Muslim Affairs in the UK and Islamophobia

1386 References to Islamic

scholars in Canterbury Tales

16^th century John Nelson becomes first Englishman to convert to Islam

 1630S. Oxford and Cambridge universities establish chairs of Arabic. Scholars influenced by Arabic texts on mathematics, astronomy and medicine

 1641 Documents refers to “a sect of Mahometens “discovered here in London’

 1649 First English translation of the Koran, by Alexander Ross

 1700’s  The first large group of Muslims arrive in Britain from India.  Sailors recruited in India by the East India

  Company form the flrst, Islamic communities in port towns. Others came from Sylhet in Bangladesh

 1860 BrItain’s first mosque recorded in the register of religious sites at 2 Glyn Rhondda $treet, Cardiff

 1869 A further wave of Muslim immigration is prompted by the opening of the Suez canal.  Increased trade brings Yemen and Somali labourers to work In the port of Cardiff, Liver­pool, Pollokshields and London. There are now an estimated 70,000 to 80,000 Yemenis’ in Britain, the longest established

 Muslim group

 1886 Anjuman-i-lslam, later renamed the Pan-Islamic Society founded in London

 1887 WIIliam Henry Quilliam, a Liverpool solicitor, converts to Islam while In Morocco. He goes onto found the Liverpool mosque and the Muslim Institute and edit the Islamic World and the Crescent, a weekly publication. Also founds Madina House, an orphanage in Liverpool.

 1889 First purpose-built mosque opens in Woking

 1910 Syed Ameer Ali, an Islamic scholar, convenes a public meeting at the Ritz calling for the establishment of “a mosque in London worthy of the traditions of Islam and of capital of British Empire.

 1912 Khwaja Kamaluddin, a Lahore Barrister, comes to London to remove misconceptions about Islam. In 1912 he starts publishing Islamic Review.

 1914 Lord Headley converts to Islam and accepts the name Al Haj El Farooq and establishes British Muslim Society.

 1928. London Nlzamlah Trust is established to consider proposals for a central mosque in London. George VI donates land in return for a site in Cairo for an Anglican cathedral.

 1937 Proposals for the partition of Palestine stirs British Muslims and they make formal representations

 1940 The government allocates £100,000 to buy a site for a mosque in London

 1941 The East London Mosque Trust purchases three buildings in Commercial Road, Stepney, and converts them into London’s first mosque

 1944 George VI attends the opening of the Islamic Cultural Centre in Regents Park

 1947 Thirteen ambassadors from Muslim nations set up the Central London Mosque Trust

 1950-60 Muslim immigrants, mainly men, arrive from India and Pakistan after partition. Migration is encouraged because of labour shortages in Britain, particularly in steel and textiles in Yorkshire and Lancashire. In 1951 the Muslim population was estimated at 23,000.

 1960-1970 The next wave of Muslim immigrants comes fiom Africa

 1961 Muslim population at 82,000, boosted by people hurrying to beat the Common­wealth Immigrants Act (1962)

 1966 Eighteen mosques in Britain, increasing at a rate of seven a year for the next 10 years. By 1985 there are 338 registered mosques and by 1997 an estimated 1,000

 1971 Muslim population estimated at 369,000

 1972  Idi Amin expels 60,000 Asians from Uganda which triggers off exodus from Kenya and Tanzania.

 1973 Islamic Council of Europe founded with its HQ In London. First dialogue between Christians and Muslims on the theme of “Islam in the parish”

 1974 The British Council of Churches appoints an advisory group to study Islam in Britain.

 1976 Festival of Islam opened by the Queen

 1977 London Central Mosque opens in Regents Park

 There are an estimated 3,000 Muslims in Northern Ireland

I984 Young Muslims founded

1985 Islamia primary school in Brent, London, has application for state funding rejected

t989 Islamic party founded

1989 Salman Rushdie’s book burnt

 1990 The Islamic Society of Britain founded

 1990 Kalim Siddiqui issues the Muslim manifesto, which calls for Muslim Parliament run similarly to Jewish Board of Deputies

