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Nazli Kibria

First published on: 12 July 2007

Kibria, Nazli(2008) 'The 'new Islam' and Bangladeshi youth in Britain and the US', Ethnic and RacialStudies, 31: 2, 243 — 266, First published on: 12 July 2007 (iFirst)

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The ‘new Islam’ and Bangladeshi

youth in Britain and the US

Nazli Kibria

Abstract

In this paper I look at the growth of revivalist Islam Á the ‘new Islam’ Á

within Muslim migrant communities in Western societies. I do so througha comparative analysis of how Bangladesh-origin Muslims in Britain andthe US view and understand revivalist Islam, especially its popularityamong youth within their communities. I explore the effects of nationalcontext, exploring the ways in which variations of history and context of settlement shape the character of revivalist Islam in the British and USBangladesh-origin communities. I find that Bangladesh-origin Muslimsin Britain and the US see the growth of revivalist Islam to be a responseto the growing salience of ‘Muslim’ as a public identity for them in thesecountries. Other explanations include a deep sense of political and

cultural alienation from the West, coupled with a desire, especially amongthe younger generation, to distance oneself from an identification withBangladesh. The impact of national context is evident in how theseunderstandings are expressed as well as in their implications for patternsof incorporation. The growth of revivalist Islam appears to be a far morecontested matter among the Bangladesh-origin community in Britainthan it is in the US.

Keywords: Bangladeshi immigrants; Muslim youth; revivalist Islam; identity;

second-generation Muslims; South Asian immigrants.

Contemporary Muslim migrant settlements in North America andWestern Europe are marked by the visible growth of revivalist Islam(Aminah 2000; Werbner 2002; Cainkar 2004; Roy 2004; Schmidt 2004;Peek 2005). Based on a fundamentalist model of Muslim identity andpractice, the ‘new Islam’ as it is often called, has been especiallypopular among migrant youth, including those born and raised in the

receiving societies. These developments raise questions about theparticular appeal of revivalist Islam, especially for migrant youth, as

Ethnic and Racial Studies Vol. 31 No. 2 February 2008 pp. 243 Á 266

# 2008 Taylor & FrancisISSN 0141-9870 print/1466-4356 onlineDOI: 10.1080/01419870701337593

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well as the implications of this trend for the incorporation of Muslimmigrant communities.

In this paper I explore these issues through a qualitative study of perspectives on the new Islam among Muslim Bangladesh-origin

persons in Britain and the US. Writings on revivalist Islam draw ourattention to the global scope and character of the organizations,ideologies and conflicts that underlie this movement. In the case of migrants to the West, the rise of the new Islam has also been attributedto the exigencies of the migration experience. That is, revivalist Islamoffers a way of coping with the challenges posed by living in a newsociety, especially one in which Muslims find themselves to be aminority. What has, however, been relatively neglected in this discus-sion is the variable of national context and its possible role in shaping

and mediating the rise of revivalist Islam within Muslim migrantcommunities in the West. Reflecting what Halliday (1999) hasdescribed as the widespread assumption of homogeneity in the Muslimworld, Muslim migrants in the West are often viewed as a singular andmonolithic group. In this paper I explore the potential significance of national context through a case-study of views of revivalist Islamwithin Bangladesh-origin migrant communities in Britain and the USand prevailing explanations for its popularity among youth. DoBangladeshis experience and view the growth of revivalist Islamdifferently, depending on whether they are in Britain or the US?And what do these differences, if any, suggest about the potential roleof national context in shaping the rise of revivalist Islam?

Muslim migrant youth in the West

The contemporary era has been marked by the widespread growthand visibility of movements of revivalist Islam within Muslim societiesand communities. I use the term ‘revivalist Islam’ to refer to a modelof Muslim identity and practice that is marked by what Sutton

and Vertigans describe as praxis, or the ‘fusion of theory and action’(2005, p. 8). Specifically, there is a concern for scripturalism andtotalism, a return to basic principles and an emphasis on thesignificance of Islamic thought for all aspects of life (see Antoun2001; Roy 2004; Turner 2004). As exemplified by the discourse of suchpowerful revivalist movements as the Muslim Brotherhood and theJamaat-i-Islami, a central and notable tenet of revivalist Islam hasbeen the notion of a global Muslim ummah Á a transnational supra-geographical community of fellow Muslims (Hassan 2002).

Revivalist Islam is an increasingly important feature of manyWestern societies and its Muslim migrant settlements. As reflected inthe popularity of such youth-oriented groups as the Muslim StudentsAssociation in the US and the Young Muslim Organization in Britain,

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the growth of revivalist Islam has been especially prominent amongthe youth segment of Muslim migrant communities. To be sure, it is byno means the case that all Muslim migrants or all Muslim migrantyouth are active participants and supporters of revivalist groups and

movements. There are those who reject and shun such organizationsand others who are supportive in nominal or uneven ways. Notwith-standing this diversity of involvement, the fact that revivalist Islam hasbeen an important trend among youth in these communities is difficultto dispute. As Glynn notes in her work on Bangladeshis in EastLondon: ‘although it its impossible to give exact numbers of peopleinvolved, that is not the point. [The] new Islam . . . has absorbed theenergies of the most active young members of the community, allowingit to have an effect well beyond its simple numerical strength’ (2002,

p. 969).In explaining the turn to the new Islam among youth, scholars have

pointed to the impact of the social and psychological dislocationsof migration. Especially when the society from which they have comeis one with a Muslim majority, Muslim migrants find themselves inan environment in which Islam is no longer normative and institutio-nalized as it was in the past. This results in enhanced reflexivity and aquestioning of previously taken-for-granted assumptions about what itmeans to be Muslim. In his work on Muslim migrants in Europe,

Olivier Roy (2004) argues that under these circumstances of ‘de-institutionalization’, migrants are driven to search for a ‘pure’ Islam,one that is focused on a strict return to the ‘true’ tenets of Islam.

