The role of the media

In the course so far, we’ve explored the tenets of Islam, British Muslim communities and the diversity of individuals who inhabit them. But how are British Muslims commonly portrayed in the media?

In 2008, Justin Lewis, Paul Mason and Kerry Moore, academics from Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, published the findings of an extensive analysis of press coverage of British Muslims, research that shaped the Channel 4 Dispatches documentary, “It shouldn’t happen to a Muslim”. They found that news stories about Muslims increased dramatically over the period between 2000 and 2008, an increase partly fuelled by the terrorist attacks in New York in 2001 and London in 2005, but also as a product of a wider preoccupation with Islam and British society. Having looked at the content of almost 1000 newspaper articles from 2000-2008 and their accompanying images, they came to a series of, perhaps troubling, conclusions.

The researchers found that the majority of the coverage of British Muslims in the British press tended to focus on a narrow range of issues and recurrent, negative types of characterisation:

An emphasis on terrorism, particularly in the context of the ‘war on terror’. These stories tended to remove any political motivations from acts of terrorism, focussing entirely on religious factors;
A representation of Islam as a ‘threat’. This kind of news coverage focussed on religious and cultural issues in terms of a perceived ideal of ‘British values’. As Lewis and Moore explain, the idea that Islam is dangerous or backward was present in 26% of the stories they surveyed, compared to the 2% of stories that proposed that British Muslims supported prevailing moral values;
A focus on extremism, with a recurrence of almost ‘pantomime’ images of Abu Hamza.
The authors of the report also noted the repeated use of negative language in the descriptions of British Muslims in the British press. The most common nouns invoked were terrorist, extremist, Islamist, suicide bomber and militant. The most common adjectives were: radical, fanatical, fundamentalist and extremist. As Lewis and Moore explain, in the British press from 2000-2009, references to radical Muslims outnumbered references to moderate Muslims by seventeen to one.

The images that illustrated these stories tended to fall into negative categories too: the most likely kinds of images of British Muslims in the press were police mugshots or photographs of Muslim men outside police stations or law courts. Muslims were much less likely than non-Muslims to be portrayed in positive settings, or in terms of their profession - as doctors or lawyers for example – and much more likely to be identified simply as Muslims rather than through any kind of representation that would emphasise other aspects of their identity.

The conclusion that arises is that the British press in recent decades has tended to reproduce a limited repertoire of negative images and troubling themes. Given what we have already learned in this course about the diversity of British Muslims and their day-to-day lives, this distorting focus has led to complaints that that British Muslims have been misrepresented in the news media, and that this has contributed to a lack of understanding between communities. Later in the course, we’ll explore how powerful competing representations of British Muslims, far more attuned to diversity and setting out positive images of integration, have challenged the limited depictions in the British press.

Islamophobia

Islamophobia

The term ‘Islamophobia’ began to enter media and political discourse in Britain in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a way of signalling a rejection of the growing Muslim population. However, a report published in 1997 by the Runnymede Trust – a body established in 1968 to advise government on matters of race relations – was pivotal in raising new social and political awareness of prejudice against Islam and Muslims in Britain.

The report published by the Runneymede Trust ‘Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia’ in 1997 (Islamophobia: a Challenge For Us All) broadly defined Islamophobia as ‘unfounded hostility towards Islam’ resulting in discriminatory attitudes and behaviours towards Muslims. This might be manifest, for example, in a view of Islam as a static and monolithic worldview that encourages separatism and hostility towards the West and its values.

The Runnymede Trust report placed prejudice against Muslims in Britain into public, political and media debate on a new scale. Since 1997, there have been strongly argued contests not only about the definition and parameters of the term, but also about the nature and extent of the phenomenon it was referring to. There has been vigorous research activity about the relationship between racial and ethnic discrimination and religion, and the degree to which race and religion might intersect. Academics have tried to tease out the distinction between a ‘phobia’ of Islam as a religious worldview and prejudice towards ethno-cultural communities of Muslims themselves.

For example, scholars such as Fred Halliday argued that the problem was not about Islam as a faith, but about hostility towards Muslim communities. This would make ‘anti-Muslimism’ a better term, in his view, than Islamophobia. More recently, the eminent sociologist Tariq Modood has suggested that Islamophobia is best considered as involving both racial and religious discrimination and is thus a form of cultural racism, the result of which has been a ‘racialisation’ of Islamic identity.

These on-going contests reveal a lack of consensus about the term ‘Islamophobia’ in academic circles. Increasing numbers of doctoral theses, journals, and research centres are devoted to exploration of the term and the phenomenon. But moving away from these sometimes abstract theoretical debates, there is research evidence that demonstrates that Islamophobic views in Britain now have greater political significance that anti-Semitism, not only in terms of frequency but also in terms of being visible and overt. As the former Conservative Party Chair Baroness Saida Warsi claimed in 2011, prejudice against Muslims has “passed the dinner table test”. Although quantitative surveys are perhaps rather blunt instruments for measuring feelings or experiences of discrimination or prejudice, they nevertheless reveal some alarming trends. For example, about one in five Britons has a strong dislike of Islam and Muslims (Field, 2007), and the British Social Attitudes Survey in 2009-2010 found that Muslims were the least popular religious community (Allen 2013). Alongside this, there is good evidence to show that Muslims are subject to greater surveillance and profiling by the security services than members of other world religions, making contemporary Britain a very challenging place to live as a Muslim.

The launch of the ‘All Party Parliamentary Group on Islamophobia’, established under the current Coalition Government, and the Tell MAMA project, launched in 2012, reflect important political and British Muslim community initiatives to record and address experiences of prejudice against Muslims in Britain today.

British Muslims Gender

Perhaps not surprisingly, much of the research on gender in relation to British Muslim communities so far has focused on women, and especially the fortunes of the emerging generation of young British-born Muslim girls.

Issues such as marriage and education, employment and dress, have been considered in some depth. Arguably, questions around the ‘hijab’ and more recently the ‘niqab’ have become ‘semiotically over-charged’ leading to an undue fascination with what Muslim women look like, rather than who they are. This disproportionate focus on Muslim women has of course also resulted in the indirect exclusion of ‘masculinity’ within the research field.

This situation is now being remedied with important new studies on the experiences and identities of young Muslim men in Britain. Similarly, academic attention is now beginning to shift - away from a stereotypical preoccupation with a narrow range of ‘women’s issues’ - towards a broader agenda that is concerned with women’s participation in the labour market and in civil society. These new research directions are very much in keeping with a fundamental principle about equality between both genders in Islam.

There is no sense in which men or women are superior or inferior in relation to one another, certainly in the eyes of God. Rather, the emphasis within Islamic sources is upon their unique attributes and qualities as men and women, the ‘blessings’ of their gender, and the responsibilities that derive from them. Long before women supposedly gained ‘equal rights’ in modern European and Western societies, Islam accorded Muslim women rights in relation to ownership of property, education, inheritance, free choice in the matter of matrimony (and retention of her ‘identity’ following marriage).

It is unfortunate that over time, discrepancies have arisen between the ideals enshrined in Islamic thought and teaching, and the realities facing Muslim women in everyday life. It was not long after the death of the Prophet Muhammad that Muslim women found their newly defined God-given rights being denied to them. This is often a reflection of a lack of Islamic education within Muslim communities, combined with the power of cultural traditions shaped by male interests.

Many British Muslim women have had access to more enlightened Islamic education than was possible for their parents and grandparents. Research has shown the myriad ways in which Muslim women are drawing upon Islamic sources to articulate their religious rights. This has often involved them illustrating the distinction between sometimes restrictive cultural expectations and assumptions about gender, and more liberating religious teachings. As an outcome of this process, they have been proactive in establishing formal and informal networks of mutual support, as well as contributing to national level Muslim organisations and civil society.

A good example of this entrepreneurialism can be seen in the work of one of the oldest and most enduring Muslim women’s organizations in Britain, namely, the An-Nisa Society, founded in London by two sisters, Humera and Khalida Khan, in 1985. The society has helped to set new agendas around social welfare priorities, and has lobbied successive governments on matters of social policy that have a direct bearing on Muslim women’s everyday lives, such as access to equitable health care, improved educational opportunities for children, and challenging the cumulative disadvantages that arise from poor housing and ill-health.

Pilgrimage: Hajj

Every year, millions of Muslims from around the world converge on the city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia to perform the Hajj: the pilgrimage that should be carried out at least once in their lifetime by every able-bodied Muslim that can afford to do so.

The Hajj is a journey which involves all of the above pillars and therefore is the ultimate journey of a lifetime. It is seen as a calling from God, only for those who have been invited by Him to visit His sanctuary. It involves physical worship such as going round the Kaaba in imitation of the old tradition of Abraham. It also involves giving charity to the poor. The Hajj represents Muslim unity where all people are donned in the same white clothes doing the same rituals. The white clothing which looks like a shroud also reminds Muslims of their own frailty and mortality.

So, Hajj. Hajj is really the journey of a lifetime. Muslims say that of the five pillars that the shahadah or the witnessing of Allah is something that you do continuously through the day. That the prayer is done at fixed times during the day, but the journey to Hajj is really the pillar of your lifetime. It's an obligation that you have to do once in your life, if you're able. And that forgiveness comes along side. So your remembrance of God drives away sin and brings forgiveness.

And your prayer enables forgiveness of your wrong actions between your prayers. And your fasting-- if you fast Ramadan properly-- your sins are forgiven for the whole year. But if you perform your Hajj, your pilgrimage correctly, then your sins for all of your previous life are washed away.

So this is one of the reasons that Muslims perform Hajj. Usually towards the end of their life, so that all of their wrong actions during their life will be forgiven them. But also Muslims tend to perform the Hajj later on in life because for many Muslims, it's a very expensive journey. It's something that people start saving for early on in life.

And in days gone by, when travel was much more expensive and more arduous, very often the journey to and from Hajj would've been a matter of months. That's three or four months you would have had to cross deserts and rivers and forests and dangerous places. And you would actually have been lucky to have returned with your life. Travel was a dangerous occupation.

And so one of the obligations of Hajj is that you set off for it as if you are coming to the end of your life, and you're not going to return. You have to pay all of your debts. You have to ask everybody for forgiveness. Because it is really the journey before the journey. It's the preparation for the great journey when you die. And all the rituals of Hajj play on those themes. So even the dress that you have to wear during Hajj, it's two simple pieces of white cloth. And indeed, those may well be the two pieces of cloth that are use to wrap your body in when you die. So everybody is equal. There's no superiority. Everybody is standing on the plane before God supplicating and remembering him as a community.

Zakat - Alms Giving in Islam

Alms giving or Zakat in Arabic, is one of the most important Islamic pillars that involves worshipping of the Allah – the God -   throughout money contribution for Goodness.
Muslims know that their wealth doesn't belong to them but belongs to the God and the God ordered them to donate some of their wealth to less fortunate people. Islam Imposes that every adult person who has excess saving must share 2.5% of his savings for the poor.
In Arabic language, Zakat means purification as it purifies and clean Muslims wealth as well as their soul.
It refers to the purification of our wealth and soul. The wealth beatification denotes the mobilization of assets for the purpose of financial growth and justify distribution, and the purification of the soul implies freedom from hatred, jealousy, selfishness, uneasiness, and greed. Said Akmal Hanuk
According to OCHA – UN office for the coordination of humanitarian Affairs – Muslims spent 200 Billion to 1 Trillion U.S dollars in Zakat and Sadaqat – Voluntary Alms – This is equivalent to fifteen times of global human contribution in 2011.
Zakat helps in redistribution of the wealth between the society members which in turn decreases the gaps between the rich and the poor. In economic point of view, Zakat helps the poor to share positively in economic activities by increasing their purchasing power. Also it encourage Muslims to invest their Money otherwise it will depleted.
Adult male or female Muslim who are finically able, mentally stable must give 2.5% of their money when the money reaches the Nisab - is the minimum amount for a Muslim net worth to be obligated to give zakat – as Zakat.

 The Zakat must be donated to the poor "those who living without means of livelihood
The needy, who can't meet life basic needs
The Zakat collectors
The people who are Sympathizers with Islam or want to convert to Islam.
Zakat also used to free slaves who can't afford free themselves
To reimburse debt for debtors
And for the wayfarers, or the travelers.
Islam not only provides a strong ethical framework, but it provides a good economic aspect which helps positively in community building. For example in Ottoman times complete cities are build depending on Zakat, Sadaqat and Okaf, the religious endowments. These endowments was important reason for the golden age of Islam from 8th to 13th centuries.

Cultural and Religious diversities

Cultural diversity

As we have already seen, most Muslims in Britain have originally come from many different parts of the world.

Whether they originate from Africa, the Middle East or the Indian sub-continent, their practice of Islam has often been shaped by their various cultural backgrounds. And of course, as Muslim communities have developed in Britain over time, there has been a good deal of cultural ‘fusion’ and blending of cultural traditions. Sometimes, it can be difficult to discern when a social practice is religious, or cultural, or a mixture of both. In this article, we reflect on this conundrum, and explore some of the cultural diversity that shapes the practice of Islam in Britain today. Let’s start with the vivid imagery of a wedding.

If you attended a Muslim Bengali wedding, you would notice that the bride is elegantly donned in richly-coloured red attire. You will observe that she will accept the marriage proposal with apparent hesitation (which may give the impression that she is being forced). Throughout the wedding, you will notice the joy and happiness of those around her, while she will probably look somber (which may consolidate your suspicion that she has been forced into the marriage). In contrast, if you see an Arab Muslim wedding, you will see that the bride is donned in white. She will look happy, and will probably dance with her husband.

What you have glimpsed through these two pictures in your mind is the difference between Muslims from different cultural origins in relation to marriage celebrations. Once the religious dimension of the ceremony is completed through the signing of the marriage contract – and this will be the basis for any Muslim marriage – the festivities that follow will reflect particular cultural traditions that have relatively little religious connotation.

Religion is often interpreted and practiced through cultural traditions. Sometimes these traditions are assumed to be ‘religious’ but are in fact merely ‘cultural’. Not all British Muslims will necessarily be able to discern the difference between the two, such is their complexity. So for example, Islam offers Muslims guidance on a range of issues, including dress. There is no such thing as ‘Islamic’ dress, but simply a set of basic standards and requirements for both men, and women; Quranic verses regarding dress are often as applicable to men as they are to women. Men must minimally (that is, at least) cover from the navel to the knee, while the Prophet Muhammad instructed women to cover their bodies, except for their face and hands. The majority of Muslims interpret this to include covering of the hair. Both men and women are required to wear clothes that are loose, opaque, dignified, modest and clean. Clothing should reflect gender, and thus both men and women are encouraged to express their masculinity and femininity through dress. Apart from these basic expectations, Muslims are free to wear whatever they choose. Muslims in Britain today wear all manner of different styles of clothing and head-covering. None are ‘Islamic’ per se, but simply reflect varied cultural interpretation of religious requirements about dress.

Some Muslims in Britain are now three or four generations removed from the original migration experience. These young British-born Muslims are marrying both within and outside the cultural and kinship groups of their parents and grandparents, and any notion of culture as a singular phenomenon is becoming redundant. Cultural traditions are being fused in all manner of permutations, and research demonstrates the myriad ways that young Muslims will make strategic use of their cultural origins according to context and circumstance.

Religious diversity

Muslims in Britain are from many different ethnic, linguistic, and racial backgrounds. As we have seen already, they often have diverse geographic origins and migration histories. But alongside these differences, many British Muslims also subscribe to various religious ‘schools of thought’. The extent of this internal diversity means that it is more appropriate to speak about British Muslim ‘communities’ – in the plural, rather than thinking of British Muslims as being a unified homogenous ‘community – in the singular.

As in many other world religions, Islamic teaching has been interpreted and practiced in various ways since the time of the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century. Over the course of history, and in different geographic regions, various ‘schools of Islamic thought’ have emerged. Today, this means that in cities such as Cardiff, or London, there are Muslims whose understanding of the Islamic tradition might vary slightly in relation to particular practices or beliefs. As a consequence of migration and travel, these different religious ideas, once separated by large geographical distances in the Muslim world, are now found on adjacent streets; the internal religious diversity of the entire Islamic world can now be seen in microcosm in some large British towns and cities. Inevitably, this sometimes leads to a certain degree of rivalry about ‘what counts’ as the most authoritative way of interpreting Islamic texts and teachings in 21st century Britain.

The different Islamic movements in Britain today share, however, some common characteristics, irrespective of their geographic or historic origins. For example, they nearly all regard the era of the Prophet Muhammad and his early companions as providing a template for authentic Islamic belief and practice. Belief in the Five Pillars of Islam will be shared by all Muslims, irrespective of their origins. The variation between them essentially arises from different understandings about how and in what ways Muslims today should try to follow the example of Prophet Muhammad. They use different methods of textual interpretation and place different degrees of emphasis on the oral sayings of the Prophet. For example, some British Muslims today look for answers to contemporary religious questions via the scholarly study of religious texts and the accumulated knowledge to be found in legal commentaries written over the centuries. In contrast, others rely on fresh interpretation of original Islamic sources. Amid these different approaches to religious knowledge and authority, some British Muslims also emphasize their connection to a spiritual lineage of scholars and saints.

The various religious ‘schools of thought’ that we find in Britain today have their origins in those South Asian and Arab countries from which British Muslims have mostly been drawn. To some extent, the way in which the various Islamic religious movements relate to one another and wider society as a whole is a reflection of the ideological and political stances they adopted during the period of their formation, especially in relation to former colonial power. Understanding the religious diversity within Muslim communities in Britain today requires an interdisciplinary appreciation of the intersection of history, politics and religious thought.

Islam and Britain in the Middle Ages

For many, the arrival of Islam in Britain is marked by the migration of former colonial and commonwealth workers after the Second World War, and the subsequent formation of sizeable and visible Muslim communities in a number of British towns and cities.

This story of economic migration and settlement is certainly the primary element in the history of Muslims in Britain. However, contact and exchange between the British Isles and the Islamic World has been going on for far longer. Although not popularly known, the earliest points of contact stretch as far back as the early medieval period, only about 150 years after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, with early Muslim cartographers including Britain on their maps.

At this time, around 772CE, the Umayyad Muslim dynasty was ruling Spain and had extended its territories almost as far as Paris – the Islamic world had become Britain’s neighbour. Indeed there is evidence that King Offa of Mercia (757-796CE) was well aware of and in contact with Muslims. Offa ruled the English kingdom of Mercia and is famous for building Offa’s Dyke, a linear earthwork running for 120 miles as a deterrent to Welsh raiders.

Intriguingly, Offa produced a gold coin bearing his own likeness along with the Arabic inscription of the Islamic declaration of faith and Basmillah. This coin, which bears close resemblance to an Arabic dinar made a short time earlier, has been the focus of much speculation. Some scholars believe that such items were intended to oil diplomatic relations with other Muslim dynasties in an effort to find support against the potential threat of Offa’s Umayyad neighbours. Other theories relate to slave-trading with Arabs, or suggest a symbolic protest against a controversial papal tax called ‘Peter’s Pence’. Whatever the reason for the creation of this dinar, it represents one of the earliest points of contact between Muslims and Britain.

There is also evidence of contact in other parts of the British Isles. One example is the Ballycotton Cross dated a century after Offa’s coin. Found at Ballycotton on the Southern tip of the Irish coast, this seemingly typical ninth-century equal-armed bronze cross becomes highly peculiar upon closer inspection. The cross bears an Arabic inscription set in a central glass bead. The Kufic script reads, ‘Bismillah’ – ‘in the name of Allah’ and it is just one of a number of Islamic-style artefacts found in Britain and Ireland during this period. This suggests a significant level of interaction and trade between the kingdoms of the British Isles and the Muslim world. In the same vein, historians have cited the Great Mosque of Cordoba as an architectural influence on the twelfth-century Galilee Chapel in Durham Cathedral.

Although the Christian Crusades to Jerusalem were characterised by two hundred years of hostility, many historical accounts record cultural exchange between Christians and Muslims. For instance, the renowned Muslim leader Salahuddin Ayyubi (Saladin) is said to have held religious dialogues with his Christian counterparts. In addition, Muslim compassion towards Christian captives resulted in thousands of conversions to Islam. This is shown by the story of Robert of St. Albans, an English Templar knight who travelled to Jerusalem in 1185. Once there, he became a Muslim and later married the granddaughter of Salahuddin. Indeed, in the fourteenth century the Knights Templar were even accused of adopting Muslim beliefs by their enemy King Philip the Fair of France.

Political exchanges were also commonplace in this era. In 1213 King John of England sent an embassy to the Amir of Muslim Spain, Muhammad An-Nasir. John allegedly offered to surrender his crown and kingdom and accept Islam on the condition that the Amir would support him in his struggles against the Pope and many of his barons. Whilst this was probably a rumour spread by John’s enemies, the embassy at least demonstrates that political manoeuvring frequently trumped religious difference even during the heyday of the Crusading movement

Whilst these examples are indicative of piecemeal interactions rather than sustained exchange, they do illustrate a history of contact between Britain and Islam which stretches back much further than most of us realise.

Those who wish to delve deeper may also be interested in the two public lectures from Cardiff University’s Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK that are linked to below.

Muslims professionals and organizations

As the British Muslim population has grown in size, it has developed a wide range of infrastructures that support religious identity and practice. At the local level, this has involved establishing mosques, Islamic bookshops and publishing houses, food stores, travel agents, colleges and schools, charity shops, and so on.

Muslims are now very well-represented among the professions that support these local community enterprises. A glance at the pages of the Muslim Directory, a kind of ‘yellow pages’ for Islamic organisations and services in Britain, reflects the dynamism and entrepreneurialism to be found in many communities. But these Muslim professionals often play a dual role by connecting local Islamic organisations and networks, to national-level structures.

Despite the internal religious diversity within British Muslim communities, there is recognition of a need to represent the needs and interests of Muslims in public life, especially in relation to local and national government. This need for national representation for Muslims became particularly apparent in the wake of the so-called ‘Rushdie Affair’ in the late 1980s. The publication of The Satanic Verses exposed the relative lack of mobilising power in Muslim communities, and a consequent need to establish a platform to coordinate a response to the book’s publication. More positively, there was recognition of the need to articulate the distinctive social policy needs of British Muslims. It was argued that this could only be done through the establishment of a national level body to which Government departments could turn for advice and consultation.

Modelled along the same lines as the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and with support from both Conservative and New Labour Governments, the Muslim Council of Britain was formally established in November 1997. Although its so-called ‘representative’ role is sometimes disputed and contested, the MCB has nevertheless lobbied effectively on behalf of a wide range of British Muslim interests. For example, the inclusion of a new question on ‘religion’ in the national Census of 2001 was a direct outcome of campaigning efforts by the MCB. They recognised that British Muslims had distinctive social policy needs in relation to schooling, housing, employment, and so on, and that it was only through detailed analysis of Census data that these issues and challenges might be addressed.

Where Muslim men have largely dominated professional religious networks and organisations in Britain, in recent years promising steps have been taken to enable Muslim women to take up elected positions of leadership in a number of civil society organisations. Most recently, this includes the new President of the Islamic Society of Britain, Sughra Ahmed. And as we will see, chaplaincy is providing an important avenue for Muslim women to take up professional religious roles.

Alongside national religious organisations, Muslim professionals are contributing to British public life as lawyers, doctors, dentists, teachers, chaplains, charity workers, and businesspeople, to name just a few professions. They are increasingly well-networked via professional associations and umbrella bodies, such as the Association of Muslim Schools established in 1992, and the Muslim Charities Forum, established in 2007.

Mohamed the prophet of islam

The prophet Mohammed is the inspiring person for all Muslims. Muslim is order to be take him as a Guide in all what he do in the life. Mohamed's manners are the second source after Qur'an for Muslims acts.

The prophet Mohamed was born in 570AD in tribe of Quraish located in Mecca which is settled by the prophet Ishmael son of Abraham. Ishmael and his mother are taken by his father to Mecca to found a community and build the Kayaba, the first place raised for worshipping one God. Quraish people were the protectors for this place so Mohamed was direct descent of the prophet Abraham.

His father, Abdullah was a trader but he died before The prophet Mohammed was born, also his mother died after that and he grown up by wet nurse called Halima.

The prophet Mohammed was known as Al-Amin the trustworthy. First, He was a shepherd then he became a trader and got married the most noble women in Qurish called Khadija bint Khuwaylid.

During the month of Ramadan, The prophet Mohamed used to meditate in a cave called Hira in a mountain in Mecca. He revived the first words from Allah in this cave so it is special place to Muslims. 

Mohamed was 40^th year when he received this word the first word in revelation was "Read" "eqra'a". The revelation lasts next23 hears till The prophet Mohamed died.

the life of the prophet Mohamed was recorded in extra ordinary details, the community around him recorded every thing he did, the way he lived, the way he ate, the way he drank and the way he pray. Muslims today should do what he did.

The prophet Mohammed was described by his wife Aisha as Qur'an walking he personified the Qur'an so we must talk him as an example. For Muslims he is the inspiration of their life.

Abdullah Quilliam the most influential and controversial British Muslim

Abdullah Quilliam was arguably the most influential and controversial British Muslim convert of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a fact acknowledged by his Muslim contemporaries in the Victorian and Edwardian periods.

William Henry Quilliam converted to Islam in the late 1880s in Morocco in his early 30s whilst travelling for health reasons, this after a lifetime of intense political and religious scrutiny in which he had questioned both the current condition of Christianity, its theology, attitudes towards contemporary moral issues and the various attitudes of the political parties towards equality, social injustice and foreign policies.

On conversion, Abdullah Quilliam was not content to practice his new faith, but immediately began to proselytise in his home city of Liverpool, finding premises to hold meetings for those interested. Abdullah Quilliam brought to his attempts to promote Islam, as the final truth of the Abrahamic monotheistic religion, considerable resources gleaned from his advocacy of temperance, trade unionism, and social equality in the city of Liverpool. As a satirical journalist and a very skilled defence advocate, he was already well-known in his home city as a significant figure who fought for the rights of the less privileged in society.