  1992 Muslim Parliament founded 

1994 Parents of children at Al Furqan primary , Birmingham vote to apply for grant maintained status

 1996 Muslim Council of Britain founded

 1997 Mohammed Sarwar becomes first Muslim MP for Govan, Glasgow

 1998 2 Muslim schools are given grant maintained status

 1998 First General assembly of Muslim Council of Britain in Brent Town Hall

 1998 First Muslim peers appointed – Lord Nazir of Rotherham and Lady Uddin

 2001 First Ismaili Moslem peer, Lord Bhatia appointed

 One of the things that the West and the Media have never understood is that Islam is a very pluralistic faith. As I mentioned earlier, there are Muslims from different parts of the world with different languages, cultures and colours and languages, but what unites the Muslims is the concept of Umma and belief in Allah. The west and the Media have no understanding of Islam and the Muslim people and over the last few decades have done the Muslims a great deal of harm.

I would like to limit my talk about the Muslims in the UK and what affects them and what is their future. Different Muslim communities in the U.K. have a different history but it would be true to say that a large part of the Muslim population is born here and are likely to stay here.

The picture is changing very rapidly in terms of how many Muslims are identifying themselves. The words BRITISH MUSLIM is rapidly replacing the words like PAKISTANI MUSLIM and so on. Currently the profile of the Muslims in the UK is that of young community with deep pockets of poverty, crime, under achievement in education and bad housing and health. Muslims are the second largest faith people in the prisons. There are many young Muslims who are engaged in gang warfare, drugs dealing and even in prostitution.

There are also issues concerning the role and rights of women in our communities. One regularly hears about forced marriages and violence within the families.

Currently we find three generations of Muslims living together. The first generation that came here in the 50’s and 60’s are still around. They are still constantly looking to their countries of origins with connections there, and then there is the second and the third generation, most of them born here who have a totally different view of the world, their rights and their future.

A few weeks ago, I was speaking at a Muslim Leadership programme dinner. Some 25 young Muslim professionals had undertaken a training course in Leadership. There were, headmasters of schools, accountants, lawyers, doctors and social workers, an Imam of a mosque – both men and women. It was a very interesting group of people. Here is what I told them.

As I look at you as a group, I find that roughly the group comprises of 50% women. Your age group is about an average of 30 years. You are all professional people and highly educated. You have a desire to serve the Muslim community. As I look at you, I see a scarf or a full hijab on the ladies, and I see some kind of a beard on the men. If all of you walked out of this dining room and went out into the street, you will most probably be identified as Muslims and perhaps silently the word Terrorist will be there. That is the reality today the way the Media has portrayed us in this country ever since 11^th of September.

But I have a request to make to you. You are all in your thirties and will Inshallah be parents and grand parents in next 40 years. Just look at your self and your grand children 40 years from today. Let me tell you what I think you will see in your grand children. Some of your grand children will still be with a head scarf or a hijab and a beard of some sort, but in most cases, you will find that the scarf, the beard will have disappeared. In many cases, your children and grand children will have married outside your race and religion and many of them will be carrying the anglosized names like John Mustafa or Carol Kamal. Out there, changes are already taking place in our communities that you or no one can stop.

So with the cultural aspects of dress, beards, and names gone, how would you like your grandchildren to be identified? Would it not be  nice if when your grand children walk out into the streets of London that they  be recognised as Muslims, because of their value systems? A Muslim could be recognised for being highly educated, professional with a deep sense of ethics, participation in the civil society and putting back into the community by way of volunteering, donations, in politics and caring for the welfare of all?

Surely, the value system I have just described are very much what the Holy Koran teaches us? There was an interesting discussion that followed and the group has come back to me to say that they are adding one more course in their leadership programme that will deal with VALUE SYTEM OF ISLAM.

