By Coilin O'Connor
Less than a century ago, Europe's Muslim population was concentrated primarily in the Balkans. Nowadays, there are Muslims living all over the continent from Iceland to Georgia. In keeping with this trend, the Czech Republic also has a small but robust Muslim community. There are currently around 20,000 practising Muslims living in this country.

Jehad liked it here so much that he decided to make his life in Prague. He married a Czech woman and started a family. His wife has since become one of a few hundred native Czechs who have converted to Islam:

Jehad now has children who are being brought up as Muslims, but whose lives are Czech in almost every other way:

"They are living normally. They go to school like any other Czech boys. We only tell them that we don't want them to eat any fat from the pigs and things like that. The teachers in the schools are really very good teachers. They understand and respect that it's not ok for them to eat these things and so on."

Vladimir Sanka is the director of the Islamic Centre in Prague. He himself is also a Czech convert to Islam. Such local conversions are still quite unusual in this country where many people have strong atheist leanings and some are quite wary of organised religions. Mr Sanka, however, says that the Muslim community here has become an accepted part of Czech life:

"All the Muslims I know are interested in integrating with Czech society. I think this is the right attitude. We don't want to live in isolation or to create a closed society inside the Czech Republic. On the contrary, we want to enrich this society and live together with other people. We don't want to live in ghettoised districts and places like that."

Of course, despite the fact that Muslims here are treated with a lot of respect by many Czechs, there are some who view them with deep suspicion. This is partly due to highly publicised attacks by extremist Islamic terrorists such as last year's London bombings and the attacks on the World Trade Centre in 2001. These events have created a climate of fear in the Western World and some people now even view Islam as a threat to their freedom and security.

As a result, a lot of people now associate Muslims in the Czech Republic with these dodgy dealings even though many of these activities are also strictly forbidden in Islam. It's a problem Vladimir Sanka acknowledges. He says any reservations some Czechs might have about Muslims living in their midst would be dispelled fairly easily if they took the time to actually learn more about the true nature of Islam.

"Unfortunately, part of society has some prejudices or distorted information concerning Islam. Some people have a subconsciously mistrustful attitude towards us, precisely because they don't know Islam or anything about us, which can give rise to some fear and apprehension. But I think this can be overcome by informing them about our way of life."

This is a view echoed by Jehad Hamarshieh:

"Our prophet Mohammed said that religion means how to live with other people - how to live quietly with others without bothering or hurting them and to understand their needs. You are expected to give them the best of you. This is Islam. Islam is not what they are describing in the media and elsewhere. As Muslims, most of us know the things they are saying are not true."

In fact, instead of posing a danger to Czech society, there are some who say the strict moral code which most Muslims adhere to can only have a positive impact here.

"Would unbound freedom without any moral considerations still be freedom? I'm not sure. Unfortunately, in this country we had a bad experience in the early 1990s when many people started to understand freedom as meaning freedom to steal or to get rich very quickly by any means possible without any inbuilt moral mechanisms, which would stop them from behaving improperly. It is perhaps a dangerous aspect of a country as secular as the Czech Republic, that perhaps many people don't have these internal moral mechanisms."

Professor Kropacek says that religions like Islam can play a crucial role in fostering the so-called internal moral mechanisms, which may be lacking in some part of post-communist Czech society.

"In Islam, there are a number of good moral precepts, which play a positive role in social life. Being a Christian myself I feel that I should also respect the beliefs of Muslims, with whom we should conduct a dialogue and not clash with, either violently or non-violently."

"We would ask ordinary people to be more understanding of what it means to follow Islam. Islam means peace. If you see an envelope with the word 'PEACE' written on it, you have to open it up and look inside to

find out the meaning of this word."

Source : http://www.radio.cz/en/article/82195