Always outspoken, he announced his conversion to Islam in the local media, and by 1893 was able to find premises in Brougham Terrace to be used as a mosque and meeting hall. His efforts to publicly promote Islam in the heart of the British Empire brought him to the attention of both the Ottoman Sultan and the Amir of Afghanistan. The former conferred upon him the title of Shaikh al-Islam of Great Britain and the latter sent his son to offer the Shaikh considerable financial resources which were used to expand the premises to include two Muslim schools, an orphanage, a museum of Muslim culture, a library and further education facilities for the city’s working classes.

The Shaykh was to use these facilities to publish a weekly Muslim newspaper and a monthly journal. His newspaper went out to over eighty Muslim nations and brought Abdullah Quilliam to the attention of the wider Muslim world. His efforts to establish Islam in Britain involved the conversion of over 250 individuals and families in Liverpool alone, but he was also the major contributor to the conversion or education of many of the main figures in British Islam of his era. His efforts also extended to assisting Muslim converts and settlers in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA. Through his activities Quilliam was able to bring together the various constituents of the nineteenth century Muslim presence in Britain and draw upon the resources of the mosque in Liverpool to create a hub around which all the, often itinerant, foreign Muslim presences in Britain could cohere and created a unique community comprised of converts, Lascars, Muslim students and rich Muslim travellers.

His forthrightness, particularly with regard to British foreign policy and colonial expansion into Muslim territory, would raise issues of loyalty and citizenship. The Shaikh insisted that he was ‘a loyal British subject by birth and a sincere Muslim from conviction’. His challenge was to offset the prevalent view of Islam and to present it as the religion of reason allied to the values of toleration and moderation that public opinion insisted were part of the British worldview. His dilemma remains pertinent to the contemporary political domain and the demands on the children of the mid-twentieth century Muslims in Britain who remain caught between proving their loyalty to their country of birth yet true to the teachings of their religion.

Why not try to find out about other examples of Victorian & Edwardian Muslims? You could share your findings with your fellow learners here.

Islamic prayer how it is preformed

The prayer is the corner stone in Islamic religion. Prayer repeated in Qur'an more than 80 times and the prophet Mohamed called it the mainstay of the Islam.

Muslims preform prayer "salat" 5 times a day. They think that it cleans, purifies their soul and gives them energy to carry on in stressful day. Prayer "salat" consists of many positions like standing up, bowing, prostrating "sojoud" and sitting down, these will teach Muslims some values like humility and submission to god during prostrating. The moment of prostrating is quite and Muslim feel that he is really close to the God. After the last prostrating Muslim sit-down then he finish the salat by turning his head to right then left saying greetings of peace to angels.

"It's a necessity, it takes only five minutes not very long but it's really nice. Only few minutes and you feel rest all day" Khadija said, a Muslim lives in Cardiff.

The time of 5 prayers is determined by the sun movement so the time differs throughout the year. The five are:

• Fajr : the prayer between dawn and sunrise
• Zuhr: should be performed between true noon and the time when objects shadow equals its size
• Asr: prayer the time when an object's shadow equals it in size, to just before sunset.
• Maghrib: Between sunset to the time of twilight disappearance.
• Isha': prayer between the time when the twilight disappears and midnight

There is four stages to prayer of Muslim

• First is Azan: the call for prayer "salat"
• Second is Wudu : ritual cleaning and spiritual purification.
• Third is determination of Qibla direction: Muslim must find the direction to Kaaba in Mecca then turn to it to perform the Salat
• Fourth is prayer itself.

Wudu:
Muslim must do Wudu before the prayer and before other acts of worship, as circulating Kaaba or holding the holy Qur'an. To start Wudu you should has the intention then say " I certify that there is no god but Allah alone with no partner, and I certify that Muhammad is His slave and His Messenger" then starts Wudu
Wash your hand three times, during this Muslims sins falls as every drop of water fall.
Wash you mouth three times then you nose also three times then our face ten our forearm up to the elbows three times then our hair, our ear and finally our feet.
Wudu is considered a worship itself because it is related spiritual matters, when Muslim preforms it slowly with reverence, he become in contact with the god. If there is no water, Muslim can perform wudu with soil and mud in this time it is called Tayammum, this is another evidence that Wudu is related to spiritual matters.

Islamic community formation in United kingdom

The ways in which all communities develop, not only in terms of their geographical location but also their demographic make up, is not random. Rather a community develops in and is shaped by the context of a particular history and the resulting social, economic and political milieu.

This can be illustrated by the experience of Muslims who came to Britain from the subcontinent when the government recruited young men to work in burgeoning industries after World War Two. Although we cannot and should not make sweeping generalisations, there are certain patterns that are useful to our understanding of the community formation of this group, a large number of whom came from Azad Kashmir in Pakistan and who currently make up about 1/3 of the Muslim population in Britain today. So lets start with the settlement context before looking more closely at the influence that this context has had on the community’s characteristics.

