Muslim Emancipation?
Germany's Struggle over Religious Pluralism

Gerdien Jonker, Philipps-University - Marburg

In the last weeks of the year 2000, Germany's highest juridical body, the constitutional court, finally granted the faith community of the Jehovah Witnesses the status of a Corporation of Public Law (Körperschaftsstatus). With this decision the long struggle over the recognition of its religious rights had come to an end. Jehovah Witnesses are evangelical Christians who believe in the imminence of doomsday and consider all State authority the work of the devil. Because of this, they refuse to vote, to do military service, or have blood transfusions. They live in closely knitted communities cut off from society at large and reject to enter any form of inter-religious dialogue. In short, Jehovah Witnesses live according to religious principles, which are not homologous with, and sometimes contradict those of the State.

In countries like Holland or the US, where organised religion is treated a strictly private affair, faith communities who act according to strong religious convictions might be considered uncomfortable but on the whole held in esteem. This is different in countries where religion is considered a State affair and the Church by definition mirrors State interests. Germany takes a position somewhere between the former and the latter. Till 1919, the Lutheran Church played the role of State Church. Loyalty to the State was therefore a prerequisite as the two were supposed to live "in original harmony" (Hegel) and defend the same principles. By the time this arrangement was entangled and the Church became a separate status - the aforementioned Corporation of Public Law - the idea of loyalty was not fixed in the legislation, but was not questioned either (Kallscheuer 2000, Lamprecht 2000).

The new legislation fixed Freedom of belief, consciousness, confession and ideological worldview as a basic right (Article 4). It then set the criteria for the acceptance of faith communities (Religionsgemeinschaften) other than the Lutheran Church. Such a community should give proof of common religious consensus and homogenous membership (Article 7), as well as durability (Article 140). However, apart from the formal criteria written out in the Law, in the court cases that followed loyalty to the law (Gesetzestreue) was applied as a third, informal, rule (Grundgesetz 1995, cf. Jetzkowitz 2000).

Through this subjective assessment the German Catholic Church with its hierarchical organisation and loyalty to Rome presented the courts first headache. Church status was granted more because of sheer weight - after all a third of Germany's citizens were Catholics - than because the Catholic Church was able to satisfy the judges with proven loyalty. In due course others followed, the Salvation Army, the Mormons, the Seamen's Church of Hamburg, the Jewish Community and the Humanists (Jetzkowitz 2000). But the community of Jehovah Witnesses, although satisfying in every legal respect, confessed bland preference of its religious convictions over the Legal Code. Therefore, it became the stigma of not being loyal and thus not worthy to be given Church rights. Because of its fidelity to religious consciousness this community also never fell for the national-socialist seduction and was severely persecuted for that. But after the war loyalty to the new democratic government was once again considered a prerequisite and as a matter of course Jehovah Witnesses remained excluded. The recent court decision thus might be considered a watershed. As the judges explicitly noted, German constitution should function as a means to further constitutional rights of freedom of religion, not tie religious identity to State interests. With this Statement, for the first time in their democratic history German legislators gave more importance to the article dealing with freedom of religion than to Church regulations. They even questioned the necessity for faith communities to confess loyalty to the State at all (Kallscheuer 2000, FAZ 2000).

Observers were quick to note the imminent importance of this decision for the future of Muslim communities in Germany. And most of them did not like the thought. Just as the Jehovah Witnesses, Muslim communities have to put up with a widely felt distrust of their ability to be loyal to the State. And according to majority public discourse, loyalty is what they should give proof of. Notwithstanding the new court decision, this is a widespread feeling not liable to change all that quickly. At least critics of Muslim communities are right in one respect. Orthodox communities in the first place confess loyalty to the revealed word of God as laid down in the Shari8a, thus claiming freedom of belief and consciousness (article 4). Although religious rule is placed above the Civil Code, Muslim leaders in Germany have vowed time and again that this does not exclude agreement with the democratic constitution (Treue zum Grundgesetz). In saying so, these men think of a series of precise juridical cases in which it has been proven possible to obey both (Rohe 2000:89). But in public discourse this assessment of the flexibility of the Shari8a is not taken serious and misunderstood as an attempt to deceive. The Federal Agency for Internal Security has narrowed the suspicion to the Turkish organisation of Milli Görüsh, an organisation that promotes an inseparable mixture of religious and political ideology. Because of "remarks of leading functionaries" it is suspected "to abuse article 4 in order to aim at the dominance of an islamistic ideology in Europe" (Schily 1999: 166). The politico-religious claim of this organisation complicates matters considerably.

