The Netherlands now has more than one million Muslims in an overall population of 17 million. Issues like the banning of the veil for women in schools, debates on female circumcision and the recent killing of the controversial writer and filmmaker Theo van Gogh all centre around an uneasy relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims in The Netherlands.
Three people who have spent their lives at the point where Islam meets the West talk of the misunderstandings and misperceptions Westerners have of Islam. The speakers are: jurist and specialist on the sharia Maurits Berger, Abdul Wahid van Bommel (sometimes known as the Dutch imam) and Persian singer and writer Shusha Guppy.
Producer: Dheera Sujan
Broadcast: December 7, 2004