Spirit21

Muslims know a thing or two about branding, after all they already own some of the world’s most well known brands. To Muslims, the brand ‘Islam’represents a way of life; the ‘ummah’ is a transnational super-community;‘Halal’ is a global food brand; Ramadan, Hajj, Jihad,and Zakat to name but a few are also all familiar names with their own brand values and brand experiences. All one billion Muslims – and significant chunks of the remaining global population – can identify these brands for you. That is to say, they can tell you the meaning, values and benefits of these ‘products’.

A global brand is one which consumers perceive to reflect the same set of values wherever they are in the world. Global brands transcend their geographic, cultural or ideological origins, and create strong, enduring relationships with those who consume the brands across countries and cultures. Think of walking into a McDonald’s or a KFC – you know exactly what will be on the menu, and what the food will be like.

During the expansion of the Muslim world from the 7th century onwards, the ‘Islamic’ brands spread quickly. In many ways, they created a self-sustaining economy. For example, the brand of ‘halal’ meant that Muslims were employed in creating halal products – such as meat – which would be bought by Muslims, creating employment for Muslims, and keeping finance in the Muslim pocket. Even though the immediate objective of Muslims confining themselves to the ‘halal’ brand is to follow Islamic teachings and eat healthy clean prescribed food, the retention of Muslim commerce within the Muslim market is a bonus by-product.

Let’s keep our focus for the time being on the ‘halal’ brand, to understand why I believe those engaged in creating ‘Islamic’ products today have an upside down approach to ‘Islamic branding’. The ‘halal’ brand, as taught by the Prophet is made up of two parts when it comes to food production. One part is made up of the values that make something ‘halal’, and the other part is the technicalities of the process, like how to slaughter animals.

The technical procedures are generally well documented and great emphasis is rightly placed on the observation and implementation of these procedures. The ‘halal’ brand is also made up of values such as purity, goodness, well-being, animal welfare, and honest earnings. The same partnership between technicalities and values make up the other brands I’ve quoted like ‘Islam’, ‘Hajj’, ‘Zakat’ and so on. It is the underpinning values that give each of these process their meaning and significance. So, even if you carry out hajj, zakat, salat or any of the other Islamic activities – even if it is to the letter – but fail to grasp the values that it conveys, then the ritual is empty and feels meaningless even to the protagonist. For example, the ritual of hajj is about building brotherhood, and yet in the tussle to complete the prescribed Tawaf, people will happily elbow their brothers and sisters, trample on their feet, or squash others, leaving themselves and others feeling angry, hostile and horrified. The brand value of hajj – building of brotherhood – is lost to the technicalities of completing the tawaf. When the values that underpin the ‘brand’ are contravened, the brand becomes empty and void, and instead of having long lasting results, its impact fades away.

It may seem a strange way to approach religion and religious rituals in commercial terms like ‘brand’, ‘consumer’ and ‘product’, but if Muslims are to build meaningful, sustainable and innovative brands and products, we have to understand what exactly is an ‘Islamic’ brand, and how should it be constructed in order for it to be game-changing.

Most of today’s ‘Islamic’ products are a sad reflection of the state of the contemporary Muslim world – focusing on the technicalities of Islam rather than aspiring to live the values themselves. Islamic practice and social discourse today are all about following the rules, rather than creating the ethos and then using the rules to deliver to that ethos. Don’t get me wrong – rules are crucially important, and must be observed. But rules are not the end in themselves, they are a tool to deliver a vision and a set of values.

The problem with most ‘Islamic’ products today is the same. They tick all the boxes that make them ‘technically’ Islamic. They do this by taking existing products that are not necessarily constructed on Islamic values, tweak them a bit so they ‘technically’ meet the requirements, and then badge them ‘Islamic’.

Take the spate of ‘Islamic’ colas that hit the world – we had Mecca cola, Ummah cola and Zamzam cola to name but a few. What was ‘Islamic’ about them except the name? They cashed in on a moment in political history when Muslims wanted to boycott the big brands. Instead of taking this moment when there was a captive and willing worldwide Muslim audience to deliver a truly innovative drinks range based on values inimical to Islam, the producers pocketed a short term benefit for themselves by copying another product. They gave a global market sugary teeth-rotting drinks. If they had considered the kind of values that would be great in a drink drawing from Islamic values, they may have thought of something that cleanses the body, is made from pure sustainable ingredients, and whose packaging degrades without damaging the environment. With such a brand-values-based approach to product design they might have won over not just the Muslim market, but a wider global market too – through values and innovation.

