out of school play with muslim friends

[bluecow208]

we are not a muslim family (not an anything family really!) but some of DS's friends at school are. I am delighted about this as i deliberately chose a school with lots of different cultures.
He chose friends for his party (5th)and not one of them even replied let alone came. He was really disappointed.
After chatting with other friends he decided that X can't come to parties because 'he's a muslim'. "why can't muslims come to play mum?"
can anyone explain the ettiquete (or spell it)? I am choosing to believe that it is misunderstanding rather than rudeness but it sends mixed messages to my son when i tell him colour should not matter when choosing friends but he gets the opposite back

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we had this with ds1's birthday parties - he'd always want to invite 3 or 4 muslim boys and they never turned up and we only once got a reply in 6 years and that was literally the night before from the mum of one of his best friends (in school) who said that of course he couldn't come as he'd be doing 'family' things

ho hum ... ds always insisted they were invited so in the end I just wouldn't count them when I was working out numbers and if they had come it would have been a bonus

he had a couple of hindu friends who always turned up but didn't rsvp ....

he's now changed schools and for his last birthday the only no-show/no rsvp was his muslim friend - it's harder now to build up a relationship with the other parents though as he goes to school by himself so there's no parental socialising in the playground

Sorry to say this, but it's a class thing. ds's best friends are a muslim, a sikh and a hindu. Apart from ds's muslim friend not eating pork, there are no issues whatsoever. (And the no-sausage eating is hardly major!)

All the parents are very friendly - in fact much friendlier than anyone else has been to me round here and we have been to dinner with the muslim family.

The class thing is true to an extent, but the sikh families we know are very friendly but are in a different socio-economic group to us. Some of the Muslim are in the same group but still don't come to parties.