- The genesis of this book really was right about 2016,
you know, when you had Manchester Arena happened
and then you had London Bridge
and you had Westminster Bridge and then you had Brexit
and then you had Joe Cox being murdered.
And then the following summer,
a guy rammed a van into a mosque quite near where I live
in North London.
And I just got into a bit of a state, to be honest,
I got quite low because I just kept thinking,
I'm just hearing negativity on both sides, you know,
I'm hearing these extremists on the right
and I'm hearing extremists on the Islamist side
and, you know, I've got two young kids
and I just felt like, well, given what I've got,
my modest set of skills,
you know, I'm not a politician,
I'm not like an activist or what can I do
to try and make anything better?
And it felt like the world that I had grown up in,
and the family and the community that I'd grown up in,
wasn't the one that I saw the people
who opposed this slump thinking
but then I also thought that the way that some Muslims
depicted non-Muslims wasn't the world I understood either.
So I just thought, well, why not just do a,
you know, everything you really, really were worried about
asking about Muslims,
not like, let's not pussyfoot around,
like, what are the things people think
and are they legitimate?
So to do that, you have to do misconceptions on both sides.
So it kind of, it didn't seem fair to only pick on one side.
I kind of wanted to try and tell a more nuanced story
and to do that,
you kind of have to look at the misconceptions
and also to check whether they are misconceptions
or whether it might have some truth in them as well.
- So why are there so many preconceptions, stereotypes,
beliefs on both side of Muslims and non-Muslims
about each other in Britain?
- I think part of it is to do
with the way that people arrived,
mostly in the early 60s and late 50s,
where they settled and how they grew up, you know,
because essentially if you don't know people,
if you don't mix with people,
that is the recipe for misunderstanding and ignorance
on both sides.
I think that's basically it.
If you grow up in a community,
I grew up in a community
where we basically didn't really have anyone
who was not Muslim or Pakistani come into our house.
You're gonna have all sorts of ideas
about what those people are like.
Similarly, if you're on the other side
and you don't actually know any Muslims,
but you just read, you know,
what certain parts of the press say
or what certain extremists do, you're gonna have that.
So for me, it's about a lack of interaction
and a lack of meaningful experience of the other.
And it's from that, those seeds that I think,
you know, antipathy and misconceptions arise.
- One of the things where you do come in,
and you acknowledge that you had your own preconceptions
is round when you speak to women who wear the burqa,
what were those misconceptions or preconceptions
that you came in with and were they challenged?
- Well, I basically, you know,
my thinking is yes, if you go around wearing the niqab
in Britain,
firstly don't think you're more Muslim than my mum
or my sister or my sister-in-law
who were none of those things,
so don't go around trying to think
you're more religious than them.
And secondly, you're not really doing your best
to fit in, are you?
It's almost like you're kind of making a statement
that you're different.
And I kind of find that a bit bizarre.
Like why would you actively highlight that
and so my sense was that there was a little bit
of sort of try-hard and this going on,
like people trying to proclaim their religiosity
a little bit.
And so, yeah,
so I came in with all those kinds of preconceptions,
but the truth was,
I actually didn't know anybody who already got up.
And when I started asking my friends,
nobody seemed to know anybody
out of my friend's social circle either.
So I thought, well, I wonder what it would be like
to actually talk to somebody who wears that.
So I went and did some bit more work,
and then I eventually met like four or five women.
I met more than four,
but in one particular time I sat
and talked with four of them,
and it was really interesting
because one of the things that was interesting was,
you know, there's a sort of sense of anonymity
because you can't really tell very much about somebody
when they can only see, you know, a little bit of them.
And so I was just like,
well, how am I gonna tell who's who when I'm talking?
And it was interesting how within a few minutes
personality started coming through and you could tell,
so that was one interesting.
The second thing that was interesting about that
was how this was a year before the pandemic,
and then suddenly the idea of being masked up
and the idea of not quite being able to tell fully
people's ideas and in what they were thinking,
because you couldn't see their expression,
suddenly everyone else got used to that.
And then a third thing I thought was,
you know, it's interesting about who we choose
to pay attention to.
So the truth is, I do think the niqabs are not that,
you know, I don't think it's that helpful,
but then I also think people going around,
you know, with multiple piercings
and an inadvisable tattoos is not that great,
but we don't necessarily see the prime minister
wittering on about that.
So it's quite interesting who you choose
to make a target thing.
And the fact of the matter is,
I'm not a big fan of the niqab
but really, who gives a monkeys
whether I care about it or not,
it's such a small number of people,
but the amount of attention it gets
is not actually in balance.
The other thing was really interesting
is there was one of the women said to me,
you know, I'm only wearing the niqab, we were in the cafe.
She said, I'm only wearing this because you're a Muslim,
if you weren't a Muslim, I'll be wearing something else.
I said, what do you mean?
She goes, "Well, because I know you'd understand
why I'm wearing and you'd respect that.
That's why I'm wearing it.
But if you were a white journalist, I probably wouldn't."
And I thought people wore niqab, just wore it all the time,
but she was like, no, sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.
And again, that was for me, a bit of an eye opener.
- And did you find any reasons in writing this,
why Muslim communities might not to integrate
with the rest of Britain?
- Any community, particularly if it comes from another place
and has its own practices,
its own religion or its own beliefs, its own traditions,
it worries that too much exposure to the outside world
will dilute those things.
And once they're diluted, they're gone forever.
And so I think with the Muslim community,
what they think is,
what will happen to some of the things we hold dear?
And the thing is,
I'm saying this in a really abstract way for you,
but there are real world consequences to this.
So for example, I say this in my book,
my mum is in her mid 80s
and she lives at home with my older brother and his wife
who looks after her.
And the idea that she would,
you know, she's got vascular dementia,
the idea that she would be put into a home or anything,
it's just inconceivable, okay.
We have grown up in a culture, in Muslim Pakistani culture
that believes parents look after their children.
And then after a certain age,
the children look after their parents.
Now, my kids are much, much less likely to do that for me.
I don't think that's great.
That's not something I particularly celebrate.
That is an example of a dilution of traditions and culture
that happens and is happening.
And I think is one which I would particularly,
I would mourn.
So yeah, so there are things that you lose something.
And if you feel like what you've got is valuable,
you don't want to lose everything.
So like for my mom,
she's about generation that would have fully expected
to have, you know, a Pakistani daughter-in-law
who was gonna live in the house with them
and she could talk to and be another daughter basically.
So it's a bit of a shocker
when that script isn't what happens, you know?
And I think there's another thing,
which is just that, there's a worry people have that,
in doing something so different,
what you're doing is you're turning your back
on the whole community and the whole family and everything.
It's like, again, it's like attaching bigger things.
So like, if you have done this,
that means you no longer want or believe in any of us.
- And there's one thing that sort of struck me
a couple of times in the book is,
those that had better knowledge of the Koran
and better knowledge of their religion
and were always more religious, we're often more tolerant.
So can you explain some of the situations where that--
- Yeah, to be honest, that's a really good example
of where my own stereotype came in,
'cause I sort of started the book.
I'm slightly worried that my conclusion would be,
if only everybody could just be a bit more like me,
things would be all hunky dory, you know,
and I, you know, that's not really how you wanna end
the book.
You know, it's not exactly a mission statement
to kind of rouse and inspire a nation.
But what was interesting is that,
you know, I'm sort of semi observant,
if you wanna call it that,
you know, I don't drink
and I don't eat meat that's not halal
but I'm not prayer and I'm not, you know,
I'm not particularly devout in any of those things.
And I just thought you need to have that sort of level
of religiosity to sort of be okay in society.
But turns out that's mostly nonsense
because actually a lot of the people
who were the most progressive, if you wanna put it,
in terms of what they were doing,
knew more about the religion.
So there's a teacher we mentioned up in Yorkshire
who teaches students music
as a really large part of the school curriculum.
Now there are parts of Luton where,
you know, there'll be parents who will say that,
music is completely haram and it's against God and you know,
it's completely wrong and they won't allow their kids
to even study music.
