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WORK TITLE: Hospitality and Islam
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1963
WEBSITE:
CITY: Edinburgh, Scotland
STATE:
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
NATIONALITY: British
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Siddiqui * http://www.heraldscotland.com/arts_ents/13191833.Mona_Siddiqui_My_journey/ * http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/people/profile/mona-siddiqui
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LOC is still down.
PERSONAL
Born May 3, 1963, in Karachi Pakistan; naturalized British citizen; daughter of a psychiatrist; married; children: three sons.
EDUCATION:University of Leeds, B.A., 1984; University of Manchester, M.A., 1986, Ph.D., 1992.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Educator, writer. University of Glasgow, Scotland, lecturer, 1996-2006, Professor of Islamic Studies and Public Understanding, 2006-11; Centre for the Study of Islam, director; University of Edinburgh, Scotland, School of Divinity, Professor and Dean in Islamic and Inter-religious Studies and Assistant Principal Religion and Society , 2011–. Commentator in print and broadcasting media.
AWARDS:Elected fellow, Royal Society of Edinburgh, 2005; elected fellow, Royal Society of Arts, 2005; appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), 2011; named in top 500 list of the most influential people in the UK. Debretts, 2015. Honorary D.Litt. from the University of Wolverhampton and the University of Leicester, Honorary Doctor of Civil Laws from the University of Huddersfield.
RELIGION: MuslimWRITINGS
Contributor to periodicals, including Times, Scotsman, Guardian, and Sunday Herald, and to BBC Radio 4.
SIDELIGHTS
The first Muslim chair in Islamic and Inter-religious Studies at a major university, Mona Siddiqui is a professor at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Divinity and a frequent commentator in print and broadcast media on Islamic issues. Born in Karachi, Pakistan, Siddiqui immigrated with her family to England as a youth, her father a psychiatrist doing post-graduate work in Cambridge. Eventually the family moved to Huddersfield, England, where the father found a professional position. Siddiqui earned her bachelor’s degree at the University of Leeds in Arabic and French and her master’s and doctorate at the University of Manchester, where she focused on Middle-Eastern Studies and Classical Islamic Law.
Fluent in French, Arabic and Urdu, Siddiqui joined the faculty of the University of Glasgow in 1996, serving as lecturer and Professor of Islamic Studies and Public Understanding until 2011, when she moved to the University of Edinburgh. Siddiqui has become well-known internationally as a public intellectual and a speaker on issues dealing with religion, ethics, and public life. She is also the author a number of books on Islam and the West, including Christians, Muslims, and Jesus; My Way: A Muslim Woman’s Journey; and Hospitality in Islam; Welcoming in God’s Name.
Christians, Muslims, and Jesus
In her 2014 work, Christians, Muslims, and Jesus, Siddiqui blends both scholarship and her personal religious beliefs in a discussion of how Christianity and Islam view Jesus. While Christians see Jesus as the son of God and part of the holy trinity, Muslims “revere Jesus as a uniquely inspired prophet who was born of the Virgin Mary, ascended to heaven and will come again,” according to a contributor in the Economist, who further noted: “Yet Muslims cannot accept that Jesus was the son of God. This, they believe, reflects a flawed view of both Jesus and God.” Siddiqui further demonstrates in the book that in the early centuries following the rise of Islam, the two religions were in deep conflict over this dispute while also acknowledging that each is a monotheistic religion.
According to the Economist reviewer, “The most compelling passages [of Christians, Muslims, and Jesus] are the personal ones, in which the author sets out some of her own dilemmas. A Muslim, she describes herself as fascinated by Christianity. But she remains committed to an Islamic belief in a God who is utterly transcendent and so could not have taken human form, as Christians say of Jesus.” Writing in Library Journal, Muhammed Hassanali commented: “Readers come away with a sense of how strikingly similar both religious traditions are, as well as how remarkably different.” Choice critic J. Hammer also had praise, noting that Siddiqui “offers material for further conversation and an open-ended call for more dialogue.” Similarly, Theological Studies contributor David Marshall observed: “[Siddiqui] has done much for Muslim-Christian dialogue over the last two decades, and I am one of many Christians who are very grateful for her contribution. In her new book she has pointed to the kind of work that we need a leading Muslim scholar to write in order to take Christian-Muslim dialogue forward to a greater depth of intellectual and spiritual encounter. If this is not quite the book that Christian readers are waiting for, it is a valuable first draft toward it. That is something for which we should be very grateful.”
My Way and Hospitality and Islam
In her 2015 work, My Way, Siddiqui looks at the polarizing debate involving Islam and the West through the lens of her own experience of a Muslim living in the West. She examines issues of faith and identity such as wearing the veil and attempts to show the universality of the concerns of her own journey as a Muslim woman and the resonance of such concerns with people of all faiths and nationalities. A contributor in the online Church Times described the book: “It is part memoir and part theological reflection. [Siddiqui] considers contemporary concerns and issues of faith and identity, as observed from her experiences growing up as Muslim in a Western country, and sets out to challenge what she regards as lazy stereotyping and polarised thinking about Islam and the West.”
Reviewing My Way in Herald Scotland Online, Vicky Allan commented: “[Siddiqui’s] book is rich in such musings, backed up with more complex theology and quotes from culturally diverse figures such as the poets Rainer Maria Rilke and Jalal al-din Rumi. But it also tells her own life story and that of her parents, who came to Britain from Pakistan in the 1960s, with their three daughters, including five-year-old Mona. … My Way doesn’t shirk the hotly debated politicised issues that revolve around Islam. Siddiqui sets her faith in its historical context, construing the Qu’ran as a text that sees the world through a man’s eye, and represents the patriarchal view of its time.” Writing in Third Way Web site, Beth Grove similarly commented: “This was an enjoyable read of a very personal journey of a well thought out Westernized Muslim Woman. Her story, her views of God and society, would be very appealing to the Modern, Liberal Muslim, and to those in the West who long for this view of Islam to be the status quo of all Muslims.” However, Grove was also critical of this work, arguing that the “the biographies and sayings of her prophet, Muhammad, as well as the lives of many of her country of origin, most of whom go to the Qur’an, do not support her viewpoint of Islam. … This book is truly Siddiqui’s way, an assimilated modern Westernized way, with some specially chosen overtones of Islam thrown into the mix, and interestingly enough, fairly Christian.”
In Hospitality and Islam, Siddiqui investigates the tradition of hospitality within the context of religion, focusing primarily on Islam. She looks at various Muslin traditions regarding this issue over the centuries and also compares Muslim values regarding hospitality with those of Christians. Additionally, the author explores the perspectives of Muslims and Christians as regards charity and alms-giving. “Siddiqui offers a particularly striking discussion of how the attitude and action of hospitality are fundamental to the relations between the genders,” according to Choice critic P.S. Spalding.
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Choice, December, 2013. J. Hammer, review of Christians, Muslims and Jesus, p. 657; April, 2016, P.S. Spalding, review of Hospitality and Islam: Welcoming in God’s Name, p. 1184.
Economist, August 10, 2013, review of Christians, Muslims and Jesus, p. 70.
Interpretation, July, 2014, review of The Routledge Reader in Christian-Muslim Relations, p. 351.
Library Journal, June 15, 2013, Muhammed Hassanali, review of Christians, Muslims and Jesus, p. 96.
Publishers Weekly, October 5, 2015, Marcia Z. Nelson, “Neighbors and Strangers: New Titles Focusing on Islam Provide Innovative Perspectives,” review of Hospitality and Islam, p. S4; October 5, 2015, Kristin Swenson, “Mona Siddiqui: Welcome to My Muslim Home,” review of Hospitality and Islam, p. S10.
Reference & Research Book News, June, 2013, review of The Routledge Reader in Christian-Muslim Relations.
Theological Studies December, 2013, David Marshall, review of Muslims, Christians, and Jesus, p. 1000.
ONLINE
ABC News, http://www.abc.net.au/ (October 12, 2016), author interview.
Church Times, https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/ (February 13, 2015), “British, Female, Muslim, and Typecast.”
Crassh, http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/ (February 22, 2017), author profile.
Herald Scotland Online, http://www.heraldscotland.com/ (November 29, 2014), Vicky Allan, review of My Way: A Muslim Woman’s Journey.
Sceptical Scot, http://sceptical.scot/ (March 9, 2015), Jackie Kemp, review of My Way.
Telegraph Online, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ (November 19, 2015), Mona Siddiqui, “We Muslims Can’t Wait for the Next Bomb before We Speak Out.”
Third Way, https://thirdway.hymnsam.co.uk/ (July, 2015), review of My Way.
University of Edinburgh Web site, http://www.ed.ac.uk/ (February 22, 2017), author profile.*
Mona Siddiqui
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mona Siddiqui
OBE FRSE FRSA
Born Karachi, Pakistan
Residence Glasgow, Scotland
Alma mater University of Leeds
Website www.ed.ac.uk
Mona Siddiqui, OBE, FRSE, FRSA[1] (born 3 May 1963[2]) is a British Muslim academic. She is Professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies at the University of Edinburgh.[3] and is a member of the Commission on Scottish Devolution.[4][5] She is also a regular contributor to Thought for the Day and Sunday on BBC Radio 4, and to The Times, The Scotsman, The Guardian, Sunday Herald.
Contents [hide]
1 Early life
2 Career
3 Awards and nominations
4 Bibliography
5 References
Early life[edit]
Siddiqui was born in Karachi, Pakistan.[2] The family moved from Pakistan to England in 1968. Her father was a psychiatrist and moved to England to carry out post-graduate work in Cambridge. His work eventually took the family to Huddersfield when he gained a substantive job. They lived in four successive houses in Huddersfield, moving partly because the family expanded from four to six, and finally into a 1930s detached house in a relatively prosperous area near the town centre. The household was very literary and there were many books in the house.
