Integration in Multicultural England

This book studies relations between Muslims and non-Muslims where it matters most, diverse inner cities. Residents' insights prove relevant for both community relations and cohesion.

Taking an innovative approach that moves away from mapping “British Muslims” or “British Islam”, this book instead discusses community relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in British society. Positive relations between Muslims and non-Muslims are important for the future, in Britain and beyond. Jörg Friedrichs discusses here the actual ways Muslims and non-Muslims relate, or fail to relate, where it matters most, namely in diverse inner cities. Given their unique everyday experience, inner-city residents prove experts when it comes to community relations.

To give them a voice and learn from their experience, the book takes us on a tour of diverse English inner cities, from the Yorkshire town of Halifax to Birmingham in the West Midlands, and further to the East End of London. Reassuringly, inner city residents are concerned not so much about hot-button issues like extremism or terrorism. Instead, their minds are fixed on practical matters: who gets what when accessing public services and other scarce resources; how to find love and raise families when norms are changing rapidly; how to find peace in a stressful urban environment.

Caught between grievance and aspiration, inner city residents from any ethnoreligious background and none express disappointment at Muslim and non-Muslim parents sending their children to different schools. They passionately discuss whether community governance should be community-blind or community-based, and whether or not Britain is ready for a Muslim Prime Minister. Their insights are relevant for community cohesion, not only in England’s diverse inner cities but also in other British and non-British contexts.