MADRID, Spain: The Spanish government has devised a school textbook it calls unique in Europe - a primer for Muslim first-graders to learn about Islam but do so in the local language and thus not feel like outsiders.

A first run of 15,000 copies of the Spanish-language book Discovering Islam was printed as part of the project, said Jose Manuel Lopez, managing director of the Pluralism and Harmony Foundation, which is part of the Justice Ministry.

The ministry oversees religious issues.

Lopez said the book, written by a Spanish Muslim leader and financed by the foundation, was exhibited at the Frankfurt Book Fair this month and drew keen interest from people in other European countries.

"Europe has 40-million Muslims and governments don't know what to do to assimilate them. This book is a hint," Lopez said.

In other European Union countries with significant Muslim immigrant communities, primers on Islam are written in Arabic or French, if they exist at all, Lopez said.

Indeed, in major EU countries such as Britain, France, Germany and Italy, there is nothing equivalent to the book now out in Spain, officials in those nations said.

Spain has a Muslim community of about 800 000 people out of a total population of 44-million.