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MJLC Board Statement on Muslim Jewish relations in Europe

With greatest concern we see how the terrible events in the Middle East show a deeply worrying impact in Europe leading to mistrust and prejudice that can lead to violence. It is time for us to be there for each other in difficult times. An attack on one of us, is an attack on all of us. While amongst our membership and beyond we know that such solidarity exists, there is the need to broaden and amplify that message.

The goals of the MJLC Board in addressing any potential tensions in Europe are as follows:

  • The MJLC reaffirms that our work and initiatives are firmly focused on cooperation between Jewish and Muslim communities across Europe. Our focus very much remains on our communities and the solidarity between them and to inspire others to do the same.
  • The MJLC reiterates that the violence occurring in the Middle East which also impacts our communities in Europe is not religious in nature. Both Islam and Judaism abhor violence and terrorism, and do not condone the killing of civilians, kidnapping and other acts of violence and demand that international law prevails. All sacred sites anywhere need to be protected.
  • The MJLC firmly condemns any calls for instigation, hostilities or attacks against Jews, Muslims and their institutions in Europe and beyond. We speak out against any demonstrations that glorify terrorism.
  • Dialogue and peaceful cooperation are never more vital than during times of conflict. As such the MJLC calls upon Muslim and Jewish communities in Europe alike to keep an open mind towards each other and act in a spirit of cooperation in these dark times when it is most needed. We call upon local and national authorities and media representatives to involve and collaborate Jewish and Muslim religious leaders to avoid disorder, hatred and polarisation.
  • We strive to create and foster concrete action between Muslims and Jews as European citizens. The “MJLC Ambassadors Programme” of young Jewish and Muslim community leaders joining hands in their cities is an excellent example of this.
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MJLC Statement on the Ambassadors Programme

We, the Muslim Jewish Leadership Council – Europe are delighted to announce that the MJLC Ambassadors have finalised their project proposals and have begun work on their projects which will bring the Muslim and Jewish communities in Warsaw, Frankfurt, London, and Spain closer together.

The MJLC Ambassadors Programme is intended to build up a network of young European leaders from the Jewish and Muslim faiths who share enthusiasm for interfaith work, consult regularly and can coordinate interreligious activities through city chapters in order to spread accurate information about their faiths and traditions and to promote their communities’ shared rights and interests. The MJLC Ambassadors Programme will cover projects in four European cities involving a total of eight young Jewish and Muslim “Ambassadors”, mentored by locally based MJLC members and contacts and reviewed with the help of trainers.

Following the initial three-day in-person training held in December 2022 in Warsaw the MJLC Ambassadors in each city are putting their newly-acquired skills into practice through a small joint project funded by a grant of up-to EUR 5,000 provided by the MJLC.

After having worked with the Ambassadors to finalise their project proposals we are encouraged and impressed by their creativity, hard work, and strong drive to promote cooperation between the Muslim and Jewish communities in their cities. We will continue to support and offer guidance to our Ambassadors as their projects progress. We wish them the best of luck in implementing their projects and we look forward to seeing the fruits of their hard work over the next six months.

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Muslim-Jewish Leadership Council’s General Assembly in Matera, Italy

MATERA, 18 September 2019 – Leaders of Muslim and Jewish religious communities in Europe issued a joint statement calling upon European institutions, policy makers and civil society to protect religious freedom, in part by respecting conventions governing diet, dress and the upbringing of children.

The statement, signed by 29 religious leaders from 19 European countries, was one of the outcomes of the Muslim-Jewish Leadership Council’s General Assembly in Matera, Italy, which took place on 16 September and was co-organised by KAICIID and the City of Peace for Children Foundation.

On behalf of their religious communities, the signatories praised the European
commitment to safeguard diversity but urged institutions and authorities to be vigilant and to “take steps to stop divisive and discriminatory discourse and hate speech, including Islamophobia and Antisemitism, designed to isolate our
communities, make them appear foreign to Europe and its values or to set our
communities against one another for political gain.”

Based on the principles of European law, they called for equal treatment of all
citizens, including Jewish and Muslim minority faith groups. MJLC members
expressed deep concern at an “increasingly polarized political discourse and spread of misinformation in Europe which is endangering fundamental rights, provoking mistrust, and encouraging rising levels of Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia with attendant hatred and discrimination on a political, social, legal and personal level.”

The statement mentioned in particular the need to protect religious freedom by “refraining from setting limitations upon, or seeking to determine the practice of Muslim and Jewish faith through limitations to choice of clothing, preparation of food and the raising of children”.

To avoid misrepresentations or misinterpretations of their faiths and to counteract discriminatory policies, MJLC members agreed to create two commissions that will work on issues of shared interest currently under scrutiny in different countries: one being kosher and halal food and the other, the wider practice of religious freedom. Commission members with technical expertise in each field will offer advice, gather data and provide communication material wherever challenges arise.

“We need to reduce prejudice by framing our perspective in the terms used by
European institutions” Imam Yahya Pallavicini, President of Comunita Religiosa Islamica Italiana and Vice Chair of the Council explained. “On the other hand, these institutions should not compromise our identities by prescribing how faith is to be expressed if this can be regulated internally,” he added.

The MJLC will also produce background documents on the links between Muslim and Jewish faiths on matters of common concern which should provide the basis for joint advocacy. “When we demonstrate that Muslims and Jews are cooperating deeply and systematically, and that we are and will continue to be Europeans, government institutions are far more willing to listen to us” noted Rabbi Fiszon, Chief Rabbi of Metz and Moselle, and Advisor to the Chief Rabbi of France.

The MJLC assembly took place in the context of the Pax Matera celebrations,
organised during the lead up to United Nations International Peace Day and
highlighting the city’s status as a European Capital of Culture 2019. Following a meeting of an MJLC/KAICIID delegation with the Mayor of Matera, Mr. Rafaello de Ruggieri and the Catholic Archbishop of Matera-Irsina, the Most Reverend Antonio Giuseppe Caiazzo, the city announced it will be receiving European Jewish and Muslim religious leaders every year from now on, as a sign of solidarity and a commitment to peace.

Following last year’s general assembly in Amsterdam, this encounter welcomed new and high level members, including the Council’s first Italian Rabbi. Representatives of Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom also participated in the meeting.

Statement of the Muslim-Jewish Leadership Council, Matera September 16th 2019

Statement of the Muslim-Jewish Leadership Council
We, twenty-nine leaders of Muslim and Jewish religious communities from nineteen European countries, commend the efforts of people in every walk of life to establish and maintain deep and lasting peace in Europe, and call upon religious leaders, policy makers and European institutions to place freedom, justice, respect and plurality at the heart of their vision for a stable and cohesive European society.

Gathering regularly as Muslim and Jewish religious leaders, the Vienna-based
Muslim Jewish Leadership Council- Europe (MJLC) recognizes that though our
traditions have many important differences, we also have much in common- including the duty to respect those different to ourselves- and can beneficially build up relations of trust and support through interreligious dialogue;

Determined to ensure that our faiths are not misinterpreted or misrepresented, either to drive our faiths apart, or to cause hostility between the religious communities and secular society;

Celebrating the diversity which the governments and constitutions of the European Union uphold as a prerequisite for peace and solidarity, and reiterating commitment to the defense of human rights and equal citizenship so precious to minorities such as the Muslim and Jewish faith groups;

Recognizing, on the occasion of United Nations International Peace Day, the Pax Matera celebrations organized by our host Fondazione Città della Pace peri i Bambini Basilicata with support of the International Dialogue Centre (KAICIID), and the commemoration of the courageous uprising of citizens in Matera seeking to throw off Nazi oppression in September 1943, that peace is more than an absence of open conflict, but must be founded upon freedom, human dignity and justice, with inclusion even of the most vulnerable;

Deeply concerned at an increasingly polarized political discourse and spread of misinformation in Europe which is endangering fundamental rights, provoking mistrust, and encouraging rising levels of Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia with attendant hatred and discrimination on a political, social, legal and personal level;

The members of the Council take this opportunity while visiting Matera, Europe’s beautiful Capital of Culture 2019, to call upon European institutions, policy makers, religious leaders from every faith and civil society at large to support our efforts:

  • To protect religious freedom and its expression, particularly by refraining from setting limitations upon, or seeking to determine, the practice of Muslim and Jewish faith through limitations to choice of clothing, preparation of food and the raising of children;
  • To point out and take steps to stop divisive and discriminatory discourse and hate speech, including Islamophobia and Antisemitism, designed to isolate our
    communities, make them appear foreign to Europe and its values or to set our communities against one another for political gain;
  • To stand by the principles of European law, that all citizens shall be treated equally and have equal access to institutions so they can fulfil their responsibility as active members of society.

