Muslims have become a permanent feature of European society, especially as a new community with development of Western culture and identity more in terms of religion rather than ethnicity. They have now Western citizenship, which they have acquired through legal process and institutional practices derived from the heritage of the British Commonwealth. They have established different Islamic Institutions. Mosques are the most numerous institutions that Muslim minorities have established in every part of Europe since first arriving in large numbers during the 1950s and 1960s.
The Mosque is the place of worship for the Muslims. It is considered an esteemed and holy place in Islam. Mosques are the most numerous institutions and symbols that Muslims have established throughout history, everywhere they went. It is obligatory upon Muslims to find a place for worship wherever they go. Its roots could be traced back to the seventh century of Arabia, when Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessing be with him) migrated to Medina. The first task to which the Prophet performed upon his arrival in Medina was the construction of a Mosque, on the very site where his camel knelt down. The land, which belonged to two orphans, was purchased.
The Prophet himself contributed to building the mosque by carrying adobe bricks and stones while reciting verses: “O Allah! No bliss is there but that of the hereafter, I beseech you to forgive the immigrants and helpers.”
The mosque in Medina was in practice an open court as it served the purposes of a meeting place, a community hall, and the first Islamic university, a court of Justice for the faithful and the community as whole. It was in the mosque that Prophet Muhammad (may Allah bless and greet him) addressed the community and from there he directed not only the religious but also the social and political activities of the community. Masjid-e Nabawi in Medina was to serve as a model for all later mosques of the Muslims.
To Muslims a Mosque means more than a place of worship. It is at the same time a place where people can meet and where a sense of community exists. It is also a place where teaching of the Qur’an is imparted to the disciples of the Islamic faculty. To the outside world, especially in the West, the mosque functions as a symbol of the presence of Islam, this perhaps explains the irritation of some Non-Muslims at the existence of mosques in their countries. A mosque, whether serving a large or a small community, has always been the centre of the religious and civil life of the Muslim community. It expresses the strong relationship with Islam; Western Muslim emigrants followed the footsteps of the Prophet in the same way to establish the Islamic centres throughout Western territories. At present these institutions are symbols of their faith, recognition of their religion and culture. Therefore it is a salient Islamic voice at the horizon of Western multi-dimensional society. These ‘symbols’ are also indications of the reconstruction of Islam in the West.
It is worth pointing out that the presence of the Church and its close links with politics and public policy in Britain has encouraged Muslim groups to look to the state for a public recognition of their religious rights and public policy needs. Nielsen, a renowned Orientalist has observed that ‘Britain has no generally applicable legal framework for religious communities’. So, while Anglicans and Presbyterians have established status in England and Scotland respectively, most mosques in Britain actually operate under the provisions of the law that regulates charitable organisations. There is no obligation under the British law that mosques must register with the Charity Commission, but most have done so because this brings certain material benefits including company tax exemption and reduced local property taxation. The state demands only that planning permission for all proposed mosques is forthcoming from local authorities.
Another factor which pushed Muslims to create institutions is growing secularism of the British society. As with the majority of the European countries, Britain has witnessed a marked decline in religious belief and practice in recent decades. The religious aspirations that remain are increasingly considered a matter of individual conscience, a personal choice that should have very little influence on public policy. In contrast, the number of Muslims increases along their religious attachment, which is significantly very important for them. It has been argued that ‘if British-born and British-educated youngsters were going to be socialised in a context where the dominant culture was broadly secularising, and often hostile to minorities, Muslims would have to create space for the nationalisation of Islam within the British nation’.
History reveals that, Muslims were anxious to create the best possible environment for them to practise their faith and were engaged in transmitting their religious beliefs to future generations. It may be said that these are the ‘technical issues concerning access to facilities for worship, the statues of Islamic law, diet, dress, health and humanitarians. However these mosques and Qur’ānic schools became the reservoir of the traditional religious culture of another world.
In Britain the growth of mosques and organisations is linked to the increasing population of Muslim immigrants. The number of mosques has expanded rapidly over the past several decades, from an estimated 10 in 1945 to 329 in 1989 and 1,493 in 2003. In 1963 there were just 13 mosques listed with the Registrar General. At present there are more than 2,000 Mosques in the United Kingdom including unregistered mosques, registered with the Registrar General and Planning Commission.
