Islam And Muslim In Europe

Mosque of Rome, In Rome the Largest Mosque In Europe

This article deals with the history and evolution of the presence of Islam in Europe. According to the German Central Institute Islam Archive (de), the total number of Muslims in Europe in 2007 was about 53 million (7.2%), excluding Turkey. The total number of Muslims in the European Union in 2007 was about 16 million (3.2%).

Islam came to Europe in various ways, including through conquest. New research has uncovered a Böszörmény Muslim community in 12th century Hungary with roots in Muslim merchants in commerce with Asia over the Silk Road. Significant communities of Muslim Lipka Tatars lived throughout the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, worshiping in small wooden Mosques and playing a key role in the history of Poland and Lithuania.

Muslim Arabs fought the Byzantine Empire soon after the establishment of Islam. The then Christian Syrian, Armenian, Egyptian and North African provinces of the Byzantine Empire were overrun. Soon after, Constantinople was besieged twice, once in a long blockade between 674 and 678, and once again between 717 and 718. However, the Byzantines successfully defended Constantinople and were able to re-establish control over much of Anatolia. This blocked further expansion of the Arab Caliphate towards Eastern Europe.

Mosque In Moscow

The Arab armies also conquered much of the Caucasus from the Turkic Khazars during the Khazar–Arab Wars, but the instability of the Umayyad Caliphate made a permanent occupation impossible. The Arab armies withdrew and Khazar independence was re-asserted. This also prevented Islamic expansion into Eastern Europe for some time.

In 824 CE, Byzantine Crete fell to Arabs, who established an emirate on the island (see Al-Hakam I). In 960, Nicephorus Phocas reconquered Crete for the Byzantines.

In the early 10th century, in what is now part of European Russia, the Volga Bulgarians under Almış accepted Islam as the state religion. Ibn Fadlan was dispatched by the Abbasid Caliph al-Muqtadir in 922/3 to establish relations and bring qadis and teachers of Islamic law (sharia) to Volga Bulgaria, as well as to help build a fort and a mosque. Olga and her grandson Vladimir were the first Christian rulers of Russia. She converted to orthodox Christianity in 957 and Vladimir did the same in 988.

There are accounts of the trade connections between the Muslims and the Rus, apparently Vikings who made their way East towards current day Russia. On his way to Volga Bulgaria, Ibn Fadlan brought detailed reports of the Rus, claiming that some had converted to Islam. "They are very fond of pork and many of them who have assumed the path of Islam miss it very much." The Rus also relished their nabidh, a fermented drink Ibn Fadlan often mentioned as part of their daily fare.

The Golden Horde began its conquest of present day Russia and Ukraine in the 13th century. Despite the fact that they were not Muslim at the time, the western Mongols adopted Islam as their state religion in the early 14th century. More than half of the European portion of Russia and Ukraine, were under suzerainty of Muslim Tatars and Turks from the 13th to the 15th century. The Crimean Khanate became a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire in 1475 and subjugated what remained of the Great Horde by 1502. The Khanate of Kazan was conquered by Ivan the Terrible in 1552.

The Ottoman Empire began its expansion into Europe by taking the European portions of the Byzantine Empire in the 14th-15th centuries up until the 1453 capture of Constantinople, establishing Islam as the state religion in the region. The Ottoman Empire continued to stretch northwards, taking Hungary in the 16th century, and reaching as far north as the Podolia in the mid-17th century (Peace of Buczacz), by which time most of Eastern Europe was under Ottoman control. Ottoman expansion in Europe ended with their defeat in the Great Turkish War. In the Treaty of Karlowitz (1699), the Ottoman Empire lost most of its conquests in Central Europe. The Crimean Khanate was later annexed by Russia in 1783. Over the centuries, the Ottoman Empire gradually lost almost all of its European territories, until its collapse in 1922, when the former empire was transformed into the nation of Turkey.

The Great Mosque In Paris

Between 1354 (when the Ottomans crossed into Europe at Gallipolli) and 1526, the Empire had conquered the territory of present day Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Hungary. The Empire laid siege to Vienna in 1683. 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 Hungary, Croatia, and portions of present day Slovenia and Serbia. From 1699 to 1913, wars and insurrections pushed the Ottoman Empire further back until it reached the current European border of present-day Turkey.

For most of this period, the Ottoman retreats were accompanied by Muslim refugees from these province (in almost all cases converts from the previous subject populations), leaving few Muslim inhabitants in Hungary, Croatia, and the Transylvania region of present day Romania. Bulgaria remained under Ottoman rule until around 1878, and currently its population includes about 131,000 Muslims (2001 Census) (see Pomaks).

Bosnia was conquered by the Ottomans in 1463, and a large portion of the population converted to Islam in the first 200 years of Ottoman domination. By the time Austia-Hungary occupied Bosnia in 1878, the Habsburgs had shed the desire to re-Christianize new provinces. As a result, a sizable Muslim population in Bosnia survived into the 20th century. Albania and the Kosovo area remained under Ottoman rule until 1913. Previous to the Ottoman conquest, the northern Albanians were Roman Catholic and the southern Albanians were Christian Orthodox, but by 1913 the majority were Muslim. Apart from the effect of a lengthy period under Ottoman domination, many of the subject population were converted to Islam as a result of a deliberate move by the Ottomans as part of a policy of ensuring the loyalty of the population against a potential Venetian invasion. However, Islam was not spread by force in the areas under the control of the Ottoman Sultan according to Thomas Walker Arnold. Rather Arnold explains Islam's spread by quoting a 17th century author who stated: