Western Values and Muslim Community

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Salaam 

The western "values" suggest equality and freedom for all, that means society must allow religious freedom. The Christians and Jews have Church/ Jewish schools as well as kosher meat, yet when Muslims simply ask for the very same treatment,the Islamphobic secular right wing jump up and down screaming that somehow western values have been attacked.

The Jews throught out the western world have their own religious courts. Christians have been enjoying the right to be married in Church. Muslims should have the same right to get married in Masajid as well as they need Sharia Courts, dealing in marriage, civil matters and divorce.

It is easy to say" Go back to where you came from",but do not forget that British Muslims are actually born and educated here. They are in the unenviable position of trying to combine two diffent worlds. That is no easy. 

Multiculturalism is not about separation, ghettoisation or balkanisation. It is, instead, a recognition of both diversity and the need for common ground, mutual respect,and cultural engagement. 

Muslims all over the world never opposed English as a language what they did was opposition of the Western culture and their system of education. In Pakistan, the medium of instruction is Urdu and English and the official language is both English and Urdu. Pakistan is going to send English teachers to Korea for the teaching of English language. 

Muslim parents would like their children to be well versed in standard English to follow the National Curriculum and go for higher studies and research to serve humanity.

Majority of Muslim children leave schools with low grades because state schools with monolingual teachers are not capable of teaching English to bilingual children.At the same time, they need to learn and be well versed in Arabic, Urdu and other community languages to keep in touch with their cultural roots and enjoy the beauty of their literature and poetry. 

I am concerned with the education of the Muslim children. It is nothing to do with integration or segregation. Those state as well as Church schools where Muslim children are in majority, in my opinion, may be designated as Muslim community schools with bilingual Muslim teachers as role models.

Bilingual Muslim children need state funded Muslim schools with bilingual Muslim teachers as role models during their developmental periods. There is no place for a non-Muslim child or a teacher in a Muslim school.  
Iftikhar Ahmad
www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk