The problem with my daughter's Muslim school friends - or rather their parents

[Jules2]

I wonder if anyone else has experienced/is experiencing this problem. My 10-year-old daughter goes to a Haringey junior school with a fairly high number of Muslim children - the make up approx. 50% of her class of 28. Her group of friends in school are mostly Muslim girls. But unfortunately (with a couple of very occasional exceptions) these poor girls do not seem to be allowed to mix with non-Muslims outside of school hours. Over the years, invitations to come to our house to play, or come to parties have been rejected with many an implausible excuse. My DD has gone to maybe a couple of parties held by her friends in 5+ years of school. Weekends are taken up with Islamic school for the most part - or they stay at home. They are not allowed to go to the cinema, swimming or whatever with non-Muslims. I find it incredibly frustrating and annoying to see my daughter upset because she is unable to socialise with these girls outside of school. She doesn't understand why - and neither do I really. The school is fond of billing itself as a multicultural, inclusive school but the message doesn't seem to have gotten through to this section of the population. I'm afraid I have started to believe that if immigrants to this country - from any racial or religious background - do not want their children to mix with children from other ethnic/religious backgrounds (including British-born children), then maybe they have chosen the wrong country to come and live in. (My DD is half Chinese, by the way - but born here.) I'd be happy to hear from some Muslim parents with a different attitude - I hope there are some out there.

Is it not correct that part of the Muslim faith is that they should not spend time with non Muslims in case they are badly influenced?

My understanding was that Islam (the Qu'ran) teaches that "the people of the book" (monotheistic, Abrahamatic religions, so including Christianity and Judaism) have much in common.

Noah, Abraham/Ibrahim, Moses, Soloman/Suleiman and Jesus are all prophets in Islam.

It is in no way automatic that Muslims and Christians should be wary of each other.

But what if OP's child is not a Christian or a Jew?

actuallyMrsDe Vere,another poster, said this earlier
"
Leave the families alone. They don't want to be friends and the don't have to be. There is an obsession with creating some sort of idyllic community atm….If you don't want to know you get labelled as unfriendly and non-U…
Some of us just want to get on with our lives."

There is truth here, it might be down to Islam (in fact that seems to have been actually said outright to some children) or a difference in values, or even prejudice, but it's just the way it is, and if people reject all invitations and outstretched hands, that's the end of that. Eventually their children will grow up with wider values, if schools do their job properly, Trojan horse notwithstanding, and things will change over time. You can't force it.

I was just answering Is it not correct that part of the Muslim faith is that they should not spend time with non Muslims in case they are badly influenced? Cora. I don't think it's true of most muslims.

Clearly some of us have come across a minority of muslims who prefer their DC not to mix with non-muslim DC, but we can't attribute that to Islam per se.

As Marya very sensibly (and hopefully obviously) says most people don't take this approach or who hold these views.

Yes, hopefully Arsenic,but a few have chimed in an said it happened to them to, so I hope it's rare. If schools are truly as they should be, it will become rarer and rarer.

Probably more cultural than religion. Some cultures have a pretty hard interpretation of their own religion and that's not going to change. I find it odd that they choose to live in a society within a society - how will their children work, study, marry, etc if they are essentially brought up to believe in the inferiority of the "otherness".

I be found similar with families from another EU country (Christian) at DSs last school. The families would mix outside of school, kids would play together, only speak own language at home, etc. It was very much a cultural thing, not religious at all.

I don't think that schools have any power Baker

Maybe, but Eg Schools in Birmingham were able to segregate along gender lines. Very wrong. Some schools have become involved in Creationism, that sort of thing?

Keeping everything strictly neutral, but emphasising equal rights in those pshe lessons they do, and modelling citizen community cohesion - all these things they can do.

This is interesting - verses from the Qur'an and Hadith about non muslim friends.

wikiislam.net/wiki/Qur'an,_Hadith_and_Scholars:Friendship_with_Non-Muslims

www.wikiislam.net/wiki/Qur'an,_Hadith_and_Scholars:Friendship_with_Non-Muslims

I wonder what agenda, if any, wikiislam has?

