Done of the literature at hand, what

done unless Muslims actively present themselves indifferent political spheres, from voting to presence in parliament, parties, and so on and so forth. As a conclusion, 1. 1.

1      British Muslim Political LifeThis section defines, through a review ofthe literature at hand, what British Muslim political life and pertinentconcepts, as a multi-facet religious minority living in a multiculturalnation-state could mean. Literatures around British Muslim political identityand their political engagement prior to 9/11 are discussed in this section. The relation between identity andpolitical participation among young British youth is best described in Identityand political participation among young British Muslims: believing andbelonging by Asma Mustafa. Identity and its relation to citizenship hasbeen always under concentration on problems of integration and assimilation. This book makes an appropriate contribution to this issue with a focus onsecond-generation British Muslim youth. She uses the three concepts ofidentity, citizenship, and belonging to explore the role of Islam (as areligion) and ethnicity in the formation of an individual and group identity inthe British context; and subsequently makes connections between how identityrelates to political participation within communal, national and internationalarenas. (Mustafa, 2015)Collective identity and how it could shapepolitical behavior of British Muslims have been always a matter of discussion. Nick Hopkins and Vered Kahani-Hopkins in Identityconstruction and British Muslims’ political activity: Beyond rational actortheory point to this problematic issue through examining the Rational Actortheory by, primirily, criticizing some psychological assumptions of it moreimportantly emphasis on individual identity, extending its range ofapplicability to collective identity in the perception of interest and theorganization of action.

Emphasizing the processes of identity construction andidentification they argue with an empirical analysis of the diverse identityconstructions articulated by Muslim activists seeking to recruit BritishMuslims to quite different understandings of their collective interests. Inorder to evaluate the identity and political activity of British Muslims, Hopkin assesses Muslims’ participation in UK elections, whether encouraging ordiscouraging, to see how Muslims’ identity and interest was constructed so asto encourage or discourage participation. They’contend that acknowledging the importance of identity construction in both’Western’ and ‘ Islamic’ politics is a first step towards questioning the sharpdichotomization of Western and Muslim psychologies and decision-makingprocesses’. (N.

Hopkins & Kahani? Hopkins, 2004)Ethnic minorities in Britain have a rightto vote and stand for elections both as British citizens and as Commonwealthcitizens, Muhammad Anwar in The participation of ethnic minorities inBritish politics examines how far they have exercised this right andparticipated in the electoral process in the 1990s and 2000s. He uses empiricaldata from the 1997 General Election and the 1998 local election studies topresent the more recent picture. Anwar also analyses the responses of thepolitical parties to the participation of ethnic minorities in politics andlook at the representation of ethnic minorities at the various levels of theBritish political system. In a comparative study, Fetzer and Soper in MuslimsAnd The State In Britain, France, And Germany explore the different aspectsof the relation of Muslims and the state in the three mentioned countries. Theyfirst provide a thorough explanation of the accommodation of Muslim religiouspractices as in increasingly important politics in Western Europe. Muslimsexpect the state the recognition of their religious status and provide themwith appropriate accommodation.

It is a logical for citizens living in liberalpolitical system countries to expect the state to treat all alike. Tounderstand how Britain has responded to the religious needs of its Muslimcitizens, there is a need to look at the ‘ established rules of the gamestructure to be equal and fair treatment by the government’. To understand this, the book provides the reader with a picture of the hist