As the Muslim Council of Britain marks its first decade, it seems an appropriate moment for reflection. As the largest Muslim umbrella body, it still remains primus inter pares among an increasingly large alphabet soup of representative bodies. The British Muslim Forum, the Sufi Council of Britain and British Muslims for Secular Democracy have all [...]
For the first time since 1997, the Conservatives suddenly look to be on the electoral march. A resounding victory in the local elections condemned Labour to third place and its lowest share of the vote since 1918: the Conservatives gained ground in Labour heartlands in Wales and the North, capped by Boris Johnson’s win as [...]
Today we live in an age when the boundary between two allegedly monolithic entities, “Islam” and the “West” appears to be rigid, politicized, ring-fenced. So the question arises as to the motives of converts to Islam. Are they converting to faith or to an anti-West political cause? Such questions get asked after terrorist incident involving [...]
The digital age is crucial to reshaping religious authority among Muslims today. The mass media and the internet have changed the way in which religious teachings are disseminated and indeed how religious disputes are projected and replicated to a vast audience. This is not new but arose two hundred years ago when the ulema began [...]