At last, water. One plastic cup, three-quarters full. He hands it over and a tremor assaults me, causing the surface to ripple.
Tamim Sadikali
The summer of 2018 saw two contrasting blots on the landscape of British politics: crises of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.
I contemplated the bold red cover and turned over the pages. At that moment the words of Sabrina Mahfouz jumped out at me. ‘It never fails to surprise me how much representation can empower and how much non- or mis-representation can disempower.’ I was propelled back to a memory that continues to unsettle. ‘Daddy, what colour am I?’
On reading Britain Through Muslim Eyes, a compendium on the decidedly pre-modern Muslim-British exchange, one realises that what we see as new, unchartered territory, is often old ground.