Introduction

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On March 22, 2020, a national lockdown was declared in Germany due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).¹ The lockdown resulted in unprecedented contact and movement restrictions including a ban of social, cultural, and religious events and congregations. Ten days earlier, on March 13, the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB), Germany’s largest Islamic association, closed all its 900 mosques for the Friday prayer and subsequent gatherings. It became the first macro-religious institution in the country to take such a drastic step. In the following days, local mosques, other Islamic associations and the Coordination Council for Muslims (Koordinationsrat der Muslime, KRM) followed until the lockdown became legally binding across Germany. Around April 20, 2020, after Easter and before Ramadan, lockdown measures were slowly lifted, including the opening of shops and schools. Religious communities, which were not immediately allowed to congregate, started to assert their wish to open through public statements and court cases in defence of religious freedom. Leaders of mainline churches in particular argued that Christians had sacrificed extensively during the Easter closure and expressed discontent of prioritising commerce over religion. Politicians, health experts, and Islamic leaders, however, expressed concerns that Muslim communities would be unable to organise the Ramadan festivities safely and that large festive gatherings could turn into superspreading events. Germany’s largest tabloid newspaper, Bild Zeitung, published a front-page article with the title “Churches remain closed for fear of Ramadan Chaos,”² accusing Muslims of being unorganised and, therefore, preventing other religious groups from opening up. At the same time, grassroots pressure from local Muslim communities grew, demanding mosques to be reopened. The increasing internal and external demands forced KRM and Islamic associations to develop an opening strategy. In response, they adopted a slow and gradual approach with only three daily mosque prayers from May 9. Some independent mosques, however, did not follow KRM’s guidelines, and started to fully reopen in early May with Friday prayers organised according to their own safety concepts. Overall, mosques largely stayed out of the headlines due to pragmatic navigation, compliance, and adaptation during the crisis and remained open during the second lockdown from November 2020 onwards.

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This brief overview provides the background for the main objective of this article, namely, to analyse the navigation strategies of Islamic associations and local mosques, including different forms of compliance and involvement in pandemic-related governance. Within the public discourse, mosque responses have been described as a united effort, collective restraint and sacrifice among German Muslims, and unilateral support of governmental orders regarding shutdowns and social distancing. Whilst it could be assumed that mosques complied with government regulations and mosque closures to be protected from the devastating consequences of COVID-19, this article discusses a number of different rationales, plans, and degrees of adaptation. Drawing on organisational sociology, Islamic studies, and research on pandemics, the empirical analysis inquires about the changing nature of Islamic authorities during the first lockdown in Germany. In particular, it focuses on the state of Lower Saxony, which serves well as an average case in the German context when it comes to the negotiation and accommodation of Islam in Germany.

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Because of Germany’s federal structure, which includes 16 states (Länder), and related cultural and religious policies, the governance and institutionalisation of Islam is negotiated predominantly at the state level (Körs and Nagel 2018). Negotiations over a cooperation treaty between Muslim leaders and the state government of Lower Saxony began in the early 2000s. State-level integration via Islamic education in schools (2012), prison chaplaincies (2012), and Islamic theology chairs at the University of Osnabruck (2013) was achieved in Lower Saxony. However, issues regarding the constitutional loyalty of Muslim associations and concerns over Islam’s incompatibility with gender equality rules accompanied the negotiation process (Ceylan 2017). In January 2017, the state government of Lower Saxony stopped the treaty negotiations with its Muslim partner associations (DITIB and Schura³). Their failure was a result of the increasing political tension between Berlin and Ankara after the attempted coup in Turkey in July 2016, the allegations against Turkish imams to spy on political opponents in Germany, and an internal leadership contest within the Schura. These Islam-related politics of and emerging tension in Lower Saxony mirror the national framework of institutionalising Islam through cooperation treaties (Spielhaus and Herzog 2015; Körs 2019) and reflects the situation of Muslims in Germany regarding regional integrations. Lower Saxony constitutes a relevant case study for the inquiry into the crisis navigation of Islamic actors during COVID-19, which can inform and be compared to other state-level, national, and international polities.

