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Britain and Islam

I reproduce here a very nice article unearthed at the site of ABP (Agence Bretagne Presse) ...

250,000 Muslims Breton

In a novel pretty well removed, "In the name of God" , published in 1991, the Surgeon General Lapeyssonnie who was born in Montpellier, but who had settled in after a long Plouray knocked in Africa and Asia, imagined that the whole of Europe had become Muslim in the 2020s. The arrival peaceful but massive immigration from the south and the fascination with Islam softened and decadent Europeans, had arrived a few years to topple the old Europe, without violence and with almost no resistance in camp followers of the prophet Muhammad. In Britain as elsewhere, the churches had all been turned into prayer rooms and minarets steeples, whence the cry of the muezzin calling to prayer every day as once the bells of the ancient parishes called the Angelus. From humble Janissaries armed with scimitars now controlled traffic on the roads of Britain inside instead of former policemen and the breath had become unnecessary since the alcohol was now prohibited.

Finally, things were not too badly and the Britons, like other Europeans, Chittenden had new political and religious.

The only serious problem for the Britons (and many other Europeans) had been a total ban, on pain of death, production and consumption of pork. A handful of diehards Britons, however, was also increased and, in the utmost secrecy, a few brave resistance had saved a few pigs they raised in the backwoods of the Black Mountains and Mount Arrée. They had kept the secret of the wonderful charcuterie that is produced once in all the farms in Britain and they had dared to return, still in hiding, making of sausage, rillettes, pate and all sorts of delicious products banned, first for their own consumption and for relatives, friends, neighbors and, step by step, many more bad Muslims. .. An incredible traffic had gradually organized throughout the country. The Janissaries had indeed made some good catches, made arrests, followed by interrogation, and the Islamic courts were sentencing more severe. The traffic had continued to grow and yet he would soon crack the Islamic order throughout Europe and cause its final collapse ...

This novel form of slight fable would do no premonitory and General Leon Lapeyssonnie doctor who had rather a spirit of Voltaire, but mostly felt a great affection for the people of the Sahel and Afghanistan, which he had long shared life wanted mainly by conjuring fears of humor etr anxieties of many of our compatriots to the supposed rise of Islam and the arrival of many immigrants from Turkey, Algeria, Morocco and others in a Britain gradually become a land Immigration ...

Today there are in Britain between 200,000 and 250,000 Muslims, which is relatively small compared to many other regions of France, where they are now a total of between 6 and 8 million. Overall, the integration of these new Britons going pretty well, but in Britain as elsewhere, there arises for those who want to practice their faith, a problem of childcare. There are today in France than 1800 mosques and prayer halls while many more are needed to meet the needs. It is also the case in Brittany.

There are currently Ancenis Islamic cultural centers in Brest, Chateaubriant, Guingamp, Lanester, Lorient, Nantes, Quimper, Rennes, Saint-Brieuc, Saint-Herblain Saint-Nazaire, valves and probably yet elsewhere, others are planned.

One of the earliest mosques in Britain was opened in 1980 in Nantes, in the new district of Malakoff, bordering the Loire, in the municipality Chenard (1977-1983). The Al Forqan, which is widely open to visitors, was installed in an old Catholic chapel dedicated to Saint Christopher, abandoned after the opening of the new parish church of St. Marc in 1970. Since then, two other Islamic cultural centers have been established in the city of Nantes.

In Rennes, the first Islamic cultural center was created in 1983 the municipality Hervé ZUP south, despite strong opposition from a number of individuals and groups, after a quarter century of existence, one can only see a seamless integration of the center in a neighborhood which live in harmony new Britons from many countries around the world and sharing of cultures and religions and philosophies vary widely. A second Islamic center was opened in Rennes at the end of 2006, without the Wave mondre ... There were a few more here and there isolated acts of malice, inscriptions xenophobic attacks against the prayer hall of Quimper, but overall the existence of these venues and religious practice, particularly intense at the time of Ramadan, poses no real problems.

The history of relations between Britain and the Britons with the Muslim world is a long history that has not been any large survey. This story has been a long history of conflict. Britons took part in the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula: a brother Nominoë have fought against Muslims from the latest small Christian strongholds in the mountains of northern Spain, the Britons were involved in the recovery and still in the Lisbon final set of Granada in 1492. The Britons were mostly many participated in the Crusades (in Breton "Brezelioù ar Groaz" , the wars of the cross) in the East, Palestine, Egypt and Tunis, several dukes of Brittany attended in person; these vast military campaigns of the Christian West against the Muslim East was also the occasion for meetings and exchanges, as has been well emphasized the historian Jean-Christophe in his recent book "East of the Britons in the Middle Ages" (Ar Falz, 2007, 267 pages) ...

Brittany Maritime activities have until the eighteenth century were hampered by attacks from Barbary pirates in the Atlantic, sometimes very close to our shores, and many Breton sailors prisoners found themselves sold as slaves in the markets of Algiers, Tunis and Salé . States to Britain, predecessors of the Regional Council had to vote regularly are important for the redemption of freedom of Britons enslaved in Islamic ... Breton sailors have conducted several military attacks against both the "nests" Barbary pirates in North Africa.

But there was also, we must emphasize strongly, the Britons who have become passionate about the Muslim civilization and who have been traffickers between the lands of Islam and West. The vitreous-Claude Etienne Savary (1749-1788) was one of the most remarkable of them. He stayed for three years in Egypt and soon mastered the language perfectly, then he spent two years in the Greek islands, then under Turkish rule. Back in Europe, he devoted himself since the publication of his work, and in 1781 he published a fine translation of "Koran" (which should be reissued in 1798, in 1821 and again in 1829). In 1784 he met the most beautiful thoughts of the Koran as the "Moral of Muhammad or Series purest maxims of Muhammad" prior to publication in 1785, then 1798, its famous "Letters on Egypt" (which did not leave during Bonaparte's Egyptian Expedition). In 1789, shortly after his death, he published "The Loves of Anas-Eloudji" and "Ouardi tale translated from the Arabic" and not until 1813 that it was published "Grammar of the Arabic language vulgar and literal" who's main objective was to allow travelers and traders to understand and speak Arabic ...

To conclude this overview

too fast, we must remember that it is in Britain that meet every year for over 50 years, faithful Christians and Muslims in a common prayer on the last Sunday of July, in the hamlet of Seven Saints , after the annual pardon. This meeting between Christians and Muslims is probably unique in the West, we must create, in 1954, the great Orientalist Louis Massignon (1883-1962), professor at the College de France, a specialist in mystical Islam and passionately committed to the UK . He was struck by the fact that revered in Britain for centuries the seven young Christian martyrs of Ephesus (including a beautiful lament in Breton recounts a long history), the same contained in sura 18 of "Koran" , which is read throughout the Muslim world during Friday prayers. The very symbol

Box can help to overcome the fear of others and encourage dialogue among all. It does not make a clean sweep of our history and our identity as in the novel of Leo Lapeyssonie, but remaining ourselves, to know us and recognize us. This openness to other cultures is precisely one of the fundamental components of the Breton identity.