Clash of cultures

Just how much Islam can a liberal western society accept?

It's a question Germans, concerned by sporadic violence and unrest involving Muslims in neighbouring European countries, are asking more frequently these days. And as Germans attempt to sketch out the limits of tolerance towards the Islamic faith, they are also starting to demand the growing number of Muslim citizens make a greater effort at integration into their society.

Recent history suggests it's likely to be a bumpy and difficult journey for both sides. Whereas many Muslim immigrants and their offspring seem unwilling or unable to embrace modern Germany's customs - refusing to send their daughters to co-ed sport classes, for example - German residents in the Bavarian city of Munich have actively been opposing the construction of a new mosque near a Catholic Church.

But few incidents have highlighted secular Germany's struggle to reconcile its liberal traditions and tolerance with Islam so well as a decision earlier this year by a female judge in Frankfurt.

Judge Christa Datz-Winter rejected a speedy divorce for a German-born Moroccan woman on the grounds that verses in the Koran permitted domestic violence. The woman had been repeatedly beaten and abused by her husband. Even after they had separated, his abuse, including threats to kill her, had continued.

The judge was apparently attempting to be culturally sensitive. 'For this culture, it is not unusual that the man has a right to punish the woman,' she wrote. 'Though born in Germany, the plaintiff must have been aware of this when she married the defendant, who was raised in Morocco.'

The judge was eventually removed from the case, but not before the incident had caused such an uproar that even Germany's normally sober Der Spiegel magazine ran an issue titled 'Mecca Germany: the quiet Islamisation'.