Our Shared Europe Report

Executive Summary - Introduction

For over 1,300 years, the continent that is now called Europe has been home to peoples with direct or indirect connections to Islam. They have been traders and teachers, converts and conquerors, astronomers and astrologers, architects and builders, gardeners, chefs, clerks, spies, philosophers, medics, mystics, missionaries and more.

The European Union and its European neighbourhood, which includes Turkey and Russia, has more than 120 million Muslims* – a set of individuals, communities and countries that are just as diverse as those in history; perhaps more so. There are some 20 million in the EU, including indigenous Muslims, newcomers, and the descendants of former migrants from the countries of Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
^{* The word ‘Muslims’ in the context of this report is taken to mean those who profess the Islamic faith, as well as those from Muslim cultural backgrounds.}

A combination of factors has led to a steadily increasing number of new migrants to the EU.

The demand is being driven by the needs of business and industry, sport, the arts, knowledge, science and technology. Other factors include family reunions and the urgency to accommodate those fleeing violence and conflict.

Yet at the same time, EU governments face a difficulty. As populations become more mixed, some voters are becoming more sceptical, with an increasing minority becoming more concerned and even hostile to the changing nature of societies. Among other things, this is being fuelled by the consequences of the rise of Al-Qaeda, the 9/11 attacks on the United States and acts of terrorism on the streets of European cities.

Alongside scepticism of immigration comes another trend: a small, but vocal group of people in Europe admitting in public that they dislike Muslims; and a small but vocal group of Muslims in Europe admitting to the fact that they feel the same way about their non-Muslim neighbours.

The view of Islam as ‘other’ has also meant that European countries with large Muslim populations, such as Turkey, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Herzegovina and Albania, are cast as outsiders, banging on the door of a Europe allegedly founded upon an exclusively Judeo-Christian heritage.

One of the better polls tracking public perceptions is the Pew Global Attitudes Project, which has been collecting data from 13 countries since 2001. Its latest findings (2006) are complex and not easy to summarise. But to quote from the survey: ‘Muslims and Westerners agree that relations between them are generally bad, but disagree about who to blame.’

Such tensions in Europe are hardly new. Relations on the whole have had their share of hiccups and the historical record is full of accounts of wars and mistrust. But the history of the encounter between the two is more complex.

There is another, and much less acknowledged side to Islam’s 1,300-year presence in Europe.

Most (if not all) of the world’s great empires have patronised knowledge and learning. Wealthy dominions can afford to do so and the Islamic empires were no different. Centres of innovation and learning were dotted around the ‘Muslim world’ during the Middle Ages.

They could be found in Bokhara in Central Asia, Baghdad and Damascus in the Middle East, but also in Córdoba, Granada, Istanbul and Toledo in Europe.