European Media views on Islam

Student’s Name
Professor’s Name
Subject
Date
The Image of the Islam in the European Media
Introduction
In the past thirty years, the Western world has started to approach to Islam, the Muslim world, and the position of Muslims in Europe, specifically in west Europe, where the long influence of the Ottoman Empire, left a large Muslim population. Events such as the Iranian Revolution, The Gulf War, 9/11, and ultimately, the American occupation of Iraq, have raised awareness on the Islam. In the same way, the ever-changing nature of the Middle-Eastern and Maghreb politics, have led to a diaspora of Muslims to Europe (Shadid & van Koningsveld 174). For instance, given its position as a former colonial state, France attracts many Muslim immigrants from Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria. The influence of the Muslim immigrants in the country can be perceived, as they amount for the 7.5% of the population, which means, 4.7 million people. On the other hand, former communist countries such as Russia, and Bulgaria have seen a steady increase in their Muslim population. Russia has approximately 14 million of Muslims, which means a 10% of the population. Bulgaria has a Muslim population of 1,020,000, which amounts to a 13.7% of the Muslim population. (PEW Research Center). It is important to understand as well, that Islam and Muslim do not refer only to Arabic population, and Muslim people are not necessarily of Arabic descent. There are Iranian, Afghan, Turkish, Indonesian, …