The family: predicament and promise

Abstract

This chapter explores what the family means for Muslims living in minority communities in the West. Many second- and third-generation Muslim migrants have grown up in nuclear families, not having first-hand familiarity with the richness and complexity of living within extended family networks. Gender issues and, in particular, the rights of women in Muslim culture, continue to generate much media attention in the West. Segregation of the sexes, a practice encouraged by Islam, is often seen as proof of the suppression of Muslim women. Within the Islamic vision, children have a right to be conceived and reared in a stable and secure environment; marriage is deemed to provide such an environment. Consanguinity is particularly common in Muslims of South Asian, Turkish and Arab origin. Muslim opinion with respect to contraception is divided, a minority arguing that it is categorically prohibited whereas the majority opinion is that contraception is allowed but discouraged.