The Faith Project

Introduction

The three faith communities represented in this book are part of a much broader spectrum of faith groups across Brighton and Hove. These particular communities are profiled here because I came across members of two of them by chance – the Coptic and the Muslim – and was surprised I hadn’t encountered them before, despite their long and varied history in the city. Similarly, coming across the website of the Progressive Synagogue, I was intrigued by their fascinating, but little-known, presence on Lansdowne Road. QueenSpark has always told the unheard stories of the city, and I felt these stories needed to be told.

QueenSpark approached the leaders of the respective groups and outlined the project – training for members of their community, followed by a book and an associated web presence. They were all very happy to take part, not just for the sake of the project, but for the larger aim of bringing a greater understanding of their faiths and how each community developed to become part of the city’s fabric.

Some participants from each group underwent training in oral history interview techniques and others were trained in video camera use, to enable them to can record footage of how their faith is currently practised. Clips of their films and more selections from the interviews are featured on our website:

archive.queensparkbooks.org.uk

QueenSpark is very grateful to those who have given so freely of their time to contribute to the project, particularly those who have detailed their personal experiences and beliefs. We acknowledge that it is a brave undertaking to make such disclosures and we hope that the results seen here do them justice and underline the importance of shared understanding.

John Riches
Director

Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to Prue Baker, Adele Brooks, Asmat Roe and Rosemary Turner for their excellent work in conducting the interviews.

Thanks to Tony Tree for allowing us to use the photos of TheCoptic Church and The Mosque. These are taken from his Faith 2000 Project.

Thanks also to Betty Skolnick for supplying the photos of the Progressive Synagogue.

The Coptic Church

In Brighton there is a community of around four thousand people who have come to England from The Sudan, many of whom are now British nationals. Every Sunday some seven hundred of them attend mass at the Coptic Orthodox Church in Davigdor Road, Hove, a number can increase to over a thousand on special feast days such as Good Friday.

These people are intensely proud of their ancient heritage.

Origins and History

The word ‘Coptic’ is a derivative of ‘egyptos’ which means Egyptian. The Coptic Church has its roots in Alexandria and is one of the ancient apostolic churches, of which there are four, each based on one of the apostles of Jesus Christ. There is the Church of Jerusalem where Christianity started, the Church of Antioch and the Church of Rome which is also known as the Roman Catholic Church and is based on the teachings of SaintPeter. The Church of Alexandria – the Coptic Orthodox Church, was started by the preaching of St. Mark the Evangelist, one of the seventy disciples of Jesus. St. Mark was an African, a Libyan. His house in Jerusalem was the meeting place of Jesus and the disciples when they held the Last Supper. It was the place they used to meet to pray and where, history says, the Holy Spirit came over the apostles.

St. Mark left Jerusalem and travelled to Alexandria to start preaching. The story goes that he came armed only with a walking stick and, when he reached Alexandria, his sandal broke. So he went to a shoemaker named Anaianios to get it repaired. While working on the sandal, the shoemaker pierced his finger with one of his needles and, in his pain, he shouted out the word that means ‘The One God’. At that time Alexandria was a pagan country and Mark asked the shoemaker if he knew about the One God. It was from this moment, in around 45AD, that he started preaching and so it is said that the Church of Alexandria started with a broken shoe. Anaianios was later to become Pope. The Church of Alexandria has its own patriarchal Pope, separate from the Pope in Rome, and St. Mark is considered to have been the first one. The present Pope is the one hundred and seventeenth and his name is Shenoda III. The Pope is still based in Alexandria and his official title is The Patriarch of the Apostolic Church of the See of St. Mark.

Ever since the early days of Christianity there has always been theological debate about the varying interpretations of certain words and meanings – particularly during the reign of Emperor Constantine. This was a time of great ecumenical conferences, when politics was a powerful influence on theology. At the last of the ecumenical councils of all the apostolic churches it was decided the Coptic Church was not following the doctrines.

