ST. LEGER DE FOUGERET, France, Oct. 18 (UPI) -- A 19th-century chateau in St. Leger de Fougeret, France, is being used to train imams to minister to the Muslims of Europe.
The New York Times reported Monday the goal of the European Institute for Human Sciences is to train imams to stanch the migration of Muslim clerics who are often unfamiliar with the West, beholden to foreign interests and, in extreme cases, full of hate.
"We are here to create modern imams who will respond to the needs of our Muslims in France and in Europe," said Zuhair Mahmood, the Iraqi-born director of the school.
Islam does not require its imams to have a formal degree of learning.
"An imam is not an official position; it's poorly paid and there's no security," said Olivier Roy, a French scholar on Islam. "Why should a bright young French or British boy spend five years studying Islam only to find that there's no real job?
However, producing imams is controversial, said James Piscatori, a professor of Islamic politics at Oxford University in Britain. "On the one hand, you want your own imams because the imported ones are seen as conveyor belts for bad ideas," he said. "On the other hand, the communities say, 'Who are you to tell us who our imam should be or how he should be trained?' "
