Channel 4 commissioned ICM to poll Muslims in Britain on a range of issues from women’s rights to marriage equality.

But did the poll titled “What do British Muslims really think?” answer its own question? Polling British Muslims is a difficult and expensive task. It’s why YouGov avoided the Sun’s now infamous ‘1 in 5 Muslims’ poll.

ICM’s researchers picked 138 random Local Super Output Areas where Muslims make up at least 20 per cent of the population. This skewed the findings to areas with relative social deprivation. It also over-represented certain ethnic groups. Yet it still captured 51 per cent of the total Muslim population.

Of the 1,081 Muslims polled, 55 per cent were Pakistani. British Asians/Asians totaled 83 per cent of the polling data. Data from the last census revealed that British Asian/Asians totaled 67.6 per cent of Muslims in England and Wales.

The poll included just 11 Arabs and 16 white Muslims who account for 6.6 per cent and 7.8 per cent of Muslims in England and Wales.

Despite methodological issues it remains a serious poll.

As with previous surveys – Muslims identify with Britain at a higher rate than the national average. They also expressed greater attachment t0 their local areas. A vast majority believe that Britain was a good place for Muslims to live in, and 78 per cent said they would like to integrate into British life on certain topics.

Nearly a quarter supported the idea of sharia law operating in parts of Britain above British law. Yet what defines sharia law remains ambigious and open to interpretation. But as Dr Imam Mamadou Bocoum notes: ‘Shariah means a road that leads into Spring Water, which is nothing but to live in peace and harmony. Amongst the principles of the Shariah is to preserve and protect life, intellect, property, honour, lineage, and religion‘.

There was little support among the Muslims polled to establish a caliphate. Support for ISIS polled at just 3 per cent. Few blamed the police or government for girls travelling to Syria.

More than a third of Muslims polled would report individuals who they suspected of seeking to participate in terrorism abroad to police. A figure that stands above the control sample of 30 per cent. Nearly half would attempt to dissuade the individual.

On the subject of extremism, 47 per cent agreed that Muslims need to do more to tackle extremism. The data reveals that a vast majority of Muslims look to the government to tackle Islamophobia and fund special projects to help communities root out the causes of violent extremism.

Islamophobia is a concern in this context, even when 73 per cent thought that religious harassment was not a problem in their local area. Individuals may of course experience less discrimination within their own ethnic and faith communities. Or in a public setting disclose their experiences to strangers. Research also points to the fact that hate crimes increase in areas of deprivation.

The wider public had also expressed a wider concern for Islamophobia than the Muslims polled. Nor do we know what language the interviews were conducted in. So it’s possible that individuals may not understand a question that pertains to religious prejudice.

There was also an overwhelming desire to empower young Muslims and women in the decisions that affect them. And many felt that better leadership in Muslim communities would help address the causes of violent extremism. Just one in 10 sought information on current affairs from mullahs at mosques. And a fifth never attend their local mosques. But 72 per cent felt that their local mosque did represent their views.

The most popular choice for television news was BBC 1, and a vast majority got their news from social media accounts. Yet again, the BBC remained the most popular source for news online.

Discussions of attitudes towards homosexuality dictated a majority of media coverage. The poll found that 52 per cent dsaid they disagreed with homosexuality being legal in Britain, compared with 5 per cent among the public at large who disagreed.

For British-born Muslims, 27 per cent agreed that homosexuality should be legal. Almost a third said neither/nor and 38 per cent disagreed. But that figure requires a caveat since the total figure in the weighted and unweighted sample is below 500 people. Muslims born outside of Britain were more likely to disagree that homosexuality should be legal (a net disagreement of 68 per cent in a sample of 601 or 609 when factored against weighted and unweighted bases).

On the topic of gay marriage and allowing a homosexual person to teach, the data reveals slight differences between Muslims born in the UK and abroad. But the above caveat still applies.

Despite a proclivity towards antisemitic tropes, British Muslims were not hostile towards Jewish communities. ICM asked the control and Muslim samples to measure their feelings towards faith and non-faith groups on a thermometer. Oddly, views towards Sikhs were missing from the data. The control group survey were more likely to agree that antisemitism was a problem. Yet 44 per cent of the Muslim survey and 46 per cent of the control group did not consider antisemitism a problem in Britain today.

The control survey were far more likely to disagree (51 per cent) with the statement ‘Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust’. Yet 18 per cent did agree with the statement, compared to 34 per cent in the Muslim survey.

Confusion about deaths in the Holocaust in the Muslim survey may owe to ignorance, not antisemitism. As 55 per cent did not know the true figure. Just 14 people agreed that it was a myth perpetuated by Jewish people. The control group was not asked this question so it’s hard to make a direct comparison.

Muslims surveyed overwhemingly had also rejected the right of individuals to publish pictures of the prophet Muhammad. But 12 per cent stated that it would depend on the nature of the pictures. Responses in the control group were more in favour of publishing cartoons of the prophet Muhammad. A fifth of non-Muslims who rejected this position were Christian.

Opinions in the control group sample were even more divided when it came to the question of publishing cartoons that mock the prophet Muhammad. Fourty four per cent said publications should not have this right  – and that included 32 per cent of non-religious people and 50 per cent of Christians. A measure of support from Christians may owe to a sense of Abrahamic solidarity or the UK’s own historic and abolished blasphemy laws.

Linda Woodhead, Professor of Sociology of Religion at Lancaster University, surveyed different faith groups in 2013. It found a variety of liberal and conservative views towards topics like abortion and homosexuality.

ICM also asked how often Muslims had mixed socially with non-Muslims in the past year. Again, what defines this social interaction remains open to interpretation. It was rare for Muslims to have had no social mixing outside of the home. Nor are social interactions defined by the boundaries of a person’s home. That applies to Muslim and non-Muslim alike. Yet the data does show that at least a fifth did host and visit non-Muslims friends at least once a week, and 17 per cent welcomed non-Muslims into their homes on a daily basis.

Trevor Phillips, the former head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, who will present the Channel 4 documentary What British Muslims Really Think tomorrow evening, made a problematic statement on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Phillips stated that: “What we also found is that there is a correspondence between this desire to live separately and sympathy for terrorism. People who want to live separately are about twice as likely to say that they have sympathy for terrorist acts.” Yet the data reveals that just 40 people expressed sympathy for terrorist acts. Nor was there any effort to extrapolate the meaning from a vague term, as sympathy does not always mean edorsement. Phillips is overstating the opinions of a tiny proportion in the data set.

That rhetoric can also suggest that religiosity and support for terrorism are somehow linked, a point that misunderstands the nature of radicalisation.

ICM asked some wide ranging, probing and sensationalistic questions; but to suggest it captures the breadth of Muslim opinion is not quite accurate.

The post What do Muslims in Britain actually think? appeared first on Religious Reader.

Since Jack Straw’s comments exactly a decade ago, the Niqab has been in political debate which at times have become heightened. Currently, there are reports that the Prime Minister is considering a ban on the veil in schools, courts and other public institutions. No doubt, the Niqab will become the subject of much debate over the coming months.

In light of this, very rarely do women who wear the veil have the chance to speak about the impacts of people’s prejudices against them. How many newspaper reports, when reporting on political developments about the Niqab, have then interviewed women who choose to wear the veil. Very few have and in fact, we can’t recollect seeing a Niqab wearer being approached by news outlets when discussing the topic recently.

We want to highlight the other side of the coin – the fact that women who wear the Niqab are subject to prejudice, aggression and open hatred at points. It is also important to note that over the last 4 years of work within Tell MAMA, it is clear that women who wear the Niqab suffer more incidents of anti-Muslim hatred and more aggressive incidents of anti-Muslim hatred, including assault.

These are the words of a Muslim woman who wears the Niqab and who recounted her experiences for us.

“I’m worried about the day my 7 year old daughter suddenly tunes into the daily abuse, realises it’s her mother that these respectable-looking strangers – maybe parents of her schoolfriends during pick-up or drop-off, maybe the people behind us in the supermarket queue – are talking about / to.

“And what do I tell her? I’ve brought her up to believe people of all faiths are equally worthy of respect; the majority of her schoolfriends are Hindu or Christian. How can I explain to her that these people hate me because of the visible clues to my faith – particularly my outfit? Me, who taught my little girl that she should never care what other people thought about her appearance, to be proud of her mixed-race looks and unique dress sense (we’re talking Cinderella ball gown with trackie bottoms, or Batman cape over Hello Kitty dress).

“What if she’s ashamed to be seen with her mother? What if she’s angry with these strangers for hating on her mother, starts believing non-Muslims are abusive bad people who hate Muslims? What if she develops a fear of white strangers instead of her beautiful trademark confidence and friendliness? What if she’s present when the trolley-shoving, the jostling, the swearing, escalates into a more vicious kind of physical violence? There’s only so much verbal abuse and sly jostling/ shoving I can take passively before I turn round and tell them to have some manners.

“I’ve had women my mum’s age making explosion sounds at me and calling me ISIS, men my age telling me I’m disgusting, women younger than me telling me to f*** off back to Saudi. I’ve been called terrorist, dirty scum, f***** freak, Islamic whore, brown c********, Arab f****, Jihadi b*****…… All in front of my 7-year-old daughter. I had a trolley rammed into my belly when I was pregnant; it was after a bunch of skinheads made knife gestures at me that I stopped going out by myself until I gave birth and no longer felt like a walking target as a pregnant niqabi. I’m pretty confident that I could defend myself but I couldn’t risk the life of my unborn baby.

“If I’m out with my husband I get dirty looks and hissed insults at most; people only become audibly abusive or openly confrontational when I’m out without my husband – unfortunately the presence of my little girl doesn’t seem to silence them in the same way.”

The post With the Niqab Being a Political Football, Let’s Listen to the Voice of One Who Wears It appeared first on TELL MAMA.

A Ukip MEP called for an end to immigration from Islamic countries during a debate on the crimes of ISIS on January 20.

Gerard Batten, who represents London, argued that ISIS represents “a literalist interpretation” of the Qur’an.

Batten claimed that “ISIS represents a revival of the original ethos of the Mohammedan cult”. He defended these comments and told Religious Reader yesterday that “ISIS represents the worst excesses of the Mohammedan cult”.

When asked for further clarification he insisted that his purpose “was not to upset any individual but to talk about a belief system, an ideology”. Batten maintains that “Islam is of course a cult”. A ‘cult’ that “up until relatively recently was properly referred to as ‘Mohammedanism’ in the West’”.

This religious literalism, for Batten, remains antithetical to ‘western liberal democracy’. And drives his desire to end immigration from Islamic countries. As ‘importing millions’ from Islamic countries may constitute a security risk since “we cannot be sure of just how many of them take their religion literally?”

Batten holds little sympathy for men fleeing ISIS. He told Religious Reader that: “Most of the waves of migrants coming to Europe, and queuing up at Calais are not fleeing ISIS, they are fit young men who are economic migrants.

Most of them are not even from Syria. If they are fleeing ISIS then they have abandoned their own parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends rather than try and defend their own people from this threat.”

This ideological framework forms one part of his solution to defeating ISIS. The other concerns warfare. Batten calls for an alliance between western and Islamic nations who ‘don’t want to live under the barbarism of ISIS’.

Batten used his speech to claim that the Qur’an “speaks of making war on infidels, killing infidels, and striking terror into the hearts of infidels”.

Yet there is no concept of ‘holy war’ in the Qur’an, according to Dr Imam Mamadou Bocoum. Dr Bocoum also warns against divorcing the context of revelation from Quranic verses.

Batten, however, maintains that you cannot take Quranic verses out of context as they are the ‘words of Allah’. He claimed that “Mohammed himself had to later withdraw certain ‘Satanic verses’”.

He also called on Christian leaders to proselytize their faith to Muslims in Europe. As it provides the space for a ‘recruitment opportunity’ and ‘ideological crusade’. Batten insists that Christians are ‘frightened’ to promote their faith, but Muslims are not.

Gerard Batten is not without controversy when it concerns Islam or Muslims. In 2014, he defended the ‘Proposed Charter of Muslim Understanding’. The document asks Muslims to sign a pledge of non-violence. Batten had lamented the fact that Europe had allowed “an explosion of mosques across their land“.

He commissioned Sam Solomon to produce the report in 2006. Solomon has shared platforms with the likes of Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, and Geert Wilders in the past.

Batten renewed calls for Muslims to sign this pledge of non-violence a day after the Paris atrocities last January. He justified this position to the Romford Recorder by arguing that the “bulk of terrorists are Muslim”.

In 2011, Batten had also suggested banning halal and kosher slaughter and outlawing Islamic banking.

He spoke at a ‘counter-jihad’ conference in Brussels in 2007. Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, Bat Ye’or, Sam Solomon, and Paul Weston, now of Pegida UK, had also spoken at the event. Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller remain banned from entering the UK.

Gerard Batten maintains that he holds no ill-will towards individual Muslims. His interest in the matter remains ‘ideological’.

Batten ends our communication with a quote from Winston Churchill that concerns the ‘regressive’ nature of Islam.

The post Ukip MEP wants to end immigration from Islamic countries appeared first on Religious Reader.

On a July evening in Plymouth, Jak Burgess, 20, boarded a bus heading towards the city centre with friends, and sat next to a Buddhist man of Sri Lankan origin. Within seconds, Burgess accused him being a member of ISIS who intended to bomb the bus. An accusation that turned to violence in a paroxysm of racist rage.

Perturbed, the bus driver stopped the vehicle, and helped the Buddhist man downstairs. His attacker followed. And his tone grew more aggressive when the Buddhist man refused to shake his hand.

A police appeal soon bore positive results. And Jak Burgess admitted the racially aggravated charge. He then failed to attend his sentencing hearing earlier this month. Now Plymouth Magistrates’ Court have issued a warrant for his arrest.

The question remains: how do you account for this incident? One explanation concerns racialisation. It is in the assumption of Muslim identity based on ethnicity. Racialisation also impacts white converts to Islam. This owes in part to their expressions of religiosity.

In a broader sense, religious conversion creates a fundamental shift in how a person views the world. A study of British converts to Islam published in 1996 found that it created an identity change at a ‘personal and public level’. One aspect of ‘public change’ for some, especially females, includes a change of dress. A 2013 study of female converts to Islam found that some did experiment with adopting different Islamic veils. Others adapted their regular clothing styles to fit Islamic concepts of modesty.

Adopting this style of clothing has spiritual and social elements. Converts seek acceptance in Muslim communities. Some converts do not find the welcome they seek, as others do. The perception of an outsider can sometimes prove hard to shake. Black converts can face alienation due to the racist attitudes of some. Converts can also experience alienation from family and friends after converting. Many converts just aim to bridge the gap between communities and demonstrate a compatable ‘English and Muslim’ identity. This conforms to other polls that indicate high levels of national pride in Muslim communities.

Some white converts receive the epithet of ‘p*ki’ due to their outward expression of faith.

In a post-9/11 climate, Sikh communities continue to experience different degrees of racist backlashes. This can drift between racial abuse, violence, and murder. Following the most recent atrocities in Paris, Sikhs have faced a backlash in the United States. Both faith groups are now uniting together to push back against this wave of racist violence and hate.

The post Why was a Buddhist man attacked and accused of being an ISIS terrorist? appeared first on Religious Reader.

Facebook briefly banned Britain First’s page on 30 November, sparking momentary cries of celebration on social media. But within an hour, the far right organisation’s page was restored, claiming Facebook’s censorship to be a ‘fascist attack’. Britain First currently has over 1 million likes on its Facebook page—more than Conservatives and Labour combined. Its page on average generates hundreds of likes for posts. Immediately following restoration, likes spiked into the thousands. Despite their inflammatory material, banning social media sites like Britain First is a highly ineffective approach.

Research points to the negative consequences that arise from exercising bans. The International Centre for Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) found through in-depth analysis that a systematic blocking of sites with extremist material is both impractical and counterproductive. It found that strategies which include removing websites, filtering content for accessibility, and hiding search engine results, have little to no effect hindering such networks. This is due to the particular challenges of internet regulation. The scale of website traffic makes identifying and monitoring content extremely difficult, as well as resource-intensive. Even when web page takedowns do occur, sites and forums tend to re-emerge rapidly.

The far-right website, Gates of Vienna, was taken down twice in 2013 on grounds of racial incitement. It has since moved to a self-hosted site. As of December 2015, gatesofvienna.net has witnessed a 13 per cent increase in global website rankings within the last three months. It features in the media spotlight for promoting controversial matters, including a (later cancelled) London exhibition on cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Leader of the radical right Dutch PVV party, Geert Wilders, was one of the planned attendees.

A similar study on ISIS Twitter accounts reveals comparable findings. Although mass suspension campaigns produce a significant decrease in online activity, it also results in a more internally focused network. This poses dangerous implications such as potentially alienating supporters even further whilst not actually preventing new members from joining. In some cases, new accounts are created with a more intense following and concentrated material output.

