Islam in Europe: Tame or Extreme?
There are two caricatures of Muslims in Europe. The first portrays them as religious fundamentalists, potential terrorists, cultural imperialists, resistant to modernity, and intent on establishing a European Islamic superpower.
A second portrays them as individuals that have left repressive regimes for the relative social and political comfort of the west. These Muslims are seen as instinctive democrats, multicultural, European in their identity, peaceable, religiously nominal, secularised, and adjusting to the pattern of the ‘western’ nuclear family. To insist that either represents the whole picture is misleading and doesn’t address the subtleties of what lies between.
Estimates conservatively suggest that the Islamic population of 50 European countries was 38,112,000 in 2009 (5% of the total European population). This figure excludes Turkey which, with 73,619,000 Muslims, has the 8th largest Islamic population of any country in the world although it includes Russia’s indigenous Muslim population of 16,482,000. Following Russia, the European country with the largest Islamic population is Germany, with an estimated total of just over 4 million.
PEW Mapping the Global Muslim Population 2009, World Religions Database
Counting Muslims in Europe is challenging. Defining ‘Muslim’ is tricky and suggests the need to reflect a lot more on the difference between ‘cultural’, or ‘nominal’, Muslims and those who are religiously observant.
The higher statistical estimates assume that citizens of countries with an Islamic majority who are now living in Europe are likely to be Muslims. This is problematic as, for example, it would include Coptic Christians from Iraq and Egypt who have emigrated to Europe. Secondly, even in countries with an Islamic majority (Albania, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Turkey) statistics indicate that 28.9% of the population of these countries never attend a mosque or attend less frequently than once a year. Thirdly, in European countries with Islamic minorities, this figure increases to 40% of the self-identified ‘Muslim’ population. It is hardly more reliable to use mosque attendance figures as this kind of data is not available in any consistent manner. That’s the reason that the figures quoted will vary so widely (see Jim Memory’s article for a discussion of the data available for Spain ). We really have no foolproof way at the moment for counting Muslims.
How regular is mosque attendance and how observant are European Muslims?
A PEW 2008 study suggests that only 10% of Muslims in France consider religion very important in their lives whilst a further 60% say they never pray. In Belgium, a 2005 Free University of Brussels report estimated that only 10% of the Muslim population were ‘practicing Muslims’. In France, a 2001 IFOP study found that 36% of Muslims self-described as ‘observant believers’, 20% claimed to regularly attend mosque, and 70% said they observed Ramadan.
A Swedish study of Islamic Imams in 2004 indicated that as few as 15% of second-generation Muslims in Sweden could be considered ‘religiously active’. In Russia, an R&F Agency study estimated that out of 20 million officially self-identified Muslims only 35-45% practices regularly. Across this population, somewhere between two-third to three-quarters celebrates Ramadan. A 2007 report by Policy Exchange found that in the UK, 21% of Muslims had consumed alcohol, 65% were paying interest on a normal mortgage, 19% had gambled, whilst 9% admitted to having taken drugs.
Taken together, these statistics suggest that in European countries where Islam is a migrant and minority faith, one third of that Islamic population attends mosque at least once a week, a further third attends only once a year, and a final third never or rarely attends a mosque. We should take care however in drawing too close a link between mosque attendance and nominalism: it does not necessarily indicate a disassociation from Muslim identity.
Multicultural Muslims?
A 2005 BBC poll showed that 87% of Muslims believed a multi-cultural Britain was a better place to live although 59% thought that they should be free to retain their language and customs. Most British Muslims wanted their Imams to be fluent English speakers but a 2005 study showed only 10% to be fluent in English and a 2007 University of Chester survey found that the majority of British mosque sermons were in Urdu.
There was strong agreement with the wider British population that multiculturalism should not be abandoned. There was little variance from the wider British commitment to the monarchy, flag, Britain, British society, British institutions, and learning English. 60% of Muslims in the UK agreed that British identity was principally ‘Christian whilst 66% believe that Islam is compatible with British democracy. In a four nation PEW study in 2006, it was found that 62% of Muslims saw no contradiction between being Muslim and living in a modern society. In 2008, 400 Muslim organizations met under the banner of Federation of Islamic Organisations in Europe (FIOE) to sign a statement underlining their commitment to full and unconditional participation in the civil societies of Europe. In 2007 a Policy Exchange (PE) report found that among British Muslims, 59% preferred living under British law, compared to 28% who would prefer sharia law. From the same sample, 37% believed that ‘one of the benefits of modern society is the freedom to criticise other people’s religious or political views, even when it causes offence’ whereas only 29% of the British population believes the same. Finally, 75% believe there is more diversity and disagreement within the Muslim population than other British people realize.
Support for Islamist movements?
Many commentators have tried to define Muslim over against ‘Islamist’. An Islamist is typically taken to be a Muslim who is working towards aspects of an Islamic State, irrespective of the means they might choose to achieve their ends, whether violent or not. The 2007 PEW research found only 7% of Muslims ‘admire organisations like Al-Qaeda that are prepared to fight the West’. Among 16-24 year olds this rose to 13%, compared to 3% of 55+ year olds. The greater majority of Muslims do not readily identify with a Muslim organisation. The same 2007 survey showed that only 6% of Muslims felt the Muslim Council of Britain represented their views. A majority (51%) felt that no Muslim organisation represented them.
“ As European Christians learn to live peaceably with their Muslim neighbours it seems necessary to avoid the dangers of either demonising Muslims or of elevating them to sainthood.”
On the 17th June 2006, the leaders of 150 mosques in Birmingham jointly agreed a statement which contained the lines ‘killing of innocent civilians is absolutely forbidden in Islam’ and outlined steps they had taken to ‘regulate the activities of every mosque to ensure that people are given the right message of calmness, civic responsibility, citizenship and Islamic behaviour in all situations.’ The 2008 FIOE statement adds in similar vein that ‘Islam rejects violence and terrorism [and] supports just causes.’
A personal testimony
On the 21st February 2005 I met with Pastor Birgitta Aschan at Råslätt parish, Southern Sweden. Råslätt was built in the early 1970s and has become the centre for migrants in Småland. Father Thomas is the Syrian Orthodox Priest serving the Orthodox community there, drawn from the Iraqi refugees living in Småland. He and Pastor Birgitta celebrate eucharist in the same building and work closely together but their responses to Islam reflected their quite different experiences. Pastor Birgitta assumed the need for tolerance towards Muslims but it became clear as I listened carefully that she has much to learn from Father Thomas’ experiences of persecution and oppression at the hands of Iraqi Muslims. Father Thomas assumes the need for extreme caution but it became equally clear that he has much to learn from Pastor Birgitta’s experience of peaceful co-existence with Muslims in her parish.
As European Christians learn to live peaceably with their Muslim neighbours it seems necessary to avoid the dangers of either demonising Muslims or of elevating them to sainthood. The flawed nature of humanity is shared by us all and points to the common need for redemption, reconciliation, and restoration in Christ.
Darrell Jackson