SCRUTINY
SUBVERSIVE OR SAINT? FOR DECADES, BRITISH-TRAINED IMAMS HAVE STRUGGLED TO FIND EMPLOYMENT THANKS TO THE HIGH NUMBER OF FOREIGNERS INVITED TO LEAD OUR MOSQUES. THIS, INCLUDING THE VERY WAY MOSQUES ARE RUN, IS ABOUT TO CHANGE.
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t has become commonplace to question Muslim religious leadership today, not only because of Western fears about violent radicalism, but more broadly because of the sharp internal critique of the ulema by the reform and Islamist movements over the last two centuries. These stereotypes belie the simple truth that the imam is still the first port of call for ordinary Muslims seeking religious guidance and good counsel; yet there is a worrying disconnection between imams and British Muslim youth. In Britain, the government, perhaps inspired by recent developments in France, Holland and Scandinavia to institute the official training of imams, has now focused its attention on the hitherto disregarded figure of the imam and his central role in the formation of Islam in Britain. The more often than not ill-paid, overworked and under appreciated position of the imamate has proved attractive mainly to those brought from abroad, who usually lack the linguistic and pastoral skills to connect to an overwhelming young population (52% under the age of 25, 46 % born in the UK). The continued salience of the foreign imam is strange given the fact that Britain has easily the largest number of hometrained imams in Western Europe. With some 25 seminaries, Britain currently produces around 140 graduates a year. But when they graduate, it is difficult for them to find employment, not least because many
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mosques already have incumbent foreign imams. In response, some dynamic young imams have had to set up independent Islamic academies to reach out to the youth, effectively disassociating themselves from mosques indifferent to this need. As such self-regarding conservative mosque committees, allied with insecure and poor working conditions, have effectively forced many British-trained ulema into alternative nonreligious employment, which is a huge waste of their training and talents. Sadly, in too many communities, the mosque imamate has become largely irrelevant to the future formation of Islam in Britain; most of the ‘action’ takes place outside the mosques. In recent years a small number of imams have been employed in education and in paid pastoral roles in prisons and hospitals, but it is with the implementation of a new European Union directive in December on religious discrimination in employment that will have the greatest impact upon the professionalisation of the mosque imamate.
All ministers of religion, including imams, will be able to claim decent wages and to contest unfair treatment or dismissal like any other British employee. However, the Home Office has no plans to raise awareness of these new protections among British imams whose potential ignorance of these changes could be exploited by unscrupulous mosque committees unless there is a concerted effort to spread the good news. The Home Office is also due to shortly announce tightened restrictions on bringing foreign ministers of religion over to the UK. The expected pre-entry English language requirement is likely to gain broad acceptance among British Muslims, although there should be regard for the special spiritual needs of recent asylum communities. There is justified anxiety that a government which has put internal security against terrorism at the top of its agenda will be more interested in screening for radicals rather than positively encouraging the best and brightest imams to come to Britain. If checks are to be made on the Islamic credentials of foreign imamate applicants, and, more tendentiously, on their sectarian or political orientation then the government would be well advised to institute an advisory board of the British Muslim great and the good, with a cross-denominational selection of senior imams, to work with the Immigration Service, as has been the case with the Jewish community for some years. Without the safeguard of the community’s inside knowledge and tacit consent embodied in such an Advisory Board, the government could almost certainly lay itself open to the charge of discriminatory treatment. YAHYA BIRT