French authorities disbanded the nation’s foremost institution for training imams, citing its legitimization of jihad and Sharia, propagation of hatred against non-Muslims, and long-standing links with the Muslim Brotherhood.
We have just won an unprecedented victory against the Islamists.
In a decree issued on September 3, 2025, France’s interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, announced the dissolution of the European Institute of Human Sciences (IESH). President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister François Bayrou co-signed the decree.
The five‑page decree asserted that leading Muslim Brotherhood figures have led IESH since its founding in 1990 in Château‑Chinon, central France. It noted that the Brotherhood “advocates a radical Islamist ideology aimed at the advent of a society governed by Islamic law.”
Operating under the auspices of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE), now the Council of European Muslims (CEM), IESH promotes an ideology that “legitimizes violent acts against people, provokes discrimination, hatred and violence against non‑Muslims, women, homosexuals, and legitimizes holy war,” the decree stated.
It warned that the seminary’s curriculum, taught on premises and via distance learning using texts in the syllabus and course booklets, advocates “without exception a radical vision of Islam.”
Seminary Indoctrinates Minors In Violent Islamism
The decree emphasized that minors interning at the seminary also experience IESH’s endorsement of violence based on a literal reading of Islamic texts, without contextualization or modern critical approaches, in the name of fundamentalist Islam.
As per the decree, the jurisprudence promoted by the seminary includes “the amputation of thieves and troublemakers, or even death in the event of a repeat offence, or even flogging, stoning and death in the event of sexual relations outside marriage,” presenting it as obligatory for Muslims.
The decree cites several examples of extremism from IESH course handouts found on a classroom table during an inspection of the program for minors in July 2024.
- A handout for the second-year course on “Islamic culture” stated: “The regime of Islamic legislation is a total and obligatory regime for the community of Muslims.”
- The “Sciences of the Koran” course in the first-year program of the Diploma of Islamic Higher Studies of the IESH prescribes “one hundred lashes” for adulterers.
- Teaching material for the second-year year correspondence course on “Prescriptive Verses” sanctioned cutting off the hands of thieves, stating: “There is no reward for troublemakers on earth except death, crucifixion, and the amputation of the hand and foot on opposite sides.”
- The “Prescriptive Verses” course handout also presented men as superior to women, subordinated women to the authority of their husbands, and stated “that it is legal to hit women at the first signs of disobedience.”
- The “The Sciences of Hadith” textbook for the first year of the IESH diploma, declares a woman’s testimony inferior to that of the man and legitimizes violence against wives, recommending that husbands should “admonish them, relegate them to separate beds, and beat them.”
- The book “Islamic Fatwas” (Volume 5) discovered in an IESH classroom legitimizes the marriage of nine-year-old girls, polygamy, and marital rape, explaining: “The scholars of Islamic jurisprudence have determined that it is an obligation of the woman to allow her husband to have sexual relations with her whenever he wants.”
Additionally, IESH courses endorsed Islamic rulings that forbid Muslim women from marrying non-Muslim men, mandate that women wear the veil, bar them from professions such as judge or army officer due to “inherent and lasting impediments to equality,” and defended unequal inheritance rights between men and women.
Authorities Identify Seminary’s Links to Hamas
The decree also cites the examples of leading IESH faculty members calling for jihad, including the head of the Quran department, who called for holy war on his Facebook page and posted a link to a speech by Issam El Bachir, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan, legitimizing the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
Several leaders or lecturers at the seminary “have held important responsibilities within associations actively involved in the financing of Hamas satellite associations,” the decree disclosed, citing multiple examples.
An inspection of the seminary on June 17, 2025, found numerous books in the main library of the seminary calling for jihad, hatred against Jews, Christians, and apostates, the decree noted.
An intelligence dossier released by France in May titled “The Muslim Brotherhood and Political Islamism in France” named the IESH as one of the Brotherhood’s key institutions. On June 16, French authorities froze the assets of the IESH for a period of six months, after which the seminary voluntarily offered to disband. Earlier in December 2024, police raided the seminary on suspicion of failing to declare funding from Qatar.
Rightwing Leader Hails Dissolution of Seminary
Marion Maréchal, president of the right-wing Identity and Freedom party and member of the European Parliament, welcomed the seminary’s dissolution in a video on X, captioning “VICTORY!”
“I have some fantastic news to announce. We have just won an unprecedented victory against the Islamists,” Maréchal wrote. “Thanks to our mobilization, the IESH has been officially dissolved, and it will never reopen! This is the greatest defeat in the history of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood in France.”
Responding in a press release to the dissolution notice, IESH’s dean, Larabi Becheri, stated: “Our institution serves as an intellectual and educational bulwark against deviant interpretations of religious texts. Our commitment is based on a critical, contextualized, and responsible approach to sources, aimed at deconstructing extremist discourses.”
Becheri warned that “closing the IESH would be counterproductive, as it would weaken a structured and regulated response to religious disinformation.”
The website currently features multiple testimonies from former students rejecting accusations that the institution was radicalizing students by training them in “political Islam.”
IESH “promoted a radical Islam and legitimized armed jihad,” Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau tweeted. “The fight against the infiltration of the Muslim Brotherhood movement continues.”
Despite its closure, the school’s impact will endure, at least for a while. Since its founding, IESH trained 1,900 imams who are currently practicing in France. Before its closure, the seminary had around 200 students—60% men, not all of whom became imams. The women students trained to become teachers and academics. Around ten students graduated as imams each year with a bachelor’s degree. Those with top results could begin studying for a Ph.D.
