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Islamic Pride and Prejudice

(Independent-UK) Aminul Hoque - For the most part, Britain's two-million-strong Islamic community expresses pride in their Islamic identity in a wholly positive way. But as I walked the streets talking to hundreds of young Muslims for a BBC radio documentary, it became all too apparent that there is a tiny minority who are taking the religion of Islam to a sinister new level, openly advocating terror and regarding Osama Bin Laden as a "scholar of Islam." An 18-year-old man from Upton Park, London, who attends a full-time Islamic boarding school - known as a madrassa - in the north of England, told me how he and his friends have been influenced by some of the more extreme videos and literature that are secretly distributed among the students there, without the knowledge of their teachers. Most worryingly, my research opened up my eyes to the fact that people whom I know very well - friends, family, colleagues - possess opinions that are enough to send shivers down the spines of most people.
2004-04-14 00:00:00
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