BADEN-WURTTEMBERG, Germany, March 16, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – After years of reluctance, the German state of Baden-Wurttemberg has approved teaching Islamic subjects in its schools as of the school year 2006-07.

“The Muslim students in Baden-Wurttemberg will be allowed to study Islamic subjects in German,” Ali Demir, the chairman of the Islamic Council in the state, said in press statements carried by Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper on Tuesday, March 15.

Baden-Wurttemberg is the fifth state in Germany’s 16 states to allow teaching Islamic subjects in schools, following in the footsteps of Nordrehin-Westfalen, Berlin, Niedersachsen and Hamburg.

Education officials in Baden-Wurttemberg were dragging their feet on requests from Islamic bodies to teach Islamic subjects in schools.

Over the past four years, five requests were turned down under a catalogue of excuses.

But education officials finally shifted their ground after the Islamic bodies in the state had met government standards.

There are around 70,000 Muslim students in Baden-Wurttemberg.

Islam comes third in Germany after Protestant and Catholic Christianity.

There are some 3.4 million Muslims in the country, including 220,000 in Berlin. An estimated two thirds of them are of Turkish origin.

Meanwhile, officials in the state of Hessen welcomed the teaching of Islamic subjects in schools.

But they maintained that a certain Islamic body should be tasked with running the Islamic education process in schools and be responsible before authorities.

The education ministry in the state refuses to allow Muslims supervising the teaching process as long as they are not united under one umbrella group.

Catholic, Protestant and Jewish students in Hessen are allowed to study their religious subjects in schools.

Hessen is home to some 300,000 Muslims.

Over the past decade, the Muslim bodies in Germany succeeded in making the issue of teaching Islam high on agenda.

In Niedersachsen, the Shura Council, a body representing all Islamic bodies in the state, has been supervising the teaching of Islamic subjects in eight schools since the school year 2003/04.

And in the city of Berlin, the Islamic Union, an umbrella comprising 25 Islamic bodies, is responsible for the Islamic classes in 37 schools.

Also in Nordrehin-Westfalen, the Leipzig administrative court approved in February the right of the Islamic Central Council (ZMD) and the Council of Islam (Islamrat) in handling the Islamic education.

In 1999, the state’s ministry of education incorporated Islamic subjects into curricula taught in 110 state-run schools to cater for some 5,000 Muslim students.

Hamburg also followed suit last year, while the state of Bayern took the decision in 2002, introducing Islam in 21 schools.

There are one million Muslim students in Germany, according to estimates of Islamic bodies.