The Calendar

An example of this is the Church of Alexandria deciding when to celebrate Easter. During his reign, Pope Gregory of Rome introduced the Gregorian calendar, which is still the main calendar used today throughout the world. This is a solar calendar but, before it was introduced, the churches used a lunar calendar. The Coptic Church decided that they wished to continue to calculate Easter and fasting times according to a lunar calendar and so, to this day, they still retain their own calendar. This is known as The Martyrs’ Calendar and it was established in 284AD during the reign of Emperor Diocletian. The Emperor persecuted Christians to the limit and the Church of Alexandria decided to introduce this calendar to commemorate the martyrs. In this calendar there are thirteen months of thirty days. The thirteenth month is called The Forgotten Month and it covers the six days lost from the Gregorian calendar. The Martyrs’ Calendar is still used in the Coptic Orthodox Church to calculate church festivals. New Year is on the 11th September and Easter is always a week after the Jewish Passover. Christmas is on the 6th January, the date of Twelfth Night in England, and has its own historical links with Christmas Day.

Denominations

The different branches within the Catholic Church include the Coptic Orthodox, the Roman Orthodox and the Russian Orthodox. They all follow the same doctrine. The words Coptic, Syrian and Russian all refer to ethnic origin within the Catholic Church. Protestant, Methodist and other denominations are not divisions of the Catholic Church but divisions of the one unified Church.

The British Orthodox Church was established very recently. It is still under the influence of the Pope of Alexandria, but it is for British people rather than those of Egyptian ethnic origin.

The Coptic Church in Britain

The Coptic Church is run on parallel lines to other Christian churches with a congregation, deacons and clergy. Over the priests are bishops and a single archbishop – the Pope. Every geographical area has its own bishop to run it. There are three bishops in England, Father Angelis, Bishop Anthony and Bishop Missael. As first Coptic Church in Europe was based in the City of London, London is effectively the heart of the Church in Europe. It is under the direct influence of the Pope himself and it is considered his diocese and Brighton comes within it. Bishop Bowla acts as the Pope’s delegate and runs the general administration of the diocese.

Monasteries

There are many monasteries in Egypt. There is now a Coptic monastery in England as well as in Italy, Germany and Los Angeles. It was the Church of Alexandria that was responsible for establishing monasticism all over the world. The father of the monks was called Father Anthony and he came from Upper Egypt. Monasteries were not established, well organised groups of people until the time of Father Pachomus, who set out the rules that govern how a group of monks should live together. In the early days of the ancient fathers, people travelled from great distances to study in Alexandria. The School and the Library were a beacon in the world and produced many theologians and thinking men. People who then returned to remote places like Scotland and founded the ancient monasteries.

The Copts

The Brighton & Hove church was established in 1990 for Egyptian people. These are people of Egyptian origin but are mostly Sudanese nationals. They do not consider themselves Arabs, even though Arabic is their mother tongue; they call themselves Coptic. The modern Sudanese Coptic people consider themselves to be the only successors of the ancient Egyptians, the Pharaohs were their forefathers.

The early fathers of the Alexandrian Church moved out of Egypt to preach Christianity after the Arabs conquered the Romans and took over Egypt in the 8th century. Following the Islamic persecution of Christians, they started to move to the southern part of Egypt. When the Arabs arrived in Egypt they abolished the Coptic language, even going so far as to cut out the tongues of anyone caught using it. The Coptic language became the language of the Church. Nowadays the liturgy is said in three languages – Coptic, Arabic and the local language. For example, a mass is said in English on Saturdays at Hove. It is attended mainly by young people who go to English schools and speak English, even though they may speak Arabic at home.

The Coptic language is ancient and based on a mixture of hieroglyph and the Greek alphabet. In Hove, the meaning of Coptic words is taught in Sunday School. The language is now experiencing a revival amongst young people. In Egypt one finds many young people who can chat to each other in the Coptic language.

Women in the Coptic Church

Women, of course, make up half the community. There are some women deacons but they do not serve the mass and cannot be fully ordained. Being a female deacon is considered the first step towards becoming a nun. They serve the community and help with visiting the sick. They look after the church and assist the priest to prepare what is needed for the service of the liturgy.

The Priesthood

There are two types of priest. A married priest is a man who has married before being ordained. A priest cannot marry after being ordained. Monks can be ordained and become priests, but a priest who is married cannot become a monk. Priests and monks are different. Monks devote their life to serving God. Priests go out into the world to serve others. Monks who become priests can be promoted to bishops and archbishops. They are always celibate; there is no such thing as a married bishop.

