Excerpt:
Leading members of the opposition Social Democrats and Greens called on Thursday for Islam to be recognised by the state as a religious community, similar to Christianity and Judaism.
The calls came as the peak Jewish body in Germany blasted recent conservative criticism of President Christian Wulff's reunification speech, in which Wullf acknowledged that Islam was now part of Germany alongside the faiths of Christians and Jews.
In the wake of Wulff's speech, the centre-left parties hit back against conservatives who had previously attacked Wulff's remarks as undermining the core values and traditions of Germany.