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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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'What British Muslims Really Think'.

314 replies

ThirtyNineWeeks · 13/04/2016 12:37

This Ch4 documentary can't possibly be representative of all British Muslims when only 1081 were polled......can it?

AIBU to think that, for some, this kind of documentary will only ever be seen as evidence of 'Islamophobia'?
And the fact that it is made by Channel 4 will immediately turn lots of folks off..

OP posts:
BlueRocksPinkPebbles · 18/04/2016 17:50

"I'm not Blue Rocks but as a Christian I do find Islam hard to fathom."

As I'm sure some Muslims find Christianity "hard to fathom".

Religion is just culture, isn't it? Cultural practices combined with social expectations handed down from generation to generation. Maybe without the automobile and the World's reliance on oil from saudi, the violent and extreme version of Islam would not have been spread beyond the region. Pact with the devil comes to mind. Does anyone know more about Saudi/US/Brit connections?

BlueRocksPinkPebbles · 18/04/2016 17:55

From wikipeadia

Islam is the state religion of Saudi Arabia. The connection between Islam and Saudi Arabia (or at least the western Hejaz region of the country) is uniquely strong. The kingdom, which sometimes is called the "home of Islam", is the location of the cities of Mecca and Medina, where Muhammad, the messenger of the Islamic faith, lived and died, and attracts millions of Muslim Hajj pilgrims annually, and thousands of clerics and students who come from across the Muslim world to study. The official title of the King of Saudi Arabia is "Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques"—the two being Al-Masjid al-Haram in Mecca and Al-Masjid al-Nabawi in Medina—which are considered the holiest in Islam.

Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of the Arabic language, the language of the Quran, the central religious text of Islam. It is unique among modern Muslim states in being the only one to have been created by jihad, the only one to claim the Quran as its constitution, and unique among Arab-Muslim countries in being the only one to have escaped European imperialism. The country is also noted for its conservative official interpretation of Islam, which has influence well beyond its borders, thanks in large part to the country's largess towards Islamic causes funded by its oil exports since 1970s.

In the 18th century, a pact between Islamic preacher Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab and a regional emir, Muhammad bin Saud, brought a fiercely puritanical strain of Sunni Islam first to the Najd region and then to the Arabian Peninsula. Referred to by supporters as "Salafism" and by others as "Wahhabism", this interpretation of Islam became the state religion and interpretation of Islam espoused by Muhammad bin Saud and his successors (the Al Saud family), who eventually created the modern kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932. The Saudi government has spent tens of billions of dollars of its petroleum export revenue throughout the Islamic world and elsewhere on building mosques, publishing books, giving scholarships and fellowships,[4] hosting international Islamic organisations, and promoting its form of Islam, sometimes referred to as "petro-Islam".

A conservative prescriptive and literal interpretation must be a convenient way for the Saudi Royal family to control the masses. It's not about spirituality, it's about control and power.

originalmavis · 18/04/2016 17:58

Of course it is!

We have a lot of the 'holy family' camp out next to us in the summer and trust me, they ain't holy willies! DS doesn't even bat an eyelid seeing a gold Bentley these days - ba-linnnnnggggg!

sportinguista · 18/04/2016 18:06

I imagine money would help any religion to spread. After all a lot if the TV evangelists seemed to focus on their congregations donating lots of cash in the hope of a prime spot in the afterlife. Hmm

BlueRocksPinkPebbles · 18/04/2016 18:25

What's the relationship between saudi and Israel?

Pixienott0005 · 19/04/2016 14:32

Yeah the likes of the daily mail do not help!

sportinguista · 19/04/2016 14:39

It's very hard to gauge what the thoughts of any one group may be with a huge degree of accuracy. All of the papers have to report on what information about any one group can be found out there, they will draw from a number of sources and put their own slant on it. The only true way to know is direct experience and then as I have from my own experience pointed out it doesn't fit neatly, there are variations and you might not discuss certain subjects with all the people you know. The programme took a sample of people selected with as much care as could be taken and asked for their thoughts. It is not 100% infallible. I think it's a mixed picture, not all good, not all bad, much like life eh?

originalmavis · 19/04/2016 15:28

But didn't they drawn from areas with a high % of Muslims?

