Abdul Adhim Kamouss

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Abdul Adhim Kamouss ( French: Abdel Hadime Kamouss , in the fan community briefly Abdul Adhim ; * 1977 in Rabat , Morocco ) is a Moroccan imam who has lived in Germany since 1997 . He became known in Berlin as a fundamentalist preacher who does Islamic -religious youth work. Until at least 2014 he was considered one of the most prominent Salafist preachers in Germany. Since 2016 at the latest, Kamouss has been distancing itself from the German Salafism scene, along with an increasingly critical, public discussion of Salafist content.

Career and activities

Kamouss came to Germany in 1997 to study at the Technical University of Berlin , where he graduated with a degree in electrical engineering . In addition to his preaching activities, he works as a freelance engineer.

Since 2005, Kamouss has preached frequently at the Al-Nur mosque in Berlin-Neukölln, which is generally classified as Salafist . After a publicly controversial appearance on the ARD program Günther Jauch in October 2014, the mosque separated from Kamouss after 17 years of collaboration. According to his own statements, he had already alienated himself from those responsible for the mosque, the appearance at Günther Jauch was only the last occasion. In the summer of 2015, Kamouss described the Lebanese Islamic scholar Salem El-Rafei , who was expelled from Germany by the Berlin Senate for violent statements in sermons and who worked for the mosque for a long time, as a “great sheikh ”, who was one of his teachers.

According to his own account, he has been studying Islam religiously since he was 6 years old and was shaped in the Moroccan offshoot of the Islamic movement Jama'a al Islamiyya . He received continuous training from Islamic scholars and sheikhs, including his older brother, and is still in a learning process today.

Kamouss became particularly well-known for its internet presence. Recordings of his sermons were posted on the Al-Nur Mosque website and other Salafist websites or via YouTube . Similar to other German-speaking preachers like Pierre Vogel , he was long considered a kind of “pop star” in a young fanatic scene. In the media, he was at times referred to as a “Muslim-maker”, as numerous conversions took place in his mosque , especially by young Germans (there were reports of up to five new converts per week).

Positions and controversies

Kamouss gives his sermons and lectures in German and Arabic and represents a strict, orthodox understanding of Islam: As is customary in Salafi Islam, he orients his religious and moral views on the supposed habits of the prophet's companions in the 7th century. In his teachings, Kamouss also often includes the knowledge and judgments of religious scholars of the classic Sunni hadith studies , which he also practices independently.

According to the WDR report Der Moslem-Macher about himself in 2007, he accused the broadcaster of conducting a “major media campaign against Islam” and of spreading fear among Germans about his religion.

In October 2014, Kamouss was reported on the political ARD talk show Günther Jauch that he had been seen in a video made a few years earlier together with the future IS fighter Denis Cuspert . Kamouss admitted this, but stated that he had tried to convince Cuspert that he was on the wrong track. But at some point he could no longer reach Cuspert.

The Constitutional Protection Berlin ruled on the basis of findings from the first half of the 2000s, was formally Kamouss against violence, but still belong as representatives of political Salafism to Radikalisierern. According to his own statements and observations in the scene, in the years from around 2012/13 onwards, Kamouss increasingly distanced itself from the radical and especially from the violence-advocating spectrum of Salafism. In contrast to other German preachers, Kamouss never ran its own fatwa website. According to his own account, he sees himself today as a preacher who wants to protect young people at risk from radicalization .

Kamouss assumes that fanatical Muslims lack a deeper understanding of their religion and that they interpreted the texts without understanding it. He himself attaches great importance to having acquired his religious knowledge from scholars who cannot be held responsible for fanaticism and aberrations. “Islam stops where fanaticism begins.” However, since it addresses a broad spectrum of listeners, some of which are extreme or very extreme Muslims, it does not want to comment on other radical preachers by name.

Kamouss advocates the integration of Muslims in Germany. His wife is German, his children "half German and half Moroccan". He considers himself well integrated in Germany and calls himself “even a symbol of integration”. But he is against assimilation , through which "one loses one's identity." It is wrong to think that one can only be integrated if one is not a practicing Muslim.

In the context of PRIF Report No. 2/2016 of the Hessian Foundation for Peace and Conflict Research , it is stated, referring to the participation of Kamouss in the "non-militant [n] political-missionary [n] which has been aggressively public in Germany since 2003/04. n] current "of the Salafist scene in Germany, of which he is counted as one of the pioneers:" Abdul Adhim Kamouss is now distancing himself from this scene and is increasingly critical of Salafist content in public. "

In the early summer of 2018, he and others founded the Islam Foundation in Germany , for which he now works full-time. This pursues the goal of promoting the social coexistence of Muslims and non-Muslims. Its principles include a commitment to the Basic Law , equal rights for men and women and a distancing from anti-Semitism and homophobia .

