Muslims in Europe
May 1, 2009 · 1 Comment
AFTER MASS IMMIGRATION YEAR ON YEAR- FROM MUSLIM COUNTRIES–
BRIDES IMPORTED IN THEIR THOUSANDS - THE HOME OFFICE IS IN DIRE NEED OF AN
ABACUS- OR A TRUTH DRUG!!
The Presence
“With customs, culture and religion that differ sharply from
those of host countries, the Muslim immigrants - like all immigrants - have
faced misunderstandings…”
Written by John
Lawton
Islam, today, is the second largest religion in Europe;
and Muslims - more than five million in 1978 - now make up 40 percent of the
Common Market’s foreign work force. Arabs, Asians, Africans and Turks, their
labor has helped build a prosperous Europe and, through
wages sent home, has contributed to prosperity in the countries from which they
have come.
Inevitably, the mass movement of Muslim manpower has created
problems. With customs, culture and religion that differ sharply from those of
host countries, the Muslim immigrants - like all immigrants - have faced
misunderstandings, hostility and, within their own communities, cultural and
religious strains. Yet Islam, barely visible since the fall of Muslim Spain
(See Aramco World, September-October, 1976) is now firmly implanted in Western
Europe. United by their faith, Muslim immigrants from nations as
far apart as Malaysia and Morocco
are working together to build mosques, establish Muslim cultural centers, and
press common demands for political, economic, social and religious equality
with their European hosts.
Because the problems vary from country to country, these
efforts, initially, were launched on an individual basis. The Islamic society
of Ireland, for example, set up the Muslim
Youth Center in Dublin;
the government of Iraq set up the Iraqi
Cultural Center
in London, and the Islamic community of Lisbon
spent 12 years winning the approval of Portugal
for construction of a mosque. But now, in an important step toward
consolidation of effort, the London-based Islamic Council of Europe is
attempting to coordinate the efforts of more than 24 Muslim organizations in Britain,
West Germany, France,
Scandinavia, Italy,
Switzerland, Austria
and the Benelux countries.
Established in May, 1973 - in accordance with decisions of
the Second and Third Islamic Conferences of Foreign Ministers held in Jiddah,
Saudi Arabia and Benghazi, Libya - the council has been working in close
cooperation with international Islamic organizations, the governments of all
Muslim states and other institutions serving the cause of Islam.
According to its
Secretary-General, Salam Azzam, the Islamic Council of Europe has two main
objectives: “First, protection, preservation and promotion of the religious and
cultural life of Muslims in Europe. And second, the
development of a better understanding of Islam in the West.”
Islam, in fact, is no newcomer to Europe.
Present-day Portugal and Sicily
were once predominantly Muslim. In Eastern Europe, large Muslim communities
have existed for the past nine centuries - some the descendants of Mongol
forces that reached Poland and Lithuania.
In Western Europe old Muslim communities still survive in France, Italy,
Britain, The Netherlands and, of course, Spain - where Muslim rule provided
both Islamic and European history with some of its most glorious chapters. (See
Aramco World, September-October, 1976).
The Muslims first came to Europe in 711 and subsequently
established an illustrious civilization in most of the Iberian
Peninsula that lasted for eight centuries. In 831 Muslim forces
also won a foothold on Sicily and
ruled there for over 260 years (See Aramco World, November-December, 1978).
Finally there came the Ottomans, who ruled the Balkans from the 14th to the
19th century and, at the height of their power in the 17th century, reached as
far west as the gates of Vienna.
As a result, says Azzam, “the West has generally known Islam
as an enemy and a threat.”And as a result,” said Khurshid Ahmad, formerly the
Director-General of the Islamic Foundation, an educational trust at Leicester,
England, “Islam is the most
misunderstood religion in Europe today.”
In an effort to build new bridges of knowledge and
cooperation between the Muslim world and the predominantly Christian West, the
Islamic Council of Europe has been organizing important programs and
conferences - such as the International Islamic Conference held in London
in April, 1976. Organized in cooperation with King
Abdulaziz University
in Jiddah, on the occasion of the World of Islam Festival (See Aramco World,
May-June 1976), the conference - attended by scholars and statesmen from 33 countries
- attracted large Muslim and non-Muslim audiences, and several of its main
speakers addressed themselves to the question of misunderstanding.
At the opening of the conference, for example, His Royal
Highness Prince Muhammad ibn Faisal of Saudi Arabia
stressed Islam’s tremendous impact on world history and its unique
contributions in the fields of education, art, science and technology. He also
urged non-Muslims “to examine without prejudice the religion of over 800
million fellow human beings.”
Other speakers at the 10 public sessions developed the same
theme. Some speakers reminded audiences that the European awakening,
represented by the Reformation and the Renaissance, owed much of its
inspiration to contact with Islam. Others pointed out that such universities as
Paris, Oxford and Cambridge
came into existence under the influence of the universities of Muslim Spain -
facts, the London Times commented, of which most Europeans were “abysmally
ignorant.”
The London conference also addressed
itself to what, for the Muslims in Europe, are even more
pressing and practical problems. One was economic assimilation. When the mass
migration of foreign workers into Western Europe first
began in the 1960’s, most Europeans assumed that “guest workers” would stay for
a few years and then take their savings home. It was a temporary arrangement,
they believed, so little was done to integrate the new arrivals or to provide
for their special religious, educational and social needs.
But as the total of foreign workers reached 12 million -
nearly five percent of the EEC’s total population - the problems could no
longer be dismissed as temporary or minor. Because the EEC countries had
initially paid so little attention to them, many migrants wound up in crowded ghettoes,
politically impotent - and with close to 20 percent of their children receiving
little or no education.
