Islamic religious education (IRE) in Europe has become a topic of intense public debate. People are concerned that their state is doing either too little or too much when it comes to shaping the spiritual beliefs of private citizens. State response to the unease has ranged from sponsoring Islamic education in public schools to forgoing such education entirely-with policies varying according to national political culture. On the one hand, the emergence of publicly funded IRE in Europe can be seen as a positive development, affording educational equivalency to Muslims and other religious minorities through partnerships with the state. On the other hand, publicly funded IRE can be seen as an attempt to control Muslims and “domesticate” Islam by bringing it within the sphere of the established educational system. This paper explores this apparent contradiction by discussing it in terms of state-church relations in different European countries. It also argues that comparative studies of publicly funded minority education can provide a type of litmus test of the broader relationship between various Western democracies and their minority populations.