In this contribution I describe recent developments in the Muslim struggle over religious equality in Germany. Germany's position in the middle of Europe and it's still failing regulations for newcomers serve as a backdrop. The constitutional legislation on the freedom of religion and the role of the courts in facing religious diversity is part of this. The emphasis meanwhile lays on the building of Muslim communities according to the rules laid down in the legislation. These face several problems slowing down the procedures. Within German society there exists a widely diffused distrust of their motives to become acknowledged as faith communities. Here, as a matter of course, suspicion focuses on loyalty. Within the larger community of Muslims living in Germany faith communities are only accepted in part, since the majority feels it is not "Islamic" to be represented. But Turkish Muslims in particular are suspicious of any form of independent community building, which per definition they call political and extreme. In finishing I focus on the Islamic Federation of Berlin. It is my argument that there is an ongoing interaction between Muslim communities and the institutional frame in which these are being developed. The internal mechanisms and strategies with which the Islamic Federation answers to both the legal commands and the suspicions of the public serve as an example.

Immigration country Germany

Consider for a moment the position of Germany. Germany lies in the middle of Europe, nine countries bordering directly on its territory. Germany also has a dark past only two generations away and still very much remembered by these neighbours. These two facts have gone into the making of a somewhat awkward position where the processing of immigrants is concerned. Of all the countries in Europe Germany handled the biggest stream of refugees and other newcomers. Right after the war, Seven million ethnic Germans chased from their birthplaces and deprived of everything somehow found a place in the debris. Twenty years after, during the period of economic rise, Five million foreign workers were contracted. And since 1990 alone Six million new people arrived. Among these were 350.000 refugees from the Bosnian war, but also Russian Jews and ethnic Germans. Add to their numbers refugees and asylum-seekers from the Middle East, and, of recent, the very many workers from Poland, Russia and the Baltic countries. If you count all these newcomers together, you come to the same conclusion as the Department of Statistics did the other day. Every twentieth person in Germany lives in this country since less than ten years. Every fifth person belongs to a migrant household in the first, second or third generation (Statistisches Bundesamt 2000). And to many of these newcomers, but to refugees, Jewish immigrants and ethnic Germans in particular, Germany offered financial help in a very generous way. Foreign workers were only contracted and fitted into the economic system. Bosnians were offered a temporarily place, Jews and ethnic Germans were explicitly invited to come to live in Germany.

In processing numbers of refugees Germany could be compared with the migrant country US. But for a long time this comparison stopped short with Germany's rigid attitude where the incorporation of non-German newcomers was concerned. War and other refugees but also foreign workers were expected to leave the country again as soon as the reason for their migration had been exhausted. When it came to turning them into residents, offering them the same rights as native German citizens, Germany considered itself a non-migration country. Those parts of its juridical system, which had come under pressure through the massive influx of newcomers, simply were not discussed.

This attitude now changes quickly. In 2000 a new law on citizenship dismissed the old ius sanguinis principle and also lowered the waiting times. At this moment, a governmental migration committee (die Zuwanderungskommission) is working on a scheme, which soon will serve as a basis for laws acknowledging Germany as a migration country. Article 140, the article that regulates the relationship between faith communities and the State, has not come under discussion yet. It is my argument that the absence of such a discussion presents an obstacle for the recognition of the otherness of other religions (Jonker 1997 and 2000, cf. Matthes 1993). For Muslims, the rigidity with which these regulations are applied means that no institutional communication between Muslim faith communities and the public sphere has been installed yet.

Relationships between faith communities and the State

Ever since the peace of Westphalia, the Lutheran Church in Germany had intertwining interests with the State, which came to an end only in 1919 with the stipulation of the Church policy provisions in the Weimar Constitution. Till then, the Church had been an institution under control of the State. In place of the State's special authority over the Church, a clear separation between the tasks of the State and those of the Church was now established. On the one hand, the Lutheran Church was offered religious autonomy, while, on the other hand, it was to retain its former rights and privileges now formulated as obligations to the State (Staatslexikon 1985:490).

The new construction was made possible through a special jurisdiction, laid down in article 140, the so-called Status of a Corporation of Public Law. This judicial body secures the relationship between Church and State as a legal partnership. It comprises rights who are tied to obligations. The right to raise taxes and to receive endowments for instance is tied to the obligation to organise social welfare and pastoral care in public institutions. The right to religious instruction in State schools is tied to the obligation to take the responsibility for teacher training and curricula. Contracts finalising the details of this co-operation are drawn between each Federal State and the faith communities on its territory. But before these are drawn its constitutional court deals with the question of legal recognition and decides whether a community can become partner (Staatslexikon 1985:497).

