A German newspaper has reported that a possible new spokesman for the recently created coordinating body for Muslims in Germany is also a member of a Turkish Islamist organization closely tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. After citing the liberal background and positions of Ali Kizilkaya, the report goes on to state:
Ali Kizilkaya is the chairman of the Islamic Council in Germany and a member of Milli Gorus, the organization that dominates the Council. It is also under observation by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which considers the ideology of Milli Gorus leader Necmettin Erbakan to be Islamist and a number of the statements made by the movement’s rank-and-file aggressive and anti-Semitic. These are isolated cases, says Kizilkaya, pointing to the young leadership of Milli Gorus that has nothing more to do with the hardliners of the first generation.Trade journalist and Islam scholar Claudia Dantschke considers this half the truth at best. “There are young, open, and educated people in Milli Gorus,” she says, “but there is no distancing themselves from Erbakan’s ideology and no separation from the mother party in Turkey.” The financial and property relationships of the organization also remain unclear, she noted. And a number of the young members are especially radical, she noted; some have even died in Chechnya waging jihad. Many KRM members also shudder at the thought of Milli Gorus member Kizilkaya speaking for them for a half year. On the other hand the tightly-led organization, estimated to reach 70,000 people, is too big and too powerful to ignore.
The report goes on to note the relationship of Milli Gorus in Germany to the Muslim Brotherhood:
The Central Council of the Muslims has a general secretary open to dialogue in Aiman Mazyek and a nice chairman in Axel Ayyub Koehler, but the executive board also has Ibrahim Faruk al-Zayad, head of the Islamic Community of Germany (IGD), which the Office for the Protection of the Constitution considers the largest organization of the Muslim Brotherhood in Germany.Al-Zayad lost the election as chairman to Koehler, but he remains powerful: His company is reportedly involved in more than 100 mosque construction projects in Germany and he married Necmettin Erbakan’s niece and therefore has excellent contacts with Milli Gorus. He was a guest at the second Islam conference, to the anger of the liberal Muslims.
A German academic has written about the role of extremist organizations such as the Brotherhood on the new Coordinating Council. ( Source: New German Muslim Community Spokesperson Likely to Cause Controversy Report by Matthias Drobinski: “The Search for the Whole Truth” Sueddeutsche Zeitung (Internet Version-WWW) Friday, March 14, 2008 T08:33:14Z (Description of Source: Munich Sueddeutsche Zeitung (Internet Version-WWW) in German — influential center-left, nationwide daily)