In the nightmares of those who push the Eurabia thesis – who include in their number, both opponents and proponents of Islamism – the entire continent of Europe is about to become an extension of the Dar al Islam.
How is this going to happen?
- First of all, the birth rates of Muslims will outstrip those of non-Muslims indefinitely.
- Secondly, all Muslims will demand, and subject themselves to Sharia.
- Thirdly, people will convert to Islam, but nobody will leave Islam.
Each of those premises is dubious. Think of your mates from an Irish Catholic background. Their parents had, how many brothers and sisters? And how many kids do they have? And are we all in thrall to Popery?
Certainly, some people cling to their cultural and religious identity when it is under attack: just as they are those who simply abandon it. Likewise, there is a particular sort of person who likes the strictures of a harsh, self denying faith, while others just can’t be doing with it. In a free and pluralist society, an awful lot of people move backwards and forward between different iterations of their identity. One generation is not like the next.
Take for example, the daughter of Omar Bakri Mohammed, the former leader of the jihadist groups, Hizb ut Tahrir and Al Muhajiroun, who has apparently become a pole dancer.
Yasmin, who has tattoos of her name on an ankle and a dragon on her back, grew up with six other children of Bakri and her mum Hanah.
She remained a devout Muslim in her teens and wore a veil and “cover-all” clothes.
Family sources said she left Salisbury School in Enfield, North London, at 16 after her parents fixed an arranged wedding to the Turk.
But the marriage faltered as she became disillusioned by her father’s hardline mantras.
Yasmin, currently dating a 26-year-old satellite TV installer, is still thought to observe the Ramadan fast and abstain from eating pork in line with the Muslim faith.
But she said of her dad: “I don’t get on with him — he is not around here at the moment, is he?
“His views are nothing to do with me. I am an adult, my own person. I am an individual. I do my business and he does his.” …
I do feel sorry for Yasmin, who obviously has had a pretty tough life, with an infamous father, an unhappy arranged marriage, a child to bring up on her own, a job which might not have been her first choice of career, and some scumbag of an ex-boyfriend who has sold her out to The Sun.
Nevertheless, it is understandable – and telling – that she preferred even this non-optimal life to the one that was offered to her by her jihadist family.
I hope that things pick up for her.
