‘Islam does not change’: young people narrating negotiations of religion and identity

Abstract

There is growing interest in how diasporic Islam may be embraced by young people as a way of carving out space and identity in migratory contexts. Islamic identity may facilitate a critical stance in relation to both the ‘host’ society and also to parental authority and ‘traditional’ ethnic practices. However, there have been recent critiques of the tendency to oversimplify and exaggerate the extent of homogeneity in diasporic Islamic beliefs. This paper draws on lively focus group narratives of young people in London to explore the interactive presentation of Islamic selves. While on the surface these young people present themselves through ‘true’, ‘universal’ Islamic identity, on closer reading subtleties of difference and contingency become more apparent. By bringing together young people who practise Islam in different ways, this paper offers a deeper insight into how claims to a universal identity are actively constructed and contested through particular social relationships and interactions in specific structural contexts. In so doing, the paper takes up recent calls for more research on the personal meaning of religion for Muslim youngsters. I conclude by considering how religious identities can be understood as processes of youth identity formations.

Keywords:

• Muslim youth
• narrating identity
• ‘new’ Islam
• mobility
• place

Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the Department for Communities and Local Government and was commissioned by the Barnet Muslim Engagement Partnership. The researchers working on this project were Louise Ryan, Eleonore Kofman and Ludovica Banfi. The author would like to thank the various community organisations that facilitated this research: Ayesha Community Education, the Paiwand Afghan Association and the Somali Family Support Group. The two community researchers who assisted with fieldwork were Mustafa Mansury and Faiza Bashe. I would also like to thank the various colleagues who commented on previous drafts of this paper.

Notes

1. For those professing a strict interpretation of Islam, music was often regarded as utterly incompatible with practicing a true Muslim life. This could result in heated clashes between conservative Muslim parents and mainstream schools where music was a compulsory part of the curriculum. This prompted several Muslim parents to move their children to Muslim schools (Ryan, Banfi, and Kofman 2010).

2. In another paper I have discussed the gender dynamics of the FGs (Ryan 2012), I do not wish to rehearse that discussion in this paper.