Through the receipt of enormous sums of State money and the public performance of social tasks, the Churches took on an intermediary function between citizens and their government in the federal States. And up till this day German Churches function as an important hinge between State and society. For one thing, Churches offer to the biggest labour organisations the country has. Because of the enormous sums of tax money involved, it can not amaze too much that it is the court, that decides whether any new religious organisation requesting the Status of Corporation of Public Law is also able to bear the responsibility involved. It is thus that the legislation regulating State-Church relationships quickly gained more weight than the article on freedom of belief, consciousness etc. In almost all the court cases, article 140 dominated (Jetzkowitz 2000). What Judges wanted to clear was the nature of its membership, its structural transparency, its age and duration, as well as its definition of articles of faith as different from other faith communities (Jetzkowitz 2000, cf. Zaidan et al. 2001:2).

For new candidates, these are tricky stipulations. The idea of a religious consensus, for instance, takes its point of departure in the Protestant model of Church denominations but does not easily translate into - for instance - Islamic models of belief. The guaranty of durability is even trickier. It asks prove of a stable and transparent organisational structure and this seems straightforward enough. However, as was summoned in court cases of Muslims versus the State the guaranty of durability should ideally imply a membership organisation. Its members should bring out their vote, choose a body of decision-makers, which then represents their organisation and bears responsibility as partners of the State. In addition, the law regulating religious education in schools requires transparency in organisational matters too. Transparency in this case translates in internal differentiation, the increase of experts groups and areas of specialisation, in short, in the appearance of a bureaucracy. This means that the courts generate specific institutional expectations, which in fact mirror the structure of democracy (Jetzkowitz 2000). The way religions as of tradition organise in order to produce the religious communication they lay claim to is nowhere taken into account.

According to Max Weber the societal character of any existing religion by necessity crystallises its religious ideas (Weber 1921). His observation on the variety of religious forms is still valid today. For example, Christianity in its manifold shape focuses on Jesus Christ's representation on earth and struggled time and again over legitimate leadership. German Lutherans and German Catholics have different opinions over the shape such leadership should take. Both have Church organisations as a consequence. But both structured their own Church organisation in a very different direction. Contrary to these Christians, Muslims feel the weight of their assignment that individuals should stand up for their lord by themselves. As a consequence, these believers try to avoid the settling down of intermediaries or intermediate organisations. Pressing Muslim community life in the mold of a democratically organized bureaucracy with boards, directors and expert committees can not but summon severe changes in traditional bonding provoking uneasiness and withdrawal on the part of the believers. The idea of a religious organisation with a central representation simply is foreign to the majority of Muslims. Only members of Sufi-orders accept a charismatic representation of the divine realm and are organised accordingly. It is interesting to note that the Sufi-orders and lay-communities deriving from these seem to fit the mould of German legislation more easily (Jonker 2001).

As might be expected from its history, the article regulating the relationship between Church and State was written with the Lutheran Church in mind. And indeed the Lutheran Church represents the cast in which others have to shape themselves. Lutherans can produce a democratically chosen board and internal structures which have shaped it more and more into the grit of bureaucracy. Thus, in the past 80 years, the Lutheran Church produced and perfected the standard by which every new religious candidate wishing to enter the public sphere was measured. Back in the Twenties, it already proved to be difficult for the Roman Catholic Church to meet the standard set by this law. During that same period, the Jewish community struggled with the criteria - and failed. Its history is a telling example for the difficulties the Muslim communities face today, as Muslim and Jewish communities bear a certain likeness in spirit. Both experience difficulties with the demand to build membership organisations and transparent organisational structures and both have difficulties, but for different reasons, finding enough experts to answer the standard of bureaucracy.

In fact, the Jewish community was installed as a partner of the State as late as 1971, after there was a big enough community again to fill the slots, so to speak. Of all the local Jewish communities, only the Frankfurt community made additional contracts with its local partner, the State of Hessen. After the end of the cold war the German government invited Jews from Russia to take up residence in Germany. In the following the Jewish community experienced a growth from approx. 30.000 to almost 100.000 persons (FAZ 2001/2). Today, it is considered one of the fastest growing faith communities in Germany, with integration problems not unlike those of the Muslim communities. In Berlin, the status of Corporation of Public Law, obtained in 1971, could finally be turned into a State contract in 1993 (Nachama 2001:76). Since then, the Berlin Jewish Community experienced an increase of 60% of Russian speaking members (from 5000 to 12.000 persons). It opened an adult educational programme, a teacher training, a Jewish basic school and a Jewish gymnasium and started to offer religious instruction in Three State schools. It organizes a small welfare network, maintains a hospital and a cemetery. Volunteers are needed to people all sorts of public boards, round tables and memory projects (Nachama 2001: 98 ff.). But above all, the integration of the newcomers into the country's language, history and institutions, as well as their introduction to Jewish laws and rites, has proved to be an assignment that almost surpasses the communities' capacities (FAZ 2001/1).

