The Ottoman army besieging Vienna (1529), Hüner-nāme, Topkapi-Serail-Museum, Hazine . Wikicommons/ Nakkaş Osman. Some rights reserved.2015 was the year that anti-Muslim sentiment officially moved from the margins to the mainstream of political discourse in Europe.
It was a year of perfect storms. Ideas and rhetoric traditionally confined to blogs, websites and street protests of the so-called ‘counter-jihad movement’ (CJM) were echoed by European prime ministers and presidents.
There has been worrying data emerging on attitudes to Europe’s Muslims for some time. A Pew Research Center study of seven EU countries in 2014 found that at least half of those surveyed in Italy, Greece and Poland had a negative opinion of the Muslims who lived in their country, while public opinion remained divided in Spain.
