My current colleagues at work do not know that I am a Muslim, but they have concluded that I am an eccentric. There is something not quite right about me, they think, pondering on all the strange things I have let slip over the past year working with them. I do not own a television and have been caught sighing as the running commentary on I’m a Celebrity and Big Brother picks up in the office. I do not read The Sun and I once rather foolishly read out a comment I saw on my computer screen that said, ‘Those who read tabloids deserve to be lied to.’ I do not drink alcohol, I am young-but-married and I haven’t put a Christmas Tree up.
Today I came across a poster in the office featuring a picture of William Shakespear. Underneath it somebody had written my name. It has been there for ages apparently, and my manager laughed: actually they were calling me Shakespear since before I even started. I can’t claim to have been mortally offended at being named after England’s greatest playwrite, but I was slightly surprised. It is my peculiar beard apparently. Another nickname they have for me, I learned today, is Oliver Cromwell. I am sniggering at that one even now.
I really enjoy my job and so I have had fun as the last twelve months have passed by. I haven’t really minded the odd dig about my eccentricities. There is a running joke about me that my house is made out of things other people would throw away because I once made a stand for my monitor out of the polystyrene packaging from a new computer. My colleagues think I come from another age because I buy my fruit and veg from the market instead of Tesco. Well, in all honesty, I don’t mind being the office jester if it makes people smile.
Two things over the past couple of weeks, however, have slightly dampened my humour: Christmas and meeting up with old friends. Christmas because answering all the questions about my participation in the festivities remind me that my role as office odd-ball is a bit of a lie. And meeting up with old friends because I noticed that I was distant from them spiritually and intellectually; my mind seems to have become dull.
The drawbacks of keeping my faith private, as is the Englishman’s way, have hit me all of a sudden. At some point last week a colleague asked me if I had put a Christmas Tree up yet and if I intended to. Well obviously I could not lie. I hadn’t, I didn’t and, in all honesty, I hadn’t even realised it was two weeks until Christmas. As you can imagine, it wasn’t long before I had a new nickname in the office. Scrooge they call me now.
At the weekend, our elderly Christian neighbour had some advice for me. She said I should have said, ‘No, I’m not getting a Christmas Tree because I’m a Muslim.’ She said she could understand my point about not announcing my faith in ordinary conversation earlier on in my employment—’Hi, I’m Tim and I’m a Muslim’—but she couldn’t understand the need to hide my belief so extensively that I have to pretend to be Scrooge for three weeks of the year. She speaks with some authority, for as a practising Christian she had to exempt herself from the Office Christmas Party throughout her career and thus expose herself to the constant mockery of her peers.
On reflection, I think she was right, but I wonder if the whole Scrooge shenanigans have gone too far already. Possibly, since arriving at work last Wednesday I found that somebody had placed a present on my desk. I thought it was slighly odd, but I proceeded to open it anyway. Inside there was what we would call a Santa Claus hat, except that it was black, and it had the words, ‘Bah Humbug’ emblazened across it. Well I can have a laugh too: this weekend I bought a packet of reindeer droppings (chocolate covered raisins) from Oxfam and sent them back to the sender.
Despite such silliness, there is a serious point here. Every time I downplay my lack of enthusiasm for the great festival before us, I am in fact downplaying my faith. I do not have a Christmas Tree because I do not celebrate Christmas. Can I not just say this? Well perhaps if my colleagues were Christian they would understand, but for the atheists of the entertainment generation, there is an irritating question that returns: ‘What has religion got to do with it?’ For many, Christmas is merely part of our culture; it has no sacred value. So what could be wrong with celebrating it whether you believe in Christianity or not? In a secular world, nothing at all.
But I am a Muslim and I do not celebrate Christmas because I have not lost sight of the sacred. Christmas is sacred for Christians, regardless of its origins and the views of the early Church Fathers. It is a time of worship and thanksgiving for them, and it has theological resonence. This is why I do not celebrate Christmas, because it is not my festival and it is not of my faith. I am clear on this within and comfortable with my position, so what goes wrong in the office? Why this great pretense, that I am merely a kill-joy, a Dickensian Scrooge? Surely it is hypocrisy.
I often tell myself that I keep my faith to myself because it is the English way, and there is certainly some truth in this. There is nothing the English hate more, we are told, than people wittering on about religion. So my faith is a quiet thing: I hurry down to the mosque to do my prayer at lunchtime, and hide in a disused room for the afternoon prayer, and fast in the month of Ramadan in secret, and inscribe everything else on my heart. Perhaps I am just too English in that regard.
But perhaps there are other things that keep me from sharing my beliefs. Perhaps all those petty comments about Muslims that I have heard in the office over the months indicate that my confession would be unwelcome. Unwelcome because some have clearly conveyed their dislike of Muslims, but also because some would be embarrassed to know that I had been listening to them all along and I never said a thing. That was certainly how my previous manager felt when she outed me in a team meeting two years ago.
