The New Face of Islam - I

[Islamic Revival]

The new face of Islam

Copyright: www.iviews.com
Published Wednesday March 20, 2002

By Nick Compton

At first she tried to resist. She did not want this to
happen. She was not that sort of person. After all,
there were no gaps in her life, no spiritual ache; she
did not need support or direction. But she kept
reading and it kept making sense.

'I had absolutely no expectation or desire to end up
where I am,' she says. 'It was almost with trepidation
that I kept turning the pages and the trepidation just
increased. I kept thinking: "OK, where's the flaw?
Where's the bit that doesn't make sense?" But it never
came. And then it was like: "Oh no, I can see where
this is leading. This is disastrous. I don't want to
be a Muslim!"

Caroline Bate is 30 years old, blonde, blue-eyed and
pretty, with a soft Home Counties accent. She has a
degree from Cambridge (she studied Russian and German
before switching to management studies) and works for
an investment bank in the City. She is Middle
England's dream daughter or daughter-in-law. And
though she has yet to make her formal declaration of
faith in Allah and the prophet Mohammed - a two-line
pledge called the Shahada - she considers herself
Muslim. She ticked the box on a form recently. It felt
good, she says.

Caroline is not alone. Though data is hard to come by,
several London mosques have been reporting an increase
in the number of converts to Islam, especially since
11 September. Like Caroline, many of these converts
are from solid middle-class backgrounds, have
successful careers, enjoy active social lives and are
fundamentally happy with their lot.

This is not a new trend, however. Matthew Wilkinson, a
former head boy of Eton, became Tariq, when he
converted to Islam in 1993. Jonathan Birt, son of Lord
Birt, late of the BBC and now the government's
transport guru, converted in 1997. The son and
daughter of Lord Justice Scott also converted and Joe
Ahmed Dobson, the 26-year-old son of the former Health
Secretary Frank Dobson, has recently and, somewhat
reluctantly, emerged as the voice of new Muslim
converts in Britain. But it is a trend that has been
pushed along by recent events. So far it has gone
largely unnoticed, as the press concentrates on some
of the more colorful characters that 11 September has
thrown up.

Since 11 September, the luridly painted poster boys of
British Islam have been radical clerics such as Abu
Hamza al-Masri, the steel-clawed, milky-eyed so-called
'mad mullah' of Finsbury Park mosque. Here are
Victorian villains, fiendish emissaries of some
ancient and foreign evil, straight out of an Indiana
Jones movie.

Their followers are blank-eyed drones like Richard
Reid, packing his high-tops with high explosives. Or
James McLintock, the 'Tartan Taliban'. There are lost
boys, dislocated and dysfunctional, petty thieves
preyed on in South London prisons and young offenders'
institutions by fakir f*gins who forge an untempered
anger into a righteous ire and provide it with a
target. (Three imams working in British prisons have
been suspended since 11 September for making
'inappropriate remarks' about the terrorist attacks.)

But that is a sideshow, a compelling melodrama played
out beyond the fringes of Islamic culture in this
country. And while it might be stretching a point -
and answering caricature with caricature - to insist
that a demure English rose is the exemplar of the
modern British convert to Islam, Caroline Bate is
certainly more representative than Richard Reid.

Talking to recent Muslim converts; it is striking how
similar the descriptions of their embrace of Islam
are. Most were introduced to Islam, and Islamic
history and teaching, by friends. And, given that
Islam is not generally a missionary faith, these were
gentle introductions. For most, conversion was born of
curiosity, an attempt to better understand the people
around them.

Caroline first started reading about Islam last April.
A school friend she has known since she was 11 was
marrying a Tunisian, a Muslim. 'My best friend was
marrying into a different culture so I wanted to know
more about it,' she explains. 'I came at it from more
of a cultural perspective than a religious one. But
the literature that I picked up just stimulated me.
And Islamic teaching made perfect, logical sense. You
can approach it intellectually and there are no gaps,
no great leaps of faith that you have to make.'

Roger (not his real name) is a doctor in his
mid-thirties. About a year and a half ago, he started
talking about Islam to Muslim colleagues at work. 'All
I had ever heard about Islam in the media was
Hezbollah and guerrillas and all of that. And here
were these really decent people whom I was beginning
to get to know. So I started to ask a few questions
and I was amazed at my own ignorance.' He became a
Muslim a couple of months ago.

For these new converts, embracing Islam is usually a
covert operation. They quietly read, talk, listen, and
learn. The hard part is coming out, declaring your
newly acquired faith to friends and family, and, in
some cases at least, facing up to fear, skepticism and
even loathing. Caroline insists that the coming-out
process has not been too painful. 'The reaction has
been pretty much what I expected. I've had everything
from "o you know how they treat women?" to "Wow,
great timing!" But your friends are your friends and I
expect them to deal with it.'

Others have had a harder time. Eleanor Martin, now
Asya Ali (or some other combination of these names,
depending on the circumstance), was a 24-year-old TV
actress when she met Mo Sesay. She had a regular role,
as WPC Georgie Cudworth in BBC's Dangerfield during
the mid-Nineties and Sesay, who later starred in Bhaji
on the Beach, was also a Dangerfield regular. Sesay is
a Muslim.

'Mo was such a kind man, just a good person. He wanted
to know me as a person, there was nothing else going
on. And I thought, well, here is this really decent
guy and he is a Muslim. And the image I had of Islam
was of men beating up women and going round in tanks
killing people. 'The thing is we both had regular
parts on the show, but they weren't very big parts, so
we had a lot of time to sit in the caravan and talk.
He really opened my eyes.'

Eleanor finally converted in 1996. 'I wasn't sure I
was going to until the last minute and then it just
felt as if everything had fallen into place and there
was no other option.' At first she kept her conversion
secret. 'I was afraid of an adverse reaction from
friends and family. I was really worried about what my
father would say.' Her father was a devout Christian.
A former radiotherapist, he had taken early retirement
to go into the priesthood. But circumstances forced
Eleanor's hand. A few months after she converted she
met a Muslim African-American actor, Luqman Ali, and
they decided to get married. 'I went home and said:
"I've got some news. I'm getting married and I'm a
Muslim." My mum was great. My dad said: "I think I'm
going to get a drink now." 'It took Dad time. He went
to see his spiritual adviser, a nun, whose brother
happened to be a convert to Islam, and that helped.
And he's great now, too. He's just happy that I'm
following a path to God.'

[Islamic Revival]

Roger, meanwhile, has yet to tell family or work
colleagues of his conversion. 'I worry it will affect
my career prospects,' he admits. 'I know first-hand
how little people understand Islam. I know there is
prejudice based on ignorance. A couple of years ago,
if someone had told me they had converted, I would
have thought they were odd. I don't want people to
think I am an oddity or a curiosity because I don't
think of myself like that.'

Most converts acknowledge that living in an ethnically
diverse city has made conversion easier than it might
have been elsewhere. Stefania Marchetti was born and
raised in Milan but came to London to study in 1997.
She converted to Islam from Catholicism in April last
year. 'It would have been far more diffic,ult for me
t,o convert in Italy,' she admits. 'The Italian media
is very anti-Islam and generally Italians think that
Muslim men are all terrorists and all Muslim women are
slaves.'

Certainly Karen Allen, a 28-year-old scheduler for Sky
TV from Stoke Newington, has enjoyed a relatively
smooth transition period. She converted to Islam last
June and soon started wearing the traditional
headscarf or hijab. 'When I first started wearing the
hijab to work, there were a few jibes about
Afghanistan and stuff, but people are fine now. They
say things like: "That's a nice one you're wearing
today." 'I think it might be more difficult outside
London, but here there are a lot weirder things to
look at than me.'

What is especially striking about this stream of
converts to Islam is that the majority seems to be
women. Some suggest that twice as many women as men
are turning to Islam.

Batool Al Toma, who heads the New Muslim Project at
the Leicester-based Islamic Foundation, which offers
advice and support to recent converts, suggests this
might be exaggeration, but admits that female converts
are in the majority. 'A lot of people seem to think
that women are more susceptible to Islam. I think it's
largely because a lot of people are obsessed with the
idea of an educated, liberated British woman
converting to Islam, which they feel subjugates and
represses them in some way. We just get a lot more
attention I suppose and that sparks people's
interest.'

