Hans-Peter Raddatz

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Hans-Peter Raddatz (born August 18, 1941 in Koblenz ) is a German orientalist , economist , consultant and publicist . He has emerged through his writings critical of Islam .

Life

After two years of military service, Raddatz studied oriental studies , economics and ethnology at the University of Hamburg and the University of Bonn (among others with the orientalist Annemarie Schimmel , at that time scientific adviser at the seminar for oriental languages ​​at the University of Bonn) and received her doctorate in oriental studies with Otto Spies and economics in 1967 of the University of Bonn. His dissertation “The position and meaning of Sufyān aṯ-Ṯaurī (d. 778); a contribution to the intellectual history of early Islam. ”was later the basis for the article he wrote on the subject in the Encyclopaedia of Islam . From 1967 he worked for international banks and companies a. a. in the Middle East and the United States.

Positions

In Herbig-Verlag published Raddatz since 2001 a series of books in which he demands a critical examination of Islam and Western society. He appears at home and abroad as well as on the radio and publishes in print media. Raddatz, a non-party member, is also active in policy advice.

He calls on Muslims to recognize the separation of religion and state , the state monopoly on the use of force and equal rights for women. Only in this way could Muslims and non-Muslims coexist in a democracy. He calls on Muslims in the Islamic and Western world to recognize the right of the individual to withdraw from the religious community (negative religious freedom) . At the same time he calls for a restriction of religious freedom in Germany: Those “ Sharia parts” of Islam that contradict the Basic Law should not fall under the protection of Article 4 of the Basic Law (religious freedom). He speaks of a "Lex Islam" and calls for a thorough review of this article, since the formulation of this article did not take into account religions that were based on their own state order, rejected religious freedom and aimed at abolishing the legal order from which they were free Exercise owed.

In 2001, Raddatz was one of the signatories of an appeal against the dismissal of the right-wing conservative first lieutenant in the reserve, Götz Kubitschek , from the Bundeswehr. Kubitschek had been accused of publications in the Junge Freiheit and other publications which, because of the political stance they contained, made his remaining in the Bundeswehr unsustainable.

Raddatz criticizes the dialogue between politicians, church representatives and universities with Muslims. He accused the late Pope John Paul II of being “ theosophically conditioned” and attempting to replace the Catholic Church with a mixed religion called “Chrislam”. As He argued that John Paul II. 1986 and 2002 clergymen of different religions, including Muslim to World Days of Prayer for Assisi invited. In June 2006 Raddatz published the article “Assisi and back” in “ The New Order ”, in which he spoke to John Paul II with Benedict XVI. compared and praised the latter's criticism of Islam.

reception

The explanatory approaches and theses put forward by Raddatz as well as his methodology are criticized by some Islamic scholars.

Udo Steinbach , then director of the German Orient Institute, who was criticized for his alleged lack of distance to Islamist groups and personalities, says of Raddatz: “He looks for what is also present in Islam in terms of militancy and sets it up than Islam out. I see him not only as critical of Islam, but downright Islamophobic. "

Werner Schiffauer , cultural anthropologist in Frankfurt (Oder), who speaks out against a ban on Islamist groups, says: “His work does not do justice to the complexity of Islam, he works too imprecisely. I see him as an author who relies on dramatizing the situation. "

Werner Hübsch, then head of the department for interreligious dialogue in the Archdiocese of Cologne, criticized Raddatz's dogmatic approach. For him, truth and dialogue are mutually exclusive, "the dialogue with other religions appears in this view as a betrayal of the truth of faith".

Christian Troll SJ from the Catholic Philosophical-Theological University of Sankt Georgen in Frankfurt am Main dealt with Raddatz's work Von Gott zu Allah? Christianity and Islam dealt with in liberal society . Among other things, Troll comes to the following conclusion: “Hans-Peter Raddatz's view of the social and intellectual history of the Muslim peoples is one-sidedly system-oriented and essentialist. If on the one hand it seems sensible and justified [...] to take due account of the normative and systemic aspects, [...] it is just as important to keep an eye on the diversity and the unpredictable possibilities that characterize the lived Islam of Muslims . [...] It is not acceptable to simply ascribe to the surface the variety of Muslim realizations and implementations, which are nourished from one and the same corpus of formative-normative basic sources , while the core of Islam - as an abstract Islamic essence, so to speak - is unchangeable and decreed the essence of this religion and culture deprived of any dialogue. "

The Islamic scholar Martin Riexinger has also taken a closer look at Raddatz's writings. In a scholarly article he accuses him: “Overall, however, untenable claims and allegations predominate, both with regard to Islamic and Western history. [...] Raddatz's attacks on Islam are part of an anti-liberalism that is quite similar to that of the Islamists. ”In addition, in this article he describes factual errors in his arguments that can be traced back to“ ignorance ”.

