Islamization: Conspiracy, subversion and expansion?
It’s happened before. Large numbers of religiously motivated migrants engaging in trade, politics and military conquest, forming insular communities, running roughshod over local cultures and languages whilst seeking to spread their faith and ‘civilise’ the native population. Most recently, of course, during the Western colonial expansion from the 18th to 20th centuries with its military imperialism and close connection to the Protestant Christian missionary movement. But it also happened during the expansion of Islam in the early centuries after its rise in the 7th century. Historically, Muslims have been every bit as imperial and colonial as Christians as they have sought power, created wealth and spread the faith.
The early Muslim conquests were military as the Arab armies rode out from the Arabian Peninsula conquering the great Christian centres of the Levant, North Africa and eventually Anatolia before entering the Balkans and threatening Europe. Later expansion into South and Southeast Asia was led by traders and travelling Muslim proselytisers, until today Muslim-majority nations stretch from Morocco in the west to Indonesian Papua in the east. The concern of many Christians in the West, from across the traditions, is that this Muslim encroachment is happening again. The fact that in many ways the West is reaping what it has sown through its own imperialism, colonialism and hegemony, which have created inequality and stoked resentment, is of little comfort.
This blog looks at how and why some Christians believe that their countries are being Islamized and are trying to prevent it. The previous blog discussed identity symbols such as food laws, language, beards and clothing. These are all suspected to be part of the Islamization process. It also touched on the building of mosques, which will be mentioned again below, along with concerns about migration, demographic growth and the prevalence of shari‘a, Islamic finance and Muslim political representation.
Muslim Migration and Demography
The last blog argued that the sheer visibility of Islam is threatening to some Christians, who do not tend to have so many visible identity markers. Beards, and items of clothing such as thawbs, hijabs and niqabs cause Muslims to stand out in public. Areas with a high percentage of Muslim inhabitants look very Islamic. And, of course, historical migration patterns along with social factors mean that – as with other groups – Muslim cultural-ethnic groups tend to gather to live in certain areas. In the UK, for instance, in the mid-twentieth century, South Asian workers were encouraged by businesses to come to northern cities to alleviate the post-war employment crisis. Many of these were from rural Azad Kashmir, especially Mirpur, and had few linguistic or cultural skills to help them adapt to their new life. As with most new arrivals, they found mutual support by gathering in neighbourhoods, setting off a chain reaction of migration as relatives and friends came to join them. Something similar happened during the twentieth century in Dearborn, Michigan, the first Arab-American majority city in the US. Muslim and other Arabs came to work in the car industry, many of them economic migrants from Lebanon, and were later joined by refugees from the civil war in that country.
The story of migration has been different in other places and for differs from place to place and from one ethnic group to another. For instance, Asians who migrated to the UK from East Africa during the Africanization of that region in the 1960s and 70s had much greater levels of education, language skills and job qualifications. Many went to Leicester and other UK cities where their experience of integration with the local culture was very different from that of Mirpuris.
Today, immigration is once again a hot button issue in most Western countries and was a significant driver behind the rally mentioned in the last blog. Illegal migration and asylum seekers are complex, emotive issues. Here in the UK, immigration is not recorded by religion. However, over a third (37%) of recent arrivals have been from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Eritrea and Bangladesh. For some Christians, there is a general assumption that, as these are Muslim-majority countries (apart from Eritrea which is mixed Christian and Muslim), the majority are Muslims. This may be true, but those numbers certainly include refugees fleeing political or religious persecution in their own country, sometimes for being Christians or having converted away from Islam. Others are fleeing wars, economic hardship and climate change. In such cases, it might be expected that Christians would welcome the new arrivals and provide them with sanctuary, as indeed many do.
However, some Christians suspect a conspiracy on the part of many Muslims to migrate to the West in order to conquer it for Islam. Some Muslims, such as Yusuf Qaradawi, have even explicitly talked of this. These Christian fears mirror similar fears expressed by others, especially nationalists and populists on the right-wing. Sam Solomon, a Christian convert from Islam, makes this claim very explicit in this book co-written with Elias Al-Maqdisi: Modern Day Trojan Horse: the Islamic doctrine of immigration. The authors suggest that the Islamic doctrine of hijra (migration) is the principal way in which Islam is spread in the world and that Muslim migration to the West is for the express purpose of establishing an Islamic state. Other book titles reflect similar fears such as:
· Robert Spencer Stealth Jihad: how radical Islam is subverting America without guns or bombs.
