UK & Islam

Posted under Dawah by Radiant Light

“When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.”

“Most human beings have an absolute and infinite capacity for taking things for granted”

Assalamualaykum;

Foreign people often ask me what Islam is like in the UK, in terms of dawah and living here.

I like to say the UK is kind of set with Islam, we have many madaaris (boarding schools) Alhumdulillah, and as told previously many masaajid everywhere too.
But in terms of open dawah I think its a new beginning of yet, primarily because Islamic work in the UK started with its own first, dawah was to those who were muslims yet not so practising etc, most of the muslim’s here are from the subcontinents, though this is now rapidly changing.
When these people settled here they had come from harsh backgrounds, where they had to work all day and night in order to survive and came to the UK for work.
Many like my grandma, had never learnt how to read Arabic, so could not even recite Quran.

The first type of Islamic dawah i believe started with the Tableeghi Jamat, they helped make masjids and madaaris, Jamaa’ahs would come spend months in the UK in order to help teach Islam to those around.
Educated women would come to teach the sisters who could then in turn teach their children.

These types of communities were very close knit, muslims and non-muslims got along, and even helped each other out.
(My grandma once told me that, there was no such thing as private baths or toilets in the home, but once they moved here they made holes in the back yards, as muslims women would not go to public baths.)

Even though these people never set out to do open dawah to the non-muslims, they lived with them with the love and resepct taught in the Quran and the Sunnah, and to this day the older generation speak so highly of one another. Alhumdulillah.

But as times went on, things changed (as is the norm) … Many parts in the UK became densely populated by the muslimeen, all would move to these places so they had masjids and madaaris close by for their children.

The term of open dawah wasn’t really acknowledged, but come the past 10/15 years Alhumdulillah much has changed, the younger generation has grown up to realise the need for dawah, not only to non-muslims but Muslims once again also.
The realisation that even though so much is made available it is taken for granted, maybe not even utilised in the way it was originally meant to be.

Another barrier I believe is that the youth feel the elders approach etc are a little out dated, and in stead have turned away rather than creating their own solutions.
Alhumdulillah though now many great organisations have been formed who do great work in dawah, such as WAMY (World Assembly of Muslim Youth) and ISB (Islamic society of Britain) … these are only a few.

I feel though that due to the fact that the core of the muslims community were strengthened before dawah as a whole started, the communities here are well established and are able to cope when things get a little rough such as after 9/11 and 7/07.

This is just a short answer from my knowledge, based on where I live and the people I know.

WaAlaykumAssalam