The worldwide ‘lockdown’ due to Covid-19 has had an accelerating effect on the ongoing discussion of Islamic burial in the Netherlands. Because of the closure of airspace Moroccan and Turkish-Dutch deceased could no longer be repatriated to be buried in their country of origin. This increased the pressure on cemeteries in the Netherlands to provide for the requirements and rituals of an Islamic burial. And this in turn showed the importance of the discussion that is already taking place in the House of Representatives about changes to the laws and regulations concerning burials. These three dimensions of Islamic burial in the Netherlands – personal, practical and legal – are discussed in this article.

In this article we elaborate on the place of religion in the workplace. Does the individual freedom of religion imply that employers must always accommodate the religious claims of employees or can they boast a number of arguments allowing them to legitimately limit that freedom? And, conversely, do employers not also have a right to freedom of religion and a right to formulate certain religious expectations for their employees? In this contribution, we deal with these and related questions from a legal-philosophical perspective. The overall aim is to illustrate the extent to which univocal answers are jeopardized because of conceptual ambiguities. We first make a normative distinction between two strategies (i.e. difference-blind approach and difference-sensitive approach) and subsequently illustrate and elaborate on how and why these strategies can lead to different outcomes in legal cases. We illustrate the extent to which a contextual and proportional analysis can be a way out in theoretical and practical conundrums.

When does an appeal to the heritage of Christianity intensify our ethical sensitivity? When does an appeal to the Christian heritage diminish our ethical sensitivity? How to distinguish authentic Christianity from its cultural shape? All these questions highlight an ethical theme intimately interwoven with the many references to Christianity in contemporary politics. In that perspective, even a neologism was coined, the ‘Gutmensch’. When neologisms pop up and daily appear in newspapers, alertness is indispensable and an accurate approach is required.

This is the second part of the revised translation of ‘Understanding sharia in the West’ that was published in the Journal of Law, Religion and State 2018, 6, p. 236-273. The first part of the translation appeared in Tijdschrift voor Religie, Recht en Beleid 2019, 3, p. 17-31.

The decision of the Court that Muslims from the Greek province of West Thrace can choose in matters of family law between civil or Islamic law, is not surprising. However, much can be said about the way in which the Court came to that conclusion. Because in doing so it uses principles and considerations that show a lack of insight in the status and functioning of a unique legal system, namely that of interpersonal law, or the coexistence on equal basis of several family laws. Similarly, the Court seems biased towards Islamic family law, which it consistently refers to as ‘sharia’. A critical discussion of this judgment is therefore appropriate.

In dit artikel staat de auteur stil bij de juridische procedure van het cremeren en begraven. De auteur zal daarbij ingaan op de gelijkenissen en verschillen in de relevante wetgeving van Aruba, Curaçao en de rest van het Koninkrijk.

The question central to this article is whether ‘Islam’ and human rights are compatible and, if not, whether there might be room to come to a minimum standard of human rights that can be shared globally. This article will demonstrate that, from the perspective of Islamic orthodoxy, principles that are fundamental to human rights, like equality and freedom of religion, pose unsurmountable problems, and the adjustment of these principles is theologically nearly impossible. However, a growing number of Muslim intellectuals holds the opposite view, using new theological methods to argue that these Islamic principles and human rights are compatible. Although they are warmly welcomed by human rights lawyers and activists, their methods are not uncontroversial, and they are still very small in number.

The Netherlands changed from a culturally homogenous society into a religiously plural society. This had an impact across public and denominational schools. The pluralisation of the pupil population raised the issue of the so-called pillarized educational system. In this contribution I explore this theme in the context of the freedom of education laid down in article 23 of the Dutch Constitution, and the right of every child to get acquainted with the diversity of its society’s traditions, and to position itself in the plural Dutch society. Moving beyond the pillarized system, all education can then become truly special, preparing children for normative citizenship.

Since Islam stands for a total way of life, it also includes a vision on crime and punishment. According to several (Muslim)scholars the Sharia contains not so much a message of revenge and retribution but rather one of compassion, forgiveness and mercy. Much depends on which sections of the holy sources of Islam are read and subsequently how these sections are interpreted. However, fact is that – in the context of quite a number of criminal offences – Islamic criminal law gives room for restorative practices. These practices prove to be more beneficial with regard to the realization of remorse, forgiveness and reconciliation than the regular criminal process. Since restorative practices form an intrinsic part of (pre-modern) Islamic criminal law and since more and more initiatives are being developed nowadays to incorporate such practices in (modern) Western criminal law, it is of fundamental importance to take note of Islamic criminal law. Before focusing in this contribution on the role of restorative practices, remorse and forgiveness in Islamic criminal law, first the position of victims in criminal law under influence of Islam and Christianity will be discussed on the basis of the ideas of the Dutch victimologist Jan van Dijk. Furthermore, attention will be paid to the decline of mysticism in Islam and to the possible consequences and risks thereof – also for the role of restorative practices, remorse and forgiveness in Islamic criminal law.

