Introduction

It Is Our Motherland Too

“…Ummah as Transnational Identity and Solidarity 'Muslim ummah' , understood as an imagined or real 'global community of Muslims' , or 'one Muslim community' , is considered a foundational form of grouping for Muslim unity and solidarity, conceptually burying many nationalities and ethnicities (Mandaville, 2009). Similar to the philosophy of Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, Pentecostalism (Van Dijk, 2002 and Judaism (Boyarin, 2015), Islam promotes a pan-national belonging to the religious community, as opposed to other types of identification, such as nationality or ethnicity (MacLean and Matar, 2011). Belongingness to a community to which membership is open to all believers without any qualification or restriction gives the community a universalism that is embodied in Islam (Hassan, 2006).…”

“…Muslim ummah does not necessarily refer to a return to a homeland and is less munas Diaspora Studies 16 (2023) 142-171 obviously tied to a particular people or place (Cohen, 2008). In contemporary Europe and UK, where anti-Muslim sentiments linked to radicalisation and Islamophobia are increasing, the concept of ummah becomes an important tool for mobilising people and resources among the diaspora (Haddad, 2002;MacLean and Matar, 2011;Kane, 2015).…”