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Being German, Becoming Muslim
Race, Religion, and Conversion in the New Europe
By Esra Özyürek PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 2015 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-16279-9
CHAPTER 1
Giving Islam a German Face
Afeefa looked flustered at the weekly breakfast for women at the DMK that meets at the Bilal mosque in Wedding, a poor neighborhood with many immigrant residents. About ten to fifteen women, all converts to Islam, attend these breakfasts every Wednesday at 10:00 a.m., right after they drop their kids off at school and perhaps run a few errands. They say it is a great place to catch up with friends and have a few hours to oneself. It also offers a unique opportunity for converted German Muslim women to be among people like themselves and feel comfortable. Because regulars at this breakfast feel it is important to find German Muslim women when they first convert, they make an effort to ensure that the breakfasts are regularly held to welcome potential newcomers to the group. Women who call up to say they have converted to Islam or are thinking about it, and even sometimes those who are worried about their daughters or sisters converting, are heartily invited to this breakfast so that they can meet indigenous German Muslims. As one of the people responsible for this particular Wednesday breakfast, Afeefa brought along about forty freshly baked white rolls, schrippe, and a dozen organic eggs that she planned to soft boil. She took several sticks of butter, a couple of berry jams, Nutella, halal cold cuts and sausages, and tubes of cheesy spreads from the well-stocked fridge, and prepared the double coffee maker with many scoops of coffee.
After we sat down and a few of the women took off their headscarves in the intimate company of their Muslim sisters, Afeefa said that she had had it with her non-Muslim cousin, who had been visiting her family for a week. The entire time the cousin had accused Afeefa of not being a German anymore. She told her, "Look, you dress differently, you eat differently, you say these strange Arabic words to your friends, you have nothing German about you anymore." Afeefa was angry with her. She kept saying, "Of course I am German." She compared herself to another cousin in the family. "Katarina is vegetarian. She also does not drink alcohol. Somehow she can still be German, but I cannot be because I do not eat pork or drink alcohol!" She was especially annoyed at her cousin for sitting at the breakfast table every morning in low-cut shirts: "Why did my husband have to look at her breasts all morning?" German scholars—and most of mainstream German society—tend to think of German converts to Islam as people who are fleeing their German identity—something still an embarrassment to many Germans more than sixty years after the end of World War II—and symbolically emigrating elsewhere (Wohlrab-Sahr 2002). My research shows that even though converting to Islam transforms ethnic Germans' lives dramatically, and usually in ways that they did not prepare themselves for, most German Muslims are invested in opening a space for themselves where they can comfortably embrace their Muslim and German identities at the same time. The Swedish scholar Anne Sofie Roald (2006), who is also a convert to Islam, states that since the 2000s, a good number of Scandinavian converts have tried to integrate what they see as Scandinavian values into their understanding of Islam as well. A golden mean that brings German and Muslim identities perfectly together is not always easy to find, and definitely not something shared by all members of the German Muslim community. Most German Muslims, especially those who socialize with other German Muslims in contexts such as the DMK, strongly believe that it is possible to be a good Muslim without sacrificing one's German identity. German Muslims claim that as converts, they can even be better Muslims than immigrant Muslims. They imply that by definition, they live a pure Islam not contaminated by cultural practices and urge native-born Muslims also to purify their Islamic practice of the stigmatized cultural traditions. Furthermore, some suggest, their commitment and contribution to a religiously diverse society makes them more tolerant as well as better connected to the lost ideals of the German Enlightenment, best represented in the writings of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–81). Hence, many German Muslims promote the idea that their stance is closer not only to the true nature of Islam but also to the best of German and European ideals.
THE GERMAN-SPEAKING MUSLIM CIRCLE
As one of the first German-speaking Muslim associations in postwar Germany, the DMK, founded in Berlin in the 1990s, has a special role in Muslim Germany. The DMK was originally established not by German converts to Islam but rather by non-Turkish and non-Arab Muslim students who came to Germany to study and could not find a religious community for themselves. These students thought that a German-language Muslim community would be able to bring together Muslims who do not speak the languages that are used in mosques in Germany. Once it was founded as the only German-speaking Islamic context in Berlin, the DMK quickly united the diverse German converts to Islam and brought them together as a community, becoming a popular address. The DMK community consists of a few hundred registered members and an approximately equal number of others who attend the mosque without being members. Of its congregation, about half of the people are German, Russian, French, Argentinean, and Polish converts to Islam, and the other half consists of Muslims with roots in different Muslim-majority countries around the world.
Being able to provide a German-speaking Muslim space where no Islamic tradition is preferred over others, and Muslims of different backgrounds thus feel themselves at home, is crucial. The DMK's Web page emphasizes that it bases itself only on the Qur?an and Hadith, and does not prioritize any Islamic legal school or tradition above others. It states: "We follow Allah's word in Sura 2, verse 256 'There is no compulsion in religion!' and we respect different interpretations and legal schools." It defines itself as a community where "Muslims with different mother tongues and cultures get together under the common banner of Islam and the German language. That is why, when a visitor comes to the DMK we do not ask them to which legal school they belong to. Rather we offer all Muslims the possibility to encounter each other with an equal footing."
In addition to its stress on the German language and commitment to a nonsectarian approach to Islam, the DMK differs from other mosques in Germany in that a high proportion of its members have BAs or even PhDs. Most likely because it was first established by foreign Muslim students who came to study in German universities, the mosque continues to be a gathering place for foreign, native-born Muslims along with converted Muslims pursuing graduate or postgraduate studies. The DMK is also unique in Germany for the high number of women among its membership and also at the Shura, a democratically elected consultation board. Women participate to such an extent that the DMK Shura had to institute a bylaw ensuring that neither gender is represented by more than 60 percent on this board. In 2013, the mosque's amir (leader) was a woman. The active involvement of women in this mosque is readily apparent from their presence at any event or discussion that takes place there. In its respect for diversity in Islam, commitment to democracy and women's representation, and emphasis on the German language, the DMK promotes itself as both a model democratic German community and an Islamic community that puts the best possible German face on an Islamic practice that its members see as true to its founding principles.
BECOMING MUSLIM WHILE REMAINING GERMAN
German Muslims who convert to Islam share common experiences with immigrant Muslims when it comes to living their religion in a non-Muslim society that is not accommodating to the Islamic lifestyle. Much of the everyday experience of converts is unique to them, however, in that they do not fit in either the German mainstream or Muslim immigrant communities. Zeyneb, a forty-three-year-old convert who embraced Islam around twenty years ago, told me that the most distinctive feeling she has about being a German Muslim is not fitting in coupled with the consequent loneliness. A sensitive and reflective person, Zeyneb observed,
I feel that as German Muslims, we are doubly marginalized. First Germans push us aside, and then Turks and Arabs turn their backs on us. That makes one feel very lonely. No one thinks about us when people talk about Muslims in Germany. We are totally invisible. Germans most often think we are crazy. Once a politician even said we are dangerous. Others think we converted because we got taken by a macho man. They call us traitors, people who left their culture behind and took someone else's. This is when they realize that I am a convert. Other times, it does not even occur to them that I might be a German. They treat me like an ignorant immigrant who does not speak German, who cannot be an intellectual, who cannot raise her children properly.
The reaction converts received from born Muslims was not all that different. As Zeyneb recounted:
And Turks do not accept us either. In my son's class, there are some Turks. They tell him that "your mother is a German so she does not need to cover her hair." It is not possible for them to accept that I am also a Muslim. Older Turkish women tell me that I cannot be a Muslim. They think Islam is only for Turks. It is hard even when people have the best intentions. When I first converted, a Turkish family took me in and treated me like their daughter. But even there I felt very lonely, because I was very different from them. They were very nice but very simple people. I couldn't relate to them at an intellectual level. In the end, I feel as though no one understands who I am. And I always feel in the wrong category.
Many German converts to Islam told me that as time passed, they felt more and more strongly that they did not fit in any category. As the intensity of the conversion experience mellows, converts become aware of the new social role they find themselves in and realize the new walls that surround them. What has been most appalling to converts to Islam, especially women who don the headscarf, has been being taken as a foreigner in the society they grew up in comfortably, and hence losing the feeling that they totally belonged to it. During a conversation with Miriam about her early experiences of becoming a Muslim, the most outrageous thing for her was what she called "becoming a third-class citizen." In the women's section of a mosque cafeteria, Miriam told me that her life changed not when she converted to Islam but instead when she put on the headscarf. "I was outraged," she told me. "Overnight everyone on the street lost all the respect they paid me as a regular German woman, with nothing special about her." No one would make eye contact with her, salespeople were rude, and government officials did not let her talk or listen to her carefully.
According to Miriam, this all happens because they think she is a foreigner. Miriam wears long black or dark brown overcoats, large headscarves, and big brown-tinted glasses. Something about her round face or relatively short, plump body actually does make her look more like a Turkish grandmother than most other converts I met. So when she tells people that she is German, they still do not believe her:
They think I mean I am an immigrant with a German passport. I have often been told patronizingly that I should not assume I am a German just because I hold a German passport. To them, there is no such thing as a German Muslim. One has to be a foreigner. Then if I feel like continuing the conversation at all, I say, "My grandparents were Prussians. Is that German enough for you?"
When it is revealed that she has a German name, the change of reaction is impossible to miss. "When I am waiting for my turn at the government office, everyone would be ignoring me as usual. But when I hand in my papers with my German name, everyone looks horrified. They look at me as if I am a traitor. I know they are thinking that I converted because a man treated me so well in bed. But I used to notice such things only during the early years of my conversion." She laughed bitterly and confessed that after fifteen years of it, she had become pretty insensitive to such treatment. "I do not expect anything different, and at least I do not get disappointed." She stopped and reflected. "Maybe," she said, "as I become older, I care less about others. Or maybe things have changed in Germany in the past fifteen years. I must say, I no longer come home outraged every time I go out, as I used to."
My conversations with more recent converts tell me that Miriam's speculation about things changing in German society and making German Muslim existence easier is not completely true. It is, I suspect, the increase in the number of German converts that has helped Miriam, especially the creation of German Muslim circles where they can learn about Islam, practice their religion, and most important, socialize with one another. As she became more active in such milieus, Miriam established many meaningful friendships with like-minded people. In the process, she also changed herself, and now that she is closely affiliated with a more or less isolationist Muslim community with tight in-group relations, she does not have to rely on mainstream society—or immigrant Muslims, for that matter—for emotional or intellectual support. Most likely, she has learned not to care about or expect much from her obligatory interactions with non-Muslims. She feels good about herself among her German Muslim friends, where she is a well-known and respected woman.
Consisting as they do almost exclusively of German converts, such growing communities develop a deep sense of German Islamic identity that is distinct from a Turkish or Arab one. In fact, some native German Muslims seek to create a German Islamic practice by stripping away Turkish and Arab cultural influences. Intellectuals among them go further and try to construct an alternative German genealogy that is inclusive of Islam based on the history of the German Enlightenment. Converts find ways to raise their children that are undoubtedly both Islamic and German. These efforts aim to open up legitimate space for Germans who have embraced Islam. At the same time, however, they sometimes end up reproducing anti-immigrant discourses that treat born or immigrant Muslims as not fitting in German society.
FINDING ISLAM IN THE GERMAN ENLIGHTENMENT
One of the most commonly heard arguments in Germany about why Muslims do not belong to Europe is that they never had the Enlightenment, and as a result, never learned to be rational and tolerant. A number of highly intellectual German Muslims have been countering these contentions for more than one hundred years, and stress how Islam played a central role in the thinking of the most prized figures of the German Enlightenment, or Aufklärung, and romanticism, particularly Goethe's thought (Mommsen 2001). The contrast with German Enlightenment figures who were tolerant toward both Jews and Muslims, such as Lessing, valorizes religious tolerance and openness to religious minorities, as against both Nazi anti-Semitism and the Islamophobia of the mainstream German public today. German Muslims reintroduce the most tolerant figures of the German Enlightenment as role models who can remind contemporary Germans that a truly open-hearted engagement with Islam can be an enriching experience and indeed already has a long history in the German tradition.
The central part that Islam played in the German Enlightenment is a topic discussed now and again in the DMK of Berlin. Three of the lectures that the DMK finds important enough to upload on its Web page for public view explain how Islam belongs to Europe by virtue of its long yet overlooked history on the continent and how Islam played a key role in the ideas of the German Enlightenment. The first of these lectures, titled "Islam: A European Tradition," delivered in 2008 by Silvia Horsch, an ethnic German convert to Islam, DMK council member, and specialist in Islamic theology at the University of Osnabruck, sought to counter an assertion by Gerhard Schroeder (German chancellor from 1998 to 2005). Reflecting the common belief that Islam is external to German and European culture, Schroeder claimed "we [Germans/Europeans] are influenced by three great traditions: Greco-Roman philosophy, Christian-Jewish religion, and the heritage of the Enlightenment." Challenging the historical understanding of Europe as a land free of Muslims and the Enlightenment as the negation of Islamic values, Horsch argued in her lecture that Islam and religious tolerance are in actuality foundational to European history as well as modernity as we understand it today.
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Excerpted from Being German, Becoming Muslim by Esra Özyürek. Copyright © 2015 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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