Accommodating Islam and the Utility of National Models: The German Case CLAUS HOFHANSEL This article questions the claim that the way German governments have responded to Muslim demands for accommodating Islam fits a German national model. The empirical focus is on Islamic religious instruction in five German La¨ nder. The evidence presented shows that there is not one but several German models. La¨ nder with Christian Democratic dominance were more supportive of confessional religious instruction than La¨ nder where the left was stronger. At the same time Christian Democrats initially were more reluctant to extend the privilege of religious instruction to Muslim groups. In La¨ nder where Article 7 III of the German constitution applied, corporatist hurdles were an obstacle for Muslim groups, but this was less the case in Berlin. Religion–state institutions are important for understanding how European countries have dealt with the growing presence of Islam, but it is equally important to understand the politically contested nature of these institutions. Accommodating Islam has proven to be a major challenge for European religion-state institutions. This naturally raises the question of whether some countries have dealt with this challenge more successfully than others. Fetzer and Soper (2005) have argued that there are clear national differences among major European countries. Britain has been the most accommodat- ing to Muslim religious needs, whereas France has been the most hostile, with Germany occupying a place in the middle. These differences are rooted primarily in different models of church–state relations, where Britain has an established church, Germany represents a case of multiple establishment, and France has a fairly strict separation of church and state in the form of the anticlerical laı¨cite´ tradition. Both Britain and Germany have a history of accommodating religion in the public sphere and a corresponding tradition of cooperation between church and state. This provided an opportunity for Muslims to argue that privileges granted to Christians and Jews should be Correspondence Address: chofhansel@ric.edu West European Politics, Vol. 33, No. 2, 191–207, March 2010 ISSN 0140-2382 Print/1743-9655 Online ª 2010 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/01402380903538799