Introduction

In Belgium, the recognition of Islam settled the religion’s legal status, but left unresolved the process by which local mosque communities obtain public-law status[1]. While formal recognition in 1974 founded a national framework for state support, it initiated a decentralized process of administrative involvement that varies according to territory[2]. Belgium is a federal state comprising Flanders, Wallonia, and the bilingual Brussels-Capital region, each possessing autonomous legislative bodies that are almost equal in authority to the federal level[3]. These subnational entities exercise material powers that allow them to determine how religious rights are implemented within their specific jurisdictions[4].

The state maintains a model of “active neutrality” anchored in Article 181 of the Constitution, which obligates the government to finance the salaries and pensions of ministers of recognized religions[5]. Rather than replicating the United States’ model of non-establishment, which structurally divorces the state from religious institutions to prevent official preference, this approach favors a system of institutional incorporation[6]. Under this framework, the state provides public-law status and financial subsidies in exchange for administrative transparency[7]. Yet, a fundamental tension exists between the federal government’s authority to recognize a religion as a whole and the competence of each region to recognize individual congregations and supervise their material management[8]. This division of labor means that the ability of a local mosque to access state support depends on regional legislative frameworks[9]. Understanding these subnational variations is vital because the execution of national mandates relies on local discretionary power[10]. From a comparative perspective, historical and linguistic ties suggest a conventional expectation that Wallonia, given its French legal heritage, may adopt elements of assertive secularism that seek to exclude religion from the public sphere[11]. Conversely, existing scholarship frequently projects that the Dutch-speaking Flemish region will replicate the passive accommodationist models found in the Netherlands or the Anglophone world[12]. Therefore, this paper asks the question: To what extent do regional differences in religion-state relations inside Belgium affect the state’s approach to regulating mosques? It is important to note that regionalism significantly affects mosque governance by conditioning the implementation of Islam’s recognition through distinct legal cultures and political discourse. Today, the formal status of Islam remains national, but the requirements through which mosques acquire this status are governed by competing understandings of neutrality, public order, and institutional trust[13].

Filling a Gap in the Literature

Within the existing academic literature, scholars have primarily focused on the institutionalization of faith and the challenges of socio-economic integration[14]. Scholars such as Nadia Fadil (2015) identify that this field is largely typified by concerns regarding the compliance of Muslims with liberal and secular understandings of citizenship[15]. This body of work has moved through noticeable phases starting from the 1974 formal recognition of Islam, a decision originally prompted by diplomatic interests and the need to stabilize a newly settled workforce following the 1973 oil crisis[16]. Several studies by Corinne Torrekens (2014) have documented how the settlement of Islam moved from this top-down recognition to a period of public contestation centering on the visibility of religious practices in urban spaces[17]. Recent literature has expanded on this by analyzing how subnational officials and mosque leaders interact to determine specific regulatory results[18]. For instance, “Facing Janus: Local politics, Muslim leadership, and regulatory outcomes in Belgium,” demonstrates that regional partisanship dictates the trend of mosque governance[19]. Left-leaning administrations often utilize cooperative regulation to engage minority voters, while right-wing officials implement combative approaches to satisfy anti-Muslim constituencies[20]. These interactions reveal the discretionary power of regional authorities who now mediate the implementation of the 1974 recognition mandate[21].

Despite these findings, the existing scholarship has given less attention to how regional legislative divergence undermines the federal accommodationist model. More simply, there is a lack of analysis that simultaneously observes mosque regulation from the perspectives of Wallonia and Flanders based on their different understandings of secularism[22]. This absence is significant because Flemish and French-speaking legal subcultures are steadily drifting apart as a result of their sources of inspiration and mentalities that act as centrifugal forces within the legal system[23]. The evolution of the Belgian state has granted regions near total autonomy over the implementation of religious policy[24]. In Flanders, right-wing influence has led to investigative and stringent recognition criteria, while in Wallonia, a stable left-wing presence has maintained a largely assimilationist framework[25]. Existing studies describe these regional dynamics but do not analyze the tension between federal mandates and regional interpretations of secularism. Therefore, this paper contributes to the literature in multiple ways. First, it provides a comparative analysis of mosque regulation in Wallonia and Flanders to explain that subnational politics dictate the success of institutionalization[26]. Second, it identifies ways in which legal cultures interpret the federal mandate of 1974[27]. Third, it demonstrates that regional legislative divergence creates discrepancies in the rights afforded to religious communities. In addressing these points, this paper offers insights into the efficacy of accommodationist models in federalized states.