For its own part, during the session in Matera, the MJLC has decided to:

  1. Produce a background documents detailing the links between Muslim and Jewish faiths in matters of common concern which should provide a basis for collaboration and advocacy for policy change where necessary;
  2. Form two commissions on kosher and halal and religious freedom, consisting of members with expertise in these fields, who can offer advice, review data and produce communications on emerging issues;
  3. Conduct outreach to European institutions and seek opportunities to collaborate to protect European religious minorities.

The founders of the European Union have always framed the essence of its society on the concept of unity in diversity, recognizing the added values of a plurality of religious and cultural identities. Should this be lost, the root of the European project and society is at risk.
Therefore, we welcome and seek to encourage those who agree that freedom of religion and freedom of expression, among the many others articulated in the Declaration of Human Rights, constitute cornerstones of a dynamic, diverse and culturally-rich society in which peace is not stasis but expressed in the vibrancy of curious, authentic and open-hearted human relationships.

Signed,

Grand Mufti Dr. Nedzad Grabus Slovenia
Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt Russia
Imam Yahya Sergio Yahe Pallavicini Italy
Rabbi Lody B. Van de Kamp Netherlands
Mr. Mohamed Adham Abdelaal Poland
Rabbi Jehoschua Ahrens Germany
Sheikh Dr. Umar Al-Qadri Ireland
Imam Tarafa Baghajati Austria
Mr. Muhammad Bascelic Bosnia and Herzegovina
Mr. Shimon Cohen United Kingdom
Chief Rabbi Izhak Dayan Switzerland
Mr. Muhammad Escudero Spain
Cheif Rabbi Ariel Finzi Italy
Rabbi Bruno Fiszon Frances
Rabbi Herschel Gluck United Kingdom
Mr. Gady Gronich Germany
Rabbi Rene Gutman France
Imam Sheikh Mohammad Ismail United Kingdom
Mufti Romas Jakubauskas Lithuania
Imam Senaid Kobilica Norway
Rabbi Steven Langnas Germany
Rabbi Jair Melchior Denmark
Ms. Shorena Mikava Germany
Sheikh David Munir Portugal
Mufti Iusuf Murat Romania
Imam Abdul-Wahid Pedersen Denmark
Ms. Halima Rubbo Italy
Ms. Anna Stamou Greece

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Five Muslims at the Vatican, to Prepare the Audience with the Pope

Originally published on Chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it

They are the representatives of the “letter of the 138” written to Benedict XVI last October. Here’s who they are, and from where they come. One of them, Yahya Pallavicini, tells in a book about how to live as Muslims in a Christian country, in peace between the two religions

ROMA, February 6, 2008 – Within one month, on March 4 and 5, there will be held in Rome the first meetings in preparation for the scheduled visit to the Vatican of a representative group of the 138 Muslim scholars who in October of 2007 addressed to the pope and to the heads of the other Christian confessions a letter with an offer of dialogue entitled “A Common Word Between Us and You.”

The meetings will be held at the pontifical council for interreligious dialogue, presided by cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran. The schedule arranges for the Muslim representatives to meet with Benedict XVI and other Church authorities beginning next spring. And they will hold study sessions in institutes like the Pontifical Gregorian University and the Pontifical Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, the PISAI, headed by Fr. Miguel Angel Ayuso Guixot.

The Muslim delegation will be composed of five Muslims scholars from as many nations:

– Ibrahim Kalin, from Turkey, director of the SETA foundation in Ankara and a professor at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.;

– Abd al-Hakim Murad Winter, from England, a professor of Islamic studies at the Shaykh Zayed Divinity School of the University of Cambridge, and director of the Muslim Academic Trust of the United Kingdom;

– Sohail Nakhooda, from Jordan, director of “Islamica Magazine,” an international magazine edited in the United States;

– Aref Ali Nayed, from Libya, a member of the Interfaith Program of the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, a former teacher at the International Institute for Islamic Thought and Civilization in Malaysia, and at the Pontifical Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies in Rome;

– Yahya Sergio Yahe Pallavicini, from Italy, imam of the al-Wahid mosque in Milan, president of the ISESCO council for education and culture in the West, and vice-president of the Islamic Religious Community of Italy, the COREIS.

All of these are part of the group of experts coordinated from Amman by Jordan’s Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal, president of the al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, the leading promoter of the letter of the 138 and the protagonist behind the exchange of events that took place in November and December with Benedict XVI, through cardinal secretary of state Tarcisio Bertone, in preparation for the future meetings.

