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, Centre for Modern Oriental Studies
Melanie Kamp studies the transmission of Islamic religious knowledge
in Germany. Starting from the basic assumption that religious
ideas and their transmission are largely influenced by the conditions
under which religion is practiced, she examines continuities and
new developments in Islamic teachings and teaching traditions,
and asks about the European synthesis of religious ideas that
might emerge. She takes into account that German Muslims participate
in Islam’s discursive tradition, which is not of necessity
limited to the geographical and political borders of Europe. In
this context she also considers the transnational dimension of
Islam as a world religion.
The project focuses on the private Islamic training institutions
and circles that came into being in the mid-1990s. In the initial
stage of the project information will be collected on these private
initiatives in order to provide an overview. Two or three institutes
will be selected in a second stage and studied in more detail.
Of special interest here is, on the one hand, the teaching material
itself, and on the other, the teaching and learning experiences
of teachers and students, their personal motivations and aspirations,
and their understanding of a European Islam or, more precisely,
of being Muslim in Europe. For this purpose interviews will be
conducted with teachers and students. Finally, Islamic teaching
institutions in the Islamic world and other European countries
of significance to the German institutes will be included in the
study as a means of selectively exploring their integration into
Islamic teaching and learning traditions.
The project contributes to ongoing debates on the creation of
training institutions for Islamic higher learning, such as university
chairs of Islamic theology. The debates revolve mainly around
institutionalising Imam training and the training of teachers
for Islamic religious instruction classes in public schools. The
training of Imams and Islamic religious scholars is often seen
as a preliminary condition for the development of a more German
or European Islam, whereas the transnational links of Muslim organisations
and Imams trained in Turkey and the Middle East, who are not familiar
with the German social environment, are perceived as an obstacle
to the social integration of Muslims into German society. The
private training institutes and circles examined in this project
will most probably continue to exist despite efforts to create
Islamic university institutions. Similar to countries in the Middle
East, Africa and Asia, private and state university institutions,
private schools (madrasas), institutes and scholars will coexist
in the field of Islamic religious learning. The project aims at
furthering the understanding of this emerging private sphere of
education as a sign of an increasing religious infrastructure.
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