What’s in a name?

So Lauren Booth became a Muslim, so what? What’s all the excitement and exultation about?


Fifi Haroon November 02, 2010

A whole lot more, it seems, than William Shakespeare ever imagined.

For one, take a look at the UK National Statistics report on the most popular baby names in the UK this year. It reeks of a cover up. Don’t believe them when they tell you it's Oliver. Spell it any way you like it but Muhammad, Mohammed or Mohamed is now the most popular name in England.

Clearly all those nice, fearful voters mumbling about a Muslim takeover of the UK during the elections earlier this year were right. At the rate we’re multiplying, the Mohammeds, Ayeshas and Hussains are going to take over the Isles without any need for chapatti flour bombs. Whatever else you cannot rely on, you can always rely on Muslims to make babies.

You can also rely on them to get all excited about conversions. No, not the kind that involve converting a beautiful old building in Karachi into ugly, high-rise flats (though there are many who have made a happy career out of doing just that). I’m talking about ones that involve the sisters-in-law of famous men having religious epiphanies at a shrine in Qom. One British news report, thinking that Hinduism and Islam were reasonably interchangeable, mistakenly called it Om. It’s sort of like renaming the Babri Masjid the Ram Janabhoomi. It only works if you have a rioting crowd to go with it.

So Lauren Booth became a Muslim, so what? What’s all the excitement and exultation about? She’s still on page 60 of the Quran or thereabouts. She hasn’t chosen Islam because she thinks it’s a way of life that works better than any other. She doesn’t think it’s the answer to all her prayers. She just had, a moment. Well actually she called it “a shot of spiritual morphine.” Ironically not quite realising the deadening effect of the drug.

Yet yards of web space have been spent on welcoming Ms Booth to the fold.  “well com in islam dear sister!” says Nazim generously on the Tribune website. “nice! We have a mole in white house and now in 10 downing street!” enthuses Anonymous, who obviously hasn’t heard of Prime Ministers Brown and Cameron, let alone the death of New Labour and the rise of welfare cuts.

But it’s the name. Well, more Tony Blair’s than Lauren Booth’s. Somehow we like to see this as divine justice. A sweet revenge. The headline is telling: ‘Tony Blair's sister-in-law converts to Islam.’ Or less nicely: ‘Tony Blair's Shiite Sister-in-Law.’ Tit for tat, and all that.

To be honest, Ms Booth makes this equation easy with a history of frequently criticising her well-known brother-in-law in public, most famously after visiting the West bank cities of Rafah and Nablus: “Do you recognise these place names, Tony? As Middle East envoy, you really should. Israel has massacred children in all of these cities. Didn’t you know?” But she was chiding Mr Blair long before she became a Muslim. Didn’t seem to have much effect then either. In his recent memoirs, the war-mongering prime minister doesn’t really seem to regret his decision to spend billions of his country’s pounds in the war effort or indeed sending off ill-equipped teenage soldiers to hunt out imaginary weapons of mass destruction. It might be a bit much to expect him to cry crocodile tears over the immeasurable death, destruction and political destabilisation caused to Iraq by western occupation.  In any case, I doubt he’s thinking too much about Lauren Booth’s revelations right now. He’s probably wondering more about his wife’s eBay addiction. Taking a bit of the attention away from her newly converted sister, Cherie Blair got caught out trying to flog her husband’s signature for a profitable £10 this week on the popular auction website.

But back to Lauren Booth, who has been gainfully employed by Iran’s state-owned news channel Press TV for the past year and is currently busy attending to, well you know, the most important things about Islam. Apparently she has stopped eating pork and hasn’t had a drink in nearly two months. Plus she’s wearing a hijab and doesn’t think the burqa would be out of the question. Her estranged father Tony Booth (isn’t it interesting how that name keeps turning up?) doesn’t seem to think much of all this. “I honestly don’t know what her motivation is... Is she after a job with Al Jazeera?”

