Talk:Islam in the United Kingdom

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It would be beneficial for a Scholar of Islam to review this page, particularly from the UK.


There is repetition and some conflict between sections 1 and 2 of this article, which need to be tidied up. Also, there is no Telford in Surrey - what is meant by that reference? Mark O'Sullivan 10:54, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

As the page is about Islam, any notable personalities should be Muslim and not take into account their origins, e.g Shami Shami Chakrabarti. Ibruman 13:26, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] history

I've started a section on history, which I admit is very thin. Perhaps people will expand it... Gwaka Lumpa 08:14, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Personalities

Hi, a number of sections on this page need to be tidied up. The Personalities section was getting very heavy with names and all a bit too much. I have now broken it off into smaller sections although if it gets too large, it may need its own page.

Please could anyone stick to the following pattern although suggestions welcome:

  • All personalities should be British Muslims, not just anyone with a Muslim name etc or foreign Muslims. So that's British born or British citizens.
  • Try to include people with wiki profiles or those of which you intend to create a profile
  • Please keep all descriptions non-biased. Please do not describe anyone as 'prolific' or 'extremist', just plain and simple who they are and what position they hold or what they do.
  • I have removed some profiles, such as councillors and mayors from regions within England, Wales etc. because this would result in too many names of unrecognised people.
  • All profiles are there to give an insight into the varying people who represent different branches or views of Islam and an indication of the lifestyle of British Muslims. All individuals featured should have had some kind of impact or have created some kind of debate amongst different British communties with their faith being an identifiable and important aspect of that individual and/or their work.

I think it looks a little neater and is easier to digest and understand now, users should be able to find what they're looking for. What do you think? UK 007

I have removed the long description after Yvonne Ridley's name and kept it consistent with the others, have also put her in alphabetically as the rest - thanks for adding her. UK 007, 29 March 2006


Again, someone moved around the personalities to suggest bias rather than provide easier navigation. All of those individuals under 'activists' are as such. Yes, some are moderate and others are extremists, depending on who you ask but they are all active in their own cause. There's no reason to break the more extremist off into a section entitled 'notorious' so as to give them some kind of ego trip. I hope that's okay but these random acts of occasional editing seem to come from unregistered visitors. I have moved them back to where they were. If you feel they must be changed, please give your reasons. Thanks. UK 007, 9 April 2006


The following individuals under Personalities//Sports are in need of verification of their nationality as all were born abroad and in the UK for work. They are all footballers it would seem: Robin van Persie, Abou Diaby, and Mohamed Sissoko. Most are European Muslims so that needs to be checked. The claim that Persie is Muslim needs citation or it may have to be removed. Thanks. UK 007, 19 December 2006

[edit] Yusuf Islam

I've put the word "musician" back in. He's a musician amongst other things Gwaka Lumpa 21:50, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

That's fine. I assumed most people would realise that the word 'Artist' usually encompasses arts generally and Yusuf Islam is more than just a musician creatively. However you may keep 'musician' in if you think it helps. UK 007, 29 March 2006

[edit] Coal Mining Areas

The old coal-mining areas of Britain have hardly any Muslims. This needs clarifying. It is probably true of coal mining areas in the north east of England, but clearly not true for the Lancashire or Yorkshire coalfields. DWaterson 14:39, 28 March 2006 (UTC)


I am a Muslim in such an area (Newcastle, Northeast england)and do not agree with this: there are important Muslim communities in Newcastle, Sunderland, South Shields etc. Also old coal mining areas like Nottinghamshire, South Yorkshire etc all have significant Muslim communities. I have deleted this sentence, it has no factual basis? (20:43, 19 September 2006 (UTC))

No, there are not many in the Yorkshire coalfield. Only Wakefield has a significant Muslim population. Barnsley is around 99% White. The only place in S.Yorks. with a significant Muslim population is Sheffield, and that was not a mining area. Don't know as much about Lancashire, but I thought that Knowsley, St Helens, Wigan, etc. were mostly White. Epa101 16:36, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Newcastle is not an old coal-mining area. Sunderland did have some miners, but only a very small proportion in comparison to its other industries. Notts does not have a significant Muslim population, bearing in mind that Nottingham itself was a bit too south for the coalfield. Anyone else in favour of restoring the reference? Perhaps with a disclaimer for Wakefield? Epa101 17:58, 12 May 2007 (UTC)


