Islamismophobia

2026-06-09 21:03:03

This timely article is probably the hardest, most important one I’ve written this year—maybe in years. I might not get it all right, so I look forward to your comments and corrections. If you believe it can help heal society, please share it.

Share

“Muslims are violent and try to impose their beliefs on others! We should send them all back to their countries!”

“That’s just islamophobia! You’re a bigot!”

Both of these are not just wrong: They’re blurring concepts of freedom, equality, immigration, race, and politics at such a fundamental level that they’re threatening the foundations of our society. Today, we’re going to try to make sense of it all. By the time you’re done, you should be able to see a conflict related to Islam in the West on the TV, on social media, or on the street, and have a better sense of what we should do about it and why.

At the heart of this is the mixing of two concepts: Islam and Islamism.

Islam vs Islamism

Islam is a religion followed by 2 billion people in the world, ~25% of the population. It is a personal belief, protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Like in most religions, most adherents of Islam are kind, welcoming, peaceful, and productive. You can witness it yourself traveling to places like Turkey, the UAE, Malaysia, and Indonesia, where this was certainly my experience.

Islam has over 1,300 years of history, and has produced some of the most distinguishable aesthetics.

Its position in between the biggest world civilizations allowed it to preserve knowledge from older empires, increase the exchange of knowledge across civilizations, and produce fundamental new contributions.

But within Islam, there’s a problem of Islamism: a political movement that says Islam should influence politics because it’s superior to liberal democracy, capitalism, and any other alternative. Islamists want Sharia (the law derived from Islam1) above civil law, they want it to apply to non-Muslims, they seek pan-Islamic political unity, and the creation of Islamic states. So by nature, it’s not individual and persuasive, but social and coercive in its attempts to spread. That’s why the European Court of Human Rights declared Sharia incompatible with the fundamental principles of democracy. It’s why Turkey banned the leading political party in the late 1990s: Its Islamism went against democracy and the country’s secular constitution.

There is a blurry line between Islam and Islamism. It’s crucial to understand it though, so let’s take specific examples.

I hope the difference is clear: Islam whispers to the soul; Islamism shouts on the street. Islam wants believers to get on their knees, Islamism wants you to get on yours. Islam breeds pilgrims, Islamism conquerors. Islam saves souls, Islamism drafts laws. Islam wants the freedom to believe, Islamism wants obedience.

Islam is a personal religion, a set of personal beliefs. Moderate Muslims respect that others don’t share the same beliefs. This is protected by the Universal Human Rights. Islamism is a political movement that tries to impose its views on others. This is against Universal Human Rights.2

If you want a test to differentiate between Islam and Islamism, here are seven questions you can ask:

1. Is it voluntary or coerced? If it’s voluntary, it’s consistent3 with Islam. If it’s coerced, it’s consistent with Islamism.

2. Is it just for the believer (consistent with Islam), or also for others (consistent with Islamism)?

3. Is civil law supreme (Islam), or is Sharia (Islamism)?

4. Are all citizens equal (Islam), or do Muslims prevail (Islamism)?

5. Is it persuasion (Islam) or intimidation (Islamism)?

6. Does it make room for dissenters inside the community (Islam) or not (Islamism)?

7. Is the same standard applied to all religions (Islam), or does Islam have privileges (Islamism)?

Now, these are extremes. As we saw in this article, in the West:

• About 20 – 50% of Muslims are moderate Muslims

• About 15-20% are Islamists

• In between, about 10-50% are Conservative Muslims. They might, for example, think that the precepts of Islam should apply to all, but they might use persuasion instead of coercion to achieve this goal.

If we were to draw this:

The best way to understand the difference between each extreme is to dive into each separately.

The Moderate Muslims

They believe in Islam, and they also tend to think that:4

• The Quran is not the literal word of God

• There are many ways to interpret Islam

• Democracy is above Islam, and they’re compatible

• Men and women are equal

• Homosexuality should be accepted in society

• Jews don’t have too much power, they can be trusted

• Israel has a right to exist

• School should be secular and mixed genders

• It should be legal to show a picture of Muhammad and burn the Quran

• Halal food is not necessary everywhere

If you’re a Westerner and you know Muslims, odds are higher that they belong to this group. That’s been my experience: I’ve had friends and colleagues from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, and probably more that I can’t remember, and every single one of them was kind, fun, tolerant, and hard-working.

These Muslims know and understand the threat posed by Islamism. They think:

• Islamism is a problem

• Political violence is never acceptable

• Jihad in general, and organizations like ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah, or the Muslim Brotherhood are bad

Moderate Muslims would want nothing more than the elimination of Islamism.

This goes to the highest levels of several Muslim countries. For example, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, the UAE, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Libya have all outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, in most cases designated it a terrorist organization.5 Many prolific Arab commentators agree.

Here is Mohamed Bin Salman, ruler of Saudi Arabia, about Islamism:

We want to go back to what we were, the moderate Islam that is open to the world, open to all the religions. We want to live a normal life. We represent the moderate teachings of Islam and the right is on our side. We will eradicate the rest of extremism very soon.

Here is the UAE’s Foreign Minister in 2017, talking about Islamism in Europe (a bunch of additional quotes follow. If you get the gist, you can move on):

There will come one day when we’ll see far more radical extremists, and terrorists, coming from Europe, because of lack of decision-making, trying to be politically correct, or assuming that they know the Middle East, or they know Islam far better than we do. That’s pure ignorance.

Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of a Hamas founder, was so repelled by the organization that he defected to Israel, and later to the US, and has been criticizing it ever since. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan have banned the organization.

Here is the a Lebanese Shia Muslim preacher:6

We need to review Islam from beginning to end. The human being no longer has value in this religion. You [Islamists] have distorted the true image of Islam. You have made us feel that Islam is only gunpowder, rockets, killing, and crime. There is the silence of one and a half billion Muslims across the globe. Silent about all this destruction. Silent about the massacres. Silent about killing in the name of God. Every crime committed is being accompanied by the slogan “Allahu akbar.” We can no longer leave Islam as a playground for these so-called Islamists, these criminals, these terrorists.

The whole world has come to hate Islam and Muslims. Campaigns of hatred against Muslims and Islam are rising because of the behavior of Muslims, and because of the behavior of Islamic leaders who remain silent about crimes and justify them. How is the far-right Christian movement rising in Europe? Because it has become afraid of you as a Muslim. What are you offering to break this stereotype? What are you offering so you can say to him: “No, that isn’t true”?

All our calls are calls to violence. All our calls are calls to killing. All our calls are calls to exclusion and eradication. I do not feel peace. I want to feel peace. There has to be a corrective movement in the Islamic world. I want the Islam that came and opened this message with: “In the name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate.”

Commentator Ahmed Khalifa:

We Arabs from the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf the original heart of Islam don’t tolerate extremists in our countries. Our societies are genuinely tolerant. We welcome people from all backgrounds whether they’re different in race or religion.

The real hardliners and extremists run away from our region and head straight to Europe, America, Japan, & places like that. They take advantage of your freedom of speech in the worst way possible and try to tear down your customs, your culture, & your way of life. Sadly, you keep giving them that space & then later you blame Islam for the mess.

Here is the Emirati commentator AQ Almenhali:

A friend of mine travelled to the West recently and went to pray at a mosque there. He told me the [sermon] started normal, then slowly became political and started talking about jihad. He literally said: “I can see how people here get radicalized hearing this stuff.” He got up and left halfway through.

This is exactly why the UAE and other GCC countries regulate mosques through Ministries of Awqaf. It’s not about “controlling religion”, it’s about stopping religious spaces from turning into political recruitment centers.

The Muslim Brotherhood mastered this years ago: mix religion with politics, build grievance narratives, then slowly create ideological loyalty.

The West keeps viewing this as “freedom of speech”. Gulf countries view it as national security.

And Amjad Taha, Emirati expert in Middle East politics:

Why does Britain today have more extremists than the Middle East, and more rapists rivaling the Islamists of Port Sudan in Africa and Pakistan? And why does the UK system protect Islamist jihadist thugs and rapists instead of protecting its own people? We fear visiting London, it is no longer safe. Your people deserve better. Your streets are crowded with 300,000 homeless in London alone, yet while poverty grows, the Muslim Brotherhood, banned in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, is free to run your streets.

Here is the Gazan Arab Muslim Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib:

The "pro-Palestine” movement refused to acknowledge the criminality of hostage-taking & killing innocent Israeli civilians, condemn Hamas’s actions including against Gazans, call for the terror group to step down, or engage in pragmatic activism and targeted demands for specific outcomes that actually help Palestinians [... It] will forever be looked at as the pinnacle of embarrassment, failure, and wasted opportunities—all while the people of Gaza suffer horrendously.

Maliq, another Muslim commentator:

Truth be told: The #1 cause of Islamophobia isn't outsiders. It's us Muslims. Our resistance to reform, silence on extremism, and victim mentality. If we fix ourselves, the fear will fade.

And:

One thing I absolutely hate about us Muslims is our dishonesty. ISIS, Taliban, Boko Haram, they name their groups "Jihad" and "Sunnah", wave the Quran, scream "Allahu Akbar" during attacks, force hijabs on captives, and forcibly convert people at gunpoint. Yet we still rush to say "They're not real Muslims!" Bro, we can say they don't represent Islam. That's fair debate. But pretending they have zero connection to the faith while they quote our books and use our slogans? That's pure denial. We can't keep lying to ourselves and the world forever. The truth isn't Islamophobia. It's honesty.

UAE commentator Majed, on the rapes of several thousands girls for decades in the UK, in what’s called the Grooming Gangs scandal, of which allegedly7 a majority of perpetrators were Pakistani men and a majority of victims White British:8

To imprison a 13-year-old girl, drug her, and abuse her for profit is pure evil. Predators like this do not deserve the name of men. They are monsters who prey on the innocent. What’s even more shocking is the so-called “justice” in the UK. Six years? Nine years? A child’s life has been shattered forever, yet these criminals will walk free while their victim is still young. If this happened in our region, the punishment would have been swift and merciless.

Another take:

Another take.

I hope this gives you a good grasp here: There are many moderate Muslims—20% to 50% of Muslims in the West, as I mentioned.9

And many moderate Muslims very publicly decry the radical Islam speech and behaviors that have been festering, especially in Western countries. How is this happening? Who are these Islamists? What do they say?

The Islamists

In the previous article, we saw that about 15% of Muslim immigrants in Europe are Islamists.10 What does that mean?

Islamist Speech

The best way to understand Islamism is through the eyes of the imams who preach it.

The Imams

Here’s a cut of some imams in the US

Source

These are examples of Islamic viewpoints that are consistent with human rights:

The goal is to make sure Islam is well established in society. To integrate Islam in the USA.

You dedicate yourself to establish justice in the world. That’s what Allah created you for.

