Multiculturalism is a many-splintered thing. With multiple, transitory, and contested meanings, the concept resists straightforward definition. In both its interpretation and its effects, it frustrates even as it seeks to pacify. To complicate matters, America's multiculturalism is not Europe's multiculturalism. The histories are not the same, the origins and intentions are not the same, the present practices are not the same, and the futures may not be the same, either. Like certain other great “isms” of the modern period, most notably “liberalism” and “nationalism,” the concept has had a meaning for Americans very different from that commonly held by Europeans. Key distinctions have surfaced in the varying responses to the perceived “problems” that multiculturalism as a deliberate, interventionist, programmatic “ism” is intended to address concerns ranging from the delivery of more effective social services to the improved integration of immigrant and other minorities, to the management of multiple, sometimes competing identities and the cultivation of a sense of civic cohesion.

All these differences have come into play powerfully and vividly in the encounter with Islam. After the events of September 11, 2001 – but also, critically, well before that date – European policymakers, policy advocates, and reformers have pursued a multiculturalist path that has veered away from the course taken in the United States. The split proves especially noticeable when, as in the discussion that follows, the primary object of concern is not the often far-reaching visions of academics, progressive activists, and political theorists, but rather the more conventional conceptions that have won out at the level of official rhetoric, state practice, and common public discourse. Both Europe and the United States have seen the emergence of what might fairly be called “mainstream multiculturalisms” – accommodationist stances that, as middle courses, have frequently managed to frustrate multiple constituencies: insufficiently multiculturalist for the vanguard, too multiculturalist for many in the society at large. Yet these European and American mainstreams have led to remarkably different ends, and nowhere has the divergence between the two multiculturalist tendencies been more apparent than in the reception of Islam and its followers.

To the extent that multiculturalism is liberally inflected, as the dominant versions are in varying degrees, certain Muslim interpretations of Islam promise to violate the express or implied multicultural contract.