But the Jewish community is treated to a privileged position to which it is entitled because of its disastrous treatment in the past. It does not serve as precedence for the fitting in of other religions. What the legislators never really foresaw and the judges do not want to acknowledge is this. Other religions have now settled in Germany to stay. Buddhists, Hindus, Shinto, Baha'i's, Yezids and Muslims have set up durable organisational structures befitting their own religious mission and religious communication. Of course they are allowed to do so as private organisations. And as long as they keep to themselves and do not violate basic human rights these groups form no concern to the State. But as soon as one of these religious newcomers wishes to enter the public sphere - especially the public school - the law intervenes. For more than twenty years now, Muslims have been in and out court. The conditions required by the law, namely the religious consensus and the organisational transparency challenge Muslim religious tradition. Some communities, such as the Islamic Faith Community of Hessen, finally succeeded in finding a new organisational profile (Zaidan et al. 2001). But a prerequisite for recognition in Hessen was the integration and representation of the majority of Hessen's mosques whatever their ethnic or faith direction. This being achieved, it has lead to a total communicational standstill between this faith community and the State, as some of these mosques are connected to Milli Görüsh.

The building of Muslim faith communities

Today, 3,2 million Muslims live in Germany. As a religious force Muslims come right after the Lutherans and the Catholics. Its majority is of Turkish descent and Turkish spoken (75%). Second come former residents of the Balkans: Bosnians, Kosovarians and Albanians. Third range the relatively young communities of Arabic spoken refugees. The new legislation on citizenship now has acknowledged this demographic change. Since the beginning of 2000 when the law was installed, many Turks took German citizenship and within the year the number of German citizens with Muslim faith rose to 450.000 persons (DB 2000:5). As far as policy-makers are concerned, this is the number that counts.

During some decades very many initiatives were taken to organise religious life and become accepted as faith communities. In 1997 as much as 2.400 of these were counted (Karakasoºlu und Nonnemann 1997). In all German States belonging to the former Bundesrepublik Deutschland local coalitions of Muslim communities claimed their rights before the court. Such coalitions generally were made up of workers of the first generation with hardly any education. Their aim was to obtain the right to give religious instruction in public schools - no more and no less. Its prerequisite, the status of Corporation of Public Law, could not be met and indeed most groups did not wish to answer the religious profile as proscribed by the law. The demands of the court did not fit their idea of Islam and as a consequence they felt misunderstood and discriminated. Many court cases were elicited but all of them were lost (Jetzkowitz 2000).

The history of these failures looms large in collective memory. Much neglected by the communities is the fact that the elder generation simply was not educated to meet the demands. Internal differentiation, organisational transparency and the building of experts are full of tacit pre-conditions such as professional training, intimate knowledge of German institutions and the existence of larger networks. The second generation, the first that went through German schooling, turned secular as a rule (Nauck 1990). This is not the place to discuss why, only to point out that the phenomenon slowed down procedures considerably. Of recent, the elder generation is being joined by the third generation, the majority of which is German-style educated (John 2000:18). A very small percentage (approx. 0,2 %) also went through university, not much but enough to people the boards and build a new elite.

Since 1994, through the installation of umbrella organisations, a certain amount of federal centralisation has been taking place (Lemmen 2000). As can be expected, Turkish groups dominate the umbrellas. Communities with an orthodox view organised themselves in the Zentralrat der Muslime in Deutschland. Those with liberal views gathered in the Islamrat. To the former ranged the Islam Kültür Merkezi (IKM) and the Nurculuk. The latter took care of all the local Islamic Federations with ties to the Islamische Gemeinschaft Milli Görüsh.

But in summer 2000 the IKM left its umbrella organisation, because, in its view, in the matter of religious education the Zentralrat was leaning too much towards liberal positions (Jonker 2001). Some time before, a co-operation on the development of curricula had been installed between the two umbrella organisations called "The Committee for Islamic Education". Here, questions like the nature of a true Islamic education were debated and the Islamrat, against the views of the orthodoxy, took the position that Islamic education in German schools could not do without the results of modern teaching any longer. As the majority accepted this view in the end, it was reason for the IKM to leave. Since then, the two umbrellas feel free to debate the building of one representative body. Through this they hope to establish a central contact to the government to discuss matters of religious education.

