‘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.     

Muslims and Minority Politics in Great Britain

This paper reviews the history of immigration and demographics of British Muslims and analyzes the relevant characteristics that influence their political representation in the country. Such factors include immigration patterns, demographic characteristics of Muslim groups and coalition versus group competition trends, political mobilization patterns, the politics of race, and the dynamics of party–minority relations. The paper also provides original data on elected Muslims in British local and national government and examines the electoral power, political identity, social behavior, civic and political participation, and representation of Muslims in the larger British community.     

Muslims in Harmony and Conflict in Plural Sri Lanka: A Historical Summary from a Religio-economic and Political Perspective

Islam and Muslims in Sri Lanka have a history of more than a millennium. During this long period their economic and religious experience had been one of fluctuating fortunes beginning with harmony and prosperity under Buddhist monarchs to repression and misery under Western colonialists. Economic freedom under native rulers, mercantilist restrictions under the Portuguese and Dutch and open economy under the British brought alternative episodes of economic affluence and depression to Muslims. After independence, however, under a democratic polity the community adopted a pragmatic approach to a new situation, which allowed Muslims and Islam to enjoy once again decades of peaceful coexistence and relative prosperity, until political and economic circumstances of the country changed dramatically to create an environment of anti-Muslim and anti-Islam phobia. What follows is a historical narration of these vicissitude retold from a religio-economic and political perspective.     

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.     

Failure of Muslim Leadership in America From the Perspective of First-Generation Muslim Americans: A Phenomenological Study

While leadership is a foundational component of guidance in most societies, Muslim children born in America to immigrant parents lack such guidance. A qualitative case study was recently conducted with six first-generation Muslim American college students and professionals. The purpose of this study was six-fold: to examine the concept of leadership in Muslim communities in America, to observe perceptions of Muslim leadership in mosques and community centers, to examine the practice and beliefs of Muslims in America, to view the social interaction of Muslim Americans within their community, to view the mentorship and leadership aspects of Muslim Americans in their community and to inspect marital and cultural aspects within those societies. Findings reveal four themes that show that Muslim Americans are subject to role confusion as they go through adolescence and need a leadership role model to assist them through this stage.     

Supporting the democratic political organisation of Muslim immigrants: the perspective of Muslims in the Netherlands and Germany

Using data from three survey studies, this paper examines the support for the democratic political organisation of Muslims among Muslim immigrants in the Netherlands (Studies 1, 2, and 3) and Germany (Study 3). Using a social psychological perspective, support is examined in relation to religious group identification, Muslim linked fate, perceived discrimination, fundamentalist religious belief, and host national identification. The findings in all three studies show support for the political organisation of Muslims. Furthermore, higher religious group identification and higher linked fate were associated with stronger support. More discrimination and more fundamentalist beliefs were also associated with stronger support, and part of these associations was mediated by linked fate. National identification was not associated with support for the political organisation of Muslims.     

Critical Race Theory,policy rhetoric and outcomes: the case of Muslim schools in Britain

The expansion of state-funded Muslim schools in Britain since 1998 has developed against a backdrop of sustained public political rhetoric around the wider position of British Muslims in both political and educational contexts. This article explores the public policy rhetoric around Muslim schools under New Labour and the subsequent Coalition and Conservative governments and compares how these narratives align with outcomes in terms of numbers of, and types of, denominational Muslim faith schools in Britain. The article applies a Critical Race Theory approach based on the construction of counter-narrative through a critical analysis of policy and its outcomes. This analysis is contextualised through exploring the implications of counter-terror strategies such as Prevent for the political and educational equity of British Muslims as stakeholders in the state. Against this context the article explores the extent to which successive policy frameworks and political narratives around faith schooling have played out in terms of denominational state-funded Muslim schools. Whilst gains have been made under New Labour and the successive Coalition and Conservative governments, critical analysis reveals that public policy narratives allow for a misleading account of the extent to which Muslim communities have been enfranchised through state funding for Islamic schools.     

