British Muslims were ethnicized before being recognized as a faith group

Evidence

Until the 1980s British Muslims were viewed primarily in terms of their ethnicity and countries of origin, rather than as members of a collective faith group. In part this was due to an overall perceived decrease in the importance of religion in Britain. Weller (2004: 5) argued that, in keeping with the secularization thesis, there was an assumption that religion would overwhelmingly be removed from the public into the private sphere for all Britons, including any newcomers. However, as non-European-origin communities became more established in Britain, the emphasis on religious practice did not decrease. A well-known study conducted by Modood and colleagues using the Fourth National Survey of Ethnic Minorities (Modood et al. 1997: 356) demonstrated clearly that when compared with the sample of White British 16–34-year-olds – among whom only 5% felt that religion was ‘very important’ in how they lived their lives – nearly 20% of Caribbean-origin and around 35% of South-Asian-origin respondents in the same age group reported it being so. — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 185

Categorization

• QUESTION: The 5% vs 20% vs 35% religious-importance gap is an empirical anchor worth holding onto for how the ‘religious vs ethnic’ framing of British Muslims shifted — but does the Fourth National Survey date make these figures dated?
• XREF: Connects to the Runnymede ‘open vs closed views of Islam’ framing and Bleich’s concept-formation debate in this module — the secularization-thesis assumption is the rival stance the author is implicitly pushing against. — connects to: British racial categories for Muslims changed labels while retaining racist content. — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 168; British-born Muslims replaced ancestral ethnicity with religious identity — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 51; Religious identity grew more salient than ethnicity among later-generation British Muslims — Runnymede Trust (ed. Farah Elahi & Omar Khan), Islamophobia: Still a Challenge for Us…, 182 (+8 more)

Related

• Religious identity grew more salient than ethnicity among later-generation British Muslims (similarity 0.88)
• Britain first recognized Muslims only through the lens of fundamentalism (similarity 0.88)
• British Muslims were first publicly recognised through a fundamentalist lens. (similarity 0.86)
• British-born Muslims replaced ancestral ethnicity with religious identity (similarity 0.84)
• Suspicion of Britain’s Muslims predates modern biological racism (similarity 0.84)
• Muslim migrants were initially subsumed under the hegemonic ‘Asian’ label (similarity 0.83)
• Lack of religious census categories hid Muslims within ethnic and birth-country data (similarity 0.83)
• Religious and ethnic disadvantages in Britain must be separated analytically to explain Muslim outcomes. (similarity 0.83)
• British racial categories for Muslims changed labels while retaining racist content. (similarity 0.83)
• Second-generation British Muslims replaced heritage labels with Islamic identity (similarity 0.83)
• British Muslims are a diverse minority diaspora, not a monolith (similarity 0.82)
• British race law excluded Muslims as a multi-ethnic religious group until late (similarity 0.81)
• Muslim identity functions as a civic marker rather than mere religious belief. (similarity 0.81)
• A worldwide Muslim threat narrative came to frame British perceptions (similarity 0.81)
• Census ethnicity categories poorly capture British Muslim experience as proxies (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• British-born Muslims replaced ancestral ethnicity with religious identity #qualifies (0.85) — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 51
• Second-generation British Muslims replaced heritage labels with Islamic identity #qualifies (0.85)
• Religious identity grew more salient than ethnicity among later-generation British Muslims #qualifies (0.82) — Runnymede Trust (ed. Farah Elahi & Omar Khan), Islamophobia, 182
• British Muslims were first publicly recognised through a fundamentalist lens. #exemplifies (0.82) — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 233
• Britain first recognized Muslims only through the lens of fundamentalism #exemplifies (0.80) — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 233
• British race law excluded Muslims as a multi-ethnic religious group until late #corroborates (0.80) — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 60
• Ethnic data categories cannot capture the Muslim penalty in British institutions #corroborates (0.80) — Runnymede Trust (ed. Farah Elahi & Omar Khan), Islamophobia, 54