Islam Europe's Second Religion

Provides a country-by-country survey of the growing importance of Islam in Europe.|Today there are at least 15 million people in Western Europe who adhere to the Muslim faith or have close cultural or other affiliations with the Islamic world. Indeed in the course of a few decades Islam has emerged as Europe''s second religion after Christianity. What is remarkable about this phenomenon is that it has occurred gradually generally peacefully and in some measure as a consequence of the economic needs of European countries.||Despite some difficulties Islam is slowly but inexorably becoming part of Europe''s social cultural and to some degree political landscape. The question today is not can Islam be uprooted and expelled from European soil as was done six centuries ago during the period of Reconquista in Spain but rather what is the best way of accommodating Islam in Europe and establishing cooperative relations between Muslims and the followers of other religious and/or secular value systems. This volume examines the situation and attempts to provide answers to these questions through a country-by-country analysis by recognized experts from each of the Western European nations examined. An invaluable resource and text for scholars students and other researchers involved with Islamic and European Studies.