Since 2011, German universities have trained a growing number of Islamic theologians and religious education teachers, preparing them to teach in mosques, public schools, and community institutions across the country. Meanwhile, policymakers and Islamic associations have pulled these programs in different directions, each hoping to shape what kind of Islam gets passed on to the next generation. Until recently, however, nobody had actually surveyed these students on a national scale to see where they stand.
A study published in the British Journal of Religious Education finally fills that gap. Researchers Abdulkerim Şenel and Sarah Demmrich surveyed 252 students — roughly 11% of everyone currently enrolled in these programs nationwide — making this the first Germany-wide, gender-representative look at future Islamic educators’ beliefs and motivations. Their findings offer a nuanced, occasionally uncomfortable, picture that resists easy headlines in either direction.
A Tug-of-War Over What “Islam” Should Mean
Before diving into results, it helps to understand the tension driving this research. On one side, large Islamic associations — particularly DİTİB, which maintains close ties to Turkey’s government — hope university-trained teachers will reinforce traditional religious practice among Muslim youth. On the other side, German policymakers and many university scholars want graduates to promote what researchers call a “European-shaped Islam”: one contextualized within European values, interpreting the Quran symbolically rather than literally, and treating women, non-Muslims, and homosexuals as full equals.
Caught between these expectations, students must somehow navigate both directions simultaneously. Therefore, understanding their actual attitudes matters enormously for shaping future policy, curriculum design, and public debate. Without solid data, discussions about Islamic education in Germany tend toward speculation rather than evidence.
Measuring “Reform Orientation”
To capture this tension quantitatively, the researchers built an entirely new measurement tool: the Reform Orientation Scale. This scale combines six dimensions — symbolic versus literal Quran interpretation, contextualizing Islam within Europe, equal treatment of non-Muslims, gender egalitarianism, acceptance of homosexuality, and willingness to critically examine religious violence.
After testing the scale’s statistical reliability, the researchers found it performed well, meaning it genuinely captured a coherent underlying attitude rather than measuring random noise. Importantly, though, the average score across all 252 students landed slightly below the scale’s midpoint, indicating a modest overall lean away from reform orientation, even as individual responses varied widely from person to person.
What Draws Students Toward Reform — and What Pushes Them Away
Statistically, two factors consistently predicted stronger reform orientation: wanting to teach a European-contextualized Islam, and holding egalitarian views on gender roles. Students scoring high on both traits tended to embrace symbolic Quran interpretation, support equal rights for non-Muslims and homosexuals, and critically reflect on violence committed in Islam’s name.
However, several factors pulled firmly in the opposite direction. Students who felt represented by DİTİB scored notably lower on reform orientation, as did students whose friendship circles consisted almost entirely of other Muslims. Similarly, students holding negative stereotypes about the West or Jewish people — what researchers label “enemy images” — showed weaker reform orientation. Finally, and perhaps unsurprisingly, students scoring higher on a fundamentalism scale showed the strongest negative association of all.
Together, these variables explained an impressive 64% of the differences between students’ reform-oriented attitudes — a remarkably high figure for social science research, suggesting the researchers identified genuinely meaningful drivers rather than marginal correlations.
The Numbers Behind Fundamentalism and Hardline Views
Now for the harder statistics, which deserve careful context. Using a strict four-item fundamentalism scale, researchers classified roughly 24% of students as holding what they call an “encompassing fundamentalist worldview” — meaning they agreed with all four statements simultaneously, including claims that only one religion holds absolute truth and that Muslims should return to a 7th-century social order. For comparison, a separate representative study of Turkish-origin Muslims across Germany generally found about 15% meeting this same threshold, suggesting theology students in this sample scored somewhat higher on this particular measure.
Meanwhile, a related “Islamism” scale — measuring support for merging religion with state power rather than personal religiosity — found roughly 22% supported politicizing Islam entirely, 25% preferred Sharia-based legal penalties over German law, and 23% favored stricter gender segregation in society. On the more troubling end, about 10% accepted violence framed as defensive, while 6% accepted violence framed as actively spreading the faith. The authors explicitly flag these figures as concerning, since even minority-level support for religiously motivated violence among future religious educators carries outsized importance given their intended societal role.
Context That Balances the Picture
Importantly, though, several other findings paint a considerably different picture. Democratic values scored the highest average of any measured attitude in the entire study, with students strongly affirming free speech, fair elections, religious freedom, and minority rights. Similarly, 98% of students firmly rejected the idea that husbands may strike disobedient wives — arguably the most unambiguous consensus found anywhere in the survey.
