Beneath the grey skies of Cardiff every Friday, thousands of Welsh Muslims attend prayers across the port city, some in old sandstone Protestant churches that have been converted into mosques in recent years.
The same is happening in cities across Europe, where Islam is now considered the fastest growing religion …
As Islamic communities are growing, research shows that Christian church attendance across Europe is in decline …
Veiled women – a rarity in Cardiff in the 1970s – are now a common site around Cardiff, said Salim Kidwai, the Pakistani-born head of the Muslim Council of Wales.
“In the last five to ten years the increasing number of girls wearing hijabs is tremendous,” he said.
Mr Kidwai said that while first-generation immigrants had an “inferiority complex” and tried to emulate the British, their children were adopting Islam as a means of carving out an identity in a culture that he believes does not accept them.
“People who are born here, who spend all their life here, see no matter what they do they can never be assimilated,” he said.
“They decide then: OK then, I can integrate but I can have my values, my religion.” …
There are now over 30 mosques in Wales. At the Cardiff Muslim Primary School in Wales, housed in an old Church of Wales school formerly known as Saint Monica’s, enrolments are increasing. “Last year we had roughly 50 children and now there’s 95 and a waiting list”, said school principal Clare Fox-Rashad, who converted to Islam 12 years ago and is married to a Libyan.
She said the state school system offends many Welsh Muslims because it teaches that all religions are “right”.
“We know what we believe is right,” Ms Fox-Rashad said. “They push Christmas a lot and Easter and these types of things and it’s not something that we can get involved in”. Children are taught the Koran and Arabic instead of Welsh.
The school does not follow the national curriculum and is not subject to rigorous inspections by local government, Ms Fox-Rashad said …
“There is still distance, people are not fully integrated, they are not fully merged yet, definitely there is a barrier,” he said. Mr Ashghar said that immigrant communities had tried hard to adopt Welsh culture and now the Welsh need to embrace the immigrants …
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I have a Welsh friend who tells me the Muslims can spit on you, and you are not allowed to do anything. Political correctness? or fear?
The demographic profile is changed forever.