As we have seen, the first people to arrive were young men who formed transient communities - the membership of which was often temporary - around the areas of industry in which they were employed. Their work was generally semi-skilled and low paid and they carried a responsibility to save money for their families in the mother country. As a result men usually settled in poorer urban areas which were often industrial and/or inner city. As groups of men from similar backgrounds and cultures – often in fact from the same villages and even families - it was practical and desirable to live together, sharing houses or living in close proximity to each other. As such, despite their fluid nature, such communities were close-knit in all senses from the very beginning.

The expansion of the community continued through a process known as ‘chain migration’, in which the men who established themselves facilitated the migration of other male family members and acquaintances. It was however, government policy that speeded up the transition from temporary communities to permanent ones through the introduction of the 1962 Commonwealth Immigration Act, which initiated the system of ‘work permits’ and visas where previously none was needed. Consequently the to-ing and fro-ing of different men for varying periods of time was halted.

The necessity for individuals to obtain residence and permission to work compelled them to make more long-term plans which naturally included the desire for wives and dependents to join them. The 18-month period between the introduction of the Act (1959) and it becoming law (1962) thus witnessed a large migration of workers and their dependants in a ‘beat the ban’ campaign. Communities were transformed, for the first time becoming family-based and truly settled, and through the chain migration process took the shape of urbanized villages whose demographics, cultures and internal relations replicated those of the rural villages in, for example, Azad Kashmir. It was also the first time that the creation of infrastructure became a priority in order to provide for specific cultural and religious needs. As such, mosques, specialist shops and socio-cultural centres promoting community activities were soon established in areas of significant Muslim population.

To further explore issues of family and community formation see the additional resources below.

Fest in Islam

Prayer is performed by doing, Alms by spending but Fasting is performed by food and water abstention. Muslims fast in Ramadan month the 9^th month in Islamic calendar – Hijri calendar, every year.

"30 days without interruption from dawn to sunset we fast every Ramadan. It has a spiritual aspect, it reminds us how poor people suffer and encourage us to help them." Ahmed said

Ramadan is the month of Qur'an as the first Qur'anic verse is revealed to the prophet Mohamed by the angel Gabriel in the month of Ramadan.

Muslims uses the lunar calendar so they must see the new moon which signifies the start of a new lunar month. Also, by using the lunar    calendar Ramadan will start about eleven days earlier each year so it may occur in summer, with long day and short night as nowadays in UK or in winter, with short day what makes fasting easy.

At the end of Ramadan every fasting Muslim should pay for charity called Zakat Al fetr, the Alms of breaking fast, to make the poor celebrating with them in the Feast.

After Ramadan, Muslims celebrating festival of breaking of the fast called eid al-fitr.  The feast day starts with prayer of the feast, Salat al Eid, then Muslims share the happiness.

In Britain, this day is the most important celebration of the year, you can see Muslims with new clothes and joining each other in cieties and towns around our country.

Islamic art of integration

Islam is not a culture. It's a spiritual path, and therefore it has no form. English people
can be Muslims, as well as Arabs or Chinese people, or African people-- it doesn't
have an identity as such.

I've found for the exhibition a group of people who I consider are integrated into this
society but not assimilated.

My heart usually says, yes. I don't like to dissect it too much.

I was quite keen to actually use the flags of the saints. So we used the flag of Saint
David, Saint Andrew, Saint George, and Saint Patrick.

It is a big exhibition, and I'm a bit reluctant to edit it down. It's a big space, and I felt
we needed to be a presence in this place without it being too crammed. So it's getting
there. It's kind of an urban exhibition.

I began the project without really any clues what I was going to photograph.
There are a few people that I met who I felt inspired me. And I felt they were what I
would call integrated.

I'm a great admirer of Peter Sanders' work. I think that he has really opened our eyes,
literally, to the diversity of British Islam.

I wanted to introduce this part of the community that people haven't met before with
my pictures within themselves and with what they do, that was really the idea and
the intention behind it.

The photograph in Peter's exhibition is a photograph of me lying on a grassy knoll, and
in the background is my coal-fired power station with its accusing finger pointing up
in the air.
It's a very clear statement of integration. The way that the scarf is wrapped is very
much as a Muslim woman wears her scarf. It's very clear. It's a very positive image of
integration.

I love the fact that this exhibition is going around the world. And I love the fact that
there's nothing judgmental about it. You can be a Muslim of any type. He's just
interested in portraying that diversity.

I actually had built the exhibition a year and a half ago. And we were looking for
somewhere to launch it in the UK, and then suddenly we got told they want to have it
in Egypt.

But then Bahrain wanted it, so then it went to Bahrain, it went to Kuwait, it
went to Qatar. And the thing started kind of a life of its own as people heard about
it-- even Washington, Tel Aviv, and even Baghdad, I'm told.

Through the work of Peter Sanders that more people can really appreciate the beauty
of Islam, and appreciate the values and see them, understand that they are not
dissimilarly with their own, but we share that morality, we share that value as human
beings. We all want the same.

It was only when Peter said that he was putting this together that I understood the
importance of it. And now when it's being exhibited, and the number of people who've
come back to me to tell me how they've seen it in other countries in a completely
different context.

There's immediate thought when you talk about integration that you're talking about
assimilation, and I was very clear that the two things weren't the same.
It helps us understand how the outside world can see Britain as a place that looks
after the people that are here.

It's really a conversation that we need to have about what does it mean to be British
and be Muslim. And I think it's a conversation that can go on for a long time. Because I
don't know what it means. I'm still working it out.

