Growth of Muslims spurs changes in Europe

Leicester, England —- It’s just before lunchtime and local women in body-covering garments are perusing a medley of markets filled with “halal” foods —- those that comply with Islamic law.

The surrounding streets are decorated with special lights —- funded by the Leicester City Council —- to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid.

In all, there are more than 30 mosques nearby, as well as a public library with shelves of books in Arabic, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu, along with newspapers from across Asia and the Middle East.

The neighborhood Islamic schools receive state funding, just as the Christian and Jewish ones do.

This is Leicester, a former manufacturing city of 285,000 people in England’s heartland. It is home to large pockets of Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims —- indeed the latter makes up more than 15 percent of the population.

In at least one large Muslim neighborhood, called Highfields, there’s not a white English face to be found.

For the 2011 census , Leicester is on track to be the first European city with a nonwhite majority.

“Cities from all over Europe are finding that they are becoming a lot more like Leicester,” said Mustafa Malik, chief executive of the Pakistan Center in the Highfields neighborhood. “We welcome people from all over the world, and there is a lot of harmony here.

“Sure there are tensions, but there are tensions even in any household,” he said.

Depending upon whom one asks, the rise of Islam in Europe could either sound the death knell for institutional Christianity or act as a barricade against growing secularism.

No one knows for sure how many Muslims reside in Europe, partly because some European nations don’t count religion in their census.

Most experts estimate there are between 15 million and 20 million Muslims, constituting the continent’s second-largest religion, living among Western Europe’s predominantly Christian population of 400 million.

But an aging population has taken a toll on Christianity, and today church attendance in many countries —- including Britain —- hovers at 5 percent.

Without taking into account the possible admission of Turkey to the European Union, the number of Muslims is expected to grow to more than 40 million by 2050, representing about 15 percent of the population.

In the face of this growing Muslim population —- fueled mostly by immigration but also by higher birth rates —- tensions have arisen amid an anti-Muslim attitude that sprang up after the Sept. 11 attacks and gained steam after the transit bombings in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005.

Various events have sparked worries that some Muslims aren’t assimilating or accepting Western values. One example: the widespread protests by Muslims after a Danish newspaper published cartoons of the prophet Muhammad in 2006.

“There’s no question that people stick to themselves too much,” said Asaf Hussain, an interfaith leader and scholar at the University of Leicester. “A Hindu won’t go to a mosque, and a Muslim won’t go to a temple.”

Hussain said he can’t stand the way people often cite their religion first when asked whether they are British or Muslim.

“I believe I am a British Pakistani and not a British Muslim,” he said. “In America people say they are American-Indian and not American Christian.”

As a result of the rapid changes brought on by the influx of Muslims, local and national politicians in Britain and across Europe have struggled to adapt and react.

In France, whose 5 million-strong Muslim minority is Western Europe’s largest, a ban on religious symbols and apparel in public schools took effect in 2004, mostly to preserve the secularism on which the country is based. The ban included all overtly religious dress and signs, including Muslim head scarves, Sikh turbans, Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses.

It was a controversial move but one that seems to have been quietly accepted by members of all faiths. But on another note, many were angered in June when a court in Lille, France, annulled a marriage of two Muslims after the husband claimed his wife was not a virgin.

Critics said the move set women’s rights back by many generations.

Also in June, France’s highest court upheld a decision to deny French citizenship to a Muslim woman who sheaths herself in a head-to-toe veil, ruling that she hasn’t assimilated enough into French society.

Even so, many Muslims say they feel welcome in France, where the population seems to have grown so accustomed to having large mosques in their midst that many mayors even provide land at cheap rates for them.

In Switzerland, there’s been a far greater concern over the spread of radical Islam and of mosques, with a nationwide referendum scheduled later this month to ban minarets on mosques.

The rise of mosques has become a catalyst for tension in other parts of Europe.

In Cologne, Germany, rallies have been organized to protest what critics call the “Islamification” of the ethnically diverse city amid plans to build a large, domed mosque complete with two 177-foot minarets.

In London, too, plans for a “mega-mosque” for 12,000 worshippers next to the site of the 2012 Olympics has drawn more than 250,000 signatures from those opposed.

In general, the British government has sought to engage more with Muslim communities since the suicide bomb attacks on London in 2005, which saw four British nationals blow themselves up on the city’s transport network, killing 52 others.

In July, the government announced that young British Muslims would be taught citizenship in mosque schools to prevent influence by Islamist extremism.

Denis MacEoin, an Islamic studies expert at Newcastle University in England, said polls show that a majority of Muslims express loyalty to Britain. But MacEoin said there is still less devotion to British values than many people would like.

“There is still a lot of Islamic literature around which calls on Muslims to have nothing to do with non-Muslims and non-Muslim society,” he said.

MacEoin said Muslims are creating a society within the broader society.

“The use of the veil by women, for example, is designed to keep people at a distance,” he said. “Muslim schools make sure Muslims growing up never quite fit in to the society around them.”