Conclusion

I would like to conclude by emphasizing again the heterogeneity of

the writers under study, in terms of age, gender, nationality, politi-
cal, and religious positions, and also their writing styles, choice
of genre, publication histories, and critical reception. Despite this
emphasis, there are still problems inherent in the singling out of
this religious group. Because I am interested in texts by writers
of Muslim heritage, there is an attendant danger of abstracting
Muslims from the historical record (when often writers are not prac-
tising or not very interested in Islam), and separating them from
both other ethnic minority groups and White Britons with whom
they have had a shared immigration history or other connections.
On the other hand, there are also advantages to this approach, such
as the fact that it brings writers together from Muslim communities
with heritage in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia whose works may
elucidate each other, while also highlighting divergences.
Muslims in Britain have of course been placed at the very centre
of media attention and political concern in recent years. In my
view, it is important to look at this group, but without pigeonhol-
ing individuals or according greater importance than is warranted
to the religious or civilizational aspects of their Muslim identity.
Furthermore, it would be erroneous to suggest that Islam itself is
a monolithic entity. Dutch literary critic Mieke Bal, whose book
Loving Yusuf centres on (re-)tellings of the joseph story, from the
Bible and Qur'an through to Rembrandt's etchings and Thomas
Mann's Joseph and his Brothers, writes:

Not only is my culture- say, Western Europe- composed of an

enormous number of different traditions, including religious
ones, but it is also constantly being reshuffled into categories
whose importance shifts with issues and situations. Sometimes
age is more important than gender; sometimes class overrules

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© Claire Chambers 2011
 Conclusion

all other groupings. At the present moment, religion, always

politically inflected, is gaining renewed prominence as a tool
for group formation. But never, in no situation, is that culture
homogeneous. 1

There are vast differences in the religious practices of Islam's

two main branches, Sunni and Shia, as well as other groups
such as the devotional Sufis and esoteric Ismailis. As has been
seen, there are also great variations between the worldviews
of people originally from different nations and regions. Even
within a particular ethnic group, there are distinctions between
'rural and urban, rich and poor, educated and illiterate'. 2 Many
of the interviewees unpack the huge category of 'Muslim' in
public debate and begin to engage with the specificities. In the
academy, women, social classes, various ethnicities, and so on,
are commonly discussed, despite the variation that clearly exists
within each grouping. Analysis of the category of people of
Muslim background is also necessary and important, so long as
the diversity within that is not elided.
Identity itself is, as Stuart Hall recognizes, a protean thing
that is constantly being (re-)fashioned and, as the interviews
show, one's religious affiliations as a Muslim intersect with other
signifiers - such as gender, socio-economic status, and national
origins - which assume various degrees of importance in differ-
ent situations. That said, there is nonetheless a need to examine
the religious components of identity, especially because as Amin
Malak observes, 'many Muslims regard religion as a key com-
ponent of their identity that could rival, if not supersede, their
class, race, gender, or ethnic affiliation'. 3 Furthermore, I am
influenced by Tariq Modood's recent book, Multiculturalism, in
which he argues that Wittgenstein's concept of 'family resem-
blance' allows us to recognize distinct ethnic and religious
groups, although these groups alter in different times and space,
and are internally heterogeneous. Modood's contention that
we can identify Muslims as a group despite all their myriad
differences, just as we can detect members of the same family

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