My own view is that unless we begin to look at the Muslim Community in this country very seriously and deal with the issues that face the community, in next 20 years time, we will have a very sorry state of affairs in our hands. We will be marginalised and be at the bottom of the pile. People with no jobs, poverty and huge social problems. It will then be difficult to pull out of that vicious circle. A very bleak future indeed! It is in the making. Those of us who are doing well, and it is a small part of the community, can decide to say, it does not concern me, I am doing fine, but I believe that that is not what our faith tells us.

With these problems that are there and in the making, let us turn our minds to Islamophobia. Inevitably, events of 11^th September have affected us all. The words “Islamic Terrorist” have become common currency in media and political circles. If an Irish terrorist strikes, he is not called a Catholic or a Christian Terrorist, but if a Muslim terrorist strikes he is immediately called an Islamic terrorist.  We have to de-link terrorism from Islam and I would like to pay tribute to the Prime Minister, who immediately after 11^th September declared that 11^th September had nothing to do with Islam. He sent a clear signal to the country and to the law enforcement agencies, that the Muslim Community in Britain has to be protected and anyone attacking them will face the full force of the law.

Despite all this, the Muslims in this country find themselves being identified as terrorists and not good citizens. A handful of people who ended up in Afghanistan are given more publicity than the hundreds of thousands of Muslims in this country who are peaceful and decent people.

I would like to briefly to turn to the Laws of the country which discriminates against Muslims. The whole issue of Incitement against and hatred on religious grounds needs to be dealt with. The Blasphemy law that has been on statutes for centuries protects only the Anglican Church. It does not protect other faiths. Under the Race Relations Act, the Sikh community and the Jewish Community are protected against hatred or incitement. To put simply, if you as a Muslim attacked a Sikh or Jew in the street, and told him that you are attacking him because he is a Sikh or a Jew, you could face an aggravated sentence. But if a Sikh or a Jew attacked you because you are a Muslim, he will not be given an aggravated sentence.

The whole issue of law to protect all faiths is enshrined in the European Human Rights convention to which Britain is a signatory. Inshallah, with various legal battles that are being fought in this matter, that a suitable law will be brought in to deal with this issue and reduce the level of Islamophobia.

So what is it that we need to do to secure the future of British Muslims i.e. our children and grand children. Recently, The British Muslim Research Centre that I chair, ran a series of 17 seminars. Each of the seminars focussed on a specific theme like Education, Employment, Citizenship, Women, Art and Culture and so on. One of the key issue was that of Education. It was very clear that if the future generations of Muslims in this country did not attain high education, many more problems will arise and that we could remain at the bottom of the pile for a long time to come.

Secondly, we are not involved in policy making in this country. Consider this. We form 3% of the population of this country, and yet have only 6 parliamentarians- 2 MP’S and four members in the House of Lords. On percentage terms we should have about 30. We need to put in a lot of work in this sphere in coming years. Imagine the power of having 30 Muslim Parliamentarians? We could really get there if we were united.

We need to unite to ensure that our voice is heard. Currently, a Muslim will pull down another Muslim at the expense of community just because of personal gain or ego. We tend to forget that our community in this country could become a very powerful force, if we were in the parliament, in the government and even in the cabinet.

We also need to participate in the civil society and be on the boards of quangos, charities, voluntary organisations, school Governors boards and such bodies, where billions of pounds are spent and where many social policies are formulated which influence legislation.

Last but not the least the question of communication. We need to deal with Media and present the right face of Islam and the Muslim community in this country. The power of communication and winning the media war is the one we need to win. We have all witnessed how powerful the effect of lobbying is in formulating world opinion. Either we have a very good media and communication strategy or we are doomed.

To conclude, what we need for our future generations is more education, more participation in the civil society and in politics and a strong and a powerful communication process in addition to being united. All the four things go together and that is our challenge.

Thank you.