A tale of two cultures: Muslim family in Scotland

[Amir Ali]

A tale of two cultures

ANNA SMYTH



WE ORDER 23 million portions of Chicken Tikka Masala every year in UK restaurants, and buy 15 tonnes of it from the convenience counter at Marks & Spencer. But as delectable as its cuisine may be, the impact of the Asian community on Scotland is far more profound than a Saturday night takeaway.

Forty years ago, Scotland saw an influx of immigrants from former Commonwealth countries such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. On Sunday, a BBC Scotland Radio documentary, Life Begins at 40 will look back in an effort to determine what the experience of Scotland’s Asian population has been. How did the new community settle here? How has their culture contributed to social change in Britain? And do the divisions which were so obvious then persist today?

One person in a position to answer is Shakeen Unis. Known to most as Mrs Unis of the Mrs Unis Spicy Foods company, an established force in the Scottish Asian catering industry, her pakoras are sold in chip shops around the country, epitomising the integration of which she has been a part.

At 16 years old, she had not even been on a bus by herself. Life in Pakistan centred around her family, and she awaited the time to marry. When this rite of passage came, her husband was living in London, so she packed up her life as she knew it and flew over to join him. The land of opportunity had called.

In the 1960s, immigration in Britain was as hotly debated as it is now. The Conservative party wanted to curb the influx of Commonwealth citizens, and set a deadline of 1962. Before harsher restrictions came into force, many Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis rushed to find a new life in Britain.

"The Asian community in London was quite established and flamboyant," says Unis. "We used to meet in Southhall to watch Bollywood movies, and it was easy to feel at home. But then we moved to Glasgow to be with my in-laws, and found that the Asians were very isolated. The community was much smaller and worked independently of the Scots because of the language barrier.

"At the beginning at least, we basically kept ourselves to ourselves. In fact, the community was so new here that we used to drive to Bradford to hire Bollywood films at the weekend, just because we needed to feel that connection with home."

By 1971, Unis and nher family had moved to Edinburgh. While her husband tended to their new restaurant, she made pakoras from home. In a matter of weeks the demand overwhelmed her humble facilities, and so began the Unis empire of home-cooked Asian cuisine.

"We had to work very hard to make a success of it," she says. "Most of the migrant families came with the hope of sending money back to Pakistan, and so the whole community worked hard. But we also owe a lot to the openness of the Scots. They were very welcoming."

The economic viability of this community shaped both the Asians’ survival and their impact on Scottish society. The 1962 Commonwealth Act allowed immigrants to enter the country with no more than three pounds on their person. Now it is estimated that the Asian community contributes more than £5 billion to the UK economy.

Bashir Maan, Scotland’s representative on the Muslim Council of Great Britain, believes this economic independence has been critical to successful integration.

"The Scottish situation has worked very well, far better than in England and the rest of Europe," he says. "Part of that has been down to the Scottish empathy with another underdog community, but it is also due to the fact that Asians did not come to take Scottish jobs. They created their own industries, starting with corner shops, moving on to cash and carries and now heading up manufacturing and technology firms."

However, the path has not always been smooth. In 1971 Edinburgh’s first Sikh bus driver, Akbal Singh, had to go to court to secure his right to wear his turban as part of the formal uniform. At the age of 21, he argued that his turban was an essential requirement of his religion, and it was ruled that to ban the traditional headgear would be discriminatory.

EVEN TODAY, for every person praising the economic independence of Scottish Asians, there is another declaring racist exclusion from mainstream industry. A Scottish Executive Report in 2001 found self-employment among ethnic minorities to be five times higher than in the general population, and the Labour Force Survey of 2002 showed 12 per cent of Asians were in small businesses or self-employment, compared to eight per cent of whites and four per cent of blacks. Is this "keeping it in the family" always a matter of choice, or the result of a closed host economy?

"There is always a bad apple in every basket, and there have, of course, been issues of racism," says Maan. "In the past there have been concerns over whether Asians could break into professional circles, but now we are seeing Scottish Asians achieving in academic fields like law and medicine."

Elinor Kelly, honorary research fellow in race and ethnic issues at Glasgow University, agrees that, while the Asian community in Scotland has outperformed expectations, there are still concerns about access.

"Asian entrepreneurs are growing in confidence and emerging as public figures. We know what a huge impact they have had on eating habits and shopping behaviour, and while Asians are certainly concentrated in a limited number of industries, there would be huge gaps in the Scottish economy if the Asian community were taken out of the equation."

For Unis, immigration has been an economic success. The combination of her religious ethics, determination and drive have also allowed her to support other families back home in Pakistan.

The cultural journey of her family has been less straightforward. A committed Muslim, Unis still practises the traditions of her upbringing. "I was concerned about whether my sons would continue our Asian traditions," she says. "For a while I forced them to go to the Mosque and punished them if they skipped lessons. But I was working hard, so I didn’t spend as much time with them as I would have liked. That is my one regret. They did turn away from our religion and traditional culture, so we may have been economically successful but, culturally, we lost our children. Fortunately, now they have children of their own, they are beginning to come back to those principles - it has come full circle again."

