User:Ap crazydate/Andreas Abū Bakr Rieger

Andreas Abu Bakr Rieger (* born February 11, 1965 in Freiburg im Breisgau as Andreas Rieger) is a German lawyer and journalist. He is the editor of the Islamische Zeitung and was an author and co-partner of the magazine Compact, published by Jürgen Elsässer.

Life
Andreas Rieger grew up in a Catholic family, his father was chairman of the CDU city council faction in Lahr. After leaving high school, he began studying law at the University of Freiburg. In Granada, he converted to Islam in 1990 under the influence of Murabitun founder Ian Dallas and took the name Abu Bakr, following the example of the first caliph. After his first state examination, he moved to Thuringia to complete his legal clerkship and take his second state examination. In 1993, he gave an anti-Semitic speech at an event organized by supporters of Cemaleddin Kaplan in Cologne's Stadthalle: "Like the Turks, we Germans have often fought for a good cause in history, although I have to admit that my grandfathers were not entirely thorough when it came to our common main enemy."

In 1995, he settled in Weimar as a lawyer and founded the Islamic newspaper and the Weimar Institute for Intellectual and Contemporary History. In the same year, as "Amir of the Muslim Community in Weimar", he authorized a fatwa penned by the founder and leader of the Murabitun movement, Ian Dallas alias Abdalqadir as-Sufi, in which Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was declared a Muslim. Rieger has since distanced himself from the claim that Goethe was a Muslim. In 1997, he said, he wanted to draw attention to his educational work on the Balkan conflicts. Rieger continues to give frequent lectures on Goethe, in which he points out the topicality of Goethe's thought.

In 1996, Abu Bakr Rieger made the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina for the first time. He describes the experience of being gathered with Muslims from all parts of the world as a clear lesson that "any preference for a particular race is alien to Islam". Rieger therefore sees the identity of the German Muslim as a "citizen of the world in the Goethean sense". Rieger was invited by the Consulate General of Bosnia and Herzegovina to speak at an event in Düsseldorf in 2005 to commemorate the Srebrenica massacre and accused NATO of complicity. According to Rieger, the lesson of Srebrenica must result in a renunciation of ideology and contempt for humanity.

In 2011, Rieger founded COMPACT-Magazin GmbH, which publishes the monthly magazine Compact, together with Jürgen Elsässer and Kai Homilius; Rieger, Elsässer and Homilius each held a third of the shares. According to Rieger, the aim was to be able to discuss different views controversially in one medium. Rieger has no longer been a shareholder since November 2014. He justified his exit with Elsässer's "increasingly radical and subjective attitude". The paper had become "one-sided and politically slanted, as it advocated racist and nationalist positions". The position on the PEGIDA movement speaks volumes in this respect, while the position on the Russian crisis is "völkisch". The project has "failed because it is no longer possible to represent different positions within it".

Activities in the Islamic Council, resignation
Andreas Abu Bakr was a board member of the Islamic Council for the Federal Republic of Germany, for which he became a member of the Islamic Conference. Thanks to research by journalist Claudia Dantschke, a video recording of his 1993 speech, which had long been criticized as anti-Semitic, was published in Der Spiegel in 2007. As a greeting to supporters of the later banned caliphate state of the Islamic fundamentalist Metin Kaplan, he had declared that he was pleased about the "future fighters for the Din of Islam" present, "like the Turks", "we Germans have often fought for a good cause in history, although" he had to "admit" that his "grandfathers were not quite thorough" with our common main enemy. He sees it as his duty to invite "his German comrades" to Islam. Wolfgang Bosbach, deputy leader of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, demanded that "as long as Mr Rieger is still active in the Islamic Council, the organization must not be a partner in dialogue", and the SPD's Commissioner for Islam, Lale Akgün, also supported this demand.

Rieger explained that this speech was "foolish and stupid" and that he had never been a right-wing extremist or an anti-Semite. He was also prepared to apologize at any time to anyone "who rightly perceived this sentence as inhuman and cynical." He nevertheless resigned from his post as deputy chairman of the Islamic Council. Rieger had already resigned as a board member of the Islamic Council in 2002, the taz noted that Abu Bakr Rieger, "a high-ranking functionary of the dubious Murabitun association", was "controversial" because this "sect-like organization" had "attracted attention due to its contacts with the right-wing, anti-Semitic scene". In 2004, Deutschlandfunk journalist Dorothea Jung complained in her article Judenhass im Namen Allahs? that Rieger had not "unequivocally distanced himself from his anti-Semitic statements".

International
He is the chairman of the organization European Muslim Union, which he co-founded in 2005. In 2009, he was included in a "List of the 500 most influential Muslims" by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center in Jordan.

Rieger presents himself as a supporter of the European Union and in 2017 expressed his admiration for French President Emmanuel Macron and his En Marche party in an article in his Islamic newspaper.

Private life
Rieger lives in Potsdam with his wife and five children.

Publications (selection)

 * Islam in Deutschland. Spohr-Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau 2007
 * Weg mit dem Zins. Kai Homilius Verlag, Werder (Havel) 2011
 * Querverbindungen. IZ Medien GmbH, Berlin 2015