How do British Muslims think about themselves, their religion and their politics? What dilemmas do they face as they give up the 'myth of return' that sustained first generation immigrants and struggle to define a British Islam?

Written in the wake of a series of high-profile controversies including the Rushdie affair, the education and dress of Muslim schoolgirls, and allied policy during the Gulf War, this book challenges the sensationalist media images that have sometimes sought to portray British Muslims as a bridgehead in the West for the establishment of an Islamic theocracy.