Analysts also agree that around the world today, for Muslimmigrants and others, revivalist Islam is fueled by a deeply felt politicaland ideological rift and even enmity between Muslims and the Westernworld (Sutton and Vertigans 2005). Recent military conflicts, such asthe US-led invasion of Iraq, have clearly fuelled this sense of division.In addition, for migrants in the West, the perception of a Muslim Á

West divide is also fostered by local encounters with religious stigma.In fact many observers contend that for Muslims in the West today,experiences of hostility and exclusion from the dominant receivingsociety are pervasive and endemic. Since the 1980s, and particularlyafter 9-11 Á the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in the US Á therehas been widespread vilification of Muslims. Indeed, the sheermagnitude of this stigmatization, in its scope and depth, has ledsome to argue that in the West today, Muslim identity has undergone‘racialization’, acquiring an ascriptive and naturalized character. With

this development, Muslims have become a stigmatized racial group.Thus Alexander writes with reference to the British context: ‘Muslimshave... become the new ‘black’[s] with all the associations of culturalalienation, deprivation and danger’ (2000, p. 15).

The ‘new Islam’ and Bangladeshi youth 245

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Muslim migrants have of course responded to these conditionsof hostility and stigmatization in varied and situationally shiftingways. Thus Grewal (2003) notes how in the immediate aftermathof 9-11, there were Muslims in the US who engaged in protective

strategies such as visible displays of the American flag and avoidanceof neighbourhoods with mosques. At the same time, the dynamicsof reactive solidarity have also been powerfully evident. In theface of intensified scrutiny and hostility, Muslims have developed agreater and more self-conscious sense of collective identity, and moreinterest in the cultivation and support of Muslim institutions andmovements. In a study of Muslim university students in New York andColorado, Peek notes their efforts in the aftermath of 9-11 to‘strengthen and assert their identities at this time in order to

strengthen their positive self-perception and correct public misconcep-tions’ (2005, p. 240).For later-generation Muslim youth, revivalist Islam may provide a

particularly attractive source of community, support and self-esteem.For one thing, their expectations of equitable treatment from andacceptance by the dominant society are likely to be higher than that of their immigrant parents. Thus the experience of Muslim stigmatizationprovokes a particularly sharp reaction among them. Under theseconditions, revivalist Islam offers a well-defined set of rules by whichto conduct one’s life and to assert a sense of positive difference fromthe dominant society. It also gives a powerful sense of membership ina global community that transcends citizenship and nationality.Analysts have noted the particular appeal of the ummah ideology forMuslim migrants and particularly for their offspring who are copingwith the dislocations and tensions of identity generated by themigration process (Aminah 2000; Masood 2005).

Scholars also note that for Muslim migrant youth, the experience of marginalization may be further compounded by a growing sense of alienation from the immigrant community (Jacobsen 1997; Aminah

2000; Glynn 2002; Masood 2005). Given their limited exposure to the‘homeland’, later-generation youth are increasingly unable to relatemeaningfully to the ethnic culture of their parents. At the same time,they feel distant from and unaccepted by the dominant society.Confronted then with a deep sense of cultural and social void, theselater-generation migrants turn for support and meaning to theinstitutions and ideologies of revivalist Islam. Among other things,revivalist Islam may provide Muslim migrant youth with a means toassert their distinction and independence from the immigrant genera-

tion. Of note here is that the new Islam which attracts the young maybe quite different from the style of Islam practised by the immigrantgeneration. Among South Asian immigrants, for example, religiouspractices are heavily informed by ‘homeland’ folk traditions and

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ideologies of nationalism as well as the mystical traditions of SufiIslam. The divided approaches towards Islam along generational linesmay become a flashpoint for family conflicts produced by the strainsand tensions of the migration process. Thus Jacobsen (1997) in her

study of British Pakistanis, describes how revivalist Islam is invoked bythe young as a source of authority and legitimacy in its efforts to rejectthe restrictions imposed on them by their parents and, more generally,to assert their independence. She writes: ‘many of the respondentscriticized their parents for maintaining interpretations of Islam whichare excessively confining or narrow, and based their arguments on thenotion of there being a distinction between the ethnic culture to whichtheir parents adhere . . . and the ‘‘true’’ teachings of Islam’ (Jacobsen1997, p. 241).

To summarize, the literature usefully draws our attention to acritical set of shared conditions for Muslim migrants in the West. Therise of revivalist Islam reflects the challenges of migration, inparticular of settlement in an environment in which Islam is no longerwidely institutionalized and in fact perceived by some to be at oddswith the dominant society. In general, Muslims in the West have facedgrowing anti-Muslim sentiment. For migrant youth who face margin-alization in both the dominant society and the immigrant community,revivalist Islam may offer a powerful means to assert a positive anddistinctive sense of identity.

In this paper I look at the experiences of some Muslim migrantswho are of shared national origins but who are settled in differentWestern countries. Using this case-study approach, I hope to offerinsights into the formative role played by national contexts. While theexclusive focus on Bangladeshis is a limitation of the study, it is alsoone that allows for intensive exploration of the complex intersectionsof national-specific traditions of Islam, migration and receiving societyconditions.

In what follows, I use the term ‘national context’ to refer to the

specific set of incorporation conditions that face the migrant group inquestion. These conditions are shaped by the group’s history of migration and adaptation to the society of settlement, the nature of transnational ties with the country of origin, as well as the politics andpolicies of incorporation prevalent in the receiving society. My analysisbegins then with a discussion of the national contexts of Bangladesh-origin migration to Britain and the US.

Comparing national contexts: Bangladesh migration and settlement inBritain and the US

The history of Bengali1 migration to Britain can be divided into twodistinct phases. The first phase dates from the early twentieth century


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when seamen from the Sylhet region entered Britain and took upwork in local textile mills, leather factories and, eventually in smallrestaurants. This flow of migrant men, largely rural, and unskilled inbackground, was facilitated in the post World War II years by the 1948

