̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Centre of Islamic Studies

Muslims leaving prison talk about the layers of their lives

amb206 — Wed, 15 Aug 2018 07:55:01 +0000

Dr Ryan Williams has become accustomed to uncomfortable moments. His research into the lived experiences of people in the criminal justice system (CJS) has taken him into high-security prisons to interview people convicted of serious crimes, and to East London to speak to recently released prisoners. All his interviewees were Muslim.

He describes this area of study as highly problematic: “I was working with people who often feel doubly marginalised – as individuals with a criminal record and seeking to rebuild their lives, and as Muslims living in British society and having to fight against stereotypes. You run the risk of bringing genuine harm to people by failing to reflect their complex life realities.”

Williams is based at Cambridge’s Centre of Islamic Studies and at the ̽��ֱ�� of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. An interest in Islam and society took him into a domain usually studied by criminologists. His interviews explored the journeys, values and struggles of people caught up in the CJS. They took place in prisons (including segregation units), probation offices, cafés, mosques and ‘chicken shops’.

In 2017, an independent review by the Rt Hon David Lammy put race equality in the spotlight by highlighting a rise in the proportion of BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) young offenders in custody: from 25% in 2006 to 41% in 2016. Lammy stated that his “review clearly shows BAME individuals still face bias – including overt discrimination – in parts of the justice system”.

̽��ֱ��same review drew attention to the over-representation of Muslims in the CJS. Between 2002 and 2016, the proportion of Muslims in the prison population doubled.

“ ̽��ֱ��higher up the CJS you go, the greater the proportion of people identifying as Muslim,” says Williams. “More than 40% of the prisoners in the high-security prison that I was working in were Muslim.”

While the over-representation of Muslims in the CJS forms the backdrop to Williams’ research, his work looks not at the causes of crime but at the experiences of offenders as they serve their sentences and reflect on their lives. “By asking questions around belonging and how people can lead a good life, we begin to see what might help them in the future,” he says.

Rapport with participants was key. He says: “In effect, they interviewed me to ensure that I wouldn’t reinforce a ‘one-dimensional’ view of them as Muslims.”

As one interviewee remarked: “There’s more to life than the little bits that you read in the paper.” ̽��ֱ��interviewee had observed other people taking an interest in Muslims in prison: “They’re all asking the same questions” about discrimination and radicalisation, and “[I’m] just standing there thinking, like, ‘is that all you want to know?”’

Through his interviews, Williams came to learn how difficult it is for people to put their finger on inequality and discrimination. It was often indirect, found in everyday examples like (says one interviewee) being refused a toilet roll by a member of staff but seeing a white prisoner acquire one with ease. For white Muslim converts, there was a sense that being a Muslim was incompatible with being British – they were seen as ‘traitors’ to their country, reinforcing the view that Islam is a ‘foreign’ religion.

For one interviewee, the rise of Islamophobia was both tragic and laughable. He observed: “It’s really sad. People are scared of Muslims now and it makes me laugh because I think to myself, ‘Hang on a minute, what are you scared of?’” He also pointed out: “Everybody knows a Muslim. You probably work with one. You might live next door to one. Your neighbour’s cool. Your work colleague’s cool.”

Since 9/11, and more so in the wake of recent attacks in London, the term Muslim has become linked with negative associations.

“‘Muslim’ is a badge applied to offenders in a way that masks other aspects of their identity – for example their roles as sons, brothers and fathers. For much of the popular media, it’s a blunt term that hints heavily at terrorism,” says Williams.

Through guided conversations, Williams encouraged his interviewees to talk about the things that meant most to them, sharing their feelings about family, community and society. He explains: “Broadly speaking, my work is about people’s lives as a moral journey – one marked by mistakes and struggle – and how this connects to belonging and citizenship in an everyday sense.”

̽��ֱ��project was sparked by a conversation that Williams had four years ago with a Muslim offender of Pakistani heritage who’d been brought up in the UK. “He said that he felt so discriminated against that he felt he couldn’t live here any longer. To me, that was shocking,” says Williams.

“It made me wonder how the CJS might serve to help people feel like citizens and rebuild their lives. What if we brought the end goal of citizenship into view, rather than focusing exclusively on risk to the public? How would this change how people see themselves and how others see them?”

Williams’ interviews revealed that, for many, learning to be a good Muslim was also tied with being a better citizen, and each had their own way of going about this. “For one person, day-to-day practices of prayer kept them away from crime. For another, for whom crime was less of a struggle, practising zakat (charity) by providing aid to the Grenfell Tower survivors enabled him to fulfil a need to contribute to society,” he says.

He interviewed 44 Muslim men, sometimes interviewing them more than once, and triangulated his data with conversations with prison and probation staff.

“My approach was experiential-based – qualitative rather than quantitative. I didn’t have a set of boxes to fill in with numbers. I used one standard survey tool from research on desistance from crime, but I found it removed richness and detail from people’s complex stories. Participants welcomed the chance to reflect more deeply on their lives.”

