Cultivating a Cohesive Society
Issue 72 September 2010
The opportunity to incorporate respect for humanity as part of our Eid celebrations is one that should not be missed.
Ramadan is a month of worship and community spirit to recharge our souls and reconnect with our Lord. Yet for some converts the blessings of this month are marred by their feelings of estrangement from both their former communities and the Muslim community they have joined but have never been completely accepted by. If they visit the Mosque for the tarawih prayer during Ramadan they attract looks and stares and in some cases may not even be greeted, while on Eid when we all enjoy time with our families they have nowhere to go.
Earlier this month I was giving a presentation to a group of senior civil servants from Malaysia and observed how much easier it can be for a married couple if at least one partner has a Muslim family to turn to. The Malaysian delegates responded by stating how in their country it is quite normal for people of different faiths to come together to celebrate each others festivals. So on Eid, Christian families will take food round to their Muslim neighbours and at Christmas, the Muslims reciprocate reinforcing the idea that they are an integrated society where people form a single supportive ummah despite holding divergent beliefs – a community you could legitimately compare to the first ummah – the pluralistic ummah of Madinah.
While I have encountered individuals in the British Muslim community who have reached out to their neighbours in this way, the norm sadly remains with different faith groups regarding each other with suspicion or even overt hostility. As Muslims we have no excuse for this as we have ample evidence in the life of our beloved Prophet to encourage us to fully engage with our neighbours. Recall for instance the way that the Prophet cleared the Mosque for the Najran Christians to pray, even after they had rejected his invitation to embrace Islam.
Last weekend I attended a conference dedicated to the life of the Prophet, and all the speakers I listened to spoke with knowledge and passion about Muhammad. Yet when it came to panel discussions dedicated to applying the lessons learned from his life, the language immediately returned to that of the ‘plight’ of Muslims living in a ‘Kufr state’ and whether or not it was an obligation to migrate and flee the land of the infidel to protect themselves and their families from the corruption of the Kufar.
In spite of the recurring issues of Niqab, racial profiling, faith based schools and the excesses of the anti-terrorism forces, I can’t help feeling that Muslims in Britain today are more secure than the Muslims of Madinah were after they had migrated there to escape their oppressors in Makkah. That being the case, isn’t it time we abandoned the ‘us’ and ‘them’ polemic and started functioning as a single multifaceted community, tolerant of a diversity of faiths and cultures?
Since I took my shahada, declaring publicly my faith, I have never experienced any serious conflict with my family; a fact I am very grateful for, yet what always distressed me was the ever apparent feeling in my parents and siblings that I had in some profound way ‘left’ them and become ‘other’, a point I always contested. But as a community we are just as guilty as those in the wider society of emphasising on difference and in doing so, driving a wedge between us and wider society. If we want to be accepted as equal citizens we need to show through our actions that we feel a part of the wider community and that we recognise our fellow citizens as equals in humanity if not the same in belief or practice.
We can learn a great deal from our brothers and sisters in Malaysia. I do not accept that in showing respect for the ‘other’, we dilute our faith or risk confusion in our community. When the Prophet Muhammad gave the Najrans the mosque to pray in, it served only to emphasise the strength and confidence of the Muslim community. The isolationist behaviour that currently dominates the Muslim community far from preserving the ‘purity ‘ of the faith only emphasises that we do not have confidence in our way of life, that we do not feel able to ‘risk’ following the way of the Prophet and treating our fellow Christians and Jews with the love and respect our beloved Prophet displayed for the whole of humanity.
Dawud Bone is the Stone Ashdown Director of the Centre for the Study of Muslim-Jewish Relations at the Woolf Institute.
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Comments
3 Comments
1
Building For The Future
1 Nov 11, 20:57
Thank you for this very sensible article. It is a shame that so much of the Muslim community subcribes so readily to such a victim mentality. It is particularly strange given the fact that many Muslims who are recent immigrants to the country will say (should you choose to ask them) that the UK is a very tolerant country. Philip Lewis discusses many of these themes in his book Young British and Muslim, a review of which can be found here : http://bftfblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/book-review-young-briti sh-and-muslim.html
2
Building For The Future
1 Nov 11, 20:57
Thank you for this very sensible article. It is a shame that so much of the Muslim community subcribes so readily to such a victim mentality. It is particularly strange given the fact that many Muslims who are recent immigrants to the country will say (should you choose to ask them) that the UK is a very tolerant country. Philip Lewis discusses many of these themes in his book Young British and Muslim, a review of which can be found here : http://bftfblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/book-review-young-briti sh-and-muslim.html
3
Ifti
15 Sep 10, 17:08
A report by the Institute for Community Cohesion found that native parents were deserting some schools after finding their children out numbered by pupils from ethnic minorities. Schools in parts of England are becoming increasingly segregated. The study focused on 13 local authorities. Many of the schools and colleges are segregated and this was generally worsening over recent years. This is RACISM because British society is the home of institutional racism. My statement regarding Muslim schools where there is no place for non-Muslim child or a teacher is based on educational process and not on racism. Muslim children need Muslim teachers during their developmental periods. For higher studies and reserech, Muslim teacher is not a priority.
It is not Islam and Muslims who are the roots of all the problems. Actually,
British society has been creating problems for the Muslim community for the last 60 years.The Muslim community has been vicitm of Paki-bashing in all walks of life by the British society and Establishment for the last 60 years. Now it is vicitm of terrorism by the British Establishment. Thousands of Muslim
youths are being serched in the streets and hundreds of them are behind the bar without any trial.
God has created diverse human beings to live in this tiny global villageas
of one family. Creation by its very nature is deverse with different
species, different communities, different cultures and languages. These
differences represent the beauty and wonder but diversity is sometimes not
fully appreciated, resulting in all sorts of clashes. The British society
and Establishment must learn to respect and accommodate others, as if in a family. The second generation of Muslim migrants is facing a huge challenge because they did not think even for a second before that someone would say, 'You are not welcome.'"
If you are worrying that people are different, believe different things, want different things you may be seduced to think that you could create world peace by making them all the same. Trying to do this usually leads to war, as history shows abundantly. There will be more peace and happiness if we allow each other to figure out for ourselves what we should do.
If there are parents and teachers, and children, who want faith schools, let them have them. Parents try to send their kids to faith schools because in general they get better results than normal comprehensives. State schools too, they may well teach various types of faith in those schools but all are to teach that Christianity is the right choice, the constant faith based holidays (easter, xmas plus others) from a very early age till the time one has to leave, they are bombarded with Christianity.Mr Dawkins must not forget that although faith schools attract state funding those who attend the schools have parents who pay their taxes. whether they went to a non faith school or not, the goverment would have to supply enough schools to fit them all in.
Iftikhar Ahmad
http://www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk