Berlin, Germany - Four leading Muslim organisations in Germany have banded together in an umbrella group to speak with one voice in the community’s dealings with the government.
Rafet Ozturk of the Turkish Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (Ditib) said the group had joined forces with the Central Council of Muslims, the Islamic Council and the Association of Islamic Cultural Centres.
He said the groups would remain independent but attempt to find common positions on issues affecting the community including immigration, integration and extremism under the auspices of the new Muslim Coordination Council.
"We want to put ourselves to the test on whether we can take decisions together," Ozturk said.
More than 3.2 million Muslims live in Germany, of which about 300,000 are members of Islamic organisations.
About 2.4 million Turks or people of Turkish descent, many of them descendents of "guest workers" invited to Germany in the 1960s and 1970s, live in the country, while around 200,000 of Germany’s Muslims came from North Africa.
There are about 100,000 Iranians in the community and 100,000 Muslims from former Yugoslavia according to official estimates.
Ditib, a Sunni organisation, is the largest group with about 130,000 members.
Germany’s left-right government called a meeting in September, the first of its kind, bringing together political leaders and Muslim community representatives.
Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats had complained that the Muslim community’s internal divisions made it difficult to find an interlocutor on pressing issues.
He said at the September gathering that he hoped the organisations and the government could begin a two-year dialogue addressing integration, Islamic extremism, Islamic religious instruction in schools and the training of imams.
An interior ministry spokesman welcomed the announcement ahead of a new meeting between the government and the Islamic groups on May 2.
But he said the issue of representation was still unclear as only a fraction of Muslims belong to community organisations.
"It remains unclear who represents (Muslims in Germany). The question remains of how we deal with representation of Muslims in Germany," he told a regular government news conference.
"We recognise a major attempt among Muslims to distance themselves from spreading violence."
But Lale Akgun, a member of parliament and the Social Democratic Party’s spokeswoman on Islam, said she did not feel represented by the new council.
"I would have many sleepless nights if these four organisations formed an umbrella group and had the right to define Islam in Germany," she told the daily Rheinischer Merkur.
"These four groups together would represent a very conservative kind of Islam. There would be no place for liberal views."
Council leaders dismissed the criticism, saying they represented the majority of mosques in Germany.