The July 7 bombings, the jailing of Danish cartoon protesters and the recent suicide bomb attempt on Glasgow airport.

 
The headlines do not make kind reading for Britain’s 1.8 million Muslim population. Accused of extremism and a lack of integration, as well as suffering hostility and Islamophobia from many quarters, it seems they are caught in an unenviable position.

 
More than a third leave school with no qualifications. They are more likely to be unemployed when they do so, and over two-thirds of British Asian Muslim households are living below the poverty line (Guardian/ICM poll).

Not only that, but the rise of political Islam – so-called “Islamism” and Islamists” – and the conflicts in the Middle East seem to have polarised many young Muslims, or so their critics claim. Battles have been fought with words, and on the street, during elections, with some groups even arguing that to vote in a British election is “haram”, or forbidden.

 
Recently, many young Muslims in London and other inner city areas of the country have started switching to controversial anti-war MP George Galloway’s Respect Party. Yet in North America, many Muslims have prospered economically – despite 9/11. And other non-Muslim British Asians have flourished here in the UK.

Is there a chance for British Muslims to do the same? In their golden years of rule, Islamic societies encouraged learning, set up universities, pioneered developments in mathematics, science and medicine, and led much of the world in learning and advancement.

Could Muslims within Britain spearhead such progress once again? Are they already doing so? Is so-called Islamic extremism simply a media invention? Are Muslims in fact contributing far more than many Britons know, or would care to admit, to this society?

 
Here is your chance to ask four top commentators their opinions on Muslims in Britain today.

 
Peter Hitchens, former Marxist and Labour Party member, is a columnist for the Daily Mail and author of The Abolition of Britain:

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has called for him to be "decommissioned". The Prime Minister once told him to "sit down and stop being bad" for daring to ask him a difficult question. Andrew Marr once described his book "The Abolition of Britain" as "the most sustained, internally logical and powerful attack on Tony Blair and all his works".

Jamal Harwood, a Canadian “convert” (or “revert”) to Islam is a London based writer who regularly contributes to Islamic journals. He is a spokesman for Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain:

Hizb ut-Tahrir wants all Muslims united in a single state led by a caliph, or a successor to the prophet of God. Despite calls for it to be banned, the British government has so far refused to do so. The group’s former British leader, Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, set up an extremist splinter movement, Al-Muhajiroun, and later fled to Lebanon.

Salma Yaqoob is the vice-chair of Respect – The Unity Coalition and a Birmingham City Councillor. She is also head of the Birmingham Stop the War Coalition and a spokesperson for Birmingham Central Mosque:

Born in Bradford but growing up in Birmingham, Yaqoob was fascinated by the mass Jewish genocide in Nazi Germany. She studied psychology at university at and became a psychotherapist. She retains to this day a strong dislike and opposition to Jews who inhabit what she perceives as Muslim lands in Palestine.

Dr Abdul Muhammad Bari, is secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) and chairman of the East London Mosque:

A behavioural specialist with a PhD from King's College, London, Dr Bari was awarded an MBE in 2003. The Bangladesh-born scholar has said his main task as MCB general secretary is to reach out more to young Muslims. A BBC Panorma TV documentary claimed, two years ago, that the MCB included extremist elements – though it is heralded as the largest mainstream Islamic coalition in Britain.

Nick Ryan is an award-winning writer and journalist and author of Homeland: into a world of hate.