If anything is going to get me to turn on BBC One early on Eid morning, it’s Eid prayer being televised on a UK terrestrial channel for the first time in British broadcasting history. Held at Bradford Central Mosque, the groundbreaking coverage on Monday followed the entirety of the Eid prayer – starting with Qur’anic recitation, then a sermon in both English and Arabic and the congregational prayer itself, culminating in the customary eid mubarak embraces.
For Muslims like me, these scenes are part and parcel of every Eid. The keffiyeh-draped uncles sporting orange beards dyed with henna, some to emulate the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and some simply to hide their grey hairs; the children using the congregation as an assault course and scouting out the auntie who is handing out the best sweets; fancy clothes, henna-patterned palms and smiling faces; people high on both the spirituality of the just-passed holy month and probably too much sugar. This is the stuff Eid is made of, but watching it unfold on the nation’s main TV channel was a refreshing novelty – and I found it strangely affirming, as well as a little emotional, to witness.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not the kind of person who keels over in gratitude every time anyone vaguely resembling a Muslim is shown on television. In fact, I am a tough critic of the type of representation we normally see. Typically, Muslims are portrayed positively in the media only if we make ourselves suitably palatable. We must humanise ourselves by baking cakes, winning medals or poking fun at who we are for cheap laughs. When I’ve seen Ramadan and Eid on TV in the past, it’s usually been in the harmless, sanitised realms of cookery shows where you would be forgiven for thinking that the most spiritual time in the Muslim calendar is actually all about samosas and biryani.
That is exactly what made this year’s Eid Live screening so special. Though we are followers of an Abrahamic faith, the way we pray as Muslims sets us apart as unique. Personally, I find the prescription to pray five times a day offers a much needed spirituality break during the hustle and bustle of modern life. The ritual of resting our forehead on the ground to physically humble ourselves before God is a reminder of my own insignificance in front of my creator, and repeating short verses of the Qur’an in each cycle of prayer helps me to ensure that my holy book is a living, breathing part of my existence rather than a tome gathering dust on the shelf. In a world that seems to encourage worship of the self, I think the Islamic prayer pushes back against that and demands that we set aside whatever we are doing solely to dedicate a few minutes to worship.
Yet Muslim prayer is an act that is vilified, criminalised and maligned – consider the prayer ban debate in schools for example. Many, including me, have sometimes felt scrutinised or even unsafe when praying in public. So it feels significant that it was the Eid prayer specifically that was televised. The show could have replicated what has been done countless times, focusing on superficial and innocuous things such as Eid clothes and food. But broadcasting Qur’anic recitation and showcasing the way we pray to the entire nation, I hope, normalises something that is so often seen as foreign and threatening.
In the 15 years or so that I have been visibly Muslim, I have learned to stop apologising for my existence and to stop slotting myself into the mould of what an acceptable Muslim looks like to a society that is still so steeped in Islamophobia. I am no longer self-conscious about my hijab or praying in public – even in highly securitised locations such as airports – because my faith means more to me than proving I belong in the country I was born in. So, watching people who share my faith do what we always do on Eid without apology and hearing the words of the book that Muslims believe to be the word of God broadcast live to the nation have proved to me that it is not in blanket assimilation that we find belonging. It’s in staying true to who we really are.
As the imam said during the sermon in Bradford, Eid is about carrying forward the spiritual growth we have gained in Ramadan. Our faith teaches us to be active participants in our communities, and tells us that we aren’t true believers if our neighbours go hungry. Ramadan is a spiritual bootcamp for us Muslims, and I pray that a short insight into our beliefs on the BBC will expose the rest of the nation to the true meaning of a faith that remains heavily vilified.
Of course, I’m not naive enough to think that this solves everything or that deeply embedded Islamophobia is somehow suddenly solved. But the childhood version of myself who was scared of my friends seeing me pray could never have imagined that one day that very act would be shown live on BBC One. And it may not be a cure, but it’s certainly a start.
