Does Islam pose a challenge to British democracy? Recent events-from Muslim opposition to the disputed war in Iraq to the revelation about two British Muslim suicide bombers in Israel-have wrongly suggested that it might.
Let us start with some basic facts. According to the census of 2001, Britain has around 1.6m Muslims in a population of just under 58.8m-just under 3 per cent of its population. Around three quarters of British Muslims come from the Indian subcontinent, mainly from rural areas of Pakistan and Bangladesh. This is important because some of their difficulties in settlement arise not from their religion but their unfamiliarity with the western way of life. They began coming in the early 1960s and by the early 1990s the migration was largely complete. The Muslim population is young. Under 4 per cent are over 65, and over 50 per cent are under 25, compared to 16 and 31 per cent in the population at large.
There have been four Muslim riots so far, compared to about eight race-related riots by Afro-Caribbeans. One of them concerned Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses; others police insensitivity and racist marches. Apart from the first, all riots were local and relatively minor.
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