Siddiqui became closest to her sister about seven years younger than herself. Urdu was generally spoken at home, and so the children became bilingual. Her father also spoke Arabic and worked in Saudi Arabia for a few years, where he was visited by Siddiqui at the age of about 18 together with her sister.[6] At the age of 11, Siddique attended Salendine Nook High School, a multicultural school, where she excelled in English. She later moved to Greenhead College.[6]
Siddiqui is fluent in French, Arabic and Urdu and is married with three sons.[7]
Career[edit]
Siddiqui took her Bachelor of Arts in Arabic and French at the University of Leeds (graduating in 1984), and her Master of Arts in Middle-Eastern Studies and PhD in Classical Islamic Law at the University of Manchester (graduating in 1986 and 1992 respectively). She served as a member of the Advisory Boards for Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art, Scottish Asian Arts, IB Tauris Religious Studies project and the Journal of the American Academy of Religion.
She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in March 2005 and of the Royal Society of Arts in October 2005. She also holds an Honorary D.Litt. from the University of Wolverhampton and the University of Leicester. In addition she was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Civil Laws from the University of Huddersfield. She has worked at the University of Glasgow since 1996, and in 1998 founded the Centre for the Study of Islam. In 2006, she was appointed Professor of Islamic Studies and Public Understanding, and served as a Senate Assessor on the University Court.
Her areas of specialism are classical Islamic law, law and gender, early Islamic thought, and contemporary legal and ethical issues in Islam. Professor Siddiqui is the author of 'How to Read the Qur'an' Granta, a four volume edited collection, `Islam' (Sage) and `The Good Muslim' (CUP). She is currently working on two further monographs with Yale UP and IB Tauris. She has published articles and chapters on classical Islamic Law and also writes and speaks frequently on Christian-Muslim issues.[8]
Siddiqui was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2011 Birthday Honours for services to inter-faith relations.[9][10] Siddiqui is patron of The Feast,[11] a pioneering youthwork charity which is focussed on community cohesion between Christian and Muslim young people.[12]
Awards and nominations[edit]
In January 2013, Siddiqui was nominated for the Services to Education award at the British Muslim Awards.[13]
Bibliography[edit]
Books
How to read the Qur'an. London: Granta Books. 2007. ISBN 9781862079458.
Islam (4 vols). London Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage. 2010. ISBN 9781847873606.
The good Muslim: reflections on classical Islamic law and theology. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2012. ISBN 9780521518642.
The Routledge reader in Christian-Muslim relations. London New York: Routledge. 2013. ISBN 9780415685542.
Christians, Muslims and Jesus. New Haven: Yale University Press. 2013. ISBN 9780300169706.
QUOTE:
book is rich in such musings, backed up with more complex theology and quotes from culturally diverse figures such as the poets Rainer Maria Rilke and Jalal al-din Rumi. But it also tells her own life story and that of her parents, who came to Britain from Pakistan in the 1960s, with their three daughters, including five-year-old Mona.
My Way doesn't shirk the hotly debated politicised issues that revolve around Islam. Siddiqui sets her faith in its historical context, construing the Qu'ran as a text that sees the world through a man's eye, and represents the patriarchal view of its time.
\Mona Siddiqui My journey
29 Nov 2014 / Vicky Allan, Senior features writer
NOTHING shouts Islam here.
There are no hijabs, minarets or prayer mats in Mona Siddiqui's working world. When we meet at Edinburgh University's school of divinity, where she is Professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies, and search for suitable settings for the photo shoot, we find only heraldic shields, wood-panelling and black and white marble flooring. Nor is there anything that yells "Muslim" about Siddiqui herself. Of course her religion is there, as we sit down for lunch in a nearby restaurant. She doesn't drink alcohol. She eats only halal meat - here, she orders hot smoked trout, pushing aside the anchovies which she doesn't want. But she doesn't wear her faith. Rather she talks it, thinks it, analyses it, examines it, reads it, writes it and lives it.
Islam, she says, is never out of the public focus, and "for all the wrong reasons". "Most people see Islam in terms of conflict," she says. "The only way of talking about it seems to be through the prism of terror." When she speaks at events, many people only want to know about the veil and extremism. Yet most days of her life she thinks about neither. "I'm thinking about other things." Those things are reflected in her new book. Part memoir, part theological contemplation, My Way: A Muslim Woman's Journey, is a very personal book. Intentionally, it is not about politics, but about those issues that preoccupy all of us: "Love, marriage, children."
Siddiqui's conversation is littered with simple, philosophical ponderings, bite-sized thoughts for the day, and reflections on human connections. "The most important thing we do in life," she says, "is cultivate relationships - and that's what keeps us happy and makes us sad."
Her book is rich in such musings, backed up with more complex theology and quotes from culturally diverse figures such as the poets Rainer Maria Rilke and Jalal al-din Rumi. But it also tells her own life story and that of her parents, who came to Britain from Pakistan in the 1960s, with their three daughters, including five-year-old Mona. Although initially unsure if they were leaving Karachi for good, they decided to stay here for their children's education, and became part of the experiment of British multiculturalism.
The book contains colourful descriptions of the family home in Huddersfield, and of Eid, a grand feast her mother always insisted on hosting. "As children and even as young adults," writes Siddiqui, "we just helped out, never quite understanding why we always did the inviting, why we always had to cook so much and why my mother was so insistent that it was better to have guests than be a guest." The Eid feast is a practice she continues with her own family, her husband and three sons. "Otherwise," she explains, "how will the children know what it should be like?"
My Way doesn't shirk the hotly debated politicised issues that revolve around Islam. Siddiqui sets her faith in its historical context, construing the Qu'ran as a text that sees the world through a man's eye, and represents the patriarchal view of its time.
When I raise the issue of the veil, I can sense her sighing inwardly. Islam, she fears, has been reduced to "a dress code". "People," she says, "have stopped talking about so many other things to the detriment of society. There are larger issues: education, gender equality, domestic abuse."
There is a tendency, she notes, to parcel people into categories. "If a woman covers her head that might be considered quite extreme or conservative," she says. "But that girl might be very liberal in other ways." Appearances can be deceiving. In Siddiqui's book, she relates the story of how a Muslim academic told her that some niqab-wearing Muslim women in her university were leading double lives. Many, the woman said, would come into her office asking for the morning after pill.
Siddiqui has never made a habit of donning the veil. Even when she married into her husband's hijab-wearing family and was gifted countless scarves, she declined to wear them. "The family never complained," she recalls. "I didn't do it out of defiance. It just wasn't something that I was interested in." She has occasionally worn a veil out of respect. Aged 18, on to Saudi Arabia where her father was then working, she wore the burqa. In a 2008 radio interview she recalled that, far from finding the garment oppressive, she enjoyed being able to "smirk and laugh and joke about everything underneath that burqa". Back home in Huddersfield, she even wore a long, black mackintosh and head-covering to recapture the "wealth and exotic atmosphere" of the Saudi experience.
Siddiqui, who in 2011 received an OBE for services to inter-faith relations, is perhaps best known as a contributor to BBC Radio 4's Thought For The Day, but she is a regular commentator on Islamic issues in other parts of the media - and remains one of the few high-profile female figures in her field.
Although interested in women's rights, Siddiqui does not describe herself as a feminist. She laughs when I mention the word: "Oh gosh, no. I don't like labels. I don't like Muslim labels, I don't like secular labels." Nevertheless, she shares many feminist concerns. "Things like honour killings, forced marriage, or women not being allowed to have a voice, not being allowed to do certain things: these are big issues," she says. "For a lot of women from Islam even just making their voice heard is a big jihad [struggle]. It means they've gone against so many moral codes."
Siddiqui's mother, who grew up in India, probably had "very few freedoms". "But maybe she didn't see it like that. She was a determined woman so whatever culture she grew up in, she made the best of and took it a stage further." She was also strict with her children. Siddiqui wasn't raised with the freedoms many of her school mates had. She wasn't allowed to go to the cinema (except in daytime), or discos. "You just live with it," she says. "I mean you can rebel against it, but that wasn't something I was going to do. I think I was too close to my mother."
Siddiqui and her sisters appear to have adored their mother, who wanted one of her daughters to be a doctor, one a lawyer, and one a lecturer - which is what they became. Siddiqui also knew she would be expected to have an arranged marriage. People are often surprised that she and her accountant husband were matched in this way. "They can't quite link who I am now with the fact I had an arranged marriage. People have perceptions about what it is - that it's something quite narrow and limiting. But I always say it doesn't matter how you marry, it's what you do after you marry."
It seems to have worked very well for Siddiqui and her husband Farhaj, who have been married more than 20 years. The match was arranged through family friends. She recalls feeling, when they met: "This man will make my life comfortable and I will enjoy my life." On marrying, she moved to Scotland to live with him. "When we married, I felt relief. I was with somebody who understood me. He was almost like a husband and a friend rolled into one."
They were "on the same page quite a lot". They wanted, for instance, to be the primary carers of their children, and not rely on extended family for childcare - instead, using nurseries. They didn't want to find themselves living in different cities because of work. What's striking about Siddiqui's description of their life together, is that their arranged marriage seems the quintessence of a modern relationship. They both work. She does more of the domestic chores, but in the juggling act of nursery, school runs, conferences, time away from home there has been a real sense of shared parenting.
Her sons are now 13, 18 and 20. She does not plan to arrange marriages for them. "I say to them," she says, "if you can find somebody you feel you can make a life with, then just let me know." She has, she says, given them more freedoms than she and her siblings enjoyed. Would it be different if her children had been girls. "Yes. I would have been more conservative."
