Muhammad Qassim al-Alawi.
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‘TO BE ROOTED is perhaps the most important and least recognised need of the human soul’, wrote the philosopher Simone Weil. The popular perception is that Muslims lack roots in British soil: they have arrived only recently, and, as a consequence, they do not possess deep historical and organic links with the customs, traditions and values of British society. This perception has been damaging for communal harmony since it has been deployed to set boundaries that, arguably, categorize, alienate and exclude Muslims, by calling into question their emotional ties, loyalties and claims of belonging to this country; namely, a version of ‘this is our country and by implication not yours’, through which claims to greater entitlement are frequently, if not always explicitly, asserted. In this discourse, British Muslims are viewed as a huge problem in need of a solution, and much media, political and academic energy is focused upon attempts to understand them.
The difficulty in achieving this understanding, however, is that British Muslims have come to be portrayed inaccurately as undifferentiated, isolationist, opposed to modern, secular norms and values, and as immune to processes of change. Generalizations abound, and the diversity of Muslim life is cast aside, creating a homogeneous and monolithic image instead that throws up negative stereotypes that militate against constructive interaction. Instead of mutual goodwill, division, distrust and Islamophobia have resulted. But such perceptions ignore visible evidence of the on-going fusion that is taking place between Muslims and British society, each drawing inspiration from the other to enhance the future cultural development of us all. They also belie historical scrutiny and deny Muslim legitimacy, ownership and a stake in Britain.
By looking at the historical evolution of one of Britain’s oldest Muslim communities – Yemeni lascars or sailors – this rigorously researched book demonstrates their rootedness, and, by arguing that they have as much claim on this land as anybody else, represents a very welcome contribution to this discourse. Against the backdrop of racially-charged debates about immigration and questions of identity, especially since 9/11, Mohammad Seddon offers a timely exploration of how one particular set of Muslims have sought to establish themselves as an integral part of the British community over a period of 200 years. By focusing specifically on the history of these Yemeni Muslim sailors, he examines the long legacy of connections and interactions that have progressively bound their community to this country, and so locates broader present-day debates about the construction of British Muslim identities, religious belief and citizenship within a more textured historical frame. What we are provided with is a fascinating account of the economic, political, social and cultural dynamics of their lives, which is woven into the wider context of a rapidly changing imperial and post-colonial British society, where race, religion, gender and class intersect.
By investigating official and popular attitudes to their presence, and the differing responses of these Yemenis, this study challenges accepted wider notions of migration and settlement patterns, deepening our understanding of their contributions to British society as well as their role in the two world wars. It offers unique insights into their everyday lives, their internal organization and dynamics, into the links with their country of origin, and relations with their ‘host’ communities. In the process, it sheds fresh light on the nature of religious authority, representation and civic engagement, and successfully uncovers aspects of British history that have thus far remained in large part neglected. What emerges from fascinating narrative is a deeply informed understanding not only of the resilience of British Yemeni Muslims’ daily lives but also the dynamic of their institutions such as families, mosques, and religious leadership, and their social and political significance in today’s Britain.
This is a study written in the tradition of ‘history from below’; by making them, the ‘subaltern’, the subject of history, it represents an attempt to democratize history. It is also an attempt to understand a group of people considered to be incidental to the making of history and hence of little historical interest.
By seeking to get inside their minds to discover how and why they behaved in the ways that they did, what they achieved and how far their aims were realized, it is clear that the politics of Yemeni Muslim lascars were not marked simply by acquiescence, accommodation, compromise and negotiation but also by resistance. But the adoption of this historiographical approach does inevitably present challenges. How does someone write an historical narrative drawing largely upon fragmentary and scattered sources, such as scarce personal life stories and memories? Seddon grapples with these challenges with considerable success, enabling a more inclusive and arguably less biased account to emerge than would be possible through the ‘mainstream’ writing of history. Of course, while many questions are answered, new ones are inevitably raised, and much still remains to be researched on the experiences of Britain’s Muslim communities. In this respect, Seddon’s study has done its job – stimulating further interest in an important aspect of British history, namely the reconfiguration of Yemeni Muslim identities, constructed through different antagonisms and processes of enculturation, and the effect that this has had in locating them socially in multiple positions of marginality and subordination.
Humayun Ansari
Royal Holloway, University of London
November 2012
PROLOGUE
MUCH OF OUR KNOWLEDGE and understanding of Muslims in the UK is informed by the post-Second World War economic migration of post-colonial and Commonwealth single-male, South Asian