The Muslims are Coming! The Muslims are Coming! declares this article over that Tech Central Station. The author makes plausible projections of the low European birth rate + the inevitable drop in Islamic birth rates to come to the conclusion that about 25% of Western Europeans might be Muslim within 50 years. Among the working age population that portion could be as high as 40%.
Are you terrified yet? Well, calm down, the author makes the case for the emergence of a "mélange" civilization. It would be Islamo-Christian, with antecedants in the early Ottomon polity. The problem I have is that such cultures have always existed within the Dar-al-Islam, but they tend to be anterior to the eventual development of a more thoroughly Muslim polity that reduces the non-Muslim population into dhimmitude. Of course, we are not slaves to history, Westen Islam could spark a Reformation in the faith, but I simply want to remind everyone that the rising Muslim elites have a long history of initial cooperation with the non-Muslim powers that be until the time when the dhimmi become disposable. Also, let me note that many of the dhimmi families that allied themselves with the early Muslim powers later converted to Islam and became part of the Muslim elite. The assumption is that the 75% of Europeans that are predominantly post-Christian will remain so and not convert to Islam in the presence of a vigorous religious tradition-but history teaches us that active organized religious minorities can transform societies that have no alternatives[1].
fn1. Need I elaborate that many of the above assertions could also apply to pre-Enlightenment Christianity? A modus vivendi often existed with the old pagan religions of Europe along the margins of Christendom. The ancient precedent for this behavior seems to be the period between The Edict of Milan in 313 A.D. when the Christians received official toleration from the Empire and 392 when Theodosius the Great banned private pagan worship-the Christians clearly waited until they possessed the commanding heights before dispatching their pagan rivals. After the Battle of Frigidus the pagan elite of the Western Empire finally converted to the new religion.
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