The German Islam Conference

In recent decades, Germany has experienced greater religious and cultural diversity, above all as the result of immigrants from Muslim countries of origin. Today, roughly four million Muslims live in Germany, accounting for about 5 % of the total population. Nearly half of them have German citizenship.

The Federal Ministry of the Interior launched the German Islam Conference on 27 September 2006, creating the first forum for a dialogue between federal, state and local government and Muslims in Germany. On 17 May 2010 the plenary of the DIK met for the first time in this legislative period and adopted a comprehensive work programme for the second phase of the German Islam Conference. The Preparatory Committee and the project and working goups set up by it have taken up their work immediately. The results jointly drawn up were submitted to the plenary at its meeting on 29 March 2011 for adoption.

Already during its first phase, from 2006 to 2009, the German Islam Conference was able to achieve a number of successful results. According to the coalition agreement for the 17th legislative term. Alongside the inter-religious dialogue taking place among the religious communities, the German Islam Conference has initiated a process of bringing constitutional law applicable to religious organizations to Muslim segments of Germany’s population. "This process should be encouraged. For this reason, we intend to continue the German Islam Conference, which is the most important forum for dialogue between the German government and Muslims living in Germany."