ISLAMIC SOUL-CARE IN GERMANY: CONDITION, CHALLENGES AND PERSPECTIVES

Abstract

UDK 28-725(430)

Despite much emphasised social aspect of the message of Islam, soul-care as religiously inspired way of helping people in difficult and stressing existential circumstances, in Islamic context, remains quite unobserved. In intellectual sense, within systematised clas-sical Islamic theology, as well as in practical, organisational and structural sense it has never been developed and it does not have, for example, a role such as it has in the context of Christianity or in societies where Christianity is a prevailing religion. How-ever, in Germany, one such society with developed sole-caring in overall social context, lately we are witnessing for various different reasons including growing number of Muslims and presence of Islam in that society, rise in Islamic sole-caring and its increas-ing significance there. Its foundation within the sources of Islam and within Islamic theological tradition, establishing structures for practical training for Muslim soul-carers and organisational frameworks for practical soul-caring are in the main focus here. Principles for institutionalising Islamic soul-caring on academic, practical and organisational level are also discussed.