Muslims in Ukraine make up about 1.7% of the total population.
The Muslims in Slovenia are ethnically Bosnians and Albanians. The Muslims constitute 1.81% of Slovenian population. The Islamic Centre of Ljubljana is headed by Nevzet Porić, general secretary of the Muslim community of Slovenia. Porić said 90 percent of the Muslim in Slovenia are Bosnjak (Bosnian), 8 percent Albanian and 2 percent come from other ethnic branches of the large Slav family of the Balkans.
Most of the Muslims in Slovakia are refugees from former Yugoslavia (Bosnians and Albanians) or workers from modern Turkey (Turks and Kurds), beside them a few Arab students. Most of the Muslims live in the capital Bratislava, smaller communities also exist in Košice and Martin
The Muslims in Serbia are mostly ethnic Bosniaks and Albanians, but also members of the smaller ethnic groups like Muslims by nationality, Gorani, Roma, Ashkali, Egyptians, Turks, etc.
According to the 2002 census, there are 239,658 Muslims in Serbia (including Central Serbia and Vojvodina). Since the census was not conducted in Kosovo, the actual number of Muslims in Serbia (including Kosovo) is cca. 2,000,000. Most of the Slavic Muslims (Bosniaks and Muslims by nationality) are concentrated in the region of Sandžak. The Albanian Muslims live mostly in Kosovo, but also in Central Serbia's municipalities of Preševo (Albanian: Preshevë), and Bujanovac (Albanian: Bujanoc), as well as in the part of the municipality of Medveđa. Gorani, Muslim Roma, Ashkali, Egyptians, and Turks live mostly in Kosovo. Most of the few thousand Arabs who live in Serbia are followers of Islam. The Arabs mostly living in Belgrade.
Across Russia, Islam is thriving. Experts say the country is undergoing a change and that if current trends continue, nearly one third of Russia's population will be Muslim by the mid-century. There are also millions of Muslims from Caucasus and Central Asia that have settled in Russia. Since 1989, Russia's Muslim population has increased to about 25 million. There has been a growing interest in Islam amongst ethnic Russians as there appears to be a rising number of converts to the faith. More recently, author and ex-KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko, embraced Islam before passing away from radiation poisoning.
Kazan has a large Muslim population and is home to the Russian Islam University at Tatarstan. Education is in Russian and Tatar.
Russian Muslims and the Hajj
A record 18,000 Russian Muslim pilgrims from all over the country attended the Hajj in Mecca, Saudi Arabia in 2006.[
The first noticeable presence of Islam in Poland began in the 14th century. From this time it was primarily associated with the Tatars, many of whom settled in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth while continuing their traditions and religious beliefs. The first significant non-Tatar groups of Muslims arrived in Poland in the 1970's.
Apart from the traditional Tatar communities, since the 1970s Poland has also been home to a small but growing immigrant Muslim community.
In the 1970s and 1980s Poland attracted a number of students from many socialist-aligned Arabic-speaking states of the Middle East and Africa. Many of them decided to stay in Poland. In the late 1980s this community became more active and better organized. They have built mosques and praying houses in Warsaw, Białystok, Gdańsk (built by the Tatar community), Wrocław, Lublin and Poznań. There are also praying rooms in Bydgoszcz, Kraków, Łódź, Olsztyn and Opole[5].
Since the overthrow of Communism in 1989, other Muslim immigrants have come to Poland. A relatively prominent group are Turks and Muslims from former Yugoslavia. There are also smaller groups of immigrants from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and from other countries. Several thousand ethnic Poles have also converted to Islam. Over seven thousand of them have taken shahada online on the Polish Islamic Association website [1].
The exact number of Muslims living is Poland remains unknown as the last all-national census held by the Central Statistical Office in 2002 did not ask for religion. 500 people declared Tatar (rather than Polish) nationality. Typical estimates place the number of all Tatars in Poland at somewhere around 3,000 -5,000, the number of all Muslims around 30,000.
Islam is the largest minority religion in Norway with over 2% of the population. In 2006, government statistics registered 72,023 members of Islamic congregations in Norway.. 56% lived in the counties of Oslo and Akershus. Scholarly estimates from 2005 regarding the number of people of Islamic background in Norway vary between 120,000 and 150,000. The vast majority have an immigrant background. The Islamic community in Norway is highly diverse, but many mosques are organised in the umbrella organisation Islamic Council Norway (Islamsk Råd Norge).
Of the 6,000 registered Muslims, 65% come from former Yugoslavia: 1,900 from Bosnia-Herzegovina and 1,800 from Montenegro.
The Muslim community has no specifically built mosque and uses the Islamic Cultural Center of Luxembourg as a prayer place.
In Lithuania, unlike many other northern and western European countries, Islam came long ago. It was so because the medieval Grand Duchy of Lithuania, stretching from Baltic to Black seas, included some Muslim lands in the south, inhabited by Crimean Tatars. Some of people from those lands were moved into ethnically Lithuanian lands, now the current Republic of Lithuania, mainly under rule of Grand Duke Vytautas. The Tatars, now referred to as Lithuanian Tatars, lost their language over time and now speak Lithuanian as natives; however, they have not lost Islam as their religion. Due to long isolation from all the other Islamic world, the practices of the Lithuanian Tatars differs somewhat from the rest of Sunni Muslims; they are not considered a separate sect however.
In Lithuania, unlike many other European societies at the time, religious freedom was pursued. Lithuanian Tatars settled in certain places, such as around Raižiai (in Alytus district municipality).
Much of the Lithuanian Tatar culture, mosques, graveyards and such were destroyed by the Soviet Union after it annexed Lithuania. After restoration of Lithuanian independence however the government supported the promotion of Lithuanian Tatar culture among those Lithuanian tatars who lost it. Three original wooden mosques remain now (in villages of Nemėžis, Keturiasdešimt Totorių (both in Vilnius district municipality) and Raižiai (Alytus district municipality), typically having relatively large Muslim populations), as well as a new brick mosque built in Kaunas during the period of interwar independence of Lithuania (in the 30s) to commemorate the anniversary of Vytautas, the duke who brought Tatars and Islam to Lithuania. That mosque is called Vytautas Didysis Mosque after duke Vytautas. In the capital of Lithuania, Vilnius, however, no mosque remains, as Russians destroyed the Lukiškės Mosque which was there. The Lithuanian Tatar community is trying to rebuild the mosque, but faces various problems, including lack of funds as well as certain actions by the government of Vilnius city municipality.
Currently, only several thousand Lithuanian Tatars remain, however with the restoraion of Lithuanian independence, they are experiencing a kind of national revival.
The presence of Muslims in Latvia was first recorded in the early 1800s. Muslims from mainly Tatar and Turkic backgrounds. Most Muslims were actually brought to Latvia against their will. These included Turkish prisoners of war from the Crimean War and the Russo-Turkish War of 1877. Nearly 100 Turkish prisoners were brought to Everon and Cesis where nearly 30 perished owing to harsh conditions of weather, under no suitable location for warmth and no protection for cold.
In Latvia, the term southerner usually refers to people of Caucasian and Tatar origins, mostly Muslims. There were nearly 1000 Tatar Muslims in Riga by 1890 and Latvian authorities allowed a Muslim cemetery in Riga, next to Pletenberga iela.
