Abdel-Hakim Ourghi

Abdel-Hakim Ourghi in Freiburg / Br., May 2017

Abdel-Hakim Ourghi (* 1968 in Oran , Algeria ) is a German- Algerian scholar of Islam , philosopher and religious educator . Since 2011 he has been head of the Islamic Theology / Religious Education department at the Freiburg University of Education .

Life

Ourghi was born in 1968 in the city of Oran in Algeria, where he graduated from high school in 1987. In 1991 he obtained his License in Philosophy from Senia University Oran . In 2006 he graduated from the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg with his dissertation in Islamic studies The Reform Movement in Modern Ibāḍīya: Life, Work and Work of Muḥammad b. Yūsuf Aṭfaiyaš, 1236–1332 hq (1821–1914) received his doctorate. Since 2009 he has been pursuing a habilitation project under the working title The Dialogue Between God and the Devil: A Demythologizing Hermeneutics .

Since 2011 he has been head of the Islamic Theology / Religious Education department at the Freiburg University of Education . His main research interests are Islamic theology, Koran research, the Sunni Fatwa being and the Ibadis in North Africa . His book about the life and work of the Ibadite reformer Muḥammad b. Yūsuf Aṭfaiyaš is considered a standard work.

Abdel-Hakim Ourghi is one of the first to sign the Freiburg Declaration of Secular Muslims from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Ourghi is co-founder of the Ibn Ruschd Goethe Mosque in Berlin, which stands for a secular liberal Islam that separates secular and religious power and strives for a contemporary and gender-equitable interpretation of the Koran and the Hadith.

Positions

Among other things, Ourghi advocates an interpretation of the Koran text with reference to today's world, Friday sermons in German , a stop on the import of foreign imams and a control of foreign funding for mosque associations, foundations and umbrella organizations. Ourghi not only demands a historical-critical reading of the Koran , but also follows the Koran interpretation by Mahmud Muhammad Taha : The Meccan suras of the Koran are fundamentally evaluated differently than the Medinan. Ourghi:

“This demand originally came from Mahmud Taha, a Sudanese scholar who was executed in 1985 for calling for different evaluations of these two parts of the Koran in his book entitled“ The Second Message ”. In his opinion, only the Koran (610–622) revealed in Mecca is considered timeless because it contains teachings that give universal meaning in an ethical sense. In contrast, Muhammad, as a statesman, proclaimed situational Quran passages to an earthly community in Medina (622-632), which should be understood in their historical context. "

In his book “ Reform of Islam: 40 Theses ”, Ourghi advocates the thesis that the Koran, as God's word, has become the word of man over the centuries. “The word of God has been supplemented over the centuries by the exegesis of various scholars. This gave the Koran the status of a human word ”. According to Ourghi, God's word is "to be understood as a human word in the respective historical context". Since the Koran interpretation was written down by fallible people, it should not be canonized. It is "only indirectly about God's word, which was written by different people in different epochs."

Another core thesis in his book reads: “Only as the basic register of a humanistic ethic is the Koran eternal and timeless.” Meanwhile, Ourghi emphasizes the distinction between the ethical and the political-legal Koran as one of the most important foundations for a reform of the Koran and its revival of a humanistic Islam. The political and legal Koran was written in Medina in the period between the revelation and was intended for the social and institutional consolidation of the community that emerged after the emigration of the Prophet in 622 from Mecca to Medina. The Medinan Koran, which was legally, politically and militarily inspired by the 7th century, absolutely no longer fits the current situation of Muslims. The Meccan Koran and part of the Koran revealed in Medina contain the commands and prohibitions of God in acts of worship as well as norms that the reader can also find in the Old and New Testaments .

The efforts of the German state to integrate Orthodox Islam through state treaties or through dialogue formats such as the German Islam Conference is rejected by Ourghi: “Islam in its conservative form, which is preached here by the umbrella organizations here, does not belong to Germany. But only a liberal Islam that is compatible with our western values ​​and our constitution ”.

Controversy

In January 2014, Ourghi made plagiarism allegations against Mouhanad Khorchide regarding his book Islam is Mercy . Ourghi's approach was criticized by Hermann Horstkotte and Ruben Karschnick in Die Zeit and by Jörg Imran Schröter in the Islamische Zeitung . The Islamic scholar Thomas Amberg , who received an award-winning doctorate on the work of Muhammad Shahrour and is considered a Shahrour expert in Germany, vehemently contradicted the plagiarism allegations by Ourghi in a statement published on the website of the University of Münster and described them as diffuse, flimsy and malicious.

In August 2016 Ourghi accused the DITIB -Funktionär Murat Kayman ago, this would have defamed him on his blog as apostates, what a call for murder is tantamount against him.

In the Frankfurter Rundschau , the Islamic scholar Muhammad Sameer called Murtaza Ourghi's approach "unreflected modernization proposals", as excluding the Medinan period of Muhammad's life would have dramatic consequences for the ritual and ethics of Islam. The direction of prayer to Mecca was determined in Medina, the law of fasting in the month of Ramadan, the alms tax and the pilgrimage rite also come from the time in Medina. With his proposals, Ourghi would suddenly tear down three of the five pillars of the Islamic rite. A clear division into Meccan and Medinan suras is also not possible. Many of the suras are a conglomerate, consisting of Meccan and Medinan verses. With other suras it is unclear whether they were revealed in Mecca or Medina. Theologians Silvia Horsch and Hakkı Arslan alike criticized the fact that uncomfortable verses from the Koran cannot simply be declared invalid. This would require a hermeneutic that is understandable for believers, which Ourghi does not present. Theological work requires the hermeneutics to think further and to re-contextualize the Koran .

