Thijl Sunier is a Dutch professor emeritus of the Anthropology of Religion who has had a long career in research on Islam and Muslims in Western Europe. Making Islam Work: Islamic Authority among Muslims in Western Europe is his latest book, and I read it as a summary of his theoretical and empirical interests in the topic. The book’s basic aim is to provide insights into how Islamic authority has been produced among Muslims with migrant backgrounds in Western Europe in the last fifty years. Sunier is less interested in religious professionals than in a wider group of Muslims. Much of the book is based on his own research projects, but he also co-authors parts with his postgraduate students. Most of the examples and cases Sunier uses are from the Netherlands, but I believe that many of his analyses and insights apply more widely as well.

Book review: Thijl Sunier: Making Islam Work: Islamic Authority among Muslims in Western Europe. Leiden: Brill, 2023, 317 pp.