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The MUSLIM MAJORITY Countries Of Europe
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May 9, 2025
▶ In this video I talk about the Muslim countries of Europe. First going through an overview of the percentages of muslim people in each European country, and understanding where these groups are bigger (in percentage of the population), but still not the majority; like France, Sweden, etc. I then go over the arrival of Islam in Europe through Arab conquests in the South and Turkic conquests in the East. Learning about the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans and how their influence - consequence of their prolonged control of the region - lasts until today and makes it so that some countries within Europe still have a Muslim majority now: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, and Kosovo. With others like Bulgaria or North Macedonia having reasonably high percentages too. TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Religions In EU Countries 01:02 What About The Rest Of Europe? 01:53 Islam In Europe Map Overview 02:11 Why Is Green An Important Color For Islam? 03:11 Percentages Of Muslim Population By Country 04:14 Does Muslim Favourability Impact Percentages? 04:57 Percentages Of Muslim Population By Country 06:09 Muslim Europe - Immigrants or Natives? 06:56 The Historical Arrival Of Islam In Southern & Eastern Europe 08:10 The Ottoman Invasions & Conquests 09:05 Impact Of Ottoman Presence In The Balkans 09:43 Why Are Only Some Balkan Countries Majority Muslim? 10:01 Lenghth Of Ottoman Rule 10:21 "Intensity" Of Ottoman Rule 10:49 Pre-Existing Conditions Of The Territories 11:19 Post-Ottoman Reality & Foreign Powers' Influence 12:42 Summary
View Video Transcript
0:00
When most people think religion in Europe, they think Catholicism
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And they're not wrong. A Eurobarometer survey in 2019 found that 41% of people in EU countries
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described themselves as Roman Catholic, 10% as Orthodox, 9% Protestant, 4% other Christian
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17% non-believer or agnostic, and 10% atheist. If you find a Protestant percentage too low, you're not alone
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I believe the reason is that countries where Protestantism is or was more prevalent
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are those where people tend to, consequently, become non-believers or atheists. The Czech Republic, for instance, is the biggest non-believer country in the EU
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and I think in the world, with 56% of people not following a religion
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followed by the Netherlands at 52%, and Sweden at 50%. On the other hand, Romania is the country with the most religious people, 96%
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followed by Malta with the same value, and Cyprus and Poland with 93% and 91% respectively
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4% define themselves as having another religion, and 2% describe themselves as Muslim following
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the faith of Islam. But there are two important pieces of information that we can't forget
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First, this data is about the EU only, not all of Europe
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It leaves out countries like Iceland, Switzerland, Norway, and most importantly for Islam, the
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Western Balkans, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Albania, and North Macedonia, plus Moldova, Ukraine, and Belarus
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And second, this data shows as percentages for the EU countries grouped together
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So while there are only 2% of Muslim population in the EU, many countries have higher percentages
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within them, many due to immigration. So in this video, we're going to find out about those two factors
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First, let's learn about individual percentages of minority Muslim populations within European
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countries, and then we'll go into those where they are a majority or a more significant
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percentage of the population. This map shows us on a scale of light to dark green which
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countries have lower or higher percentages of Muslim population. A fun fact, green is
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chosen for this map because it is considered the main colour of Islam, when confined in
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almost every flag of Muslim countries across the world. Green has a number of traditional
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associations in Islam, in the Quran it is associated with paradise, green was adopted
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by the Shia Muslims and remains particularly popular in Shia iconography but it is also
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widely used by Sunni states, notably in the flag of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. And its
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Its usage or reference to it is constant throughout Muslim history. For instance, Al-Qidr, referred to as the Great One, is a Quranic figure who according to
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the book met and travelled with Moses. In the Ottoman Empire, the wearing of a green turban was a privilege afforded to the descendants
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of Muhammad. And the traditional site of the tomb of Muhammad is called the Green Dome, being painted in
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this color by supposed order of Sultan Abdul Hamid II in the 19th century
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But let's get back to the map, sorry for this little historical detour
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Remember the data here is always a little outdated percentages depicted results from surveys between 2010 and 2015 but from what I could look up additionally while percentages may have changed a little the category i the shade of green they in has remained the same
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In white, we have countries with under 1% of Muslim population, such as Portugal with
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0.9, Poland with 0.1, the same level as Hungary or Czechia, and Iceland as well
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In the lightest of green, we have countries like Spain, Italy, Slovenia, Luxembourg, Norway
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or Ukraine, as well as Ireland, they have levels between 1 and 4%. It's interesting that Portugal
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and Spain have such a low percentage of Muslim population considering they exist so close to
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Morocco and Algeria, Spain even having domains in Morocco directly still, and considering they were
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regions under Muslim rule for so long, some of them as late as the 15th century for Spain
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Perhaps it's precisely due to the long-lasting conflict between Christians and Muslims that the
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effects last until today, but we'll learn more about this further ahead
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And still that doesn't seem to be the case, when we look at this 2014 Pew Research Center
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survey on the favorability of Muslims in certain European countries, we can see that Spain
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has a favorability of 49%, yet has a lower percentage of Muslim population than Italy
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does with its lower favorability of 28%. So we can say that low favorability equals low Muslim percentages, be they of migrants
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or of natives. We could say the opposite is true and that high percentages lead to lower favourability
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but France for instance is 74% favourable and has a 10% muslim population which is reasonably high
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So I think the main conclusion is that these are not connected directly. This was another small detour so let's get back to the map
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In a slightly darker green are countries which have a muslim population between 5 and 10%
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such as Serbia, Greece, Austria, Sweden, Germany or France, as well as Belgium, the Netherlands
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or the UK. The UK shows a surprisingly low number considering the perception of large-scale
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immigration it has from the Muslim regions of what was formerly the British Raj, Pakistan
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and Bangladesh. It's also interesting how Luxembourg stands out within these countries
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of Western Europe, having a much smaller percentage. Moving up in the scale, we have
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the countries with a percentage of Muslims in their population between 10 and 20%. These are
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Bulgaria, Georgia, Montenegro and Russia. North Macedonia is in its own scale of 30-40
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and hosts 32% of Muslim population. And then we begin moving into the countries which have a
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Muslim majority and are effectively the Muslim countries of Europe. They are Bosnia and Herzegovina
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with 51%, Albania with 59% and Kosovo with 88-95%. So now let's get into these three countries
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mentioning their neighbors with medium percentages too, Montenegro and North Macedonia, and then explaining why that's not the case with other neighbors, like Bulgaria, Greece, or Serbia
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These countries, along with Turkey, which we won't include here since most of it is within Asia
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are known as Muslim Europe. Apparently the term is very often used
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And what differs them from the rest of European countries with sizable Muslim percentages
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other than the fact that the percentages are effectively lower, is that in these Balkan nations, Muslim populations are native ones. They aren't immigrants from
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the Middle East like in Sweden immigrants from North Africa like in France or immigrants from Pakistan like in the UK No these Muslims are European by birth and have been for hundreds and hundreds of years
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throughout many generations. So why is that the case? Were they migrants way back then that stayed and these are their descendants
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Or were they local people that converted to Islam? Well, a little of both
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Islam first expanded into the Caucasus through the Muslim conquest of Persia in the 7th century
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and entered Europe in the south after the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in the 8th and 10th centuries
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Muslim political entities existed in what is today Spain, Portugal, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages
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but they were, to put it plainly, kicked out by Christian kingdoms in a process called, at least for the Iberian Peninsula
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Reconquista, meaning reconquest. And so, Muslim populations in these territories were either forcibly converted to Christianity
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or expelled by the end of the 15th century by the indigenous Christian rulers
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Those who converted but kept practicing Islamic tradition in secret were also potential targets of the Inquisition
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This extreme persecution of non-Christian justifies the absence of big numbers of native Muslims in Portugal and Spain
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On the other side of Europe, in the east, the situation was not the same though. Islam spread in Eastern Europe via the conversion of the Volga Bulgars
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the Kuman Kipchaks, and later the Golden Horde, with its successor Kanads as well
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Various Muslim populations live there, called Tatars by the Russians, who today still hold
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various regions within their federation that are Muslim such as Chechnya or Dagestan
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And more importantly for us here, we also have the case of the Ottomans
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The Ottoman Empire was growing more and more, following Turkic migrations into Anatolia
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After consolidating their power there, they further expanded into south-east Europe and
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and achieved local political power by invading and conquering huge portions of the Serbian
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Empire, the Bulgarian Empire and the remaining territories of the Byzantine Empire in the
