was
without a copy of the Lamentation!
About this time, Monteverde wrote a prologue for a comedy
composed by five other musicians of the court, all well-known
composers of their day, Rossi, Gastoldi, Gagliano, Giulio
Monteverde, and Birt.
In 1613, a year after the death of the Duke, Vincenzo di Gonzaga,
Monteverde was made Chapel master of St. Mark’s in Venice, which
had long been famous for its fine music, where Adrian Willaert,
Cyprian de Rore and Zarlino had been Chapel masters in the time of
the “Golden Age of Polyphony.” Monteverde had much to live up to!
But, after his hard work at the court of Mantua, he found his position
very agreeable, and he gave his time now to composing music for the
Church, madrigals, intermezzos, and a new form of music called
“cantata.” His church music can be divided into works written in the
old polyphonic style of Palestrina, and those written in the modern
style of his day. So, when he did not write in the older church style, it
was not because he did not know counterpoint, but because he
wanted to make music express feelings through harmony and not
through polyphony. He was able to do this as no one else had! His
church music is not published for the parts have been so scattered,
that a bass will be found in one collection and an instrumental part
in another, and perhaps a soprano in still a third. So it would be very
much like a jig-saw puzzle to find them all and put them together.
 The Gonzaga family tried to persuade him to return to their court,
but he refused, although he often wrote special operas for them or
short dramatic spectacles which were called intermezzos. Of these,
sad to say, almost nothing remains.
The recitative style invented by the “Camerata” had by this time
taken such a firm hold upon the people, that it spread even to the
music of the Church and to the madrigals. All the Italian composers
began to write recitative for solo voices and accompaniment which
they called canzoni (songs), canzonetti (little songs), and arie
(melodies).
Monteverde was one of the first to turn the madrigal into a cantata
da camera which means the recitation to music of a short drama or
story in verse, by one person, accompanied by one instrument. But,
as things improve or die out, very soon another voice and several
instruments were added. This composition is a musical milestone of
the 17th century as the madrigal had been of the 15th and 16th. The
cantata for more than one voice forms a little chamber music opera
without any acting. Some of the best known cantata writers were
Ferrari, Carissimi, Rossi, Gasparini, Marcello, and Alessandro
Scarlatti. At the age of seventy, Monteverde took up this new style of
composition with all the enthusiasm and freshness of a young
composer! He was not the inventor of the cantata da camera, as is
so often claimed for him, as no one man was its inventor. It was the
result of the constant search of the composers of that day, who
followed along the same path, and worked together to perfect a new
form.
 New Feelings Expressed

