Apostasy among Muslims in the UK

The challenge facing Muslim communities

Many Muslims and others repeatedly claim that Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world. If there is truth in this claim, it may have more to do with relatively higher birth rates among Muslim communities than with higher rates of conversion to Islam.

In any case, the claim somehow deflects attention from a painful reality in the UK: many Muslim men and women, those brought up in traditionally Muslim families and, in fewer cases, those who accepted Islam as new Muslims, are turning away from Islam. A few even make a point of publicly declaring their apostasy and their hatred of Islam, which the media then happily publicise.

Freedom of thought and belief is an important ideal that deserves to be respected by all communities, especially when it is expressed through the positive religious virtues of tolerance, forbearance, and patience with the doubts and questions of others.

The ideal is less impressive when it becomes a passive, uncaring, and careless indulgence that lets anyone think and behave as they please, provided no immediate physical harm is done to anyone else. Such an attitude ignores harm to the wider social and ethical environment, harm that becomes apparent only over time, just as damage to the natural environment does.

It is a serious failing on the part of Muslims, their families, teachers, and institutions that they are often unable to deal with doubts and questions arising within their own communities with tolerance, forbearance, and patience. Rather than striving to understand these concerns, they seek refuge in assertions of group identity and directly or indirectly reject those who question.

Those who doubt are either told that they “do not belong”, or they are made to feel that they do not belong. Sooner or later, publicly or privately, that feeling of not belonging matures into actively not believing.

We cannot be indifferent to this outcome. Every Muslim bears some responsibility for protecting and preserving the religion. This includes educating the young and those new to Islam so that they come to believe in the goodness and benefit of worshipping Allah through loving obedience. We will surely be questioned in the Hereafter about how faithfully we fulfilled this responsibility.

Faith beyond outward conformity

First and foremost, we should ensure that, both in our homes and in public life, there is a correspondence between what we say and what we do.

A hospital nurse may complete every required task in caring for the sick, yet do so coldly and reluctantly, motivated only by a monthly salary, with no warmth towards the patients and no concern for whether they recover or decline.

Such a nurse may be professionally competent, yet does not inspire respect for the nursing profession. There must always be that unpaid and immeasurable “more” of genuine care and compassion.

The same is true of Islam. Mere outward obedience to the formal practices of being Muslim is not sufficient.

Obedience and dutifulness must be accompanied by a willing heart and loving consent. Allah has created human beings such that lasting commitment is only possible when obligations are both understood and loved.

That love and understanding become rooted through the words and example of those who teach us. We learn, often without explicit instruction, from the behaviour, temperament, and manners of our teachers and elders that they themselves believe in the value of what they teach. Their faith is communicated through humility, gentleness, steadfastness, selflessness, and the other virtues that ennoble human life.

By contrast, someone who rigorously fulfils outward religious obligations while behaving arrogantly, selfishly, impatiently, or harshly towards others will not inspire respect for the religion they claim to follow.

Understanding the modern context

Secondly, we must acknowledge the historical reality that Muslim societies have not exercised comprehensive influence over the many dimensions of collective life for a very long time.

In many places, roughly six generations have passed since Islamic norms shaped school curricula, economic and political life, international relations, and the wider structures of society. Consequently, Islamic practice has gradually contracted until it often centres primarily upon the core acts of worship such as prayer, fasting, and pilgrimage.

This has produced a serious mistake. Teachers whose studies have focused mainly on these central acts of worship, rather than the broader intellectual tradition once characteristic of the ʿulamāʾ, sometimes extend the special standards appropriate to formal worship into every aspect of daily life.

It is neither practical nor intended that the manners of dress, speech, sitting, standing, and conduct appropriate for prayer in the mosque should also govern every ordinary activity such as shopping or working.

To demand from oneself or from others what is not realistically possible is itself a form of tyranny.

Every Muslim knows that our master and guide, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, repeatedly affirmed that he was not sent to make people’s lives difficult but to make them easier in the long term, and that long term certainly includes the Hereafter.

We cannot preserve what remains of our inheritance, nor build for the future, without patiently engaging with present realities while maintaining steadfast reliance upon Allah.

Welcoming questions and doubts

Thirdly, we should welcome and respect every sincere question raised by children in the home or students in schools and colleges.

Respect involves several things:

• Accepting that the questioner is sincere.
• Making every effort to understand the deeper concern behind the question, recognising that the questioner may struggle to express it clearly.
• Ignoring any deliberate or unintended disrespect expressed in either the wording or manner of the question.
• Allowing the question to be asked.

This final point is perhaps the most important.

The teacher should make the questioner feel that asking questions and experiencing doubts are entirely natural parts of the human search for understanding, a search through which one can ultimately embrace the commands of Allah with willing love and conviction.

A teacher should also recognise the limits of their own knowledge, avoid claiming certainty where certainty does not exist, and acknowledge that disagreement on some matters can remain within the bounds of the Muslim community.

This lies at the heart of truly allowing questions. Without it, teachers deprive themselves of opportunities to cultivate humility and forbearance. Even worse, they reduce believing to merely belonging.

Religion and culture

Fourthly, it is important to distinguish religious conformity from cultural conformity.

The distinction is not always straightforward because religions naturally shape civilisations and cultures. Nevertheless, it is often clearer than people suppose.

Belonging is easier than believing. For both teachers and learners, it is often simpler merely to imitate what everyone else in the group does.

Yet the rewards of a life lived with genuine religious seriousness are not attained by following this easier path. There is no shortcut that avoids thoughtful reflection about what is most important and what is secondary.

Above all stands an informed conscience, a sincere intention, and an educated will to do what is right.

This cannot be achieved through conformity alone. Understanding and willing consent are essential. Along the way there will inevitably be mistakes and misunderstandings. So long as individuals and communities do not abandon the effort, the outcome remains hopeful.

Learning religion resembles learning language. We frequently misspeak, mishear, and misunderstand one another. Communication only truly fails when we stop listening altogether or refuse to invite the other person to explain themselves again.

Every parent who has listened patiently while a child struggles to recount the events of the day understands the importance of giving people time to find the right words.

Speaking the truth with humility

Finally, it is worth emphasising something so obvious that it often goes unmentioned.

There is a fundamental difference between the duty to speak clearly and courageously according to one’s best knowledge and understanding, and the duty to impose that understanding upon everyone who disagrees.

The greatest Muslims have consistently taught that before declaring someone an unbeliever, the most extreme way of telling someone they do not belong, every possible explanation and every possible excuse should first be exhausted.

Nearly all disagreements can be managed. They do not have to be erased.

Had Allah willed, He could easily have made all people uniformly believing, a single homogeneous community alike in tastes, character, and aspirations. But He did not.

Our differences, both within and between religious communities, are among His means of cultivating within us humility, proportion, and restraint regarding our own sense of righteousness and our confidence in achieving our aims.

The only absolute certainty is that we can neither be right nor succeed without acknowledging our complete dependence upon Him and placing our trust in Him rather than in ourselves.

We are utterly indebted creatures. It is precisely this awareness that nurtures the humility we so greatly need.