Another ‘yes’ vote for suitable alternatives

It was not that Nigerians were not happy with the achievement, it was just that numerous Muslims couldn’t see a place for the event within the religion of Islam. The question on most lips was, how can a beauty contest be ‘Islamised’ and justified? Two months later a similar debate was stirred among Muslims when […]

It was not that Nigerians were not happy with the achievement, it was just that numerous Muslims couldn’t see a place for the event within the religion of Islam. The question on most lips was, how can a beauty contest be ‘Islamised’ and justified?
Two months later a similar debate was stirred among Muslims when a lot of publicity preceded the annual  Global Peace and Unity Festival which took place in London from 23rd to 24th November. Again the same argument of whether there is a place for live Nasheed concerts in Islam took center-stage. Most commentators, especially on social networks, condemned the GPU as an attempt to justify and Islamise music concert attendance.
In 2001, in the Daily Trust, I had reason to write a piece titled ‘A vote for suitable alternatives.’ In it I argued that rather than stop the production of Hausa movies, which most viewers felt were sending the wrong messages to our youth by promoting Indian-type song and dance romance, we should use them to promote the values we want to see in our society. I said that we can use the actors and actresses in an entertainment crusade to showcase Islamically-sanctioned courtships and marriages. My reason for this stand was that stopping the production of Hausa films will not end the societal evils we see because our youth will just be forced to look elsewhere for their entertainment. If they fall back on the Hollywood type, the Bollywood or the Nollywood, we are simply the losers, since these films are far worse in lack of morality than Hausa films.
I was forced to repeat this vote today because I believe the reasons behind organizing shows like Miss Muslimah World and the GPU concerts are just attempts to provide suitable alternatives to Muslim youths who are bombarded from all quarters by unsuitable fruits of cultural globalization. Whether at home or in school, both on TV and in magazines, the popular culture being promoted is the one that erodes morality and directly conflicts with Islamic values.
The motive of the organizers of Muslimah world pageant, whose third edition produced Aisha Obabiyi Ajibola’s victory in Jakarta, Indonesia, seemed noble since they sought to encourage not only Islamic modest dressing but also assessed contestants on piety, religious knowledge and understanding of the Holy Qur’an. It was established to counter the effect of conventional Miss World contest, which as at last September was scheduled to take place in Bali, Indonesia.
All those who faulted the attempt to ‘Islamise’ beauty pageants should keep in mind the big picture, which is to provide a suitable alternative to young Muslims, in order to prevent them from falling prey to the evils being promoted by conventional ones. The Global Peace and Unity Festival was not all about Live Nasheeds and dancing. The concerts are only the interludes in an event that mainly promotes dialogue between communities through inspiring speeches and seminars. Celebrity speakers and highly-placed members of the society are usually invited to make presentations that inspire youth towards making positive contributions to the society.  
Another significant aspect of the GPU is the annual awards presentation made to educationists, activists, community leaders and those in engaged in making meaningful contributions to their communities. These awards are not for the best music, or best movie or best actor or actress categories, they are for people totally committed to developing their environment by encouraging literacy, building bridges of peace among people and generally bringing positives changes around them. 
The musical interludes are only a sideshow but more significantly they also provide those suitable alternatives needed to win our youths off licentious lyrics contained in popular music. It will infinitely please a parent more to hear his/her child singing words of praise for Prophet Muhammad and the tenets of the religion than some immoral lines celebrating violence or sex. In a world in which you can’t shut yourself or your family out from the rest of the world in order to instill the values you cherish, the best you can do is to set them free but present to them some morally sound options.
This is particularly a priority with Muslims living in the Western world where they are both a numerical and political minority. Saving their faith and keeping their families within the fold of Islam means they have to constantly rise to the challenge of providing the Islamically suitable alternative. And they are doing so well in this regard that today you can find lots of cartoons, nursery rhymes, story books, lifestyle magazines as well as radio and TV stations all telling the story of Islam to our youth and promoting our religious culture and practice.
The efforts of these minority Muslims are becoming felt so globally that those of us in majority Muslim countries are subscribing to and getting inspired by them. Therefore rather than continuing to criticize any attempt to ‘Islamise’ entertainment, as an innovation which has no place in Islam, we should rather join the bandwagon of providing these morally-sound options as our contribution to checking the menace of cultural globalization.
About two decades ago, I read a wonderful collection of short stories by an Iraqi writer known as Bint-al-Huda. It made me realize that Islamic romances were actually possible, as shown in her first story ‘An encounter at the hospital.’ This collection inspired me to try my hand at short Islamic romance fiction in my Daily Trust column in 2001 known as Ms. Farouq’s World. The good reception the column had, while it lasted, convinced me that there is an audience out there for Islamically-sanctioned romantic fiction.
Another untapped market which my two colleagues and I tried our hands at, in 2005, was in the area of Islamic comic books. Though we were not GRA kids, my siblings and I grew up on British comics like Beano, Whizzer and Chips, Whoopee etc. Comics were such a hit in my family that any day new ones were brought, the house will be so quiet you would think there were no kids there to make noise. I therefore discussed with my artistically-gifted colleagues the idea of doing Islamic comics.
The results were ‘Jamil and Jiddah’, which was done in collaboration with Abdulkareem Baba Aminu, and ‘Bash and Biba’, which was a collaborative effort with Mustapha Bulama. These two were very well-received, because an endless number of children kept calling me to ask when the next editions will be out. This response got me quite convinced that such Islamic alternatives can be a hit any day, especially if they are done with quality and standard. And this is why I am calling on us to support rather than criticize any effort to educate and entertain our youth using modern and suitable alternatives.