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Islam, and the existence of Islam in Europe, is one of the most complicated issues of the contemporary world, with scholars, journalists and politicians debating the issue more and more every day.
A wide range of scholars at the İstanbul Seminars 2010 at İstanbul Bilgi University are considering the issue of Islam in Europe, including one of the most prominent Turkish scholars studying the issue, Nilüfer Göle, professor of sociology at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes (EHESS) in Paris, who calls attention to the fact that Europe is passing through an experience relatively new for itself.
"Europe had confrontations with Islam several times before in history," says Göle in an interview with Today's Zaman. "There had been the Crusades, colonization, the Ottoman Empire and so on. Nevertheless, there is something new in today's confrontation: that is, Muslim immigrants from different countries now exist in their own lands, and Turkey is so near as a candidate. That's why all these developments have led Europe to re-evaluate itself on the mirror of the Muslims."