Two sides of the same coin? The Muslim umma and the European Union

This article examines the normative aspirations of the umma in international relations (IR). It is not the intention of this article to provide the blueprint of a ‘Muslim EU’, rather, in comparing the articulation of the European Union (EU) and the umma in IR, the article shows the way in which the EU represents a (limited) ‘European umma’, and charts the difficulties faced by both assemblies in being analysed in IR, by virtue of their shared transnational character. However, the Muslim umma assembly is shown to face more problems than its erstwhile EU counterpart due to the religious nature of the umma. The article charts the use of constructivism in IR to explain the creation of norms and identity in the international system, accounting for the EU's supranational presence in international politics. The application of constructivism to the umma, however, is shown to be more problematic due to the secular bias in IR and, perhaps more importantly, the Islamic resurgence being insufficiently concerned with the constitutive elements within it.