Islam: the urgence of engagement (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Islam: the urgence of engagement

2:18pm Monday 2nd April 2007

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According to a Muslim acquaintance - we are friendly but do not know each other well enough yet to claim the bond of friendship - truth and patience are two of the four Koranic conditions for success.

This devoutly religious man is deeply concerned with taking the heat out of relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in the UK; instead he wants to see a bit more light. What worries him is the failure of Muslims in general to engage with the history, culture and language of the West.

"It is indicative of how far we are from making significant progress that we have failed to develop a useful language for either the middle classes or the working classes…In the aftermath of September 11, we could not muster one expert in American foreign policy across the whole of the British Muslim community," he says in a recent essay that he sent to me.

"The refusal by many Muslims to engage perhaps out of shame or lack of know-how means that we have few partners…As we constantly claim our rights in pursuit of further inclusion, we are in fact becoming further excluded since our claim to legal inclusion is leading to cultural exclusion.

"It is my main contention that we need to change our manner of engagement from a language of identity rights towards one that seeks to further human conversation - to extend human sympathy, and this can only be done through a non-ideological Islam that ignores the daily media frenzy - that is, through deep religion, an 'inside Islam'.

The urgency of engagement, the need for a language of human sympathy: indeed. The trouble is that among Bradford's Muslims conservatism and personal self-interest are so deeply entrenched that, with the exception of a few enlightened individuals, progress is small.

For example, at the Bradford Churches for Dialogue and Diversity inaugural annual lecture at the university, given by the Pakistani Church of England Bishop, the Right Reverend Michael Nazir Ali, I saw only about four or five Muslims among the audience of about 100. Not a good turn out to hear a brilliant address in English (plus a little Arabic) on the history of Christian-Muslim relations.

Come to that, I didn't see anyone from Bradford Council, neither senior officer nor politician.
Had more Muslims and more VIPs been there they might have learned something; just by being in the same room with a diversity of others, listening, would have been a step forward.

Some of the organises were very disappointed. It seems to be the case in Bradford that non-Muslims propose initiatives for the general good which go largely ignored by the people they are designed to bring in from the cold.