JOURNALIST PUSHES MUSLIM LIFESTYLE TO THE FORE
Journalist pushes Muslim lifestyle to the fore
by Esra Maden
Journalist Sarah Joseph, the founder and editor of Emel magazine.
Courage and determination is what it takes to be a Muslim, especially in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. Believers in Islam have long been depicted stereotypically in political and religious debates.
Tired of responding to the horrors of Sept. 11 for a year, British entrepreneur and journalist Sarah Joseph decided to stop explaining what Muslims are “against” and to start explaining what they are “for.” Such an urge ultimately paved the way for Emel magazine.
Though she grew up in a Catholic family, her father was an accountant and her mother the owner of a modelling agency, Joseph adopted Islam at 16.
Her magazine features interviews with famous personalities –– among them British Prime Minister David Cameron; Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams; Yusuf Islam, previously known as Cat Stevens; the Anglican bishop in Jerusalem; and many others –– food, fashion, interior design, gardens and finance. It is a revolutionary publication based on the idea of, what Joseph calls, a “Muslim lifestyle.”
“Rather than describing Islam and Muslims as two-dimensional political or religious caricatures, we said that Islam was a whole and complete way of life that influenced every aspect of one’s living –– our art, our architecture, our gardens, our finances can all be expressions of our faith,” she explained in an interview with Sunday’s Zaman. “In many ways, I can see that it created a paradigm shift in Muslim discourse and acted as a catalyst for other work.”
Joseph stresses that faith must be present throughout the believers’ lives instead of being just about prayer and religious clothing. The idea of launching the magazine occurred to her during a vacation in 2000. She felt the urge to start the magazine when she could not find anything to read in English that would put forward a positive and inspiring Muslim way of life, featuring Islam outside of dogma and politics.
“The majority of Muslims want to just get on with life; improve their condition and that of their families and communities. We had become sensationalized and after 9/11 we were viewed as a suspect community. But the Muslim reaction was always defensive and I felt we needed to tell people what Muslims actually stood for and how Islam can make a contribution to the common good of all in society,” Joseph explains.
She also explained that they have four C’s as the magazine’s principles: confidence, contribute, common good and connectivity. The magazine does not only address Muslim readers but targets non-Muslims as well. Politicians, journalists, media executives, royalty and the ordinary British public are among the non-Muslim readers of Emel. “Over 15 per cent of our readers are not Muslims,” Joseph added.
The editor’s mother, Valerie Askew, successfully runs a modelling agency, which launched the career of internationally well-known models, including Naomi Campbell, Sadie Frost and Catherine Bailey. As much as she thinks that the fashion industry had very little depth, Joseph also notes that she learned a lot. “I mixed with a lot of different people, learnt that true beauty comes from within, and learnt not to judge things by how they looked. All of this shaped me as a person. I also saw the inside of a business –– how it was run, saw my mother as a dynamic person and saw the pictures for magazines being created.”
From practicing Catholic to influential Muslim
Joseph was born into a family with a variety of Christian traditions and she was a confirmed Catholic before she adopted Islam. As a practicing Catholic, she even considered taking holy orders and entering the Church as a nun, inspired by Mother Theresa of Calcutta.
She said it was not easy for her to adopt Islam. While her brother converted to Islam to marry a Muslim woman, which she calls a “conversion of convenience,” Islam did not have a major effect on his life; however, Joseph said Islam “profoundly changed” her life.
“This was a very painful experience, and I had no desire to take up another religion. I did not lose faith in God, though, and I continued to pray and fast. Slowly, I realized that the word Islam meant to self-surrender your life unto God, which was genuinely all I had ever wanted to do,” she explained.
As a hardworking woman, her work has made her among the most influential 500 Muslims, a list produced jointly by the Royal Strategic Studies Centre in Jordan and Georgetown University in Washington. “I think I was included on the list because in 2003 we created a revolutionary idea –– Muslim lifestyle,” she said.
Why is the hijab so controversial? (by Melanie Swan)
Though millions of women around the world wear veils and hijabs, it is still a topic of controversy and misunderstanding among many.
Dr Nausheen Pasha-Zaidi, a researcher at the Petroleum Institute, has started a project to explore the perceptions of the veil among Muslims and non-Muslims in the UAE and abroad. After writing her dissertation on the topic, she decided to take the research further.
She is collecting narratives from women of several world religions, including Amish, Hindu, Wiccan and Muslim.
“I was speaking to non-Muslim friends and they also wanted to have a say,” she said. “I realised that there is a much wider audience and perspective that needs to be addressed –issues like how veiling, which pre-dated Islam, and covering affect the women wearing it, but also how the men react and understand it.
“I would really like the narratives of Muslim men. In terms of the feminist literature, western literature equates it as a symbol of oppression but I’m having a difficulty getting men to contribute because they feel it’s a topic that belongs to Muslim women. For Muslim women, it’s often seen as the exact opposite of oppression, instead a version of Islamic feminism.”
Dr Louise Lambert, a psychologist and lecturer at the Canadian University of Dubai, has been among the non-Muslim contributors to the research. As a Canadian in Dubai, Dr Lambert said she has seen first hand what the hijab means to her students.
She said the research was an important topic.
“It’s there but nobody’s talking about it,” she said.
“Because of the media, the hijab has become a hot potato. It’s the most-politicised piece of clothing. It’s a piece of clothing but it has so much more significance than that.”
She said she did not even think about it until hosting visitors from abroad.
“The research is helping people to see each other through each other’s eyes,” she said. “There’s so much misunderstanding about the hijab, and when it’s women’s issues I find that western women dominate the conversation, when it’s got nothing to do with us, or else men dominate it when it’s got nothing to do with them either.
“We need to allow the women wearing hijabs or veils to speak for themselves so we know how we can support them and make it a conversation. It’s important to see where these perceptions and biases come from, to look at ourselves.”
She said that for her students, the hijab is a part of their identity – a fashion statement related to their religious beliefs blended into everyday life.
Alia Khan, chairwoman of the Islamic Fashion Design Council, said the organisation is supporting the research as Islamic fashion is an area which is growing rapidly around the world, and even in countries as unexpected as Mexico.
Not only is there a demand from Muslim women for more modest dress, but from Christian and Jewish women who find the mainstream market does not cater to them.
“It’s not just a religion but a way of life, so it’s important to see the ideology, the beliefs behind this culture,” said Ms Khan. “And what are people’s perceptions of others adhering to this way of life? It becomes politicised, though it is nothing to do with politics in general. It’s a wide topic and we need a lot of work to address the many facets of it.” (T/P3/R01)
Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)
Sources:
2. The National
3. http://muslimvillage.com/