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centuries. Since the early eighth century AD,
Muslim have been arrived the region through the
Arab conquest. Thereby, as time goes by, Muslim in
the Europe sometimes erratic numbers increased and
decreased. This is caused by the presence of Muslim
who returned to his homeland after living in the
Europe. (Schmidinger, Islam, Migration, and the
Muslim Communities in Europe: History, Legal
Framework, and Organizations, 2011)
The Increasing of Muslim in large numbers
occurred in the 1960s. Great migration from the
former colonies which most of them are Muslim
majority countries in North Africa. As a result of it,
Muslim that came into the Europe made the number
of Muslim in Europe increased rapidly. The arrival
of Muslim immigrants was due to the need for
workers or labour in European countries after the
warfare of World War II such as Germany, Britain,
and France. (Gallis, Archick, Miko, & Woehrel,
2005)
Muslim immigrants were initially set to
temporary, but due to the changes of the bilateral
agreements, these immigrants settled in the Europe
for decades. The presence of Muslim immigrants
made the Muslim populations in Europe has
increased almost beyond Europe natives.
Nonetheless, Muslim and local communities in
Europe remained peaceful co-existence. It was
harmony, even the Europeans are keen to embrace
Islam (Angenendt, et al., 2007).
Tolerance that showed by Muslim and the
Europeans did not going well along the way.
Sometimes there were some groups opposed Muslim
called as the far-right wing groups. Thus, German
took the lead to integrate them. This integration
effort was to overcome disputes. These efforts are
also made to ensure the lives of Muslim immigrants
to receive the same treatment as citizens. In fact
there was no such as major problem that happened
between Muslim and the Europeans at that time.
Entering the era of the 2000s in the aftermath of
terrorist attacks such as the September 11, 2001 in
US spread to Europe by bombings of Madrid and
London in 2004 and 2005, the EU made the
integration has to seriously undertaken to fight
extremism and radicalism in the Muslim
communities.
Negative prejudices against Muslim appeared to
make it difficult to create a process of integration
that has been running. Other than that, Islamophobia
has also become one of the factors that hinder the
integration of Muslim in the EU. (Angenendt, et al.,
Muslim Integration: Challenging Conventional
Wisdom in Europe and The United States, 2007).
The social movement prevalent in the German-
speaking countries ‘Patriotic Europeans against the
Islamization of the Occident' (German abbreviation:
PEGIDA), particularly in its country of origin
Germany and in Austria. It emerged as a populist
‘street movement.' On 20 October 2014, with
approximately 350 protesters, they took the first
demonstration and protested against the political
establishment and increased Islamic influence on
European culture. A Facebook group arose with
which criticized a pro-Kurdish demonstration in the
city of Dresden. (Haller & Holt, 2018)
That kind of prejudices against Muslim and the
movement has aggravated the relations between
Muslim and European communities in Europe. In
addition it also impeded the efforts of Muslim
integration that has been built through the ideas to
promote integration in Europe.
Therefore, the EU pursued a strategy of
integration of Muslim in the era of the 2000s
focused on promoting integration and prevent
radicalism and terrorist recruitment. Preventing
potential terrorist radicalization and recruitment
process was hoping to tackle the growth of terrorism
in the EU.
Besides promoting the integration of Muslim and
preventing radicalism, there was also a forum to
exchange information, so there is no
misunderstanding about Muslim. The forum was
facilitate by EU and organized by each EU member
states. In Germany, they were created a German
Islam Conference. (Bonewit, 2016)
Muslim integration efforts was continuity
undertaken in each of EU member states. In 2013
the strategy of Muslim integration that was
challenged back by various terrorist attacks stricken
the across the EU countries. In addition to the
numerous terrorist attacks, the declaration of Islamic
caliphate in Syria and Iraq which called ISIS
(Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) and the various
warfare and conflicts that never ending the Middle
East and Africa region also has implications for the
integration of the Europeans and Muslim.
The never ending war in the Middle East and
Africa region has impacted the number of refugees
and asylum seekers entering Europe. The refugees
and asylum seekers are mostly Muslim entering the
EU member states to seek a protection. But there are
also who seek a better life. The problem that
happens then is that the number of refugees who
come to the EU during 2014-2015 was more than 4
million people (Schmid, 2016).
Refugees and asylum seekers were arrived in the
EU member states mostly from South Asia, West,
European Union’s Muslim Integration Strategy in Germany 2014-2015
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