The status of Muslim minorities in Western non-Muslim majority countries - in particularly in Europe – has been a matter of ever-increasing attention and importance during recent years. Large Muslim communities have emerged in these countries, comprising between 5 and 10 percent of the total population in some cases. This state of affairs has placed new questions on the public agenda with respect of the maintenance of an Islamic lifestyle in compliance with the principles of Shari’ah, the Islamic law, under non-Islamic rule and Western secular state laws.

This dilemmas are also germane to the lifestyle and civic status of Muslim citizens of Israel, who constitute approximately 17 percent of the total population (as of the end of 2011), especially given the solidification of the Islamic Movement and the growing significance of religion in the political and social identity of Arabs within Israel that have taken place during the past three decades.

The publication “Muslim Minorities in Non-Muslim Majority Countries: The Islamic movement in Israel as a Test Case” provides a framework for comparative analysis between the status of Muslim minorities communities within Western countries and the status of the Muslim community within Israel, and examines the common denominator in the formation of a political Islamic agenda among non-Muslim majority societies in Europe and Israel.