{"id":37333,"date":"2026-10-05T11:15:57","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T10:15:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/islam-after-exile-hamza-esmili-iismm-2026\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T11:15:57","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T10:15:57","slug":"islam-after-exile-hamza-esmili-iismm-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/islam-after-exile-hamza-esmili-iismm-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"“Islam after Exile: A Religious History of Immigration”, by Hamza Esmili"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On Tuesday 20 October 2026, the Institute for the Study of Islam and the Societies of the Muslim World<\/strong><\/a> (IISMM, School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, EHESS) is holding an author meeting with Hamza Esmili<\/strong>, socio-anthropologist and lecturer (ma\u00eetre-assistant) at the University of Lausanne, on his book L’Islam apr\u00e8s l’exil. Une histoire religieuse de l’immigration<\/em> (Islam after Exile: A Religious History of Immigration, Seuil, 2026). The discussant is Laurent Bonnefoy<\/strong>, CNRS research fellow at the Centre for International Studies (CERI) of Sciences Po, a political scientist and Arabist specialising in Salafi movements and the contemporary Arabian Peninsula.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does the revival of piety among North African immigrants and their descendants since the 1980s mean? Drawing on long-term fieldwork in Clichy-sous-Bois, the author shows how they reinvested the Islamic tradition in order to establish a line of transmission with the first generation born in housing estates relegated to the margins. Neither archaism nor mere identity politics, this Islam stems from a chosen religious reaffiliation, grounded in individual piety and in a shared rereading of the migrant experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book thus offers a history of immigration attentive to the moral life of immigrants and their children: post-exile Islam does not merely question the host society, it also transforms the Muslim tradition itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n