By IRNA,
Berlin : Frankfurt’s Goethe University is to begin a three-year Islamic studies program this winter semester, news reports said Thursday.
The bachelor’s program is to focus scientifically on religious, cultural and historical aspects of Islam.
The scientific success of the Islamic studies program will be reviewed by the university in three years.
Germany announced plans earlier this year to set up institutes for Islamic studies to train new generations of Muslim clerics and religious teachers more attuned to western society, and to exert subtle control over how the country’s growing Muslim population is taught about its faith.
The government has welcomed a proposal by its academic advisory council to create centers of Islamic theology at two or three state-run universities.
“The number of children and young people of Islamic faith in Germany is high and increasing,” according to German Education Minister Annette Schavan.
Germany has long-established faculties for Christian and Jewish theology, but no centers for Islamic studies, even though it has four million Muslims, the largest Muslim population in Europe after France.
Until now, the only German university training Muslim teachers is located in the western city of Muenster.