Sven Kalisch

Sven Kalisch ( born March 21, 1966 in Hamburg, formerly Muhammad Sven Kalisch ) is a German jurist and former Islamic theologian. He was the holder of the first chair for training teachers of Islamic religion in the Federal Republic of Germany. He teaches and researches at the University of Münster.

Education and living

Kalisch was 15 years old when he converted from Protestantism to Islam. He counted to the faith of the Zaydi ( Shi'a - fives ) and sees itself as a Neoplatonist. In 1997 he received his PhD at the Department of Law and Economics at the Technical University of Darmstadt, the title of his doctoral thesis was common sense and flexibility in Islamic legal methodology. He then worked until 2001 as an independent lawyer in Hamburg. In 2002 he became a professor in Islamic Studies at the University of Hamburg with the font Fiqh and Usul al- fiqh in the Zaidiya. The historical development of Zaidiya as law school. Following him, the University of Hamburg granted the right to teach as a lecturer for the subject of Islamic Studies.

Kalisch was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Muslim Academy in Germany and has also worked for the Islamic Centre Hamburg.

From 2004 to 2010 Kalisch was a full professor of the religion of Islam at the Center for Religious Studies (CRS ) at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster. His appointment prospective teachers for Islamic religious instruction or its replacement specialist were for the first time in the history of North Rhine -Westphalia trained Islamic studies at a university in North Rhine -Westphalia after the Bavarian Friedrich- Alexander -University Erlangen -Nuremberg in 2003, such training for the first time had initiated in Germany. The additional degree qualified teacher trainees and student teachers for all types of schools. The teaching degree in Münster includes superior Quran, history of Islam, Muhammad, fiqh and ʿ Ilm al - Kalam. 2008, exempted from the teacher training because of his controversial theories about the existence of the religious founder Mohammed the North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of Science Kalisch.

Controversy over theological positions

The Coordination Council of Muslims in Germany (KRM ) ended in September 2008, his participation in the Advisory Board of the Center for Religious Studies at the University of Münster. The former speaker of the KRM, Ali Kızılkaya, said you can not recommend anyone to study at Kalisch, because, like the existence of Muhammad and the basic principles of the formation of the Koran, draw basic teachings of Islam, in doubt. In addition to the existence of Muhammad Kalisch doubt on the historical existence of Jesus, Moses, Abraham, and other prophets of the Islamic, Christian and Jewish traditions.

Regarding his theses announced Kalisch 2008 for 2009, the publication of a book on. For a critique of Islam associations Kalisch said that he considered the ideas of theology for not timely and wanted to know the course for the Islamic theology towards a historical-critical research in the Western tradition.

With his theological opinion Kalisch is considered a representative of the so-called radical criticism. Focus magazine, he said: " Although I represent not sweeping the theories of Saarbrücken School of Islamic science that the Koran is a Christian text basically. But I welcome the methodological approaches, archaeological evidence, coins and traditions outside of Islam to be used to research. " By the term" Saarbrücken school " is Kalisch refers to theories which, among others, Karl -Heinz Ohlig, Gerd R. Puin and Christoph Luxenberg are represented; all three taught or teach at the University of Saarland in Saarbrücken, or associated with the institution. The representatives of this direction keep the Koran for an originally Christian text that was not announced in Arabic, but a faulty translation from Syriac was. They represent also the position that Mohammed was only invented later to provide Islam with a prophetic founder, after had developed from an originally Christian heresy own religion.

That Kalisch these radical positions, which are also within the Western Islamic studies a minority opinion, held for basically worthy of discussion, caused outrage among conservative Muslims. In the context of the theological dispute ruled Kalisch's former assistant Lamya Kaddor who had quit her job in March 2008, and left the chair, "I believe that Professor Kalisch was initially an appropriate candidate for this chair. " However, it was after extensive debates come to believe "that he now is no longer the duties of the chair justice. " the Islam-critical author Seyran Ates, the Turkologin Ursula winder - Stegemann, the Islamic scholar Tilman Nagel and Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, the Secretary General of the Alevi community in Germany, Ali Ertan Toprak, and others have expressed their solidarity for Kalisch through a public call.

