Sport and Muslims or Muslims in sport, post-9/11

Abstract

This chapter organizes three aspects: hijab and the ‘Islamization’ of sport; Arab-Muslim investment in sport as a means for ‘soft power’; and sport and the question of integration of Muslims as a challenge to citizenship and national identity debates, informed by a few years of observation of media portrayal of Muslims in sport post-9/11. The press in Europe, Australia, North America, particularly in Quebec province in Canada, is full of articles debating the presence of the hijab in sport and the demand of Muslim women to wear the hijab or other forms of adaptation of the traditional veil in the sport arena. The demand by Muslims to accommodate sport to their culture and religious beliefs is perceived as a sign of disintegration or non-assimilation of European values of citizenship and community cohesion; even more as a defiance of national values of universalism, social cohesion and national unity.