In a press release, the Liberal-Islamic Bund distanced itself from Ourghi and its Freiburg declaration , as it could not be called liberal and Ourghi "has recently been providing support to racist and Islamophobic discourses in Germany".

Ourghi's posting of theses on the Dar Assalam mosque in Berlin in the course of his book promotion for Reform of Islam: 40 theses were condemned as a PR gag by representatives of the Protestant Church. It is questionable how Ourghi intends to influence the Muslim communities with such actions, if he is not looking for a conversation with those who represent Islam, but rather strives for media attention. Ourghi defended the theses in an interview with the Evangelical Press Service .

The Islamic scholar Michael Kiefer expressed his concern that Ourghi kept referring to “the” Muslims in his discourse. In two decades of the Islamic debate it had become clear that “the” Muslims as a clearly defined group in Germany did not exist. The heterogeneity has been shown to be considerable. Differentiation is therefore urgently needed.

Publications

Books

• Reform of Islam: 40 theses . Claudius-Verlag - Evangelical Press Association for Bavaria, Munich 2017 ISBN 3-53262-802-3

• Introduction to Islamic Religious Education . Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag 2017 ISBN 3-78673-102-0

items

• Muslims don't need western protectors , NZZ , July 28, 2018
• Forty theses for a reformed Islam. He calls for a dialogue with the progressive, in Emma , p. 67 , November-December 2017,

Web links

• Literature by and about Abdel-Hakim Ourghi in the catalog of the German National Library
• Abdel-Hakim Ourghi at the Freiburg University of Education

Footnotes

1. ^ Thomas Schmidinger : Book review - Abdel-Hakim Ourghi: The reform movement in the modern Ibāḍīya. Life and work of Muḥammad b. Yūsuf Aṭfaiyaš In: Der Islam (de Gruyter), Vol. 87, 2011, pp. 274–276
2. ↑ Joint declaration by secular Muslims in Germany, Austria and Switzerland (Freiburg Declaration)
3. ↑ See Declaration of Secular Muslims: “Islam from the seventh century no longer exists” , Die Zeit , Sept. 22, 2016
4. ↑ Uta Keseling: Everyone prays together in the Ibn Rushd Goethe mosque . ( Morgenpost.de [accessed June 19, 2017]).
5. ↑ Abdel-Hakim Ourghi in conversation: "This Islam does not belong to Germany!" . Neue Zürcher Zeitung , August 25, 2016
6. ↑ Beat Stauffer: Interview with Abdel-Hakim Ourghi - «This Islam does not belong to Germany!» Neue Zürcher Zeitung, August 25, 2016
7. ↑ Abdel-Hakim Ourghi: Reform of Islam. 40 theses. Munich 2017, p. 74 and p. 81
8. ↑ Abdel-Hakim Ourghi: Reform of Islam. 40 theses. Munich 2017, p. 85ff.
9. ↑ "Islamic scholars see headscarves as critical for women" , domradio.de, March 9, 2018
10. ↑ iran German Radio from January 8, 2014: Plagiarism allegations against Islam theologians
11. ^ Hermann Horstkotte, Ruben Karschnick: Islam studies in Münster: Khorchide in a headlock . In: The time . January 10, 2014, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed on August 22, 2016]).
12. ^ Debate on Islamic religious instruction in public schools: reply to the Ourghi article in the FAZ of October 9, 2014 by Dr. des. Jörg Imran Schröter (MA). Retrieved August 29, 2016 . 
13. ^ Opinion on the plagiarism allegations by Abdel-Hakim Ourghi by Dr. Thomas Amberg. January 19, 2014, accessed July 21, 2017 . 
14. ↑ Focus Online: Researcher critical of Islam claims: Ditib man "encourages my murder". Retrieved August 23, 2016 . 
15. ↑ Thomas Thiel: Islam Debate: Coordinator of the Mosque Association defamed critics . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . August 16, 2016, ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed August 23, 2016]).
16. ↑ Muhammad Sameer Murtaza: In the stranglehold of extremist groups . In: fr-online.de . ( fr.de [accessed on April 26, 2017]).
17. ↑ "The discourse about reform and Islam is a self-talk" - IslamiQ . In: IslamiQ - news and debate magazine on Islam and Muslims . October 31, 2017 ( islamiq.de [accessed November 8, 2017]).
18. ↑ LIB eV Accessed on November 8, 2017 . 
19. ↑ Abdel-Hakim Ourghi: A Luther of Islam? | Sunday paper - 360 degrees evangelical. Retrieved October 20, 2017 .  ; see also A Muslim calls for reforms! , Emma (magazine) , Oct 10, 2017
20. ↑ Islamic scholars: What is behind the "thesis campaign" at the Dar Assalam mosque . In: THE WORLD . October 9, 2017 ( welt.de [accessed October 12, 2017]).
21. ^ Ourghi defends "theses" on Berlin mosque. In: Sunday paper - 360 degrees evangelical. Retrieved October 20, 2017 . 
22. ^ Frankfurter Rundschau: Islam and anti-Semitism: Islam is not generally anti-Semitic . In: Frankfurter Rundschau . ( fr.de [accessed on May 20, 2018]). Islam and anti-Semitism: Islam is not generally anti-Semitic ( memento of the original from May 21, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.