British first and Muslim second? Or does religion conquer country? OK, he can’t get drunk every Friday night then go to the mosque. He can’t eat bangers and mash and then fast during Ramadan. But how will he watch Britain’s best buddy America supplying weapons to the Israelis, blasting hell out of Palestine? He sees Israel bomb his fellow Muslims in Lebanon into destruction with American support. He sees the chaos unfold in Iraq, which he blames on Tony Blair and George W. Bush. He sees the “biggest outdoor prison on earth”, Gaza. So who should he pledge allegiance to?University lecturer and convert to Islam, Timothy J. Winter, identifies himself as Anglo-Muslim, which is a mix of two heritages, the English heritage along with the Muslim heritage. He says: “A 100 years ago or even later in fact, it was relatively easy to define what was specifically ‘British’, but now thanks to globalisation, it’s really very hard to determine.” A definition is easier to contrive if you look at the BNP website says Mr. Winter. Nick Griffin and his people are very clear on the subject: “The thing that they are most clear about, what it is to be British, is that it’s incompatible with Islam.” The main reason why most people actually join far right movements in modern Europe, says Mr. Winter, is because they want to define themselves as “what is not Muslim”.
Globalisation is expected to push Britain’s population up to 60m to 65m in a decade. With over 1.6 million Muslims living in Britain the majority of these people may look to Mecca rather than the monarch for spiritual inspiration.
So how does a British born Muslim define himself? Kamran Ali aged 23, believes he knows exactly who he is:...I’m a young Muslim...living in a western country...and just trying to make the best of this life, just trying to get to heaven."
Living in Luton, he wasn’t too hard to find. With an estimated 27,000 Muslims (about 15% of the Muslim population in England), you could say it’s one of the main areas of Muslims in Britain. He was an Asian bloke wearing a black hat, a long black robe with a long black beard. Easily persuaded with some samosas and a glass of Pepsi, he says he used to be the typical “white kid” but just Asian.
Kamran, you could say, was your average ASBO, who never really used to take anything seriously so practising his religion, was just like learning how to swim; but in quicksand. He refers to his past as the days of ‘jahalia’, or the days of ignorance you could say. An Arabic term used by Muslims which describes the pre-Islamic era in Arabia.
Kamran holds his Muslim identity close to his heart but says, he’s still very much proud to be British: “I’m proud to be British” he says in a clear-cut manner. An eerie silence then took a hold of the conversation. His immediacy compelled me to say: “that was quick”. You could see a watchfulness in his eyes and at the time, it felt like he was being alert for any ‘hidden’ cameras waiting to be taken into Channel 4 headquarters for ‘Undercover Mosque 3’. Fortunately, this wasn’t the case. Kamrans ethnic origin is Bangladeshi so he was proud to be called a Bengali. But as he matured, he went to Bangladesh for a holiday and saw what it was really like: “The evilness that’s taking place back home, the fakeness and the untruthfulness...this is what kind of made me say to myself that I’m proud to be British and glad that Allah has put me in Britain to grow up.”
Growing up in Britain as the only ‘Asian in the class’ affected Kamran’s identity but as the old saying goes, “if you can’t beat them, join them”. All of his friends consisted of white and black people so his Bengali community would often comment on him calling him “lost” and “confused”. He still says proudly: “To tell you the truth I lived my social life to the very utmost maximum level of a social life you could live.”
“Its not really good to talk about these things,” he says. He then oddly enough goes onto say: “We didn’t start the parties, we used to make the parties, and we never used to take, we supplied.” OK...let’s hope he wasn’t referring to anything suspicious. But it must make you wonder, how the heck do you socialise now? He says his social life has changed, but it’s something which he had to sacrifice: “Not much has changed from the old Kamran to this Kamran,” he says reassuringly.
“I’m just a Kamran with a different purpose now so it’s easy to get along with non-Muslims. Just now our conversations are a little different. Its more based on propagation now, of the religion.”
Kamran has done quite a few odd jobs here and there, from restaurant work to bricklaying and now working as a fully qualified teacher. He teaches year 4 students at Rabia Boys School, an Islamic school in Luton. He believes this is the job he was meant to do all his life: “Allah has blessed me to become a teacher”.
After hearing his escapades as a teacher, the conversation started to deepen as the 7/7 attacks were mentioned. Kamran finds it hard to accept that Muslims can do these attacks. He takes a sip from his Pepsi and says empathetically: “The more you look at your Muslims brothers in the Middle East and what’s taking place, especially just now I’ve heard recently about what’s taking place in Palestine and you hear the reason for what the Muslim brothers done, then you know Allah accepts what they’re doing, if they’re doing with a true intention.”
He was quick to mention that he believed 9/11 was an inside job and this so called war on terror was actually a war on Muslims: “We should actually take this word ‘terror’ out, it’s actually war on Islam.”
Kamran thinks the suffering in Palestine by the Israeli occupation is “unbearable” to watch:
“Muslims...we’re all one nation, we are all brothers and sisters. Our land is one, our war is one and our peace is one and our honour is one. We can’t stay quite while another Muslim suffers”.
He asserts that Muslims in the west have to start protesting against the Israeli attacks: “Muslims around the world need to be productive, getting involved in demonstrations. They need to send money to charities and the best thing to do is make du’a (supplication to God)”.
As a Muslim, Kamran believes he can never pledge allegiance to Britain because it’s a “creation of God”. But he asserts that Muslims should integrate into society, but “carefully”: “We should be careful that we...we don’t lose our identity and don’t get brainwashed”.
It’s strange seeing people like Kamran who are proud to be British yet don’t want themselves defined as ‘British’, but just as a Muslim. From an Islamic point of view, he’s right in saying this. Islam has no differentiation between status, nationality, colour or race so it seems that once a person starts practising his/her religion, they find out Islam is not just a religion but a way of life, both spiritually and politically, and thus regard themselves as just Muslim. There are people though, who keep their religion as a personal belief, and separate from their identity. But for people like Kamran, who regards his faith as something more than personal, they feel a need to talk about their religion and to spread it to the four corners of the globe.
“Without propagation Islam wouldn’t be the fastest growing religion in Europe and around the world,” says Kamran. It seems the religious believers are going to be shaping the early 21st Century. Mr. Winter confidently states Islam is actually flourishing at this very moment in time: “Today societies have become much religious than they used to be. I remember in Cairo, my first visit there in 1979, women used to occasionally wear the hijab (headscarf), but not often. Now you go inland to an upscale shopping centre in wealthy parts of Cairo...nearly 80% of the women are wearing hijab”.
He explains in the Muslim world we have this diversity and sometimes it’s hard for people in the west to understand Islam outside its media portrayal: “Most people aren’t as angry as the extremist on both sides would like them to be. These people do want to get on.”
Kamran says his job living as a Muslim in the west is to spread the ‘truth’: “Me and myself and those that are practising, we know the truth, we have been given the truth so we need to go spread this truth. Today I can’t change the government nor can I change what’s happening in the Middle East, nor can I change anything that’s happening in the world, that’s in the hands of Allah, but I can do my best to help with whatever I can do.”
