Islam in Europe

Islam gained its first foothold in continental Europe in 711 with the Umayyad conquest of Hispania. They advanced into France but in 732, were defeated by the Franks at the Battle of Tours. Over the centuries the Umayyads were gradually driven south and in 1492 the Moorish Emirate of Granada surrendered to Ferdinand V and Isabella. Muslim civilians were expelled from Spain and by 1614 none remained in Spain.Islam entered Eastern and Southeastern Europe in what are now parts of Russia and Bulgaria in the 13th century. The Ottoman Empire expanded into Europe taking huge portions of the Byzantine Empire in the 14th and 15th centuries. Over the centuries, the Ottoman Empire also gradually lost almost all of its European territories, until the empire collapsed in 1922. However, parts of the Balkans (such as Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Sandzak (Serbia and Montenegro) and Bosnia) continue to have large populations of native, European Muslims. This is also the case in a number of regions within the Russian Federation such as the Northern Caucasus (Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia, Stavropol Krai, Adygea), Crimea, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and the Astrakhan Oblast. Transcontinental countries, such as Turkey, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have large Muslim populations.In the late 20th and early 21st centuries substantial numbers of non-native Muslims immigrated to Western Europe. By 2010 an estimated 44 million Muslims were living in Europe, including an estimated 19 million in the EU.