What Do Muslims Do in Europe? A Historical Reading

If someone asks: What do Muslims do in Europe? He is answered with another question: And what do Jews and Christians do in Europe? That is because the total population of the European continent is composed of Jews and Christians, Muslims, and others, and all of them belong to the original inhabitants of Europe. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, in their origin, are religions that came from outside the geographical space of the European continent, their source being the Middle East. So what does history tell us about the stages of the relationship between Islam and Europe?

The First Islamic State

Historically, the first Islamic state was established on European soil nearly half a century before the Christian state of King Charlemagne; the state of Al‑Andalus was founded in 756 CE, while Charlemagne’s state was established by papal decree in 800 CE.

Historical data refutes the claim that Europe is a purely Judeo‑Christian continent. The greater part of Europe (Scandinavia, northern, central, and eastern Europe, in addition to Russia and Ukraine) remained pagan for many centuries, even after vast European regions had embraced Islam. This means that Europe’s pagan era extended for centuries after the establishment of many Islamic states in Europe, from the Caucasus through the largest islands of the Mediterranean, reaching Al‑Andalus, which was the most economically and culturally advanced European state, and the strongest militarily.

Today, repeated incidents of offense against Islam and Muslims in Europe compel us to examine more deeply the historical relationship between Islam and Europe.

Six Stages

We can identify several stages; the first from the Prophetic biography, and the rest classified from European references such as Elievi, O’Mahony, and Berger in his book A Brief History of Islam in Europe: Thirteen Centuries of Faith, Conflict, and Coexistence.

Stage One: Islam and Europe

This stage is represented by the relationship and conflict between the two sides, beginning in the Prophetic era, in 6 AH / 628 CE, when the Prophet (peace be upon him) sent letters to kings inviting them to Islam, among them Heraclius, the great ruler of the Romans (meaning the Eastern Romans in Byzantium, with Constantinople as their capital, since the Western Romans in Rome had fallen in the fifth century CE).

Encyclopaedia Britannica: Islam has a long history in Europe, in Al‑Andalus and the Balkans during the Middle Ages, and influenced the cultures of those regions.

Then came the Battle of Mu’ta in 8 AH, between the Muslims and Heraclius’s army, after Shurahbil ibn ‘Amr al‑Ghassani, a deputy of Heraclius, killed the Companion al‑Harith ibn ‘Umayr al‑Azdi, whom the Prophet had sent carrying a letter to the ruler of Busra inviting him to Islam. Killing ambassadors and envoys was among the most heinous crimes, tantamount to a declaration of war.

Then the Expedition of Tabuk in 9 AH, when news arrived of the Romans gathering 40,000 fighters from Syria to eradicate Islam and invade the northern Arab borders. When the Romans and their allies heard of the Prophet’s march, they were seized with fear and did not dare to advance or meet him, but dispersed within their borders.

Then came the last expedition before the Prophet’s death, in 11 AH, when Usama ibn Zayd was sent to Palestine to terrify the Romans, who had killed believers, among them Farwa al‑Judhami, governor of Ma‘an, whom they crucified to intimidate anyone inclined toward Islam. The purpose was to restore confidence to the Arabs on the borders, so that none would think the Church’s might was unassailable, or that entering Islam would inevitably bring destruction upon its adherents.

Since the seventh century CE, original European Muslims have represented a constant element within Europe’s demographic and cultural composition.

After that came attempts to conquer Constantinople. Over eight centuries, beginning in 653 CE, there were eleven attempts—from the era of ‘Uthman ibn ‘Affan (may God be pleased with him), through the Umayyad and Abbasid states, and from the founding of the Ottoman state in 1299, until the success of Mehmed the Conqueror in entering it in 1453. The world also witnessed one of the great conflicts: the Crusades (1095–1291 CE), in which Islam faced Europe’s (Christian) invasion.

Stage Two: Islam in Europe

This stage consists of the many waves of Islam in Europe, which left an imprint still visible today, including:

1.      Islamic civilization in Al‑Andalus from the eighth to the fifteenth century CE.

2.     Muslim Tatars in the northern Slavic regions.

3.     The dominance of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans and Central Europe for several centuries until the early twentieth century.

Among the earliest Islamic principalities in Europe was one in the southern Caucasus on the Black Sea coast in the mid‑seventh century.

European Islamic states at times included, directly or indirectly, vast northern territories of Russia, including Moscow; in the south, southern France, southern Italy, southern Switzerland, and all the major Mediterranean islands—Cyprus, Rhodes, Crete, Malta, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Majorca—as well as the entire Balkan Peninsula, Hungary, and the outskirts of Vienna.

