German Intelligence Says Milli Görüs Pushes Ahead with Steady Expansion of Its Infrastructure

Germany’s domes­tic intel­li­gence report­ed in July that the Ger­man branch of the Turk­ish Islamist group Mil­li Görüs is push­ing ahead with the steady expan­sion of its infra­struc­ture in Ger­many. Accord­ing to the 2021 “Con­sti­tu­tion­al Pro­tec­tion” report for Baden-Württemberg:

July 2022 In accor­dance with their self-image, the cen­tral con­cern of the IGMG is to impart com­pre­hen­sive reli­gious knowl­edge (“ilim”) to their fol­low­ers, which also relates to the con­cerns of every­day life. The most impor­tant place for acquir­ing edu­ca­tion and knowl­edge is the mosque. The focus is on youth and edu­ca­tion­al work. Here the offer ranges from pre-school through basic edu­ca­tion to adult edu­ca­tion for­mats, week­end and hol­i­day cours­es, sem­i­nars, lec­tures, house talks, com­pe­ti­tions and dis­cus­sion events. […] IGMG and EMUG e. V. sup­port the Europe-wide expan­sion of their infra­struc­ture with regard to the reli­gious edu­ca­tion of future gen­er­a­tions through their annu­al fundrais­ing cam­paign (“Infak Kam­pa­nyası”). […] Large­ly out of the pub­lic eye, the IGMG con­tin­ues to push ahead with the con­stant expan­sion of its infra­struc­ture and cor­re­spond­ing teach­ing and edu­ca­tion­al offers. The aim is to famil­iar­ize chil­dren and young peo­ple with their own inter­pre­ta­tion of Islam and the socio-polit­i­cal goals derived from it. This con­cern is def­i­nite­ly under­stood by the actors as a mul­ti-gen­er­a­tional project. [Trans­lat­ed with Google Translate]

Read the  full report here.

The report iden­ti­fies the Cologne-based asso­ci­a­tion EMUG (Europäis­che Moschee­bau- und Unter­stützungs­ge­mein­schaft e. V.) as con­nect­ed to Mil­li Görüs. EMUG is respon­si­ble for the admin­is­tra­tion and con­struc­tion of hun­dreds of mosques in Ger­many and Europe. Ger­man Mus­lim Broth­er­hood leader Ibrahim El-Zay­at is exec­u­tive direc­tor of the EMUG. El-Zay­at’s wife is the sis­ter of Mehmet Sabri Erbakan, a for­mer leader of Islamis­che Gemein­schaft Mil­lî Görüş (IGMG) and nephew of Necmet­tin Erbakan.

Mil­lî Görüş is a Turk­ish reli­gious and polit­i­cal move­ment found­ed by Necmet­tin Erbakan, Erdoğan’s polit­i­cal men­tor, which has called for an end to the sec­u­lar regime in Turkey. In Ger­many, Mil­lî Görüş oper­ates as the Islamis­che Gemein­schaft Mil­lî Görüş (IGMG), which over­sees the work of Mil­lî Görüş chap­ters in at least 12 Euro­pean coun­tries and states that it has over 127,000 mem­bers world­wide. The GIOR has report­ed about the Ger­man government’s asser­tion that Turk­ish Pres­i­dent Erdoğan’s AKP par­ty has inten­si­fied its rela­tions with Mil­lî Görüş in Germany.