Many Muslims view Europe as home, forum told

There is a silent revolution under way among Muslim communities where the great majority now view Europe as their home, a leading author and academic said yesterday.

In a presentation at the Institute of European Affairs, Prof Tariq Ramadan, visiting fellow at St Anthony's College, Oxford, said that Islam was now a European religion. The majority of Muslims wanted to be citizens of Europe and did not want to impose their religion on others. He added most had a sense it was possible to be both fully Muslim and European.

Prof Ramadan argued that while the children of migrants could constitute a religious minority, there could be no such thing as minority citizenship.

This could nurture a victim mentality which would be "very, very dangerous".

He also said he was against Islamic schools and that, in some parts of Britain, there were schools where 98 per cent of students came from the same background. Prof Ramadan said immigration and social problems had nothing to do with Islam.

He reported that many current problems were based on fears - fears among migrant communities that the majority population did not like them and fears among the host community that newcomers threatened the homogenous nature of society.

He also urged people in countries such as Ireland to ask themselves how often they met people from different cultures.

Prof George Joffe of the University of Cambridge said riots in Brixton in the 1980s, in northern English towns in 2001 or in French suburbs last autumn had nothing to do with Islam.