Tahir Abbas

Tahir Abbas (born 1970) is a British sociologist with research and teaching experience in the study of race, ethnicity, multiculturalism, political Islam and Muslim minorities in Britain and Western Europe. He was Reader in Sociology and founding Director of the Birmingham University Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Culture. Between 2001 and 2003 he was a senior researcher at the Home Office and the Department for Constitutional Affairs in London.
Abbas has published a number of books and his comments have been featured in articles by the BBC and the Daily Times of Pakistan. He has also written articles for The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph online.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a member of the Lunar Society. Abbas has held numerous research grants and has worked with government departments, universities and civil society organisations throughout Asia, Europe and North America.
In 2008 he was awarded a government grant to research the radicalisation of students on university campuses in the UK, but it was not taken up owing to his departure. In October 2010, Abbas was named Mosaic Hero of the Month for his dedicated voluntary work as co-Director of the West Midlands Regional Board in relation to the empowerment of young Muslims in Britain.
Life and work
Abbas' father emigrated to the UK from Pakistan-administered Kashmir in 1957 at the age of 16. Abbas grew up in Birmingham, in the Small Heath area. Abbas attended a Catholic primary school and then went to a local comprehensive school. He then attended a sixth form college, "as far away from where we lived as possible", did his re-sits, sat his A levels a year later and was admitted to Queen Mary, University of London to study economics. After graduating he studied for a master's degree in economic development and then completed a PhD at Warwick University's Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations. He notes that the second generation want to integrate to a greater extent and are less inclined than their parents to tolerate racism and discrimination.
In comments on the Jyllands-Posten Mohammad cartoons controversy, Abbas wrote that the Danes had failed to appreciate that freedom of expression comes with responsibility, that the media jumped at a chance to cover confrontational actions by Muslims, and that Muslim protestors had fallen into “a trap set by neo-conservative European elites.”
Abbas advocates for greater attention in British schools to Muslim history and argues that education is part of the solution to the problem of Islamic radicalism.

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