In March 2009, students reported by Kalish to speak. 22 of these 31 students demanded in a letter to the Rector of the University of Münster the deduction of Kalisch of the teacher training so that they still have a chance later to be set as the Islamic religious teachers and recognized by Muslim parents and communities. Furthermore criticize these 22 students, that to Kalisch events no alternative would be offered and thus he is the only have the audit authority. These 22 students announced, all events for the training of teachers of Islam boycott and to want to withdraw from the university in a second step.

Kalisch feels threatened in his own words. The fact that some conservative Muslims now his first name Muhammad and omitting only called him Sven Kalisch, he felt as a thinly veiled threat, he told the Mirror. The message was clear. "Some no longer regard me as a Muslim. " The renunciation of Islam is viewed as being fundamentally offense punishable by death (also see apostasy in Islam ). Although there were no specific threats against his person, but due to the indirect accusation that he had fallen away from the faith, and of the fact that foreign newspapers have described him as Sven Kalisch place Muhammad Kalisch and thus proclaimed it, that he was no longer a Muslim, was moved his office to a non- public place, he himself placed under police protection.

Court proceedings and dismissal from the Chair

According to a report in the Frankfurter Rundschau in November 2009, and other media 30 Kalisch is at the center of a " donation scandal ". According to the Centre for Religious Studies under his direction 20.000 euros have been collected illegally from a donation as part of the so-called December fever " end of March last year it was [ the money ] at the direction of a head of department of the university to a university account at the WestLB recognized, official, purpose: Repayment of project funds, '" says the Münster newspaper. However, was accused a former employee, the Islamic religious educator and author Lamya Kaddor, with the Kalisch was in a legal dispute for some time. 2008, a first trial before the District Court of Muenster ended with a settlement under which Kalisch had to undertake not to disseminate certain allegations. The occasion was an e -mail that he sent around three months after leaving Kaddor to numerous addressees. Meanwhile Kaddor has filed suit against him under the Anti -Discrimination Act. On 28 October 2011, the procedure initiated by the public prosecutor against Munster process Kaddor from the Münster District Court was set.

On 20 July 2010 Mouhanad Khorchide was appointed to succeed Sven Kalisch. The end of 2013, however, Islamic organizations also protested against Khorchide, who interpreted Islam as a "religion of mercy ", which conservative Muslims understood as an unlawful approach to Christianity, and also similar to already entered Kalisch for themselves the Koran with the means historical-critical method to approach scientific.

Since the fall of 2008 directed against the CRS and its former director, the campaign took place in Münster, on the one operating under the name of Hamza Ali İndenoğlu person was heavily involved. This prompted an inquiry by the state parliament Rüdiger Sagel of 18 March 2010 under number 14/10881, which then asks besides other things, which measures the NRW state government have taken to nullify threats to the country's universities. The answer dated April 16, 2010, and bears number 14 / 11030th

Turning away from Islam

As appearing in Münster Westfälische Nachrichten April 21, 2010 reported on its website, Kalisch is no longer a Muslim. He had placed the university management on notice also the country's science ministry had been informed. Since the confession is irrelevant for his professorship, have Kalisch's decision to leave Islam, from the perspective of the university no consequences. According to press reports, he took also his first name "Muhammad ". In July 2010, the Rector Kalisch removed from the " Center for Religious Studies ." He is Professor in the Department of Philology; his professorship was renamed " intellectual history of the Middle East in post-ancient times ".

Publications and Papers (selection)

• Peace from the perspective of Islam. In: Islam dialog, born 1, No. 4, Winter 2002, pp. 13-28.
• Islamic business ethics in an Islamic and non-Islamic in an environment. in: Hans G. Nutzinger (ed.): Christian, Jewish and Islamic Business Ethics - About religious foundations of economic behavior in secular society, Marburg 2003, pp. 105-129.
• Usul al- Zaidiya wa - al - nascharāt firaq al - Islamiyya. ( in Arabic, " The Basics of Zaidiya and the publications of the Islamic sects " ), in: Al- Masar, Vol 5, Issue 2, 2004, pp. 27-70.
• Faith and law from the perspective of Islamic law schools in: Murest, Multi- Religious Study Group ( ed. ): Handbook of inter-religious dialogue. From Catholic, Protestant, sunnitscher and Alevi perspective. Cologne 2006. ISBN 3-00-017959-3