"A parallel society is developing in parts of Muslim Britain" - Economist

[sage]

https://www.economist.com/britain/2021/06/05/a-parallel-society-is-developing-in-parts-of-muslim-britain

 

Britain has a glorious tradition of writers getting on their bikes, real or metaphorical, and pedalling off to discover the country. Two of the best examples of the genre were published during the Great Depression, J.B. Priestley’s “English Journey” (1934) and George Orwell’s “The Road to Wigan Pier” (1937). Bill Bryson had such a hit with “Notes from a Small Island” (1995), selling more than 2m copies, that he decided to repeat the exercise with “The Road to Little Dribbling” 20 years later.

 

Ed Husain’s new book, “Among the Mosques”, is a fascinating addition to this tradition, taking readers inside religious institutions that most non-Muslims only experience as domes on the horizon. The country’s first two mosques were founded in Liverpool in 1887, in a terraced house, and in Woking in 1889, on a grander scale. There are now almost 2,000 serving a Muslim population of more than 3m. Some heavily Muslim areas such as Blackburn’s Bastwell district have several in the same street. But what goes on inside? And what is their relationship with wider society?

Mr Husain is the ideal man to answer these questions. The son of an Indian father and a mother who migrated from what is today Bangladesh, he won a prize for reciting the Koran as a child and spent much of his 20s in the Middle East perfecting his Arabic. He has written two books on Islam and has a broad intellectual hinterland. He wrote a phd thesis under the supervision of the conservative British philosopher, Roger Scruton, and has worked for a number of think-tanks including the Council on Foreign Relations in America.

Mr Husain discovered much to be pleased about. Britain has absorbed a big Muslim population better than its ancient foe, France. On May 6th London re-elected its first Muslim mayor, Labour’s Sadiq Khan. Several young politicians such as Naz Shah, mp for Bradford West, represent the modern face of the religion.

There is also a darker story. The British establishment that presided over the immigration which followed the second world war expected Islamic migrants to melt into wider society and relax their religious views. But in parts of the country Muslim communities are distancing themselves from wider British society and adopting stricter versions of their faith.

This is particularly true in the old mill towns of Yorkshire and Lancashire, which now contain parallel societies, where the faithful can live their day-to-day lives without mixing. Mosques run schools and pronounce on Islamic law. Restaurants offer gender segregation under the polite name of “family seating”.

These societies are dominated by a clerical class that extends its influence into secular society by, for example, endorsing candidates for Parliament. Mr Husain visited mosque after mosque that taught a highly literal interpretation of Islam, sometimes clinging to arguments that are being dropped in the Middle East. He saw shops displaying books that advocate stoning gays or keeping wives in purdah or waging jihad. Sayyid Qutb, Osama bin Laden’s favourite philosopher, appeared often.

Many of these clerics belong to religious groupings with roots far from these shores. Saudi Wahhabis pour money into British mosques and offer all-expenses-paid scholarships to young British Muslims. More surprising is the importance of the Deobandis. Mr Husain claims more than half of the country’s mosques now belong to the movement, which began in India and seeks to rebuild the caliphate from the ground up, convert by convert. Dewsbury, a historic market town in Yorkshire, is the European capital of the largest Muslim organisation in the world, the Tableeghi Jamaat, the movement’s evangelical arm.

Why does this matter? Religious minorities have always clung together, the better to preserve their faith. Look at the Quakers during the Industrial Revolution or Orthodox Jews in Manchester or London today. Isn’t “a parallel society” just a derogatory name for a flourishing subculture? And isn’t the Catholic church also an example of foreign influence? It is no business of the state to make windows into people’s souls.

There are nevertheless good reasons to be worried. One is the paradox of toleration. There are limits to how much liberal societies can tolerate people who call for gays to be stoned or who denounce Ms Shah as “a dog” because she fails to wear a hijab. The radicalised version of Islam being preached by clerics not only promotes intolerance but also fosters extremism.

A second is the paradox of diversity. The welfare state that liberals hold dear depends for its legitimacy on people feeling that they have a common identity. Robert Putnam, a Harvard sociologist, has demonstrated that support for the provision of public goods falls sharply if people think that the recipients are strikingly different from them. It is hard to be more strikingly different than the parallel communities of Dewsbury and Bradford.