Acknowledgement as a faith community can only follow on State level. More important then are those founding initiatives in the different German States that include the majority of ethnic and confessional Muslim directions, thus working towards a general representation and the fulfilment of the durability demand. This development started as late as 1998. On State level, religious education functions as a mobilising force with consequences reaching beyond the aims of umbrella organisations. Those engaged in building faith communities in Hessen, Baden-Würthemberg, Bavaria, Berlin, Hamburg, and Nordrhein-Westphalia, to mention the main actors, in the long run envision the disclosure of new fields of mission and through this, new labor markets. Once the goal has been reached and religious education in State schools will be open to Muslims, 350.000 Muslim pupils are waiting for instruction (Jonker and Beck 2000:7). This implicates expert committees on Islamic education, the training and employment of thousands of Muslim teachers, as well as a bureaucracy alongside. Instruction in State schools looms large, but pastoral care, welfare and youth aid, are equally waiting ahead (Zaidan et al. 2001:3-4).

The wish to obtain the right to enter State schools and provide religious instruction is a powerful motor indeed. It has set in motion forms of religious self-organisation that are foreign to the Islamic tradition. It also created a new divide between the Muslims themselves. It gathers orthodox believers on one side, those who are engaged in more intensive forms of religiousness and willing to devote their lives to a mission. Through the building of Christian community structures they hope to satisfy majority society and become accepted. And even if they are treated with suspicion, in the eyes of German majority society these Muslims build the center of Muslim religious life as they strive for the fulfilling of the legal demands. On the other side gathers a new periphery. It consists of individuals who do not want to be represented - especially not by zealots that, in the eyes of what might be considered the Muslim majority, mightily "overdo" it and in any case do not represent "normal" Muslim faith.

For Muslims in Germany the building of community structures as prescribed by the law is a test of endurance that nearly tears it apart. The circumstance that its majority is of Turkish descent does not simplify matters. Back in 1924, when the Turkish Republic was founded, the new government thought it could silence religious opposition through imposing a ban on independent faith communities. Religious life was put under State control and all other forms of community life persecuted. Eventually its outcome was a general secularization of Islam (Tapper 1991). Out of five Turks who live in Germany today four represent secular views (Gitmez and Wilpert 1987). Their answer to Muslim community building is the unanimous call for State supervision, as to these Muslims all independent Muslim faith communities are per definition extremist.

This is the trap German legislation built and still is ready to fall in. On the one hand it fixed rules for the acceptance of new faith communities. In their turn, these set into motion the building of a new centre and a new periphery, forcing engaged believers and secularized Muslims in two different camps. On the other hand the legislation encouraged a common claim for loyalty - a rather vague notion that in public discourse seems to comprise both the legislation, the government, and German identity. After eighty years of being accused of disloyalty Jehovah Witnesses have finally been freed from the trap. But when it come to giving Muslims the same rights, distrust and suspicion still roam freely. Consequently, courts, policy-makers, the media and the public feel entitled to raise questions: Are these communities trustworthy? Are they willing to be loyal? Is "Islam" compatible with the constitution? The dominating presence of a religious organisation with political aspirations (or vice versa) - the Islamic organisation of Milli Görüsh - complicates matters considerably.

In this discussion secular Turkish Muslims, by far the largest group, play a conclusive role. Through the use of words like fanatics and extremists with which they describe their opponents, they heat up the debate. Their words mirror a taken-for-granted Turkish understanding of the place of religion to which freedom of belief and consciousness does not belong. The German constitution and those who defend it should as a matter of course oppose this. But instead, the trap is functioning. German Judges and politicians see themselves confronted by Muslim communities of orthodox and engaged believers, accused by other Muslims to be in pursuit of extreme political aims. Fear for "Islam" does the rest. And although several communities now have fulfilled all the legal requirements and demand their rights accordingly, none of the Federal States has dared to take the first step and cooperate.