Releasing the “Terror Genie”: Man Haron Monis and the “Sydney Siege”

The threat of “Islamic terrorism” has become a feature of the Australian political landscape. This has taken the form of unconfirmed suggestions of promised beheadings by groups, the threat of lone-wolf attacks, and the radicalisation of Islamic youths fighting in Syria and Iraq. This paper argues that the Islamic terror genie has been used to effectively transform the Australian political landscape through a series of plotted suggestions. The excuse for such policy excludes the necessity for evidence in a public forum. Law and order issues that involve Muslim figures who so happen to embrace, erroneously, an Islamic stance, end up being swept up in this current. The Man Haron Monis hostage case (or the “Sydney Siege”) provided a classic example of this problem, illustrating the misunderstandings, deceptions and delusions that have come to characterise the response of Australia’s security and media establishment.     

Diverse Muslims in a Racialized Landscape: Race,Ethnicity and Islamophobia in the American City of Milwaukee,Wisconsin

Studying the racially and ethnically diverse Muslim minority population in any US city must take into account the racialized landscape prevailing in the city. Milwaukee is a highly racially segregated city, where residential patterns have been shaped by decades of immigration by various ethnic and racial groups, and by restrictions on residential housing, as well as industrialization, deindustrialization and suburbanization. This paper presents findings of an ethnographic research along with the results of a household survey of Muslims in Milwaukee in the context of Milwaukee's urban landscape. Muslims in Milwaukee are racially, ethnically and linguistically diverse. Their patterns of residence and of worship suggest the influence of not only segregation and the typical patterns of ethnic immigration but also clustering and dispersal. Patterns of residences also show the influence of not only Muslim leadership and organization but also of the racialized landscape of the city. Our survey provides a portrait of a community negotiating racial and ethnic differences and solidarities.     

What They Really Want Is a Caliphate! British Salafi Reactions to the Arab Spring

This contribution discusses the lack of references to the success of Salafi parties in the Middle East after the Arab Spring, in Egypt especially, by groups who self-identify as Salafi outside the Middle East. In their interpretation of the uprisings known as the Arab Spring, British Salafis have emphasised that Arab Muslim populations in the Middle East want an Islamic Caliphate despite cries for liberal rights and democracy. The aim of this contribution is to provide a theoretical frame for analysing a type of European Salafism on the rise preoccupied with establishing “Sharia Zones” and controlling fellow Muslims’ observance of Islamic principles in British cities but with little interest in political developments in Muslim majority countries. Rather than working for political influence, the British so-called Salafis in al-Muhajiroun are preoccupied with defining a place of their own in their European context. Thus, the argument is that in order to understand current Salafi-inspired movements in the Middle East and Europe, it is necessary to analyse practice, rhetorical expressions and political context rather than how various groups self-identify.     

The Woking Mosque Muslims: British Islam in the Early Twentieth Century

This paper discusses the views and social character of the group of British Muslims, centred round the Woking Mosque in the period immediately following the First World War. It argues that this group had four distinctive characteristics. First, it formed its own cultural community, rather than joining a pre-existing ethnic community. Second, it espoused an orthodox but modernistic Islam, influenced by—while not sharing the distinctive doctrines of—the Lahore Ahmadiyya. Third, it faced a leadership problem. Other than Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din (who played a key role in the group's early days, and who was a leading member of the Lahore Ahmadiyya, but had been given a specific brief not to spread their distinctive doctrines), the group was in many ways thrown upon its own resources. Here, Marmaduke Pickthall—subsequently the author of The Meaning of the Glorious Quran—played a major role. But while he had good colloquial and subsequently classical Arabic, his knowledge of Islam was largely self-taught. A final problem here was posed by the fact that the group attracted some converts—including Lord Headley—who exercised considerable influence because of their social standing, but whose knowledge of Islam was limited.     

