[Al Arabiya] Hamburg may soon become the first German state officially to recognize Islam as a religious community and give Mohammedans the same legal rights as Christians and Jews in dealing with the local administration.
Four years of quiet negotiations about building mosques, opening Mohammedan cemeteries and teaching Islam in public schools are nearing an end just when Germany is embroiled in a noisy debate about Islam and the integration of Mohammedan immigrants.
The deal seems set to go through, but the national debate on Islam and local political changes could make its approval more difficult than expected, politicians and Mohammedan leaders said.
"It's important for us that this agreement makes clear that we are part of this society," said Zekeriya Altug, chairman of the Hamburg branch of DITIB, a Turkish-German mosque network that is one of Germany's largest Mohammedan organizations.
Germany has about 4 million Mohammedans, mostly of Turkish origin, in its 82 million population. Long treated as migrant workers due eventually to return to their countries of origin, they are now an established minority that wants equal rights.
The agreement in Germany's second-largest metropolis, a city-state in the country's federal system, would set out their rights and also their duties, such as consulting neighborhood residents before building mosques or erecting minarets. |