Let's shed more light on Islam


Let's shed more light on Islam

Martin Bright
Sunday August 28, 2005
The Observer


On Friday evening, around 200 Muslims gathered in a hall in west London
for a standing-room-only debate. The title of the discussion, 'A
Question of Leadership', referred to last Sunday's deeply controversial
BBC Panorama programme, which accused Muslim leaders of being in denial
about the scale of extremism in Britain.
The meeting was organised by the City Circle, an impressive group of
young, professional Muslims, which organises regular debates and runs a
series of youth projects in the poorest parts of the capital.
Discussion was intense and tempers flared. Most there felt that the BBC
programme had been biased and were affronted by the attack on prominent
Muslim leaders such as Sir Iqbal Sacranie, secretary-general of the
Muslim Council of Britain. As the sole defender of the programme on the
panel, I was called a Muslim hater and a propagandist. But that the
debate was held at all is evidence of the serious soul-searching that
the programme had provoked.

An investigation by The Observer published in advance of the programme
came to similar worrying conclusions about the extremist links of the
MCB, so we have been swept up in backlash against the programme and
accused of being part of an orchestrated Islamophobic campaign. At
times, this has been surreal. In one interview last week - on Muslim
cable TV - I was asked to declare my links to the Zionist media lobby.
It is easy to understand such brittle reactions when many devout
Muslims fear being targeted as extremists.

But the central claims of The Observer and Panorama remain
unchallenged: that the moderate credentials of the leaders of Britain's
most powerful Muslim lobby group are open to question; that the MCB
grew out of sectarian Islamist politics of south Asia and that it fails
to control its extremist affiliates.

To say this is not to attack Islam or British Muslims; rather, it is an
attempt to call to account the leaders of a powerful organisation that
has the ear of ministers and influence across Whitehall.

Perversely, the programme has had the short-term effect of rallying
many who have been critical of the Muslim Council of Britain in the
past to its cause now that it is under siege. But it would be
catastrophic if this continued to be the case, since the organisation
is not capable of representing the broad diversity of the Muslim
communities in Britain.

It has been a fascinating two weeks. I have lost count of the times I
have been set straight about Islam during this period. A convert and
former colleague told me that she now avoided shaking hands with men
and that I was wrong to see such behaviour as extreme. This was in
sharp contrast to the young Pakistani TV journalist who told me that
she objected to being told by the likes of the MCB to cover her head
with a headscarf since, she said: 'My modesty is in my heart.'

On the set of a Pakistani TV station, the host told me he was a great
admirer of Salman Rushdie, while a representative of the MCB bullied an
imam who had dared suggest that he had been ashamed of Sir Iqbal
Sacranie's boycott of Holocaust memorial day. Dozens of Muslims have
called or emailed to tell me it is their duty to work towards the
establishment of an Islamic state ruled by sharia law, while as many
have told me that Islam is a religion that celebrates the personal
relationship of the believer with God.

What I have learnt is that there is no one monolithic version of Islam.
All the more reason, then, for any representative body to reflect the
fact that there are as many interpretations of what it is to be a good
Muslim as there are Muslims.

When the dust settles, I am convinced Britain's 1.6 million Muslims
will start to demand a real leadership robust enough to handle genuine
criticism without crying foul. Meanwhile, debates such as the one held
on Friday are a sign of hope in dark times.

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