The Kritische Islamkonferenz or KIK (English: Critical Islam Conference) is an irregular organised event in Germany, which was conceived to be the critical counterpart to the Deutsche Islamkonferenz (German Islam Conference). Its first edition took place in 2008 in Cologne, where it was co-hosted by the Central Council of Ex-Muslims and the Giordano Bruno Foundation. [1] The second edition was held in Berlin in 2013.
According to the self-conception of the organisers, the second Kritische Islamkonferenz (2013) was an "alternative dialogue forum" to the Deutsche Islamkonferenz (held annually from 2006 to 2009). They considered efforts to "improve the integration of migrants" by "strengthening religious identity" to have been a "failure". Whoever reduces "the individual to a single religious group identity", obstructs the "emancipation of individuals" and stimulates the "development of parallel societies". By contrast, they should rely on the "model of transcultural society" in which "each individual, on the basis of secular values, has the opportunity" to "shape their lives autonomously", and thus experience "a cultural diversity that is actually an enrichment, rather than a threat". Instead of the integration policy, an "emancipation policy" should be followed, in the midst of which stands the "individual" and not the "construct of a supposedly homogenous social group". On this basis, society should be further developed in the sense of human rights. [2]
On 31 May and 1 June 2008 in Cologne, [3] the following speakers held lectures: Mina Ahadi, Michael Schmidt-Salomon, Ralph Giordano, Hartmut Krauss, Philippe Witzmann, Stephan Grigat and Klaus Blees. Aside from them, there were several panel discussions. The following speakers contributed to these panels: Maryam Namazie (Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, UK), Ehsan Jami (Central Committee for Ex-Muslims, Netherlands), Afsane Vahdat (Central Council for Ex-Muslims in Scandinavia, Sweden), Shahnaz Moratab (Central Council of Ex-Muslims, Germany), Mina Ahadi, Sonja Fatma Bläser, Thomas Maul, Arzu Gazi, Assia Maria Harwazinski, Margalith Kleijwegt and Günter Wallraff. The slogan of the first Kritische Islamkonferenz was "Aufklären statt verschleiern" (loosely translated: "Enlightening instead of disguising"; the latter can both mean "to obscure" and "to cover oneself (with a veil)"). [4] : 6:02
In 2013, the second Kritische Islamkonferenz took place on 11 and 12 May in the af Auditorium Friedrichstraße in Berlin. The following speakers presented: Hamed Abdel-Samad, Mina Ahadi, Lale Akgün, [5] Necla Kelek, Lukas Mihr, Michael Schmidt-Salomon, Arzu Toker and Ali Utlu. The night before on 10 May, the film Der Iran-Job was shown in the Hackesche Höfe cinema. According to an announcement by the organisers, unlike the 2008 conference, the 2013 conference would also feature liberal and progressive Muslims. This resulted from a supposed need for an alliance between secularist and liberal religious forces to defend the "open society" against the "double threat of political Islam and chauvinistic xenophobia". For example, it was during this conference that reformist Muslim Seyran Ateş presented her vision of a liberal mosque for the first time. The theme was "Selbstbestimming statt Gruppenzwang. Gegen Islamismus und Fremdenfeindlichkeit." ("Self-determination instead of peer pressure. Against Islamism and xenophobia"). [4] : 8:00
Islam in Austria is the largest minority religion in the country, practiced by 7.9% of the total population in 2016 according to the Austrian Academy of Sciences. The majority of Muslims in Austria belong to the Sunni denomination. Most Muslims came to Austria during the 1960s as migrant workers from Turkey and Yugoslavia. There are also communities of Arab and Afghan origin.
Maryam Namazie is a British-Iranian secularist, communist and human rights activist, commentator, and broadcaster. She is the Spokesperson for Fitnah – Movement for Women’s Liberation, One Law for All and the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain. She is known for speaking out against Islam and Islamism and defending the right to apostasy and blasphemy.
Millî Görüş or Erbakanism is a religious-political movement and the ideology of a series of Islamist parties inspired by Necmettin Erbakan. It argues that Turkey can develop with its own human and economic power by protecting its core Islamic values and combating European imperialism. Multiple political parties in Turkey adopted the ideology, such as New Welfare Party, Felicity Party, Virtue Party, Welfare Party, National Salvation Party and National Order Party. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a lieutenant of Erbakan, founded the more moderate Justice and Development Party, which has governed Turkey since 2002.
