Group trips are popular, but Muslims are not interested in yet another wine tasting. A cycling tour through Islamic Amsterdam reveals a lesser-known side of the city. “Halal travel is booming.”
“Stay together,” Tijani Goullet (48) calls out, “and watch the traffic. Here in the Netherlands, we signal with our hand when we want to turn. Look around carefully and follow the rules!”
And off we go, in search of the secrets of Islamic Amsterdam. Cheerfully giggling, as if it were a school trip, the participants in the cycling tour set off. There are eleven of them—three men and eight women, half of whom wear headscarves—and they come from all over. From the city itself, but also from places like Nijmegen and Gorinchem, and the bearded man wearing a fez has come all the way from London.
Abdulmaalik Tailor turns out to be a tour operator who, through his Halal Tourism Britain, has set up a similar tour in the British capital—only using a double-decker bus. “I found it strange that so little was known about Islamic heritage in London, while, for example, castles in England were inspired by the experiences of the Crusaders. There is so much to tell about our history.”
Après-ski without alcohol
Under the motto “better well copied than poorly invented,” Goullet, born in Temsamane in Morocco, adopted the idea—but it was mainly out of frustration that he decided to organize Muslim-friendly group trips and, later, a monthly cycling tour in Amsterdam. “A few years ago, I went on a Kras tour to Andalusia with a friend. First, we were offered a wine tasting, and as a Muslim you immediately find yourself on the sidelines.”
The following day, the group went to a sherry tasting, followed by dinner in a town known for its excellent ham. Goullet recalls: “At the restaurant where we ate, there was a stream flowing through it from which they caught fish. We were happy to have that, but they refused to prepare the fish without ham. That was the moment I’d had enough.”
Goullet, who lives in ’s-Hertogenbosch and works as a chief editor at Algemeen Dagblad in his daily life, has more than ten years of experience organizing Islamic group trips. “Purely for fun. In New York, I went in search of the legacy of Malcolm X, a Black activist who became Muslim. And soon I will be organizing a ski trip to Bosnia, at a halal resort, with après-ski without alcohol.”
Morisco’s in Amsterdam
When the group trips became more serious and participants began to set higher expectations, Goullet founded Mosaic Travels. “At first, we aimed at Muslim tourists from abroad, for example from Indonesia. Where they can eat halal food and visit a mosque, they can easily find on Google themselves. But we offer an extra layer. And to my surprise, Dutch and Belgian visitors also turned out to be interested in a day trip in Amsterdam. We take them to places they normally cycle past without noticing anything.”
The conditions are not ideal today, as the rain is pouring down. But the participants are dressed for it, and after half an hour the weather cautiously clears up. From the Black Bikes rental on the Lijnbaansgracht, we cycle to the City Archives on the Vijzelstraat. There, in that beautiful building by architect Karel de Bazel, lies a letter from 1610 in which the city council of the time asks the States of Holland for advice on how to deal with the Moriscos—Muslims in Spain who were forced to convert to Christianity and, while fleeing to Constantinople, ended up in Amsterdam.
“So as early as that, the city was already taking in refugees,” says Anissa Foukalne (33), the art historian who developed the tour together with Goullet and is now leading the group. She explains that already during the Dutch Golden Age there were strong ties between the Ottoman Empire—the predecessor of present-day Turkey—and the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. Both were fighting the Spaniards, and in 1612 the Ottoman Empire became the first nation in the world to officially recognize the sovereignty of the Republic.
International and open-minded
Around 1610, the Moriscos may even have had a house mosque in Amsterdam for a period, although this is not certain. Later in that century, figures wearing Turkish or Persian dress increasingly appeared in paintings by the Dutch Masters.
By way of illustration, Foukalne shows a work by Gerrit Berckheyde from 1672 on her iPad. He painted the town hall on Dam Square—now the Royal Palace—with, in the foreground, a man wearing a turban engaged in conversation with two Jewish men. Foukalne explains: “That must have been an ambassador or a merchant. Berckheyde deliberately placed them in the foreground to show how international and open-minded Amsterdam was.”
In front of the Palace, with a small group of demonstrators against the war in Gaza in the background, a group photo is taken. “Say couscous!” Goullet calls out. And on we go, to the next stop: the Fatih Mosque. on the Rozengracht. The building, designed by architect Hendrik Willem Valk, was opened in 1929 as a Catholic church. After an interlude in the 1970s, when it housed a carpet store and a music shop, it regained a religious function in 1981. The church was restored and converted into a mosque.
We admire the beautiful brickwork and tilework, the rich ornamentation, the stained glass, and the magnificently glowing chandeliers. Two participants in the tour take the opportunity to pray. The Turkish men in the coffeehouse nod kindly at the tourists who have come in response to the flyers: “Discover the hidden treasures.”
A different perspective
We cycle along the Kinkerstraat to the Westermosque in De Baarsjes. There, on the square named after the Ottoman explorer Piri Reis, Foukalne talks about the problems surrounding the construction of the mosque—the Amsterdam counterpart of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. Due to resistance from local residents and conflicts between conservative and more progressive factions within the board, it took twenty years before the mosque could finally be opened in 2016.
The three-hour tour ends at the Rijksmuseum, but first we visit the Seven Countries Houses on Roemer Visscherstraat, in the shadow of the Vondelpark. Commissioned by Samuel van Eeghen, architect Tjeerd Kuipers designed seven houses here in 1894, each in the style of a European country: France, Germany, Russia, England, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain.
That last building is inspired by the Mezquita, the mosque-cathedral in Córdoba, and Foukalne—who completed her master’s degree in Islamic heritage in the southern Spanish city of Granada—knows everything about it.
“I think it’s important to look at the city from a different perspective,” she says. “During the colonial era, the Netherlands was the largest Islamic country in the world. With one million Muslims today, we live in a multicultural society. If we stand for inclusivity, there must also be room for stories in which people can recognize themselves.”
“Halal” to Antarctica
And that is exactly what this tour does, says Ikram Karalik, one of the participants from Amsterdam. “I enjoy meeting other Muslims—we all have our own backgrounds. I was born here and I love the city’s history. I already knew the mosques, but the Seven Countries Houses were new to me. Otherwise, I would never have seen them.”
We return the bikes to the Lijnbaansgracht. The planned visit to the former bookshop of the Islamic cultural foundation El Hizjra has to be canceled due to lack of time. “We adapt the tour every time,” says Foukalne. And Goullet adds: “Above all, we want to show that Amsterdam has an age-old connection with Islam. One that goes beyond the influence guest workers had, for example, on the construction of mosques.”
The tour ends in the Turkish Cabinet at the Rijksmuseum. Paintings by the Flemish artist Jean-Baptiste Vanmour (1671–1737) depict the rich life of the Dutch ambassador Cornelis Calkoen in Constantinople.
Afterwards, the participants still have some time to wander through the other galleries of the Rijksmuseum. Goullet says: “If there is any ideology behind this, it is cultural, not religious. We are also going to organize a trip to Japan, where we will not only visit mosques, but also temples or the Imperial Palace. We don’t suffer from tunnel vision. It’s about getting to know the other—that’s what matters to us.”
Non-Muslims are therefore also welcome on the tour, which costs €70 per person, or €47.50 for holders of a Museum Card. In the meantime, Goullet is already working on new trips. “Antarctica is on the program for 2026. Believe me: halal travel is booming.”