It is a great pleasure to be permitted to deliver a short talk about European Muslims in this most special of places. When I came to Granada for the first time 13 years ago I could hardly have imagined that my life was about to take such a dramatic turn. Here I not only had a fateful encounter with al Andalus but was also a guest – one might also say at home – in the Spanish community.

The hospitality, history and landscape of the Spanish Muslims have of course contributed a inestimable role in the Islam of many Europeans who became Muslim here. The new mosque in this significant place is a fitting symbol of this.

My first tentative questions about Islam were posed here. I still remember today questions such as ‘How does one come closer to Islam?’ and the ensuing replies which sounded so full of hope and expectation, like for example ‘Islam is like the Alhambra, from the outward inacessible and forbidding – but from the inward full of gardens’. Right up to today I find this to be a description of Islam and of its archtecture which still hits the mark. Without a doubt al Andalus was for me the confirmation that one was entering into a belief which in many respects has and has had a European tradition. The question as to Islam in Europe became over the years a question of gestalt, that is a question as to its greater contextual significance as a unified whole..

I would like today to share with you some thoughts regarding the theme of Islam in Europe. Let us cast our gaze forwards for a moment.

One speaks a lot today about Islam in Europe, sometimes too about a European Islam. In this respect al-Andalus never ceases to be presented as a European model. In doing so one must however be aware – especially with regard to al-Andalus where one tends to romanticise this age as being an ideally European one – that Islam itself was of course always practiced in a utterly correct manner. The bearing witness as to one's belief, the salat prayer, the zakat, fasting and the hajj – all this pillars of Islam cannot of course be practiced in a European, fundamentalist or liberal way but rather only, strictly speaking, in a correct manner.

Moreover our bearing witness to what we believe in is today not merely a European act but also to a large extent a global one. You are all of course aware that in the testimony of the Muslims 'There is no god, only Allah, and the Prophet Muhammad is his Messenger' the exemplary role model of the Prophet is of most exceptional importance. The Prophet, may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, was in the first instance a man bound to a particular locality and who concerned himself with the matters of the place of the city where he lived, This exemplar of a local success story then grew quickly into a global phenomenon. In so far as our Prophet, may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, did not think in terms of an idealogical-based world domination but rather submitted himself to his Lord, then - from a political perspective - he truely does not a represent a typical European model. His thinking does not correspond to the traditional concept of the European will to power. For us Europeans, it was part of his magnetic, Prophetic being that his relationship to power was fascinating yet essentially different to what one is normally familiar with. Power is borrowed from Allah, the Muslim prostrates himself before Him. Power is not, for example, the organised will of people - much less the mass will of a political party. And because power is something which is borrowed in every instance from Allah, the true Muslim also does not recognise any incapacity or lack of power.

Today our testimony of faith binds over a billion people together. This testimony, the shahada, bears explicit witness to the unity of Allah (tauwhid) and the necessity of following and imitating the Prophet, peace be upon him. A study of the life of the Prophet between Makka and Madina, may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, is a basic part of Islamic education. Indeed a whole science about the life of the Prohet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is recounted in a precise and detailed manner in the thousands of pages of erudition contained in the classic sources. I would go so far as to say –at least according to the way we have been taught – that an Islam without a love for the Prophet and an Islam understood only as an affirmation of unity could in reality have a tendency to become a totalitarian ideology. This love of the Prophet, may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, the fact that he is a human creature and that we are invited to imitate his character and qualities is of immense importance for the inner balance and harmony of the Muslims. The Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was not merciless, systematic and cold – but rather a man of mercy, of trade and leadership and – especially important - a man who recognised exceptions to the rule and who avoided extremes.

Today we recognise in the Islamic world that hate and ressentiment are preventing this love of the Prophet, may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him from flourishing. However, we European Muslims possess the capacity to clearly discriminate and differentiate when it comes to the way we select our paradigms or role models.