Nationality Act which allowed unrestricted entry into Britain for thecitizens of former colonies. The size of the migration flow at this timewas, however, sharply limited by the restrictions placed on the overseastravel of Bengalis by the Pakistani government through such mechan-isms as the denial of passports. With the independence of Bangladeshin 1971, these restrictions disappeared but, by this time, entry intoBritain had also become more difficult. Starting with the Common-wealth Immigrants Act of 1962,2 a series of increasingly restrictivelaws worked to limit the flow into Britain of persons from its former

colonies (Hickman 2005).The 1970s thus marks the second and current phase of Bangladeshmigration to Britain. If the first phase was marked by an over-whelming predominance of men with a sojourning orientation towardstheir stay in Britain, the second phase has involved family reunifica-tion and permanent settlement. That is, much of the migration flowhas resulted from the sponsorship of family members by those alreadypresent in Britain. Thus the Bangladesh community in Britain today isno longer dominated by male ‘bachelors’ but consists of settledfamilies. At the same time, the roots of current migration flows inearlier established networks have made for important continuities overtime in the character of the community. For example, the Bangladesh-origin community in Britain remains overwhelmingly regional inidentity and orientation. To the extent that homeland ties persist,they are focused on Sylhet, expressed in trips back to ancestral villagesin Sylhet and the support of charitable works in that region.Transnational Sylhet-centred ties have also been fostered by a notuncommon strategy of ‘returning to marry’. That is, some familieshave recruited marriage partners for their children from home districts

in Sylhet. This has served as an important mechanism of ongoingimmigration for Bangladeshis into Britain as well as reinforcement of ties with Sylhet.

Today there are 283,063 persons of Bangladesh origin in Britain.There are significant enclaves of Bangladeshis in the old industrialneighbourhoods of Tower Hamlets, East London and Oldham,Great Manchester. Observers note that young British-born Banglade-shis continue to be heavily reliant on the low-paid and unskilledservice sectors in which their parents held jobs; intergenerational

upward mobility has been limited (Gardner 1995; Eade and Garbin2002). According to UK National Statistics (2005), 60 per cent of Bangladesh-origin men are employed in the distribution, hotel andrestaurant industry. A study in Oldham reports unemployment rates

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for young Bangladesh-origin men (ages 16 Á 24) to be as high as 25 percent, almost double the rate (13 per cent) experienced by their whitecounterparts (Dale et al . 2002).

As shown in Table 1, a variety of indicators show Bangladesh-origin

persons in Britain to be in a position of relative socioeconomicdisadvantage. In comparison to Indian and Pakistani-origin persons inBritain, among Bangladeshis, male unemployment rates are higher,self-employment rates are lower and there are fewer persons witheducational qualifications. While the socioeconomic gap betweenBangladeshis and Pakistanis is moderate, it is extremely wide withIndians.

As described by Eade (1996), p. 236), the early 1980s was a time of significant political mobilization and development for the Bangladesh-

origin community in Britain. Over the course of the 1980s, thecommunity increasingly turned its attention to participation in anti-racist campaigns, faced as they were with the growing strength of theracist politics of the National Front and British National Party. Theperiod was one of growing involvement for the community in localpolitics as Bangladeshis worked to develop representation on localcouncils3 and to push for changes in housing, education and jobs. Theactivism of this period was often marked by an emphasis on issues of class and racial unity, at times under the broadly inclusive banner of ‘black’. The participation by British Bangladeshis in the 1989 Muslimprotests against Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses is often cited as awatershed, signaling a movement away from the anti-racist politics of the 1970s and 1980s and towards a focus on the politics of Islam.Reflecting this development, the 1990s were a period of intensivegrowth in Britain of Muslim institutions, including mosques andIslamic schools. The July 2005 terrorist attacks in London may markthe beginning of yet another political phase for Bangladeshis inBritain. While the precise character of this emerging phase is not yet

Table 1. South Asian origin populations in Britain: socioeconomic indicatorsand characteristics

Bangladeshi Indian Pakistani

Total population 283,063 1,053,41 747,285Unemployment rates, males (%) 18 1 14Self-employment rates* (%) 10 7 23Professional employment rates* (%) 9.8 13 9.3With educational qualifications**(%) 56 17.8 66

82

Source: UK National Statistics Online 2005, ‘Focus on ethnicity and identity’.

* as a percentage of all in employment.

** those with GCSE (‘O’-level) attainment or higher.


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clear, it does appear to mark a time of intensified official scrutiny forMuslim communities in Britain.

In comparison to Britain, Bangladesh migration to the US has amore recent history. In the years after the independence of Bangladesh

in 1971, small numbers of Bangladeshis, mostly students and profes-sionals, took advantage of the liberalized 1965 US immigration laws toenter into the US. However, it is only since the 1980s that theBangladesh presence in the US has become a notable one. Accordingto the 1980 census there were 5,880 Bangladeshis in the US, a numberthat rose to 92,235 in 2000. Because of the recency of migration, theBangladesh-origin population in the US is today an overwhelminglyforeign-born one, a pattern that contrasts with Britain where theBritish-born are coming to predominate.

The late twentieth-century Bangladesh migration to the US hasoccurred through a variety of legal mechanisms, including employerand family sponsorship as well as the Diversity Program, popularlyknown as the Green Card Lottery.4 A review of 1996 Á 2001 data fromthe US Immigration and Naturalization Services showed familysponsorship, the Diversity Program and employment-based prefer-ences to account for 57.4 per cent, 30.5 per cent and 10 per cent of Bangladesh admissions respectively (Kibria forthcoming).

Reflecting the variety of admission mechanisms involved, theBangladesh American population today is a diverse one, involvingpersons from a wide range of regional and socioeconomic back-grounds. This is in contrast to the Bangladesh British communitywhose relative homogeneity in these respects reflects its embeddednessin a limited number of historically established migration networks. Of particular relevance to understanding the growing socioeconomicdiversity of the Bangladesh American population is the fact thatwhereas the employment-based provisions for entry in US immigrationlaws have favoured skilled workers and professionals, the DiversityLottery has offered entry opportunities to persons of less privileged

socioeconomic background.In general, what the available socioeconomic data on Bangladesh

Americans show is an emerging pattern of socioeconomic polariza-tion, one in which more recent entrants tend to be disadvantaged incomparison to earlier settlers.5 As shown in Table 2, 48.4 per cent of Bangladeshis in the US are college educated and 19.3 per cent have lessthan a high school education. While 30 per cent of Bangladeshi menare in managerial and professional occupations, 40 per cent hold jobsin the service or production/manufacturing sectors. The growing

employment of Bangladeshis in low-level service jobs is exemplifiedby their visible presence in the New York taxicab industry (Kibria2005). Table 2 also shows that, as in the British context, in the US aswell, Bangladeshis are in a position of relative socioeconomic

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disadvantage in comparison to the other major South Asian groups.Once again, the gap between Indians and Bangladeshis is an especiallypronounced one.