An individual’s faith journey, argues Williams, cannot be separated from the complex reality they find themselves in. Faith is always interpreted and filtered through our experiences and can help to construe a positive view of what it means to live a life worth living. As one participant observed: “I want to actually do some things now, like goodness, like volunteering, helping people out, helping the vulnerable… God loves that.”

Williams says that as a fellow human being he empathises with this improvised desire to find meaning in life by doing good in the world. He says: “ ̽��ֱ��most profound thing to emerge from my conversations is that leading a good life is hard – and harder for some than for others.”

In April 2018, Williams organised a workshop ‘Supporting Muslim Service Users in Community and Probation Contexts’ for frontline staff and volunteers. Probation officer Mohammed Mansour Nassirudeen, who attended the workshop, said: “We need Ryan and researchers like him to give us the bigger picture. I believe this would help bring about desired outcomes for service users from BAME backgrounds, which is long overdue.”

Adds Williams: “My contribution is simply to get people to think about the issues in a different way, to facilitate discussion drawing on people’s own strengths and expertise, and then see where it takes us.”

In July 2018, Williams won a Vice-Chancellor’s Impact Award for his work.

Ryan's research has been incorporated into: guidelines on countering prison radicalisation, adopted by the European Commission in 2017; the evidence base for the Lammy Review on equality and implementing its recommendations; a course on the Good Life Good Society, adopted in 2016 in a high security prison. Read Ryan's This Cambridge Life interview here.

̽��ֱ��workshop ‘Supporting Muslim Service Users in Community and Probation Contexts’ was funded by the Arts and Humanities Impact Fund, and supported by the School of Arts and Humanities and the School of the Humanities and Social Sciences.

The Lammy Review in 2017 drew attention to inequalities among black, Asian and minority ethnic people in the criminal justice system. It also flagged the over-representation of Muslims in prisons. Research by Dr Ryan Williams explores the sensitivities around this topic.

̽��ֱ��higher up the criminal justice system you go, the greater the proportion of people identifying as Muslim

Ryan Williams

Andy Aitchison

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Releasing a better version of me: the power of education in prison to change lives

amb206 — Mon, 16 Jan 2017 10:00:00 +0000

Handwritten letters, in a digital world, are increasingly rare. But, on 18 November 2016, John sat down to write to his friend Jakub. His message begins in capitals: “YES, JAKUB” and goes on to congratulate Jakub on the latest developments in his career. He writes: “I now consider myself your friend, who is so proud of you.”

John’s words are inscribed in biro on lined paper: the notepaper of Her Majesty’s Prison Service. Writer and recipient of this letter could hardly be more different. A former addict, John is serving a lengthy sentence at HM Prison Grendon in Buckinghamshire. Thousands of miles away, Jakub is starting a PhD in criminology in the Czech Republic while working for the Constitutional Court in Prague. With a Masters in criminology from Cambridge ̽��ֱ��, his future looks bright.

Jakub and John are just two of more than 100 people who have been brought together by an ambitious scheme run by academics at Cambridge’s Institute of Criminology. Taught in prisons, Learning Together gives university students and prisoners the chance to study alongside each other. They sit in the same classrooms, engage with the same topics, and carry out the same assignments.

Learning Together was piloted at HMP Grendon in 2015. An-eight week criminology course was taken by 24 learners, half of them graduate students and half of them prisoners. ̽��ֱ��programme is now expanding to other prisons and subject areas. Its remarkable success stems from the passionate belief of its creators – criminologists Drs Ruth Armstrong and Amy Ludlow – in the power of education to capacitate, unlock potential and transform society for the better.

This term, prisoners at Grendon have the opportunity to sign up for a course in literary criticism led by Dr Stacey McDowell from Cambridge’s Faculty of English. Meanwhile, prisoners at HM Prison Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire are offered a course on ‘ ̽��ֱ��Good Life and the Good Society’ run by Drs Ryan Williams (Centre of Islamic Studies) and Elizabeth Phillips (Divinity Faculty).

Religious, political and social differences are high on the public agenda, yet theological and religious education is often taught in a way that’s disconnected from the real world. Williams suggests that this gap between theoretic and real-life perspectives represents a valuable opportunity. “While carrying out my research, I observed that people are guided on a daily basis by ethical and theological questions of what constitutes the ‘good’,” he says.

“Our course finds a middle ground, and provides a chance for students to sharpen their own understanding of what is right and ‘good’ in their own life and in society by having meaningful contact with, and learning alongside, people from a diversity of backgrounds. Yes, we’re taking a risk in that we're exploring questions of difference often seen as sources of conflict, but we believe it’s a crucial one to take.”

