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Islam in the United Kingdom

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Islam is the second largest religion in the United Kingdom with a total of 1,591,000, (or 2.8% of the total population) Muslims. [2]

London Central Mosque in London off Regents Park
Jamia Masjid, example of a typical small mosque in East Ham

History

Early history

Although Islam is generally thought of as being a recent arrival in the United Kingdom, there has been contact between Britons and Muslims for many centuries. An early example would be the decision of Offa, the eighth-century King of Mercia (one of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms existing at that time), to have coins minted with an Islamic inscription on them - copies of coins issued by the near-contemporary Muslim ruler Al-Mansur. It is thought that they were minted to facilitate trade with the expanding Islamic empire in Spain.[1]

Muslim scholarship was well-known among the learned in England by 1386, when Chaucer was writing. In the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, there is among the pilgrims wending their way to Canterbury, a 'Doctour of Phisyk' whose learning included Razi, Avicenna (Ibn Sina, Arabic ابن سينا) and Averroes (Ibn Rushd, Arabic ابن رشد). Ibn Sina's canon of medicine was a standard text for medical students well into the 17th century.

The first English convert to Islam mentioned by name is John Nelson, a 16th century sailor[2]. 16th century writer Richard Hakluyt claimed he was forced to convert, though he mentions in the same story other Englishmen who had converted willingly.

This king had a son which was a ruler in an island called Gerbi, whereunto arrived an English ship called the Green Dragon, of the which was master one M. Blonket, who, having a very unhappy boy on that ship, and understanding that whosoever would turn Turk should be well entertained of the king's son, this boy did run ashore and voluntarily turned Turk. The king had there before in his house a son of a yeoman of our Queen's guard, whom the king's son had enforced to turn Turk; his name was John Nelson.[3]

Captain John Ward of Kent was one of a number of British sailors who became pirates based in the Maghreb who also converted to Islam (see also Barbary pirates. Later, some Unitarians became interested in the faith, and Henry Stubbes wrote so favourably about Islam that it is thought he too had converted to the faith.

In 1625 it was reported that Lundy, an island in the Bristol Channel which had been a pirate lair for much of the previous half century, had been occupied by three Turkish pirates who were threatening to burn Ilfracombe; Algerine rovers were using the island as a base in 1635, although the island had itself been attacked and plundered by a Spanish raid in 1633. [4]

There was apparently a Muslim community in England already in the 17th century. A Puritan pamphlet from 1641 warns of a sect of 'Mahometans' discovered in London and says that 'this sect is led along with a certaine foolish beliefe of Mahomet, which professed himselfe to be a Prophet'.[5]

The practice of Islam in Britain was legalized by the Trinitarian Act 1812.

Immigration

The first large group of Muslims in Britain arrived about 300 years ago. They were sailors recruited in India to work for the East India Company, and so it's not surprising that the first Muslim communities were found in port towns. Ships' cooks came too, many of them from Sylhet in what is now Bangladesh. There are records of Sylhetis working in London restaurants as early as 1873.

The first Muslim community which permanently settled in the United Kingdom consisted of Yemeni sailors who arrived in ports such as Swansea, Liverpool and South Shields shortly after 1900. Later some of them migrated to inland cities like Birmingham and Sheffield where there are 23,819 Muslims.

Mosques also appeared in British seaports at this time; the first mosque in Britain is recorded as having been at 2 Glyn Rhondda Street, Cardiff, in 1860[6]. From the 1950s, with large immigration to Britain from the former colonies of Britain, large Muslim populations developed in many British towns and cities.

Demography and ethnic background

According to the 2001 census 1,536,015 Muslims are living in England and Wales[7], where they form 3% of the population, in Scotland they represent 0.84% of the population (42,557)[8]. The Northern Ireland census indicated 1,943 Muslims[9].