The problem worsened in the 1970’s, when economic recession
lessened Europe’s need for foreign workers. Earlier the
migrants’ contribution had been vital; but with the slump, Europe’s
welcome cooled and unemployed Europeans began to clamor to get back the jobs
they had previously - and eagerly - turned over to the migrants. The result,
particularly in urban areas, was tension. As The Economist in Britain
put it: “Xenophobia in Europe is rising.”
By 1978 all West European countries had closed their doors
to non-Common Market immigrants and some had begun to encourage emigration. France,
for example, is now offering $2,000 to each foreign worker who agrees to return
home. But as millions have opted to stay in Europe - and
as close to half of them are Muslims - worried religious leaders have begun to
cooperate in an effort to head off potential conflict. In West Berlin, for
example, the Standing Conference of Jews, Christians and Muslims in Europe
has warned that if Christians and Muslims do not learn to live together there
could be trouble.
Azzam, of the Islamic Council, agrees. “The need for a
better and more sympathetic understanding of Islam was never as great as it is
today. The presence of significant Muslim populations in every country in Europe,
in almost every city and region, has made it necessary for the local
communities to understand the beliefs and life patterns of their Muslim neighbors.”
Some countries, certainly, have already taken steps to
alleviate problems. Belgium and Austria,
for example, now officially recognize Islam as a religion. But the bulk of
Europe’s Muslims do not live in Belgium
and Austria. Of
a total of 5.4 million, 1.9 million live in France, 1.5 million in West
Germany, 1 million in Britain, 500,000 in Italy, 350,000 in the Benelux
countries, 40,000 in Scandinavia, 25,000 in Spain and some 5,000 each in
Austria, Portugal and Switzerland.
Some problems - the result of social and political neglect -
internal. “One of the biggest problems facing Muslim immigrants,” says Azzam,
“is providing religious education for their children.” To resolve it, the
Seventh Islamic Foreign Ministers Conference - which met in Istanbul
last year - pledged assistance to the Federation of International Arab Islamic
Schools set up by Saudi Arabia
to provide education for Muslim children whose parents work abroad.
The parents, to be sure, had already made some arrangements
for religious instruction. They had organized evening and weekend classes in
homes, rented halls and makeshift mosques all over Europe.
And in countries where religious instruction is provided in state schools,
Muslim parents, in cooperation with school authorities, had frequently arranged
for religious education of their children in their own faith. But those steps,
says Ahmad, are insufficient to properly educate the new generation of Muslims
now growing up in Europe.
Another important problem is that there are too few mosques
in Europe for the growing Muslim population. Until
recently, in fact, there were almost none, and Europe’s
Muslims had to establish hundreds of temporary mosques in converted houses,
shops and even disused Christian churches. But now minarets can be seen
sprouting above the rooftops in cities and towns in Britain,
West Germany, France,
Belgium, Denmark
and The Netherlands, and additional mosques are being built or planned. And in Germany
one innovative group of Turks regularly takes over a local tourist attraction
for prayers: a replica of a mosque completed in the 1780’s by a German Prince
at Schwetzingen, near Mannheim.
As in all Muslim countries, Europe’s
mosques serve not only as places of worship, but also as centers for Islamic
studies, meeting places for the local Muslim community and centers of social
activity. The new mosque at Munich, for example, is often
used by Turks traveling home by road as an overnight resting place and the
proposed Islamic Center at Amsterdam
will include a library, language laboratory, sports and hobby areas and an
adjoining apartment building, in addition to a mosque.
“Islam is not simply a religion in a limited sense of the
word,” said Khur-shid Ahmad, now Deputy Minister of Planning in Pakistan.
“It is a complete way of life. It fashions the social attitude and behavior
patterns of its adherents: their food, dress, marriage and family life and
social relations…”
Because of this, Muslims in Europe
frequently face problems that other Europeans do not. Muslims, for example,
prefer to separate girls and boys in school and consider marriage a matter of
personal rather than legal status, and in a recent British court case, a Muslim
teacher argued that he should be granted time off for prayers during school
hours. As a consequence of these different views, Muslim efforts to achieve
legal, religious and political equality with Europeans are complicated and
often bring them into conflict with established customs and laws.
Progress, nevertheless, is being made. By a special Act of
Parliament on July 19, 1974, Belgium
recognized Islamic law; the Common Market Commission has recommended that
immigrants’ political rights should be extended; and a special parliamentary
committee has been set up in Britain
to study such Muslim demands as allotment of government land for construction
of mosques and recognition of Islamic holidays for Muslim workers.
Some Muslims in Europe, however, feel
that in view of the large amounts of money they are sending home - in the form
of savings and support for relatives - they have earned stronger backing from
their own countries. Pakistani workers, for example, point out that
foreign-currency remittances from workers abroad were, in 1977, Pakistan’s
second largest source of foreign exchange - the equivalent of about $450
million. Turkey also depends heavily
upon the money its workers abroad send home; the total in 1976 was $982
million, about half the value of Turkey’s
exports.
These contributions obviously warrant support. “But not
enough is being done by governments of Muslim states for Muslims living in Europe,”
Azzam says. “On the other hand, a beginning has been made, and Islam, in little
more than a decade, has emerged as Europe’s second
largest religion.”
This article appeared on pages 3-8 of the January/February
1979 print edition of Saudi Aramco World.
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spinaris // May 1, 2009 at 12:44 pm | Reply
I couldn’t read all that pro islamic crap! so far as I know
40% of muslim families have no income apart from state handouts. The writer of
that garbage should bugger off to pakistan
http://centurean2.wordpress.com/2009/05/01/1979-one-million-muslims-in-britainsaudi-aramco-world27-million-30-years-later-wow-flying-pigs-again/
