Belgian Muslim Council in Turmoil: President Rejects State Funding Amid Controversy

"This executive has never worked well since its creation in 1999," says Caroline Sägesser, a researcher at CRISP and a specialist in cults, who explains that the need to have a Muslim "head of worship" comes from the fact that the Muslim religion is officially recognized in Belgium. This official recognition takes into account mosques and the control of their budget, the payment by the Belgian state of the salaries of imams, the authorization to have Islamic religion teachers, etc. But where the shoe pinches is that in Sunni Islam, which has the most followers in Belgium, there is no real hierarchy, as is the case in the Roman Catholic religion, the RTBF reports.

To read: article 87110

It was therefore necessary to create a representative body taking into account the weight of the mosque federations which maintain strong ties with Morocco and Turkey, the countries of origin of most Muslims in Belgium. This strong link with the countries of origin has led to the establishment of a system of alternation in the presidency of the Executive between Moroccan and Turkish Muslims. "Can you imagine, we still have in 2021 a real ethnicization of Islam with us," declares a Muslim who knows well the functioning of the Executive. "A few years ago, we wanted to develop imam training from the Executive, but the Turkish representatives managed to torpedo the project, arguing that the imams should continue to be trained in Turkey," laments another.

To read: Belgian Muslim Leadership Body Rejects Criticism, Vows Improvements Amid Controversy

Other problems, particularly related to the management mode, undermine the functioning of the Muslim Executive of Belgium. "It’s still not normal that it’s a few people who decide everything, that we find at all levels of decision-making, for a management that is not very professional, nor up to expectations," criticize certain consistent sources.

For his part, the president of the EMB, Mehmet Üstün, rejects the accusations of dysfunctions, stressing that it is "a will of the cabinet of the Minister of Justice to destabilize us in order to be able to interfere in the management of the Islamic cult in Belgium". Regarding the renewal of the EMB, Mehmet Üstün indicates that the elections scheduled for 2020 and which could not be organized due to the health crisis, could take place in 2022.