Alimjan Idris and Islam in Four Germanys, 1916–59

This paper explores the life of the Islamic scholar Alimjan Idris. Born in Central Asia, Idris studied theology and philosophy in Bukhara, Istanbul and Lausanne, and during the First World War was employed by the Ottoman War Ministry. In early 1916 he was sent to Germany, where he became involved in German propaganda towards the Islamic world and was made responsible for Muslim prisoners of war in special Muslim prisoner of war camps near Berlin. He stayed in Berlin after the war and became a key figure in the organization of the Muslim community in Weimar Germany. After the Nazis came to power, Idris became heavily involved in propaganda activities again, first for the Foreign Office, later for other branches of the regime. During the Second World War he was once more responsible for Muslim prisoners of war and Muslim volunteers in the Wehrmacht. In 1944 he became director of the so-called ‘SS-Mullah School’ in Dresden, which trained military imams for service in the German army. After 1945 Idris was a key figure in the organization of the first post-war Muslim community in Germany, based in Munich. His story provides a unique lens through which to view Muslim life in four German states. Indeed, no person shaped the history of Islam in early twentieth-century Germany more than him. Interweaving the biography of Idris with broader questions about exile, religious minorities and the politics of Islam, the paper will shed new light on the history of Islam in Europe’s age of extremes.