Paper short abstract:

Based on an ethnography of the debates about a new architectural project in Lisbon, this paper addresses the relation between colonial legacies, moralities, difference and the place of Islam and Muslims in contemporary Portuguese society.

Paper long abstract:

In 2012, the Lisbon city hall announced the construction of a new square in downtown Lisbon. Its name - the Moorish square - evokes the heritagization of the Islamic past of the city, a process connected with larger economic dynamics associated with tourism and urban renewal. Simultaneously, this new square will also include the relocation of an existing mosque, created in the early 2000s, and managed by a Bangladeshi-Portuguese Islamic association. This relocation means their recognition as new institutional actors within Portuguese public Islam in a context that has been institutionally dominated by Muslim segments coming from former Portuguese colonial spaces.

The analysis of debates about this project bring to the surface competing and contested ideas about Muslimness, ideas that in their multifarious forms led to a dichotomy between "our Muslims," "the good ones" and the "other," "immigrant," "foreign" Muslim. The latter are frequently perceived as a possible threat and suspicion.

Overall, this paper unearths the complex relations between colonial legacies (L'Estoile 2008), difference, moralities and the place of Islam and Muslims in contemporary Portuguese society.