The British Muslim Is Truly One Among Us – and Proud To Be So

History of harmony: Dr George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, meets Muslim elders at an east London mosque

Those who believe in a clash of civilisations, in which British values are pitted against those of the Muslim world, have not been short of examples in the past few days. The BBC reports on an “Islamic takeover plot” by hardliners to seize control of several Birmingham state schools. Two Morrisons workers are suing the supermarket for not being able to take holiday during Ramadan, after being told that they submitted their applications too late. Such stories do make the blood boil, and may lead the less charitable to ask if such people should move to a country that better reflects their prejudices.

But one hears such complaints rarely, and this is what marks us out in a Europe that is paranoid about Islam and identity. Britain is, through empire, the original multi-ethnic state. When Churchill was writing for The Daily Telegraph as a war correspondent, his criticism of the Afghan tribesmen was that their behaviour was un-Islamic. “Their religion – fanatic though they are – is only respected when it incites to bloodshed and murder,” he wrote in December 1897. Then, the Queen had tens of millions of Islamic subjects and her ministers boasted of running the greatest Muslim power on earth.

The integration of Muslims can now be seen as one of the great success stories of modern Britain. While the Dutch and the French have huge troubles with integration, and are caught in agonised struggles about their national identities, Britain is marked out by the trouble that we are not having. Dig a little deeper, and the real story is the striking amount of harmony.

Last year, for example, the Jews of Bradford were facing the closure of their synagogue. Its roof was leaking, and the few dozen remaining regulars could not afford the repairs. Its chairman, Rudi Leavor, made the decision to sell the building and face up to it being transformed into luxury flats. As things turned out, the synagogue was saved after a fundraising campaign led by a local mosque. Zulfi Karim, the secretary of Bradford’s Council of Mosques, now refers to Leavor – who fled the Nazis – as his “newfound brother”. He gave his support, he says, to protect the diversity of Bradford.

After the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich last year, skinheads went on the march in hope of stirring up a reaction against Muslims. It was the perfect moment, given how high feelings were running. The next week, a mosque in Muswell Hill, north London, was burnt down – an act that might, in other places, have started a cycle of reprisals. But here, the Muslims were given shelter by the local Jewish community, who offered space, laptops and whatever support was needed. Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner said she was proud to help “our brothers and sisters of the Muslim community, emotionally and physically”.

Such stories can be found the length and breadth of Britain, for those with an eye to see them. St John’s Episcopal Church in Aberdeen last year agreed to accommodate neighbouring Muslims, who had outgrown their mosque and had taken to worshipping outside it. The Rev Isaac Poobalan said that allowing Muslims to pray in the wind and rain would mean abandoning “what the Bible teaches us about how we should treat our neighbours”. He argued that his church was empty on a Friday lunchtime, when Muslims needed to pray.

Anyone serious about either religion will know that they both worship the same God – and their stronger ties are, in part, forged by the knowledge that they have a common enemy in secularism. The kind of secularism that would stop people wearing crucifixes and skullcaps in public, as well as the niqab. When the Council of Europe came out against religious circumcision, it was natural that Manchester’s sizeable Jewish community would protest. But less expected for Manchester’s Muslims to join them. Both have plenty to fear from the abridgment of religious freedom in a Britain that is – by some measures – the least religious country in the rich world.

Before he became pope, Cardinal Ratzinger spoke about the “dictatorship of relativism”, and the collapse of notions of right and wrong. He later came to see Muslims as an ally in this broader agenda, which emphasised freedom of worship. When the Coptic Christian church in Cairo came under attack from jihadis, Muslims formed a human chain to deter bombers. It was more than an act of fraternity: mainstream Islam faces a mighty threat from the well-organised jihadis, who seek to impose their own kind of coup.

The attempts by extremists to speak for Muslims in Britain is made a lot easier by the lack of an Islamic hierarchy – there’s no Muslim pope who can excommunicate psychos who praise jihad. It’s also made easier by the understandable reluctance of ordinary British Muslims to get involved in the political side of their religion – a world disproportionately occupied by old men with long beards and poor English. When Channel 4 said that its 2006 Christmas message would be given by a Muslim in a full-face veil, it fitted the BNP narrative of a clash of civilisations.

The BNP gave up on racism some years ago, and has since moved on to Islamophobia. It’s understandable – you can pick almost any country on the Continent to see a market for all of this. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders is at large, likening the Koran to Mein Kampf and referring to Islam as a “Trojan horse in Europe”. His party, PVV, is now at the top of the opinion polls. Marine Le Pen’s Front National, which warns now and again that Islamic culture will subvert French civilisation, has just had a breakthrough in the recent elections.

But in Britain, Islamophobia simply does not exist as a political force. We just don’t have Muslim youths rioting in suburbs, as you see in Paris. When London riots, the city comes together like a Benetton advert. Next month’s Euro-elections are likely to bring about the burial of the BNP, as the protest vote goes to Ukip, a party whose extraordinary success has come due to its rejection of the prejudices for which the BNP is infamous.

This is all the more surprising given the serious problems that Britain still faces with integration. Our habit of giving asylum to the world’s least desirable jihadis means that London is still a hotbed of Islamist terrorism; the CV of any apprehended Islamist normally involves a spell in the capital. The 7/7 bombers were, as the Mayor of London said, as British as Y-fronts and Tizer – and yet there was no anti-Islamic backlash after the 2005 attacks. Too many of our cities still choose ghettoisation over integration, but the sense of Muslims as being alien, or un-British, is not widely felt.

British Muslims don’t really feel a sense of otherness. In fact, polls show they’re much more likely to identify with Britishness than the general population. The Citizenship Survey found that most Muslims agree with two propositions: that Islam is the most important thing in their life, and that their primary loyalty lies with the British state. Most are baffled by the idea of a tension between the two.

Perhaps this is why Britain has proven consistently unable to get into a lather about the idea of a Muslim enemy within – it’s just not the British way, and never has been.

Fraser Nelson is editor of 'The Spectator’