An open apology to Q-News
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As-salaamu alaykum
A few months ago or thereabouts, my relentless search for a progressive Muslim voice in Britain delivered me to a pair of articles in The Observer and The Guardian, written by the staff on Q-News. To make courteous a piece of vulgar slang, both pieces heated my wee wee to precisely one hundred degrees centigrade.
Two things annoyed me more than anything. The first was the sense that both these articles were a public relations exercise on behalf of Islam. As a Muslim, I strive not to do PR - I try to tell the truth, where my foibles permit. I sincerely hope I would never stoop so low as to massage left-wing sensibilities by quoting from that great bastion of the totalitarian left, Chairman Mao. It would be no better than leafing through the writings of al-Wahhab, in the hope of finding a quote to use in an article about progressive Muslims for Hizb ut-Tahrir Weekly.
Worse was your bold conflation of Islam with the social problems facing the Muslim community in Britain. Many of the problems facing British Muslims have nothing to do with Islam. Poor housing, unemployment and social exclusion - do you really think these problems can be cured or explained by simple appeals to a renewed faith or tolerance? A helping hand that clenches the Qur'an cannot be grasped by those who need help and have no faith. First, they must know unconditional love.
You are not only the only people to make this error of judgement. A recent report written by the Association of Muslim Social Scientists lent far to much weight to Islamophobia as an explanation of Muslim underachievement in education - or should I say, the underachievement of Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims. This slight of hand was quickly spotted by journalists, who will no doubt be on the look-out now for further cloak and dagger dawah.
Of course, a similar accusation might be levelled at me. My website mixes Islam and development issues. But I do so for a good reason - I believe serving Ar-Rahmn requires Muslims to acknowledge that all knowledge systems are man made - whether it be Qur'anic exegesis or atomic physics. Truth is not afraid of open discussion - that's what being progressive Muslim is all about. It is tragic so many Muslims believe that open debate and discussion have never been part of Islam.
However, I regret I committed a sin in confronting these issues. Rather than writing to Q-News telling them of my sudden need for ice blocks on the bladder, I impaled myself with a gross act of hypocrisy and, I confess, slagged you off to my friends and - worse - to the atheist journalist Polly Toynbee. I like Polly, but really, taking my grievances to her first and not you was simply wrong.
I am writing this, to be frank, because I am going to get caught. Q-news have just published a copy of letter I wrote to them in April, asking for British progressive Muslims to get it together. Guardian journalists will no doubt read it and say, 'Bloody hypocrite!' Then they will ring Managing Editor Fareena Alam who will arrange to have me beaten up - well, in my paranoid fantasies, anyway.
So, sorry Fareena and everyone at Q-News. I rubbished you to an atheist and then wrote you a letter as if you were my brothers/sisters, which you were kind enough to publish. As the Qur'an points out, that makes me a hypocrite. I'm genuinely sorry. Please don't cancel my subscription!
Allah knows best.
Wasalaam
Yakoub Islam
(This letter has been sent to Q-News and other assorted Muslim groups and organizations)