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Introduction: my research observations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2012

Nahid A. Kabir
Nahid A. Kabir
Affiliation:
International Centre for Muslim and Non-Muslim Understanding, Hawke Research Institute, Australia
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Summary

During my research visits to Britain in 2008, I interviewed a number of young Muslims aged 15–30 years, and some Muslim adults, 30 years and over, in London, Leicester, Bradford, Leeds and Cardiff. I was fascinated to hear their life stories and how they defined their sense of belonging. They all looked visibly Asian, some were noticeably Muslims because of their Islamic dress codes, and many (to my ear) sounded English. However, as I went north to Yorkshire, the interviewees' accents got stronger and sounded more like the resident Yorkshire people. The respondents' life stories reflected their fears and concerns as Muslims, but they also showed an appreciation of and gratitude for their ‘home’, Britain. They were living at a time when the Muslims' peace-loving reputation had been tarnished by the 7/7 London tragedy. However, all participants of this study expressed their identity articulately and in different ways. For example, in April 2008, when I met the Malawian, East African-born Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra of Gujrati-Indian background and asked him about his identity, he replied:

I live in Britain, Britain is my home. This is where I raise my family, they go to school here. And I work in this country, I earn my livelihood in this country. I practise my religion in this country, this is home. So I am British. I do struggle with the idea of me being English because in my mind somehow I think English-ness is to do with the race where you have to be white Anglo-Saxon. […]

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Chapter
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Young British Muslims
Identity, Culture, Politics and the Media
 , pp. 1 - 5
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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