Privilege of Choice People turning to Islam

[Bagumel]

A Religious Education Teacher in the North Eastern England has predicted the number of British Muslim converts would equal or even overtake the present Immigrant Muslim community in the next ten years or so. Rose Kendrick a Teacher in Hull Comprehensive School who is also an author of a textbook guide to Quran  recently made the prediction in an interview with the Times Newspaper in which She inferred ? Islam is as much a World Faith as is Roman Catholicism. No one nationality claims it as its own? she noted...
One interesting thing found in a survey carried out was that this wave surge of increase in the new converts continued unabated especially among women despite the negative publicity campaign carried in order to taint the image of the Muslims and Islam in the Media. According to Government and Academic sources the number of Muslims praying in the Mosques have already outstripped all the worshippers combined attending the Church of England in UK which is the Head of the Anglican Community throughout the World. This new trend of conversions is not peculiar to UK only but similar unprecedented surge in swing to the Deen is also noted in Europe and America despite the so called Islam phobia sway seen as deliberately being carried out by the Press in order to distort the image of Islam and the Muslims. An East London Convert Amina Ismail told the East London Local Muslim Newspaper ?When people immerse themselves in real Islamic literature they recognise the truth? She lamented. ?After preconceived prejudices are cleared people break down in tears, but they don?t bother to examine the faith until something happens which puts Islam on their laps? she confidently pointed out.
The Council of American Islamic Relations Chairman Nihad Awad according to the Paper is reported to have said as many as 34,000 Americans have converted to Islam in just two Months following the September 11 incident. He described the mass conversion as the highest rate ever recorded since the coming of Islam to the Country. A Dutch Islamic Centre has claimed a tenfold increase in conversion while a New Muslim project in Leicester Central England run by a former Irish Roman Catholic Batool Al-Toma reported a stream of new converts to the faith. According to the paper women converts to Islam in the US outnumber men by four to one and here in Britain many of the new converts are from the middle-class educated background who pray five times fast in Ramadan give Zakat and answer their mobiles with ?Assalamu Alaikum? at the same time highly articulate and tolerant like most Britons living in U.K. They made their choice of Islam over all other Religions due to privilege of choice.
Meanwhile three Muslim Schools out of the four only State Funded Schools throughout the UK have been celebrating their outstanding performance in the recent GCSE Secondary School Examination results here in London .Islamia Girls High School in Brent, West London the Madni Girls School in the Tower Hamlet and the Tayyibah Girls School in Hackney both in East London topped the tables in the Secondary School final results. The three Schools were said to have achieved 100% pass marks during the exams scoring between A-C grades in five subjects thus beating the National average of about 53%. Other Muslim Schools that have scored more than 90% included Jami?atul Ummah School in the Tower Hamlet also in East London and As Sadiq and Al-Zahra Schools both in Brent West London. So far  only four Muslim Schools are currently being funded by the Government out of nearly 100 of such schools throughout the UK as compared with about 30 Jewish Schools and nearly 7000 Christian Schools of different denominations The success of the Muslim Schools which are attributed to hard work and dedication of the pupils would help boost the morale of the Muslim community in UK and go along way to providing better prospect for new primary and Secondary Institutions  which have daily been springing almost every where throughout the Country. The Muslim girls are therefore keenly noted to be amongst the most intelligent in London according to real world trend for such performance thus completely destroying the spun myth of Islamic Women?s Education daily carried out in the Media.

Babandi Abubakar Gumel