The persecution of Muslims and the “demonization” of Islam is a path leading to grave injustice, racist culture, and self‑destruction of European thought.

Islam’s effective presence in the Balkans dates back to the latter half of the seventh century, when Muslims settled in coastal areas of southern Thrace (now divided among Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey), in the Gulf of Thessaloniki (now in Greece), on Albania’s eastern coast, and in parts of what is now Croatia.

With the advance of the Ottoman state from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, these scattered and relatively isolated Muslim groups became strongly connected, developing politically and economically into urban and administrative centers of Islamic culture. In the reign of Sultan Selim II (1524–1574), there was a significant increase in the Muslim population, due to voluntary collective acceptance of Islam by native populations in Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, the major islands, Albania, Bosnia, Serbia, and parts of Croatia, especially in remote areas of Dalmatia and Slovenia. Thus were laid the demographic foundations for the presence of original Muslims in this part of Europe today.

Encyclopaedia Britannica states: Islam has a long history in Europe. The Islamic presence in Al‑Andalus and the Balkans during the Middle Ages influenced the cultures of those regions. Muslim communities still exist in parts of the Balkans, including Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and northeastern Bulgaria. In European Russia, Muslims are more numerous, including the Tatars of Kazan and the Bashkirs in the Volga River region and the Ural Mountains.

Many Europeans believe Muslims began their presence in Europe as migrants in the twentieth century, unaware that in many parts of Europe Muslims were original inhabitants who then embraced Islam voluntarily, just as Europeans embraced Christianity. For example, the sending of missionary Augustine in the late sixth century CE (597) by the Pope of Rome to the king of Kent in England marked the beginning of Christianity there. Christianity entered Russia and Crimea later, when Prince Vladimir I of Kiev embraced it in 988, after worshiping natural forces.

Stage Three: Europe in Islam

This stage was characterized by European dominance over Islamic lands: first in the age of empires and colonialism (the most symbolic moment being Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt in 1798), when Europe directly dominated Islamic countries; then in the continuing post‑colonial stage (from afar), through agents, economic globalization, media, and Western consumption patterns.

Stage Four: Islam in Contemporary Europe

 In this stage, Islam began to spread in Europe through migration, starting in France between the two world wars, and in most European countries during the reconstruction period after World War II and the economic boom of the 1950s and 1960s in central and northern Europe. From the late 1970s onward, migration extended to southern Europe. This stage was characterized mainly by first‑generation migrants from former colonies (from Algeria to France, from the Indian subcontinent to Britain), as well as new forms of migration such as Turks to Germany.

Stage Five: The Islam of Europe

This appears through a gradual process of interaction and integration—initially in the workplace, then sometimes in the social and political context—and generational transition. This process contributes to the formation of a middle class and intellectuals of Islamic origin, who still have ties to their countries of origin but were born and socially integrated in Europe.

Stage Six: European Islam

It is likely that Stage Five will result in the formation of a “European Islam,” which will be seen as an indigenous European movement, the outcome of a gradual and fundamental process of “citizenship” for resident Muslims, who aspire to full equal rights with other Europeans.

Currently, only the outlines of this process exist. Its outcome will depend on the internal development of Muslim communities, on the global Islamic movement, and perhaps most importantly on the policies adopted toward them by European governments, which will in turn be influenced by public opinion, media, and political parties—especially nationalist and racist parties hostile to Islam and Muslims.

This will not pass without fierce resistance from Muslims, including the second and third generations who hold firmly to the constants and beliefs of Islam, if the purpose of “European Islam” is to invent a new religion tailored to European standards.

Although Islam in Europe is changing, becoming a European reality and an internal social actor, it is also working to change Europe through personal ties and means of communication. With the mere presence of Islam, change occurs. The simple fact of physical confrontation with the “other” forces this “other” to think more deeply. This may explain the entry of large numbers of Europeans (most of them of Christian origin) into Islam, as well as the implicit recognition of Islam in the decrees of the Second Vatican Council in 1965.

Religions in today’s world have once again become decisive. It will not be possible to understand the history and social, cultural, scientific, and religious development of Europe without taking its Islamic component into account. In the same way, it will not be possible to understand the history and social and religious development of Islam without considering its European component.

This obliges the Muslims of Europe to be vigilant in affirming their position and raising their heads high, to value their historical role in shaping Europe’s identity, and to place themselves in the position they deserve: complete and unqualified equality with their fellow citizens of Europe.

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