The Married Pope

History does record that there was once a married Pope and that he was chosen by divine revelation. It was prophesied that a man who came with a bunch of grapes would be chosen as the next Pope. There was a farmer who found a bunch of grapes out of season. He took them to the Pope. The Pope laid his hand on him and, in time, this man became the next Pope. He was illiterate so, when he became a Pope, a teacher was assigned to him. He went on to become a great teacher in the Coptic Church. He had been married for forty-eight years but had no children. When the people grumbled about having a married Pope, he spoke out. He asked his wife to come forward and took burning charcoal from the altar and put it on her veil and his dress and they walked around the church. Their clothes did not burn. He explained to the people that when he married he and his wife had both wanted to give themselves to Christ and so they lived celibate for forty-eight years. When they went to bed to sleep, an Angel of God covered them.

The Mass

Mass in the Coptic Church includes the sacrament of bread and wine and takes about three hours – a lot longer than mass in a Roman Church. The music used is very ancient and was composed by a blind man called Didymus, one of the graduates of the theological school of Alexandria. The only instruments used are the triangle, the cymbals and, of course, the voice. Chanting is the predominant part of the music as the Coptic Church believes that man’s vocal chords are the best instrument.

The Coptic Church in Brighton & Hove

In 1990 there were only a few Sudanese families in Brighton but, every Saturday, in private flats, they held a Coptic Orthodox mass. These were conducted by a priest who travelled down from Croydon each weekend.

In June 1989 there was a military coup in Sudan which had political and religious consequences. The Islamic Party had been established in The Sudan in 1983 and man-made laws based on the British legal system were replaced by laws derived from the Koran. This situation reduced the legal status of the Christiancitizens of The Sudan. People did not leave Sudan straight away, but in 1989 it became obvious that the situation was hopeless and people started to go. In 1990 many people went to Australia, Canada and the United States and then in 1991 there was a mass exodus to England.

In 1991 His Grace Priest Ilea came to Brighton & Hove to meet with the community. He appointed three individuals to run financial matters in Brighton so the community could rent a church. The Sudanese Coptic Organisation was formed to look after the public interests of the community; running the Arabic School on a Saturday and representing the community before official bodies. This was an important separation between church and politics for the community, leaving the Church free to concentrate purely on spiritual matters. The Sudanese community used to rent a small church space at St. John’s Church on Palmeira Square but, when the numbers increased, moved to All Saints Church on the corner of Eaton Road and The Drive. The Pope visited them there in 1992.

The numbers continued to grow. In Davigdor Road, there was a Church of England church – St. Thomas, which was due for demolition. The Sudanese Coptic Community thought it might be just what they required for a Coptic Orthodox Church where they could hold a main mass on Sunday and a full range of other services and events. Brighton & Hove Council appointed a local architect to discuss how this church could be revived and protected from demolition.

They started to hire the church in 1993 and since then repairs have been carried out. Strengthening beams were needed to hold two sides of the church together. There was a dangerous crack between the south and east walls and this was the main reason the church had been scheduled for demolition but, to date, the repairs are holding tight and the building has been saved. It was decided to buy the property late in 1993 and on the 23rd September 1994 His Holiness came to Brighton and consecrated the Church. At the time there was one priest, Father Zakaria Butros from Australia. Now the Church has two, both Sudanese, Father Manasa and Father John.

The Progressive Synagogue

How it started

My School was called Southdown College for Young Ladies. It was situated at the top of Brunswick Place, next door practically to our own synagogue. Our own synagogue was then a gymnasium, so in those days I used to do knees bend, arms stretched with my little blue bloomers, whereas that’s where I pray nowadays. And the synagogue office, where I worked for ten, twelve years, was Matron’s office where every Friday night we used to have to go to be given syrup of figs if we had tummy troubles. So the synagogue has not only been my synagogue where I pray but it was part of my education right from the age of five.

I was born on the 25th of November 1922 in Kemp Town,Brighton. My parents came to live in Brighton from London in 1912. They were leading members of the congregation down here. At that time there was only one synagogue, Middle StreetSynagogue, which my father, my mother and I went to every week. We were very strong members of the synagogue. It was a different atmosphere in those days. As I say, it was the only place to worship. Family life was close-knit and everybody seemed to know everybody else and it was a different atmosphere all together from what we get now.

It was in the 1930’s – I think I’m correct in saying their firstpremises was 29 New Church Road, which is now the orthodox school, the Torah Academy. They started there. But it was not long afterwards that the late Lord Cohen, who was one of the leading lights of the Liberal Synagogue, bought the present property in Lansdowne Road.