The lure of Islam for women is surprising, given that
the conversion process may be even more problematic
for them than for men. There is the commonly held
belief that Islam represses women and female converts
often have to deal with recrimination from female
friends who view their adoption of Islam as some sort
of betrayal. The wearing of a headscarf or hijab (a
sartorial option, it should be noted, not a
requirement) also makes Muslim women more visible than
their male counterparts.

Certainly, all the women I spoke to were quick to
refute the idea that Islam imposes a
women-know-thy-place ideology. 'The perception of how
women are treated is completely incorrect,' insists
Caroline. 'Women have a fantastic position in Islamic
society.' Indeed, many women converts talk about the
adoption of the Islamic dress code as liberation. They
see it not as a denial of sex and sexuality but rather
as an acknowledgement that these are treasures to be
shared with a loved one and them alone. They are not
hidden but rather freed from objectification. Asya
insists that the trick is to turn preconceptions on
their head. She wears a scarf to show she is a Muslim
and a smile to prove she is happy being one.

One problem for converts is that they are caught
between two cultures. 'Young Muslims are very
accepting,' says Caroline. 'They are really happy that
you have chosen to become Muslim. The older generation
is not so accepting. For them, Islam is part of their
cultural background, it's about the country they came
from and it's what binds their communities together.'

One step towards greater acceptance came last October
when Reedah Nijabat opened ArRum, an Islamic
restaurant/members' bar/ cultural center/social club
in Clerkenwell. Nijabat, a 31-year-old former
barrister and management consultant from Walthamstow,
originally conceived ArRum as a meeting place and
networking venue for professional first- and
second-generation London Muslims. But it has also
become a focal point for many of London's Muslim
converts.

It is easy to see why. On any work evening, a mixed
bag of middle-aged Pakistani men, young couples (some
Muslim, some curious non-Muslim), kids and white
British converts chat and tuck into halal 'fusion'
food. While the club promotes Islamic culture, the
vibe is a Hempel temple of inner calm. Sufi wailing
calms the nerves, while the bar specializes in healthy
juices. For the new converts I spoke to, ArRum is a
place to meet other Muslim,s and somewhe,re to bring
non-Muslim friends and introduce them to Islam in a
way that doesn't scare them.

ArRum accents Islam's USP among the major faiths: its
openness and lack of hierarchy. And Nijabat has
realized that if there is an endemic suspicion of
stuffy organized religion among the British (and
increasingly, one suspects, second-generation British
Muslims) there is great interest in 'spirituality',
whatever that might mean. 'I think that the problem
has not been with the substance of the major faiths,
whatever they are, but a marketing defect,' argues
Nijabat. 'Everything we do here is about remembrance
of God and Islam, but you can get that across in a
cool way. I'm not saying anything that isn't in the
Koran, but you have to talk to people on their level.

'I'm beginning to see that there is a huge
misunderstanding and a bridge that needs to be crossed
between ethnic communities, host communities and
spiritual communities, and I think we are making a
contribution to that. You can get so hung up on the
divisions and how different we are, but it is the same
God for all of us. And we still feel that loss whether
it is an American life or a Palestinian life. A lot of
people are going through a period of soul-searching
and that can only be a good thing.'

For many, that soul-searching has led them to Islam,
not the Islam of the suicide bombers but mainstream
Islam. And, as Joe Ahmed Dobson points out, ArRum and
its new converts do not represent some kind of liberal
IslamLite, a media-friendly dilution of the real
thing. Dobson and the other new converts are orthodox,
in the truest sense, and proud.

They are also part of a project that may help all
parties see Islam in new ways. As Nijabat admits: 'You
can end up being quite defensive about it. And you can
either get hung up about it or be proactive. Opening
ArRum has helped me recognize that I can be British
and Pakistani and a Muslim and a woman. And I'm not
going to be a victim in any of this.'

Source: www.thisislondon.com