It is hardly suprising that private terrorism finds no approval among European Muslims. One must agree with the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben who said that terrorism has lead to nothing less than a rapid ‘israelisation’ of world politics. The constant state of emergency and/or martial law – both foreseeable and inevitable - has lead to a permanent erosion of every law. Terrorists and their suicide attacks have found no approval among European Muslims for precisely two reasons: on account of our knowledge of the Sunna and of our understanding of the nihilistic nature of terrorism. In the end terrorism and anti-terrorism viewed as a whole become assimilated into the evergrowing strength of the world state – in total accord with Dostoievski’s words who so shrewdly predicted ‘in a world without God, rules are very quickly invalided’.

Who, one may ask, is the future subject of European Islam? who then are the European Muslims? I would like to stress that when I say ‘European Muslims’ what I am referring to here is primarily three groups of people - all of whom, in my view, enjoy equal status and rights. These are the following:

- The European Muslims who have converted
- The original Bosnian, Albanian or Andalusian Muslim populations – and of course also
- All the German speaking Muslims and those speaking any other European language.

It is for this reason that any racist ideology stands no chance finding a place in Islamic teaching. In this respect I am following – the logic of the great European Ibn al-Arabi who was born in the Andalusian town of Murcia and who defined the identity of a person in the first instance as being determined by his language capacity, that is the language he speaks – a way of defining people which, as we are all aware, is unfortunately all too untypical here in Europe. Thus, according to the view presented here, someone is only a European if one speaks a European language.

When I left my family in the early 90’s to go on the pilgrimage, the hajj, this insight and understanding was for me in no way a merely theoretical understanding: after the physical encounter with the millions of Muslims there I then returned as a Muslim – rather than as a German. For me this represented a personal and irrevocable end to German history as such - along with its perverse glorification of a race. If there are still right wing extremists or faschists around, then the pilgrimage and the meeting with Allah’s creation would certainly be the best cure for them.

Today I would like to indicate four aspects of Islam in Europe and then also indirectly indicate four goals of Islam and the Muslims in Europe. Nietzsche once said: ‘Nihilismis means not having any goals.’ Permit me therefore to attempt the opposite and think the matter out in a specific goal-orientated manner with respect to the following four criterias.

1. a clarification: ‘Islam is not a culture’ and so a rejection of the thesis of Huntington.

2. a short introduction into the special realm of experience of ‘Islam in Europe’ (Sarajevo, Weimar and here in particular Cordoba und Granada)

3. the question as to what has been and can be the contribution of Islamic civilisation in general, and/or European Islam in particular.

4. the definition of a possible intellectual contribution of European Muslims.

In other words we would like to make clear that we European Muslims will filter and purify Islam from its cultural burdens of the past, that we will stand firmly in the tradition of Islam in Europe and commit ourselves to a real contribution to civilisation, namely a just society.

Let us begin with an important clarification:

1. Islam is not a culture.

There is no doubt that even today the majority of the population conceive of Islam as something foreign - and this depite the fact that christianity and Islam not only both originate from the same place on the earth - and that this place lies outside of Europe - but also that both religions have as it were colonised Europe. The phenomenon of the Balkans and European Islam in southern Spain has not up to now been recognised to an adequate degree.

It is a question here of a deeply entrenched - and I hope short lived - misunderstanding about Islam. The relevant question in hand as to whether Islam can in any way be considered a culture should not be confused with the fact that the Muslims have always produced a great variety of cultures - from al Andalus to Afghanistan. That Islam is a culture is an assertion that can clearly be rejected. Islam gives rise to cultures but is not itself a culture; and Islam has often been a filter for diverse cultures.

This understand represents a clear rejection of mr Huntington’s thesis - to the extent that it is based on the theory of a clash of cultures and above all on the assumption that Islam may be explained merely as another culture. Thus we can understand why Huntington is unable to speak of an ‘European’ or ‘Bosnian Islam’, can speak neither of Sarajevo (or Sebrenica) or Granada, and inevitably is obliged to suppress these historical experiences as non-European. The counter argument for the thesis of huntington is the European community here, I myself or my son Yusuf AbdalHaqq who was born as Muslim into a Muslim family in Weimar.