Extremist politics has historically been at the forefront of using innovate communication technology to mobilise support. Stormfront.org, the first major white supremacist website, was founded in the 1990s as a means to circumvent mainstream media channels. Al-Qaeda similarly was an innovator in cyberspace, initially disseminating propaganda on forums and chat rooms and eventually on social media platforms. Yet while the internet aids extremist networking, it is not its primary driver. Social media sites merely create a space to express and reinforce shared sentiments. They promote a sense of collective identification, but do not spark the initial desire to join an extremist network.

Banning these online echo chambers signals a reactionary rather than proactive move. Instead, approaches should be comprehensive in responding to extremism. This includes all users, not just those targeted as the most vulnerable to extremist messages. A holistic strategy takes into account critical thinking skills of social media users. For instance, claims of a racist comment, while indicative, fails to interrogate what makes such a comment ‘racist.’ It favours a dogmatic approach that shuts down any possibility for exchange. By encouraging social media users to question the meaning behind phrases rather than at face value, this is a significant step towards balancing the national conversation. Agency is the most resilient form of counter-speech.

Importantly, proscription is problematic not only due to proven adverse effects. It is fundamentally at odds with democratic values. Beyond free speech advocacy, banning runs counter to principles of engagement and dialogue. This simultaneously applies to social movements and political parties with views or courses of action outside mainstream opinion. An unpopular agenda should not be delegitimised because it is incompatible with personal beliefs. Doing so neglects extremist perspectives as symptomatic of trending issues within everyday politics. Such blindsiding often fails to recognise complex socio-economic debates at the expense of shallow labels. When simplified narratives become common practice, this comes at the expense of determining what is extremist content (let alone ‘extremism’).

What we are witnessing now is the upsurge of reactionary politics. Far-right views are increasingly influencing mainstream agendas on issues of immigration, employment, housing, and security. Yet somehow we do not tolerate radical beliefs, preferring to ban spaces where they are most vocal. At the same time, social media platforms amplify our inability to distinguish boundaries of extremist speech.

By choosing to ban, we are pushing away a value integral to democracy—pluralism. Isolating extremists only makes it more difficult to challenge alternative views. We risk reproducing an ‘us versus them’ logic that continues to polarise society.

Eviane Leidig did her Master’s Degree at the University of Bristol, with an MSc  in Sociology (Ethnicity and Multiculturalism). Her dissertation looked at ‘Visualising Violent Nationalism: A Comparison of Far Right and Islamic Extremism’. She tweets at @evianeleidig and writes in a personal capacity.

The post Why extremist groups want you to ban their online content appeared first on Religious Reader.

Morpeth Town Councillor, David Clark, has refused to resign after making a number of Facebook comments that were reported into us by members of the public. Speaking to the Morpeth Herald yesterday, he stated:

“I abhor extremism of any kind and I was referring to extremists and not Islam as a whole.”

Cllr David Clark went onto state that:

“This is my personal opinion and therefore it does not represent the views of any council I am a member of. I will not dignify the questioners with any further response.”

The problem with these responses is that an elected member is liable to be scrutinised for public and private comments they make particularly when those comments relate to issues that may be sensitive to local residents. In this instance, abusing the faith of some local residents, we believe, falls into this category.

The question has to be asked as to whether someone with views about Islam which Cllr Clark holds can honestly and objectively represent, advocate and act on behalf of local residents who happens to be Muslim and followers of Islam? This is the crux of the issue.

Furthermore, when you look at the Facebook statements made by Cllr Clark, they are directly against Islam and, it can be said, against the followers of Islam – Muslims. The statement below illustrates his statement:

“Paul, Islam isn’t a race, it is a cult religion. I still maintain it is the biggest single threat to world peace…..they (one can only assume the followers of Islam – Muslims), are an absolute bunch of nut pots…..just my personal opinion.“

A further comment by Cllr Clark highlights ISIS but then goes onto state that “Islam is the biggest threat to world peace.“

Judging by these documented comments, the response from Cllr Clark simply does not wash. His statements are clear and he could have contextualised them which he did not do.

The question still stands for Cllr Clark. Can he truly represent people who happen to be Muslim in his ward given his views about their faith and could it be said – about them? If his answer is yes, the next question would be, will a local resident who happens to be Muslim feel comfortable being represented by a local councillor with these views?

The post Morpeth Town Councillor David Clarke Refuses to Resign After Anti-Islam Comments appeared first on TELL MAMA.

For Mucahit Bilici, comedy offers the means to invert the distorting power of stereotypes. This is true for anyone who has experienced racism and Islamophobia.

This inversion reflects a recent Twitter trend that ridiculed the Sun’s claim that one in five Muslims has ‘sympathy for jihadis’. The hashtag #1in5Muslims also created a wider discussion about Islamophobia.

The polling company behind the Sun poll, Survation, faced criticisms for its methodological approach. It told the Guardian that it picked “1,500 Muslim surnames” from its database. Telephone interviews did not proceed until the individuals identified confirmed an Islamic belief.

Monday’s edition of the Sun had claimed that this sympathy extended to ISIS. But the poll did specify any group. It rather sought, in a simplistic and vague manner, to gauge ‘sympathy’ with Muslims who had joined fighters in Syria. Fighters could extend to other groups including anti-Assad forces and Kurdish groups.

The Sun’s political editor Tom Newton-Dunn wrote “if the poll reflected views across the country it would mean 500,000 have some support for jihadis“. To extend that logic, a Survation poll in March for Sky News asked the same question to non-Muslims. It found that 14 per cent had expressed ‘sympathy’. If that poll reflected national opinion it would mean that 8.47m ‘have some support for jihadis’.

