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Shakespeare and Islam: Good Neighbors?
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Shakespeare's Globe is hosting the Islam Awareness Week this year
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Ever
heard of Shakespeare and Islam being mentioned in one sentence? If not, then you
probably haven’t been to the UK this autumn, particularly during the week of
November 22-28. Let me explain.
Shakespeare’s
Globe Theatre and the Islamic Society of Britain (ISB) organized a Shakespeare
and Islam season for the autumn of 2004. The theme for this year’s Islam
Awareness Week was “Your Muslim Neighbor.”
As
part of this cooperation, a souk, or traditional Arabian market, was arranged
during the last weekend of November in the reconstruction of Shakespeare’s
original Globe Theatre. According to the leaflet advertising the event, this
souk would include “fantastic winter shopping opportunities.” This was very
true, so I was glad that I left most of my money at home, or I would be bankrupt
by now. Anyway, just window shopping was very satisfying for the eyes and ears.
The souk also included art and craft demonstrations by the Prince’s School of
Traditional Art, an exhibition of photography by Peter Sanders, a series of “souk talks,” and “wisdom-oriented entertainment” by the Khayaal Theatre
Company.
Considering
the time they had been allocated, speakers at the “souk talks” were
encouraged to be very “souk-cinct”—how else, for example, could one
explain basics of the faith and the history of Islam in just 30 minutes? It was
a very diverse series of talks ranging from the practical “Islamic
Calligraphy” to the multiple identities of human beings in “A Muslim Female
Trajectory,” and from a preachy presentation on “The concept of the
Hereafter in Islam” to the bubbly young journalist who at the last minute took
over from the original speaker on “Halal meat, Headscarves, and Terrorism.”
According
to the first speaker of the day, Hassan Abedin from the Oxford Centre for
Islamic Studies (OXCIS) who lectured on “Islam in the Modern World,” Ramadan
is like a month-long New Year’s resolution. He reminded us that although Islam
is often popularly thought of as being an Arab religion, the top five countries
with the highest Muslim populations are lands which are far away from Arabia,
such as Indonesia. Even though Syria and Jordan, for example, are known as
Muslim countries, France has more Muslims (5 million) than either Syria or
Jordan (3.2 million each).
Dr
Dawud Noibi, a former Islamic consultant of the London-based Iqra Trust,
suggested that Muslims should be good neighbors as their belief in life after
death influences their actions and behavior in life on earth. Unfortunately, his
implication that non-Muslims are “wicked infidels” did not go down very well
with those keen to learn about Islam and their Muslim neighbors, and undid quite
a bit of the good of the first speaker. Some excellent advice he had for Muslims
though was that we should always remember that all our actions are recorded far
more meticulously than CCTV cameras and DVD can ever record.
Mr.
Nasser Mansour, an Islamic calligrapher and teacher at the Prince’s School of
Traditional Arts, mentioned that the modern version of the saying “the pen is
mightier than the sword” would be “the computer is more powerful than the
atom bomb.” During his talk, he focused on the four stages of making a
traditional pen from material similar to bamboo—opening, sharpening, slitting,
and clipping. For non-Arab speakers it was funny to hear that a pen gets tested
by writing the Arabic letter waw, which looks similar to the English letter
g or
the number 9.
The
overriding advice of Zarah Hussein, a young female journalist, speaking instead
of scheduled Fareena Alam, who had to travel to Syria at the last minute, was
that if we want our non-Muslim neighbors to understand us better, more Muslims
should work in the media. She mentioned that ignorance about Islam is the
greatest fuel for Islamophobia. As most of us get our information from the
media, it is not enough for her alone, the only hijabi at the BBC (besides the
cleaner) during 9/11, to carry the torch. It is important for us to explain that
the vast majority of Muslims are just as interested in housing, education, and
crime prevention as anybody else, though we do have to differentiate between
Islam and our cultural peculiarities.
By
3 p.m. it was time for a talk on “Art and Alchemy” by Mr. David Cranswick,
who is a traditional painter with a doctorate from the Prince of Wales Institute
in London. The word alchemy comes from the Arabic word al-kimiya or al-khimiya,
meaning cast together, or pour together, or weld, or alloy, and so on. The main
element from this talk was the organization of colors with the help of the seven
visible planets: That is, Mars, for example, carries colors from ochre to brown
and Venus carries colors such as blue and green. Could that be where John Gray
got his inspiration from when he argued that “Men are from Mars, Women are
from Venus”?
Dr.
Matthew Birchwood is a visiting scholar at the Centre for Editing Lives and
Letters, Queen Mary University in London and is specialized in the role of Islam
in literary-political discourses of the seventeenth century in England. He,
along with Dr. Matthew Dimmock, who is an English Lecturer at the University of
Sussex, was allotted a talk on “Icons and Infidels.” They focused on two
visits by Moroccan ambassadors to seventeenth century England (it is amazing how
much paintings can say about politics and religion!). They started off with the
sad statement that 500 years on, the Moors are, once again, about to be evicted
from Spain.
Sarah
Joseph, the chief editor of EMEL magazine, an Islamic lifestyle magazine,
mentioned that she was recently asked to squeeze herself into a description of
just three words. Having so many identities and character aspects, the main
thing she could mention was being human. Although she is obviously not unique in
that respect, it did clarify that we have the capacity to relate to other human
beings instead of always identifying ourselves as a minority: We can perceive
ourselves as part and parcel of society, as human as our non-Muslim neighbors.
After
mentioning having a very thick skin and being willing to handle any question,
she was asked about the famous wife-beating clause in the Qur’an. She answered
that, although this clause was not the one that had tipped her over the edge to
decide to become Muslim some 17 years ago, she stated that with proper
questioning of the historical context and interpretation of the verse, it was
clear that far from introducing domestic violence, it actually sought to
extinguish it. What it meant to convey is that partners who “have words”
don’t automatically get a one way ticket to Hell. The life of the Prophet
Mohammed (peace and blessings be upon him) is, again, our great example in this
respect.
To
end the day, Dr Matthew Birchwood spoke again, this time about the “Alchoran,”
the first translation of the Qur’an into English, dating back to 1649. This
shows that Islam has been a good neighbor in the UK for much longer than the
Asian invasion of the 1950s.
With
all these interesting talks to attend, there was little time left to listen to
the three short plays and the collection of short stories specially produced for
the occasion by the British Khayaal (Arabic for imagination) Theatre Company.
Just looking at them for a bit, though, on the brilliantly decorated stage and
wearing beautiful, historical outfits, it was easy to drift off and believe I
was actually in Arabia as it was a few centuries ago.
Finally,
judging by the accents, there were quite a few of our neighbors present from
across the pond. According to one of the people who had come from the US, many
had come over to London as students, and they had been joined this weekend by
vacationers using Thanksgiving as an excuse to visit their neighbors on the
other side of the ocean.
*
Rianne C. ten Veen
is IslamOnline.net correspondent in Birmingham, UK. Currently, she is an employee in Islamic Relief. You can reach her at
riannetv@mail.com
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