The muezzin's call echoed twice in the rooms and corridors in the early morning hours, at 5:40 am and 5:50 am. Outside, however, the only sound in the green Morvan hills surrounding the European Institute of Social Sciences (IESH), a school of Islamic theology, was the complete silence of the Burgundy countryside. In Saint-Léger-de-Fougeret (eastern France), six kilometers south of Château-Chinon, whose former mayor was François Mitterrand, not a soul was in sight except for the school's 200 students and their teachers, who live in this former chateau. But it would be out of the question for the call to prayer to be heard outside the school walls, thus violating the law.

On this morning in March 2023, Larabi Becheri, the IESH's dean, gave a lesson on fatwas. "A fatwa is a theologian's answer, a doctor of law's answer to a religious question," he explained. "There is a distinction to be made between a judge's sentence and a mufti's fatwa," he added, before directly addressing the event that made the word famous in the West: Ayatollah Khomeini's death sentence on author Salman Rushdie after the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses in 1988. Aware of the word's negative connotation to uninformed ears, the professor insisted: "It's a scary term today and was misused at the time. A mufti can't sentence someone to death; only a court can after a trial. The fatwa is used to settle problems that arise for the believer in his practice."

Becheri wants to convince people on this crucial point: Education here is compatible with the rules of the French Republic. Founded in 1990 by the Union of Islamic Organizations of France, now called Muslims of France, an organization with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, the school aims to train imams, among others. With no affiliation to any university and no state accreditation, it offers three courses open to all − men or women, young or old − who wish to improve their knowledge of the religion.

The school even welcomes mothers of a certain age and remote learners. Three subjects are taught: Arabic, Quran memorization and Islamic theology. The students of this last three-year course then become qualified to become ministers. In a secularized country where imams currently have no status, their recruitment and training have become a sensitive issue. For a long time, many of them were sent by third-party Muslim countries on which the mosques depended. They were on assignment, therefore on the payroll of the country sending them. This situation is due to end on January 1, 2024, after which French mosques will have to find a solution.

You have 77.09% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.