Muslim Britain: A siege within

Among the Mosques: A Journey Across Muslim Britain

Author: Ed Husain

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Pages:332

Price: Rs 799

My initial reaction to this book was one of déjà vu. Same old story of British Muslims’ isolationism and the stuff about extremist preachers, segregated mosques, proliferation of madrassas and sharia courts. What’s happening in Britain’s Muslim communities in pursuit of “authentic” Islam has been written about extensively. Ed Husain’s own much-acclaimed first book, The Islamist, an account of his journey to extremism and back, was about the Wahabbisation of British Islam and how it was alienating Muslims from larger British society.

At first glance, Among the Mosques has the feel of being more of the same despite its claim to being more nuanced than previous books on the subject and its quieter tone. Its portrayal of the country’s nearly three million Muslims is as unremittingly bleak as any we have been served before.

Yet, it does have a different flavour. Its big strength is that it avoids lazy sermonising, and is instead grounded in good old “spot” reporting.  Some of the most revealing moments in the book are those that come from personal encounters and close observation. It is the sounds and smells Mr Husain is able to capture that make his account authentic.

He travelled up and down the country to record the “daily reality” of British Muslim life. We see him commuting from one “Muslim” town to another—-Manchester, Bradford, Dewsbury, Birmingham. Invariably, his first contact and source of information, as he emerges from the local railway station, are surly and fundamentalist Pakistani taxi drivers.

During his travels, he meets Tablighi Jamaat zealots dreaming of a world of Caliphates; visits depression-inducing madrassas and men-only mosques; listens to sectarian sermons; speaks to imams who are all politeness and courtesy until he starts asking them questions they don’t like. At this point, they become evasive and impatient.  At one mosque, when he wants to know why women are banned from worshipping there, a cleric says: “You’re an intelligent man, but there can be no discussion of there being women in the mosque. This would be a temptation for many. I suggest you read the following books before coming to any conclusions.”

Even among educated Muslim men Mr Husain finds support for keeping women in purdah, prohibiting them from going out to work or meeting a “na mahram” (adult male not related through blood) alone . A female social worker he goes to meet turns up accompanied by her husband who had refused to let her go alone. He doesn’t even allow her to shake hands with him.

Signs of “Arabisation” and lack of integration are everywhere. In a mosque in Dewsbury, a town in Yorkshire, Mr Husain is struck by how most Muslim men are wearing “either Pakistani-style salwar kameez or an Arab-style thawb”.

He notes: “Most worshippers at mosques in Turkey, Syria and Egypt wear Western clothes. Yet here in England, thousands are wearing traditional clothing from Asia and the Middle East.”

Dewsbury’s Markazi Mosque is Tablighi Jamaat’s European central office and runs a Deoband-style madrassa where boys from all over Europe come to study Quran and become Hafiz. Classrooms have no chairs and tables.

“We don’t use chairs and tables...,” says a student.

“But why?”

“It’s Sunnah,” he explains referring to the habits and practices of the Prophet recorded in Hadith.

It’s a telling snapshot of “Muslim Britain” and the kind of Islam being promoted in British mosques and Muslim homes. In Bradford, which shot to notoriety over its role in fuelling the campaign against Salman Rushdie, Mr Husain is told by his Muslim taxi-driver guide, that the city is controlled by “pirs and imams”.  

“When I came in 1967we were all equal, we were all Asians working with white people. Now, the pirs and imams are the bosses....Even the politicians need their support and votes to win elections,” the cabbie says.

 There’s nothing British about Britain’s Muslim towns and cities. It’s all mosques, madrassas, mullahs, burqa-clad women...halal meat shops, ethnic clothing stores and food outlets. On a visit to Rochdale, Manchester, he notes: “The narrowness of the street, and the bustling Asian shops...travel agents specialising in trips to Mecca, Pakistan International Airlines booking offices, Afghan sweet shops...make it feel like a strip of Lahore.”

 The so-called “white flight” from Muslim-dominated areas means that they have become ghettoes with no interaction between them and white natives. The two lead parallel lives each blaming the other for failing to integrate. But that, of course, reflects the larger failure of British-style “live-and-let-live” multiculturalism.

 As for Muslims, the author identifies three “worrying” trends: Muslim “communalism”; “a strange clericalism gripping Muslim minds”; and the “spread of caliphism as a social and political aspiration”.  The few progressive voices are drowned in the din of communal rhetoric on the one hand and white racist Islamophobia on the other.

In what seems like a balancing act, Mr Husain’s parting shot is aimed at Brits. Muslim separatism, he suggests, is a reaction to British intolerance of cultural differences. “The fault is not with immigrants and Muslims,” he says. The “onus” is on Brits.
 

Are you sure, Mr Husain?