The political accommodation of immigrant religious practices - the case of special admission rules for ministers of religion.

This paper discusses special admission rules for ministers of religion, focusing on admission policies for Muslim ministers of religion. The paper situates admission policies in the wider context of the political accommodation of Islam in Western Europe and analyses to what extent such policies are linked to other dimensions of the political accommodation of religion in general, and Islam in particular. It asks why admission rules have recently drawn the attention of policies despite the fact that a very small number of persons are affected. The main reason why admission policies for Muslim clergy are considered important by some governments is a general concern about Muslim leadership, particularly ¿radical¿ Muslim leadership, and the desire to ¿control¿ and monitor community leaders. In addition, changes in policy have to be seen against the wider background of attempts to ¿Europeanise¿ Islam, notably in the context of increasingly assimilative integration policies. At the same time, several features of Muslim religious leadership, such as the transnational nature of ¿employment¿ of religious leaders and the relatively low share of full-time, professional Muslim clergy, seem to contradict state policies and, perhaps most importantly, militate against a state¿s attempts to control Muslim religious leadership.