I must have been very young, having been born in 1922. There was an atmosphere. The Liberal service was very Liberal in those days. When I look back I wonder what I saw in it. The leading lights in those days were Claude Hershman and Hymie Middleburgh and Claude was a kind of person who would never, ever think of covering his head. In those days nobody thought of covering their head when they went to synagogue. The Shema was the only thing that was said in Hebrew – the whole service was very anglicised, very, very British, if I can say that. But it appealed to a lot of people, people who were beginning to think orthodoxy was a bit too much in those days and this is something new – let’s try it – and we slowly got a very strong following.

Being Jewish in a Catholic School

I always remember going to the synagogue from a young age. My religious background probably dawned on me from early school age. I went to St. Bernadette’s in Preston Park which is a Catholic school and I was the only Jewish person in that school – and I was aware of that. I wasn’t treated any differently, but I knew that the religious practices that I was exposed to there were not the ones I was used to. I wasn’t familiar with the prayers. When we had masses, you know, it was the fact that I couldn’t receive the host and that type of thing. I was very conscious of the fact that that wasn’t what I was.

It wasn’t something I ever hid. On a number of occasions I took in religious paraphernalia when we were talking about religions. I talked about the festivals – I did that at both primary school and secondary school.

Learning about Judaism

I had decided that that there had to be something more to Judaism than Philip Roth and Chicken Soup and I really felt my Jewish education had been very poor and I wanted to learn more about Judaism. There was no point in people rejecting something when they really didn’t know anything about it.

I had never ever looked at biblical Hebrew and I just discovered this great joy of sitting there analysing sentences, learning the vocabulary, trying to relate some of the grammar to what I knew from modern Hebrew, looking at the constructions just thinking about meanings. Probably half the time was spent trying to find words in the Hebrew dictionary because that’s a skill unto itself and I really, really enjoyed it and I kept going to that class.

Bar Mitzvah in the 80’s

The understanding of bar mitzvah for anyone, well certainly for a boy, is that you’re recognised as a man in the religious sense. I didn’t feel like a man at the time, but there were various other things going on and, you know, it was quite a significant achievement at that time. I don’t think too many thirteen year olds in everyday life do what children did when they did their bat or bar mitzvah in those days. I don’t know whether it’s still the case now, but we had to take the service on the Friday night and also take the Saturday morning service which, at the age of thirteen, is a huge undertaking and involves a lot of preparation and a lot of planning.

The Youth Group

After the war, in 1947, a Mrs Enoch, who was a rather strong member of the Progressive shul, decided that we ought to have a youth group. All the young fellows and young girls were coming out of the forces and we started this youth group and I was roped in and it wasn’t long before I became the Honorary Secretary. We had, I think, one of the finest youth groups that anybody can imagine. There were all types of Jewish people there, there were the orthodox, there were the not so orthodox, and us. It was a wonderful atmosphere, and on one occasion, in June I think, there were four weddings on one Sunday made from this youth group. But it really was fantastic. And it was then, in 1947, that I realised it was about time that I really thought about Progressive Judaism and joined the shul.

I think that, to be quite honest with you, the attraction was not so much the services as the fact that there were a lot of young people there and a very nice lot of young men there, and there was this fantastic youth group. And I slowly took to the service, and, you know….

I’ve been on the Council since ’47, so I used to take a very active part in the Council, all the activities. Of course we used to run dances in those days, a lot of social events.

I remember a few times on Yom Kippur we used to go round to various other synagogues in Hove particularly. It did highlight the fact that other congregations were very different – the children from other congregations were very different. I did feel a little bit out on a limb there, because I seemed to be the only one that was representing our synagogue. Everyone else was from the reform or the orthodox and there was just me.

Progressive Judaism

The evolution of it, the way it’s gone from one thing to the other, that’s the most important thing. It started off very anglicised and gradually it’s come to where it is today. I mean the principles are still the same. Our rabbi, Elli, doesn’t alter the principles. Very, very progressive, the things she does are very progressive, so it’s still a very, very progressive synagogue. I mean we can call ourselves progressive with honesty.

I realised that the only one I was in complete intellectual agreement with was the Progressive Synagogue.

The changes between 1976 and now in our synagogue have been remarkable… particularly in the last few years since we’ve had Rabbi Elli Sarah as our rabbi, because she has been so forward and so liberal in her attitude that it has made our shul very much, I would say, a leader amongst liberal synagogues in the movement.

