 Worries about the ability and willingness of Muslim immigrants to integrate into Western liberal democracies explain a persisting interest in reflecting on the complex relations between the secular liberal political cultures dominant in the West and religion. Research has focused on the difficult question of religion’s place in the public sphere (Parekh 2006, Laborde 2008, Brahm Levey and Modood 2009, Modood 2013) as well as on the place afforded to women in traditional religious conceptions, more specifically in Islam. Does the accommodation of religious sensitivities come at the price of a weakening of women’s rights? What is the right balance between the principle of sexual equality affirmed in constitutional democracies and the respect of religious  liberty?[15]