One of the big cultural decisions she made was to speak Urdu at home. "If you don't know the language you've lost a sense of something." Like her parents, she wants to give her children the best of her background. For her mother and father that meant the best of "the real culture of the subcontinent": not its food and dress, but its "literature, culture, music, thinking". Knowledge was what mattered to them. Her father, a consultant psychiatrist, was a "very well-read man" - and her mother was an avid reader. They made regular trips to Bradford, where they would rake through the Urdu bookshops.
In the book, Siddiqui writes movingly of the loss of her mother. She was in her 30s, had just started a job at the University of Glasgow and was occupied with bringing up her own young family, when her mother was struck by a sudden brain haemorrhage. "It took almost four years before I could wake up in the morning and not feel a faint ache at the front of my head reminding me that she was no longer alive," she recalls. Two years later, her father, who had been already affected by a stroke, also died. He had "sobbed loudly" on the death of his wife. She speaks very inspiringly about these two people, who bonded in the risk they had taken together in starting a new life away from their homeland.
On a visit to Delhi for a family wedding, Siddiqui was struck by the "emotional and physical challenge of how families and couples lived in close proximity, often in the same house". She found the intensity and lack of privacy unappealing. She was also shocked by the living conditions in her father's home village: no running water, no real electricity, hardly any furniture. "I couldn't quite picture him growing up with so little," she writes in her book.
That sense of family and community, deeply enmeshed, is not something she has fostered in her own life. The intensities of juggling work and family life seem to have left little place for "the community". Yet, she seems to perceive this connectedness as something we are losing all the way across society. "We only want to do things in our own little environment. Is that what's leading to so many communities breaking down? Where is the happy compromise? The being part of something bigger while keeping your own space and independence."
She quotes frequently from The Culture Of Narcissism by Christopher Lasch, which describes how "there are more and more single people doing things for our own satisfaction but ultimately feeling less fulfilled". In a recent piece on extremism she theorised that emotional unfulfilment, rather than politics, might lie at the heart of why some are attracted to extremist violence.
My Way is just one small tale in the wider story of British multiculturalism. Siddiqui believes it is the job of minority immigrants, not the host communities, to make it work. Yet she also appears slightly despondent about the possibilities of diverse groups living side by side "meaningfully". "In terms of issues like intermarriage," she says, "there are communities where there is very little movement". Who you are happy for your children to marry, she says, is a true test of how liberal you are. But even she fails a little on this. "I'd be lying if I said I didn't want them to marry within their faith. And that's partly because I know marriage has enough hurdles without adding extra hurdles."
Talking to Mona Siddiqui is a comforting break from the daily media assault of stories about violence and Islamic extremism; a reminder that there remains a strong, liberal strand to British Islam. Who is listening to her? It turns out Siddiqui is well aware of her audience. Whether at conferences, or musing on the radio, she is not, for the most part, playing to Muslims (she has only been invited a Muslim-only conference three times in her life). Rather, she says, she is talking to "white, fairly secular people".
People like me. We, it turns out, are the ones who like her message.
My Way: A Muslim Woman's Journey by Mona Siddiqui is published by IB Tauris
Mona Siddiqui
About
Mona Siddiqui joined the University of Edinburgh’s Divinity school in December 2011 as the first Muslim chair in Islamic and Interreligious Studies. Prior to this she was Professor of Islamic Studies at Glasgow University where she directed the Centre for the Study of Islam. Her research areas are primarily in the field of Islamic jurisprudence and Christian-Muslim relations. Amongst her publications are Christians, Muslims and Jesus (Yale University Press, 2013), The Good Muslim: Reflections on Classical Islamic Law and Theology (Cambridge University Press, 2012), The Routledge Reader in Christian-Muslim Relations, (Routledge 2012) How to read the Qur’an (Granta 2007) as well as numerous articles and think pieces. Her book recounting her personal theological journey is currently in press with IB Tauris titled Between Faith and Freedom. Her current research is on the legal and theological limits of hospitality which will be published with Yale UP. She currently holds a visiting professorship at the universities of Utrecht and Tilburg and is an associate scholar at Georgetown University’s Berkley Centre for Religion, Peace and World Affairs. In March this year she will hold the Humanitas professorship in womens rights at Cambridge University.
In her public work she engages on issues of faith and ethics in society as a well known public intellectual nationally and internationally. Professor Siddiqui is a regular commentator in print and broadcasting media, a frequent contributor to Thought for the day for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio Scotland and chairs the BBC’s Religious Advisory Committee. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Royal Society of Arts and an honorary fellow of the Royal Incorporation of Scottish Architects in recognition of her public work in the UK. In 2011 she was awarded an Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her contribution to interfaith services and in 2012 appeared on the BBC’s Desert Island Discs in recognition of her role in the academy and public life. She holds 3 honorary doctorates and will receive a DLitt from the University of Roehampton in June 2014. She currently serves as Assistant Principal for Religion and Society at Edinburgh University. Between 2013-2014, she will serve as the Vice-Chair of the Global Agenda Council on Faith for the World Economic Forum and has been invited to speak at Davos. In 2016 she will deliver the Gifford lectures at the University of Aberdeen.
While in Cambridge Mona Siddiqu will give a series of three public lectures and participate in a concluding symposium. Please click here to see information about these events.
Position:
Humanitas Women's Rights
Period:
October 2013 - March 2014
Email:
Mona.Siddiqui@ed.ac.uk
Professor Mona Siddiqui
Professor in Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations and Dean International, Middle East
School of Divinity
Member of the Global agenda Council on Faith for the World Economic Forum
Tel: +44 (0)131 650 7912
Email: Mona.Siddiqui@ed.ac.uk
School of Divinity
School of Divinity, Mound Place
Edinburgh
EH1 2LX
Biography
Biography
My areas of research are in Islamic Studies, particularly in classical Islamic law (fiqh) and ethics and the theological history of Christian-Muslim relations. I welcome Masters or Phd applications from students in both disciplines.
Throughout my university career, I have always been involved in public life and worked with the media. Aside from my broadcasting, I chair the BBC’s Scottish Religious Advisory Committee and am a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics.
Mona Siddiqui joined the University of Edinburgh’s Divinity school in December 2011 as the first person to hold a chair in Islamic and Interreligious Studies. She also holds the posts of Assistant Principal for Religion and Society and Dean international for the Middle-East at the University of Edinburgh Prior to this she worked at Glasgow University directing the Centre for the Study of Islam. Her research areas are primarily in the field of Islamic jurisprudence and ethics and Christian-Muslim relations. Amongst her most recent publications are, Hospitality in Islam: Welcoming in God’s Name (Yale UP, 2015), My Way: A Muslim Woman's Journey (IB Tauris, 2014), Christians, Muslims and Jesus (Yale University Press, 2013), and The Good Muslim: Reflections on Classical Islamic Law and Theology (Cambridge University Press, 2012). She has held visiting professorships at several Dutch and American universities including a Humanitas Professorship at Cambridge University in 2014.
She is well known internationally as a public intellectual and a speaker on issues around religion, ethics and public life. She is a regular commentator in the media, known especially for her appearances on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio Scotland’s Thought for the Day. In 2012, she appeared as a guest on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs in 2012 and in July 2015, was a guest on BBC Radio 3’s Private Passions. She chairs the BBC’s Religious Advisory Committee in Scotland. She has recently been elected to join the Nuffield Council of Bioethics and invited onto the Board of the Franco-British Council. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, holds four honorary doctorates and an honorary fellowship of the Royal Society of Scottish Architects for her contribution to public life. In 2011, she was awarded an OBE for her contribution to interfaith services. In 2014 she spoke on religion and politics at the World Economic Forum in Davos as she is a member of the Global Agenda Council on Faith for the World Economic Forum. In 2015, she was named in the Debretts top 500 list of the most influential people in the UK. In 2016, she will give the Prideaux lectures at the University of Exeter and the Gifford lectures at the University of Aberdeen.
Qualifications
OBE FRSE FRSA DCivil Laws(Hon) Dlitt (Hon),Hon FRIAS
Professor Mona Siddiqui
Mona Siddiqui is Professor of Islamic and Inter-religious Studies and Assistant Principal Religion and Society.
Areas of responsibility
Enhance the university’s international profile in areas of religious debate through organising and participating in public and academic events
Raise the external profile of the University in Islamic and Inter-Religious Studies through a wide range of media and external engagements
Contact details
Professor Mona Siddiqui
Assistant Principal Religion and Society
School of Divinity
University of Edinburgh
Work: +44 (0)131 650 7912
Fax: +44 131 650 7952
Email: Mona.Siddiqui@ed.ac.uk
New College
Mound Place
Edinburgh
EH1 2LX
Mona Siddiqui: Islam in the West is not a simple issue
RN The Religion and Ethics Report
Updated 12 Oct 2016, 11:03pm
Sydney mural of veiled woman, 2015
PHOTO: Mona Siddiqui argues that the East/West binary is counterproductive. (Getty Images: Peter Parks)
RELATED STORY: Half of Australians want Muslim immigration ban — but it's not that simple
MAP: United Kingdom
Most Muslims living in Britain and Australia are neither enemies of Western civilisation nor blameless victims of Islamophobia, a leading public intellectual says.
Mona Siddiqui, the chair of Islamic and Interreligious Studies at the University of Edinburgh, is in Australia to deliver a series of lectures for The Centre for Public and Contextual Theology.
Speaking to RN's Religion and Ethics Report, she issued a call for a more complex understanding of the relationship between Muslims and the liberal democracies they live in.
Listen to the full interview
Mona Siddiqui speaks to The Religion and Ethics Report.
"I said post-9/11 and the London bombings that what we're seeing is actually the thick end of the wedge," said Professor Siddiqui.
