Too many Muslim families in Britain and the rest of Europe isolate themselves from the out- side world. They deliberately turn their backs on it.
As a university lecturer, I hear this complaint from many Muslim students. And as a journalist, I receive countless letters every year from young people around the country who are in the same miserable dilemma, bitterly sad letters expressing a deep unhappiness which can provoke a kind of vengefulness against the wider world.
It is common to hear, for example, that when lectures and tutorials are over, Muslim students are forbidden by their families to fraternise with their peers. They can’t have a coffee in the canteen, much less go to the pub or a nightclub. Instead, they must go straight back to their parents.
If they do make friends, they are not allowed to bring them home. Their families refuse to permit any trace of the broader British community to cross their threshold: it has to be left on the doorstep.
So friends must be kept secret, which is often impossible when privacy in the family is banned. I know students who are not allowed even to talk on the phone at home without others listening.