Trials and errors

The time is 1998 and the place Berlin. 140.000 Muslims live in this city and 70 mosques take care of their spiritual life, among these 13 mosques belonging to the Islamic Federation of Berlin. This Federation is one of the seventeen Islamic Federations founded in 1980 by Milli Görüsh. However, in addition to the 13 Milli Görüsh oriented mosques, the local Berlin Federation also represents Bosnian, Albanian and Arabic mosques. It is a loose coalition meant to create a platform to defend local Muslim interests. As far as formal communication is concerned the Islamic Federation is a membership organisation independent from Milli Görüsh. After 20 years a clear division of labor has taken place. The local Islamic Federation creates mosques, is responsible for community- and religious matters and maintains inter-religious and other communications to the outside world. Religious instruction in State schools belongs to its resort as well. Located somewhere else in the city, Milli Görüsh, through the organisation of its own members, takes care of pilgrimages, provides halal-meat, and organises youth-, student- and women affairs as well as summer schools within the space of the Federation mosques.

The same pattern can be retraced in the many youth organisations, kindergarten, sports- and debating clubs, libraries and cultural centers that have proceeded from the Islamic Federation. All these initiatives act as independent legal bodies and, once installed, are under no control of the Federation anymore. But many of these have a representative in the Federation board, participate in the building of expert groups and often business and private networks overlap. This is an organisational structure that by German scholars and policy-makers alike is suspected of acting as a smoke screen for illegal activities against the State (see for instance Spuler-Stegemann 1998, Lemmen 2000). However, it is also possible to consider this an "Islamic" answer to the requirements of the German law to build Church structures. Its outcome is a form of religious organisation that leaves as much responsibility to the individual as possible. The Federation's structure is indeed far removed from the legislative ideal. In fact, it looks more like the peelings of an onion. Presenting this model in court, the Federation offered a riddle to the Berlin judges and fresh food for the infiltration theorists.

In 1998 the Islamic Federation of Berlin is already caught up in legal dispute over the right to give religious instruction to Muslim children in State schools for seventeen long years. Its opponent is the Berlin School Authority. In a series of court cases, this governmental body had been successful in proving before the judge that the Islamic Federation did not posses a coherent organisational structure and did not posses a religious consensus. Finally, it argued this was not a faith community but merely an association of religious interests (Jonker 1998:2-3).

Outside court, in the privacy of Berlin publicity so to speak, the school authority swore never to accept the Islamic Federation as a partner. The Islamic Federation, because of its origin as a Milli Görüsh settlement, was openly treated as the devil in person both by the school authority, the teachers' union, the media and the public. Such a widespread sentiment was not lost on the judges. In the succession of trials they sent the Federation home again with the task to establish organisational transparency, membership status and durability. Besides, it was asked to give prove of the validity of its religious consensus. Especially during the last trial the judges stipulated that the Islamic Federation should build a new organisation with its own idea of religious consensus and a marked distance to all other Islamic schools and directions of thought. In other words: to set up a denomination modelled on the Lutheran Church and forget about the Umma as the unity of all Muslims and Quran and Sunna as their common basis.

I was then asked to give a religious expertise to be presented in court on behalf of the Islamic Federation Berlin. I did that with pleasure. It gave me the opportunity to point out that it is no business of any German court to push a faith community into heresy (Jonker 1998). I do not know how far this particular argument carried. What did happen was the following: The Federal Court decided to wrong the School Authority and allowed the Federation access to Berlin public schools without going into the question of the required status of Corporation of Public Law. This appeared to be possible because of the wording of the local Berlin law regulating school matters (OVG B 4.98).

In a way the court played a trick and after the trial the judge in charge said he simply thought it was about time to start dealings with Muslim communities. That was November 1998 and from that moment on many things began to happen. A storm of indignation went through the media. The School Authority protested, ordered a new expertise with fresh arguments hoping to reopen the case. Moreover, it joined sides with the Turkish citizen organisation, which presents the laicistic view of the Turkish constitution and demands that the German State controls Muslim faith communities. Together, they started to develop a competing curriculum for the teaching of Islamic history and Ethics (Islamische Religionskunde). The School Authority also refused to take notice of the Federation or receive its representatives. In short, it developed into a competing party with the money and the power on its side.

Soon after, the Berlin Senator of Education started a public discussion on the value of religious instruction in State schools. Was this an old-fashioned concept in need of change or still going with the times? Some people suggested to get rid of it altogether and have philosophy and ethics instead. Wholly new interest groups found together arguing that interreligious education was the only way to speak about religion in mixed school classes. But the Churches and the Jewish community, afraid of loosing their privilege of religious instruction, gave their solidarity to the cause of the Muslims and offered support. They were joined by several civil rights movements who considered the Muslims discriminated and their long walk through the pitfalls of justice a matter of religious emancipation. Also, after the government moved to Berlin in 1999, political and societal institutions sought contact and invited the Islamic Federation to present their view in public. In other words, the Islamic Federation of Berlin moved in two years' time from an existence on the fringes of society into the main discussion partner in a widely dispersed and heated public discourse. For Germany, this was a basically new development.