British Muslim population by Ethnic group (Source: 2001 Census[10])
  Number of Muslims Muslims as % of ethnic group Ethnic group as % of Muslims
White 179,733 0.4 11.6
  White British 63,042 0.1 4.1
  White Irish 890 0.1 <0.1
  Other White 115,841 8.6 7.5
Mixed 64,262 9.7 4.2
  White & Black Caribbean 1,385 0.6 0.1
  White & Black African 10,523 13.3 0.7
  White & Asian 30,397 16.1 2.0
  Other Mixed 21,957 14.1 1.4
Asian or Asian British 1,139,065 50.1 73.7
  Indian 131,662 12.7 8.5
  Pakistani 657,680 92.0 42.5
  Bangladeshi 259,710 92.5 16.8
  Other Asian 90,013 37.3 5.8
Black or Black British 106,345 9.3 6.9
  Black Caribbean 4,477 0.8 0.3
  Black African 96,136 20.0 6.2
  Other Black 5,732 6.0 0.4
Chinese 752 0.3 <0.1
Other Ethnic Group 56,429 25.7 3.7
Total 1,546,626 3.0 100

In England 40% of Muslims live in London, where they make up 8.5% of the population. There are also large numbers of Muslims in Birmingham, Manchester, Bradford, Luton, Slough, Leicester and the mill towns of Northern England. In Scotland there are significant Muslim populations in Glasgow (17667, 3.1%), East Renfrewshire (1897, 2.1%), Dundee (2846, 2.0%) and Edinburgh (6801, 1.5%). In Wales most Muslims live in Cardiff (11261, 3,7%), but there are also significant numbers in Newport (3492, 2.6%) and Swansea (2167, 1.0%). Muslims are concentrated in urban areas, where they make up 3.3% of the population; In rural areas the proportion of the population is less than 0.1%.

Muslim population in English local authority areas.

The local authorities with a Muslim population greater than 10% are:

The Yorkshire towns of Batley and Dewsbury each have large Muslim populations. However, they are part of the district of Kirklees, which is only 10.12% Muslim. The Savile Town area of Dewsbury is often seen as the Muslim centre of the country, being "some 97-100% Muslim"[11] and having the largest Islamic seminary in the country with the Markazi mosque, one of the largest purpose-built mosque in Europe. It is also one of the most orthodox centers of Muslim learning in the West.[12] Most large cities have one area that is a majority Muslim even if the rest of the city has a fairly small Muslims population; see, for example, Harehills in Leeds.

Pakistani Kashmiris from the Mirpur district (part of Pakistan Administered Kashmir, Northern Pakistan) were the first South Asian Muslim community which settled in Britain permanently. The first of them arrived in Birmingham and Bradford in the late 1930s. Immigration from around the district of Mirpur grew from the late 1950s onwards. It was accompanied by immigration from other parts of Pakistan, mainly the north of the Punjab and the area around Attock in the North-West Frontier Province province of Pakistan.

People of Pakistani ethnic background are particularly strong in the West Midlands, West Yorkshire, Lancashire/ Greater Manchester and industrial towns in South East England like Luton, Slough and Oxford. There are also many Muslims from the Sylhet region of Bangladesh and from the Gujerat region of India living in Britain. The Sylhetis, (who speak a dialect of Bengali) are concentrated in Tower Hamlets, London. However, they also possess significant communities in Luton, Birmingham, Manchester, Oldham, Hyde, Bradford, Keighley and Sunderland. There are large numbers of Gujerati Muslims in Dewsbury, Blackburn, Bolton and Preston.

Apart from these peoples, a considerable portion of South Asian Muslims trace their origins back to South Asian communities in East Africa that either simply moved or were forced out due to anti-Indian activities of African revolutionaries in countries such as Uganda and Zanzibar.

There are also communities of Somali, Nigerian and other Subsaharan African peoples, especially in London as well as Bosnian and Albanian Muslims from Kosovo in Britain. Since the Iraq War, there has been an increase in the number of Kurds in Britain. Again, they may be concentrated in certain areas, such as the Ravensthorpe area of Dewsbury.

Religious currents and organisations

The vast majority of British Muslim population, 98%, follow Sunni Islam.[citation needed]

A large number of British Muslims are of South Asian descent, following many different movements within Islam. Many British Asian Muslims follow the Barelwi sect. The most influential movement of the Barelwi group is the World Islamic Mission [13]. Many also follow the Deobandi movement as well. The Tablighi Jamaat is an important subgroup of the Deobandis; its center is located in Dewsbury. The Ahl-i Hadith is another trend, which in general is opposed to Sufism. Islamic Mission is the counterpart of the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami which follows the ideology of Abu l-Ala Mawdudi.

South Asian Shias are predominantly from Pakistan or Gujarat (the Khoja, who are usually found under the umbrella organisation "The World Federation"). There are also Shias from Lebanon, Iran, and Iraq. The al-Khoei foundation, belonging to one of the most important Iraqi Shia families, is located in London. Among the Gujarati Ismaili Muslims, both branches of Ismailism - the Dawoodi Bohras and the Nizaris - are represented. The Ahmadiyya, who are considered heretical by mainstream Muslims, have relocated their centre to Tilford near Farnham in Surrey from Pakistan due to the UK's partnership with the Ahmadiyya cult during colonial times.

Much of the congregation of London's most famous mosque (London Central or Regent's Park Mosque) are of Arab descent. In Birmingham much of the Arab community is centered around the Muath Trust more commonly known as the 'Amaanah'. The Hizb ut-Tahrir is a political party (in exile) originally from the Palestinian territories.

Most (98%) Turkish Muslims are Sunnis. The religious authority of Turkey runs a mosque in London.

The United Kingdom also has a large diaspora of African and Afro-Caribbean Muslims, hailing both from the Muslim communities in British colonies in Africa and the Caribbean and also from British-born converts.

The Sunni Salafi movement has gained some prominence within the British Muslim community in recent decades as well.

The Muslim Council of Britain is an umbrella organisation for many local, regional and specialist Islamic organisations in the United Kingdom.

Organization of British ex-Muslims

Reflecting the current political climate, the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain was launched on Thursday the 21st of June, 2007 for the purpose of supporting individuals who have chosen to apostatize themselves from their former religion and provide society with information about the members which more accurately represents their views and numbers.[14] The launch was encouraged and sponsored by the British Humanist Association and the National Secular Society. The group hopes to emulate the results achieved by similar organizations in other European nations.[15]

Political organisations and pressure groups

Notable mosques

References

  1. ^ Gold imitation dinar of Offa, British Museum
  2. ^ BBC
  3. ^ Voyager's Tales, 3, The voyage made to Tripolis in Barbary, in the year 1584, Richard Haklyut
  4. ^ History of Lundy
  5. ^ How Islam influenced British culture and civilisation 400 years ago, Muslim Media
  6. ^ Islam and Britain, BBC
  7. ^ KS07 Religion: Key Statistics for urban areas, results by population size of urban area
  8. ^ ANALYSIS OF RELIGION IN THE 2001 CENSUS: Summary Report, Scottish Executive
  9. ^ Northern Ireland Census 2001 Key Statistics
  10. ^ Ethnic Group by Religion
  11. ^ http://www.kirklees-pct.nhs.uk/fileadmin/documents/meetings/march_07/KPCT-07-42%20Report%20estate%20strategy.doc paragraph 4.3
  12. ^ Islam In Dewsbury
  13. ^ World Islamic Mission
  14. ^ The Guardian - The courage of their convictions
  15. ^ [1]

Literature

  • Joly, Danièle: Britannia's crescent: making a place for Muslims in British society, Aldershot: Avebury, 1995 ISBN 1-85628-680-0
  • Philip Lewis: Islamic Britain: religion, politics and identity among British Muslims ; Bradford in the 1990s, London: Tauris, 1994 ISBN 1-85043-861-7
  • Matar, Nabil Turks, Moors, and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery,Columbia University Press 2000 ISBN 0-231-11015-4
  • S.E.Al-Djazari The Hidden Debt to Islamic CivilisationBayt Al-Hikma Press September 2005 ISBN 0-9551156-1-2

See also

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