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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Muslims
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There are thought to be in Britain about 1.2 million *Muslims – adherents of Islam, the religion revealed in the Koran (or more accurately *Qur'an), which Muslims believe to have been dictated by God (Allah) to the prophet *Muhammad in the early 7C. The majority of British Muslims are members of families who *immigrated in the decades after World War II from *Pakistan and *Bangladesh.
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The largest communities of Muslims in Britain are in London, Birmingham, Bradford, Liverpool, Manchester, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Unlike other *ethnic and religious minorities, they have adopted a high political profile on the basis of their religion. Certain British Muslims took a controversial and widely criticized line in supporting the Iranian death sentence on Salman Rushdie, and an unelected Muslim 'parliament' was formed in January 1992. There has also been a strong demand for separate Muslim *state schools (on the same basis as existing Christian and Jewish schools), and considerable resentment at discrimination in this respect.
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