Friday, April 20, 2007

Musim Group seeks to make Islam a recognized religion in Germany

This could be dangerous given the current state of radical Islam, I hope they have some way to regulate who gets recognized, though that could be a problem too:

A Muslim umbrella group formed in Germany last week aims to make Islam a "recognized" religion under federal law. That could mean Islamic instruction in public schools -- or even fundraising through the tax system.

The German-Islamic umbrella group launched last week called the Coordination Council of Muslims in Germany (KRM) would like "a binding road map to put Islam on an equal footing" with Christian religions in Germany, said Aiman Mazyek, the council's general secretary.

"Equal footing" could lead to Islamic instruction in German public schools, or even tithing of Muslims through the German tax office -- a feature of federal law that provides Christian churches in Germany an income stream. Germany's Jews have received federal funding since 2003.

Mazyek said he was looking forward to an Islamic conference in May with German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, where he hoped to hammer out a set of guidelines for official recognition of Islam "as quickly as possible."

The demand is far from uncontroversial, however. Some German politicians questioned whether the KRM can ever be on an equal footing with Germany's more established religions. Armin Laschet, a conservative Integration Minister in North Rhein-Westphalia, said the new umbrella group simply had too few members to speak for all German Muslims. "And there are no other negotiating partners," Laschet said.


(via)