Liberal Judaism has moved the way I wanted Judaism to move because I saw the tremendous loss of Jews to Judaism over the period between 1960 and 1980 when vast numbers of members of orthodox synagogues just stopped going… and because their children stopped going and their grandchildren stopped going we were losing large numbers of Jews ….. (the Liberal shul) is bringing back more people particularly more mixed-faith couples.

Liberal Judaism and non-Jews

I think people thought it was much easier to be converted into Liberal Judaism, much easier for non-Jews to accept Liberal Judaism. You could understand it. You didn’t have to learn all that much Hebrew; if you learned the basic prayers you could get by. Also it was easy for non-Jews to come to a Jewish service. And there wasn’t the ritual, you know, the ritual that we get now, even in our synagogue. Although, I mean we didn’t make it any easier for conversions, and we didn’t make it any easier for confirmations, or for Bar Mitzvah. It has always meant a long period of study.

Friendliness

It’s always been a very friendly synagogue, a very close community. I mean there’s no kind of snobbishness about our members. They’ve always been very friendly. After all, the synagogue’s not a building it’s people. It’s the people that matter. The building is important but it’s secondary.

I got there. I was welcomed. People wanted to know me and, having got to know about me, they immediately said, ‘well join us – you can be a lot of use to us’. And so I joined and became very involved.

It’s the community spirit and the friendliness. It was absolutely fantastic.

Without a rabbi

Well there was a shortage of rabbis – it wasn’t financial at the time – but they didn’t come to Brighton. They’d rather take a post in London – a metropolitan area. You see that was the problem – I suppose they found bigger congregations. That made all thedifference to our congregation.

We had a wonderful lay readership. There were so many, I can’t remember them all. But some of the lay readers were terrific. Of course, in the beginning of the Liberal movement they used to have a lot of lay readers.

We were without a rabbi for seven years. I joined a band of lay readers and we kept the synagogue going by taking our own services.

Every Jew should be capable of leading a service and conducting absolutely every event in Jewish life as part of their normal life.

Wonderful rabbis

Some ministers communicate better than others, and some are warmer than others. Some are very, very warm; you take to them right away. Others are different – they’ve all got their own personalities. I’ve seen them all come and go. We used to have one called Isaacs, delightful man he was. He once said to me, we didn’t wear hats, so he said, “You know Derek, you’d look very nice in a hat, in a Koppel.” He said, “It would be nice to have everybody in a Koppel,” and he convinced me. And after that I wore one, just because he said that to me, and he was such a nice man. They were lovely people. It’s amazing the rabbis we’ve had. I’ve lost count. Some were good, some weren’t so good. But, you know, it’s been kind of eventful.

Anti-Semitism

My name was Jacobson, and when I went in the Services my name was still Jacobson. When I came out, my parents had altered it to Jay. There was a lot of anti-semitism with Mosley and the Black shirts and my mother felt that it was better. I don’t know why she felt that because, when I was in the Services, I never had any. I can only think of one item of anti-semitism when I was in the RAF and then my colleagues jumped upon the man who did it, they wouldn’t stand it at all. So that never happened. But when I came out, a lot of Jews had this persecution thing. I never felt that at all and I used to argue about it but, I remember in my mind, they used to think that only in Jewish company could you be safe.

We had lots of non-Jewish friends, always. My father, he had non-Jewish friends. My father was such a typical Jew and he never disguised the fact that he was a Jew. As a matter of fact he was a remarkable chap because he had no self-consciousness at all. None at all. You know, he’d always be himself, regardless of what people thought or what they didn’t think. And that was good for me. But I had a wonderful childhood. A wonderful, happy childhood.

Faith and Culture

After coming to the Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue my faith became very strong – my faith has strengthened as I get older.

I accepted my Judaism as part of my life and the synagogue was part of my Judaism – so that coming into the Progressive Synagogue was merely an extension of my Jewish life.

It doesn’t matter that they don’t attend synagogue. It does matter that they keep the culture of Judaism going and teach it to their children. It is important that we keep the culture of Judaism alive and going as long as possible.

I think throughout my life I’d always sensed that there was more to being Jewish than all the cultural, culinary things, and that’s one reason I originally joined The Half Empty Bookcase which was started by a group of Jewish women in London. Its intention was to find a proper role for women within Judaism and to fill the bit of the bookcase that was empty. Most of the women that turn up at the Brighton and Hove group are women who are Jewish, who don’t have any affiliation but who want to be part of a Jewish community – it’s grown and it’s played a wonderful role within the community.

