Identifying Counter Radical Narratives from Within British Muslim Communities: The Case of “Muslim Patrol” and Muslim Community Responses

This paper analyzes the concept of Muslim morality policing through commanding good and forbidding evil as interpreted and implemented by some Islamists in Britain. The focus is on the activities of Muslim Patrol, and their attempts to create Shari’a zones and enforce hisba, often with distressing consequences including verbal and physical harassment of those not complying. Muslim community responses to Muslim Patrol are also discussed, in particular counter radical narratives that stem from a religious perspective. The paper asks what constitutes sin within Islam and how Muslims should respond to sin, and the extent to which individual Muslims are empowered to enforce Islamic moral standards in non-majority Muslim contexts. Where the state does not provide means for countering sin, the perception is that the responsibility on individuals to do so increases and often results in violence.     

Iconizing “Muslim Terrorism” in a British Newspaper and Public Perception

By examining a news story and reader responses published in the Daily Mail Online (DMO), our study discursively argues that this daily newspaper promotes an Orientalist perception of Islam and Muslims. The religion and its adherents are both framed and perceived as a threat to British society and its “Western values”, thus reinforcing Islamophobia within society. This study also argues that the DMO espouses the perceived Orientalist threat posed by Islam through juxtaposition, exaggeration and manipulation of facts, through lexical choices and visual images that eventually establishes the perception of a cultural clash. In addition, by examining the readers’ responses toward the news story, this study demonstrates that the vast majority of respondents perceive Islam and Muslims as a threat to “the West”. Their comments, as triggered by the text, also contribute to the discourse of Islamophobia and the perceived Orientalist view of an Islamic threat.     

Resistance and Assimilation: Transforming Security Roles of China’s Largest Muslim Minorities

China’s resurgence as an economic power has brought it increased interconnectivity to international global markets, and with it, increased exposure to transnational crimes. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the resulting increase in religious-inspired terrorist attacks have been of particular concern for the Chinese leadership. This paper aims to highlight the processes of resistance and assimilation of China’s two largest Muslim minorities, the Hui and Uyghur, in successive Chinese Empires since the eighth century CE and how critical events in the past two decades have affected the way in which the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has approached relations with its Muslim minority communities. The purpose is two-fold: to expose these groups’ stabilizing and destabilizing influence throughout the 1300 years of Muslim-Chinese coexistence, and to assess the effectiveness of the Chinese Communist Party’s Policies towards its Muslim minorities.     

Trading numbers vs. rights? Accounting for liberal and restrictive dynamics in the evolution of asylum and refugee policies

ABSTRACT

The recent evolution of asylum and refugee policies in developed countries has been characterised by two apparently contradictory dynamics. Efforts to limit the number of asylum applicants have coincided with the strengthening of rights for asylum seekers and refugees inside existing protection systems. The ‘numbers vs. rights’ model seeks to explain such counter-veiling trends as a trade-off, as the result of attempts to manage costs within given budget constraints. The model suggests that high numbers of migrants will tend to go hand in hand with attempts to restrict their rights, while low numbers will typically be associated with more rights. This paper provides a critical analysis of the model when applied to asylum and refugee policies and examines its explanatory purchase through the analysis of longitudinal data on visa and asylum statistics. We argue that while the model provides an interesting framework through which to analyse executive decisions in this field, it underestimates the opportunities and constraints provided by the institutional context in which policy choices are made. We argue that ‘over-time’ variation in the influence of non-majoritarian institutions (in Europe, increasingly those operating at the EU level) provide a more compelling account of the dynamics of asylum and refugee policies over time than the political economy predictions of a ‘number vs. rights’ trade-off.     

Legal Representations of Muslim Slaves by American Courts and Legislative Bodies: 1650–1861

This paper is the first specific exploration of Muslim slaves in front of American courts and legal mechanisms more broadly from the seventeenth century through the nineteenth century. As hundreds of thousands of slaves who came to America had Muslim backgrounds, many of those Muslim slaves found themselves in front of legal regimes and American courts. However, the Muslim identities of these slaves, despite the importance that their religious beliefs might have had for them, were rarely discussed in the case law or not mentioned at all. Drawing from Patterson’s notion of the “socially dead” slave, this paper draws on numerous examples from cases like Amistad to cases dealing with wills and estates to note that the ties to Islam in these cases were obfuscated and minimized. The social death of Muslim slaves in the way that the court documented their experiences silences the voices of American Muslim slaves who reacted in unique ways to their condition of slavery.     

