British Muslim Identity: Past, Problems, Prospects

Description

Muslims are now the largest religious minority in the United Kingdom. Some media accounts have even suggested that the country is now home to more practising Muslims than practising Anglicans. Many studies have investigated British Muslim communities and their strategies of accommodation to the host society, yet there has been little interest in identifying the cultural paths by which Islam in Britain might become a British Islam, given both the historical tenor of British religion and longstanding native perceptions of Muslims. This experimental survey of the issues seeks to explore the possibility of grafting Muslim religion onto the tree of the country’s religious and cultural life, as an alternative to illiberal agendas of rejection, or liberal and postmodern affirmations of an external radical otherness. It is suggested that the ‘Pelagian’ possibility recurrent within the British religion offers a suitable point at which this hugely important grafting might take place.

University Lecturer in Islamic Studies at the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, England, and Director of Studies in Theology at Wolfson College. His research work focuses on Muslim-Christian relations, Islamic ethics and the study of the Orthodox Muslim response to extremism.

• Author: Timothy J Winter
• Format: Paperback ‏
• 30 pages