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Thereby, the article contributes to the debate on the contested nature of Islamic representation and the institutionalisation of Islam in Germany by documenting and analysing internal and relational dynamics, external challenges, and cooperation of Islamic authorities at different organisational levels during the first COVID-19 wave. The study further inquires whether the centralised leadership and decision-making system as well as transnational organisational ties of KRM and its constituent members, which have been criticised in the past for hampering grassroots initiatives, served as a buffer against conspiracy theories and internal resistance during the COVID-19 pandemic. First, the theoretical framework, research questions, and Islamic organisational context are laid out before the fieldwork and case studies are introduced. The subsequent discussion uses empirical data from the negotiations within and between KRM members and their respective local mosques over centralised responses, autonomy, and internal resistance. Finally, fieldwork findings from within an independent mosque (IM) outside the fold of KRM are analysed which show different and converging strategies in responding to the pandemic. By considering Germany’s federal system (i.e., national; state or Länder; and regional/municipal level) as well as transnational discourses, the analysis integrates external expectations on Islamic organisations and local mosques and internal discussions within these institutions to relate their responses and navigation to the contested representations of Islamic organisations in public discourse as well as to the current debate on Islam in Germany.

Compliance and Resistance of Religious Organisations During Crisis

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To analyse internal interpretations and decision-making processes regarding the navigation of Islamic associations and local mosques during COVID-19, insights from organisational sociology (focusing on legitimacy, compliance, and resistance), medical anthropology of pandemics, and research on Islamic authorities are discussed in this section. Earlier research on organisations focused on how structural environments and institutional expectations determine organisational behaviour, and how compliance with external demands may enhance the group’s legitimacy and resources (Powell and DiMaggio 1991; Scott 1995). More recent studies questioned this static understanding and developed an agency perspective by focusing on membership interests, internal diversity, and different strategies to deal with the varying internal and institutional demands and contradictions arising from them (Oliver 1991; Hirsch 1997; Rosenow-Williams 2012). By using an agency perspective, the article aims to answer three research questions in the empirical sections. First, does organisational compliance with and adaptation to external expectations result in increased public legitimacy as well as increasing internal resistance of members? To answer this question in the COVID-19 context, I analyse how leaders of Muslim communities in Germany complied with external expectations such as extensive mosque closures; how central decision-making by Islamic association was received, negotiated, and resisted among different groups and local congregations; and how these internal and external expectations were managed by different Muslim actors and Islamic organisations.

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To deal with membership diversity, (voluntary) organisations often introduce formal and informal hierarchical structures due to different characteristics and competencies of their members (Simon 1962; Bano 2012). From this, the second question arises: Do organisational hierarchies and professionalised leadership structures alienate supporters at the grassroots level, especially during the time of crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic? Through different accounts from local members and leaders of Islamic associations I will respond to this question by showing how contested debates over pandemic-related measures and centralised decision-making emerged at different intra- and inter-organisational levels and temporal stages, and how they were dealt with. We may assume that internal power struggles between imams and mosque committees, or between local members, mosque chairmen, and state-level leaders, over organisational adaptation and appropriate responses intensify or that interests align because of an existential threat (Chaves 1998).

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Finally, the third question I will answer throughout this paper is: Did Muslim leaders in Germany sideline local congregations during the pandemic in order to comply with external expectations and increase public legitimacy? By employing an agency perspective within organisational research, this study analyses different navigation strategies of Islamic associations, from passive rule adaptation to moderate resistance and active non-compliance in response to institutional demands and internal negotiations (Oliver 1991; Rosenow-Williams 2012). Since open resistance or outright dismissal of institutional expectations by Muslim leaders at the official organisational level were rarely observed during the first German lockdown, it may indicate that Islamic organisations successfully employed the strategy of de-coupling, displaying a united front to outsiders while dealing with dissent and resistance in the backstage area (Meyer and Rowan 1991). This article is interested in these assumed backstage negotiations, suggesting a pragmatic desire for compromise and participation among Muslim leaders.

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During the Ebola pandemic in West Africa, medical anthropologists inquired why people refuse or comply with vaccination and other health initiatives and resist or support state-led interventions. Their results demonstrate a complex connection between community behaviour and histories of structural discrimination and institutional distrust (Richards 2016; Tengbeh 2018). For Muslim minorities, who have an ambivalent relation to German state agencies (next section) and are confronted with structural discrimination, motivations to comply may also differ at various organisational levels. However, public officials often associated religious authorities with resistance to health regulations and disease control (Chandler 2015). These accusations reflect the persistent assumption that local mosques and Islamic authorities induce auto-segregation through the use of heritage languages and traditional and anti-scientific teachings which are incompatible with democratic policies (Sahgal and Yuval-Davis 1992; Bayat 1996; Tibi 2000). However, recent studies from scholars of pandemic outbreaks have pointed to the constructive role of religious capital and faith leaders (Abramowitz 2015). For instance, by using historical and religious examples, including how the Prophet Muhammad and leaders of the Ottoman Empire acted during epidemics, the Turkish state together with the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) and other religious authorities legitimised the closing of mosques, quarantines, and lockdowns of public life during Ramadan while holding less risk-averse religious groups at bay. Diyanet could rely on its religious capital including thousands of imams and mosques to communicate its public health messages (Balci 2020). Similar messages by mosques and local clergies have been conveyed during the 2006 bird flu pandemic, while mosques in Germany invited health experts to inform congregations about the 2009 swine flu outbreak and became proactive in the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in 2021. The next section will introduce the role of Islamic associations within the German institutional context, which provides the background to analyse the ways Muslim communities navigated through the pandemic.

Islamic Associations in Germany

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Today, Germany has between 2350 and 2750 mosques, Alevi community centres (cemevleri), and prayer rooms (Halm et al. 2012). Germans of Turkish descent represent over 60% of the approximately five million Muslims in Germany (Haug, Müssig, and Stichs 2009). From the 1970s, mosque communities formed various Islamic associations (Dachverbände), which can be described as socio-religious lobbies with different and sometimes competing theological, cultural, and political positions (Halm et al. 2012). While maintaining ties with heritage centres such as Turkey or in the Middle East, Islamic associations started to focus increasingly on local resources of German Muslims and established themselves as political and administrative partners of the German government from the late 1990s (Schiffauer 2003).

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Since the early 2000s, increased efforts were made among leaders of Islamic associations to reduce competition between various Muslim groups and emerge with a united voice under a representational structure of Islam in Germany (Einigungsprozess). The unification and institutional negotiations culminated in the German Islam Conference in 2006—a dialogue platform for Muslim, government, and civil society actors, initiated and tightly controlled by the Federal Ministry of the Interior (for a critical review, see Tezcan 2012). The Islam Conference led to the creation of the KRM in 2007, consisting (by now) of six major Islamic associations⁴, suggesting “a process of adaptation both to the demands of the German institutional environment and to internal interests” (Rosenow-Williams 2012, 450). The aim for the KRM is to institutionalize Islam in Germany (Spielhaus 2014) by obtaining the status of a public corporation (Körperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts) and becoming a recognized state partner to collect taxes, open Islamic schools, and operate social service facilities, which mostly remains unaccomplished (Rosenow-Williams and Kortmann 2011). The unification process of Islamic organisations was influenced by various external and internal demands, including Muslim communities’ search for public legitimacy in the post-9/11 context as well as the German government’s expectation of a single negotiation partner to reduce divisions among Muslims and diminish the impact from Islamic authorities abroad (Laurence 2006).

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Over the last two decades, German Muslims also started to participate in negotiations over religious governance within Germany’s 16 federal states (Länder) via regional and local treaties. The resulting decentralisation of Islamic authority is reflected in the introduction of regional branches of Islamic associations and state-level cooperation, such as the Schura in Lower Saxony, Hessen, Bremen, and Hamburg (Spielhaus and Herzog 2015). Regional integration of and local partnerships with German Muslims challenged the clout of national and foreign-based Islamic authorities, which became increasingly concerned about losing influence on local mosques and regional leaders (Rosenow-Williams 2012). DITIB, for instance, blocked regional alliances and developed its own centralized dialogue program and imam training to restrain grassroots initiatives (Rosenow-Williams and Kortmann 2011; Klinkhammer 2019).

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The ongoing debates over centralization and autonomy within Islamic associations are reflected in the contested role of the KRM as the main Islamic umbrella platform and state partner. Through its constituent members, KRM claims to represent more than 85% of German Muslims who are organised in local mosque communities.⁵ However, its legitimacy is contested, in particular in the light of intergenerational changes and religious individualization of German Muslims (Halm 2013). Haug et al. (2009) showed that only 40% of Muslims “feel” represented by KRM, which does not speak on behalf of many Muslim minority groups such as Alevis, Shias, and Ahmadiyyas and various independent mosques. Only around 13% of mosques in Germany (145) have no affiliation to a larger Islamic association. Most of these independent mosques are characterised by ethnically diverse congregations (Halm et al. 2012).

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Internal tension and competition over the trajectory and actual decision-making power have been recorded among member associations in KRM, which challenges the unification process. In many instances, state governments in Germany tend to directly negotiate with individual associations, thereby diminishing the influence of KRM. This is further elaborated by Rosenow-Williams (2012), who illustrated the different strategies of public engagement of three KRM members, namely ZMD, DITIB, and IGMG, ranging from mainly timid and compliant to confident demands and criticism of the German state. For instance, while IGMG has taking up court cases, published assertive press statements, or approached schools when Muslim minority and religious rights were violated, DITIB and ZMD follow a less confrontational approach, abstaining from legal battles. Despite substantive organisational autonomy by members and internal tension, KRM’s constituent associations still believe in the unification project to be continued as a consulting and communication platform, which could be observed in the pandemic. During the COVID-19 crisis, KRM appeared to have regained relevance within the German public and local mosque communities. KRM has been in direct contact with the German Interior Ministry, speaking on behalf of German Muslims and announcing hygiene and opening concepts to which other Islamic associations would refer on a regular basis.

Case Studies and Methods

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In October 2020, I conducted fieldwork in Lower Saxony to understand how Islamic associations and local mosques navigate through the COVID-19 pandemic during the closures and opening phases. Respondents and selected institutions in this study were members of the KRM, including the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB), the Islamic Community Milli Görüs (IGMG), the Central Council of Muslims in Germany (ZMD), as well as one independent mosque (IM). This IM was selected due to its outright and vocal opposition to Islamic associations and mosque umbrella platforms such as KRM, which provide protection, resources, and guidance to local communities but also limit organisational autonomy. 12 interviews with local mosque committee members, state and national leaders of Islamic associations, and government officials, including health and integration officers, were carried out. Four respondents from DITIB, ZMD, and IGMG were directly involved in the national crisis management of KRM and their respective associations. In addition, a week-long participant observation in IM was conducted, including evening seminars, a Friday prayer, and a sport event. Like various conservative da’wa (proselytising through Islamic education) movements, such as the Tablighi Jamaat or quietist Salafi groups, but also liberal Islamic institutions such as the Ibn Rushd-Goethe Mosque in Berlin, IM shares through its theological understanding and negative experience with mosques and individuals affiliated to KRM a tangible scepticism towards mainstream, hierarchical, and organised Islam in Germany. Through these nuanced examples of macro-, meso-, and micro-organisational levels, the article contributes to a better understanding of pandemic-related responses and the contestation of Islamic representation in Germany.

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The analysis is complemented by the results of my previous fieldwork between 2017 and 2020 in the same Muslim communities, and through online research on social media platforms during the pandemic.⁶ As I conducted my research during the pandemic, it was crucial to be aware of local hygiene regulations and to inquire into what respondents were comfortable with. In some cases, it was important to move interviews online or conduct them via telephone. Towards the end of October, the situation started to change with increasing infection rates prior to the second lockdown, so that I decided to stop the physical data collection, following the public health advice. The inquiry focused on the time prior to the first lockdown, the mosque closures, and the opening phase, covering the months between February and November 2020. By including actors from different Islamic associations and affiliated mosques within the lower and upper leadership as well as an independent mosque, the comparative analysis focuses on internal and relational dynamics, different and converging strategies, external challenges and cooperation, but also on subjective experiences and emotions of my respondents during the first COVID-19 wave in Germany. Due to the participant observation, I could see how one mosque committee and congregation experienced and adapted to the changing situation with new rules and restrictions being introduced in October 2020. Although the data only covers a relatively small sample in one geographical region, this research reveals a variety of pragmatic responses to the pandemic that counter some monolithic displays of Muslims in Germany and invite further research. In the empirical section, I switch between using KRM as well as their constituent members such as DITIB, depending on my respondents’ emphasis, which mirrors the decentralization of Islamic authority structures in Germany. To ensure anonymity of respondents and local communities, names and other identifiers have been changed or omitted.

Centralised Leadership Decisions and Responses to COVID-19

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In the weeks before the national lockdown, DITIB mosques were instructed by the central leadership in Cologne to decide autonomously in cooperation with local health authorities whether to stay open or close. However, after a late-night emergency meeting on March 12, 2020, consisting of national and state-level DITIB representatives, the association instructed mosques across Germany to suspend the upcoming Friday prayer and subsequent gatherings. The decision was communicated to local mosques, the other Islamic associations, and state-level platforms such as the Schura in Lower Saxony. DITIB’s rationale for the early closure was two-fold, according to a senior spokesperson in Lower Saxony. First, DITIB was not involved in the government’s emergency planning, unlike church authorities, who have a “historical insider status.” The DITIB leader recalled that “we could not afford to wait until the last minute, when the government decided what happens with the mosques. It would have led to chaos… So, we used our right of self-determination [Selbstbestimmungsrecht] as Islamic association to close our mosques and argued that health is more important than religion.” Secondly, DITIB used this historical moment to indicate “constitutional loyalty” (Verfassungsloyalität) - an often-encountered obstacle during state contract negotiations in the past. “Although religious freedom is utmost important, we could prove that we do not cherry pick, but are loyal to all constitutional rights,” as stated by the same respondent.

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Before the closure, Islamic associations were concerned that members would go to the well-attended Friday prayers, which is compulsory for Muslims, before returning to their workplaces and families, potentially infecting others. By pre-emptively suspending the Friday prayer, DITIB reduced the “ambivalent feeling” (“mulmiges Gefühl”) many believers had expressed with regard to whether to attend the obligatory event or not. On March 13, the day of the Friday prayer, local committees were instructed to symbolically lock the mosque gates and stand in front of them to explain the situation. At that time, the national leadership and local committees feared resistance from local congregations, as “every mosque has a different DNA,” noted by a DITIB officer-bearer in Hanover. Authority disputes over who can forbid the Friday prayer, persistent cultural beliefs (“If you don’t go three times to the jummah [Friday prayer], your heart will close”), and alleged overreactions to the pandemic were mentioned as potential hurdles by my interviewees. A local DITIB member from a provincial mosque far away from the headquarters in Hanover described her distress that day: “We are talking about religion here. It is totally different if you tell everyone to work remotely from home. But to say we are closing the mosque for the Friday prayer is another level.” However, her fear of resistance was unfounded. Instead, some interviewees described feelings of gratitude for the central decision, where local authorities felt relieved of their responsibility and burden to decide on this delicate matter. Studies on local mosque management illustrated that it is mainly done by volunteers from the more inward-looking second generation with limited resources and administrative knowledge, while German-born members of the third generation may yet lack confidence or interest in representing the mosque (e.g., Jonker 2005; Nagel and Kalender 2014; Körs and Nagel 2018). Hence, (internal) rule compliance and the fast adaptation by local communities to the pandemic-related restrictions can be interpreted as an alignment of leadership interests with grassroots concerns.

Internal Resistance Over Federal Structures

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Albeit the strong focus on pan-Muslim unity and consensus in the political discourse, media, as well as KRM’s own public relation campaign, this section provides a more complex picture of the response by KRM, Islamic associations, and local mosques, answering research questions two and three, i.e., whether the emphasis on external legitimacy has alienated, sidelined, and increased internal resistance of members due to considerable social costs and prolonged restrictions. DITIB’s decision on March 12, 2020 to suspend Friday prayers within less than 12 hours was swiftly communicated to partners within KRM and other state level actors. A DITIB state-level official in Hanover recalled the message given to other associations that night: “Try to get it through or we can’t have a united front this time.” However, not all partner associations and mosques followed the unilateral decision, including the Schura in Lower Saxony, largely controlled by IGMG members. Instead, IGMG mosques used the Friday prayer’s hutbe (sermon) on March 13 to address “health and hygiene” (Gesundheit und Hygiene) measures, including regular handwashing, sneezing in elbows, airing of rooms, and following the advice of local health departments. Without official state restriction, the hutbe concluded, ibadas (congregations) and Islamic education in mosques would continue until further notice. However, one day later, on March 14, IGMG also announced that all its mosques would shut down. A state-level IGMG interviewee recalled the reason to allow the Friday prayer on March 13: “We didn’t close to avoid chaos. Many people came to the mosque.” He laughed when he described DITIB’s ad hoc decision: “Our General Secretary in Cologne was informed at midnight that DITIB would adjourn the Friday prayer, but you have to communicate such a massive step well in advance. We operate 600 mosques all over the world. There is a chain of command. So, we were overrun. In some mosques, they had to pray three to four times, since so many people showed up.” Interestingly, both DITIB and IGMG used the phrase of “avoiding chaos” to justify their dissimilar strategies, which indicates organisational agency in navigating the crisis.

