There are many alarmist, most unapologetic in their vulgarity while others hide their racism in a scholarly veneer, when it comes to Muslims in Europe.

The “Eurabia” crowd raises the specter of Muslims taking over the continent and imposing Sharia law. Never mind that European Muslims are a very small minority - no more than 4% - and that it is a diverse community that has no aspirations for establishing Islamic law.

Make no mistake, there are extremists, and some violent, Muslims in Europe who want Sharia law. They should be told that if they choose to live in the West, then they must accept Western notions of freedom, law and justice. The West should not apologize no bit or give ground one inch in defending our way of life.

But those Muslims are a fringe minority in a minority, no matter how vocal they may appear. Most Muslims come from secular countries and their children want nothing of the Taliban verity of Islam. The “Eurabia” misses, whether out of ignorance of malice it does not matter, this point. They paint any action by Muslims as a foreshadowing of the coming Islamic crescent over Europe.

When French Arabs rioted in the fall of 2005, the “Eurabia” crowd was there to provide an “explanation” for their uprising in the suburbs of Paris. Instead of recognizing that the rioting young men are secular, nominal Muslims most of whom can’t even speak Arabic, and that their rioting was not due to Islam but to socioeconomic factors like chronic unemployment; no, the “Eurobia” crowd can never divorce themselves from using Islam as the paradigm of understanding. This is a stubborn habit that the French Orientalist Maxime Rodinson termed “theolocentrism;” which he defined as the practice of attributing all observable phenomena by Muslims to Islamic texts. In other words: Muslims do what they do because of Islam.

So instead of understanding Muslims, say, rioting or what have you as due to the same political, social factors that influence all other people; a “theolocentrist” would rather ignore such analysis and concentrate on irrelevant Islamic texts. Theolocentrism is more than a meta-recite, it is an ideology of hostility toward Muslims. It serves to demonize them and takes away their entitlement to be legitimate actors. Instead of noting French racism against Arabs and static unemployment among French-Arabs, a Eurobian wants to deny Muslims their rights to legitimate grievances and instead state that this is all about their atavistic faith. Muslims are treated like no other people, a people not entitled to ever oppose an injustice. Bernard Lewis is very representative of this. When looking at the Palestinian intifidah and instead of writing about real, concrete examples of the injustice of the Israeli occupation he would rather write about al-Ghazzali in Islamic Spain.

Anyhow, I have somewhat diverted from my original point. But with no regret, because it is important to debunk the theolocentric worldview. My main point is that the Eurobian crowd miss the picture, and they are guided by a racist hostility to Arabs and Muslims and seek to make them appear threatening.

Most Muslims in Europe are peaceful and aspire to live prosperous lives in the continent. Very often, architecture can tell a story. The Penzberg Mosque in Bavaria, Germany is an illustration of the true nature of the Muslim community in Europe.

The Mosque was built with large windows so as to assure the local community that noting nefarious was being done inside. The governor attended the opening and it won the award for best architecture in the entire state of Bavaria. It is also [probably] the first Mosque to ever host a belly dancer in its basement.

Belly dancing, big windows, stunning architecture; this is the real face of European Islam.