A further rationale for Islam classes is to “immunize” Muslim students from fundamentalism, as Protestant leader Heinrich Bedford-Strohm put it. Of particular concern is radicalization that might lead to violence. Since 2013, more than 1,000 people have left Germany to fight with or support the Islamic State and other terrorist organizations, most of them under […]

Some German politicians are pushing for an expansion of Islam classes in public schools as a way to encourage the cultural integration of Muslim students and to promote an interpretation of Islam that highlights German values. How will study of Islam that skips over so much of what the faith inculcates that discourages “cultural integration” […]

Last year, the AfD hung campaign posters in Dortmund featuring women in burqas and the slogan “Stop Islamization.” This year’s poster bore the words “Islam-free schools!” under an image of five beaming, light-skinned children. Seddiqzai, who was born to Afghan parents in the German city of Bochum and who wears a full beard and Nikes […]

Nor will the students be told about the magnitude of the destruction and killing wrought by Muslim armies. The ferocity of the Muslim attacks, the gigantic loss of life, can be elided: “Muslim armies tried repeatedly to conquer India, and to spread the faith of Islam; ultimately they succeeded at both.” That is one way […]