· Abdullah at-Araby. 2003. The Islamization of America: the Islamic strategies and the Christian response, Los Angeles, CA, Pen vs. the Sword.
· William Wagner. 2012. How Islam Plans to Change the World, Grand Rapids, MI, Kregel.
· Tim Dieppe. 2025. The Challenge of Islam: Understanding and Responding to Islam's Increasing Influence in the UK, London, Wilberforce Publications.
· The Pilcrow Press. 2007. The Islamisation of Britain: and what must be done to prevent it, London.
These authors are not only driven by concerns about levels of migration. They are also worried by what they see happening when Muslims settle in Western societies which have historically been influenced by Christian values. Firstly, there is concern about demography and population growth/decline. It is frequently observed that the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of a population has to remain above 2.1 to maintain the population’s level. Almost all Western countries are below this (UK 1.44, USA 1.6, Australia 1.5) but most Muslim-majority nations are above (Pakistan 3.6, Bangladesh 2.2, Syria 2.7), although not all (Iran 1.7, Tunisia 1.8, Kuwait 1.5). Moreover, demographer Eric Kaufmann has argued that within individual countries religious communities have the highest birthrates. For some, the equation is simple. Birth rates in Muslim communities in the West must be outstripping non-Muslim births. Therefore, it won’t be long before Muslims outnumber Christians and other non-Muslims.
However, the picture is not quite that simple and long-term demographics are not so easy to predict. It is true, for instance that in the UK the proportion of live births to non-UK-born women increased to almost 34% in 2024, the largest number being to mothers from India and Pakistan. But no data is collected on religion, and India, along with Nigeria and Romania, the countries in third and fourth place, have either religiously mixed or Christian populations. Coupled with that, historically, birth rates in immigrant communities have generally fallen to converge with the rate in the general population. For instance, panics about Jewish or Roman Catholic birth rates in previous generations failed to be realised. Adaptation to surrounding culture, economic pressures and improved mortality all contribute to this trend. It remains to be seen what the future will hold.
Areas of concern
It is not just migration and demography that worry Christians who talk about Islamization. Along with others, they believe that Muslim communities in the West choose not integrate with the wider population and live what have been called parallel lives, culturally, linguistically and geographically isolated from the wider community. Critics see this as a deliberate ploy to maintain religious distinctiveness. Others see it as a natural outcome of migration, marginalization and disadvantage.
The building of mosques and religious buildings is a very visible sign of the presence of these communities. The building of places of worship is, of course, entirely reasonable. However, closed church buildings being bought and turned into mosques, mosques that are bigger than the present needs of the community, mosques that are grander and taller than surrounding buildings and mosques built with foreign funding all greatly disturb many Christians. There are complaints about a lack of reciprocity and the fact that church building is often restricted in Muslim-majority nations or, in the case of Saudi Arabia, banned altogether. Furthermore, it is jarring when mosques reflect architectural styles foreign to the Western context. This is one reason why the builders of the UK Cambridge Central Mosque, opened in 2019, created not only an eco-building but also one which reflects British architecture. Of course, detractors may ultimately be even more concerned about Muslims contextualizing to local norms than they are by foreign impositions, which may not be so attractive to the general Western population!
The above books and others like them detail many other areas of concern for some Christians. One of the greatest of these is the issue of law and shari‘a which will be dealt with in a later blog. As some – but by no means all – Muslims in Western societies express a desire for some accommodation of shari‘a, there are Christians who fear that it would be the thin end of the wedge. This leads to Christian book titles such as The Shari'ah Bomb: how Islamic law can destroy American freedom, which point out the presumed incompatible of the shari‘a with western laws, freedom of speech and human rights.
Closely associated with this is concern about the encroachment of Islamic finance into Western banking systems. Coupled with the massive investment in Western industry, technology, institutions and so on, particularly by investors from the Arabian Gulf, this raises concerns about foreign control, coercion and influence in Western affairs. Again books and pamphlets have been written, such as Understanding ShariꜤa Finance: the Muslim challenge to western economics.
