2.2 would presume a 10% death rate among juveniles, which is low for some African nations, but several times higher than any European nation. In fact, I’ve never seen higher than 2.1 used; In Europe, 2.03 would probably be too high.
As I mentioned, given the heavy skewing of the Middle Eastern and North African populations towards young, fertile people, further fertility rate declines are pretty much locked in among the Muslims.
yes, europeans have a very low childhood death rate. But they also have a very long effective childhood. In the middle east it takes less than 20 years for a female to begin producing babies. In europe, more than 30 years.