Someone recently posted a copy of a Channel 4 documentary, Turning Muslim in Texas, onto Google’s new video server, which is almost certainly illegal and, given that Channel 4 is a British company, probably won’t get viewers $10,000 fines per download, but will almost certainly get pulled off the web pretty soon. Anyway, the posting seems to have been done by Turn to Islam, which has also posted a video on Brixton Mosque in South London which shows the salaat in its entirety, complete with a khutba, on the Google Video system. They also have a film on “True Islam”, courtesy of the Bin Baz Foundation. (Hat tips: UZ, Haroon.)
Anyway, Umm Zaid did a lengthy comment on the documentary when it first came out in 2004: the reference to strictness and the too-liberal nature of Christianity as it exists now as the main “draw” of Islam plays down the notion that people might have converted because they actually believe, which I think is a fair point (it’s a commonly cited factor in non-white conversions also). She also objected to the portrayal of only white Texans rather than black and Latino Texans also, but certainly in this country, Afro-Americans are known of, at least to some degree. It is less remarkable for a black American to convert than for a white American.
And the film was only 25 minutes long. It dealt with four people, three of them established Muslims who were very strict (particularly the woman); a fourth was a newly converted woman who had yet to tell anyone in her family. They chose to concentrate on a particular section of the community, although it might have been better if the wider picture for converts in that part of the world was even mentioned. I don’t remember that it was. And it gave the distinct impression that these converts existed in a world entirely separate from the Afro-American and Latino converts.
And yeah, the Texan stereotypes made the converts, particularly the men, seem like rednecks. Not quite white trash, but redneck Muslims with guns. I’m not sure if that scares Americans as much as it scares Brits. Together with the woman in the veil, they suited the media’s fondness for “extreme Muslims”, even if they are not extremists. Any of these people individually would have made for a useful documentary; together, with one fresh convert, they made for a sensationalist programme which gave the impression of extreme people embracing an extreme religion in an extreme part of the world.
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