Islam is one of the fastest growing religions in Europe today and, according to some observers, Islam has already become the second largest religion in terms of the number of believers (Hunter 2002).
At a very rough estimate there are around 20 million Muslims living in Europe-ranging from Portugal to Finland, and from Ireland to Bulgaria (MarechaI2002} –to well over half a billion Europeans.
Whether any significance should be attached to such figures remains to be seen. First, there are no trust-worthy maps of the distribution of Muslims in Europe or counting systems that warrant reliable statistics about the precise number of Muslims. Hence, any estimate is just a shot in the dark. Secondly, the boundaries of ‘the Muslim community’ (ummah), if such a sociological entity exists at all, are unclear and occasionally subjected to heated debate. Muslims themselves do not have consensus about the precise location of the boundaries.
The point is that Muslims demonstrate a diversity of affiliations to Islam, varying from ‘negative’ ones such as a refusal to proclaim the faith, silent agnosticism or indifference, to culturalist ones, and to more ‘positive’ ones. Dassetto & Nonneman (1996), who presented this typology, subdivide the latter, ‘more central’ type of belonging into
i) types that stay at a distance from organized forms,
ii) types that show a more or less utilitarian attitude towards established forms of religious organization and authority, and
iii) types that have organized missionary and militant affiliations. These affiliations may change over time, among others in response to external social pressure.
So, individuals who at one point disassociated themselves from Islam may at another point turn into devoted Muslims and vice versa. Non-Muslims-unaware of the intricacies of the formation of Muslim communities and the making of boundaries between who belongs and who does not-regularly overestimate the size of the Muslim community and this adds up to the imprecision.
But regardless of the precision of the numbers, it is an undeniable fact that the Muslims presence in Europe has gained significance during the past few decades. The presence of Muslims today results mainly from the massive influx of workers and other migrants from the Middle East and former colonial territories in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean region.
This characteristic, simplified though it might be, is manifest quite differently across the ocean. There is, to be sure, no European equivalent of the category of African American Muslims.
Next to that, relatively large communities of indigenous Muslims can be found in Eastern Europe, especially in Albania, former Yugoslavia (Bosnia-Herzegovina in particular), and Bulgaria, and smaller pockets in Greece, Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland. But the overwhelming majority of Muslims-approximately three quarters of the total-are living in Western Europe and they are predominantly first and second generation immigrants.
Although there have been Muslims in Western Europe for ages-including foreign traders, diplomats and students-they have never before been present on such a large scale as they are now.
Some therefore like to talk of the New Islamic presence (Gerholm & Lithman 1988). This representation is incorrect from a historical point of view (see for instance the Nielsen 1999: 1-10) and also somewhat Eurocentric, especially if applied to postcolonial societies such as Britain,
France and The Netherlands. Until the demise of the colonial project, millions of Muslims were subjects of the British, French or Dutch regimes, albeit domiciled outside Europe. The very fact that many migrated to the European centers is part and parcel of the same historic process (Haddad1998; van der Veer 1995: 188-189). Seen from the migrant’s perspective, the situation basically boils down to the phrase: we are here because you were there.
However, the presence of Muslim subjects in colonial areas had only relatively little impact on the local situation in Europe. At best, it constituted a pretext for the development of particular schools of scientific research, schools that mainly served the needs of the colonial powers. Whatever position one takes with regard to these matters—even if one acknowledges the significance of historical continuity-it is clear that we are now dealing with a situation that is new in many respects. Muslims exhibit a variety of ethnic, linguistic and cultural characteristics, and have multiple networks links with other major regions of the Islamic world.
As immigrants they find themselves in an unfamiliar and sometimes even hostile environment in which the exertion of their faith is not a matter of course. It involved and continues to involve discussions and occasionally conflicts with representatives of the receiving society, while Muslims themselves have embarked on introspections about the meaning of their deen and its practices. The development of the study of Islam is to a certain extent contingent on the local situation.
*Abu Yaasir (MA, PhD in Political Science / Romance Linguistics / International Technical Development, University of Aachen/Germany + University of Cambridge/UK)
