Introduction

Criminological studies have not traditionally focused on faith groups per se. This is, in part, the outcome of the way in which official criminal statistics are classified, but it is also reflective of the traditional dominance of the race relations and subsequent ethnicity paradigm in social sciences more generally. The rapid recorded rise in the Muslim male prison population of England and Wales, coupled with global incidents such as 9/11, has resulted in the emergence of a faith paradigm within criminology (Beckford et al, 2005).

Such a paradigmatic shift has prompted increasing academic enquiry about Muslim people and communities within criminology (Webster, 1997; Wardak, 2000; Spalek, 2002). With the advent of new studies about traditionally under-researched people come accompanying methodological challenges.

This chapter explores some of the specific difficulties of crime research pertaining to Muslim populations while elucidating the significance of Islamic jurisprudence and culture to criminological enquiry. The chapter is presented in three parts. The first examines general issues pertaining to criminological research on Muslim populations and includes a brief overview of prominent studies in this area. The second part relates to my research in Pakistan and North West England, undertaken between 1997 and 2000. The third part evaluates my experiences of researching Muslim male prisoners in the UK (Quraishi, 2005, 2007).

Criminological research on Muslims in the UK

Although the latest focus on issues of faith and criminality pertains to Muslim populations in the UK, it must be acknowledged that the question of whether piety influences your propensity to commit deviant acts has been a well-established subject of criminological enquiry. The majority of these studies have been undertaken in the US with the faith in question being Christianity (Evans et al, 1995; Stark and Bainbridge, 1996; Baier and Wright, 2001; Clear and Sumter, 2002; Cretacci, 2003; Fernander et al, 2005).

The principal points of contention are how to measure ‘religiosity’ and which type of crime is being evaluated. This field has attracted less attention in the UK, partly due to the fact that official criminal statistics record ethnicity rather than faith. This has not prevented a small number of researchers from exploring the experiences of crime and victimisation among Muslim communities in the UK (Mawby and Batta, 1980; Webster, 1997; Wardak, 2000).