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As discussed in the previous section, DITIB and ZMD argued for a centrally coordinated and monitored opening strategy. Islamrat (IRD) and IGMG, on the contrary, prepared hygiene concepts for each federal state, which were “case and population sensitive” to account for the varying rules across Germany’s federal system. Equally concerned about internal resistance, IGMG allowed their mosques to open one week earlier compared to DITIB and ZMD and to individually obtain permissions from local health departments. The state-level IGMG respondent stated that “larger mosques like ours with a long tradition, brain power, and political networks were ready after a few days, while smaller communities needed more time or remained closed.” Through this flexible approach, the IGMG leadership imbued local mosques with more autonomy but also intended to alleviate the growing grassroots pressure and internal tension. The same IGMG leader, who started his organisational career as an ordinary youth member in his hometown mosque, emphasised local expertise: “The centre can prescribe a lot, but it has to be implemented by people on the ground, who have a better sense of the situation.” While IGMG mosques were given more autonomy, leadership hierarchies at DITIB were centralised, partly due to the stronger organisational ties with Turkey and more professional staff. According to him, “DITIB imams have a lot of authority. This explains why DITIB was more comfortable to delay the opening, because mosques in Turkey were still closed. We [IGMG] decided not to follow Diyanet and opened according to the German law.”

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Dissimilar views on appropriate opening strategies were also expressed within DITIB itself. Although some mosque committees expressed gratitude for the centralised system of decision-making, other local actors preferred a regional approach (“vor Ort entscheiden”). A local DITIB member who ran the mosque affairs in his hometown for several decades voiced his discontent: “Why does [the DITIB headquarters in] Cologne decide over a small mosque in Schleswig Holstein with no Corona cases? It is the same top-down decision for a mosque with 50 members and with 800 members, regardless whether some mosques want to opt for a different approach and have the capacities.” For him, the central leadership inadequately inquired about local needs during the crisis. “I didn’t see our leaders or the attaché to make an appointment to visit us on weekends. It is possible to meet again. You can get a room with safety distance measures in place. Corona can’t be an excuse anymore.” The publicly praised and centrally designed hygiene rules also caused distress for local congregations for being too strict and intimidating. What came through in these conversations were not only concerns to practically implement the rules, but also the top-down instructions and warnings that mosques must not become spreaders and stay out of the limelight. Hence, the self-imposed regulations were at times followed out of fear of internal and external sanctions.

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Consequently, mosques affiliated with KRM offered a minimum of social services after the lockdown in May 2020, as social spaces remained closed, community life was on hold, and youth groups were only recently re-starting under heavy regulations from the centre. The disappointed local DITIB member described the situation in his mosque: “It hurts that many people don’t come anymore. They think it is too exhausting to register, wear masks and bring carpets [for each prayer].” In this context, respondents expressed wider anxieties about inactive mosques, which could lead to a reduction in KRM membership and religious practise. “People become complacent,” “lose their din [religion],” and “get used to being in front of the laptop in their pyjamas.” In an almost envious manner, the local DITIB member described his fear of losing Muslim youth to Salafi groups: “They are independent, they can decide locally, and they are super good with social media. So, they can offer more to teenagers, who will say ‘our mosque is closed, why not go to their meetings.’” To reinvigorate the membership, he argued that “we have to invest a lot of money in social programs.” Government and security experts already expressed concerns over increasing segregation and radicalisation of Muslim migrants, recommending more online initiatives. Hence mosque committees described the ongoing digitalisation as a first step for more transparent online spaces, which were so far dominated by religious hardliners (Tabti 2020). Scholars were quick to announce that COVID-19 “changed the way religious institutions function, with Zoom-mediated religious sermons and practices” (Sachedina 2021). However, smaller mosques were lagging behind, only recently having introduced basic online programs and predominately offering such services in heritage languages, which excluded other ethnic groups and refugees.