Allah mentions he has sent the prophets to establish justice on Earth.

Allah teaches us that there is one purpose: Establishing justice on Earth.11

I haven’t sampled mosques, but I assume this type of message to be the majority. The following are Islamist though, inconsistent with human rights:

We’re supposed to bring Islam to regulate society according to divine law and purpose.

Allah made it obligatory upon the Muslims to change society.
You need to completely replace the system with an Islamic system.
When we say America will be an Islamic country some day, that’s our goal.
Islam has a second round, where Islam will rule the world again.

Here are some other examples of imams sharing Islamist positions in the West:

• California: “Islam will enter every household in the US.”

• California (San Diego): “America will be a Muslim country, Russia will be a Muslim country. We have to be part of that change. Never apologize, never compromise.”

• Again San Diego: “We must understand Islam as a comprehensive way of life, which includes political influence. In Medina, at the beginning, Muslims were a minority. For some it took weeks, months, years to accept Islam, but Muhammad taught us how to build that power.”

• Texas: “Mamdani as the mayor of New York is a victory for the Ummah, and if you don’t understand this, you don’t understand the role of civilizational strength. Everyone has a role to play. (Muslim) politicians have a role to play. [...] Across the Western world, Muslims are rising to the point it’s terrifying them. Sweden, Oslo, 10% Muslim. Vienna is 10% Muslim, the Ottomans Turks tried for 200 years and couldn’t do it.”

• Colorado: “We’re still fighting Jihad, just not with swords.”

• Detroit: “For Muslims, it’s an obligation to prepare against your enemies. The first obstacle is the Wordly life: When you are too attached to it, you’re not prepared to sacrifice. They say ‘You’re too few, just 1%, you can’t do anything, overpower the military.’ But how many times have small groups of dedicated believers overcome groups far more powerful than them?”

• UK: “The first blow to the US was Afghanistan. Now we can give our final blow to America. It’s the opportunity to project Islam as an alternative world order. Now is the time to put the final nail in the coffin of Western liberalism.”

• UK: "No integration, no multiculturalism, no diversity, no tolerance. You have democracy, we have Sharia."

• England, UK: “We (Muslims) have to be Allah’s solution to England.”

• Northampton mosque (UK):12 “Victory to Islam. Destroy the enemies. Bless the Mujahideen (holy warriors). Heal from the usurping Jews and every enemy of Allah. Count them and kill them, leave none of them alive. Make them war booty for the Muslims.”

• Dublin (Ireland): “Many of the major problems in the Western world today are because women do not know the status of men in Islam. Since we live in the Western world, women prefer to think that men are equal to them. In Islam, the man is the master of the woman, and the woman obeys the man. The man is the master of the woman. A woman should not raise her voice against her husband. A woman should not leave her house without her husband’s permission.

• Germany:13 “Is it permissible to stone someone for adultery? Yes. Obviously, here in Germany you cannot stone someone for adultery. But if there were an Islamic state, then it would be the duty of its ruler to enforce these rulings of the Quran."

More here, here, here, here, here, here,14 here, here, here, here, and here.

Why is this Islamist rhetoric so widespread? Among other things, because it’s politically pushed in the West by Islamist organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood (MB).

The Muslim Brotherhood

The UAE, France, the UK, Spain, and Austria have recently published reports on how it’s organized and how it pushes Islamism by penetrating all levels of society from the bottom.15

It avoids using its own name in the West, keeps membership secret, establishes front organizations and umbrella groups.16 It builds parallel societal structures like schools, nurseries, or funeral homes. In France, it operates over 60 schools. It trains imams across Europe and organizes activities for children. It promotes political candidates in national and local elections and actively lobbies police.

It actively isolates Muslims in the West to preserve its ultra-orthodox views. It created an organization17 to issue religious rulings specifically tailored to Muslims living in Europe, which often promote segregation, discourage assimilation, and push a literature of victimhood of Western societies.

It funds itself with tens of millions of dollars.18 Its biggest donor is Qatar.19 It also has a network of NGOs that host large-scale fundraising events, concerts, and dinners that attract Muslims far beyond their base, thereby expanding their influence, and gather the Zakat (charity). In the UK, charities have found to be important infrastructure for the MB and the terrorist group Hamas. The MB also engages with politicians to secure public funding.20

The proliferation of Islamist speech in Western countries, enabled by these Islamist organizations, is one21 of the reasons why, in some of these countries, next-generation Muslims are actually more radical and more Islamist than their parents.

This, then, finds its way into Western politics.

Islamism in Western Politicians

Elected officials in Belgium intended to implement aspects of Sharia Law in the country. This is very direct Islamism in action.

Chaudhry Sarwar, former Pakistani politician,22 previously UK MP for the Labour party, and father of the current Scottish leader of the Labour Party, stated: “Time will come that there will be a law all over the world that there can be no disrespect to our beloved holy prophet. Any disrespect of the Quran will be inacceptable, intolerable.”

Here is Zul Mohammed, a Muslim who ran for Mayor of Carrollton, Texas:

No vet has made any sacrifice. I want to make that clear. I do not support the US military. No, I do not support the United States. I look down on both entities.

These are politicians!

Unsurprisingly, the head of the German domestic intelligence agency has warned that Islamists were deliberately trying to influence German parties to change the state and society.

Islamism in Everyday Life in the West

Obviously, this trickles into education. In Canada, 11 teachers of North African descent were suspended for teaching “Islamist religious concepts” to elementary school children.

It bleeds into political rallies, like this one in NY:

There is nothing more glorious than a martyr. The Western world is a lie. The members of Congress will be prosecuted, all over the world. Let’s remind the mainstream media that Goebbels was going to stand trial before he shot himself, and we intend to prosecute every media outlet.

And it bleeds into interviews of the public, like this one:

We’re not here to take part, we’re here to take over.

Or this one:

We’re here to take over your country. You can’t stop us. We’re here to uphold Sharia Law.

Or this one:

“As a Muslim, I don’t really identify with British values. I’m Muslim first, second, and last. I’d like to see Britain governed by the Sharia. I believe it’s far superior to democracy.”

Or this one:

INTERVIEWER: Would you undermine the German constitution if you could?MUSLIM INTERVIEWEE: Absolutely. We are commanded to take over Germany.
INTERVIEWER: How do you intend to establish Sharia here and create an Islamic state?
MUSLIM INTERVIEWEE: When Muslims are the majority, and if needed, by force.

Or this example, which I shared in my previous article:

INTERVIEWER: How satisfied are you in Germany?
MUSLIM INTERVIEWEE: Zero. Mainz [German city] belongs to us foreigners.
INTERVIEWER: Would you fight for Germany?
MUSLIM INTERVIEWEE: I wouldn’t do anything for Germany. Just marry a German woman, get a German passport, and I’m all set. [...] I’m from Kurdistan. I have no country, They can’t deport me. [...] Germans out, foreigners in.

You can see more examples here and here. You get the picture.

All of this is speech, and if it remained as such, it would be OK. But it doesn’t.

Islamist Behavior

The worst, of course, is terrorism, which we discussed here.

Terrorism

Over 80% of terrorist attacks in the world are carried out by Islamists—groups like Islamic State, Al-Shabaab, Hamas, JNIM23, etc.

This is also true in the West.

We’re unfortunately used to men killing people while yelling Allahu Akbar, with several dozens of such attacks in the last 10 years. The last Allahu Akbar attack was one just a few weeks ago in Switzerland.

Crime

Terrorism is unique in its impact, but also in the ease of proving its causality. It’s very clear when a terrorist attack has been caused by Islamism. It’s less clear in everyday crime. As a reminder, there is an overrepresentation of Muslims in crime statistics in the West, but is that due to Islamism? Or the age of people? The specific culture in some origin country? Islamism is certainly not at fault in all cases. But in some.

Last week, an MP in the UK Parliament read testimonies of some of the British girls who were raped by the Grooming Gangs I mentioned earlier—some of them by several hundred men. The testimonies are graphic, so I won’t repeat them all, but you can watch them here.

Here are the relevant ones for this article:

“Comments were constantly made suggesting that White girls, that Christian girls, were viewed as having fewer morals, or lower values, whereas Muslim girls were described as having dignity and higher moral standards. These comparisons were used to justify the way I was treated, and to further humiliate and control me.”

“Race did play a part and motivated the selection and demographic of the victims. Throughout my exploitation, the other girls I encountered or who were abused alongside me were almost exclusively White.”

“Things would escalate around Eid [the festivity at the end of Ramadan] and holidays, parties got bigger, got worse, got more violent.”

“The main clash that I had with the religion side of it was I grew up as a Christian. I would wear my cross because it was something really special to me. It was just used as a way to break me down. They said: ‘Where is your god now? Has your god forsaken you?”

“It was all of the White girls in every home that I went to. I remember a man that went to the back of a van, and I saw 15, 20 girls locked in dog cages.”

Of course, these crimes were most likely not perpetrated to further Islam, but they’re frequently the result of a mindset in which the Muslim in-group is protected and the out-group attacked, given the most common national heritage of the perpetrators, the fact that sometimes hundreds of them were involved,24 the nature of the victims, and the quotes above. The most likely read is that this is downstream of the Islamism we mentioned before: Many of the perpetrators shared an Islamist belief where the law of the land was less important than the protection and advancement of the community.

This, however, would have been impossible without abetting from the rest of society—again, because of Islamism

The Deliberate Fudging of Islamophobia and Islamismophobia

In the Rotherham case (~1,400 girls raped):25

Several [council] staff described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought racist; others remembered clear direction from their managers not to do so.

There was a widespread perception that messages conveyed by some senior people in the Council and also the Police, were to 'downplay' the ethnic dimensions of CSE.

This fear of being called racist is relevant, as this is in fact a consistent accusation from Muslim organizations. Many times, these are valid. Islamophobia is real, and has serious consequences. Muslims in the West have been shot, run over, and stabbed because of it. They have faced discrimination in employment, housing, and schooling, and suffer from insults and harassment. It is right to decry it.

Other times, however, the criticism is not of islamophobia, but of islamismophobia. It’s not against Islam, but against Islamism. Yet many Muslim leaders purposefully fudge these two, to protect Islamism under the umbrella of Islam.

For example, something stunning happened in Australia last year. A few Muslim nurses boasted that they had killed Israeli patients, and that they would do it again.

Source

In that situation you’d expect the moderate Muslims to decry them. Over 50 Muslim organizations or leaders came out to defend them!26

Let’s lay out the problem clearly:

1. There are some normal Islamic behaviors and some Islamist ones.

2. The Islamic behaviors get improperly criticized (islamophobia). The Islamist behavior gets properly criticized (islamismophobia).

