TheAhmadiyya are movement that comprise a minority ofGermany, numbering some 35,000–45,000 adherents and found in 244 communities as of 2013.[1][2][3]
The Ahmadis were one of the earliest Muslim communities to have been established in Germany and built the first central mosque, theWilmersdorfer Moschee in Berlin-Wilmersdorf between 1923 and 1925. The mosque, run by theAhmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat-i-Islam, was open to all Muslims, published theMoslemische Revue (Muslim Review) between 1924 and 1940, and its first Imam,Maulana Sadr-ud-Din, wrote the first German translation of theQuran in cooperation with the German convert Hugo Marcus.[4] This translation was published in 1939.[5] Organised activities by the larger Ahmadiyya Muslim Community under the leadership of theCaliph began only after the Second World War when a centre was established. The movement has increasingly taken root in Germany since the 1980s through the arrival of South Asian immigrants and converts to Islam. The Ahmadi community in Germany consists mainly of Pakistani immigrants with a relatively small number of native German converts. Significant communities exist inBaden-Württemberg,Lower Saxony,North Rhine-Westphalia,Hesse andBremen.[6] TheKhadija Mosque in Berlin, designed and financed by Ahmadi Muslim women in Germany was opened in 2008.
Historically, due to theLandeskirchen concept, the organizational setup of the churches in Germany has always been in close interaction with the state administration and mirrored the territorial patchwork. As a legacy of thePrussian education system, the various confessions in Germany (including in the meanwhile Jewish and secular bodies as well) have contributed to primary and secondaryeducation in Germany and do so still. The Ahmadiyya community outstanding organizational setup mirrors that system and allowed the German Ahmadiyya community to be (2013) acknowledged as first Islamic community with the status ofKörperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts as legal entity of public law.[7] Ahmadiyya applied for the status just to be able to offer religious education in Hessian state schools, but is allowed now to maintain their own cemeteries and have their members funds being collected by the German state'schurch tax system.[8] It has been deemed as historical milestone and German dailyDie Welt titled the event withIslam is a part of Germany now, quoting a famous speech of former PresidentChristian Wulff.[8]
Prominent German Ahmadi Muslims include:
