Paper short abstract:

Based on an ongoing ethnography about the construction of a new square in downtown Lisbon, named the Moorish square (in which a previously established mosque will be relocated), the objective of this paper is to address the relation between religious diversities and urban economies and regeneration.

Paper long abstract:

Based on an ongoing ethnography about the construction of a new square in downtown Lisbon, named the Moorish square, the objective of this paper is to address the relation between religious diversity, cohabitation and urban economies and regeneration.

This new project was announced in 2011 and includes the relocation of the Baitul Mukarram mosque which was created in 2002 by a group of Bangladeshi entrepreneurs that got together in the Islamic Community of Bangladesh (ICB). This relocation is the result of twelve years of negotiations between the ICB and the Lisbon City Council (LCC), over issues of safety, well-being and adequacy. Furthermore, it is part of the recognition of a new place and visibility for Islam in Lisbon, an older claim that is finally attended, and a major good deed for all Muslims, independently of their backgrounds. Simultaneously, for some segments of the Lisbon city council, the new square and mosque are part of a larger process of building a religiously plural/diverse urban landscape, the arguments of which mobilize references to the Al-Andaluzian and the Moorish heritage, while projecting the urban regeneration of an area of the city that was until recently perceived as rundown and at risk from a social point of view.

Thus, overall, this paper will show how a project for the construction of a new square in downtown Lisbon reveals the complex relations between religion as heritage and practice and its connections with the political economy of urban diversity.