Since 7/7 and the episodes surrounding it, there has been a great pressure on the Muslim community to address issues that lead to the events. Whilst a huge majority of Muslims were shocked by the events, there can be little doubt that they directly link these atrocities to what they deem to be a biased and unbalanced foreign policy. This is further compounded by the poor media coverage received by the Muslim community. Poor not in the sense of volume, but content, where a minority of extremists garner most attention.

Naturally the only ways to correct foreign policy and to realign the weight of media attention to the positive aspects of Islam, Muslims need to become more involved in the democratic and media processes of this country in order to channel Muslim anger in a peaceful way. The key element in such participation is the part played by Mosques. Mosques are the central hub of the Muslim community. Muslims attend the Mosques five times a day at best, or at worst once a week for the Friday prayers. Consequently, till the Mosques address issues of extremism and promote democratic and political participation, Muslim individuals will remain oblivious to its necessity.

We conducted a survey on a random sample of Mosques in the United Kingdom and found that Mosques in the country are not addressing these issues at all. Only 13% of the Mosques we questioned were doing anything to encourage young Muslims to address their frustrations through a democratic process. Perhaps most worryingly Mosques do not even recognise that there is a need to address these issues, as only 15% of the Mosques that were not tackling the situation, were willing to consider change.

35% of Mosques stated they or members of their congregation had faced some form of Islamophobia, this ranged from anti Islamic graffiti to physical assault. Of these Mosques only a quarter did anything to assure the Muslim community and allay their fears.

We also found that half of the Mosques in the country now conduct their Friday sermon in English, be it in its entirety or just a small portion of it. This is better than we expected as our initial fears were that the number was much lower than this. However this is still very low as most Muslim youth understand English only. 43% of Mosques talked about extremism in any form in their sermons, although 70% of the Mosques that held Friday sermons in English addressed this issue.

On the whole we were encouraged by the level of participation in the survey. Mosques have usually been unwilling to be held to account in any form, yet there were several Mosques, 17% that refused to participate when they found out that we were talking about issues related to 7/7.

In summary, we found that Mosques have not fully realised their full role in the Muslim community. In particular they are letting down the youth within the communities who then turn in frustration to a fringe group of extremists.

Methodology

Latest estimates say that there are approximately 1000 Mosques in the country. We took a random sample of 40 Mosques and asked them the following questions. Ideally we attempted to speak to the Imam, however when this was not possible because of language difficulties, we spoke to a member of the Mosque’s organising committee.

• Have you or your congregation faced any Islamophobia since 7/7?
• Do you talk about extremism in your Friday sermons?
• Do you conduct your Friday sermons in English?
• Have you done anything to address the concerns of Muslims in your community with regards to Islamophobia? (e.g. Did you tell your congregation what they can do if they are worried about Islamophobia, Did you call in a member of the local policing authority to address your congregation? Did you ask an MP to visit the Mosque and address the worries of your congregation?)
• Have you taken any steps to promote Islam with the non-Muslim community? (e.g. Interfaith dialogue, Open days, invite schools, any form of outreach programme for non Muslims to increase understanding about Islam)
• Do you hold extracurricular activities for Muslim youth?
• Do you teach your congregation about the importance of political participation?
• Would you be willing to further educate your congregation about political participation in the future?

Eight questions were asked in all and for further elaboration when required, we provided the Mosque representatives with relevant examples. We found a small majority of Mosques to have representatives available at the time that could not speak English. Most of our surveyors were bilingual, and where needed questions were translated into Urdu.

17% percent of the Mosques were simply unwilling to participate in the survey as they were uncomfortable talking about 7/7.

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