"A lot of things were going on, festering away in these communities that have spilled over into violence.
"But there's also a cultural amnesia in many communities and in much of the media debate that sees this as an isolated thing.
"Why would Muslims want to create havoc in peaceful liberal democracies where they have everything? That is a really profound question which none of us can answer."
The limits of multiculturalism
Once they were living in the West, Muslims felt the only way they could preserve their cultural heritage was "thinking and living only one way", Professor Siddiqui said.
"For decades, nobody interfered with that," she said.
"That's where the problem started, that laissez-faire attitude that the Brits, the Australians and the North Americans have towards multiculturalism: that pluralism is a great thing that everybody knows how to negotiate.
"Actually, it isn't. For it to work, you have to sustain it, you have to negotiate it.
"What does it mean for everybody to be part of the public space? What does it mean to have communities living together?"
Islamic terrorism is Islamic
Professor Siddiqui said there was no denying that ISIS was an Islamic organisation, as their vocabulary was rooted in Islamic terminology.
"Although it's very easy to say any violent jihadist or any ISIS member or anyone who joins ISIS is not a Muslim anymore, simple and simplistic denials of things don't actually move the conversation," she said.
"The problem now is that we're looking at everything from the prism of terror ... so even things that are not linked to violence give off the impression that ultimately they will lead to violence.
"It's become very easy for a lot of Western societies to perceive the Muslim presence as a real threat."
The problem with the veil debate
Professor Siddiqui said her concern about with the veil was that it reduced Islam to a dress code.
"The veil has become this iconic image of everything that the West has struggled against," she said.
"It struggled against segregation, it struggled against inequality. It has tried to create a space of at least some equality where women have autonomy.
"The veil, which was once seen as all the exoticism of the East, is now everything the West detests.
"When my parents came in the 60s, my mother and all her peers never covered their hair. They dressed in cultural clothing. Covering to that extent as a visible sign of piety was not important to them.
"It wasn't until the mid-80s that the hijab took on, and it was in a political context.
"I know these conversations are extremely potent for a lot of people. People are reluctant to politicise them. People [are also reluctant] to see that there are bigger issues in Muslim communities than who covers their head or not."
We Muslims can’t wait for the next bomb before we speak out
Many will cry out: “this is not my problem.” But it is. And to deny that is to be dishonest both to your country and to your faith
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A Shi'ite Muslim woman prays as she and others mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan, in Baghdad
Muslims must not wait until the next bomb to speak out Photo: AFP/GETTY
By Mona Siddiqui5:59PM GMT 19 Nov 2015CommentsComment
It’s a sinking feeling. But post Charlie Hebdo, every time there is an attack or bomb in Europe, the first thought through my mind is: “I hope it’s nothing to do with Muslims.” Unfortunately it usually is. And while much of it is shocking, it’s not very surprising.
As soon as the words “Islamic terrorism” are linked to an event, it’s not long before the whole debate about Muslims in the West begins all over again. The reality is that the West has been part of the Islamic world for centuries. So an Islam versus the West ideology represents not only a false distinction but also a toxic distinction. If we want to make this distinction meaningless, to show that coexistence can be peaceful, Muslims must be visionary, not isolationist.
Muslim women sitting on a bench in Hyde Park London alongside an English couple
Muslims must be visionary, not isolationist Photo: ALAMY
Today Islam is seen as the main factor in the failure of multiculturalism and the potential threat of immigration. Yet while public opinion often empathetically distinguishes between Islam as a faith and Islamism as a political ideology, so great is the association of Islam with violence today that many see it only as a radical ideology full of groups perpetually plotting to bring down the West.
This is not the violence of civic unrest but apocalyptic violence, mediated increasingly and globally through the easy access of social media. Particular readings of the Koran amplify the jihadist rhetoric of Islamic dominion, and it becomes easy to place all of Islam on some spectrum of extremism. Fundamentalist, conservative and militant expressions are all rooted in the one Koran – for some, only the more liberal understanding is regarded as extraneous to the Koran.
Demonstrators hold placards outside the U.S. embassy near to where a 9/11 anniversary memorial was being held in central London...Demonstrators hold placards outside the U.S. embassy, near where a 9/11 anniversary memorial was being held, in central London September 11, 2011. The memorial was to commemorate the September 11, 2001 attacks in the U.S.. REUTERS/Paul Hackett (BRITAIN - Tags: POLITICS RELIGION ANNIVERSARY) - RTR2R4WZ
For some, the more liberal understanding is regarded as extraneous to the Koran Photo: REUTERS
In Muslim communities people are worried about what is happening on the political and social fronts. Yet despite their concerns and the thousands of pounds successive governments have poured into community cohesion projects, the problem is not political – it’s a question of ethics. Many Muslims remain reluctant to think seriously about the vision they have for their lives in Europe. They react to Western foreign policies, geopolitics, sectarian violence, disenfranchisement with corrupt Muslim governments, but they still remain unwilling to accept that nurturing an ethical framework for one’s life requires reflection and a very real commitment to social and intellectual pluralism.
"If anything the fact that we hear multiple terrorist plots have been foiled is not a sign of success but rather shows that the problem of violence is growing."
These are ethical issues, and they are unsettling. But only that which unsettles us helps us to grow. Our ethics must be based on a generosity towards others. There is no point in talking of human rights when it’s just your own human rights which concern you; there is no depth in talking of piety when your only concern is wearing the hijab; there is no traction in saying Islam is a religion of peace when the evidence for it is shrinking daily.
Members of ISIL marching in Syria (File)
There is no traction saying that Islam is a religion of peace when the evidence for it is shrinking daily
This dilemma cannot be resolved by politicians and policies; they have tried and failed. If anything the fact that we hear multiple terrorist plots have been foiled is not a sign of success but rather shows that the problem of violence is growing. Many will turn to their imams for guidance and many will cry out: “This is not my problem.” But it is. And to deny that is to be dishonest both to your country and to your faith. We cannot wait for the next bomb before we speak out.
Mona Siddiqui is Professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies at Edinburgh University
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It is part memoir and part theological reflection. She considers contemporary concerns and issues of faith and identity, as observed from her experiences growing up as Muslim in a Western country, and sets out to challenge what she regards as lazy stereotyping and polarised thinking about Islam and the West.
British, female, Muslim, and typecast
Posted: 13 Feb 2015 @ 00:04
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Professor Mona Siddiqui is a go-to woman when reporters want a sound-bite on the latest Islamic story. But there is more going on beneath the surface, she tells Sarah Meyrick
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KNOWN to millions of the Radio 4 Today programme's listeners for her regular contributions to Thought for the Day, Professor Mona Siddiqui is regarded as a leading commentator on religious affairs in the UK.
Besides appearing on Radio 4 and Five Live, she is frequently on air for BBC Scotland. A prominent and articulate woman Muslim, she is, she says, "rent-a-gob for everything Islam". That has its frustrations.
"I'm always asked about what I think 'as a Muslim woman', as opposed to a person who happens to be a Muslim," she says. "It's not as if I get out of bed in the morning and ask myself how I'm going to be a British Muslim woman today.
"I think it's partly about ethnicity, and gender; and, yes, it can be annoying. But, at the same time, I'm very blessed. If I'm asked [for a comment], I do feel I should say 'Yes.' That way, I can't criticise others for saying things I don't want to hear. There are other voices around, but I don't see a wave of people coming forward."
One reason she is asked, of course, is that her contributions are measured and intelligent. She is a respected academic - currently she is Professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies at the University of Edinburgh. Her areas of specialism are classical Islamic law; law and gender; early Islamic thought; and contemporary legal and ethical issues in Islam.
Her books include How to Read the Qur'an, The Good Muslim: Reflections on classical Islamic law and theology, and Christians, Muslims and Jesus.
Now, for the first time, she has written a more personal book: My Way: A Muslim woman's journey, based on her own life story. It is part memoir and part theological reflection. She considers contemporary concerns and issues of faith and identity, as observed from her experiences growing up as Muslim in a Western country, and sets out to challenge what she regards as lazy stereotyping and polarised thinking about Islam and the West.
SHE says that she wrote it with her Thought for the Day listeners in mind, who often write in after hearing her on the radio. "In fact, a friend of mine said it was a 75,000-word Thought," she says. "But I'd say it's for an in- formed reader - probably Western, and possibly secular, but who is interested in these ideas."
It was a suggestion that her publisher put to her some years ago, she says, but she rejected until now that she is in her early fifties. "It didn't feel right before. I wasn't ready until now. Perhaps, as you get older, you think back over your life."
Professor Siddiqui's life began in Karachi, Pakistan, although she moved with her family to Britain at the age of four, and remembers almost nothing of life beforehand.
Her father was a psychiatrist, and the family lived in Cambridge, to start with, before settling in Huddersfield, where she and her family of two sisters and three brothers grew up. The first few years, she writes, are hazy in her memory, and, because the move was not really talked about, she assumed for some time that the family would be returning to Pakistan.
"Our parents never discussed their move with us, and, in those early years, we didn't see fit to ask them," she writes. "They must have been similar to so many of their generation who just decided to leave the subcontinent in search of a different and, hopefully, better life in the UK."
Nor, she says, was there any discussion of "identity", or how it felt to be Muslims living in Britain. "My parents didn't think about being British. There was a sense that they were able to live a good life here, and we were thankful for that, but identity was not talked about in those days. I think society today would benefit if there was more constructive conversation about our contribution as individuals, and we didn't obsess about identity all the time."
PRAYER and worship were part of the culture of the family, and faith was always there. "I gradually realised that, whenever I spoke of God, I associated my belief in God with a way of looking at life as whole rather than as a collection of rules to be obeyed.
