Murad Wilfried Hofmann

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Murad Wilfried Hofmann (2008)

Murad Wilfried Hofmann , originally Wilfried Hofmann (born July 6, 1931 in Aschaffenburg ; † January 12, 2020 in Bonn ), was a German lawyer and diplomat . Hofmann, who converted to Islam in 1980 , was, among other things, the author of non-fiction books on the subject of Islam and the editor of a Koran translation .

Background and career

Wilfried Hofmann came from a Catholic family. He was a great-nephew of Hugo Ball , a co-founder of Dadaism . After graduating from high school in Aschaffenburg , he began his studies in 1950 as a HELP scholar (Higher Education for Lasting Peace) and guest of the Psi Upsilon Fraternity at Union College in Schenectady ( US state New York ) with a focus on sociology , labor law and Anglo-American literature.

He then studied law in Munich . He completed these studies on 27 February 1955 with the first legal state examination and on 27 February 1957, the doctoral examination on the protection of the courts against interference and defamation through the press by German and American law (Contempt of Court by Publications) at Rudolf Pohle exits .

During his time as a trainee lawyer in Munich from 1955 to 1959, Hofmann also worked as an assistant for civil procedural law at the University of Munich (Prof. Leo Rosenberg ; Prof. Pohle) and at German and American law firms (Dres. Winkelmann; Dres. Oehl & Nörr; Milton M. Crook). He passed the 2nd state examination in law on April 27, 1959 in Munich.

From 1960 to 1961 he studied American law at Harvard Law School in Cambridge , Massachusetts , with a focus on contract law , civil procedural law and comparative law . At the same time he worked there as a research assistant for the Supreme Court on the subject: "What causes led to reforms of civil procedural law in the German states from 1750-1830?"

In 1961 he joined the Federal Foreign Office and worked in the diplomatic service until 1994, initially at the German Consulate General in Algiers , where he experienced the Algerian war first hand . From 1970 to 1972 he was a member of the Foreign Office's planning staff under Ambassador Dirk Oncken . From 1973 to 1976 he was deputy head of the German delegation at the MBFR negotiations between NATO and the Warsaw Pact in Vienna . From 1979 to 1983 he headed the “NATO and Defense” department at the Foreign Office in Bonn . From 1983 to 1987 he worked as NATO Information Director in Brussels . From 1987 to 1990 he was the German ambassador in Algiers, Algeria . He then held the same position in Rabat , Morocco until 1994 .

From 1961 until her untimely death, Hofmann was married to Elizabeth Ann Griffeth; his son John Chaské Alexander Hofmann, born in 1963, is from her. From 1972 to 2002 he married the Turkish harpist and beauty queen Bülben Uz. Since 2003 he lived in Bonn with the former Bulgarian ballet master Iskra Zankova . Murad Wilfried Hofmann died in January 2020 after a long and serious illness at the age of 88 in Bonn.

In 1984 he received the Federal Cross of Merit on the ribbon of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany . In 2009, Sheikh Muhammad bin Raschid Al Maktum was awarded the title of “Islamic Personality of the Year” as part of the Dubai International Holy Quran Award , and in 2010 Hofmann was awarded the “Freedom Medal 1” by the Jordanian King Abdullah II bin al-Hussein in Amman. Class ”, the highest distinction among the medals intended for foreigners.

Islam

In 1980 Hofmann converted to Sunni Islam in Bonn . Since 1982 he has carried out the small pilgrimage ( Umra ) and twice (1992 and 2003) the great pilgrimage ( Hajj ) to Mecca . Since 1994 he has given numerous lectures in Western Europe, the USA and the Islamic world. He was a full member of the Ahl al-Bayt Foundation for Islamic Thought in Amman ( Jordan ), an advisory board and honorary member of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany and a member of the Sharia Council of the Muslim Bosna Bank International in Sarajevo . From 1994 to 2008 he gave around 350 lectures on Islamic topics in 31 countries. In 2008 he was voted "most important Muslim in Germany" by the readers of the Islamische Zeitung ( Berlin ). In 2009 the head of state of the Emirate of Dubai named him “Islamic Personality of the Year”. In 2009, 2010, 2011, 2017 he was included in the list of the world's 500 most important Muslim figures of the Prince al-Walid-bin-Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding of Georgetown University and the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center of Jordan.

