4 ms·

This is a shit article, impossible to read as anything other than propaganda ("look guys, they've always been here! It definitely wasn't deliberate policy of a

This is a shit article, impossible to read as anything other than propaganda ("look guys, they've always been here! It definitely wasn't deliberate policy of a contemporary government" ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/6418456/Labour-wanted-mass-immigration-to-make-UK-more-multicultural-says-former-adviser.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/6418456... )). Christian-Muslim contact was widespread, starting with the jihad that established Islam to begin with (the Byzantine Empire, large swathes of the Mideast, and most of North Africa was Christian), and continuing up to the Franco-Ottoman alliance ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Ottoman_alliance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Ottoman_alliance ) which the English were definitely familiar with (see the Ottoman rug in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ambassadors_%28Holbein%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ambassadors_%28Holbein%29 ). Mariners would have been by necessity extremely familiar with the Muslim piracy and slave trades (see eg John Smith https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Smith_%28explorer%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Smith_%28explorer%29 ).

tim333 11y ago
I thought it was quite good. It starts with muslims and christians killing each other in the Crusades so it's not trying to pretend it's all peace and love. I'm not sure where you get "look guys, they've always been here! It definitely wasn't deliberate policy of a contemporary government."
- zhemao 11y ago
  Yeah, and I doubt anyone would believe that Britain's current Muslim community has any continuity with that of the Elizabethan age.
  - dogma1138 11y ago
    It doesn't the first Mosque in the UK was built in 1889 in Bath. Before the immigration waves form N. Africa and the Middle East the vast majority of British Muslims were from British India. There were very few Mosques in western Europe at the time and they were virtually non prior to the late 19th century, Switzerland didn't had a single mosque till the 1960's, the first Mosque in Sweden was built in 1984. While Europe has had some Muslim population it was quite different than the current one, most of it was aristocracy and upper middle class in Britain, France, Italy and Spain which was quite detached from the current form of Islam which is heavily influenced by modern Wahhabism and the post Ottoman Muslim Brotherhood movements. Other than those communities the few other Muslim communities which were present in Western Europe at the time were mostly from the Baltic states which had a population of Muslims in the forms of Tattars which also as detached from what one would expect from Islam today as possible.

tim333 11y ago

I thought it was quite good. It starts with muslims and christians killing each other in the Crusades so it's not trying to pretend it's all peace and love. I'm not sure where you get "look guys, they've always been here! It definitely wasn't deliberate policy of a contemporary government."

zhemao 11y ago
Yeah, and I doubt anyone would believe that Britain's current Muslim community has any continuity with that of the Elizabethan age.
- dogma1138 11y ago
  It doesn't the first Mosque in the UK was built in 1889 in Bath. Before the immigration waves form N. Africa and the Middle East the vast majority of British Muslims were from British India. There were very few Mosques in western Europe at the time and they were virtually non prior to the late 19th century, Switzerland didn't had a single mosque till the 1960's, the first Mosque in Sweden was built in 1984. While Europe has had some Muslim population it was quite different than the current one, most of it was aristocracy and upper middle class in Britain, France, Italy and Spain which was quite detached from the current form of Islam which is heavily influenced by modern Wahhabism and the post Ottoman Muslim Brotherhood movements. Other than those communities the few other Muslim communities which were present in Western Europe at the time were mostly from the Baltic states which had a population of Muslims in the forms of Tattars which also as detached from what one would expect from Islam today as possible.