Muslim Faith and Work Ethic in the United States Virgin Islands

The objective of the following article is to examine why a small number of Muslims from the Middle East chose to settle in the United States Virgin Islands (USVI). Further, the article is interested in how this Muslim community has retained its work ethic and religious identity in a predominantly Christianized USVI. The article also explores the relationship between this Muslim community and the USVI particularly since the events of 11 September 2001 (9/11). The findings are startling. Unlike some Muslim minority communities that have been unable to make significant strides forward, Muslims in the USVI have achieved impressive levels of economic achievement. Muslims have effectively dominated the retail business in the USVI while largely retaining the religious ways of their homeland, despite some assimilation. Local structural issues such as the inefficient entrepreneurial skills and unstable family ties among Virgin Islanders, as well as an upsurge in investment in tourism and industry, have paved the way for Muslims’ success in the USVI. Other Muslim minority societies trying to achieve growth and development in a foreign land might look at the manner in which Muslims in the USVI have achieved success and financial security.     

The suburban paradox of conviviality and racism in postcolonial Britain

Taking my cue from work on relations of interethnic conviviality in super-diverse cities across the globe, this paper examines the ways in which conviviality co-exists with racism as found in a suburban British town. My argument is that ethnographic attention to the proximity of interethnic relations of conviviality to racism is necessary to guard against overly celebratory accounts of conviviality that downplay everyday manifestations of racism. By situating my study of conviviality in a suburban town, my account begins to unpack the characteristics of convivial relations formed in suburban neighbourhoods as opposed to super-diverse cities often studied by ethnographers in this area of inquiry. I examine manifestations of interethnic relations between British Asian Muslims and white British residents of this town. In contrast to the mainstream images that depict British Asian Muslims as a potential threat to neighbourhood stability and national security, some white and British Asian Muslim residents formed neighbourly relationships of trust, care and mutual recognition with each other across ethnic, racial, religious, gender, class and generational differences. Yet, my analysis of these convivial relations reveals some paradoxical ways in which individuals’ experiences of interethnic relations co-exist with their xenophobic, racist and Islamophobic attitudes.     

Muslims in Great Britain: the impact of mosque attendance on political behaviour and civic engagement

Is mosque attendance associated with withdrawal from civic and political life and the endorsement of politically motivated violence (PMV)? We draw from a large multi-ethnic survey in the U.K. to answer this research question. Our analysis is unique in that we compare Muslims to Christians to show that mosques, just like churches, can enhance the civic and political participation of their adherents. Drawing from scholarship on religious institutions, social capital, and social identity, we claim and empirically show that mosque attendance is associated with increased electoral and non-electoral political participation, higher levels of civic engagement, and the rejection of PMV. Our findings not only advance the current scholarly understanding of the attitudes and behaviours of Muslims in the West, but also have important policy implications in that they help dispel stereotypical and sensationalist accounts of Mosques and their adherents in the post-Brexit U.K.     

Making the “Other” from “Us”: The Representation of British Converts to Islam in Mainstream British Newspapers

There is now a great deal of literature that shows how Islam and Muslims are routinely represented in negative ways in the mainstream newspapers. With overt or covert reliance on Orientalist discourse, discourses of cultural clash and extremism, including terror, are prevalent. Not only are Muslims less likely to feature in “normal” stories, abuse and prejudice against them is also more unlikely to constitute “news”. British converts to Islam have only recently begun to receive more focused attention, both in academia and in the mainstream press. Occupying a unique position in respect to the idea of the “other” and of integration in a multicultural society, converts offer a powerful point of critique of these concepts. The aim of this study is to understand how and in what discourses British converts to Islam are represented, and thereby contribute empirical knowledge to these theoretical concerns.     