Maybe a cocoon where there are many new immigrants, in their own little bubble where they don't really need to interact all that much isn't the best place to start. There's also a difference between 'push' and 'pull' immigration - a refugee who has been bombed out if their country may see things differently to a high flying city type who studied internationally, speaks flawless English, is highly educated and chose to move to work in the square mile.

sportinguista · 20/04/2016 06:44

It could have even been my area, I don't know, our percentage is very high but not as high as some parts of Bradford of Birmingham say. I would say there is a bit more mixing in my area than most but I would say actual socialising is probably low as many Muslims social lives rotate around occasions run by the mosque which other groups don't attend. If you didn't attend any other social groupings and your child's school etc is of the same culture as yourself it may be that you wouldn't come into contact with others outside your culture much and therefore your experience and thought would be based on what you experienced in the day to day.

Anecdotally, a few of my Muslim friends have said much of the variation in viewpoints and religious involvement is based in educational level and background. For example a neighbour of ours used to be a police inspector in Karachi and he said he found some of the people living around our area woefully uneducated as their background was very rural from Pakistan. Another friend from the same city has said similar. So it is not just a question of religious thinking entirely but background and life chances, this may also permeate more than one generation even when children's chances may be very different.

Limer · 20/04/2016 07:57

Very good point Sportinguista, the programme made the same point I think. Of course there are very many Muslims who hold modern views, the significant majority do. But the worry is the significant minority who don't. Compared with the non-Muslim control group, there were many more Muslims who said that homosexuality should be illegal, wives must obey husbands, etc. And most chillingly, that they would not report suspected terrorist action.

sportinguista · 20/04/2016 10:57

This is what worries me, you see the spread of ideas which would threaten the more mixed tolerant area that I live in with it's variations it's choices and it's forward thinking muslim people. I can see it start to happen already in the sense that more women are now wearing a full face veil than I've ever seen before here. It worries me that the more extreme ones are the ones that shout loudest and will have an effect on the whole community.

One thing would be interesting is if these ideas have grown more prevalent in the last 5/10 years and what factors are driving this. Are Saudi ideas being spread to the whole community. As someone upthread said Pakistani traditional dress is nothing like the Burkha it's closer to the Sari, my friend has a lovely pic of herself in the traditional outfit and I can tell you it's far more revealing than a burkha or even a hijab!

KindDogsTail · 20/04/2016 11:30

Limer
And most chillingly, that they would not report suspected terrorist action.

I saw this put into another perspective by a writer in The Times last week. Unfortunately I do not have an on-line link to the article or have the paper to find it and quote it verbatim.

The article/opinion said something to the effect that the programme stated (based on the the percentage of Muslims who would not report terrorism question) that (say) 100,000 Muslims would not report terrorism. This sounds alarming to say the least.

But ironically, the apparently much lower percentage of the much higher normal population who answered that they would not report terrorism, means that about 400,000 of the normal population said they would not report terrorism either.

(I do not have the figures in front of me to check this out, by the way.)

The other point to bear in mind is that some non-reporting by Muslims would not be due to sympathy for terrorism but due to the fear of getting arrested/getting into trouble too.

None the less, it is all of course worrying that the research seems to show that we have a more divided society than we realised.

Limer · 22/04/2016 09:01

The article/opinion said something to the effect that the programme stated (based on the the percentage of Muslims who would not report terrorism question) that (say) 100,000 Muslims would not report terrorism. This sounds alarming to say the least.

But ironically, the apparently much lower percentage of the much higher normal population who answered that they would not report terrorism, means that about 400,000 of the normal population said they would not report terrorism either.

True, but which community contains a worrying number of extremists who have sworn to destroy the West? Anders Brevik, Unabomber, yes, there are a few nutcases in all communities - but the hardcore terrorists of recent times are only coming from one community.

sportinguista · 22/04/2016 09:52

Yes, unfortunately that seems to be the case. I think the odds of me knowing personally and very closely someone who is going to commit an act of terrorism are quite small. For the record I would report!

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