Cardiff has a significant Muslim community, and was "built" on coal. --MacRusgail (talk) 18:13, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

The city of Cardiff is not a coal mining area, how many mines are there in Cardiff? None. Like Newcastle it may have traded a lot of coal, but it has no coal mines itself, they are all in the surounding towns which have pretty much no Muslims.
The section is a little pointless and not really relavent, although it is clear that it is correct and is for a good reason, that is most Muslims are immigrants, and obviously it's not a particularly good idea to immigrate into an area where industry is declining and there is lots on unemployment. I say leave it out unless someone come up with an academic study of Muslim distribution or something. —Preceding unsigned comment added by OktoberSunset (talk • contribs) 14:15, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proportion of Muslims by borough

It would be useful to have the top ten boroughs with Muslim population by absolute number, as well as in percentage terms, if anyone has access to that info. MRD 06/07/06

What percentage of Muslims in Britain actually practice their faith actively?. For example: I'm just looking at the figures, and if all of Bradford's 75,000 Muslims went to the main mosque on Friday, it would need to be the size of a large football stadium. I've no point to make here, and no axe to grind. I'm just curious. 160.84.253.241 09:40, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
Interesting question, though should it have been posted at the bottom of the page? My impression is that many Muslims are fairly observant, and it can not purely be measured by Mosque attendance - work and domestic commitments would reduce this, for example Gwaka Lumpa 14:11, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for that. I didn't put it at the bottom because I didn't think it was important enough, it was just a casual question. Just for fun...If all of Greater London's Christians went to church next Sunday, there would be 5,200,000 people trying to crowd into each church :-)

What is the source for the top ten figures? - I'd like to check out local authorities 'lower down' the rankings

VERY Good question (the one about what percentage of Muslims in Britain are practicing). I'm a lapsed Muslim (not for any hardcore ideological reason - just that I think observing Islam is too much like hard work and I really can't be arsed). Anyway, I'm fed up with people thinking I go to the mosque and pray e.t.c. just because of the way I look and because of my name. There's loads of others like me in Britain who can't be bothered with Islam anymore and just want a quiet life. I haven't been inside a mosque for five years!

(Removed my own comment) Fair enough...a welcoming bunch, aren't you? :-)160.84.253.241 (talk) 09:32, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] bs?

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1183 132.241.72.20 17:29, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] sort it out

why do people assume that Muzzy Izzet and Emre etc are Muslim just because they are Turkish!? I have removed them and dont add people here unless ou are actually sure they are muslim

Emre is indeed a devout Muslim, he has attended the mosque just off the West road in Fenham, Newcastle. He is credited as being the first muslim in the club's history to score the winning goal in the NUFC-SAFC derby

ref: http://www.muslimnews.co.uk/paper/index.php?article=2590

[edit] HT

HT is a registered political party. It is exiled in Europe as it is banned by all tyrant governments. The House of Saud, in particular, is hell-bent on extraditing them using naive allies like Blair and Bush.


[edit] Savile Town

The reference to the savile town 97% muslim population comes from the cristians people's alliance [1] and reads: "the area has become 97% Muslim according to local observers". That is in no way sourced correctly and needs to be removed. I will do this soon unless anyone has anyone objections. especially important as this is being quoted as true in recent discussions regarding the mosque being built in east london. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Feudonym (talk • contribs) 17:29, 5 May 2007 (UTC).

The 97% figure might be wrong, but Savile Town is important to mention in this article
Some 5,000 Asians strong, the Savile Town community has become one of the most orthodox centres of Moslem learning outside the east. It has the largest purpose-built mosque in Europe. etc [2] Misheu 19:09, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

http://www.kirklees-pct.nhs.uk/fileadmin/documents/meetings/march_07/KPCT-07-42%20Report%20estate%20strategy.doc See point 4.3 here for information from a less spurious source. Believe me! The figure is not far wrong. Epa101 13:17, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This was almost offensive

