Is London's Future Islamic?
03-04-2008
It’s the capital’s fastest growing religion, based on noble traditions and
compassionate principles, yet Islam can still be tainted by mistrust and
misunderstanding. Here Michael Hodges of Time Out argues that an Islamic London
would be a better place.
For a start, Islam is not an alien religion to London. At the end of World War I
the city sat at the heart of an Empire that had 160 million Muslim subjects, 80
million in India alone. London was the largest Islamic capital in the world.
Forty years later and the end of the Empire, unrest and war and poverty in south
Asia had lead to mass immigration to the mother country and London became a
Muslim capital in another sense.
According to the 2001 census there are 607,083 Muslims living in London (310,477
men and 296,606 women). The majority of Muslims live in the east of the city
and, by 2012, the Muslim Council of Britain estimates that the Muslim population
of Tower Hamlets, Newham, Waltham Forest and Hackney will be 250,000. There are
plans afoot (though no formal application has yet been submitted) to build the
UKs biggest mosque – capable of welcoming 40,000 worshippers – near the 2012
Olympic site, a move which has prompted predictable outrage from some quarters.
Consequently, Muslim disillionment with a reactionary and often ill-informed
press is at an all time high.
But rather than fear the inevitable changes this will bring to London, or buy in
to a racist representation of all Muslims as terrorists, we should recognise
both what Islam has given this city already, and the advantages it would bring
across a wide range of areas in the future.
Public health
On the surface, Islamic health doesn’t look good: the 2001 census showed that 24
per cent of Muslim women and 21 per cent of Muslim men suffered long-term
illness and disability. But these are factors of social conditions rather than
religion. In fact, Islam offers Londoners potential health benefits: the Muslim
act of prayer is designed to keep worshippers fit, their joints supple and, at
five times a day, their stomachs trim. The regular washing of the feet and hands
required before prayers promotes public hygiene and would reduce the
transmission of superbugs in London’s hospitals.
Alcohol is haram, or forbidden, to Muslims. As London is above the national
average for alcohol-related deaths in males, with 17.6 per 100,000 people
(Camden has 31.6 per 100,000 males), turning all the city’s pubs into juice bars
would have a massive positive effect on public health. Forbid alcohol throughout
the country, and you’d avoid many of the 22,000 alcohol-related deaths and the
£7.3 billion national bill for alcohol-related crime and disorder each year.
Ecology
‘The world is green and beautiful,’ said the prophet Muhammad, ‘and Allah has
appointed you his guardian over it.’ The Islamic concept of halifa or
trusteeship obliges Muslims to look after the natural world and Muhammad was one
of the first ever environmentalists, advocating hima – areas where wildlife and
forestry are protected. So we could expect more public parks under Islam, but
halifa also applies to recycling: in 2006, 12,000 Muslims attended a series of
sermons at the East London Mosque explaining the theological evidence for a link
between behaving in an environmentally sustainable way and the Islamic faith.
Education
Presently, Muslim students perform less well than non-Muslim students. In inner
London, 37 per cent of 16 to 24-year-old Muslims have no qualifications (the
figure for the general population of the same age and location is 25 per cent).
When it comes to university education the picture is equally gloomy: 16 to
24-year-old Muslims are half as likely to have degree level or above
qualification than other inner London young people.
Again, social factors rather than religion have led to this state of affairs.
Young Muslims in London are often of south Asian origin and therefore more
likely to live in households where English is not the first language, more
likely to encounter racism (both intentional and unintentional) during their
education, and more likely to suffer from poverty and bad housing conditions.
But Tahir Alam, education spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, claims
Muslim children do better in their own faith schools than in the mainstream
state sector: ‘Muslim schools have their own distinct ethos. They use the
children’s faith and heritage as primary motivators to provide the backdrop for
their education and behaviour. This ethos is consistent with the messages that
children are getting at home, so it is a very coherent operation between the
home and the school.’
If Islam became the dominant religion in London the same ethos could be applied
to schooling across swathes of underprivileged and deprived areas of the city.
This could have a revolutionary effect on educational achievement and, perhaps
just as importantly, general levels of discipline and self-respect among
London’s young people. While controversy rages over faith schools, there are 37
Muslim schools in London. As of 2004, only five were state schools, but there is
growing pressure to bring more into the state sector which, according to Alam,
will ‘help raise achievement for many sectors of the Muslim community. Many
private Muslim schools are under-resourced and if they can be brought into the
state sector this valuable experience can be extended to more children.’
Food
Application of halal (Arabic for ‘permissable’) dietary laws across London would
free us at a stroke from our addiction to junk food, and the general adoption of
a south Asian diet rich in fruit juice, rice and vegetables with occasional
mutton or chicken would have a drastic effect on obesity, hyperactivity,
attention deficit disorders and associated public health problems. As curry is
already Londoners’ and the nation’s favourite food, it would be a relatively
easy process to encourage the adoption of such a diet. Not eating would be
important as well. The annual fasting month of Ramadan instils self-discipline,
courtesy and social cohesion. And Londoners would benefit philosophically and
physically from even a short period when we weren’t constantly ramming food into
our mouths.
Inter-faith relations
In an Islamic London, Christians and Jews – with their allegiance to the Bible
and the Talmud – would be protected as ‘peoples of the book’. Hindus and Sikhs
manage to live alongside a large Muslim population in India, so why not here?
Although England has a long tradition of religious bigotry against, for
instance, Roman Catholics, it is reasonable to assume that under the guiding
hand of Islam a civilised accommodation could be made among faith groups in
London. This welcoming stance already exists in the capital in the form of the
City Circle (see Yahya Birt interview), which encourages inter-faith dialogue
and open discussion.
Arts
Some of the finest art in London is already Islamic. The Jameel Gallery at the
V&A houses ‘ceramics, textiles, carpets, metalwork, glass and woodwork, which
date from the great days of the Islamic caliphate of the eighth and ninth
century’ up until the turn of the last century. Or take a free daily tour of the
Addis Gallery of Islamic art (at the British Museum). London-based Nasser David
Khalili, an Iranian-born Jew, has amassed what is considered to be the world’s
largest private collection of Islamic art. Islamic influences have also
flourished in other areas of the arts, with novelists, comedians
(Birmingham-born Shazia Mirza was an instant hit on the London circuit), and
music (from rappers Mecca2Medina on, to the less in-your-face Yusuf Islam).
Social justice
Each Muslim is obliged to pay zakat, a welfare tax of 2.5 per cent of annual
income, that is distributed to the poor and the needy. If the working population
of London, 5.2 million, was predominantly Muslim this would produce
approximately £3.2bn each year. More importantly, everyone would be obliged to
consider those Londoners who haven’t shared their good fortune. London would
become a little less cruel.
Race relations
Under Islam all ethnicities are equal. Once you have submitted to Allah you are
a Muslim – it doesn’t matter what colour you are. End of story.
Submitted by a Mujahid