I think these things are open to interpretation.

That link seems quite diadactic.

Quite frankly that looks like a link that the trojan horse school organisers would have loved.

I refuse to believe that most British Muslims would concur.

Here is another one

islamqa.info/en/59879

Perhaps we need a Muslim to explain.

Maybe we should all have an open mind ArsenicChaseScream. I don't know whether or not those things are true because I am not Muslim. However, I do not want to blind myself to other ideas just because I need to feel PC.

Have you read what I have posted on this thread Core?

I am the last person to talk myself into something just because it seems PC.

I'm going on experience, by far the safest way.

My extensive experience tels me that most British Muslims do NOT reject socialising with non-muslims, but some do.

Posting a couple of rather extreme links and attempting to extrapolate "what muslims believe" from them, seems like a rather inflammatory gesture.

I don't know much about Islam but I do know that the Quran is open to interpretation and may be understood very differently by each of those who live by it and study it. Much like our own Christianity. So those links maybe how SOME Muslims think and interpret texts within the Quran but it is by no means universal.

I've posted extreme links? They are verses from the Qur'an! I don't think I am being inflammatory at all. Many Christians think homosexuals are evil. Am I being inflammatory about Christians. Lets have an open discussion and not deliberately cut out the bits we might not like.

Marianne, I think I see the point that you are trying to make. I agree that the conventions on female appearance are stricter in most western cultures than they are on men. But you can go swimming with depilated legs. Those women I saw could not go swimming in the same way that their menfolk could. They were hobbled in what they could do by the clothes they wore and the cultural/religious norms to which (I assume) they subscribed.

To my mind, they were just as oppressed as a Victorian woman who chose to tie herself into a corset. If someone can explain to me how I'm wrong in this thinking, I'm ready to listen.

Yes they are verses from the Quran. But there are many interpretations of them. There are scholars who study it as their life's work and many of them interpret the texts differently. As with most religions it all depends on the agenda of the individual.

Core, Muslims vary hugely and I think the Koran is open to interpretation. When I was a small child one of my mother's closest friends was a Muslim woman. She and her children came to our house, we all went to hers: she and her husband had no problem at all with having non-Muslim friends and mixing with non-Muslims.

"Am I being inflammatory about Christians?". No, you're talking about a subset of Christians who believe this and interpret the bible in order to support their own agenda.

I mentioned before that there is a push for a divisive Islam so it's easy to find quotes like that.

Here's a better explanation though it's long reading;

www.suhaibwebb.com/society/dawah/can-muslims-be-friends-with-non-muslims/

Ive not read the full thread and tbh I dont think I want to.
Im muslim. I went to a 90% muslim primary school and I never went to my bff house.
I would go school come home eat and relax then mosque. On the weekend we kept that time as family time.
It will be the same for my dc too.
For me it's got fuck all to do with we shouldn't mix with other religions etc. I saw my friends at school and at home was family time. I dont think its wrong.

1 reason I can think of for other muslim parents not allowing their dc to go for playdates etc without their parents or chaperone is food. As we all know we eat halal food. If something is served that is halal or has some alcohol in it

One of the key issues with interpreting religious texts for modern observance is whether they should be taken literally (considering the time, place, context in which they were written) or applied more flexibly to situations and societies 100s of years later.

They are verses from the Qur'an! doesn't really cover it. Neither would "They are verses from the Bible!". Because what applied in the middle east in one era, doesn't apply in Ealing in 2014. Many observant people of all religions appreciate this.

If something is served that is halal or has some alcohol in it

Who on earth would serve food with alcohol in it to children?

As for halal diets, I have arranged playdates that end before meal times, I have arranged play dates where I took the DC out for an agreed meal out and have also served food at home that met religious dietary requirements. I am quite happy to do whatever parents feel comfortable with, as with all 'playdates'. It's not insurmountable if DC want to socialise and their parents want to support that.