Muslims need to take responsibility for their safety when travelling, faith dialogue expert says

Faith Matters founder says Muslim visitors to the UK should wear what they feel comfortable in but be aware that Islamophobia does exist.

Fiyaz Mughal says visitors to London from Muslim countries need to take personal responsibility for their safety. Richard Gardner / Rex

LONDON // Fiyaz Mughal, founder and director of interfaith organisation Faith Matters, says visitors to the city from Muslim countries need to take personal responsibility for their safety – and to be aware that Islamophobia does exist.

The head of the non-profit organisation dedicated to improving dialogue between faiths across the UK, said the city was generally safe, tolerant and inclusive, but a touch of reality was needed among tourists.

“Do people who come here over the summer from the Gulf states have a rose-tinted view of life in England? Yes, they certainly do,” Mr Mughal said.

“Absolutely people should come to London, it’s great. But be personally aware of your safety and be self-aware … you don’t need to be carrying Harrods bags around.”

Mr Mughal said there was a difficult debate to be had about whether Arabs should avoid wearing traditional clothing on UK visits.

“Our message is no, stay the person you are. Just be aware of your surroundings,” he said.

Ed Husain, author of The Islamist, caused outrage in the Muslim community last month after the murder of Saudi Arabian woman Nahid Almanea, who was wearing an abaya when she was killed. Husain tweeted a suggestion that women should stop wearing the hijab in the UK.

Mr Mughal said the implication that Muslim women “bring criminality upon themselves because of the way they dress” was a bizarre take on the outdated argument that women who dress provocatively have only themselves to blame if they are raped.

“So now if you wear more clothes, you deserve to be beaten up?”

But it is an “extremely tricky” issue, Mr Mughal admitted.

On the one hand, “If Britain is really a tolerant country, as it said, then it needs to tolerate people who are different. That’s the whole point.”

On the other hand, statistics compiled by Tell Mama, or Measuring Anti Muslim Attacks, show that when it comes to violence against Muslims, “visibility is a factor”.

A report published last year by researchers at the University of Birmingham, based on data compiled by Tell Mama, showed attacks on Muslim women accounted for 58 per cent of all assaults on Muslims in the UK in the past decade.

Of those, “80 per cent were visually identifiable, wearing hijab, niqab or other clothing associated with Islam”.

Ultimately, said Mr Mughal, it must be up to the individual.

“If women feel really uncomfortable, if they want to take off the hijab, in the end it has to be their choice.”