In recent years, as the numbers of Bangladeshis in the US hasgrown, business and residential enclaves of Bangladeshis (e.g. Astoria,New York) have emerged in some urban areas of the US. Of particularnote is the New York metropolitan area which is home to about half of all foreign-born Bangladeshis in the country (Kibria 2005). None-theless, Bangladesh settlement patterns in the US are overall morevaried and less concentrated in a few limited areas than they arein Britain. As far as political developments are concerned, the9-11 attacks have clearly marked an important period of change.Prior to 9-11, community organizations and activities were marked bya focus on cultural activities and ‘homeland’ political concerns. In theaftermath of 9-11, organizations, such as the Bangladeshi-AmericanFoundation Inc. (BAFI), which are explicitly concerned with fostering

the community’s engagement with the US political system haveemerged (Kibria 2005). These developments have undoubtedly beenspurred by a growing sense of vulnerability among communitymembers. Following the 9-11 attacks, Bangladeshis in the US foundthemselves, along with other South Asians, to be the targeted victimsof hate-crimes.6 The community has also felt the impact of the varioussurveillance measures for Muslim immigrants instituted by the USgovernment. These have included mandatory special registration andinterviews with immigration authorities as well as detainment and

deportation for those suspected of illicit activities (Maira 2004, p. 220).In summary then, the British and American Bangladeshi commu-

nities are clearly different in important respects. The British commu-nity is a more long-established one, and has a larger proportion of

Table 2. South Asian origin populations in the US: socioeconomic indicatorsand characteristics

Bangladeshi Indian Pakistani

Total population (N) 92,235 1,036,600 233,020College graduate or more (%) 48.4 71.9 51.6Less than high school (%) 19.3 9.7 17.3Median household income ($) 40,000 70,000 47,400Persons below poverty line (%)* 16.3 5.0 11.2Persons in managerial and profes-sional occupations (%)*

23.6 49.6 30.1

Persons in service and production/crafts/operators occupations (%)*

30.4 21.6 13.8

Self-employed persons (%)* 8.0 9.8 10.1

Source: 2000 Census of 5 per cent Public Use Microdata Sample, weighted data.* Persons aged 25 Á 64 and in the labour force.


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British-born persons within its ranks. The British community, unlikethe American one, has been concentrated in its origins and orientationin the Sylhet region of Bangladesh. The US migrants have tended, incontrast to their British counterparts, to be from urban and educated

backgrounds. The general socioeconomic profile of the US communityis a more favourable one as highlighted by the far higher proportion of persons in managerial and professional jobs in the US by comparisonto Britain. At the same time, the ever-sharpening pattern of socio-economic polarization within the Bangladesh American populationsuggests that large segments of both the US and British communitiesare in a shared position of socioeconomic disadvantage. Of note too isthe fact that in both Britain and the US, Bangladeshis are socio-economically marginalized in comparison to other South Asian

groups, especially Indians. As far as active engagement with ‘host’society politics, the Bangladeshi community in Britain clearly has a farlonger and well-established tradition and institutional framework thanin the US. Of particular note is the comparative absence in the US of acommunity history of participation in anti-racist campaigns.

There are also important general differences between Britain andthe US as national contexts. In the US, in comparison to Britain,traditions of civic nationalism and immigration are such as to offerrelatively favourable opportunities for integration. Immigration hasbeen a central and long-standing feature of national identity in the US,in a manner that is not the case in Britain. The difference is captured,in part, by the popular comment: ‘the US is a country of immigrants,while Britain is a country with immigrants’. Reflecting this assessment,a New York Times report on South Asian Muslim youth in Britainnotes that integration into the dominant society may be more difficultfor them than their US counterparts: ‘Reared in an often racist milieu,they feel excluded from mainstream British society, which has so farnot yielded to hyphenated immigrant identities as [in] America’(Waldman 2005).

It is also the case that immigrants to Britain and the US confrontand negotiate racial environments that are distinctive in certainrespects. Both in absolute and proportional terms, the non-whitepopulation in the US is much larger than in Britain (Loury, Modoodand Teles 2005, p. 7). The ‘colouring’ of Britain has been fuelled byimmigration, much of it since World War II, from formerly colonizedcountries. In the US, the presence of the non-white population isreflective not only of immigration but also of a history of slavery.Among the specific consequences of these divergent histories are

different notions of racial hierarchy. As Song (2003), p. 123) observes,in the US, the racial hierarchy is widely understood to be one that isorganized around the polarized racial positions of white Americansand African Americans. Faced with this sharply defined racial

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hierarchy, non-white immigrants may work to differentiate themselvesfrom African Americans, in an effort to avoid the stigma of locationat the bottom of the racial hierarchy. In Britain too, as in the US,the racial hierarchy is defined by the dominance of whites. But in

Britain, it is a generalized conception of ‘minorities’ (rather than aparticular minority group) that has defined the lower end of thehierarchy. Thus both scholars and activists in Britain have oftenemphasized the commonality of experience among minorities inrelation to the white majority. It is of note however that thisundifferentiated view of the minority experience in Britain is anincreasingly contested one. Indeed, some argue that it is working-classMuslims who now define the bottom of the British racial hierarchy(Modood 1994; Anwar 1998).

Study methods

The analyses that follow are based on materials from an ongoing studyof Islam and identity in the Bangladesh diaspora. I draw herespecifically on my findings from fieldwork conducted during 2001 Á 4with persons of Bangladesh origin in Britain and the US. In bothcountries, I attended community events and gatherings, and visitedlocal mosques and community centres. My fieldwork was concentratedin London and New York Á the two major centres of Bangladeshisettlement in Britain and the US.

In Britain, I conducted in-depth interviews with forty-four personsand in the US, with fifty-eight persons of Bangladeshi origin. Theinterviews took place in either Bangla or English, depending on thepreference of the informant. They lasted from one to three hours andmost were tape-recorded. Tapes and notes were later transcribed and,if necessary, translated into English. I located respondents throughsnowball sampling methods whereby those interviewed were asked forreferrals to other potential informants. In doing so I made an effort to

avoid over-sampling from a particular social network by limiting thenumber of referrals from any one snowball chain and continuing torecruit participants from other sources. I particularly sought referralsto persons who would expand the range of sample, especially in termsof socioeconomic status as well as levels of participation in Muslimorganizations and groups.

