In the late 20th century and early 21st century a large number of Muslims
immigrated to Western Europe by the year 2010
There is an estimated 44 million Muslims living in Europe which made up 6% of its population and including an estimated
19 million in the European Union which made up 3.8 percent of the population
The Muslim population is expected to grow over 8% by the year 2030
Now what will this mean for the future of Europe and the Muslim community at large in the coming decades? Hello, everyone
My name is Leroy Kenton
And this is FTD facts the channel where we share information about the people countries and cultures
from all around the world and in this episode
I'm exploring the factors of what had Islam grows so fast throughout Europe and continues to grow fast
And I'm also gonna be sharing some information about the issues that people have brought up
Because of this now the Muslim community is a relatively small community in all of Europe
However, in some countries like Sweden as well as France
The Muslim population is much higher and this has led to a lot of social and political
Agitation in several countries in Europe even more so now because of the millions of asylum seekers
Recently today the places of the Muslim majority in Europe are Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Kosovo
Montenegro and certain parts of Macedonia
There's also a large amount of Muslims living in Russia
now these communities consist predominantly of
indigenous Europeans of the Muslim faith whose religious practices and beliefs date back to several hundred years and in
Transcontinental countries like Turkey Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. They also have a Muslim majority population
Now I'm not gonna be exploring the history of Islam in this episode
However, we do have a playlist of videos that we've made dedicated to just learning about Islam
So I have the link to that playlist. It's going to be in the card section of this episode
I'll also have the link to that down below in this video description or you can check it out at the end of this episode
I'll have it put up in the end screen now
There's a lot of information to share about this because this is such loaded topic. So, where do we begin?
Let's start by taking a look at why the Muslim population?
is growing so fast in Europe and will continue to grow fast in the decades to come when we look at the year 2010 to
2016 alone the Muslim population in Europe rose more than 1% from 3 point 8 percent of the total population to
4.9 percent and in terms of numbers that's nineteen point five million Muslims
Increased to twenty five point eight Muslims now based on the current numbers by the year 2050
the Muslim population in Europe would more than double rising to eleven point two percent or more and this depends on how much
Immigration is allowed in Europe in the future
now even if in Europe there was a Muslim ban where Muslims could not immigrate there any marred
forever the Muslim population is still estimated to grow to
7.4% in
Europe this is due to the high amount of youth that live in Europe who are Muslim as well as a high fertility
rate of the current Muslim residents
so there's a lot of young people there who have not had children yet and when they start having children
Populations multiply however in the year 2010 to 2016 the biggest factor affecting the Muslim population
growth in Europe was
Migration, it's estimated that 2.5 million Muslims came to Europe for reasons other than seeking asylum and these reasons include you
Know finding jobs go to school and 1.3 million of those Muslims already have or expect to receive refugee status
Meaning that they'll be staying in Europe and then we look at the natural growth
Which was the second biggest factor in the Muslim community in Europe?
There were 2.9 million more births than deaths during the period of the year 2010 to 2016
And then we look at religious switching and it's estimated to be a small factor in the Muslim population change, but roughly
160,000 more people converted to Islam during that period and I did touch on this a little bit but the Muslim population
Of youth is a lot higher than other Europeans as well as they're much younger
And on top of that they have more children than other Europeans in 2016
The average age of Muslims throughout Europe was thirty point four and this is 13 years younger than the average age for other Europeans
which was
43.8 so you can also look at it like this 50% of all the European
Muslims are under the age of 30 and this is compared with 32% of
Non-muslims in Europe, and on top of that the average Muslim woman in Europe is expected to have 2.6 children
Which is one child more than the average
Non-muslim woman which has 1.6 children now
there is some concern inside of the Muslim community in regards to the new laws that
Are limiting them to enter the country some say that the new laws targeting
Muslims bring us back to the times when innocent Jewish children were
Abducted and in prison to save them from eternal, Hellfire
however
It's not just Muslims who are desperately in search to find more effective solutions that do not
Alienate Muslims or any other group of people based on their religion or country?
But the fears are that
History's just gonna repeat itself take for instance in 15th century Catholic
Spain the monarchy set out to solve the Jewish Question and they put a lot of restrictions on Jewish practices
Then they followed up with forced conversion and the Jewish people were looked down upon
Because they were not considered Spanish citizens by the next century those who had converted to Roman Catholicism during the 14th and 15th
Century they were much more familiar with the Bible than the general Catholic population and they began to set up a new standard
Which produce the Protestant Reformation which resulted in the destruction of the Catholic?
dominance over Europe also in Russia under the Tsar
They also tried to solve the Jewish Question through discrimination
and of course
this caused a lot of Jewish people with great minds to join the
Bolshevik Revolution and it almost succeeded in the destruction of Russian orthodoxy and
culture despite these concerns that people have the view towards Muslims varies widely when you look across
Europe according to the European Monitoring Centre of racism and xenophobia
They report that Muslim population tend to suffer Islamophobia all over Europe
However, the perceptions of views of Muslims may vary and in the year 2016 the Pew Research Center
They conducted a survey in ten nations and they found that negative views about
Muslims was actually prevailing in eastern and southern Europe
However, the majority of people who responded in the UK Germany France
Sweden as well as in Netherlands
They gave the Muslims a favorable rating what they also realize is that the views about Muslims are tied to people's
ideology, so there were 47 percent of Germans on a political right that gave Muslims an
Unfavorable rating and that number was at 17%
for those on the political left who gave Muslims an
unfavorable rating this gap between the left and the right is also seen in the countries Greece and Italy and the gap between the
percentage is about 30 percent according to a wzb Berlin social science Center report that looked into the employment of
Muslims in countries like Germany France and the Netherlands as well as UK Belgium and Switzerland
They noticed that Muslims in Europe generally have a higher level of unemployment
which is also greatly due because of the lack of language skills as well as just a general lack of cultural connection and
Traditions as well as the views about gender roles compared to other Europeans this report also noted a very small percent of unemployment
was because of discrimination and the last thing I'm gonna touch on about the various views that Europeans have towards Muslims is
About their style of dress this year 2018 the Pew Research Center
Conducted a survey and they found that most Europeans actually favored
restrictions on face covering veils an estimated 13 out of
15 favourite banning of face covering veils in Western Europe
They see at Islamic way of dressing to not be representative of religious symbols
But rather they see it as a repressive ideology in the form of Islamism
Which is intended to influence families?
Society and politics as you can see there are various different views that Europeans have towards Muslims
and again
These views are impacted by people's political standings and their own
ideologies things like that and the issues and concerns that people about this are the number of Muslims that are coming into Europe the
expansion of Islam
What is it gonna look like for European culture in the decades to come while others are saying we got to be inclusive to everyone
We can't discriminate or else we're gonna repeat history. So let me know down in the comments section below
Where do you stand on this are you for the acceptance of all?
Religions and cultures and that people should be free to expand their religion and culture
Anywhere in the world or do you feel that in this case that the increase of the Muslim population across the Europe will negatively impact
Europeans quality of life and be a threat to the legacy culture history and a threat to the modern present-day
Safety of the citizens. Thanks for watching this episode of FTD facts
There's a lot of information to digest there
But definitely I look forward to seeing you in another episode on to the next time
My name is Leroy Kenton, and I'll see you soon
Hey and for everybody who made it to the end of this video here's our playlist on Islam
Make sure to hit that subscribe button if you haven't done so already and come back here every single week to FTD facts for more
Educational videos about the people countries and cultures from all around the world. See you soon