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After Easter and prior to Ramadan 2020, associations within KRM in my research had to deal with internal tensions accompanying the question when to reopen mosques. The ZMD interviewee recalled that “it was a real achievement to keep the bourgeoning dissent under control,” suggesting the difficulty to communicate restraint to congregations. A female committee member of a local KRM-affiliated mosque noted that “some members from the first generation became a bit pushy, insisting that they are coming to the mosque, saying ‘what shall we do at home?’ or ‘I don’t have Corona.’ It was the first time in 15 years that my own grandparents did not go to Turkey for Ramadan.” While some members were influenced by Turkey’s hesitancy to reopen, others criticised that shops were open again in Germany, but religious life was still restricted. The grassroots pressure stemmed partially from a desire to recreate normality in particular around Ramadan. The ZMD respondent described the sentiment where “Ramadan without the mosque can’t happen.” He also linked it to the ongoing “realpolitik” from assertive local mosque chairmen and over-confident regional actors intending to prove that “they can do it,” thereby framing KRM leaders as “cowards” who “boycott local congregations.” Among those who attempted to open was the conviction that through the implementation of hygiene concepts, normalcy could be re-established. The differencing standpoints between the headquarters and regional level within KRM created a “tense competitive environment.”

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The internal tension was further intensified by a judgment of Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court on April 28 that mosques, synagogues, churches, and other places of wordship could re-open provided that they have a convincing hygiene policy. The court decision was the result of an emergency appeal by an independent Muslim organisation, the Federal Islamic Union (Föderale Islamische Union, FIU),⁸ offering legal advocacy in Muslim minority affairs. It was one of the few examples of open resistance against external institutional expectation by German Muslims during the pandemic. KRM interviewees harshly discredited the Muslim group behind the court decision as “maniacs,” “idiots,” and “radicals.” The verdict was largely inconsequential, due to the ongoing opening promises and concessions by Islamic associations and state governments. Locally, however, there were some repercussions, especially when independent mosques acted upon the verdict and started to open up for Friday prayers in early May, ignoring the KRM guidelines. A KRM leader admitted that the verdict caused “inner Muslim critique […] People who didn’t know the FIU were happy about it and criticized us. These so-called Islam experts wanted to gain personally from it and show that they are the real custodians of Islam.” In the two weeks between Ramadan and Easter 2020, KRM came under pressure through increasing internal tension, which accelerated the development of the centralised opening concept for KRM-affiliated mosques.

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Based on the above examples, this section addressed research questions two and three, namely how KRM and Islamic associations dealt with internal resistance arising from changing local opportunity structures and expectations as well as how this dissent over a feeling of being sidelined was expressed by segments within the local membership. Unlike the media portrayal of a unified response, the analysis revealed diverse crisis management strategies within KRM, from providing a certain degree of autonomy (IGMG) for mosque members to the prevention of local agency and independence (DITIB and ZDM), due to different organisational capacities and external, political concerns.

Flexible Responses of an Independent Mosque

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This section analyses how an independent mosque (IM) outside the fold of KRM in an urban location of Lower Saxony navigated through the pandemic by employing a more flexible strategy, which was manifested in swift adaptation of government regulations and religious practise as well as a pragmatic attitude in dealing with risk.⁹ Since its inauguration in 2005, IM uses German as language of instruction and is characterised by its multi-ethnic and convert-friendly membership (approximately 300 members). The mosque is led by German-born committee and lay members with professional credentials and degrees, many of them having reported a lack of autonomy in and negative experiences with KRM-affiliated local mosques and organised Islam in Germany. After the judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court, IM was one of the first mosques in Lower Saxony to develop a hygiene concept to re-open for the Friday prayer on May 8, 2020, well before the majority of KRM-affiliated mosques, which makes it an interesting case study.

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Although DITIB announced the closure on March 13, IGMG on March 14 and KRM on March 15, IM stayed open until March 17, when the official government lockdown commenced. Prior to that, the mosque consulted scholars at the University of Medina to theologically justify the continuation of mosque activities to its members. One day after the closure, on March 18, the mosque encouraged supporters to donate money to pay rent and utilities for the following months. The chairman thanked the large “YouTube community” for its financial and symbolic support with more than six million viewers from 15 years of online activities. On March 19, the congregation received instructions on how to pray the Friday prayer at home as it became clear that mosques would remain closed in the near future. Within four days after the official closure, IM started to offer extensive online programmes with slogans such as “Netflix is out. Don’t waste your time and get your rewards for free;” information about how to behave as a Muslim during the pandemic; and motivational videos entitled “What do winners do during an enforced break?” During the lockdown, there was more time to “cut and edit video material… [and] clicks were naturally much higher, as people stayed at home,” according to a committee member.

