An interview with Lucy Bushill-Matthews, published on Fairlady's website

Keeping the faith

Fiona Zerbst speaks to Lucy Bushill-Matthews, author of ‘Welcome to Islam - a convert’s tale’, about balancing the realities facing Islam with humour.

I wrote the book because moving back to South Africa two years ago changed everything. In England I was engaged daily and practically with my community. Uprooting and moving to South Africa gave me the mental and physical space to write about a subject that seems to be of global concern. I wanted to write a book that would be informative about Islam, and realistic about some of the issues Muslims face, but in an accessible way.

We are living in an era where certain experts are talking about the insurmountable differences between “them” (the Muslims) and “us” (everyone else). This attitude can carry down through the generations. When I visited one school in the UK to talk with the children about the Muslim experience of Ramadan, a child who had five Muslim schoolmates in his classroom asked me innocently: “What’s the weather like in their world?”

The best way to break down barriers between people who come from different communities is to get to know each other. And for me the best way to break down barriers is over a cup of tea in the kitchen! This book is the result of numerous cups of tea, and equally numerous conversations.

I have tried to show in the book the ways in which Muslims differ from each other in their practice of Islam - and how it’s okay to be different. I have also come across Muslims judging non-Muslims (eg a mosque committee decreeing they did not want a playground in the mosque grounds in case non-muslim women came to use it wearing mini-skirts) as well as the reverse (eg a taxi driver asking me what it was like being oppressed). So let’s all just relax a little bit and see the common humanity in each other!

Humour makes it easier to make a serious point. It’s more memorable when you do it in a light-hearted way. But the BBC asked on its website recently “Does Islam have a sense of humour?”… I think if I didn’t laugh about it, I would cry.

I was interviewed by The Sun newspaper, but my interview was replaced at the last minute with a two page spread about an English woman captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan, headlined ‘The Taliban banned my nail varnish’.

In South Africa, people openly admit they know little about Islam, and they usually do not have the prejudice against the faith that is so prevalent in the UK. It helps that South Africa is a genuinely multi-cultural society and that Muslims are seen as South African as anyone else. South African Muslims are interested too: converts seem somewhat of a rarity here.

My favourite books about Muslims include the fictional novel by Khalid Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns. Whilst it didn’t exactly portray men in a very good light, it explored the depth and strength of character hidden within the dark all-encompassing burkas of two very different Muslim women. I have also enjoyed The Meaning of the Life of Muhammad by Swiss-born European scholar Tariq Ramadan. He focuses on applying how Muhammad - peace be upon him - lived to the lifestyle we live today. Did you know he refused two dinner invitations on the grounds that his wife wasn’t invited? The third time she was invited too and he finally accepted.

In the UK, there was an understanding that 9/11 was the action of a few, not of Muslims as a whole, but the tube bombs in July 2005 changed that. The “them” and “us” rhetoric from fundamentalists on both ends of the spectrum eventually filters into the mainstream. A recent large-scale Gallup survey showed that while 98% of Iranians polled identified aspects in the West to admire, just under a third of Americans believed there was nothing to admire in the Muslim world.

Being in South Africa as a Muslim is like being on holiday. Our relocation agent tells me one area is up-and-coming as Muslims have moved into it - I thought I had misheard. The newspaper features a woman wearing a scarf on its front page - and the story is about her comments as an HIV/Aids expert, not about her dress sense. Woolworths puts notices up wishing its Muslim customers Happy Ramadan. Halaal restaurants are everywhere and non-Muslims are happy to eat in them. I also appreciate the opportunity here to make a difference - however small - in the lives of people in some of this country’s poorer communities. I wanted to write about South Africa too, but there wasn’t space, so that will just have to be in my next book…