Universities and prisons might seem poles apart but both communities set out to transform lives for the benefit of society. “While teaching on access-to-university courses, aimed at students from less advantaged backgrounds, we realised that the students we were meeting had a lot in common with the prisoners we’d encountered in the course of our research,” say Armstrong and Ludlow.

“Many came from similar backgrounds and had been brought up on similar streets. ̽��ֱ��access students tended to have punitive views of people who commit crime – while many prisoners thought they had nothing in common with ‘clever’ people who were destined for university. We saw the same potential brimming in many of them.”

Teaching in prisons is nothing new. However, Learning Together has a broader objective. It sets out to create enduring ‘communities of learning’ in which students from universities and prisons realise how much they have to learn from, and with, each other.

̽��ֱ��shared endeavour of structured learning forges friendships and shatters stereotypes. As a prison-based Learning Together student called Adam put it in an article about his experiences “I had my fears about the course. Will I be judged? Will I be up to it socially? Can I really learn with Cambridge students without looking stupid?”

Adam found the learning environment to be “inclusive and enabling” and wrote that “my confidence has soared and I come out of each session buzzing with new knowledge, new friendships and knowing that I’ve contributed way more than I thought I could". Since completing the course he has won a scholarship that will enable him to take a Masters in English Literature. He has also trained as a mentor for Learning Together students.

Many prisoners have negative experiences of school and gain few formal qualifications. For their part, many university students have relatively narrow life experiences. “Going into a prison, I expected to find immaturity,” said one Cambridge student in a film made by prisoners at HMP Springhill, another prison involved in the project. “Instead, I discovered that I was the immature one.”

At the heart of Learning Together is an approach described by Armstrong and Ludlow as ‘dialogical learning’ – learning through dialogue with fellow students and teachers in an environment of trust. In a blog for an online magazine, a prisoner at Grendon called Anthony shares his thoughts about the liberating nature of this approach.

Anthony writes: “Every session … gave me the feeling that I had been free for a few hours, although not free in the sense that I had been outside the prison, but free in a deeper sense. I could be a better version of myself, which my incarceration, past and fears did not dictate to and smother. It was warmth, compassion and the exchange of ideas – alongside the acceptance of others – that created this released version of me.”

If you are interested in learning more about how your university or department could get involved in working in partnership with a local prison, please contact Ruth Armstrong and Amy Ludlow on justis@crim.cam.ac.uk

A pioneering project to teach university students alongside prisoners, so that they learn from each other, has proved remarkably successful. ̽��ֱ��creators of Learning Together, Drs Ruth Armstrong and Amy Ludlow, are now expanding the scheme and seeking to widen participation across university departments.

They are not studying us; they are studying with us.

Adam (a prisoner talking about the Learning Together course)

Kip Loades

Face to face

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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Opinion: Hard Evidence: Muslim women and discrimination in Britain

Anonymous — Wed, 06 Apr 2016 10:31:11 +0000

̽��ֱ��controversy surrounding a now-infamous “I confronted a Muslim” tweet – and a subsequent race-hate charge – reminds us that tackling discrimination against British Muslims remains as big a challenge as ever.

For those who missed it, PR-man Matthew P Doyle took to Twitter to announce: “I confronted a Muslim woman in Croydon yesterday. I asked her to explain Brussels. She said ‘Nothing to do with me’. A mealy mouthed reply.”

Police were alerted to the incident when Doyle’s ill-judged comments about the encounter were retweeted by bemused internet users. While charges were eventually dropped, the story is a prime example of the type of discrimination encountered on a daily basis by many British Muslim women and an exception to an otherwise overlooked phenomenon.

Everyday incidents of anti-Muslim discrimination rarely make headline news – but recent research from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Centre of Islamic Studies found that discrimination is the daily norm for many British Muslims.

While previous research in this area has often focused on acts of physical violence, none of those interviewed for the Cambridge study had experienced crime of this type. But almost all, whether male or female, felt they had experienced prejudice. As one Muslim man living in the north of England stated: “… there’s an atmosphere, there’s definitely an atmosphere.”

Interviewees shared numerous accounts of being ignored in shops, being stared at on public transport and being targeted by discrimination. While they were seldom criminal in nature, these acts were described as always hurtful – and often leading to dramatically increased fears of criminal victimisation, particularly among older Muslim women.

Muslim voices

One Muslim woman gave an account of discrimination from supermarket staff packing groceries:

When we’re shopping … right away from the person who’s serving you … he or she [is] serving someone who’s white you get a full conversation out of them, but the minute they see you with a hijab, right okay, pack yourself.

Another gave one of many examples of discrimination on public transport:

When I’m in my normal get-up … I can sit in the bus like everyone else and I’m fine, people talking away just getting on with it, you know, you’ll even find someone sitting next to you trying to strike conversation … wear a hijab and it’s almost like … nobody even wants to smile at you … they want to keep at arm’s length from you.

These troubling accounts echo previous victim and discrimination studies undertaken by the centre. Analysis of data from the Crime Survey of England and Wales (previously the British Crime Survey) revealed that levels of personal crime (crimes ranging from verbal abuse to serious attack) and crimes including some form of physical violence are broadly similar for all minority religion groups (with the sad exception of Jewish communities who face higher overall levels of crime).

A forthcoming study of discrimination data from the Ethnic Minority British Election Study 2010 (EMBES), a large-scale survey of ethnic minority communities, tells a different overall story. Data from EMBES suggests that non-white Muslims who experience discrimination are more likely than non-white Christians to suffer it on the street – but perhaps no more likely than Hindu and Sikh communities. (Muslim victims may appear from Figure 3 to suffer more discrimination on the street than Hindus and Sikhs but the differences are not statistically significant and so should not be used to describe larger national patterns.)

However, there are stark differences between female discrimination victims within the EMBES data. Non-white Muslim women appear far more likely to suffer discrimination on the street than their female non-white, non-Muslim counterparts. These differences are large and statistically significant, therefore provide a more reliable estimate of differences throughout the UK. ̽��ֱ��experiences shared by female Muslim interviewees in the recent study offered strong support for the statistical evidence.

Visible difference

One probable explanation for the increased risks faced by British Muslim women is of course the higher visibility of those who choose to wear a headscarf or face veil (as many of the interviewees do). Several interviewees drew direct links between daily incidents of discrimination and the abundance of negative news stories concerning Muslims and Islam.

Hostile coverage of Muslims in Britain. Critical Currents in Islam, CC BY

Others (the lucky few perhaps) were careful to stress a growing resilience to everyday forms of discrimination and an increased reliance on their religion, culture and community as a means of coping. This finding of resilience is perhaps the study’s most original contribution to academic research in this field.

Regardless of how we might as a society analyse, explain and cope with everyday forms of discrimination (against any individual or group), what the study makes clear is that as the furore around Doyle’s crass foray on to Twitter begins to fade, encounters of this sort are happening all over Britain and continue to be for many British Muslims the unreported reality of daily life.

Julian Hargreaves, Research Associate at the Centre of Islamic Studies, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

This article was originally published on ̽��ֱ��Conversation. Read the original article.

̽��ֱ��opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author(s) and do not represent the views of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Julian Hargreaves (Centre of Islamic Studies) discusses the forms of discrimination faced by Muslim women in Britain.

Beth Rankin

Woman praying

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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Opinion: Why both sides are wrong in the counter-extremism debate

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 11:55:23 +0000

Recently published evidence submitted to the parliamentary inquiry into extremism and the government’s Prevent strategy sheds light on the current debates around counter-extremism in Britain – and it’s clear from reading the submissions and watching the evidence that the debate has reached an impasse.

Those who support and those who criticise the government’s Prevent strategy are in deadlock, caught in a cycle of unhelpful rhetoric and political posturing, and unable to offer viable alternatives to the problems they perceive.

Under the direction of chair, Keith Vaz MP, the Home Affairs Committee is investigating issues around Islamic extremism, terrorist recruitment, and the effectiveness of the Prevent strategy.

̽��ֱ��de-facto leader of the pro-Prevent lobby is David Cameron who has repeatedly voiced his concerns over extremist Islamic ideology while calling for a Muslim revival of “British” values. His position has been backed by the Tony Blair Foundation which also regards “bad” ideology as the prime driver of extremism. ̽��ֱ��Quilliam Foundation, meanwhile, identifies the ongoing threat of “salafi-jihadi” ideology and assorted think-tanks applaud various sophisticated programmes of initiatives (usually their own). But there are some major weaknesses in their position.

Need for clarity

First of all, they ignore the problems faced by teachers and lecturers – now under a legal duty to report and tackle extremism – who are clearly confused about the implications of this new duty and are ill-prepared for the problems that will inevitably arise in the classroom. And who can blame them when the very notion of what constitutes “extremism” or, for that matter, British values, is so vaguely defined in the Prevent strategy.

̽��ֱ��strategy also ignores the main drivers of this so-called “extremism” among many young people – not just young Muslims. Young Muslims are angry about British foreign policy, about perceived injustices to Muslims living abroad, and the relentlessly negative reporting in the UK media of Islam. They bear the brunt of Islamophobia, now increasingly apparent in civil society (especially against women), as well as the social and economic disadvantage caused by high unemployment.

These criticisms of perceived extremism fail to tackle the question of what sorts of attitudes and practices might be considered “less dangerous” and what exactly should lawful political dissent among British Muslim youth look like? What are the “acceptable” limits of social and religious conservatism within Britain’s mosques and madrassas, for example? How should increasingly online global communities of Muslims forge their identities? And how can we increase mutual trust between Muslims and non-Muslims in Britain?

Cameron and his supporters offer us few clues. Alison Jamieson, the author of Radicalism and Terrorism: A Teacher’s Handbook for Addressing Extremism, recommends (in arguably the most coherent written submission to the inquiry) the creation of “safe spaces” that might encourage classroom discussion of political violence, the terminology of terrorism, and peace-making through conflict resolution. It is hard to argue against such sensible suggestions. None have come from Cameron’s speeches.

Anger and confusion

But few of the critics of the government’s counter-extremism policy offer reasonable alternatives. There are some sensible voices: Universities UK, which represents vice-chancellors and principals of British university institutions, argues, with much justification, that current counter-extremism laws create anger and confusion among their members, pose a threat to freedom of speech, and drive controversial and offensive views underground.

̽��ֱ��National Association of Head Teachers, while broadly supportive of the legal duty on teachers, criticises the current lack of effective training and the uncertainty around ill-defined terms. Others argue more forcefully. In their written submission, representatives from the East London Mosque repeat the words of former senior police officer Dal Babu, who last year described Prevent as a “toxic brand”. Cage UK, which has campaigned against the perceived impacts of the “War on Terror”, calls for the abolition of all counter-extremism legislation.

These submissions demonstrate the growing confidence with which the government’s counter-extremism strategy is now attacked. But a glaring absence from this side of the debate is the lack of any suggestions concerning alternative models of security and policing. What are the current threats we face? What are the “acceptable” boundaries of our freedoms and our security? How should the government protect us?

Squandered opportunities

Organisations representing the interests of British Muslim communities could more often dictate the pace and direction of the extremism debate – but the inquiry evidence suggests only squandered opportunities. Several written submissions contain complaints (some more understandable than others) about inquiry questions perceived by the witnesses as excessively hostile. Others waste energy debating funding and transparency issues, pursuing personal interests rather than community concerns.

There are notable exceptions – various community groups presented evidence of actual criminal activity by Muslim perpetrators, while another submission raised the issue of the repatriation of those who have returned from IS-held territories – a real-world problem requiring a practical solution.

̽��ֱ��Home Affairs Committee is now in recess, deliberating over the submitted evidence and no doubt drafting recommendations. Mine would be two-fold: first, and as Anderson argues, an independent review of the government’s Prevent strategy is urgently needed. Second, we need a government-led initiative that encourages mainstream political engagement from young British Muslims.

Cameron talks of “British” and “liberal” values – and there are none finer than our tradition of political dissent. British by Dissent, a report published by Muslim Youth Helpline provides an example of how Muslim organisations can take back control of the debate around political engagement among British Muslim communities.

It’s clear from the submitted evidence that a better balance of freedom and protection is needed. Such a balance is achievable – but only if each side in the extremism debate begins to the see the world through the other’s eyes.

Julian Hargreaves, Research Associate at the Centre of Islamic Studies, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

This article was originally published on ̽��ֱ��Conversation. Read the original article.

̽��ֱ��opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author(s) and do not represent the views of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Inset image: Keith Vaz, who chairs the Home Affairs Committee inquiry into counter-extremism measures (UK Parliament).

Julian Hargreaves (Centre of Islamic Studies) discusses the Government's Prevent strategy and counter-extremism in Britain.

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Male converts to Islam: landmark report examines conversion experience of British Muslims

sjr81 — Wed, 03 Feb 2016 00:01:08 +0000

Examining the conversion journeys of nearly fifty British men of all ages, ethnicities and faiths, Narratives of Conversion to Islam in Britain: Male perspectives, allows an unprecedented examination of the challenges and concerns facing converts to Islam in the UK today.

̽��ֱ��landmark report, produced by Cambridge’s Centre of Islamic Studies, captures the isolation and dislocation felt by many new converts, and the sense of being a ‘minority within a minority’ as they adjust to life as a follower of one of the most maligned and misunderstood faiths in the UK.

With converts drawn from white, black and South Asian backgrounds from across the UK, Cambridge assembled nearly 50 British males over the course of the 18-month project in an attempt to understand and record the experiences of British male converts to Islam. ̽��ֱ��converts were from a diverse range of geographical and socio-economic backgrounds.

̽��ֱ��Male perspectives report follows Cambridge’s hugely successful report into female conversion in 2013 (http://bit.ly/1lNy3tW) which has been downloaded more than 150,000 times from the Centre of Islamic Studies’ website and attracted widespread media coverage.

Speaking under Chatham House Rules, the converts gathered together in Cambridge over three weekends to record their responses to a wide-ranging list of themes, questions and provocations.

