Germans look to Islam in hopes of saving themselves.

"For the first time, German public schools are offering classes in Islam to primary school students using state-trained teachers and specially written textbooks, as officials try to better integrate the nation’s large Muslim minority and counter the growing influence of radical religious thinking."

For German authorities, countering the expansion of more radical religious thinking has presented a vexing problem. For now, the domestic intelligence service keeps close watch on a growing number, with 4,500 Salafists under observation in 2011 and 5,500 in 2012, according to an annual government report.

Increasingly, attention has turned to education and ways to nurture greater inclusion for Germany’s approximately four million Muslims, a number that has steadily increased since German industry recruited the first Turks as “guest workers” in the 1960s.

One answer, officials in Hesse hope, is being put in effect in classes where young children are guided by a state-trained teacher working from a state-approved curriculum.

In one class, Timur Kumlu recently asked his 19 6-year-old students each to take a strand from a large wool ball. He then instructed the children — whose parents hailed from Muslim countries as varied as Afghanistan, Albania, Morocco and Turkey — to examine how, like the threads, they, too, were woven together.

It was a simple lesson containing a gentle message filled with symbolism — that they were linked by their Islamic faith and practices of prayer.

“We are now all bound together — you come from different countries, and so do your parents,” said Mr. Kumlu, who reminded the children that while their parents came from Afghanistan or Albania, they were born in Germany. 

“I think it’s clear now that for years we made the mistake of alienating people,” said Nicola Beer, who as education minister in Hesse was one of several politicians, professors and teachers who pushed for the Islamic instruction. Now, she said, Germans recognize that “we are here together, we work together, and we educate our children together.”

It will be interesting to see how this experiment works out. Does prayer in schools lead to children growing up terrorist? Our own US constitution precludes that kind of experimentation here in the US. So, we just get to watch, from afar, hopefully in safety.

NYT