Creating a new culture for British Muslims

‘More to offer than fatwas and violence’
Luqman Ali and his Khayaal Theatre Group is attempting to bridge this cultural gap, organizing productions based on traditional Islamic literature and presented in a Western medium.

“For young Muslims born and raised in the West it offers a positive representation of their culture that will give them a greater degree of confidence and worth in the West,” said company director Ali, 36, a second-generation African-American Muslim who moved to Britain 20 years ago.

Khayaal is the only theater company in Britain dedicated to producing Muslim works. He started the company with friends in 1997 after studying the languages and literature of the Muslim world, and the group set out to reignite a passion for the arts in a community that was “culturally deprived and malnourished.”

“The Muslim community is ill-equipped to express itself,” said Ali, who has been invited to schools around England to teach about Muslim arts and literature. “When you can’t express and tell story as you see it, it leads to problems — chiefly isolation, the inability to integrate and frustration.”

Ali has perhaps as much at stake personally in the success of Muslim integration as the entire Muslim community. As the son of Muslim converts, most of Ali’s extended family is Christian and his wife’s father is a Christian minister.

“We’re trying to say to non-Muslims that Muslim culture has much more to offer than fatwas and violence,” said Ali, noting that the group has seen a surge of interest from cultural groups around the world since Sept. 11, 2001, and the July 7, 2005, London bombings.

‘Progressive, tolerant and moderate’
Recently, on a cold Wednesday evening in London, about 125 people filled a meeting room near one of the city’s main rail stations. Most appeared under 30, almost all were Muslim and they gathered to hear Muslim academic Tariq Ramadan.

Ramadan, a Swiss citizen, is renowned in the Muslim world for his moderate views and taught at Notre Dame in Indiana until the U.S. State Department revoked his visa in 2004.

That night he spoke on the pressing need for Europe’s Muslims to integrate – including greater political involvement, fluent English, and support to local charities instead of charities “back home.”

“We need to be open to the surrounding culture,” said Ramadan, now a visiting professor at Oxford University.

An earlier speech by Ramadan on why Islam needs a feminist movement drew so many people that the organizers had to find a new place to meet. A quick survey of the room revealed an audience as diverse as the Muslim community in Britain — some men wore jeans, others traditional robes. Some women wore business suits; others were covered with hijabs and loose dresses.

“People should see in you what they don’t see on their TV set,” said Ramadan. It was with reluctance that the crowd left after more than two hours in the stuffy room, taking with them the too-seldom discussed ideas about Muslims’ role in Europe.

City Circle
The talk was one in a series of lectures by Ramadan on the need for reform within Islam and hosted by the London social organization, The City Circle.

The group was started by a group of Muslim professionals in 1999 as a social outlet and has since morphed into an organization that is now setting the agenda for moderate Muslims.

From their work feeding London’s homeless, to the Holocaust memorial they sponsored after the Muslim Council of Britain refused to participate in a city-wide ceremony, The City Circle has become a national model of British Islam and local groups around the country have started to duplicate the organization’s efforts.

“Our differences are part of the game plan,” said Asim Siddiqui, 29, one of the group’s founders, who works as a forensic accountant in London’s financial district.

He hopes that through City Circle, and his friends’ work at Q News and Khayaal, a “progressive, tolerant and moderate” Islam will spread throughout the community.

Quoting the Quran, he said, “We were made with differences to learn from one another.”

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