Unlike her father, I don’t question Lauren Booth’s sincerity. Maybe she did have a spiritual epiphany and she is within her rights as much as anyone else to become a Muslim. What I do have issue with is Ms Booth’s short-sighted (almost blind) view of Iranian politics and the limited interpretation of what being a Muslim woman entails. A quick adopting of the outward rules of the faith without a deeper study of varying, yes even liberal or feminist interpretations, will leave her unaware of the inner debates of her new religion. Plus I find it disappointing that while she deems it fit to applaud Iranians for their commitment to supporting the Palestinian cause, she noticeably ignores their own struggle against a repressive regime which has used the bullet almost as freely as the Israeli state to suppress dissent. If she must use her name, or rather Tony Blair’s, to be heard then she should speak out unanimously, not selectively, for freedom in the Muslim world.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 3rd, 2010.

COMMENTS (21)

Muslim Sister | 13 years ago | Reply Ditto Hafza. I would also like to make a couple of other observations. My response to Hassan Jawad. First of all the legitimacy of A-jad's election win is questionable. Oh I forgot, you're not progressive and don't watch the BBC, so you would not know that. You probably don't even read English newspapers because you don't trust what they say. How well informed you are. Or you simply don't feel that the Green Movement and other civil rights organizations within Iran have any legitimacy, so you easily disregard their efforts and sacrifices as superficial and condemn anyone supporting a democratic movement as Western puppets. It doesn't mean anything that in the 3 months post election according to official sources 36 people died and unofficial 72 people died (take your pick). As a Pakistani, you must be thinking that's just not enough deaths to legitimize this Green Revolution, also referred to as the Twitter Revolution because of the protesters use of Twitter and other social networking/ Internet sites globally to communicate their rejection of this so called legitimate election. After all, in Pakistan people are "martyred" daily and our total comes to at least 72 dead a week, I would guess. Keeping the thought, your logic must apply to all the Iranian expats in LA as well, after all they live in the United States of America and have been brainwashed by the McDonald's culture. The fact they protest must be because they want a little air time to show off their latest hairdo's and Chanel bags. Oh and what about Mousavi, what was his agenda? Could it be on the off-chance he actually has the people's best interests at heart? You are absolutely spot on when you proclaim (we tend do this well in the Muslim world, I wonder why???) that there is a Western conspiracy to manipulate all of us innocent, incorruptible Muslim brothers and sisters to think that it's wrong that governments like Iran, Pakistan and Israel enthusiastically promote state sponsored, do I dare say the "T" word. It's people like you that are not willing to scratch the surface and dig deeper to understand the complexities of the Iranian situation that inadvertently (???) lead to an acceptance of a country whose human rights abuses are some of the worst in the world - though not in the top 14 (tells you what kind of world we live in when a country like Iran, or even Israel don't make it to the top of the list). You might not agree with me that these are abuses are of a serious nature because they target Jews, Bahai's, homosexuals, journalists, human rights lawyers, prisoners, adulterous women (maybe or maybe not - but then isn't this a personal action, something you proclaim should not be commented on in public debate? So then why all the excitement?) The Palestinian debate is divisive. I like many other Muslims, some Jews, Christians and other religious denominations or not, feel a great deal of frustration with what has happened and is happening in Palestine. I agree that when you see Iran supporting Palestine, it evokes a feeling of strong emotion because no other country condemns Israel's actions as strongly. However, condemnation is one thing but A-jad takes it to another level which is not constructive and perpetuates the divisions which further destabilizes the region. It is unacceptable and irresponsible for any head of state to demand the annihilation of another sovereign state. While his ranting may give Iran a lot of media attention, it detracts from other legitimate claims that the Palestinians have. Finally, don't you think it's curious that you comfortably communicate your disregard for a news worthy source such as the BBC in the English language itself. I suppose Urdu newspapers don't publish though provoking articles which allow you to comment or is it that you have a preference for English commentary. A little confused are we?
Hafza | 13 years ago | Reply This is a thoughtful and thought-provoking article. For those who can't understand the central idea of it, get a brain. It criticises both Islamophobia in the UK as well as Lauren Booth's sudden hippie-like conversion - what else would you call a "shot of spiritual morphine"? It is not anti islamic for god's sake, why is it that if someone talks about studying Islam and discussing it, the self proclaimed keepers of the faith get alarmed. the article also critiques those people who know nothing about Islam but are ready to accept its outward proclamations ((looking like a muslim) very quickly. A lot of muslim women dont wear hijab, doesnt make them kafirs.and the writer has the right to state her views without being branded everything from secularist to anti islamic!
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