Simon Stjernholm

Sufi Politics in Britain: the Sufi Muslim Council and the 'silent majority' of Muslims

This article presents and analyses a new public Muslim voice that emerged in the political aftermath of the terrorist attacks in London in July 2005, in which the government reviewed its relations with Muslim communities. The Sufi Muslim Council (SMC) immediately attracted attention and criticism when it was launched in 2006, but it has not been studied in detail before. This article addresses the SMCs publicized self-presentation at the time of the launch, which contentiously identified itself against a broad definition of ‘extremists’ and adopted the language of the government. An interview with the SMC spokesperson and attendance at several public events arranged by the SMC from 2006 to 2009 are the basis of further analysis. The SMCs effort to establish a coalition of Sufi communities, previously lacking in Britain, is discussed. It is concluded that a combination of the circumstances at hand and the framing of the SMCs project, including the focus put on what the various communities shared, made this effort at least temporarily successful. An important feature in this framing was focus on the common Sufi practice of venerating the prophet Muhammad.

Sufis, Salafis and Islamists: The Contested Ground of British Islamic Activism, by Sadek Hamid, London, I.B. Tauris, 2016, xvi + 202 pp.,

cultural upheavals have made the monistic spirituality found in ancient Gnosticism attractive again today. This is all very interesting and may indeed be accurate, but given the book’s subtitle,How a Countercultural Spirituality Revolutionized Religion from Antiquity to Today, I was not expecting the ‘from antiquity to today’ part to be telescoped into the last 11 pages of the book. To convincingly argue the impact of ancient Gnosticism on the New Age would, I believe, take another book entirely. Despite these shortcomings, I did derive a great deal of benefit from reading The Gnostic New Age. It is a clearly written and engaging introduction to ancient Gnosticism, and DeConick’s scholarship is impressive (at least from the point of view of this non-expert). As a primer, The Gnostic New Age will work well to inspire students and interested lay readers to delve further into the wealth of Gnostic literature now available in translation. It will also be useful as a textbook in introductory classes in Christian history and theology or religions of the ancient world. Moreover, if the framing assumptions about Gnosticism’s survival in modern western spirituality are thoroughly analyzed and critiqued in class, it may also be useful in courses on new religious movements, and religion and popular culture.

95.00 (hardback), ISBN 978 1 7845 3231 4

Like elsewhere in Europe, Sweden suffers from under-reporting and methodological problems when it comes to recording, countering and defining Islamophobic and other hate-crimes that target religious groups. Statistics on the self-reported targeting of Islamophobic hate-crimes indicate much higher numbers than those reported to the police. This chapter provides an accessible overview to the existing data on Islamophobia in Sweden, contrasting official data with how Muslims in Sweden perceive their situation. The official data come from annual reports on hate-crimes and National Safety Surveys collected by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Bra) from 2006 to 2012. To include Muslim perceptions we have primarily used the Swedish Muslims in Cooperation Network Alternative Report (SMCNAR). The latter provides information on how many Muslims perceive Islamophobia, inequalities and discrimination in contemporary Sweden. This chapter finds that it is necessary to pay close attention to the problem of how to define and measure Islamophobia in explaining the differences between the sources of data. While the official records seem to indicate that Islamophobia is a relatively minor problem, the SMCNAR paints a different picture. No matter how we analyse existing records, the fact that there is a gap between how minorities perceive the level of hate-crimes and how this problem is shown in the official records constitutes a problem. Without better correspondence between official records and the perceptions of a minority, the ability of government bodies to tackle the problem of hate-crimes in society becomes seriously limited.