(Deutsche Welle) Osman Soyer is a religious affairs officer who was sworn into office this month in the Sehitlik Mosque in Berlin’s Neukölln district. He is one of 28 young men and women who have been trained as “religious representatives” by DITIB, Germany’s largest Islamic organization. They are involved in a variety of pastoral duties; this can also include acting as imams, but the job description is broader.
Soyer has been working as an Islamic religious representative in Alfter, a town near Bonn in western Germany, for a few months now. Community outreach, he says, is his top priority. It includes a wide range of activities: “I teach pupils, I’m a prayer leader, preacher and pastor. We also go to weddings, I do funerals.”
