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I have always found it strange when friends — especially converts — emphasise that they are “independent”, although of course I understand what they’re saying… that Islam is their choice, that they didn’t embrace it because of someone else or because someone made them. But it strikes me as strange because when I look at [...]

In British politics today, there is so much talk of identity, of what it means to belong, of shared values. Sometimes it is assumed that we must all trace our values back to Hellenic roots, as if this were the foundation of civilisation. Yet my heart has always felt comfort in the Semitic pathway. As [...]

I found this article interesting: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5012300.stm Much is being made these days about British Identity – or the erosion of it. Predicatably the finger is being pointed at “Multi-culturalism”, but I don’t believe this is correct. Much more pervasive is the influence of advertising, marketing, publishing and broadcasting. The times, they are a changing. Also [...]

Although Lesley White’s article focusing on the social life of the British Muslim community in this weekend’s Sunday Times was not particularly negative, it has irritated me. There seems to be an underlying assumption that the United Kingdom is defined by a monoculture, outside which lie the Muslims. It is not. I am a native [...]

I appear to be going off on tangents a lot these days and here I go again. In an opinion piece on a US website last week, a British Muslim journalist lamented the growth of pop culture within the Muslim community. She was commenting on the response of female audiences to the nasheed performances in [...]