If today’s ‘Islamic’ products are to really mean anything, they must create their brands as derivatives of the main Islamic superbrands that I mentioned at the beginning. That is how they can appeal to the Muslim audience. Muslim consumers will fully understand the ethos of the products and how the products will change their lives. The products will move from being a necessity to being a valued product – which of course increases its desirability and price.

However, what is even more attractive is that the fundamental ‘Islamic’ brand values will undoubtedly appeal across the commercial and global spectrum to all consumers irrespective of faith. I’ve already spoken of ‘good’ food. The same applies to other values like environmental protection, ethics and fair trade and financial prudence and workers’ welfare. By exhibiting these brand values in ‘Islamic’ products, they will appeal to those from other backgrounds too, as they are universal aspirations.

I would urge all those engaging in creating ‘Islamic’ brands to move past just tweaking products so that they are technically Islamic, and start thinking about the Islamic values that are crucial to new products and then design products from the ground up. Copy cat products do not change the world. Innovative, game changing products come from meeting real untapped consumer needs. The way they do this is by building brands whose values are meaningful and important to consumers, and which consumers fully believe in.

A new wave of products that appeal to Muslim money should do more than just meet the technical spec. They must be built on brand values that aim to invest all the goodness of the superbrand of ‘Islam’. What is important is not the label ‘Islamic’ but that the values that are used to design the products are Islamic, and deliver an Islamic brand experience to consumers.

Shelina Zahra Janmohamed is the author of Love in a Headscarf and writes a blog at www.spirit21.co.uk. She has fifteen years of experience in marketing and new product creation.

This article was published in the Muslim Council of Britain’s publication entitled ‘Nurturing the Future in Islamic Finance and Thought Leadership’ as part of an international delegation to the 6th World Islamic Economic Forum in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia May 2010. The full brochure can be accessed here: http://www.mcb.org.uk/wief/Documents/6WIEF_Brochure.pdf

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Today I’ve been blogging at Faith Central, at the Times Online. Guess what, the face-veil is in the news (again!). Here are my thoughts on the trend sweeping Europe:

Bess (of Faith Central) writes: Faith Central welcomes back Shelina Zahra Janmohamed, blogging today on the topical issue of new laws in Belgium and France regarding the Burka.

Shelina writes:

No matter how itsy-bitsy the face-veil might be in physical size, it has the ability to drive political and emotional sentiment at a national level.

Recently Belgium became the first European country to vote for a full ban on the face-veil in public, and the law could come into force by July. The 400-odd women out of Belgium’s 280,000 Muslim population who wear the face-veil could face fines of £110.

A woman in Italy was recently subjected to a 430-euro fine for wearing a face-veil on the way to a mosque. And the French, in a show of one upmanship, are to introduce sanctions that would fine husbands who force their wives to wear the veil up to 15,000 euros and send them to jail for up to a year.

France is particularly worried as  it has such a huge immigrant population that it simply doesn’t know how to handle. Ghetto-ised  in suburbs, without jobs, education or prospects, the five million or so immigrants who hail mainly from North Africa and identify themselves as Muslims are increasingly agitated.

The wider French population has been encouraged to see them as problematic, and instead of identifying the lack of policy to resolve these issues as the cause of  riots, are instead jumping on their “Muslim” character as the problem. 

The face-veil is, of course, perceived as the symbol par excellence of Islam. This was particularly apparent over the weekend when two passers-by pulled the veil off a Muslim woman  in a shopping centre in France, telling her “Go back to your own country.” The violent nature of the attack hardly flies the flag for ‘enlightenment’ values, and the remark reflects a worrying racist undertone.

So far Britain has taken a different stance – with politicians arguing for women’s choice to dress as they please. Even Jack Straw – who stated in 2006 that he felt uncomfortable when he spoke with his veiled constituents – has stated that he believes it is still up to women to decide for themselves.

