In our media-driven society, a new strand of democracy has become widespread, in which community leaders are no longer selected by a transparent electoral process but rather self-appointed or anointed to the role merely because of their high profiles on television, computer screens or the radio.
However flawed this may sound, this is the reality of 2011 Britain and, by this definition, the recent interviews for The Times, the BBC and numerous other international media outlets given by Sarah Joseph, CEO and editor of "Muslim lifestyle" magazine Emel, demonstrate that she is considered one of these new community leaders. This role has led her to be listed as one of the UK's most powerful Muslims in the Muslim Power 100 by Carter Andersen, and as one of the World's 500 most influential Muslims by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center.
Don't get me wrong, this can be viewed in a broadly positive light. Sarah Joseph is articulate, intelligent and her marriage into the British Bengali community provides her with a unique insight into her own journey as a convert as well as a window into an established Muslim community. It certainly comes as a breath of fresh air to have someone on the television or radio who, when they open their mouth, is neither preaching hatred nor openly telling people to rid themselves of the Quran and Sunnah.
However, unlike democratically elected leaders who have to stand on a manifesto and define themselves to their electorate, those who help themselves to the media spotlight often don't get or take the opportunity to reveal where they are coming from and/or are not held up to the same scrutiny.
As the editor of a magazine, Sarah Joseph has every right to include and exclude whatever content she wishes in Emel, whether it be interviews with pretty Arab princesses promoting their favourite charity or the latest environmental craze, and provide for the needs of her self-selected and willing readership. But when she steps outside of this role and becomes the "prominent female figurehead for British Muslims" as she now is, this cosy relationship evaporates and she must accept that her every word will be closely scrutinised and may well attract criticism. Sarah Joseph is well aware of this and in fact used an interview in 2005 to demand better, more representative and responsible leadership from British imams and scholars. Today I echo this demand - not to the imams - but rather directly to her.
However, before we can scrutinise her performance in the media and evaluate her ability to represent us all, we must first attempt to generate her manifesto to better define who she is, a process best achieved through looking to the most visible product of her labours, Emel magazine.
When Emel was first launched back in 2003, there was all the gloss and glamour that still appears in more current editions, but intermixed with this were some interesting insights and references to the real world of actually living Islam in the UK. So we had the 2004 editorial discussing the rise of the BNP, coupled with some very good articles by her in the mainstream press, like this one from 2006 about the offensive cartoons of our beloved Prophet (peace be upon him) that cited the vilification of the Jews in Europe in the decades leading up to the Holocaust and eloquently pointed out that "the great shape-shifter of fascism seems to have taken on the clothes of 'freedom of speech'".
In these early years, Emel's overall mix of fashion, home decoration, human interest stories with a light dusting of politics and Islam was admittedly quite lightweight but the overall effect was pleasing enough, although the presence of characters like Ziauddin Sardar and his reformationist ideas created a jarring note against this back drop of serenity. However, his columns were the exception rather than the norm and, more often than not, his remit was focused on politics rather than the deen. Over the intervening years however, whilst the fashion, recipes and car reviews have remained largely the same, the glue that holds the magazine together has coalesced into a postmodernist vision of Islam that Sarah Joseph appears to be peddling as some sort of "British Islam".
The concept of a "western" or "British" Islam has long been the holy grail of many Muslims living in the UK. Fed up with speeches in alien languages or strange subcontinental cultural practices passed off as Islamic, many British-born Muslims hankered after an Islam that was pure and free of deviation. Whilst this is a laudable aim, it can only result in success when one realises that of all the cultural baggage that influences Muslims, by far the most intrusive, invasive and tenacious is the baggage of the most dominant culture on the planet today: Western culture.
As with other influences, there is nothing inherently wrong with a great deal of what we find in the West – a Yorkshire pudding or a pair of trousers is not intrinsically subversive – but one must recognise that many facets of Western philosophy, such as postmodernism, are innately at odds with Islam.
For those unfamiliar with the subject, postmodernist philosophy essentially denies the existence of any ultimate guiding principles, being particularly sceptical of those claiming to be valid for all groups, cultures, traditions, or races. Instead, it promotes the idea that truth is a relative concept and each individual has the right to find his or her own version of it.
