Overwhelming Majority of UK Muslims Identify as Muslims First over Being British: Report

The vast majority of British Muslims identify with their religion over their nationality, a report has found.

A study conducted by the Institute for the Impact of Faith in Life (IIFL), based on survey data and interviews with 815 British Muslims, has found that over seven in ten (71 per cent) identify as Muslims first.

In contrast, just 27 per cent of British Muslims said they primarily identified as British, English, or Scottish.

The report found that younger people were far more likely to identify as Muslims first at 85 per cent, compared to older Muslims, a majority of whom (57 per cent) identified as being British first.

“When you ask people in their 20s, that were born here, in this country, they can express themselves very freely. They can freely call themselves ‘Muslims’ rather than ‘British’. But if you speak to their father, they will say they are British. The immigrant generation had to push their Muslim identity down so they could integrate,” one of the survey respondents remarked.

Director of Research for the IIFL, Charlotte Littlewood, claimed that the main driver of people identifying as Muslim first was not a “loyalty to Islam” but rather “about not feeling welcomed to identify as British first.”

However, despite supposedly not feeling welcome, the survey found that nearly eight in 10 (78 per cent) saw the UK as a more accommodating country for Muslims than other European nations such as France, Germany, or the Netherlands.

Additionally, the study found that a majority of British Muslims say that they prefer living in the UK compared to a Muslim-majority country, with many saying that because of the “cultural and religious diversity in Britain, their specific religious practices do not ‘stand out’ the way they might in a Muslim country.”

Yet, despite the findings of the IIFL study, a previous survey from the Henry Jackson Society found last year that many British Muslims are apparently deeply out of step with the majority of the country on key issues.

The poll commissioned by the counter-extremism think tank in the wake of the October 7th Hamas terror attacks on Israel found that 46 per cent of British Muslims were sympathetic towards the radical Islamist terror group.

The survey went on to find that 52 per cent of British Muslims thought that it should be illegal to show a depiction of Mohammed, while 32 per cent said they hoped Sharia would be instituted as law in the UK.

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