Islam in Europe: perception and reality

By THE DATA TEAM

THE BLASTS that ripped through a Brussels airport and metro station on March 22nd killed at least 30 people and injured hundreds of others. The attacks will stir anxiety in Europe over the compatibility of Islam with secular-minded, liberal European values. The increasing frequency of attacks will also further strain relations between Muslims in Europe and their compatriots, particularly against the backdrop of the refugee crisis and growing support for anti-immigrant parties. Europeans regard Islam as more threatening to their national cultures than other faiths (or indeed atheism), according to a 2013 poll by the Bertelsmann Foundation, a non-profit organisation in Germany. Many across the continent see Islam as incompatible with the West. Yet perceptions can easily run ahead of reality. European publics wildly overestimate the proportion of their populations that is Muslim: an Ipsos-Mori poll in 2014 found that on average Belgian respondents thought 29% of their compatriots were Muslim. The actual figure is closer to 6%.

This post is an update of an article from January 2015.

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