British Muslim Fictions: Interviews with Contemporary Writers.

Lead Research Organisation: Leeds Beckett University
Department Name: Faculty of Arts, Environment &Technology

Abstract

This project investigates the creation of a sense of 'British Muslim' identity in contemporary Anglophone literary production. The research leave will be devoted to completing a book of interviews, conducted by a single interviewer, with writers of Muslim heritage working in the UK. However, the interviews will also inform my single-authored monograph, entitled Representations of British Muslims, 1966-Present. Hence, the outputs for which I seek support are part of a larger, ongoing research project. Both books draw on interdisciplinary approaches to literature and religion, specifically postcolonial theory and the Community Religions Project (empirical research on religions 'near at hand' in Britain). Interview discussion centres on writers' work, diasporic position, literary techniques and influences, but consideration is also given to representations of Muslims in relation to debates about the hijab, the war on terror, sharia law and the Rushdie Affair. I scrutinize the nature of creativity in Muslim cultural contexts and analyze fiction's relationship to faith. In the book's theoretical framework I discuss whether such a category as Muslim writing exists or is desirable. Given that identity is a central concept in this study, and that it has received much attention across the humanities - nowhere more so than in postcolonial studies - debates surrounding the term are outlined, and its relevance to faith groups discussed.

This project aims to demonstrate that neither Islam nor British Muslim literature is a monolithic entity. I outline the diversity of Islam, which can be seen, for example, in the doctrinal differences between Sunni and Shia, suggesting that it is also wrong to view Britain as homogeneous. Great variety is apparent in the interviews already conducted, coming as the writers do from different nations, communities, British regions and intellectual traditions. The research is informed by Tariq Modood's book, Multiculturalism (2007), in which he argues that Wittgenstein's concept of 'family resemblance' allows us to recognize distinct ethnic and religious groups, although these groups alter in different times and space, and are internally heterogeneous. His contention that we can identify Muslims as a group despite their myriad differences is helpful when thinking about writers as British Muslims. While the writers under discussion, as I have outlined, exhibit various features, styles and affiliations, I argue that we can usefully speak of them as a loosely-connected and often discordant family. Whereas some writers view their Muslim identity solely as a cultural resource, others adhere firmly to Islam as faith.

In addition to the interview book, the project will produce a podcast of an interview with an acclaimed Muslim writer, available online for the general public to download from Dec 2010. I will also give presentations, based on the interviews, to 2 fora: Manchester Muslim Writers and a research seminar at Leeds Met (the first, community-based and creative; the second, academic). The legacy of the project will be to establish a sound infrastructure for future research ventures (such as the scholarly book to be completed after the 6-month leave period), thus maintaining continued impacts. The project builds on funding for which I successfully bid in Leeds Met's Engagement Initiative, to run a pilot scheme of creative writing workshops led by Muslim writers with Leeds high school students in spring 2010. The proposed research and the separately-funded engagement project co-exist symbiotically, with the research informing the practice-based workshops and vice versa, in ways designed to be mutually beneficial for the research community and the wider populace. The conduct of this research will thus allow the development of these existing collaborations with opinion-formers and public organizations such as Education Leeds and Muslim Writers Awards, bringing added value to the project's dissemination.

Planned Impact

The main beneficiaries from this research will be British Muslim individuals and communities. To paraphrase a speaker at the Muslim Writers Awards 2009, 'home-grown terrorists' are currently under scrutiny, but this research draws attention to a rich array of home-grown Muslim art. In the short term, writers will benefit from having their work disseminated to, firstly, a wide academic readership, making it increasingly likely for their texts to become prescribed reading on curricula thus generating incomes and, secondly, an online audience made up of researchers, independent scholars and interested members of the general public. In the longer term, Muslims as a demographic group have tended to be discouraged from pursuing an arts education, but are expected to be the fastest growing sector of the book-buying public over the coming years (data available from Muslim Writers Awards). The research is particularly aimed at introducing both British Muslim and Judeo-Christian/secular 'users' to an excellent and growing canon of literature, with the hope that this will enhance quality of life and foster a desire for life-long learning.

The primary beneficiary within the private sector is the Muslim Writers Awards (MWA), a non-profitmaking business, with which I already have strong links. The organization aims to encourage Muslims to express their voices through schools projects in creative writing, fostering the development of young writers who are as yet unpublished. By promoting recognition of the resonance and diversity of published Muslim writers in the UK, my research will be of great benefit to MWA (contact: Ifran Akram). Education Leeds (contact: Rehana Minhas) will also gain from this research, because I brought the organization together with MWA and was awarded funds from Leeds Met's Engagement Initiative in a bid to encourage young Muslims to participate in a pilot creative writing project in Leeds in 2010. 2 of my interviewees will act as teachers on this scheme, which will encourage young people in their life-long learning. Another aim during the research leave is to secure external funding to continue the scheme. In the public sector, 2 organizations, Bradford Museums, Galleries and Heritage, and the arts organization, Kala Sangam, might use the results of my broader research project to their advantage in their efforts to promote local South Asian arts to a wider audience.

This research has potential to impact on the nation's economic output over the next decade by alerting a global audience to an excellent body of British writing. For example the US reader commented on my Palgrave proposal that 'It allows writers (some little-known in the US) to voice their visions and views apropos a bundle of issues relevant to their works and the cultural and social perspectives involved in them. The project evinces great critical and cultural merit'. The project should also increase the effectiveness of education services, in that our offshoot creative writing project (funded by Leeds Met) will enhance the quality of life of Leeds high school students, by encouraging creativity and cultural engagement. Regional development will also be promoted by this related project, and the benefits will be felt in the academic year 2009-10 and beyond.

The project will
- Provide a book of interviews with contemporary Muslim writers, creating financial benefits for the British publishing industry and allowing Muslims a new channel through which to connect with an aspect of their cultural heritage
- Attract online visitors interested in the current situation of Muslims in the UK to the podcast of an interview with a leading British Muslim writer, thus garnering publicity benefits for the host website, Framing Muslims, plus cultural and research value for users
- Engage diasporic communities and aspiring writers in contemporary cultural p
 
Description During the leave period, I completed my main output, British Muslim Fictions, which was launched in both hardback and paperback at Saqi Books in September 2011. In this book of 13 interviews with leading writers including Hanif Kureishi, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Hanif Kureishi, Tariq Ali, and Ahdaf Soueif, I employed a comparative strategy to analyse the writing and opinions of novelists of Muslim heritage based in the UK. Interview discussion centres on writers' work, literary techniques, and influences, and on their views of such issues as the hijab, the war on terror and the Rushdie Affair. These interviews challenge the idea of a monolithic voice for Islam in Britain. Instead, taken together they indicate the diversity of voices creating 'British Muslim fictions' which ultimately enriches the cultural, social and political landscape of contemporary Britain.

In the 13,000-word introduction, I highlighted connections and divergences between writers of South Asian, North and East African, and Arab descent, which derive from their Muslim identity. I am no cheerleader for the idea of a unified global Muslim community, or ummah, and know that exaggeration of this concept can lead to the very real tensions between different Muslim groups within an equally divided Britain being underestimated. However, this approach has the advantage of bringing together writers from the 'Muslim world' to shed light on each other, although without overlooking their vast contextual differences. Some of the interviewed authors have written about hardline Muslims who may (or may not) be violent. For example, Mohsin Hamid, the author of probably the most famous of these texts, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, argued in interview that 'we're left with [...] a gaping hole where spirituality used to be [...] and a new politics that's calling itself religion'. However, one research discovery is that terrorism tends not the most pressing concern amongst writers of Muslim heritage in the current political context of heavy-handed surveillance initiatives such as the Prevent agenda, and vociferous, often Islamophobic debate about integration and lack of community cohesion. Yet the writers also do not shirk self-scrutiny of problems within Muslim communities in Britain and abroad, with many of them being extremely outspoken about abuses directed from some dominant Muslim groups and figures towards minority groups, especially women.