"God was present in my relationships, my work, in a whole set of freedoms in the world. Belief was about seeing glimpses of the divine in the ordinariness of life, and, in a way, that is fundamentally how I carried God inside me, within a perpetual conversation."
She paints a picture of a close and loving family. Social life - especially for the girls - was constrained, although her mother told her later that she had made a conscious effort to observe how young people were brought up in Britain.
There was a great emphasis on education and learning. Her father, she appreciated only some years later, had been born in a small and very poor village in India, but had been encouraged by an aunt to escape into a successful career in medicine. Her mother, meanwhile, had clear ideas about what she wanted for her three daughters: one would be a doctor; one a barrister; and one a university lecturer. They each conformed.
She herself took a first degree in Arabic and French at the University of Leeds, before completing an MA in Middle Eastern Studies, and a Ph.D. in Classical Islamic Law at the University of Manchester. She moved to Glasgow in the 1990s, when she got married; and, in 1998, founded the Centre for the Study of Islam.
PROFESSOR SIDDIQUI's marriage was an arranged one (she and her husband, Farhaj, have three sons). "In some ways, I made sense of an arranged marriage by having faith in God, believing that there would be a good and happy outcome if I continued to trust God, try to be a loving wife, and be patient and confident," she writes.
"I have been married for over 22 years now, and if I was to distil three important elements to a happy marriage, a good marriage, they would be: mutual respect, mutual desire, and the willingness and courage to take the relationship seriously without taking oneself too seriously."
And yet, in Britain today, 42 per cent of marriages end in divorce. "All the studies show that the constant search for happiness is making us unhappy," she says. "Relationships are the most important things in our lives - all of us want to feel loved, and to love. It's not about how people enter into marriage, but what you do when you are in a relationship that matters.
"For that you need care, and discipline, and parameters, and boundaries. Also joy; I'm convinced that, if there is no joy, that relationship won't last."
While it is not enough on its own, she also believes that duty is an undervalued idea in today's society. "We don't talk about duty enough," she says. "Nor about the importance of living a moral life. Personally, I don't think you can be happy if you make the people around you unhappy. Personal faith means that what I want is not always the most important thing. You can call that blind faith, if you like, but it gives meaning to life."
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Honoured: Professor Siddiqui after she was presented with her OBE at Buckingham Palace
AS THE book comes out, we are living in a time of turmoil. Professor Siddiqui has long been involved in Christian-Muslim dialogue as an academic (she was awarded an OBE in 2011 for service to interfaith relations). "For me, it's never about conversion, but about using reflection on Christianity as an opportunity to think about my own faith. So, how have Christian concepts of love and hospitality made me think about these as Muslim concepts?" She finds that "people think about God in very similar ways."
But, as she says in My Way, the events of 9/11 represented a huge fault-line. "Many now recognise that, over the past 15 years or so, especially after the attacks of 11 September 2001, there has been a shift in the way Islam is viewed: namely, as a political and not just a religious threat to the West.
"It took the tragedy of 9/11, and the subsequent phenomenon of jihadist rhetoric and terrorism, to create a new global political tension."
The problem, she says, is that this has led to a narrative of Islam's being difficult. The words "extremism" and "radicalism" have become so much part of our language that whole communities are now viewed as problematic. "Identity has be- come everything, and religion means conflict, in the media," she says. "But, in my experience, most people of faith don't think of themselves in these terms."
She cites as an example the recent letter that the Communities Secretary, Eric Pickles, sent to 1000 Muslim leaders (News, 23 January). (The letter was defended by the Prime Minister as "reasonable, sensible, and moderate".)
"The letter said 'Tell your communities to integrate more,'" she says. "But that's a way of talking about concepts that only carries meaning politically, not personally. Belonging doesn't come from political measures.
"Again, there was a recent survey that says Muslim citizens are the most loyal to Britain. What does that mean? Of course, it depends on the question, and how it is asked."
MUCH of her frustration comes from the need for short answers, and the lack of nuance in conversation. "I'm interested in what goes on behind the surface," she says. "As an academic, I know we struggle to get our studies out there in a nuanced way. The detail gets lost."
She describes taking part in a panel discussion not long after the Charlie Hebdo murders last month. "There were 140 or so people there, mainly students, and I was amazed at the level of self-flagellation of our liberal democracy, as if that is to blame for everything. I'm happy to go on public record and say: 'No, it's not all our fault, and our freedoms here could be eroded, and that matters.'"
None the less, freedom of expression should not be used to insult people, she says. "The difference is that, in Britain, Christianity has allowed for secularism. The Muslim world has not become secular.
"Many Muslim countries don't have pluralism, and [many] Muslims simply don't accept pluralism. Real pluralism is quite demanding - there are challenges, and people don't want to be challenged."
Professor Siddiqui agrees that some of the current rhetoric around the UKIP agenda is unpleasant. "I've found myself thinking 'This is not the Britain I enjoy living in,' although personally I don't feel under any threat, and I'm surrounded by reasonable people.
"I'm currently writing a book on hospitality, and the Christian tradition of hospitality. It all points to welcoming the stranger in our midst. But now it seems that those coming to our shores are to be feared. Of course, we have to think about our resources, but I worry about that narrative.
"I ask myself: Do most people think like that, or are most people not thinking like that at all? There is a sense that the political reaction is not visionary. Everyone has jumped on a bandwagon, and that's quite destructive. And if we think it's possible to dismiss multiculturalism as something we can just reverse, that would be ludicrous."
My Way: A Muslim woman's journey by Mona Siddiqui is published by I. B. Tauris at £20 (Church Times Bookshop special offer £16 - Use code CT388 ).
Mona Siddiqui: welcome to my Muslim home
Kristin Swenson
Publishers Weekly. 262.40 (Oct. 5, 2015): pS10.
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Hospitality as a religious practice, and the spiritual dynamic between host and guest, offers rich ground for discussion of religious expression, theological principles, and how to create a better world. Although there's been some exploration of hospitality in Judaism and Christianity, Mona Siddiqui, professor of Islamic and interreligious studies at the University of Edinburgh, says, "I could find no current book on hospitality in the Islamic tradition in English," a void she hopes to fill with Hospitality and Islam: Welcoming in God's Name (Yale Univ., Nov.).
The book is not only about Islamic traditions. In Hospitality and Islam, Siddiqui says she "broadened and deepened" her exploration by drawing on Christian teachings, noting that readers also will find material on "food, migration, heaven, and gender--hopefully something for everyone." While looking at hospitality through different historical and theological lenses, Siddiqui singles out the thought of al-Ghazali, the prolific Islamic theologian and philosopher of the late-11th- and early-12th centuries. "He has a whole chapter in his major work on how to be a good host, but also the responsibilities of the guest," Siddiqui says.
Siddiqui, also the author of Christians, Muslims, and Jesus (Yale Univ., 2013), is a popular speaker and a facilitator of inter-religious dialogue and understanding. She serves on the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on the Role of Faith, which meets annually in the United Arab Emirates. Also a regular contributor to BBC Radio Scotland's Thought for the Day, Siddiqui chairs the BBC's Religious Advisory Committee in Scotland and serves as patron of the Feast, a Christian charity in the U.K. that helps young Christians and Muslims work together to promote peace and social change. What does she wish that Christians knew about Islam and Muslims knew about Christianity? "There is no Islam without compassion, and there is no Christianity without love. Both challenge our humanity."
Siddiqui's own background spans cultures and languages. Born in Pakistan, she grew up in England and studied Arabic and French before earning a master's degree in Middle Eastern studies and a doctorate in classic Islamic law. She speaks mostly Urdu at home so that her children will grow up bilingual. "I don't think you can appreciate a culture unless you know the language," she says.
Much of Siddiqui's public speaking "is done outside the academy, and it's always humbling when the public come to listen to you," she says. Her work takes her all over the world, though Siddiqui tries to limit travel for her family's sake. "But I will still go and speak in places where I think my views might make a difference," she says.
Swenson, Kristin
Research summary
My main research is in classical Islamic law (fiqh), juristic arguments and the interface with contemporary ethical issues.
I have an interest in Muslim theology which has developed into Christian-Muslim relations.
More information about research projects by Prof Siddiqui are available on her Edinburgh Research Explorer profile.
Neighbors and Strangers: new titles focusing on Islam provide innovative perspectives
Marcia Z. Nelson
Publishers Weekly. 262.40 (Oct. 5, 2015): pS4.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2015 PWxyz, LLC
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Islam remains a fertile field for study and for scholarly religion publishing. New titles from major university, academic, and trade presses meticulously deconstruct prevailing ideas of Islam as a monolithic faith, unpacking centuries of highly varied Islamic art, history, and cultural expressions to represent contemporary practices and believers.
[...]
Hospitality and Islam'. Welcoming in God's Name by Mona Siddiqui (Yale Univ., Nov.) examines the neglected topic of hospitality in religion. Siddiqui, who teaches at the University of Edinburgh and is also a media commentator in the U.K., looks theologically at what it means to welcome a stranger, drawing from both Islamic and Christian traditions. Executive editor Jennifer Banks says the press is continuing to build an interdisciplinary list in Islamic studies, with books in the works on the theological foundations of ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), among other topics.
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revere Jesus as a uniquely inspired prophet who was born of the Virgin Mary, ascended to heaven and will come again. Yet Muslims cannot accept that Jesus was the son of God. This, they believe, reflects a flawed view of both Jesus and God.
The most compelling passages are the personal ones, in which the author sets out some of her own dilemmas. A Muslim, she describes herself as fascinated by Christianity. But she remains committed to an Islamic belief in a God who is utterly transcendent and so could not have taken human form, as Christians say of Jesus.
Centuries of dialogue; Christians, Muslims and Jesus
The Economist. 408.8848 (Aug. 10, 2013): p70(US).