Survation have distanced themselves from the Sun’s interpretation of their data.

As Maria Sobolewska notes, the language of polling is important. There’s a fundamental difference between emotional sympathy and ideological endorsement. That way, the bar becomes so low it renders it an almost pointless measure of opinion. What that sympathy means remains open to interpretation. This interpretative framework allowed the Sun’s Kelvin MacKenzie to write “Sympathy for firing a machine gun at point-blank range at unarmed innocent young people on a night out enjoying a band or a bite to eat?“

MacKenzie then attempted to justify the rejection of refugees fleeing the competing totalitarian terrors of ISIS and Assad.  He used the poll data to justify rejecting any person from Turkey. That bizarre logic almost enters the realm of the paranoia around the conspiracy of Islamisation.

This framework also applies to the ComRes poll after the first Paris atrocities at the start of 2015. It found that 27 per cent of British Muslims ‘have some sympathy for the motives behind the attacks on Charlie Hebdo in Paris’.  And the same problem emerged. Nigel Farage cited this information in a wider attack on British Muslim communities. The Ukip leader again reinforced the idea of a ‘fifth column’. This vague wording allows for a variety of interpretations. Even when 68 per cent of Muslims in the same poll rejected violence in the name of blasphemy. Even when 78 per cent found the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed deeply offensive.  Of the 1,000 British Muslims polled 94 per cent would report another Muslim to the police if they planned acts of violence.

Without a comparative poll the vague framework allows individuals to believe the best and worst of British Muslims. Some do justify violence. A great majority do not. Opinion polls have value when done right. And the above  have shown some obvious flaws. For the Sun newspaper, however, this front page has registered record complaints to press regulator Ipso.

The post Why more than #1in5Muslims ridiculed the Sun’s ‘jihadi sympathy’ story appeared first on Religious Reader.

Dr. Imam Mamadou Bocoum is a holder of two Masters and a PhD from The Muslim College, and Heythrop College, University of London. He is a lecturer in Islamic Studies; a Board member of the Muslim Law Council UK and an interfaith consultant. He is currently a consultant at Faith Matters and Tell Mama.

Mamadou has authored a number of written works which have included: The Position of Jews and Christians in the Qur’an; Faith and Citizenship in Islam; The status of Women in Islam; Islamic Fundamentalism and the Qur’an. He can be reached at mbocoum@yahoo.com; Mamadou@tellmamauk.org.

While delivering a talk on ‘extremism in the religion of Islam’, an audience member shouted: “Bush, Blair and Bin Laden are all f——s”. I pretended that I had not heard but this was to no avail as the same individual shouted again – but this time in a louder tone – “All of them are f——s”.  The heckler’s pronunciation was rather difficult to interpret (like mine!) and I thought that he meant the offensive six-letter designation. It proved a great relief when someone clarified that the ‘f word’ was fundamentalist. I then responded that besides sharing initial ‘B’ in their respective family names, they also appear to like using the word ‘hate’.

I was referring to the fact that according to Tony Blair, Muslim fundamentalists “Both hate our way of life, our freedom, our democracy”. George W. Bush held a similar view when he was questioned during a press conference. Of course anyone following the news would not have missed Osama Bin Laden’s infamous ‘letter to America’. All three are quite strong in what they believe and a clash is inevitable – not Samuel Huntington’s ‘Clash of Civilizations’ but rather what Tariq Ali calls the ‘Clash of Fundamentalisms’. Many attending the talk nodded their heads in agreement about the existence of Muslims fundamentalists; some agreed; but considered western foreign policy ‘the breeding ground’.

Western foreign policy does to a certain extent explain the current rise in violent Islamic fundamentalism. A denial of this amounts to ignorance. Yet, the willingness and determination to take one’s own life and that of many innocents in such a barbaric fashion including James Foley, Steven Sotloff, David Haines, Alan Henning, Lee Rigby (and countless others), cannot be attributed solely to western foreign policy.

The fact that the perpetrators expect an abundant reward should not be ignored. Sadly, that belief derives from reading the Qur’an through the lens of fundamentalism. The reading of the Qur’an and its tradition, I said in my talk, are at the heart of the matter. I was not surprised to witness angry reactions and denial on the part of those who sought to oppose the view that the Qur’an and its traditions could inspire violent fundamentalists. From the background of this denial – shared by many Muslims – which I wish to explore in order to show that literal and selective readings of the Qur’an can result in devastating misinterpretation of the scripture.

A word about fundamentalism 

It is quite remarkable to note that fundamentalism, in a religious sense, did not enter the lexicon until the early part of the twentieth century. One may find it astonishing to learn that the word originated from the United States of America.

We are reminded by Malise Ruthven that the concept of fundamentalism was first coined by two devoted Christian brothers, Milton and Lyman Stewart, who in 1910 ‘embarked on a five-year programme of sponsorship for a series of pamphlets which were sent free of charge to English-speaking Protestant pastors, evangelists, missionaries, theological professors, theological students, YMCA secretaries, Sunday School superintendents, religious lay workers, and editors of religious publications throughout the world’. The title of this booklet was ‘The Fundamentals: A Testimony of Truth’ and one of its aims was to preach the ‘inerrancy of the Bible’. Ruthven admits that there may not be one single definition of the word which ‘will never be uncontested’; but agrees that the word ‘originated in the unique context of American religious pluralism and the separation of church and state’. According to Jay M. Harris, ‘The word fundamentalism has come to imply an orientation to the world that is anti-intellectual, bigoted, and intolerant’. Harris went on to say that fundamentalism is also ‘applied to those whose life-style and politics are unacceptable to modern, Western eyes and, most particularly to those who would break down the barrier we have erected [in America] between church and state’.

Hence in the context of today’s theological polarisations, it may be salutary to find that neither the word nor the concept of fundamentalism emerged from Islam but rather from literalist Christians in the United States.  These superficial polarisations sometimes give rise to distorted extremist views such as those of a Christian group in Florida called the ‘New Testament Church’ who sought to burn copies of the Qur’an.

Islamic fundamentalism

In Arabic, fundamentalist translates as ‘usuli’ – someone ‘who relies on the fundamentals or basics of something’. If one is to apply this definition to Islam, then all Muslims are by definition fundamentalists, because all Muslims believe in the fundamental teaching of the Qur’an. Similarly, there are some Christian groups in the U.S. and elsewhere who are ‘fundamentalist’ in the sense of believing in a literal interpretation of the Bible. But if this ‘fundamentalism’ extends towards violence, the concept acquires a more sinister significance; and we can say that there are many Muslim groups who can justifiably fall under this umbrella.

Many scholars label the Wahhabi movement of the eighteenth century as the first strain of fundamentalism but this is a bit unfair on the moment. Islamic groups who interpreted the Qur’an literally and employed violence go back as far as the seventh century. A few decades the Prophet Muhammad’s death, the Khawarij (or the Kharijites) emerged with an extreme approach to the Qur’an. Fazlur Rahman argues that the Kharijites were responsible for the ‘first active schism in Islam’ and their interpretation of the Qur’an was ‘extremely strict’.

The Kharijites considered if any Muslim who ‘commits a grave wrong, without due repentance, he/she ceases to have faith and becomes an infidel and shall burn eternally in the hell fire’. The Kharijites went further in their extreme interpretation of the Qur’an by arguing that anyone who does not adhere to their doctrines is the infidel who must be fought. It is interesting to note here that the Kharijites were not fighting non-Muslims but other Muslims; and they found the justification from the Qur’an.  Not only that, the Kharijites added jihad to the pillars of Islam, making six instead of five. Richard Bonney noted ‘Many of them were Qur’anic fundamentalists. They used an expurgated Qur’an without chapter 12; they were also exclusivists, who believed that they were the only true Muslims’. It would prove hypocritical to disassociate their actions from their direct reading and understanding of the Qur’an. Many modern militant Islamic groups (including ISIS) adopted and advocated the same ‘procedure’ as the one adapted by the Kharijites.

A word about the Qur’an

In his acclaimed work, ‘Anthology of Islamic Literature’, James Kritzeck highlights the way in which intelligent people can hold different opinions about the Qur’an.[23] Kritzeck quotes M. Pickthall, who described the Qur’an as a book that moves men to tears and ecstasy; while Thomas Carlyle for his part considered the same Qur’an as ‘As tedious a piece of reading [and] a wearisome, confused jumble, crude, incondite’.[24]  Both descriptions can be justified, of course, depending on the reader’s interpretation.

One fact, however, is certain: the lives of over a billion Muslims are guided by the Qur’an. The Qur’an for Muslims, as Abdullah Saeed puts it, is ‘The Word of God and remains the prime source of authority for Islam’s ethical and legal systems. Muslims make consistent efforts to relate it to their contemporary concerns and needs”.[25] The Qur’an states on several occasions that it is the source of guidance and the light, and that Muslims ought to act according to its teaching.  Moreover, Muslims consider the Qur’an to be the literal word of God. That literal meaning is at the heart of the Islamic faith.  To this, Farid Esack noted: “For Muslims the Qur’an as the compilation of the ‘Speech of God’ does not refer to a book inspired or influenced by Him or written under the guidance of His spirit. Rather, it is viewed as His direct speech’.

In the ninth century, the Mutazilites, a Muslim group known to the West as the ‘rationalists’, argued that the Qur’an was not the word of God but rather a part of God’s creation. Supported by the state at the time, they gained a considerable number of adherents and sadly persecuted those who refused to support their view. Ahmed Ibn Hanbal, the founder of one of the four most famous Islamic schools of thought, earned his fame during this time because of his refusal to adhere to the Mutazilites’ doctrine and his subsequent imprisonment. In his refusal he argued that the Qur’an was not created or part of God’s creation but rather the very literal word of God – ‘kalamu al- Allah’.

This period occupied a central point in the history of Islamic theology and played a vital part in shaping the minds of many Muslim exegeses over the coming generations.  It is interesting to note that this debate took place among Muslims and the very nature of the Qur’an was at the centre of the debate. The Qur’an was questioned rigorously and yet no person labeled his opponent an ‘infidel’.

Sadly though, today any Muslim who attempts to question the nature of the Qur’an is denigrated and the non-Muslim is seen as anti-Islam. I personally believe that this episode and the heated debates it generated need to be revisited if Muslims are to find a practical and meaningful interpretation of the Qur’an.

Qur’anic Interpretation

The Qur’an refers to itself as ‘kitab’ (Book) and sometimes as a ‘kalimah’ or ‘kalimat’ (word or words). To some Muslim scholars this indicates that the Qur’an is a spoken word coming from God to the Prophet Muhammad. The spoken words were in Arabic because Muhammad himself spoke Arabic. This was not a new aspect of the process of revelation because the Qur’an itself reports that God spoke to people in their own language (Q.14:4). Hence if Muhammad was English, God would address him in English.

