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BANK

First German Muslim bank prepares to open

Germany’s first Muslim bank is opening in Mannheim, with plans to set up ten branches across the country offering banking services according to the ethical rules of the Koran.

First German Muslim bank prepares to open
International institutes have already tapped into the market. Photo: DPA

The Kuveyt Türk Beteiligungsbank, based in Istanbul and Kuwait, is renovating its offices in the south-western city ahead of a planned opening in March, when the plan is to offer day-to-day banking services to the large Muslim community in the region.

Although there is already an Iranian finance institute in northern Germany, it is mostly concerned with export businesses, not with individual customers.

Islamic banking means that a fee is paid for a loan rather than interest, and investments are made only in companies considered to conform to Muslim ethics – this bans buying shares in firms which deal with alcohol, pork or weapons. Highly-speculative investments are also not allowed.

The concept could win over non-Muslims too, as far as Zaid el-Mogaddedi, consultant with the Frankfurt-based Institute for Islamic Banking and Finance, is concerned. He said that although Muslim banks had also been affected by the financial problems of the global financial crisis, they had survived relatively unscathed.

This combined with the ethical element made the idea attractive to new customers. “I believe that this business model could serve as a good example for the new regulation of western banks,” he said.

Michael Gassner, from the Central Council of Muslims, said a Muslim bank could also contribute to better integration in Germany. He said around three quarters of the four million Muslims living here felt closely-tied to the Islamic traditions, with a fifth supportive of the idea of Muslim finance.

“Literally put, he who buys a house feels at home,” he said.

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ISLAM

Mosques in Cologne to start broadcasting the call to prayer every Friday

The mayor of Cologne has announced a two-year pilot project that will allow mosques to broadcast the call to prayer on the Muslim day of rest each week.

Mosques in Cologne to start broadcasting the call to prayer every Friday
The DITIP mosque in Cologne. Photo: dpa | Henning Kaiser

Mosques in the city of the banks of the Rhine will be allowed to call worshippers to prayer on Fridays for five minutes between midday and 3pm.

“Many residents of Cologne are Muslims. In my view it is a mark of respect to allow the muezzin’s call,” city mayor Henriette Reker wrote on Twitter.

In Muslim-majority countries, a muezzin calls worshippers to prayer five times a day to remind people that one of the daily prayers is about to take place.

Traditionally the muezzins would call out from the minaret of the mosque but these days the call is generally broadcast over loudspeakers.

Cologne’s pilot project would permit such broadcasts to coincide with the main weekly prayer, which takes place on a Friday afternoon.

Reker pointed out that Christian calls to prayer were already a central feature of a city famous for its medieval cathedral.

“Whoever arrives at Cologne central station is welcomed by the cathedral and the sound of its church bells,” she said.

Reker said that the call of a muezzin filling the skies alongside church bells “shows that diversity is both appreciated and enacted in Cologne”.

Mosques that are interested in taking part will have to conform to guidelines on sound volume that are set depending on where the building is situated. Local residents will also be informed beforehand.

The pilot project has come in for criticism from some quarters.

Bild journalist Daniel Kremer said that several of the mosques in Cologne were financed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, “a man who opposes the liberal values of our democracy”, he said.

Kremer added that “it’s wrong to equate church bells with the call to prayer. The bells are a signal without words that also helps tell the time. But the muezzin calls out ‘Allah is great!’ and ‘I testify that there is no God but Allah.’ That is a big difference.”

Cologne is not the first city in North Rhine-Westphalia to allow mosques to broadcast the call to prayer.

In a region with a large Turkish immigrant community, mosques in Gelsenkirchen and Düren have been broadcasting the religious call since as long ago as the 1990s.

SEE ALSO: Imams ‘made in Germany’: country’s first Islamic training college opens its doors

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