Key findings from the research include the fact that while apparently emblematic Muslim themes, such as the Qur'an, justice, djinns, and compassion do recur in many of the texts and interviews, so do issues not widely associated with Islam, such as feminism, cosmopolitanism, and literary experimentalism. Central issues to which writers often return include Muslim Spain, the war on terror, gender, racism, language, and representation. The diversity of Muslims' religion and culture is well represented in the interviews, across nations as well as centuries. Eclecticism forms part of the writers' identity concerns, and they not only correct misconceptions about Muslims in Britain, but also record first-hand information about their experiences, creating a bridge between Muslim and non-Muslim cultures.

As I was putting the finishing touches to this book, a wave of uprisings swept the Middle East, in what is was termed the Arab Spring, then, more pessimistically, the Arab Winter. These political convulsions surprised many commentators in the West, given discourse about Arabs and Muslims as backward and prone to authoritarianism. Yet the interviews revealed an entirely divergent image of Muslims as progressive, politically informed, and independent minded. As Soueif wrote to me (nearly a year before the Egyptian revolution and fall of Mubarak), 'Islam started as a revolutionary, dissident, progressive, egalitarian, and global idea and movement, and it continues to hold all these potentials within it'.
Exploitation Route My research has helped to spearhead discussions about the place of Islam in contemporary British and South Asian writing. Literary representations of British Muslims constitute an emerging and important area of scholarship, but some commentators are uncomfortable with the idea of using religious identity to categorize literature. My books, British Muslim Fictions and the new monograph Representations of Muslims in Britain (2015) and co-edited volume Muslims of South Asian and Diaspora (with Caroline Herbert, 2014) offer detailed discussion of this issue, supported by an interdisciplinary theoretical framework, and drawing on insights from postcolonial studies, anthropology, and religious studies.

The books and wider research project offer new insights to the research community, in addition to their demonstrable non-academic benefit. Muslims now find themselves at the centre of media scrutiny and political concern, much of it negative. The use value of my current research projects, which seek to complicate and contest the reified figure and cultural category of the Muslim and draw attention to a fascinating but often neglected body of writing by Muslims, can hardly be over-emphasized.

The Muslim as a cultural category has come under increasing, most often hostile, scrutiny in Euro-America over the last four decades or so. As a result, the field of Muslim literary studies emerged, led by Geoffrey Nash, Peter Morey, Rehana Ahmed, Amina Yaqin, and me to shine a spotlight on the exciting body of literature by authors of Muslim heritage writing back to Islamophobic stereotypes. However, this academic oeuvre too often assumes that the literature is a contemporary, broadly post-9/11, and Anglophone phenomenon. In my latest research, I have therefore been examining the long history of Muslim writing in Britain, from 1780 to the present, and in languages other than English, which include Persian, Arabic, and Urdu. However, the main way in which my findings could be taken forward is by scholars who work in these languages to deal with texts in the original rather than my research on translations.
Sectors Creative Economy,Education,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections
URL https://he.palgrave.com/resources/sample-chapters/9780230308787_sample.pdf
 
