Matt Wright hears an imam make the case for English flavoured Islam.
‘We need to stop the tide of young men turning towards this chicken tikka Islam – it encourages extremism.’
Senegalese imam Dr Mamadou Bocoum was speaking at Conway Hall recently on the relationship between Islam and civil society. He advocated ‘fish’n’chips Islam’, salt and peppered with British culture, in preference to the ‘chicken tikka’ version, spiced with anger and resentment against perceived Western values, such as tolerance and individual liberty.
Dr Bocoum, a board member of the British Shariah Council, made these remarks some days before Communities and Local Government minister Eric Pickles MP wrote a controversial letter to 1000 Muslim leaders across Britain, encouraging them to become more integrated in British society and to do all they can to tackle extremism in the wake of the attacks on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
According to Bocoum, the over-heated character of ‘chicken tikka Islam’ is damaging to other Muslims as well as causing harm to the surrounding society. He said:
‘I myself have suffered racist abuse that I would say stems directly from it. It spreads the notion that a black African man like myself cannot truly know the Quran. Racism exists within some mosques more than the outside community.’
Dr Bocoum even went on to claim that ‘Asian Muslims do not want a black imam’.
In the context of the Paris shootings, the range of responses within UK Islam seems almost as broad as the spectrum of opinion across the whole of British society.
Matt Wright is Rising East‘s Religions editor.