Imams in Australia are badly trained, speak poor English and are “out of touch with contemporary reality”, the Federal Government has been warned.
Research for the Department of Immigration, released under Freedom of Information laws, found Australia’s Muslim leaders were highly conservative and had little knowledge of Australian culture.
The heavily censored document calls for better training of Muslim clerics and religious teachers in Islamic schools.
But the department refused to release later research by the same author, Melbourne Islamic scholar Prof Abdullah Saeed, on extremist beliefs in local Muslim communities.
A report obtained by the Herald Sun said most Australian imams were overseas-born and had outdated interpretations of Islamic teachings.
“In general, poor English language skills, conservative Islamic interpretations and an inability to understand aspects of Australian cultural life has resulted in this leadership, with a few notable exceptions, being unrepresentative of the religious views of the majority of Australian Muslims,” it said.
The 2006 report was completed about the same time as Sheik Taj El-Din El Hilaly’s comments comparing women with uncovered meat.
The then-Mufti of Australia also claimed Muslims had a greater right to be in Australia because they paid for their passage here, unlike British and Irish settlers who arrived as convicts.
The report, “Preliminary Research on the Muslim Communities of Australia”, proposed a new system to regulate the training and accreditation of imams.
The recommendation was not implemented.
Former Howard government Islamic adviser Dr Ameer Ali agreed the standards of local imams fell short. “We need to retrain existing imams and we need to produce our own imams in this country,” Dr Ali said.
“We need some people who are familiar with the issues and can communicate with the youth in a language that they understand.”