GERMANY

Amin Azimi is currently working for the German GTZ (Gesellschaft für technische Zusammenarbeit/ German Agency for Technical Cooperation) in the department for "Development Cooperation in Muslim Countries". He received his Master of Arts in Islamic Studies and Political Science from University of Freiburg, Germany. He wrote his master thesis on the ideological origins of the Taliban movement based on his field research in Afghanistan in 2003. From September 2005 to March 2006 he worked as an analyst for the Afghan government. He took part at "The Impact of Information and Communication Technologies on Religious, Ethnic and Cultural Diaspora Communities in the West" conference at the University of Göteborg, Sweden in 2003 where he presented together with Matthais Brückner a research paper on Muslim Communities in German Webspace (the article will soon be published and can currently be seen online at: www.ped.gu.se/learnit/diaspora/docs/Azimi_Bruckner.doc). He has worked as an internship for the German Foreign Ministry in the Task Force for the Dialogue with the Islamic World. He also received a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service to spend six months as exchange student at the Cairo University. Amin Azimi was born and educated in Germany.

City: Frankfurt

Hayrettin Aydõn is the Managing Director of the Muslim Academy in Germany (Muslimische Akademie in Deutschland) in Berlin and scientific staff member of the University of Bremen at the Faculty for Cultural Studies, Department for Religious Studies. He is specialized on Islam in the migration context and has published different book and articles on Muslims and Islamic organizations in Germany, the participation of Muslims in politics and the question of religious instruction at public schools. He is also participating at conferences and panels on these topics. Born in Bursa/Turkey, he came to Germany as a child. There he received his MA degree in History and Turkology at Hamburg University.

City: Bremen

Humaam Mazyek is editor and administrator assistant at www.islam.de , the best known Muslim website in the German-speaking area. Islam.de stands for a better understanding of Muslim issues and is almost equally read by Muslims and non-Muslim disseminators. Originally the website was established by the Central Council of Muslims in Germany; however its editorial staff is independent. Mazyek is German citizen (24), born in Aachen (Germany) and married. As a son of a Syrian father and a German mother he is about to finish his Studies in International Business Economics at University of Maastricht / Netherlands, besides being involved in his local Islamic Centre and a Muslim youth organization there.

City: Aachen

Mariam Tutakhel is currently working as a desk officer for Ralf Fuecks, the Co-President of the Heinrich Boell Foundation in Berlin. The Foundation's primary objective is the support of the development of democratic and open societies worldwide. While Mariam Tutakhel is supporting Ralf Fuecks in his main fields of responsibility, she is engaged in programs regarding foreign and security policy, integration/migration policy and issues relevant to Islam, such as the emergence of political Islam worldwide. Mariam Tutakhel holds a masters degree in Islamic Studies, Oriental Languages and Educational Sciences and has studied in Bochum and Cairo, Egypt. After 09/11 she was working in the diplomatic service of the German Foreign Office as a desk officer in the task force for the Dialogue with the Islamic World. Until January 2004 she was posted in Berlin and in charge of bilateral cultural co-operation with Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. From January until July 2004 she was working in Heart/Afghanistan as deputy head of the German Diplomatic Extension Mission. After leaving the diplomatic service she published a study for the Institute of Peace and Development about Media Policy in Post-Conflict Countries ("Media Policy in Post-Conflict Countries. Contributions to political reconstruction by the example of Afghanistan"). Mariam was born in 1975 in Kabul/Afghanistan and her family flew to Germany when she was six. She was the founder of the Afghan-German Youth Association and the Co-founder of WAYNe (Worldwide Afghan Youth Network), which organized the first youth-conference in Kabul 2002. Mariam organized workshops and conferences for both organisations and was especially working on integration and identification processes of youth in Diaspora.

City: Berlin

Mounir Azzaoui is the spokesman of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany (ZMD). The ZMD is an umbrella organization of Islamic confederations in Germany which represents a large Muslim segment. From 2001-2005 he was Project leader of the "Day of the open mosque" on 3 rd October. About 900 mosques nationwide participated every year in this action. Mr Azzaoui frequently lectures and serves on panels, especially about security policies and discrimination issues. Mounir Azzaoui was born in Germany and studied political sciences. Scientifically he specialized in the integration of Islamic organizations into the German "State-church-law".

City: Eschweiler

Riem Spielhaus is member of the board of the Muslim Academy in Germany, which is aiming at supporting Muslims to participate in the public and political discourse on the German and European society. Among a lot of other projects she has initiated regularly meetings between women's representatives of the Islamic umbrella organizations and Muslim women's initiatives in Germany with the federal ministry of women. In her work as an academic she has published articles on the process of institutionalization of Islam in Germany and on the shift in the discourse from a focus on immigrants to one on Muslims. Currently she is doing a survey on the more than 80 mosques and prayer rooms in the German capital Berlin. Born in East-Berlin, she graduated in Islamic studies in 2001 and after working for the federal commissioner for Integration, Migration and Refugees she teaches at Humboldt-University of Berlin. In 2005 Riem Spielhaus was given a fellowship for a research on Dialogue with Islam in South Asia.

City: Eschweiler

Siddik Bakir is a board member of the German Senior Fellows Network of Humanity in Action, a Trans-Atlantic, non-profit organization focused on minority issues and human rights in the US, Denmark, The Netherlands, Germany, France and Poland. Its core summer program brings students from the above mentioned countries together and builds a network of dedicated minority and human rights activists. He also worked with interfaith dialogue programs with representatives of Jewish, Christian and Muslim Youth Groups and participated in annual forums on social and religious issues where he lectured on " 9/11 and the Role of Islam" or "The History of Islam" and "The Integration of Muslim Youths in Europe". Born in Eastern-Turkey and grown up and educated in Germany, Mr. Bakir acquired two B.A. degrees in Oriental Philology/Islamic Science and Political Science and received a scholarship from the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes, a foundation intended to support one percent of the German Academic population with outstanding summer university programs in Austria, Switzerland, Italy, England and Egypt. He was recently Lantos Humanity in Action Congressional Fellow in the Committee on International Relations of the US House of Representatives and worked predominantly on Middle Eastern issues.

City: Hattingen