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Germany has four million Muslims, counting both immigrants andthose born there, making up about 5 percent of the population. Butthe lack of religious training in the country means that most ofGermany s 2,000 imams come from abroad, mostly Turkey , staying an average of four years. The predominance of foreignimams in the education of Germany's Muslims exacerbatesdifficulties they might already have integrating into Germansociety. The imams imported from abroad tend to promote a more radicalinterpretation of the Quran, experts say, and they re oftenunprepared to deal with many aspects of their job in Germany. Here, they have to not only lead Friday prayers but act ascounselors, community organizers, and youth workers in short,they have to be a bridge between the mosque and day-to-day secularlife in Germany. But they have no context for answering how theQuran would deal with many of the dilemmas confronting youngMuslims living in Western Europe : a young Muslim man who wants a girlfriend like his secularfriends or a Muslim girl who wants to take swimming lessons inschool, for example. Most deal with their home culture, their home language, theirhomeland, says B lent Ucar, a professor of Islamic religiouseducation at the University of Osnabr ck, which last yearpioneered a crash course for foreign imams on German society andlanguage. So far 30 imams are enrolled, with many more on thewaiting list, he says. This fall, Osnabr ck will house the secondof the four publicly-funded centers for Islamic theology inaddition to its already existing training program. Imams have good intentions but they can't fulfill their jobs.They can't fulfill the conditions to bring about integrationbecause they don t speak German, says Mr. Ucar. The rarity of German-speaking imams who can connect with youngGerman Muslims is also a problem in Germany s eyes because of theincreased popularity of a new cohort of young, radical,German-speaking imams, such as Pierre Vogel, a former boxingprofessional who converted to Islam and draws enormous crowds inpublic. He also has a strong following online. A German citizen in his thirties who attended a Catholic school asa child, Vogel later turned to Salafism, the fastest-growingIslamic movement in Germany. He knows how to connect with youngpeople, especially those who feel adrift in German society but findthe Turkish imams brought to the country out of touch. The presenceof people like Vogel, who wears a long red beard and calls himselfAbu Hamza, makes the need for German-trained imams all the moreobvious, experts agree. For young people seeking direction, contact with these types ofimams can be the first step toward slipping into Islamistviolence, says sociologist Rauf Ceylan of Osnabr ck University. When she officially opened the Islam theology center in T bingenin January, Education Minister Annette Shavan said the center's newgraduates would be the best antidote to hate preachers. We are high quality suppliers, our products such as RFID Vehicle Tags Manufacturer , China RFID Label Tag for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits RFID Label Tag.
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