Of the five, the best known among the Vatican authorities and experts are Aref Ali Nayed and Yahya Pallavicini.

Nayed – well known to the readers of www.chiesa, which has published previews of many of his writings – is one of the leading experts in Western philosophy and Christian theology in the Muslim camp. He studied at the Gregorian, in addition to universities in the United States and Canada, and he knows as few others do the “Summa Theologiae” of Saint Thomas Aquinas. He is one of the main architects of the letter of the 138. And he is the author of a letter that is important in its own right, in which he responded to the message addressed to the Muslims by cardinal Tauran on the occasion of last Ramadan.

But Yahya Pallavicini has also been for some time a prominent counterpart for the Vatican authorities and experts.

His father, Abd al-Wahid Pallavicini, embraced the Muslim faith in 1951, like many other European intellectuals at that time who adopted Islam in the wake of the French metaphysician René Guénon. In the course of a long of a voyage in the East, he joined the Sufi confraternity Ahamadiyyah Idrissiyyah Shadhiliyyah, which is in sharp contrast to the sectarian Wahhabi Islamism that still dominates Saudi Arabia. He later became head of the confraternity in Italy. In Assisi, in 1986, Abd al-Wahid Pallavicini took part in the prayer meeting among the leaders of the religions called together by John Paul II. His dream is to build in Milan “a little Jerusalem that would see the children of Abraham united in prayer: Jews, Christians, and Muslims.” His unshakable faith is that Islam is “the ultimate and definitive expression of that primordial tradition that founded, confirms, and vivifies the earlier revelations.”

Yahya Pallavicini, 43, was born Muslim and today is known in Italy as one of the main representatives of a sophisticated, democratic, “moderate” Islam, together with Khaled Fouad Allam of Algeria and Souad Sbai of Morocco. Under the religious profile, Pallavicini distinguishes himself from other Muslim personalities with whom he often finds himself in agreement – the best known of these in Italy is the Egyptian Magdi Allam. Unlike Magdi Allam, who does not practice the religion to which he was born and expresses a decisively secularized Islam, Yahya Pallavicini is an observant and fervent Muslim. He is the imam of a mosque in Milan, the leader of a community of Italians who have converted to Islam that is active in various cities, and is involved in courses of formation for new imams.

Since 2006, he has been a consultant on Islam for the Italian interior ministry. He is an unyielding critic of the violent tendencies of Muslim thought and practice. He has written and said on numerous occasions in public – something that is rare and often risky for a Muslim – that “acts of violence find no legitimization in the teachings of the prophet Mohammed or of the wise men.” He has often strongly condemned “the exploitation of sharia, the Islamic law, to create a parallel alternative world, which refuses to integrate with the Western system.” He has denounced “the culture of hatred” spewed in the preaching in many of the mosques in Italy on the part of imams “who are in reality political instigators with nothing authentically Islamic about them.”

On the contrary, he is a convinced promoter of a positive dialogue with Judaism and Christianity. In 2005, he publicly contested the fatwa, the juridical sentence issued on the television screens of al-Jazeera by one of the most influential world leaders of fundamentalist Islam, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, banning all dialogue with the Jews. The question has been raised again in recent days in Italy, when suddenly, because of an order that come from the al-Azhar University in Egypt, the representatives of the Grand Mosque of Rome had to cancel a visit – the first ever – to Rome’s Jewish synagogue, scheduled for January 23rd.

These criticisms are all repeated in a book that Yahya Pallavicini recently published in Italy, entitled “Dentro la moschea [Inside the mosque].”

But there is much more in the same book. On the positive side, there is an account of a Muslim community in Italy, with the places and moments of its religious life: the mosque, those who attend it, how and when they pray, Ramadan, marriages, the veil, schools, birth, death, the pilgrimage to Mecca. It is the Sufi community to which Yahya Pallavicini belongs, which is very distant from the image of Islam that dominates the media, and is often hampered and opposed in fratricidal struggles by the proponents of this fundamentalist and aggressive Islam.

In his book, Yahya Pallavicini speaks on behalf of many of his brothers in faith. An entire section collects the preaching delivered in the mosques on Fridays by 25 Italian imams. Another section presents life stories: an entrepreneur, a violinist, a painter, men and women who have converted to Islam in the heart of the West. One of these converts, Ahmad Abd al-Wahliyy Vincenzo, has inaugurated a chair for the history of Islamic law and civilization at the Università Federico II in Naples. This is how he concludes his account: “Once, after an examination, a student told me something of which I am very proud: Dear professor, you should know that yesterday I received the sacrament of confirmation. And studying Islam with you was the best preparation I could have had.”

