Muslims' struggle for recognition in Germany in the 21st century

Muslim organizations in Germany are not yet officially recognized as religious corporations according to public law despite various attempts to obtain this status which would grant them both legal rights and public legitimacy.

Since the 1980s, this collective struggle for public recognition has been spearheaded by the main Muslim umbrella organizations. Over time, however, new collective identities and forms of organization have emerged in the context of changing public debates.

This paper highlights these shifts in the organizational field from an innovative theoretical perspective—combining approaches from organizational sociology that focus on legitimacy concerns with concepts from political science which underscore the impact of the political environments in Germany and abroad.

This research perspective enables us to understand the manifold tensions Muslim organizations are faced with in Germany—a country that has just recently ‘discovered’ its religious pluralism and that still struggles with accommodating its ‘newcomers’.

Based on over 30 interviews with organizational representatives from Muslim umbrella organizations, these changing public debates are critically analyzed from their perspective.

Organizational responses and claims in the areas of Islamic religious education, imam training, official recognition, and public dialogues are discussed, as well as the creation of a new Muslim peak organization in 2007.

Overall, it can be shown that the collective struggle for Muslim recognition in Germany has been influenced by changing integration and security debates. This has held in particular since the turn of the 21^st century when the government finally acknowledged Germany to be an immigration country while demanding more integration efforts that are often interlinked with security concerns. At the same time a shift of discourse from “foreigners” to “Muslims” as the contested “others” in German society has occurred that directly affects the analyzed Muslim organizations. Their responses and challenges are highlighted throughout this paper.