7 - Conclusions
from Part III - A Case Study and Conclusions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2013
Summary
… Roger Garaudy has described Islam as the third, forgotten pillar of Europe alongside Graeco-Roman and Judaeo-Christian pillars, while Claus Leggewie proposes that modern Europe should thank Arab/Islamic civilisation for assistance in its very birth.
Whether the hyperrealistic ‘Other’ of urgent history is controlled or feared, remains to be seen, but what is for sure, is that in the foreseeable future, Europe's ‘Other’ will remain undoubtedly Muslim.
WHETHER WE CHOOSE to view it as a negative or a positive development, history directs us to a fact difficult to ignore: the development of European civilisation and, consequently, European identity, is impossible to imagine without Islam and Muslims. How deep the input has been is open to discussion and debate among historians, but it is clear that it was significant and considerable, and, as twenty-first century Europe moves towards creating more cohesive societies in the EU, the impact of Muslims on European society, historically and presently, has become a subject of concern. With such a background, and with the effect of Islamophobia on Muslim communities, how can Muslim communities ‘integrate’ – however one defines integration – into European societies?
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Muslims of EuropeThe 'Other' Europeans, pp. 177 - 194Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2009