Islamic Theology in European Universities

The Muslim presence in Europe has a long and ambivalent history, which differs from country to country. Every European country has its own history of encounter with Islam that is shaped by its own context. That is why different models and traditions have developed within the European countries for interacting with Islam, which means that, given the various approaches and practices in individual countries, it is impossible to speak of a pan-European outlook. Despite the different historically conditioned approaches of individual European countries to Islam, the developments in the 1960s and 1970s, when increased Muslim workers were recruited, showed similarities across borders. An oft-recurring assumption in the European context concerning the Muslim ‘guest worker’ is manifest in the expectation that the new arrivals would only be in Europe for a limited time and would then return to their home countries. Not only did the host countries – which recruited these people for economic reasons – think this would be the case, but the guest workers themselves, who had come for the same reasons, thought so as well. That is why nothing much was done to integrate the new workers into society. The new workers were not expected to adjust to society, nor did the governments initiate the process of naturalisation. As would be emphasised later, it was a serious oversight, for things turned out quite differently than was first expected. The guest workers stayed longer and brought their families over from their native countries, which meant that, in distinction from their previous isolated lives, they were forced to some extent by the influx of their families to actively participate in public life. These developments revealed the omissions of the preceding years. It also became clear that the former guest workers and their family members had in the meantime become an integral part of society. But there were no models for integration that could correct the omissions and make the integration of the migrants into society easier. The gradual change in the profile of the former guest workers, who had in the meantime become residents and whose children attended local schools, led to the first tentative steps towards integration. These initial considerations on integration first focused almost exclusively on learning German because inadequate knowledge of the language represented a major obstacle to communication that had in the meantime become unavoidable. The religious needs of Muslims, however, played no significant role, even though the debates on integration had greatly increased in the meantime.