Islamic Theology at German Universities. An empirical Research on Islamic experts in Germany

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Levent Tezcan
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: from 2018 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 387680852

Federal Government started 2010 the initiative to train Imams and teachers for Islamic Education at German Universities. Islamic Theology gets a strategic relevance within the integration policy.This project aims to shed a light on the professionalization of Islam in Germany. Our comparative research focuses on the Centres for Islamic Theology at German Universities. It is planned for two years and will empirically examine how the programmatic goal of these centres to train the religious staff is being implemented. We want to investigate in how far the training instruments developed for teachers offer religious education and religious staff for communities and institutions are applied effectively. Further, we are interested in discovering how the relationship between universities and Islamic associations is developing. Our overarching research question is whether the current model of regulating the relationship between the state and religion, which was developed in interaction with the Christian churches, can be applied successfully to Islam. Our research will contribute to answering the question of which models created at the Centres can be considered as best practices. The places of research are Centres of Islamic Theology in Tübingen, Frankfurt/Main, Münster/Osnabrück and Erlangen. We approach our research question from three perspectives: 1) First of all, the current situation of Islamic Theology at the universities will be investigated: which professional profile guides training of future staff and in in which institutional structures? 2) Secondly, relationship between universities and associations is of specific interest, among them some transnational organisations dependent on foreign offices such as the Turkish Diyanet / Office for Religious Affairs which are granted a voice and churchlike competencies at the counsels advising the Centres for Islamic Theology. The quality of the relationship between professionals (theologians) and lay people (associations) will be an important factor for institutionalisation. These interactions can be of cooperative or conflictual nature. 3) Thirdly, we are interested in the perspective of students and how they see the state of their university training. We can only judge properly the future of the professionalization and professional training of Islam in Germany if we have knowledge of the motives and carrier expectations of students as well as their existing contacts with future employers. Here, we want to investigate how freedom of science on the one hand and belief imperatives on the other are related to each other.Our comparative study will primarily use the methods of qualitative research which shall be complemented with an online survey among students in all locations of Islamic Theology.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigators: Professor Dr. Volkhard Krech; Professor Dr. Hans-Georg Soeffner