Europeans imams seek new paths for integration

Muslim leaders and imams from across Europe looked ahead today to a gathering in Vienna, Austria, that one official called a “critical moment” for the faith.

The meeting will try to develop a clear identity for European Muslims that can preserve traditions, but integrate with Western political and social values.

The conference, bringing together more than 150 participants from Britain to Turkey, also seeks to forge new alliances to confront issues of cultural isolation, youth anger and worries about growing radical movements among Europe’s estimated 33 million Muslims.

“This is a critical moment for the Islam in Europe,” said Mouddar Khouja, a top adviser with the Islamic Community in Austria, one of the organisers of the two-day gathering.

“Muslims can integrate and participate, which is our goal, or remain on the fringes. This is where the danger lies.”

Muslim communities in Europe have been under intense pressure to work with anti-terrorism probes following the 2004 Madrid train bombings and the blasts last year on London’s transport system.

European views toward Muslims also hardened after last year’s riots in France and the worldwide fallout from caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed first published in a Danish newspaper.

The challenge for moderate Muslim leaders is to encourage a brand of Islam that rests comfortably in the West and no longer defines itself solely as extensions of homelands in the Arab world and South Asia, organisers said.

“We remain Muslim, but our point of reference must be Europe. This is our home,” said Khouja.

Some steps have been taken. Centres have been established in France and the Netherlands to train new imams with a European perspective.

But the conference may also look at difficulties in some European nations for Muslim immigrants – and even their native-born children – to obtain citizenship. Polls across the European Union, meanwhile, continue to show widespread reservations about possible membership by mostly Muslim Turkey.

Resistance to the Turkey’s EU bid is highest in Austria, which currently holds the presidency of the 25-nation bloc.