Muhammad did not interpret all the words of the Qur’an to his companions before his death; and this opens the door for Muslims to grasp the meaning of the Qur’an. There are two terms that are used in the process of the interpretation: ‘tafsir’ and ‘t’awil’. ‘Tafsir’ is commonly agreed amongst the vast majority of the Muslim scholars to mean literally the science of the interpretation of Qur’anic verses. ‘T’awil’ linguistically speaking means ‘return’ – going back to the source or returning to the origin of something. Edward Lane further interprets the meaning as ‘discovering, detecting, revealing, developing, disclosing, explaining, expounding or interpreting; that to which a thing is, or may be, reduced, or that which it comes, or may come, to be”. Both tafsir and t’awil, according to Seed, are synonymous with explanations of Qur’anic verses. Beside tafsir and t’awil there are two widely advocated approaches when commentating on the Qur’an. The first is a ‘tafsir bi al-ma’thur’ interpretation, based on traditions or text. In other words, this form of interpretation means that any verse should be interpreted solely on the basis of other Qur’anic verses or traditions. The second approach is the ‘tafsir bi al ray’ interpretation based on reason – or what Neal Robinson calls “exegesis on the basis of informed opinion”.

Today, Muslim communities rely upon traditional interpretations of the Qur’an.  This arguably amounts to nothing but ‘taglid’, which means blind following. Adopting this interpretation without questioning the circumstances in which these interpretations were made is a dangerous approach.

The Qur’an, as Professor A. Haleem reminds us, “alludes to events without giving their historical background. Those who heard the Qur’an at the time of its revelation were fully aware of the circumstances”. Not every companion of Muhammad truly understood the meaning of some Qur’anic verses. Instead, many companions came to Muhammad to seek explanation.  To understand the occasions of the revelation was vital not only during the time of Muhammad as ‘later generations of Muslims had [also] to rely on the body of literature explaining the circumstances of revelations (asbab al-nuzul’) in order to be able to interpret any verse’.

Otherwise it would be a grotesque mistake for any Muslim to apply a Qur’anic verse without knowing the circumstances in which these verses were revealed, for the content and style of the Qur’anic verses are frequently complex.

The Qur’anic verses most used by fundamentalists

It would be helpful to quote Milan Rai at length. A fundamentalist group, the latter said, ‘invites converts to undertake their own personal, literal reading of holy texts. As many scholars have noted ‘‘fundamentalists are rebels against their religious establishments’’. Previous authorities, theologians, and clerics can be set aside, and what is claimed to be a ‘pure’ version of the faith can be directly gleaned from the Holy Book. However, the ‘traditions’ that fundamentalists appeal to ‘‘are no more self-evident and uncontested than their scriptures’’.

Muslim fundamentalists have a unique and alarming way of reading Qur’anic scripture, which can be summarised as follows:  Islam is the only true religion; only the teaching of the Qur’an ought to be followed; anyone who refuses to follow Islam should be fought; Muslims should not take Jews and Christians as friends; the whole world should convert to Islam and any Muslim, wherever he/she is, has a religious obligation to participate in this cause.

Exclusiveness of Islam  

There are a few Qur’anic verses which, if interpreted literally, lend support beyond any reasonable doubt to fundamentalists. Some popular choices include: ‘The only true religion with God is Islam’ (Q.3:19). The Qur’an reads further: ‘Whoever seeks any religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted of him, and in the hereafter he will be one of the losers’ (Q.3:86). ‘This day, I have perfected your religion for you, and completed my favour upon you, and chosen for you Islam as your religion’ (Q. 5:4).

Muslim fundamentalists see the above-quoted verses as instructions to reject anyone who is non-Muslim. They also hold the belief that both Christians and Jews have religious obligations to convert to Islam. A refusal to do so puts them among the losers.

Jews and Christians as ‘enemies of Islam’

In the Qur’an, both Jews and Christians are referred to as ‘ahl al-kitab’ (People of the Book). By referring to them as ‘People of the Book,’ the Qur’an indicates their divinity. For Muslim fundamentalists, however, Muslims should disassociate from Christians and Jews. Jews and Christians ‘are enemies of Islam’ and Muslims should not take them as friends. In contrast, the Qur’an reads:

‘O you, who have believed, do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies. They are [in fact] allies of one another. And whoever is an ally to them among you – then indeed, he is [one] of them. Indeed, God guides not the wrongdoing people’ (Q.5:51).

For the Muslim fundamentalist, there is no difference between Jews, Christians and the ‘mushrikun’ (polytheists) because none of them would want to see anything good happening to Muslims. They quote the Qur’an: ‘neither those who disbelieve among the people of the Scripture: Jews and Christians, nor ‘mushrikun’ like that there should be sent down to you any good from your Lord’ (Q. 2:105).

‘Fight and kill them’

The most worrying aspect of this fundamentalist reading is the belief that whoever rejects Islam ought to be a target. Here again they quote the Qur’an selectively without taking into consideration the occasions of the revelation. A Qur’anic verse reads: “Kill them whenever you find them”. And the Qur’an went on to say in the same chapter frequently quoted by fundamentalists: ‘And fight them until there is no more ‘fitnah’ (disbelief) and worship is for God alone’ (Q. 2:193). ‘And fight them until there is no more fitnah and until the religion will all be for Allah alone’ (Q. 8:39).

One particular chapter both fundamentalists and those who seek to vilify Islam are fond of is the so-called ‘sword chapter’, which is chapter 9 of the Qur’an. From this chapter the following verses are most frequently quoted: ‘Then when the Sacred Months have passed, then kill the mushrikun wherever you find them, and capture them and besiege them, and lie in wait for them in every ambush’(Q. 9:5). The same chapter goes on to say: ‘Fight against those who believe not in God, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid that which has been forbidden by God and His Messenger [Muhammad] and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth among the people of the Scripture, until they pay Jizyah[tax] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued’ (Q. 9:29).