Among the key findings to emerge from the Male perspectives project were:

There is often targeting of converts by the British Security Services to work as informants
White converts lose their white privilege on conversion
Conversion to Islam in prison is usually driven by a desire to instil discipline into a prisoner’s life. But upon release, Muslims find little support from their families or Muslim communities, increasing the risk of reoffending
Converts live in a liminal space: cut off from their families and friends and only tenuously integrated within heritage Muslim communities.
Recognition that women converts experience worse hardships through wearing the hijab and other religious dress
There are many routes to Islam: love and marriage; friendship; conviction and rational choice; music, arts, architecture and pondering the beauty of the universe

Shahla Awad Suleiman, Teaching and Outreach Associate at the Centre of Islamic Studies, and Project Manager of the report, said: “Narratives of Conversion sets out the contours of the relationship between converts and heritage Muslims, warts and all, and builds on the findings of our hugely successful work with female converts.

“Allowing our male converts to set the agenda and speak frankly and openly about the very real issues they have to face and wrestle with has given us – and anyone who reads the report – real insight into the challenges facing 21st century converts to Islam.”

Professor Yasir Suleiman, Director of Cambridge’s Centre of Islamic Studies, said: “In the West, conversion to Islam has been tarnished by claims of extremism (violent and non-violent), radicalisation, and, sadly, terrorism. It has also fallen victim to the general apathy towards faith in largely secular societies causing those who convert to be described by some as not only eccentrics, misfits, outcasts and rebels, but also as renegades, traitors or enemies of a fifth column who have turned their back on their original culture(s).

“Converts can be made to feel outsiders from the lives they have left behind and as new members of the faith they have embraced upon conversion. This report reveals that conversion to Islam is as much a matter of the head as it is for the heart and soul.

“What this report also illuminates is the importance of convert-specific organisations. There is not enough support for the convert community as things stand. But by sharing their experiences frankly and honestly, this diverse group of converts revealed a profound sense of their pride in both Islam and their British heritage, despite the often negative portrayal of converts in the mainstream press.”

Other topics discussed in the report include the mixed response of heritage Muslims to converts, homosexuality and polygyny.

Although the symposium and reports were conducted under conditions of anonymity (quotes are not attributed within the report), several of the converts have agreed to speak on the record about their conversion experiences.

Abdul Maalik Tailor, who converted to Islam from Hinduism, and now runs Islamic-themed tours of London, suffered considerably after converting.

“A number of things happened to me when I embraced Islam twenty years ago,” he said. “It was a very challenging time and an experience I won’t forget about. I suffered physical and emotional abuse from my family. It was a very testing time.

“For myself and other brown converts, it always goes back to the issue of partition between India and Pakistan and Bangladesh. My relatives thought I had become brainwashed. I was basically given an ultimatum: give up the religion or get out. I was 18 at the time. And I had to leave after being beaten up.

“A year later my father passed away and there was an expectation that I had to fulfil all the Hindu rituals as I was the only son. I had to say, ‘I can’t do it’, which was a challenge; I would have preferred to have a lot more support from the Muslim community at that time.”

Click images to enlarge

Another participant, Adrian (Jamal) Heath, said: “I always joke with people that it’s a bit like ‘coming out’ and I’ve discovered a lot of people who concealed this until the later stages. I was exposed as a Muslim to friends and family inadvertently and my parents took it hard. They didn't come to my wedding. I was also subject to some ridicule at work, which I now look back on as completely unacceptable in the modern world. I was ridiculed for my prayer times and to my face by people who had education and should have known better.

“As a white man in modern Britain, I’d never come across the feeling of being in a minority before and that actually quite shocked me.”

Another theme that provoked widespread discussion was the media portrayal of Muslims.

Convert Warren (Raiyyan) Clementson said: “Generally speaking, when I see converts on TV, they have been radicalised or involved in extremist activity. So for me personally, it’s a double whammy. Firstly, the negative portrayal of Muslims as a whole and within that, a sub-context of the convert community being portrayed in a radical light, or that they’re most susceptible to ideologies of violence. Being a convert myself, and having met so many other converts, this is a fallacy.”

Abdul Maalik Tailor questioned why there seemed to be such a propensity for negativity in the portrayals of both Islam and converts to the religion.

“You find a number of stories that concentrate on radicalisation. If there are successful Muslim converts who have contributed to society and to Britain, they won’t get highlighted by the media. Why do the media have a set agenda to try and demonise us?”

Shahla Awad Suleiman added: “By pulling together these narratives of conversion we have dealt with topics of enormous importance, not just to Muslims, but British society at large.

“There is now a need for more work on the friends and families of converts, heritage Muslims’ views and reception of converts, the children of converts, and more work on conversion to Islam in Britain away from the security prism.”

̽��ֱ��report Narratives of Conversion to Islam in Britain: Male Perspectives can be downloaded from the Centre of Islamic Studies.

̽��ֱ��experiences of British male converts to Islam have been captured in a unique report launched today by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

I was basically given an ultimatum: give up the religion or get out.