Methodology

The study utilizes Critical Discourse Analysis, a framework pioneered by Norman Fairclough, as the most suitable method to observe specific language patterns used by state actors when discussing mosque regulation and the application of secularism[28]. By evaluating the discourse of legal texts and political rhetoric, the research uncovers how regional authorities frame mosque governance, revealing how their subcultures construe the implementation of the 1974 federal mandate[29]. This research draws on four source categories to ensure a comprehensive analysis of religious governance. The first category comprises the constitutional and federal legal foundations, including Article 181 of the Constitution, which mandates state funding for the pensions of ministers of recognized religions[30]. Additionally, it includes the Law of 19 July 1974, which established the recognition of Islamic administrations[31]. The second category encompasses regional legislative documents such as the 2021 Flemish Recognition Decree and Walloon Decree of 2017, defining the criteria for mosque approval[32]. The third category involves official communications and press releases regarding recognized cults, supplemented by annual reports from both parliaments[33]. Furthermore, the paper will reference two critical cases to illustrate the divergence between the legal subcultures: the Great Mosque of Brussels (2021), or Grande Mosquée de Bruxelles and Diyanet v. the Flemish Government (2023)[34]. These cases demonstrate how subnational partisanship interprets federal mandates, leading to conflicting regional outcomes[35]. However, the methodology accounts for certain limitations: First, while French language proficiency enables the study of primary documents from Wallonia, the analysis of Flemish documents relies more heavily on secondary, translated materials. Second, the study is limited to 2014 to the present. This limitation was circumvented by utilizing the 1974 mandate as a baseline, allowing for a focused evaluation of how this original promise is applied within the contemporary political climate[36]. Third, the research may not fully capture the diverse lived experiences and perspectives of individual mosque attendees[37]. This framework prioritizes the legislative and rhetorical divergence defining Belgian regionalism.

Federal Recognition and Regional Discretion

The Belgian legal order is defined by a fundamental tension between the federal status of Islam and the decentralized power of regional authorities to regulate mosques in practice[38]. Belgium is not characterized by a strict separation or “laïcité” model where the state fully withdraws from religious affairs, but instead constitutionally protects freedom of worship while publicly funding recognized religions via Article 181[39]. Within this framework, the 1974 formal recognition of Islam integrated the faith into a legal environment where Islamic worship is structured on a provincial basis and in the Brussels-Capital region[40]. However, this federal recognition does not produce a uniform system of mosque governance. Belgium’s federal structure, consolidated through successive state reforms including the 2014 Sixth State Reform, leaves practical responsibilities divided between federal and regional authorities[41]. The federal government remains responsible for recognizing faiths and funding the salaries of ministers of worship, while the regions hold executive competence over the recognition and supervision of local religious communities, including accounting, civil operations, and related temporal administration[42].

This division of powers establishes the legal space for regional divergence, as Flanders and Wallonia mold the conditions under which mosque communities become recognized local institutions[43]. In the French-language region, the 2017 Walloon Decree frames mosque regulation primarily through the recognition and obligations of institutions concerned with the temporal management of recognized religions[44]. Its criteria focus on whether the community has a suitable place of worship, an appropriate legal structure, respect for the Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights, and sufficient administrative and financial capacity[45]. This suggests a model of mosque regulation based on administrative regularization; the mosque is incorporated into the existing public-law framework if it satisfies the objective institutional conditions[46]. In contrast, the Flemish model has moved towards a preventive and screening-based approach[47]. The 2021 Recognition Decree does not solely require legal structure and financial transparency; it also links recognition to concerns regarding terrorism, espionage, clandestine interference, and a favorable federal justice opinion on state security[48]. This rationale is reinforced by the Flemish Information and Screening Service, which checks whether recognition-seeking communities and already recognized administrations comply with these obligations during the waiting period as well as after the recognition process[49]. Therefore, the Flemish model turns recognition into a form of anticipatory governance. Before a mosque receives public-law status and access to public support, it must be assessed not only as an administrative body, but also as a possible space for foreign influence or insufficient integration. As a result, the tension identified at the outset is not resolved by Islam’s federal recognition; it is produced by the way that recognition must pass through regional mechanisms before mosques acquire local public-law status. Federal law establishes Islam’s place within the system of recognized religions, while regional authorities determine the practical conditions for recognition and institutional compliance[50].

