A new class of French imams
EFL, well worth reading in full.
Zuhair Mahmoud was an Iraqi nuclear scientist before his religious conversion. Now he runs a theological school in Burgundy, training imams for a 'lost generation' of young Muslims in France.
In this unlikely bucolic setting, the European Institute for Human Sciences has operated since 1990. Despite its name, it is a theological college whose aim is to train up imams and religious scholars capable of representing a modern Islamic society emerging across the continent.
Snipped...Beautiful rolling hills, enlightened scholarship, etc. etc.
However not all French Muslims are happy with the growing influence of the UOIF and its training institute in the Burgundy hills. For the Islam it promotes is unmistakeably traditionalist, and the UOIF is itself linked to the the originally Egyptian movement, the Muslim Brotherhood.
Slightly different take on them in this posting from a couple weeks ago... |
Posted by: seafarious 2003-05-08 |