The Islamic scholar Tilman Nagel valued Raddatz's book From God to Allah? Christianity and Islam in the liberal progressive society as follows: “The specialist in one area or another, which Raddatz inevitably had to traverse with great strides, will find that this or that detail could be weighted differently. The author has to be credited with the fact that despite countless “intercultural” symposia, despite the establishment of courses for “intercultural didactics” etc., a comparative cultural and social history of Western Europe and the Islamic world that meets scientific standards is still missing. Raddatz is familiar with both areas and thanks to his degree in Islamic studies, he also has access to Islamic literature. Therefore, the comparison stands on a solid foundation and should encourage dialogue lovers on both sides to further considerations. ... How about if the dialogue friends paused and thought about themselves and what they were doing? You could find valuable and well-founded suggestions for this in Raddatz's book! "

Works

  • The position and importance of Sufyan al-Thawrī, a contribution to the intellectual history of early Islam . Dissertation at the University of Bonn in 1967.
  • Early Islamic inheritance law . In: Die Welt des Islams , 13, Brill (Verlag) , Leiden 1971.
  • From God to Allah? Christianity and Islam in the liberal progressive society . Herbig-Verlag , Munich 2001, 3rd, revised edition 2005, ISBN 3-7766-2212-1
  • From Allah to Terror? The Jihad and the Deformation of the West. Herbig, Munich 2002, ISBN 978-3-7766-2289-8
  • Allah's veil - the woman in the clash of cultures. Herbig, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-7766-2366-7 .
  • The Turkish danger? Risks and opportunities. Herbig, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-7766-2392-6 .
  • Allah's women - jihad between Sharia and democracy. Herbig, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-7766-2448-5 .
  • Iran - Persian high culture and irrational power. Herbig, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-7766-2488-5 .
  • Allah and the Jews - The Islamic Renaissance of Anti-Semitism. wjs, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-937989-26-6 .
  • Allah in Wonderland: Money, Sex and Power Elites. Western Orient Institute 2009, ISBN 978-3-00-026269-2 .
  • as translator and commentator: Bat Yeʾor : Europe and the Coming Caliphate. Islam and the radicalization of democracy (Original: Europe, globalization, and the coming universal caliphate , 2011). Duncker & Humblot , Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-428-13831-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Gabi Wuttke: Islam does not agree with the Basic Law. In: Deutschlandradio , October 20, 2005 (interview).
  2. From Allah to Terror? , P. 295
  3. 28.09.01 / Appeal to the Bundeswehr: Against the dismissal of conservative soldiers / The "Götz Kubitschek case". Retrieved July 6, 2019 .
  4. So in his book "From God to Allah?" Quoted from Patrick Bahners : The panic makers. The German fear of Islam. A pamphlet, Munich 2011, pp. 77f
  5. Hans-Peter Raddatz: Assisi and back. In: The New Order , vol. 60, issue 3 (June 2006)
  6. a b Matthias Stolz, Jochen Bittner : Allah's Wrath. In: Die Zeit , October 27, 2005.
  7. Patrick Bahners: Die Panikmacher: the German fear of Islam: a polemic . CH Beck, 2011, p. 78
  8. Christian W. Troll : Islam dialogue: Sale of Christianity? In: Voices of the time via the Philosophisch-Theologische Hochschule Sankt Georgen , Issue 2, February 2002, pp. 103–116.
  9. Martin Riexinger: Hans-Peter Raddatz: Islam critic and kinsman of Islamism. In: Thorsten Gerald Schneiders : Islamophobia. When the lines of criticism blur. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag 2009, p. 459ff., Here 469.
  10. ^ Tilman Nagel : Eagerly drive mission and wait. In: Junge Freiheit , July 13, 2001.