We have the ten commandments – which form the basis of how to live with your fellow man and how to live with God. The idea of God is gradually disappearing and, where we saw him once as a big man up in the sky with a white beard and proclaiming you will do this, you will not do that, we see it now as more of a movement that guides us in our way of life.

I try and guide my life on those principles and find them a comfortable way of living… It is very much the ethical aspect that guides me in my life.

When people join the synagogue now and they’re hesitant I really do understand. Sometimes people treat me like I’m a rabbi but I don’t know anything – what I know I’ve learned in the last few years.

I was always given the feeling at the Progressive Synagogue that it was the willingness and the desire to try and make an effort that was respected. Nobody was concerned about perfection and nobody was concerned about getting anything wrong.

I’ve grown up in that synagogue and the synagogue and the congregants for me have always felt like an extension of family because I’ve grown up there, and people there have seen me grow up and that’s quite special and quite unique. To be involved in something for the majority of your life is quite something and there’s an awful lot of continuity in your life

I think I’ve always had strong morals – my morals are based on my religious upbringing. I think, for me, the two go hand in hand. A lot of the qualities that I think are important, in people and the things I strive for myself, are based on those religious teachings. It’s just really knowing the difference between right and wrong and, having had such a strong religious upbringing – both from Judaism and from Catholicism, even though I am not Catholic- I am very conscious of another religion. I have always had the opportunity to be informed about at least two faiths.

The festivals have always been there because I’ve always been to religion school and I’ve always had that continuity. I will always be in synagogue on Yom Kippur come hell or high water – if I do nothing else in the year I feel the necessity to clear the slate for the following year, this is the one day of the year that I can guarantee will have my undivided attention.

Reaching out

We were a small closed group of people and I realised we needed to expand. I worked actively with the Muslims and the Christians…invited ministers to our synagogue.

I think the Brighton community really have great respect for our synagogue, because we try and reach out… we have schools coming into the synagogue and we take out the Torah and weexplain what’s in it. We also have a very good relationship with the Muslim community as well – I think we should all reach out…. I think a lot of prejudice is based on ignorance.

We’ve got to understand one another. We’ve got to talk to one another because, without talking to one another, a gulf grows up that makespeople suspect other parties…

The Mosque

Coming to Brighton

I was part of one of the Ugandan Asian families who were thrown out of Uganda by Idi Amin in 1972. When I came to Brighton in 1973, I did not know anyone. A friend I met at the camp found me a place in Ditchling Road and that was the only family I knew.

My life in Uganda had been very different, I lived in a family and we had people who worked for us, there were very few heavy jobs we did at home. To come here and take buses and trains, do my own shopping and my own cooking and cleaning was strange because before it had all been done as part of the family. It was exciting in a way, because I was learning to be independent and do things for myself. Life was quite busy.

There were very few black and minority ethnic people in Brighton. Whenever you saw a brown or a black face or somebody of another nationality you looked twice because Brighton was basically white. I didn’t see anyone who looked like a Muslim, and for a long time there were no woman wearing the Hijab. I was learning to be English or British without the support of my own community.

Over the 30 years I have been here Brighton has changed a lot but there have been growing pains.

Finding a Mosque

I still did not know what was going on for Muslims but I got to hear there was a mosque in Dyke Road. I met the Imam andbegan to find out a little bit more about what was going on, this was in the early ’80s. For women there was not a lot, although some activities were planned, they had not really taken off, so there weren’t regular meetings as such.

The Growing Community

Around that time another mosque was formed in Bedford Place, the Al Medina mosque on top of the Taj Mahal shop. There were more Muslims coming into the community, Brighton looked a lot more cosmopolitan, and after that there was another mosque in Portland Road – the Shah Jalal mosque. Meanwhile the number of Muslims like other black and ethnic minorities had increased and there was more awareness of Muslims as a group. There were many ethnic shops with Halal meat, spices, foods, sweetmeats and everything else. The mosques were well attended, particularly the Friday prayers and during Ramadan. The evening prayer, when we break the fast, was also well attended, you could see a lot more activity around. It was lovely, great to be able to attend the evening prayers because they are normally between 8 and 12 o’clock and you can attend any or all of them. A lot more women came as well and this was fantastic. People from the Pakistani, Indian, Sri Lankan, Turkish, Libyan, Sudanese, Moroccan, Saudi and other communities came together.