One of Monteverde’s most important works in this style is the

Combat of Tancredi and Clorinda (Combattimento di Tancredi e di
Clorinda) a poem by Tasso, which is noteworthy for several new
things. In the preface of the published edition, Monteverde says that
he had long tried to invent a style concitato, or agitated, that he had
been struck by the fact that musicians had never tried to express
anger or the fury of battle, but had expressed only tenderness and
sweetness, sadness or gayety. (Perhaps he did not know Jannequin’s
Battle of Marignan.) So he wrote battle music.
The second innovation was the tremolo, which, however familiar
to us today, he used for the first time to express agitation, anger and
fear, and the musicians were so surprised to see something that they
had never seen before, that they refused to play it! This was neither
the first nor the last time that musicians balked at something new.
The third innovation was that he wrote independent parts for the
orchestra, and for the first time the instruments did not “copy” the
voice, but had notes all to themselves to play.
In 1630 there was a terrible epidemic in Venice, the “Black Plague”
which lasted a year and took off one-third of her population! In
gratitude for having been spared, Monteverde became a priest in the
Church. This did not seem to interfere with his composing secular
works, for after this, he wrote several operas.
Venice was the home of the first public opera house in the world! It
was opened (1637) in the San Cassiano theatre by Benedetto Ferrari
and Francesco Manelli, and for this in these last years of his life,
Monteverde wrote some of his most important operas. Monteverde’s
operas of this time were a combination of the Roman opera-cantate,
then in style, and his first operas, Orfeo and Arianna, written thirty-
five years before. He had great enough genius to fit his work to the
conditions that he found in the opera house, so that when they had to
reduce expenses, Monteverde cut down the size of his orchestra to
just a clavichord, a few theorbos, a bass viol and a few violins and
viols, and wrote works without choruses! He was agreeable, wasn’t
he? A thing which people of “near” greatness rarely are!
 The last work he composed at the age of 74 is one of his best! Is it
not wonderful to think that he had not lost inspiration and
enthusiasm after a long life of hard work? The Italian name for his
last opera is Incoronazione di Poppea, or the “Coronation of
Poppea.” It is a story of the court of Nero, and Monteverde has
sketched his characters in vivid music, and has made them seem true
to life. Henry Prunières, who has made an earnest study of
Monteverde says in his book, Monteverde, “Monteverde saw
Imperial Rome with eyes of genius and knew how to make it live
again for us. No book, no historical account could picture Nero and
Poppea as vigorously as this opera.” It is the greatest opera of the
17th century, and actually created the school of Italian grand opera.
With it, mythological characters gave way to the historical in opera,
which enlarged the field of drama with music.
So Monteverde, the great innovator, died in Venice in 1643 and
was given by the citizens of Venice a funeral worthy of his greatness.
He dug new paths on which all modern composers travel and
throughout his life he followed his ideal, which was to translate into
the language of music, human feelings and ideas.
After a painting by
Molenaer in the
Rijks Museum,
Amsterdam.

A Lady at the Clavier (Clavichord).

After the painting
by Terborch.

A Lady Playing the Theorbo (luth).

 CHAPTER XIV
Musicke in Merrie England

You will recall how far away England was in the 16th century from
Rome, the Pope, and the other nations. Not that it has been pushed
any nearer now, but the radio, the aeroplane and the steamship have
made it seem closer. In the 16th century it took a long time to reach
the people of the continent, and for this reason England seemed to
many to have little musical influence, but in reality it had much for it
was forced to develop what it found at home.
About 1420, John Dunstable wrote beautiful motets, canzonas and
other secular music in the contrapuntal style of his period. He is
supposed to have held a post in the Chapel Royal, founded during the
reign of Henry IV, and to have taken part in the musical services held
to celebrate Henry’s victories in France.
Then came the War of the Roses between the Houses of York and
Lancaster, and musical composition in England was checked for the
sake of war-making. Yet, the Chapel Royal was maintained and the
universities gave degrees to students of music. Judging from the
number of singing guilds and cathedral choirs, and from the amount
of singing and organ playing, music, even in spite of war, seemed to
have its innings.
In the 16th century England made such strides forward that she
holds a high place in the growth of music. England loved the
keyboard instruments such as the virginal, and in this century,
developed her own way of making a delightful combination of
polyphony and harmony with the new music for the Protestant
Church service.
 Bluff Prince Hal