For that second generation, born in Scotland to Pakistani or Indian parents, finding a cultural identity has been hard. Unis’s eldest son, Shabaz, 36, had a particularly difficult time when he returned to visit his mother’s country.

"He went over to Pakistan to visit our relatives, but he didn’t feel comfortable. One day he went into a shop and tried to speak Urdu. They laughed at him because of his foreign accent, much like some Scots laugh at the way Pakistanis speak English, and he felt so humiliated that he never wants to return. That generation had a hard time, almost rejected by both communities, but over time that is changing."

Maan agrees: "The Unis’s story is quite typical. The second generation did feel attracted to western culture, and didn’t like the restrictions of their parents’ culture. They rebelled from it and assimilated themselves to the local customs, but in many cases they are now turning back. The third and fourth generation are now keen to retain certain elements of the culture. They have found that Islam is actually very flexible, and can adapt to any culture, in any country. We are even seeing Asian culture break into the mainstream."

For Unis, the migration experience has been a positive one. She feels she has accomplished something here she could never have done in her home country. "Scotland is my home," she says. "I would like to pay my dues to Scotland, because this country has given me so much."

• Life Begins at 40 will be on BBC Radio Scotland at 5:05pm on 11 and 18 July, repeated at 7:30pm on 15 and 22 July.

http://news.scotsman.com/features.cfm?id=784132004

[AbuMubarak]

Assalamu-Alaikum,

Dr. Mahbubur Razzaque. Asstt. Professor of BUET is serializing the Tafsir
of Mohammad Asad "the Message of the Qur'an". It is useful to preserve
it. He is sending the materials to Dahuk (dahuk@yahoogroups.com) and
Witness Pioneer (witness-pioneer@yahoogroups.com) list. You can see
materials there. In this connection I am forwarding my article on the
message of the Qur'an entitled "The Message of the Qur'an: A Great Tafsir of
the current Time" for your information. This will give you the background
of this Tafsir.

Yours sincerely,

Shah Abdul Hannan


The Message of the Quran: A Great Tafsir of the current time.
Shah Abdul Hannan*

I became acquainted with the writings of Mahammad Asad, who wrote the
Message of the Quran, in 1963 when I was under training in the Finance
Services Academy in Lahore, Pakistan. The library of the Academy had the
books of Mohammad Asad. I first read his "The Principles of the State and
Government in Islam". It is one of the very first books written in the
current time on the Political System of Islam. Then I read his Islam in the
Cross Roads where he has discussed the modern and current important
problems facing Islam and the Muslims. At this time I read his
autobiographical book "Road to Mecca". In this book he has discussed his life
and experience and also expounded some of his views on Islam. When the
First Volume of his The Message of the Quran was published (probably in
1964, translation was not completed then), I read it in 1966 or '67. I was
greatly impressed by the translation and the commentary. I remember that
Professor Khurshid Ahmad once told me that this was the best translation of
the Quran in English language.

In this translation of the Qur'an, Asad has not made literal translation,
rather the spirit has been presented, same thing has been done by Maulana
Maududi in his Urdu translation of the Qur'an "Tafhimul Qur'an" But in the note
of the translation. Asad has given the literal translation also of the
verses, where needed. So those who want literal translation, they would
also get it.

Asad was such a genius that he knew Arabic and English better than their
native speakers, though these were not his mother tongues. This is
reflected best in his Tafsir of the Qur'an.

Asad has added very significant notes in his Tafsir (commentary) He not
only presented his understanding of the Verses of the Qur'an, he also
presented the views of the earlier scholars, particularly when he dealt
with controversial issues. His tafsir shows his command over earlier Tafsir
Literature. He was representative of Islam's humanistic and rationalist
trend. But according to my understanding, he never forsook the spirit of
Islam or did not surrender to the other civilizations, though some people
say so. One of the characteristics of his Tafsir that it is free from
gender bias. It is his great success. We don’t see it in many Tafsirs.

For example, he has translated the first verse of Sura Nisa as below:

"O mankind! Be conscious of your sustainer who has created you out of one
living entity and out of it created its mate, and out of the two spread
abroad a multitude of men and women."

His note no.1 of Sura Nisa is as follows:

"Out of the many meanings attributable to the term nafs- soul, sprit, mind,
animate being, living entity, human being, person, self (in the sense of a
personal identity), human kind, life essence, vital principle and so forth-
most of the classical commentators choose 'human being' and assume that it
refers here to Adam. Muhammad Abduh, however, rejects this interpretations
(Manar-IV) and gives instead preference to humankind inasmuch as this term
stresses the common origin and brotherhood of the human race (which
undoubtedly, is the purport of the above verse) without, at the same time,
unwarrantably tying it to the Biblical account of the creation of Adam and
Eve. My rendering of nafs, in this context, as 'living entity' follows the
same reasoning. As regards the expression Zawjaha (its mate), it is to be
noted that with reference to animate beings the Zawj, ('a pair', 'one of a
pair' or 'a mate') applies to the male as well as to the female component
of a pair or couple; hence, with reference to human beings, it signifies a
woman's mate (husband) as well as man's mate wife). Abu Muslim as quoted by
Razi inter parts the phrase "he created its mate (i.e. its sexual
counterpart) out of its own kind (min jinsiha)" thus supporting the view of
Muhammad Abduh referred to above. The literal translation of minha as 'out
of it' clearly alludes, in conformity with the text to biological fact that
both sexes have originated from the 'one living entity'.