Marriage and Family

I got married in 1975 to a non-Muslim and my family were not very happy about it. When we married we had a civil ceremony at the Brighton Registry Office. My husband was born into a non-practising Christian family and it wasn’t an issue for them. Obviously I wanted a proper Muslim ceremony, called a Nikah but, as my family were not part of the marriage, I did not know how to go about it. There was a sadness to the day because not one member of my family attended the marriage. For quite a few years there wasn’t normal contact with my family, they backed off and I had to get on with life as best I could. Later on we went to the Dyke Road Mosque, my husband converted to Islam of his own accord and we had the Nikah performed. The relationship with my family improved in time and eventually I was close to both my parents.

I was a Christian, born and bred in Brighton. I have lived here all my life. I met my husband in the ’70s. Before meeting him I knew nothing about Islam or about Muslims. At school we did RE but nothing was mentioned. It was quite a long time before I even knew that Muslims existed. My husband came from his country to study English. It was love at first sight. He talked about his religion and asked me why I was not a Muslim. He prayed and told me that he didn’t eat pork and hedidn’t drink or smoke. I said that was fine by me and I stopped drinking and eating pork. Introducing him to my family was hard, they were very prejudiced. I lost all my family because I married him. My husband told me all about Islam so I could become a Muslim. I did the Shahada and learnt little by little.

I have had four children. My first was a boy and, of course, a Muslim boy has to be circumcised. It made me cry, but my husband said it was the clean way and I remembered that my brother had also been circumcised for medical reasons.

My children have grown up as Muslims. My children are happy the way they are growing up, but sometimes it can be hard for them. If, when something goes wrong, they say – you never did this when you were our age – I say that I wasn’t a Muslim at their age but now I am, and they are as well, and they should be proud of it and do what Allah says. A lot of non-Muslims don’t understand that, but they will in time. When the non-Muslims have Christmas and my children come home and say their friends are doing this or that, I explain and say – we have two festivals, one after Ramadan and one at the Slaughter of the Lambs and we then read the stories of why we slaughter the lambs. I still think of how I used to celebrate Christmas with my family and it brings a tear to my eye, but then I think about my children and my husband and I cheer up and think how lucky I am to be a Muslim.

Education

In January 2004, the Brighton and Hove Muslim Forum started a half day Saturday school to teach Islam and the Arabic language so that children, who are essentially western, can learn about their religion, be given the right kind of Islamic education and have friends with whom they can talk. It is still in its infancy and itrequires a lot of work, but I am very happy to be involved with it. Community spirit starts with the children. They are the future and, if they have the right knowledge and they see each other as members of the community and share moral, religious and ethical values, they are able to go out like ambassadors – confident in the correct knowledge and not misled by distorted messages.

We have the Brighton & Hove Muslim Forum, the Brighton and Hove Women’s Group and Brighton & Hove Arabic School which are all going really well.

I did once start learning Arabic, but the woman teaching me moved away so that was the end of my classes. The children learn from their father and I learn from them. Now we have an Arabic school and my dream is slowly coming true. But we need lots of donations and premises so that all the Muslim women will have somewhere to go with theirchildren and the children will be safe in a place where there’s no alcohol or violence.

Religious observance in the family

I was brought up in a Muslim household. My grandparents were originally from Pakistan in the days when it was still BritishIndia. It was a cosmopolitan community where we learned about our religion and our culture in a very relaxed, liberal way. We were taught to think about what we did and there was no compulsion. As children we sometimes prayed five times a day, but mostly it was twice a day – in the morning and in the evening. We learnt to read and to recite the Koran and we fasted during Ramadan – it was part of who we were.

When I came to Brighton I prayed when I was at home. I didn’t eat any pork or drink alcohol. There weren’t any shops that sold Halal meat or spices and so on, so I bought my meat from theordinary butchers and just avoided pork or bacon or anything that included those meats, and I prayed over the other meat to make it Halal.

The Prayer times are early in the morning – Fajr, midday – Zuhr, tea time – Asr, then the evening prayer Maghrib and then the prayer before we go to sleep – Isha. I wished I could pray all the five, but I couldn’t because I was working in the day time. Apart from that, I practised what I knew and estimated my times, as there was no one I could talk to find out about prayer meetings and the exact times of the prayer. In a way, it shows that Islam is a very simple religion that allows you to adapt to any place you live in.