Writings on Islam

Hofmann wrote several books on topics of Islam. Most of them are also available in Arabic and English ; some in Albanian , Arabic, Bosnian , French , Malayalam , Turkish, and Hungarian . He published his writings under the names Murad Wilfried Hofmann , Murad W. Hofmann and Murad Hofmann . Annemarie Schimmel wrote the preface to the first edition of his 1992 book Der Islam als Alternative . In 1998 he published a revision of Max Henning's translation of the Koran . He was also a literary critic in Markfield ( Leicestershire quarterly) Muslim World Book Review , the Oxford Journal of Islamic Studies and Pakistan's quarterly journal Islamic Studies active (200 reviews). He has also published articles and articles in the Islamische Zeitung (Berlin), the American Journal of Islamic Social Studies (Washington, DC), Encounters (Markfield, LE, UK) and in Islamic Studies (Islamabad).

Positions

Islam as an alternative to the western lifestyle

According to a programmatic book title, Hofmann understood Islam as an alternative to the western world, which he perceived as degenerate. He turned against the " secularist ideologues" of the West, who are responsible for a fatal moral degeneration. For his view of Western society, the following statement about Western youth from the book Der Islam may stand as an alternative : “Let's just look at them, these victims of an industrial society that is apparently value-neutral. You have everything - autonomy, life security from the cradle to the grave, sex without taboos, drugs almost at will, a lot of free time and all human rights ever imagined. But they feel an existential emptiness [...]. "

Hofmann's criticism of secularization as a degeneration expresses the conflict between community and society described by Ferdinand Tönnies and Helmuth Plessner .

Mohammed as a political role model

Hofmann has complained about the lack of courage to ban alcohol consumption in the politics of the German "alcohol-nicotine-pork society". In contrast, he cited Mohammed's behavior as a political model: “Those in charge of politics do not overlook the consequences of alcohol for public health and the economy (lost work; waste of resources; accidents). But they do not have the strength and the will to enforce what is unpopular but right. As if it had been more opportune and popular for the prophet in Medina at that time to take this form of “ opium for the people ” from the Muslims . When the Muslims poured their stocks of palm wine on the street, they demonstrated that even the unpopular can become popular, provided there is no lack of leadership. "

Elsewhere he even regarded the political, military and economic skill of Mohammed as a kind of proof of his divine mission: “If one disregards time-related belief in miracles and subsequent political weightings, a statesmanlike personality of great will, charisma and tactical cunning remains. “He expressly mentions the“ diplomatic coup ”of the armistice of (al-) Hudaybiya,“ which actually meant an anticipated surrender of the Meccans ”, and“ the city constitution of al-Madina [...], which Muhammad in the form of a treaty between the Dictated to Muslims and the Jewish community ”. He adds: “If you add the commercial success of the prophet and the wisdom of his judicial work, then it becomes downright puzzling how an illiterate person in backward Arabia should have developed such qualities without formal training, quite apart from the linguistic impact of his revealed messages . With the right things this cannot have happened. So must have approached with divine things. "

Conception of the Koran

According to Hofmann, Islamic belief that does not regard the Koran in its original Arabic language as the literally revealed message of God is impossible: “Sentence for sentence, word for word His [= God's] descended word, His immediate message that has become language. [...] The recognition of the Koran as God's word is constitutive for the Muslim. Anyone who does not believe this is not a Muslim. ”Based on this traditional understanding of the Koran, Hofmann believes that“ all true Muslims are necessarily fundamentalists ”in the original sense of the word as a religious belief, and he is impressed by traditional Koran schools in which the students do nothing else than memorizing the Quran . In his opinion, the Koran does not contain any statements that contradict reliable scientific knowledge. He also explains that phenomena such as the Big Bang, the existence of several galaxies and the expansion of the universe are already described in the Koran.

Rationality and superiority of Islam

In his lecture A Philosophical Path to Islam , Hofmann assumed a decidedly critical function of philosophy, the task of which was "to be a critique of knowledge based exclusively on the model of Fritz Mauthner and Ludwig Wittgenstein - that is, even more radical than Immanuel Kant - that is, the limits of the To show what can be said ". But even against the background of such a critical philosophy, the existence of God is a necessity for thought: "This preconditioning of our thinking commands us to infer from the existence of the world the existence of a creator of higher individuality (intelligence) than our own." Those that can be made about the characteristics of God are "the more concrete [...], the more insecure and potentially nonsensical", so that it finally emerges that the "mighty, inhuman image of God, which Muhammad as the seal of the prophets, helped to break through that is appropriate to the modern, scientifically oriented, emancipated human being. ”The Islamic concept of God“ remained modern because it is the most abstract ”.

