Magazine / Culture / Mosque-Building / Article | 27/09/2007

Loud cries the Muezzin

Jörg Lau favours the idea of setting Islam on a legal par with the church. The Germans could learn from it not to mistake tolerance for disinterest. And the Muslims could learn to modernise their religion with new values.

A new acerbity can be felt in the argument about Islam in Germany. This is good news. We have come out of the era of false stoicism and entered directly into negotiations on a new "we”.

Open day at a mosque in Gelsenkirchen
Photo: AP

To recognise that Islam is a part of Germany was not the end, but the beginning of the cultural conflict.

The closer we come together, the more we notice our differences. Both sides must learn to see it as a good sign that we are finally beginning to talk about these differences.

A planned mosque construction in Cologne has meanwhile aroused the entire republic. We are arguing about the height of minarets and cupolas and about the parking spaces required. But in reality, this is about the naturalisation of a religion.

New religious arguments

For months, the evangelist church has been locked in a clinch with Muslim associations about the future of the dialogue. And now the highest German Catholic, Cardinal Lehmann from Mainz, has questioned the legal equalisation of Islam with Christianity: this is "false tolerance”, to treat religions equally, independently of their history and number of members.

In fact, what was understood to be tolerance was often just indifference. One didn't really want to know exactly what the others really believe in.

Now, a foreign religion is demanding recognition. It wishes to come out of the backyards and into the broadcasting councils. It builds representative mosques, which show its ambition of helping to mould the cityscape. This demand puts the church under stress, as it questions their monopoly of a special partnership with the state.

But even non-believing and church-distanced citizens are reacting strongly: things were sorted out so smoothly, the time of cultural fighting was over. Now the religious fight for recognition has started all over again. The lively Islam competition has a reviving effect on the church, which is now forced once more to show their hand.

The deal with Islam

Cardinal Lehmann is correct to warn against arbitrariness when dealing with religious freedom. Without it, we cannot have a liberal constitutional state. But it is also wrong to block out legal equality for Muslims with a reference to the churches' special contribution to "European cultural identity”.

Recently, the Cardinal said that he would like to read mass in Saudi Arabia. Whoever fights against the repression of the church in the Islamic world cannot forbid Muslims the same rights in this country.

They should have the possibility of being recognised one day like the churches as a statutory body – with the privileges of employment law and fiscal law. Until then - the church can tell us all about it – learning processes with an open end are waiting for them.

The deal should run as follows: we offer you integration in the system run by public law. However, we demand that our doubts and reservations are taken seriously and are not labelled as being "Islamophobia”.

On this basis, all questions will finally be asked during the Schäuble Islam conference - and in dialogues with the church - which have been repressed for far too long.

What do you think of rights for women? What about the freedom to change religion for Muslims here and in the country of origin? Does the sharia have power over the constitution? Are you prepared for long-term life with others in equality and religious plurality? Do you profess to this only temporarily and against your will, forced into it by the yoke of the diaspora, or can you give reasons yourself from your religion as to why you should approve this system?

Indivisible religious freedom

It is natural that Muslims see such questions as antagonism. They should consider what the Catholics have had to listen to during their cultural disputes.

The German state does not have to renounce its cultural and religious roots, even if it is obliged to maintain religious-ideological neutrality by their constitution. The indivisible religious freedom belongs to our state system, which is also moulded by Christianity. Without showing openness towards other confessions, this would be an alibi for bigotry.

Germany has a system of cooperation between the religious communities and the state, hard-won via religious wars and cultural disputes. It specialises in dissipating the inter-confessional distrust and reserve against the modern and turning this into something which is productive.

It has exacted a tremendous change from the church, and in return, has allowed it to have a large amount of influence. Nothing stands in the way of allowing other religious persuasions to integrate too. This would give Muslims the chance to achieve recognition in exchange for submitting to the law.

This doesn't, however, mean that one should immediately give Muslims full legal equality with the churches without any further questions. The churches didn't receive their privileges free, but rather after a painful "alternating learning process" (Lehmann).

Lehmann himself is the best example for the intelligence of a German system, without whose educational performance the church in this country would not be so liberal (and Lehmann would not be Cardinal).

The German model for integration of Islam

Whether the Muslim will be able to go the same way has been placed in doubt by many. This isn't just an occidental prejudice: how Islam will cope with the separation of religion and state is a question which many Muslims have asked themselves. This is, however, no reason to forbid them the learning process by a priori signalising 'you'll never get in anyway'.

The churches are in danger of being tempted to act as though the liberal constitutional state had always been their favourite project. But they, too, had to allow themselves to be seduced by it, in order to finally approve of it with all their hearts. The Catholic church struggled with religious freedom until the second Vatican Council in 1964.

Fortunately, this debate has gone much further than head cloth arguments and anti-mosque protests lead one to believe. Whoever thinks that the ban on head cloths cannot concord with the state concept of freedom can still be against the veil as a sign for the discrimination of women.

Whoever approves of equal rights for Muslims in sacred buildings, can of course reject a particular mosque, or because an obscure group is funding it, or because it would radically change their own neighbourhood.

German politics has risen above the false alternative of indulgement or separation. A German model for integration of Islam is appearing which is beginning to excite interest in Europe – watchful against attempts at Islamisation, banging its fist to preserve legal constancy, but respectful towards other's cores of religion.

The liberal state, on the other hand, requires more than just legal obedience. It is dependent on the religions making concessions – in Jürgen Habermas' words "on a legitimation rooted in conviction”.

Muslims must take doubts as to their concessional capability seriously. No one can spare them their loyalty conflict – so little as one can spare the long-established residents life with an irritating religious diversity - including minarets.