A Belgian professor urged affluent Muslim countries to show their responsibility towards European Muslims, by assisting in the establishment of Islamic theological schools to address the shortage of imams and intellectual leaders among Belgian Muslims.
"One of the main problems of Muslims in Europe, except maybe for the UK, is the absence of religious intellectual leadership," Felice Dassetto, who teaches sociology at Leuven University, told the Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) on Sunday, January 22.
Referring to the continent's growing Muslim population, this Belgian scholar stressed the need for native European intellectuals to guide Muslims. Dassetto stressed that wealthy Gulf countries, such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, could help establish a kind of Islamic faculty on European campuses.
"They have to help because European Muslims have to connect with the Muslim world," he added.
However, he also stressed, Muslim countries must accept that Muslims in Europe will develop their own specific interpretations of Islam.
Dassetto, who is a member of the Royal Belgian academy, became interested in Islamic anthropology and sociology after the first arrival of Muslim immigrants from Morocco, Turkey and other countries to Belgium in the late 70s.
“This is a new fact in Belgian and European society, when Muslim immigrants started building mosques and Islam became visible. From a sociological point of view, this is very interesting because it is a new reality in Europe, ”he stressed.
Belgian Muslims are estimated to number 450.000 out of a population of 10 million. About half of them are of Moroccan origin, 120.000 of Turkish origin. More than 20 percent of the population of Brussels is Muslim from Morocco, Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh and African countries.
Lack of Muslim intellectuals who had an influence on Belgian mosques. Only one or two imams in Brussels mosques speak Dutch or French.
There are 77 mosques or prayer rooms in Brussels and more than 300 throughout Belgium. Among the 77 imams of the mosque, only two or three speak Dutch or French, the official languages of Belgium.
"You cannot transfer the realities of Islam, for example in Turkey or Morocco, directly to Europe," said Dassetto. "For me it is a big challenge to develop a Muslim theological faculty in Europe." (Mel / Onislam.net / ddhongkong.org). *
