The presence of a Muslim community and the Islamic spatiality of the city is another key factor that constitutes belonging to Granada. This is partly linked to the awareness that Muslims historically lived and worshiped in the city. The heritage of Al-Andalus establishes Granada as a city that is historically synonymous with the practice and worship of Islam. It is imbued with a particular religious significance and, in some respects, is perceived as a ‘sacred space’ (Eliade, 1958) for Muslims. For example, Yassine stated:
Yes, Granada has a lot of significance for Muslims. You know it was the last Muslim kingdom of Europe, well actually in Spain, because there is Bosnia in Eastern Europe. For Muslims, Granada is a symbol of nostalgia for the past, and for the Christians it is a symbol of the unification of the country. (Yassine, Male, Morocco, Tetouan)
Granada is not what Metlcalf (1996) labels as a non-locative ‘Muslim space’, that is only given meaning through ritual and practice. Rather, the location of Granada is significant because of both the historical presence of Muslims in the city, and the contemporary practice of Islam.
It is important to note that Granada is also synonymous with the removal of Islam, and it is a space where there was the implementation of a dominant Christian dogma that had no acceptance of Islamic practices. As a result, Islam in Granada is paradoxically an authentic part of the city, while also a foreign religion of the ‘other’. The religious history of Granada can provide Moroccans with both a sense of Islam belonging in the city, and a sense that there was a deep intolerance to the practices of Islam. The religious history of Granada is not stable, it can be read in multiple ways, and provides contradictory messages.
However, for the Moroccan diaspora, it is the contemporary presence of a Muslim community and the contemporary spaces of worship that are often articulated as having a fundamental importance to their attachment to the city. Scholars have argued that migrants originating from Muslim majority societies often use their faith of Islam as a way of creating a collective identity, which in turn generates a sense of belonging and a sense of place in the country/city of migration (Moghissi, 2006; Aitchison and Hopkins, 2007; Gale, 2007). This is certainly the case for a number of Moroccans in Granada. For example, Ayoub, a male shop owner from northern Morocco stated:
In Granada you don’t have to change your culture and lifestyle much. When it’s the hour to pray there are mosques. There is a mosque really close to my house and work, this is really important...it’s not a difficult life for Muslims here. (Ayoub, Male,
Morocco, Tetouan)
The fact that Granada has a number of easily accessible mosques that provide spaces of worship is particularly important for Ayoub’s sense of belonging to Granada. Being able to attend the mosque to pray and see other Muslims would seem to be a fundamental part of his culture, and vital for his sense of collective identity and belonging. The director of one of Granada’s central mosques underlined the importance of the mosque in Moroccan culture when he asserted:
They come here because Muslims, especially Moroccans, are used to having a connection and contact with a mosque. They come here at least one day a week, normally on Fridays. Because for Moroccans, or any immigrants here, they have abandoned their country to study, or to look for work, but you don’t abandon your principles – of course some do, yes – they neglect it, but for a lot it remains very important. So they have the mosque as a meeting place. In one respect they come here to practice their religion, but they also come to meet with other Moroccans and Muslims. This is the thing, if you are away from your country, away from Morocco, you probably like to meet and see other Moroccans and Muslims. So where do you do that? Well you regularly attend the mosque and this is where you’ll get that contact. (Director of the At-Taqwa Mosque, Male, Moroccan-Spanish)
The mosque has an important role in Moroccan culture, and in Granada it can function as a space to maintain and continue a shared culture. Therefore, religion and the associated sites or worship are significant for the formation of a Moroccan diaspora. The mosque provides a space for the continuation of a collective ethnic identity, and for community interaction and maintenance, which are critical features in normative notions of diaspora formations. This demonstrates that feelings of belonging are often induced in micro-scale spaces such as mosques. Rather than seeing the whole city as generating senses of belonging, it is a number of smaller scale spaces within the city that have a greater impact on diaspora senses of attachment. As a result, areas such as the lower Albayzín, where there are mosques and a Muslim presence, are important sites of belonging for the diaspora. Nonetheless, these smaller scale sites of belonging can converge to induce a general sense of belonging with the city. As the mosque is a highly gendered space, where women and men are often separated, there is an evident gendered aspect to the belonging generated from religious sites of worship. It was primarily men who articulated the importance of the mosque, and primarily men whom I saw attending the mosque, so I would argue that it is primarily a site of male diasporic belonging. In addition to the Islamic spatiality such as mosques, the visible embodied presence of
Muslims is another factor that can generate belonging to the city. There are areas of the city such as the lower Albayzín that have a significant Moroccan and Arab presence. Although not all of the people in this area are Muslim, the embodied presence and material culture does often convey a strong Islamic symbolism. For example, during conversations with Brahim, a shop worker in the lower Albayzín area of the city, he proclaimed:
You can live well being a Muslim in Granada because there are many mosques. There is a big mosque next to Plaza San Nicolas. There are many Muslims, including many Spanish Muslims, this is unique to Granada, and important for our sense of belonging here. (Brahim, Male, Northern Morocco)
Brahim reiterates the importance of mosques, but also underlines the significance of a visible Muslim community for his sense of belonging to the city. Moreover, he specifically points out that in Granada there is large Spanish and ‘native’ Muslim community, which he considers as a distinct feature of Granada, and greatly important to his emotional experience with the city. The director of a central mosque talked about the importance of the Spanish Muslim
community for the Moroccan diaspora. He stated:
Yes, of course it is very important. You feel protected, welcome and you feel happy that people from Granada and Spain will defend your rights as a Muslim – of course that is important. For example, there are Spanish Muslims that chat with the
immigrant Muslims in Spanish and Arabic. It is to help and guide the immigrants, and to explain they can maintain their Islamic behaviour here and they do not need to change their principles. (Director of the At-Taqwa Mosque, Male, Moroccan-Spanish)
Having a visible Muslim community that includes a large ‘native’ Spanish component is generating further attachment to the diaspora space for many Moroccan migrants. The Islamic religion is a fundamental part of the Moroccan diasporic identity, and the substantial Western community that also adhere to it, often broadens their sense of belonging to the city. The mosque director in the previous quote states that Spanish-born Muslims offer a supportive role, and help orientate new Muslim immigrants in the city. The supportive role that religious institutions assume for migrants in their host society is a key theme in geographies of religion literature (Menjivar, 1999; Hirschman, 2007; Ley, 2008). However, in this case, it is not only a religious institution, but also a ‘native’ of the host society providing support to Muslims in diaspora. The impact of this, it would seem, is to reduce the ‘us’ versus ‘them’ ways of thinking, and lessen tensions between ‘immigrant’ and ‘host’, and create a level of solidarity between the diaspora and ‘native’ Spaniard. However, the idea that Granada is a space of solidarity between the Moroccan migrant and ‘host’ should not be overstated. There is a large Spanish Muslim population, but there are far more non-Muslim Spaniards in the city, and they may not have this sense of attachment with the diasporic Muslim populations.
religious practices, is asserted in a number of diasporic narratives as contributing to having a positive sense of belonging with Granada.
I argue later in the thesis that religion is not an innate and taken for granted feature of
Moroccan migrants, but as I’ve demonstrated here and in chapter 4, it has a significant role in the formation of a cohesive Moroccan diaspora. Religion can engender a sense of belonging to a diasporic community, and consequently, belonging to Granada.