Spot on! Masha’Allah I think the comment about the Mufti playing the role of the “straw man” to knock down hits the nail on the head.

This is part and parcel of a long history of the non-Muslim West forcing us into a mould that forces us to play by their rules. *Sigh*. We need to come up with something better than “reacting” to their demands, and developing and strengthening our own patterns of existence.

As a British Muslim, Id like to thank you for the warning, although knowing us, hindsight wouldn’t be enough to stand in the way of a truly bad idea hehe The funny thing is, we have your ‘tried and tested’ results right here and they don’t look too promising…So why did the majority of us support the idea of a Mufti in the UK?

On paper, uniting behind one man, “one voice”, will always appear to be a good thing, afterall, who doesn’t want unity? But in practice – power-grabbing, fitnah, out-of-context, misunderstandings, disunity are just afew of the consequences we can look forward to. It would be turning a respectable old man into a walking PR machine without the PR Company. Chaos ensues.

As has been the experience in Australia, having a Mufti would cause more problems than it solves, as Amir mentioned. You can never get one person who represents all Muslims – a community of minorities within a minority. So you would think one community’s failed attempt would be enough to end the whole idea. But I’m guessing they don’t even know that Australian Muslims have a Mufti, they probably think they’re pioneering the project. So I’d say it’s more to do with the fact that the majority of British Muslims aren’t aware of the significant events and experiences of the average Australian Muslim. Something these websites are helping to make a thing of the past insha’Allah.