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Vol. 5 No. 2 October 20A5

by PatrickOn Friday zDth May 2005 a crowd of some 300

Muslims burned a wooden cross outside the Americanembassy in London. This was part of a protest againstthe rumoured desecration of a iQur'an (Koran) byAmerican soldiers in Guantanamo Buy, during whichBritish and American flags were also burned. Perhapsthe most remarkable aspect of this event was that it wasnot deemed to be newsworthy, receiving little attentionin the national press.The whole scenario is reminiscent of what hap-pens in so many Muslim-majority countries: a rumourof an insult to Islam, a violent and blasphemous anti-Christian reaction, police watching idly, and a completelack of public interest let alone oufiage. It could havebeen Pakistan, Egypt, Indonesia or Northern Nigeria.But it was theIJK. Europe isundergoing arapid process ofchange as Mus- tE

Sookhdeoinstructions given in the book told Muslims to get to-gether and organise themselves with the aim of estab-lishing a viable Muslim community based on Islamicprinciples. This is the duty of every individual Muslimliving within a non-Muslim political entrt5r. They shouldset up mosques, community centres and Islamicschools. At all costs they must avoid being assimilatedby the majorlty. In order to resist assimilation, theymust group themselves geographically, forming areas ofhigh Muslim concentration within the population as awhole. Yet they must also interact with non-Muslims soas to share the message of Islam with them. Every Mus-lim individual is requi?ed to participate in the plan; it isnot allowed for anyone sirnply to live as a good Mus-lim without assisting the overall strategy. The ultimategoal of thisstrategy is that* the Muslimsshould become

The Islamization of Europe

lims make theirpresence felt inpolitics, eco-nomics, law,education andthe media.While there is awide range ofatt i t u d e samongst Mus-lims in Europe,with many whoare broadlycontent with thestafus quo andjust want to livetheir lives

a majority andthe entire nationbe governedaccordittg toIslam. (M. AliKettani TheProblems ofMuslim Minori-ties and theirSolutions inMuslim Com-munitie s inNon-MuslimStates (London:Islamic Councilof Europe,19S0) pp.96-105) Not allMuslims wouldpeacefully, others are striving deliberately to drive for-ward the changes.As a result of the efforts of the latter, Europe isgradually being transformed into a society in which Is-lam takes its place, not just as an equal alongside themany other faith communities, but often as the domi-nant player. This is not purely, or even primarily, a mat-ter of numbers, but is more a matter of control of thestructures of society. It is not happening by chance butis the result of.a careful and deliberate strategy by cer-tain Muslim leaders.Though the efftcts are only now becomitrg no-ticeable, the planning was done decades ago. In 1980the Islamic Council of Europe published a book calledMuslim Communities in Non-Muslim States whichclearly explained the Islamic agenda in Europe. WhenMuslims live as a minority they face theological prob-lems, because classical Islamic teaching always presup-posed a context of Islamic dominance; hence the neidfor guidance on how to live in non-Muslim states. The

support this action plan. The more secularized arehappy to become integrated within the majorlty society.Even amongst those who agree on the ultimate goal ofcreating an Islamic state, there are differences aboutmethodology i.e. whether this shouldr'be a slow andpeaceful transition, or whether it should be hastened bymeans of political dominance or even say some byviolence.Despite the variety of opinion amongst Muslims,it is not hard to reco gnize the different stages of the Is-lamic Council of Europe's strategy being put into prac-tice within today's Europe. Muslims do tend to live intightly concentrated areas, and show little sign of inte-grating into wider society. Saudi fundirg is paying forthe erection of large and beautiful mosques, staffed byimams brought over to Europe frorn-the home coun-tries . Sweden's third largest city,Malma, is effectivelyruled by violent gangs of Muslims, and some of theMuslim residents of the city still cannot read or writeSwedish though they have lived there for 20 years. I)en-

The Gross triumphant overthe Crescent, the symbolof lslam. cupolas on a Moscow church

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l0mark has recently seen the Nordgardsskolen in Aarhusbecome the first school in the country to have 100%Muslim pupils. Britain's Muslim population (variouslyestimated at between 1.6 and 3 million) is concentratedin three areas: north-west England, the midlands andLondon. In some of these areas Muslims are now target-ing the remaining Christian presence, arsoningchurches, physically attacking church leaders and theirproperty; the aim seems to be to cleanse these areas ofnon-Muslims.European Muslims are Islamizing many aspectsof life that also affect non-Muslims. Spanish Muslimshave expressed their desire to regain the mosque ofCordoba. This building was originally a church, thenturned into a mosque, and then turned back into a placeof Christian worship. Halal meat is now routinelyserved in many British prisons, schools and hospitals,sometimes to Muslim and non-Muslim alike, and thehijab flslamic headscarfl is worn in British schools.Muslims in the London borough of Tower Hamletshave forced name-changes for disfiicts and local ameni-ties if the existing name sounds too Christian for theirliking. In the IJK' where Islam is making its most rapidadvance, Islamic law (shari'a) is already practised unof-ficially, with shari'a councils and shari'a courts givingjudgments on Muslim family matters. In education nu-merous concessions are being made to British Muslims,Islam often being given more prominence and respectthan other faiths at state schools. An increasing numberof university posts are being funded from Saudi Arabiaand other Muslim countries on condition that a certainline ofthinking is promoted.The ultimate goal of taking control of society, asdepicted by the Islamic Council of Europe in 1980, isclearly in the minds of at least some Muslim leaders. ADutch Imam has stated that Islamic law is superior toother forms of legislation so there is no need to obeyother laws. Some Finnish imams preach on the Islamicduty to kill a Muslim who converts to another faith,adding that it is difficult to carry this out in Finland atpresent because Muslims do not yet own the state .Furthermore, the freedoms of'European society are be-ing exploited by Islamic militants and their supportersto plan terrorist activities around the world. London - orLondonistan as it is becoming known - is one of themost important bases for Islamic terrorism worldwide.This has been illusfated by the July bombings in Lon-don itself.Despite all these advances, Muslims still tend toporfray themselves as victims in European society,while the majorrty society in turn struggles to affirmthem and to avoid giving any accidental offence.But thi3 kind of reaction by non-Muslims can beseen as the typical behaviour of dhimmi. In classicalIslam, Christian and Jewish minorities within an Islamicstate were called dhimmi. They were free to worshipand live out their faith, but had to submit to a raft of dis-criminatory and humiliating laws. They learned to besubservient, and to consider the dominance of Muslimsas normal as the Muslims themselves did.It is typical of dhimmi not to protest if a Christian

The Voicecross is burned by an angry crowd, nor even to feel thatanything outrageous has occurred. Likewise the Muslimscheme to turn the cathedral of Cordoba back into amosque has the backing of some Spanish governmentleaders in the city.At a political level, European counfiies axe re-sponding in different ways to the challenge of Islam.France is determinedly protecting its secularism, andhas banned the hijab in school. The Netherlands haverecently swung from one exheme to the other, follow-ing the ritualized killing of Dutch film director Theovan Gogh by a young Muslim in Nove,mber 2004; theyare turning against multiculturalism and becoming con-cerned to control immigration- The UK seems to beseeking to replicate the segregation and communalismof the British Raj in India wherebythe various religiouscommunities were each given their own laws. This pol-icy would certainly rnesh well with some Muslim lead-.ers' ovm plans for Britain. If Britain is to be sub-dividedin this way, perhaps geographically as well as legally, itraises the question of how the Church would survive inareas of Islamic mle. What form would Christian minis-ty be able to take in these areas?Muslims arc still a minority in numerical terms inEurope, with m estimated 20 million living in the Euro-pean Union. No country apart from Albania has a Mus-lim community to more than about l}Yo ofthe population. However, demographic studies indicatethat Muslim populdions are growing far faster than thenon-Muslim populations. This is due partly to continuedimmigration, partly to conversion, but mainly to the lar-ger number of children which Muslim families typicallyhave. The growing Muslim community is a moiaic ofdifferent ethnic, ling istiq cultural, sectarian and geo-graphical backgroundsb and characteriznd by increasingintemal tensions puticularly over how to relate to thehost society.Some Christians have decried as faithless pessi-mis4 those who prdict the Islamization of Europe be-fore the end of the cNrfilry. But it must be rememberedthat the rcgron which is now Pakistan and-Afehanistmwas once Christian, as was North Africa. The Church'ivitu e