Description Through this AHRC-funded project, my research became increasingly widely known on a non-academic stage, particularly in the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, and North America. The book British Muslim Fictions was described by Muneeza Shamsie as 'likely to arouse much interest' in an article she wrote in Pakistan's leading newspaper, Dawn (http://www.dawn.com/2011/01/02/outlook-2011-better-and-brighter.html). I went on trips to Pakistan in 2011, 2012 and 2014, where I presented talks at the Karachi Literature Festival. I discussed my academic experiences on my initial trip to Pakistan in a piece I wrote for the Times Higher Education: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=415260§ioncode=26. Out of this, I was invited by Jude Kelly, Artistic Director of the Southbank Centre to chair a panel on 'The Alternative Story of Pakistan', which took place at the Royal Festival Hall in May 2011 (see http://www.columnspk.com/a-place-to-think-by-ghazi-salahuddin/). I have recently discovered that my book British Muslim Fictions is held in the library of the Sindh Club in Karachi. As part of my AHRC-funded Early Career Fellowship (2010-11), I produced a podcast of an interview with Daniyal Mueenuddin, which was disseminated to the research community and wider public via a partner website, framingmuslims.org. I also delivered papers to the Manchester Muslim Writers (MMW) group based in Chorlton-cum-Hardy and to the Greater Manchester Diversity Research Forum during my AHRC-funded leave, and to Cambridge Muslim College in 2012. I presented invited keynote lectures at a panel on publishing and diversity at London Book Fair and at a 'Revolutions in the Middle East' Community Outreach Day at Lawnswood High School, Leeds. In addition to being one of Times Higher Education's scholar-reviewers and a blogger on culture for the Huffington Post and 3 Quarks Daily, I write book reviews for such publications as Wasafiri, Contemporary South Asia, and Moving Worlds, and a bimonthly literary column for Dawn, Pakistan. I have appeared on BBC Radio's Indus: Manchester's Asian Magazine, Radio Asian Fever, and the documentary First There Was the Word on Radio 4 with the author Yasmin Hai. In summary, then, the impact of my research has met and in some cases exceeded the targets that I set for myself in the original application.
First Year Of Impact 2011
Sector Creative Economy,Education,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections
Impact Types Cultural
 
Description Research Fellowship
Amount £49,698 (GBP)
Organisation The Leverhulme Trust 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2017 
End 08/2018
 
Description General Engagement Work 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact My research is becoming increasingly widely known on an international stage, particularly in the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, and North America. The book that came after this award, Britain Through Muslim Eyes, was described by Muneeza Shamsie as 'likely to arouse much interest' in an article she wrote in Pakistan's leading newspaper, Dawn (http://www.dawn.com/2011/01/02/outlook-2011-better-and-brighter.html). Accordingly, it garnered a 1600 word review by Rafia Zakaria (author of 'intimate history' of Pakistan, The Upstairs Wife) (https://www.dawn.com/news/1248241) and I did a podcat interview about it for the LA Review of Books (http://marginalia.lareviewofbooks.org/first-impressions-94-claire-chambers-britain-muslim-literary-representations/).

I went on research trips to Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India in 2012, 2013, 2015, and 2017 where I presented keynote speeches in Lahore, Lucknow, Kolkata, and at the Karachi Literature Festival. I discussed my academic experiences in Pakistan in a piece I wrote for the Times Higher Education: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=415260§ioncode=26. Out of this, I was invited by Jude Kelly, Artistic Director of the Southbank Centre to chair a panel on 'The Alternative Story of Pakistan', which took place at the Royal Festival Hall in May 2011 (see http://www.columnspk.com/a-place-to-think-by-ghazi-salahuddin/). I have appeared twice at the London Book Fair to speak about the publishing of Muslim authors in Britain and beyond. I will also be chairing a session at Karachi Literature Festival in London this May, and will have made four appearances at the Bradford Literature Festival as well as co-organizing and teaching on a South Asia study day at the Ilkley Literature Festival. In summary, then, the impact of my research has met and in some cases exceeded the targets that I set for myself in the original application.

From 2010 to 2013 I co-organized creative writing workshops with Year 9 pupils in Leeds. These were taught by acclaimed Muslim-heritage novelists and poets who live in the north of England. The broader project Arooj ('Acension' or 'Arising') was a three-year long initiative to approve the attainment of Leeds pupils of Pakistani and Bangladeshi heritage. I helped Arooj to go city-wide, encompass primary and secondary schools, and promote better understanding of Islamic cultural backgrounds. Artwork from the project is being displayed in the Voices of Asia exhibition at Leeds City Museum between 2014 and 2019.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011,2012,2013,2014,2015,2016,2017
 