Later on in that old job of mine, my manager decided to tell all of my colleagues that I was Muslim. I believe she had good intentions, hoping that social gatherings would be less drink-centred. The consequence, however, was that many of those colleagues stopped talking to me. Perhaps I am after an easy life; perhaps I don’t particularly look forward to a repeat of that scenario all over again.
And so in the office I am Scrooge. Not a principled believer in an alternative faith, but the great eccentric of the office who will not have Turkey on Christmas Day, mulled wine on Christmas Eve or presents around the tree. And at Easter there will be no Chocolate Eggs. And in summer I will turn down the birthday cakes in the office for an entire month, as if I am on a diet. Such pretense, when four short words would suffice: ‘I am a Muslim.’
Meeting up with old friends last week showed me the consequence of all this. My role as court jester has somehow stunted my intellect. I am not a fool actually. I have brains and interests, but somehow I have become the caricature that I have been made. My friends seemed to soar high above me both spiritually and intellectually. And I, somehow, have just dumbed myself down.
Last modified: 22 December 2008
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts and experiences. They echo my experiences. Like a true coconut (Pakistani heritage, but British upbringing – brown on the outside, but white on the inside) – I tend to keep my religion private at the office. In past jobs I was very open about it – often discussing it and relating it to current affairs. But like you say, we are dealing with the entertainment generation who simply are not interested in anything sacred. Better to keep things private – fast in silence, pray in secret etc.
It is kind of empowering, and it does, in a sense, increase ones sincerity to Allah (swt) – the private prayer being preferred to the public prayer.
In the end, our character and manners speak for themselves.
Thanks again for a wonderful post.
Hasn’t anybody noticed your suspicious absences from the office (for prayer)?
What would be suspicious about them? I can go to the mosque in my lunchbreak for the midday prayer, while I can polish off the others in the time it takes my colleagues to finish a cigarette or take their tea break. I am fortunate not to work in a call centre, so permission is not needed to visit the loo.
as salaam alaykum wrwb brother
as convert sis, albeit a brown one and a hijabi, hence a far more conspicious Muslim than you, i completely understand your sentiments.
it is particularly difficult at this time of the year when the party invites keep rolling into the inbox despite repeated responses of “sorry i won’t be attending” and the constant “are you coming to drinks/christmas dinner/etc?”. On the one hand I have felt particularly strong this year in simply saying “no” without creating any elaborate & dramatic tales of why I can’t make it but at the same time I can’t shrug off the feeling that I am simultaneously not honouring my deen by merely coming off as the office non-socialite!
I like the wisdom of your neighbours advice and i think its poignant and beautiful that you turned to her for advice. May Allah bless her and make it easy for all muslims in this situation!
shukran for sharing
ma’salaama
Salaam Timothy,
I like your way of keeping your faith and I share that way in my life. I travel for business a lot so it is easier for me to perform my prayers in planes, hotel rooms, cars etc. than it is for you in the disused room at work.
You say it is very English to keep ones faith to themselves, and whilst there is something quite “western” about it, I am not sure it is English. For example, I have recently moved near to a community of mixed race Muslims and some of the English Muslims go on all the time about how to do things “properly” – that it is making me quite sick – and particularly of having moved into that community. In fact whilst a larger number of the the non-Asian English Muslims are quite dogmatic and patronizing, I havent received these kind of “lessons” from the asians. Now thats a big surprise, because in the previous Asian Muslim communities I have been associated with, its all been about how to “roll up your trousers” and other technicalities rather than whats in your heart and in your intent.
I always thought that I was missing being part of a community and I was happy to be part of a community so that I could be a part of something and profess openly to my belief.
On reflection, I read your post as I am beginning to think that it is actually quite good to keep oneself to oneself and profess privately, especially in the wider, non-Muslim world.
In my last job, I also told a number of my colleagues with whom I worked closely that I was a Muslim. Some took it very well whilst others thought that the very fact I believed in God was meek-minded. It is quite noteworthy in relation to your experience because up to the point I was a Muslim for them, I was the number one performer in the company and then I was still number one but slightly strange or weird….But they still accepted me as a Muslim. I have to say that it was not an English company but a European one.
Anyway, thanks for a really nice read and something that I recognize in my life. I think that the way I read your post will change the way I will be a Muslim in the future.
Secret Believer.
Personally I wouldn’t advise that anyone deliberately sets out to duplicate my mistakes.
Do you feel that having lived as a private Muslim is a mistake because of the “jester” aspect?
If that is what you mean, does that also mean that you will “come out” in your new company? Maybe you have already done so.
Or do you mean that it was a mistake for you to have been outed in your previous company?
Hiya Tim, long time no speak! I came across this site because (bizarrely) I thought you’d been commenting at Liberal Conspiracy under your old blog nickname. It wasn’t you, but nice to see you’re still “on the air” anyway.
On the topic of the post, it seems a little presumptious of me to comment but I simply can’t understand why any of them should be affected if you were simply to tell them about your religion. This isn’t the 1970s and it’s high time people realised that Muslims don’t have two heads and tentacles. Of course that’s easier for me to say than it is for someone to carry out, I can appreciate.
All the best anyway!
Perhaps it is just presumptious of me, but there we are.