As Islam is the universal message provided by our Merciful Creator to all of humanity, one can quickly see how problematic postmodernist philosophy is. Yet the grubby fingerprints of this "ism" is to be found all over the pages of Emel as evidenced by a recent editorial in which Sarah Joseph equates the arrogance and disobedience of the refusal by Iblees (Satan) to bow down to Adam with the feeling that Islam is superior to other faiths:
"It is this sense of superiority that condemns another to hellfire, believing that only your own religious type will be saved."
Whilst I agree that smug self-satisfaction should be abhorrent to every Muslim, this editorial comes perilously close to declaring that Islam is no more true than any other belief.
Furthermore, this moral equivalence can be found in the opinions of other contributors to Emel like Lucy Bushill-Matthews, who in a recent article enthused about her daughter's indecision as to whether she wanted to be a Muslim when she attained adulthood:
"...she has decided she definitely wants to make her own choice. 'When I am older,' she says, 'I'm going to look at all the religions and see which one makes the most sense to me.' I wish her all the best in her research, although as a Muslim myself, it is only natural that I would hope she chooses Islam."
This struck me as a remarkably laid back attitude to take when discussing the eternal fate of one's daughter's soul but then I remembered that by the parameters of "Emel-land" I had just demonstrated some Satanic arrogance in "believing that only [my] own religious type will be saved".
In the same article, Bushill-Matthews laments the case of Fathima Rifqa Bary, a US teenager who left Islam for Christianity and ran away from home – instantly becoming a cause célèbre among Islamophobes and evangelical Christians as she alleged that she would be killed if she were returned to her parents. A terrified teenager on the run from dominating murderous parents – heartbreaking stuff, that is until one reads that both a Florida court and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement both thoroughly investigated Bary's claims and found that there was no credible evidence of any threat to her life or well-being. On reading such an article, one is left wondering why Bushill-Matthews feels the need to use fallacious anti-Muslim Tea Party-esque propaganda to bolster her cause?
One gets the distinct feeling that she and her editor believe that there should be no criticism or reproach or negativity directed at any individual who leaves Islam, and perhaps their parents, family and community should just shrug their collective shoulders and sheepishly mutter "Huh, kids these days" instead of feeling the frantic, earth-shattering despair at the calamity that their leaving Islam actually constitutes. Plainly the inconvenient fact, ignored by such postmodernist-Muslims living in their cloud cuckoo land full of western baggage, is that Islam is the Truth and whilst the decision of who is admitted to Heaven rests entirely with Allah, Islam provides us with the best hope of salvation.
So there we have it, the manifesto that Sarah Joseph appears to be promoting on our behalf is one of a compromised, postmodern-Islam that is akin to a succulent, sweet and nutritious fruit that has been ravaged until only the dry and desiccated pip is left.
In the JumahPulse the week before last, I opened with a critique of Sarah Joseph's performance on Radio 4's religion programme Sunday. To briefly reiterate, I took issue with the fact that she didn’t raise any specifically Muslim issues (unlike her Jewish and Catholic co-panelists who took the opportunity to highlight issues relevant to their communities) but rather confined herself to topics of interest to the general public. More disturbing was when one panellist (the editor of the Jewish Chronicle) attacked Muslims for spreading extremism on university campuses, Sarah Joseph did not offer a response and it was the Catholic columnist for the Independent on Sunday who pointed out that these stereotypes were unhelpful and often inaccurate.
Since then, Sarah Joseph has responded to this criticism on her Facebook page:
"I think if we continue to appear on the media only narrowly putting forward 'Muslim issues', speaking only for 'Muslims' and things which concern 'us' we will never truly put forward the message of Islam, which is a complete message for humanity.
"I think as Muslims we have more to say than being trapped into discussions about terrorism and radicalisation, and from audience feedback received following the show, I think I made the right decision to discuss broader issues.
"The 'reaction, reaction' media 'strategy' gets us nowhere, and we end up no more than actors in a script written for us by others."