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How two global monotheisms view the same prophet
RELIGION is a tricky subject for scholarship. Even the most professional academic is bound to have personal feelings about the faith under scrutiny. Some see this as cause for concern. Indeed Reza Aslan, one of America's best-known writers on religion, recently came under fire for his new book about Jesus ("Zealot", reviewed in the July 27th issue of The Economist). Because he is a Muslim who once embraced Christianity and then dropped it, Lauren Green of Fox News accused him of writing with a "clear bias". No, Mr Aslan replied, he was writing as a scholar. His response was articulate and dignified, and the interview has helped sell quite a few books, but it will hardly sway those who believe Mr Aslan is writing with a Muslim agenda.
Mona Siddiqui, a professor at Edinburgh University's school of divinity, makes no secret of the various strains of thought that inform her study of Christians, Muslims and Jesus. Parts of her book are rigorously academic and arcane, other parts are very personal. Unlike Mr Aslan, she does not confine her meditations on her own faith to an introduction. Rather, she ambitiously weaves her personal and scholarly views throughout.
She presents certain basic facts: Muslims revere Jesus as a uniquely inspired prophet who was born of the Virgin Mary, ascended to heaven and will come again. Yet Muslims cannot accept that Jesus was the son of God. This, they believe, reflects a flawed view of both Jesus and God. As Ms Siddiqui shows, Christians and Muslims sparred with one another intensely during the early centuries after Islam's rise, with each side vying to be the ultimate revelation of God. But the two faiths did at least grudgingly acknowledge one another as monotheistic, despite Islam's firm rejection of the Christian view of God as a trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The most compelling passages are the personal ones, in which the author sets out some of her own dilemmas. A Muslim, she describes herself as fascinated by Christianity. But she remains committed to an Islamic belief in a God who is utterly transcendent and so could not have taken human form, as Christians say of Jesus.
She writes with clarity and empathy about the core doctrines of Christianity (as expressed by both the church fathers and her own Christian friends). But unlike other comparative-religion scholars, she does not paper over the differences between these two global monotheisms. The crucifixion of Christ is an event of cosmic signi- ficance in Christianity, but it has no such place in Islam. Muslims reject the idea that a God-man was martyred for human sinfulness; Jesus's death is an enigma in Islam and his crucifixion deemed an illusion.
To her credit, Ms Siddiqui perceives the dilemmas faced by the early Christian church better than many contemporary liberal Christians do. After all, she shares with the church fathers an uncompromisingly God-centred view of the world--one that is foreign to most modern Westerners, even those who practise a religion. She senses why the idea of God becoming man seemed to the church fathers to be at once outrageous and also true.
Still, however deep her intuitive connection with Christianity, she ends the book by pinpointing why she is unable to accept the Christian understanding of God. She cannot submit to the idea that humanity was estranged from God before Jesus came; or that as Jesus God walked on earth and made a supreme sacrifice (the crucifixion), which somehow ended that estrangement. For her the Christian deity is both too far away and too close.
That is a personal choice, not an intellectual position. But some readers may conclude that Ms Siddiqui's study of the Christian church fathers, diligent as it is, falls short. It is true that Augustine, a pioneer of Christian thought, stressed man's alienation from God before Jesus. It is also true that in the last millennium or so the idea of Christ's death as a necessary sacrifice has been stressed by Catholic and Protestant teaching. But there have always been Christian thinkers who feel that Augustine exaggerated human sinfulness. Plenty more reject the view that the crucifixion was a way of assuaging an angry God. Ms Siddiqui's dialogue with Christianity will get even more interesting if she engages with the many Christians who agree that Augustine's God is too remote.
In any case, both Christians and Muslims will always wrestle with the paradox of God's distance and proximity. The God of the Koran, for all his utter transcendence, is "closer to man than his jugular vein", whereas Saint Paul told the Athenians of a "Lord of heaven and earth who does not live in temples, yet…is not far from any one of us."
Christians, Muslims and Jesus.
By Mona Siddiqui.
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Readers come away with a sense of how strikingly similar both religious traditions are, as well as how remarkably different.
Siddiqui, Mona. Christians, Muslims, and Jesus
Muhammed Hassanali
Library Journal. 138.11 (June 15, 2013): p96.
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Siddiqui, Mona. Christians, Muslims, and Jesus. Yale Univ. 2013. 296p. notes. bibliog. index. ISBN 9780300169706. $32.50. REL
Siddiqui (Islamic & interreligious studies, Edinburgh Univ. Divinity Sch.), whose specialty is the study of Muslim-Christian relations, examines how Muslims and Christians view Jesus from within their religious traditions as well as how they interpret others' views of him. Drawing extensively from medieval and modern scholars, Siddiqui outlines mainstream Islamic and Christian perspectives on Jesus, Mary, mysticism, religious doctrine, and the crucifixion. She also explores what Muslim and Christian polemics have said about their faith and their understandings (and misunderstandings) of other religions from the earliest to current times. Readers come away with a sense of how strikingly similar both religious traditions are, as well as how remarkably different. Comprehending Jesus within the context of a particular faith is vital to the correct understanding of his role within that faith. Some misunderstandings in the past have caused (unintentional) distortion of the other faith and hence an inaccurate representation of that faith's doctrine, values, and ideals. VERDICT An excellent scholarly resource for exploring Christ's role in Islam and Christianity. It also relays how Muslims and Christians have used Christ in the polemics within their faith and toward one another. Recommended for lay and academic readers seeking an introduction to Muslim-Christian dialog and relationships.--Muhammed Hassanali, Shaker Heights, OH
Hassanali, Muhammed
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offers material for further conversation and an open-ended call for more dialogue.
Siddiqui, Mona: Christians, Muslims, and Jesus
J. Hammer
CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries. 51.4 (Dec. 2013): p657.
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For those interested in Muslim-Christian interfaith dialogue, Jesus is often at the center of contentious debate and disagreement. Born of her longstanding participation in and commitment to such interfaith dialogue, Siddiqui (Univ. of Edinburgh, Scotland) offers readers her personal reflections and experiences on questions such as the nature of the divine, prophethood in Islam and Christianity, and the significance of Mary, on the one hand; on the other, she provides an eclectic range of Christian and Muslim sources debating the nature of Jesus and his historical significance. As a result, the book oscillates between longer quotations from selected primary texts (especially in chapters 2 and 3) and an interweaving of theological arguments, personal beliefs, and scholarly analysis of the primary texts. In accessible language and by providing key information on theological positions, Siddiqui enables a theological conversation that is engaging and honest in its journey and conclusions. Rather than making groundbreaking new arguments or offering historical contextualization for Christian-Muslim (most often polemical) debates, she presents her approach to Christology, self-situating as a Muslim woman scholar in Europe. She thus offers material for further conversation and an open-ended call for more dialogue. Summing Up: Recommended. ** Lower- and upper-level undergraduates, general readers, and professionals/practitioners.--J. Hammer, UNC Chapel Hill
Hammer, J.
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Siddiqui offers a particularly striking discussion of how the attitude and action of hospitality are fundamental to the relations between the genders,
Siddiqui, Mona. Hospitality and Islam: welcoming in God's name
P.S. Spalding
CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries. 53.8 (Apr. 2016): p1184.
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Siddiqui, Mona. Hospitality and Islam: welcoming in God's name. Yale, 2015. 274p bibl index ISBN 9780300211863 cloth, $38.00; ISBN 9780300216028 ebook, contact publisher for price
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Siddiqui (Islam and interreligious studies, Univ. of Edinburgh, Scotland) treats a topic of great and enduring relevance in human relations, particularly in the present day, when millions of Muslims themselves seek refuge from violence and economic distress, and global warming threatens to unleash ever greater waves of emigration from many corners of the globe. While noting that Western thinkers have treated hospitality extensively, Siddiqui stresses the importance of the theme in pre-Islamic Arabia, the Qur'an, reports about the Prophet Muhammad, and mystical, legal, and theological literature in the Sunni tradition. The author finds a particularly rich articulation of the meaning and purposes of hospitality in a text on the courtesies of eating by Al-Ghazali, the greatest of medieval Sunni thinkers. Though Siddiqui notes that Christian and Muslim thinkers follow somewhat different paths in their discussions of hospitality, she concludes that both communities root all human hospitality in God's own generosity, mercy, and care. Siddiqui offers a particularly striking discussion of how the attitude and action of hospitality are fundamental to the relations between the genders, relations that mirror and embody human relations with God. Summing Up: *** Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.--P. S. Spalding, Illinois College
Spalding, P.S.
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S. has done much for Muslim-Christian dialogue over the last two decades, and I am one of many Christians who are very grateful for her contribution. In her new book she has pointed to the kind of work that we need a leading Muslim scholar to write in order to take Christian-Muslim dialogue forward to a greater depth of intellectual and spiritual encounter. If this is not quite the book that Christian readers are waiting for, it is a valuable first draft toward it. That is something for which we should be very grateful.
Muslims, Christians, and Jesus
David Marshall
Theological Studies. 74.4 (Dec. 2013): p1000.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2013 Sage Publications, Inc.
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MUSLIMS, CHRISTIANS, AND JESUS. By Mona Siddiqui. New Haven, Yale University, 2013. Pp. 285. $32.50.
Three distinguished Christian scholars, including Rowan Williams, provide glowing tributes on the dust-jacket of this new book by Siddiqui, a professor at Edinburgh University, a leading Muslim supporter of interfaith dialogue, and a gifted communicator noted particularly for her contributions to BBC Radio's Thought for the Day.