Islam is always capable of adapting itself culturally without in any way endangering its essential nature as a way of life. Throughout centuries one may observe the capacity of Islam to adapt itself in an positive way to outward circumstances and to the cultural perculiarities of a given people.

One of the important contributions of European Muslims today is the filtering out of areas of ‘cultural occupation’ and the misguided aspects of Islamic life in Europe, and the prevention of any tendency towards ghettoization – a process of reversal so to speak.

2. The European realm of experience

I should begin by mentioning that there still exists, and has existed for some considerable time, a European-Islamic realm of experience. This realm of experience is of course independent and peculiar to them. Thus, for example, the wars of religion which Schiller has so masterly described, the history of the state and constitution, the ideologies of Hitler and Stalin, the holocaust and the fate of the European jews, or the event of technology and the consequences of capitalist finance techniques or globalisation have not escaped my notice as a Muslim educated and living in Europe – just as they have not escaped the attention of all other Europeans.

It is precisely for this reason that Islam provides decisive answers. That which exercises a magic and irresistible effect on many non-Europeans is perceived by many Europeans as being simply ‘suspect’ or ‘dubious’. It is not an accident that the movements which are critical of globalisation began in Europe. Martin Heidegger once described this phenomenon with the remark that ‘Change never happens from the periphery’.

There exist concrete historical forms and models for Islam in Europe. I would like to quite deliberately name in the first instance three concrete historical - and yet still actual and current - locations of experience, that is, locations of Islam which cannot be overlooked if one wants to understand Islam in Europe. I am refering her to Sarajevo, Weimar and of course Granada.

My overriding thought in this matter – and here I have in mind the famous cities of the Balkans and Al-Andalus – is that Islamic civilisation has always revolved more around cities than territories.. Islamic life combines order and location. In the centre of every Islamic civilisation stand the institutions of the Islamic community: the mosque, auqaf trusts and the market. The city or town is the point of civilisation where one is best able to study a patter of Islamic life which is intact.

One can state quite categorically that an Islamic state, or national state - as a rigid unit of race and territory - is an extremely late and one could argue quite unislamic form of organisation. The allure of an idealogical, terrritorial hegemony and the ideological goal of a ‘world hegemony’ were naturally completely foreign to Muslims educated in the classic manner. Their world is a ‘being-in-the world’ as understood existentially – a world whose material existence is dependent upon open trade routes. The ‘total’ goals of world domination are nowhere mentioned in the Revelation and – in so far as they exist whenever certain Muslims propagate these goals in an isolated and individual manner – are borrowed from the intellectual world of the West and as such based on an idealogical rather than an Islamic foundation The almost 800 years of Andalusian history quickly reveal that at no point in time was the whole territory of the Iberian peninsula completely subjugated under a single rule. According to Ibn Khaldun, that is, according to an Islamic understanding of history, every Islamic social reality is of its nature inevitably disposed to a period of growth, a high point and then to a period of decline. High civilisations come and go. They move so to speak across continents. This is the intrinsic nature of Islam.

Let us briefly reflect more closely the aspect of location of Islam in Europe:

Of course, I do not need to say much about al-Andalus - simply this: the historical picture of middle Europe is still as it was, that is. centred around a ‘latin-west european’ core. One is hardly aware of the significant contribution or heritage of the slavic peoples, nor of the contribution of the greek-orthodox east and southern European countries to the development of Europe – and still less of the contribution and heritage of the osmanli culture. Moreoever what has been completely suppressed from people’s awareness, viewed in a pejoritive manner or passed over in silence is the Islamic-European heritage of the Iberian peninsula - without which present day Spain and also European culture would be incomprehensible and indeed would not have become that what it is today.

