Tower and Town, October 2019 (view the full edition)Ayisha Malik"This Green and Pleasant Land"
What happens when a Muslim man is asked to establish a mosque in a sleepy English village? The story takes place in a fictional south coast village named Babbel's End where the Muslim population numbers precisely three; gentle mannered Bilal Hisham, his wife Mariam and their teenage son, Haaris. Sakeena, a Pakistani single mother has never understood why her accountant son born and raised in 'multicoloured' Birmingham chose to live in a 'white, white' village .Bilal in turn feels that he has always been a disappointment to her. Her dying wish was that he grew a beard. This turns out to be the easy part; she also instructs him to build a mosque in his village! It is an engaging scenario, - when he raises the matter with his local Parish Council, they instantly fear that the community is about to become a hot bed of fundamentalism. But as Malik draws you into the lives of Bilal's family and those of the villagers, you find seemingly insoluble issues of faith and intolerance dealt with in a light and accessible way. Virginia Reekie |