UK -Politics & World Current Affairs

By Adel Darwish 

It is time British Muslims speak out to support their fellow Briton, primary school teacher Gillian Gibbons who has been  arrested in Sudan, they should tell the truth that millions of Muslim children whether in Muslim nations or in the west, give their dolls, pets and teddies Muslim names including those of the prophet and his mother, daughters and wives. More important it is time British government, for once,   take a tougher line with Sudan to protect a British subject who was unfairly, and possibly unlwafully arrested.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown this afternoon didn’t appear to be taking a firm line with the Sudanese Government for arresting Ms  Gibbons on an alleged charge of ‘blasphemy and insulting Islam’ when her class children chose the name ‘ Mohammed’ for their favourite teddy bear.

I asked Prime Minister Gordon Brown, during the monthly press conference two specific questions:
Why wasn’t the government taking a tougher line with Sudan since the arrest appears to be  politically  motivated rather than for religious considerations (see below)?The second was whether the would call on the so called British ‘Muslim leaders’ to take a patriotic stand and support a fellow citizen in trouble abroad putting pressure on Sudan for her release?
Listing efforts made by the British embassy in Khartoum to enquire about Mrs Gibbons’s condition, Mr Brown ducked my two questions  on whether he would call on British Muslims leaders to protect a fellow Briton in danger who might be subjected to a barbaric punsihment of 40 lashes under Islamic law?

More important, British muslims should tell the nation, and the whole world, the truth that millions of Muslims children in Muslim nations give their pets, horses dolls and cuddly toys Muslim names of the prophet and his mother, daughters and wives. He also avoided answering the question of whether the Sudanese ambassador in London would be summoned to the Foreign Office to be handed a demand for the immediate release of the 54 year old mother of two since the incident appear to be politically motivated by the Khartoum military regime’s response to British criticism of their handling of the crisis in Darfur.

The view is shared by western diplomats based both in Khartoum and in Cairo, which was the capital of  both Egypt and Sudan until 1955. The Sudan regime has been accused by many aid and human-rights organisations of encouraging ethnic cleansing of Africans villagers by their allies from among Arab Tribes. The arrest is another example of how little dictatorships try to legitimise their illegitimate rule (remember they came through a military coup not by the means of a parliamentarian democratic election) through ideology.

In the case of the military regime in Khartoum it is a mixture of the outdated Arab Nationalism and Islamism, both totalitarian and have little respect for the rights of the individual. This lies in the heart of this issue.
 

Gillian Gibbons was arrested  on an alleged ridiculous charge of blasphemy and insulting Islam by officials who should know the fact the name Mohammed predates Islam as a religion. The children themselves, including many Muslims, have voted for the name, because it is popular and because, like any other children worldwide, tend to chose names familiar to them like Abdullah, Othman and Hassan. It is like children here calling their pets George, Matthew, James and Moses – My own son at the age of  4 called his first three fish, Mary, Joseph and the one that had long whiskers Moses. His devote catholic grandmother was pleased of his choice of biblical names.

I grew up in Alexandria in 1950s (left in 1959) when Sudan was part of Egypt, children, including Sudanese Muslim children living nearby called their pets and dolls Muslim names. Dogs, cats, rabbits, ponies were given different versions of the name of the  prophet  Mohammed ( like  Ahmed, Abdullah, Mustapha) and even Mohammed, which, like all Mulsim names predate Islam itself.

When Mohammed was born to Amnah and Abdul-Mutallib of Quraysh in Arabia in 570 AD , the parents were NOT Muslims when they named him Mohammed, meaning the praised one.

Like any children, Muslim kids give their pets names of fellow children or some one they like, whether a Biblical character that amused them in a nativity play, sports hero or a pop-singer. I remember a Muslim milkman in Alexandria calling his cat Ali.  The thought that the name he chose for his cat is also shared by the cousin of Prophet Mohammed and the sacred saint of all Shia could not have possibly crossed his mind. The children used to gather round his cart and pat Ali the cat, while their delighted mothers encouraged them to ‘ drink more milk to please Ali’. 
Children gave their pets, including puppies, which some Muslims consider unclean, names of the prophets’ grandchildren Hussein and Hassan, and no one patted an eyelid when a child  played with a puppy called Hassan. Girls gave their dolls, horses and cats names like Aisha, Fatima and Zeinab, and no Muslim parent gave a second though that they were the names of prophet’s daughters and wives.

Children in the Nile valley used to sing Mohammed’s name to scare off a small harmless but ugly lizard that creeps into homes, by sinning: This is Mohammed’s bedroom, this Mohammed’s book case, this is Mohamed’s bunk bed, and the song gose for all the items in the child’s room to fend off the lizard. Some children called their cuddly toy Mohammed (with the name written on it) to scare off this lizard from coming to their bedroom at night. I witnessed all of that in 1950s and I still see it when I visit the homes of Muslim families today.
The Islamist undemocratic regime in Sudan didn’t like the teacher giving the children a lesson in democracy when they voted to chose a teddy’s name, or a free choice as they chose the name themselves in a democratic consultation or to have their own initaives free from authoritarian direction. Such a practical lesson in democracy, free-vote and free choice goes against the totalitarian nature of the regime which uses Islam to remain in power and get Arab support against African tribes in Darfur and the South.
The arrest came in the wake of Gordon Brown’s criticisim of Sudan’s humanrights record and its attack on the non-Arabs of Darfur, hence the Foreign office must take a tough line, and pressurise Muslim Leaders to take a stand.