Humanist Association welcomes foundation of the Muslim Forum Germany

The President of the Humanist Association of Germany, Frieder Otto Wolf, has described the founding of the Muslim Forum Germany as a “courageous and valuable step by personalities from the heart of German society”. Wolf said on Wednesday evening in Berlin that the new forum was a “promising and urgently needed initiative to preserve an open society.” The forum, which was founded on the initiative of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, has so far been joined by more than a dozen well-known personalities of Muslim, Alevi, Yazidi and Christian faiths in order to “give a voice to humanistically oriented Muslims.” The founding declaration of the new forum is to be presented in Berlin on Thursday. The founding declaration, which was adopted on April 11, 2015, states that the majority of Muslims in Germany are “not fully represented by the existing Muslim institutions”. The aim is therefore, among other things, to establish an “understanding of Islam that is in line with our basic values and the reality of German life”, is theologically sound and can safeguard the rights and freedoms of the individual. The founding declaration contains an unequivocal commitment to universal human rights as well as statements on the resolute rejection of discrimination of any kind, violence, hate propaganda and religiously based traditions and laws “that contradict human rights or German law.” The forum includes public figures such as the head of the Center for Islamic Theology at the University of Münster, Prof. Dr. Mouhanad Khorchide, the holder of the Chair of Alevism at the Academy of World Religions at the University of Hamburg, Jun.Prof. Dr. Handan Aksünger, and the Islamic scholar and religious educator Lamya Kaddor as well as the psychologist and Islamism expert Ahmad Mansour, the ZDF journalist Abdul-Ahmad Rashid and the journalist Cigdem Toprak. Frieder Otto Wolf also commented on the announcement of the founding of the Muslim Forum published on Wednesday, saying that he was pleased that “alongside the existing and theologically strongly conservative associations, a forum is now being established that is undoubtedly characterized by modern and enlightened beliefs.” He hopes that the forum “can give liberal and informed understandings of Islam the clearly audible voice that we urgently need in view of the polarizing movements in our society and the sometimes widespread hatred against a group of citizens in Germany that is unilaterally reduced to their confession.” The statements on the self-image of the forum, which were articulated in the founding declaration, are “highly compatible with the ideas and goals that we also represent as a worldview community and cultural organization of non-religious people,” said Wolf. The Humanist Association will therefore be happy to be available to the Muslim Forum Germany in future as a point of contact for the non-religious and non-denominational section of the German population.