{"id":37529,"date":"2026-03-30T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/article\/nail-in-the-coffin-representation-monopoly-intra-religious-pluralism-wonisch\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T11:00:00","slug":"nail-in-the-coffin-representation-monopoly-intra-religious-pluralism-wonisch","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/article\/nail-in-the-coffin-representation-monopoly-intra-religious-pluralism-wonisch\/","title":{"rendered":"A Nail in the Coffin of the Representation Monopoly of a Single Community: The Quest for Recognition of Intra-religious Pluralism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Abstract<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Published in the CUREDI database (<em>Cultural and Religious Diversity under State Law across the World<\/em>), run by the Department of Law and Anthropology of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology (Halle), this annotated case report by <a href=\"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/chercheur\/kerstin-wonisch\/\"><strong>Kerstin Wonisch<\/strong><\/a>, a lawyer and scholar of religious studies at the Eurac Research Institute for Minority Rights (Bolzano), discusses a ruling handed down by the Austrian Constitutional Court on 1 December 2010.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 2009, the Austrian Ministry of Education had rejected the application of the Cultural Association of Alevis for recognition as an Islamic-Alevi religious society and for registration as a confessional community. It held that the 1912 Act on the Recognition of the Adherents of Islam allowed for only one Islamic community, the Islamic Faith Community in Austria (IGG\u00d6), which itself disputed that Alevis were Muslims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Court ruled that this refusal of registration violated freedom of religion as guaranteed by the Constitution and by Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Nothing in Austrian law requires a single community to represent all Muslims, and the state, bound to neutrality, can neither rule on doctrinal questions nor make a group&#8217;s registration dependent on the opinion of an already recognized religious authority. It did, however, uphold the refusal of recognition as a religious society, as the association had not first been registered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For the author, this leading judgment drove &#8220;a nail in the coffin&#8221; of the representation monopoly held by the IGG\u00d6 since 1979 and paved the way for the recognition of Islam&#8217;s internal diversity in Austria. She shows that the Court reduced the &#8220;principle of exclusivity&#8221; of Austrian religion law to the mere requirement of a distinctive name, and stresses that managing intra-religious pluralism depends on how communities define themselves, not on a theological assessment by the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The report, which sets out the facts, the ruling, the main excerpts from the decision and the author&#8217;s commentary, is freely available on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.curedi-law.de\/case-summary\/CUREDI045AT012\"><strong>CUREDI website<\/strong><\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.48509\/CUREDI045AT012\"><strong>DOI 10.48509\/CUREDI045AT012<\/strong><\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":37522,"template":"","class_list":["post-37529","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"date_tournage":"2026-03-30","yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A Nail in the Coffin of the Representation Monopoly of a Single Community: The Quest for Recognition of Intra-religious Pluralism - Pluriel<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/article\/nail-in-the-coffin-representation-monopoly-intra-religious-pluralism-wonisch\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Nail in the Coffin of the Representation Monopoly of a Single Community: The Quest for Recognition of Intra-religious Pluralism - Pluriel\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Abstract Published in the CUREDI database (Cultural and Religious Diversity under State Law across the World), run by the Department of Law and Anthropology of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology (Halle), this annotated case report by Kerstin Wonisch, a lawyer and scholar of religious studies at the Eurac Research Institute for Minority Rights [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/article\/nail-in-the-coffin-representation-monopoly-intra-religious-pluralism-wonisch\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Pluriel\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/pluriel.fuce.eu\\\/en\\\/article\\\/nail-in-the-coffin-representation-monopoly-intra-religious-pluralism-wonisch\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/pluriel.fuce.eu\\\/en\\\/article\\\/nail-in-the-coffin-representation-monopoly-intra-religious-pluralism-wonisch\\\/\",\"name\":\"A Nail in the Coffin of the Representation Monopoly of a Single Community: The Quest for Recognition of Intra-religious Pluralism - 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