‘Made in Germany’ Imams: Country opens first, one of its kind Islamic studies college

The college opened in Osnabrück is part of an initiative that has received particular attention from German Interior Minister, Horst Seehofer, whose ministry is responsible for national security and religious affairs.

The centre received significant state backing so that it can help reduce the number of Islamic religious leaders coming from abroad. Islamkolleg Deutschland received its first batch of students on Monday, 14 June, a group of 40 aspiring religious leaders.

People with a bachelor’s degree in Islamic theology or an equivalent diploma are eligible for the programme and it offers practical teachings in the recitation of verses from the Koran, preaching techniques, worship practices and politics.

At last year's German Islam Conference, Seehofer called plans for the college good news for Muslims in Germany while Twenty per cent of the students in the institution are women.

The government has taken pains to reduce the influence of foreign-trained imams, especially from Turkey.

Increasing the number of German-speaking and -preaching imams has been an important goal for the ministry, which provided initial funding for the college.

The support is conditioned on the program's conducting instruction in German and being tied to an institution of higher education, which the two-year program in Osnabrück fulfils. The college says its first-class includes 25 people, with another 25 registered for continuing education courses.

Many Muslim communities "no longer understand" their imams if they don't speak German — a communication gap that can lead to especially younger members drifting toward extremist content online.

Plans for the college were announced last year, with the federal government and regional authorities in Lower Saxony both helping to fund the project.

“We support an Islam that is rooted in our society, shares the values of our constitution and respects our way of life,” Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said at the time.

The organisation remains the largest Islamic group in Germany with about 960 mosques under its umbrella.

It has close ties to Turkey’s official directorate of religious affairs, the German government says.

Turkish communities were for decades the dominant group among Germany’s Muslims after many people from Turkey migrated under a guest worker scheme in the 1960s and 1970s.

But more recent migration from Syria and other countries has made the country's Muslim population more diverse.

About 45 per cent of Germany’s Muslims are now of Turkish origin, down from 68 per cent in 2008.