The christian record of history with respect to al-Andalus by the way infuriated Nietzsche. Nietzsche, ‘the philosopher with the hammer’ wrote: christianity deprived us of the fruits of antique culture and then later deprived us of the fruits of the culture of Islam - the wonderful moorish cultural world of Spain which was basically more closely related, which appealed more immediately to our heart and taste when Rome and Greece were being trampled underfoot.

Let us continue with our small ‘cities tour’ and briefly call to mind two further locations of Islam in Europe, namely Weimar und Sarajevo:

On my many visits to Bosnia – the first time I was there with my father as a tourist – I never had any doubt that it was a country which belonged to the core of Europe. It is most revealing that during the war the Bosnians were called – provokatively -‘Turks and orientals’ by the Serbian propaganda. The mere sight of Sarajevo from the top of the mountain overlooking the city, the view of the extension of the city into the valley and its vivid history (Osmanli, era of the Kaiser, the new quarter) speak volumes about the complex history of Islam in Europe. Bosnia is however also an important symbol of the particularly European realm of experience of the European Muslims. At this point it is for me a matter of deep humanitarian interest to remember the last great war in Europe. Sarajevo is also a warning sign for all the muslim victims. Unfortunately - as well as the symbolic greek-inspired sporting contests in the Olympia stadium of the town - one may also now see the thousands of graves of those who fell in the Bosnian war. Whoever is inclined to automatically associate Islam with aggression, war and violence should allow himself perhaps to be reminded of this European war.

European Muslims have – only yesterday so to speak – endured and grieved over the atrocity of Srebrenica und the genocide of over 120,000 Muslims. All this took place just a few hundred kilometres from Munich. One waited many years in vain for the mobilisation of humanitarian Europe - and also for the mobilisation of the so called ‘Islamists’. For me, at the time a young German Muslim, my own passivity as well as that of society faced with the factual reports out of Bosnia was to remain imprinted on my consciousness for years. Had not one learnt in school that Europe would not longer permit a religious or racially motivated persecution?

Let us briefly speak about a further important European town – namely Weimar - not because this town in Thuringia has the same order of significance for Islam as Granada or Sarajevo, but rather because the figure of Goethe represents a role model for the natural, unprejudiced, intellectual – one could also say ideal - relationship of Europe with Islam. And this role model came into being at a time which was particularly difficult for Islam.

If you would permit me to take a brief look back. When Goethe in 1814 demonstrated his esteem for the Orient with his poem cycle ‘West-East Diwan’ he exposed himself, as you know – not unintentionally of course - to the ‘suspicion’ that he himself was a ‘Muselmann’. Indeed for Goethe, Islam represented a calming alternative to the world of western civilisation and its striving after power. He was always aware of the cultural schism between Islam and the West and for this reason one must ascribe a startling modernity to his treatises. To make such statements at that time was extremely couragous...

In the Neue Zürcher Zeitung of 22.05.2002 Manfred Osten writes the following about this long-standing dialogue with Islam:

‘A Dialogue of startling modernity? Goethe was clearly aware from early on of the cultural schism between Islam and the West - and aware too of the necessity for serious discussion, as a consequence of this schism. Nietzsche’s verdict as to his attempt at such a discussion, namely the poem cycle produced in 1814 ‘West-East Diwan’, may well still hold good: ‘Goethe was in the history of the Germans an “incident without sequal”. Even today many Germanists regard the stroke of genius with reserve; but whatever one’s attitude, Goethe has nevertheless prepared the way for dialogue with Islam by means of this work some 200 years ago. The strategy he followed in this regard was based on a thorough immersing of himself with the apparantly ‘foreign’, and this culminated with Goethe’s recognition, indeed in the conviction, that the Qur’an was the most important religious document of human history alongside the bible.

For Goethe the Arabic influences on the Spanish and therefore also on some of the finest works of European literature were clear. He allowed himself to be inspired by its motives and rythms and celebrated them enthusiastically in his great work of poetry. So he says that ‘the Orient has penetrated gloriously the Mediterranean’ and ‘whoever has known and loved Hafiz will understand what Calderon sang.’

