Islam in Europe

[4][5][6] These communities consist predominantly of indigenous Europeans of the Muslim faith, whose religious tradition dates back several hundred years to the Middle Ages.

Soon after the death of Muhammad in 632 CE, his community needed to appoint a new leader, giving rise to the title of caliph (Arabic: خَليفة, romanized: khalīfa, lit.

[16][17][18] The four "rightly-guided" (rāshidūn) caliphs who succeeded him oversaw the initial phase of the early Muslim conquests, advancing through Persia, the Levant, Egypt, and North Africa.

A short-lived invasion of Byzantine Sicily by a small Arab and Berber contingent that landed in 652 was the prelude of a series of incursions; from the 8th to the 15th centuries, Muslim states ruled parts of the Iberian Peninsula,[20] southern Italy,[20][21][22] southern France,[20] and several Mediterranean islands,[20][23] while in the East, incursions into a much reduced in territory and weakened Byzantine Empire continued.

[21][22] The presence of a Muslim majority in North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula by the foundation of al-Andalus and other Muslim-ruled states in the Mediterranean Region between the 7th and 10th centuries CE is debated among scholars and historians; one author claims that al-Andalus had a Muslim majority after most of the local population allegedly converted to Islam on their own will,[26] whereas other historians remark how the Umayyad Caliphate persecuted many Berber Christians in the 7th and 8th centuries CE, who slowly converted to Islam.

[29][30][31] The martyrdom of forty-eight Iberian Christians that took place under the rule of Abd al-Rahman II and Muhammad I in the Emirate of Córdoba (between 850 and 859 CE) has been recorded in historical documents and treatises of the time.

[35] Overthrown by the Abbasids, the deposed Umayyad caliph Abd al-Rahman I fled the city of Damascus in 756 and established an independent Emirate of Córdoba in al-Andalus.

"The emirs of Córdoba built palaces reflecting the confidence and vitality of Andalusi Islam, minted coins, brought to Spain luxury items from the East, initiated ambitious projects of irrigation and transformed agriculture, reproduced the style and ceremony of the Abbasid court ruling in the East and welcomed famous scholars, poets and musicians from the rest of the Muslim world".

"[39] Arabic-speaking Iberian Christian scholars preserved and studied influential pre-Christian and pre-Islamic Greco-Roman texts, and introduced aspects of medieval Islamic culture,[40][41][42] including the arts,[43][44][45] economics,[46] science, and technology.

[50] For a long time, until the early 18th century, the Crimean Khanate maintained a massive slave trade with the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East.

The community was formed between the late 1800s and the early 1900s, when Mishar Tatar merchants emigrated from the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate of the Russian Empire, and eventually settled in Finland.

In the mid-7th century AD, following the Muslim conquest of Persia, Islam spread into areas that are today part of Russia as a result of the Russo-Persian Wars.

[65] There are accounts of the trade connections between Muslims and the Rus', apparently people from the Baltic region who made their way towards the Black Sea through Central Russia.

The region of Muslim Europe includes a large portion of the Balkans, which historically bore the brunt of Ottoman attempts to spread Islam to the continent.

[12] Between 1354 (when the Ottoman Turks crossed into Europe at Gallipoli) and 1526, the Empire had conquered the territories of present-day Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, and Serbia.

The intervention of the Polish King broke the siege, and from then afterwards the Ottomans battled the Habsburg Emperors until 1699, when the Treaty of Karlowitz forced them to surrender the region of Hungary under Ottoman control and portions of present-day Croatia, Romania, Slovakia, and Serbia to the Habsburg Empire, which pushed the Great Migrations of the Serbs to the southern regions of the Kingdom of Hungary (though as far in the north as the town of Szentendre, in which they formed the majority of the population in the 18th century, but to smaller extent also in the town of Komárom) and Habsburg-ruled Croatia.

[70] They were useful in preventing both the slave rebellions and the breakup of the Empire itself, especially due to the rising tide of nationalism among European peoples in its Balkan provinces from the 17th century onwards.

[80] In addition, substantial Turkish communities have been formed in the United Kingdom, Austria, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, Italy, Liechtenstein, Finland, and Spain.

[99] Quantitative research is lacking, but he believes the European trend mirrors that from North America: statistical data from the General Social Survey in the United States show that 32% of those raised Muslim no longer embrace Islam in adulthood, and 18% hold no religious identification[99] (see also: Ex-Muslims).

[75] Islam in Europe is often the subject of intense discussion and political controversies sparked by events such as Islamist terrorist attacks in European countries,[141][142][143][144] The Satanic Verses controversy,[145] the cartoons affair in Denmark,[143] debates over Islamic dress,[145] and growing support for right-wing populist movements and parties that view Muslims as a threat to European culture and liberal values.

[144][145] Such events have also fueled ongoing debates regarding the topics of globalization, multiculturalism, nativism, Islamophobia, relations between Muslims and other religious groups, and populist politics.

[148] In 1997, the MCCE has joined the initiative "A Soul for Europe" in the framework of "Dialogue with religions, churches and humanism" as part of the Group of Policy Advisors in the European Commission.

On a regional average, around 25% hold a more permissive view, asserting that Muslim women should be allowed to wear the religious clothing of their choice according to Pew Research Center.

[169] A February 2017 poll of 10,000 people in 10 European countries by Chatham House found on average a majority were opposed to further Muslim immigration, with opposition especially pronounced in Austria, Poland, Hungary, France and Belgium.

The authors of the study add that these countries, except Poland, had in the preceding years suffered jihadist terror attacks or been at the centre of a refugee crisis.

[172] The French government has also acted upon the Muslim population of France in recent years, with the lower house passing an anti-radicalism bill and increasing checks in places of worship.

[177] According to a WZB report, Muslims in Europe generally have higher levels of unemployment due to language barriers, weak social ties, and restrictive gender roles.

[178] A recent study found that poor employment outcomes for Muslims in Britain are not due to sociocultural attitudes or religious practices but are linked to significant Islamophobic discrimination.

The research, based on data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study, revealed that factors like religiosity and gender attitudes have minimal impact on the employment gap.

Instead, perceived Muslimness and country of origin play a more significant role, highlighting the need to address multidimensional Islamophobia to reduce these disparities.