Description Leeds Meets Shakespeare (year-long project around multicultural Shakespeare with Leeds Year 1 school children) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact Leeds Meets Shakespeare is a project led by me, with Sarah Olive (York) and a team of project partners: Therese O'Sullivan, Learning Improvement Consultant, from Leeds City Council, Children & Families; Sarah Westaway, Head of Arts Development from Artforms; Amy Lancelot, Creative Education Manager at the West Yorkshire Playhouse; and Georghia Ellinas, Head of Learning from Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. Therese O'Sullivan says of the collaboration: 'Leeds City Council Learning Improvement Team are delighted to be a part of this exciting project which will celebrate the cultural capital of Leeds pupils and provide excellent professional development for teachers in Arooj schools'. Amy Lancelot offered her theatre education team's perspective: 'West Yorkshire Playhouse is always looking for new ways to support schools with their delivery of a vital and vibrant curriculum. We believe taking part in ground-breaking research is an important part of this, and look forward to potentially expanding the project throughout Leeds in later years.'

The project asks whether teaching Shakespeare can raise the attainment of Year 1 English as an Additional Language (EAL) pupils in literacy, oracy, and self-confidence. (If you're interested in EAL Shakespeare, see also Teaching Shakespeare magazine issues 1, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13 and forthcoming 14.) It also asks how Continuing Professional Development sessions for teachers around postcolonial, Bollywood and other South Asian Shakespeares might help their effectiveness in the multicultural classroom. Advancing my long-standing collaboration with Leeds City Council and Artforms (which began while I was writing British Muslim Fictions), as well as developing new partnerships, the project is being piloted in six Arooj ('Ascension' or 'Arising') primary schools.

These schools have a significant numbers of British-Pakistani and -Bangladeshi pupils and an above-average intake of EAL pupils. Resources and skills for teaching Shakespeare will be developed that can be rolled out to other schools after the lifetime of the project by the Arooj schools as well as the West Yorkshire Playhouse in their work with and beyond these schools. The broader project Arooj is an ongoing initiative to improve the attainment of Leeds pupils of Pakistani and Bangladeshi heritage. I was involved with Arooj as it went city-wide, encompassed primary and secondary schools, and promoted better understanding of Islamic cultural backgrounds. I then worked as a consultant for the affiliated Kids' Own Publishing project (2013-2015), in which reception children from Arooj schools worked with an artist to produce simple picture books in dual languages. These picture books were developed to increase the number of books available in which pupils could see positive images of themselves and their languages reflected.

The primary aim of the Leeds Meets Shakespeare project is to engage teachers and their pupils in creative approaches to literacy, oracy, and emotional intelligence. Each of the topics is built using Shakespearean stories (namely The Tempest and A Winter's Tale), and comprises intensive teacher training, in-class support by a team of Learning Consultants, and a focus on the National Curriculum. Introducing British-Asian pupils to Shakespeare's language at a young age should prove invaluable to the development of their vocabulary and confidence. The project has three key objectives which will be measured in terms of their success and associated outcomes:

- To accelerate the progress of EAL learners in their English language development by using drama to increase their skills in using spoken language (oracy) and develop their reading and writing skills (literacy). Our specific related objectives are to introduce EAL pupils to The Tempest and The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare, and to explore the stories (their characters and themes) through participatory drama sessions.
- To increase teacher confidence in using drama and role-play to support the teaching of oracy and literacy. We will develop and pilot an approach to the teaching of oracy and literacy which can be shared and rolled out to other Arooj schools. Teachers will work alongside a specialist drama practitioner to deliver 12 sessions with their class. The project will conclude with the creation a set of teaching resources which can be shared with schools locally and nationally.
- To support and encourage parental engagement and increase parent voice. At the end of the project, the team and the schools will organize a celebration event involving parents, teachers, and children at the Carriageworks Theatre, working with West Yorkshire Playhouse (WYP) practitioners. Testimonials from parents, audience feedback, and other forms of engagement will be used to consider the success of the project.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017,2018
URL http://www.britishshakespeare.ws/bsa-news/leeds-meet-shakespeare-making-a-start/