Mosque Archives and a Muslim Collective Memory in Formation

Abstract

Looking at the fragmented documents of Muslim community life at mosques, bringing together different types of materials and creating mosque archives is a challenging endeavour, as shown by the contributions in this volume. This contribution asks for the implication the archives, once collected and considered as parts of a larger picture, can have for the formation of a Muslim collective memory. Connecting different archives – with their singular experiences – into collective forms of memory, similar experiences and ruptures come to the surface and a new perspective on a shared German history is articulated. As the collective memory is a reservoir to understand the past, giving meaning to the present, and a source for the future, this process has a social and political dimension. The process of creating a Muslim collective memory will fill blanks within German history and add new chapters, but will at the same time change Muslim self-perception and self-positioning by recentring their sometimes ambiguous experiences within a larger setting.