Katajun Amirpur

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Katajun Amirpur (2009)

Katajun Amirpur ( listen ? / I PersianAudio file / audio sample کتایون امیرپور, [ cætɑjuːn ɛ æmiːɾˈpuːɾ ]; * 1971 in Cologne ) is a German - Iranian journalist and Islamic scholar .

Life

Her father Manutschehr Amirpur was an Iranian cultural attaché under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi , her mother is German. Katajun Amirpur studied Islamic studies and political science at the University of Bonn and Shiite theology in Tehran. She then taught at the Free University of Berlin , the University of Bamberg , the University of Bonn and the University of Philosophy in Munich . She did her doctorate in 2000 on Shiite Koran exegesis ( Abdolkarīm Sorūš ' thinking and impact in the Islamic Republic of Iran). She completed her habilitation with a thesis on the Shiite theologian and long-time director of the Islamic Center Hamburg (1970-78), Mohammad Modschtahed Schabestari . From February 2010 to 2011 she was assistant professor for the Modern Islamic World at the University of Zurich . In May 2011 she was added to the editorial team of the political-scientific monthly magazine Blätter for German and international politics . In June 2011 she accepted a professorship for Islamic Studies at the University of Hamburg . As a freelance journalist, she writes for the Süddeutsche Zeitung , taz and Die Zeit, among others . In 2012 she delegated the Hamburg SPD to the Federal Assembly . Amirpur is the deputy director of the Academy of World Religions (AWR) at the University of Hamburg.

On April 1, 2018, she took over the chair for Islamic studies with a focus on Iran and Schia-related studies at the University of Cologne .

She is married to Navid Kermani , has two daughters and lives in Cologne.

Positions and controversies

Commenting on the domestic political situation in Iran after the Conservatives' victory in the 2004 general election , Amirpur said:

"Despite the rampant hopelessness, there is an important reason why the reformers will ultimately win and why time is running out for the theocratic state model: Iran has lost its society in the course of the long reform discourse".

Regarding the dispute over the Mohammed caricatures and the controversial Pope's speech from Regensburg , she commented:

"One must under no circumstances submit to the dictates of radical Muslims."

On the current debate about Muslim women and Islamophobia , Katajun Amirpur said in an interview:

"As right as it is to brand certain laws of Islam or manifestations of its culture as retrograde: Those who consistently give Muslims the feeling that they are ashamed of their religion will increase their need for cultural self-assertion."

In March 2008, Amirpur wrote in the Süddeutsche Zeitung that "the danger of a nuclear power Iran, which is also supposed to harbor extermination fantasies against Israel, is artificially conjured up in order to justify a military strike against Iran". She based her thesis on a statement by Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadineschad , which he made on the occasion of the Tehran conference "A World Without Zionism" on October 26, 2005 and which had been incorrectly translated by the "major Western news agencies". The English translation criticized by Amirpur, which was used by the state Iranian broadcaster IRIB and which many agencies joined, reads: "Israel must be wiped off the map" ("Israel must be wiped off the map"). She herself translated the sentence with: "This occupying regime must disappear from the pages of history [...]."

Amirpur was heavily criticized for the article. The Islamic scholar Mariella Ourghi also accused her of “splitting hairs” in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, since nothing changes in the “meaning and purpose” of the sentence. The publicist Henryk M. Broder dedicated a chapter to Amirpur's article in his book “Forget Auschwitz - The German Delusion of Memory and the Final Solution to the Israel Question”. In it he accused Amirpur of belittling the "numerous and repeated threats of the Iranian President against Israel, the 'cancerous tumor' that 'must be removed from the body' [...] into a translation error, although they know better as an Iranian must ".

Publications

Web links

Commons : Katajun Amirpur  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Big heads for big questions, sheets for German and international politics 5/11
  2. ^ Uni Bamberg, Chair for Iranian Studies
  3. ↑ Information on the website of the University of Zurich ( Memento from December 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on December 22, 2016
  4. ↑ Die ZEIT, archive
  5. ^ Universität Hamburg biography on the homepage of the Academy of World Religions ( memento from March 21, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on March 7, 2013
  6. ↑ Iran expert Katajun Amirpur rules out regime change as a result of citizen protests , Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger from January 11, 2018, accessed on February 2, 2018
  7. ↑ Islam professor Amirpur leaves Hamburg , NDR from February 2, 2018, accessed on February 2, 2018
  8. ↑ Monday interview: “I thought: now all the more” , the daily newspaper , March 4, 2012, accessed on August 15, 2012.
  9. ^ Sheets for German and international politics: Iran after the election victory of the conservatives. Edition 04/2004
  10. ↑ Spiegel online from September 27, 2006
  11. ↑ taz of December 5, 2005
  12. ↑ The Persian original sentence is: "In rezhim-e eshghalgar bayad az safhe-ye ruzgar mahv shavad".
    MEMRI translated this sentence as follows: "This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history." Iranian President at Tehran Conference: "Very Soon, This Stain of Disgrace [ie Israel] Will Be Purged From the Center of the Islamic World - and This is Attainable" . memri.org. October 28, 2005. Retrieved May 23, 2013.
  13. ↑ Footnotes: Debate on Iran's position . bpb.de. Archived from the original on June 16, 2011. Retrieved May 23, 2013.
  14. ↑ Süddeutsche from March 15, 2008 ( Memento from May 15, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  15. ^ Süddeutsche from March 26, 2008 ( Memento from April 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive ).
  16. ↑ Broder: Forget Auschwitz , Munich 2012, p. 62 ff.
personal data
SURNAME Amirpur, Katajun
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist and Islamic scholar
DATE OF BIRTH 1971
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne