Beyond the confessional/non-confessional divide—the case of German islamic theological studies

Abstract

This article focuses on the cross-disciplinary collaboration of Islamic theological studies, Islamic Studies, and integrative perspectives of professors in Islamic Theology in Germany. Based on extensive interviews with German Muslim professors in theological centers, Engelhardt argues that in Germany, where the Ministry of Education and Research established several centers for Islamic Theology, the theological scholarly community is too small to cover all areas of Islamic knowledge and therefore integrates knowledge from Islamic Studies into their research and teaching to a great extent. As a result, Islamic Studies constitutes the most important neighboring discipline to German Islamic Theology. In this article, he explores the question of how exactly German Islamic Theology negotiates this relation with Islamic Studies. The article will show how the debate between Islamic Theology and Islamic Studies—as articulated by professors from both disciplines—relates to the ongoing question of what constitutes or is understood as ‘apt knowledge’ by current ‘academic knowledge production’ and authority formation about ‘the Islamic’.