This book explores the arrival and development of Muslim immigrant communities in Britain and Germany during the post-1945 period through the case studies of Newcastle upon Tyne and Bremen. It traces Newcastle’s South Asian Muslims and Bremen’s Turkish Muslims from their initial settlement through to the end of the twentieth century, and investigates their behaviour and performance in the areas of employment, housing and education. At a time at when Islam is sometimes seen as a barrier to integration and harmony in Europe, this study demonstrates that this need not be the case. In what is the first comparison of Muslim ethnic minorities in Britain and Germany at a local level, this book reveals that instances of integration have been frequent. It is essential reading for both academics and students with an interest in migration studies, modern Britain and Germany, and the place of Islam in contemporary Europe.

Includes statistical tables and graphs.

Groundbreaking in its comprehensiveness, this book illuminates the migration of workers from Turkey to Western Europe with new perspectives previously overlooked in research. Indeed, this is the first study of its kind to cover the entire migration process, making extensive use of primary as well as secondary sources in four languages, and it draws on both the historiography and the social sciences of migration. It presents new analyses of the so-called 'push' factors behind this movement and explores the role of the sending state, the system and channels through which labour exits, the labouring population's attitudes towards moving to the West and the relevance of social networks in the migration process. The volume offers a critical assessment of the significance of Turkish labour migration with regard to the demand for foreign labour in Europe, with particular emphasis on the cases of Germany and the Netherlands.