BERLIN: Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday Muslims must obey the Constitution and not Shariah law if they want to live in Germany, which is debating the integration of its 4 million-strong Muslim population. In the furore following a German central banker's blunt comments about Muslims failing to integrate, moderate leaders including President Christian Wulff have urged Germans to accept that “Islam also belongs in Germany”. The debate comes against a backdrop of US and British concerns over the threat of terrorist attacks by militant living in Germany, with Berlin toning down such fears. Merkel faces corresponding discussions inside her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) about whether she is conservative enough, and the center-right leader's latest comments seemed directed at those who think Wulff went too far in appeasing the Muslims. Wulff, who has a largely ceremonial role, used a speech Sunday celebrating two decades of German reunification to urge harmonious integration of immigrants who until a decade ago were considered “guest workers” who would eventually return home. But whereas the media stressed Wulff's comments about Islam, Merkel - the daughter of a Protestant pastor brought up in East Germany, who leads a predominantly Catholic party - said Wulff had emphasized Germany's “Christian roots and its Jewish roots”. German Christian Democrats often cite shared Judeo-Christian values rooted in the early history of Christianity because of sensitivities about the Holocaust, when the Nazis murdered six million Jews during World War Two. “Now we obviously also have Muslims in Germany. But it's important in regard to Islam that the values represented by Islam must correspond with our constitution,” said Merkel. “What applies here is the constitution, not Shariah.” Merkel said Germany needed Imams “educated in Germany and who have their social roots here” and concluded: “Our culture is based on Christian and Jewish values and has been for hundreds of years, not to say thousands.”
