A top Christian Democrat politician wants to amend the constitution if necessary, so that German taxes can be used to pay for mosques. Jens Spahn—a former minister and deputy leader of the opposition center-right CDU/CSU’s parliamentary group—sees public funding for mosques as a bulwark against overseas influence.
Beatrix von Storch of the AfD previously warned it would be a mistake to finance mosque associations using German taxpayers’ money. While she agreed that the financing of mosques by Turkey or Qatar must be banned immediately, she argued that Muslims in Germany should finance their own mosques with their own contributions.
Germany has for many years faced the problem of mosques being financed by foreign countries such as Turkey, often combined with imams spreading radical, anti-Western and antisemitic rhetoric.
The debate has heated up once again, with rising levels of antisemitic attacks throughout Germany prompted by the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
At the beginning of November, Spahn called it “a disgrace that Jews can no longer feel safe in Germany.” He said his country had imported antisemitism on a large scale through uncontrolled immigration, and “it is high time to end Turkish state financing.”
Turkish Islamic association DITIB, the largest Islamic association in Germany with some 900 mosques, has long been the subject of political controversy in the country, most recently when an Afghan Taliban member spoke at one of its mosques in Cologne last month. Under an agreement between Berlin and Ankara announced in December, a programme that posts Turkish imams to German mosques will be phased out. Subsequently, imams trained in Germany will gradually replace clerics employed by Turkish religious authority Diyanet.
As reported previously, Turkey isn’t Germany’s only worry: German police raided 54 properties in seven states on November 16th, all belonging to the Islamic Center of Hamburg (IZH), which has ties to the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah and its sub-organisations. The IZH is said to exert significant influence over various Muslim communities and associations throughout Germany.
Some 5.5 million Muslims live in Germany, making up around 6% of the population. According to Deutsche Welle, Germany currently has between 2,000 to 2,500 Islamic religious leaders, who tend to come to Germany for four or five years, are often paid by their home countries and know very little about the local culture and customs.
“We need German mosque communities, not Turkish ones … It would be better to step in even with German taxpayers’ money, even if this may require a constitutional amendment,” Spahn said in November. He elaborated on his plan to stop the foreign funding of mosques on Thursday, January 4th in an interview with Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung, saying mosques should be supported through a foundation set up by the state.
According to his proposal, mosque communities that agree to preach in German, are led by imams trained in Germany, and offer transparent work with children and young people could receive financial support from the foundation. This support would be provided over a longer period of time until the communities are self-sustaining. He added:
If we don’t stop foreign funding and don’t build German mosque communities, we will have a rude awakening in five or ten years. Then we’re going to run further into radicalisation.
He cited France, Belgium, and the United Kingdom, adding: “Then the isolated parallel societies will continue to grow in our country as well. And that would be terrible.”
Politicians of governing parties welcomed Spahn’s proposal. Lamya Kaddor of the Greens said Muslims in Germany need to have “the opportunity to practice their faith independently of foreign influence.” Sandra Bubendorfer-Licht of the liberal FDP said the goal “must be to strengthen and support a modern and open Islam with German characteristics.”
In Germany, members of the Catholic and Protestant churches, in addition to members of some Jewish groups and Humanist groups pay a church tax, which is usually 9% of income tax. Those who want to avoid the tax must deregister from their religious group. Though the idea of a ‘mosque tax’ has been floated previously to make Islamic institutions less dependent on foreign funding, Spahn rejected such a notion, saying there needs to be a debate about the issue.
France recently announced that foreign imams who are paid from abroad will be barred from entering the country as of January 1st, as the country seeks to increase the number of locally trained imams.