Resources > Enabling all Christians > Going further > Learning from Muslim People: Helpful Books
Read Miriam’s blog here about the importance of hearing the authentic voice of Muslim people.
Zia Chaudhry Just Your Average Muslim
Zia Chaudhry is one of many British born Muslims who just wants to be recognised as an ordinary human being just like everyone else. Being educated and articulate (he is a solicitor), he has written a book with the title “Just Your Average Muslim.” He shares what it is like growing up as the son of immigrant parents and finding his way in the world. Too easily, we get used to viewing people through the lens of religious affiliation rather than as our neighbours and this book helps to correct that. Also of interest, he takes time to say what he thinks of Christianity, as he understands it.
Shelina Janmohamed Love in a Headscarf: Muslim Woman seeks the One
Everyone seems to have an opinion backed by things they have heard about what it is like for women in Islam. In her highly readable book, Shelina Janmohamed tells us of her own struggles with life in the UK as young professional Muslim from a traditional family. She is expected to get married and she dreams of being married and yet nothing goes according to anyone’s plan. She is clearly writing for outsiders and she wants us to think well of Islam, but this is not some idealised presentation. If we want to understand what life may be like for our Muslim neighbours, this book gives some insights.
Shelina Janmohamed Generation M
This book introduces us to the lifestyle, mindset and worldview of young Muslim people in today’s rapidly changing world. Through snap shots, (or should I say video clips?) Shelina Janmohamed gives insights into how young Muslim people aged between 15 and 30, not just in the UK but around the world, are engaging with the challenges of living in a world influenced by today’s Western materialistic technological culture.
We find out how these young people combine Islam with modernity by expressing themselves through Islamic appropriate fashion, glossy magazines with Muslim appropriate content, financial dealings in line with Muslim principles, and the challenges of halal food and labelling.
The challenges of expressing your faith or being a fulfilled Muslim woman are discussed with frankness and illumination. Insights are offered, through personal testimony, into life as a minority and expressing faith through a spectrum from art to community action.
The book is full of names, places and items which can be found on the internet, opening up an ever-widening horizon of Generation M’s engagement with modernity. Do you want to know more about a dimension of Islam which is often ignored or overlooked because we discuss what Muslim people are ‘supposed’ to believe and do? This book will open a whole new perspective on the young 2nd or 3rd generation Muslim person in your street, workplace or health centre helping your engagement be more relevant and impactful.
Sarfraz Manzoor They
Sarfraz Manzoor is best known for his first autobiographical book, ‘Greetings from Bury Park’ which was the basis for the film ‘Blinded by the Light’. He is a respected journalist who writes for the Guardian. Sarfraz Manzoor was born in Pakistan but grew up in Luton from the age of 4. His wife is white and from Scotland. They have 2 children and now live in London.
‘They’ is an ambitious attempt to address the complexity of the myths held by British Muslims about non-Muslims and those held by non-Muslims about Muslims. Manzoor focusses his research on the Muslim community who originated in the Indian subcontinent, (60% of Muslims in Britain). The book explores the complexity of identity through this lens.
In each chapter Manzoor explores a myth, presents research through interviews with people and their stories. He seeks to find hope and ‘build a bridge of understanding’. His style is personal, and the book tells his own story as he explores the layers of his identity and that of others who identify as Muslim in Britain.
Issues covered are: Segregated Communities, Marriage, Gender Equality, Radical and Violent Islam, Anti-Semitism, Sexuality, Multi-culturalism Values and Patriotism. He does not shy away from sensitive issues and confronts the uncomfortable facts around such issues of grooming of girls, drugs and radicalisation.
I would recommend reading They to those Mahabba members wanting to understand more about what may influence the thinking of the communities they work with and the complexity of the myths that often divide rather than build bridges. It illuminates the diversity of expression of faith and practice within the Muslim community and this is helpful in understanding modern Britain.
It is an easy read in style. However, it is sometimes uncomfortable to face the contribution racism and islamophobia has made to mutual suspicion that fuels the myths.
Ed Husain Among the Mosques: A journey Across Muslim Britain.
This is an unusual book! Ed Husain, journalist and author of the biographical The Islamist describes his visits to mosques across the UK. He goes to visit expressions of Islam which he knows well from his past and also from his present alignments. He also visits expressions that were unfamiliar to him. Along the way, he discreetly gives advice to the uninitiated on how to visit Muslim homes using himself as an example.
He writes as a devout but modern Muslim for a liberal secular audience, particularly highlighting things that are worrying him at the present time. In an interview about the book here, he answered some of the questions that arose in my mind about why he was covering what he was covering.
Husain expresses his alarm at the presence of Saudi-inspired literalism and the overflow of strife from Pakistan into the UK; some have suggested this was irresponsible. He also describes some more hopeful features that he encounters. This is not a book I would recommend to everyone. It needs to be set aside other experiences and accounts to set it in context but all the situations he describes are authentic and that makes it an interesting read.
This book answers the question: What does it really mean to be a Muslim in the West today? The catalyst for this book came when Mariam Khan read that David Cameron had linked the radicalization of Muslim men to the ‘traditional submissiveness’ of Muslim women (2016). She wondered why she was hearing about Muslim women from people who were neither Muslim, nor female – especially since she didn’t know a single Muslim woman who would describe herself that way
Many writers speak robustly and are not afraid to call out the hypocrisy and duplicity in the structures and systems in both western and Islamic cultures. Neither do the writers shy away from critiquing Muslim women themselves who have not used the opportunities to effect change as a result of the representation which success in the fashion industry or in business has made possible to them. There is a warning to South Asian women of the continuation of the “toxic masculinity” behaviour prevalent in their community and an urge to do better : “until we stop mollycoddling Muslim men there won’t be any substantial change”.
I found most moving the contribution by broadcaster, Saima Mir, telling the story of her experience of arranged marriage(s). In this very honest and personal account one gains greater insight into the impact on decision making and life choices which are made as a result of the interwoven-ness and complexities of the differing and sometimes conflicting strands which make up the life of a young, well-educated, British Asian, Muslim woman.
I found most challenging the repeated assertion by contributors that their faith has sustained them despite the cultural patriarchy which blights their lives. These women retain their love for Islam as their way of worship, practice and prayer. Their hope and their fight is for a feminine critique of their religion. They resist by refusing to conform to either the culture of the west or those cultures of heritage and would see no contradiction in declaring themselves as emancipated. It left me wondering how I would share the good news of Jesus with them when they, themselves, are “working out their own salvation” and in many ways, apparently succeeding.
It’s Not About the Burqa is at times funny, sometimes sad, often angry and always passionate. I found it so engaging and so pertinent to current conversations around identity, belonging, misogyny and lazy stereotyping that I devoured it in a day. I would highly recommend this book to any who are engaging with Muslim women in diaspora communities. Let’s read and listen well to what they really have to say.
This page contains descriptions of books which people in the Network have found helpful and which relate to loving all Muslims. This is by no means exhaustive. The inclusion of a book does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within it.