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Moreover, the lockdown offered IM an opportunity for new forms of da’wa (proselytising through Islamic education). From early April, the mosque saw an unprecedented number of “Skype conversions,” as noted by its leader: “Sometimes up to three per day… mostly teenagers between 17 and 19 years, but not exclusively.” He explained it by the fact that people were less distracted during the lockdown and had more time to think about the “purpose of life.” The chairman further explained that “we lost our pre-Corona hesitancy regarding intimate acts such as online shadadas [creeds] or virtual weddings and became more adventurous in that compartment.” Soon, IM offered online spaces for pre-wedding meetings that were supervised by imams or committee members.

Conclusion

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This article used insights from the agency perspective, including the notion of compliance and resistance, within organisational sociology to study the interplay between external institutional expectations regarding Muslim minorities and internal discussions over the centralised and autonomous strategies within local mosques and Islamic associations in Germany. Pandemic-related responses by the Coordination Council for Muslims (KRM), national and state-level Islamic associations, and an independent mosque in Lower Saxony revealed a variety of approaches and strategies pursued by Muslim leaders and local congregations, which is in line with the agency perspective and goes against the dichotomy presenting mosques as either entirely compliant or fully opposing integration. The empirical analysis documented different forms of compliance, navigation, and internal resistance within KRM and its constituent members.

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The notion of agency in relation to KRM and Islamic associations must be understood in the context of Germany’s public discourse with its often racialized, stereotyping, and discriminatory media headlines. This could also be seen in an increase of attacks on Muslims and mosques in Germany in 2020, despite COVID-19 lockdown measures such as movement restrictions.¹⁰ Aware of their structural position, leaders of Islamic associations as well as local mosques opted for a conservative application of organisational agency, resulting in rule compliance while causing internal tension. In other pre- and post-COVID-19 scenarios, however, this structural context may limit institutional innovation and the capacity of Muslim actors to navigate, as internal dynamics and reform are strongly shaped by public discourse and external expectations. The empirical discussion offered by this article demonstrated that the responses by Islamic organisations to pandemic-related governance took these debates into account and influenced how Muslim actors navigated and responded to the crisis.

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ZDM and DITIB followed a centralisation approach in line with KRM’s guidance; IGMG allowed somewhat more individual mosque autonomy through the partial de-centralisation of decision-making, and IM rejected KRM’s guidelines and representational authority and developed its own safety and opening concepts. All actors used transnational religious networks as well as guidelines from Germany’s health authorities to socially justify their diverse navigational strategies. Without the internal control and compliance by KRM, politicians and segments within the media may have instrumentalised the situation, which was briefly seen during the beginning of Ramadan in 2020. However, KRM’s top-down crisis management caused internal resistance by members such as DITIB and IGMG and was dealt with in backstage negotiations, which reflects the concept of decoupling within organisational sociology. Anthropologists have shown that rumours, denial, and disagreement of preventive measures by governments and community leaders are rarely about the pandemic per se but more often about notions of fairness, inclusion, and tense relations with macro-level institutions (Enria 2016). This may lead to opposing views but does not change the overall compliance within a crisis. In particular, the often-criticized transnational ties of migrant communities have played a constructive role in pandemic-related governance, serving as buffer against rumours and internal resistance.

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Through the crisis, KRM and its affiliated associations regained some of their societal relevance at the grassroots level and in the wider German public, which had been lost over the last decade. Other scholars already assume a wider “shift in governance and modes of consensus-building,” where public perception of Muslims has become more accepting (GhaneaBassiri 2020). Interestingly, the same attributes, namely centralisation and transnationalism, including foreign imams, which have been heavily criticised in the past, substantively contributed to the coordinated and effective crisis response by German Muslims and led to public appraisal by health departments and state-level and national politicians. What the crisis situation and case studies therefore reveal is the paradoxical condition of an “Islam debate” divided by the two-fold realization that German Muslims cannot be overly centralised and transnationally organised, nor can they be overly autonomous. However, given that the newly established Islamic theology departments in Lower Saxony and across Germany are not yet producing domestic imams, as well as the general dearth of an Islamic infrastructure, it becomes a challenging navigational endeavour for Muslim communities and Islamic associations, who nonetheless manage to assert agency through pre-emptive actions, backstage negotiations, and organisational adaptations. Whether financial hardships faced by mosque communities due to COVID-19 will lead to further institutionalisation of Islam in Germany, a reduction of organisational ties with Islamic authorities abroad, a decentralization through mosque fusions, and departures of local communities from Islamic associations remains to be seen. Insights from organizational sociology and medical anthropology, with its focus on complex histories, external policy demands, and internal membership interests, can be beneficial for future research along those lines.