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The Civic, Religious and Political Incorporation of British Muslims and the Role of the Anglican Church: Whose Incorporation, Which Islam?1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2015

Philip Lewis
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Abstract

The new Muslim presence in the West has become the source of multiple anxieties. This article, by focusing on one city in the north of England with a Muslim presence which has grown from 3000 to 130,000 in 50 years, considers the resources which state and the established church bring to incorporate such communities in the mainstream of society. The Muslim communities are not presented as passive victims of prejudice and exclusion but as possessed of agency. This paper concludes that there are expressions of Islam which are easy to incorporate but others which generate an isolationist mindset which can create major problems.

Keywords

creationismhyper-diversityincorporationIslamMuslims‘Ulama
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Anglican Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , November 2015 , pp. 189 - 214
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Copyright
© The Journal of Anglican Studies Trust 2015 

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Footnotes

1.

Delivered as part of the colloquium ‘Church, Communities and Society’, held to mark the tenth anniversary of the Lincoln Theological Institute, 25–26 October 2013, at the University of Manchester.

2.

Dr Lewis was the Inter Faith Advisor to the Anglican Bishop of Bradford and lectured in the Department of Peace Studies, Bradford University, on ‘Religions, conflict and peacemaking in a post-secular world’ and ‘Islam and the West: the challenge to co-existence’ until his retirement late in 2014.

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