As the protests ensuing the publication of Salman Rushdie’s (1988) Satanic Verses[1] aptly showed, the 1980s and 1990s were indeed ‘a confusing time to be a young Muslim in Britain’. [2] This is because the Rushdie furor exposed not only the disconnect between British-born Muslims and the imams imported from the subcontinent who knew little of the early Islamic Creed and Jurisprudence (let alone the English language and non-Muslim culture), but it also exposed the ‘fractured intellectual tradition of a religion transported from several different countries’ into Britain.[3] Significantly, the Rushdie Affair went on to serve as a catalyst for the renewal of an Islamic identity for many British-born youth experiencing an identity crisis. In a post-Cold War era, this heightened sense of Islamic identity was then further intensified against the backdrop of a political landscape that was gradually also being transformed by the Gulf War (1990‒1991), as well as the Bosnian War (1992‒1995)[4]—events which would turn Islam into a public identity marker.[5]
[1] A book that was viewed by Muslims throughout the world to be blasphemous and deliberately antagonistic towards Muslims, filled with insults against the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and his wives.
[2] Leiken 2012:153-154.
[3] Ibid:153.
[4] Inge 2016:26; Leiken 2012:153; Tyrer 2014:304, cited in Peter and Ortega 2014.
[5] Inge 2016:26.
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