Furthermore, most students rejected specific proselytizing motivations, and a striking two-thirds explicitly said they did not want to teach a “European-shaped” version of Islam, generally preferring interpretations closer to inherited tradition. This finding cuts against any assumption that resistance to reform necessarily signals extremism; many students simply prefer traditional religious practice without endorsing violence or antidemocratic views.
Gender attitudes proved genuinely mixed rather than uniformly conservative or progressive. While the overwhelming majority rejected domestic violence outright, 61% still agreed men bear primary financial responsibility for families, and 53% believed men and women should avoid shaking hands. Meanwhile, one-third agreed a toddler suffers when the mother works outside the home. These patterns suggest nuanced, sometimes internally inconsistent attitudes rather than a single coherent ideological position.
Enemy Images: A Closer Look
Among the more striking findings, roughly 60% of students agreed the West bears responsibility for poor conditions across many Islamic countries, and a similar share believed the West actively works to prevent Islamic civilization from flourishing again. Meanwhile, 47% agreed Israel lacks the right to exist, and 37% agreed Jewish people hold excessive global power and influence — statements researchers classify under antisemitic and anti-Western “enemy images.”
By contrast, only 12% viewed assimilated Muslims themselves as enemies of their community, suggesting hostility skewed outward rather than inward. The authors argue these enemy-image patterns deserve particular attention in university curricula, since they correlated strongly and negatively with reform orientation across multiple statistical models.
What Universities and Policymakers Should Do Next
Rather than simply cataloging concerning statistics, the study’s authors offer constructive recommendations. First, they argue Islamic theology programs should more directly confront antisemitic and anti-Western narratives through structured coursework, rather than assuming exposure to academic theology alone will shift these views. Second, they recommend greater emphasis on gender equality discussions specifically, since this value orientation proved to be one of reform orientation’s strongest positive predictors.
Additionally, the researchers call for honest reflection on how much influence associations like DİTİB should hold over teacher training and hiring, given that association ties correlated with weaker reform orientation throughout the study. At the same time, they caution against treating students as blank slates upon university entry; instead, they recommend building on students’ existing family and community-shaped beliefs through structured academic engagement rather than dismissing those beliefs outright.
Reading the Findings Responsibly
Finally, several caveats matter enormously here. This sample represents only students actively enrolled in Islamic theology and religious education programs — not German Muslims broadly, nor even Muslim university students generally. Because the survey covered sensitive topics like violence and antisemitism, social desirability bias likely shaped responses in unpredictable directions; some students may have understated hardline views, while others may have overstated tolerance to appear progressive.
Nevertheless, this study represents meaningful progress toward evidence-based discussion of a genuinely important topic. Rather than relying on anecdote or speculation, German policymakers, universities, and Islamic associations now have concrete data to inform how they train the next generation of religious educators — professionals who will shape religious understanding for thousands of young Muslims across Germany and, by extension, across Europe more broadly.
3. TABLE 1 — Top Study Motivations Among Prospective Islamic Theologians and Teachers
| Motivation | Share Agreeing |
|---|---|
| Expanding personal religious knowledge | Widely affirmed (mean 3.37/4) |
| Acquiring skills for interreligious dialogue | Widely affirmed (mean 3.38/4) |
| Proselytizing (converting others to the faith) | 52.0% agreed |
| Imparting a “European-shaped” Islam | 31.7% agreed (68.3% did not) |
| Secure career perspective | Mean 1.88/4 (generally low) |
| Skepticism toward whether German universities teach “correct” Islam | Mean 1.87/4 (generally low) |
4. TABLE 2 — Selected Attitude Findings (with Context)
| Measure | Finding Among Surveyed Students | Comparison / Context |
|---|---|---|
| Encompassing fundamentalist worldview | ~24% | ~15% among a separate representative sample of Turkish-origin Muslims in Germany |
| Support for politicizing Islam (Islam as ultimate political authority) | ~22% | Minority view; majority disagreed |
| Preference for Sharia-based legal penalties over German law | ~25% | Minority view; majority disagreed |
| Acceptance of defensive religiously motivated violence | ~10% | Small minority |
| Acceptance of proactive religiously motivated violence | ~6% | Small minority |
| Rejection of domestic violence (“husbands may mildly strike wives”) | 98% disagreed | Near-universal consensus |
| Affirmation of core democratic values (speech, elections, minority rights) | Highest-scoring measure in the entire study | Strong, broad consensus |
Note: These figures describe only the 252 surveyed students, not Muslims in Germany generally. Self-report surveys on sensitive topics are subject to social desirability bias in both directions.