Cultural Explanations of Patriarchy,Race, and Everyday Lives: Marginalizing and “Othering” Muslim Women in Canada

The image of the “oppressed” Muslim woman is one that has become deeply entrenched in Canadian society. It is fuelled not only by the over decade-long “War on Terror”, but also by the increasing use of cultural explanations of patriarchy, which posit gender inequalities in Muslim communities as simply being a result of Muslim cultures and religion. While scholars have cited the problems of such an approach, the impact of these representations on Muslim women’s everyday lives and their access to important social institutions has not been extensively studied. In a bid to fill this gap, this study draws on 56 in-depth interviews with Canadian Muslim women to illustrate how misperceptions of Muslim women as oppressed and passive victims of their culture and communities works to marginalize and increasingly “other” them in mainstream Canadian society.     

The “Trojan Horse” Plot and the Fear of Muslim Power in British State Schools

In 2014, an alleged “Trojan Horse” plot to Islamise education in a number of schools attended predominantly by diverse Muslim pupils in the inner city wards of Birmingham raised considerable questions. Ofsted investigations of 21 schools explored these concerns at the behest of the then Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove MP. At the head of this so-called plot, a certain Tahir Alam, once a darling of New Labour’s policies on British Muslim schools, faced the brunt of the media and political furore. Based on a series of face-to-face interviews with Alam in 2015 and 2016, this paper provides a detailed insight into the allegations, the context in which they emerged and the implications raised for young Muslims in the education system. Ultimately, as part of the government’s counter-terrorism policy the accusations of the “Islamisation” of education in these “Trojan Horse” schools foreshadowed the additional securitisation of all sectors of education. However, there was neither the evidence nor the legal justification to ratchet up anti-extremism education measures that eventually followed; namely the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015. The consequences of the negative attention heightened existing Islamophobia but, paradoxically, they also limited the opportunities for de-radicalisation through education.     

Waqf in Historical Perspective: Online fatāwā and Contemporary Discourses by Muslim Scholars

Since the beginnings of Islam, awqāf or religious endowments have been the medium through which various public services (i.e. schools, hospitals, and mosques) have been provided to communities. Historically, endowments were both insulated from state authority and an emanation of imperial and/or state power. Modern day Muslim scholars have taken a renewed interest in waqf, particularly as Muslim societies look to revive those indigenous institutions which promote cultural sustainability. This paper examines perceptions of the role of waqf in Muslim society as evidenced in current online fatāwā and writings by Muslim scholars. These sources are drawn from English-medium, Muslim web organizations and sites which have particular appeal among Muslims living in the West. This literature propagates a historical narrative of waqf which highlights the institution's moral significance, civic identity, and economic efficiency, and plays down its pre-nineteenth-century links to state power and its potential inefficiency. According to modern day scholars, endowments, with the proper legal framework in place, can promote civil society and sustainability. In a bid to examine these issues, the paper analyzes how online sources address the historical development of waqf and legal mechanisms shaping the regulation of endowments.     

Human capital,family structure and religiosity shaping British Muslim women’s labour market participation

Economic activity among Muslim women in the UK remains considerably lower and their unemployment rate significantly higher than among the majority group even after controlling for qualifications and other individual characteristics. This study utilises two data sets to explore possible factors underlying these differences, such as overseas qualifications, language skills and religiosity. It reveals that while religiosity is negatively associated with labour market participation among British Christian-White women, economic activity among Muslim women are not negatively affected by high religiosity. Furthermore, family structure and the presence of dependent children were among the most important factors explaining the latter’s labour market participation, although these relationships were moderated by qualifications. More women with higher qualifications were economically active even if married and with children, although some of them experienced greater unemployment, probably due to discrimination in recruiting practices and choices and preferences on religious grounds.     

