scholars to join our side, adding more weight to our initiative. We used reminders from Qur'anic verses, such as: 'My Lord, increase me in knowledge' (Ta Ha 20: 114), and the Prophetic hadith (teaching): 'Seeking knowledge is obligatory upon every Muslim' (Ibn Majah) to encourage parents to guide their children into more fulfilling career paths. There is another powerful hadith: 'Whoever travels a path seeking knowledge, God makes easy their path to Paradise.' (Muslim) The need for better education was paramount, since Bangladeshi children were underperforming in Tower Hamlets. School attendance and punctuality were often poor, and many families suffered economic hardship and lived in overcrowded housing. What they needed was increased confidence and skills in order to create higher expectations at home and generate higher aspirations in their offspring.
With our small efforts, a few young men left their monotonous, low-skilled jobs and enrolled on vocational technical courses. Some even chose new careers, away from a life of catering or sewing. A few went on to positions in business and others in academia, while some came back to work with the area's growing number of charities. The ELM management was very supportive of this effort.
We slowly started to see improvements. During the past two decades, the results of Bangladeshi schoolchildren have improved significantly; they are now achieving higher than the national average percentages of A* to C in GCSEs, including English and mathematics. The outcome is that there has been a significant increase in the numbers of British Bangladeshi children going to university, and the trend has been encouraging for other communities as well. Tower Hamlets, being the spiritual home of the British Bangladeshi diaspora, has always been looked up to by other Bangladeshis in Britain. What is most needed now is to translate this academic success into even better employment and economic opportunities to fully contribute to the wider society. We need improved social mobility.
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Raising a community's educational as well as socio-economic standard has always been my passion. Those who find time beyond their regular daily job and make (often unnoticed) contributions to our social life are the unsung heroes of our society. In this age of egocentrism and greed, this service ethos (Arabic: khidmah) is vital to our society's wellbeing. For religious adherents this is also highly rewarding, and Britain's faith groups have always been pioneering in the voluntary and community sector. A community that is otherwise behind others in socio-economic factors needs intervention from some of its members to raise its standards. Those who have the vision to serve, and can find some free time to invest in their future generation, should not shy away. I gradually entered this world of community activism, perhaps through a latent push by my own family tradition, especially the work of my brother, or maybe drawn by my initial attachment to people from my own ethnic background in east London.
Physics research and the world of physics still brought me great pleasure. However, I gradually felt that my success in academia would be limited. As I was becoming drawn further towards youth work, I became less enamoured with research. I felt torn, yet only Sayeda really knew what was going through my mind. Until the end of the 1980s, I had been merely a volunteer at the ELM. I learned from various elders that before my involvement the mosque management had switched alignment from Tablighi Jamaat (a global Muslim missionary organization, born out of the South Asian Deobandi movement) towards Jamaat-e-Islami, the largest religious party in Bangladesh that sided with Pakistan against the country's breakup in 1971. Both these religious movements originated in British India during the British Raj, to educate Muslims in their own ways.
The primary aim of Tablighi Jamaat, created in India in 1927 by Maulana Ilyas al-Kandhlawi, was the spiritual reformation of Muslims at the grassroots level. Its 'Six Point' teachings are: Kalimah (Islam's declaration of faith); Salat (ritual prayer); Ilm (knowledge), Ikram-e-Muslim (respect for Muslims); Ikhlas-e-Niyat (purity of intention); and Dawat wa Tabligh (invitation and conveyance). Tablighi Jamaat claims it is apolitical and focuses on the Qur'an and Hadith.
Jamaat-e-Islami was founded by journalist-turned-Islamic theologian and socio-political reformist, Abul A'la Maududi (or Mawdudi) in 1941 in British India. Jamaat started as a socially conservative movement, but became an Islamic political organization in both Pakistan and Bangladesh. Maududi emerged as an Islamic revivalist and influential intellectual with a belief that politics was 'an integral, inseparable part of the Islamic faith'. Jamaat participated in the democratic movement in Pakistan during the Martial Law period in the 1960s, but when Bangladesh rose against the Pakistani military crackdown in 1971, due to its active support for a united Pakistan Jamaat was banned in Bangladesh after independence. It was, however, allowed to resume political activities in 1978; when Jamaat became a political force and joined with the country's two main political parties, Awami League (AL) and Bangladesh Nationalist party (BNP), in a coalition against military rule in the 1980s.
I respected the elders of both camps in east London, those who were Jamaat-oriented and those Tablighi-focused. I felt comfortable because they were dedicated individuals with a long-standing record of community service in the management committee, including Sulaiman Jetha (formerly of the Ismaili community) and Haji Taslim Ali, a Bangladeshi philanthropist and keen Tablighi.
In 1978, the better-organized leadership of the Jamaat group formed a community organization in the East End called Dawatul Islam UK & Eire (DI), meaning 'Call to Islam', attracting various Bangladeshi elders as well as some youths. These youth members also formed their own group, the Young Muslim Organization (YMO) in the same year. However, after the first purpose-built structure of the East London Mosque was completed in 1985, and the mosque began to gain influence and stature within the local community, tensions began to grow within the DI leadership over who would run the mosque. Having finished my PhD, I also got involved in the ELM as well as DI in the late 1980s.
It was painful to see the misunderstandings and recriminations arise, and I joined in the efforts of a few professionals to try and heal these rifts – but to no avail. During much of 1987, others within the wider Muslim community made attempts to sort out the differences, but could not make any headway. The recriminations were becoming embarrassingly public, and eventually the YMO decided enough was enough and withdrew their support from Dawatul Islam. Well-connected with many youth leaders in Tower Hamlets' Bangladeshi community, they attempted to bring in changes to the composition of the ELM's management.
Meanwhile, some British-Bangladeshi professionals both within and outside DI, including some former members of the YMO leadership, felt it was time to build a professional network in the UK and across several other European countries to concentrate on future generations of the Bangladeshi diaspora. I was very unhappy with the nature of community politics from those with supposedly Islamic leanings. I wanted to contribute to the professional class of the Bangladeshi diaspora and their future generations. So I became involved in this process from the beginning, working with a few dozen like-minded people, and in March 1988 we formed an organization called the Islamic Forum Europe (IFE). The YMO became a partner organization of the IFE and I was elected its first president. Its main objective was to bring together Bangladeshi professionals settled in various UK cities and universities, as well as those who were newly arriving in Britain and other European countries, to harness the talents of professionals in order to build the community's capacity. We received support from an influential office bearer at the East London Mosque during the 1980s, Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin, although he was not part of the IFE leadership.
A natural link grew between the ELM, the IFE and the YMO. In Tower Hamlets' close-knit Bangladeshi community, where almost everyone knew one another, the three organizations shared volunteering responsibilities. This cooperation created a synergy later on, towards the end of 1990s, and helped the ELM grow immensely. I remained IFE's president during its early years, it was an exciting period of growth, and all membership and council positions were voluntary. There was a small executive body, with a few designated volunteers, to organize a database of supporters and put together occasional events in major cities with a Bangladeshi presence. I would use some weekends and evenings to meet relevant people and plan for the IFE's future, as well as spend time with young people and occasionally their families. The IFE's initial goals were