The Central Council of Ex-Muslims is a German association (Verein) advocating for the rights and interests of non-religious, secular persons of Muslim heritage who have left Islam. It was founded on 21 January 2007 and as of May 2007 had about 200 members, with "hundreds" of membership applications yet to be processed.
Necla Kelek is a Turkish-born German feminist and social scientist, holding a doctorate in this field, originally from Turkey. She gave lectures on migration sociology at the Evangelische Fachhochschule für Sozialpädagogik in Hamburg from 1999 until 2004.
Mina Ahadi is an Iranian-Austrian political activist. She is a member of the Central Committee and Politburo of the Worker-communist Party of Iran.
The Cologne Central Mosque is a building commissioned by German Muslims of the Organization DİTİB for a large, representative Zentralmoschee in Cologne, Germany. This mosque was inaugurated by Turkish President Erdogan. After controversy, the project won the approval of Cologne's city council.
The Giordano Bruno Foundation is a Germany-based non-profit foundation under public law that promotes evolutionary humanism and the enlightenment. It was founded by entrepreneur Herbert Steffen in 2004 and was named after Giordano Bruno. Cofounder and spokesperson is Michael Schmidt-Salomon. He has formed the Executive Board with Ulla Wessels since 2022. The foundation has more than 10,000 supporting members and 50 regional and university groups.
Michael Schmidt-Salomon is a German author, philosopher, and public relations manager. As chairman of the Giordano Bruno Foundation, a humanist organization that is critical of religion, he has been identified as Germany's "Chief Atheist." His books include the Manifesto of Evolutionary Humanism: A Plea for a Contemporary Culture, and Die Kirche im Kopf. His children's book Wo bitte geht's zu Gott?, fragte das kleine Ferkel caused controversy for its depiction of religion.
Gudrun Krämer is a German scholar of Islamic history and co-editor of the third edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam. She is professor of Islamic studies, Chair of the Institute of Islamic Studies at the Free University of Berlin and a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Her expertise is in topics related to modern Islamic history and in Islam, democracy, and modernity.
Marwa Ali El-Sherbini, was an Egyptian woman and German resident who was killed in 2009 during an appeal hearing at a court of law in Dresden, Germany, when she was three months pregnant. She was stabbed by Alex Wiens, an ethnic German immigrant from Russia against whom she had testified in a criminal case for verbal abuse. El-Sherbini's husband, who was present at the hearing, tried to intervene. He too was repeatedly stabbed by Wiens and was then mistakenly shot and wounded by a police officer who was called to the court room. Wiens was arrested at the crime scene and subsequently tried for murder and attempted murder. He was found guilty of both charges; it was also found that Wiens's actions constituted a heinous crime, because they were committed in front of a child, against two people, in a court of law, and fulfilled the murder criterion of treacherousness, such as hatred against foreigners. Wiens was sentenced to life imprisonment.
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Arzu Toker is a German-speaking writer, journalist, publicist and translator of Turkish descent.
Ex-Muslims are people who were raised as Muslims or converted to Islam and later left the religion of Islam. Challenges come from the conditions and history of Islam, Islamic culture and jurisprudence, and sometimes local Muslim culture. This has led to increasingly organized literary and social activism by ex-Muslims, and the development of mutual support networks and organizations to meet the challenges of abandoning the beliefs and practices of Islam and to raise awareness of human rights abuses suffered by ex-Muslims.
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Sineb El Masrar is a Moroccan-German author, journalist, and Islamic feminist.
Carla Amina Baghajati is the media officer of the Islamic Faith Association in Austria and co-founder of the "Initiative muslimischer ÖsterreicherInnen". She has been described as one of the best-known faces of Islam in Austria. She was actually born in what was West Germany, but moved to Vienna as a student in 1987 and stayed.
Institute for Secular Law is a non-governmental organisation founded in Oberwesel (Germany) in 2017, that promotes the principles of secularism, separation of state and religion, and the neutrality of the state as referred to in the Basic Law.