On a dark, busy late afternoon over the hectic Christmas period, a group of young Muslim men stand, braving the cold and rain, at one of several staircases leading down to the entrance to Oxford Circus tube station. Passersby, loaded with parcels, jostle for space on the heaving pavement; bright Christmas lights twinkle overhead.
Above the noise of the traffic and the thousands of people, one man at the small stall, dressed in coat, hat and gloves, attempts to make himself heard. "Take a leaflet here," he yells, "They're free. Discover the true face of Islam and remove some of the misconceptions!"
He holds a handful of booklets in the air, offering them to the busy pedestrians flooding the steps to the tube station. No one takes one. "All your questions answered!" he tries again, thanking someone gratefully as they agree to take a leaflet. "We're here every Friday - come and talk to us!"
It is almost 6 months since the coordinated London Underground bombings, which rattled the British public and made Muslim organizations throughout Britain fear even greater prejudice and suspicion than they had received following the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York City.
In response to the wave of misunderstandings and misconceptions that many British Muslims feel that they are facing, a group of young people decided that the time had come to challenge the general public's popular notions of the nature of Islam by taking to the streets. The "Discover Islam" brochure they give out, produced by the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, seeks to outline, in a simple, logical fashion, the Islamic belief system, thus making the religion accessible to a wider, non-Islamic audience.
"It's difficult," says one of the young men distributing the leaflets at the stand, who preferred not to be named. "There's a lot of fear and a lot of misunderstandings. Lots of people just don't want to know at all. Some people think that all Muslims are terrorists, and that we're really a front for something more sinister. But we persevere, and every single non-Muslim we reach is a victory for us."
It is, he adds, especially important that they try to distribute their message at tube stations, so that while traveling by tube, members of the public can take a look at their publication and think about it in the light of the bombings on that same network.
Directly following the July 7, 2005, attacks, he recalls, Muslim youths traveling regularly on the Underground found that they came under such suspicion, with fellow passengers carefully scrutinizing them or even changing seats to move further away, that the sale of clear plastic backpacks shot up in London. Many young Muslims, he says, found that the only way to avoid suspicion was to expose the contents of their bags to the rest of the world.
The World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), the organization promoting this series of "Discover Islam" brochures and posters, was established in 1972 in Saudi Arabia, as an independent international Muslim forum, to encourage "concerned Muslims to take up the challenge by arming the youth with sound understanding of Islam, guarding them against destructive ideologies, and instilling in them level-headed wisdom".
Its aims today include helping Muslim youth to overcome the problems that they face in modern Western society, introducing Islam to non-Muslims in the hopes of bettering understanding and dialogue within Western countries, and offering charitable aid to needy Muslims in various countries across the globe.
In 1989, WAMY established a hospital in Afghanistan's Chamkani district, which serves roughly 300,000 vulnerable and poverty-stricken citizens. The organization has created nine schools in Pakistan, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan and Saudi Arabia, and built 123 mosques throughout the world, the majority in West Africa, Kurdistan and the Indian sub-continent. It encompasses 450 student and youth organizations, and has 34 offices worldwide.
It has, however, not been all plain-sailing for WAMY. Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, FBI documents obtained by the UK-based Guardian newspaper suggested that the FBI had earlier wished to investigate the group for links with two of Osama Bin Laden's relatives.
One relative, Abdullah Bin Laden, had been US director of the group, with offices just outside Washington DC, until 2000. Moreover, for as long as the last 10 years, the organization has been repeatedly named as a channel for private and public Saudi donations to extreme Islamic groups. One recipient, for example, of its funding has allegedly been the Indian Students Islamic Movement, which is said to have aided Pakistani-supported terrorists in the disputed state of Kashmir, and wishes to create an Islamic state in India.
Nevertheless, the UK branch has continued to refute all claims of links to terrorist or extremist organizations, repeatedly stating that "we seek social change through education and cooperation, not force". Equally, the "Discover Islam" leaflets on offer each week to the British public deal simply and clearly with issues that many less informed non-Muslims might have questions about. Topics covered include the role of women in Islam, Islam's moral system, and beliefs regarding human rights within the Muslim religion. They seek to provide a balance for widespread beliefs that regard Muslims as barbaric, backward or imprisoners of women.
Back at Oxford Circus, Central London, the early evening commuter crowds have started to swarm around the Underground station, and the three young men manning the stall are busy attempting to raise interest in their cause. It is hard work, and for every 100 or so Londoners passing them by, only one or two stop to find out what they are saying.
"I'm English, and I'm a Muslim," says one man to a young woman who has stopped out of curiosity. "Just as you're English and, I guess, not a Muslim." (The woman nods warily.) "If you're a Christian, then I know quite a lot about your beliefs, especially at this time of year," he continues, gesturing around to the bright Christmas window displays in shop windows. "But do you know anything about mine?
"Do you know what holiday we'll be celebrating in the next few weeks?" She shakes her head meekly. "So here, take one of these and find out." He hands her a leaflet and she takes it with a smile. "And," he calls, as she walks away into the crowds, "Merry Christmas, eh?"
Muslim group hit the streets of London
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