Postwar labor shortages drew large Muslim immigrant populations into Western Europe, most visibly Germany's guest worker program, which ran from 1955 to 1973 and brought roughly 867,000 Turkish workers by 1973. North African immigration into France and South Asian immigration into Britain followed each country's own colonial and labor history over the same broad period.
Facts
Disputed
Start Year1945 marks the broad postwar starting point of Muslim labor migration into Western Europe; the specific national programs began at different, later years, West Germany's own guest worker program specifically ran from 1955 to 1973, so 1945 is a representative opening point rather than a single dated event. End Year1980 is a representative closing point for the postwar labor migration wave; Germany's own guest worker program formally ended in 1973, but France's and Britain's parallel migrations, tied to their own colonial histories, continued somewhat later. Learn More
How Postwar Labor Migration Brought Islam to Western Europe
This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Islam reaches Western Europe in its modern, demographically significant form through the labor migrations that followed the Second World War, as postwar labor shortages across the continent drew large Muslim immigrant populations into Western European countries between 1945 and 1980. Germany's guest worker program is the most visible case, recruiting foreign labor from 1955 to 1973 and bringing roughly 867,000 Turkish workers into the country by 1973.
Each receiving country's Muslim population arrived along its own particular route rather than a single shared migration. Germany's came chiefly through its formal guest worker recruitment from Turkey. France's Muslim population grew mainly through North African immigration, following the country's own colonial ties to North Africa. Britain's followed South Asian immigration, carried by its own colonial and labor history with the Indian subcontinent, so that three of Western Europe's largest Muslim communities each trace back to a distinct national history rather than one common cause.
What this changed for Islam's spread was the arrival, within a single postwar generation, of a Muslim presence across Western Europe substantial enough to become a permanent feature of the continent's religious landscape, reaching countries with no prior history of significant Muslim settlement through labor rather than conquest, trade or missionary activity.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Europe directly: "immigrant populations into Western Europe, most visibly Germany's guest worker program, which ran from 1955 to 1973 and brought roughly 867,000 Turkish workers by 1973."
This source names France directly: "North African immigration into France and South Asian immigration into Britain followed each country's own colonial and labor history over the same broad period."
Occurred In
Germany, France and Britain, each on its own timeline. The map places this across the wider Western Europe region, since the migration genuinely spans several countries rather than any one of them.
Spread Event Of
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