3. The Retreat
(BBC Two, 2007)
‘She has begun to find that the Qur’an
answers many of her lifelong intellectual
questions about the nature of the divine. The
dream of apparently Sufi sheep has pushed
her to the brink of a life-changing decision’.
•Irrationality vs rationality;
intellectualism
•Spiritual experiences
respected but challenged
•Moments of transformation
and conversion
4. The Retreat
(BBC Two, 2007)
‘I’ve, I dunno, I mean I feel quite kind of um, I’ve… it gives me
butterflies actually even saying anything so I feel, not nervous
exactly, but someone said erm, if this is the one that really feels right
for you, maybe you should make some kind of um, commitment and
I felt really split because on one hand I was thinking wow, you know
maybe I can, you know, and that’s actually I didn’t expect it to be
appealing but it did seem really exciting actually, but then on the
other hand I was thinking that’s ridiculous. I’ve been here for three,
three and a bit weeks. And I was worried about being a hypocrite,
you know, almost pretending I’m some scholar in something I
don’t…
Irrationality vs rationality
Personal/Individual
Authenticity
Experience, journey
5. The Retreat
(BBC Two, 2007)
‘Yes it’s dramatic in that I wasn’t a Muslim five
minutes ago and now I am but it’s not dramatic
because I’m not changing who I’m worshipping, um,
and I’m not changing myself, so yeah, it just feels
like a kind of natural enhancement… I’ve began to
feel more and more and more accepted and familiar
with Islam’.
•Accepted as ‘me’
•Change/transformation – but only to a point of
‘enhancing’ life
•Pluralism
•Quiet, articulate, limited emotion
6. The Retreat
(BBC Two, 2007)
‘I think she’s, she’s the epitome of the English
Muslim because in the United Kingdom really
there’s a need to create a culture, not preserve a
culture, not preserve a Moroccan or an Egyptian or
a Pakistani or an Indian way, but the need to create
a British Islam, which meets the spiritual needs of
the British people, people in modern times’.
•British/WE sensibilities
•Rejection of othering and
‘excesses’– importance of
assimilation
•Spirituality vs religion
9. Undercover Mosque
(Channel 4 Dispatches, 2007)
living in a multicultural society
Dr Mian: You have to live like a state within a state until you take over
and holy war
Sh Feiz: The peak, the pinnacle, the crest, the summit, of Islam, is jihad
10. Undercover Mosque
(Channel 4 Dispatches, 2007)
Tonight on Dispatches – an ideology of bigotry and intolerance
spreading through Britain with its roots in Saudi Arabia
Sheikh Yasin: We Muslims have been ordered to do brainwashing
on women’s rights
Abu Usamah: Allah has created the woman deficient
Sh Jibali: If she doesn’t wear hijab, we hit her
gay rights
Abu Usamah: take that homosexual man and throw him from the
mountain
11. Undercover Mosque: The Return
(Channel 4 Dispatches, 2008)
In fact, punishments like throwing homosexuals from the
top of mountains are nowhere mentioned in the Koran.
In fact, it’s a hardline interpretation, taught in Saudi
Arabia.
Regent’s Park Mosque was set up 60 years ago to
represent British Muslims to the government. It says its
role is to help Muslims integrate into British society The
woman’s circle does preach against terrorism and
doesn’t incite Muslims to break British laws. But far from
preaching integration, Um-Saleem says muslims cannot
take British citizenship. Their loyalty is to Allah… And
another preacher says muslims shouldn’t be living in
Britain at all ‘it is not befitting for a Muslim that he should
reside in the land of evil, the land of the kuffar, the land
of the dibelievers. A muslim should emigrate to a
Muslim country’.
12. Undercover Mosque docs
(Channel 4 Dispatches, 2007/8)
Threat to British values
Saudi Arabia as the ‘enemy’
Fundamentalism vs moderate Islam
Moderate Muslim talking heads to denounce
preachers
What is ‘Islamic’?
Choice of mosques that promote interfaith and
multiculturalism – scaremongering?
Police investigation
Producer’s claims.
