Belonging, by Fact and by History: Why Islam is Part of the West

 

Belonging, by Fact and by History: Why Islam is Part of the West

Generated using copilot for my Islam and Muslim Communities Op-Ed assessment taks 

Hook
If Islam were truly alien to the West, our cities would look different, our libraries would be thinner, and our classrooms would be missing entire chapters of what we call Western thought. Yet the empirical record says otherwise: in England and Wales alone, about 6.5%—roughly four million people—identify as Muslim[AD1] , a minority share but a settled and visible one, in societies that have grown steadily more diverse over the last decade. That is social fact, not rhetoric.

Thesis
The assertion that Islam and Muslims “do not belong” to the West collapses under three kinds of evidence: demographic reality, attitudinal nuance, and civilisational history. When we look closely at how people live, what publics say, and what our intellectual inheritance contains, Islam is already inside Western life—culturally, socially, and canonically.

1) Social Fact: Presence, Permanence, Pluralism

Start with the most prosaic measure—population counts. Official statistics show Muslims at ~6.5% of England and Wales in 2021 (up from 4.9% in 2011), alongside a broader shift toward “no religion” and a declining Christian share. The trend lines tell a simple story: the UK has become more religiously diverse[AD2] , with Muslim communities dispersing beyond historic centres [AD3] and contributing to the everyday pluralism of towns and cities. Diversity is the baseline, not the exception.

Zoom out to Europe. Even under a zero‑migration scenario, Europe’s Muslim share is projected to rise to about 7.4% by 2050 [AD4] due to age structure and fertility; under more realistic “medium” migration, the share could reach ~11%, remaining a minority well below the Christian and non‑religious populations. In other words, long‑run presence does not equal dominance; it signals permanence within pluralism.

2) Public Attitudes: Acceptance Is Common, Debate Persists

The “do not belong” claim often rests on a thin slice of public opinion. But majorities across Western Europe say they would accept Muslims as neighbours,[AD5]  even as many remain divided over Islam’s compatibility with national culture—an important distinction between social acceptance and ideological debate. Moreover, willingness to accept Muslims as family members varies with education and political orientation[AD6] , indicating that attitudes track domestic cleavages more than any civilisational veto.

Method matters. Pew’s researchers [AD7] caution against reading attitudes as fixed “hostility” or “embrace”—telephone surveys can overstate acceptance (social desirability bias), while contact with Muslims tends to increase positive views. The policy implication is practical and hopeful: contact and familiarity are powerful levers for cohesion, not just slogans.

3) Civilisational History: Islamic Thought Inside the Western Canon

The claim of non‑belonging falters most dramatically in our libraries. Medieval Europe did not simply pick up Aristotle where late Rome left off; it encountered him through the commentaries of Averroes (Ibn Rushd), translated into Latin and debated [AD8] across Paris and Oxford. Standard references [AD9] acknowledge the impact of Latin Averroism on Western scholastic method and on the ways Christian theologians framed problems of reason and faith. Our “Western canon” bears Islamic fingerprints.

The Toledo translation movement [AD10] (12th–13th centuries) mattered precisely because it bridged civilisational geographies: Arabic, Hebrew, and Latin scholars moved texts and ideas across confessional lines. As a result, Scholasticism and later humanism were shaped by dialogues that included Muslim thinkers—an awkward fact for any narrative that treats Islam as culturally “outside.”

Even the Catholic Encyclopedia’s biographical entry [AD11] on Averroes—hardly an uncritical source—admits his vast influence in determining how Aristotle was read and taught in Christian Europe. You can disagree with Averroes’s metaphysics and still acknowledge that Western philosophy was formed in conversation with him, not in isolation from him.

Addressing Objections: Public‑Sphere Disputes and Alarmist Demography

Two objections recur. First, the public‑sphere question: should religious dress, law, or symbols be visible, and under what limits? Those are normative debates inside liberal democracies [AD12] about how pluralism appears—not civilisational gatekeeping about who can be “here.” Western polities have long managed such disputes (e.g., church‑state arrangements, blasphemy laws’ repeal, equalities legislation) through constitutional processes, not exclusionary verdicts.

Second, the demographic alarm: projections are often used to fuel a narrative of cultural “replacement.” But the most careful demographic work shows Muslims [AD13] remain a minority under all scenarios, and even a “high migration” path yields ~14% by 2050—significant yet far below the Christian and non‑religious populations. Numbers, read responsibly, undermine panic.

Why the Belonging Frame Matters

Belonging is not a metaphysical essence that a civilisation confers or withholds; it is a practice—legal, civic, and intellectual—by which societies decide to live together. When official statistics recognise Muslims as part of the national demography, when publics indicate willingness to accept Muslims as neighbours, and when libraries catalogue Islamic thought as part of the canon used to teach Aquinas, we are observing belonging in action.

The alternative—denying belonging—requires amputating large parts of our intellectual history and ignoring the empirical structure of our societies. It encourages “boundary” politics that sort identities into civilisational insiders and permanent outsiders, a logic hostile to constitutional equality and corrosive of civic trust.

A Better Ending: Recognition and Fairness

What, then, should the West do? Recognise what already exists—Muslims as neighbours, colleagues, scholars, citizens—and make that pluralism work fairly under common norms: constitutional rights, equal obligations, and a civic vocabulary that refuses zero‑sum group hierarchies. The honest task ahead is not admission but maintenance: investing in contact, evidence‑based policy, and historical literacy so that the “West” we keep invoking can live up to its own best commitments.

Islam does not sit outside the West; in crucial ways, it sits inside it—on our shelves, in our streets, and within our constitutional promises. The work is to honour that truth.

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