The section on religious and ethnic demographics among the Muslim community Britain was borderline offensive, and i'm not even British. It was blatantly and disgustingly biased toward the South Asian community and the South Asian community only, with a number of unsubstantiated numerical claims and obvious bias for and against certain sects. In addition, while the status of the British Asian Muslims was delved into in great (too much) detail, the articl actually claimed little was known about Britain's Arab Muslim community. It even referred to a mosque with an Arab majority as an "Arab run mosque". I don't see how that can be construed as anything other than thinly veiled racism. On top of this, there was no mention of black (African or Caribbean) Muslims. Not that there was too little mention of them; there was no mention of them. At all. Like they don't exist or something. I have to admit that keeping my objectivity was difficult upon reading this as I don't understand how someone could think a section like that would be acceptable for an encyclopedia. I removed the more useless and baseless claims and inserted some material about African and Afro-Caribbean Muslims, but this article still needs a lot of work. MezzoMezzo 21:50, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't be too quick to take offence. It looks to me like a good faith effort from editors writing from their own experience -- the problem is the lack of references for the assertions made rather than conscious prejudice. There isn't a lot of good data on head counts for different strands of Islam, but the 2001 census data on religion and ethnicity might explain why that section was slanted towards South Asian traditions: it shows that British Muslims of South Asian descent comprise at least 2/3 of all British Muslims. I agree that the article does have a South Asian slant and your changes are an improvement but the sentence that you added about a large diaspora of African and Afro-Caribbean Muslims isn't much better than the ones that you complain about; Whilst there is a substantial number of Black African Muslims, the census data shows that the number of Black Caribbean Muslims is very small and what little research there has been on converts to Islam in Britain doesn't support the idea that there are a large number of converts from any ethnic group.[3] --Duncan Keith 07:41, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I certainly wouldn't allege that it wasn't a good faith edit - I don't think any slight in there was intentional. Actually most of what you've said here is more or less how I feel, with the exception that I do still take offense to it a bit. As for the lack of references, it does pose a problem. The British census was eye opening as far as the smaller number of Afro-Caribbeans - would you consent to still including a mention of that community with the addition that it is one of the smaller ones? As for the PDF, i'm not exactly sure but isn't Yahya Birt a guy that has a blog? Would that really count as a source? MezzoMezzo 08:59, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Looks like I spoke too soon. I just saw your recent edit, very very good. I like the citation and the nice table you have made up there. This begs the question, with that put in there, is the following section about organizations and ethnic descent necessary for the article? It may be superfluous at this point. MezzoMezzo 09:01, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the kind words. The prose in that section certainly can be slimmed down, but it needs someone more knowledgeable about the mapping between ethnicity and Islamic movements than me to do it. I also agree that it's important to mention the Afro-Caribbean Muslim community, not least because the prominence of Richard Reid and Germaine Lindsay means that some people will be looking for background information in this article. The Yahya Birt article does have a back-of-the-envelope flavour to it, but he is a serious researcher and I would think it an acceptable reference until something better turns up. --Duncan Keith 11:00, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

That is true. I like what you've done so far, so perhaps what we can do is leave it as is for now while looking for further information on it. MezzoMezzo 16:08, 10 June 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Organization of British People who have left Islam

The following should be included under the above heading or similar:

The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain was launched on Thursday the 21st of June, 2007 for the purpose of supporting individuals who have chosen to apostatize themselves from their former religion and provide society with information about the members which more accurately represents their views and numbers.[1] 74.103.60.55 05:05, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, that seems interesting. Do they have a website? Also, is this necesarily warranting of its own section or more appropriate under a subsection? MezzoMezzo 06:41, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
The German affiliate has gotten coverage in Der Spiegel as well: [4]. Arrow740 06:53, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
I have not heard of any website of theirs as of yet, but they did get coverage on the BBC, as you can see here: Ignore Islam, 'ex-Muslims' urge, by Dominic Casciani 74.103.60.55 13:54, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Definately looks notable. Are you sure it warrants a section separate from the rest of the article though? We could also make a subsection underneath political organizations and pressure groups or religious currents and organizations. It is an organization, and i'm not sure if just this one group warrants a section apart from others. Just a thought. MezzoMezzo 14:32, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
I've made the article. The reason why it deserves its own section is that, its different from the other organizations. All the other Islamic organizations are from Muslims. This one is from ex-muslims. --Matt57 (talk•contribs) 19:56, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Anglocentrism

This article is anglocentric. There should be separate articles on this topic for England, and Wales. --MacRusgail (talk) 18:12, 31 January 2008 (UTC)