In contrast to Christianity with its conception of the Trinity of God and other mysteries , Hofmann also referred elsewhere to the greater rationality and simplicity of Islam as well as the greater fidelity of Islamic tradition to its origin, through which the life and work of Muhammad are completely in the light history, while the life of Jesus was overgrown by legends from an early age. From this basis he derived a justified sense of superiority of the Muslim: “The Muslim believer may be poor and illiterate and only know al-Fātiha and al-Ichlas from the Qur'an . Nevertheless, he will feel like a king to every non-Muslim, as a knower, far superior to all who want to tell him something about a 'Son of God', a 'Mother of God', three persons of God, original sin and redemption, sacraments and the infallible Pope. The poor, ignorant Muslim says: 'There is no God but GOD'. And knows that the time of ignorance is not behind everyone, but behind him. "

Relationship of Islam to other religions

Hofmann described Islamic minority law as "the most liberal statute for people of different faiths", "which the world has seen or standardized to this day".

Relation to punishment for apostasy from Islam

“Originally only renegade ex-Muslims were prosecuted, but rightly if they had committed high treason ( ar-ridda ), that is , if they actively fought Islam in the sense of the 5th sura (al-Ma'ida): 33, by denial damaged the taxes owed or wreaked havoc on earth. The punishment of high treason, especially in war with death, is a worldwide practice and is not eo ipso against human rights ”.

The Islamic State

In his books Islam and Islam as an Alternative , Hofmann described the building blocks of an Islamic state. He called the head of this state amir or caliph. This must be a Muslim. Islam is the state religion. According to the principle of shura (consultation), the government must coordinate with the people. Unrestricted popular sovereignty does not prevail, since the Islamic government is "executor of Sharia law in the broadest sense" and "legislation must conform to Sharia law as the highest constitutional norm". Selected features of this state draft:

  • Guarantee of the right to property
  • Prohibition of interest-taking, speculation, hoarding of goods and the production and trading of prohibited consumer goods (e.g. alcohol and pigs)
  • Guaranteeing the protection of “racial minorities”. The Koran only allows slave status for prisoners of war and treats slavery as an institution to be overcome.
  • Religious minorities, primarily “people of the book” (ahl al-kitab) are allowed to continue to practice their faith and to regulate their affairs autonomously “as long as they do not want to become citizens […]”. They “only pay a poll tax ( jizya ) and are exempt from compulsory military service”.
  • "In contrast to keeping clean cats, keeping dogs inside apartments is rejected as unhygienic."

criticism

Critics describe Hofmann's description of the moral degeneration of Western society as stereotypically colored and also miss a critical view of basic Western social values, for example in the description of Western youth cited above. In contrast to Hofmann, Adel Theodor Khoury describes the legal status of minorities in Islam as that of second-class citizens: “The classical legal system of Islam, on the other hand, is based on a uniform society, the society of Muslims, which regulates its relationships with minorities on the basis of contracts regulates. The legal status of minorities is based on a contract between the conquerors and the conquered, between the victors and the conquered, a contract that turns the Muslims into the actual full citizens of the country and the others only into 'protection citizens'. ”In his pocket book Islam , Diederichs compact, Kreuzlingen / Munich 2001, Hofmann writes on p. 74: "As long as they [= non-Muslims] do not want to become citizens - with all the resulting tax and military obligations - they only pay a poll tax and are thus exempt from military service." This conceals the fact that non-Muslims can only become citizens in the full sense of the Islamic state they dream of if they convert to Islam. According to his critics, Hofmann's designation of Islamic minority law cannot mean liberal in the western sense. The Protestant theologian and biblical scholar Meik Gerhards even describes Hofmann's appreciation of Islamic minority rights as a “mockery of our liberal social order”. In the 2004 report by the Baden-Württemberg Office for the Protection of the Constitution , Hofmann is also accused of having a “negative attitude towards the role of the individual in the West”, “which he perceives as 'idolatry' of the individual and which he completely ignores positive aspects such as personal freedom or personal rights ".

Critics accuse Hofmann of a one-sided attitude: In relation to Christianity, he refers to critical results of biblical studies , such as Gerd Lüdemann , deduces from this a crisis of Christian Christology and emphasizes the credibility of the Koran in contrast to the Bible . Regarding the creation of the Koran, however, he restricts himself to an uncritical traditional Islamic picture and neglects critical results of Islamic research.