The Qur’an also reads, ‘And those who disbelieve are allies of one another, (and) if you (Muslims) do not ally to make victorious God’s religion [Islam], there will be fitnah (polytheism) and oppression on the earth, and great mischief and corruption’ (Q. 8:73).  Moreover, fundamentalists consider any Muslim who attempts to disunite the Muslims or to prevent them from achieving unity as an enemy of Islam who ought to be killed.

“The problem of Islam is nothing but a lack of authority.  Had you Muslims had a pontiff as we Christians do, many problems would not have occurred”, my devoted friend once told me. The tone of his voice – which was accompanied by both sadness and a sense of guilt – still resonates. Sadness because we were just attending a commemoration of the victims of the London 7/7 bombings; guilt because he felt that many good Muslims who are law-abiding citizens are being treated as terrorists.

In fairness, only those who are ill-informed put all Muslims in one basket. But concerning Islam’s lack of central authority, my friend is not the only one in his views. Many people, including Muslim scholars, consider Islam’s lack of authority to be the root cause of the problems within the Islamic faith.

However, I neither accede to this argument nor do I believe the institution of pontiff corrected the problems facing Christianity. In Islam, God is the sole and divine authority; whose absence is represented by texts. Every knowledgeable person can interpret the texts if a range of principles are met. The spirit and the wisdom of the texts are at the heart of these principles and need to be held at maximum by anyone seeking to interpret them correctly.

In his remarkable book, Abdullah Saeed reminds us of the three levels of the message of the Qur’an: (1) language and utterance (2) letters and writing (3) spirit and meaning. The spirit of the Qur’an is nothing but God who is mentioned 2,692 times in the Quran. The characteristic of the God of the Qur’an is nothing but of mercy. Hence why it is not by coincidence that all Qur’anic chapters (except one) begin with: ‘In the name of God the most Merciful and the Compassionate’ (Q.1:1). The Qur’an also informs us that the mercy of God ‘embraces all things’ (Q.7: 155).

Far away from both its spirit or wisdom, Muslim fundamentalists focus on the language of the Qur’an, paying no attention to the circumstances in which these words were mentioned and focusing on ‘fighting’, ‘killing’ and ‘jihad’ or ‘holy war’. So eager to pursue violence they ignore the fact that the concept of ‘holy war’ does not appear in the Qur’an.

In Islam, a war is either just or unjust but never ‘holy’ as it was known in medieval Christendom. So eager are they to convert people to Islam (by force or otherwise) that Muslim fundamentalists ignore the Qur’anic statement that ‘there is no compulsion in religion’ (Q. 2:256). Furthermore, they are ignorant of the fact that throughout the history of Islam, Muhammad never forced or fought any war with the aim of converting people to Islam. Muhammad repeatedly said that his duty was to convey the message and that it was up to the person to decide; and conversion is God’s responsibility (Q. 10:99).

In spite of the above, does the Qur’an still provide the ‘breeding ground’ for Islamic fundamentalism? The answer is not straightforward. However, western Muslims can play an important part in restoring the revealed truth of the Qur’an through careful and thorough interpretation of the verses. An example of such a contribution would be investment in the production of a new printed Qur’ans – and here I must emphasise that I am not asking for a ‘new Qur’an’ but rather a new form of printing and formatting that would reflect more some aspects of British values.

In this newly printed Qur’an, accompanying footnotes for verses dealing with the issues highlighted would help clarify both the context and circumstances in which these verses were revealed. It is to be hoped that once this newly printed Qur’an was in full circulation, the position of the fundamentalists would not only be weakened, but those verses that they employ to cause mayhem would in turn be reinterpreted to restore the spiritual and peaceful message of the Qur’an.

The post Scholar’s corner: where does Islamic fundamentalism stem from? appeared first on Religious Reader.

News reports have highlighted the fact that the so-called Islamic State has released 22 elderly Assyrian Christians that it had kidnapped from villages in the North-East of Syria.

The captives were taken earlier in 2015 , though according to the UK based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, estimates put the remaining group at about 150 people.

The captives were taken when Islamic State fighters captured over a dozen villages in the Hasaka region. Christian communities have resided in this area for over a millennia and many of the residents are of Kurdish heritage.

There are differing views as to whether a ransom had been paid for the release of the 22 individuals and this release follows a further release of captives that took place in March 2015.

The post Islamic State Releases 22 Assyrian Christian Captives appeared first on Religious Reader.

The precarious situation in the Middle East has come to the forefront, with the bombing of ISIS positions by the Turkish Air Force. Having taken the decision to militarily degrade ISIS, it seems that Britain First and its supporters have decided to vent their fury at Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

The anti-Muslim and anti-Turkish bigotry simply drips of the Facebook pages of Britain First as the extremist group posted this picture on their Facebook page. No doubt, the reference that they used was as vague as trying to find the genetic make up of Dolly the sheep in the dark with a match.

The post was followed by a range of comments including this one which we did not know whether to laugh or cry about:

Further dubious comments made on the Britain First Facebook page are listed below and we will be calling on Facebook to ban the Britain First Facebook page. They have not done so yet, since their stance has been that Britain First are a political party. Clearly, their activities are drawing in a specific set of individuals, some of whom have extremely disturbing views about Muslims and some of whom espouse violence against Muslims. Given the recent comments by the Prime Minister outlining the Government’s strategy over the next 5 years, we believe that the ground has changed and it is precisely this kind of activity that the Prime Minister wants social media companies to take action against.

Note the following comments on the Britain First Facebook page:

Leslie Bowe states, “Let’s send all the Muslims to Turkey, and all the Turks with them.”

Ryan Fieldhouse plays into the persecution complex of a ‘war that is looming’. He states, “a war is looming…..who with, whatever the time and wherever the place.” Clearly, he seems lost in time and space.

The post Remember this next time you buy your Kebab (from a Turk), say Britain First Facebook posters appeared first on TELL MAMA.