The article discusses the implications of the Refah Partisi vs. Turkey case. The Court has made onerous assumptions about the notion sharia by declaring it a ‘violation of [European Human Rights] Convention values’. The Court should not have ventured into an interpretation of a highly technical and controversial term like ‘sharia’, especially when done so in connection with the inciting use of that term by Refat Partisi members. Moreover, given the fact that sharia also encompasses religious rituals like prayer, fasting and burial, calling sharia a violation of human rights is a misnomer. The Court should not have allowed itself to get lured into a domain it is not knowledgeable about but should have stuck to strict legal reasoning.

The article deals with an unknown chapter of the history of Muslims in the Netherlands in the interwar period. It follows the public debate about the construction of the first mosque in The Hague before the Second World War. The first initiative was made in 1929 by the Dutch convert to Islam Mohammed Ali van Beetem, who played a leading role among the Indonesian Muslim community in the Netherlands. After more than two decennia of debate and negotiations with the municipal authorities in The Hague, the first mosque was finally built by the Ahmadiyya-mission in 1955.

How can police officers make use of citizens’ religious beliefs when dealing with cases of honour-based violence (HBV)? In this article religion is addressed regarding motive and legitimisation of violence and as a social network of people and institutions for communities of believers. We focus on Islamic religion, because most cases of HBV handled by the police take place within Islamic communities and because the Dutch public debate on religion revolves around Islam. We interviewed police officers with expertise on HBV. These officers have an instrumental vision on religion. It helps them to gain insight in motives for violence and it offers opportunities for conflict mediation and coping with the aftermath of HBV.

Dutch society is continually faced with conflicting interests in the context of religious expression by ethnic minorities in particular. In such instances, the constitutional freedom of religion clashes with other rights and interests, including other fundamental rights. This article provides a guideline for approaching such conflicts. It demonstrates the juridical need to seek compromise, as a means of overcoming the dilemma posed by conflicting interests. The article contains a moral call for an open mind and tolerance, as a favourable condition for achieving compromise.

In the Netherlands, a national model for church-state relations is often put forward as the guiding light for authorities struggling with governance dilemmas related to religion. This model supposedly represents ‘The Dutch Way’ of dealing with religion and is, among other things, linked to multiculturalism, a pragmatic outlook, and typically Dutch historical processes like pillarization. This paper examines whether this model holds up in practice. It argues that the Dutch model does not suffice as an accurate description of current policy practices at the local level and that, given various underlying processes that influence this practice, this model also does not provide a credible normative guideline for the future. Dutch society has undergone significant changes, and the Dutch model should be rethought accordingly.

A fundamental principle of a just society is autonomy of societal or communal spheres. This principle contributes to a society in which people develop their own lifestyles according to their own personal convictions. The author argues that such plurality of society will be disrupted if the principle of equality becomes the dominant principle thereby undermining the sovereignty of the communal spheres.

Since 30 years the Netherlands’ government practises an integration policy towards ethnic minorities. From the beginning, this comprehensive approach is challenged by demands of immigrated religious communities, e.g. the erection of buildings of worship. For the government, religion is an influential circumstance, not an object of the policy-making process. Therefore religious matters deserve political attention.The mid-nineties of the twentieth century brought the Islam into the focus of national policy. The first issue concerned the appointments on a temporary basis of Turkish imams by the Turkish authorities. That evoked the need for a Dutch training-school in order to be prevented from further admissions from abroad. In the meantime, compulsory introductory courses for religious leaders with a non-EU- or EEA-nationality were introduced. Since nine-eleven, the threats of Islamic ultra-orthodox tendencies dominate the political discourse.

Het vraagstuk betreffende de grenzen van de vrijheid van meningsuiting bij een botsing met het recht op de bescherming van de persoonlijke levenssfeer (eer en goede naam, privacy) staat in deze bijdrage centraal. Bezwaren tegen de wijze waarop de Hoge Raad art. 10 EVRM toepast bij een botsing met art. 8 EVRM, met name in het licht van de EHRM-rechtspraak, worden belicht. Er wordt in het bijzonder aandacht besteed aan de botsing van deze grondrechten in het internettijdperk, nu door de opkomst van internet de uitingsmogelijkheden explosief zijn gegroeid. Het is de vraag of het recht wel voldoende instrumenten biedt om het evenwicht tussen vrijheid van meningsuiting en privacy op het internet te handhaven.