Abdul Maalik Tailor

Louise Walsh

Uthman Ibrahim-Morrison at prayer in Norwich, 2016

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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Cambridge in Qatar

sjr81 — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 00:01:55 +0000

̽��ֱ��exploration of the Middle East and Gulf region will range from the importance of the Indian Ocean as a medieval trade route, via European Union relations with Gulf states, to the significance of modern social media in the Arab Awakening.

Director Professor Yasir Suleiman is leading a team of 13 academics and PhD students from Cambridge and Bosnia-Herzegovina to Doha for the latest of the Centre‘s ‘Cambridge in…’ series. Sharjah, Morocco and China have all been visited in previous years.

Dr Roxane Farmanfarmaian (Department of Politics and International Studies) will examine Tunisia’s changing media and political landscape, focussing particularly on the post-revolution use of social media by young people and its impact on constitution-building, party politics, and policy construction.

̽��ֱ��notion that the ancient and early medieval Indian Ocean was effectively the ‘silk road of the sea’ will be examined by David Abulafia, drawing on both new archaeological evidence and reinterpreted classical sources such as the Periplous of the Erythraean Sea, describing the routes linking Roman Egypt to India. These channels served not only as means by which goods were traded, but also as important cultural networks, and their study is helping our understanding of the economic role of both the Gulf and the Red Sea in antiquity and the Middle Ages.

Although slave trading in the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea had a long history, and continued for many decades after abolition in Britain, there appears to be little awareness about its extent amongst Arab societies today. Despite the lack of contemporary written material, Stuart Laing (Master of Corpus Christi College) will attempt to piece together the stories of Arab slave traders and owners.
EU foreign and security policies have been sorely tested over the past decade, particularly given the shifting nature of America interests, with the result that Europe appears to have little strategic idea about what its policies towards the Gulf should be. Geoffrey Edwards will make his way through the paradoxes and nuances of Euro-Gulf relations, exploring differing models of integration and cooperation.

Professor Suleiman said: “ ̽��ֱ��symposium is a unique opportunity to establish new connections between universities in Qatar and Cambridge aiming at fostering joint research projects and academic exchanges at various levels.”

Today, as part of its ongoing initiative to enable new partnerships and foster wide-ranging exchanges of knowledge and skills internationally, scholars from Cambridge’s Centre of Islamic Studies will be co-hosting a symposium at Qatar ̽��ֱ��’s College of Arts and Sciences.

̽��ֱ��symposium is a unique opportunity to establish new connections between universities in Qatar and Cambridge.

Yasir Suleiman

Qatar ̽��ֱ��

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Female conversion to Islam in Britain examined in unique research project

sjr81 — Fri, 17 May 2013 09:19:19 +0000

̽��ֱ��report, produced by the ̽��ֱ��’s Centre of Islamic Studies (CIS), in association with the New Muslims Project, Markfield, is a fascinating dissection of the conversion experience of women in Britain in the 21st Century.

̽��ֱ��first forum of its kind held in the UK, the study concludes with a series of recommendations for the convert, heritage Muslim, and wider British communities. ̽��ֱ��129-page report also outlines the social, emotional and sometimes economic costs of conversion, and the context and reasons for women converting to Islam in a society with pervasive negative stereotypes about the faith.

Project Leader and Director of CIS, Yasir Suleiman, said: “ ̽��ֱ��consistent themes flowing through the report is the need for increased levels of support for the convert community – and the converts’ own potential to be a powerful and transformative influence on both the heritage Muslim community and wider British society.
“Another of the recurring themes was the overwhelmingly negative portrayal of Muslims and Islam in the UK media and what role the convert community might have to play in helping to redress the balance.

This report seeks to dispel misapprehensions and misrepresentations of female converts to Islam.”

A key revelation of the study was the heavily disproportionate attention, bordering on obsession in some cases, given to white, female converts to Islam by both the Muslim and non-Muslim communities alike.

This is often to the detriment of African-Caribbean converts, thought to be the largest ethnic group of converts to Islam, who are often ignored and left feeling isolated by both the Muslim and non-Muslim communities.

Added Suleiman: “White converts can be regarded as ‘trophy’ Muslims and used in a tokenistic fashion by various sections of society, including the media. African-Caribbean converts remain largely invisible, uncelebrated and frequently unacknowledged. They can feel like a minority within a minority and this is something that must be addressed. I found this part of the conversion narratives hardest to bear.”

Meanwhile, the project also reveals the complex relationship between female converts and their families, ranging from exclusion, disbelief and denial - to full and open acceptance of their faith. It also brings to light responses of converts to issues of sexuality and gender including homosexuality, ‘traditional’ roles of women and transgenderism.

Project Manager Shahla Suleiman said: “Considering the stereotypical and largely negative picture Islam has in the media and society at large, and considering that quite a lot of this revolves around the position of women in Islam, we wanted to understand the seemingly paradoxical issue of why highly educated and professionally successful Western women convert to Islam.

“ ̽��ֱ��basis of conversion is faith and spirituality - but conversion is also a social phenomenon that has become political. In this sense, conversion concerns everyone alike in society.

