Convert to Islam: British women - part 2

Around 5,000 British people convert to Islam every year – and most of them are women. 
Six of them talk about prejudice, peace and praying in car parks.

Anita Nayyar, social psychologist and gender equalities activist, 31, London

 

  

Anita Nayyar:

'One of the biggest challenges I face is the prohibition of women from the mosque.'

 

 

As an Anglo-Indian with Hindu grandparents who lived through the partition of India and Pakistan, and saw family shot by a Muslim gang, I was brought up with a fairly dim view of what it was to be Muslim.

I was a very religious Christian, involved in the church, and wanted to become a vicar.
At 16, I opted for a secular college, which is where I made friends with Muslims.

I was shocked by how normal they were, and how much I liked them.
I started debates, initially to let them know what a terrible religion they followed, and I started to learn that it wasn't too different from Christianity.
 In fact, it seemed to make more sense.
It took a year and a half before I got to the point of conversion, and I became a Muslim in 2000, aged 18.

My mother was disappointed and my father quietly accepting.
Other members of my family felt betrayed.

I used to wear a scarf, which can mean many things.
It can be a signifier of one's faith, which is helpful when you don't wish to be chatted up or invited to drink.
It can attract negative attention from people who stereotype "visibly" Muslim women as oppressed or terrorist.
It can also get positive reactions from the Muslim community.

But people expect certain behaviour from a woman in a headscarf, and I started to wonder whether I was doing it for God or to fulfil the role of "the pious woman".

In the end, not wearing the scarf has helped make my faith invisible again and allowed me to revisit my personal relationship with God.

One of the biggest challenges I face is the prohibition of women from the mosque.
It's sad to go somewhere, ready to connect with a higher being, only to be asked to leave because women are not allowed.

In the past, I have prayed in car parks, my office corridor and in a fried chicken shop.
The irony is that while my workplace would feel it discriminatory to stop me praying, some mosques do not.

 

Convert to Islam : British women

Around 5,000 British people convert to Islam every year – and most of them are women.
Six of them talk about prejudice, peace and praying in car parks.

Ioni Sullivan: 
'In my heart, 
I began to consider myself a Muslim.'




I'm married to a Muslim and have two children.

We live in Lewes, where I'm probably the only hijabi in the village.

I was born and raised in a middle-class, left-leaning, atheist family; my father was a professor, my mother a teacher. When I finished my MPhil at Cambridge in 2000, I worked in Egypt, Jordan, Palestine and Israel.
 Back then, I had a fairly stereotypical view of Islam, but became impressed with the strength the people derived from their faith.

Their lives sucked, yet nearly everyone I met seemed to approach their existence with a tranquillity and stability that stood in contrast to the world I'd left behind.

In 2001, I fell in love with and married a Jordanian from a fairly non-practising background.
At first
we lived a very western lifestyle, going out to bars and clubs, but around this time I started an Arabic course and picked up an English copy of the Qur'an.
 I found myself reading a book that claimed that the proof of God's existence was in the infinite beauty and balance of creation, not one that asked me to believe

God walked the Earth in human form; I didn't need a priest to bless me or a sacred place to pray.

Then I started looking into other Islamic practices that I'd dismissed as harsh: fasting, compulsory charity, the idea of modesty. I stopped seeing them as restrictions on personal freedom and realised they were ways of achieving self-control.

In my heart, I began to consider myself a Muslim, but didn't feel a need to shout about it; part of me was trying to avoid conflict with my family and friends. In the end it was the hijab that "outed" me to wider society: I began to feel I wasn't being true to myself if I didn't wear it.

It caused some friction, and humour, too: people kept asking in hushed tones if I had cancer. But I've been pleasantly surprised at how little it has mattered in any meaningful relationship I have.

Malcolm X - converted to Islam - 4 part

Too dangerous to last

El-Hajj Malik's new universalistic message was the U.S. establishment's worst nightmare. Not only was he appealing to the black masses, but to intellectuals of all races and colors. Now he was consistently demonized by the press as "advocating violence" and being "militant," although in actuality he and Dr. Martin Luther King were moving closer together in outlook:

The goal has always been the same, with the approaches to it as different as mine and Dr. Martin Luther King's non-violent marching, that dramatizes the brutality and the evil of the white man against defenseless blacks. And in the racial climate of this country today, it is anybody's guess which of the "extremes" in approach to the black man's problems might personally meet a fatal catastrophe first "non-violent" Dr. King, or so-called "violent" me."