This reinforces statements made in previous interviews in which she stated her desire to show that Islam was not just about "prayers and politics". This however misses an important point, namely that the public discourse in British society is essentially adversarial in nature. Look around: everything from the verbal fisticuffs our politicians indulge in during debates in the House of Commons, to the haranguing and arguing that is standard fare in all news and analysis programmes, to the multitude of reality TV shows where contestants have to constantly push their own agenda in order to "survive" another week. Everything is hotly debated with the winner being the one who fights their corner the most effectively.
When a person appears in the media and represents a community that has been vilified with everything from rampant paedophilia to collective homicidal tendencies and doesn't address any of these issues, even when confronted by someone speaking about them, it makes that person seem at the very least out of touch with reality and at worst, callously uncaring of what the average non-Muslim citizen is concerned about.
The Jewish community has long recognised the power of the media and one finds that whenever a member of that community has the collective microphone, the opportunity is utilised to speak for the benefit of their community.
In today's Britain, Muslims find themselves targeted by a far-right group whose raison-d'être is entirely based on hostility to Islam. We seek to find allies on the left but increasingly find ourselves isolated owing to concurrent attacks by a media juggernaut which labels Muslims and Islam as the antithesis of all that is civilised. Although as Muslims we have a duty to engage and interact with wider society and its debates in order to help all of humanity, we cannot hope to achieve this if we are simultaneously being targeted, slandered and vilified as a community. This is a phenomenon recognised and highlighted this week by none other than Conservative Party Chair, Baroness Warsi, when she described how in "civilised" circles the table talk is openly anti-Muslim.
Moreover, it is the unsettling reality that in today's society "the script" and narrative of our collective consciousness is tightly controlled. As Muslims, we cannot speak frankly about Islam's views on homosexuality without accusations of discrimination; we cannot criticise "the only democracy in the Middle East" without accusations of anti-Semitism; we cannot support women who choose to cover without accusations of repression and misogyny; we cannot protect our children from youth culture without being accused of child abuse and over-controlling; we cannot discuss any of the beauties of Islam without having first apologised out of collective guilt for the actions of a few; we cannot defend the integrity and position of our beloved guide and Prophet, (may Allah shower his peace and blessings continuously upon him) without being labelled as backward and misguided; we cannot defend the Quran without being accused of defending a text of terrorism and script for anti-Semitism; we cannot build places to worship the most High, glorified be He, without being accused of changing the very fabric of our host society and spoiling its skylines.
Yet, hey next year 11 models of electric car are coming out!! Wake up Sarah Joseph and to paraphrase a famous US election slogan: "it is the reaction, reaction media strategy stupid", or join the long list of community leader wannabes who have had their 15 minutes in the limelight and now have faded back into irrelevance.
There is an unfortunate precedent for this type of thinking. Before the brutal events of the Holocaust, European Jews suffered centuries of pogroms where they were scapegoated for any ailment of society. In this crucible of persecution associated with increasing ghettoisation of Jews, prominent Berlin Jewish philosophers and intellectuals, such as Moses Mendelssohn, embarked on a journey that grew into what is now known as the Berlin Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment, a movement that gained prominence and momentum the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
The Haskalah was a wide-ranging reform of Judaism that encompassed many facets but the principal ideas that the Haskalah introduced were:
- a belief that the goal of religion was personal spiritual fulfillment;
- a move away from law and obedience to love and community as the defining features of religion;
- a belief that Judaism represented the highest form of morality but was backwards in other ways;
- a distinction between ritual and "true religion";
- an emphasis on rationalism and science that drew heavily upon Enlightenment philosophies and writings where rationalism and science were seen as the highest moral authorities;
- a belief that the future of Jews in Europe lay solely in the adoption of rationalism and reason over traditionalism and religious orthodoxy; and
- a concern that European Jews should fully integrate with western society, whereas traditional Jewish customs made Jews too different from their neighbours.
Abu Sa'id al-Khudri reported that Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) warned: "You will tread the same path as was trodden by those before you inch by inch and step by step so much so that if they entered into a lizard's hole, you would follow them in this also. We said, 'Allah's Messenger, do you mean (by your words) the Jews and Christians before us?' He said, 'Who else?'"
(Sahih Muslim, Chapter 3, Book 34, No 6448)
May Allah guide us all back to His way: the way of the Prophets and the Saliheen (righteous people). Ameen.
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