But this teacher,
because he was like proper Muslim
and had actually read the Koran in Arabic,
could go toe to toe with these people
and actually tell them you're talking nonsense.
And because he knew the religion,
he was able to get the parents on board.
So that's an example of where if you actually know stuff,
rather than just what you think you might have heard
from somebody, it becomes really useful.
Marriage is another one, you know,
the religion says there's absolutely nothing wrong with,
for example, Muslims, Christians and Jewish people marrying.
There's just like, that's literally not an issue
because they're all children of Abraham.
Most people who have problems with the idea
of marrying outside the faith, you know,
are either unaware of that or you know,
sort of don't particularly pay attention to that part.
Do you know what I mean?
So that's an example of where if you actually know stuff
about the religion and I'm not claiming I know loads,
but if you just know stuff,
it can actually make you more hopeful
that Britain's Muslim community can be firmly embedded
in a positive way with everybody else.
And that's something which I think is, you know,
is something which most people wouldn't necessarily assume.
- And which things that you spoke to people about
do you feel are most changing,
are most gonna be different for a next generation?
- I'm gonna think marriage is changing.
I think, you know, the number of people now,
the idea that you're gonna marry your first cousin
back in the village was just like really, really common
in my generation even,
and is now just not gonna happen.
So I think that's changing.
I think people are not, you know,
I think the situation in terms of young women growing up,
I think the expectation and the assumptions
of what they think they can do has changed a lot.
I think representation's changed a lot, you know?
And if you think about how,
if somebody like myself was growing up and the things
that I saw and what I thought one could aspire to,
in terms of the media,
but also in terms of business or work and employment,
you know, it wasn't great.
And just in that one generation now,
I just think it's unimaginable to think that a kid today
could basically imagine that they can do pretty much,
most things, you know
and then not feel implausible.
I mean, it kind of blows my mind that there are,
you know, the chancellor,
the home secretary and the health secretary
are all British Asians and nobody even talks about that.
I mean, they may all be appalling individuals,
but the fact that they are British Asians
is still kind of amazing than all appalling individuals,
I interviewed such a champion for the book
and he's a nice guy,
but the fact that nobody really talks about that
and that's just like, it's fine.
And it's like, it's completely conceivable
that the chance that could become prime minister,
that's an incredible journey to have gone on
in the last 20 years.
And I think, you know,
one of the things I sort of do think about
when I was writing the book is,
we don't actually sometimes pay attention
to just how much things have changed for the better,
because we're so kind of anguish
and only focusing on division as well.
So that's, I think representation is an incredible progress.
You know, the fact that we have a mayor right now,
who's a British Pakistani in this city, for example.
So there's lots to feel hopeful for as well.
- You're quite hopeful for the picture of the future.
You wanted to give hope in this book,
who would you most like to pick it up?
- Well, you know, I mean, to be blunt about it,
I actually wrote it for my children.
So, you know, my daughter's nine is going to be 10 in August
and my little boy is four and a half.
And I basically wrote it because I was worried
that they would feel happy and comfortable
with their White, British Scottish side,
but basically think that their Muslim Pakistani side
was a bit embarrassing and a bit of an annoyance
and had nothing positive to say about it, you know?
And they are at that age at the moment
where the idea of religion, the idea of Islamophobia,
if you wanna use that word,
the idea that there is something problematic about Islam
hasn't yet seeped into their mind.
And what I wanted to do was to try and write something
so that if and when they do start,
it's gonna be probably more when rather than if,
they do start knowing about those ideas,
they've got something that can help,
you know, vaccinate them if you will,
against some of those narratives
and say, well, actually that's not the whole story.
And I wanted them to feel comfortable with both sides
of their heritage.
So, they're really the inspiration for why I wrote the book.
And I hope, yeah, I hope that when they read it
and if they read it,
they feel, it helped them feel comfortable
with both sides of who they are.
- Well, thanks so much,
it's an incredibly interesting book to read
and thanks for chatting to me.
- Great to talk to you.
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