European Muslims

Islam is the second largest religious belief in Europe after Christianity. Islam entered Eastern Europe in what are now parts of Russia and Bulgaria in the 7th and 13th century, respectively. Through the Muslim conquest of Persia, Islam penetrated into regions that would later become part of Russia. The Ottoman Empire expanded into Europe, invading and conquering huge portions of the Byzantine Empire in the 14th and 15th centuries. Over the centuries, the Ottoman Empire also gradually lost almost all of its European territories, until the empire collapsed in 1922. However, parts of the Balkans (such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Montenegro) continue to have large populations of native, European Muslims, though a majority do not describe themselves as religious and only consider themselves as an ethnic identity just as Jews in Europe.

Transcontinental countries, such as Turkey, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have large Muslim populations. This is also the case in a number of regions within the Russian Federation such as the Northern Caucasus (Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia, Stavropol Krai, Adygea), Crimea, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and the Astrakhan Oblast.

...
Wikipedia