3. Islamist leaders purposefully fudge the two and call both “islamophobia”.

4. Since Western leaders don’t know how to differentiate between islamophobia and islamismophobia, and they want to treat people equally (human rights), they start policing each other to eradicate islamophobia. Inadvertently, they also shut down islamismophobia.

5. This opens a path for Islamism to grow.

The key points above are 3 and 4. Let’s take examples of them. First, how Islamist leaders fudge islamophobia and islamismophobia, like in the case of the Australian nurses.

An Islamist group created the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), which the UK government has said consistently opposed programmes by successive Governments to prevent terrorism. For example, it opposed naming 21 Islamist organizations (including Al Qaeda) as terrorist.27 The MCB spent 80% of its charity budget on the Center for Media Monitoring, or CfMM, whose entire goal is to monitor British media to accuse them of islamophobia. This could be a great goal if, indeed, it called out only islamophobia. It doesn’t.

The CfMM called a report of “a knife-wielding man yelling Islamic slogans” islamophobic.28 It called the reporting on the grooming gangs “shoddy science underpinning a narrative favoured by the media.” A coordinated takeover to islamize state schools, proven by the government? According to the CfMM, it was a hoax. It recommends eliminating the terms Islamism and Islamic extremism: If they don’t exist, you can’t accuse people of them, and thus any criticism must be islamophobia!

This would not be a problem if the CfMM was an obscure organization without repercussions. Alas, it has engaged with over 1,000 journalists, editors, regulators, and policy makers, including the BBC29, the Sun, the Express, the Daily Mail… It organized feedback sessions for the BBC and fed into its terminology book. It was instrumental in developing the press regulator’s guidance on the reporting of Islam.30 It has trained journalists from The Standard, The Independent, and Scottish TV. It pressured the BBC to withdraw an inconvenient interview clip (the BBC caved). It recommends flooding newspapers with complaints when they report negatively on Islamism:

If they don’t verify what they are reporting, they are going to get flooded with people emailing them and complaining. And that will discourage them from doing it in the first place, because it costs them, in effect, money, because they have to pay their staff for every hour that they are looking at corrections and looking at complaints.

Let’s move on to another organization. Still in the UK, the National Association of Muslim Police (NAMP) represents the most Muslim police officers. This should immediately heighten your senses, because it’s precisely the type of organization where Islam the religion can translate into Islamism the political movement. As such, you should expect them to be extremely thoughtful in separating Islam and Islamism. Yet last year, it published this document, Confronting anti-Muslim hatred and Promoting Human Rights. The entire document tries to claim that Islam is always good, that what bad people do in the name of Islam is therefore not Islam, and so we should completely remove the concept of Islamism. Of course, if Islamism doesn’t exist, any criticism of Islamism must be… Islamophobia. Here are some excerpts.

Terms such as 'Islamist' blur the distinction between extremism and the peaceful practices observed by the majority of Muslims, perpetuating anti-Muslim hatred and casting unwarranted suspicion over the entire religion.

See what they did? They say calling people “islamist” is racist! Absolutely not! It’s the exact opposite! Terms like Islamist allow us to separate between extremism and peaceful practices!

The following passage is also informative:

Islamic teachings advocate for peace, compassion, and fairness, principles diametrically opposed to the motivations behind religiously justified violence. Media, policymakers, and society at large must exert concerted efforts to distinguish between the distorted political or violent interpretations of religion and the genuine practices of its followers.

Later, it tries to erase the word “Islamist”, and replace it with words like “right-wing terrorist”31. In other words, it’s trying to hide the fact that the extremist religious beliefs behind political Islamism cause Islamic terrorism! And then blame these instances on the right! This represents the police speaking!32

You can see the pattern here. First, Islamism is too broad, it doesn’t represent Islam, let’s not use the term. Then, call criticism to Islamism islamophobia. Accuse the authors, and train the media in avoiding any criticism altogether.

What is the result of all this effort? What is the attitude of Western leaders about criticising Islamism? Reporters have said that accurate stories were not published for fear of being branded islamophobic, that the CfMM and other activists would be able to use any official definition of “Islamophobia” to suppress their reporting, that a newspaper discouraged a journalist from writing about Muslims because the CfMM complained he wrote too many stories about Muslims…

This fear of being called racist, xenophobic, or islamophobic33 has enabled what The Telegraph reported on the Telford Grooming Gangs:

Aware that taxi drivers were offering children rides for sex, in 2006 [the council] suspended licensing enforcement for drivers, allowing high risk drivers to continue practicing, “borne entirely out of fear of accusations of racism; it was craven”.

Senior council staff were terrified that the abuse of children “had the potential to start a ‘race riot’”. The result was stasis, despite officials acknowledging in at least one case that abuse by Asian men had gone on for “years and years”.

A senior police officer allegedly said the abuse had been “going on” for 30 years, adding “with it being Asians, we can’t afford for this to be coming out. Politicians were terrified [of the impact on] community cohesion.

As a result of this combination of factors, the council went to great lengths to “cover up information and silence whistle-blowers”. In the words of witnesses, “if you want to keep your job, you keep your head down and your mouth shut”.

The police, the council, and the entire community failed to stop behaviors downstream of Islamism because of their fears to be called islamophobic. Here are other examples of anti-Islamist actions stifled by the fear of being labeled islamophobic:

• In the Islamist Manchester Arena bombing that killed 22 people and injured over 1,000, a security guard didn’t stop the perpetrator before the attack for fear of being branded racist.

• After a French teacher was beheaded by a Jihadist over the false accusation of a student34, the response from the state and the media was not supportive enough, and now 40% of French teachers say they self-censor on sensitive topics.

• According to the UK government, “fears of being accused of being racist, anti-Muslim, or culturally insensitive may inhibit Islamist-related referrals”.

• Channel 4 had a documentary about grooming gangs ready to air in 2004, but didn’t “over fears that it could lead to race riots”. Grooming gangs would continue for over a decade.

• The South Wales police has been told to log every event where a person is accused of islamophobia, therefore leaving a public record against critics of Islam and Islamism. No other religion has anything like that.

• On New Year’s Eve of 2015, over 1,000 women were sexually assaulted in Germany (especially in Cologne) by large groups of North African and Arab appearance. The police originally labeled the night as “Cheerful mood—celebrations largely peaceful”. A later report included the word rape, which a minister’s office allegedly35 asked to remove. Newspapers had to apologize for covering them up

• An Islamist who killed 14 people in California in 2015 was not reported by neighbors for suspicious activity because she didn’t want to profile him.

• Denmark has made it illegal to burn the Quran, to placate Islamists.36

So that’s the mechanism by which Islamists stifle freedom of speech, which then prevents the West from calling out its problems. And that bleeds into day to day coercion.

Daily Crime and Coercion

This Sikh had to close his restaurant because of Pakistani harassment when he said he didn’t serve halal food:

This debate ended when a Muslim student stood up to threaten a Jewish student and then repeatedly yells “Allahu Akbar”.

This is a Church being desecrated in the UK:

I’m reminded of the behavior of pro-Palestinians in New York a few years back:

Apparently37, this video depicts girls in Antwerp, Belgium, being verbally attacked and groped on a bus for not wearing veils, and for showing too much skin.

These women were harassed on the street because of what they wore:

The poster, an Iranian journalist, added:

“When I say that Germany has its own “morality police,” I am referring to the so-called “Sharia Police,” self-appointed enforcers of Sharia law. I have received direct messages from many Iranian women sharing their concerns about morality enforcers in European countries, who are often silenced and labeled Islamophobic, anti-immigrant, or right-wing.

Whether we like it or not, these Sharia or morality police known as “Amr bi al-maruf”, a collective duty of Muslims to encourage righteous behavior and discourage immorality, exist in many European countries. Often linked to mosques, they impose their version of religious law, targeting women and girls for not wearing the “proper hijab.” This mirrors the experiences of women in Iran. In Iran, when Sharia Police violently harass women for not covering their hair, officials often mislead the world by claiming these are just religious groups, not the official police.

Sources in the Muslim community in Germany report that these so-called Sharia Police have appeared in cities like Wuppertal and Berlin, harassing women under the guise of promoting hijab and Sharia laws. This issue extends beyond isolated incidents, with moral enforcers emerging in schools and neighborhoods with Muslim majorities.”

Here’s another woman harassed by this local Islamist policing.

This Spanish girl had to leave the beach because of sexual harassment by North Africans. She didn’t want to be racist and sat nearby. She didn’t report it for the same reason.

Going to a beach and pointing fireworks at beachgoers while screaming “Allahu Akbar” should not be allowed.

Source

This man is saying that blasphemy deserves death.

Source

This guy harasses girls and old men, but is not in prison because people don’t report him, and they don’t report him because police, the media, or society might call them islamophobic.

Another example here.

Just to be clear, all these behaviors are not just anti-social. They’re illegal: coercion and harassment. Their erosion of public life might not be ideological (these people are not trying to impose Islam) but they’re fueled by Islamism in two distinct ways.

The first is impunity. These acts exist because reporting them, policing them, or naming the pattern carries a social cost, the cost of being called racist or islamophobic, which is precisely the cost the organizations described earlier work to manufacture.

The second is the imposition of an Islamist world view: a woman's visibility is a legitimate object of male policing, blasphemy is an injury that warrants force, burning a church’s door is acceptable because Christians don’t fight back, screaming Allahu Akbar scares people… all of these are downstream of a political project that taught the Islamist script. An ideology works most powerfully once it stops looking like an ideology and becomes simply how things are.

This is how the universal human rights for which Western societies have shed so much blood die a slow death.

So what can we do about it?

My Message to Conservatives, Liberals, Politicians, and Moderate Muslims

As we said, Islamophobia is real and many Muslims suffer from it as a result. It’s bad because it attacks a religion and the people who follow it.

But it’s also bad for the islamophobes themselves. The more islamophobia there is, the more Muslims feel bundled as a whole, rejected by their religion. They get radicalized, or don’t stop the extremists anymore (they’re in the same bundle, at the end of the day). That galvanizes Islamism, which then promotes actions that fuel further islamophobia, in a terrible vicious cycle.

But also, the examples in the previous chapter are not an expression of Islam. They’re an expression of Islamism, and Islamism is a threat to human rights that can’t be tolerated.

To break the cycle, we must differentiate between islamophobia and islamismophobia.

Moderate Muslims are islamismophobic too. They are as appalled as you or me by these behaviors. They want them to end. And they can only end when we call them out for what they are: Not isolated incidents, but the expression of Islamism, the political side of Islam that tries to coerce others into the religion or face consequences, which means it’s against universal human rights.

So here’s my message to each group.38

To Moderate Muslims

You’re in a difficult position. You have your personal, legitimate faith, which on one side, Western society pressures you to abandon, and on the other, Islamists push you to radicalize. When these two sides clash, you’re caught in the middle.