Asad in his commentary has accepted, subject to possible meanings of the
Quranic verse, very rational explanations. In this connection we can
mention the issue of marriage of 'slave girl' and 'hur'.

He has translated Ayat 24 of Sura Nisa as follows (part):

And (forbidden to you are) all married women other than those whom
you rightfully possess [through wedlock]


On this he has given note no.26 of Sura Nisa as follows:

"According to almost all the authorities, almuhsanat denotes in the above
context" 'married women'. As for the expression 'ma malakat aymanukum'
("those whom your right hands possess", i.e. "those whom you rightfully
possess"), it is often taken to mean female slaves captured in a war in
God’s cause (see in this connection 8:67 and corresponding note). The
commentators who choose this meaning hold that such slave girls can be
taken in marriage irrespective of whether they have husbands in the country
of origin or not. However, quite apart from the fundamental differences of
opinion, even among the companion of the Prophet, regarding the legality of
such a marriage, some of the outstanding commentators hold the view that
'ma malakat aimanukum' denotes here "women whom you rightfully possess
through wedlock"; thus Razi in his commentary on the verse and Tabari in
one of the alternative explanations (going back to Abdullah Ibn Abbas,
Mujahid and others). Razi, in particular, points out that the reference to
'all' married women (al-muhsanat min an-nisa) coming as it does after
enumeration of prohibited degrees of relationship, is meant to stress the
prohibition of sexual relations with any woman other than one's lawful wife.

In this connection note No.3 of Sura Al-Muminun is the message of the Qur'an
is also very significant which is given below:

"or those whom their right hands possess" ( aw ma malakat aymanuhum ). Most
of the commentators assume unquestioningly that this relates to female
slaves, and that the particle aw ("or") denotes a permissible alternative.
This conventional interpretation is, in my opinion, inadmissible inasmuch
as it is based on the assumption that sexual intercourse with one's female
slave is permitted without marriage: an assumption which is contradicted by
the Qur'an itself (see 4:3, 24, 25 and 24:32, with the corresponding notes).
Nor is this the only objection to the above-mentioned interpretation. Since
the Qur'an applies the term "believers" to men and women alike, and since
the term 'azwaj' ("spouses"), too, denotes both the male and the female
partners in marriage, there is no reason for attributing to the phrase 'ma
malakat aymanuhum' the meaning of "their female slave"; and since, on the
other hand, it is out of the question that female and male slaves could
have been referred to here, it is obvious that this phrase does not relate
to slaves at all, but has the same meaning as in 4:24 namely, "those whom
they rightfully possess through wedlock" (see note 26 on 4:24) with the
significant difference that in the present context this expression relates
to both husbands and wives, who "rightfully possess" one another by virtue
of marriage. On the basis of this interpretation, the particle aw which
precedes this clause does not denote an alternative ("or") but is, rather,
in the nature of an explanatory amplification, more of less analogous to
the phrase "in other words" or "that is" thus giving to the whole sentence
the meaning, "....save with their spouses that is, those whom they rightfully
possess [through wedlock] ..." etc. (Cf. a similar construction 25:62- "for
him who has the will to take thought- that is [lit., "or"] has the will to
be grateful")

Similarly he has given very rational explanation of hur. He writes in note
no.8 of Sura Waqia as follows:

"The noun 'hur' rendered by me as 'companions pure'- is plural of both ahwar
(masculene) and hawra (female), either of which describes " a person
distinguished by hawar" which latter term primarily denotes 'in dense
whiteness of the eyeball and lustrous black of the iris' (Qamus). In a more
general sense, hawar signifies simply 'whiteness' (Asas) or, as a moral
qualification 'purity' (cf. Tabari, Razi and Ibn Kathir in their
explanations of the term hawariyyun in 3:52). Hence the compound expression
'hur' in signifies, approximately, "pure beings [or, more specially
'companions' pure], most beautiful of eye" (which latter is the meaning of
'in', the plural of Ayan).

As regards the term 'hur' in its more current feminine connotation, quite a
number of earliest Qur'an commentators, among them Al-Hasan al Basri-
understood it signifying no more or no less than "the righteous among the
women of the human kind "(Tabari),-" [even] those toothless women of yours
whom God will resurrect as new beings" (Al-Hasan as quoted by Razi in his
comments on 44:54)

The whole of the commentary of Asad is an extraordinary work. There was
always some difference of attitude in the Qur'anic commentary. This is very
natural and it always happens among the scholars.

In the end, Asad has added 4 appendixes on symbolism and allegories in the
Qur'an, Al-Muqattat (independent letters), Jinn and Night Journey. These are
extremely useful appendixes.

Those who want to enter deeply into Tafsir literature must read Asad’s
commentary, as they should read other important tafsirs of the past and
present.

* The writer is a Former Secretary, Peoples Republic of Bangladesh.