Muslim Women in Australia,Britain and the United States: The Role of “Othering” and Biculturalism in Identity Formation

When Muslims migrate to Western countries, they bring their identity and culture with them. As they settle in their host countries, some Muslims encounter structural inequality, which is often revealed through media representation, unequal labour market status and racial profiling. Through the dynamics of structural inequality, some Muslim women remain doubly disadvantaged. Within their ethnic/religious community, Muslim women are expected to follow their cultural traditions and in the wider society their overtly Muslim appearance is often questioned. The discussion of identity formation in this paper is based on interviews with Muslim girls and women in Australia, Britain and the United States, aged between 15 and 30 years. Though the cultural and political contexts of these three countries are different, the practice of “othering” women have been similar. Through their life stories and narratives, I examine the formation of the participants’ identities. It was found that for many of these women their sense of identity shifted from single to multiple identities, thus revealing that identity formation was a flexible process that was affected by a variety of factors, including the relevance and importance of biculturalism in the women’s identity formation.     

Urbanization of Muslim Community in India—A Metaphor for Development? Evidences from States of West Bengal and Kerala

Historically, the religious affiliation of urbanization in India has always rendered a relative advantage for Muslim Community. During 2000–2011, in situ urbanization process has strengthened this popular belief. This trend is more pronounced in the states of Kerala and West Bengal, perhaps due to the colossal escalation of new Census Towns (CTs). This present study is an endeavour to understand whether recent upsurge of urbanization among Muslims in India can be linked with “development” in these two states based on availabilities of Basic Urban Infrastructures (BUIs), principally in the new CTs. This has been done by employing an “availability index” of infrastructures by obtaining data from Village Directory of West Bengal and Kerala, Census of India. The BUIs include educational and health institutions, bus and railway services and drinking water facility. Most importantly, where these amenities were absent in 2001, the distance travelled by the inhabitants, to get access to these services has also been examined here. The study concludes through extending the debate on whether an increase in the number of population, particularly of Muslim community, in urban areas can be taken as a true signature of development or not.     

“Heave Half a Brick at Him”: Hate Crimes and Discrimination against Muslim Converts in Late Victorian Liverpool

Throughout the existence of the Liverpool Moslem Institute, 1887–1908, there were many incidents of discrimination, intimidation, violence, and other acts of hate directed toward the British converts to Islam. This was particularly evident during the first decade after the group’s founding. The band of Muslims, led by Sheik Abdullah William Henry Quilliam, faced continued opposition, be it disruptions of events and religious services, or violent street fighting. This article explores the incidents of hate and discrimination, the milieu in which they occurred, and the reaction of the Muslim community. A brief comparison to the experience of the contemporaneous American Muslim converts also is presented.     

The “Mainstreaming” of Halal: Muslim Consumer-Citizenship in Australia

Abstract

The expansion of halal commodities globally reveals how Muslims are an object of increasing commercial interest. In Australia, despite a hostile political context, the recognition of Muslims as consumers, captured by the growing availability of halal goods, is providing alternate modalities of belonging. Drawing on fieldwork from Melbourne, Australia, this paper illustrates the ways halal consumption works to produce local, national and global orientations in citizenship and belonging for Australian-Muslims. By paying close attention to ethnographic encounters, the paper demonstrates how participation in the research process played a significant role in shaping the way participants defined, delimited and expanded the meanings of halal and its relationship to identity claims and ethical consumption. The paper argues that the concept of consumer-citizenship offers an important prism for understanding these experiences and for challenging prevailing binaries of minority and mainstream belonging in a consumer society.     

‘Settling’ the multicultural nation-state: Little Mosque on the Prairie,and the figure of the ‘moderate Muslim’

