Editor's Note: As a platform for European Muslims' voices, IslamOnline.net (IOL)'s European Muslims Page presents a series of interviews with a number of imams from different European countries. You are invited to share you thoughts and comments on the impact of imams in Europe on the integration of the European Muslim communities through the role they play. Moreover, you can nominate your mosque's imam to be included in this series through sending us his name and contacts via euro_muslims@iolteam.com.
Muslim communities in Europe are growing rapidly, but they are still hesitant between the European culture and the Muslim instruction. From here, the role of imams in Europe starts to be urgently required. Imams are the most appropriate persons to guide Muslims, specially the new Muslim generations, in their European countries.
IslamOnline.net(IOL)’s European Muslims Page has got the interest to investigate the imams’ status in the European countries by raising some questions, such as: " are the imams highly influential? How do they get recruited into their positions? Are they trained and qualified enough to play the roles which the imams in Europe should play?"
In a reply to these different queries, we are planning to present a series of interviews with imams from different European countries. For a start, we are publishing an interview with the Bosnian imam, Hamza Subasic, the imam of Stuttgart mosque in Germany, through which he is unveiling his story and experience from the perspective of a European imam working in Germany— a model of an European case in a European country.
IslamOnline.net (IOL): Generally, how do you evaluate the status of imams
in Europe?
Hamza: In Germany, like the majority of the European Union’s countries, Islam is not officially recognized, which makes it harder for Muslim organizations to carry out their tasks and duties.
The monetary aids given by the state to imams are scanty and insignificant, for example, the state only helps in extending the period of citizenship of those imams. Apart from the imams' salaries which are paid by mosques or Islamic centers, unfortunately, their resources are very limited.
Besides, no official initiative has been taken in Europe to communicate with imams. Recently, Berlin is adopting new methods, such as giving cultural training courses to imams. This step is held in cooperation with the Islamic Academy in Berlin, and it is targeting Berlin’s imams in particular. As Muslims, we are looking forward to developing and expanding this course to include imams from all over Germany, not only Berlin.
IOL: Tell us in detail how you became an imam (your educational background,
recruitment procedures, requirements especially from the European countries, workflow …)
Hamza: After I had graduated from the Faculty of Usul Al-Din (Islamic Foundations), Al-Azhar University in Egypt, I returned to my homeland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, where I worked as an imam for a long period.
In the mid 80s, the Muslim Sheikdom of Sarajevo noticed that the Bosnian Muslims in Germany have urgent spiritual and religious needs. So, I was delegated to work as an imam in Stuttgart, the capital of Baden-Württemberg —a German city known for the famous and numerous factories where lots of Bosnians work. Once I reached Germany, I began to garner contact information of the Bosnian Muslims who live in Germany. I then started contacting them individually.
We, Muslims, keep on performing Fridays’ prayer together in ad hoc places, afterwards, the church granted us one of its halls where we performed Friday prayers and gave lectures for children and adults.
Later on, with Allah's favor, we were able to raise funds from Bosnian Muslims and bought the current Islamic center in Stuttgart, where I give Friday’s sermons and lectures to children on Saturdays and Sundays. I also take part in the weekly seminar that the center holds every Saturday night, besides a lot of various activities.
Since we have owned this center, our activities have expanded to include all the Muslims from different backgrounds, such as Arabs, Turks, Africans, Germans, etc. As Muslims, we are working on reconditioning the center, a process that needs immense financial aids.
IOL: To what extent have you been affected by the European anti-terror laws and procedures? How do you evaluate some decisions like the deportation of the "radical imams"?
Hamza: Imams' job in Germany was not affected widely by those laws; most imams practice Da’wah wisely using good advice. However, there were few incidents of deportation when some preachers were convicted of uttering phrases of disdain. In fact, I refuse neither to insult whoever disagrees with me in religion nor to belittle them, simply because this is not part of Our Prophet's Sunnah (the Prophet’s deeds).
IOL: Do some Muslim countries have an influence on the work of the European imams? What about the stance of the European governments, do they interfere with your work?
Hamza: The interference of some Islamic and Arab countries in Germany is very limited to the administrative instructions. As for the European governments, they started to pay attention to imams after 11th September; that was part of the attention paid to Muslims living there in general.
Those governments became interested in getting into the content of Friday sermons. They also expressed their wishes that the sermons be given in the mother tongue of the country. But generally, the European communities and governments are now focusing on increasing the transparency of the mosques’ performance.
IOL: Do imams in the European countries meet the real needs of the Muslim communities or do they still discussing unessential marginal issues in their speeches and sermons? Do you agree that the religious discourse used by the European imams need to be elaborated?
Hamza: No doubts that there are some imams who perform their jobs in a very traditional and shallow way; they are not corresponding with the massive changes in their European societies.
Of course, this issue needs an accurate revision to the Islamic Da'wah to allow imams perform their role efficiently especially in what is relevant to the religious expectations and interests of the Muslim minorities. One of the greatest challenges facing us, as imams in Germany, is to balance between keeping our Islamic identity and integrating within the European communities. This also includes strengthening the new generations' self-confidence; since those youth face different types of lives: one inside the family frame, one at school and another in the street. Both the mosque and the imam have to insure the balance for the youth while dealing with such types.
I would like to point out that we face some obstacles, such as the lack of language teaching books. Every week, we copy pages of those books and distribute them to the kids and students, a process that costs much.
IOL: What methods do you adopt to develop your skills and manage your mediums?
Hamza: One of the most important means to improve the imams' skills is to keep on
reading Arabic materials; on top of which comes the Glorious Qura’n (the source of the true Islam), the biography of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH), the interpretation’s and fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) books.
Moreover, reading the useful intellectual books that explore the real conditions of society, especially the books written by the late Sheikh Mohammad Al-Ghazally, may Allah bless his soul. He was of great help and we did learn a lot from him. We also faced another problem that was the shortage of the educational human sources. In fact, I raised a young generation who have now graduated from different faculties and are helping me in teaching and enlightening other Muslims.
In addition, mosques and imams represent great sources for knowledge for all Muslims in Europe, especially for youth. There are other sources imposed themselves in the field, such as; the internet, satellite channels, and finally books.
IOL: How do you evaluate choosing the first female imam?
Hamza: In Germany, there has been no appointment for female imams up till now. However, there were some Muslim sisters who gave useful lectures to women and girls. I think that the spiritual-guide role of Muslim females towards Muslim women is a very crucial and needed. In many cases we depend on this particular job in Da'wah. The Muslim female activists had a wide range of activities in their specialized field, and so had the Muslim male activists.
IOL: How do you see the role of mosques in a non-Muslim society? Do you adopt an open-door policy towards the whole society?
Hamza: The mosque's role in the European countries is to deepen the religious and cultural identity. It also serves the religious interests of Muslims along with encouraging them to communicate with the non-Muslim community living nearby. There is an important way to help in this field is to integrate and merge positively within the society.
Finally, we would like to thank imam Hamza Subasic, imam of Stuttgart mosque in Germany, for the time and effort exerted in replying back to IOL's questions. We would like also to invite you to share your thoughts on the role that imams in your European country, district, or neighborhood, play in enhancing the integration of European Muslims while maintaining their Islamic identity.
|