__________

The book:

Yahya Pallavicini, “Dentro la moschea [Inside the mosque]”, Rizzoli, Milano, 2007, pp. 520, 10.80 euro.

__________

On the dialogue between the Catholic Church and Islam, from Benedict XVI’s lecture in Regensburg until today, see on www.chiesa the following articles, in chronological order beginning with the most recent:

2.1.2008
> The Cardinal Writes, the Prince Responds. The Factors that Divide the Pope from the Muslims
The contrast is not only one of faith. It also concerns the achievements of the Enlightenment: from religious freedom to equality between men and women. The Catholic Church has made these its own, but Islam has not. Will they be able to discuss this, when Benedict XVI and the Muslims of the letter of the 138 meet together?

26.11.2007
> Why Benedict XVI Is So Cautious with the Letter of the 138 Muslims
Because the kind of dialogue he wants is completely different. The pope is asking Islam to make the same journey that the Catholic Church made under pressure from the Enlightenment. Love of God and neighbor must be realized in the full acceptance of religious freedom

2.11.2007
> How the Church of Rome Is Responding to the Letter of the 138 Muslims
For now, only the experts are speaking, while the official response is studied. But meanwhile, cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran and Libyan theologian Aref Ali Nayed are exchanging a series of messages. Here are the complete texts

12.10.2007
> One Year after Regensburg, 138 Muslims Write a New Letter to the Pope
They are proposing as common ground between Muslims and Christians the two “greatest commandments” of love for God and neighbor. These are in both the Qur’an and the Gospels. How will the Church of Rome react?

27.12.2006
> A Summary Account of Four Voyages – And a Year’s Pontificate
This is the synthesis that Benedict XVI read in person to the Roman curia, in the traditional pre-Christmas address. At the center of it all is the question of God. Everything relates to this – the clash of civilizations, Islam, the Holocaust, the drop in the birth rate, gay marriage, clerical celibacy…

4.12.2006
> The Lecture in Regensburg Continues to Weigh on the Islamic Question
But it also continues to divide: both Muslims among themselves, and Catholics. A dossier from the journal “Oasis,” published by the patriarchate of Venice, and a counter-reply by Alessandro Martinetti to the Arab theologian Aref Ali Nayed

1.12.2006
> Peter Visits Andrew – And Prays at the Blue Mosque
For Benedict XVI, reconciliation between the Church of Rome and the Eastern Churches is part and parcel of the Church’s proclamation to non-Christians. The symbol of the Hagia Sophia

28.11.2006
> In Turkey, Benedict XVI Becomes a Defender of Freedom
And he appeals that “the religions utterly refuse to sanction recourse to violence.” As an example of the “particular charity” between Muslims and Christians, he cites an Arab prince of the eleventh century, one esteemed by Pope Gregory VII

28.11.2006
> In Turkey, Benedict XVI Becomes a Defender of Freedom
And he appeals that “the religions utterly refuse to sanction recourse to violence.” As an example of the “particular charity” between Muslims and Christians, he cites an Arab prince of the eleventh century, one esteemed by Pope Gregory VII

18.10.2006
> The Regensburg Effect: The Open Letter from 38 Muslims to the Pope
Instead of saying they are offended and demanding apologies, they express their respect for him and dialogue with him on faith and reason. They disagree on many points. But they also criticize those Muslims who want to impose, with violence, “utopian dreams in which the end justifies the means”

11.10.2006
> “A brusqueness that we find unacceptable…”
All the modifications introduced by Benedict XVI into the definitive version of his September 12, 2006 lecture at the University of Regensburg

4.10.2006
> Two Muslim Scholars Comment on the Papal Lecture in Regensburg
They are Khaled Fouad Allam and Aref Ali Nayed. The former is more in agreement with Benedict XVI, the latter very critical, in a sneak peek of his essay published here. Faith, violence, and reason at the center of the confrontation between Christianity and Islam

22.9.2006
> Why Benedict XVI Did not Want to Fall Silent or Backpedal
If in Regensburg the pope cited the dialogue between the emperor of Byzantium and his Muslim adversary, he did so with deliberation. His thesis is that – then as now – religion must wed itself, not with violence, but with reason. An analysis by Pietro De Marco and a commentary by Lucetta Scaraffia