El-Hajj Malik knew full well that he was a target of many groups. In spite of this, he was never afraid to say what he had to say when he had to say it. As a sort of epitaph at the end of his autobiography, he says:

I know that societies often have killed the people who have helped to change those societies.
And if I can die having brought any light, having exposed any meaningful truth that will help to destroy the racist cancer that is malignant in the body of America,
then, all of the credit is due to Allah.
Only the mistakes have been mine.

The legacy of Malcolm X

Although El-Hajj Malik knew that he was a target for assassination, he accepted this fact without requesting police protection. On February 21, 1965, while preparing to give a speech at a New York hotel, he was shot by three black men. He was three months short of forty, the age of maturity according to the Quran. While it is clear that the Nation of Islam had something to do with the assassination, many people believe there was more than one organization involved. The FBI, known for its anti-black movement tendency, has been suggested as an accomplice. We may never know for sure who was behind El-Hajj Malik's murder, or, for that matter, the murder of other national leaders in the early 1960s.

Malcolm X's life has affected Americans in many important ways. His conversion must have had an influence on Elijah Muhammad's son, Wallace Muhammad, who, after his father's death, led the Nation of Islam's followers into orthodox Islam. African-Americans' interest in their Islamic roots has flourished since El-Hajj Malik's death. Alex Haley, who wrote Malcolm's autobiography, later wrote the epic Roots about an African Muslim family's experience with slavery.

More and more African-Americans are becoming Muslim, adopting Muslim names, or exploring African culture. Interest in Malcolm X has seen a surge recently due to Spike Lee's movie, X. El-Hajj Malik is a source of pride for African-Americans, Muslims, and Americans in general. His message is simple and clear:

I am not a racist in any form whatever. I don't believe in any form of racism. I don't believe in any form of discrimination or segregation. I believe in Islam. I am a Muslim.

Too dangerous to last

Malcolm X - converted to Islam - 3 part

The oneness of man under one God
It was during his pilgrimage that he began to write some letters to his loyal assistants at the newly formed Muslim Mosque in Harlem. He asked that his letter be duplicated and distributed to the press:

Never have I witnessed such sincere hospitality and the overwhelming spirit of true brotherhood as is practiced by people of all colors and races here in this ancient Holy Land, the House of Abraham, Muhammad, and all the other Prophets of the Holy Scriptures. For the past week, I have been utterly speechless and spellbound by the graciousness I see displayed all around me by people of all colors.

You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to rearrange much of my thought-patterns previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions.

This was not too difficult for me. Despite my firm convictions, I have always been a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth.

During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug) while praying to the same God, with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of the "white" Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan, and Ghana.

We were truly all the same (brothers) because their belief in one God had removed the "white" from their minds, the 'white' from their behavior, and the 'white' from their attitude.

I could see from this, that perhaps if white Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps, too, they could accept in reality the Oneness of Man, and cease to measure, and hinder, and harm others in terms of their "differences" in color.

With racism plaguing America like an incurable cancer, the so-called "Christian" white American heart should be more receptive to a proven solution to such a destructive problem. Perhaps it could be in time to save America from imminent disaster - the same destruction brought upon Germany by racism that eventually destroyed the Germans themselves.

They asked me what about the Hajj had impressed me the most. I said, "The brotherhood! The people of all races, color, from all over the world coming together as one! It has proved to me the power of the One God. All ate as one, and slept as one. Everything about the pilgrimage atmosphere accented the Oneness of Man under One God.

Malcolm returned from the pilgrimage as El-Hajj Malik al-Shabazz. He was afire with new spiritual insight. For him, the struggle had evolved from the civil rights struggle of a nationalist to the human rights struggle of an internationalist and humanitarian.

After the pilgrimage

White reporters and others were eager to learn about El-Hajj Malik's newly-formed opinions concerning themselves. They hardly believed that the man who had preached against them for so many years could suddenly turn around and call them brothers. To these people El-Hajj Malik had this to say:

You're asking me "Didn't you say that now you accept white men as brothers?" Well, my answer is that in the Muslim world, I saw, I felt, and I wrote home how my thinking was broadened! Just as I wrote, I shared true, brotherly love with many white-complexioned Muslims who never gave a single thought to the race, or to the complexion, of another Muslim.

