DR. MURAD W. HOFMANN
~ Exclusive interview for “URA” magazine ~
Tirana-Albania
1. Our first question is: May you tell us please what is one of the main reasons, which you never mentioned before, that you accepted Islam as your religion, at a time when Islam for Europe and the West was quite not interesting and not so important? Did you start learning about Islam as an Orientalist before you accept it as your religion?
Dr. Murad Hofmann: I have never been an “Orientalist” nor did I study Islam like one. Rather than at the university I learned about Islam on the ground, i.e. as a young diplomat in Algeria. My conversion to Islam was the result of a personal quest for the divine, for truth. At the time, Islam was not yet an issue in Europe.
2. How can you describe your life in Islam in all these years as a Muslim?
Dr. Murad Hofmann: Nevertheless, Islam could not remain a private concern for me since, with the ever growing immigration of Muslims into Europe, Islam became everybody’s concern. In order to respond to the glaring need for information on Islam I became a member and co-founder of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany (ZMD) and started to give lectures, also abroad, and write books on Islam.
3. The number of the Muslim people in Europe is increasing. Do you think that this is still a problem for the Germany and Europe?
Dr. Murad Hofmann: Alas, the more the number of Muslims in Europe increases, the more anti-Islamic sentiments grow. This "Islamophobia" causes many well educated Muslims to leave Europe and return to North Africa, Bosnia, and Turkey.
4. What do you think it is the best way for the Muslims in Germany and Europe, being emigrants or natives reverted to Islam, to show their Islam?
Dr. Murad Hofmann: The best way for Muslims in Europe is not to assimilate but to integrate into their environment without jeopardizing their faith. Integration should happen from below, from the grass roots level, as a prerequisite for representation at higher levels.
5. During our visit in Bonn, we had the change that you introduced to us some Turkish young people, born and raised in Germany, but active Muslim ones, and you told us that “this is the future of Germany”. Do you mean that the Muslim youth and active population in Germany and across all Europe is growing up and is taking the place of the other active religious people, which is known that the natality among Muslims societies is higher than in other communities?
Dr. Murad Hofmann: Their higher current birthrate will increase the number of Muslims in Europe - for a while. But birthrates inevitably decline with increased income levels. Nevertheless, the large number of active young Muslims in today’s Europe promises an upswing of Muslim activity in tomorrow’s Europe.
Dr. Murad Hofmann taking a look at the “URA” magazine - Bonn, September 2011
6. Nowadays, many Western people, after being in many ways in contact with Islam, are going to enter in Islam, and most of them are personalities and high level people. May you tell us please, why the Muslims themselves in Europe, mainly emigrants or natives with Islamic background, are not really active in spreading the real Islam, do they feel scared of being attacked or somehow feel ashamed of being Muslims?
Dr. Murad Hofmann: Islamophobia is more current in today’s Germany than in France and Great Britain because Germany has never been as exposed to Islam as a colonialist power. As a result, many Muslims in Germany are particularly afraid of an anti-Muslim backlash. This may make them scared but certainly not ashamed of their faith.
7. Your books have been translated in many languages in the world and two of them, 1. Islam & 2. Qur’an, have been translated also into Albanian and published this year in Tirana. Do you think that your point of view about Islam in nowadays world is a good example to invite in Islam many Europeans and Western people?
Dr. Murad Hofmann: My books are relatively successful, outside of Germany as well. They are certainly more successful than books imported from the Muslim world, particularly from India and Pakistan. One has to know a local culture intimately in order to insert Islam into it.
8. Albanian Center for Oriental Studies, in Tirana, on September 10, 2011, holds a seminar about your personality and at the same time promoted your last books, 1. Islam and 2. Qur’an, translated into Albanian, where Albanian personalities use to talk about you and your books into Albanian. Also, “URA” magazine, an organ of the center mentioned above has published about 6 of your articles in each of its issues. Now, may we have something to add about that?
Dr. Murad Hofmann: I am grateful both to the Albanian Center for Oriental Studies and "URA" magazine in Tirana for making available to the Albanian public some of my books and articles as well as a seminar about my work. Also I should like to thank "URA" magazine for making available this interview for Albanian readers in Albania itself, Kosovo, Macedonia, and wherever Albanians live.
Thank you very much!
Interviewed by Ermal BEGA, 2011
Editor-in-Chief of “URA” magazine
ISSN 2222-8381
acfos_albania@yahoo.com, uramagazine@gmail.com
Tirana-Albania
The interview translated into Albanian language you may see it here:
http://www.albanian-orientalist.blogspot.com/2011/12/interviste-ekskluzive-me-murad-hofmann.html
