“In her wide-ranging and clearly conveyed ethnographic work, Wesselhoeft has succeeded in drawing a comprehensive picture of the efforts of a young generation of Muslims to build new institutions of learning in the greater Paris region. She deftly traces ways in which these young Muslims anchor their piety in lively debates about individual rights and women’s autonomy and in doing so gives the lie to misleading rhetoric labeling Muslims as ‘communalists.’”

John R. Bowen, Washington University in St. Louis

“A gifted ethnographer, storyteller, historian, and ethicist, Wesselhoeft brilliantly explores in this book how Muslims in France organize and respond to state-supported hostility and racism. Her central concept, ‘fraternal critique,’ allows for an analysis of debates within social and political movements that does not reduce argument to infighting or division. Instead, Wesselhoeft suggests that it is in the arguing itself that solidarity is practiced and community constituted.”

Juliane Hammer, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill