This paper examines Islamic religious education in public schools in German-speaking countries as it undergoes a “stress test” amid overlapping crises: events such as October 7, the current war in Iran, refugee movements, rising right-wing populism, diversity conflicts, and discourses on radicalization shape a precarious setting. It analyzes tensions between the constitutional educational mandate, political expectations (integration, prevention, democracy education), identity-political and theological-pedagogical expectations of Islamic communities, and the intra-Islamic diversity of Muslim students (linking to Ibrahim Kocyigit’s paper on multiple understandings of religion among Muslim youth).
Key questions are: What significance does Islamic religious education have for public negotiations of belonging and for articulating Muslim horizons of the future? In what institutional and discursive settings does it take place, and with what diversity? Which structural and discursive challenges limit its potential, and what future scenarios—from dismantling to a professionalized, reflexive-theological subject—emerge?