Certainly we can easily understand the appeal of this book to Christians committed to dialogue with Muslims. S. covers a number of topics at the core of the theological encounter between Christianity and Islam, such as the nature of prophecy, the identities and roles of Jesus and Mary, the relationship between law and love, and the cross. Throughout the volume it is apparent that S. has read much more widely in Christian theology than is common among Muslims, even Muslims who take part regularly in dialogue with Christians. She is able to present what Christians have written about Islam with a fair degree of objectivity, even when dealing with material that many Muslims would feel obliged to excoriate, such as Barth's dismissive account of the God of Islam in his Dogmatics, or the negative comments of missionaries like Samuel Zwemer (1867-1952). That S. has made the effort to listen with real empathy to Christians is most clear in her concluding "Reflections on the Cross," where she records the personal reflections from Christian friends on what the Cross means to them. Although she cannot share their perspectives fully, she is moved by their testimony and speaks of what she has learned from it. She thus sets an impressive example of attending to the account that Christians, past and present, have given of their own faith.
Reading the three positive Christian commendations, questions that occur to me are" Why is there no accompanying commendation by a Muslim? Does the book appeal more to Christians than to Muslims? That might well be so. It shows a refreshing sympathy for Christian beliefs and what these signify in the hearts of Christians that goes far beyond what is commonly found in Muslim writings on Christianity. But it is surprising that S. provides no balancing comments to show that the book also had the respect of one or two significant Muslim scholars. Therefore we might naturally ask, How representative of Muslim thought is this book? If it is not representative, perhaps that is because S. is mapping territory where few other Muslim scholars have gone. It will be interesting and important, however, to know what other Muslims make of S.'s approach, her account of Muslim positions, and also the responses to Christianity that she articulates.
However, while the very fact that such a book has been written by a Muslim scholar is to be warmly welcomed, I have to acknowledge that my expectations were not entirely fulfilled. The project is admirable, but the execution of it is in many ways disappointing.
S. does not present a clear overall argument. Rather, her book reads like a somewhat awkwardly assembled sequence of loosely connected essays around the general theme of Christian-Muslim theological encounter. The title leads us to expect that discussion of Jesus will be the thread running through the whole work, but while she includes much about Jesus, she brings in other topics at various points with little attempt to weld the different sections into a coherent whole. The result is a disjointed work, and one that could also have benefitted from a great deal more attention to clarity of expression.
In a wide-ranging book of this kind, S.'s focus is perhaps naturally more general than specific, at which level we find fairly frequent lapses. For example, she comments (34) that Jesus does not use the title "servant" of himself in the NT except at Acts 3:13, 26 and 4:27, 30. But the speakers in these passages are Peter and other disciples, not Jesus. Another example of a point at which greater care was called for is the comment that Timothy of Baghdad accepted that Muhammad was a prophet (49). The general interpretation with which I am familiar is that in saying that Muhammad "walked in the path" of the prophets, Timothy was being as positive about Muhammad as he could be, while holding back from a straightforward recognition of him as a prophet.
I am also disappointed that S. offers very little analysis of her own. Through most of the book she summarized the arguments of other writers, Muslim and Christian, often citing them at great length. Frequently, she moves from one citation to another with minimal intervening authorial comment. While this approach has the benefit of collecting in one volume a number of significant passages, the book fails to achieve either of two possible goals: it neither offers anything truly original, as it draws on the various authors cited but using them to advance a new argument; nor does it offer a systematic anthology of Christian and Muslim writings, though perhaps she might have done better by making that her explicit purpose.
S. has done much for Muslim-Christian dialogue over the last two decades, and I am one of many Christians who are very grateful for her contribution. In her new book she has pointed to the kind of work that we need a leading Muslim scholar to write in order to take Christian-Muslim dialogue forward to a greater depth of intellectual and spiritual encounter. If this is not quite the book that Christian readers are waiting for, it is a valuable first draft toward it. That is something for which we should be very grateful.
DAVID MARSHALL
Duke Divinity School
Marshall, David
The Routledge reader in Christian-Muslim relations
Reference & Research Book News. 28.3 (June 2013):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2013 Ringgold, Inc.
http://www.ringgold.com/
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9780415685542
The Routledge reader in Christian-Muslim relations.
Ed. by Mona Siddiqui.
Routledge
2013
376 pages
$150.00
Hardcover
BP172
Siddiqui (Islamic and inter-religious studies, U. of Edinburgh) has assembled 23 documents illustrating conversations and writings between Christians and Muslims and about Christianity and Islam from the earlier encounters to the present day. She has weighted the selection toward theology, and is more concerned with the texts themselves than with their contexts, though her introduction fills in background. Among the topics are John of Damascus and The Heresy of the Ishmaelites, extracts from al-Tabari's The Book of Religion and Empire, Luther's knowledge of and attitude towards Islam, Jesus and Mary as poetical images in Rumi's verse, and American Evangelical discourse on Islam after 9/11.
([c] Book News, Inc., Portland, OR)
The Routledge Reader in Christian-Muslim Relations
Interpretation. 68.3 (July 2014): p351.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2014 Union Theological Seminary
http://www.interpretation.org/
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Routledge, London, 2013. 384 pp. $49.95. ISBN 978-0-415-68556-6.
Interest in Christian--Muslim dialogue has grown considerably in recent years. How Islam and Christianity have approached each other theologically is one of the most absorbing ways of understanding the challenge of interreli-gious relations or Christian--Muslim polemics. This volume provides an indispensable reading and reference tool, showing how Muslim and Christian scholars have shaped the discourse on the varying interfaces between Christianity and Islam. It contains a substantial introduction and presents a range of scholarly approaches to Christian--Muslim relations. Included are selections of primary polemical material, focusing on critical and appreciative approaches to the Jesus/Muhammad, Bible/Qur'an and God questions for Muslims and Christians.
edited by Mono Siddiqui
Siddiqui, Mona
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This was an enjoyable read of a very personal journey of a well thought out Westernized Muslim Woman. Her story, her views of God and society, would be very appealing to the Modern, Liberal Muslim, and to those in the West who long for this view of Islam to be the status quo of all Muslims.
the biographies and sayings of her prophet, Muhammad, as well as the lives of many of her country of origin, most of whom go to the Qur'an, do not support her viewpoint of Islam.
This book is truly Siddiqui's way, an assimilated modern Westernized way, with some specially chosen overtones of Islam thrown into the mix, and interestingly enough, fairly Christian
My Way: A Muslim woman's journey
Beth Grove
My Way: A Muslim woman's journey
Mona Siddiqui
I. B. Tauris, 256pp
This was an enjoyable read of a very personal journey of a well thought out Westernized Muslim Woman. Her story, her views of God and society, would be very appealing to the Modern, Liberal Muslim, and to those in the West who long for this view of Islam to be the status quo of all Muslims. I was struck by how similar her outlooks were to the other leading Muslim feminists, such as Amina Wadud and Fatemeh Mernissi, all of whom chose certain areas of Islam to follow, and others to reject. This is where my criticisms would begin, in that while I find Siddiqui's views appealing as a modern Christian woman living in the West, they are based on an intentional agenda. Exactly what do I mean? Upon closer scrutiny, her position on Islam is grounded mostly on her own familial experiences (such as hospitality and kindness), supported by a few well-chosen Qur'anic verses. However, a whole swath of other Qur'anic verses, as well as negative familial experiences of other Muslim families, have to be disregarded in order to come to the conclusions she does. I recall her reference to Sura 33:35, a popular 'equality verse', employed by most progressive Muslims to support male-female egalitarianism, as well as her oft referred to Islamic view of hospitality, yet just a few verses later, in verse 53 we find a contrasting picture of her prophet Muhammad, the Qur'an's model for all Muslims, as not only inhospitable, but easily annoyed. So, while, for society's sake, we wish most Muslims thought as Siddiqui thought, (ideas which the government is also trying to initiate through the Quilliam project); unfortunately, the very text she goes to for support simply won't suffice. Similarly, the biographies and sayings of her prophet, Muhammad, as well as the lives of many of her country of origin, most of whom go to the Qur'an, do not support her viewpoint of Islam. Every verse she quotes to support her ideas can be replaced by many others, some of which are more authoritative (i.e. they are found in the more authoritative Medinan Suras) and give a contrasting and at times completely opposite opinion. As I read Siddiqui's story, I resonated with some of her conclusions, because many of them, interestingly, are quite Biblical. For instance, the concept of hospitality, a tradition found in many Asian Muslim, as well as Christian cultures and communities; which, in comparison to the West, often put the average Western family to shame. Siddiqui's own family experience of warmth, education and hospitality would fit in well with a good number of New Testament scenarios. Yet, by the end of the book I was left with a nagging and unrelenting apprehension, that what I was reading in Siddiqui's book, including her inspiring reflections on the love of God as outlined by the Sufi mystic Al- Ghazali, was not what I had read in the overall message of the Qur'an, nor in many of its specific verses which spoke on how Muslims were to treat the pagans (see Sura 9:5), or the Jews (see Sura 5:51), or even the Christians (see Sura 9:29); nor in the biographies of Muhammad, especially concerning how he treated the Jews in Medina between 624 - 627 AD. On one level her book is an enjoyable read, and on a positive note will hopefully encourage some of her more traditional Muslim friends to reconsider their regressive views of education, women, gender relations, and assimilation into Western society. It is also an encouraging read to see how a Muslim woman truly has assimilated into Western culture, and her appreciation of Britain is very edifying. But on another level I felt her 'theological reflections' were unsupported by the Qur'an, Islamic jurisprudence and by her prophet's example. On a personal level, as a 'third culture kid', like Siddiqui (i.e. a person who is brought up in a culture that is not her original culture, yet is capable of living in either equally and adequately), I could relate to her personal journey towards stability, and an increasing understanding of the ramifications of someone who was not raised in the country of her origin. Her book would be insightful on a psychological and social level for those who have never experienced this particular kind of journey. But my caution to those who read this book is to be aware that her interpretation of Islam is coloured by her cross cultural and Western upbringing, and thus would not be widely held as the norm in much of the Muslim world. Thus her story, along with her interpretation of Islam is truly just her own story, around which she has created her religious model. The Title of the book, 'My Way', sums it up perfectly. This book is truly Siddiqui's way, an assimilated modern Westernized way, with some specially chosen overtones of Islam thrown into the mix, and interestingly enough, fairly Christian. If you are looking for the authentic Islamic way, the way based on the Qur'an's entire text (not just a verse here and there), coupled with the example of Islam's founder Muhammad and his companions, then this is not the book for you. If, however, you want to see the journey some Muslims make to assimilate well into British society, and how they incorporate and adopt Western values, then this is a book for you. Some will choose to believe this book is the Islamic way, which Siddiqui assumes from the outset. But when all the data is weighed up, it is truly, and only, 'Siddiqui's way'; A way that many of my more orthodox Muslim friends, those who follow closely their holy texts, would not recognize, nor accept.
