Thursday, February 26, 2015

This is a trend: Austria redesigns Islam for Muslims in Austria

"Parliament on Wednesday passed a law that seeks to regulate how Islam is administered, singling out Austria’s Muslim minority for treatment not applied to any other religious group. The law bans foreign funding for Islamic organizations and requires any group claiming to represent Austrian Muslims to use a standardized German translation of the Quran. It met with little opposition from the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic population and was grudgingly accepted by Austria’s main Muslim organization.  But it upset Turkey’s state religious establishment. Austria’s half a million Muslims make up about 6 percent of the population and are overwhelmingly the families of Turkish migrant workers."