Islam in Europe – a historical perspective

No culture can survive in the formaldehyde jar. Culture must be a living, growing entity, subject to modification and influence from other cultures to survive. The English language is a good example of this cultural Darwinism. It makes precious little attempt at ‘purity’ and permits change, usage and misusage in equal measure. It takes its influence from any other language and now has a greater number of terms in use than any other tongue. Accordingly it is extraordinarily vibrant, and is well on its way to becoming the lingua franca – effectively the common languge ¬– of the world. Contrast this with the language dictators in France and Germany, who so fear change in their languages that they have official quangos who pronounce what words are really ‘Francais’ or ‘Deutch’ and pass laws on the suitability of ‘non-native’ language in advertising, television and state documents. Consequently, what has become the result of such excessive control? At one time French was the international language, and the language of diplomacy. That day is long gone, a decline hastened by the formaldehyde intended to preserve it.

 

This illustrates that the cultural tides cannot be stopped no more than King Canute could stop the oceans, and that efforts to do so will be counter-productive. But what do such examples have to tell us about the interaction of Muslims and Western democracies?

The interaction of Islam and Europe has a long history. Both civilisations have survived that interaction, and indeed in the long term have benefited from such interaction. But there are efforts from members of both civilisations to erect a ‘minaret curtain’ to minimise this interaction. Such efforts at social apartheid are the inevitable consequences of fear. Israel is busy building its wall to isolate the Palestinians as what some might term a ‘Zionist curtain’. The Americans are building their ‘insurgent curtain’ in Baghdad and an ‘immigrant curtain’ on the Mexican border.

The USSR built its wall through Berlin in an ‘iron curtain’, China had its ‘bamboo curtain’, and the South African apartheid regime built its ‘racial curtain’ via the so-called homelands and townships for separate development. Even Northern Ireland had its ‘peace wall’ to separate Nationalist and Unionist communities. Such barriers between communities do not have to be physical. The Parisian immigrant suburbs may as well be on the moon for all the interaction they have with the native French.

The USSR eventually came to its senses and dismantled its curtain while dismantling itself. The Chinese curtain is decaying on a daily basis, and the apartheid ‘separate development’ policy is consigned to history (in policy if not wholly in practice). It is left to the West/Muslim divide to perpetuate the crassness of separate living.

All of the above indicates that communities must share a significant level of social space in order to achieve a sustainable co-existence. The Parisian banlieues are not sustainable in their current format as dole-queue fodder. The Israeli wall is an enormously expensive folly that will inevitably be dismantled as part of any settlement in that region. The prevention of interaction of people in the same geography is simply not sustainable whether this geography is in Israel/Palestine or Paris and its surrounds.

Extremists within the Muslim community warn their compatriots not to associate with the “decadent’” West or its values. At the same time the Western media portrays Muslims through the prism of the worst stereotypes, which can generate a hostile attitude towards Islam. In both cases the ‘pariah’ is selected and served on the menu of ostracism without the diner having an informed choice.

The best understanding for an informed choice is to experience directly and at first hand. Any other understanding is, of necessity, through the filter of someone else’s awareness. That is not to denigrate second-hand understanding because we all use it, but to put it in its proper perspective.

The genesis of all cultures and religions finds root in the eclectic reality of life. When Muhammad (peace be with him) received the revelations which, when transcribed, became the Holy Qu’ran, the Arabian peninsula was inhabited by various religious groups including polytheists, Christians and Jews. So Arabia was not a spiritual void prior to Islam – it already had religions, and in particular it had monotheism in the case of Christianity and Judaism. Accordingly those other Middle Eastern faiths have a special place in the Holy Qu’ran. And indeed these three monotheistic faiths probably share more beliefs than they differ. Yet Islam is seen in the West as being a Middle Eastern, ‘foreign’ religion, while Christianity is seen as ‘Western’, even though both faiths share common prophets, common geography and in many respects a common cultural birth.

One could offer the suggestion that over the last 1,500 years the Muslim world and the Christian world grew in relatively similar circumstances, slowly diverged geographically, converged (sometimes violently, sometimes fraternally) from time to time, and diverged again. This historical rhythm of sporadic conflict and co-operation has, through circumstances of economics, military hegemony, and political instability, changed its beat to cause Muslims and Westerners to converge on a more permanent basis today. There are many, many Muslims living in Europe and there are many Westerners living in Muslim states. This is unlikely to change any time soon.

History teaches us that Islamic societies were hugely influential, in a very positive way, on Western civilisation. There were, no doubt, negative aspects as well, but the positive influences were as a result of engagement between people of different backgrounds, an interaction of lives and minds. That can only happen when there is a shared social space – an integration of the day to day life of people.

This is a direct challenge to those who insist that there cannot be a shared ground for Muslims and Westerners to occupy, that the theological veil of dogma cannot be lifted between the civilisations. Facts on the ground indicate that common geography is already being shared, whether the extremists on both sides like it or not. It simply remains to convert that topological integration to a social one.


Sheikh Shaheed Satardien is chairman of the Supreme Muslim Council of Ireland, an umbrella group in its developmental stages

sheikhshaheed@gmail.com