Walaykum wa salam,
Interesting post. I for one, live in London, precisely South West London, and where I live there's a fair amount of Muslims here. In some areas there are more than others. Unlike East London where it's known to be heavily populated with Pakistani/Indian/Bangoli Muslims, in my area there are Muslims from everywhere. In short, Somalians, Sudanese, North African Muslims (Morroco, Egypt, Algeria ect), Pakistani/Indian/Bangoli, Indonesian, Malaysian, Syrians, people who come from the Gulf countries (like UAE, Saudi Arabian, Oman) and the list goes on and on. Very very diverse I must say!
In terms of interaction, I don't know, it varies I guess. For instance, I'm Saudi Arabian and I have to other best friends who are Pakistani and the other is Kurdish. So in our group of three, there's someone who speaks Arabic, Urdu and Kurdish. I think what binds us together is most definitely Islam. It plays a huge role in our lives. I go to an all girls public school (Year 11) and I am NOT exaggerating, believe me but out of 600 students in my school, there are around 200 students that wear hijab or headscarf, however you call it. Seriously. I am not lying. I guess some supply teachers that come to our school, are kinda surprised but the rest of the teachers in the school are used to hearing girls say, 'Wallah' 'InshAllah' 'MashAllah' and so on. I mean even my design technology teacher said to me, 'Dua, that's an inshAllah moment' it didn't make much sense but I understood her. LOL.
- Dua