This growth of mosques since the late 1970s and 1980s indicates that the reuniting of the migrant families across Britain was decisive in catalysing the reconstruction of Islam in Britain. In contrast with other countries, mosque building in Britain has not been particularly controversial. As a matter of public policy, the decision to grant permission for the construction of a mosque rests with local political officials. Syed Tufail Hussain Shah from Glasgow and former president of UK Islamic Mission, described a typical situation: “We have never any problem to get permission for a mosque, we have converted warehouses that we use for our mosques, and sometimes we faced the problem that to get permission for mosques was a matter of parking purposes.”
In contrast with his opinion, in few cases ‘planning permission’ has been seen as controversial such as in East London, where Tablighi Jamaat is hoping to build Britain’s biggest mosque on the site of a former chemicals factory. The project has not even left the drawing board, but it has already run into controversy. A member of local Newham Council was much more critic about the planning permission that, ‘such a huge focal point for one religious group could upset East London’s multicultural population’. Furthermore he accused Tablighi Jamaat ‘to preaching separatism by calling Muslims to separate themselves from the local community’. Moreover, he said, “It is a highly secretive organisation and I am suspicious of its motive.”
Muslims are practising in Mosques and maintaining their other institutions according to the Charity Law which provides them with a framework for such organisations without registration with the Charity Commission as long as they are within the borders of the state laws. They are increasing in number every year; some purpose-built mosques in Britain more approximately resemble the ‘Oriental’ image invoked by the Western imagination.
However, more often than not, mosques are converted nineteenth-century terraced houses – not to mention former laundries, lorry and brush factories, schools, banks, photography studios, churches, caravans, post-office sorting depots, taverns and betting shops. The majority of Islamic Centres are semi-detached or terraced houses which are bought and converted into places of worship by the local Muslim community. During my visit, I discovered that some newly built mosques have been converted from synagogues and others that had been converted from churches. Muslims built the minarets as an insignia of the mosque within the premises.
Minarets remain emblematic of mosques in the Muslim heartlands but there is no theological reason why houses of worship in the West have to incorporate such towers. The purpose was to relay the call (Adhan) with the un-amplified voice. Today this is done by modern technology, so minarets are not integral to contemporary mosque design. Muslims, who have settled down in Britain or else here in Europe should not confuse culture with creed. There are the voices from Muslim and Non-Muslim scholars such as Tariq Ramadan and Dr Taj Hargey that, to become integrated into their surroundings, they must relinquish the cultural baggage of their ancestral homelands. They should practise a ‘European Islam’ that is rooted in the society in which they live, promoted by a famous Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan as he has emphasised it in his book To Be a European Muslim.
However, size or dimension is not a matter of concern for the Mosque, a small house or a purpose-built mosque, they provide a practical solution and support for the everyday education of children and for those Muslim women, who do not want to travel too far from their own neighbourhood. Nevertheless, for all this ordinariness, applications by Muslims to establish mosques have sometimes been of a conflict and co-operation in Muslims relationship with the state. This conflict often reveals majority fears about the erosion of a ‘British way of life’ in an age of global migration and ethnic pluralism. It has been noted that there are certainly examples of co-operation between Muslims, the state and wider society in terms of the gradual Islamising of public space.
In recent times some organisations and their attached mosques have been accused by left wing Media group that they are engaged in spreading religious hatred and supporting terrorism by the sermons delivered in their Mosques. It was recorded that Muslims are being forced by the preachers to ignore the British laws. In the wake of 11 September 2001 few mosques were raided by the British authorities in an effort to clamp down on the international networks of radical Islamists.
In 2005 the Home office launched a unique proposal and programme for the Mosques and Imams in Britain backed by four major Muslim organisations to set up the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Body (MINAB), to tackle extremism, ‘but the plan has been mired in controversy with many mosques resistant to the idea of a watchdog, believing that they would be ultimately controlled by the government.
Mosques as religious bases for Muslim communities in Britain have also deep and more independent roots to collect and raise the funds for those less fortunate. One of the issues that emerges from these findings is that these mosques are important symbols of the world of Islam.