This paper analyzes Little Mosque on the Prairie, its characters and themes within the context of post-9/11 discourses of nationalism and citizenship. Against the backdrop of the Canadian national narrative, I argue that the sitcom foregrounds a ‘moderate Muslim’ that demarcates the boundaries of the multicultural nation-state, especially when juxtaposed against the racially and sexually coded Muslim ‘other’ on the global landscape. The moderate Muslim is represented as ‘liberal’ and ‘modern’, one who seeks to integrate her faith into the multicultural fabric of society. Such a figure, represented both as a ‘good’ Muslim/immigrant and a ‘good’ Canadian citizen-subject, illuminates the boundaries of ‘acceptability’ within the Canadian national imaginary. The figure of the moderate Muslim reinforces the racial coding embedded in this imaginary, while enabling the state to proclaim its ‘multicultural tolerance’ and benevolence. Building on previous scholarship on race, citizenship, and nation-building, I argue that the moderate Muslim – as exemplified in Little Mosque on the Prairie – serves important ideological functions in (re)defining the internal (and racially coded) borders of the nation. While Little Mosque on the Prairie makes an important contribution to the representation of Muslims, challenging some stereotypes, I argue that it does not deliver on its considerable potential to articulate nuanced representations of Muslims. Through its foregrounding of the figure of the moderate Muslim, the sitcom reaffirms key norms, engages in a politics of authenticity, and reinforces hegemonic messages, both within Muslim communities and in Canadian society. Thus, the moderate Muslim becomes a key player in enabling the state to render invisible its exclusion of the ‘Muslim Other,' while maintaining its non-racist credentials.     

‘I grew a beard and my dad flipped out!’ Co-option of British Muslim parents in countering ‘extremism’ within their families in Bradford and Leeds

Research on the effects of counter-terrorism has argued that Muslims are constructed as a ‘suspect community’. However, there remains a paucity of research exploring divisive effects membership to a ‘suspect community’ has on relations within Muslim families. Drawing from interviews conducted in 2010–2011 with British Muslims living in Bradford or Leeds, I address this gap by examining how co-option of Muslim parents to counter extremism fractures relations within Muslim families. I show that internalising fears of their children being radicalised or indeed radicalising others, means parents judge young Muslims’ religious practices through a restrictive moderate/extremist binary. I advance the category of ‘internal suspect body’ which is materialised through two intersecting conditions: the suspected Muslim extremist to lookout for and young Muslims at risk of radicalisation. I delineate the reproductive effects of terrors of counter-terrorism on Muslims’ experiences as they traverse state, intra-group and individual levels.     

Islamic Law,Secular Law,and Societal Norms: The Recognition of Islamic Legal Practices in the Netherlands and the Protection of Muslim Women’s Human Rights

This article examines the extent to which Islamic law is accommodated in the Netherlands, by analysing legislation, case law, and the political discourse in the field of Islamic divorce, and focuses on the tension and proposed balance between gender equality and freedom of religion. It finds that, as the priority lies with protecting Muslim women’s rights, Muslim law in the Netherlands remains in the unofficial sphere, potentially alienating Muslim communities. This article explores whether and how Dutch law could continue to ensure respect for gender equality while working towards greater respect for a minority group’s cultural and religious freedom. Two options are presented in this regard: more responsibilities for Civil and Criminal courts, or the establishment of Sharia Councils. Lessons are drawn from the United Kingdom’s experiences.     

‘Trapped between two worlds’ – Muslim Palestinian women from Israel in Jordanian universities: new identity and the price it demands

Interviews were held with 12 Muslim Palestinian women from Israel, presently studying in Jordan (6) or who had completed their higher education in Jordan (6). They explained the factors that pushed or pulled them to study in Jordan, the independence that they experienced there, the empowerment they achieved, and the price they paid when they returned to Arab society in Israel. The Arab cultural space in Jordan is defined as both foreign and close, due to its geographical and cultural proximity, and yet its distance from home and patriarchal supervision. The research findings indicate that this situation influences the formation of these women's gender identity and their empowerment but also creates much pain and conflict. The Palestinian women's new identity, formed during their studies, assists them in their efforts to reintegrate and establish their status when they return from their academic studies abroad to their society of origin, Muslim Arab society in Israel.     

Forging a Brazilian Islam: Muslim Converts Negotiating Identity in São Paulo

Converts form a growing portion of the Muslim community in São Paulo, Brazil. Often introduced to Islam through media representations, they turn to religion for a variety of reasons, including the desire to search for spiritual truth. This article will examine questions of identity that arise during the process of religious conversion, using data gathered from extensive fieldwork. Specifically, it will analyze how male converts view the place of Islam within the context of Brazilian society and how they reimagine concepts of personal identity through religious conversion. The study suggests that converts hold diverse points of view regarding the development of their spiritual identity, emphasizing both the challenges and benefits of being Muslim and practicing Islam in Brazil.