Regional Discourse and the Politics of Recognition

While Belgium’s legal framework establishes the distribution of competence over mosque regulation, regional discourse explores how state actors justify regulatory intervention. Recognition is therefore no longer an administrative act, but the point at which a mosque’s entry into the public order is negotiated. In other words, the legal structure grants authority, but rhetoric defines the purpose for which that authority is used[51]. This distinction is crucial because regional debates have revealed whether mosques are framed as ordinary public institutions, subjects of incomplete administrative records, or bodies requiring political reassurance before recognition. In Wallonia, the discourse tends to present regulation as a matter of institutional management[52]. In response to concerns about imam training at the Great Mosque of Brussels, then-Minister for Local Authorities Valérie De Bue emphasized that Wallonia’s competence concerns the administration of recognized worship, disclosing that regional supervision mainly relates to the budgets and accounts of mosques[53]. Additionally, she stressed that Wallonia does not interfere with the theological content of sermons, while maintaining constructive relations with the Muslim Executive of Belgium (Exécutif des Musulmans de Belgique) as a relay institution[54]. This language narrows the regional role to financial supervision, public-law administration, and cooperation[55]. Similarly, former Walloon Minister for Housing Christophe Collignon’s comment supports this rationale; if the EMB’s recognition were to be withdrawn, new requests for recognition could not proceed because it is the only representative body that may introduce requests under Walloon law[56]. As a result, mosque governance is justified less through suspicion of local communities, and more through the need to manage their legal incorporation through institutional channels[57].

In contrast, Flemish state actors give recognition a more conditional public rationale[58]. The Flemish Parliament’s account of the 2021 Recognition Decree notes that no new local faith communities were recognized between 2014 and 2019 because of doubts surrounding the criteria and information available to assess applications[59]. This language already frames uncertainty as a regulatory problem in need of intervention. Likewise, former Vice-Minister-President and Minister for Domestic Administration Bart Somers and Member of Parliament Nadia Sminate develop this further by arguing that oversight over mosques counters foreign interference and extremist discourse[60]. Support is therefore made dependent on screening and transparency, with the conditions monitored by the specialized Information and Screening Service. Flemish MP Chris Janssens’ interventions confirm this investigative tone, particularly in debates over independence from foreign regimes and external funding[61]. Taken together, the discourse places mosque recognition within a logic of public accountability rather than religious accommodation. In this framing, the presence of Islamic institutions becomes a matter of trust earned through governability and compliance with state-defined values[62]. Placed against Wallonia’s administrative rhetoric, Flemish scrutiny exposes fragilities in Belgium’s federal recognition model. Federal recognition gives Islam a formal status within the system of publicly supported religions, but it becomes ineffective in producing a shared regional understanding of mosque governance[63]. Thus, Islam remains recognized in law, while the local recognition of mosques becomes politically fragmented in practice.

Foreign Influence and the Fragility of Mosque Recognition

The Great Mosque of Brussels and Diyanet v. the Flemish Government cases expose the limits of the state’s accommodationist model once recognition becomes related to foreign influence and public order[64]. It has been substantiated that Islam’s federal acceptance does not guarantee stable mosque recognition in the public sphere[65]. Access to public-law status can still be delayed through federal security advice or restricted via regional preventive regulation[66]. The instability lies in the gap between formal recognition of Islam and the political conditions attached to the local accreditation of mosques[67].

The Great Mosque represents this tension through a federal and Brussels-level dispute over institutional control.[68] This case is especially significant because recognition turns fragile once the bodies responsible for incorporating Islam into public law are themselves treated as possible channels of foreign influence[69]. Following recommendations from the 2017 federal parliamentary inquiry into the Brussels bombings, management of the mosque moved away from Saudi Arabian command and was transferred to the Association de la Grande Mosquée de Bruxelles (Association of the Great Mosque of Brussels) in late 2019[70]. Under the leadership of figures such as Salah Echallaoui, the organization submitted a recognition request to the Brussels-Capital region in January of 2020[71]. Although Rudi Vervoort, Minister-President of the Brussels-Capital region, initially supported the application, the procedure stalled after federal-level security concerns emerged in December of the same year, including allegations of Moroccan interference and espionage[72]. The gravity of the case lies more in the contradiction it displays than in its chronology. Belgium relies on recognized Islamic institutions to make the religion governable within the public-law order, yet those same institutions lose credibility when their leadership or external connections appear unreliable[73]. The problem therefore is not status, but the vulnerability of the institutional channels through which this status becomes effective.

Although Diyanet v. the Flemish Government also addresses foreign influence, the dispute is centered on Flanders’ attempt to turn that anxiety into a general legal condition for mosque recognition[74]. Under the 2021 Recognition Decree, the Flemish government sought to make recognition dependent on the absence of foreign interference and external control[75]. The International Diyanet Association (Association Internationale Diyanet de Belgique) challenged the decree, claiming that these restrictions on foreign support and foreign-paid ministers infringed upon the freedom of worship and organisational autonomy of religious communities[76]. Despite the Constitutional Court accepting that preventing foreign interference and preserving public order could be legitimate aims, it nevertheless annulled parts of the decree because the provisions were deemed imprecise and disproportionate[77]. The ruling therefore does not remove Flanders’ competence over local faith communities; instead, it defines the limits of that competence. In effect, a region may not replace proportionate legal standards with broad suspicion of foreign influence.

