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Geneva University launches new course to help imams integrate in Swiss society

As the academic year begins at the University of Geneva (Unige), a new programme is on offer that aims to help imams in Switzerland integrate into Swiss society.

Published: 18 September 2017 11:24 CEST
Geneva University launches new course to help imams integrate in Swiss society
Geneva University. Photo: Jack/Flickr
Speaking to La Tribune de Genève, Unige’s rector Yves Flückiger said the new programme would include courses in French language, political philosophy, human rights and ethics. 
 
The optional programme is open to imams and people who teach in Islamic centres and has come out of discussions with Geneva cantonal government, he said. 
 
Though normally participants would pay for it, the pilot year is being funded by Unige and the canton, which will cover the 10,000 franc per person costs for 10-12 participants.
 
“Our mission is not to train imams but to contribute to their integration,” said Flückiger.
 
Besides the programme for imams, the university will also offer courses teaching Islamic theology to all students, and a series of conferences focusing on Islamic thought. 
 
The initiative is in keeping with the university’s international outlook,  Flückiger said, in the same vein as last year’s new scheme, Horizon Academique, which allowed 35 refugee students to sit in on classes for free.  

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.

Published: 11 October 2021 10:28 CEST
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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