The Things We Need

At Regent’s Park the shops were wonderful. You could buy video tapes, cassette tapes, CDs, children’s books, Islamic calendars and prayer timetables. There were so many different types of hijabs that I wanted to bring home and wear. There is nothing in Brighton & Hove like that for Muslims. Women would be grateful if we had shops here. I set up a little shop at my house a couple of years back. I bought some stuff and sold it to the women and they said it was wonderful. Once upon a time it was very hard trying to buy Halal food but now there are quite a few shops in the Brighton area.

It would be nice to have retail shops that sell clothing for Muslim people from every part of the world and also a Muslim bookshop, so that anyone seeking knowledge about Islam will have access to the correct literature.

Other Mosques

My husband took me to Regents Park Mosque in London. It was massive. It was beautiful on the outside as well as the inside. Muslim women from all around the world come together there. The feeling is so great, you are surrounded by smiles and happy faces.

We have three mosques here in Brighton & Hove, but they are small. To have our own big mosque with a round shaped roof with a crest on the top would be wonderful.

Muslim Women

Trying to get the Muslim women together is very hard. I wanted to do something when I had my children and stopped work for a long time. It was fun to get together, have a talk and read the Koran. Some like coffee mornings in their houses or meeting at the mosque. I even got a swimming group going for the Muslim women at St Luke’s Pool, but it faded out because we could not have women lifeguards. I was so happy when I started making friends. I still have my non-Muslim friends, but it is not the same because all they do is talk about things that you don’t want to hear. I feel more comfortable with my Muslim friends.

My dream is to have our own place so that we can do everything for the women who stay indoors and don’t like to mix because of the language barrier. I would like to see a nice big community centre in Brighton & Hove and have something like a Citizens Advice Bureau for Muslim women especially for those who are too shy to go and talk, but would if they knew there was an empathic Muslim woman with whom they could talk and share their feelings.

I felt, having been in contact with lots of Muslim women from different communities, meeting them regularly, that things were happening. Contact was important, the feeling of sharing the same situation. I don’t believe it could have happened in the ’70s, we were completely isolated then.

Difficulties and Prejudice

In the ’80s there was a large contingent of Malaysian students in Brighton. Quite a few of the girls used to wear the Hijab and that is when reports of racism, harassment and abuse came about. I believe the Malaysians took their base away from Brighton. In the ’90s the numbers and the activities of the Muslims increased. At Friday prayers it became a common sight to see people in mostly white dress coming out of the mosques and it was really a very nice feeling. People began to get used to it but there were still some who saw it as a threat and there were all kinds of incidents. At the time I was involved in the Racial Harassment Forum,trying to raise the awareness of local organisations and service providers about providing equal services to black and ethnic minority people including Muslims. The fact is that there is racism within the institutions and the process of gaining equality is slow. There is a presence now, so you can get the right foods, the times of the prayers and information about all kinds of services. The Imams were very good. They gave you advice and tried to get the communities to work together. I felt there were people I could talk to, apart from my friends. There were more Muslims in the area as well. The children were learning Arabic and getting together at festivals.

Then 9/11 happened and suddenly the focus was on the Muslim community. There were all kinds of incidents and we suffered in many ways. People were called names. There was physical abuse, verbal abuse, vandalism of property and bullying in the schools. It was frightening, and you had to be careful. The community, through the mosques, tried to reassure people and worked with the police and the council to bring the situation under control. We did the best we could to help each other. It was a very difficult time and we needed the community and the Mosque.

When the July 2005 bombings happened in London we expected another backlash, but it did not happen. There was a lot of sympathy for the Muslim community, people realised that we had suffered a lot and that there was a great deal of pressure on us. Why should all Muslims be targeted when a few people from a national group carry out atrocities? Does it mean that everybody has to be labelled? Even the children said that in school there was sympathy, and it was nice to see that there had been a learning experience since 2001. Things were going the right way and people had some understanding of the situation of the Muslim community.

Hope for the future

It is very important that there is respect for all religions andcultures in our society. If we acknowledge that there are otherreligions and respect people’s right to their religions and codes of practice, it makes people happier and they feel part of the community at large and they contribute a lot more. There is still a lot of work to be done, but I believe we are moving forward. It would be great to have a Muslim Cultural Centre for meetingfacilities, information gathering, for services for weddings and other events. A library could then provide comprehensive information to schools, colleges, individuals etc., and we could have spokespeople based there. Could this dream become a reality in the 21st Century. It remains to be seen. As a Muslim I would say ‘Inshallah!’ – God willing.