Young white women in the UK are embracing the Muslim faith, helping the number of Islam converts to top 100,000 for the first time.

New study reveals some 5,000 Britons covert to Islam each year despite growing criticism of Muslim community. Group: People are interested in finding out what Islam is all about

The number of Britons choosing to become Muslims has nearly doubled in the past decade, according to a study published by the Independent newspaper on Tuesday.

The report said the figures were surprising in light of the fact that British Muslims have faced more scrutiny and criticism than any other religious community following the global spread of violent Islamism.

The Independent said estimating the number of converts living in Britain has always been difficult because census data does not differentiate between whether a religious person has adopted a new faith or was born into it. Previous estimates have placed the number of Muslim converts in the UK at between 14,000 and 25,000, according to the British daily.

However, the report said, a new study by the inter-faith think-tank Faith Matters suggests the real figure could be as high as 100,000, with as many as 5,000 new conversions nationwide each year.

By using data from the Scottish 2001 census, researchers estimated that there were 60,699 converts living in Britain in 2001.

‘Most shrug their shoulders’

With no new census planned until next year, the report said, researchers polled mosques in London to try to calculate how many conversions take place a year. The results gave a figure of 1,400 conversions in the capital in the past 12 months which, when extrapolated nationwide, would mean approximately 5,200 people adopting Islam every year.

“This report is the best intellectual ‘guestimate’ using census numbers, local authority data and polling from mosques,” said Fiyaz Mughal, director of Faith Matters. “Either way few people doubt that the number adopting Islam in the UK has risen dramatically in the past 10 years.”

Asked by the Independent why people were converting in such large numbers, Mughal said, “I think there is definitely a relationship between conversions being on the increase and the prominence of Islam in the public domain. People are interested in finding out what Islam is all about and when they do that they go in different directions. Most shrug their shoulders and return to their lives but some will inevitably end up liking what they discover and will convert.”

Batool al-Toma, an Irish born convert to Islam of 25 years who works at the Islamic Foundation and runs the New Muslims Project, one of the earliest groups set up specifically to help converts, told the Independent she believed the new figures were “a little on the high side.”"My guess would be the real figure is somewhere in between previous estimates, which were too low, and this latest one,” she said. “I definitely think there has been a noticeable increase in the number of converts in recent years. The media often tries to pinpoint specifics but the reasons are as varied as the converts themselves.”

Source : ynetnews

A survey of Muslim students at 30 universities throughout Britain has found that 32 per cent believe that killing in the name of Islam is acceptable and that 40 per cent want Sharia law established in the UK, reports Christian Concern for our Nation.

The comprehensive survey was initiated by the Centre for Social Cohesion. It examined students’ attitudes to key issues such as killing in the name of religion, establishing a worldwide Caliphate, introducing Sharia law to the UK and setting up an Islamic political party in the UK. Of the 32 per cent who believe that killing in the name of Islam is acceptable, 28 per cent said that killing could be justified “only if the religion was under attack”, and 4 per cent supported killing “in order to promote and preserve that religion”.

Of the 40 per cent who supported the establishment of Sharia law in the UK, 33 per cent said they want to see the introduction of a worldwide Caliphate based on Sharia law. The overwhelming majority supported the introduction of Sharia into British law for Muslims. The survey also found that found 54 per cent of respondents wanted a Muslim party to represent their worldview in Parliament.

In July 2010, another survey by the same organisation revealed that the majority of Islamic terrorist activity in the UK over the last ten years has involved British citizens. It compiled the profiles of 124 individuals convicted of Islamic terrorism offences and found that 69 per cent of offences between 1999 and 2009 were carried out by British citizens. Almost a third of those had attended university. In June 2009, the think-tank Civitas made an investigation into the number of Islamic legal establishments in Britain and concluded that there are at least 85 Islamic Sharia courts operating in the country.

The recent investigation of the case of Taimour Abdulwahab Al-Abdaly, the Stockholm suicide bomber, found that Luton council, in the area where he lived, had been handed more than £550,000 of taxpayers’ money to combat extremism but have failed to tip off police about a single terror suspect. The grants were handed out to mosques, schools and women’s projects by the council to prevent young Muslims being radicalised. It is reported that the Luton Islamic Centre, where the bomber preached before being banned, refused to sign up to the Government scheme as its leaders did not want to inform on their “Muslim brothers and sisters”.

The Centre’s chairman Qadeer Baksh said: “If we had taken the money our members would have seen us as working for the Government. The young men with radical views would not have listened to us. I have never called the police or authorities on anyone.” Commenting on the case, Melanie Phillips, a Daily Mail and Spectator columnist, wrote that it showed “yet another radicalised British Muslim university graduate”. “He was but the latest in an unremitting procession of British Muslims who have committed terrorist attacks in other countries. And many have been educated to a high level in Britain.

“Over the past decade, around 30 Muslim graduates or students at British universities have been involved in Islamic-inspired terrorism, including former University College London student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who has been charged with trying to blow up a U.S. airliner with explosives hidden in his underpants,” she wrote.

Source : www.christiantelegraph.com

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) – Fingers were not lickin’ good for KFC in their bid to sell fried chicken to Islamic customers in Britain. It hoped to woo the Islamic market by opening over 100 outlets selling halal-only meat, slaughtered under strict religious guidelines.

However, Dr Nassem Chairman of Birmingham central Mosque said that the method used for slaughtering by machine was not Halal. The slaughtering must be performed by a muslim while reciting the tasmiyyah on each and every animal, which is an important part of the slaughter for halal, as per the guidance for halal as set by the Food standard Agency. And the fact the tasmiyyah is being played over a speaker means each bird it not blessed individually as it is killed by a machine.

KFC insisted their methods met the approval of the Halal Food Authority, ( Private business).

A survey carried out by Islamic Scholars here in the UK said that machine slaughter was deemed not to be Halal. This view was also endorsed by the Lancashire Council of Mosques at their meeting with KFC, and also the Birmingham Council of Mosques who have also gone on record that machine slaughter is Haraam.

Asking a private business to certify the product does not make it Halal.
Dr Yunes Teinaz, advisor to the Islamic Cultural Centre and the London Central Mosque Trust, said: “What is required is a government-supervised body for the sale and production of halal meat, with the issue of the guidance for halal to the local authority enforcement officers who are now requested to use this advice when planning inspections, food sampling and labelling checks relating to Halal foods.

They should then take appropriate enforcement action where necessary to protect the interests of the Muslim Community. The mislabelling and misrepresentation of Halal foods is of great importance to the Muslim Community, and continues to be an issue of concern.

We have now warned the UK’s 2.4 million Muslims not to eat KFC meat, Imam Yusuf Shabbir of the Lancashire Council of Mosques said: “With KFC confirming to us that it has no intention of changing the mechanical method of slaughter we will advise members of the Muslim community of this.” Any companies claiming to do machine slaughter will also be deemed to be not Halal.

How can KFC claim some of their restaurants are halal and the majority of them are not, when the same slaughtering process has been adopted which is identical for both types of restaurant? It’s either halal or not, it can’t be both, that’s why its important to label every thing 100% Halal.

Though the Daily Mail recently highlighted the situation that all KFC restaurants are using halal chicken, but the UK public don’t know, they have done nothing to change their policy.

Lord Nazir Ahmed of Rotherham said in his interview in front of the Houses of Lords that Machine slaughter / Blessed Blade is not a method for Halal slaughtering. He also stated that companies that are issuing Halal certificates to organizations using machine slaughter / Blessed Blade are committing a crime and should be reported to the government/ Local Authorities.