You can help solve this problem by drawing a clear line between yourselves and Islamists. That way, you can blame the problems on the true cause (Islamists), and not on Islam.

Always keep that narrative in mind. If there’s a terrorist attack? You can say: “These are Islamists. Islamism is a political ideology that tries to impose Islam on others. It’s a scourge and we need to get rid of it. This does not represent me, nor a majority of Muslims. I defend human rights.”

If you do that, it will be clear that you are on the side of human rights, and you are enemies of Islamism. It will be much easier to fight it.

The harder fight might be on a day to day basis. When somebody decries islamophobia that is islamismophobia, we should all correct them, but your voice carries more weight than anybody else’s. When somebody coerces, harasses, or erodes civil life, we should all call them out, but if the perpetrator seems to be Muslim, it’s even more important and valuable that you do.

Some conservative Muslims might prefer to fudge the line between Islam and Islamism, but it’s important that you help them clarify it. There really are only two sides to this: Either you’re in favor of human rights, or in favor of Islamism. There isn’t an in between. Islam is compatible with human rights; Islamism is not. As conservative Muslims’ strongest connection to the rest of Western society, it’s important that you help them see that.

To Western Conservatives

Stop conflating Islam and Islamism.

It’s OK to want to eat halal.
It’s OK to want to wear a hijab.
It’s OK to abide by Sharia Law for yourself, as long as you also respect civil law.
It’s OK to build a mosque.
It’s OK to sound a call to prayer in public.
It’s OK to pray in public, when your creed tells you to.
It’s OK to disapprove apostasy and blasphemy.
It’s OK to be a Muslim immigrant.
It’s OK to open a new mayoral term with a Muslim prayer.
It’s OK for Western schoolchildren to go to the mosque to learn about Islam.39
It’s OK to celebrate a specific Islamic event in public.40

All of these are Islamic, and they’re OK. You should not denounce them. That’s Islamophobic. You should be able to differentiate them from Islamism, for four reasons.

First, if you don’t, you’re against the universal human value of freedom of religion, a core bastion of the Western values that you claim to respect.

Second, when you attack a legitimate religion, you attack all of its members. More specifically, you alienate the 20–50% of moderate Muslims who are also fighting the Islamists, because you’re putting both in the same bucket, so they’ll want to defend themselves together. The more Islamophobic you are, the more you’ll radicalize Muslims.

Third, you also alienate the left, who will have a legitimate beef with you.

Fourth, by eliminating your islamophobic thoughts and remarks, you can leave only islamismophobic ones. Every time somebody accuses you of islamophobia, you will know they’re wrong, and you’ll have a good opportunity to educate them on the very important difference between Islam and Islamism.

To Western Liberals

It’s important to call out islamophobia, and any other type of discrimination.

It’s equally important to make the distinction with islamismophobia, because Islamism is quite common. Otherwise, you’ll be unwittingly abetting Islamism, losing your moral clarity, and undermining the human rights that are so important to you.

Islamism is against some of the most important rights you’ve fought for: those of women and LGBTQ+ people. But they’re also against other very important rights: freedom of religion, freedom of speech, animal rights (dogs). Virtually everything Liberals fight for is against what Islamism wants.

Finally, the Left allied with the Islamists in Iran in the 1979 revolution. As the Islamists took power, they turned against the Left. The alliance between Left and Islamism is a one-way relationship.

So first, realize that one of your biggest enemies is Islamism.

When you see a behavior that triggers your concerns about islamophobia, stop for a moment and think about whether you’re actually seeing islamismophobia. If it’s against Islam, you should decry it as islamophobia. If it’s against Islamism, you should join the criticism.

This also means you have to stop the knee-jerk reaction of labeling everything as far-right islamophobia or racism. For example, the head of a French extreme-left party called a law against the Muslim Brotherhood islamophobic. It’s not, it’s islamismophobic. He's enabling Islamism. Banning another Islamist organization has also been called islamophobic.41

To Western Politicians

Politicians who want to do the right thing are also in a tough spot:

• Right-wing politicians conflate Islam with Islamism to stoke hatred and call for the expulsion of all Muslims and immigrants

• Left-wing politicians call any reaction to Islamism “islamophobia” and use racism to incite conflict with the right

• Emotions garner votes, so moderate parties bleed voters on both sides

• It’s not always easy to tell what should be acceptable and what shouldn’t.

But I believe the vast majority of people are reasonable. They want Islam and don’t want Islamism. So here’s what politicians should consider:

• Is an action consistent with a personal belief? Then it’s OK.

• Is it consistent with Islamism (or any other politically extremist view that tries to undermine universal human rights)? Then it should be fought.

This has ramifications for many policies to fight both islamophobia and Islamism, such as policing, free speech, and immigration. We’ll cover these and more in the next article.

Subscribe now

Takeaways

• Islam is personal and persuasive. Islamism is communal and coercive.

• If you’re in favor of human rights, you’re in favor of freedom of religion, and you’re in favor of Islam.

• If you’re in favor of Islamism, you are supporting a political movement that is trying to eliminate other religious beliefs and individual freedoms. You’re against human rights.

So it’s crucial that we differentiate between Islam and Islamism. If you want to do that, you can ask questions like:

• Should civil law always be above Sharia law?

• Are women equal to men?

• Is homosexuality acceptable?

• Should people be allowed to have dogs?

• Should it be legal to eat pork?

• Should it be legal to leave the Muslim faith?

• Should it be legal to burn the Quran and draw the Prophet Muhammad?

A moderate Muslim would answer yes to each.
A conservative Muslim might say: “I disagree with these personally, but I respect the rights of others to do and think these things.”
An Islamist would say no to some or all of them.

This will highlight the bright line between Islam and Islamism, drawn by universal human rights.

Share

How Can Europe Improve Its Immigration

2026-06-03 03:52:34

This is the 6^th and penultimate article in the series of immigration in the Western world. We’ve seen that:

• Europe needs immigrants, and they can be well managed.

• However, today, immigrants to Europe commit more crime and terrorism, can undermine social cohesion, work less, and consume more welfare than natives.

• Muslim immigrants tend to be overrepresented in these stats. To understand better why, we looked at the beliefs of Muslims in their native countries and in the West.

• We also pondered how we should think about immigration: Who to welcome or reject, and how to best manage them.

So today, we’re going to apply all this to suggest the best policies Europe can adopt to improve its immigration.

If you take immigration as a system, you need to:

1. Get the best people in

2. Reject the worst ones

3. Make the most of the ones you got in

1. Get the Best Immigrants In

Virtually every study I’ve read shows the same thing: Immigrants who come to work tend to be beneficial, and the high-skilled ones are the best, so that’s what Europe should aim for.

a. Have Targets

France now says it has reached its limit of immigrants, but how many is that? And why?

This is the most basic thing. Countries should know quite precisely how many immigrants they need. That number should be published, and success should be tracked against it.

Immigrant countries like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand do it, but most others don’t. They have caps for certain visas, or expected arrivals, but no goals to aim for.

b. Hire As Many High-Skilled Workers As Possible

Counterintuitively, if there’s one group that doesn’t need targets, it’s high-skilled workers.

They are nearly always positive net contributors. They commit less crime, work more, make more money, spend more, pay more taxes, increase innovation, and create more jobs. And this is all independent from background nationality or religion.

The EU has already improved the bureaucracy to get this type of immigrant with the Blue Card, but only a tiny share of immigrants come through this process today.

One way to do that is to open many postgraduate degrees in European schools. Let foreigners pay for their advanced education and, once here, allow them to stay and contribute. Joining through a university is also beneficial, because they get a community, friends, and an institution vested in their success after school, all of which increase integration and income.

This can open a loophole though, where universities have an incentive to accept foreign students with dubious credentials, as a way to bypass immigration barriers, so the government should vet these credentials. Foreign students who don’t have valid ones should follow a process of validation / remedial work / cultural acclimation / denial.

Another thing they can do is piggyback on other countries’ vetting systems. Canada did this for a short period, accepting high-skilled US immigrant workers. We should see more of it.

Another thing Canada does well is its point system, which allows it to evaluate the potential contribution of immigrants. It apparently succeeds at selecting immigrants well (even though the country doesn’t always succeed at making them productive).

Personally, I’d also target India and China specifically: Together, their populations account for 35% of the world’s population. If you can get the best and brightest from there, even if they’re just 1% of the population, you’d get a flood of high-skilled workers.

c. Sponsorships

But it’s not just high-skilled workers. All immigrants with work visas tend to make more money than any other type.

So of course, European countries should prioritize work visas. That’s what happens in countries like Saudi Arabia or the UAE: Immigrants go there to work. No asylum, no family reunification. When I was there, I spoke with many Pakistanis who were happily working there while their wives and children were in Pakistan.

To avoid unemployment, workers need a local sponsor. If they lose employment, they need to find another one. So this is also another way to reunify a family: Get a job sponsor for the wife.

It’s not just Muslim countries. Switzerland does the same:

In Switzerland, even EU members need either a job or to prove that they can sustain themselves in order to live in Switzerland. Non-EFTA workers need to prove they would be economically beneficial to Switzerland to be accepted. They are generally all high-skilled; there are virtually no low-skilled non-EU worker visas.

When I was an immigrant in the US, I was sponsored by a company. When I lost my job, I had a limited number of months to find another job before leaving. That makes sense to me.

d. Prioritize Workers vs Other Visas

You’d think “making sure most immigrants come to work” is obvious but look at Belgium.

In 2022, less than 10% of Belgian visas were for work!
Of those, only 2 percentage points were for high-skilled work or research! Madness!

So where do the rest go? 15% are for study, which is OK. But a whopping 52% are for family! This is nonsensical. For every work residence permit, there are five family permits! That should be dramatically curtailed.

Does this mean family reunification should be impossible? Absolutely not! The worker should just be able to prove that his income can support the family’s housing, education, health coverage, and the like without requiring welfare. If a worker can’t support his wife, the wife should only come if she can work. We’ll talk more about this later.

The red section in the circle above shows that about 24% of all permits are humanitarian—the most costly, least value-add types of immigrants.1 I think it’s honorable to have a few refugees, but a quarter of all immigrants is completely untenable. According to a Dutch study, they each cost ~€500k in their lifetime!

It’s reasonable to welcome some refugees, but the amount should be capped (remember those annual immigration goals?) 25% of a high amount of immigrants sounds unsustainable to me.

Belgium is an outlier, but it’s not the only one. Here is the data for the EU:

The degree of suffering should be better considered. For example, I’d expect asylum seekers from Afghanistan to the UK be mostly women and girls, yet:

You could argue that Europe accepts asylum seekers because it’s the responsibility of rich people to support poorer people, and that makes sense to me. But I respect that this is my opinion and not everybody should share it. Why should that be a public endeavor for a private choice? How are Afghan male refugees the responsibility of the state of Belgium?

