A lecture delivered to the Gulf Cultural  Club by M. Iqbal Asaria *

On Thursday 15th January 2004

 Introduction: Dr Saeed Shehabi: Welcome to another session of the Gulf Cultural Club our monthly meeting at which we discuss topics and issues of interest to all. The issue of Muslims is bound to be of interest to all of us, Muslims and others, especially as we are living in a foreign land. What affects one sector of society also affects other sectors. Developments over the  past few years have brought Islam and Muslims to the forefront of world opinion. There are different opinions about how to deal with the Islamic phenomena in the West, how the Muslims are treated, how they should behave, how they should live, how they should co-exist with others in society. Among the elites and in the government there has been quite a lot of suspicion, despite what they claim. They do not look at Muslims and their affairs in the same way they look at others and this leads to suspicion among the Muslims who live in this part of the world. It is time to look at these issues. Last night I saw the Home Secretary laying one or two bricks in a mosque and it was also commented that Mr Blunkett  is trying to promote dialogue. It is in the interests of all to have a dialogue and understanding. We know that Islamophobia is a problem which is affecting Muslims. It can only lead to suspicions and stereotyping. To discuss the issue of Muslims, their existence, their wellbeing and their point of view we have with us tonight Mohammed Iqbal Assaria.

Mohammed Iqbal Asaria: Brothers and sisters, ladies and gentleman, salam alekum. My subject today is slightly unusual in that it is a mixture of two presentations which I have made on two different continents. In early  December I made a presentation here to the Muslim Council of Britain on the role of Muslims in Europe and in late December I made a presentation to a conference in Bombay on the challenges facing Indian Muslims. Today I want to combine these presentations and show some common features of the Muslim situation in Europe and in India. There are a lot of similarities.

Europe is going through a transition as it is beginning to enlarge and possibly encompass most of what we would technically call Europe. So in May of this year we have 11 new members joining the European Union which will have 25 members. That interesting feature from our point of view is that the combined population of the EU 25 will be 430 million people. Out of that 15 – 20 million will be Muslim.

If on top we all the possibility of Turkey joining the European Union at some point in the foreseeable future than the population will be around 520 million and 20 percent will be Muslim. There are articles today in the Daily Telegraph and the Financial Times that it may be inevitable to bring Turkey into the EU.

The second feature of this is that the average age of the existing population of Muslims in the EU and in Turkey is much younger and therefore the potential growth rate of  this population is much higher.

The population in the traditional catholic countries like France and Italy is beginning to fall very rapidly and the growth rate of the population in Eastern European countries is close to zero. You can easily envisage a situation in 25 years time when 25 percent of the population of the European Union will be Muslim. In a situation where 25 percent of the population is Muslim it is no longer possible to marginalise Islam – you have to come to terms with it.

The second factor which came into prominence with the invasion of Iraq is that probably in the next 20 years over 60  percent of the energy requirements of the European Union will be coming from the Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf regions,, which are predominately Muslim areas. So the energy requirements of the EU will be coming from Muslim areas. Nuclear power is not an option. We see that country after country is beginning to reverse n nuclear power. Finland and Germany want to shut down nuclear stations rather than open new ones. France is a stand still. We have not see nuclear developments in Britain after the problems with Sellifeld. Nuclear power is not an option. It will not account for more than 10 percent of energy use over the next 50 years.

The third factor is immigration to the EU. There is a need in countries like Italy and Germany and the UK. From time to time the ministers admit we need immigration because the population is getting older. The immediate source of immigration into the EU is again going to be Mediterranean countries which are also predominately Muslim.

In sum there is no way a group of countries like the EU can get away from discussing and debating the accommodation with Muslims. In fact at the end of November the Foreign Office published a document here which comes to the same conclusion:  the discussion with Muslims and Islam is going to be central to any strategy for the EU and the UK over the next twenty years.

Having realised this there is a re-emergence of thinking from the time of the crusades: the Muslims are going to swamp us. Islamaphobia is part of that. It is a latent fear.

If we turn to India we see a very similar situation. In India itself between 15 – 20 percent of the population is Muslim. Secondly India now is beginning to position itself as a key partner for the United States against the rise of China.

Like Europe, India is dependent on oil and gas from the Middle East. India was looking a pipeline from Iran, it was looking at routes to the Caspian Sea.

The third area in which both Europe and India are on parity in their interaction with Muslims is that both have had a historic encounter with the Muslims. Europe at the very beginning of Islam when the Muslims reached Andulsia. The Europeans were very much in the dark ages at that time. After that  they started to wake up and you had the renaissance. The Muslims played a big part in the renaissance.  This encounter along with the crusades is still very much in the European mind.