“ ̽��ֱ��debate is just starting and we need to have more informed studies about conversion to Islam that directly address public interest and concern. ̽��ֱ��struggle for a better future relies on overcoming the politics of exclusion and absolute difference based on an ideological dislike for multiculturality, not just multiculturalism. Fear of immigration, Islam and conversion to it are a proxy for views on race, prejudice, anxiety and fear.”

̽��ֱ��converts explored the issues of women’s rights and dress etiquette at some length, with the issue of wearing the hijab and other Islamic forms of dress heavily discussed. Although all views were represented in the debate, a common approach among many coverts was the adaptation of Western style dress to accommodate Islamic concepts of modesty and decency.

Women’s rights are a highly charged political issue within Muslim communities and while participants were not unanimously supportive of feminism as defined in the West, the need to raise the status of women within Muslim communities was fully acknowledged. Attempting to realise the practise of these rights has proven more difficult to achieve. Participants were especially critical of the concept of Sharia Council/courts operating in Britain in terms of the courts’ potential to jeopardise the rights of women.

̽��ֱ��report says: ‘Converts serve to confound and challenge negative racist or clichéd narratives depicted in the media of heritage Muslims because their culture and heritage is intrinsically reflective of British culture.

‘But we also find that not all conversions are equal socially in the eyes of some members of the heritage Muslim community. ̽��ֱ��conversion of white women seems to be more socially valued than African women by some. There is also greater depth to the hijab than is thought to be the case among heritage Muslims and the non-Muslim majority in Britain. There is a distinction to be made between wearing the hijab and being worn by it. This puts the convert women in control. ̽��ֱ��hijab signals modesty, but it is not intended to hide beauty.’

A ground-breaking report examining the experiences of nearly 50 British women of all ages, ethnicities, backgrounds and faiths (or no faith) – who have all converted to Islam - was launched in London yesterday by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Converts have the potential to be a powerful and transformative influence on both the heritage Muslim community and wider British society

Yasir Suleiman

Beth Rankin

Woman praying

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Islamic scholars head to Beijing for “Cambridge in China” conference

bjb42 — Thu, 10 May 2012 17:00:45 +0000

Researchers from Cambridge’s Centre of Islamic Studies will meet with some of their Chinese counterparts from Peking ̽��ֱ�� for the third in an ongoing series of “Cambridge In…” events, which aims to bring together the views of scholars specialising in Islam around the world.

“Cambridge in China” takes place against a diplomatic backdrop in which that country’s interest and involvement in the Middle East is growing. With China becoming a major player on the world stage, some Middle Eastern and Islamic countries are beginning to see its leadership on issues such as trade, energy and international security as a viable alternative to that of the United States.

In addition, it gives researchers an opportunity to find out more about the study of Islamic society and culture in a country that has long-standing, but often overlooked, links with the Islamic world, as well as a large and established Muslim population.

Professor Yasir Suleiman, Director of the Prince Alwaleed Centre of Islamic Studies at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “Like our own Centre, many of the Chinese researchers we will be meeting are interested in Islam less from a theological point of view than from a cultural, or socially scientific perspective.”

“At the same time, their view of the Middle East or the Islamic world is very different because of their different vantage point. Really, what we are trying to find out is whether point of view creates the object. In other words, how are these regions conceived differently in China – and why?”

Some of the papers that will be presented at the conference allude to the diplomatic resonance of understanding China’s perspective of the Islamic world. They include studies of China and the Gulf, and its impact on oil security and commerce in general. Further research will touch on the potential global reach of the Arab Spring, and the notions of trust that appear to underpin trade relationships between China and the Middle East.

̽��ֱ��overall aim of the conference is, however, simply to build a closer relationship with researchers studying Islam, in the spirit of the Islamic saying, or “hadith”, which urges Muslims to: “Seek knowledge, even if you have to go as far as China.” Peking ̽��ֱ�� itself was one of the first Chinese universities to dedicate a department to the study of Arabic and Islamic culture.

As a result, there will also be detailed studies of the language and cultural output of different parts of the Islamic world, such as Palestine and Iraq. ̽��ֱ��reception and perception of this material in China is of considerable significance. ̽��ֱ��country has had a Muslim population since the 7^th century, and even conservative estimates place its current Muslim population at upward of 20 million – a figure which dwarves that of the United Kingdom and is the 18^th largest in the world.

Further information about the Centre of Islamic Studies, including details of previous “Cambridge In…” events, can be found at https://www.cis.cam.ac.uk/

A conference exploring Chinese perspectives of the Middle East and the Islamic world, at a time when China’s interest in the region is growing, will take place in Beijing later this week.

What we are trying to find out is whether point of view creates the object. In other words, how are these regions conceived differently in China – and why?

Yasir Suleiman

Wikimedia Commons

Beijing

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