Reconsidering the spatiality of religion and the state: relationality and the mosque not built

ABSTRACT

Interactions between religious groups and state actors in cities across Europe are increasingly marked by complex relations that transcend the limitations usually associated with ‘local’ context, religion, or politics. However, scholars often fail to adequately conceptualise the multiple connections between religion and the state across various spatial dimensions. This contribution addresses this lacuna by introducing a relational approach to understanding the nexus of space, religion, and state. It is argued that a relational understanding of space helps to avoid the fallacy of neglecting other spatial categories such as the translocal or the global. This contribution’s conceptual arguments are based on an investigation of the spatial implications of the puzzle of why one of the largest mosque projects in Germany, the Munich Forum for Islam, failed to materialise.