In India there was the 800-year rule of the Moghuls until the coming of British colonialism. There is a history of interaction between Muslims and all kinds of peoples of India. It is a historic legacy.

Very much like Islamophobia here we have seen the rise in India of what is known as Hindutwa. There as been an attempt to revise Indian history so that the Muslim contribution to Indian history has been distorted. At the moment you have in India a party, the NDA, which is trying to re-write Indian history.

So in many respects there is a great deal of commonality between the situation of Muslims in Europe and the situation of Muslims in India.

There are a number of issues which will colour the attitudes of Muslims in the next few years. It seems that the two central concerns of Muslims from the Indian sub continent and Muslims here will be resolved. The first one is Kashmir.  The partition of Kashmir  along the existing lines, with minor modifications will become a reality. It will not be to the satisfaction of Indian Muslims, Pakistan or the Kashmiris.

The second one is Palestine. Again I think within the next ten years we will see a resolution of the Palestinian conflict in number of ways. We may see a one state solution with Palestinian Bantustans or the two-state solution with a totally demilitarised and marginalised Palestinian state. The issue will not remain as the emotional issue for the Muslims of India or Europe.

This will enable the debate to be conducted on actual issues: empowerment, the level of distribution of wealth, education etc In India apart from Kashmir there are three important issues which come up all the time. The first one is the Babri mosque in Uttar Pradesh. It is very strange. If you look at it objectively you will see that this mosque, before it became the centre of attention, was unused, derelict and falling down by itself, if people hadn’t bothered to knock it down. For a mosque like that to become the symbol of struggle between Indians and Muslims is quite strange. It shows that there are other underlying areas which are symbolised by this struggle. If the other issues are resolved, either through the Supreme Court or other negotiations, the problem will go away.

The second problem in India is the question of the role of Urdu in India. There is Bollywood Hindi, the Hindi which is spoken in Indian films. It is very close to Urdu except for the script. Both Urdu and Hindi and Urdu speakers will understand it. But now with Hindutwa there is the emergence of a kind of Hindi which is based on Sanskrit and even seasoned speakers of Bollywood Hindi cannot understand it. So the divergence of Urdu and Hindi in terms of its common understanding is growing larger.

The majority of people in India do not speak either Urdu or Hindi. Two thirds of the people do not speak either of these languages and they do not accept Hindi as the national language and opt for English as the national language. Less than a third of the Muslims in India speak Urdu. For the Muslims to campaign for Urdu to have a special position is problematic now. The people in Bangladesh do not speak Urdu. It is only spoken in Pakistan. Urdu is by means a majority language.

The third issue is the question of personal law.  Wherever the British went as colonialists in the Muslim world they allowed Muslims to conduct their very personal matters under their own laws: marriage, divorce etc Now in India there is a very big debate about whether the country should move towards a uniform civil code. Now it has come down to the fact that in three or four states in India the Indian government has been forced to recognise local customary common law for indigenous people. There is no way that the uniform civil code can be recognised in India. Now the debate has moved on.

The Muslims in Europe and in India are in a very strong position due to the dependence on Muslim states for energy resources. The Muslims themselves have problems which they need to address.

There was the case of woman called Shaban in 1981 who  applied to the Supreme Court for alimony. Under Muslim law it was argued that she has no right to alimony. Either her family or the Muslim Wafd Board had to look after her. They wanted to give her 50 rupees a month sustenance. It was not even enough for her to go and collect the payment. The Supreme  Court argued that this kind of structure needs to be dismantled and a uniform civil code instituted or the Wafd Board can be forced to pay a reasonable sum.

This case and other issues like the position of women, the level of education, show that Muslims in India ultimately have to address serious issues if they ultimately want to be able to preserve their identity and take part in society.

In Europe we have the same kind of problems. Muslims are under-represented, they have low levels of health and education of gender equality in their institutions and other issues. Unless they are addressed the Muslims will fall further behind.

It is a two edged weapon. If 25 percent of the Muslim population of an expanded EU  does not pull its weight the EU as a whole will be pulled down. So it is in the interests  of both sides, Muslims and the host country, to interact and make sure that all engines are firing properly and at full speed.

So the time has come after this short term mania about extremism and fundamentalism is out of the way,  for a serious interaction between Muslims and Europeans on one side and Muslims and non-Muslim Indians on the other side. The outcome of this will determine how this century is shaped.

* M Iqbal Asaria is an economist by training. He has worked for a number on NGOs

specialising in international financial flows and tradei ssues. For a time in

the eighties he edited the Afkar/Inquiry magazine. Mr Asaria is presently

director of Webstar - an online information management company. He is also the

chair of the Muslim Council of Britain's business and economics committee.