Thoughts for life
March 9, 2015 by Jackie Kemp Leave a Comment
Sexual desire, the search for happiness, dealing with death and living as a member of a minority are just some of the topics Muslim theologian Mona Siddiqui discusses in her new book – part handbook to life, part autobiography: My Way, which she will discuss at Glasgow’s Aye Write festival this April.
Siddiqui, known to many as a lively contributor to Radio Four’s Thought for the Day, is more interested in engaging with the big questions of existence than in explaining radical Islam to journalists, although recently that is what she has been asked to do most often.
My tea grew cold as I scribbled down her fascinating conversation when we met in a cafe close to where she teaches, at Edinburgh University’s School of Divinity in the old Assembly Hall on the Mound. The views of the New Town were spectacular, even as a grey winter’s afternoon faded into evening. Siddiqui, who lives in the west of Scotland, is Professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies. She teaches here rather than in an Islamic studies department because she is engaged with questions of faith rather than history or culture.
Her book reads like a massively expanded “thought for the day”, almost a “thought for life”: “People never stop asking the big questions: about happiness, about death, about aging, about love.”
About the book, she says: “I have lived like this. It’s not about issues, it’s more about marriage, children, happiness. I look at these things the way my tradition looks at these things.”
The book is “almost the way I teach.” She teaches about her own way of life “but I’m not teaching in a confessional manner, of calling people to the faith; I’m an academic.”
She has few Muslim students and is rarely invited to speak to Muslim organisations. In the book, she recalls: “During one of only a handful of invitations from a Muslim organisation, I was asked to address the topic of gender and Islam. The topic of hijab came up and I spoke about the scholarly debates over female covering. The whole session provoked angry responses from some women who exclaimed ‘Why is she here? All she has done is confuse us.’ I smiled and replied: ‘if you are confused then my job as an academic is done.’ “
For her Edinburgh University divinity students, she says: “They learn that there is not just one way of thinking. It makes them much better at thinking about Islam.”
An endless fragility
Perhaps one of the surprises of My Way is its frank discussion of sex and sexuality:“Quite simply, Islam views human sexuality and desire, erotic love as intrinsic to the fullness of human experience. Sexual desire compels us to reflect upon life and our deepest vulnerabilities … there is no shame in sex, there is no shame in desire and both men and women have rights over one another. Romantic love and sex may not be the same thing but marriage should have both. When sexual desire is realised in marriage, one is acting according to a traditional Islamic understanding of how eros finds its place in human life.”
She considers also that the uncoupling of sex and love is “a monumental change which defines our liquid societies” and quotes therapist Volkmar Sigusch: “All forms of intimate relationships currently in vogue bear the same mask of false happiness worn by material and later free love … As we took a closer look and pulled away the mask we found unfulfilled yearnings, ragged nerves, disappointed love, hurts, fears, loneliness, hypocrisy, egotism and reparations compulsion.”
Siddiqui writes that: “Love holds an endless fragility yet it is at the same time about holding onto the heavy, the difficult, knowing that two people are unfolding their worlds within themselves and for one another. Love demands both courage and humility and you have to listen well, to understand what someone else wants, not what you think they want.”
A marriage can’t survive without forgiveness: ”It is in these moments of forgiveness, whether we are close or distant, that we grow as people and learn how to love.”
Sexual culture and behaviour, Siddiqui points out, are major issues for all the worlds’ thought systems and religions, particularly perhaps for the Roman Catholic Church. “It is all to do with sexuality and sexual conduct and this isn’t going to go away.”
Islam has it own issues, as she sees it, to do with over-emphasis on apparent conformity. In her book she quotes a friend used to dealing with young Muslim women at a British university who wear the Niqab as a veil to cover double lives.
“ ‘So many come to my office and do you know what they ask for? They ask for the morning after pill’ ..It was not as if many of the young women felt liberated and empowered through their sexual experiences; they were simply lost or lonely and their faith could not provide any answers.’ “
Sexuality and desire, she argues, are part of the search for happiness. “This is perhaps the most important fact of all: love, sex, desire, wanting to be wanted. Happiness matters. I talk to my children a lot about happiness and what they want. We don’t know how to talk about happiness. Real happiness is probably quite difficult to find but it’s what we are looking for. Maybe we find lots of things to fill our lives with.”
In the book, Siddiqui recalls how being able to be there for her mother when her father was taken ill brought her happiness.
She explains that in Islamic thought, there is less emphasis than there may be in contemporary thought on abstract concepts like romantic love which relationships then have to measure up to. There is more emphasis on working within real world relationships. “In Islamic thought the meaning of life is found in relationships. I think that’s true.”
Identity? What’s that?
In her own life, Siddiqui manages to marry contradictions which have become faultlines for others; she is a Muslim who is deeply loyal to European values of freedom of expression and religion; she is happy in her arranged marriage but will allow her children to pick their own; and she sees faith in God and the pursuit of happiness as connected parts of the same journey.
However she is reluctant to discuss identity. She doesn’t find the notion helpful. “I don’t even think about identity. I never talk about identity. This is very modern stuff: what identity you have, for me, it’s more about how do I live.
“When I was raising my children, I never thought ‘what’s my identity?’ I thought more about loyalty to certain principles. I’m not even sure what identity really means. In terms of living my life as a British person, it’s just a big buzzword.”
She says she has always believed that “Pluralism is how we live our life. We have freedom and we have to give other people freedom, so we can have all space to be who we want to be.”
After the Charlie Hebdo shootings, Siddiqui has felt called upon to explain what happened.”People ask me to speak about it not because I have done any research but because I’m Muslim and a public figure.”
For her: “It was seen as an issue about cartoons but it wasn’t about cartoons. It was really about values and the values that Europe stands for. If you don’t abide by those values, the values that Europe stands for, where do you fit in in Europe? Where is your loyalty?”
She added: “These things test our own resolve, how we are coping as a society.”
But she was concerned by the growth of a notion of “them” and “us”, which she felt was toxic. “Most European Muslims have loyalty to the values of Europe: freedom of religion, freedom of expression. But there is a minority of Muslims have no loyalty to the values of Europe. This is something I am called upon to explain.”
For Siddiqui: “It’s not really about the Muslim community it’s about where we are going in terms of differentiating the us and the them. The sense that there is an us and them, with the ‘them’ being Muslims, makes politics even more toxic.”
In the book Siddiqui quotes someone who asked her: “ ‘What would you say to white middle-class families who talk of Muslims as a problem at their fancy dinner parties?’ I couldn’t stop anyone from thinking and saying what they felt about the Muslim presence but as a British citizen I could try to make my own positive contribution to society in some small way.”
A mono-cultural failure?
She adds: “The responsibility to think and act is real and urgent because in the end, when politicians and think tanks claim that multiculturalism has failed, they are really only referring to one minority and one failure – Muslims.”
For Siddiqui, it’s vital that more people understand that Islam is not a monolithic community or an identity. For her, it’s a religion she practises in the private sphere.
But the threat from extremism is real and it’s one that affects us all equally. “The peace and security we enjoy in Europe should never be taken for granted.”
She feels that the young Muslim extremists who head to Syria may be responding to a feeling in some families that “we live here but we don’t belong here.” Partly too, they may be rebelling against privilege, heading for something they feel is more exciting and dangerous. “If the whole world was full of pleasure, we would rail against that.”
Siddiqui, who recalls in the book suffering from incidents of playground racism, feels young people need to be encouraged to maintain a robust self-esteem.
They may feel that they don’t belong, they may get called names. We as parents have to say ‘people get called all kinds of names for all sorts of reasons but you have to find a way through this without becoming completely alienated’.
It’s very sad if a child feels so much on their own, that when someone calls them a name they become completely alienated.
They can indulge themselves in that way. People do have to feel that they belong somewhere but even though part of our society may not suit them that’s life. We have to keep on moving forwards.
In Britain, she says, children tend to be cut loose too young. Even older teenagers and young adults need lots of support and attention from the adults in their lives. “I think our children are grown up too quickly. Even as young adults they still need a lot of support, a lot of talking. Young people need respect to be able to talk.”
She said it is sad for her that in the current context, too often talking about Islam becomes talking about terrorism.
But in her tour of British book festivals in the last few months, she remarks that she is often surprised by her audiences who are so self-critical about the West. “There can be this self-flagellation, people say ‘Oh it’s all us, the West has done everything wrong. I say, ‘We live here. It’s still a good country.’”
Mona Siddiqui will be speaking about her book on March 14 at the Words by the Water Literary Festival, Kendall; March 25, How To Read series, Conde Nast College, London; March 26, Oxford Literary Festival; April 20, Ayewrite Festival, Glasgow; April 25: Hexham Book Festival.
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