By
Coilin O'Connor
Less
than a century ago, Europe's Muslim
population was concentrated
primarily in the Balkans. Nowadays,
there are Muslims living all over
the continent from Iceland to
Georgia. In keeping with this trend,
the Czech Republic also has a small
but robust Muslim community. There
are currently around 20,000
practising Muslims living in this
country.
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Photo: Antonio Melina/ABr |
Most of
the members of this
community originally came
here from Arab states to
study and ended up staying.
This is what happened to
Jehad Hamarshieh, a
Jordanian-born Palestinian
who came here in 1987 to
take a course in electrical
engineering.
Like many
Muslims now living in this
country, his initial
experience of Czech society
was very positive:
"When I
came here I felt like I was
at home. The people were
very nice. Every country has
good and bad people, but I
only ever had good people
around me. The people were
very friendly. There are
very good people in the
Czech Republic who know how
to deal with foreigners." |
Jehad liked it
here so much that he decided to make
his life in Prague. He married a
Czech woman and started a family.
His wife has since become one of a
few hundred native Czechs who have
converted to Islam:
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"I got
married in 1995. My wife at
that time was a Christian.
But she knew me - she knew
that I didn't drink, that I
didn't go womanising and so
on. When we got married she
remained a Christian and I
stayed a Muslim. She saw how
I acted and behaved towards
her and her family and to
everyone else. She began
asking questions as to why I
would do certain things etc.
Then after two years she
came to me and said 'OK, I
want to be a Muslim like
you.' I said you are welcome
in Islam. I can't force you
to become a Muslim. I can
invite you."
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Jehad now has
children who are being brought up as
Muslims, but whose lives are Czech
in almost every other way:
"They are living
normally. They go to school like any
other Czech boys. We only tell them
that we don't want them to eat any
fat from the pigs and things like
that. The teachers in the schools
are really very good teachers. They
understand and respect that it's not
ok for them to eat these things and
so on."
Vladimir Sanka is
the director of the Islamic Centre
in Prague. He himself is also a
Czech convert to Islam. Such local
conversions are still quite unusual
in this country where many people
have strong atheist leanings and
some are quite wary of organised
religions. Mr Sanka, however, says
that the Muslim community here has
become an accepted part of Czech
life:
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Vladimir Sanka |
"I would
say most of our society has
a pretty normal attitude to
us. We have chosen our
religion freely and it's our
way of life. We don't force
anyone to follow our faith.
Based on the principle of
freedom of religion, we have
a right to live here in
Europe among others. I would
personally say that on the
whole we live well here and
our small community doesn't
have any major problems"
Mr Sanka
says it's quite common for
Muslims here to be actively
involved in their
communities and to embrace
many aspects of Czech life:
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"All the Muslims
I know are interested in integrating
with Czech society. I think this is
the right attitude. We don't want to
live in isolation or to create a
closed society inside the Czech
Republic. On the contrary, we want
to enrich this society and live
together with other people. We don't
want to live in ghettoised districts
and places like that."
Of course,
despite the fact that Muslims here
are treated with a lot of respect by
many Czechs, there are some who view
them with deep suspicion. This is
partly due to highly publicised
attacks by extremist Islamic
terrorists such as last year's
London bombings and the attacks on
the World Trade Centre in 2001.
These events have created a climate
of fear in the Western World and
some people now even view Islam as a
threat to their freedom and
security.
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In the
Czech Republic, attitudes
towards Muslims have also
hardened in some quarters
thanks to a small but highly
visible number of people
from Muslim North African
countries, who have been
arriving in this country
since the early 1990s and
have become involved in
certain forms of
racketeering including drug
trafficking.
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As a result, a
lot of people now associate Muslims
in the Czech Republic with these
dodgy dealings even though many of
these activities are also strictly
forbidden in Islam. It's a problem
Vladimir Sanka acknowledges. He says
any reservations some Czechs might
have about Muslims living in their
midst would be dispelled fairly
easily if they took the time to
actually learn more about the true
nature of Islam.
"Unfortunately,
part of society has some prejudices
or distorted information concerning
Islam. Some people have a
subconsciously mistrustful attitude
towards us, precisely because they
don't know Islam or anything about
us, which can give rise to some fear
and apprehension. But I think this
can be overcome by informing them
about our way of life."
This is a view
echoed by Jehad Hamarshieh:
"Our prophet
Mohammed said that religion means
how to live with other people - how
to live quietly with others without
bothering or hurting them and to
understand their needs. You are
expected to give them the best of
you. This is Islam. Islam is not
what they are describing in the
media and elsewhere. As Muslims,
most of us know the things they are
saying are not true."
In fact, instead
of posing a danger to Czech society,
there are some who say the strict
moral code which most Muslims adhere
to can only have a positive impact
here.
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Lubos Kropacek |
Professor
Lubos Kropacek from the
Institute of Middle Eastern
and African Studies at
Charles University says the
influence of religions like
Islam can bring a moral
dimension to Czech life,
which has sometimes been
lacking in this highly
secular society, ever since
the old certainties and
beliefs of communism were
swept aside in 1989. |
"Would unbound
freedom without any moral
considerations still be freedom? I'm
not sure. Unfortunately, in this
country we had a bad experience in
the early 1990s when many people
started to understand freedom as
meaning freedom to steal or to get
rich very quickly by any means
possible without any inbuilt moral
mechanisms, which would stop them
from behaving improperly. It is
perhaps a dangerous aspect of a
country as secular as the Czech
Republic, that perhaps many people
don't have these internal moral
mechanisms."
Professor
Kropacek says that religions like
Islam can play a crucial role in
fostering the so-called internal
moral mechanisms, which may be
lacking in some part of
post-communist Czech society.
"In Islam, there
are a number of good moral precepts,
which play a positive role in social
life. Being a Christian myself I
feel that I should also respect the
beliefs of Muslims, with whom we
should conduct a dialogue and not
clash with, either violently or
non-violently."
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This
dialogue between Islam and
other religions in the Czech
Republic has seen the Muslim
community make joint public
statements with Jewish and
Catholic leaders on ethical
issues such as euthanasia.
Valdimir Sanka agrees that
Islam like other religions
such as Christianity can set
a moral example in many
areas. Jehad Hamarshieh
has no doubt that Islam can have a
very positive effect on Czech
society if people will simply open
their minds to the true nature of
its teachings. |
"We would ask
ordinary people to be more
understanding of what it means to
follow Islam. Islam means peace. If
you see an envelope with the word
'PEACE' written on it, you have to
open it up and look inside to
find out the
meaning of this word."
Source :
http://www.radio.cz/en/article/82195
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