Right here came the Reformation of the English Church under

Henry VIII of the six wives. In 1535 he wanted to divorce his first
wife, Catherine of Aragon, to marry Anne Boleyn, her lady in waiting,
which the Pope would not permit him to do, as the Roman Catholic
Church prohibits divorce. So, like Germany and Switzerland,
England cut herself off from the Pope and founded the English or
Anglican Church with the King as its head. You can imagine the
excitement this caused, can’t you? People lost their heads in very
truth, for what they thought right and religious, some of the rulers
called sacrilegious and heretical.
Breaking away from the Church of Rome gave English music a
great push forward, for, the Mass (the musical setting of the main
part of the service), the motet (the particular lines of the particular
day) and the plain song (which ministers intoned), were
discontinued, and for these were substituted, after Henry VIII’s
reign, the Church “Services” founded on the Elizabethan Prayer
book. On this book, still in use, the new music was written and
included such compositions as would fit this Liturgy (prayers), the
Litany, Creed, Psalms, Canticles (line verses), and the Communion,
the Plain Song, Versicles and Responses. Then, too, came hymn
tunes and anthems. Among the composers of these in the
Elizabethan reign were John Shepherd, John Marbeck, Robert
Whyte, Richard Farrant, William Byrd and John Bull.
But let us go back to Bluff Prince Hal (Henry VIII), who was good
to music. Not only did he love it, but he played and composed
himself. One of his pieces is called The King’s Balade, or Passetyme
with Goode Companie and the pastimes of this monarch were many.
Read this list, set down by one who knew him: “He spent his time in
shooting, singing, dancing, wrestling, casting of the bar, playing at
the recorders (a reed instrument), flute, virginals (the English spinet)
in setting songs and making ballads.” So with eating and sleeping
and attending to affairs of state and to his many wives as they came
along, he must have had plenty to do! How many kings and
governors today write music as a “passetyme”?
 In 1526 he had a band of players, says Edmundstoune Duncan in
his Story of Minstrelsy, “composed of fifteen trumpets, three lutes,
three rebecks, one harp, two viols, ten sackbuts, a fife, and four
drumslades”; a few years later a trumpet, a lute, three minstrels, and
a player of the virginals were added. (A rebeck is an early form of
violin; a sackbut is a reed instrument with a sliding piece such as we
have today in the trombone; the drumslade is an old word for drum.)
Anne Boleyn, second of King Henry’s many wives, loved music and
dancing, and she too tried her hand at composing, to which fact her
O death, rocke me on slepe is proof. It is said that “she doated on the
compositions of Josquin and Mouton,” and that she made collections
of them for herself and her companions.
Up to this time there was no English Bible and only Latin and
Greek versions were used. The Church did not consider it proper for
the common people to read the Scriptures. The Priests wanted to
read and interpret it to them instead. You remember, too, one of the
reasons that the Reformation took place in Germany was because
Luther wanted to let the people think for themselves, read their
Bible, and choose their own ways of worshipping and interpreting it.
The same feeling crept into England, and William Tyndale made the
first English Translation of the New Testament (1538). Soon the
Psalms were translated and set to music to any air from a jig to a
French dance tune! The gayer the air the more popular the Psalm!
 Chained Libraries

Because the Protestants did not want anything left that had been
part of the old religion in England, a rather dreadful thing happened.
The monasteries were either destroyed or their libraries and
organizations were discontinued. On account of this, many fine
manuscripts of music and poetry were lost, for as you know, the
monks copied out, with much effort, the literature of their day, and
these painstaking glorious bits of hand work were kept in the
monasteries.
There are today four chained libraries in England, two of which are
at Hereford, the old city that holds yearly musical festivals of the
“Three Choirs.” The books are on the old chains and may be taken
down and read on the desk below the shelves, as they were hundreds
of years ago! Here they are, in the cloisters, a great collection of
treasures beyond price, just as the medieval scholars read them in
days when books were the costliest of luxuries, three hundred
volumes dating back to the 12th century. The earliest manuscript is
the Anglo Saxon Gospels which was written about 800 A.D. One of
the greatest treasures is a Breviary (prayer book) with music (1280)
—the plain-song notation as clear and as easy to read as modern
print.
As something had to take the place of monasteries, the universities
became the centers for study and the cultivation of music. As far back
as 866, King Alfred founded the first chair of music at Oxford! Do
you remember that this was the time of the bards and minstrels? We
do not seem very old in America, when we think of a college with a
chair of music eleven hundred years ago!
Before the printers were expelled from England, Wynken de
Worde, printed the first song book (1530) which contained pieces by
men important at the time: Cornyshe, Pygot, Gwinneth, Robert
Jones, Dr. Cooper, and Fayrfax.