So who does does speak for Muslims or Islam? The answer is a resounding - no one.
Who represents, or who speaks for, Muslims? After countless debates and articles dedicated to this question, which is asked every so often (usually on a slow news day), it is posed once again.
On Monday’s Newsnight, Quilliam Foundation’s Maajid Nawaz had just this debate with Huffington Post’s political editor (UK) Mehdi Hasan and Twitter celebrity Mohammed Ansar.
Oxford academic Myriam Francois Cerrah was also supposed to be on the show but was dropped at the last minute for ‘editorial reasons’ in favour of another male (Mohammed Ansar).
What we eventually saw was a group of South Asian Muslim men, aged 30 plus, shouting at each other (because we clearly don’t see enough of those do we?) The result was a tit-for-tat argument that descended into chaos, which even Jeremy Paxman left looking bewildered.
There is clearly no love lost between Mehdi Hasan and Maajid Nawaz, but the pair wasted an opportunity to come together to have a much needed discourse on the issue of Muslim representation.
Ironically, Myriam Cerrah complained about the all-male panel, claiming it was not representing a diverse range of views but then suggested that ex-Muslims should not be able to speak about Islam.
Far too often, Muslims complain that there is no unity within their communities yet when debates such as the one on Newsnight are aired, they take one side against the other, declare one, or all, participant(s) as non-Muslim, or non representative.
Still confused as to why ex-Muslims inc in discussion on who speaks for Muslims….probably not those who don’t identify w/it? #newsnight
— M Francois-Cerrah (@MFrancoisCerrah) March 24, 2014
What’s depressing is that the actual film raised an important point. But discussion that followed – failed to address it. #newsnight
— Sara Khan (@SaraKhanInspire) March 24, 2014
This is a problem we have – as soon as there is a Muslim, or someone of Muslim heritage gives an interview, they immediately pounce on them, attack them, or vilify them as not representative or not ‘Muslim enough’. Yet no participant, or writer, who ever speaks about Islam or Muslims purports to be representing everyone.
And, as much as I agree with many of Maajid’s views, even he does not speak for me. I speak for myself, though I understand that there are many people out there whose voices are not represented in the media.
This is why it is important to have a broad range of opinions (and this goes goes for anything, not just Muslims), meaning we cannot just play host to liberal voices. We must allow liberal, conservative, reactionary and even extremist voices, regardless of whether we agree with them not
This includes people such as Maajid or Mona Eltahawy, Mehdi Hasan, Myriam Cerrah, even the extremist Anjem Choudary and those from groups such as the Islamic Education and Research Academy, who advocate segregation at University lectures, because stifling debate is not the answer.
As soon as you forbid one opinion or one person’s views, you send them underground and make them martyrs for their cause.
So who does does speak for Muslims or Islam? The answer is a resounding – no one. No one can, or should, speak for the 1.6 billion Muslims on the planet, and nor does any one person or organisation represent Islam.
13 Responses to “Who represents Muslims? The answer is a resounding – no one”
crosscop
If they change their ways they will not be Muslims anymore – and that would be a good thing.
crosscop
I’d pay good money to see a real debate about Islam. Preferably with Robert Spencer on the panel so that he could ask Mehdi Hasan why he doctored Sura 5:32 in his article (in the Daily Telegraph after Lee Rigby was killed) to disguise the fact that the Koran justified the murder. And why he failed to mention the very next verse (5:33) which not only justifies the killing but also the crucifixion and mutilation of people like Lee Rigby. Oh, and to also ask Hasan to explain his comments ( which can be seen on You tube) about we “kuffar” being “cattle.”
cbinTH
Good final summary. Although it’s true that not-to-care is a healthier mindset, though, in fact it surely does matter who’s invited onto Question Time, as the audience want to see themselves represented?
I saw Andalusi’s performance on “The Big Question”, and it struck me quite strongly that he came out against pronouncing people not to be Muslim, which put him in unspoken conflict with the young girl in the audience who refused to admit that a homosexual could be a Muslim, and who responded to Nawaz’s point about some Muslims seeing her own behaviour as sinful by simply asserting that those people were wrong.
Mark
If you get someone like Nawaz making the point that some muslims may condemn her for no veil and sitting amongst men, you have a reasonable, logical person. For her to simply dismiss that point showed her absolute ignorance. He effectively destroyed her point, but she wasn’t having it.
cbinTH
Well, of course, Abdullah came to her defence by pointing out that, however various Muslims may be in their belief, there is only correct and incorrect Islam (which is logical, inevitable even, if you are a believer), and that by suggesting that all interpretations of Islam are equal, Maajid Nawaz is just like that other well known re-interpretor, Osama Bin Laden.
Abdullah Al-Andalusi always feels he has distanced himself from terrorism by disavowing the procedural flaws in that approach, compared to the conventional Islamic laws of war. His articles praising movements that use terrorism and sympathising with their cause, whilst claiming to be anything but a “supporter” of terrorism, are frustrating in the extreme. It was something of a pleasant surprise when writers on his own website attacked his article on the Kenyan shopping mall atrocity for focusing too much on the sins of the Kenyan government, and for not unambiguously condemning al-Shabaab.