Debates about contemporary Islam and Muslims in the West have taken some negative turns in the depressing atmosphere of the war on terror and its aftermath. This book argues that we have been too preoccupied with problems, not enough with solutions.The increased mobilisation and scrutiny of Muslim identities has taken place in the context of a more general recasting of racial ideas and racism: a shift from overtly racial to ostensibly ethnic and cultural including religious categories within discourses of social difference. The targeting of Muslims has been associated with new forms of an older phenomenon: imperialism. New divisions between Muslims and others echo colonial binaries of black and white, colonised and coloniser, within practices of divide and rule.This book speaks to others who have been marginalised and colonised, and to wider debates about social difference, oppression and liberation.

Introduction: Muslim Geographies: Spaces of Hope? - Richard Phillips and Tahir Abbas Part I: Spaces of Hope? 1. Spaces of Hope: Interventions - Ziauddin Sardar 2. Muslims in the West: Deconstructing Geographical Binaries - Peter Hopkins 3. The Hopeful and Exclusionary Politics of Islam in Australia: Constructing Alternative Geographies of Western Islam - Kevin Dunn and Alanna Kamp Part II: Convivial Cities 4. Veils and Sales: Muslims and the Spaces of Postcolonial Fashion Retail - Reina Lewis 5. Citizenship and Faith: Muslim Scout Groups - Sarah Mills 6. The Utopian Space of the Islamic Bathhouse or Hammam - Magda Sibley and Fodil Fadli 7. Making space for Muslims: Housing for Bangladeshis in London - Ayona Datta Part III: Economic and Political Empowerment 8. Muslim Economic Initiatives: Global Finance and Local Projects - Jane Pollard, Hilary Lim and Rajeswary Ampalavanar Brown 9. Muslims and the Anti-War Movements - Richard Phillips and Jamil Iqbal 10. Liberalising Islam: Creating Brits of the Islamic Persuasion - Sarah Glynn Part IV: Integration and Resistance 11. British Muslims and 'Community Cohesion' Debates - Claire Dwyer and Varun Uberoi 12. Residential Integration: Evidence from the UK Census - Kevin Brice 13. Muslim-American Hyphenated Identity: Negotiating a Positive Path - Selcuk R. Sirin and Selen Imamo? 14. 'After 7/7': Challenging the Dominant Hegemony - Tahir Abbas