Guys I'm not saying we should leave Islam, Naoozobillah..
Or that we should compromise on Islamic practices.
If u read my past posts u will find that I have defended the veil and beards.
What I am saying is, where we can compromise (culture etc.) then we should.
There is nothing wrong with our ethnic culture but given the current xenophobic circumstances not compromising it will only cause more problems.
A lot of people in this country hate Islam simply because they see it as something foreign and "Paki" and we're responsible for that image.
Just as Christianity started in the Middle-East but is now European, Islam can also be equally European without compromising its values, and that would be great for Da'wah.
I knew a caucasian girl who hated Islam because it was a "Paki religion", she hated Muzlims/Pakiz because Paki yobs (our young Mirpuri brothers) gave her and her family trouble, she had no idea about the actual message or teachings of Islam...
...Anyway she said I was an exception, she asked me questions about Islam and I answered them, I told her how those yobs were Muslim in name only and not everything Muslims do should be reflected on Islam...
I told her about the Muslim concept of Allah (One, Self-Existent, Unbegotten, Unbegetting, Beyond-Comprehension, Omnipotent, Omniscient etc.) and she agreed with this and rejected the trinity right there and then...
...I told her how Islam is not just a "Paki religion" but a Chinese religion, a White Euro-Bosnian religion, a Black African religion, an Arab religion, an Indian religion... I told her about what Islam says about race and assabiyyah..
We got talking about veiling or letterboxes as she called it and I told her the reasons why women cover (modesty rather than oppression), I told her all about Islamic chastity and morality and she said she would also rather wear a veil and she defended it when another boy at work took the micky out of it.
The Islamaphobes up there might have other reasons to hate Islam such as politics but for the common man it is simply jealousy of something foreign, they hate Islam for the same reason the Jews rejected our Prophet Muhammed PBUH, because it is foreign and not "theirs"...
Islam emobodies a lot of forgotten British values such as chastity, family-bonds, respect for the elders, spirituality etc... A lot of presentday Brits are spiritually starved and they are desperately seeking to fill that void and that is why conversions to Islam are growing because it gives them what they are looking for, a lot of people who hate on Islam do so simply because they are jealous of something foreign and belonging to someone else...
The Muslim community here have been really bad ambassadors of Islam, we have tarnished it and maligned it (druggies, terrorists, gangsters, benefit-fraudsters, you name it) and Islam is not responsible for any of this but unfortunately Islam gets it even though it is our own devils...