Archive / Magazine / Culture / Mosque-Building / Debate | 27/09/2007

The Mosque Controversy

In many European countries plans to build new mosques have become a political issue. Intellectuals are taking sides and politicians are using the issue to boost their own image while citizens look sceptically at the plans of Muslim organisations to construct imposing religious buildings to demonstrate their newly found self-confidence.

Whether in Germany, Switzerland, France, Britain or Sweden – in almost all West European countries plans to build new mosques are the subject of controversy. Muslim communities in Europe have grown considerably over the past fifty years as a result of immigration from North Africa, Turkey, the Balkan countries and Pakistan.

Model for the construction of a mosque in Cologne
Photo: AP

Muslim organisations and those who advocate building new mosques believe the makeshift places of worship used up till now are no longer adequate. They argue that the roughly 15 million Muslims in the EU have a right to proper places for practicing their religion that are commensurate with their numbers.

But larger places of worship are just one aspect of an issue that in some places is being hotly debated. The real crux of the matter is that imposing mosque buildings, some of which are to feature minarets, will symbolically "set in stone" the fact that Islam has become a reality of life in Europe. Local residents and intellectuals critical of Islam see this development as a threat, and they fear that the new mosques will be used as places to preach anti-Western values.

A Demonstration of Power or a Sign of Integration?

The German journalist Ralph Giordano, for example, caused an international sensation when he spoke out publicly against the construction of a central mosque in Cologne. The Turkish mosque association Ditib is planning a building designed by architect Gottfried Böhm that would accommodate 2,000 worshipers under a 17-metre-high dome and two 55-metre-high minarets. That would make them higher than the towers of a neighbouring church. "Stop the construction of the mosque. It sends a false message. The truth is that the integration of the Muslim minority in Germany has failed," Giordano declared on 16 May, 2007, in a debate with Bekir Alboga, the Ditib official responsible for dialogue, in the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger.

"Luckily permission to build a mosque is not an act of charity bestowed by the well-disposed majority when integration is successful (and anyhow, how does one measure that success?), but rather a question of freedom of religion and planning regulations," Jörg Lau countered on 31 May 2007 in Die Zeit.

Concerns about Extremism

The Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter used similar arguments on 4 August to voice its support for plans by the Islamic cultural association to build a new mosque in the Stockholm suburb of Skärholmen, where many immigrants live: "It is impossible to prevent extremism by making it more difficult to build mosques on Swedish territory. Extremism can also thrive in temporary basement dwellings. It is definitely much more constructive to support moderate Muslim groups– and to start a Swedish training program for Imams with a view to helping to reform Islam from within."

The German-Turkish sociologist Necla Kelek, by contrast, is convinced that building new mosques cannot have an integrative function of this kind. Instead, she believes mosques are "multi-purpose buildings" that allow the Muslim population to shut themselves off [from the rest of society]. Like Giordano, Kelek opposes the building of large mosques as a matter of principle, saying that, like the headscarves worn by Muslim women, they are a "visible political statement" and present "obstacles to integration. These mosques are the breeding ground for a counter-society," she wrote on 5 June 2007 in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

The Visibility of Islam

The symbolic power of the architecture of new mosques is also a matter of dispute in the London borough of Newham, where there are plans to build Europe's largest mosque together with a religious centre for 12,000 faithful directly adjacent to the stadium for the 2012 Olympic Games: "When television viewers from around the world see aerial views of the stadium during the opening ceremony in six years time, the most prominent religious building in the camera shot will not be one of the city's iconic churches that have shaped the nation's history, but the mega-mosque," Philip Johnston wrote in The Daily Telegraph on 25 September 2006.

Currently the plans drawn up by the architects Ali Mangera and Ada Yvars Bravo do not envisage either a minaret or a dome for the London mosque. Instead, when viewed from above it will have the shape of an Arabic letter. By 18 July 2007 a petition against the "mega-mosque" posted on Gordon Brown's website had been signed by more than 280,000 people.

What Is Going on in the Mosques?

For those opposed to the new mosques an issue even more critical than their appearance or design is who is sponsoring their construction. In London, for example, mosque building is being financed by the orthodox missionary movement Tablighi Jamaat, which is suspected of promoting religious fundamentalism and serving as a recruitment centre for al-Qaida. This arouses additional mistrust among British opponents of the mosques, Karine Le Loët explained in the French newspaper Liberation on 30 May 2007. In Cologne, too, the mosque funding association Ditib has come in for criticism: "Ditib has recently been trying to modernise itself, but that is proving difficult because it has ties with the Turkish religious authority Diyanet. The Imams generally come from Turkey and preach in Turkish," Lisa Nienhaus reported in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on 3 July.

Even advocates of the new mosques believe it is important to check where the money for their construction is coming from, who the religious organisations behind them are and what is being preached and in what language. The British weekly The Economist, however, believes it would be wrong to reject the building of mosques outright, as has been demanded in Switzerland. On 30 August 2007 it wrote: "Most mosques in the Western world pose no threat to non-Muslim citizens.... Quashing extremism will surely be easier in an atmosphere where the founding and running of mosques is an open, transparent business."

"Minaret Bans" as a Right-Wing Populist Strategy

In Switzerland the controversy over building new mosques is particularly bitter. The so-called minaret dispute is an example of how the arguments of critics of mosque-building are being harnessed by right-wing populist parties. The Swiss People's Party (SVP), which is part of the governing coalition, launched an initiative in May this year to hold a referendum on introducing a general "ban on minarets" into the Swiss Constitution. For a referendum to be held 100,000 signatures would need to be collected by 1 November 2008.

Martin Beglinger criticized this move in the Swiss Tages-Anzeiger on 7 September, saying it was absurd that the country with Europe's most moderate Muslim community should be discussing banning minarets: "No-one can seriously dispute the fact that many European states– particularly those with a colonial past – have major problems with their Muslim communities. But it is equally clear that Switzerland is not among those countries." Beglinger said he was convinced that "the minaret initiative won't prevent extremism, but rather encourage it."

For right-wing populists the "minaret ban" initiative has meanwhile become a successful export. In Austria, for example, the idea has been taken up by Heinz-Christian Strache of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and Jörg Haider of the Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ). "The BZÖ and the FPÖ have lifted whole passages from the arguments put forward by the Swiss minaret ban initiative, not least the central assertion that minarets are a symbol of Islam's religious and political power," the political scientist Oliver Geden wrote in the Austrian Standard on 30 August.

Everyday Reality

Right-wing populist parties who want to bolster their image as opponents of mosque-building deliberately play on the fears of local residents by declaring mosques and minarets to be symbols of an aggressive and hostile Islam. Here any serious consideration of the concrete arguments and doubts of the critics or of the needs and arguments of those in favour is in danger of being pushed into the background.

Writing in the Spanish newspaper El Periodico on 14 August Xavier Febrés said he thought the fears were exaggerated: "If the construction of minarets changes the appearance of certain European cities, then this does not imply any greater multi-cultural shift than the one our society is experiencing on a daily basis anyway."

Wherever mosques and Muslims are not simply the object of abstract discussions but are perceived as part of society, this negative image is not sustainable, Michaela Schlagenwerth noted in the Berliner Zeitung on 7 June 2007 commenting on the situation in Germany: "When Muslims come out of the shadow of the backyards they become a visible, tangible part of German society. Wherever there are already mosques, the story is similar: Neighbourly relations take the place of fear."

Michael Kaczmarek

Michael Kaczmarek is a political scientist and journalist. He currently lives in Madrid.
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