Unequal among equals: lessons from discourses on ‘Dalit Muslims’ in modern India

Questioning ‘Dalit Muslims’ as an authentic social group, the authors enumerate the challenges inherent in presupposing that clearly delineated social groups exist and challenge the efficacy of designating such groups as discernible and cohesive. An interdisciplinary critique that draws on history, religion and social sciences, reveals a pervasive, yet ambiguous, group consciousness shaped by two prevalent discourses: social stratification among Muslims in India; and emerging activist platforms claiming to represent a Dalit Muslim polity. The ways in which ‘Dalit Muslims’ are reified as a presumably singular social group are highlighted (and disputed) in order to further scholarly debate regarding dynamics of group formation and definition. The analysis shows that, given similar social, economic and political experiences of some segments of the population, ‘Dalit Muslims’ may be treated (cautiously) as a social category for purposes of discussion. Nevertheless, despite enduring discourses about social hierarchy and socio-political activism, and a generalized have-nots versus elite rhetoric that underlies assertions of community coherence and demands for amelioration, no established, homogeneous group appropriate for either scholarly investigation or policy planning can be identified. Rather, diversity, status ambiguity and ongoing change processes provide the most cogent characterization of Dalit Muslim communities in India today.     

Islamophobia and the Problematization of Mosques: A Critical Exploration of Hate Crimes and the Symbolic Function of “Old” and “New” Mosques in the United Kingdom

Most scholarly studies have tended to focus on the building of new and proposed mosques, and in particular how they are sites of conflict and contestation symbolic of wider “problems” associated with Muslims and Islam in the United Kingdom. This study focuses on an overlooked aspect within this, the extent to which attacks on mosques that are neither new nor proposed perform a similar symbolic function. Presenting new empirical evidence from research undertaken with ten mosques across the United Kingdom that had been targeted for attack, we begin by exploring the existing literature on the problematization of mosques using the lens of critical Islamophobia studies to do so. Setting out what is known about attacks on mosques in the British setting, empirical findings from the research are used to illustrate the type and manifestation of attacks experienced, going on to consider the drivers and catalysts for them. Exploring the similarities and differences between the conflict and contestation associated with new mosques and the attacks on mosques that are not new, this study concludes that some resonance exists in the symbolic function mosques continue to serve in the community. In conclusion, the significant resonance between Islamophobically motivated attacks against mosques with those against the individuals is considered.     

Hong Kong Muslims on Hajj: Rhythms of the Pilgrimage 2.0 and Experiences of Spirituality Among Twenty-First Century Global Cities

The pilgrimage to Mecca is an often-overlooked topic in the study of Muslim minorities. This work looks at the experiences of Muslims in Hong Kong who make up a multi-ethnic community situated in a densely populated urban metropolis in China. As a small community, these Muslims are free from the constraints of the hajj quota system that most countries are subjected to. The organisation and experiences of these pilgrims is contrasted with recent developments in Mecca, including urban development and communications infrastructure to serve the pilgrims. The twenty-first century hajj, as “pilgrimage 2.0”, characterises some of the contemporary challenges that modern hajj poses. These insights are contrasted with Lefebvre's concept of rhythmanalysis to highlight themes of permanence and change. In addressing the similarities of both Mecca and Hong Kong as “global cities”, the experiences of Hong Kong Muslims are made distinct.     

The Development Impact of Mosque Location on Land Use in Australia: A Case Study of Masjid al Farooq in Brisbane

The rapid growth of Australia's Muslim population over the past three decades has presented a challenge to local governments to find ways of accommodating their needs, particularly providing spaces to build mosques. Yet in many parts of Australia, mosque applications have been opposed by local communities and consequently such applications are usually declined by local councils. Many Muslims believe that Islamophobhia and racism are behind such refusals. This paper examines the role of urban planning policies in determining the location, architectural form, and the use of mosques, and their impact on the local community, through a case study of the Masjid Al Farooq in South-East Queensland. It seeks to understand whether urban planning policy as well as urban planners can become a tool of integrating the community and, if so, how. This case study reveals that there is no provision in urban planning policies specifically for places of worship. Such applications are treated the same as all others even though they have a very different purpose. Places of worship form an integral part of community and can be crucial at a time when political leaders seem to be placing emphasis on family and social cohesion. Marginalising places of worship will continue to disenchant segments of the population and make them feel like “outsiders”. Given the contemporary global political climate, there are no easy solutions. This paper makes policy suggestions that government, planners, and community leaders can embrace so that mosques and those who worship in them are seen as part of the community.