Having briefly become acquainted with some locations of European Islam one may return to the question as to what might be Islam’s valid contribution to civilisation today.

What is to be discussed here is nothing other than the question as to the actual essence of the Islamic nomos: what is it which defines Islamic civilisation, above all in the light of our understanding that Islam does not represent a culture? Is there such a thing as an Islamic basic model or standard?

The answer is simple and almost banale . An important indication of the supra-cultural contribution to civilisation is provided us by the famous Islamic towns and civilisations themselves. The architecture always tells the same story. Whether Madina, Cordoba or Istanbul, Cairo or Fes, wherever Islam has had a role to play, be it small or great, it always leaves behind a common mark – naturally the mosques.

On 19.3.1913 in Paris, a great German friend of Andalusia wrote enthusiasticaly from memory about a famous mosque of this land: the immense central mosque in Cordoba which I have thought about so much, a courtyard where one could come together, where one could sleep, pray and or gain access to the fountains.. a sublime enclosure for the traveller and the warrior in Islam, an area which encloses itself tightly around the thousands who come to it but which encompasses each and every heart in a generous and expansive way. I hesitate from enclosing a picture of the mosque in this letter – no! I do not want to anticipate or detract in any way from your own view of it..

Despite these fine words – they are Rainer Maria Rilke’s from a letter to Sidonie Nadherny von Borutin - one still needs to understand more precisely the mosque and its complex social effect: Islamic civilisation produces more that just mosques – rather it produces what one in Turkish defines as 'imaret' that is the unitary social point representing the crystallisation of Islamic life..

Let us briefly imagine ourselves once more back in the old town centre of Sarajevo or Granada. Naturally what is here referred to as ‘imaret’ is also to be found here – and the complex is always located in the central point of the community. It is not only in Sarajevo or Granada where one finds a grave, a bathhouse (hamam), teaching activities (madrassa), hospital and a soup kitchen for the poor in the imaret. The imaret consists of the indispensable corner stones of Islamic life: the market place and the social welfare foundations. Without it the daily Islamic life would be to a large extent lifeless and without substance. This is still true today.

In this respect it is also interesting to reflect what in fact lead to the eventual collapse of al-Andalus

It is clearly true that in the first instance the effect of the rules of succession and the military governance were the basic reasons for the decline of the Muslims on the Iberian peninsula. The key phrase which one may cite here is the ethnological concept of the segmented society –for it is this phenomenon which usually brings about such a decline. Such communities are those in which many groups exist in isolation next to each other. They are structured in a vertical way. To avoid living in a continual state of war between the various tribes and clans, such a segmented society stands in need of a strong ruler - today one would say a ‘supra-association’. In such segmented societies the political hierachy is therefore overstretched. Power must then be so great that a vertical solidarity is able to hold sway over the many columns of tribe, clan and communities connected by a common language living side by side. The Muslims in Al-Andalus were not able to achieve this. It will also not be feasible to try and unify the Muslims today – segmented as they are into antiquated peoples and nations – merely through political-hierarchical means or, as a last resort, through ideological means. What is decisive however is our sense of the horizontal, that is, between us the Muslims in the realm of exchange, trade and social proximity. It is not only hierarchy, according to Ibn Khaldun, which is the decisive factor for the vitality of Muslim civilisation.

Let me in conclusion briefly indicate the intellectual contribution of the European Muslims. This contribution arises both out of the special traditions of European thought and also the physical locations and examples of Islam in Europe. The question is simply: ‘can Islam provide the Europeans with intellectual food for thought?’ or ‘Does lslam still have any relevance and significance intellectually speaking?’

