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Sunday 22 November 2009

Muslims in Europe - a look at the numbers

A few years ago, at a think tank discussion on Islam, I asked a respected journalist and commentator what he thought of the "Eurabia" thesis. It turned out he hadn't even heard of the term, which came as a surprise even though it's one of those notions generally confined to the loonier, dhimmi-bashing end of the Internet. Newsweek examines the stats underpinning the theory:

The rise of a Eurabia is predicated on limited and dubious evidence. A much-cited 2004 study from the U.S. National Intelligence Council outlines a number of possible scenarios. Its most aggressive is that the number of Muslims in Europe could increase from roughly 20 million today—about 5 percent of the population—to 38 million by 2025. But that projection turns out to be attributed to "diplomatic and media reporting as well as government, academic, and other sources." In other words, it's all speculation based on speculation—and even if it's accurate, it would still mean the number of Muslims will represent just 8 percent of the European population, estimated by the EU to be 470 million in 2025...

Moreover, the myth of Eurabia implies the existence of a united Islam, a bloc capable of collective and potentially dangerous action. The truth is that there are no powerful Muslim political movements in Europe, either continent-wide or at the national level, and the divisions that separate Muslims worldwide, most obviously between Sunnis and Shiites, are apparent in Europe as well.

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