In the footsteps of great Muslim cultures

I'm a bit late in posting this up, but here is my latest article from The Muslim News...

On long summer evenings in the capital, young Muslims from across the city usually spill out onto the streets of central London. They are interspersed amongst the multitude of visitors from the Middle East who come here to escape from the unbearable heat of their home countries.

Edgware Road and Bayswater are particular magnates for these visitors, a bit like Ibiza and Tenerife for the British. They offer the languages, food and comforts of home, but in a better climate. The visitors usually spend time with the same people who they live close to at home. You see pockets of them congregating in Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park. The heavily perfumed and well-turned out women promenade through the department stores on Oxford Street, handing over credit cards and hauling home their voluminous purchases. Their influx is wonderful for London’s economy.

At first glance to the untrained eye, many of them would pass as London’s own Muslim community. The women are fashionably dressed, often speak good English, and mingle confidently in their new social environment. But look more closely, and their style of clothing, their conversations and languages vary considerably to those of born-and-bred British Muslims.

There seems to be little interaction between the visitors and those who are native to London, despite the commonalities of faith. This separation is intriguing, and quite surprising. As a child travelling abroad with my parents, it was instilled in me that it was obligatory in each place to search for the local halal restaurant, to establish immediately the location of the nearest mosque, to exchange information and experiences with the local Muslims. They would be just as excited to meet us, as we were to meet them, whether we were in Vancouver, Zagreb or Sierra Leone. Creating the bonds was deliciously satisfying and instantly made us feel at home.

The visitors to London appear to have little interest in getting to know the local Muslims. They have simply chosen to come on holiday to the UK to ‘get away from it all’. Does their lack of interest in the local Muslim population lie in the fact they come from a place where almost everyone is Muslim? Unlike the minority Muslim groups scattered around Europe and the Americas who look to create relationships wherever they travel, are they without the incentives to seek out those with whom they share faith connections? Alternatively, does the wider Muslim world make the assumption that Muslims round the globe must be the same as they are? Therefore they may have no interest in getting to know the natives. Or maybe they are simply not plugged into the fact that Muslims outside of the traditional ‘homelands’ are evolving and have their own contribution to make?

Muslims in the UK are sensitively attuned to what is happening to Muslims round the world, in countries where they are both the majority and the minority. Can the same be said for Muslims who inhabit the traditional countries of ‘Dar-ul-Islam’? Travelling around the Middle East, I am constantly asked if I am a Muslim, despite the fact that I wear the hijab. “Are there really Muslims in Britain?” they ask in innocent shock. “Do you really pray? You didn’t have a boyfriend or marry a non-Muslim? Are there really two million Muslims in the UK?”

I wonder if Muslim visitors to the UK notice the different flavour of Islam here. If they do, they may tell us that the ways of ‘back home’ are more religious, more cultural, more perfect; that the youth of the UK have strayed and must return to the cultural and religious ways, say the conservative elements. There is often criticism of young Muslims and their exploration of creating new cultures that draw on their heritage of being both Muslim and British, along with their own ethnic heritage.

And here lies the rub. Young British Muslims are trying intelligently to create a new culture for themselves that is positive, cohesive and confident. ‘Back home’ is no better and no worse. They simply say that it is not appropriate for them. They are forging a new culture and a new stage of development of Muslim culture.

Muslims love to hark back to the ‘golden’ age of the Muslim empire, as it spread across the Middle East, to the Indian sub-continent, to Malaysia, Indonesia and even China. These were the glory days, we are told, but the fact that these nations created their own Muslim cultures is glossed over. In fact, the Muslim cultures of such non-Arab territories far outnumber in terms of population those of the Arabian Muslim cultures. We look across at their history and achievements with pride, not as aberrations.

We should not be trying to retrofit the development of British Muslim culture into the mould of an ‘authentic’ Muslim culture. British Muslims should instead draw on the vibrant historic traditions of Muslims over the centuries who mesh with local communities to create new and dynamic cultures. The Alhambra in Spain is one of the world’s greatest testaments to the spirit of cultural development. The fact it lies in Europe, and so close to Britain should give us the confidence and pride to explore our faith through the prism of British-ness of which we are now an integral part.