For the other Federal States, proceedings in Berlin functioned as a general signal to take up communications with Muslim organisations. In Baden-Würthemberg, the responsible ministry decided in 1998 not to wait till the four court cases of Muslim organisations running against the State were decided in favour of one of these. A platform was installed to discuss religious instruction together and co-operate in the matter of teacher training and the development of a curriculum.
In Bavaria, a round table to which Muslim organisations with court cases pending were going to participate was called for in 1998 for but not realised. Meanwhile, in the city of Erlangen, a Muslim faith community integrating all ethnic differences and faith directions succeeded in take up communications with the municipality. Several schools volunteered and as a result the city declared to be ready to start a pilot project in September 2001. For the Bavarian federal government this was the signal to make haste with the round table after all. Erlangen was told to stop proceedings however, till the rest of the State had "caught up".

Hamburg decided meanwhile to expand its existing inter-religious model. Being the only harbour-city in Germany, Hamburg always nursed a different position towards religious instruction in schools. Under the roof of the Lutheran Church, Catholics, Greek- and other Orthodox, as well as the Jewish Community offer a collective instruction in which the different denominations take turns. In 1998, all Muslim organisations were invited to join in. On the part of the Sunnite Muslims, a Schura or Counsil is still trying to integrate the main parties.
North-Rhine-Westphalia decided to set course on an alternative offer containing Islamic history, philosophy and ethics. A curriculum was developed by the Department of Education of the Hannover University, which in turn took up co-operation with the Turkish Faculty of Theology in Ankara. The local Muslim organisations pursuing their rights in court were thus circum-vented. When everything was to the satisfaction of the Federal Government this curriculum was finally given to the Muslims with the exhortation "to pull themselves together". These happened to be the Zentralrat der Muslime in Deutschland as well as the Islamrat, as these umbrella-institutions are both situated in Cologne. A collective complaint against the State's forbearing action was deposited at the Federal Court as a result. The governments' initiative also triggered the founding of the Committee for Islamic Instruction mentioned above. Round tables or other instruments of integration have so far not been installed (Jonker and Beck 2000).

In Hessen finally, the Islamic Faith Community of Hessen was able to organise itself as early as 1997. With the help of the Ministry of Culture it had worked out an exemplary organisation in which, except for the Ahmadiyya and the Alevites, all directions of Muslim faith and origin could be integrated. Together they worked out a curriculum and a plan for teacher training which in 1998 was submitted to the court. Unfortunately, shortly after, the sitting Socialist Government of Hessen changed into Christian-Democratic hands. Since then both the lawsuit and the installation of a communicative instrument between faith community and government are pending. The new government installed an official "Committee for the Integration of Newcomers in Hessen" but neither the Muslim faith community nor individual Muslims have been invited to take part in this.

The Martyrdom of the Islamic Federation

The centre of the storm, the Islamic Federation of Berlin, had not been prepared. It never seriously considered the consequences of winning the lawsuit and consequently could not meet basic requirements. Moreover, for twenty years it had stylised itself a martyr for the Muslim case and had built up a good reputation on that in the local Muslim community. This was not a reputation it wanted to loose. After the trial was won the first step the Federation took was the organisation of solidarity among the other mosque organisations. And these were ready to oblige. Of the seventy mosques situated in Berlin fifty-four gave a written declaration of solidarity. The only ones who did not join the chorus were those belonging to the Turkish State Department for Religious Affairs (Diyanet) and the community of Kaplan. But individual Imams of the former were found willing to support the solidarity appeal and join an expert group for the development of school materials.
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Its second step was organising solidarity among Muslim parents. This however, proved to be much harder. Once in the gravity field of the school the Islamic Federation immediately clashed with the interest sphere of the Turkish Citizens organisation, now backed up by the School Authority. The Islamic Federation with its history of a fringes-existence had to discover that secular Turks are much more experienced in playing on the public stage, more professional and far bigger in number.

What the Federation did not do was consider its capacities and resources. It took a whole year before the leading Imam realised there was not such a thing as a curriculum and that solidarity from other mosques did not automatically solve the problem of providing teachers. Also, no internal differentiation had been seriously considered yet, as the Imam was considered the sole authority upon religious matters and did not speak German. Slowly, it dawned upon him that preparing for State schools was a totally different matter altogether and beyond his range of expertise. And because of the lacking of the second generation there actually were no experts at hand. So the situation came down to this: The elder generation did not know how to handle the new situation other than isolate itself from the public outburst of hostility. The young generation was really too young and too inexperienced to take over central positions. The setting into movement of an internal differentiation appeared a time devouring enterprize. By May 2001 as much as 30 youths with university education were found active in the board or in one of the newly founded expert groups. In fact, it lasted two years - till November 2000 - before a professional curriculum was finally sent to the school authorities.

During these two years solidarity crumbled again. In the eyes of the supporting mosques but also in those of many Federation members and financial supporters, the delay served as a proof that the winning of the court case has been to no avail. Clearly, as the senate is dragging its feet as well and the media are acting more hostile than ever, these people are slowly loosing their faith in the educational plans of the Federation board. The first one to opt out, has been the local organisation of the Islam Kültür Merkezi. Although the reason for this move had been decided elsewhere (Jonker 2001), its effect on the local equilibrium remains the same. Since the IKM is setting up a competing offer centring on private boarding schools, the more conservative Arabic mosque organisations now consider following its example. The once mobilising force of religious integration through the setting up of Muslim instruction in State schools shows signs of disintegration.

Conclusion

Some weeks ago, a representative of one of Germany's political parties - accidentally that of the Socialist Democrats, heir to the communist State party of the former Deutsche Demokratische Republik - arranged a visit to the Berlin Milli Görüsh office. For politicians of all parties such visits are not unusual. And as in half a year campaigns for the new legislative period will be in full force, this is the time to make Good Friends with potential voters. This representative however, arrived with full police protection and insisted on their bodily presence in the room during her visit. The action left even the more cynical of Milli Görüsh functionaries dumbfounded. As their press spokesman put it: "She did not try to make a good impression at all".

To put it bluntly: Through its legislative conditions and the co-ordinates of its public discourse, Germany slowly creates its own brand of Muslim faith communities. The detection of, and fear for a new inner enemy is part of this process.

Undoubtedly, there is quite some interaction going between the Muslim communities and the institutional frame in which these are being developed. In order to build one representative in each Federal State, regional faith communities have now started to gather the former mosque associations under one roof. In this process, they must overcome language- and other ethnic differences, integrate different interpretations of the Islamic tradition, sufistic and book-oriented viewpoints, as well as a range of political and societal orientations. In the States of Hessen, Baden-Würthemberg, Berlin and Hamburg, as well as in the city of Erlangen, new religious profiles appear. The internal re-structuring is undertaken in order to obtain legal rights, become a partner of the State and undertake religious instruction in state schools. Da?wa or internal mission has focussed these new communities in the first place, placing engaged believers and so-called Festival Muslims in two different camps, the former willing to engage in organisation and representation, the latter sceptical about a representation they did not ask for.

The institutionalisation of Muslims in Germany is accompanied by a public discourse, whose co-ordinates are being fed by the institutional expectation of State loyalty; the distrust of Islam in general and politically minded Muslims in particular and expectation of infiltration and deceitfulness as far as these are concerned. The lack of information on Muslim faith communities in Germany is replaced by the warnings of secularised Turks, who'd rather see the government place religion under control and who define Muslim community life independent from the State as endangering its institutions. The Federal Agency for Internal Security has focussed on the Islamic Organisation of Milli Görüsh as the main suspect, and indeed some of its functionaries speak like political representatives working towards a foothold or even dominance in German politics.

All this has lead to a far-reaching isolation of Muslim organisations and faith communities. Till recent, these did not even participate in public discourse - Muslims were spoken of, not spoken with and in many states this principle still rules proceedings. Meanwhile, the example of the Islamic Federation in Berlin showed how public discourse shaped its internal solidarity structure. The imagined martyrdom of this Federation mirrors the isolated position of Muslim faith communities all over the country. Locally the Umma is based on an inimical attitude towards the outside world, that is, German society at large.

No emancipation for Muslims, then? The late Ignaz Bubis, leader of the Hessen Jewish community, used to say in public: "If you don`t stop rousing suspicion, Muslims in this country will go the way of the Jews!" But as of late, more positive signs appear. During the last two years, on the Muslim part, religious instruction in State schools has worked as a powerful mobilisation factor for religious integration. Some of the Federal States have reacted to this with the creation of an instrument of communication. Once communication installed, Muslim faith communities became visible and Muslims part of the public debate. The development qualifies as an improvement, indicating the beginnings of emancipation. But religious equality, in the sense that religious diversity is recognised and treated equal has not come into view as yet. It will need a new debate on article 140 and the otherness of non-Christian religions in order to acknowledge the demographic change in this respect as well.

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