But when he saw men with bushy long beards at a mosque near his current home in Cologne last November, he was worried. One of them told Salam that "good Muslims grow beards, not moustaches," he recalled – a centuries-old idea that he dismisses. Syrians in Germany say many of the country's Arab mosques are more conservative than those at home. Many of them do not want to go to Turkish mosques because they do not understand the sermons. "Unfortunately it is true that a large majority of Arabic-speaking mosques are more conservative than Turkish mosques," said Professor Mouhannad Khorchide, who heads the Centre for Islamic Theology at Muenster University.

Source: Standard Digital October 28, 2016 13:00 UTC