German Muslims must obey law, not sharia: Merkel

Muslim men, most of them either Turkish or Arab immigrants, attend midday prayers at the Omar Mosque in the immigrant-heavy district of Kreuzberg on September 21, 2010 in Berlin, Germany

"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 sharia."

(Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday Muslims must obey the constitution and not sharia law if they want to live in Germany, which is debating the integration of its 4 million-strong Muslim population.

In the furor 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 U.S. and British concerns over the threat of terrorist attacks by militant Islamists 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 on 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 sharia."

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."

Opinion polls suggest many Germans sympathize with the views of an outspoken member of Germany's Bundesbank who, in speeches and a book, accused Muslims of sponging off welfare, refusing to integrate and achieving poor levels of education.

Thilo Sarrazin, who also offended Jews with comments about genetics, was forced to quit the central bank. Merkel has tried to accommodate both sides of the debate, saying police should not be afraid of entering immigrant neighborhoods but also that Germans must accept mosques becoming part of their landscape.