Will London burn too?

Patrick Sookhdeo

12 November 2005

Patrick Sookhdeo on the Islamic doctrine of sacred space

Most alarming of all is the prospect of Muslim secessionist violence in the UK as in Kosovo, the Philippines, Thailand and elsewhere (Huntington’s much-reviled ‘bloody borders of Islam’). Now this is happening — apparently — in France. A radical Muslim preaching at Hyde Park Corner on 6 November called for what had happened in France to be repeated here. He urged all Muslims to move into Muslim areas, after which any Churches would be expelled. He told his audience that Europe had once been Muslim and called on them to make it Muslim again.

Many British cities already have concentrated Muslim communities. Conservative estimates based on census returns indicate that Bradford had a Muslim population of just under 49,000 in 1991, rising to over 75,000 in 2005. But Sher Azam, president of the Bradford Council of Mosques, claims that 100,000 Muslims in Bradford attend mosque each week, suggesting a total Muslim population in Bradford far in excess of this. Whatever the true figures, it is clear that within a few years Bradford and many other British cities will have Muslim majorities. It is also clear that the often quoted figure of 1.6 million for the total British Muslim population must be a gross underestimate.

Islamic enclaves would be defined by Islamic values, education, politics, religious practice and above all law. They would be ‘cleansed’ of any non-Muslim presence. This cleansing is already beginning by means of threats and violence to isolated churches in Muslim majority areas. Even Islamic law is already semi-established, in that a multitude of Shariah councils and Shariah courts exist which deal with family issues, effectively creating an unofficial parallel legal system within the UK.

Unless the multiculturalist policy — which has been indirectly facilitating the separatist agenda of radical Islamists — is reversed immediately, we shall wake up and find we have sleepwalked into a situation of apartheid and segregation. If we sleep long enough, we may even wake up to find that, like Paris, London is burning. Or that we are living in an Islamic state.