Austrian Islam

Austrian Times says,'Islamic instruction in Austria will change in the wake of a new study concluding it is in need of a shake-up to bring it up to modern standards.

The Education Ministry and the Austrian Islamic Denomination have agreed on a package of changes providing for new contracts for Islamic instructors and new lesson plans for the teaching of Islam in Austrian public schools.

Lower Austrian school council president Hermann Helm called yesterday (Tues) for strict control of all Islamic instruction and lesson materials. One illustration in a textbook used for Islamic instruction reportedly shows a dead Muslim fighter described as a martyr.

Helm also called for all Islamic instruction to be conducted in the German language. He added new contracts had to oblige Islamic instructors to respect the values of democracy. Those who refused to, Helm said, should be fired on the spot.

Mouhanad Khorchide is a professor of the sociology of religion at the Islamic Religion and Pedagogical Institute at Vienna University and the author of the new study, "Islamic religious instruction between integration and a parallel society."

Khorchide said last Wednesday his study’s results clearly showed the need for quality standards in the teaching of Islam to Muslim students in public schools in Austria.

Khorchide added study results also revealed too little attention had been paid to such instruction in past years.

No scientific examination of the teaching of Islam had been undertaken since it began in 1982, Khorchide said. In the following years, 350 teachers had taught 32,000 students about Islam.

Khorchide added 40 per cent of such teachers currently at work had no pedagogical training and 37 per cent had neither pedagogical nor theological training.

The professor noted most teachers of Islam before 1998 had been recruited in Arab countries or among Muslims living in Austria and many of them had been members of radical groups. Some of the latter, he said, were still teaching. The first places for the training of teachers of Islam opened in 1998 in Austria.

Amina Baghajati, a spokeswoman for the Islamic Denomination in Austria, had no comment on Khorchide’s study last week because, she said, no one in the organisation had read it.

The education ministry told the Denomination last week to draft a report for it on the teaching of Islam in Austrian public schools.

The state pays teachers of Islam in public schools, but the Denomination is responsible for the content and organisation of such teaching.

Khorchide’s study concludes Muslim teachers in Austria have largely anti-democratic beliefs and one in five is "fanatical".

Khorchide, himself a Muslim, said 22.6 per cent of the 210 Muslim teachers he had surveyed had "fanatical attitudes" and 21.9 per cent rejected democracy as incompatible with Islam.

The older the teacher, Khorchide said, the more likely he was to reject the principle of the rule of law.

According to Vienna weekly "Falter", the study shows 8.5 per cent of the Muslim teachers said it was understandable for violence to be used to spread Islam, 28.4 per cent said there was a contradiction in being both a Muslim and a European, and 44 per cent said they had to make their students understand they were better than non-Muslims.

In addition, 29 per cent said it was impossible for Muslims to integrate in Austria without losing their Muslim identity, and 55 per cent called Austrians xenophobic.

On the other hand, 85.7 per cent said they did not believe Muslims had to keep to themselves to avoid losing their Muslim identity.'

They have sown the wind and wiil reap a whirlwind. Adolf never saw the real threat to Europe.