The concept of the sponsor visa could be extended here: Those who want to increase the number of asylum seekers should be able to pay NGOs or companies to sponsor them (or do it themselves). They would be in charge of their costs, work, and integration. If these organizations fail frequently at these goals, they should lose pay for the costs of their failures and lose their licenses.2

Pushing this to the private sector would have several additional benefits. One is that private organizations tend to be better at achieving clear cost-benefit goals than public systems. Another is that they’re better at finding original solutions for problems. For example, it can be much better for the origin country and for the destination country to take a small part of that money and use it for development in the origin country. This can create many more jobs, enrich the origin country, and reduce welfare costs, social cohesion costs, and crime in the host country.

e. Prioritize by Age

In a perfect world, the immigration service would assess every immigrant individually, as Canada does with its point system. But some countries don’t have these systems yet. So what can they do? In the interim, the next best way to select immigrants is based on what a destination country knows about them, like age.

A person near retirement age will consume much more in welfare than they will produce in taxes, so these people should not get permits as easily as their younger counterparts. If they do, they should not retire following the same retirement rules as natives, but much later (in the spirit of the welfare section we will discuss later).

2. Reject Counterproductive Immigration

This is the other side of the same coin: Defining which ones you accept means defining which ones you deny. More in detail:

f. Fraud

Selecting by age is one of the ways immigrants get an incentive to lie on applications. Look at the bump at ages below 18 in the graph we just saw:

It’s very unlikely that there are two peaks (“modes”). It’s much more likely that these are 18-25 year olds passing as younger to get special benefits.

Other ways in which immigrants have gamed the system have been by claiming statelessness, destroying their papers, forging others…

Gaming the system through lies on applications should be immediate grounds for visa or residence permit denial.

g. Prioritize by Country

Besides age, the other obvious way to prioritize is by country. As we’ve seen, the most expensive, least productive, and more crime-prone regions tend to be MENAPT, so a reasonable destination country policy would be to install a points system, and until then, deprioritize immigrants from this type of country.

Notice I didn’t say Muslim countries though. Somalians, Afghanis, Palestinians, and Algerians tend to be at the top of the lists for crime and welfare spending, so European countries should be cautious of their allocations to such origin countries.

This is for Afghanistan:

Here’s data for the economics:

But Malays and Indonesians have very low crime rates; Colombians tend to have high ones. Some African countries are more prone to crime and less prone to work than others. This should not be based on random lists of countries, but rather on some objective assessment of the immigrant’s potential based on the available information (in this case country of origin). If other data points are available, they should be taken into consideration too.

h. Stop Dangerous Boat Trafficking

As mentioned, any country should have targets for immigrants (and maybe get as many high-skilled immigrants as possible!), and then people should use legal channels to tap into these quotas. Bypassing them is against the law, which means it’s against the will of the people, and they hate it.

And in Europe, the main path of illegal immigration is by boat: 150,000 people in 2025, ~80% of the total. This is also very dangerous for the immigrants, so it shouldn’t be incentivized.

Fortunately, we know how to stop it:

Read more

Why Europe Shouldn’t Close Its Doors to Immigration

2026-05-31 23:00:12

The last article caused quite a stir: Immigrants in Europe cause an inordinate amount of crime, drain state resources through welfare, and work less than natives. The problem is especially acute for immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa (all the way to Turkey and Pakistan), and from Muslim countries.

Some readers accused me of being right-wing for bringing this data to light. I understand why: They think bringing attention to problems caused by immigrants will lead to anti-immigration feelings and islamophobia. They think if the problem is denied, people won’t worry.

This reaction worries me. First, I don’t think bringing data to light should ever be a problem. I am concerned about the consistent move I am seeing that the truth can be bad. Decades ago, it seemed more true on the right. Now, it seems common on the left. The truth can never be bad. The truth just is. We need to know how the world truly is in order to improve it.

More importantly, I think this is precisely why the right is winning in Europe! Remember:

The more the left tries to deny that a problem exists with immigration, the less it can address it, the angrier the average voter gets, and the more they move to the right.1

And I actually don’t think the right’s position is good, either. Aside from positions I strongly disagree with on some topics (eg, pro-Russia and anti-Ukraine, anti EU…), many right-wing parties want to completely reverse immigration, and I think that’s bad, as we’ll see.

So since in the previous article I already outlined the serious problem with immigration in Europe, today I’ll explain why I don’t think we should conclude that the solution is a complete reversal of immigration in Europe, for five reasons:

1. Europe needs immigrants

2. The standard fiscal accounting of immigrants is flawed

3. Many countries make immigration work

4. The long-term perspective of immigration is more positive than the short term

5. The causes of economic and criminal contributions are much more complex than people realize

1. Europe Needs Immigrants

This is the population pyramid in the EU:

The massive generation of Baby Boomers is now at the age when it will dwindle fast. Given the low birth rates in Europe, these are the population projections with and without immigration.

Europe has two options:

1. Accept immigrants to plug the hole, and manage their arrival. This is what it has been doing.

2. Not accept immigrants and dramatically shrink the working population.

This sounds good in theory, but reality is pretty dire. The consequence? Lose all their services: healthcare, education, coffee shops, supermarkets, construction… When you eliminate millions of working immigrants, women (in general, but men too) either have fewer children or must stay at home more. Food is more expensive, because there are fewer low-wage workers willing to do the hard work needed to produce it. When you need an electrician or a plumber, you can’t find one. You spend days, or weeks, or months with a broken elevator, or without water, or electricity, because there just aren’t enough people. Prices go through the roof. Everything grinds to a halt.

Immigration is extremely economically beneficial for the following reasons:

• Complementarity: immigrants do tasks natives are less likely to do, making natives more productive.

• Task specialization: natives move into more complex roles, making more money.

• Immigrants’ lower salaries and the additional supply of low-cost labor lowers prices: cleaning, care, food preparation, household services, construction, agriculture… All become more affordable.

• Native labor-supply release: cheaper household services allow high-skilled natives, especially women, to work more (and make more money).

• Investment: larger markets allow more specialization and business investment.

• Innovation and entrepreneurship: high-skilled immigrants raise patenting, R&D, firm creation, and total factor productivity.

All of that is a bit abstract, though. Let’s take a concrete example from the previous (premium) article. A Tunisian woman arrives in France at age 30 and works for 35 years taking care of native families’ children and household chores (let’s imagine she helps four families consecutively).

In these four families, the woman can return to work a decade earlier than she would have otherwise. This allows the family to make much more money. The couple also has more time to go out together, strengthening the marriage, and they can go on more family holidays thanks to the additional money and time they have.

Meanwhile, the woman is highly skilled, so the company that hires her is more innovative and productive.

2. The Fiscal Benefits Are Higher

I showed how the fiscal costs of many immigrants in Europe are quite high. That really depends on how they’re calculated, though.

For example, Portugal claims that its immigrants are net positive contributors, but their accounting misses things like the long-term costs of pensions, or most welfare costs, which is not part of social security (eg, healthcare and education).

Meanwhile, the Netherlands, Finland, and Denmark have seen a high fiscal cost of their immigrants, accounting for the elements above. What they don’t do, however, is consider the indirect economic benefits.

Let’s go back to our Tunisian immigrant. From the previous article:

She gets $6,000 in welfare a year. But during that time, the couple can make €30,000 more per year than they would have made without a housemaid. Of these €30k, let’s say €13,000 go to taxes, €2,000 to savings, and the rest (€15k) pays for the immigrant’s salary, who then pays €4,000 in taxes. The natives’ companies produce €20,000 more per year too, of which they pay €2,000 in taxes. So what’s the balance?

• Fiscally: The state gets €4k in taxes from the woman but pays €6k in welfare. It looks like this woman costs €2k per year to the state!

• But that’s not accurate, because the country also gets €13k from the natives, plus €2k from their companies’ increased productivity, for a total €15k positive contribution!

• And that’s just the taxes. The country produces €2k more from the family, €11k from the immigrant, and €19k from the company, who then can spend them on other goods and services

  • This accelerates the economy or increases savings (which means indirectly more investment in companies that can then grow faster).

So what looks like a fiscally negative immigrant can actually be positive when properly accounted for.

Does it mean that every immigrant is fiscally positive? Absolutely not. But it does show how they contribute much more than meets the eye.

3. Immigration Can Be More Productive than It Is in Europe

We’ve seen that the US doesn’t have the same problems with its immigration as Europe, including the Muslim group. It’s not the only example. Immigration in Switzerland works in general quite well economically (although seems to suffer equally from crime).2

But there’s an even better example, which we looked at in a previous premium article. Which countries are receiving the most Muslim immigrants?

Saudi Arabia and the UAE. In both, immigrants are economically productive, and crime rates in these countries have remained stable even as massive numbers of foreigners have immigrated there. This shows that highly valuable Muslim immigration is possible. You just need to know where to look, and learn from their best practices.

4. The Long Term Perspective of Immigration

Few countries have as much of a history of immigration as the US. For decades, Americans worried about Italian and Irish immigration. And they had reason to! Their economic contribution was much lower than that of the average American, and their crime much higher. The second generation was also quite enmeshed in the networks and ghettos of their forebears. But the third generation was less segregated. And the fourth. And now, the past racism between English/Germans against Italians/Irish has mostly disappeared, and their differences are more anecdotal than fundamental.

Of course, this is not what the data is suggesting in some EU countries, where 2^nd generation immigrants are worse than 1^st generation ones across some dimensions. But it moderates our conclusions: We should expect that, over the long term, immigrants integrate much better than the short-term suggests, and if they don’t, the most likely culprit is the policies of the recipient country.

5. Immigrant Crime and Economic Performance Is Complex

I don’t think anybody questions that immigrants cause more crime and contribute less to the economy than natives in Europe. However, they do question why.

• On the right, people might say: Immigrants bring crime and don’t work because they come from very low human capital countries3 and because they live off of other people’s taxes.

• On the left, they might say: Immigrants commit more crime and work less because of their age, sex, education, exposure to conflict, institutional racism, and lack of work permits.

The thing is, they are both right. All these drive immigrant crime up and their economic contribution down:

• Immigrants are young, and young people commit more crimes

• Immigrants to Europe skew male, and males commit more crime

• Immigrants who can’t work tend to commit more crime

• Immigrants from regions where there’s a lot of crime or conflict tend to commit more crime

• Low education immigrants produce less

• It can’t be a coincidence that MENAPT countries are all the most crime-prone and economically expensive, and share the same religion—Islam

  • However, Indonesia and Malaysia are Muslim countries and immigrants from there are among the least likely to commit crime. Therefore, it can’t just be the religion.

