Some 20,000 people took to the streets in the western German city of Cologne, waving German and Turkish flags, to protest against the use of violence in the name of Islam.
The marchers had two starting points -- a mosque and a cathedral -- and converged in the middle of the city for the event organized by the Islamic-Turkish Union with the slogan "Hand in Hand for Peace and Against Terror."
They carried banners proclaiming "Islam is peace," and "we are against terror in all its forms."
Ridvan Cakir, the president of the Islamic-Turkish union, told the crowd that terrorism "has no religion and no nationality."
Fritz Behrens, the interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, said, "I want us to live together, and not side by side."
His opposite number from conservative Bavaria, Guenther Beckstein, added: "We want dialogue with the Moslems."
But that would have to be in German. Beckstein's party, the Christian-Social Union hardened its position on immigration at a congress this weekend, demanding that immigrants respect German culture.
Beckstein said they should "learn German, and work and celebrate together with us."
In the wake of the killing in the Netherlands of filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a suspected Islamic extremist early this month, various initiatives have been launched in Germany to better integrate the three and a half million Muslims who live in the country.
A wave of anti-Muslim attacks broke out following the Dutch filmmaker's murder, prompting fears that violence could spread over the border to Germany.
Marieluise Beck, a government expert on migration, refugees and integration, said the protest as "a clear and necessary signal. We are all in shock over the brutal murder of Theo van Gogh and attacks on Muslim establishments in The Netherlands."
On Saturday, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder called on Muslims to better integrate themselves into German society and warned against what he called a "conflict of cultures".
According to the national statistics office, in the first half of 2004, one immigrant in five in Germany was unemployed compared with a national average of one in 10.