[Islam-Online- Politic]

When you realize the full extent of true Muslim commitment, you can see how sometimes venturing out into life in a non-Muslim environment can be full of difficulties and embarrassing situations, a real obstacle course.

The temptations are almost overpowering. For example, some Muslims have come to the West from very poor backgrounds and find themselves surrounded by all sorts of luxuries and freedoms unavailable back home. Others come from very wealthy backgrounds, and can buy anything they want - far more, usually, than an ordinary person in their host community - and this includes all expensive vices.

Of course, not every person who shifts to a non-Muslim society from the Middle East or Pakistan or further east is a practicing Muslim - just has the entire population of Britain, for example, is not practicing Christian. Just as the white face is certainly not synonymous with "Christian," so the brown face is certainly not synonymous with "Muslim."

Problems
Muslims do not tend to mix very much with the non-Muslim society in which they find themselves, but keep very much to their own kind. There are many reasons for this, some of which derive from the ethnic and cultural background of the Muslim community, but others which are specifically "Muslim problems," which will apply just as much to the increasing number of western converts to Islam. The major difficulties are food problems, the presence of alcohol, and the allowing of unaccustomed freedoms to women and the young.

Some areas that cause particular difficulties are mixed-sex schools, and enforced communal life (i.e. hospital, prison), the availability or otherwise of facilities for Islamic burial, facing aggression and hostility from racist elements in the community, finding suitable lodgings or other accommodation, and the sexual freedom granted to women and the young. One drastic freedom granted to Western women is the right to divorce their husbands, not only for just cause, but simply because in their opinion the marriage has "irretrievably broken down." This freedom, although sanctioned by the Qur'an and several hadiths that show the Blessed Prophet allowing the disentanglement of unhappy marriages, seems to be not available to many Muslim women from various Third World countries

*excerpt from Living Islam: Treading the Path of the Ideal, by Ruquaiyyah Waris Maqsood

Society