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14th and 15th centuries. For you to get an idea, the Ottomans first landed in Europe in around 1350
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Less than 100 years later, they already ruled almost all of the Balkans
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They held the region for over 500 years, so you can imagine the lasting cultural and religious
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effect that this had. Over those centuries, the Ottoman Empire did gradually lose almost all of its European territories
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At the end of the 19th century, countries began breaking away until the empire was defeated
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in World War I and eventually fully dissolved in 1922. But their presence had its impact, and local populations converted to the religion of their
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ruler in the same way they did everywhere else. It's the same reason why so many Filipinos are Catholic, after being a part of the Spanish Empire
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In addition to the conversion of locals, a lot of people from other regions of the Ottoman
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Empire, Muslim by origin and local tradition, also moved to the Balkans, namely soldiers
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who were placed there to fight border wars and then ended up staying. When the territories broke
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away from the Ottomans, first independently, then as a part of Yugoslavia, and then achieving
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independence again, this religious heritage was kept, in some places, up to today
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So now the real question is, why is it different throughout the Balkans? Even if we take those
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8 countries only Bosnia Albania Kosovo Montenegro North Macedonia Bulgaria Greece and Serbia They have tremendously different percentages of Muslim populations So why I believe it has to do with four different things First the length of Ottoman rule Some
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regions were under Ottoman rule for a longer period of time, others were partly conquered
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by foreign powers or they achieved partial or full independence sooner. For instance
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Greece became independent as early as the early 1800s, while Serbia got partial independence in
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the late 1800s. Second, intensity of Ottoman rule. Some regions were directly administered
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by the Ottomans, while others were at times indirectly rule, sometimes only as puppet
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states, which allowed them to keep more of their religious autonomy. In addition, many
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regions were partly forcibly converted to Islam following their attempted rebellions. Albania and Kosovo are examples of that, and even when conversion wasn't forced, it was
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encouraged by, for instance, offering lower taxes to Muslim citizens. Third, pre-existing conditions
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Before being conquered by the Ottomans, there were already different cultural and religious
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realities across the Balkans. For instance, Bosnia only converted to Christianity fairly late in the 9th century
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Because of that, Christianity wasn't as strengthened and embedded into their culture and conversion
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into Islam was easier and had a wider reach. There was also the particularity that when the Ottomans conquered Bosnia, many of its
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Catholic population fled into hungry Croatia, something that didn't happen as much with
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its other neighbors. And 4. Post-Ottoman reality and foreign power influences. Bosnia, for instance, was annexed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, who didn't particularly
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care about forcing their population to convert into Catholicism, mostly because Bosnian Muslims
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themselves had previously rebelled against the Ottomans, and so the differentiating factor
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wasn't religion here. in turn soon developed a close relationship with Russia, as did Greece, in part, and this
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brought them closer to Christian orthodoxy. In addition, that earlier annexation of Bosnia
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by the Habsburgs kept it out of the Balkan wars that its neighbors fought against the
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Ottomans, in which they achieved independence and which created further animosity towards
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Islam, the religion of the occupier, in order to promote their own national identity. During
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and after the Balkan wars, there were a lot of voluntary and forced displacement of Muslims
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from the Balkans into what is now Turkey. A similar and interesting example happened a little later after World War 1 when Greece
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and Turkey removed the Muslim and Christian minorities in their respective countries and
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sent them to the other country in a very rare population exchange
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1.3 million Anatolian Greeks were sent to Greece from Turkey and 500,000 Turks were sent to
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Turkey from Greece. In summary, some Balkan regions were further emptied of their previously existing Muslim
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populations while others were not as much. So that is a brief overview of the Muslim countries of Europe as well as other European
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countries that have small or medium sized percentages of Muslim people as a part of
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their populations. What do you think about this topic? Did you notice any mistakes from me or do you have any additional information or context
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Let me know in the comments. Thanks for watching this video, subscribe to catch future ones and I will see you next
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time for more general knowledge
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