In an attempt to limit the number of “imported imams”, Germany is launching the first state-supported vocational training for religious executives, but the initiative remains contested due to the lack of participation of the main Turkish organizations.

About forty future Muslim leaders of the cult, men and women, begin a two-year course provided by the College of Islam in Osnabrück, in the north-west of the country.

The first courses took place on Monday, among the 12,000 volumes of the vast library acquired in Egypt and the official inauguration is held on Tuesday.

Open to holders of a bachelor's degree in Islamic theology or an equivalent diploma, the training offers learning punctuated by internships and focused on practice: recitation of verses from the Koran, preaching techniques, worship practices or political education.

In a country which has between 5.3 and 5.6 million Muslims (between 6.4 and 6.7% of the population) and never ceases to wonder about the place of Islam, the federal state and the Land of Lower Saxony in particular financially support the program.

"We are an integral part of society"

A first called for by Chancellor Angela Merkel who, in 2018 had spoken before the deputies in favor of a training of imams. "This will make us more independent and this is necessary for the future", she had justified. The apprenticeship "is distinguished by two particularities: we want to reflect the reality of the life of Muslims in Germany and the lessons take place exclusively in German", explains to AFP Esnif Begic, who chairs the College of Islam. "We are German Muslims, we are an integral part of society and we now have the possibility of becoming imams 'Made in Germany', adds one of the students, Ender Cetin, who already works as an imam in a prison for young people from Berlin.

So far, the vast majority of imams in Germany are seconded from Muslim countries, especially Turkey, trained and paid by their home state.

Thus, about half of the 2,000 to 2,500 imams belong to the Turkish organization DITIB, directly dependent on the Turkish Ministry of Worship, and which manages 986 local communities, according to a study by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

For the others, 80% to 90% are sent from North Africa, Albania or the former Yugoslavia, according to the same source.

Ankara influence in question

Most of the time, these religious leaders come to Germany for four or five years, some with tourist visas, and are foreign to the local cultural and social context. "These imams do not speak the language of young people who themselves often do not always understand Turkish well", summarizes Ender Cetin, son of Turkish immigrants, born in Berlin. "Now it is important that they are in touch with the realities of a multi-cultural society where Christians, Jews, atheists and Muslims live side by side."

In addition, some religious cadres, who are Turkish state officials, "pursue a political agenda" here, he said.

The question of the influence exerted by Ankara in fact regularly returns to the center of the debates, in particular since the failed putsch against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2016. In 2017, the German justice had suspected four imams members of the DITIB, of having spied opponents or critics of Turkish power.

Controversies

But the training of imams supported financially by the State also arouses criticism because it clashes with the principle according to which the religious communities are only authorized to train their personnel. Thus neither the DITIB nor Milli Görus, the second most important Islamic religious community, participated in the creation of the Osnabrück institute, the DITIB even having launched its own training in Germany last year. For Milli Görus, the training of imams or chaplains "must be free from external influences, in particular political", according to its secretary general Bekir Altas. But the president of the College of Islam assures that there has been "absolutely no influence on the part of the state which has not interfered in the development of the programs.

There remains the thorny question of outlets.

Because the profession of imam is currently poorly paid, dependent on donations from the faithful.

“We are not an employment agency” responsible for finding positions for students, warns Esnif Begic.

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  • Germany

  • Society

  • Turkey

  • Recep Tayyip Erdogan

  • Religion

  • Angela Merkel