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of the evolving socio-bureaucratese--as well as from India, Pakistan, and
Bangladesh. Other ethnically distinct groups bring the total up to perhaps
6.5 percent. Over one million are Muslim. For Afro-Caribbeans, integra–
tion is primarily an issue of color or race; for Muslims it tends to transform
into one of culture and religion.
Islam has traditionally taught that a Muslim in a country of unbelief,
or
kufr,
was unable to fulfill the obligations of faith, and therefore had to
choose between conquering that country or leaving it. Is Britain, is the
rest of Europe, then host for the first time in history to minorities with a
deliberate separatist aim, and one justified by religious faith and therefore
beyond compromise? Is this reverse colonialism, and
if
not, what is the role
of Islam in integration? Does "Muslim" remain a primary and self-con–
tained defini tion of identi ty, or can it be coupled wi th a national adjective,
as in British Muslim, French Muslim, and so on?
Complicating the issue still further are diversities which immigrants
have carried with them to the West, national disputes from the Indian sub–
continent, Sunni or Shia sectarianism, factionalism, and clan and
community loyalties. Much historical luggage has been ferried into a new
setting, from the old days of empire and from long before that as well.
The majority of British Muslims are adherents of Jama'at at-Tabligh,
a movement founded in India in the 1920s by Muhammad Ilyas as latter–
day Sufism, expressly non-political and pietistic, a submission of the
individual to God. To take a sample of what immigration looks like in
practice, the ci ty of Leices ter in the 1991 census had a population of
270,493, of whom 14 percent were Hindu, 4.3 percent Muslim, and 3.8
percent Sikh. The Leicester Muslims were mostly Gujurati-speaking
Deobandis, who are Jama'at at-Tabligh associates. Just this one city has over
fifty separate Muslim organizations. In Britain as a whole, there are over
one thousand separate Muslim organizations. In France, with almost five
million Muslims, there are over three thousand such organizations.
Transplanted from countries of origin these organizations aim to
defend a particular identity, which may be religious, cultural, or ethnic.
Power and patronage are at stake locally and far beyond the border too.
The physical landscape at once changes as a result. Lately, the Muslims of
Britain announced their intention to build over a hundred new mosques,
in addition to the many hundreds already existing. Languages like Bengali,
Urdu, Hindi, Gujurati, are heard in the street and on special television and
radio programs. Clothing, food, and social habits visibly set apart many
immigrants, Muslims and others of course.
Immigrants did not cause the identity crisis which came to afllict post–
war Britain, though they have had a bystander part to play, and they were
certainly beneficiaries of it. For reasons which historians will one day have
