Islam 'will be dominant UK religion'

Gulf Daily News ^ | 10 March, 2004 | Robert Smith

[Eurotwit]

ISLAM will be the most widely practised religion in the UK by 2020, according to British and Muslim magazine editor Sarah Joseph.

She says mosque attendance is expected to outstrip church attendance over the next 16 years.

Estimates suggest that anywhere between 10,000 and 50,000 people a year convert to Islam in the UK, which is currently home to approximately 1.8 million Muslims.

"We are the second largest faith in Britain and will be the largest practising faith in Britain by 2020 if you use church and mosque attendance as a measure," she told the GDN.

Mrs Joseph is editor of British magazine Emel, which was launched in September and specifically targets Muslim readers.

The English-speaking publication is described as a lifestyle magazine, which focuses on all aspects of Muslim life.

It is published every two months with a print-run of 20,000 copies per issue, but there has already been interest shown in going international.

"We have been asked to do an Emel America, Emel Middle East and an Emel Europe - we have lots of European subscribers," said Mrs Joseph. "We have also been asked to make an Emel TV show for Europe, but we still need to establish Emel in Britain."

Mrs Joseph is in Bahrain at the invitation of Discover Islam and has delivered a series of lectures on issues such as Islam in the Western media, challenges to Muslim women and how the war on terror affects European Muslims.

The mother-of three says people in the UK turn to Islam for different reasons.

However, despite the increasing Muslim community in Britain, Mrs Joseph warned that Europe is in danger of falling victim to what she called "secular fundamentalism."

One example of this is the French ban on Muslim girls wearing hijabs in school.

"It is the other extreme of what they are saying they are trying to fight," she said. "This secular fundamentalism is creeping through Europe - there is no room for God in political discourse.

"This for me is a particularly worrying trend. People with faith have to stand up and fight secular fundamentalism."

Mrs Joseph described the French ban on hijabs as a knee-jerk reaction - inferring it is a move designed to win support for President Jacques Chirac away from right-wing opponents such as national Front Party leader Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Sentiment

But although Mrs Joseph described the UK as a more tolerant place for Muslims than other parts of Europe - she did report a growing anti-Muslim sentiment.

Such abuse has got worse since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, but Mrs Joseph says problems have existed for over a decade.

Anti-terrorism legislation has also raised eye-brows among the Muslim community in Europe.

However, despite such difficulties - and the challenges that go with bridging Western culture with Muslim life - she says there is strong support in countries like Britain where religious freedom is possible.

She pointed to the two million people who took to the streets of London to demonstrate against the war in Iraq.

"People have to be aware that ordinary non-Muslim people did not support the war," she said.

"Just as all Muslims do not all think in the same way.

"The actions of the British government are not a reflection of the people of that nation.

"The vast majority of anti-war protesters were non-Muslim. They do care about the Israel and Palestine conflict, about issues that we care about.

"We need to build bridges with these people."

Mrs Joseph will return to the UK today after spending four days in the country. She concluded her series of talks in Bahrain with a lecture yesterday on women as the stakeholders of the future.

[Eurotwit]

Great!

[goldstategop]

Same all over Europe. The Muslims won't let liberals get in their way of making Islam the official state religion.

[sneakers]

bump to read later

[cardinal4]

Nice. England is finished. Along with Holland, France, Belgium, Denmark.......

[bereanway]

"We need to build bridges with these people"

If history is any indication, so the infidel can be thrown off the bridge.

[Killing Time]

Relax. About 7% of the UK population attend some form of religous observance on a regular basis, muslims making up about one of those points.

It is a generalisation of course, but most Brits of muslim antecedents are, in my experience, as secular-minded as everyone else.

Also, only approx 40% of French muslims even bother to attend mosque.

[Joe Brower]

[Prairie Pubbie]

This is EXACTLY what John Rhys-Davies has been saying for some time. Here are some quotes from a recent National Review Online article:
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/leigh200403051052.asp

"But "radical Islamist groups are controlling, manipulating, and forming the attitudes of Muslims throughout Europe," he adds. And Rhys-Davies fears that, due to their demographic advantages, their culture may eventually swamp or supplant the indigenous cultures of Europe."


"Europeans are having fewer and fewer children, while migrant populations, predominantly Muslim, are growing much faster. Most European fertility rates have dropped so much that they have declined below the break-even point, to the degree that populations are actually beginning to shrink."


"If the current trend continues, Rhys-Davies says, "The population of Germany at the end of the century is going to be 56 percent of what it is now. The population of France will decline to about 52 percent."


"Meanwhile, Muslim immigrants are having babies at a much faster clip, so that in time, they may become the majority population throughout Europe.


"Last year, 56 percent of the babies born in Brussels were Muslim," Rhys-Davies notes. "In a matter of 20-50 years, we are going to see two to three countries become predominately Muslim — Holland, France, and possibly Germany."

WAKE UP, EUROPE!

[chachacha]

It will be their only religion since the other one is a State run "my way or the highway type".

Good Luck The LORD will watch the progress like it did the State run one.

[Eurotwit]

The demographic development is only part of the story though.

It is the UN-required family reunions that acts as a exponential multiplier. I.e. in Norway something like 90 percent of all Norwegian-pakistanis get a wife from pakistan. Their kids gets a wife from Pakistan and so on and so forth.

There was a story the other day about how one immigrant from pakistan who arrived in the early seventees now had close to 30 of his relatives here.

[OXENinFLA]

Muslims put up a poster on the Finsbury Park Mosque, North London, before a conference organised by militant groups on "September 11th, the lessons, benefit and harm," on Wednesday.

[Prodigal Son]

Nice. England is finished.

LOL. So many pessimists, so little time. So a Muslim magazine says they will be the dominant religion in England this means England is doomed? Good one.

Have you ever noticed that before a boxing match, both fighters always say they're going to beat the other one?

I can well imagine that these Muslims really believe this tripe. But that doesn't make it reality.

[Killing Time]

The problem is that plenty of Freepers seem to want to believe the most apocalyptic demographic scenarios.

[Eurotwit]

I agree with you. However, the changing demographics of Europe is dramatic.

Taken by itself the raw demographic data on deaths and childbirths is quite remarkable. Coupled with the effect of family reunion policies the results are (to me anyways) scary. The state statistical agency in Norway refuses to make their projections public, because they fear that the data might be "abused".

Here is a good article about the sitation in France from the Telegraph:

Is France on the way to becoming an Islamic state?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1065131/posts



Does these developments constitute the end of the world? Nope.

Do they warrant a serious discussion?
You bet.

Cheers.

[Prodigal Son]

Oh, sure without doubt. But France, Netherlands, UK etc are starting to do something about this as well.

I commend France in particular for their head-scarf iniative. That was a bold step to take. Holland is going to be deporting tens of thousands of 'non-assimilated immigrants' back to their home countries. The Europeans understand this problem quite well and it will get addressed. If I were not confident in that, I would not live here.

At any rate, Islam is a dying religion. The only ground Islam is going to succeed in taking is going to be the world's cemetaries. If your culture worships death- that culture will surely die.

[Eurotwit]

Since you live in Europe you are probably aware that pretty much uptil now, there has been a complete taboo on discussing these matters. In some countries like Sweden, the taboo is pretty much still in place.

In Norway where I reside, the debate has now just about started, even though any discussion of demographics is still not touched. Now it is possible to talk about a lack of integration and such matters. It's not much, but at least it is a start. Then again, the situation Norway faces is not yet nearly as dramatic as countries like France, Belgium or the Netherlands.

Cheers.