• Welfare policies are one of the biggest contributors to crime and economic contribution. For example, a policy that prevents work for years will reduce the economic contribution and increase crime. A policy that increases welfare will be much more expensive and attract less work-focused immigrants. So it’s not just the immigrants, but more importantly the laws Europe approves to manage them.

Unfortunately, as far as I know, nobody has really quantified how much each of these factors contributes to the problem. Maybe because it might be near impossible: These factors interact in quite complex ways. One low-performing immigrant in Belgium might have never entered Switzerland for example; if they ended up in Saudi Arabia, they wouldn’t commit a crime that they might commit in Belgium; and if they did commit a crime, they might end up in prison or extradited in a way that would not be true in Belgium.

Takeaways

So Europe needs immigrants, their fiscal contribution is not as bad as it appears, immigrants tend to get better across generations, other countries are much better than the EU at managing immigration, and the causes of the poor criminal and economic performance of immigrants are quite complex. All these together suggest that the solution to immigration in Europe shouldn’t simply be: Let’s close our doors. Much better policy should allow it to receive the right amount of immigrants, make them productive, and prevent the more problematic ones from causing harm. That’s what we’ll discuss in the next article.

The Criminal, Social, and Economic Cost of Immigrants in the EU

2026-05-26 20:03:01

There’s been a huge backlash against immigration in the West recently. In the UK, anti-immigration protests have taken place:

The UK Prime Minister is actively trying to display an image of toughness against immigration—and failing:

Across Europe, people support policies to stop and revert immigration.

The Danish socialist prime minister implemented a zero asylum policy and is toughening deportation laws. A Dutch party in the ruling coalition is pushing for sweeping anti-immigrant rules. But most governments are not acting as fast as public opinion is asking, so right-wing parties around Europe are gaining traction and are becoming front-runners

But the EU has had plenty of immigration for decades, since Schengen opened border movement, and despite some initial fear, it turned out quite well. What happened? A lot of the immigration came from within the EU, but now the vast majority is from outside. Of them, the biggest group is Muslims, at 40%.1 This is causing friction:

• Austria has banned headscarves for girls below 14.

• German Chancellor Merz vowed to expel 80% of the 1M Syrians currently living in Germany within three years.

• Even in the US, which doesn’t receive a particularly high amount of Muslim immigrants, President Trump called Somalian immigrants garbage and signed an expanded travel ban, applicable to many from the Middle East and Africa.

When you read the media, social media, and talk on the street, the main complaints you hear are the social and economic costs: Immigrants cause more crime and more terrorism, they destroy social cohesion, work less, and consume much more welfare. Are these claims true? For which immigrants?

Share

1. The Social Costs

As we discussed in the previous article, the social costs of immigration can be crime, terrorism, native flight, and the loss of social cohesion, so let’s look at each.

Crime

The most typical complaint I see people make is this:

Indeed, while the EU population increased by less than 2% between 2014 and 2024, sexual assaults increased by 72%, rapes by 150%, sexual exploitation by 89%, attempted intentional homicides by 47%, and serious assaults by 45%. Violent crime has decreased, though: robberies by 33%, burglaries 15%, and theft by 22%.

So what’s going on?

This chart combines data for five European countries: Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, and Italy.

Clearly, immigrants from Muslim countries are overrepresented across most of these host countries. Let’s look at each one in turn.

Germany

These crime statistics were just released for Germany in 2025. This is how much more likely foreigners are to commit crime vs locals:

Algerians in Germany are 26x more prone to crime than the average German. 13 other Muslim-majority nationalities are at least 5x more criminal than the average German. Only one non-Muslim majority meets that requirement (Georgia).

If you break the numbers down by pickpocketing, sex crimes, murder, and overall crime rate, this is what you get:

As you can see, green (Muslim) is at the top of all the rankings, with special mention for the winner, Algeria, with the brutal record of one crime for every three Algerians every year. Algerians are ~1500x times more likely to be a pickpocket than Germans, to murder at 35x the rate of Germans, to commit 23x more crime overall, and are 8x more likely to commit sex crimes.

Your first reaction might be: Yeah but that’s not because they’re Muslim; it’s because they’re poor. That’s a good thought to have:

Indeed immigrants from poor countries tend to commit more crime, but there’s plenty of confounders: human capital, culture, education, age, sex, labor-market access… Some poor countries don’t commit any crime (eg Madagascar), and other countries with the same GDP per capita commit dramatically more crime (eg, Central African Republic).

So is it more the money, or the human capital from the country? A recent Finnish study gave some random families $600/month for a couple of years and measured the impact on crime. It was 0%. This paper showed that the link between inequality and crime is basically zero. More inequality doesn’t mean more crime.

The trendlines on the graph suggest that immigrants from Muslim countries commit on average +50% crime vs those of other countries, but that might be because of more conflict in the origin countries (eg, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia), more asylum seekers vs economic workers, the fact that a majority of them are men… Conversely, Indonesian and Malay immigrants tend to be Muslim too, but their crime rate is extremely low.

So both income and religion probably are part of the picture, but they’re definitely not the entire picture.

Denmark

Here, they corrected for age and sex of the immigrants.:

As you can see, this does reduce the crime rate of immigrants vs the baseline, but doesn’t change the overall picture. This tells you that receiving young male immigrants, especially from crime-prone countries, is a way to dramatically increase the crime rate.

This Danish report showed that a few hundred Palestinians were accepted into Denmark in 1992 under a special law. Of them, about 64% had criminal records: 21% ended up in prison, and 43% got at least one large fine.2 About 59% were on welfare. Of their children, 34% have been convicted of a crime, 13% received a prison sentence.

Here’s a breakdown per type of crime:

The Danish Parliament looked at the share of men born in 1987 who had been penally convicted of a crime by the time they were 30, and this is what it found:

Sweden

Sweden doesn’t have much data, but I was able to find some from the official Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention.

Spain

Spain is interesting because, unlike most other European countries, it attracts a much more diverse mix of immigrants.

However, in Spain, four of the top five most crime-prone countries of origin are Muslim.3

Finland

Here’s what I found for Finland.

Italy

And for Italy:

Norway

In Norway:

UK

The UK doesn’t have much information, but a freedom of information request to the London Metropolitan Police delivered this data:

Another Freedom of Information request to English and Welsh police provided this data:

Netherlands

The Netherlands publishes crime data but not per country. There, non-EU immigrants are 4.5x more crime-prone than the Dutch:4 They are 15% of the population but commit ~40% of the crime.

Note that this problem does not seem to exist in the US. There, the share of Muslims is quite small, and most criminals are American (more likely to be criminal than the average immigrant). As you can see, wherever we look in Europe, there’s an overrepresentation of Muslim countries at the top of the crime lists. Controlling for age, sex, and income reduces this effect, but it remains strong. Immigrants in general commit much more crime than locals. Within immigrants, non-EU immigrants are much more crime prone. Within those, Muslim immigrants cause the most crime.

Terrorism

Terrorism data is harder to get because there’s less of it. But we do have some. Around the world, about 75% of terrorism deaths are caused by Islamism.

Here are terrorists in the US for the last 30 years, by type of terrorism.

Here are security threat prosecutions in Germany in 2025.

In the UK, Islamism accounts for 67% of attacks since 2018, 75% of terrorism investigation cases, and 90% of convictions.

So I think we can all agree that the biggest threat in worldwide and European terrorism is Islamism, and it’s so stark that the 2^nd most significant threat doesn’t even matter.

Social Cohesion

Several papers have found that ethnic diversity reduces neighborhood trust and social capital, including this meta-analysis, although the linchpin might not be diversity alone, but also segregation: If a certain ethnicity is concentrated in a small area, neighborhood trust and social capital will shrink.

Looking specifically at Muslims, this paper found that 2^nd generation Muslim immigrants had lower trust than their non-Muslim counterparts, and that this was due to cultural transmission rather than discrimination or exclusion.

This graph looked not at the crime, but the feeling of safety in different communes in Denmark. It then compared it to the share of people of MENAPT (Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan, Turkey) origin.

There’s a real cost in social cohesion that is paid by immigration, whether that is due to Muslim immigration or that of others. In Europe, however, it’s more acute with Muslims.

Alright, let’s move to economics.

2. The Economics

Employment

Some Anglosphere countries manage to get immigrants to work more than natives, but that’s not the norm. In most countries, their unemployment is higher—in Sweden, foreign unemployment is an astonishing 2.5x the native level!

This immigration has many different origins, but when we zoom in to Muslims, the data holds (here, employment rate rather than unemployment rate).

One reason for these differences is regulatory. The US makes it easy for foreigners to start working immediately—they even penalize them if they don’t. Others make it very hard, and might even support not working by giving welfare—in some cases, at higher levels than to locals. This is important in the short term, but also the very long term, because the first months after arrival are crucial. If you establish yourself in a system where you have to work and you must meet and socialize with locals to do so, you’re more likely to be integrated and continue working. But if you can’t work, you’ll stay more with family and other compatriots, and you’ll get used to a lifestyle where you don’t have to work.

Another reason might be education. US Muslims are more educated than the average American.

In part, this is because the US attracts high-education Muslim immigrants.

So that’s the destination effect. But the origin effect also matters.

We see similar data whenever we zoom in to specific countries.

Norway

We can see a breakdown of the problem from some data from Spain.

Spain

In Spain, where the vast majority of African immigrants are Muslim, their employment rate is substantially lower than that of locals or Latin American immigrants.

This is driven basically by the fact that Muslim women generally stay at home

This is the activity rate, which counts those with a job or looking for one. What if we look at actual work rates?

The type of work also matters. The education rate of MENA (Middle East and North Africa) immigrants in Spain is substantially lower than that of locals or other immigrants.

UK

In the UK, Muslims are 2.2x less employed than the average of the population.

And unemployed actually hides the true impact, because many who don’t work don’t appear in these statistics, if they’re not actively looking for a job.

Muslims also tend to have lower-paying jobs:

Among other reasons, because they have less education:

We see the same impact of lower female participation:

And this data shows this is not an effect of age. In the UK, Arabs and Pakistanis are substantially less employed than any other ethnicity, and the gap for women is astonishing.

Germany

Germany is interesting because the data is slightly different. We again see female Muslims with a very low employment rate. But men are slightly more likely to work than immigrants of other nationalities.

On balance, it looks like the two big contributors to lower work participation rate are immigration and, within that, Islam.

France

In France, the unemployment rate of African immigrants is more than twice that of locals, and it gets worse in the 2^nd generation.

The shares of social housing (so, welfare) remain extremely high for the children of immigrants, and poverty rates remain quite high, too.

US

In the US, Muslim immigrants are more educated than the average American. However, they tend to be somewhat underemployed compared to Americans. The difference is not massive though.

OK so what we’re seeing for Muslim immigrants is that those in Europe tend to have lower education than natives, and they also work less. About 50-70% of the men of working age work, and the number for women is usually about half of that. For the US, I don’t have more granular data, but it doesn’t look like these hold.5

Now, let’s look at state contributions: net costs vs benefits in terms of taxes contributed vs spent.

