Fifteen 21 issue 22

Issue 22

Nov 2014

Islam and Disability Living in a War Zone My City - Liverpool The Great Mosque of Kairouan

William Morris and the Eastern Question Muslim Women’s Helpline Launched!

Islamic Texts for the Blind Learn Sign Language!

Fifteen21 inspires young Muslims to be proud of their British Muslim identity.

The name Fifteen21 is derived from both the 15th century of the Islamic Hijri year and the 21st century of the Common era.

Fifteen21 aims to reconcile both Muslim and British identity.

ISSUE 9

Editor Fozia Parveen Designed by Hafizur Rahman Contact Fifteen21 fozia@fifteen21.com www.fifteen21.com facebook.com/fifteen21magazine All views are of the authors alone and not necessarily of those held by Fifteen21

Stain-glass by artist Huda

Awad

www.hudaawad.com

Guest Editorial Farhana Khatun Dear Readers

After Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, have you ever wondered what the Asalaamu Alaykum! fourth holiest site in the world is?

Zeeshan Arif explains the magnificence In this month’s issue we will be exploring of the Great Mosque of Kairouan, the challenges that some young people along with pictures of its beautiful face in their day to day lives - the architecture. troubles of growing up and facing the harsh reality of their surroundings. It’s We look at an Islamic perspective of all good understanding that you’re disability. Dr. Ghaly gives us an insight not the only one with a hard life, but into what it means to be disabled, should being a teenager mean that you and explores theological questions have to just deal with it? Khurram Azad regarding disability. It is then further addresses how we can overcome these explored by myself and Soleha issues of what seems like a ‘warzone’. Khawar within the classroom and workplace.

Our very own editor - Fozia Parveen, takes us back to the nineteenthHappy Reading and don’t forget to century, presenting to us the world of share! the Pre-Raphaelite, William Morris and his fondness of Eastern art, whilst discussing the influences that it had on his work. Many people have encountered Islam through its art and architecture.

Contents 6-7 8 9 10 11 12-15 16-21 22-25 26 27 28-29 30-31 32-33 34 35 36

Prophets of Islam: Prophet Jacob (AS) One Hundred Less One: Al-Muhaymin Muslim Youth Helpline Help! I’m a Teenager: War Zone Child Line The Pre-Raphaelites and the Orient The William Morris Gallery Islamic Perspectives on People with Disabilities Disability and Stigma Signs of Allah: Deaf Dinner 2015 Why Disabled Achievers Should be Remembered But you Don’t Look Disabled?

Access to work cuts undermine support Dua for Forgiveness Fifteen21 Magazine Nominate a Role Model!

37 38-41 42-44 45 46-47 48-51 52-53 54-55 56 57 58 59 60-61 62-63 64-65 66 67

In the Next Issue British Muslim women’s helpline Interview: Shezad Nawab The Muslim Women’s Network UK (MWNUK) Deaf Awareness Week 2015 Look, Smile, Chat. It’s So Simple!

Kitaba (Islamic Texts for the Blind) My City: Liverpool Food for the Soul: Forgiveness Muslim Youth Helpline From Bradford to Benares The Cambridge Interfaith Programme (CIP) Masjids Around The World Poetry: We are Disabled Recipes: Banana Bread National Events Child Line

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In the previous two issues we have spoken about the rivalry that emerged between Jacob (AS) and his brother Esau which led to Jacob (AS) being sent to his maternal uncle, Laban. There he married both his uncle’s daughters, Rachel and Leah. He had seven children (in the previous issue I described only three sons which was an error) with Leah, whilst Rachel gave birth to a handsome young boy called Joseph (AS). In short, Jacob (AS) then tried to gain permission from his uncle to go to his homeland which was met with difficulty, but his uncle eventually agreed.

In this issue we will look at the confrontation between Jacob (AS) and Esau.

frightened, and prayed to Allah (SWT) for help. He asked Allah (SWT) to save him from his brother’s hands and his evil intentions. He then decided to present a huge gift for his brother from what he had, which were, two hundred goats, twenty sheep, two hundred ewes, twenty rams, thirty female camels, forty cows, ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys.

Jacob (AS) was delayed by his two wives, two maidservants, and eight children by two nights. At daybreak of the second night, an angel appeared to him in the form of a man. They both wrestled until the man realised he could not overpower Jacob (AS). That’s when the man touched the socket of Jacob’s (AS) hip causing When Jacob (AS) reached the land of Jacob’s (AS) hip to become wrenched, Seir, angels welcomed him to his homeland. resulting in Jacob (AS) walking with a Jacob (AS) sent his messengers to Esau limp. When daylight broke Jacob (AS) asking for his favour and kindness. The tried to find out who the man was but he messengers returned to inform Jacob (AS) disappeared without giving any answers. that his brother is coming to meet him with Jacob (AS) looked up and suddenly there four hundred men! was his brother Esau, approaching with his four hundred men. He came towards his Jacob (AS) became distressed and brother and bowed seven times upon the

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Prophets

of Islam

Prophet Jacob (AS) AS - alayhi salaam Upon him/her be peace SWT - subhanahu wa taala Glorious is He and He is Exalted SAW - sallallahu alayhi wa salaam - May God’s blessings and peace be with him BIN - in Arabic ‘son of’

Jacob = Ya’qub Isaac = Ishaaq Esau = same as Eesa Rachel = Raaheel Leah = Liyaa Benjamin = Binyaameen Laban = Laabaan Joseph = Yusuf

ground. This was the way of greeting at that time, which was permitted for them, as the angels did before Adam (AS), and as Joseph’s (AS) father and brothers did before him.

When Esau saw Jacob (AS), he ran to meet him. He embraced him and threw his arms around his neck and kissed him.

Esau then looked up and saw women and children and asked: “Who are these people with you?” Jacob (AS) replied: “They are the children Allah (SWT) has graciously given your servant.” Then the maidservants and their children, Leah and her children, and Rachel and Joseph (AS) bowed down to Esau.

Rachel became pregnant again and gave birth to a boy called Benjamin (AS). But she had great difficulty in childbirth and so died afterwards. Jacob (AS) buried her in Ephrath, also known as Bethlehem, and set up a stone over her grave. To this day that stone marks Rachel’s grave.

Eventually, Jacob (AS) arrived home to his father Isaac (AS), in Hebron in Canaan (present day Palestine, Lebanon

Syria, Jordan and Israel). This is where Abraham (AS) and Isaac (AS) had lived.

Isaac (AS) fell ill and died at the age of one hundred and eighty years, and was buried by his sons Esau and Jacob (AS) alongside his father Abraham (AS), peace be upon them all.

Ehsan Khan

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Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem

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One Hundred Less One Al-Muhaymin - The Guardian.

Al-Muhaymin means The Guardian.

Similarly to all of the Ninety-Nine Attributes of Allah (SWT), we are drawn to the weak, helpless and vulnerable nature of our own selves. Al-Muhaymin; The Guardian, tends to the needs of His creatures by His cognition. That is to say, to take complete possession and command, give complete protection, and be our Guardian.

Reflecting on this on a deeper level, consider a time when you felt alone, lost and destitute; an experience that many of us can relate to, now recall the time when Allah (SWT) delivered you from that feeling of distress and anxiety. It is Allah (SWT), The Guardian who restores us with safety, when we are in need and when our own intelligence fails us and we cannot find our way.

Allah (SWT) says in the Holy Quran: Allah is He, than whom There is no other god, The Sovereign, the Holy One, The Source of Peace (and Perfection) The Guardian of Faith, The Preserver of Safety, The Exalted in Might, The irresistible, the Supreme Glory to Allah (High is He) Above the partners They attribute to Him. (Qur’an 59: 23)

our own inner states.

The attribute Al-Muhaymin denotes the ability of Allah (SWT) to have knowledge over everything, even that which is in our hearts.

Should He not know He that created?

And He is the One That understands the finest Mysteries (and) is well acquainted (with them) (Qur’an 67:14) And it is only right that the One who created us is the only One who can understand us, protects us and be our ultimate Guardian.

And like all attributes of Allah (SWT), humankind can share in the attribute Al-Muhaymin by striving to be the guardian of the state of our own hearts and by taking possession of reforming

SWT – subhanahu wa taala Glorious is He and He is Exalted Shanaz Ali

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Help! I’m a Teenager!

War Zone

It’s not easy being in this position.

Where I stand today, as a person, as a human is because of what’s happening around me. Everything that’s happened, what is happening and is likely to happen affects me so much. Little things have an impact on the way I think, the person I am and the decisions I make. Sometimes expressing feelings is easy but at times it can be the most difficult thing. I genuinely feel like I’m in a war zone, front row. It’s all threats, shouting, ill thoughts and violence.

It’s between two loved ones and it’s something I can’t bear at all. They might not see how I actually feel but to me that doesn’t matter; what does

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matter is the situation being sorted, and me being upset is the last thing that they should be concerned about. I would do anything for my house to be a home again, with my family sitting together eating pizza and watching Home Alone... “Any family can have a house but for it to be a home needs something more...”

Every time I think I have it bad, I take a step back and think that there is always someone out there getting it worse than me. I’m still being fed, I still have parents and I still have my faith in God. God always has my back and everything happens for a

reason. I shouldn’t complain about anything because I hope everything that happens to me at the moment has some benefit to it. With every bad comes good and I will continue to pray and wait... nightmares will be chased away and sweet dreams will conquer.

We are all on our separate paths but one day I hope our paths will become one… and so will our hearts.

Khurram Azad

The Pre-Raphaelites and the

Orient William Morris the artist was also William Morris the revolutionary socialist. Having met Edward BurneJones at Oxford in 1852, both collectively left the Church to dedicate themselves to a life of art. Morris was inspired by the literary works of John Ruskin and Walter Scott (1771 – 1832), the romantic fantasist who rewrote Scotland’s history. Whilst Scott championed chivalry into national mythology through his novel Ivanhoe and gave hope to a New England aggrieved by industrialisation and inequality, Ruskin envisaged the spiritual fulfilment of craftsmanship in a time gone by. The industrial revolution had radicalised politics, society, and economics and Morris questioned its value; it was a social catastrophe which 12

resulted in poverty and inequality for the common man. In this New World there was no hope, shaped by Marxist ideology and medieval romanticism, Morris lamented, “we sit starving amongst our gold”.

It might seem counter-intuitive to forge ahead by looking back, however the writer Ian Hislop argues that despite Victorian England being a period of great advancement, the Victorians were inclined more than ever to look backwards. Morris called for a new political system altogether. In 1884 at the age of 49 he crossed what he described as the ‘river of fire’, striving for a fairer and just society, founding The Socialist League in 1885. He had a hatred for modern civilisation and

turned to revolutionary socialism as a means of resisting what he viewed as the barbarism of nineteenth-century Capitalism having been inspired by Chartism and anti-slavery movements.

He idealised the craftsmanship of the Medieval Age and believed industrialisation destroyed the human spirit, producing downtrodden slaves, reduced to the lowest point of misery, with no control over their own lives. In his work, Useful Work versus Useless Toil, Morris imagined a world where machinery frees up human time for leisure and culture, and factories become useful buildings adorned with art.

As designer, socialist and poet, Morris

William Morris

the polymath wrote over ninety books.

Before crossing the ‘river of fire’ and upsetting Victorian Society he had been nominated for poet laureate. What was important to Morris was mastering past skills, whether that be book binding, glass firing, engraving or weaving. Morris was nostalgic for a more romantic and noble past. In William Morris: A Life for Our Time, Fiona MacCarthy describes how Morris hated the over-elaborate style of Victorian interior design. He much preferred more natural flowing forms for which he found inspiration in the East.

His first wallpaper, named Daisy, was a completely new, fresher look. He found immense dignity in working with his hands, which MacCarthy argues was quite revolutionary; that an intellectual who had been to Oxford, would be interested in craft. Similarly Hunt had done the same through his controversial work The Shadow of Death, where the life of Jesus furnishes a model for the dignity of labour. Morris would also work tirelessly to bring dignity back into the applied arts which by this time were viewed as a ‘low art’ compared to the ‘high art’ of painting and sculpture.

However, is this a fossilised description of Morris? A visit to the William Morris Gallery in Lloyd Park exemplifies that ideas from other cultures were absorbed into Morris’s work. Eastern art became a constant source of inspiration for Morris, claiming admiringly, “To us pattern designers Persia has become a Holy Land”. Morris’s use of geometry, arabesque and iconography does draw correlations with the Islamic East. He never travelled to the East himself but would attend exhibitions of Eastern art in London, where whole rooms of rugs, textiles and woodwork would be shipped over from the Orient and recreated in London by merchants.

Morris became the treasurer for the Eastern Question Association (EQA), a league set up to oppose British imperial interests in the Ottoman territories

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Whether he was ever inspired by Islamic art in particular, beyond mere aesthetics is questionable. In a traditional society centred on the sacred, there was no notion of art for art’s sake, and for Morris, art had function too; ‘Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful’. This resonates with a strong tradition of the Prophet Muhammed, “God is beautiful and He loves beauty”, thus instilling a sense of piety, worship and artistic discipline inspired by the Divine into the work of the Muslim craftsmen as explored earlier. Hassan Mahamdallie maintains that you can argue that Morris was inspired by Islamic patterns for their aesthetic beauty rather than spiritual significance. In his aesthetics you can partly find a critique of Capitalism and partly a promotion of our humanity; we are on a journey, and Morris too strived for inner peace, thus the ethics of Islamic art are present in his work for all to appreciate.

He wanted ordinary people to have access to everything, but ordinary people could not afford his art. He 14

was a man of many contradictions and arguably great inner turmoil. In his public lectures he acknowledged the influence of the East on Gothic Architecture, that the ‘crusades bought gain from the East’ in his attacks on the complacency of neo-classical art. The Victorian England that Morris detested was also the Victorian England of the Empire. Benjamin Disraeli’s term of office was dominated by a clash of the Eastern and Western vernaculars with regards to the ‘sick man of Europe’, the Ottoman Empire. Europe’s role in the East had become increasingly significant, the orientalist journey beginning in Egypt in the wake of Bonaparte’s expedition.

Morris became the treasurer for the Eastern Question Association (EQA), a league set up to oppose British imperial interests in the Ottoman territories; ‘nothing can come... but shame in defeat, shame in victory’. The East transcended through all areas of his life; design, politics and poetry.

Fozia Parveen

wallpa

paper using geometry and arabesque

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The

William Morris

Gallery

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The William Morris Gallery offers visitors of all ages an intense and personal encounter with the revolutionary Victorian designer, craftsman, writer and campaigner William Morris. Finding us is easy, we’re just a short walk from Walthamstow Central station on the Victoria Line in London.

We are open Wednesday - Sunday, 10am - 5pm and entry is free.

This room explores Morris’s early influences, including the Pre-Raphaelite artists and the art critic John Ruskin, with whom Morris Who was William Morris? What did he shared a passion for medieval architecture. do and why is he famous? Why is there a You can examine Morris’s early efforts Gallery devoted to him in Walthamstow? at drawing, build your own gothic catheYou will find the answers to these questions dral, or discover how Morris and his young in this introductory gallery. friends experimented with decorating Red House – where Morris lived with his wife On display are key works which exemJane and their two daughters – before setplify the different strands in his life – as The galleries are arranged thematically, ting up an interior design business. a designer, craftsman, storyteller, political and centre on our internationally-significant activist and poet. This room also examines collection of textiles, furniture, ceramics, Gallery 3: Morris & Co Morris’s childhood in Walthamstow. Find paintings, designs and personal items conout about Morris’s experiences growing up nected with Morris and his associates, inMorris and his friends had radical ambiin the house that is now the William Morcluding the Pre-Raphaelite artists. tions; they wanted to revolutionise design ris Gallery and use an interactive map to and change people’s taste. They develtrace Morris’s footsteps and discover the Beautiful objects are complemented by oped a strong brand identity for their declocal places he used to know and visit. films, audio and hands-on interactives. The orating business based on quality materidisplays are updated regularly, so there als and design led by famous artists of the Gallery 2: Starting Out will always be something new to see and day. In this gallery you can find out how do for everyone, whether you are a first‘the Firm’, as it was known, became a sucMorris never had any formal art training. time visitor, a family with young children, cessful business.

He shocked his family when he decided to or a William Morris enthusiast. devote his life to art. His moving letter, in Morris & Co worked for a wide variety of which he tries to explain his motives to his Guided tours are available upon request. clients, and you can see the full range of mother, can be read in this gallery. their products. These include stained glass for churches, furnishing fabrics for wealthy

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Gallery 1: Meet the Man

industrialists and a wallpaper designed for Queen Victoria. More affordable items, such as the best-selling Sussex chair, were available off the shelf from a shop on Oxford Street, London.

A range of marketing materials is on display, and you can even have a go at running Morris & Co yourself in an interactive game.

Gallery 4: The Workshop Morris went to extraordinary lengths to ensure the quality of his products. He insisted that they should be made by skilled craftsmen using the best possible materials. He took inspiration from nature and his designs are filled with birds, plants and animals.

This gallery is inspired by the Morris & Co workshops at Merton Abbey. You can discover how craftsmen and apprentices made the famous printed cottons, carpets, tapestries and stained glass, drawing on traditional techniques from around the world rather than industrial manufacturing methods. Short films delve deeper into the processes involved, including the use of natural dyes. Younger visitors can have a go at weaving, designing a pattern from nature, assembling a stained glass window and more.

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Gallery 5: The Shop The next room has a very different atmosphere. Laid out as a shop, visitors are invited to become consumers, imagining a visit to Morris’s fashionable Oxford Street shop. The voice of a shop attendant talks you through the products on display, while you browse through sample books and handle contemporary textiles.

Gallery 6: Ideal Book Morris’s love for stories and books lasted a lifetime.

In his own day, he was most famous as a poet. This gallery introduces Morris’s Earthly Paradise – one of the longest narrative poems in the English language – where Morris retold classical myths and legends to the delight of Victorian readers. It also explores his love for the Icelandic sagas and his travels to the country. Younger visitors can dress up as a character from the Beauty and the Beast story, which you can see illustrated on a tile panel designed by Morris’s best friend, Edward Burne-Jones.

In the last decade of his life, Morris decided to learn a new craft. He set up a private press and became a book designer. Original designs as well as Kelmscott Press books are on display. A replica of the Press’ 20

masterpiece, the Kelmscott Chaucer, is available for visitors to leaf through.

designers and makers who shared his enthusiasm for quality materials, craftsmanship and designs based on natural forms.

Gallery 7: Fighting for a Cause This gallery displays a selection of Arts and Crafts stained glass, ceramics, metalThere was more to Morris than design. Al- work and textiles, including a spectacular ways concerned with creating a better embroidered cape designed by Morris’s world, when he was nearly 50, he ‘crossed daughter, May. the river of fire’ and became a radical socialist. He focused his tremendous ener- There is special focus on the Century Guild, gies on ‘the cause’ to create a free and one of the first Arts and Crafts organisafair world where all people are equal. He tions. The display in the centre of the room also fought for preservation of heritage is dedicated to a particular designer or and the environment. maker in focus.

The gallery show the lengths he was willing to go to – travelling the country to give speeches and even getting arrested. You can see the satchel which he used to carry bundles of socialist pamphlets to rallies and demonstrations, and an impressive, hand-made socialist banner. A new film explores how Morris’s concerns and actions relate to issues society faces today.

Gallery 9: Frank Brangwyn

Story Lounge Located on the first floor landing, the comfortable Story Lounge is an ideal place to pause and relax. Younger visitors can recreate some of Morris’s favourite stories in our puppet theatre.

Discovery Lounge If you are inspired to find out more, why not take a cup of coffee into our Discovery Lounge on the ground floor, next to the Tea Room. You can browse a selection of books for children and adults, or explore our collection online through a website terminal.

Frank Brangwyn was one of the founders of the William Morris Gallery. He was briefly apprenticed to William Morris in his youth and later became a successful artist.

Brangwyn collected art, and in the 1930s he donated a large part of his collection to the people of Walthamstow, along with many of his own paintings, prints and decGallery 8: Arts and Crafts orative art. A selection of this work, which will be rotated regularly, can be seen in Morris inspired a new generation of artists, this Gallery.

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Islamic Perspectives on People with Disabilities Why does disability exist if God is the most Merciful? Why does He allow disability to exist if He has control over everything? Does having a disability automatically indicate a sign of God’s wrath and punishment?

Handling such questions fall generally, in Islam, within the tasks entrusted to Muslim theologians, whose answers are recorded in a number of Islamic sources handling the existence of pain, suffering, diseases, and so forth, in the light of God’s characteristics such as mercy, justice, and power. Giving a systematic presentation of these answers is the focus of this article.

One of the key terms which have played a major role in classifying responses provided by Muslim theologians in this issue is “talil” which literally means causation,

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or the search for causes, and refers to the logical relationship between cause and effect. The theological usage of talil indicates the quest for the wise Divine purposes for God’s actions within the human perspective, whether these actions are good or bad.

On the basis of their standpoint from talil — which we will hereon refer to as theodicy — three main trends can be traced in Islamic theology: namely, anti-theodicy, pro-theodicy, and the mainstream approach.

Anti-Theodicy & Pro-Theodicy Main advocates of the first trend were known in Islamic literature as nufat altalil (deniers or repudiators of theodicy), whereas those of the second trend were labelled as ahl al-adl wal-tawhid (parti-

sans of justice and unity).

The starting point of the former is the absolute affirmation of God as the inscrutable Almighty Who “is not to be questioned”. God, they argue, does not command an act because that act is just and good; it is His command which makes it just and good.

Thus, being born with a disability, or becoming disabled afterwards, is to be accepted with no further search for mental justifications, because Allah (SWT) runs His own kingship as He pleases. In short, they closed the gate at an earlier stage.

Accusing the anti-theodicy proponents of creating a tyrannical image of God, the starting point of pro-theodicy advocates is God’s justice rather than God’s omnipotence. To them, God’s justice is to be measured by the same criterion used for judging human justice.

As for God’s justice, holders of this contention do not ascribe all disabilities or pains in life to God alone. Regarding freedom

of humans to act in this life as a central theme in their theology, disabilities taking place in this life are to be divided on the basis of the liable agent as: (1) self-inflicted disability (2) disability inflicted by humans or animals, and finally (3) disability inflicted by God They hold the opinion that man measures and determines his actions himself by reason of qudra (an effective power) which always good, because it is either (1) depunished for, and animals are not legally belongs to him, but which has been created served punishment, or (2) involving a profit accountable in Islam.

by God in each man. or benefit.

Strikingly enough, another minority of Of these sorts, God is held responsible According to a minority group within this those belonging to this trend contend that only for the third category, whereas ques- trend, inflicting disability can be divine illnesses and pains are deserved punishtions about the wise purpose of bringing punishment that God inflicts in advance to ments for bad acts done in previous lives, the other two categories into existence are account for sins to be committed in the fu- as was believed by the adherents of the to be directed to the liable agents and not ture. transmigration of souls. However, these to God. However, in case of missing justice ideas were rejected by the majority of this in the first two categories, God would be However, this contention is not applicable trend. responsible for administering it. for illnesses suffered by living beings that, according to this doctrine, cannot have de- Regarding the nature of benefit ensuing Focusing on the third category (disabiliserved punishment such as Prophets and from being inflicted with disability or other ties inflicted by God), scholars of this trend animals. That is because prophets are insorts of pain, opinions of this trend fluctustate that disability inflicted by God is fallible, so they do nothing wrong to be ate between lutf (Divine assistance) and

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iwad (compensation).

and deafness.

As for the former, they state that several of God’s actions towards humans have a relation to God’s taklif (that is, the obligations that God has charged humans with). God imposes obligations on all adults of sound mind (mukallafun, or those who are able to be charged and held accountable) with the purpose of giving them the opportunity to earn reward, and thus, He must impose on them something difficult, but not so difficult that it is impossible.

As for the second explanation this trend provides, they state that pain inflicted by God or by His command or permission is compensated for by Him. God gives the compensation in order to ensure that His infliction of pain is not a bad act.

Additionally, God has obliged himself to do certain things and acts to enable people to fulfil that which He has imposed on them.

Another suggested benefit is that disabilities in this life could warn people against those sorts of disabilities taking place in the Hereafter.

For instance, Allah (God) states that those who went astray from the straight path in this life will be resurrected on the Day of Resurrection having blindness, dumbness,

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evils and abnormalities in life is proof that God exists, and that He alone has created this life and all creatures therein.

Otherwise, they say: “...it would be possible that each thing would create for itself such states and characteristics as are the best and most beautiful, and, so, by doing this, it would Some scholars say that this compensation be false to say that moral and physical can only take place in the Hereafter, while evils exist. But the fact of their existence others say it can take place in this life or shows that the existence of the world came in the next. But either way, God gives the about by something other than itself...” compensation after the harm is done, and not beforehand.

Furthermore, disabilities can be (rather than saying they necessarily must be) a Mainstream Approach disciplinary tool to reform and rehabilitate Contrary to the advocates of anti-theodicy, those who are disobedient and insist on who stress Divine power over Divine justice, going against the Divine instructions withand those of pro-theodicy (who did the out having acceptable excuses. They also opposite), proponents of this third trend do not exert serious bids to repair these strove for a middle ground by making use mistakes by asking forgiveness from God of what they deem beneficial, and casting and turning to Him in repentance to avoid away those harmful ideas contended by Divine punishment that would take place in each trend. this life or in the hereafter.

Regarding Divine omnipotence, proponents As for the attribute of Divine justice, adof this approach state that the existence of vocates of this trend argue that disability

as a punishment still entails beneficial elements for the punished person. Disability in this case, has a purgative function in the sense that it is one of the main instruments of expiating the sins and saving that person from much more grievous punishments in the Hereafter.

Insisting on the fact that disability can be — but does not necessarily have to be — a sort of punishment, proponents of this approach state that disability can also be a source of rewards. In this regard, one of them confirms that Allah (SWT) visits people He loves with affliction so that He will give them reward in return.

taining the [honorable] Ranks by Affliction”. Based on this inclusive approach, we can easily speak about an overall positive atBetween being a disciplinary tool and titude towards people with disabilities in beneficial instrument, disability remains a Islamic literature. One scholar says, “premeans of testing one’s faith. This argument liminary evidence suggests that the physiremains the most well-known explanation cally and mentally disabled were not necfor the existence of disability and suffering essarily stigmatized or marginalized”. in general amongst mainstream Muslims.

Scholars quote in this regard the sagacious Another scholar says, “Against the abusive statement: attitudes to the disabled in the Roman and Byzantine empires as well as in the dark “O my son! Gold and silver are to be ex- Middle Ages in Europe, the attitudes in Isamined by fire and the believer is to be lamic law were in every way enlightened examined by affliction” and farseeing”.

One of the main assertions typical for this trend, but also shared by the other two as Moreover, disability can also be an instru- well, is that disability should not be a stigment of attaining lofty degrees and ranks ma for those visited with it. One of the adin Paradise that would have been unattain- vocates of the last trend, speaking about able through one’s good deeds alone. blindness, says, “Blindness does not cause any harm for one’s religion. What is harmProphetic traditions supporting this fact are ful is blindness befalling one’s heart that numerous and well-known, to the extent moves the person away from God”. that some compilers of books on Prophetic traditions dedicated specific chapters for This holds true to the extent that one is recsuch traditions, such as Al-Haythami, who ommended to have sympathy and be helpentitled one of his chapters “Section of At ful to people with disabilities.

However, this positive attitude, as recorded in theological and juristic sources, does not negate the social reality which was not always in line with what these sources plead for. This holds true, of course, for the current reality of people with disabilities in different parts of the Muslim world.

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Dr. Mohammed M.I. Ghaly

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Disability and Stigma Often, people who have a disability are stuck with a stigma. So, what is meant by ‘stigma’? In medical terms it means a mark being attached to a person’s reputation or they are given certain characteristics.

Hence, a person with a disability would be seen differently in the eyes of society. They would be seen as less capable, dependent on another person and would generally be excluded from being able to cope on their own.

They then begin to rely on people more and start to think themselves that they are not capable of doing things. In addition, social opportunities for them are restricted.

Hence, the person may avoid social situations and stay within their comfort zones because they may think that they’re making others feel uncomfortable with their disability, because they are different.

Conversely, there are many people with a disability who think that they are more This often causes people with disabilities to than capable of doing what others can do feel depressed and have low self esteem. - recall the recent London Paralympics and

26

their collective achievements.

Those who live with disabilities should be encouraged to take part in society to their fullest extent and give what they can by being involved. They should be given the opportunity to work and be included in mainstream society.

Farhana Khatun

The world is full of images and narratives of disability and despondency - from tragic diseases and disasters, to the problems of poverty and social exclusion. I think it’s important to celebrate the achievements disabled people have made over the centuries, and which many continue to contribute today.

century, there was a colony of painters in St Ives.

Pearce went to the local art school, and was supported by a very loyal mother, who gave up her own painting career to help him. Surrounded by other painters, he simply fitted in. In a close-knit community, people would look after his interests and ensure that he could carry on living independently, even afThe stories I have found show that disability is no bar ter his mother died. to success if an individual has talent and drive, and Disabled people are not just their obvious impairments. Lucy Jones, a contemporary painter with cerebral palsy, told me that for her, dyslexia was a bigger obstacle than her mobility problems. Only when she was diagnosed, and received the extra help she needed, did she have a chance of passing her exams.

Why Disabled Achievers Should be Remembered

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probably a fair share of luck. They also show the contexts people need to live in, in order to achieve, and more importantly, make us think about how we could remove barriers.

Jones also reminded me of something else: many disabled people don’t actually want to be classified as disabled. She has always fought to be taken seriously as an artist, full stop. Increasingly, disability themes do enter her work, particularly in her striking and colourful self-portraits. But she exhibits her work in mainstream galleries and settings, and refuses the disability art label.

Bryan Pearce was an artist with intellectual impairment from Cornwall. His story shows that if you are in the right milieu, it helps. For most of the twentieth

In her TED talk last year, Stella Young - who sadly died in December - criticised the way that disabled people are often praised for minor achievements

like simply going to school or doing something, rather than There is a danger in looking back and “outing” historical nothing. That’s because expectations of us are so low. high achievers. I don’t want simply to add the adjective “disabled” to Winston Churchill, Virginia Woolf, and EdOf course, those celebrated artists who continued working ward Lear any more than I agree with the current fascinainto old age - Goya, Matisse, Klee - remind us of sometion with Stephen Hawking’s disability. These people are thing else. Disability comes to most of us in the end, like it simply exceptional contributors to politics, culture and scior not. But it doesn’t have to mean the end. We might have ence, regardless of their health conditions. to adapt. For example, Matisse moved from painting to the medium of cut-outs after losing his mobility in surgery to Nobody wants to be pigeon-holed as disabled, and of remove cancer in 1941. It is still possible to produce some- course, some of the people I have talked about have also thing beautiful and memorable, and we should have higher experienced other forms of exclusion - class, gender, ethexpectations of older people with disabilities. Over half a nicity, sexuality. Each of us is valuable, and all of us conmillion people visited an exhibition of Matisse’s cut-outs in tribute something, somewhere.

2014 at the Tate Modern.

The stories I tell on BBC Radio 3 come from my website, where there are biographies of more than 50 obscure and memorable disabled people from different cultures and different walks of life. My dream is that a young person with a disability - or their parent or teacher - will read the website and be inspired to think big, and not settle for less.

Just like gay people or black and minority ethnic people or women, it’s important for today’s new generations to learn from the struggles of those who have gone before.

Another important lesson is about what it takes to achieve.

Almost all of the people on the blog succeeded because they had staying power; they overcame setbacks and endured hard times.

Lucy Jones with her artwork Dr Tom Shakespeare

University of East Anglia

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Disability is defined under the Equality Act 2010 as “...a physical or mental impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ negative effect on your ability to do normal daily activities”. Disability includes learning disabilities, mental health conditions, physical disabilities, neurological conditions and sensory impairments.

According to the 2011 people census, there are over 8 million disabled people of working age in the UK – and that number is growing. However, it seems that our support as a society isn’t keeping up.

outer’; our belief that a disability is tangible and physical.

However, it seems that our failings as communities go far deeper than that and it appears that Local Authorities are I spoke to Natalya Fisher a recent gradu- struggling to provide adequate support, ate who, whilst receiving appropriate sup- particularly for those with learning disport during her time at university, is left abilities, and they too seem to be bound frustrated at general attitudes and com- by similar stereotypes experienced by ments she comes across in day to day life Natalya. and says “I wish people would treat me the same and not say things like -‘Oh but A recent report by the Care Quality Comyou don’t look disabled’.”. mission (CQC) exposed dangerous deficiencies in the quality of care for people One of the biggest barriers to tackling with learning disabilities, including the discrimination on the grounds of disability frequent use of physical restraint and seis our fixation with appearances and ‘the clusion – including face down restraint and overall failures in relation to The 30

But you Don’t Look Disabled

?

Mental Health Act. The report by the CQC exposed a sickening reality faced by people with learning disabilities within the inpatient units run by Calderstones NHS units.

and seem to equate it with general stupidity. This has had a knock on affect on her confidence, not only affecting her search for work but her personal life too.

I found from my focus sessions that whilst there appears to be support available for students from their colleges and universities, it is practically non-existent in ‘working life’. I spoke to Ria Nabi, who graduated 3 years ago in Medicine. She has found that most employers regard a learning disability as a mere tickbox and a formality.

Ria feels that it is a real struggle to access support and that employers often have no idea what a learning disability actually is

Adam, another attendee at my focus session, is a care leaver and has autism. He explained that his parents kept him locked in his room as a child as they could not manage his ‘behavioral issues’. Like Natalya and Ria, it is not his disability he finds frustrating but the overall attitude of people around him and people not understanding.

‘The only disability is an attitude’, and after speaking to Adam, Natalya and Ria, I now read this quote as the need to send a clear message to our communities that the only disability is our attitude – it is only once we understand this, can we then move forward as a whole and tackle the ignorance stifling our communities in relation to disability.

Soleha Khawar

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Quiet cuts undermine support for If you tamper with the support disabled people rely on to work, being in the office with a personal assistant, soon becomes being trapped at home, staring at the kitchen walls.

Access to Work (AtW) is the shiny coin in the coalition’s bigger disability and employment parcel. According to latest DWP figures, more than a quarter of a million more people with disabilities, were in mainstream work in 2014 compared with You’d be forgiven for having missed the the year before. current mess of Access to Work – the fund What it won’t tell you is that almost twice delivered through Jobcentre Plus that pays as many fell out of work in 2012, or that for practical support, from computer soft- the disabled pay gap has doubled since ware to support workers, for disabled the government came to power. Neither people at work. Last year, it seems that does it mention, that as of this month, althe government started quietly cutting the most half of the 1,500 or so staff at foramount of support available, resulting in mer Remploy factories still haven’t found payment delays and fewer hours of help. new jobs.

But as the changes were never publicly announced, even the people using the scheme We are back in the smoke and mirrors are in the dark. The Department for Work coming out of Iain Duncan Smith’s departand Pensions (DWP) only just agreed to ment. If you listen to legal teams opposing publish the guidance that shows who is eli- the AtW changes, aspects of it are “incongible for support – and that was only after sistent, unlawful and opaque”. Talk to disacampaigners threatened legal action. bled people actually experiencing it, and they report payment delays, incompetent

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administration, and a “climate of suspicion” around their claims.

The work and pensions select committee has warned the DWP that it must be much “clearer and more transparent about the basis on which it makes AtW award decisions and the processes by which applicants can challenge decisions and make complaints”.

Advisers have guidance on what AtW now does and doesn’t cover, but because the changes haven’t been published, all we can put our hands on is that limits have been imposed on the amount of support worker hours that are permitted, and major restructuring in how AtW is being delivered, has led to delays in people’s money.

Deaf people who need sign language interpreters have been particularly penalised, with the cuts to support workers’ hours. Jenny Sealey, who runs a disabled-

disabled people in the workplace led theatre company that employs 80 deaf and disabled people every year, has gone from co-directing the Paralympics 2012 opening ceremony to being left “in fear” for her career after her support was cut by half. It gives some insight into the mindset of those with their hands on the controls that they can promote the need to get disabled people into work, while enacting measures that make it impossible.

one measure can’t be separated from the other.

Barely midway into office, the coalition declared that 500,000 disabled people would have their care or mobility allowance stopped, with apparent ignorance that this would lose the exchequer £278m in lost national insurance and income tax (as well as £178m in unemployment benefits to pay out) when people could no longThe DWP has a fetish for setting stander physically get to work. It does not take ards that can’t be met. Jobseekers sancadvanced economics to grasp that if you tioned for missing an appointment they tamper with the support disabled people didn’t know they had; ESA applicants with rely on, being in the office with a personal degenerative conditions told they are “fit assistant soon becomes being trapped at for work”; and now disabled workers, ex- home, staring at the kitchen walls. If we are pected to be another statistic in the emgoing to reduce people to profit, we can at ployment figures while having their support least do the maths right. cut, changed, and delayed. This is the same short-term rationale that is leading to the closure of the Independent Living Fund and Frances Ryan cuts to Personal Independence Payments –

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Dua.

Rumaysa Malik

Dua for Forgiveness

Rabbana innanā amanna, faghfir lana, dhunoobana wa-qinna ‘adhāāban-naar Our Lord, indeed we have believed, so forgive us our sins and protect us from the punishment of the Fire.

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Out on Friday 20th February 2015

British Muslim women’s helpline:

Their voices won’t go unheard again Today sees the launch of the first national helpline for Muslim women and girls, tackling problems such as sexual abuse, forced marriage and divorce - still taboo subjects in their communities. Alia Waheed speaks to the people behind it.

When the Muslim Women’s Network (MWNUK) launched a report, last year, on sexual exploitation in the Asian community, it could only have dreamed that something like this would come to pass. That report was called ‘Unheard Voices - The Sexual Exploitation of Asian Girls and Young Women’. Its publication coincided with the revelations around child sexual exploitation by Asian gangs in Rotherham and challenged the view that the issue was purely one of race and that somehow, Asian girls were left untouched by abusers because of loyalties to their own culture.

MWNUK found that a worrying number of women and girls were slipping through the net, as agencies - such as social services

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and the police - grappled with the difficulties reaching out to victims because of cultural sensitivities – those same points of faith, which are exploited by their abusers to ensure their victims’ silence.

It confirmed what many already knew that many Muslim girls and women are trapped in a cycle of abuse and violence because of a lack of services. What’s more, it recommended a helpline be set up as an outlet for them to confide their problems and seek advice.

And today, as a result of the charity’s awareness-raising activities, the first national helpline for Muslim women is being launched by Minster for Women and Equalities, Jo Swinson.

The helpline will initially be run part time by trained, bilingual staff and will be accompanied by a website containing information on the issues which they are most commonly asked about: sexual abuse, domestic violence and divorce. Its aim? To

make sure the voices of Muslim girls and women never go unheard again.

Sadly, it’s impossible to know just how many are suffering right now. Figures for violence against women in the Muslim community remain elusive. Last year, the Home Office Forced Marriage Unit was informed of 1,302 cases. Of these, 15 per cent of victims were under 15, though figures peaked in the 16 to 17 age group, coinciding with the age that young women finish school.

While the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation found, under the Freedom of Information act, that more than 2,800 incidents of ‘honour’ based violence were reported to police across the UK in 2010.

Within four months of its report last year, MWNUK had received 35 case studies from different agencies - a surprising number from what is traditionally such a closed community and especially considering the intimidation victims often face from their

abusers, in the name of ‘family honour’. It suggests that the real number is much higher.

Among them was a young woman, raped by 30 men, including a father and his schoolboy son, during a horrific six-hour attack. The common factor in each case?

That cultural and religious issues were perpetuating the abuse and preventing victims from accessing help.

The desperate need for a helpline was cemented by the growing number of calls MWNUK staff were receiving from desperate women.

“We are predominantly a campaigning organisation but found we were getting many helpline-type enquiries,” said Shaista Gohir MBE, Chair of MWNUK. “These calls confirmed that there’s definitely a gap in services for Muslim women, which are faith and culturally sensitive, and non-judgemental. While there are services for specific issues such as domestic violence,

there hasn’t been a general helpline.”

The charity also found many women were struggling to reconcile their faith with their problems. They simply couldn’t find an alternative perspective to those patriarchal interpretations – which so often dominate religious discourse - that had been used

upon them. We give them a range of religious perspectives and show them that their faith does make allowances.”

MWNUK began as an advisory group to the government on issues relating to Muslim women and public policy in 2003, before becoming an independent organisation four years later.

The Birmingham-based charity now consists of a network of nearly 700 individuals and organisations, and has become one of the leading campaigning voices for Muslim women in the UK. The power of that collective voice led to 19-year-old Shabana* contacting the charity after the attempted rape of her sister, against them. “More women are asking then 11, by their uncle. about the religious implications of issues “Our dad left when we were small and like abortion,” explains Shaista, “Often mum had health problems so her family they feel that Islam cannot be as harsh as helped a lot,” she explains. “But as we got they’ve been led to believe. We can under- older, we grew aware of how controlling stand that predicament. “We don’t pretend my uncle was and how my mum and her to be religious scholars, or force our beliefs sisters were scared of him. They had to ask

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39

for permission every time they went somewhere.

“Once I went with my grandmother to stay with cousins, while their mum was in hospital. When my uncle found out, he told my mum to bring me home or he would kill her and burn the house down.” It was while her grandmother was in Pakistan, that their uncle began bombarding Shabana with calls, trying to lure her to her gran’s empty flat.

“He claimed he had pictures of me with boys and wanted to meet at the flat to discuss them, or he’d tell my mum. Every time he texted me to meet up I’d swear at him. But he’d always reply back that he loved me. I threatened to call the police, but he told me to go ahead because my mum wasn’t going to believe me over him.

“I knew this was true, so I never told anyone.” A few weeks later, while Shabana was at a driving lesson, their uncle turned up at the family home and offered to take her 11-year-old sister shopping. Instead he

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took the terrified youngster to their grandmother’s flat and tried to rape her. “When I got home, she started crying and said ‘its uncle, he kissed me, touched me, and made me do things’. I screamed the house down and phoned the police. Even then, my mum told me to stop so we could deal with it within the family. But I knew they just wanted to talk me out of it.”

Shabana’s uncle was arrested, but as the trial date got nearer, the pressure on her to withdraw the case grew. “Our whole family was against us. They went on about family honour, playing the religious card to make us feel guilty and accused my sister of leading him on”. It was at this point that Shabana came across an article on MWNUK and contacted them. They were able to support the girls and raise awareness about their case.

“MWNUK understand about our culture and how, when things like this happen within Muslim families, the first reaction is

to keep quiet and make sure nobody finds out. But the charity are completely against that. Knowing we weren’t alone gave us the strength to carry on.” Their uncle pleaded

guilty to assault and oral rape and was sentenced to 64 months in prison in June.

Shabana added; “A helpline is needed be-

cause many Muslim women don’t have anybody to turn to. It’s not talked about in our communities.”

One of the most recent cases the MWNUK

dealt with concerned a 17-year-old victim of forced marriage. Aisha* faced months of emotional and physical abuse by her

parents before she was taken to Pakistan to wed her 30-year-old cousin, who she’d never even met.

“It started off with lectures about family honour, but then they started beating me with leather belts. They took away my phone, purse and Western clothes. I wasn’t allowed to see my friends or go to the shop unaccompanied,” she explained.

When Aisha arrived in Pakistan, she was warned that if she didn’t play the role of the happy bride, she would die.

“With my dad, it wasn’t about family honour, but his honour. He threatened to kill me if I didn’t go through with it. I knew he meant it.”

“On the wedding night, I told my husband that I didn’t want to sleep with him, so he forced me. He raped me three or four times each night. Then, in the morning, I had to pretend I was happy. “When I came back to England, my parents thought I was happy, so they let me have my phone

back. When everyone was asleep, I looked up forced marriages and found MWNUK. “I told them what had happened. They calmed me down and advised me. One night, I ran away with nothing. MWNUK helped me find accommodation, food and clothes. They also assisted me in getting a legal and Islamic divorce. It’s changed my life.”

With the launch of the first national helpline for Muslim women and girls, the voices of women such as Aisha and Shabana will no longer remain unheard. The charity hope that more will find the confidence to come forward and seek help.

Perhaps, finally, the veil of silence which has kept these problems hidden for so long, will finally be lifted. *names and identifying details have been changed to protect the women’s identities. The Muslim Women’s Network Helpline can be contacted on 0800 999 5786 or you can visit their website www.mwnhelpline.co.uk

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N2 1 TEE FIF

nterview

Shezad Nawab Entrepreneur

For this issue we interviewed Shezad Nawab for his insights for youngsters who wish to start a successful business of their own regardless of ability. We hope that this interview provides you with the motivation and inspiration you need to start your own business and follow your dreams!

Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed for our young audience. We’d like to start with an introductory question; tell us a bit about yourself and your business; I am a Deaf entrepreneur based in Birmingham, West Midlands. My specific areas of business activities are business consulting, property, international busi

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ness, innovation, creating a space where entrepreneurs can meet investors, interim management, media and a business leader and role model for the deaf community.

What inspired you to set up the business you have today helping aspiring entrepreneurs who also have a disability?

I have always wanted to be an entrepreneur. My father uses basic BSL to communicate with me, making sure that we have a shared language. When I was 10 years old I asked my father how I could become a millionaire. He told me, “You have to build great foundations and take small steps to achieve big things�. He was worried about me as a deaf person going

into business, so I initially worked within my father’s businesses in retail and property development. I have been raised in a ‘business focused’ family. I am proud of my father, he is a role model within the Asian business community. I hope I can follow in his footsteps.

on which clients I’m working with that day and whether they are deaf or hearing.

When I am working with hearing clients, I have to arrange meetings well in advance and book an interpreter. With a deaf client I can arrange last minute meetings and communicate via skype or face-toface.

What did you learn from that experience?

I learned that in order to market my services in the mainstream business community, I needed to use words and language that they were familiar with. Jargon can often be a barrier.

You’re a serial entrepreneur and an award-winning businessman, tell us, how did you get to this stage?

Can you think of a situation in the past Approximately how many entreprewhere you felt something had gone neurs do you help or work with each wrong in your businesses, what was month?

I feel very lucky to have a supportive the issue and how did you overcome it? family, who instilled in me the values of I work with around ten entrepreneurs evehard work and a positive attitude. I have My business consulting work really sufry month, as this is only one area of busibeen very fortunate to have lots of enfered initially from the wrong branding. ness that I am involved with. The entrecouragement from the ‘hearing’ business I didn’t understand my target audience preneurs can be based all over the world, community. I’ve always felt that I could and the website, logo, and even the name not just within the UK business community. achieve anything I put my mind to. of the business needed to be changed.

I couldn’t understand why my coaching Can you tell us of any up and coming What does a typical day look like for work didn’t take off and then realised events that you are hosting where our you? that by including the word ‘deaf’ in my young readers can come and see you in branding, that I was confusing people. I action and be inspired by you?

I’m always very busy! I spend a lot of removed the word ‘deaf’ from my brandtime at my computer. Technology helps me ing and re-marketed the service, introduc- I’m currently working on events to be held to manage my time and I’m always email- ing myself as a deaf entrepreneur and in central Birmingham. I’ll keep you posting and texting clients on the go! suddenly the business took off! ed!

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Readers and entrepreneurs can get in touch with me at www.pitchingevents.co.uk. If they have a project idea or a business they are keen to set up, I can support them with all areas of start-up and also work with them to prepare pitches to funders. I will also support them to tap into networks of investors.

• Creative – I’m always looking for collaborative opportunities; Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Customer (B2C).

• Finding a good mentor – I was extremely lucky to have been raised in a family that was very business minded and has a very successful portfolio of businesses. My father is the perfect mentor and he has taught me about creating a solid foundation for each business venture.

Finally, what words of wisdom and ad- • Future, present, past – I study balance vice could you give to our young readers sheets, cash flows, profit & loss and forewho may wish to set up their own busi- casting trends. nesses?

• Getting stronger – learn from your failIdeas, creativity, find a good mentor, future, ures and have a positive ‘can do’ attitude. present, past and getting stronger.

Don’t let anyone tell you that you won’t succeed.

Broken down this means; • Ideas – I am an entrepreneur so I understand not all ideas succeed, but you need to learn from this and move on to make successful projects and accept the flow of the business cycle.

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Interview by Saira Nisa

“

Learn from your failures and have a positive ‘can do’ attitude. Don’t let anyone tell you that you won’t succeed.

“

How can our readers get in touch with you?

The Muslim Women’s Network UK (MWNUK)

We have established and will operate a new national helpline aimed at women and girls who are suffering from or at risk of abuse or facing problems. If you need support or are concerned about someone you know, please contact us.

The helpline is available to all and can be reached on

0800 999 5786 0303 999 5786.

For more information see www.mwnhelpline.co.uk

The purpose of the annual Deaf Awareness Week in May is to promote the engagement and awareness of the hearing-impaired community into mainstream society to better understanding.

Deaf Awareness Week 2015 (May 6th – May 12th)

Did you know there are over nine million deaf and hard of hearing people registered in the UK of which 70,000 use British Sign Language as their first language? 25,000 of whom are children (under 16). You never know when you will come into contact with someone who is hearing impaired and yet there is no GCSE in British Sign Language.

Here we explore this language, and how we can better communicate through the BSL alphabet.

British Sign Language is usually referred to in its abbreviated form of BSL. The same applies to the sign languages of other countries, for example, ASL for American Sign Language, AUSLAN for Australian Sign Language and LSF (Langu des Signes Francaise) for French Sign Language.

Throughout history sign language has been regarded as inferior and not recognised as a proper language at all, but as a system of mime and gestures. Although sign language has been around for over a hundred years, it was not until 1974 that it was acknowledged that sign language is a language in its own right and officially named ‘British Sign Language’. It was not until 2003 that British Sign Language was recognised as an official British language! BSL does not use many

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English words but, because it has its own grammatical rules – based on the visual use of the hands, facial expressions and space – it does not use the same word order.

In 1760 Thomas Braidwood opened the first school for the deaf in Edinburgh, employing a combined method of teaching. This used finger spelling, speech, reading and writing.

Only wealthy people could afford to send their children to his school. In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries residential schools for the deaf were established in London, Exeter, Birmingham and Manchester, where they all used sign language for communication.

In 1880 a conference of educators of the deaf took place in Milan, Italy. The majority of the ‘educators of the deaf’ present voted in favour of banning sign language in schools for the deaf and using oral methods of communication instead. This was to apply to all schools for the deaf in Europe and the USA. Five Americans representing 6,000 deaf pupils in the USA were the only one’s who voted against it. No deaf people were present to give their views because deaf people had been banned from attending!

This conference had a huge impact on sign language as deaf teachers in deaf schools lost their jobs and were replaced by teachers who were trained to run their classrooms using only the oral method. Signing and gestures were strictly forbidden. Deaf children were not taught or allowed to use sign language for nearly 100 years and generations of

children were taught in a way that was unnatural and frustrating.

Teachers harshly punished children who signed or used gestures by tying their hands to their chairs or behind their backs. They also used caning of the hands.

British Standard Manual Alphabet

Needless to say this method of teaching denied deaf children any worthwhile education and many left school at 16 with a reading age of 8 years old. The fact that sign language survived is thanks to certain children who were either deaf or had deaf parents and used it when others weren’t watching.

The signs therefore developed in a natural way, and because they were from different parts of the country many regional variations of BSL developed and still exist today, just as accents and dialects in the hearing world.

As only a small minority of people have deaf parents, most deaf people grow up in a world where their family and friends are not deaf. Deaf clubs are sometimes the only places where they do not feel isolated and can participate fully in all activities.

These are places where deaf people can relax and catch up with news that is relevant to them and their friends. They run activities including tennis, badminton, drama clubs, football, cricket, tennis, theatre and even dance!

Modern technology allows the younger generation of deaf people to fax, text or email each other easily and arrange to meet. These technologies also include minicoms and text-phones, type-talk and videophones/webcams.

Fozia Parveen is a tutor of sign language currently living in Harrogate (North Yorkshire), and the founding director of Signs4Life. Fozia was recently nominated as Oxfam’s 100 most inspiring women of 2011 as part of their International Women’s Day centenary celebration. If you would like to view a video of the BSL alphabet being signed please visit www.signs4life.org If you would like to support the campaign to introduce BSL as a GCSE please visit www.signature.org.uk/gcse and support us!

www.signature.org.uk

Are there any deaf students in your school? Have you ever chatted with them? Do they wear hearing aids or use sign language to communicate?

There are 45,000 deaf children in the UK. The majority go to mainstream schools, where very often they are the only deaf person in their class.

it’s so simple!

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Being deaf Someone who is ‘deaf’ might not be able to hear anything or they might be able to hear less than other people. If you think about how it might feel to be unable to hear very well, you can see why clear communication is really important.

Some deaf people communicate using Compared to hearing teenagers, deaf sign language, while others read lips and young people are more likely to suffer speak, and some use a combination of from isolation, bullying and poor selfsigning and speaking. Whichever way esteem. In addition, academic attainment people communicate, nobody likes to miss levels for deaf children are lower than out on a joke or chat. they should be: although deafness is not a learning disability, 62% of deaf Try this! children are currently failing to get 5 GCSEs grades A*-C (including English Only 30% of words can be understood and Maths), compared to 31% of from reading lips with no sound or other children without special educational help. Without using your voice, mouth needs. these words and see if your friends can The National Deaf Children’s Society guess what you’re saying: (NDCS) is the leading charity dedicated to creating a world without barriers for • Pat deaf children and young people. Here • Mat the NDCS shares some useful information • Bat and tips.

See how hard it is to guess?

At School Schools are noisy places, with lots of chatter, scraping chairs and people running around. This can make it even more difficult for deaf young people to hear what’s being said, which can make them feel left out.

chat, including by text or writing things down - Check the person you’re chatting with knows what you are talking about

lesson plans and posters have also been created to help teachers engage teenagers and encourage discussions about deafness.

A lot of people think that chatting with a deaf young person will be difficult and they won’t understand them. But it’s really easy to chat to a teenager with a hearing loss once you know how.

Help is at hand

For more information and to watch the NDCS has loads of tips to help you chat films, check out Look, Smile, Chat with deaf young people. There are short To improve understanding about deafness www.buzz.org.uk/looksmilechat, online films with simple tips to help you among teenagers, NDCS runs a campaign and share the link with your friends. You communicate more easily, as well as called Look, Smile, Chat, aimed at helping can ask your teachers to get involved too posters and information for your teachers. teenagers to understand what it’s like to by teaching the tips and playing the films be a young person who can’t hear well, in class.

When chatting to teenagers who have and how to make communicating easy for hearing loss everyone.

National Deaf Awareness Week The campaign features short films that 6th - 12th May – Get involved!

- Turn to face them help teenagers understand what it might - Talk normally, don’t speak too slowly or be like to miss out on conversations or Kirsty Whitelock shout jokes, and gives practical tips to overcome National Deaf Children’s Society - Remember there are lots of ways to common communication issues. Dedicated www.ndcs.org.uk

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Make sure I know what you are talking about

What do you know about deafness?

Simple steps can make a big difference to deaf teenagers.

F ind more tips at

www.buzz.org.uk/looksmilechat

T here are lots of ways to chat... t y tex and b e n li On

s

Expres

yourse l

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Have a go!

What do you know about deafness?

Simple steps can make a big difference to deaf teenagers.

F ind more tips at

www.buzz.org.uk/looksmilechat

Write it down

Spotlight Kitaba (Islamic Texts for the Blind) Interview with Shaykh Abdul Aziz Ahmed (Chairman of Kitaba)

?

Thankyou for agreeing to be interviewed for Fifteen21 youth magazine, what does Kitaba do?

Kitaba is an organization that prepares Islamic texts in various formats including formats that are accessible to blind people. These include Braille, audio and digital formats. We raise issues of inclusion through workshops, lectures and educational programmes. For us, inclusion is not a religious issue but a moral one that affects all disadvantaged people in every society. However, we are motivated

by Islam and the way that the Prophet, upon him be peace, dealt with the marginalized in the early society.

Where is Kitaba based?

Officially, Kitaba, whose full title is Islamic Texts for the Blind, is registered in Scotland but has supporters and activists all over the world. We have organized programmes in the UK, Norway, Denmark, Malaysia, Australia and Singapore. We are joint organisers of a Braille conference in Istanbul.

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The 4th January marks World Braille day, how easy is it for someone with a visual impairment to access the Qur’an in Braille?

For those who use non-Arabic Braille, it is a matter of learning the extra letters and diacritical marks. This can usually be covered in a one week course. For those who do not use Braille at all, it is the equivalent of learning to read or for a sighted English reader to learn Hebrew or Arabic.

What steps, do you feel, need to be considered, by masjids and mainstream Muslim organisations, to allow visually impaired brothers and sisters to take part in activities for the Muslim community?

The most important is a change in attitude. Once someone has an inclusive attitude most problems can be overcome.

On a practical level, we offer support in producing accessible

material and training.

three, this has been open to people with disabilities. Kitaba works closely with other You are holding an Arabic Braille course partners, including Dirasa, to provide in Northampton at the end of December access to Islamic and cultural activities of mashAllah, is this something which which visiting Makkah is by far the most Kitaba is planning on holding in other spiritually important. parts of the country too and what is covered in the weekend course?

What is your project Riyadatul Sibyan about?

We hope to provide an introduction to Braille for sighted people and a detailed course allowing English Braille users to access the Arabic script with diacritical marks. We previously worked with Deaf organizations to provide general advice on inclusion and raise awareness of disabilities. This is something we intend to As part of our work on inclusion, we have do in others cities in the United Kingdom addressed mental health issues and social and our sister organization, Merhaba, in issues including deprivation and challenges Denmark. facing young people. As a follow up to the workshops, it became clear that classical Could you tell us more about your work advice on parenting would be of benefit. with Dirasa and your upcoming Umrah Abdul Aziz decided to translate a classical trip in April? text with its commentary and to provide a modern interpretation of the work along Our Chairperson, Abdul Aziz Ahmed, has with a discussion of issues relevant to been leading groups from Scandinavia parenting and developing good values in for the last six years. During the last young people. The book will be published

in 2013 and will be taught in several cities and hopefully become an audio visual project.

What further aspirations does Kitaba have?

Kitaba would like to consolidate its work in the UK with more courses and workshops.

It would like to strengthen its partnerships with organizations in other parts of the world, especially the Far East, Australia and Denmark.

If any of our readers wanted to support your invaluable work, who would they need to contact?

They can get in touch with Kitaba through our website www.kitaba.org and via email info@kitaba.org

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(ISOC) is one of the largest societies on campus, and makes every student feel welcome and creates a sense of community away from home. Furthermore, one of the first mosques within England (Abdullah Quilliam mosque) was founded in Liverpool. It is inspirational to see members of the community work together in order to re-open this historical mosque and renovate it to create an Islamic school and education centre.

Furthermore, Liverpool is a home for many students and has 4 universities: Liverpool Hope, Liverpool John Moores, University of Liverpool, and the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts.

As a student, there is so much to explore within the city: from the Albert Docks (home of the International Slavery Museum), Merseyside Maritime Museum and Tate Liverpool, to the Liverpool ONE shopping centre - which is the largest open air shopping centre in the UK.

Being a student in Liverpool has enabled me to interact with individuals from many different backgrounds. There are so many activities within Liverpool to get involved in, whether that is through the ISOC or as part of the wider local community. The people in Liverpool are really friendly and welcoming and recently Liverpool was voted the 4th friendliest city in the world!

Hafsa Ahmed

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My

Before coming to Liverpool as a student, I was unaware of how close-knit the Muslim community was. The Liverpool Islamic Society

City

Liverpool. Located within Merseyside, Liverpool is a city which is known worldwide for being the birthplace of The Beatles. In 2008, it was awarded the “European Capital of Culture”, and several areas of the city centre have been given World Heritage Site status. Additionally, Liverpool is the home of two Premier League football clubs - Liverpool FC, and Everton, where the most commonly asked question is “are you red (Liverpool FC) or blue (Everton)?’’

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FOOD for the

SOUL

“Olives are pressed to get oil Fruits are squeezed for juice Flowers are crushed for perfume So, if you feel pressured it’s just Allah trying to get the best out of you!”

FORGIVENESS

hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now, you write on a stone, why?” The other A story tells that two friends were walking friend replied “When someone hurts us through the desert. During some point of we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. the journey they had an argument, and But, when someone does something good one friend slapped the other one in the for us, we must engrave it in stone where face. no wind can ever erase it.”

The one who got slapped was hurt, but The Prophet said: without saying anything, wrote in the “Take benefit of five before five: sand “Today my best friend slapped me Your youth before your old age, in the face”. They kept on walking until Your health before your sickness, they found an oasis, where they decided Your wealth before your poverty, to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started Your free-time before your preoccupation Your life before your death.” drowning, but the friend saved him. After [Al-Haakim] he recovered from near drowning, he wrote on a stone “Today my best friend saved my life”.

The friend who had both slapped, and saved his best friend asked him, “After I

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Ehsan Khan

“Sir William Rothenstein (1872-1945), was one of the leading figures of the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century British art world. This is the first major exhibition of William Rothenstein’s work held since 1972, and brings together an especially wide range of art, from sketches he made in Paris in the early 1890s, to portraits of RAF pilots in the Second World War. Though built around paintings in public collections, the exhibition will also feature examples from private collections, some of which have not been exhibited for almost a hundred years. Particular attention will be paid to a series of important cultural encounters that changed the direction of the artist’s life and work. These include his Parisian training; turn-of-the-century visits to Spain and Germany; years spent painting in the Jewish East End; his 1910 visit to India; interwar years living in rural Gloucestershire; experiences as a war artist in two World Wars; and his ongoing, sometimes fraught relationship with his home city, Bradford.

Although Rothenstein’s life ‘beyond the easel’ will be mentioned (including his roles as critic, collector, patron, gallery-founder and teacher), the main aim of the exhibition is to put the spotlight on his achievements as a painter, draughtsman and print-maker.

From Bradford to Benares opens on Saturday March 8th and runs until Sunday July 12th 2015. A free symposium, exploring Rothenstein’s relationship with wider cultural trends of the period, will be held on March 14th, and is open to the public.

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From Bradford to Benares

they are offered a series of lectures

The Cambridge Interfaith Programme (CIP) The CIP Summer School gathers emerging religious leaders from around the world to study, discover, and live alongside one another in a stunning University of Cambridge location.

The next Summer School takes place 29th July – 14th August 2015 in Madingley Hall, University of Cambridge.

The deadline for applications is Friday 13th February 2015, to download an ap

delivered by specialist academics and peacemakers; and they are facilitated in a process of teaching one another about aspects of their traditions. Most importantly, students have the opportunity to get to know, and learn from, their fellow participants. Each year the Summer School receives a delegation of emerging religious leaders from the Sultanate of Oman, a key supporter of the programme, as well as students selected from a wide variety of countries from around the world.

The Summer School is an opportunity for plication please visit our website www.in- inter-faith engagement that draws upon terfaith.cam.ac.uk/summerschool2015.

CIP’s ethos, to serve practical peacemaking efforts. We explore the resources that Each summer, the Cambridge Interfaith each tradition offers for peaceful and seProgramme brings together an internarious engagement with the others, and look tional group of emerging religious leaders for the forms of coexistence and friendfrom Islamic, Christian and Jewish backship that are possible between traditions grounds for an intensive period of immer- that remain distinct and different. Comsion in inter-faith and cross-cultural encoun- ing to agreement on theology, politics or ter, to resource practical peacemaking any other subject is not our aim, nor is the and conflict-transformation efforts. The creation of some neutral middle ground; bedrock of the programme is the practice rather the aim is to learn to live well with of inter-faith Scriptural Reasoning (SR). disagreement, and to disagree more Students receive intensive training in SR; peacefully, fruitfully and intelligently.

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Masjids Around The World This remarkable mosque in central Tunisia is the fourth holiest site in Islam (after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem). The mosque is designated on the UNESCO World Heritage List for its cultural heritage.

The Great Mosque of Kairouan, also known as Mosque of Uqba was built in 670 AD by the Arab commander Uqba ibn Nafi who conquered the region of AlMaghreb from the Byzantines. Kairouan became a principal holy city in the region and flourished under the Aghlabid dynasty in the 9th century. The Aghlabid dynasty ruled the area of Ifriqiya (modern day Tunisia, western Libya and Eastern Algeria) on behalf of the Abbasid Caliph.

The Great Mosque of Kairouan Location: Kairouan, Tunisia

the great mosque which was rebuilt in the 9th century. One of the major alterations from the original structure, was its size, and the addition of a minaret.

The present day mosque consists of a large courtyard which contains a sundial and a marble floor. The only minaret of the mosque is in the centre of the northern perimeter walls. This minaret is one of the oldest standing minarets in the world and is of similar design to the minarets found in Morocco, and is over thirty metres high.

Another striking feature of the mosque is the rows of horse-shoe shaped arches which rest on marble columns. Building materials were taken from the ruins of Roman and Byzantine buildings. The main Kairouan was the capital of Ifirqiya for prayer hall is to the north of the building five hundred years and was a place of and houses two domes. These domes are outstanding diffusion of Arab-Muslim made out of stone and consist of twentycivilisation. The centre-point of the city was four ribs with small windows at the base.

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One of the domes is positioned above the 9th century tiled mihrab (a semicircular niche in the wall of a mosque that indicates the qibla). The other dome lies at the entrance to the prayer hall from the courtyard.

The mosque is built on a rectangular plan and is protected with high walls built along the perimeter of the mosque. This reflects the fact that the mosque was built at a time of political unrest, and that the mosque also functioned as a fortress.

There are nine gates, including three main gates used to enter the mosque. One of the main gates is the Lalla Rihana gate which is to the East of the main prayer hall. The gate was added to the mosque in 1294 and has a huge arch intricately carved in Arabic writing which rests on marble Roman columns. Outside this gate there is the large cemetery of Ouled Farhane which contains white gravestones.

Built:

670

Capacity: unknown

Zeeshan Arif

The building is of significant religious and cultural importance. It is the fourth holiest mosque in Islam and one of the oldest mosques in the western world. It highlights the rich and interesting past of North Africa. It is a must-see site if you get the opportunity to visit Tunisia.

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poetry

We Are Disabled We are all disabled, because we are less able, to do something in comparison to another, I hope this is affective, in changing your perspective, to make you stop mocking the defective, it’s time to be more reflective.

Sidra Chaudry

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Every defect, deserves respect, don’t let the limitation, become a deprivation, rather an indication, for motivation, causing stimulation, for a transformation, no more procrastination, acceleration and determination, use your innovation, look up for inspiration, there’s opportunities for exploitation, I dare you to make a change, do something outside of your comfort range!

D

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Recipes Nusayba Malik

Banana Bread

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Serves: 12

Prep Time: 1hr 20 mins

Ingredients: •

250g plain flour

•

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

•

pinch salt

•

115g butter

•

115g dark brown soft sugar

•

2 eggs, beaten

•

500g mashed over-ripe bananas

Method 1. Preheat the oven to 180 C / Gas mark 4.

Lightly grease a 23x13cm loaf tin.

2. In a large bowl, combine flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt.

3. In a separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten. Pour mixture into prepared loaf tin.

4. Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes, until a knife inserted into centre of the loaf comes out clean. Leave to cool in tin for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire cooling rack.

Enjoy!

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65

National Events

To add your local study circles, conferences, events or courses please email events@fifteen21.com

Birmingham

Leicester

The Zawiya Centre T: 0121 766 8364 W: www.thezawiya.com

Masjid An-Noor T: 0116 262 5440 W: www.idauk.org

Arabic, Tajweed, Youth activities & Study circles for both brothers and sisters, various dates

Monthly Youth Programme for boys, starts first Saturday of each month

Bradford

York

Islam Bradford Centre T: 01274 395521 E: info@islambradford.com

York Central Masjid T: 01904 413 123 E: contact@yorkmosque.org

Study Circles, for brothers and sisters (separate classes), various days & times

Brothers Qur’an Circle, every Friday, between Maghrib and Isha Salah Sisters Qur’an Circle, every Sunday, 11am to Dhuhr Salah

Cambridge Cambridge Masjid T: 01223-350134 E: cambridgemosque@gmail.com

Arabic, Study Circles, Qur’anic Studies for both Brothers & Sisters, varies days & times

In The ice and , Prejud

Tac

T: 0131 343 3802 E: edinburghmosque@hotmail.com

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Arabic, Tajweed, Youth activities & Study circles for both brothers and sisters, various dates

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Life has its ups and downs You can talk confidentially online or by phone whenever you need to.

Whatever your worry, it’s better out than in.

www.childline.org.uk ChildLine is a service provided by the NSPCC. Registered charity numbers 216401 and SC037717. 7244/11