My pilgrimage broadened my scope. It blessed me with a new insight. In two weeks in the Holy Land, I saw what I never had seen in thirty-nine years here in America. I saw all races, all colors, blue-eyed blonds to black-skinned Africans in true brotherhood! In unity! Living as one! Worshipping as one! No segregationists no liberals; they would not have known how to interpret the meaning of those words.

In the past, yes, I have made sweeping indictments of all white people. I will never be guilty of that again - as I know now that some white people are truly sincere, that some truly are capable of being brotherly toward a black man. The true Islam has shown me that a blanket indictment of all white people is as wrong as when whites make blanket indictments against blacks.

To the blacks who increasingly looked to him as a leader, El-Hajj Malik preached a new message, quite the opposite of what he had been preaching as a minister in the Nation of Islam:

True Islam taught me that it takes all of the religious, political, economic, psychological, and racial ingredients, or characteristics, to make the Human Family and the Human Society complete.

Since I learned the truth in Mecca, my dearest friends have come to include all kinds - some Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, agnostics, and even atheists! I have friends who are called capitalists, Socialists, and Communists! Some of my friends are moderates, conservatives, extremists - some are even Uncle Toms! My friends today are black, brown, red, yellow, and white!

I said to my Harlem street audiences that only when mankind would submit to the One God who created all, only then would mankind even approach the "peace" of which so much talk could be heard but toward which so little action was seen.

The oneness of man under one God
It was during his pilgrimage that he began to write some letters to his loyal assistants at the newly formed Muslim Mosque in Harlem. He asked that his letter be duplicated and distributed to the press:

Never have I witnessed such sincere hospitality and the overwhelming spirit of true brotherhood as is practiced by people of all colors and races here in this ancient Holy Land, the House of Abraham, Muhammad, and all the other Prophets of the Holy Scriptures. For the past week, I have been utterly speechless and spellbound by the graciousness I see displayed all around me by people of all colors.

You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to rearrange much of my thought-patterns previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions.

This was not too difficult for me. Despite my firm convictions, I have always been a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth.

During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug) while praying to the same God, with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of the "white" Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan, and Ghana.

We were truly all the same (brothers) because their belief in one God had removed the "white" from their minds, the 'white' from their behavior, and the 'white' from their attitude.

I could see from this, that perhaps if white Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps, too, they could accept in reality the Oneness of Man, and cease to measure, and hinder, and harm others in terms of their "differences" in color.

With racism plaguing America like an incurable cancer, the so-called "Christian" white American heart should be more receptive to a proven solution to such a destructive problem. Perhaps it could be in time to save America from imminent disaster - the same destruction brought upon Germany by racism that eventually destroyed the Germans themselves.

They asked me what about the Hajj had impressed me the most. I said, "The brotherhood! The people of all races, color, from all over the world coming together as one! It has proved to me the power of the One God. All ate as one, and slept as one. Everything about the pilgrimage atmosphere accented the Oneness of Man under One God.

Malcolm returned from the pilgrimage as El-Hajj Malik al-Shabazz. He was afire with new spiritual insight. For him, the struggle had evolved from the civil rights struggle of a nationalist to the human rights struggle of an internationalist and humanitarian.

- See more at: http://www.tellmeaboutislam.com/malcolm-x.html#sthash.TxlrJRhH.dpuf

Malcolm X - converted to Islam - 2 part

The effect of the pilgrimage

The pilgrimage to Mecca, known as the Hajj, is a religious obligation that every orthodox Muslim fulfills, if able, at least once in his or her lifetime. The Holy Quran says it, "Pilgrimage to the House (of God built by the prophet Abraham) is a duty men owe to God; those who are able, make the journey." (Quran 3:97)

Allah said: "And proclaim the pilgrimage among men; they will come to you on foot and upon each lean camel, they will come from every deep ravine" (Quran 22:27).

Every one of the thousands at the airport, about to leave for Jeddah, was dressed this way. You could be a king or a peasant and no on e would know. Some powerful personages, who were discreetly pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once thus dressed, we all had begun intermittently calling out "Labbayka! (Allahumma) Labbayka!" (Here I come, O Lord!) Packed in the plane were white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and my kinky red hair all together, brothers! All honoring the same God, all in turn giving equal honor to each other.

