BY OZDEMIR INCE
HURRIYET- Today I’d like to share with you an interesting e-mail I got from one of my readers in the Netherlands:
‘Today there are 450 mosques in the Netherlands, plus 250 in Sweden and 150 in Denmark. The first mosque here was built in 1991 in Zaandam. The city donated 800,000 guilders (363,000 euros) for its construction. The Dutch people built two minarets in the district, each costing 2 million guilders. They raised millions of euros for their construction. However, now the country is ruing this support. The Netherlands, Belgium and France are all confused about Islam. In France, if one of the witnesses to a wedding is wearing a headscarf, then both the witness and the wedding itself are considered invalid. These countries are cracking down on their Muslim communities. Once the Netherlands was a country whose police shrunk from checking citizens’ identity cards, but now everybody is required to carry valid ID.’
For students of European history, it’s very surprising to see the Europeans’ ignorance and inexperience in dealing with Islam. Over the centuries, most European countries co-existed with Muslim communities as their colonizers. Thus, this relationship didn’t really transcend that of master and slave. Europeans failed to learn about Islamic structures and traditions. In the Netherlands, mosques affiliated with Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate can be controlled and kept in check. But, those connected with various religious orders obey nothing and nobody besides their own authority. They are like feudal structures.
But what must Europe do? First, the old continent should abandon the notion that there is a structural similarity between Christianity and Islam. In Christianity, the salaries of religious officials are often paid by the church, but if we did the same in Islam, in other words, if the various religious orders paid salaries, all hell would break loose. Therefore, despite its shortcomings, the best method for managing Islamic structures is to establish a Religious Affairs Directorate, as Turkey did. All the mosques of Europe, large and small, must be gathered under the helm of one central authority. This is the only way to effectively manage relations between the two faiths.
I don’t mean to say that I care much for our Religious Affairs Directorate, since in my view it clearly has some deficiencies. However, since we mustn’t leave our mosques in the hands of religious communities and orders, such a directorate is the best way to protect them.