Islam Conference: Faeser wants fewer foreign imams

Dhe fight against Muslim hostility and increased training of imams in Germany are priorities in the coming phase of the German Islam Conference (DIK). Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (SPD) said on Wednesday at the DIK’s opening event in Berlin that she wanted to “gradually reduce the state posting of imams to Germany with the aim of ending them”. Her ministry is already in contact with the Turkish religious authority. State Secretary Juliane Seifert held talks on this in Ankara last week.

Faeser emphasized that German-speaking imams, who are also familiar with the reality of life in Germany, are also in the interests of the communities. The Turkish-Islamic Union of the Institute for Religion (Ditib) is now training some of its staff at its own center in the Eifel. In addition, the Islamkolleg Deutschland was founded at the end of 2019 as a facility for practical Islamic theological training in Osnabrück.

Tackling anti-Semitism among Muslims

Faeser said Muslims are “a natural part of our society”. The work of the DIK, the central forum for dialogue and cooperation between the state and Islam, makes a significant contribution to Muslims feeling accepted in Germany.

Faeser said she wanted to vigorously combat Islamophobia in society. The independent group of experts on hostility toward Muslims, based at the Federal Ministry of the Interior, will present its own report in the summer of 2023. Conversely, Faeser also wants to make anti-Semitism among Muslims an issue. The same applies to intolerance among Muslims or towards other social groups, she explained.

Faeser rejected criticism that she was ignoring areas such as Islamic extremism at the DIK: “The BMI and the entire federal government, together with the security authorities, give this topic a high priority – also in cooperation and in dialogue with Muslims and Muslim organizations.” The Islam Conference is not a security conference and therefore deliberately excluded the topic of Islamism from the work program in 2011. “Muslims must not be placed under general suspicion of extremism.”

In a guest article for the FAZ on Wednesday, Islamic scholars and leading Union politicians opposed the content of the fifth phase of the Islam Conference and argued that it ignored the dangers of political Islamism.