Table Of ContentMUSLIMS IN BRITAIN
The management of social, religious and ethnic diversity is a key social policy concern
in Britain, and Muslims in particular have become a focus of attention in recent years.
This timely and topical volume examines the position of Muslims in Britain and how
they are changing and making social, political and religious space.
With contributions from world-r enowned scholars on British Muslims and from
policy- analysists writing on issues of concern to Muslims and others alike, the book
explores how British Muslims are changing social and religious spaces such as
mosques and the role of women, engaging in politics, creating media and other
resources, and thus developing new perspectives on Islam and transforming Muslim
society from within. Chapters cover issues of religion and politics, Britishness, gov-
ernance, gender issues, religion in civic space and inter- ethnic and religious rela-
tions, as well as the role of intellectuals, chaplains and activists in reforming Islam
and renovating the British political landscape.
Providing a broad and comprehensive examination of the key issues surround-
ing Muslims in the United Kingdom, this book will be a valuable resource for
students, lecturers and researchers in sociology, social policy, geography, politics,
Islamic studies and other related disciplines.
Waqar I. U. Ahmad is Deputy Vice- Chancellor of Research and Enterprise at
Middlesex University. Formerly Chief Social Scientist at the Office of the Deputy
Prime Minister, he is an Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences, a member
of the Higher Education Funding Council for England’s Research and Innovation
Advisory Committee, and a Fellow of the Muslim Institute.
Ziauddin Sardar is Professor of Law and Society at Middlesex University. Con-
sidered a pioneering writer on Islam and contemporary cultural issues, he is author
of some fifty books, including most recently Reading the Qur’an (C. Hurst, 2011).
A former columnist on the New Statesman, he is the co- editor of Critical Muslim.
MUSLIMS IN BRITAIN
Making social and political space
Edited by Waqar I. U. Ahmad and
Ziauddin Sardar
First published 2012
by Routledge
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© 2012 Waqar I. U. Ahmad and Ziauddin Sardar for selection and editorial
matter; individual contributors, their contributions.
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material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted
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Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
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without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Muslims in Britain: making social and political space/edited by Waqar I. U.
Ahmad and Ziauddin Sardar.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Muslims–Great Britain. 2. Muslims–Great Britain–Social conditions.
3. Muslims–Great Britain–Politics and government. I. Ahmad, W. I. U.
(Waqar Ihsan-Ullah), 1957– II. Sardar, Ziauddin.
DA125.M87M878 2012
305.6’970941–dc23
2011045121
ISBN: 978-0-415-59471-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-59472-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-12146-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
CONTENTS
List of illustrations vii
Notes on contributors viii
Introduction 1
Ziauddin Sardar and Waqar I. U. Ahmad
1 Religion and public space 17
Ziauddin Sardar
2 Britain and Britishness: place, belonging and exclusion 33
Rosemary Sales
3 Exploring social spaces of Muslims 53
Lucinda Platt
4 Muslim chaplains: working at the interface of ‘public’ and
‘private’ 84
M. Mansur Ali and Sophie Gilliat-R ay
5 Young Muslims in London: gendered negotiations of local,
national and transnational places 101
Louise Ryan
6 Multiculturalism and the gender gap: the visibility and
invisibility of Muslim women in Britain 120
Heidi Safia Mirza
vi Contents
7 Everyday making and civic engagement among Muslim
women in Scotland 141
Rahielah Ali and Peter Hopkins
8 Negotiating faith and politics: the emergence of Muslim
consciousness in Britain 156
Nasar Meer
9 ‘Creating a society of sheep’? British Muslim elite on mosques
and imams 171
Waqar I. U. Ahmad
Index 193
ILLUSTRATIONS
Figures
3.1 Homophily among Muslims and non-M uslims 63
3.2 Predicted probabilities of social mixing among the majority,
Muslims and non- Muslim minorities 72
3.3 Predicted probabilities of having no close friends among Muslims
and non- Muslims, by sex 78
Tables
3.1 Distributions of Muslims across samples and key characteristics 60
3.2 Patterns of social activity: percentage of each group engaging in
each activity, across Muslims and non-M uslims, 2001 61
3.3 Results of log- linear models of ethnic and income homophily
among Muslims and non- Muslims 66
3.4 General social mixing and domestic social mixing across Muslims
and non- Muslims 68
3.5 Probability of social mixing: results from logistic regression models
of general social mixing and mixing in own or another’s home 70
3.6 Numbers of close friends: percentages with different numbers of
friends, 2008/2009 73
3.7 Probabilities of having close friends: binary logistic and ordered
logistic model estimates 76
CONTRIBUTORS
Waqar I. U. Ahmad, previously Chief Social Scientist at the Office of the
Deputy Prime Minister, UK, is Deputy Vice- Chancellor Research and Enter-
prise at Middlesex University. Professor Ahmad’s books include, with Hannah
Bradby, Ethnicity, Health and Health Care: Understanding Diversity, Tackling Dis-
advantage (Blackwell, 2008) and Ethnicity, Disability and Chronic Illness (Open
University Press, 2000). He is an Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences,
a member of the Higher Education Funding Council for England’s Research and
Innovation Advisory Committee, a one- time member of the Economic and
Social Research Council’s Strategic Research Board and a Fellow of the Muslim
Institute.
M. Mansur Ali is a post- doctoral researcher at the Centre for the Study of Islam
in the UK, Cardiff University. With Sophie Gilliat- Ray and others, he is working
on a study of Muslim chaplaincy in Britain. His research interests include ‘ulama
and Muslims in the West, and Islam in Bangladesh.
Rahielah Ali is a doctoral research student in the School of Geography, Politics
and Sociology at Newcastle University. Her work focuses upon the everyday
experiences of Muslim women in Scotland, exploring ways in which they practise
Islam in spaces of the social, the embodiment of dress and community participation
following national and global events.
Sophie Gilliat- Ray is Reader in Religious and Theological Studies and Director
of the Islam- UK Centre at Cardiff University. She has authored numerous books,
articles and chapters relating to Muslims in Britain. Her latest book is Muslims in
Britain: An Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 2010).
Contributors ix
Peter Hopkins is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Geography, Politics and Soci-
ology at Newcastle University, UK. He is author of The Issue of Masculine Identities
for British Muslims (Edwin Mellen, 2008) and co-e ditor of Geographies of Muslim
Identities: Diaspora, Gender and Belonging (Ashgate, 2007) and Muslims in Britain:
Race, Place and Identities (Edinburgh University Press, 2009).
Nasar Meer is Senior Lecturer in the School of Arts and Social Sciences at the
University of Northumbria. During 2012–13 he will be a Minda de Gunzberg
Fellow at Harvard University and a Visiting Fellow with the Institute for Advanced
Studies in the Humanities (IASH) at the University of Edinburgh. His recent book-
length publications include Citizenship, Identity and the Politics of Multiculturalism
(Palgrave, 2010); (with Anna Triandafyllidou and Tariq Modood, eds) European
Multiculturalism(s): Cultural, Religious and Ethnic Challenges (Edinburgh University
Press, 2011); and Race and Ethnicity (Sage, forthcoming).
Heidi Safia Mirza, of the Institute of Education, University of London, UK, has
published extensively on gender and race, including studies on ethnicity and edu-
cational attainment, multiculturalism and the experiences of Muslim and ethnic
minority women. Professor Mirza’s current research includes involvement in the
ESRC- funded Understanding Society Survey (with Lucinda Platt and others) and
the European Union project Young Migrant Women in Secondary Education.
Among her recent publications are Race, Gender and Educational Desire (Routledge,
2009) and Black and Postcolonial Feminisms in New Times (Routledge, 2010).
Lucinda Platt is Professor of Sociology at the Institute of Education, University of
London, and Director of the Millennium Cohort Study. Her main research inter-
ests are in poverty and inequality and in ethnic minority disadvantage, with a par-
ticular focus on longitudinal analytical approaches. Her latest book is Understanding
Inequalities: Social Stratification and Difference (Polity Press, 2011).
Louise Ryan is Reader in Gender and Migration and Co-D irector of the Social
Policy Research Centre at Middlesex University, UK. She has published widely on
issues relating to gender, ethnicity, social networks and family migration. She is
co- editor (with Wendy Webster) of Gendering Migration: Masculinity, Femininity and
Ethnicity in Post- war Britain (Ashgate, 2008).
Rosemary Sales is Emeritus Professor of Social Policy at Middlesex University,
UK. Her recent research projects have examined immigration theory and policy
and new migration flows, focusing particularly on London. Her publications in this
field include Understanding Immigration and Refugee Policy: Contradictions and Conti-
nuities (Policy Press, 2007).
Ziauddin Sardar, writer, broadcaster and cultural critic, is Professor of Law and
Society, the School of Law, Middlesex University. He is the author of numerous
x Contributors
books, including the highly acclaimed autobiography Desperately Seeking Paradise:
Journeys of a Sceptical Muslim (Granta, 2004), and co- author (with Merryl Wyn
Davies) of the international bestseller Why Do People Hate America? (2002). A col-
lection of his writings is available as Islam, Postmodernism and Other Futures: A
Ziauddin Sardar Reader (Icon Books, 2003) and How Do You Know? Reading Ziaud-
din Sardar on Islam, Science and Cultural Relations (Pluto Press, 2006). He co- edited
the prestigious critical arts journal Third Text from 1996 to 2006, served as a
Commissioner on the Equality and Human Rights Commission from 2006 to
2009 and as a member of the National Security Forum from 2008 to 2010, and
was a columnist on the New Statesman for over ten years. Currently he is co-
editor of Critical Muslim and Chair of the Muslim Institute. He is widely known
as a public intellectual and appears frequently on radio and television.
