Muslims in Britain Making Social and Political Space

While the book’s title flags up its organising theme, a preponderance of essays by women ensures that the extent to which space is made for Muslim women by wider society and Muslim communities is given prominence. The book includes three general articles on the extent to which institutional space has been made for Muslims; these include an exploration of Muslim engagement with politics, media and schooling, as well as data on patterns of Muslims interaction with the wider society. A particularly interesting chapter looks at how young Muslims in London negotiate inclusion and how such inclusion is gendered. Another focuses on how multiculturalism in its many guises has often rendered women invisible. There is also a localised study of Muslim women in Scotland.

Any work which involves Ziauddin Sardar is going to be provocative. This is no exception. In his chapter – Religion and public space – writing of Britain, he points out that “[u]nless Christianity in all its diversity reclaims its place in the public space, I would argue, there is little chance for minority non-Christian religions to advance their claims’ (p. 29). This may be so, however the book’s introduction about British history evinces little real understanding of the role of different Christian denominations in the creation of England and the other nations which comprise Britain; still less any real understanding of their continuing, albeit attenuated, influence.