BBC Thought for the Day, 8 May 2009: Abdal Hakim Murad

"All this, it seems to me, makes the debate about multiculturalism much more interesting. Politicians fret about social cohesion, and worry that our national identity is at risk. Some commentators mistrust religious and ethnic minorities, with their continuing desire to be distinctive. Yet if the concern - surely a very legitimate one - is about our sense of belonging, the Gallup poll suggests that the Muslim minority is more part of the solution than part of the problem. Difference does not have to undermine cohesion.

 

Still, we Muslims need to think about how our religious identity, which for most of us seems to support a strong national solidarity and loyalty, is one sort of genuinely British identity. Clearly, one important part of being British is that there is no single way of being British. And no less clearly, the culture of young British Muslims is distinctive, but is unmistakeably indigenous, and usually strongly regional as well. Pilgrims in Mecca, a city where the English language was never heard only a couple of generations ago, can now be heard speaking with the most perfect Glaswegian, Liverpudlian, or North London accents."

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(Courtesy of Radical Middle Way)