Five pillars of Islam

The five Pillars of Islam is the main way to Allah, the God of Islam. They considered as religious obligations and spiritual contentment to Muslims. The Prophet Muhammad called them the foundation of the Islam. The consist

• Shehada : to be a Muslim you must say " There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the Messenger of God" Ash-had an la elah ella allah wa an Mohamed rassol allah – Shehada in Arabic Lang. –
• Prayer "Salat" : Muslim pray five times a day. Salat in Islam is considered a direct connection between the good and Muslim 
• Zakat : to help poor, the rich Muslims must give others from tier money.  This will achieve the Social Solidarity.
• Fast: Muslims fast one month a year called Ramadan from just before sun rise to the sunset every day in this month.
• Pilgrimage "Hajj" : Travelling to Mecca and preforming rites of pilgrimage is a Muslim's hope as the God "Allah" will forgive him after Pilgrimage.

We have discussed a Small summary of the pillars of Islam in next articles we will discuss each one alone. Good bye for now and God bless you.

Assimilation or integration

The ethnically diverse nature of Muslims communities in Britain has been at the centre of debate about what it means to be ‘British’, and the place of Muslims within ‘British’ society. Should people from ‘minority’ communities be expected to assimilate, or integrate? Indeed what is the difference between these terms?

Assimilation can be described as the process whereby outsiders, immigrants, or subordinate groups become indistinguishable within the dominant host society, eventually conforming to the existing cultural norms of society. In contrast, integration involves adding to the existing culture which in turn transforms and enhances society. Many Muslims reject any call for assimilation. For them, assimilation is tantamount to a loss of cultural, religious, ethnic identity, and an expectation of conformity to the norms of the majority. But most British Muslims are enthusiastic about integration in order to live, and to let others live, in a fair and free society. In fact, it can be argued that the majority of young Muslims are already integrated. Most third and fourth generation Muslims were born in Britain, have been to school here, and live and work in local communities that contribute to society at large. Perhaps not surprisingly, Muslims are sometimes critical about calls for their ‘integration’ where the assumption is that ‘they’ will integrate into ‘our’ ways as if ‘our’ ways (whatever they are?!) are somehow ‘better’ or superior.

Instead, many British Muslims are keen to engage in a more dialogical process which sees their religious and cultural traditions contributing to British society. Muslims are often told they need to ‘assimilate’ or ‘integrate’ to become better members of society. But is this call really about religion? Are the thousands of ethnically British people who have converted to Islam similarly asked to assimilate or integrate? Christianity was once itself an imported Middle Eastern religion, so perhaps the pressure on Muslims ‘to fit in’ is aimed more at their cultures, rather than their religion?

Integration is not about losing identity. Rather it is about maintaining identity and belief while being able to celebrate differences and work with others in civic society. This is not to say that it is an easy process; for many Muslims, aspects of British culture are at odds with their own norms and traditions. Integration is perhaps best seen as mutual compromise, a process that requires mutual respect from all parties. We might use a culinary metaphor to make the point. Assimilation is rather like the process of making soup, where the ingredients lose their identity as they are blended together. Integration can be likened to a fruit salad where the individual fruits, with their varying colours and sizes contribute to the beauty of the dish.

In the next part of the course, we will see how the British Muslim photographer Peter Sanders explores the notions of assimilation and integration. Through the lens of his camera, we see a wide range of British Muslims living and working as ‘integrated’ citizens in our society.

Muslims Basic Believe

According to global Census, Muslims are nearly Quarter of global earth population. Nearly 2.7 million of them live with us in England and wales. Islam is usually known as an Abrahamic Religion alongside with Christianity and Judaism. It is also the 2nd followed religion In the world so we must know more about Islam, Muslims and their faith, believes and daily habits.
Islam as a word has to meanings, the first one is the submission to the will of the Allah – God -. Muslim is the one who obey the god and Give himself to God. Second it means Peace, peace with family, friends, neighbors and all people. The prophet Mohamed says " Muslims is the one who others are secured from his tongue and hand"

Islam is the strong believe called Iman and practice called Islam and kindness and tolerance in judging others called Ihssan. Lets talk about Iman and its seven rules:

• The first rule : Strong believe in god (Allah) and he is the creator, the sustainer and unique –there is no god but him 
• The second rule : believing in prophets as Abraham, Moses, Noah and Jesus, sent by the god to all humanity and Muhammad is the best of them the final of them.
• The third rule : Also Muslim must believe in massage of the god to the entire world through the test as  Abraham scriptures the first book given by Allah , then Moses' Torah,the third on is Psalms to David or Dauod in Arabic, then the Gospels of Jesus (Injeel in arabic) and the Qur’an.
• The fourth rule : Believe in the Angles – created by god as man but from light – who execute the orders of God without enquiry.
• The fifth rule: belief in the hereafter and the other life after death to reap the fruits of good labor done by Muslim in the first life. 
• The sixth rule: belief in Judgment day called yom al-Qiama  when God judge all people for their work in the first life.
• The seventh rule: is to believe that all thing is done by the will of the god.

What we have discussed is Iman or strong believes so Practices is good Labor ordered by the God to Muslims as Pray, Fast, Giving charity and pilgrimage to Mecca we will discuss all of these practices in next articles. Goodbye for now and God please you