The interviewees ranged in age from 18 to 68, and they includedapproximately equal numbers of women and men. In the Britishsample, eighteen of the forty-four informants were first-generation

immigrants; twenty-two informants were either second or thirdgeneration7 immigrants. In the US sample, thirty-four of the fifty-eight interviewees were first-generation immigrants and twenty-fourwere either 1.58 or second-generation immigrants. Reflecting larger


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demographic patterns, the US sample, in comparison to the Britishone, included a somewhat larger proportion of persons withcollege-level educations and working in technical or professional jobs. In the British sample, thirteen of the twenty-two later-generation

informants described themselves as being heavily involved inMuslim organizations and groups. In the US, the proportion wasslightly less, involving eleven out of the twenty-four later-generationinformants.

Making sense of the new Islam

In what follows I turn to the accounts of Bangladesh-origin persons inBritain and the US about the new Islam Á its place in their own lives

and in that of others around them, especially Bangladesh-origin youth.As we will see, the British and American accounts were marked by anumber of common themes. But there were also some notabledifferences, reflecting variations of national context.

Bengali Islam, new Islam, and an intergenerational di vide

In describing their approaches towards and understandings of Islam,my later-generation informants in both Britain and the US often spokeof feeling distant from Bengali Islam or the style of Islam prevalent inBangladesh. Confirming the findings of other studies (see Glynn2002), I found that the more religiously involved later-generationBangladeshis were especially critical of the deep-rooted presence inBengali Islam of local Bengali folk and Sufi traditions such as theworship of saint cults and harvest festivals. These practices were seenas contrary to ‘pure’ Islam, violating the religion’s core tenets andspirit. But I also found critiques of Bengali Islam to revolve aroundtwo other notions. These were notable for their widespread presenceamong not only those who were religiously involved but also among

those whose support for and participation in revivalist movements wasnegligent. The first idea was that Bengali Islam, unlike ‘true’ Islam,legitimated social inequalities, such as those of social class and gender,as evidenced by the highly stratified and unjust nature of contempor-ary Bangladesh society. The second criticism was that in its unreflexiveand routinized character, Bengali Islam was contrary to the self-conscious spirit of devotion necessary to the belief and practice of trueIslam. Unlike Bengali Islam, the new Islam was vitally premised onindividual choice and self-reflection. More generally, Bengali Islam

represented tradition and hierarchy, in contrast to the reflexivemodernity and equality of the new Islam.

Both the British and American informants spoke of how the BengaliIslam versus new Islam dichotomy could be part of a sense of

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generational division, between the immigrant generation and the latergenerations. That is, the immigrant generation, because of its greaterconnection with Bangladesh, was also understood to be more closelyaligned with Bengali Islam. However, it was also the case that a sense

of generational division in relation to the new Islam was far sharperand more pervasive in Britain than in the US. As noted by Glynn(2002, p. 983) in her analysis of British Bengali life, in Britain thisdivide has at times taken on a sharply political character. She describesa number of well-publicized political issues on which Bangladeshi-origin parents and their Islamist children have taken opposing publicstands.9 When I was in the midst of fieldwork, a ‘hot’ topic of discussion was community disagreement over the observation of theSouth Asian Muslim tradition of Shab-e-Barat.10 There was much

talk of how the younger generation had distanced themselves fromthe observation of Shab-e-Barat, viewing it as a prime example of the cultural syncretism that was characteristic of Bengali Islam. Theolder generation objected, vigorously defending Shab-e-Barat as animportant Muslim practice.

In Britain then, the notion of a generational divide on religion andspecifically on Islamic practice has become a standard theme of Bangladeshi community discourse. In this discourse, the turn torevivalist Islam among the young is typically attributed by eldersto crises of identity, specifically to an absence among the young of meaningful connection to Bengali culture. We see this in the account of a community leader in London, a man in his 50s who had migrated toBritain in the 1970s as a young adult:

We, our generation, we were religious-minded (dharmik ), notfundamentalist (moulobadi ). My generation does not have theidentity problem, we are Bangali.11 But the younger generation,they don’t know what it is to be Bangali. On the other hand, they arenot part of British society. So where will they go? They go to Young

Muslim Brotherhood.

In the US, this understanding of a community generational dividearound the new Islam, while by no means completely absent, wasfar less pervasive and institutionalized in the community’s publicdiscourse than it was in Britain. This difference may reflect the factthat the Bangladesh-origin population in the US, unlike in Britain, isan overwhelmingly foreign-born one. Thus it is immigrants (ratherthan the US-born) who tend to dominate community forums and

a generation-based political divide has yet to become highlyvisible in the community. Also of relevance are recent trends of Islamization and the spread of revivalist Islam in Bangladesh (seeRiaz 2004). Because Bangladeshis in the US tend to be more recent


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migrants, they are more likely than their British counterparts to havebeen exposed to revivalist Islam before migration. They are thenboth more familiar with and receptive to the new Islam that attractstheir offspring.

Indeed, my materials suggest that participation in the institutionsand activities of revivalist Islam is more likely in the US to be a familyaffair, not simply tolerated but even actively supported by immigrantfamily elders. I found that parents in the US often welcomed the newIslam into their children’s lives, viewing it as a useful tool by which toavert the social and cultural assimilation of their children into themainstream society. Moniza, a mother of three children and living inQueens, New York did feel some regret about her children’s growingdistance from Bengali culture as they moved towards the new Islam.

But she took great comfort from the fact that they were not becomingAmerican:

When Sara [14-year-old daughter] started wearing hijab [headscarf]and becoming active in the Muslim groups, I didn’t know what tothink about it. I dress in a decent way and I think that our Bengaliculture and dress is very decent, very modest. I don’t think we needto cover our heads to be decent. But I tell myself, it is better for mydaughter to be hijabi [someone who wears hijab] than to beAmerican. I look at how the young American girls dress. I look atthe problems of this culture, how children treat their parents withdisrespect. It is not so bad that Sara is becoming involved inreligion.

