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European varsities meet fragmentation in mosques
By Kate Huber
Posted: April 13, 2006
Islam is the fastest growing religion in Europe and in many countries
Muslims account for at least five percent of the population. Therefore it
is no surprise that universities across Europe are developing higher
education Islamic theology departments. The success of such
programmes at universities in the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and
Bosnia is influencing the development of similar programmes at
universities throughout Europe.
The originally Protestant Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam began the first
Islamic theology department in the Netherlands in September 2005.
Leiden University will follow with the start of its own Islamic theology
department in the Fall of 2006. Although Leiden’s Islamic theology
department compares to programmes at universities in Egypt and
Turkey, that stress both classical and contemporary Arabic, it will also
emphasize studies of the growing populations of Muslims in Europe.
This focus makes Leiden University the first university in Europe to
offer a programme of this kind.
Because the opportunities for educating imams in Europe have until
now been limited, most transnational Islamic communities are led by
imams raised and educated in the Middle East and North Africa.
These foreign imams often know little of the life and culture in Europe
and rarely learn to communicate in the language of their new country of
residence. As second and third generations of Muslim immigrants
continue to grow and integrate into Dutch society, the traditional role of
the imam in Muslim communities is changing. While Imams in the
Netherlands continue to be the spiritual leaders of their communities,
they now need to understand not only the cultural past of their
followers, but also that of the present.
Islamic immigrant communities have been in the Netherlands at least
since the 1970s. The lands they left have changed and their
transnational lives have their own histories. Therefore, insight into the
cultures these groups have created is currently at least as important
as knowing the heritage from which they came.
The Islamic theology programme reflects, to a certain extent, the
already existing Christian theology departments that educate pastors
and priests. These programmes are six years long and are divided
into four years at the university and two years at a church or mosque. In
this way the university maintains a separation between studying
religion and belief. This distinction also allows mosques and
churches to be in control of the spiritual guidance of students wanting
to be imams, pastors or priests. For the new Islamic theology
programmes to be successful, the initiative for creating the two-year
programme in the mosque must come from Muslims in the
Netherlands.
To date there is not yet an agreement between the mosques and the
universities for the full imam education programme. One major reason
is that there are few unifying agreements between mosques. There
are many organizations in the Netherlands offering help to Muslims
and there is often an organization attached to a mosque that offers
various services. Although many Turkish mosques have unified to
create centralized organizations, most Moroccan mosques remain
primarily autonomous, allowing all decisions to be made
independently of other mosques. This fragmentation is making it
difficult to create the programme needed to train theology students
from the university to be imams.
In choosing which Islamic organizations it will work with, Leiden
University has decided on certain standards that it hopes will increase
the social position of imams within Dutch society. Although imams are
highly respected within their transnational communities, they are not
always educated or paid well. The university will work with
Contactgroep Islam (CGI) and the Islamitische Stichting Nederland
(ISN) because they not only pay their imams well but they also want
imams with university level educations.
In the Al-Hijra Mosque in the center of Leiden, hundreds of Muslims
come every Friday to pray. The bike pump stands next to the shelves of
shoes in this primarily Moroccan mosque. The imam, Mohammed
Laakel Ledar, lives in a small room on the top floor of the mosque, and
though he has been in the Netherlands for years, he can speak but a
few words of Dutch. Although he fully supports the new Islamic
theology programme in Leiden, he says, through a young translator,
Archad Moradin, that he fears that “a difference will arise between
imams that have studied in Leiden and imams that studied at an
Islamic university. Since the congregation ultimately chooses the
imam, they may not at this point in time accept an imam from a secular
university.”
Sadet Ataman at the Turkish organization, Islamitische Stichting
Nederland doesn’t think that a secular university will create problems.
He says that “the language is the biggest problem. Imams in the
Netherlands can barely carry conversation in Dutch and with new
generations, we almost always need somebody to come and
translate.” Ataman emphasized the need for a unified organization of
imams. “In Turkey, the imams all know each other because they are
part of a national organization. We are trying to start a nationally
recognized Islamic organization that we can all be a part of, but it takes
time.”
Muslims in the Netherlands may have come from somewhere else but
they have now definitively become a part of Dutch society. As younger
European Muslims come to know their cultural heritage only through
the stories of their parents, the uprooted migrant finds his home in
multiculturalism. Although the Netherlands is an originally Christian
country, it is now creating homes for all its communities. Islamic
theology departments providing education on the proliferating
European Muslim communities is a truly positive step towards
integration.
### ### ###
Kate Huber has been a sailor and a wilderness emergency medical
technician for three years. She is an American and reads literary
philosophy and journalism at Leiden University.
