4 - 2000

Islam in Germany

Editorial

Christians and Muslims in Germany tend to live side by side rather than in contact with one another. In German society it is seldom that anything is said publicly from one religion to the other about questions of faith. People know about differences more than they get into conversation about them. The Evangelical Church in Germany’s publication "Living with Muslim Neighbours in Germany - planning for encounters between Christians and Muslims" can help to overcome this wordlessness. It is based on the need for lasting and peaceful living and working together between the Christian majority and the Muslim minority in the German population. This is not only a necessity, but would also open up great opportunities for both.

It was only at the beginning of the 1960s that larger numbers of Muslims began arriving in Germany as immigrant or "guest" workers, especially from Turkey. The government at that time planned for them to stay for only a few years to work in Germany, but the "guests" have since become fellow citizens. Many have acquired German citizenship, and this country is home to their children and grandchildren. For many of them, Islam is a central part of their identity in a society which still thinks of them as "foreigners".

At first, the Muslims established small prayer rooms at the margins of large cities. Today, now that three million Muslims live in this country, there are several dozen large mosques whose minarets form part of the skyline of some large German cities. Germany has thus become in an outward, visible way a multi-religious country. In the largest cities like Berlin or Hamburg, there are not only all the world’s great religions represented, but also all the different national and religious forms of these faith communities.

Many Muslims in Germany who do not practice their faith feel an allegiance to their religious community nonetheless - as do many Christians who do not attend church. In this situation, the guide prepared by the EKD seeks to help Christians to enter into conversation with Muslims and to live and work with them as neighbours. It offers a solid basis for doing this, consisting in getting to know our own faith better and, with this as a foundation, entering into a dialogue in everyday life which can help each person involved to think over and rediscover what he or she believes.

This calls for respect for one another which goes beyond the semi-indifferent acceptance of religious differences which is mistaken for tolerance. However, for conversations about faith, Christians and Muslims often do not have a sound knowledge of their own religion. This makes it easy to run the risk of trivialising or glossing over differences or, on the other hand, reducing them to a few slogans.

Conversation not only makes visible the differences and common areas between faiths, but also makes clear the problems faced by both religious communities in relating their holy writings to the often very secular "modern" world of today and making them a guide for the lives of persons. There are many Christians and Muslims who keep their faith in a compartment and only take it out when they go to church or to the mosque, and who otherwise devote all their energy to the merciless struggle for economic success and social prestige. That the divine message also has something to say precisely about daily life still has to be learned by many Christians and Muslims, by themselves and together. This would open the way for them to work together at building a society governed by values like justice and neighbourliness which form a bond among all the great religions. The EKD handbook points the way, theologically and with regard to the practical issues of living together, towards such a shared life.