Training of Imams and the Fight against Radicalization

Public concern about the training of imams has been a shared feature of debates in many European countries for more than a decade now. While attempts to promote the establishment of European training facilities for imams date back to the 1980s in some countries, the theme did not become a common denominator of European debates until the 2000s. By the middle of that decade, the potential role of imams in processes of radicalization was a recurrent item in debates about Islam. This article will, first, briefly retrace how the training of imams was dealt with before concerns about radicalization emerged in the early 2000s. The concept of radicalization will, secondly, be examined more closely. What exactly does the term designate in policy discourse and do the omnipresent references to it allow us to conclude that it constitutes a common focus in policy-making? In a third step, I will examine the outcome of efforts undertaken in the past decade and identify structural obstacles to training.