The issue we addressed on this page last week is an issue that faces many immigrant communities in the West. This week, we ask if the Muslims of Ireland will be so keen to settle into their new society, as indeed they must, that they forget what it is that makes them Muslim? What direction are the Muslims of Ireland going to take? Are they going to become totally assimilated into Irish society or will they be seen more and more as something foreign to the Irish way of life? Will they fit so well into Irish society that they are not seen as different to anyone else? Will their faith act as a leaven within their society? Or will they just become yet another religious voice, like so many others in Ireland, that is no longer of any relevance in a world that has grown sufficient on its own, without the need of religions or religious leaders? These are the questions that Irish Muslims encounter. It would seem that there is a great opportunity here for growth or a possibility for decline. Learning from other Muslim communities in different parts of the world, Irish Muslims have a chance that they cannot afford to throw away. The first challenge, then, is to be considered truly Irish. Islam in Ireland emerged from circumstances that were different from other parts of Europe. In fact, a truer comparison would be with Muslims in the US and Canada. Like their North-American brothers and sisters, they originally came to a new world, not as refugees but as professionals. Unlike many of the Muslims in Europe, they did not seek a new homeland because of persecution or deprivation in the lands of their birth. They came for education and many of them stayed as educated professionals, with a stake in their new home. After this original first wave of Muslims, there came others who fitted into the European pattern. Displaced by war or persecution, they sought a new home, where they could live freely. We see in many Muslim communities in Britain, France and Germany, for example, that the first generation of Muslim settlers in these countries have found it difficult to become fully part of their new home. Go to parts of London or Marseilles and you would never know that you were in France or Britain. It would seem more like Bengal or Morocco. There are many Muslims living there who have not learned the language of their country and have found it difficult to give up the way of life they have always known from “back home.” Leaving aside the problem of language, wanting to retain your cultural heritage need not be a problem. Look at the Irish in Chicago or New York to see how they, too, have clung too much of what they once knew. It does become a problem, though, when clinging to the past and what is comfortable becomes a barrier to accepting things that are new and more challenging. There is only one real choice here. Either become a part of Irish society or remain apart from it. When put that simply, there is no sensible choice at all. Irish Muslims are Irish. Their children and their grandchildren know this. It would not enter their heads to think otherwise. The second challenge for Irish Muslims is more subtle, and we can find a comparison here with the many Irish who settled in the UK in the last century. They arrived with very little and they struggled hard to establish themselves, against great odds, into the mainstream of British society. “No Irish need apply here,” is too well-known a phrase to be forgotten. Irish communities in the UK made great sacrifices to establish their own Catholic schools, for example, and so to be given a chance for access to universities and the professions. The problem was, though, that once these schools began to produce Catholic scholars and Catholic professionals, they became so much a part of their new society that the difference they originally sought no longer existed. They were no longer any different to anyone else. Their background and their faith was allowed to fade into the background, so that many of these doctors and engineers became more British than the British themselves! And herein lies the danger. What is the cost of assimilating so well into a society? Muslims must play their part as Irish citizens in their Irish home, but should not allow this to rob them of what it means to be Muslim. The cost of becoming fully Irish should not mean losing their Islamic faith. What doth it profit a man to gain the whole world if he should lose his soul? The third challenge, once these first two have been addressed and accepted, is the most subtle challenge of all. It is the greatest threat to all people of faith living in today's world. The threat is this: There are secular forces at work in our society who would make religion and spirituality seem irrelevant to our modern world. Religion, they say, is a private matter and has no part to play in an educated society. People can believe what they want, they say, as long as they keep it to themselves. According to this mindset, what they do or believe in their own homes is of no concern to anyone else. Worshipping a stick in the ground, then, or having no religion at all are perfectly acceptable to these people. They would have us believe that religion, and religious people, have nothing whatsoever to contribute to the national debate. We alluded to this earlier in mentioning the decline in church attendance, and religious practice generally, in the whole of Ireland. Those with a secular agenda have managed to make religion seem a private matter. Catholic bishops can speak out, but only at their peril. If they have an opinion that is not strictly confined to church matters, they are told to keep quiet. Here is the problem for Muslims. Will the Muslims of Ireland be so keen to settle into their society, which indeed they must, that they forget what it is that makes them Muslim? Will they be so keen to advance in every area of Irish life that they keep quiet when religious matters conflict with the affairs of state? This does not just mean being quiet about hijab or about Muslim schooling, but it means being quiet when the law of God comes into conflict with practical politics. And this is where Muslims can join hands with other people of faith and have a much louder voice than if they tried to speak on their own. Prejudice and suspicion between people of faith is, unfortunately, no stranger to the island of Ireland, but it has nothing to do with real faith at all. It is inspired and encouraged by those who would use faith for other motives. The whole of Irish society has a choice here. It can look upon the growing numbers of Muslims within Ireland as foreign, something alien to the Irish way of life. Or it can accept that Islam has something to contribute to that very way of life. What is at stake here is the very place of religious belief within Ireland. Irish Muslims are indeed at a crossroads. They can settle for the comfortable lifestyles that were adopted in the UK, for example, at the cost of losing the very essence of what it means to be a Muslim. When that happens, governments move in and splinter Muslims into ethnic groups, vying with one another, not even talking to one another, so that Islam is just as unimportant to society as any other belief. Or Irish Muslims can keep clinging to their belief in God, walking closely with other people of faith in Ireland, refusing to give up what is most important to them for the sake of honours and positions. Irish Muslims can indeed be the very leaven, not a threat, that helps the whole of Ireland to see the place of Almighty God, Allah, at its heart.
The author of eight books about Islam, British Muslim writer, Idris Tawfiq, divides his time between Egypt and the UK as a speaker, writer and broadcaster. You can visit his website at www.idristawfiq.com
