Doctor turned community activist, Bilal Hassam, is the embodiment of what it means to be a British Muslim today. He stars in the British Muslim TV (BMTV) reality show Being Bilal, which gives viewers a glimpse of a day in the life of an ordinary Muslim.
Bilal is also Creative Director of BMTV. He describes the channel as a platform to explore what it means to be âconfidently Muslim and comfortably Britishâ. Its approach is not to discuss Islamophobia, racism or extremism directly â âthere are enough depressing narratives out thereâ â but to subvert those âproblematising narrativesâ by celebrating the diversity and richness of âthe immeasurable contributionsâ that Muslims make to British life.
Bilal at British Muslim TV. Picture courtesy of Yee Liu Williams
British-born young Muslims often struggle with shifting societal norms and cultural differences, says Bilal. âLike many young British Muslims, I have more in common with young Muslims in San Francisco or Sydney than I do with my parentâs generation.â
His father arrived in Britain, aged nine, from Malawi in the 1970s. His grandfather set up the first halal fish and chip shop in Leicester, which soon became a community hub. His father worked for the Royal Mail for over 30 years and âhustledâ so that Bilal and his siblings had a chance of a good education. Most British Muslim families have experienced âthe growing pains of a community trying to reconcile post-colonial madness, socio-economic challenges and the day-today struggle of feeding their familyâ, he says.
Bilalâs younger brother was born with a heart condition, and had five open-heart operations before he died at the age of 13. Bilal spent most of his teen years going back and forth to hospital. His familyâs heartbreak and the expectation that âclever kids did medicineâ propelled him into studying medicine.
In his final year as a medic at Nottingham University, Bilal astonished his family by enrolling for a Masters in theology and interreligious relations at De Montfort University, Leicester. âThey just didnât get why I was paying to get another degree,â he says. As much as he enjoyed medicine, he felt he had a âcalling to do something beyond the medical spaceâ.
Bilal sees his mission as âarticulating an understanding of Islam true to our time and placeâ and has spent the past 10 years managing a frenetic diary, travelling the world, working with grassroots communities and meeting religious and community leaders, while facing the daily highs and lows that form the basis of the unscripted Being Bilal show.
Leicester was the first British city to have a majority ethnic minority population. Although many of the migrants who came in the 60s and 70s experienced racism, the city managed to avoid the racial tensions that led to the riots in some British cities in the 1980s. He attributes this to the religious leadership from all faiths.
Bilal argues that the media narrative on radicalisation has become the lens through which Western society views Muslim populations and âlumps them togetherâ. In the aftermath of the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks, clarifying misconceptions has been âa driving pointâ for him.
On and off screen, being Bilal is about âexploring the richness of our faith traditions, enabling collaborations between all faiths and backgroundsâ and ensuring that people are treated the same irrespective of ethnicity or culture.
Bilal is adamant that British Muslims â over five per cent of the population and growing â should not be made to feel like imposters by the mainstream media or by our increasingly polarising politics.
He quotes a Muslim scholar who likens Islam to a crystal-clear river whose water is sweet, pure and life-giving but has no colour of its own. Instead it takes on the colour of the bedrock it flows over. Islam takes on the âdifferent cultural manifestationsâ of the countries its adherents live in, and so remains relevant to distinct peoples.
He wrestles with such questions as: How do we articulate an understanding of Islam that is relevant to our time? How do we clear misconceptions about the Islamic faith? How do we make God relevant to people in their day-to-day lives? At its core, Islam is ultimately about facilitating a contented heart. The faith and all its rituals, edicts and teachings are about connecting with God. âIn the remembrance of God, do hearts find tranquillity,â he quotes from the Qurâan.
As an example of British Muslimsâ contributions to society, Bilal takes us on a tour of Penny Appeal, a Muslim-led humanitarian relief agency based
in Wakefield. Amongst the local projects they fund are feeding-initiatives for the hungry and homeless, support for refugees, domestic violence counselling and a fostering and adoption agency. In 2016, the Charity Commission estimated that British Muslim charities raised over ÂŁ100 million during the month of Ramadan alone. This year Penny Appeal is close to raising ÂŁ30 million, with more than 200 staff in the UK and 2,000 working in over 52 other countries.