The Portuguese Muslim community: integration and its role against radicalization

Abstract

Portugal has never reported any case of violent radicalization from Islamist-inspired terrorism. To analyze some of the reasons why, this article sets two goals: understand the integration factors of the Muslim community and identify strategies to prevent radicalization implemented by its members. An exploratory qualitative study was conducted with interviews with 11 Muslim leaders. The results describe the characteristics of integration of the Muslim community and the strategies implemented by them to prevent radicalization. The results are important to inform policy and practice related to immigrants’ integration, and to understand how community resilience can be built to prevent radicalization.