Positing Muslim positionality in Europe as an undercaste helps to make sense of how cultural stratification, rooted in associations with incivility, has resulted in deep and unrelenting inequalities experienced by diverse Muslims. Based on two years of ethnographic research with a Muslim community in Berlin as well as a survey of secondary research, this paper both theorizes and empirically showcases the process by which Muslims have become synonymous with incivility, and how this affects opportunities and inclusion across the educational, economic, residential, and private spheres. By drawing parallels with other instances of caste-based status differentiation in the West, specifically the Jewish experience in Europe and Black experience in the USA, it further illuminates how cultural stratification through associations with incivility (as a modern secular coding of impurity) that endures for generations functions in the contemporary world. Employing the concept of caste deepens the cultural turn that has replaced economic or legal explanations of Muslim marginality in Europe. And it awakens a dormant sociological vocabulary that allows for a more precise theoretical understanding of this empirical social phenomenon and thereby the possibilities—and limits—of pluralism in modernity.

将穆斯林在欧洲的地位定位为低种姓有助于理解根植于不文明行为的文化分层如何导致不同穆斯林经历的深刻而无情的不平等。基于对柏林穆斯林社区的两年民族志研究以及对二级研究的调查，本文从理论和实证两个方面展示了穆斯林成为不文明代名词的过程，以及这如何影响整个教育领域的机会和包容性。 、经济、住宅和私人领域。通过与西方其他基于种姓的地位差异的例子进行比较，特别是欧洲的犹太人经历和美国的黑人经历，它进一步阐明了文化分层如何通过与世代相传的不文明（作为现代世俗的不洁编码）的联系在当代世界中发挥作用。使用种姓概念加深了文化转向，取​​代了欧洲穆斯林边缘的经济或法律解释。它唤醒了一种沉睡的社会学词汇，使人们能够对这种经验性社会现象进行更精确的理论理解，从而对现代性中多元主义的可能性和限制进行更准确的理解。