If in the US, the new Islam was seen by parents as useful for avertingcultural assimilation, in Britain, the emphasis instead was on how itproduced distance, taking children away from the ethnic community.A common theme among British parents was that of loss Á of losing

children to the new Islam. Amin, the father of four children, had livedin East London for almost three decades, since his late teens. Hestruggled with how two of his children had become deeply involvedwith the revivalist East London mosque. Amin was far moreconcerned about the influence of the new Islam than that of Britishsociety on his children. He quickly dismissed the possibility of theirintegration into the latter, given racism:

Our community, our culture, is being torn apart by the influence of

places like the East London mosque. The British people don’t acceptus, they have never accepted us and they will never accept us. I havelived here for many years, but I never questioned my Bangaliidentity. My children, they tell me, we are not Bangali; these are

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old-fashioned ideas. Our children are being pulled away from us,we are losing them.

Muslim and Bangladeshi as public identities

Both the British and US informants spoke at some length about theimportance of Muslim as a public and ascribed identity in British andUS society. That is, in the eyes of others, and especially in thedominant society, one was seen as a Muslim; it was one’s identity asMuslim that was the most meaningful for others. For all theinformants, but in a particularly marked way for those in the US,the salience of Muslim as a public identity had been enhanced by theevents of 9-11. Both the British and American informants were keenly

aware of how the growing significance of Muslim as a public identityhad generated a growth of interest in Islam, particularly among later-generation Bangladeshis. Many observed that attendance by youngBangladeshis at Islamic study groups had risen quite dramatically inrecent years.

In speaking of the power of Muslim identity, both the British andAmerican informants comparatively referred to their experience of ‘Bangladeshi’ as a public identity. Whereas for the British, this wasanother important public identity, for the Americans, ‘Bangladeshi’was experienced in largely invisible terms and thus understood to be of limited significance. In the US, as I was often told, one’s assertion of Bangladesh origins is often greeted with a blank stare or the responseof ‘Bangladesh? Where’s that?’ Tahmina, a 19-year-old woman whohad grown up since the age of 7 in the Boston area gave an eloquentdescription of such encounters and how they reinforced her sense thatMuslim was a far more potent public identity than Bangladeshi:

Americans don’t see us as Bangladeshi. If they just see us on thestreet, maybe they think that we are Indian, or Mexican, Latin

American. It does depend on how one looks, and how one isdressed. If I say I’m from Bangladesh, the most common reaction is‘‘Where’s that?’’ Or: ‘‘Oh, that’s the place with all the starvingpeople’’. They have no idea. But if they understand that I’mMuslim, either from my name or for whatever reason, then it’sdifferent. I’m not saying that they actually have real knowledge of Muslims either, but the idea of Muslim means something to themwhereas Bangladesh means almost nothing to them.

As Tahmina’s words suggest, to the extent that Bangladesh did inthe US evoke meanings during encounters within the dominantsociety, it was of a desperately poor country, ravaged by naturaldisasters, poverty and corruption. These meanings were not such as to


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enhance the perceived advantages of affirming a Bangladeshi identity.Indeed, a number of US informants spoke of feeling some embarrass-ment about admitting that they were from Bangladesh in certainsituations because of the country’s poor international image. Jamshed,

a 24-year-old living in Brooklyn, New York, described with some ironyhow he never tried to counter the negative imagery by bringing themore positive aspects of Bangladesh to the attention of others. In atone of defiant frustration, he instead affirmed the problems of Bangladesh:

When I tell people I’m from Bangladesh, they say, ‘‘Oh yeah, poor,starving people. Floods and famines’’. It’s a fact of course, what canyou say? I say, ‘‘yes, it’s poor and starving and you know we’ve been

ranked as the first or second most corrupt country in the world’’.[Laughing] Other countries are famous for their food or music, we’refamous for being poor and corrupt.

Studies show that immigrant groups in the US may use a strategy of ethnonational identification in order to cope with racism. That is, theywork to disidentify from racial stigma and to concurrently publiclyemphasize their ethnonational origins as an alternative identificationto a racial one (Fernandez-Kelly and Schauffler 1994; Kibria 2002).

For example, Waters (1999) has described how immigrants from theCaribbean to the US may at times emphasize such ethnonationalidentities as ‘Jamaican’ in order to avoid stigmatization as ‘black’. Myfindings suggest that among Bangladeshis in the US, ‘Bangladeshi’ israrely invoked as part of such a strategy of counterpoint to the identityof Muslim and its attendant stigmatization.

In Britain, in contrast to the U.S, informants were far less likely tohave experienced the response of ‘Bangladesh? Where’s that?’ Thegreater British familiarity with Bangladesh is no doubt a reflection

both of the history of British colonialism in South Asia as well as thelong-standing presence of a Bangladeshi migrant community inBritain. As in the US, in Britain too, the perceived advantages of affirming a Bangladeshi identity were diminished by negative imagery.In the British case however, this imagery was rooted not only in theinternational reputation of Bangladesh as a country, but also inspecific local stereotypes that reflect the history and conditions of Bangladesh settlement in Britain. Fawzia, an informant who had beenborn and raised in London, spoke of prevailing stereotypes of Bengalis

as ‘backward’, lowly educated and poor. But, as her remarks suggest,the stereotypical traditionalism of Bangladeshis was not without itsredeeming features. Orientalist notions of Bangladeshis as ‘hard-working’ and ‘family-oriented’ were also at play:

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The assumption is that Bengalis are in the restaurant trade or in aninferior sort of job if they are working at all. The assumption is thatthey don’t have much education, they’re backward and have forcedmarriages. The positive part is that Bengalis are seen as family-

oriented and hard-working. As a community they stick together andtake care of each other. There’s actually a lot of admiration out therefor our culture.

Thus if in both Britain and the US, Muslim was acknowledged to bea dominant public identity, in the US it was experienced in moreexclusive terms. In Britain, ‘Muslim’ and ‘Bangladesh’ seemed toco-exist as layered public identities. Among the possible consequencesof this variation is a greater likelihood in Britain that the later

generations will continue to acknowledge their Bangladeshi identity,faced as they are with a situation in which others recognize it.