Dance and ballet criticism

As a high school student, Hofmann was a demonstration dancer at a dance school; as a student he gave dance lessons in Munich. He received jazz drums lessons at the Bern Conservatory . From 1954 to 1979 he worked as an international ballet critic for the monthly magazine Das Tanzarchiv (Hamburg, later Cologne), Ballet Today (London) and Dance News (New York). In Munich he founded the Friends of Ballet eV with Karl Viktor Prinz zu Wied. He served as a manager for the up-and-coming ensemble Les Ballets Sachnowsky run by ballet teacher Lula von Sachnowsky. Since 2003 he has worked closely with the ballet teacher Iskra Zankova.

Others

Hofmann was the only Muslim intellectuals from Germany one of the 138 signatories of the open letter a common word between us and you ( Engl. A Common Word Between Us and You ), the personalities of Islam to "leaders of Christian churches everywhere" (Engl. "Leaders of Christian Churches, everywhere ... ") (October 13, 2007).

Publications

(Selection)

  • 1973 Of Beauty and the Dance: Towards an Aesthetics of Ballet. In: Three Essays in Dance Aesthetic. Dance Perspectives No. 55, New York.
  • 1973 The participation of the Federal Republic of Germany in the decision-making processes of NATO. In: Regional integration of the Federal Republic of Germany. Oldenbourg-Verlag, Munich, ISBN 3-486-47711-0 , pp. 143-166.
  • 1981 How MBFR began. In: In the service of Germany and the law, Festschrift for Wilhelm G. Grewe. Nomos, Baden-Baden, ISBN 3-7890-0711-0 .
  • 1981 A Philosophical Path to Islam. 2nd Edition. Verlag Islamische Bibliothek Rassoul , Cologne 1983, ISBN 3-8217-0027-0 .
  • 1983 The role of naval forces in foreign policy. In: The use of naval forces in the service of foreign policy. Mittler, Herford, ISBN 3-8132-0156-2 , pp. 137-145.
  • 1984 Is NATO's Defense Policy facing a Crisis? In: Non-Nuclear War in Europe. Groningen University Press, Groningen, pp. 297-301.
  • 1984 On the role of Islamic philosophy. Cologne, ISBN 3-8217-0035-1 .
  • 1985 diary of a German Muslim. 6th adult Edition. Istanbul 2007, ISBN 978-975-454-143-4 .
  • 1992 Islam as an alternative. Diederichs, Munich 1992, 6th edition Istanbul 2010, Germany ISBN 978-3-941-775-00-8 .
  • 1996 trip to Mecca. Diederichs, Cagri Yayinlari Istanbul, 2nd edition 2009, ISBN 3-424-01308-0 .
  • 1998 Revision of the Koran translation by Max Henning , 7th edition. Istanbul / Munich, ISBN 975-454-026-8 .
  • 2000 Islam in the 3rd millennium. Diederichs-Hugendubel, 3rd edition, Istanbul 2010, Germany ISBN 978-3-941-775-01-5 .
  • 2001 Islam. 7th edition. Diederichs compact, ISBN 3-7205-2191-5 .
  • 2002 Koran. 4th edition. Diederichs compact, ISBN 3-7205-2316-0 .
  • 2005 Religious Pluralism and Islam in a Polarized Word. In: Islam and Global Dialogue. Ashgate, Aldershot, ISBN 0-7546-5307-2 , pp. 235-245.
  • 2005 Penal Thought and Psychology in Nuclear Strategy. In: Perspectives of the prison system. Festschrift for Georg Wagner. Centaurus, Herbolzheim, ISBN 3-8255-0446-8 , pp. 299-306.
  • 2006 Islam in Germany - a pinch of history.
  • 2007 Understanding Islam - Lectures 1996-2006. 2nd edition, Istanbul 2010, ISBN 978-975-454-125-0 .
  • 2007 Comprendre l'Islam. Istanbul, ISBN 978-975-454-124-3 .
  • 2008 Islam'i Anlamak. Istanbul, ISBN 978-975-454-150-2 .
  • 2008 Understanding Islam. Istanbul, ISBN 978-975-454-151-9 .
  • 2012 “The Relationship of Muslims to the Free-Democratic Legal Order”, in: Rauf Ceylan, Islam and Diaspora, pp. 139 ff., Frankfurt, ISBN 978-3-631-63405-9