That is when I first began to reappraise the "white man." It was when I first began to perceive that "white man," as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions. In America, "white man" meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men.

There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of all colors, from blue-eyed blonds to black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and the non-white. America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem.

Throughout my travels in the Muslim world, I have met, talked to, and even eaten with people who in America would have been considered white but the "white" attitude was removed from their minds by the religion of Islam. I have never before seen sincere and true brotherhood practiced by all colors together, irrespective of their color.

Malcolm's new vision of America
Each hour here in the Holy Land enables me to have greater spiritual insights into what is happening in America between black and white. The American Negro never can be blamed for his racial animosities, he is only reacting to four hundred years of the conscious racism of the American whites. But as racism leads America up the suicide path I do believe, from the experiences that I have had with them, that the whites of the younger generation, in the colleges and universities, will see the handwriting on the wall and many of them will turn to the spiritual path of truth, the only way left to America to ward off the disaster that racism inevitably must lead to.

I believe that God now is giving the world's so-called 'Christian' white society its last opportunity to repent and atone for the crimes of exploiting and enslaving the world's non-white peoples. It is exactly as when God gave Pharaoh a chance to repent. But Pharaoh persisted in his refusal to give justice to those who he oppressed. And, we know, God finally destroyed Pharaoh.

I will never forget the dinner at the Azzam home with Dr. Azzam. The more we talked, the more his vast reservoir of knowledge and its variety seemed unlimited. He spoke of the racial lineage of the descendants of Muhammad the Prophet, and he showed how they were both black and white. He also pointed out how color, and the problems of color which exist in the Muslim world, exist only where, and to the extent that, that area of the Muslim world has been influenced by the West. He said that if on encountered any differences based on attitude toward color, this directly reflected the degree of Western influence.

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Novo izdanje emisije SASVIM ISKRENO. Gost akademik prof. Dževad Jahić.

Poštovani prijatelji,

pogledajte na našem youtube kanalu, 
još jedno izdanje emisije SASVIM ISKRENO, 
koja je emitovana u našem programu,
u subotu, 25.01., u 20:00 sati .
 

Gost je bio akademik prof. Dževad Jahić.

Emisiju uređuje i vodi Anes Džunuzović .

Poštovani prijatelji,
na našem youtube kanalu,
 možete pogledati
snimak sa svečanosti koja je održana povodom
obilježavanja ''100 HUTBI I DŽUMA NAMAZA'' iz džamije KRALJ FAHD,
koje su snimljene i emitovane u programu MTV IGMAN.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJJV1Hx7V5k

Sala GHB medrese - 26.12.2013.
MTV IGMAN

“Iskušenje opstanka” – prvo naučno djelo o političkom djelovanju A. Izetbegovića

Iz štampe je izašla knjiga “Iskušenje opstanka. Izetbegovićevih deset godina (1990.-2000.)" autora Dr. sc. Admira Mulaosmanovića

Knjiga “Iskušenje opstanka. Izetbegovićevih deset godina (1990.-2000.)”

predstavlja prvu na naučnim temeljima zasnovanu političku biografiju Alije Izetbegovića,

prvog predsjedavajućeg Predsjedništva Republike Bosne i Hercegovine.

Autor ovog djela je dr. Admir Malosmanović, naučni saradnik u Institutu za istoriju u Sarajevu. 

Knjiga predstavlja prerađenu doktorsku disertaciju dr. Mulaosmanovića koja je odbranjena na Odsjeku za povijest Sveučilišta u Zagrebu pod mentorstvom dr. Ive Banca.

Knjiga prati političko djelovanje Alije Izetbegovića od osnivanje SDA 1990. godine, pa sve do njegovog povlačenje iz Predsjedništva BiH. S obzirom da je Izetbegović bio jedna od ključnih političkih figura u ovom periodu, može se reći da je ova knjiga i svojevrsna historija Bosne i Hercegovine u periodu od 1990. do 2000.

Knjiga je izašla u izdanju izdavačke kuće “Dobra knjiga” a uskoro se očekuju i promocija u Sarajevu, ali i u drugim bh. gradovima.

Uz knjigu vam preporučujemo da pogledate razgovor s dr. Admirom na MTV Igmanu u emisiji "Sasvim iskreno".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6Rc1CuEfqFE

MTV IGMAN - emisija SASVIM ISKRENO - Gost emisije : doc. dr. Admir Mulaosmanović

SASVIM ISKRENO

Poštovani prijatelji imali ste priliku pogledati
u subotu, 18. januara, u 20:00 sati,
još jedno izdanje emisije ''Sasvim iskreno'' u našem programu.

