26 October 2010
In recent years, few subjects have had more column inches, multimedia pieces and funding streams devoted to them than the integration of Muslims into British society. Whole essays have been devoted to the notion that donning the niqab (face veil) impedes the exchange of pleasantries in the street; research has been done on the radicalisation potential of Islamic student associations at universities; and online news sites are brimming with details of clashes between groups like the English Defence League and Muslims Against the Crusades.
While it should be clear to most people that the views represented on each end of this spectrum are crude, and exacerbated by the harshness and unreasonableness of their approach, further coverage should be given to the nuanced positions in between. In this overview of British-Muslim relations of the past years, Tehmina Kazi calls for a better mutual understanding by non-Muslims acknowledging the diversity of British Muslim belief and practice and by Muslims becoming more active in British politics.