State failure

The third is more practical. Britain is witnessing a struggle for the soul of Islam. But the state has repeatedly acted as if it is on the side of the forces of reaction rather than those of enlightenment. It has kowtowed to self-proclaimed community leaders, mistaking hardline beliefs for “authenticity”. It has tolerated schools such as Darul Uloom, in Rochdale, that combines gcse instruction with requiring students to memorise the Hadiths, including ones about beating wives and stoning homosexuals. And it has failed to make a compelling case for Britishness. Mr Husain points out that many Muslim children get a warts-and-all account of British history from their schools, while hearing constant praise for Turkey and Saudi Arabia in their madrassas. The trauma of Brexit has created a palpable desire to cure many of the social and geographic divisions that threaten to divide the country into warring tribes. Mr Husain makes a compelling case that that quest should not ignore the world of the mosque. ■

[sage]

Times review on new book by Ed Husain on British Muslims

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/among-the-mosques-a-journey-across-muslim-britain-ed-husain-review-idealogues-vfkcwtgtn

 

Why do Britain’s mosques, ordinary places of worship for the country’s three million or so Muslims, attract a degree of hostility and suspicion from the wider population? A story related in the early part of this revealing book gives a strong hint of the answer. Its author visits Didsbury Mosque in south Manchester. Soon he comes across people hauling banners and Palestinian flags into the mosque; posters urging support for an aid organisation accused of links with extremists; the “Sharia Department” (a parallel and unregulated legal system for Islamic marriages and divorces); and lastly the raised voices of men arguing about Middle Eastern politics.

The act of worship feels almost incidental to everything else that’s going on. It sends a chill down the spine...

[sage]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-9648477/Author-visited-Muslim-mosques-Britain-reveals-no-areas-white-men.html

 

Among the Mosques: Author's study of Muslim Britain reveals a no-go area for white people, children 'attacked for being white', parents making families live under Taliban-like rules and women who can't leave home without permission

• Author Ed Husain visited places of worship across UK for Among the Mosques
• Would turn up unannounced to the largest weekly gathering, Friday prayers
• Spoke to taxi drivers, business owners, Imams and worshipers about religion
• Islam in Britain is dominated by ultra-orthodox sect promoted by the Deobandis
• Control over half of Britain's mosques, and gave birth to Taliban in Afghanistan
• One person described 'Bolton, Dewsbury and Blackburn' as 'different universe'
• Books for sale detail how women should be banned from leaving the house 
• Mosque in Didsbury, in converted church, has a sign for the 'Sharia Department' 
• White men revealed 'no-go areas' in Blackburn where they would be 'jumped'
• White woman in Bradford predicts it will become 'an apartheid city' in 30 years

[sage]

Thoughts? @neel roy@YCCC@G_B_

[YCCC]

I’m not sure I have the required knowledge or experience to comment really. I don’t venture into Muslim areas as I have no need to do so, and I don’t really come across them in everyday life, apart from on the cricket field. Nothing would surprise me though.

 

The mention of Palestinian flags is interesting though. They certainly like to promote their support for Palestine at the moment. Pakistan fans at the games a few weeks ago bringing them along and even running on the field to pose for pictures with Moeen with them

[ravishingravi]

4 minutes ago, YCCC said:

I’m not sure I have the required knowledge or experience to comment really. I don’t venture into Muslim areas as I have no need to do so, and I don’t really come across them in everyday life, apart from on the cricket field. Nothing would surprise me though.

 

The mention of Palestinian flags is interesting though. They certainly like to promote their support for Palestine at the moment. Pakistan fans at the games a few weeks ago bringing them along and even running on the field to pose for pictures with Moeen with them

That’s less to do with Palestine and more to do with Yahoodis

[rkt.india]

11 hours ago, ravishingravi said:

That’s less to do with Palestine and more to do with Yahoodis

Not even Yahoodis but Muslim Ummah. 

[EnterTheVoid]

This is old news. 

 

Dispatches did a documentary on this 10+ years ago.