Moral corruption and narrati ves of mobility

In both Britain and the US, Bangladeshi understandings of revivalistIslam were marked by its conception as a response, a possible antidoteto the moral and spiritual corruptions of Western culture. Even thosewhose own religious involvements were quite minimal spoke of howIslam, and in particular the new Islam, was a counter-trend to thedangers posed by Western culture, of immorality, materialism and self-absorption. Many spoke of a moral and spiritual opposition betweenMuslim and American/British culture. This opposition, particularly inits conception of American/British culture, was further understood inrelation to two different types of mobility narratives. The first was of upward class mobility, accompanied by some degree of integrationinto the dominant receiving society. The second and contrasting onewas of a downward spiral into urban underclass culture. While neitherof these narratives was exclusive to either the British or American

informants, I found that British informants were more likely to invokenarratives of downward mobility and the US informants, ones of upward mobility.

Mahfuz, an engineering student in the US, spoke at some length of the moral contrasts of Muslim and American culture, and the dangersposed by efforts to achieve upward mobility through assimilation intothe mainstream culture. Mahfuz was particularly critical of what hesaw as the immigrant generation’s tendency to try to be ‘like whites’ intheir effort to gain acceptance and to succeed in the dominant US

society. In his remarks, Mahfuz conflates notions of ‘American’ ‘white’and ‘mainstream’ culture, thus highlighting the racialized quality of this narrative of upward mobility, in particular its association withwhite Americans:


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A lot of Bangladeshi [immigrant] parents are blindly copying thewhite culture, in the way that they conduct themselves. They want tofit in, to succeed. They do this even though they don’t really knowany American people in more than a superficial way. I have been

growing up being able to compare our Muslim culture andAmerican culture. American culture has a lot of problems. I havea close white friend and she is a perfect example. She is extremelywealthy, a horrible student, and she takes depression drugs. Herfather is a psychiatrist and he prescribed the drugs for her and hermother and sister take them too. This is very common to Americanlife, it’s always to take the easy way out, instead of searching withinfor strength.

As I have mentioned, narratives of upward mobility were lessprominent in the British accounts than the US ones. An exception wasEnamul, a British informant who had been born and raised in a poorneighbourhood of East London and who self-consciously describedhimself as one of the success stories of the community. Enamul hadattended an elite university and he now held a management post at aLondon bank. While many of his childhood peers had remainedlocked in the low-level service jobs of his parents’ generation, he hadmanaged to overcome these disadvantages. He also prided himself onresisting the dangers of absorption into British culture throughinvolvement in Muslim organizations and self-conscious efforts tomaintain a Muslim lifestyle. As in the previous account, here too, inthe context of upward mobility, British culture is strongly associatedwith ‘whiteness’:

I think my profile is a little different from the average Bengalibecause I have always tried to make sure that I know enough aboutBritish culture so that I can get ahead and protect myself. But I havenot forgotten my roots. I attend Citywide, weekly meetings at the

mosque here where Muslim professionals get together to talk aboutvarious issues. When I compare myself to my white colleagues atwork, I definitely see a difference. I feel that as a Muslim I have asense of discipline and purpose about myself which is quite lackingin the average white person. I don’t drink and smoke, I don’twomanize, and I work hard. I know what is important Á my family,my spirit and my commitment to being a good Muslim.

As observers have noted, involvement in religious groups and

organizations may offer an important alternative path for ‘at-risk’Muslim youth. That is, the new Islam, for disadvantaged youth, canprevent a trajectory of downward spiral into the world of delinquencyand disengagement from the labor market (Masood 2005; Waldman

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2005). The account of Maher, a 21-year-old from Cambridge,Massachusetts, affirms the potentially important role of the newIslam as an alternative to absorption into underclass youth culture.Maher had come to the US in his early teens with his family. By his late

teens Maher had become disengaged from school and increasinglyrebellious and defiant towards his parents. But through a turn toreligion he was able to turn his life around:

For the past year or so, I have become more involved with myreligion. Islam has given me peace. I have a sense of purpose, of discipline. Some tablighis [missionaries] came to the house andinvited me to the mosque to pray. There is a new mosque down ourstreet. I started to go. I also went to an istema [Islamic assembly] in

Pennsylvania to learn how to be a good Muslim. Before that I wasgoing through some tough times. I was basically living in my car,with friends, staying out all night. I couldn’t find peace anywhere. Inhigh school I started hanging out with the bad crowd. These weremainly African American kids who basically had been in trouble alltheir lives. A lot of them are in jail now or dead. I became one of them. I became black. I looked black and I was treated like I wasblack.

As suggested by Maher’s words, the US narratives of ‘downwardspiral’ were likely to be marked by the explicit presence of AfricanAmericans as a reference point. That is, in the understandings of theBangladesh Americans, absorption into underclass culture broughtassociation with African Americans and it attendant racial stigma.While in Britain as well, the spectre of downward mobility was alsogenerally viewed to be part of a minority experience, it was less clearlytied to that of a particular minority group. In a related vein, the Britishinformants were more likely to see the problem of ‘noshto chele’ or‘boys gone bad’ as one that was coming from within the community,

generated by Bangladeshi youth themselves. This was in contrast tothe US accounts, where the problem was understood to be a matter of young Bangladeshis being led astray by other minority group youth.Underlying these differences in perspective were structural variationsof national context. In comparison to the US, Bangladeshis in Britainhave a longer history of socioeconomic disadvantage and segregationfrom the dominant society.

Conclusions

Popular understandings of revivalist Islam assume its fundamentalhostility to modernity (Turner 2004, p. 197). But my findings suggesta more complex relationship (cf. Sutton and Vertigans 2005).


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Bangladeshis in Britain and the US saw the rise of revivalist Islam intheir communities, particularly among the young, to be part of amovement of modernity (cf. Roy 2004; Schmidt 2004). In theirconstructions of the new Islam as ‘modern’, immigrant and homeland

religious traditionsÁ

specifically those of Bengali IslamÁ

were a pointof contrast. Bangladesh itself was a representation of tradition and apoint of contradistinction for expressions among the later-generationinformants, of their own modern identity. My materials thus drawattention to how unitary conceptions of the country of origin may beimportant for Muslim migrants in their understandings of the newIslam.