18.9.2006
> Islam’s Unreasonable War Against Benedict XVI
In Regensburg, the pope offered as terrain for dialogue between Christians and Muslims “acting according to reason.” But the Islamic world has attacked him, distorting his thought, confirming by this that the rejection of reason brings intolerance and violence along with it. The uncertainties about the trip to Turkey

12.9.2006
> The Best of Greek Thought Is “An Integral Part of Christian Faith”
The complete text of the lecture given by the pope on the afternoon of Tuesday, September 12, 2006, in the main hall of the University of Regensburg

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Mufti Hopes Muslim Centre to Promote Dialogue with All Groups

The Islamic cultural and religious centre which the Slovenian Muslim community will begin building must serve to strengthen the bonds of the community and promote dialogue with other groups. “This must be a centre which will interpret Islam to the modern human,” head of the Muslim community in Slovenia, Mufti Nedžad Grabus, has told the STA.

Having overcome years of opposition to a mosque and cultural centre in Ljubljana, which has forced them to hold religious ceremonies in sports arenas and apartments, Slovenia’s Muslims are now eagerly awaiting the start of works on the building in down town Ljubljana.

The foundation stone is scheduled to be laid at a ceremony on Saturday featuring Slovenian Muslims and dignitaries from around the world, including Bosnia-Herzegovina, Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kosovo and Macedonia.

In an interview with the STA ahead of the ceremony, Grabus said that the centre’s activities will strengthen the bonds of the Islamic community in Slovenia and help promote the identity of European Muslims. It will also serve as a site for promoting dialogue with other groups.

The activities at the centre will include education about the Islamic world and about arts and literature. A library will be one of the main features. Grabus expects that the mosque will eventually also become a destination for tourists and a sign of the openness of the Slovenian capital.

One of his main hopes is that its construction will help promote understanding of Islam, including among the groups which had so vehemently opposed the mosque. In this respect, he highlighted politicians as the biggest obstacle.

“For decades we didn’t have a problem with the law-governed state, nor with bureaucracy, nor with human rights, but rather with politics.” The mufti said that Muslims in Europe were surprised “how this debate could be dragging on for so long, given that we have laws which let us build”.

“Our goal is not to deal with politics as such, but when politics started targeting us, we had to find a way to find a solution,” the mufti said. He believes the understanding that Slovenia is a democratic state prevailed in the end.

People living by the plot of land which the community bought from the city in 2008 to build the centre have never complained, even when the community has organised events at the site, the mufti told the STA.

The idea to build a mosque in Slovenia has been around ever since the community was officially registered in Slovenia in 1976. While officially the second-largest religious community in the predominantly Catholic Slovenia, with some 50,000 followers, they have had to overcome numerous obstacles to realise this goal.

Tangible progress has been achieved only in recent years, after the Muslim community was sold a plot of land for the centre by the Ljubljana city council. While that stirred up anti-Muslim sentiment and even a referendum challenge, the country’s top court quashed this, paving the way for the community to launch the project.

In a key step to realising its goal, the community selected a design by Slovenian architecture studio Bevk Perovič Arhitekti for the centre among 44 proposals in an international call for bids in 2011. The community now hopes to take the next step by launching construction works.

Responding to fears from opponents that the centre could serve as a point of congregation for extremists, Grabus said that Islam and other faiths were abused in societies which lacked proper education and work. “We are working to fight such abuses of Islam.”

He said that he had not heard of extremist ideas in Slovenia and highlighted that a distinction needed to be made between the actions of individuals and the teachings of a faith.

Grabus hopes that the centre, located on what is currently a derelict industrial site in down town Ljubljana, could be built in just over three years, although this will also depend on the financial means of the community.

He said that the community did not expect the cost of land, development documentation and municipal fees to be as high. With the building works not expected to cost less than EUR 12m, the community currently has around 70% of the required funds.

The funds have been raised with the help of Slovenian Muslims, while the community has also received donations from Qatar, Grabus told the STA.

A public call for contractors is expected to be published in October, but before that the community expects to receive a building permit. Construction works could begin as early as November.

Meanwhile, Grabus spoke out against the proposal that the new real estate tax would also be levied on religious buildings. “We are not a trading company. We have an important role to play from a social, humanitarian and educational standpoints. The state should understand this.”

Tags: Slovenia, muslims, Mufti Nedžad Grabus, Islamic Cultural Centre