As Trump fights to enforce tight restrictions on who can enter America, mostly preventing Muslims, Channel 4’s new series Extremely British Muslims delves deeper than the headlines to discover what it’s like to be a Muslim in Britain right now.
For single Muslims the dating scene is particularly tough. This episode follows young women and young men and they battle with their cultural dating restrictions in desperate pursuit of a spouse.
We meet 30-year-old Nayera and 24-year-old Bella who are caught between their 21st-century lives and the expectations of an older generation, and are struggling to find the right partner. Bella is going through the mosque to find a husband and Nayera struggles to find common ground on a meet-up arranged through a Muslim marriage website. But it isn’t just the women who are having a hard time, Ash, who’s 28, is resisting his mother’s attempts to arrange a marriage with someone in Pakistan.
With divorce rates on the rise everywhere, including the Muslim community, this episode also explores how women can seek a divorce through the mosque’s sharia council. An Islamic court that deals exclusively with divorce applications, it’s the only one in the country with a female judge on the panel.
Extremely British Muslims, Thursday, 10pm – Channel 4
