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As British as Bolton
Young Muslims in the UK are searching for a form of Islam that makes sense in this context, says Philip Lewis
 British and Muslim: left: Amir Kahn celebrates with his father, Shah Kahn, after winning the Commonwealth (British Empire) Lightweight Boxing title bout earlier this month against Gairy St Clair of Australia |
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AMIR was born in Bolton in 1987. His family’s story is in some respects typical of the 70 per cent of British Muslims with roots in South Asia. His grandfather, Lall Khan, came from a small village in the Punjab, in Pakistan, an hour away from Rawalpindi, a military cantonment. A soldier in the Pakistan army, Lall decided to chance his luck, and arrived in the north of England in 1963 with nothing. After picking potatoes in Bradford, he found regular work in a Bolton mill. His wife and four children joined him in 1967. Amir’s father was then nine years old. Before his death, Amir’s grandfather had built a solid house in his Pakistani village, and a second home in Rawalpindi. Amir’s father would also buy a house in Rawalpindi, where he will retire. While dad is at ease in Bolton, for him “home” remains Pakistan. Not so for Amir. While he enjoys his visits to Pakistan, he describes himself as “Pakistani in terms of my background, but culturally I’m British, Bolton through and through”. In Pakistan, “just by the way you stand, walk, your mannerisms, they can tell you are foreign.” Of course, in other respects, Amir is far from typical. In 2005, as a 17-year-old, he was catapulted into celebrity status after winning an Olympic silver medal for boxing. His cousin Sajid Mahmood has played cricket for England. After 7/7, Amir found he was being projected as an ambassador of British young people of Pakistani ancestry. More particularly, he finds that he has metamorphosed from “Asian lad” to representative “Muslim”. Amir handles this in his autobiography with humour and characteristic northern common sense. Amir’s family are part of a history of exchange between India and Britain reaching back 300 years to the founding of the East India Company, an exchange which saw a growing stream of students, traders, and political dissidents in the 19th century. As Amir’s story reminds us, substantial Muslim migration began only in the 1950s, to meet a growing labour shortage in the industrial cities of London and the Midlands, and the former textile towns of Yorkshire and Lancashire. IT IS POSSIBLE to identify a four-phase development cycle for the majority of Muslim communities settled in Britain, which Amir Khan’s family exemplifies: first, the pioneers; then “chain migration” of generally unskilled male workers from a number of villages; followed by the migration of wives and children; and, finally, the emergence of a generation of Muslims born and educated in Britain. Each phase serves to enlarge the range of contacts and familiarity with British society. During the second stage, the intention was for men to work for a few years and return to their country of origin, to be replaced by a relative who could continue sending remittances back. The men often lived in multiple-occupancy flats and houses: one group of textile day-workers vacated their beds to be filled with the returning night shift. Most saw no need to develop a good knowledge of the language and culture of their neighbours, sustained as they were by the myth of return. The third phase is from sojourners to settlers. During this third phase wives join their husbands or a bride is sought from the homeland. With family consolidation, a network of institutions was developed to meet the religious and cultural needs of their families. This typically involved establishing places to worship: initially, a church might extend to them use of a building; or a couple of houses or redundant commercial buildings would be acquired and converted into a mosque. Then an imam would be sought, usually from the homeland, to teach the children the basics of Islam. During this third phase, Muslims had to develop the linguistic and social skills to interface with the municipal authority and key local institutions to make sure service provision was sensitive to their needs, whether in hospital, school, or cemetery. The third and fourth phases, of course, overlap. With the emergence of a generation of Muslims born and educated in Britain, more and more Muslims are being incorporated into public and civic society. The 2001 UK Census was the first since 1951 to pose a question about religious identity. Its data indicated that the population of the Muslim communities was 1.6 million, or 2.7 per cent of the UK population. The Muslim population in the UK has grown in half a century from 21,000 to 1.6 million. The rate of growth is rapid, and the population is young; so continued growth is expected — not least because Pakistani and Bangladeshi households are almost twice the size of those of the white majority. Muslims have the youngest age structure of all religious communities. One third are aged 0-15, compared with an average for the whole population of 20 per cent. Only six per cent are aged over 60, compared with 21 per cent for the population as a whole. Demographic projection is an imprecise science, but the 2001 population figure for Muslims is likely to double by 2021, to about three million. For many parents, community elders, and religious leaders, disentangling religion from culture is not so easy. In many ways, this is where the battle lines are being drawn.Many educated young Muslims, especially women, are increasingly appealing to Islam to criticise aspects of imported parental culture, felt to be oppressive and dysfunctional. No aspect of traditional culture is more contested than transcontinental marriage with rural cousins. Too often this is seen as serving to consolidate clan loyalties rather than serving the interests of the young people themselves. |
 Amir Kahn’s family and supporters — kitted out in Union flags — form part of the crowd supporting the UK boxer in a previous fight against Jong Baik of Korea PA |
| WITH REGARD to Islam and young Muslims, the latter are searching for a form of Islam that makes sense in a multicultural context. They find it hard to get answers, particularly where they rely on imams from overseas who do not speak English. Imams should be giving young people tools to integrate on their own terms. Too often they have tended to say “Live at peace with your neighbours,” and at the same time, “We don’t want to live like them.” So the message has been: “Be good, but be separate.” A recent contribution on the radicalisation of young Muslims rightly noted that “there is no natural continuum from radical Muslim to militant violence. Radical Muslims variously preach their practice, establish in-dependent institutions such as schools, rage against oppression, argue about forms of Muslim governance or the correct practice of the religion.” Yet these same radicals know that “they need this open British society to have the freedom to do all these things. Even in their most impassioned moments, they are still doing so inside this society, not outside it . . . as outlaws.” A few fail to make the distinction between “radical stakeholder and militant nihilist”, partly because Muslim elders are unable to offer appropriate guidance: if they respond at all, it is to shut the troublemakers out instead of guiding them in. Usually they are altogether unaware of the dangers because there never has been a channel for communication — traditional Muslim associations have no concept of rebellious youth. This void has been filled by a proliferation of initiatives documented in this book, ranging from an informal school for Muslim journalism, helplines, and the creation of a youth foundation for Muslim young people, to a citizenship course for mosque and school. THESE FEW EXAMPLES are indicative rather than exhaustive of the creativity of a new generation of young British Muslim professional who, weary of the paralysis of many of their elders, have independently sought to plug the gaping holes in provision. What is also evident is a new self-criticism and humour apparent in Muslim publications — both of which are marks of growing self-confidence. I have in front of me a recent edition of a beautifully produced Muslim lifestyle magazine, Emel. It includes a regular column with the catchy title, “Diary of a Desperate Dad”, another concerned with “Ethics”, and a balanced and generous review of the autobiography by the controversial Dutch Somali female MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali, with the provocative title Infidel: The story of my enlightenment. An article is also devoted to a spate of works urging the need for a reformation in Islam, and includes the following comment: “I would like my children to know that debate is healthy; to be exposed to discussion, to see it as normal and enriching. What I do not want is for them to be straitjacketed into a rigid doctrine where they are forbidden to dissent. Groups such as the Progressive Muslims strike a chord in lamenting our lost heritage of questioning; the ethos of searching and reasoning that lies dormant.” Reading this fine publication, it is clear that — as with Q-News — the editor and many of its contributors are women. British Muslim women are finding their voice. As with many of their male peers, they are looking for expansive readings of the Islamic tradition which make possible and legitimise a constructive conversation between their multiple identities. This is the challenge for Islamic scholarship in general and the world of the mosque in particular. It is interesting that many Muslims are looking outside South Asia and the Middle East to Europe. They are retrieving moments in European history where Muslim, Christian, and Jew co-existed, whether in Spain or the Ottoman Empire. Bosnian Islamic scholars are being sought out, since they represent a sophisticated European expression of Islam. In general, British Muslims are beginning to press for a principled engagement with all aspects of British society, rather than staying within their comfort zones. It is important that wider society respond with equal generosity. Not least, policy-makers should be ready to give space, time, and, where necessary, resources to enable this engagement to deepen and bear fruit. This is an edited extract from Young, British and Muslim by Philip Lewis (Continuum; £12.99 (£11.70); 978-0-8264-9730-7). |
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