# Can Islam really make inroads in the West (or East Asia)? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 21, 2015, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-islam-really-make-inroads-in-the-west-or-east-asia/738173 "2015-11-21T08:31:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2015, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-islam-really-make-inroads-in-the-west-or-east-asia/738173/41 "2015-11-23T00:07:25Z")
> [@Ramira](#): > > Yes the Balkans, but note the date reference please. Other than Spain and Portugal (and the Ottoman Empire), where were Muslims in Europe to a sufficient extent to be ethnically cleansed prior to the 18th century CE? ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2015, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-islam-really-make-inroads-in-the-west-or-east-asia/738173/42 "2015-11-23T21:19:30Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > Other than Spain and Portugal (and the Ottoman Empire), where were Muslims in Europe to a sufficient extent to be ethnically cleansed prior to the 18th century CE? Sicily. Used to be a Muslim-majority island. In the 11th-12th centuries the Normans and Hohenstaufens appreciated and respected the Sicilian Muslims and learned much from them. It was the 13th-century Angevins who kicked the Muslims out of Sicily. They proceeded to make themselves so hated that the Sicilians rose up and threw \*them \*out (the Sicilian Vespers). When the Muslims took over Sicily they didn’t kick out the Christians and Jews. They let them stay and keep practicing their religions openly. Christians and Jews were held to an unequal sociopolitical status, which sucks, but the Islamic way was to have all three religions openly going at once, instead of one religion exterminating the others, as was also the case in the Reconquista. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2015, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-islam-really-make-inroads-in-the-west-or-east-asia/738173/43 "2015-11-24T04:45:48Z")
> [@Ramira](#): > > This is a very strange thing to write. If we wish to find reason outside of belief itself, it is very simple to remark that the Islam and the Christianity provide a higher status with more international connections or regional connections. This is seen as advantageous. > . My statement was primarily that Animist religious are effectively unpleasant ways of viewing the world. Your statement about the positive attractions of Islam and Christianity adds to my statement, but does not detract from it. > [@Ramira](#): > > Again it would be nice if people here would pause and stop repeating ignorance and half information… > . My statement about PNG is based on my personal Experience of PNG, and my analysis of Irian Jaya. Your statement about Africa appears to be based on the historical spread of Islam into Africa, not it’s potential for continued spread. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2015, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-islam-really-make-inroads-in-the-west-or-east-asia/738173/44 "2015-11-24T06:04:10Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > It was the 13th-century Angevins who kicked the Muslims out of Sicily. No, strictly speaking it was the Hohenstaufen HRE Frederick II. Though seemingly a bit fascinated by Islamic theology and some of the cultural trappings of local Levantine/Mediterranean Islamic culture, he was a ruthless pragmatist. Which led to his elimination of the Sicilian Muslim communities and his transplanting them to the military colonies in mainland Italy typified by [Lucera](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_settlement_of_Lucera). You are correct that it the Angevins that exterminated those vestiges however. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2015, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-islam-really-make-inroads-in-the-west-or-east-asia/738173/45 "2015-11-24T06:15:08Z")
Crete of course is another example of an island province that has [changed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emirate_of_Crete) [hands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Crete) [multiple](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Candia) [times](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Crete) prior to the 18th century. ---
**Author:** ![Steken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Steken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steken)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2015, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-islam-really-make-inroads-in-the-west-or-east-asia/738173/46 "2015-11-24T10:24:41Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > The trouble is that potential converts, by definition, aren’t going to be born into the religion, and those that take it seriously enough to consider it are going to talk to serious believers, whereupon they will run into the above-mentioned strictures. > [@Aeschines](#): > > Outside of countries where Islam is prominent, I think it tends to be seen as a kind of ethnic religion and not a true world religion that is really inviting all to join (fairly or not). In my - admittedly limited - experience, this is not necessarily so. The converts to Islam that I know (a Cuban and a Swede) follow some supposed rules and merrily ignore other supposed rules. One of them regularly listens to music (with and without stringed instruments); the other hardly ever prays. Didn’t stop them from converting. I think the idea that “conversion” = “serious belief” = “strictly following the rules” makes intuitive sense, but it may be that the reality is a tid trickier and more complex. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2015, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-islam-really-make-inroads-in-the-west-or-east-asia/738173/47 "2015-11-24T19:29:15Z")
> [@Steken](#): > > I think the idea that “conversion” = “serious belief” = “strictly following the rules” makes intuitive sense, but it may be that the reality is a tid trickier and more complex. A lot of the variation in Islam that have tended to appeal to educated westerners has been various flavors of Sufism. Which are generally by their very nature rather heterodox. Much like popular variants of Buddhism ( particularly Zen ) in the west, convert practitioners are not infrequently cherry-picking an approach that works best for their spiritual needs. Which I personally think is a perfectly fine way to go about things. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-islam-really-make-inroads-in-the-west-or-east-asia/738173.md?page=2)