Rituals of Birth, Circumcision, Marriage, and Death Among Muslims in the Netherlands

Migration imposes special pressures on the meaning, experience and organization of lifecycle rituals. These pressures are felt most strongly by Muslim migrants to Western Europe. In this innovative study, Nathal M. Dessing examines the effects of migration on the lifecycle rituals of Moroccan, Turkish and Surinamese Muslims in the Netherlands. She explores how Islamic rituals marking birth, circumcision, marriage, and death have responded and accommodated to the Dutch legal and social context. After clearly setting out the relevant Islamic legal prescriptions, Dessing draws on extensive fieldwork to chart how each ritual has evolved through migration, and compares the ritual practice in the Netherlands and the countries of origin. Dessing thus sheds valuable new light on the religious and cultural identities of Muslims in the Netherlands.