Issues of Islamaphobia, racism, class and culture were placed under searching and scientific scrutiny when  Professor Tahir Abbas, Professor of Sociology at Fatih University, Istanbul gave the latest St Wilfrid lecture, “Getting to know your muslim neighbour: between race, class, ethnicity and culture” at Ripon Cathedral on September 19th.

Professor Abbas’s lecture, part of the  2013  series of St Wilfrid lectures, Expressions of 21st Century Expressions of Community,  presented a large Cathedral audience, which included both students and those with a military background, with a thorough and wide ranging analysis of Islamaphobia in Britain today and which pulled no punches about the obstacles facing Muslims wishing to be part of British society.

Professor Abbas told the large Ripon Cathedral audience, “Aspects of majority society still remain hostile to minorities who are regarded as inferior, backward, alien or simply undesirable … racism remains a major issue in society. In fact it never went away. Colour racism is and has been one of the most pertinent issues facing Britain in the post-war period. A society which inherited colonial and scientific racism has been unable to fully shake off the ‘ghosts of empire’.”

 Listen again to the lecture Getting to know your muslim neighbour: between race, class, ethnicity and culture, here.

Born in Birmingham, England, Tahir Abbas  is author, editor and co-editor of ten books and (co)author of over 70 journal articles and book chapters on the subjects of ethnic studies and Muslim identity politics. His own background, he told the Cathedral audience gave him a  particular perspective on the issues of race, class, ethnicity and culture..“What I provide here are my perceptions as a scholar of ethnic studies and Muslims in the West. I do so as someone who is of British-born status, with parents from Azad Kashmir and Pakistan, now teaching and researching in Istanbul, where the East really does meet the West.”

Professor Abbas added, “I am fortunate as I work as a social scientist with the specific outlook that I am able to connect with certain research subjects and debates because of where I am from and what I have seen and been through. It helps me to relate more closely to what is going on inside of communities, and on the ground inside of the towns and cities in which many people like me still live and work.”

Forthcoming St Wilfrid guest lecturers will be the Bishop of Oxford,  Rt Revd John Pritchard, on October 10^th on Schools as Communities of Grace followed by Professor Ted Cantle on November 7^th speaking on Making neighbours of the people of the world: from Multiculturalism to Interculturalism. All lectures are free, taking place on Thursday evenings at 7pm.