Web links

Wikiquote: Murad Wilfried Hofmann  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Murad Wilfried Hofmann has died , islamiq.de, published and accessed on January 13, 2020.
  2. ↑ A great loss for all of us , obituary on islam.de, published and accessed on January 13, 2020.
  3. ^ "Islamic Personality of the Year": High distinction from Dubai for ZMD advisory board member Murad Hofmann. In: Zentralrat.de. Central Council of Muslims in Germany e. V., September 9, 2009, accessed September 16, 2009 .
  4. ↑ Ecevit Polat "Murad Wilfried Hofmann - Germany's Gift to Islam" from November 21, 2019
  5. ↑ a b By joining the party - in all really democratically-minded parties - we must contribute to making the party programs more Islamic . Website of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, August 30, 2004
  6. ↑ Murad Wilfried Hofmann: “Religion as a private matter? On the role of religion in public space. ” ( Memento from October 20, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Article on the website of the Islamic Community in Germany , 2003.
  7. ↑ Der Islam als Alternative , Munich (2nd edition) 1993, p. 23. Meik Gerhards, Golgatha und Europa or: Why the Gospel is one of the lasting foundations of the West, Universitätsdrucke Göttingen, Göttingen 2007 (PDF file; 1.1 MB), p. 153, sees in this passage a distancing from the basic values ​​valid in our society .
  8. ^ Diary of a German Muslim , Munich (3rd edition) 1998, pp. 81f. (Quote: p. 82).
  9. ↑ Diary of a German Muslim , Munich (3rd edition) 1998, p. 105.
  10. ↑ a b Diary of a German Muslim , Munich (3rd edition) 1998
  11. ^ Koran , Diederichs compact, Kreuzlingen / Munich 2002, p. 12.
  12. ↑ ibid., P. 12.
  13. ↑ ibid., P. 105f. With reference to a visit to a Koran school in southern Sudan that is renowned throughout Muslim sub-Saharan Africa: “During my visit, I was allowed to invite any student to recite any part of the Koran. Everyone purred down the requested text without any errors. ”“ They assume that the most important thing in a receptive young age is to first memorize the text of the Koran. Learning to understand him is a lifelong, endless task. "
  14. ↑ ibid., P. 89 ff.
  15. ↑ Published several times as a publication. For the history of origin cf. Diary of a German Muslim. 6th adult Edition. Istanbul 2007, p. 60.
  16. ↑ A philosophical path to Islam , Garching (3rd edition) 1997, p. 6.
  17. ↑ A philosophical path to Islam , Garching (3rd edition) 1997, p. 7f.
  18. ^ A philosophical path to Islam , Garching (3rd edition) 1997, p. 9.
  19. ↑ Ein philosophischer Weg zum Islam , Garching (3rd edition) 1997, p. 2 (mentioned there as the goal of what he wants to show with his lecture).
  20. ^ A philosophical path to Islam , Garching (3rd edition) 1997, p. 14f.
  21. ^ Diary of a German Muslim. 6th adult Edition. Istanbul 2007, p. 128f.
  22. ^ Diary of a German Muslim. 6th adult Edition. Istanbul 2007, p. 50f.
  23. ^ Diary of a German Muslim. 6th adult Edition. Istanbul 2007, p. 82.
  24. ↑ Islam in the 3rd millennium. A religion on the move. Munich 2000, p. 99 f.
  25. ↑ Islam. Munich 2001, pp. 69-77.
  26. ↑ Der Islam als Alternative , Munich 1992, pp. 113–123.
  27. ↑ Islam as an Alternative , Munich 1992, p. 115.
  28. ↑ Islam as an Alternative , Munich 1992, p. 77.
  29. ↑ Islam as an Alternative , Munich 1992, p. 73.
  30. ↑ Quotation from: Islam. Munich 2001, p. 75.
  31. ^ Adel Theodor Khoury, Tolerance and Religious Freedom in the Christian and Islamic Understanding. In: Günter Baadte (ua) (Ed.), Religion, Recht und Politik , Graz (ua) 1997, pp. 11–37 (quotation p. 26).
  32. ↑ Gerhards, Golgatha und Europa , p. 152.
  33. ↑ Baden-Württemberg Constitutional Protection Report 2004 ( Memento from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), p. 37.
  34. ↑ See Gerhards, Golgatha und Europa , pp. 90ff .; 144ff. Hofmann points out critical results of Western Islamic studies in: Koran. Diederichs Kompakt, pp. 93–96, very broadly as not appropriate to Islam.
  35. ↑ acommonword.com: A common word between us and you (summarized short form) (PDF; 186 kB)
predecessor Office successor
Heinz Dröge Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany in Algeria
1987–1990 		Rudolf Koppenhöfer
Norbert Montfort Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Morocco
1990–1994 		Herwig Bartels
personal data
SURNAME Hofmann, Murad Wilfried
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer, diplomat and personality of Islam
DATE OF BIRTH July 6, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Aschaffenburg
DATE OF DEATH January 12, 2020
Place of death Bonn