Given that only about 4% of the EU's population is Muslim, why is the
fear of a coming Eurabia so strong in certain quarters?

The mythical European Umma
Khaled Diab
guardian.co.uk

Muslims in Europe are secretly amassing an arsenal of the deadliest in
biological weaponry: the demographic time bomb. The first phase of the

Muslim invasion ? or should I say reinvasion ? of Europe has already
begun with the deployment of an expeditionary force of womb-men: a
fearsome army of mutant ninja warriors whose function is to go forth and
multiply. Their turbo-charged and perhaps even genetically modified
uteruses mass produce the deadly biological agent which is currently
being stockpiled in Muslim homes across the continent.

And their mission: to create Eurabia ? or, better said, since many
European Muslims are not Arabs, to turn the EU into the European Umma.
Having been driven out of Europe once and unable to reconquer it through
force of arms, those crafty and cunning Muslims are back to do it
through the Trojan horse of immigration and reproduction.

Some dismiss this demographic time bomb as being far-fetched and as
fantastical as Saddam Hussein's non-existent arsenal of WMD, but yet
another smoking gun has been found in the Netherlands. Troubling
evidence has emerged that Muhammad has become the most popular boy's
name in the country's four biggest cities. And a similar situation is
emerging in other European urban centres.

In fact, five centuries after the reconquest of Granada, that last
Muslim stronghold, Eurabia has established its first de facto capital in
Rotterdam.And when the number of Muhammads and other assorted
Mohammedans become a majority over the coming century ? as the great
Bernard Lewis warned ? they will form an army of mujahideen of
Talibanesque horror which will subjugate the natives and make them live
as second-class dhimmis under sharia law.

As far-fetched conspiracy theories go, the Eurabia myth is one of the
most persistent and dangerous of recent years ? and the Daily Telegraph
fanned the controversy this month with its claims that it had carried
out an investigation which revealed that the EU's Muslim population
would jump from the current 4-5% to an improbable 20% by 2050.The
six-paragraph article gives no indication of how the projections were
arrived at, nor the assumptions upon which they were based. In fact, as
the BBC pointed out in a piece debunking a popular YouTube hit on
"Muslim Demographics", population projection is an inexact science. It
cites, as an example, the projections made in the 1930s that the UK's
population would fall to 20 million by the end of the 20th century.

Most projections that foresee a massive increase in Europe's Muslim
population are based on certain assumptions which are hard to justify.
They assume that recent immigration trends will continue indefinitely
for decades to come, but this is unlikely as Europe continuously raises
the immigration bar for non-EU citizens, and it is not far-fetched to
expect that many European countries may call a halt to immigration or
draw their future immigrants from certain more "desirable" countries.The
projections also assume that European Muslims will continue to have a
significantly higher fertility rate than the population at large. But
evidence suggests that the fertility rates of Muslim women are gradually
converging with those of the wider population. And there are signs that
the fertility rate among the white population of some European
countries, such as France, is recovering.

So, given that the only hard facts we can be sure of is that a small
minority of about 4% of the EU's population is Muslim, why is this fear
of a coming Eurabia so strong in certain quarters? Many of the biggest
proponents of the Muslim demographic time bomb myth are cheerleaders of
and apologists for US imperialism in the Middle East, such as Bat Y'eor
and Bernard Lewis.

Some Europeans, particularly from conservative and Christian circles and
the intolerant wing of liberalism, have fallen for the myth for a
variety of reasons. One is the relatively rapid shift in western Europe
towards multicultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious societies in
recent decades, which has caused a certain sense of alienation and
insecurity, especially for those whose economic security has been
undermined by neo-liberal economics and globalisation.Other reasons are
the massive lifestyle and social changes. These have caused distress for
traditionalists and people who still identify themselves as Christian:
they have seen their religion die a slow death, while Islam seems to go
from strength to strength.

Then, there is the plain old fear stoked by the overexposure given to
the most intolerant Islamic fringe groups and individuals. Certainly,
there are some European Muslims who want to live according to sharia and
there is even a lunatic fringe who would like to see Europe incorporated
into some fantastical global caliphate.But Muslims in Europe are not
some unified, monolithic force. Not only are they ethnically diverse and
from communities that are not the greatest fans of each other ? consider
the animosity between Moroccans and Algerians, for example ? they are
also as varied ideologically as the rest of the population.

Although Muslims tend to be more religious and conservative than the
rest of society, there are also plenty of secular, non-practising,
cultural and even non-believing Muslims. In addition, it is impossible
to tell what kind of identities future European Muslims will have, but I
suspect that the future cultural fault lines in Europe will not run
along traditional religious lines, but will pit believers against
non-believers, creating a kind unity of purpose between conservative
Muslims and Christians intent on preserving faith in a "Godless
Europe".While Eurabia is a fantasy, Europe is almost certainly going to
become more diverse in the future, and so a debate is worth having about
how to adapt to this reality and what constitutes citizenship in an
increasingly mobile world.