Abstract
This chapter provides an introduction to the history of Islam in the West and an overview of current demographics of Muslim communities in various Western countries. It sets the scene for the subject matter of this book through a discussion of the nature and the socio-historical context of interactions between Arabo-Islamic and Western-Christian civilisations. This chapter contests the highly influential perspectives of Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington regarding an inevitable clash of civilisations between Islam and the West and expresses broad agreement with the views of Richard Bulliet that Islamic and Christian civilisations are far more complementary than they are contradictory both in historic and contemporary contexts. However, the challenge that segments of Islam, specifically those that espouse an Islamist agenda, pose to the realisation of co-existence between Islam and the West are addressed in subsequent chapters.
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See references in the sections below.
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First Byzantine East and then the Latin West.
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Here we need to keep in mind that Islam spread across a vast geographical area very swiftly and Muslims remained demographically at the margins for several centuries after the original conquests.
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Jahiliyya is the term commonly used to describe the times of “ignorance” the Arabs lived under prior to the revelation of the Qur’an.
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See Chap. 3 for the definition of secular Muslims.
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See Chap. 3.
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This is perhaps best reflected in strong resistance to changes in Muslim Family Laws in countries which otherwise have “modernised” other aspect of their nation-state, including other aspects of their legal systems.
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See our discussion in the next chapter for more details on this aspect of Western Muslim identity.
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Duderija, A., Rane, H. (2019). Islam and Muslims in the West: History and Current Demographics. In: Islam and Muslims in the West. New Directions in Islam. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92510-3_2
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