Just what has made continental Europe veer in such a different direction to the UK?

France would argue that it is the entrenchment of secular principles in their constitution and its historic trailblazing of human rights. But today’s human rights lawyers have been telling Sarkozy that such legislation would be contested on those grounds.

So maybe the reason for Europe’s stance is more about “defending our values” from overrunning hordes bent on Islamisation? Certainly that was the sentiment behind Switzerland’s vote to ban minarets. It wasn’t about the size and shape of the minarets given the number of physically similar church spires that dot the Swiss landscape. With  provocative posters that depicted minarets as missiles, it was clearly about fear-mongering. Unsurprisingly the posters featured images of  a woman in a face-veil – linking the idea back to the concept that face-veils are a threat to Europe.
Is it about security? Well most Muslim women who veil have no objection to being cleared through security, in fact they most likely would support such security checks.

Is this about racism? The difficult question that no-one dares to ask is whether in this vitriolic response to a group who looks a little different continental Europe is reverting to type? Dare anyone mention the scapegoating that took place in Europe in the 1930s?

Maybe it is simply a symptom of insecurity within Europe about its identity. Given recent troubles in Greece, Spain and Portugal, Europe’s power on the world stage is looking shaky. Sometimes it’s easier to know what you are in opposition to  – the ‘other’ -  rather than having the self-knowledge and conviction to stand for what you actually believe in.

Europe has always taken upon itself the burden to “liberate” Muslim women, blind to the suffering of its own women. For Muslim women who choose to veil, being forced to strip off and pay a fine hardly seems any kind of liberation. For those who are in fact forced to cover, such legislation will only confine them to their homes, rather than allow them to talk to their peers and neighbours, get educated and assert themselves. It’s not just Muslim women who face oppression and domestic problems. In France for example, 40,000 women a year suffer domestic violence at the hands of their partners.

When arguing in favour or a ban on the face-veil, Europeans often resort to what I call the “reciprocity” argument saying in effect “if women are forced to veil in countries in the Muslim world like in Saudi Arabia, then why can’t they be forced not to veil in Europe?” I wonder  do we really want to look to oppressive non-democratic regimes for guidance on freedom?

Of course, while the politics of the veil hints at  wider tensions between Europe and the Muslim world perhaps this is more to do with faith than politics. Religion has been getting a hard time recently, being pilloried and driven out of public consciousness as no longer important in our national life. Islam is painted – wrongly in my opinion, as it shares an Abrahamic heritage with Christianity – as different and alien. So when it comes to rejecting faith, rejecting Islam is the most symbolic way of expressing this rejection. And when the face-veil is seen as the most potent reference to Islam, it’s no surprise that Europe’s many insecurities and tensions become focused on a seemingly innocuous bit of fabric.

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This article was just published in this month’s EMEL Magazine.

A woman is not usually called Muhammad. So imagine my surprise when the BBC rang me up to ask if I was interested in appearing in a documentary called “My Name is Muhammad“, to explore the lives of different Muslims in Britain.

Still from the BBC documentary "My name is Muhammad" (Shelina Zahra Janmohamed) (C) BBC

“Do you have a strong relationship with your surname?” she asked. “Not really, other than it being my father’s name. But I do have a bittersweet relationship with my first name, does that count?” I am a firm believer that individuals can and do have a relationship with their name, and although Shelina is pretty and memorable, I felt sad that it didn’t have any spiritual, religious or wisdom-oriented influence. I only discovered the fact it did, and its meaning latterly in life. Shelina is “full moon.”  Perhaps I could aspire to the notion of reflecting beauty and light?

I had always longed for a name taken from the Islamic tradition, and so when I started writing, I adopted ‘Zahra’ as my middle name, in honour of the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad. As though my unwieldy seven syllable name wasn’t already long enough.

 Which reminded me when I spoke to the BBC producer of one strong experience I did have about my surname: “It’s a pain to spell on the phone, with all those letter Ns and Ms.” 

I had in fact had had the opportunity to change my name to something far more manageable when I got married - one of those names that sounds like a modern celebrity brand. (I’ve always hankered in

BBC Documentary "My name is Muhammad" (c) BBC

particular for a one-name recognition). However, in homage to the Islamic tradition of women keeping their names when they get married, I stuck to my own polysyllabic identifier. It always struck me as strange that women still change their surnames when they get married - after all, this tradition originates from a time when the surname reflected whose property a woman was, and she changed it to her husband’s name to show she was now his belonging.

Muhammad is the second most popular name in Britain today, second only to Jack, registered under 14 different spellings. This does not include cultural variations like the Turkish Mehmet or the Mamadou of Senegal. The name’s popularity is unsurprising given how dear Muslims hold their Prophet. Also, Islamic tradition advises that one of the parental responsibilities is to give their child a good name.

I remember fondly my all-time favourite email campaign invitation which lobbied for the standardisation of the spelling of ‘Muhammad’ so the ummah can finally be united under the banner of one lexicography. I failed at the first hurdle, my own name being the culprit. Muslims ought to focus on more important things than squabbling over which transliteration is right. The answer: none of them, it’s an Arabic name, so. Instead, let’s move on to fighting prejudice, Islamophobia and discrimination against the name itself and the people who hold it.

For example, a study by the Department for Work and Pensions  showed that racial discrimination occurred for those applying for jobs with just a name suggesting they were from an ethnic minority, rather than white British. For every nine applications sent by a white applicant, an equally good applicant with an ethnic minority name had to send sixteen to obtain a positive response. In the current time of high unemployment and recession it is a particular worry that a name like Muhammad along with other such names can restrict employment opportunities.

 Of course, whilst I have not seen statistical evidence on profiling by name, anyone who has the name Muhammad or similar will give you plenty of anecdotal evidence that they have been singled out and pulled aside for questioning or investigation while travelling.

And yet whilst holding the name of the Prophet in such high esteem, Muslims appear to have a peculiar relationship with it, the name being more than its meaning. The case of the Sudanese teddy bear named Muhammad was the most peculiar demonstration of this. The children chose to name their bear Muhammad, presumably indicating a familiarity and endearment with this name by attaching it to something that they loved. Yet this was considered by some to be an ‘insult’.  

In my opinion, an insult to the name Muhammad are criminals like Mohammad Sidique Khan who kill innocent human beings. To honour the name is to live its meaning, like Muhammad Ali who stood up as a man of conscience.

As a (Jan) Mohamed, I’ll be trying my best to honour it too.

You can watch the documentary here:

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Dear readers

Now that my blog has reached the grand old age of 4, it will be undergoing some upgrades over the next 24 – 48 hours.

Come back to visit the new and improved spirit21 very shortly…

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This article was recently published in The National

More specific to the Muslim world, it is true that women’s suffering once again echoes the Jahiliyyah. A Saudi tribal court ruled that a woman’s marriage could forcibly be broken up against her will but in line with her family’s wishes. In India, a Muslim woman raped by her father-in-law was forcibly divorced from her husband because the judge ruled that even though it was she who was the victim, the rape had nullified her marriage. In Afghanistan, women are bought and sold in public markets. (Thankfully both the Saudi and Indian rulings have been overturned)

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If any women amongst you have tried to buy clothing of an intimate nature in Saudi Arabia and other parts of the Gulf, you will know how mortifying it is that the shop assistants are almost always male. Lingerie shops are complicated and confusing places (yes, even for women!) and having men to ‘assist’ in the process is enough to make any woman flee in distress.

That is why one of Saudi Arabia’s greatest contradictions is that in a country where women are given little choice but to cover up from top to toe, and are strictly segregated, it is men they must deal with to choose their underwear. This is because the religious hardline and the religious police don’t like to see men and women mixing and they feel that encouraging women to work in retail will encourage this (but men selling underwear is fine). In addition, reducing the unemployment level of men is seen as an important goal. There is already a 2006 law which says only female staff can be employed in women’s apparel stores, but this is rarely implemented.

Last year, women held a boycott of shops which employed male staff, and took their money to outlets which had female staff. You can read about it here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/25/saudi-women-boycott-linge_n_179229.html

This year, Saudi women are planning to hold the boycott again, starting from tomorrow February 13th for two weeks. (I guess with Valentine’s Day being banned there is no rush to get out and buy some frillies anyway). If you are in Saudi, you can support the boycott as well.

As one commenter on this article “Ban men from selling lingerie in KSA” explained: “The more money that women spend in women only lingerie stores the more it demonstrates that women only stores are a financial success and what the consumer wants and is willing to pay for women only service. Interestingly women still purchase a large proportion of lingerie outside of KSA when people take holiday’s as they prefer the service outside of KSA.”

To me, the contradictory nature of the seediness of men monopolising lingerie sales vs the strict separation of women to the point of exclusion from the public space, highlights a key point: women are told that all the segregation and ‘guardianship’ is to protect them and safeguard them, but clearly this is not the case – it is all about safeguarding men’s interests in employment and in control.

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This article was published in the latest issue of EMEL Magazine.

What is the difference between a church spire and a mosque minaret? This is a question that has pre-occupied me since late 2009, when the Swiss voted in a referendum to ban minarets, carrying the motion by 57.5%.

The ban has provoked controversy, and it is likely to be taken to appeal on the grounds of being a violation of religious freedom and expression. Church spires are remarkably similar in size and shape to minarets, and Switzerland has plenty of the former. Yet the population invests different interpretations to the two, even though the stone and mortar are very similar. What is the meaning we ascribe to such materials, and what is it that gives them their different meanings?

Given the political climate and increasingly strong anti-Muslim sentiment, this difference in reaction to minarets and spires comes as no surprise. It is one piece of a jigsaw puzzle of seemingly small and disparate trends: proposals to ban the niqab and the hijab; the pride in calling yourself ‘Islamophobic’; or the recent proposals for profiling. Politics to one side, what is it that gives a faith building its sacredness? Whether Muslim or otherwise, is faith really to be found in the confines of four walls designated as ‘place of worship’?

The Muslim populations in the UK arrived in stages from the beginning of the 20th century. Mosques were immediately set up primarily to meet the spiritual needs of prayer. They were ‘virtual’ mosques – hosted at community centres, schools or other hired buildings for the duration of the community needs. Their temporary function reflected the fact that many Muslim immigrants saw their own presence in the UK as temporary.

As time passed, a sense of permanence was invested in the worshippers’ lives as well as their place of worship. Buildings were bought and converted, and more recently purpose built. Many converted buildings are topped with a small green dome, or other physical attributes that denote the traditional typology of a mosque – large dome with minaret. The immediate needs of the community, along with constrained budgets mean that the functions offered by the mosque are prioritised over its form.

Although this is understandable, it is very sad. After all, one of the functions of the mosque ought to be for the beauty of its form to inspire worshippers, to engage them with the sublime, to create a connection to the transcendent. More than anything, the mosque ought to resonate fiercely with the worshipper’s surroundings and the culture that they are steeped in. This allows the individual to understand their own status as a unique individual while at the same time being part of the wider community. It allows the community to understand its own relationship to its surroundings and express its own nature amongst a community of communities. After all, human beings look different, speak different languages, dress differently – shouldn’t the mosques where they gather communally and worship communally, show variation in keeping with their local cultures too?

It is the people that make the faith building sacred. If you have ever stepped into an empty place of worship, the overwhelming energy and sparkle is electrifying, as you, the human being, bring meaning into that place.

That is why a minaret that looks so much like a spire can cause such anxiety and prejudice – because it is not the building that is the issue, it is what the building represents. Those who voted for the ban are expressing their negativity to the people who bring it to life.

Under this analysis, we must be conscious of the fact that some Muslim countries also show immense negativity towards places of worship for other faiths, although there are promising signs that this is slowly changing. The constraints placed on churches, synagogues and temples are against the spirit of respect inherent in Islam for other religions.
Even more significant however, is the fact that these constraints indicate that Muslim countries also see faith buildings simply as expressions of political meaning. Whether it is Switzerland or Saudi, Italy or Egypt, we need to see places of worship not as expressions of ‘otherness’ but rather as places where human beings can spark their own spiritual connections, and resolve the very human tension between individuality and being part of a community.

Far left image: Fraunmester Church in Zurich, Switzerland.

Left image: Mahmud Mosque in Zurich, Switzerland.

Other than age, the church spire and mosque minaret look remarkably similar, so why do they mean such different things?

