Coping with the Training of Muslim Leaders in Belgium

Since many years, the training of the imams has been put at the center of the policy agenda in several European countries. Because in Belgium religion classes are part of the compulsory program of pupils, the training of imams is coupled with the training of the professors of religion. Recently, proposals to organize these trainings by universities have been submitted to the political arena. These proposals aim at introducing on one hand, classes of French and Dutch languages and, on the other hand, classes on Belgian society and legislations. As such an issue is under the competence of regions, debates and proposals diverge significantly in Flanders and in the French-speaking part of the country. The paper analyzes the challenges for dealing with this issue in the two parts of the country. It analyzes the positions, the controversies and the proposals of state and non-state actors involved in this debate. The author stresses how the state plans to organize these trainings and how the state justify its intervention in an issue that usually is a domain of competence of the hierarchy of the “Church” or the self-organization of the Islam.