Islamic centres to promote inter-religious dialogue

A Centre for Islamic Studies has been opened at the universities of Münster and Osnabrück. It is the latest of four such institutions in Germany, the others having commenced activities over the past two years.

The Islamic centres go back to a 2010 recommendation by the Wissenschaftsrat (Science Council), Germany’s chief advisory body on higher education and research. Its proposal referred to two or three such institutions, and was generally welcomed by the country’s four million-strong Muslim community.

While inter-religious dialogue is high on the agenda of the new institutions, another important role that the centres perform is teacher training. Over the next few years, up to 2,000 school teachers will be required to provide religious instruction for around 700,000 young Muslims.

Speaking at the official opening of the Münster and Osnabrück centre, Federal Education and Research Minister Annette Schavan explained that her ministry, which is funding the new institutions, wished to contribute to Muslims feeling at home in Germany.

“This also includes children having religious instruction and the religion teachers in the communities coming from their own ranks, where integration really is taking place,” she said. “And of course this applies to junior scholars as well.”

The Islamic centres are meant to train teachers, imams and theologians and engage in research, also in cooperation with other institutions in Germany and abroad.

They are based on an interdisciplinary approach and can draw on existing expertise in subject areas at their respective universities. For example, theology is linked to religious sociology, civilisation studies, education science and intercultural studies.

This is why the choice of the universities involved – in addition to Münster-Osnabrück, Tübingen, Frankfurt-Giessen and Erlangen-Nuremberg – depended strongly on the prerequisites that the institutions could boast, such as Christian theology, Islamic studies, Arabic studies and religious education.

Münster’s strengths lie above all in the ‘religion and politics’ cluster of excellence and the Centre for Religion and the Modern Age, while Osnabrück focuses mainly on religious education and intercultural expertise.

Further conditions for federal government support include long-term funding by the universities and the federal states in which they are located, a sound framework for the local Muslim advisory council, and cooperation between the centres themselves.

The Federal Ministry of Education and Research is providing around €20 million (US$25.5 million) for the centres over a five-year period, of which Münster-Osnabrück – comprising Osnabrück’s Institute for Islamic Theology (IIT) and Münster’s new institute, calling itself the Centre for Islamic Theology (ZIT) but not to be confused with the overall Münster-Osnabrück structure of which it is part – is receiving roughly €6 million.

The ZIT has around 300 students. Just over half of them are aiming to become teachers, more than 100 religious scholars and the rest imams. Osnabrück’s IIT accounts for 140 students in all, and Münster’s ZIT 150.

There were more than 400 applications for study places in Münster. In contrast, the Erlangen-Nuremberg Centre has attracted a mere three students so far. Women students form a clear majority at the centres. Münster has three professors, with two more yet to join, and with its seven professors, Osnabrück is the largest institute of its kind in Germany.

“We are not isolated from the Muslim world,” said ZIT Director Mouhanad Korchide at the opening ceremony in Münster. “We are very proud of our cooperation with Egypt’s Al-Azhar University, as well as of intensive academic exchange with the Muslim world as a whole.”

IIT Director Bülent Ucar explained that, in addition to links with Egypt, his institute had established collaborative links with Turkey and Bosnia.