In search of a political voice

Cold fluorescent light and DIY store chairs fill the carpeted room. It's 16 February, exactly one week before the Bundestag elections, and the topic is politics and the place of Muslims in German society. Around 200 believers have come to the Dar As-Salam mosque in Berlin Neukölln looking for information, clarity and perhaps even a recommendation for the election. Men are seated on the left and women on the right.

Not all are regular visitors to the mosque. Sitting next to me is Hassan, a man in his twenties who fled Palestine with his family at the age of three. He found out about the event through Instagram, he says. 

Hassan is surprised at how reserved Germans are when it comes to who they will vote for. They are tight-lipped about it, as they are when it comes to money. 

"So, who would you vote for?" I ask him.

"Until three years ago, I voted, mostly SPD. Not anymore."

"And if you had to vote?"

"Probably AfD."

Before I can ask why, the event starts. "Mus(lim)s Wahl" is the name of the panel discussion, organised by the Council of Berlin Imams. As the name suggests, it deals with fundamental issues—questions that have also brought Hassan here. Are Muslims allowed to vote, and if so, should they? Hassan tells me that the topic is a regular subject of discussion among his friends.

It's clear that Hassan is not alone in his thoughts. According to a survey by the polling organisation Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, on 23 Februaruy, six per cent of Muslims voted for the AfD, a party that is in part extremist right-wing and describes Islam as "culturally alien". The clear winners among citizens of the Muslim faith were Die Linke with 29 per cent and, close behind, the SPD with 28 per cent of the vote.

While the overall voter turnout was 82.5 per cent of eligible voters, the highest since German reunification in 1989, the Muslim voter turnout has been below the national average for years—and it is likely to have fallen even further this time. This is indicated by the latest survey by the National Discrimination and Racism Monitor (NaDiRa). Two-thirds of Muslims surveyed have little hope in German politicians. In 2022, it was still about half. 

The loss of trust among Muslims was much more dramatic than among the majority—and was also more pronounced than among other groups affected by racism. Why is this the case?

Muslims should vote

The hosts immediately make it clear why the event is so important: social media is teeming with self-appointed sheikhs and preachers explaining to an often very young audience why it is haram (forbidden) as a Muslim to go to the polls in a non-Muslim country. 

To support their views, the bearded online propagandists take Quranic verses and hadiths, i.e. prophetic traditions, out of context. The group Reality Islam in particular, which is close to the Islamist organisation Hizb-ut Tahrir, banned in Germany, campaigned for an election boycott. In a video, a spokesperson for the group explains that Islam does not allow people to take part in a process in which people, and not Allah, decide what is right and wrong. The group's messages reach tens of thousands of people.

However, this is not just the result of well-made propaganda videos, says one of the imams present: "Many Muslims feel that their place in society cannot be taken for granted. Politicians talk about remigration as if we were foreigners, even though we helped build this country."

The question of whether Muslims should take part in elections in a non-Muslim country reveals the general insecurity of German Muslims regarding their identity. The imams want to counter this insecurity by offering a theological viewpoint.

It works for a while. Juanita Villamor, the spokesperson for the Council of Berlin Imams, a young Islamic scholar with dyed blue hair, recapitulates the basics of democracy with a screen presentation. The Basic Law, minority rights, Karl Popper. Political education at the mosque.

Ender Cetin, one of the first imams to be trained in Germany, then cites fatwas from various Islamic houses of scholars, from the Egyptian Fatwa House to the International Fiqh Council, on the subject of elections. They all explicitly allow Muslims to take part in elections, but usually with one condition: "If it benefits Muslims or prevents harm to them."

An everyday life of exclusion

But resistance is growing among the audience. A tall man with glasses is particularly upset. During the break, he grumbles: "They haven't brought a single hadith, not a single verse from the Koran. What do I care about their fatwas and personal opinions?"

His friend tries to calm him down, but this only makes him angrier: "Now there's no more peace. After 15 months in Gaza, peace is over!"

I use the break to ask Hassan, the AfD sympathiser, about his voting motives. 

"Why the AfD in particular? As a Muslim?"

"At least you know what to expect. With the others, you just don't know. Or yes, actually you do know: it's always the same agitation, always against Muslims, in the media, in politics. Nothing changes anyway."

Karl Popper, the philosopher who was quoted at the beginning of the event, defines a society as democratic if it is possible to "get rid of the rulers without bloodshed through a vote." True. But what happens when people have the feeling that only the rulers can be ousted, but not the prevailing conditions?

The irritable mood soon reaches the podium. There, people try to translate the unease into more balanced wording. The feeling of not belonging. To be constantly exposed to generalised accusations at all times. "Even at school they say: Muslims and Germans. Many people still find it hard to imagine that there are German Muslims," says Imam Ender Cetin. 

In 2015, during the long summer of migration when a million refugees arrived in Germany, many Muslims living here felt a newfound sense of responsibility, as if they were welcoming people into their own home. They created contact points in the mosques, translated and provided information. They were used to being "integrated", but now they were doing the integration work themselves. But hardly any of this was reported in the media. "They usually only look when there's a fire somewhere."

That day, no one raised the fact that the Berlin Council of Imams had itself become a target. For years, the Springer newspaper Die Welt has regularly published articles describing some of the imams as "Islamist" and criticising the financial support provided by the Berlin Senate. The imams' alleged offence: they preach in mosques where, according to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Salafists are also active.

Islam made in Germany

One of the imams incriminated as Islamist is sitting on the podium today, Ahmad Abu Jebril, also known as Sheikh Ahmad. He is visibly annoyed by the discussion about whether Muslims should be allowed to vote at all. 

Jebril puts himself in the shoes of a non-Muslim who is watching the event today. "What will they think when they see us? There's a party out there that would love to strip us of our citizenship. We are afraid for our children, our future, and rightly so—but at the same time we are still arguing about whether voting is haram!"

Jebril makes a passionate plea in favour of an "Islam made in Germany". Until now, Muslims in Germany have always tried to solve their problems by importing some doctrine or current from their countries of origin, from Lebanon or Turkey to Germany. 

What is needed instead, he argues, to solve the identity crisis of Muslims, is an Islam that develops independently in Europe and is compatible with the secular-democratic values of this country. "We are an enrichment, that is our identity!" says Jebril.

On the right-hand side of the audience, where the women are sitting, there is loud applause. Among the men: conspicuous silence. One of them mutters angrily: "Everything has to be 'Made in Germany', even our religion. He sounds like the AfD." The question of the extent to which Islam belongs to a democratic, secular Europe is polarising.

Nevertheless, the imams agree on one thing: voting is important, but it is not enough. A minority must be loud to defend its rights and demand opportunities for co-determination. Unfortunately, they say, German Muslims are all too often divided, disunited and incapable of compromise.

At least once they managed to present a united front, says counsellor Imran Sagir. That was when the Berlin local government promised Muslims that not only Christian but also Muslim counselling would be offered in prisons. Then, the local government suddenly backtracked.

In response, several Islamic associations suspended their membership of the Islamforum Berlin, a dialogue body between the Berlin Senate and Islamic communities that is very important to both sides.

The result: since 2016, there have not only been religious services in prisons, but also Friday prayers. "That should show us: Only when we can present a united front can we become a point of contact for politicians," says Sagir. "Then we can really change things for the better."