At Eid prayers in a rainswept Aberdeen this month, the imam gave thanks to Allah Almighty for the blessings of life in Britain. We had successfully completed a month of fasting while Muslims in China were banned from observing Ramadan and in other parts of the world, many fasted through distressing circumstances of poverty and war. In the sports hall that was booked for the prayers, we listened to the imam in our rain-splattered best clothes before heading for our first morning coffee in a month and the candy floss on sale for the children.
Older, first-generation immigrants understood the logic of Britain being better and freer than “our own home countries”. But the young who were born and grew up in Britain would say that it is hard work being a British Muslim. [1723 comments]
[TOP RATED COMMENT 633 votes] Because young Muslims keep blowing stuff up and shooting people?
[2ND 525] I do not live in the UK but I did live and work in Bradford during 9/11. My sister worked in New York at that time. To watch the asian youths returning from Friday prayers celebrating the event impacted on my attitude towards the asian community and the youths.
[3RD 420] You can write all the articles you want, and so can everyone you know. It won't make a tiny bit of difference. A better use of your time would be to report any information you might know about suspected jihadists to the authorities. Now if you and everyone you know all did that - THAT would make a huge difference. So don't worry about suspicions. That's just a by-product. Focus on the source.
[4TH 392] Another week, another "Someone else's fault" article in the Guardian
[5TH 314] For large numbers of Muslims to demonstrate with the same fervour against acts of terror as against the publications of irreverent cartoons?
[6TH 281] Part 1000 in a never-ending series called 'why muslims are always victims and their religion has nothing to do with anything bad that happens'.
[7TH 247] Reading this I can appreciate how difficult it is to be a young muslim but I still wonder about the never ending stream of articles appearing in the Guardian which further the 'poor me' narrative. Are they truly representative of the muslim community?
Are there not muslims out there who can tell us how they are mobilising within their communities to make them less insular, to connect with the people around them? Is there no one that can appreciate why islam frightens the hell out of people and reflect on that?
Personally I suspect that there is something in the religion that creates an inability to self-analyse, to empathise with others, a sort of 'group-victim' mentality which is cultural, and explains an awful lot about the roots of radicalisation. [Guardian Cif] Read more