Gost emisije bio je doc. dr. Admir Mulaosmanović,
autor tek izašle knjige ''ISKUŠENJE OPSTANKA - Izetbegovićevih deset godina 1990-2000.'',
koja je rezultat doktorske disertacije
''Političar Alija Izetbegovć - od osnivanja SDA do izlaska iz Predsjedništva BiH'',
koju je odbranio na FF u Zagrebu, pred prof. dr. Ivom Bancem.


Ukoliko niste bili u mogućnosti da pogledate u našem programu,
istu možete pogledati na našem youtube kanalu :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Rc1CuEfqFE

Vaša MTV IGMAN

Pregled programa MTV IGMAN za 07.02.2014. - PETAK

Petak   07.02.2014. 

10:00    Najava TV  programa MTV IGMAN

10:05    Ilahije i kaside

10:25    Džuma Namaz iz MEKE  direktan prijenos UŽIVO -Islam Channel

11:00    Misri Banč – dječiji program

11:10    Vrijeme je za priču - dječiji program

11:25    Baba Ali: Pomagači zajednice – dječiji program

11:30    Ilahije i kaside

12:02    Ezan za Podne namaz

12:07    Naša svakodnevnica - edukativni program (r)

13:00    Sura Kehf – učenje Kur*ana

13:30    Islamske teme: Priče o Poslanicima – vjerski program

14:00    Tv Liberty – informativni program

14:30    Učenje Kur ana

14:41    Ezan za ikindiju namaz

15:00    Moj Put u Islam : Piere Vogel  - intervju (r)

16:00    Laganini 3 . – emisija o kulinarstvu

16:15    Ilahije i kaside

16:30    Inspiration of the day

17:00   Peta dimenzija 4. epizoda – serijski program (r)

17:11    Ezan za Akšam namaz

18:00    Stopama Miljenika 1. dio – reportaža (r)

18:36    Ezan za Jaciju namaz

19:00    Fetullah Gulen: Sumnjičavost i načini njenog eliminisanja – vjerski program

19:35    Ilahije i kaside

20:00    Snimak Hutbe i Džuma namaza – PREMIJERA vjerski program

21:00    Hazreti Omer 1. epizoda – serijski program

21:40    Ilahije i kaside

22:00    Moj džemat: Stolac – reportaža (r)

23:00    VOA vijesti na bosanskom jeziku

23:30    Ilahije i kaside

24:00    Odjava programa

Pregled programa MTV IGMAN za 06.02.2014. - ČETVRTAK

Četvrtak 06.02.2014.

  

10:00   Najava TV  programa MTV IGMAN

10:05   Ilahije i kaside

10:30   Dječiji svijet – dječiji program

10:40   Mali kuhari – dječiji program

11:00   Zvrk – dječiji program za predškolski uzrast

11:15   Priča o Ibrahimu a.s. – dječiji program

11:30   Ilahije i kaside

12:01   Ezan za Podne namaz

12:06   Islam Channel: Greatest generation 2. - dokumenti

12:30   Ilahije i kaside

13:00   Moj Put u Islam : Piere Vogel   - intervju

13:50   Ilahije i kaside

14:00   Za zdrav život - edukativni program

14:30   Ya sin – učenje Kur ana

14:39   Ezan za ikindiju namaz

15:00   Ilahije i kaside

15:30   Divine Bites - emisija o kulinarstvu

16:00   Snimak Hutbe i Džuma namaza: Careva džamija - Stolac (r)

17:00   Peta dimenzija 3. epizoda – serijski program (r)

17:10   Ezan za Akšam namaz

18:00   Sira: Život Allahovog poslanika Muhammeda s.a.v.s.9. – vjerski program (r)

18:35   Ezan za Jaciju namaz

19:00   Islam Channel: Blagodati  – vjerski program

19:30   Ilahije i kaside

20:00   Moj džemat: Stolac – reportaža PREMIJERA

21:00   Peta dimenzija 4. epizoda – serijski program

22:00   Sasvim Iskreno- intervju – informativni program (r)

23:00   VOA vijesti na bosanskom jeziku

23:30   Sura Ya`sin

24:00   Odjava programa