Fiscal Cost-Benefit

Denmark

Denmark has some of the best data on this topic, so let’s look at it. I shared this before:

Because of this, every year Denmark spends 1.3% of its GDP in supporting MENAPT immigrants—about half the public budget spent on education. This is just to support these immigrants fiscally. This graph from The Economist shows the breakdown per age, compared to other types of Danish people:

At no age do MENAPT immigrants contribute positively to the state. If you break that down per country of origin:

MENAPT are not the only immigrants to cost the state, but they cost the most. Every Somalian6 costs $27k per year!

Netherlands

This is the most massive study I’ve seen for any country on earth on the fiscal impact of immigrants. In it, the Netherlands shows fiscal contribution per country of origin (like in Denmark), but over their lifetime instead of per year, and for 1st and 2nd generation immigrants. Here it is, shown on a map of the world:

And here’s a detail per country/small region:

An average native-born Dutch family pays five thousand euros in taxes per year that end up being spent on immigrants.

A surprising fact: For the 2^nd generation of immigrants, only those of Danish, Swedish, Finnish, and Chinese background were net positive. Every other origin drained state coffers rather than contributing to them.

Why? Here’s the share of benefit recipients vs the likelihood of them leaving within 10 years of arriving:

The most likely to ask for welfare support are the least likely to leave.

Finland

This is for Finland:

Here’s a breakdown per country:

Portugal

The data that we have for Denmark, Finland, and the Netherlands isn’t as readily available for other countries. Portugal has data per person per country, but only tax contributions, not welfare costs.

Here, we can’t see Muslims, because only 0.4% of the Portuguese population is Muslim. They don’t tend to immigrate to Portugal.

So if we summarize the economic side, Muslim immigrants to Europe, compared to locals, tend to:

• Work less

• Have lower levels of skill

• Consume much more welfare

Share

Takeaways: What Should the EU Do?

The takeaway so far is that in Europe, immigrants:

• Work less than the average native.

• After locals, the next most productive are EU citizens. The least productive tend to be Muslims

  • This is in a big part because of women not working, but not entirely.

• Immigrants are nearly always fiscally expensive.

  • Muslim immigrants cost in general more money to the state.

  • This cost isn’t erased at the 2^nd generation.

• Immigrants commit substantially more crime than any other group.

  • Across destination countries, Muslims commit the most crime.

• Islamists are behind most of the terrorism.

• Immigration reduces local trust and social capital, probably more due to segregation than other factors, but also because of cultural transmission.

  • Again, it seems like this is more true of Muslim immigrants than others.

Does that mean that massive waves of deportations should take place in Europe? No:

1. Europe needs immigrants.

2. Many countries are quite good at taking in immigrants.

3. Many immigrants take several generations to converge to local performance.

4. The numbers above are not complete. They’re missing some other factors.

5. A large part of the problem is caused not by the immigrants, but by European legislation.

6. Not all immigrants are the same. They should be treated differently.

These are the things we’re going to look at in the next article.

Subscribe now

What Immigrants Should the West Accept?

2026-05-20 20:02:00

There’s a backlash on immigration across the US, Europe, and Japan right now. How did we get here? Why did politicians open the gates? Were they right?

1. The Fear

Maybe you’ve seen a graph like this one:

If we look at a few European countries individually, it looks like this:

When seeking a culprit, immigration springs to many people’s minds:

This leads to fears of replacement. And viral videos like this one appear, to make the stats feel more visceral and associate immigration with disease:

They think maybe the increase in sexual violence in Europe is due to immigrants. Then they stumble on data like this:

They conclude that immigrants drive a majority of crime in the West.

In parallel, they might come across data like this:

And see the two types of data from above—economics and sexual crime—combined into one:

I assume most people, when presented with these graphs, either become uncomfortable, or say: Let’s stop immigration immediately. And that’s one of the main reasons why right-wing parties are growing across Europe:

But that is flawed thinking:

Read more

What Do Muslim Immigrants Think in the West?

2026-05-14 20:49:22

I’ve written several premium articles in the last couple of weeks:

• Why Did Islam Spread So Fast in North Africa & Spain?

• The Ruthless Liquidity of Modern Love

• 50 Learnings from the War in Iran

The last one, from this Tuesday, is What Do Muslims Believe? It’s the first in the current series, and is about Muslim beliefs in Muslim countries.

Subscribe now

Today, we focus on the beliefs of Muslims when they move to the West. This is becoming crucially important, as Muslim immigration is one of the strongest factors in European voting today. So I looked at over a dozen surveys across six countries (US, UK, France, Denmark, Germany, Austria) and condensed the insights into dozens of the most relevant charts.1

1. Muslims in the US

The best data I could find for this group is this Pew Research survey from 2017. What can we tell about their religiosity, morals, appreciation for democracy, feelings of belonging, and concerns about extremism?

Religiosity

Muslims in the US are slightly more religious than Christians.

This religiosity can be seen in the share of Muslims who pray every day (65%) and visit the Mosque once a week (47%). What does religiosity mean for Muslims? A key aspect is how to interpret the Quran.

These things are connected. Muhammad claimed that the Angel Gabriel dictated to him the Quran, and was the literal word of God. This is why so many Muslims believe it, and why about a third think there’s only one way to interpret Islam and it shouldn’t be reinterpreted.

This is problematic because all ancient religious texts have some pretty illiberal positions, and that includes the Quran:

• Fight those who do not believe in Allah (9:29)

• Disbelievers are the worst creatures (98:6)

• Do not take the Jews and Christians as allies (5:51)

• Men have the authority in the marriage and can strike women (4:34)

• Adultery and fornication deserve 100 lashes (24:2)

• Slavery is permitted (90:13 and 2:177 assume slavery exist)

• Sex with slaves and captives is permitted (4:24, 23:5-6, 70:29-30)

• Fighting is prescribed in certain cases, even if disliked (2:216)

• Muslims should fight until religion is entirely for Allah (8:39)

Again, this is not exclusive to Islam: 20% of US Christians also believe the Bible is the literal word of God, and that includes the Old Testament, with some nice pearls such as the punishment for homosexuality or adultery should be death. So the difference is not in nature, but in degree: The more literal and radical interpretations of old books is just more common among Muslims than in Christians in the US. And maybe this difference comes from the fact that Muslims have been in the US less than Christians on average?

Another important aspect of this is that non-Muslims miss a key point about the interpretability of the Quran. For example, although the Quran says men can strike women, what does strike mean? This requires interpretation. Some Muslims think it means a beating that leaves no marks. Others think it should not be violent or severe, like a flicker of a finger for example. Others think it should just be symbolic.

So although these data points suggest Muslims are more conservative and pious than the average American, they don’t directly imply that their morality is starkly different. For that, we need to look into morality data.

Morality

Muslims track with the rest of society in the evolution of attitudes towards homosexuality:

I’m sure that if we had the data for Christians, we’d see something similar. What I think is most telling here is how the acceptance of homosexuals among Muslims almost doubled in just 10 years. We can probably assume it’s even higher now.

Religion vs Democracy

A full third of US Muslims believe Islam is incompatible with democracy!

This is similar to the numbers in Muslim countries. When we looked at these numbers across the Muslim world, we saw that this went hand in hand with authoritarianism and a desire to have religion supersede the state.

However, again, this data point is not enough. For example, we could imagine here that the majority of Muslims think democracy and Islam are compatible, and that the more moderate Muslims fear that it’s not, because they fear the more radical interpretations of Islam (which they don’t share), are incompatible with democracy. That’s exactly why we see 44% of the general public thinking Islam and democracy are incompatible. So we need to go deeper.

Belonging

In the US, Muslims are proud to be American, they’re pretty happy, and they think the system works for them.

Concerns about Extremism

US Muslims are more concerned than the average American about extremism in the name of Islam:

Even as they believe support for extremists within Islam is low:

Muslims in the US think targeting civilians for political purposes is never justified (much less than the average American!).

In other words, US Muslims are mostly moderate, most don’t support extremism, but they realize some Muslims do, and that worries the moderates.

In summary, the picture in the US is encouraging. Although Muslims seem to be pious, their beliefs seem reasonably well integrated with those of the broader public. They believe in democracy and don’t believe in extremism. But a sizable minority believes Islam should be interpreted traditionally and that it has a natural conflict with democracy, while Muslims suspect there’s a sizable share of extremists among them, and that worries them.

Alas, the picture in Europe is not as good.

2. Muslims in Europe

Across Europe, most Muslims identify either only with the host country or with both the host and the origin countries.

Muslims are more religious than the rest of the population.

A survey across six European countries2 on immigrant integration produced several interesting papers. This one looked at how religiosity was connected to out-group hostility. Muslim immigrants and their children were substantially more fundamentalist than their Christian counterparts.

Now, religious fundamentalism is not a problem by itself. Everybody can choose their own way of life. It’s only problematic if it has consequences for others, and unfortunately here there are, as Muslim fundamentalism includes respecting religious laws before secular ones, among other things. So what are Muslims’ attitudes on homosexuality, Judaism, and the conflict between the West and Islam?

I found the next graph quite interesting.

Fundamentalist Christians were as hostile to Jews and homosexuals as non-religious Muslims!3 This means that, in Europe, the hostility towards non-Muslim groups is not just a result of religiousness and piety.

UK

People tend to blur the immigrants of all European countries, but the immigrant populations don’t typically have the same origin:

• Spain has mostly Moroccans

• France has Moroccans, Algerians, and Tunisians

• In Germany, Turks and Syrians prevail

• In the UK, 80% of Muslims are South Asians (54% Pakistani, 18% Bangladeshi, 9% Indian)

This means that survey results will differ.

This UK survey from 20164 showed that over 90% of Muslims felt they belonged to Britain either very (55%) or fairly (38%) strongly. However, when asked in this more recent survey (2025) whether they feel more Muslim than British, a majority said Muslim.

What do Muslims think about the compatibility of Western values and Islam? Channel 4 commissioned a survey of 1000 British Muslims in 2016 (comparing them to non-Muslims).5 It found that 66% of Muslims thought Islam and Western democracy were compatible, but 22% of Muslims didn’t think so.

A bigger share of Muslims thought Islamic values are not compatible with British values (the previous graph was for democracy).

38% of British Muslims would support introducing some elements of Sharia law.

This is broadly aligned with the findings of the other survey I mentioned above, where 42% support the introduction of some aspects of Sharia law in the UK.

As we said, Sharia means a lot of things. One is finance:

Another is education:

I have mixed feelings about this one. I think Muslims should be able to teach their children about Islam, and although I personally dislike gender-segregated education, I understand why they might prefer it (like some Christians have gender-segregated schools, too). Some Western schools have gendered dress codes—including differences for boys and girls, even in non-religious schools—so I don’t mind that Muslims would like this for their children.

