In late February and during the ongoing debate on how to criticize Islam, DIE ZEIT published an article entitled “Liberal Racism”. The author claimed that the opponents of Islam claimed to defend enlightenment and modernity, while actually preaching racism and making every single Muslim responsible for any crime that may or may not be related…
In an article for Qantara.de, Hilal Sezgin addresses the peculiar and questionable composition of the German Islam Conference. First, she criticizes the invention of “secular Muslim” that are so welcome at the Conference: either they are in favor of separating church and state, which applies to roughly all German Muslims, or they are not religious,…
This article discusses the difficult task of Germany’s Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière of choosing Muslim representatives for the upcoming Islam conference. While it is true that the Islamic Associations are not representative of all German Muslims, the author argues, the latter also fail to exercise their right to form religious associations. If those who…
Recently, the Turkish community of one Munich district had to bury their plans for a new mosque. The conservative party CSU had blocked the construction for reasons of “wrong place, wrong architecture” and the lack of involvement of local neighbors. Furthermore, the initiative was proposed by an organization which has close ties to the Turkish…
Liberal German Muslims have announced their plans to found a new association to voice the concerns of those who do not feel represented by the current largely conservative associations. Lamya Kaddor, a feminist and strong critic of Islam, but a “liberal believing Muslim” herself, is one of the spokespersons of the initiative, which aims to…
