Photos from Eid in the Square

Posted on 13th October, 2008 by

Last Saturday, I attended the Eid in the Square, Trafalgar Square in London to be precise. I caught only the last half of it, which meant two different “nasheed” groups and one guy who did a “soulful” rendition of Tala’ al-Badru ‘alaina. You can find some official pictures on the EITS website here, strangely without any captions, or you can look at mine here. You can find a BBC report here; it’s nauseating that Boris Johnson boasted of his Muslim ancestry, when his writings have made no secret of his hostility to Muslims now.

Personally, I am not too fond of English-language commercial nasheed, and when I came across a stall selling CDs of nasheeds and Sufi qasida readings, I asked if they had any with just the qasidas and no English nasheeds or even translations of the qasidas, but they had none, because apparently the brothers in the tariqa wouldn’t buy them (and why would they, when they sing them every week?). I found the sun a bit bright, and it made taking good pictures difficult as there was a lot of contrast. However, it was nice to have so many Muslims in one public space for an afternoon.

Sacred garbageOne other thing that bothered me was the amount of litter that was left behind; once all the attendees had moved on from the steps up to the gallery, there was a whole lot of litter, including pamphlets and copies of the Muslim News, which was there for anyone to tread on. I am always careful to avoid dropping written matter on the floor, let alone treading on it, and I have heard that some Muslim cities have women who go round picking up abandoned newspapers and other written material in case they contain any sacred wording (names of Allah, extracts from the Qur’an and so on) which could be desecrated by people walking on them. Perhaps this is partly the fault of the amount of loose paper which gets handed out at all of these gatherings, but why can’t Muslims be more careful when with religious writings? If you don’t want it, either don’t take it, or recycle it or burn it.

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  • ashraf

    Its very easy to criticise this piece of writing looks very critical nasheeds are good in english and more literature must of been taken home and put to use boris said what he had to the sun is always bright picture it with a caption or not thanks all the same

  • Indigo Jo

    As-Salaamu ‘alaikum,

    It is not that they did not take the literature home and make use of it; it is that people left it on the ground to be trodden on, and this happens a lot at Muslim events (I have seen far worse).

  • http://www.happymuslimmama.com Umm Salihah

    Assalam-alaikam, I missed this event this year (forgot all about it), although I was looking forward to having a look at the souk. I agree with Brother Ashraf, I like English nasheeds, I grew up with my dad’s Urdu ones and couldn’t stand them because a) they didn’t sound like Blur (sad I know) and b) I couldn’t stand them. In contrast my kids love Zain Bhika and co.

    I noticed the same problem with litter at the Islam channels GPU events and was deeply disheartened at the mountains of rubbish left behind - it seriously gets to me that Muslims can behave this way.

    The literature with Allah (SWT) names/ayah’s of the Quran (often in Arabic) is also a problem. What do you do with it? (Often it’s just thrust into people’s hands)

    I’m surprised that Boris even held an Eid in the Square event.

  • http://www.blogofislam.com blogofislam.com

    I have been personally responsible for a popular nasheed artist to break into the ‘industry’ and I regret it whole-heartedly. Islam has become commercialised and there are those out to monetise from it. The Islamic rap industry was worth $1billion in 2005 and even mainstream non-muslim book publishers are looking to monetise on the massive circulation of books.