The first Muslim woman to sit in the Cabinet, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi has suggested that architects and designers come up with new models of mosques without minarets, to make them look “quintessentially English”.
She has urged for new models of Islamic prayer places to develop an authentically “British” brand of Islam.
Baroness Warsi said, “The phrase that I keep coming back to, which is rooted in Islamic thinking, is that Islam is like a river that takes the colour from the bed over which is flows, the bed being the country in which it is found. There has to be a debate about cultural reference points in religious buildings, how does it find its identity in the place in which it is built? If you look at mosques around the world they are very differently shaped and sized; they have different features, some have minarets and some don't have minarets... What I would like to see is the quintessential English mosque. It is not for me to say what that would look like.”
Baroness Warsi continued, “I want to see an Islam which sits comfortably within Britain and a Britain that sits more at ease with Islam.”
