Europe is Already "Terra Incognita" for Muslim Immigrants

Submitted by Alex (United States), Mar 5, 2007 at 11:37

Bernard Lewis observes in his book, Islam and the West, that the voluntary move of North African Muslims from Muslim society, or Dar al-Islam, to non-Muslim ones, or Dar al-Harb, is unprecedented in history. This change is due, no doubt, to the larger global trends of modernity, when economics briefly occupied a more prominent place in social discourse than spiritual claims, and so Muslims who moved to Western countries for better jobs were left without a coherent sense of place and community for the Islamic portion of their identity.

I wonder, furthermore, whether the unprecedented nature of a voluntary move of Muslims to implied permanent residence non-Muslim countries gives Europe's Muslims a sense that, given their removal from the previously-constituted territorial context under which Islamic law functioned, they thus possess special permission from God to engage in acts previously identified as forbidden under Islam--specifically, killing civilian members of the "Far Enemy."

Does Dr. Pipes think that this claim holds merit?

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