From an Islamic point of view it is above all the spiritual and intellectual impulses of the great Shaykhs Ibn al Arabi und Ibn Rushd which still today display an inherent vigour and timeless validity. I mention these two thinkers because when preoccupying oneself with them one becomes aware just how encompassing -conceptually speaking - Islam is with regard to the inner and unseen world as well as the outer visible world. Islam has always demanded of so many Europeans in search of unity that they reflect upon Islam in a fresh manner. The question as to Unity as experienced in the way of authentic Sufism, and the fundamental question as to the conditions for a just society represent the real spiritual and intellectual challenge to us Europeans of today, represent an adventure and inspiration for us - just as it did others before us - through access to these works.

Ibn Ruschd has analysed in a timeless fashion the basic conditions for just trade in his legal handbook, the Bidaja al-Mujtahid. Like many other Islamic legal works, this book also deals to a large extent with economic questions. This legal handbook was written during the time of the Muwahhiddun in Muslim Spain. We recognise in it the great concern of the jurists to root out all kind of injustice in economic transactions. In the so-called Islamic world however - precisely where one is supposedly establishing the shariat - this aspect of the work is no longer taught for it is too inconvenient for the ‘Islamic capitalists’. Among the injustices of that time was usury – the word here is used in its original meaning – namely any unjustified increase accruing to one of the two parties without a corresponding counter value in goods or in work. Ibn Rushd insisted – as all jurists before him – on the social importaince of this question and along with it on the categorical imperative of Islam: "It is obvious from the law that the purpose of the prohibition of usury is (prevention of) the fraud that usury entails, equity in transactions consisting in close approximationn and equivalence (between the goods exchanged)".

Without a doubt Ibn Rushd concords in this respect with the work of Aristotle who likewise in the famous Politea warned against the dreadful phenomenon of usury and the taking of interest. In the Qur´an itself this basic axiom is contained in the curt ayat: ‘Allah has forbidden usury and permitted trade’. Today we are experiencing the reverse in Europa, namely that usury is permitted and free trade is in principle forbidden. While Ibn Rushd percieves in usury the enslavement of man in the outward, Ibn al Arabi perceives of the inner enslavement of man to Allah as his real freedom.

The teaching of Ibn Arabi is based on the recognition of the perfection of the man who knows how to live as the pure ‘slave’ of Allah – that is, in the metaphorical sense of slavehood. This wisdom is neither inwardly-esoteric or outwardly structured. It is nothing less than the harmonious pattern of living represented in the transmitted sunnas of the Prophet Muhammad, may the peace of Allah be upon him. It is in the testimony of submission to the Divine that the Muslim – according to Ibn al-Arabi – finds his greatest freedom. The Qur'an describes such men and women as the ‘friends of Allah – who will feel no fear and who will know no sorrow.’ The Awliya are those persons in whom no trace of the false remains. God always holds them bound in obedience - such that their actions becomes His actions. They are the powerful who are in fact powerless

In a Hadith qudsi it says : My servant does not draw near to Me with anything more loved by Me than the religious duties I have imposed upon him, and My servant continues to draw near to Me with extra acts of worship until I love him. When I love him I am his hearing with which he hears, his seeing with which he sees, his hand with which he strikes and his foot with which he walks.

Ladies and gentlemen I have now come to the end of my talk and I would like to raise one final question in order to bring to a head the matter of the intellectual contribution of European Muslims.

Without a doubt the key question at a European level – irrespective of whether we are Muslims or not – is the question as to whether economy has become a matter of destiny and capitalism a religion. We share with many Europeans a central concern: namely ‘how can one limit and contain Capitalism?’ When Heidegger said that ‘everything becomes a stockable item in the all encompassing structure’ – his paraphrase for the planetary financial techniques then what does this mean, we must ask ourselves, for the human being? Are we to be reduced to a stock of human beings available merely to be exploited?

We as Muslims understand that the phenomenon of usury and the endless process of capital raising represents the actual dynamic of the planetary economy and its final ruin. The titanic is a fitting symbol for this age. However our children will be praying in our new mosques –insh’ALLAH. It is we Europeans who have been able to listen to the last revelation and who have become aware of its significance with respect to this last question.