Investment in Western universities by Muslim donors is another concern. There are fears that such donations have strings attached which could stifle academic inquiry and criticism of Islam.[1] Indeed, these Christians generally understand Islam to shut down free speech and to forbid rigorous research into Muslim texts and sources. This is one of the reasons why so many Christians oppose the latest proposed definitions of Islamophobia – a topic for a later blog.[2] There is also concern about education more generally. Where pupils attend Muslim faith schools or are in state schools with high proportions of Muslim students, they obviously have less interaction with non-Muslims, heightening the sense of separation and fuelling fears that Muslims are trying to segregate schooling.
As I point out in my book, it is part of ‘the settlement of any migrant community that new associations and institutions are formed. This has naturally been the case for Muslims in the West, but again some Christians are suspicious of their motives’.[3] For instance, in the UK, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) and the Mosques and Imams’ National Advisory Board (MINAB) and, in the US, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) are suspected of lobbying ‘mainstream society … to place Islam and Muslims beyond criticism, which would be tantamount to achieving a privileged status’.[4] At the same time, there is a suggestion that they say different things to different audiences, amounting to a conspiracy often labelled lying or ‘taqīya’ (see later blog).[5]
Finally, there are concerns about Muslim political representation. Muslim bloc voting, Muslim lobbying, Muslim Members of Parliament or Congress and Muslim government ministers are all controversial in Western countries, including for some Christians.
Such concerns as all the above are not new in the West. G. K. Chesterton’s 1914 novel The Flying Inn, a story of Islam taking over the UK and banning alcohol sales, only reflects European concerns dating back to the Ottoman incursions into Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. However, not all Christians see it so starkly.
There are Christians who believe that the Muslim presence in the West is not necessarily a threat and is even to be welcomed. Pope Francis (d.2025) co-authored a document with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, titled Human Fraternity, envisioning a world in which Christians and Muslims live together in peace. Kenneth Cragg (d.2012), a British Anglican bishop and prolific writer on Islam, whilst agreeing that Islam is ‘radically subversive of Western political order’, wrote that ‘happily, innumerable diaspora Muslims de facto give the lie to this charge that their presence is subversive’. He felt that ‘they seek – and deserve – to be trusted’.[6] Miroslav Volf has argued that, ‘suspicion will undermine (Muslims’) sense of identification with America and alienate some from both the culture and from politics. Treated as potential enemies, some may be more likely to become actual enemies’. Finally, Steve Bell, former director of Interserve in the UK believes that Christians do not need to fear Islamic take-over in UK. Rather, for him, Britain provides a context in which Islam itself can change, and freethinking Muslim reformers can emerge alongside more hardline voices. After all, he argues, Muslims have migrated to the West under God’s sovereignty and might even be partners with Christians in bringing the topic of faith back into public life and changing secular societies for the good.[7]
Accusations of Islamization are highly emotive, especially in today’s febrile, politically charged climate. It is undoubtedly true that a few Muslims have engaged in extremist activity in Western countries and these should be dealt with by the appropriate authorities. There is no place for terrorism, violence and criminality. There are very probably more Muslims who have undisclosed ambitions to manipulate Western political, legal and social institutions for their own purposes. Many citizens will be concerned about this and want to expose these efforts and debate what is best for the common good. This should include Christians who have a right to put forward their arguments. However, to suggest that the majority of Muslims have moved to Western countries in order to ‘conquer them for Islam’ is very unhelpful and can be dangerous. It masks the huge variety of reasons that Muslims have for migrating, from seeking a better economic future to fleeing persecution – sometimes at the hands of other Muslims.
[1] Caroline Cox & John Marks. 2006. The West, Islam and Islamism: is ideological Islam compatible with liberal democracy?, London, Civitas Institute, 29.
[2] This will be the topic of a later blog. Many of the definitions of Islamophobia can be found on the Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies website.
[3] Richard McCallum. 2024. Evangelical Christian Responses to Islam: A Contemporary Overview, London, Bloomsbury, 113.
[4] Patrick Sookhdeo. 2008. Faith, Power and Territory: a handbook of British Islam, Pewsey, Isaac Publishing, 202.
[5] McCallum. 2024. Evangelical Christian Responses, 169.
[6] Kenneth Cragg. 2005. The Qur'an and the West, Washington, D.C., Georgetown University Press, 159n5.
[7] Steve Bell. 2006. Grace for Muslims, Milton Keynes, Authentic Media.