Freya Duncan
Yorkshire people were fascinated by Bradford’s Somali Village – it was the most popular attraction at the Great Exhibition of 1904, and this fascination landed the village in the local press numerous times. One particular article in the Bradford Weekly Telegraph caught my attention, titled “The Somali Sabbath – A Peculiar Form of Worship – A Sermon by The Mullah”, found under its “Our Churches and Chapels” section. This article is significant, as it has a specific focus on the Somalis’ worship as Muslims, and I was curious to see how the villager’s Islamic Identity was represented. A translator attached to the Village, Captain Charles Holland Hastings, was on hand to translate the Mullah’s Friday sermon for the Telegraph’s correspondent from the Arabic. For better understanding of the context, the original piece can be read here.[1]
Unsurprisingly, given that it was 1904, the article contains offensive material, which is written from a white colonial perspective and attitude, presumably by a white man.[2] However, I believe it essential to analyse the article carefully for three reasons: a) to understand what specific colonial frameworks shape the writing, b) to find out more about the Villagers’ lives; and c) to analyse how Somali villagers talk back to their white onlookers or express their agency in an article where the journalist didn’t interview one villager directly but relied on observation and a translator.
So how does the article structurally leave the Somalis at an othering distance from the white reader? What has an impact on the reader besides the writing itself? The piece describes for the reader what the Somali Villagers are like, what they do, and how they worship. But crucially, there are no interviews to further this purpose, despite there being a translator present. This follows a typical imperial practice where the coloniser spoke for the colonised, and their interpretations were not questioned. And so, as the writer describes the village, they make their readers complicit in the ethnographic framing: making the white onlooker the judging observer, who gets to decide what and who is ‘peculiar’ (a word used repetitively in this article with little or no explanation as to why it is being used as a descriptor). Language such as “The Somali is” or the repetition of “they” and “their” make the villagers sound like one homogenous group. The Somalis are never described as people, except through the Mullah’s words. The exhibition visitor, writer, and reader are all placed at just enough distance from the Somali villagers to be entertained by their discomfort and perceived superiority. Therefore, the villagers’ voices are purposely omitted to avoid interrupting this enjoyable distance. However, where the distance is not so comfortably maintained, the Somali Villagers’ agency, pride, and piety (taqwā in Arabic) can be found.
The writer is an unreliable narrator, often interpreting and exaggerating what the villagers do in a very negative way. In these moments where they condemn the villagers, I infer evidence about the villagers’ lives, and the pride and agency they had. Here, I discuss two examples.
As the product of an effort by the writer to convey the Mullah as a jealous and controlling man, we find a moment where the Mullah chooses his religion and his space over the white visitors. The journalist writes:
The Mullah has … a temporary stage … which he guards very jealously [my italics]. The other evening some visitor had the audacity to put his foot on this sacred erection, to the great annoyance … of his reverence….
The Mullah didn’t want shoes on his stage, as it is disrespectful in Islam to wear them in prayer spaces, as they are unsanitary. This shows the Mullah was unafraid to tell the visitors off to protect the purity of the prayer space. He limited their freedom to roam the village unimpeded after they paid to do so. The Mullah disrupts the distance between the visitor and the villager, as he demonstrates there are things he understands and the visitor does not, and that the visitor can cause offence. So they are not the civilised onlookers they believe themselves to be, and they are not in complete control. The journalist is uncomfortable that the Mullah would stand his ground, and thus seizes upon the most negative interpretation to explain why he would do so.[3]
Furthermore, the writer describes how, after the prayer, the Mullah preached to his fellow villagers. They describe it as “a wonderful address, interrupted many times by certain members of the congregation, who would insist on arguing and emphasising the various principles involved.” The free relationship between the Mullah and his fellow villagers is depicted unfavourably in the article, with the journalist writing that no one but the Mullah (including the Sultan) was allowed to touch the Quran, and ‘[the Mullah] then commanded the poor [my italics] Somalis’. The article insinuates that the villagers are being disrespectful and disobedient, but again, the journalist condemns what is unfamiliar to them and promptly contradicts themselves by alleging that the “poor” Villagers are controlled by the Mullah. I enjoy picturing the villagers arguing with him about what Islamic principles they think are the most important to discuss, which shows that religious debate and challenge of religious authority were part of the Villagers’ lives. At the same time, the Mullah is also able to control access to the Village’s copy of the Quran, even from the Sultan himself.
Furthermore, this free debate takes on a deeper meaning, given that the Mullah and the Villagers were well aware that a local journalist through the translator was going to write about their faith and religious practices, and were ensuring this was done simply and comprehensively. Already known to Somali adults and children, the basics of Islamic beliefs and teachings are instead presented for the benefit of educating the Yorkshire public to invite them to Islam by emphasising its similarities with Christianity. The white visitors are told that Mahomet (Muhammad) “occupies the same position as Jesus Christ, Moses, Abraham and other prophets”. The equivalence of the Prophet’s position helps the white people understand and validate Islam, but perhaps the Mullah telling them Jesus Christ is in the Quran would have been perceived as blasphemous to them. The Mullah goes on, with interjections from the Villagers, to outline fundamental ethics in Islam, an overview of the Prophet’s life and struggles in Mecca, and ending with the essential difference between Islam and Christianity that “Other people said there were other gods, but they were wrong, for the Koran taught that there was but one God.” Overall, it is fascinating how the Abrahamic religions collaborate and intersect here, in ways that could be advantageous to British people’s positive perception of the Somali villagers and their faith. It is right to infer this was a deliberate act of inviting Yorkshire people to Islam (da ‘wa in Arabic).
While the Somalis’ Islamic identity is so frequently othered in this article, it is also sometimes used as a point of relation to Christian Yorkshire through Islam being framed as an Abrahamic religion. The article is included in the “Our Churches and Chapels” section. The word “Our” tacitly includes the Somali Villager’s Islam, in contrast with the othering of the Somalis in the article. It is meaningful that the newspaper recognised Islam as a way other fellow human beings worship. There is a sharp contrast between treating the Somalis as almost another species to be studied and this language of inclusion. Christian terms are used to explain the practices of Islam to readers such as “The Somali Sabbath”, “Sermon”, or “priest” (used interchangeably with “Mullah”). This interchangeable use also leads to errors with the writer assuming Muslims have a day of rest on Wednesdays, when such a thing does not exist in Islam.
Freya Duncan is a 2nd year Liberal Arts Student at the University of Leeds with a major in Sociology, and is part of the student team on the research project “A Somali Village in Colonial Bradford”.
References
[1] Bradford Weekly Telegraph, 21 May 1904, p. 1. The original piece can be read here.
[2] However, as the journalist’s name isn’t attached to the article, I chose to use they/them to refer to them in the third person.
[3] This moment of protest seems to have been reported to the writer by someone else, probably another white visitor, so this negative interpretation has perhaps been passed down through different white onlookers and is affirmed by the journalist.
Somali Village 