By Kate Huber
Posted: April 13, 2006
Islam is the fastest growing religion in Europe and in many countries
Muslims account for at least five percent of the population. Therefore it
is no surprise that universities across Europe are developing higher
education Islamic theology departments. The success of such
programmes at universities in the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and
Bosnia is influencing the development of similar programmes at
universities throughout Europe.
The originally Protestant Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam began the first
Islamic theology department in the Netherlands in September 2005.
Leiden University will follow with the start of its own Islamic theology
department in the Fall of 2006. Although Leiden’s Islamic theology
department compares to programmes at universities in Egypt and
Turkey, that stress both classical and contemporary Arabic, it will also
emphasize studies of the growing populations of Muslims in Europe.
This focus makes Leiden University the first university in Europe to
offer a programme of this kind.
Because the opportunities for educating imams in Europe have until
now been limited, most transnational Islamic communities are led by
imams raised and educated in the Middle East and North Africa.
These foreign imams often know little of the life and culture in Europe
and rarely learn to communicate in the language of their new country of
residence. As second and third generations of Muslim immigrants
continue to grow and integrate into Dutch society, the traditional role of
the imam in Muslim communities is changing. While Imams in the
Netherlands continue to be the spiritual leaders of their communities,
they now need to understand not only the cultural past of their
followers, but also that of the present.
Islamic immigrant communities have been in the Netherlands at least
since the 1970s. The lands they left have changed and their
transnational lives have their own histories. Therefore, insight into the
cultures these groups have created is currently at least as important
as knowing the heritage from which they came.
The Islamic theology programme reflects, to a certain extent, the
already existing Christian theology departments that educate pastors
and priests. These programmes are six years long and are divided
into four years at the university and two years at a church or mosque. In
this way the university maintains a separation between studying
religion and belief. This distinction also allows mosques and
churches to be in control of the spiritual guidance of students wanting
to be imams, pastors or priests. For the new Islamic theology
programmes to be successful, the initiative for creating the two-year
programme in the mosque must come from Muslims in the
Netherlands.
To date there is not yet an agreement between the mosques and the
universities for the full imam education programme. One major reason
is that there are few unifying agreements between mosques. There
are many organizations in the Netherlands offering help to Muslims
and there is often an organization attached to a mosque that offers
various services. Although many Turkish mosques have unified to
create centralized organizations, most Moroccan mosques remain
primarily autonomous, allowing all decisions to be made
independently of other mosques. This fragmentation is making it
difficult to create the programme needed to train theology students
from the university to be imams.
In choosing which Islamic organizations it will work with, Leiden
University has decided on certain standards that it hopes will increase
the social position of imams within Dutch society. Although imams are
highly respected within their transnational communities, they are not
always educated or paid well. The university will work with
Contactgroep Islam (CGI) and the Islamitische Stichting Nederland
(ISN) because they not only pay their imams well but they also want
imams with university level educations.
In the Al-Hijra Mosque in the center of Leiden, hundreds of Muslims
come every Friday to pray. The bike pump stands next to the shelves of
shoes in this primarily Moroccan mosque. The imam, Mohammed
Laakel Ledar, lives in a small room on the top floor of the mosque, and
though he has been in the Netherlands for years, he can speak but a
few words of Dutch. Although he fully supports the new Islamic
theology programme in Leiden, he says, through a young translator,
Archad Moradin, that he fears that “a difference will arise between
imams that have studied in Leiden and imams that studied at an
Islamic university. Since the congregation ultimately chooses the
imam, they may not at this point in time accept an imam from a secular
university.”
Sadet Ataman at the Turkish organization, Islamitische Stichting
Nederland doesn’t think that a secular university will create problems.
He says that “the language is the biggest problem. Imams in the
Netherlands can barely carry conversation in Dutch and with new
generations, we almost always need somebody to come and
translate.” Ataman emphasized the need for a unified organization of
imams. “In Turkey, the imams all know each other because they are
part of a national organization. We are trying to start a nationally
recognized Islamic organization that we can all be a part of, but it takes
time.”
Muslims in the Netherlands may have come from somewhere else but
they have now definitively become a part of Dutch society. As younger
European Muslims come to know their cultural heritage only through
the stories of their parents, the uprooted migrant finds his home in
multiculturalism. Although the Netherlands is an originally Christian
country, it is now creating homes for all its communities. Islamic
theology departments providing education on the proliferating
European Muslim communities is a truly positive step towards
integration.
### ### ###
Kate Huber has been a sailor and a wilderness emergency medical
technician for three years. She is an American and reads literary
philosophy and journalism at Leiden University.
In a GLOBALizing world YALEGLOBAL goes online |
| (c) 2006 New Criterion Foundation, London |