I am more concerned about these:

These are not about a community that has its own customs and traditions, but about imposing their values on everyone else.

By far the most worrisome to me here is the illegality of publishing a picture of Prophet Muhammad. I get that this is anathema to Muslims (as is Satanism worship for Christians), but maybe the single most important value of the West is the freedom of speech, which by definition means you should be OK with others saying things you disagree with. Especially things you dislike.

British Muslims Attitudes towards Violence

I think what matters most is the relationship to violence. 13% of Muslims think that Islam poses a threat to British national security.

And 23% think criticism of Islam is justified.

I find these data points interesting. The numbers are not so different from those of the general public, which I think means several things:

• Some Muslims see a threat, and think it should be addressed.

• Others prefer to see the bright side of Islam and don’t see a problem.

• Some might prefer to believe that Muslims are problematic, but that is justified, as a reaction from a racist UK. They don’t want to overblame Muslims for any conflict.

This is consistent with the British Muslim condemnation of violence, which is higher than for natives.

Nearly half of Muslims think we should do more to combat extremism.

A sizable share of Muslims think Muslims should be the ones to tackle their own radicalization.

The following data point is one of the most concerning: only 4% of British Muslims think Al Qaeda was behind the 9/11 attacks:

This reminds me of positions on Jews, Israel, and October 7^th 2023. According to this 2024 survey,6 Muslims are 2-3x more likely than the general public to think Jews have too much power in finance, media, foreign policy, pharma—across the UK and the US. Also:

Two recent surveys from 2026 have shown data that is also concerning.

All the authoritarian regimes opposed to Western values (China, Russia, Iran) are highly supported by British Muslims: between 44 and 64 points of difference from the general public!

What about beliefs?

This is where Muslims and the general British public differ the most:

To note, these positions tend to be shared by both men and women in Islam—except for what directly affects wives:

Overall, the picture of Muslims in the UK seems to be one where most think the West and Islam are perfectly compatible, because they mostly just want to live their lives. But a sizable share of British Muslims seem to want to impose some aspects of their customs on the rest of society. Some Muslims are radical: 10% to 25% of UK Muslims have quite radical views on violence and terrorism, and 30% to 60% want to impose some of their beliefs on the rest of society. Bleak. Many moderates agree Muslims should do more to fight them.

France

One of the most recent, in-depth surveys of Muslim attitudes in Western countries is the 2025 survey from the non-partisan7 IFOP. It found that Islam is growing in France, now comprising 7% of the population.

Source

Of all French Muslims, 80% feel religious (87% for young people), and 24% are very or extremely religious.

These numbers don’t change much based on origin, job, sex, and many other variables. Surprisingly, French Muslims whose father was also French (so most likely 3^rd generation) are more likely to be religious…

Over time, and as the share of Muslims grows, their religiosity increases:

• French-born Muslims are more likely to be very or extremely religious (23%) than Maghreb-born Muslims (21%).

• The young are 150% more likely to be very or extremely religious vs those over 50 years old.

• Over time French Muslims tend to pray more (100% more in the last 30 years), and go more frequently to the mosque (120%).

• The share of French Muslim women who wear the hijab has nearly tripled, from 16% in 2003 to 45% in 2025. 59% of them wear it because of pressure or risk of not wearing it.

• In 1998, only 19% of French Muslims thought religion was more right than science on the story of the creation of the world. Now, 65% think religion is right. For young Muslims, it’s 81%.

• In 1998, 48% of French Muslims wanted Islam to modernize. Now, only 21% do.

Now, as we said, religion by itself doesn’t tell us anything. People should be free to follow any religion they want, as long as it doesn’t impinge on others’ rights. So what does the survey say about that?

Each one of these are problematic:

• It’s fine for you and your community to follow Sharia, as long as it doesn’t supplant the law that applies to all. But a large share of French Muslims (including a majority of youngsters) would prefer the entire country to follow Sharia.

• Islamism is incompatible with the West, as it believes it’s superior and should supplant it. Over a third of French Muslims support it in some form or another. 24% support the Muslim Brotherhood. 8% support all Islamist positions!

• Freedom of religion is at the heart of the West, but 20% of Muslims disagree! As a reminder, in Islam, the punishment for apostasy is death.

• The equality of all people is another cornerstone of the West, but several French Muslim positions are incompatible with it, as over 10% of Muslims don’t want to shake hands with people from the other sex, or share swimming pools with them.

Denmark

This 2015 survey from the non-partisan Wilke company asked Danish Muslims what they thought about different topics:

This data again supports the idea that Muslims there are pretty conservative, but these beliefs don’t impinge on others’ rights. This should be acceptable.

As we’ve seen previously, most think Islam and democracy are compatible.

Again, we find that Muslims think the Quran should be interpreted pretty literally.

This is concerning: Not only do ¾ of Muslims think this, but that share grew since 2006. And they believe instructions should be followed so fully that 11% of Muslims think the Quran should be the foundation of all legislation in Denmark.

And the majority of Muslims don’t think Islam has to modernize.

The vast majority of Muslims want their children to eat halal food at school.

If that’s what you want for yourself, I think it’s fair. If you’re benefiting from the facilities, institutions, and habits of society, it might be too expensive to provide halal food everywhere, so Danish Muslims should not demand it, but they can certainly ask for it. And if there’s a big contingent of Muslims in a certain area and it’s easy to cater to both Muslims and non-Muslims, why not?

But also, let’s not assume this comes at no cost. Halal food reduces diversity, as it eliminates all pork and alcohol from food, including all its derivatives (lard, bacon, gelatin, marshmallows, cooking with alcohol, some desserts) and makes it more expensive.8

Now let’s dive into the radicalization side.

The vast majority of Danish Muslims don’t sympathize with them. 2-3% of them do, however (and 10% don’t respond…).

When asking a more nuanced question, the numbers change a bit.

So nearly 7% of Danish Muslims think drawing Muhammad merits death…

This is very concerning to me. It’s one thing to say you don’t support political violence in the abstract, but then 44% of Danish Muslims believe society is in part to blame for political violence. What exactly did society do wrong? Why doesn’t this happen with other cultures and religions? Is the thought behind this that: “You can draw Muhammad, but then don’t complain when you get shot”?9

This to me is the perfect illustration, because it shows how common this opinion is. On one side, I understand the Muslim position: There is racism in Western countries—like in all societies. And racism towards Muslim is especially prevalent in Europe. But that doesn’t justify violence, as many Muslims think. This attitude only breeds further racism. If a group wants to integrate, it must police itself, in thought and in actions. It must understand that they are entering a host country, and they need to make an effort to adjust to local norms.

Austria

An Austrian survey of young Muslims in Vienna in 201910 shows similar data, so I’ll just paste the relevant graphs here11 (note the comparison with the non-migrant background, which is Viennese youth with both parents born in Austria).

Another interesting fact: the more religious the person, the less they believe in democracy and individual rights, and the more they believe in prejudice and violence.

The capital city of Austria, Vienna, released a report just this week on this topic,12 and apparently it shares the same type of data as what we’ve already seen, so I won’t go into much more detail.

Germany

In Germany, the MOTRA-Monitor 2024/25 is a monster 600-page report on the state of the country, and the picture is one of radicalization in all directions. I asked Claude to translate it for me and extract the right data, which I checked with my less-than-perfect German.

Islamism is rampant in Germany.

How did they assess that? They looked at the answer to these eight questions and blended them:

So the silver lining is that more than half of German Muslims don’t think this way. This is so bleak, though. Nearly half of German Muslims think only Islam can solve the problems of our time. A quarter think the rules of the Quran matter more than German law, and that an Islamic theocracy is the best form of government…

This is not an artifact of men vs women,13 nor of education levels, nor age:14 women and educated (high school and above) German Muslims are nearly as Islamist or open to it as male or low-education Muslims. Young Muslims are over 4x more radical than older ones.15

Takeaways

From all this data, a picture emerges about Muslims in Western countries.

First, the US is different from Europe. American Muslims seem much better integrated, and hold less radical views, than their counterparts in Europe.

Second, Muslims in general like the countries they’re in, and appreciate democracy. They identify with their host countries, although their allegiance tends to be to Islam first.

It looks like 20-50% of Muslims are extremely well assimilated into their host countries and hold views quite similar to those of the average native.16 These people are so important! They’re the bridge between natives and more conservative or even radical immigrants, and we should support them.

A large majority of Muslim immigrants tend to be more religious, pious, and conservative than natives or moderate Muslims. This is neither good nor bad per se; I respect how people want to live, and I enjoy the diversity of lifestyles, although diversity of values brings challenges and costs in politics. I respect their common desire to pray, have a mosque to do it in, eat halal, wear traditional clothes, and provide a separate education to girls and boys. These are things many Christians or Jews desire for their children, too, so we should respect and welcome them.

I am less comfortable with the 20-50% who seem more fundamentalist, who think Islam should return to its roots, be interpreted literally, or that religious rules are more important than secular ones. These beliefs are incompatible with Western values and institutions. That’s 9 to 20 million Muslims in Europe, and these beliefs should be acively pushed back on.17

The intolerance is worse. I am even less comfortable with the fairly common position that homosexuality should be banned, that Jews have too much power and can’t be trusted, or that women should have fewer rights than men. 10-50% of Muslims wanting to make drawings of Muhammad illegal is an unacceptably high number, and 7-24% who think making these drawings or burning a sacred book justifies killing the person who did it is really bad.

20-50% Muslims are concerned about extremism. This is good news, and as we said, we need them to act on it.

Because extremism is real and way too common. Depending on their Western host country, you can find numbers like ~25% who think Islam is incompatible with Western values, ~15% who support full Sharia law, ~30% who support some Islamist positions and institutions, ~10%-25% who support Hamas or Jihad, and the support for terrorist organizations like ISIS or Al Qaeda ranges from 2% to 16%. If we assume this group is ~15% of European Muslims, that’s about 8M European Muslims.

Share

All of this comes with the other side of the coin, which is racism and Islamophobia. These feed into each other. But there are also other factors in place, such a asylum seekers vs economic migrants, policies for work and welfare, and much more. So what does all this mean? What actions should we take to address all of this? For that, we can’t just look at beliefs, because many times people say one thing and do another. Beliefs only inform us on what people are more likely to say and do, but not on what they actually do. We must look at actions, too: What is the net contribution of Muslim immigrants to Western society? How can we improve it? That’s where we’re going in the next article.

Subscribe now

This is an extraordinarily sensitive topic. It’s not easy to do it justice. I tried and am guaranteed to have failed—hopefully less than most writing on this topic. So please, share your thoughts and knowledge on the topic, but keep your comments constructive and civil.