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Over the weekend I went to the see the “1001 Inventions – Muslim heritage in our world” exhibition at the Science Museum, which is based on the website and book of the same name.

The exhibition consists of a number of stands like the one in the picture, under different themes like medecine, market and town. There are intriguing exhibits like Al-Jazari’s elephant clock, model wind-turbines pre-dating Dutch windmills, in Afghanistan to harness renewable energy (a lesson for today’s green energy activists?) as well as plenty of information like Muslim scholars predicted the world’s circumference to within 125 miles 8 centuries ago, and Muslim doctors pioneered cataract removal and the use of catgut around that time as well.

The whole exhibition is a revelation about the “Dark ages” where in fact many discoveries were made that have laid the foundations for today’s modern science – dispelling the absurd myths that the Muslim world was devoid of creativity, invention or contribution. Quite the opposite. From this perspective, the exhibition is a must see for historical, cultural as well as of course scientific knowledge.

From a personal perspective though, it was the short film starring Ben Kingsley as a mysterious polymath from a golden age that captured my imagination. The film was broadcast at regular intervals on a huge screen in the exhibition hall. It re-ignited my childhood excitement for discoveries, and the incredible wealth of science that we have around us today. The story follows a group of school children spending the day at a museum investigating the science discovered in various eras of history. The teacher hands the assignment for “The Dark Ages” with pity to three children, warning them that they are unlikely to find much if anything. As they enter the library section they are greeted with the mysterious Ben Kingsley. He conjures up secrets from the period, and summons various scientists and philosophers to explain their secrets to the children. Once I’d got past the Harry Potter-esque introduction, I too was swept away by the enormity of the scientific findings and the graphics are magical enough to create a tingling about how science itself is magical.

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Haiti continues to break our hearts. I received this email from Irfan Akram, the Director of the Muslim Writers Awards and part of Muslim Hands, a UK charity that focuses on development and aid. He’s been out in Haiti for ten days. Here are his words from the front line:

“Haiti, it’s impossible to exaggerate the horror. Animals eating bodies on the streets, bodies wrapped in rugs or stuffed suitcases and left to rot. The stench is unbearable. The camps are made up of survivors who will most likely die as soon as there is no water. Even if they get past that, then disease will kill many more than have already died.

It’s hard to stop crying most of the time while distributing aid, but we are getting food and water in and are racing hard to upscale the operation by liaising with the UN to facilitate the receipt of ships and more convoys, and to provide security for these incoming shipments As a Muslim charity, we are taking advantage of the mosque infrastructure to distribute to everyone regardless of religion. Again, we are working to build the capacity of Muslims in Santo Domingo and in Haiti itself, to ensure that local communities of whatever background are supported with the essentials. Staff and offices are in place too.

Security-wise, it’s very scary – you need support to distribute safely and effectively while the UN machine gets geared up. Most of the worst-hit are not receiving aid: the World Food Programme needs 100 million food packages and has access to only 15 million in the pipeline, and there is a 2 week waiting time for hospitals. People are so desperate that un-coordinated food distribution in the street would lead to riots. Gangs are looking for opportunities to steal.For the scale of the disaster, the funds we’re getting in are woefully inadequate. We need help to get the messages out.

We want to do more work, get more food, more shelter, re-instate some basic services. But we need help.”



If you’d like to donate to Muslim Hands (or any other charity of your choice) so they can continue with their work, you can make a contribution.
The link to Muslim Hands donations is here: http://www.muslimhands.org

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The Asian Women of Achievement awards are now in their eleventh year, aiming to honour the vibrant contributions of Asian women across all aspects of life and unearth inspiring and humbling stories of achievement.

Nominations for the 2010 event are now open and you can nominate someone you know, or even yourself! Categories are: Art and Culture, Public Sector, Social and Humanitarian, Business Woman, Entrepreneur, Media, Professional, Young Achiever and the Asian Woman of the Year Award.

Nominations close on Friday March 5, 2010. You can see more info here, and download the nomination forms. It’s a great chance for Asian Women to be recognised for all their incredible achievements.

(although where is the one we most expect Asians to honour – Mum of the Year??!! Is that too typical?)

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