Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

When Europe Loved Islam
Foreign Policy ^ | MAY 5, 2016 | MARYA HANNUN, SOPHIE SPAAN

Posted on 05/10/2016 10:04:42 AM PDT by nickcarraway

Before the continent started banning hijab, European aristocrats used to change their names to Abdullah and Muhammad, and going to the local mosque was the latest trend.

From the outside, with its high minarets and bulbous Mughal-style dome, the Wilmersdorf mosque, located on Brienner Street in southwest Berlin, looks much the same as it did when it was built in the 1920s. But the institution, just like the city around it, has changed.

Today, the mosque is a quiet place. It mainly serves as an information center: School children sometimes visit on field trips; it hosts interfaith brunches. A small community of Muslims regularly show up for Friday prayer. It’s all a far cry from the days when the Wilmersdorf mosque was the lively center of a spiritual countercultural movement in the Weimar Republic.

The Ahmadiyya missionaries from British India’s Punjab region who built the mosque attracted a varied crowd in 1920s Berlin, hosting lectures that tapped into the philosophical questions of the day. Topics included the growing gap between life and doctrine; the future of Europe; and the future of humanity as a whole. Germans of all ages, wrestling with their profound disillusionment in Christian civilization in the wake of World War I and seeking a religious alternative that was modern and rational, as well as spiritual, attended these lectures, and many of them ultimately converted to Islam.

It’s an odd scene to imagine in today’s Germany, where the right-wing Alternative for Germany party has called for a ban on burqas and minarets, and more than half of Germans say they view Islam as a threat. But in the interwar period, Berlin boasted a thriving Muslim intelligentsia comprising not only immigrants and students from South Asia and the Middle East but German converts from all walks of life. Islam, at

(Excerpt) Read more at foreignpolicy.com ...


TOPICS: Education; Religion; Society
KEYWORDS: europe; islam; worldwari

1 posted on 05/10/2016 10:04:42 AM PDT by nickcarraway
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

"I weel keel you!"


2 posted on 05/10/2016 10:07:55 AM PDT by Jeff Chandler (Everywhere is freaks and hairies Dykes and fairies, tell me where is sanity?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway
seeking a religious alternative that was modern and rational

I thought Germans were smart.

3 posted on 05/10/2016 10:09:46 AM PDT by Jeff Chandler (Everywhere is freaks and hairies Dykes and fairies, tell me where is sanity?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

The link is not working too well for me. But it looks like another Muslim propaganda article, taking Europeans to task for banning the hijab, etc. I don’t expect to see any listing of Islamic atrocities since “the good old days” that the author seems to miss.


4 posted on 05/10/2016 10:10:14 AM PDT by winner3000
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

Europe STILL loves Islam. NO change since the Paris and Brussel attacks. Same reason why America still imports muzzies after 9/11/2001.


5 posted on 05/10/2016 10:12:51 AM PDT by 353FMG
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: winner3000
I don’t expect to see any listing of Islamic atrocities since “the good old days” that the author seems to miss.

Well, you can only fit so many words in an article; you have to edit something out.

6 posted on 05/10/2016 10:13:05 AM PDT by Jeff Chandler (Everywhere is freaks and hairies Dykes and fairies, tell me where is sanity?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

Loving those who would slit your throat.


7 posted on 05/10/2016 10:21:04 AM PDT by I want the USA back (Patriarchal binary all original-equipment breeder and White-privileged crusader.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway
Germans were no exception in displaying this kind of openness and even fascination with Islam.


8 posted on 05/10/2016 10:22:07 AM PDT by samtheman (Trump For America.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

It was also the period when Kitchener stomped a big bloody hole in Islam in the Sudan.
He is the example we should have been following when dealing with Islam.


9 posted on 05/10/2016 10:22:11 AM PDT by Little Ray (NOTHING THAT SOMEONE ELSE HAS TO PAY FOR IS A RIGHT.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

Its rather a silly article.

in the 1920’s, Europe did not “love” islam. One informational mosque in Berlin, run by a gay jewish convert, with a few adherents, and used for intellectual discussions and debates is nothing more than a mere curiosity for a few of the intellectual elites of the day. It had zero acceptance or knowledge among the mass of the population, and thus zero effect on popular culture, economics or governance.

Contrast that with mass Muslim immigration of today, approaching 10% of the entire population, consisting almost entirely of uneducated, illiterate, unskilled inbred people from the most backward of Muslim nations.

There is absolutely NO comparison between the two situations.


10 posted on 05/10/2016 10:40:57 AM PDT by PGR88
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: PGR88

Foreign Policy is the official publication of the Council on Foreign Relations. So there’s that.


11 posted on 05/10/2016 11:03:44 AM PDT by D_Idaho ("For we wrestle not against flesh and blood...")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Jeff Chandler

“Wait till Mohammed sees us....He LOVED US!””


12 posted on 05/10/2016 11:04:46 AM PDT by dfwgator
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

bump


13 posted on 05/10/2016 1:37:26 PM PDT by Albion Wilde (In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. --George Orwell)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway
It's not a mosque, it's a prayer hall™ information center
14 posted on 05/10/2016 1:55:30 PM PDT by Company Man (Trump towers.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson