Since the 9/11 bombings in New York, and the 7/7 bombings in London,
Muslims’ integration in the UK has been under intense scrutiny. Muslim
integration, however, has long been a matter of debate in Britain, revolving
around the maintenance of Muslims’ distinctive identity and practice. For
instance, David Cameron (Cameron, 2011), Britain’s then Prime Minister,
announced at the Munich Security Conference that “state multiculturalism”
has encouraged “different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each
other and apart from the mainstream”. In criticizing multiculturalism, most
critics mainly refer to Muslims as being less integrated into wider society
than people from other minority groups, and Muslims are shown to be
disloyal. The complexity of Muslims’ integration and its dependency on
different social, structural and cultural factors are, however, mostly less
studied. This paper is designed to understand the social and cultural barriers
to Muslim integration. In doing so, it aims to explore Muslims’ integrational
strategies to deal with these barriers. Findings of this paper draw on research
that involved 43 semi-structured interviews with Muslims across Scotland’s
major cities and small towns.
Source: Journal of WORLD SOCIOPOLITICAL STUDIES
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