WHAT DO THE PEOPLE OF GAZA & MAMDANI HAVE IN COMMON?
Asalaam alaikum,
It must take nerves of steel to give advice to the Prophet ﷺ, but thankfully the sahaaba were not ordinary people.
As he ﷺ set up encampment at Badr, Hubab (R) asked him if the location was chosen from divine inspiration or his own choice. The Prophet advised that it was the latter, hearing which Hubab immediately advised to move ahead of the wells so that the Quraish would not have access to the only water source.
The lesson is clear. Fight any battle on the wrong field, you risk losing.
Muslim communities are struggling against Islamophobia on the wrong field. Islamophobia is primarily being spread, shared, shaped and weaponised online. It is then being exported into the work place, our schools and our streets.
We have individual influencers pushing back (with varying degrees of success and no coordination), but not one institution or organisation that has influencer level reach.
Our content lacks creativity, quality and quantity. Like the medical field during the Covid crisis, disinformation is running circles around us.
But not all of us. The people of Gaza delivered a masterclass in how to leverage social media to break the algorithm, to give voice to the voiceless and to humanise those that the elites would have us revile. They used every opportunity, spoke from the heart and understood that social media was not a bonus feature but their main weapon in the genocide.
Zohran Mamdani is similarly showing us an example of how adept and authentic communication in the social media age, standing for something being more powerful than standing against someone - is a message that even Billionaires are powerless against.
It is time that the entire community pivots to the social media revolution on our own terms. The MCB is launching our Visionary Digital Comms programme to develop this infrastructure, but every one of us must play our part and do so urgently. Our future depends on it.
On 8 October, Dr Miqdad Asaria and Jamil Sherif participated in an online meeting with Professor Nissa Finney, University of St Andrews, to review the MCB's participation in the 2021 EVENS survey, that investigated the lives of ethnic and religious minorities in Britain during the pandemic. MCB's role in promoting the survey was appreciated, which resulted in about 2,000 Muslim responses. There was discussion on the voluntary sectors' needs for similar collaborative projects in the future. The need for funding support for a data collection infrastructure was noted.
Mehboob Asaria, Fatema Sunderji and other ReDoc colleagues are continuing work on the preparation of the detailed census report, as a followup to the summary report published in March 2025. This will include analyses for each of the 4 countries (England, Wales, Scotland, N. Ireland) , as well as comparisons across faith communities. ReDoc has beein invted by 'Islamic Courses' to present findings at the Al-Khizra Mosque, Manchester on 18 October insha Allah. The census data will focus on the demographics and socio-economic findings for Manchester.