Fonts

Abdul Adhim Kamouss: Who Owns Islam? An imam's plea against black and white thinking . dtv, Munich 2018, ISBN 978-3-423-26212-5 .

Reports

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sebastian Leber: How Abdul Adhim Kamouss wants to dust off Islam . In: Tagesspiegel , July 13, 2016, accessed on October 23, 2018.
  2. ↑ a b Abdul Adhim Kamouss . In: Newsletter: Youth Culture, Islam and Democracy , Federal Agency for Political Education , March 19, 2012 (created by ufuq.de - Youth Culture, Media and Political Education in the Immigration Society). Retrieved October 13, 2014.
  3. ↑ After TV disaster: Berlin mosque separates from Talk-Imam Kamouss . In: Spiegel Online , October 20, 2014, accessed June 26, 2016.
  4. ^ A b Matthias Drobinski: Good faith . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , May 16, 2015. Retrieved June 26, 2016.
  5. ↑ Imam deported from the Al-Nur mosque . In: Der Tagesspiegel , May 10, 2005; Incitement preacher El-Rafei is not allowed to return to Berlin . In: Berliner Morgenpost , April 27, 2015. Retrieved June 26, 2016.
  6. ↑ a b c d Tatjana Rogalski: Abdul Adhim Kamouss speaks plain text . In: Huffington Post ', June 30, 2015, accessed December 3, 2015 (interview with Kamouss).
  7. ^ A b Nina Wiedl: Contemporary calls to Islam. Salafi Daʿwa in Germany 2002–2011 ( ISPK studies on terrorism research, 1). Nomos, Baden-Baden 2017, ISBN 978-3-8487-3850-2 , pp. 186-188.
  8. ↑ Gökçen Stenzel: “Muslim Makers” preaches in the city center . In: RP-Online , November 23, 2009. Retrieved October 13, 2014.
  9. ↑ Julia Gerlach: Religion: The casual brainwashers . In: Zeit Online , October 7, 2010. Retrieved October 13, 2014.
  10. ↑ Güner Y. Balci: In the shadow of the Al-Nur mosque . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , February 24, 2009. Accessed June 26, 2016.
  11. ↑ Abdul Adhim comments on the WDR program “Der Moslemmacher” ( Memento from October 17, 2014 in the Internet Archive ). ufuq.de - youth culture, media and political education in the immigration society e. V., December 17, 2007. Retrieved October 13, 2014.
  12. ^ Matthias Drobinski: An alpha animal hisses in the arena . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , October 3, 2014. Retrieved October 13, 2014.
  13. ↑ Mathias Zschaler: Islam-Talk at Jauch: "No fairy lights help . " In: Spiegel Online , September 29, 2014; accessed on October 13, 2014.
  14. ↑ Abdul Adhim Kamouss: Salafist, but not a violent preacher . In: Der Tagesspiegel , October 1, 2014, accessed on June 26, 2016.
  15. ↑ Nina Wiedl, Carmen Becker: Popular preachers in German Salafism. In: Thorsten Gerald Schneiders (ed.): Salafism in Germany. Origins and dangers of an Islamic fundamentalist movement. Bielefeld 2014, p. 173 f.
  16. ↑ Henryk Broder : "Jokes about everything, just not about Mohammed" . In: Die Welt , November 2, 2014, accessed on June 26, 2016 (interview with Kamouss).
  17. ↑ Marwan Abou Taam, Claudia Dantschke , Michael Kreutz, Aladdin Sarhan: Continuous Change. Organization and recruitment practice of the Salafist movement . PRIF report No. 2/2016 (= PRIF report series “Salafism in Germany” . Vol. 2). Edited by Janusz Biene, Christopher Daase , Svenja Gertheiss, Julian Junk, Harald Müller ). Hessian Foundation for Peace and Conflict Research , Frankfurt am Main 2016, ISBN 978-3-942532-98-3 , here footnote on p. 4 hsfk.de (PDF; 429 kB)
  18. ^ Marie Just: Berlin imam wants to promote understanding . In: Tagesspiegel , May 22, 2018. See the foundation's website: stiftung-iid.de
personal data
SURNAME Kamouss, Abdul Adhim
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Abdul Adhim; Kamouss, Abdel Hadime
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Moroccan imam
DATE OF BIRTH 1977
PLACE OF BIRTH Rabat , Morocco