Umkämpfte Religion: Formen und Transformationen religiöser Konkurrenz im Feld des Islam am Beispiel Marokkos

This article deals with forms and transformations of religious competition in Islamic societies. It draws on sociological field theory in order to develop a field-theoretical interpretation of competitive struggles over Islam and Muslims under the conditions of authoritarian nation states. From this perspective, not only the state-religious actors of the institutionalised pole in Islam (traditionalists, modernists) come into view, but also the Islamist and Salafist counter-poles competing with them, which appear as new religious actors and have different profiles, alliances and modes of organisation in their respective nation-state contexts. Taking Morocco as an example, this article then examines the conditions that favour certain forms of conflictual competition (outbidding) and their consequences. The reconstruction of the logic and dynamics of conflicts in the religious field in Morocco, guided by field theory, allows a distinction to be made between three phases from the 1970s to the present day: While in a first phase (1974–2001) religious competition between all actors was often fought in a mode of mutual outbidding, in a second phase (2001–2011) repression and securitisation determined the mode of interaction in the field, in the current third phase (2011–2024) state processes of renationalisation and juridification with simultaneous political integration of Islamist actors characterise the competitive dynamics in the religious field. The aim of these field-theoretical considerations is to contribute to the understanding of unregulated forms of competition in nation-state fields of Islam and to question them regarding their possible consequences, namely the promotion of new and the consolidation of old authoritarian competitive structures (outbidding) on both sides—states and Islamist movements—which legitimise each other and prevent democratic forms of competition and conflict regulation.