Together, the Great Mosque controversy and the Diyanet ruling expose two pressure points in Belgium’s accommodationist model. In the Great Mosque case, recognition was suspended through federal security advice and suspicion over the leadership, highlighting how foreign influence may interrupt accommodation even without a legislative ban[78]. However, in the Diyanet case, the Constitutional Court limited Flanders’ attempt to make the absence of foreign support a condition for mosques, holding that such restrictions need to remain foreseeable and proportionate. Thus, mosque recognition becomes inconsistent when access to public-law status depends on assessments of foreign influence, autonomy, and public order[79].

Beyond the Secular Binary

The findings complicate the premise that Belgian mosque governance mirrors a binary divide between French laïcité and Anglo-American accommodationism[80]. Ahmet Kuru’s distinction between assertive secularism, where the state seeks to exclude religion from the public sphere, and passive secularism, where religious visibility is permitted under state neutrality, is useful as a starting point[81]. However, neither Belgian region fits neatly into this divide. Wallonia does not reproduce assertive secularism as it does not eliminate religion from public authority; instead, it governs recognized worship through representative bodies, public funding, and procedural recognition[82]. Flanders also departs from a passive accommodationism, since public support is not treated as a neutral acknowledgement of pluralism but is tied to transparency and restrictions on foreign influence[83]. Seen in this light, the regions operate within a shared legal order of state involvement, while interpreting neutrality through different priorities. The regional divide describes two conditions of accommodation: one institutionally mediated, the other more preventive and conditional.

Conclusion

Regional differences in Belgium’s religion-state relations significantly affect mosque regulation by redirecting the focus from Islam’s formal recognition to the conditions through which communities acquire local public-law status[84]. While the government maintains Islam’s unified status as established in 1974, regional authorities exercise discretionary control over local recognition and administrative supervision following the 2014 state reform[85]. The findings illustrate that Wallonia preserves a model of administrative incorporation focused on compliance and financial oversight[86]. Flanders, on the other hand, has developed a rigorous screening model promoting independence from foreign interference and assessments of public-order risk[87]. The controversies surrounding the Great Mosque and the Diyanet Association’s role demonstrate that religious accommodation becomes volatile when recognition is filtered through federal security advice and constitutional limits[88]. More broadly, these cases also challenge the binary between assertive and passive secularism, as both regions remain accommodationist yet function under diverging subnational requirements[89]. Ultimately, it can be argued that mosque recognition in a federalized state is an ongoing struggle over institutional legitimacy.[90] Local mosque communities remain legally dependent on subnational procedures and priorities, producing uneven experiences of religious citizenship across Belgium[91].

Chahrazed Yehia is an International Relations undergraduate transitioning to studies in Scotland. Her academic focus lies in global governance, institutional power, and religion-state relations, with a specialization in qualitative research. She has been published by the European Union Delegation to the UAE, recognizing her engagement with international policy issues. Her experience includes founding a student-focused podcast, leading global issues networks, and developing media projects on regional storytelling. She is a multilingual communicator fluent in English, Arabic, and French, with intermediate proficiency in Spanish and foundational knowledge of German and Chinese.

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[80]Ahmet T. Kuru, “Passive and Assertive Secularism: Historical Conditions, Ideological Struggles, and State Policies toward Religion,” World Politics 59, no. 4 (July 2007): 568–94, https://doi.org/10.1353/wp.2008.0005.

[81] Kuru, “Passive and Assertive Secularism,” 569.

[82] Giuseppe Giordan, Enzo Pace, and Springerlink (Online Service, Religious Pluralism : Framing Religious Diversity in the Contemporary World (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2014).

[83] Mekawi, “Facing Janus,” 19.

[84] Mekawi, “Facing Janus,” 10.

[85] Mekawi, “Representing Islam, Recognising Islam,” 335.

[86] Mekawi, “Facing Janus,” 11.

[87] Giordan & Pace, “Religious Pluralism : Framing Religious Diversity in the Contemporary World,” 2014.

[88] Mekawi, “Representing Islam, Recognising Islam,” 336.

[89] Kuru, “Passive and Assertive Secularism,” 571.

[90] Mekawi, “Representing Islam, Recognising Islam,” 336.

[91] Mekawi, “Facing Janus,” 18.