The challenge of Islam to British society

And in 2024, there was the case of the Michaela Community School in London, a high-achieving secular school led by high-profile headteacher Katherine Birbalsingh. The school banned prayer rituals in the playground, after some Muslim pupils were pressuring others to participate. This resulted in a Muslim-led campaign against the school, featuring multiple threats to staff and a brick thrown through a teacher’s window. Fortunately, the school won the subsequent legal case, but on specific grounds that may not apply to other schools.

Islam is posing a challenge to law and order. In the year ending March 2025, the police recorded 2,949 ‘honour-based’ offences, including female genital mutilation, forced marriage and psychological, physical and emotional abuse. That’s an average of eight offences per day, and many more are undoubtedly unrecorded. Less than three per cent of these crimes were successfully prosecuted, leading police to be accused of turning a blind eye to these kinds of offences.

Prisons in particular are proving a breeding ground for Islamic extremism. Muslims are disproportionately represented, at 18 per cent of the prison population. A government report from 2016 found that prison imams are routinely distributing extremist literature among prisoners. There are also reports of prisoner-run ‘Sharia courts’ operating inside, carrying out various types of corporal punishment. Furthermore, the latest statistics show that 20 per cent of Muslim prisoners are white, compared with 7.8 per cent of Britain’s general Muslim population. This indicates the extent of Islamic conversions among the prison population. The net result is that prisoners leave prison more radicalised than when they went in, with many converting to Islam in prison.

This brings us to the threat of violent jihadism. In 2020, the Telegraph reported that 90 per cent of MI5’s 43,000-person terror watchlist were classed as jihadists. The government’s most recent report on countering terrorism from 2023 makes clear that the primary domestic terrorist threat comes from Islamist terrorism, which accounts for approximately 67 per cent of attacks since 2018, and around 75 per cent of MI5’s caseload. The current terrorism threat level was upgraded earlier this year to ‘severe’, meaning that an attack is highly likely.

At the same time, those tasked with protecting British citizens appear to be losing sight of the threat. In 2024, it emerged that police were being educated about ‘Islamophobia’ by radical campaign group MEND, which has defended jihadists and led prayers for ‘Palestinian victory’ in Israel. In a separate incident that same year, the Metropolitan Police were forced to cut ties with an adviser, Mohammed Kozbar, chairman of the Finsbury Park Mosque, after it emerged that he had ‘liked’ a post on X from the head of proscribed extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir and had praised Hamas’s founder as ‘the master martyr of the resistance’. There are real concerns about infiltration into mainstream and government-linked organisations by Muslims with radical sympathies.

Then there’s the presence of Sharia law in the UK. It has been estimated that there are over 85 Sharia courts operating in the UK. This has created a de facto parallel legal system for people in some communities. Women, in particular, may face tremendous family pressure to use Sharia courts, and may lack both the necessary English-language skills and a proper understanding of their rights under British law to otherwise enjoy the protections that would be afforded them through the English court system. Dutch political scientist Machteld Zee has exposed how many of those promoting the operation of Sharia councils in the UK are actually fundamentalists who want to turn the UK into an Islamic state, imposing Sharia law on all citizens.

Sharia law is inherently discriminatory against both women and non-Muslims. In these courts, a woman’s voice counts half as much as a man’s voice. Some Sharia court judges have argued for child marriage, or say that ‘a husband should not be questioned why he hit is wife’.

Among Western societies, Britain seems particularly receptive to Sharia law. In 2014, it became the first non-Islamic country to issue a sovereign Sharia bond. There are now nine banks offering Sharia-compliant products in the UK. In 2014, a government report stated that these had over 100,000 retail customers. The UK seems committed to London becoming a centre for Islamic finance.

It’s clear that Islam poses a profound challenge that requires bold and courageous responses from British society, from faithful Christians to secular-minded citizens. In my book, The Challenge of Islam, and in this essay, I have sought to highlight the role and influence that Islam now has in the UK. We need to understand the challenge of Islam and work out how to respond. At its root, this is a battle for the soul of the nation. A battle for tolerance and integration against the sectarian forces of intolerance and segregation. And it is a battle we cannot afford to lose.

This is an edited extract from The Challenge of Islam, published by Wilberforce Publications.

Tim Dieppe is a writer and head of public policy at Christian Concern.