IN 615, SUPPORTERS OF THE PROPHET fled their homes in Arabia to the Christian kingdom of Abyssinia. Having escaped persecution in their own country, they lived as a community of followers of the new Prophet, but as a numerically minor community in a predominantly Christian kingdom.

About fifty years later, the third Caliph ‘Uthmān sent an envoy, Sa‘ad ibn Waqqās (a maternal uncle of that same prophetic preacher) to China, beginning a process that would result in a community of Chinese Muslims who would be the main figures in Chinese trade for hundreds of years less than two generations later.

Fourteen centuries later, similar situations were to be seen all over the EU: in part through migration (although, unlike in the Abyssinian situation, not usually due to persecution) and in part through indigenous conversion in member states, as well as through normal demographic developments. Around one third of Muslims world-wide currently live as demographic minorities and have, by and large, thrived, including in the EU, where legal standards promise general security and economic conditions promise general prosperity.