A Muslim writers group are hosting a series of events about creative writing and Islamophobia.

Muslim Writers North and the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah (AIU) Race Centre hosted the workshop in Manchester.

The workshop was presented by Cambridge University graduate Suhaiymah Manzoor Khan, 28 from Leeds. She is a poet, writer and educator. Performances of her poems have had millions of views online. This year she published her non-fiction book, ‘Tangled in Terror: Uprooting Islamophobia.’

Her book has been widely endorsed by the likes of Moazzam Begg, the former Guantanamo Bay detainee and  the rapper Lowkey and Channel 4 journalist Fatima Manji.

She said: “My interests are in thinking critically about Islamophobia and racism and to move away from the mainstream narrative. I do a lot of writing workshops too. The AIU wanted me to create a writing workshop on the theme of Islamophobia.

“Most of the attendees at the workshop were writers so it was different to workshops I usually present where I am joined by people in the community who don’t have a background in writing."

Hafsah Aneela Bashir from the AIU Race Centre said: “Our work centres around archiving the culture and heritage of our communities. We have collections in our specialist libraries. One of the collections was donated by the Northwest Media Forum. We asked Suhaiymah Manzoor Khan to explore Islamophobia from these collections.

“After 9/11 there has been a rise in Islamophobia. It’s important to realise that when we talk about Islamophobia we aren’t talking about one-off incidents, we are actually talking about a system that is designed to pervade our every-day life. It is around us all the time.”

Asian Image: AIAI (Image: AI)

Suhaiymah added: “As writers we have to contest the mainstream narrative rather than trying to disprove it by saying ‘We are not terrorists or we are not violent,’ I think this is a waste of our time as it keeps the conversation on the terms of the Islamophobes in politics and the media.

“The first step is to reveal what the narrative does by asking why do these narratives exist? When we start asking why, we get to adress the causes of things.  The reason we are constructed as terrorists isn’t because we haven’t disproved it enough and it’s not because we haven’t given enough information about Islam but it is because it is a useful narrative. By saying Muslims are terrorists it serves to hide other causes of violence and absolves institutions of any accountability.

“This is the first thing that Muslim writers need to be doing – asking critical questions.

“We also need to build a counter narrative by presenting stories that are unapologetic. We have spent a long long time apologising but without any meaningful change. It does nothing, it is a repetitive cycle.

Suhaiymah continued: “Counter narratives are about saying ‘We aren’t apologising, we aren’t here to pander to power, we will write about who we are on our own terms instead.’

“The workshop was great, everyone engaged with the materials. The poems people wrote were really powerful. We want more than positive representation, we want our material realities to change. We want to be safe when we walk down the street, we don’t want our children to be surveilled by Prevent. We don’t want to be stopped at borders.

“Arguments in my book are that Islamophobia is historical and includes Orientalism and colonialism. It’s the idea, the construction that Muslims are threatening, violent and patriarchal. These constructs allow for wholesale theft such as oil from Iraq, or imperialism by means of US military camps spread worldwide.” She said.

The second workshop will be held on Wednesday 19 October.