The University of Osnabrueck in western Germany started a program to educate and certify


Islamic imams in hopes of easing the integration of foreign-born Muslims into European life.


A


s Islamic life and society claims a place across western Europe, imams increasingly are being asked to provide guidance to their immigrant and native-born Muslim congregations. But that leads to the question: Who provides guidance for the imams?


New educational and certification programs in Germany and neighbor- ing Austria hope to be the answer. It was becoming increasingly clear that imams who tell their Muslim con- gregations how to respond and adapt to their new homes were themselves trained and educated far from Europe. Often basic concepts—democracy or church-state separation—don’t reso- nate with either spiritual leaders or their flocks.


An educational program in the western German town of Osnabrueck is a few months into an experiment to help imams learn about European society so that they, in turn, can give better advice to their followers. A similar program is about to see its first graduates in Vienna, and two other German universities are also working on similar ideas. Supporters of the German pro- grams eventually want to go beyond filling knowledge gaps on Western society to providing university degrees for would-be imams or Islamic teachers in grade schools. “There’s a deficit here in the area of civic studies,” said Rauf Ceylan, a professor of religious studies at the University of Osnabrueck who has been instrumental in creating the cur- riculum. “[The imams] have really discovered a need here.”


In some ways, grafting Islamic Sorrells writes for Religion News Service. 36 The Lutheran • www.thelutheran.org


RNS PHOTO COURTESY EMIN ALBAYRAK/UNIVERSITY OF OSNABRUECK


Germany experiments with training, certifying imams


By Niels Sorrells


education onto the German system is simple. The country has a long tradition of providing religious educa- tion in grade schools, and university degrees in religious studies can be a springboard into the clergy or becom- ing religious education teachers. But whereas Germany’s Lutheran and Roman Catholic churches have hierarchical structures that allow a central curriculum, Islam has no cen- tral decision-maker. That’s left Ceylan wondering whom to pick as a repre- sentative for Islam as he develops his imam education program. “We had to try to find a way to pull the Islamic model in,” Ceylan said. “We settled on an advisory council model,” which includes mem- bers of all major Islamic groups, as well as theologians, academics and


politicians.


Getting all those groups to agree on one curriculum could prove a chal- lenge, but “it’s absolutely possible,” said Christine Langenfeld, a law professor at Georg-August Univer- sity in Goettingen, Germany. “The curriculum has to make sure that the different influences of Islamic society are included.”


In practical terms, that means dif- ferent curriculum plans could reflect different theologies within Islam, such as Sunni or Shiite or Sufi. The various Muslim groups will have to be flex- ible, she said. “They can’t expect that the curriculum exclusively reflects their beliefs,” she added. Erol Purlu, public affairs director


with the Association of Islamic Cul- tural Centers, said he’s confident the


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