According to an official German study: The stronger the Muslim faith, the more violent young Muslims are
An official German study states that there is a causal link between faith and violence among young Muslims, thus confirming what everyone intuitively knows. Naturally, the study does not dare to put its finger on the culprit: Islam. It’s too inflammatory. It prefers to blame how the religion of hate and intolerance is instilled. But it is, of course, Islamic texts that sow the seeds of hatred and intolerance. We are taught that we must fight the unbelievers until the full domination of Islam (Quran, 2:193). It teaches that the good believer should not have Jews and Christians as friends (Qur’an 5:51), that men are better than women and have the right to beat them (Qur’an, 4:34), and that wives are sexual objects available to the husband (Qur’an 2:223).
According to this study conducted by German authorities, the more pious young Muslims are, the more likely they are to become violent. According to the study, this phenomenon is not linked to Islam itself, but to how it is taught.

The propensity to commit violent crimes among young Muslim immigrants in Germany increases with the degree of piety, according to a joint study by the Ministry of the Interior and the German Institute of Criminology in Lower Saxony (KFN).
In comparison, the opposite is true for Christian immigrants, according to the study. The tendency for young Catholics and Protestants to commit violent crimes such as armed robbery or assault decreases with their religious fervour.
Christian Pfeiffer, director of KFN and author of the study, says: young Muslim immigrants are often exposed in their religion and their homes to a more conservative view of things, claiming their right to a certain amount of male privilege.
The German Minister of the Interior, Thomas de Maizière, has requested that the results of the study be put on the agenda of the upcoming conference on Islam.
KFN conducted interviews with 45,000 young people aged 14-16 in 61 cities in Germany between 2007 and 2008. And 10,000 of them had an immigrant background.
It found that immigrants who are better integrated come from families that are not religious.

Muslims and violence

The willingness to commit violent crimes grows among young Muslim immigrants in Germany the more religious they become, according to a joint survey by the German interior ministry and the Institute for Criminology Research of Lower Saxony (KFN).

By comparison, the study found that just the opposite was true for Christian immigrants. The willingness to commit violent crimes, such as armed robbery or assault and battery, among young Catholics and Protestants decreases with religious fervor, the KFN study revealed.

The study said the reason for this difference had to do with the very different image of masculinity. Muslim devotion promotes the acceptance of macho behavior, said Christian Pfeiffer, the director of the Lower Saxony research institute and one of the authors of the study.

Pfeiffer said that in their religion, and in the family at home, young Muslim immigrants are frequently exposed to a more conservative world view and lay claim to a variety of male privileges.

The problem with imams

In an effort to explain their results, the study’s authors draw on the findings of Rauf Ceylan, a religious education expert and himself of Turkish extraction, who points to the number of non-German imams, or Muslim priests, preaching and teaching in Germany.

Ceylan maintains that these foreign imams are generally only in Germany temporarily, speak no German and have little contact with German culture. Most of them, he says, call for a return to a more conservative Islam and retreat into the practitioner’s original ethnic culture. For them, male dominance is normal and their teachings demand the same from Muslim youths, Ceylan says.

Christian Pfeiffer, from the KFN, also points out that the phenomenon is not due to Islam itself, but to the way it is taught.

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere has called for the study’s results to be put on the agenda of the next Islam conference.

Different levels of integration

The KFN study interviewed a total of 45,000 14-16 year-olds in 61 cities across Germany between 2007 and 2008. Of these, 10,000 had an immigrant background.

It found that the best adjusted and most integrated immigrants came from non-religious families. More than 41 percent of these were looking to get a high school diploma, nearly 63 percent had German friends and 66 percent viewed themselves as German.

The figures among young Muslims were strikingly different: only 16 percent were pursuing a high school diploma, 28 percent had German friends and about 22 percent considered themselves German.

Author: Gregg Benzow (dpa/AP/AFP)
Editor: Andreas Illmer

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