WELCOME TO TRADITIONAL ISLAMISM

I want to return to this statement in the Quilliam Foundation launch document:

Encourage Students and Imams to wear clothes that ensure belonging to the main stream society and not Pakistani ethnic attire designed for a different climate. Islam requires modesty, not Arab or Pakistani clothing. We are not like Polish Jews that insist on wearing black clothes, unrelated to religion.

First, the Orthodox Jews dress in black due to religious motive, rather the mode of dressing is deeply symbolic. Let me quote:

Black is the color of Gevurah (severity), and thus is a symbolically appropriate garb for serious and important events (praying, holidays, etc.) Those who wear such clothes all week are thus indicating that their daily life is also bound up in divrei yirah shamayim [fearing heaven].

As for the Gartel:

It is required by the Shulchan Aruch (code of Jewish law) to have a separation between the top half of the body and the bottom while praying. Those who do not wear a gartel hold that other clothes satisfy the halacha; e.g., a regular belt or the waistband of his pants.

Individuals from ethnic minority communities, of the Muslim faith, can dress in something like a sharwal kameez for a variety of reasons, though little evidence exists to suggest it is due to any religious motivation, let alone religious separatism. Dressing for exclusivity and distinction however does have precedence amongst those of Salafi persuasion for example (among other schools of thought as well). However, how representative is this of the general Muslim community? Even if individuals should make these lifestlye choices, does the state have any right to encourage or intefere in how individuals should look and what dress they should choose from? Are these ideas even entertained for other communities? Why is this argument even related to terrorism, when speaking about Muslims, while for other faith communities, who may have similar attitudes, it is often left to issues of pecularities of belief among certain sections of the more ultra-orthodox?

The Quilliam Foundation by emphasising such ideas in their documents, simply recycle and feed into public prejudice on Muslims, in which the attitudes or dress of Muslims or even nominal Muslims can often be ascribed to religious separatism, and little else. Dress codes, which are often due to simple personal choice, fashion, tradition or comfort of dress, rather than religious separatism, are viewed or held with suspicion and even worse related to initiatives of counter terrorism! Now I do not know of any study that ‘Ed’ has cited to make this huge logical jump — that ethnic minority communities, that happen to be Muslim by faith, behave and dress in certain ways as to ghetto themselves from their wider society, due to their faith. This conclusion is simple blinkered prejudice from ‘Ed’, and many elements of the media love him for it! At last they have a native informant to state what they were to afraid to say, unless they be rightly accused of racism or Islamophobia.

The Quilliam Foundation continues to feed into this Anti-Muslim bashing that has become alarming in recent times, it is no suprise that the launch of the Quilliam Foundation was celebrated with acclaim from the liberal and right wing press.