An East Bengali in England People Very Nice, Richard Bean’s hilarious play about three ethnic waves of immigrants in London’s East End that recently premiered at the National Theatre, laments that the four beautiful Indian women with whom he lived have become Arabs. It’s like that in the small block of flats in Kensington where I am staying — almost all the women in the lifts and lobbies are hidden in burqas while the men wear what looks like ankle-length nightshirts.

Unlike Bangladeshi East Enders, these Arabs are well-to-do visitors. But native Britons (if the breed still survives in London) are unlikely to see any difference. The profusion of burqas, hijabs, beards and fezzes, and Edgware Road’s shisha cafes with men puffing away at hookahs, seem to bear out Muammar Gaddafi’s boast that Europe will become “a Muslim continent within a few decades”.

It’s not a clash of civilizations but a creeping advance on many fronts that could eventually challenge Western Judeo-Christian culture more seriously than 9/11. Gordon Brown justifies the deaths of young British soldiers in Afghanistan by arguing that Britain would be endangered if the Taliban, whose madrasas train young jihadis, are not destroyed. In itself, the reasoning may be valid, although history indicates that it is impossible to conquer and hold Afghanistan. What Brown’s defence overlooks is the steady if peaceful takeover of his own homeland. The Battle of Britain is being lost in Brick Lane and Bethnal Green without a shot being fired.

Culinary conquest is a fait accompli. School curricula are being revised out of deference to Islamic sensibilities. Britain reportedly has more imams than pastors. Disused churches are being converted into mosques. More than 50 years ago, the Manchester accountant to whom I was articled obtained tax relief for a Muslim client’s two wives. Nowadays, all four wives qualify for benefits.

While rational Indians demand a uniform civil code, Britain is moving the other way. Eighty-five sharia courts for divorce, family disputes, forced marriage, domestic violence and commercial matters have operated in areas of Muslim concentration since 1982. The Muslim Arbitration Tribunal will set up 10 more by December as part of an ambitious plan to triple their number and streamline operations. The head of the Islamic Sharia Council says sharia law brings “peace and security” and that non-Muslims also seek Islamic justice. The Archbishop of Canterbury accepts these courts as “unavoidable” and the Lord Chief Justice approves of them though insisting, like Jack Straw, the justice secretary, that sharia law is subject to English law. However, many Britons complain that sharia law’s treatment of women violates British concepts of justice.

Their inferior status is reflected in different divorce procedures for the sexes. Nothing as simple as three talaqs for wives who must go through the complicated, time-consuming and uncertain khul’a process involving witnesses and evidence. Critics also say that though Islamic banking condemns interest, the murabaha (loan) system amounts to the same thing since a borrower must repay more than he borrows. But the Vatican’s Osservatore Romano newspaper has given its blessings to Islamic banking, which has a toehold even in Switzerland. The Islamic Bank of Britain was established in 2004.

Islamic penetration is not confined to Britain. A young Kurdish woman in Sweden who took her father and brother to court for trying to force her into an unwanted arranged marriage declared when the men were let off with light punishment, “The only way for the family to regain its honour now that I have spread dishonour is to kill me.” Her father did shoot her dead. Forced marriages and honour killings are contentious subjects in Britain, France and Denmark. Italian doctors suspect that patients with mutilated hands are victims of sharia justice.

The ubiquitous burqa symbolizes this new militancy. It’s irrelevant that Taliban killers disguise themselves in burqas. But Nicolas Sarkozy’s assault on veils followed a demand by 58 French MPs to outlaw a practice that “breaches individual freedoms”. His speech denouncing burqas as “not a sign of religion” but “a sign of subservience” that was “not welcome” in France pre-empted the findings of a parliamentary commission set up as a result of the efforts of a Communist MP who calls burqas and hijabs “a moving prison”. France’s Algerian-origin housing minister, Fadela Amara, calls the burqa a “tomb”, but the Sylheti Baroness Uddin whose massive “expenses” left people aghast maintains a deafening silence.

Ironically, none of the three Arab queens visiting Europe during the controversy was veiled. Queen Rania of Jordan’s dress almost exposed one shoulder when Brown entertained her and King Abdullah at Downing Street. Riding with Princess Anne while her husband accompanied Queen Elizabeth at Royal Ascot, Princess Haya Bint Al Hussen of Dubai wore a Western dress and hat. Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser al- Missned of Qatar, Sarkozy’s guest at the Elysée Palace with her Sheikh, also sported a head dress like a fashion accessory to her Western attire.

This sartorial manifestation of class was most noticeable in Malaysia where Mahathir Mohamad’s wife wore hijab but the queen sported a coronet over short permed hair. If Malaysia’s queens now find it prudent also to sport hijabs, it is because the scramble for votes obliges politicians in a rampaging democracy to outdo each other in pandering to orthodoxy. Lacking democracy, royalty is free of populist pressure in Jordan, Dubai and Qatar. Also in Saudi Arabia, although Wahabist austerity and strategies of controlling an ignorant populace make it a special case.

Democratic Malaysia illustrates that the bottom influences the top instead of the other way round. Scholars maintain that the Quran only advocates modesty without specifically sanctioning burqa or hijab. That is also true of the Hadith, the sayings of the prophet. Veiling is a pre-Islamic tribal custom with Byzantine roots. But non-Muslim leaders other than Sarkozy dare not confront bigotry and superstition by mentioning this. While the British sit on the fence, deploring burqas without the courage to ban them, Barack Obama ingratiatingly told his Cairo audience that the US would not “tell people what to wear”. It’s not that his second name is Hussein; Obama’s charm offensive was intended to sweeten the effects of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The search for a better life is understandable. Without that human urge there would have been no United States of America. But the attempt to foist an uneducated immigrant minority’s social prejudices on the more cultivated and enlightened lifestyle of an established host society is unpardonable. If they are so committed to the burqa, halal or Friday closure, they should stay where these are the natural order. But remembering Gaddafi, Muslim immigrants may feel they are entitled to special rights. Bernard Lewis, a Princeton historian, also writes that “current trends show that Europe will have a Muslim majority by the end of the 21st Century at the latest. … Europe will be a part of the Arab West — the Maghreb”.

That is possibly an exaggeration. But some claim France has nine million illegal Muslims in addition to the more than five million acknowledged ones whose higher fecundity will mean a Muslim majority by 2050. Meanwhile, boatloads of Bangladeshis, Somalis, Algerians and other illegals wait on the other side of the Mediterranean to slip into Europe when no one is looking. Romania was at a loss when the Bangladeshi workers it had invited disappeared into western Europe. Young Bangladeshi pavement hawkers in Barcelona in Spain once generously pressed me to throw away my tourist visa and stay on with them. They knew the ropes.

Bosnia and Kosovo are Muslim states. Turkey may join them, the European Union permitting. Spain’s Moorish kingdoms flourished from 711 to 1492. The Ottoman empire which ruled a swathe of south-east Europe from 1299 to 1922 had to be beaten back from the gates of Vienna in 1683. We may be witnessing the return of history.