But the new Islam and its rise was understood to be not onlyabout affirming modernity. It was also an expression of antipathy

towards and anxiety about modernity, in particular of the dangersof moral and spiritual corruption posed by it. Reflecting the impulseof what Antoun (2001) had described as ‘a search for purity inan impure world’, Bangladeshis in Britain and the US spoke of how revivalist Islam could be a means for protecting oneself fromthe moral laxity, commodification and spiritual vacuity in thesurrounding culture.

As we have seen, the rise of the new Islam was widely understoodby both the British and American Bangladesh-origin informants tobe a response to racism and feelings of alienation from the West aswell as a rejection of Bengali Islam and all that it represented. Theimpact of national context was evident not so much in the presenceor absence of these themes, but rather in the specific form taken bythem, and in their particular consequences. If in both communities,the new Islam was understood to hold particular interest for theyoung, in Britain it was more likely to be viewed as a source of generational conflict and division. Underlying this difference is thedense quality of Bengali community ties in Britain, reflecting ahistory of sharp exclusion from the dominant society as well as the

presence of vigorous transnational ties and networks. It was also thecase that in both national contexts, ‘Muslim’ was a potent publicidentity for the Bangladeshis, a critical social marker in thedominant society. But in Britain, unlike the case in the US, thefact of one’s Bangladeshi origins was also likely to receive acknowl-edgement and recognition in public, dominant society settings. If thisdifference persists into the future, it may be that later-generationBangladeshis in Britain will in the long-run be more inclined thantheir counterparts in the US to show greater interest in and

attachment to their Bangladeshi identification, given its significancein the eyes of others.

The impact of national context was evident also in the types of narratives of mobility that laced through the discussions of what was

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appealing to Bangladesh-origin youth about the new Islam. For theUS informants, fears of cultural loss and assimilation were frequentlytied to notions of upward mobility, of the prospects of integration intothe mainstream US society. In contrast, many of the British

Bangladeshis with whom I spoke were more conscious and concernedabout the dangers of downward mobility, of integration into under-class British culture. Among other things, this finding brings ourattention to how socioeconomic contexts that are quite varied maysupport the rise of the new Islam. While the turn to revivalist Islammay indeed be a response to marginality and disadvantage, it cannotbe simply reduced to the idea of coping with poverty (cf. Sutton andVertigans 2005).

What explains the basic similarity in understandings of the new

Islam among the British and American Bangladeshis? Especially giventhe quite divergent histories of Bangladeshi settlement in Britain andthe US, I expected to see more pronounced differences. It may of course be the case that the differences will become more visible in thefuture, as the recently settled Bangladesh American communitydevelops a longer history and more distinctive patterns of integrationinto the US. But there are also compelling reasons to believe that thenew Islam will continue to be understood in quite similar ways byBangladeshis on both sides of the Atlantic.

Both British and American Bangladeshis respond to the rise of thenew Islam from their location within societies that are certainlydifferent but also share many features. Britain and the US are Westernliberal democracies that have both been grappling, in recent times,with notions of what it means to be a multicultural and multiracialsociety. Among Muslims, Britain and the US are likely to be viewed asclose allies, both culturally and politically. In addition, contemporaryrevivalist Islam is clearly a global and transnational movement, withideologies and organizations that extend across space (see Mandaville

2001). Whether it is in London or New York, Muslim migrants havethe opportunity to participate in a common network of Islamicorganizations. A related point is the growing prospects for thedevelopment of transnational networks of information and ideasbetween Bangladeshis in Britain and Bangladeshis in the US. In otherwords, common approaches towards revivalist Islam may be fosteredin the two communities by the exchange of information between them Á a process that is clearly facilitated by the development of the internetand other communication technologies. It is of note that in the past,

these exchanges were limited by the strongly regional (Sylheti)character of the Bangladesh British community, which did not favourthe development of connections with the more regionally diverse(in origins) Bangladesh American population.


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A better understanding of how national context shapes the growth

of revivalist Islam for migrants clearly requires that we look at a wider

array of migrant groups and contexts than those that have been

examined in this paper. Contemporary revivalist Islam is a global and

transnational movement. But it is also likely to reflect the impact of national context, and more generally, the tremendous heterogeneity of

the Muslim migrant experience.

Acknowledgements

This research was funded in part by a 2003 Á 4 grant from the American

Sociological Association, Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline.

Notes

1. I use the term ‘Bengali’ rather than ‘Bangladeshi’ when discussing the pre-1971 period,

before the establishment of the Bangladesh state.

2. The law restricted entry to Commonwealth citizens who has been born in the US or

held a passport issued by the UK government.

3. Loury, Modood and Teles (2005, p.11) note that the penetration of local councils by

Commonwealth immigrants has coincided with the progressive weakening of local

government in Britain.

4. The lottery is open only to those from countries that have sent fewer than 50,000 people

to the US in the past five years.5. US Bureau of Census 2005 (5 per cent Public Use Microdata Sample) on foreign-born

Bangladeshis shows that in 1980, 66 per cent were college graduates, a percentage which

declined to 46 per cent in 2000.

6. The National Asian Pacific Legal Consortium (2001) reports that in the three-month

period following the 11 September attacks, there were nearly 250 bias-motivated incidents

and two murders targeting Asian Pacific Americans.

7. I counted as second-generation those who were the children of immigrants and either

born in the ‘host’ country or had arrived there before the age of 12. The third-generation

included those who were the grandchildren of immigrants.

8. The term ‘1.5 generation’ refers to those who arrived in the ‘host’ country in their

teenage years.9. Glynn (2002) writes of the visibility of this generational divide in a demonstration

against Maulana Sayedee, a Jamat-i-Islami Member of the Parliament in Bangladesh who is

accused of 1971 war crimes in Bangladesh.

10. In Bangladesh and throughout South Asia, Shab-e-barat is observed as the night of

good fortune. The belief is that one’s fate for the coming year is determined on this night.

Many observe fasting during the day and pray throughout the night.

11. ‘Bangali’ and ‘Bengali’ are generally used interchangeably to refer to persons from

Bangladesh and more generally from the Bengal region of South Asia.

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