Pop singer-songwriter Zuriani "Ani' Zonneveld has won music awards both in Malaysia and the United States for her work with different artistes. As a Muslim minority living in Los Angeles, the 43-year-old Malaysian decided after 9/11 to use her music to educate people about Islam. On a recent trip back to Kuala Lumpur, the executive director of the Progressive Muslim Union of North America speaks to JACQUELINE ANN SURIN and HUSNA YUSOP about the need for Muslims to understand their religion, being discriminated against for being a Muslim female artiste, and her interfaith work in the United States.

Zuriani: (reads from hand-written notes) The statement that we have is the Progressive Muslim Union is a grassroots organisation that aims to provide a forum, voice and an organising mechanism to North American Muslims. We are here to represent a progressive Muslim voice and to expose and educate the American public on the diversity and richness of the Islamic culture.

The Progressive Muslim Union came about as a result of a CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) study. It's a Muslim civil liberties organisation of America. Their research discovers that, this is right after 9/11, only 20% of American Muslims attend mosques or belonged to a mosque.

So, we started realising that, "Hey, who's representing the 80%?' Are these 80% non-practising Muslims? We know for a fact that's not the case. Most of them, according to the CAIR statistics, do not like the segregation of men and women, the discrimination against women in the mosques. For example, women have to enter through the backdoor only or they're not given proper prayer space. They're like really dumped into the back rooms, the kitchen, no air, just dingy areas where they can't even see the imam leading prayers. So, it's really second-class status.

A lot of American Muslims, I think, are very well read on their faith, unlike, I think, I dare say Malaysian Muslims. The majority of Muslims just follow the leader, no questions asked. In America, a lot of them actually read, and understand what their faith is really about, minus the cultural values.

So, when you grow up in America and your Pakistani parents tell you, "In Islam, as a girl, you can't do this, you can't do that' and as the girl grows up, becomes a teenager, and reads and learns about Islam, she's going to find out that what the Quran says completely contradicts what the parents have been teaching them. And so, there's conflict.

I've seen this as the president of the parent-teachers' organisation for our Islamic Sunday school. There's a conflict between the parents' generation, the first generation and second generation. And it is as a result of this (misconstrued), intentionally or not, of a cultural Islam rather than pure-faith Islam. Those are some of the very, very brief social conflicts, generational conflicts that are going on.

Ya, definitely. Progressive Muslim Union is made up of young Americans, converts and everyone else with progressive views. The orthodox Muslims took over to represent the 80% after 9/11 as the official Muslim voice in America. That is like the orthodox Jews representing the rest of the Jews in America as one voice. That would be a misrepresentation!

They are as American as they come, unlike the first generation where they are very much entrenched in their cultural heritage. The American Muslims are very, very American, in the way they handle people (and) the media, they are very aggressive. They are very aggressive Americans, because they're Americans! So, we are able to get into the media, to get radio and TV interviews because we sound American, and Americans can relate to another American voice.

So, I think that is our advantage that we are young Americans with progressive views. And when I say "progressive', basically we are just going back to the ideals of Islam. We're not trying to change what Islam is. We're not trying to create a reformed Islam, like the Jews have a reformed Judaism, that's not what we are doing. We're really going back to the ideals of Islam like in the days of Prophet Muhammad. The value system of those days. Because what has happened is that the very reason that Islam was revealed, to correct the social and the economic injustices, we find that the cultural and the economic injustices completely kicked in after Prophet Muhammad died. We have resumed the very practices that Islam was revealed to eliminate. So, what we're saying (is), we need to go back. We need to re-study our faith. And we need to rethink ijtihad (process of making a legal decision through interpretation of the Quran and the Sunnah) in the modern context.

So, in many ways, it's very much like Islam Hadhari, you know, a pragmatic Islam. I might add, Prophet Muhammad was the feminist of his time, so the current discriminatory practices against women show how disconnected we are from the Quran and the Prophet's teachings.

We are promoting an inclusive Islam on the basis that if you call yourself a Muslim, then you're a Muslim. It's non-denominational. Even if you're not practising but you still call yourself a Muslim, that's fine with us. After all, the Quran says, it's not for us to judge if you're a Muslim, or how good a Muslim you are, you know. That's for God to judge and not us humans.

One other requirement is that you can sit at a table with Muslims of all stripes, whether you're gay, you're straight, you pakai tudung (wear a headscarf), you pakai sleeveless or whatever, if you can sit at a table and respect each other, that is what Islam is about. Real Islam is about not discriminating. But, it's very hard for us as human beings to not discriminate. And I think, we as Muslims, we really need to go back to those basic values. Those were very, very important values that we have completely disregarded or ignored, ya.

About two years ago now, there was a woman-led prayer in New York. And we supported that. We were the only Muslim organisation in America that did. Others endorsed it but they would never put out that statement. Nobody really had the guts to stick their necks out. There was a lot of misunderstanding about the whole issue, a lot of question marks. So, what we did was we organised a forum, a town hall meeting with an American Muslim scholar called Dr Khaled Abou El Fadl. He's an Islamic law professor at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles).

We invited all Muslims to come, and non-Muslims to come, to the town hall meeting. And we asked, ok, is it legal under Islam, according to the Quran and Hadith, for a Muslim woman to lead a co-ed congregation? And so, Dr Khaled spent about two-and-a-half hours educating us.

From the Quranic perspective, it says that if you are chosen by your community, you can lead. So, it doesn't say what gender. So, the Quran doesn't say that a woman cannot lead prayer. The Quran doesn't say, only men can lead prayer. It really left it open for the community to choose. If you choose a man, that's fine, too. Whatever you choose, the Quran advises you choose the most qualified.

And that's the foundation, and I think that's a very just way to choose someone most qualified.

The hadith (traditional sayings and customs of the Prophet) is full of contradictions. It's got hadith that is in support, hadith that is against. And there are a lot more hadith against women leading prayer on the basis that a woman's soul is equivalent to that of an animal's, so therefore women do not qualify because they are not human enough, or women are too insane to lead men, you know. Very derogatory references as to why a woman should not lead a co-ed congregation. It contradicts the Quran's posture of man and woman as equal in spirituality.

That's hadith. That's not Quran.

Ya. There are some hadith sahih that are very, very cruel towards women and, most of the time we dealt with the sahih ones.

So, there's a lot of hadith against women leading prayer, that is sahih, that is for sure. And I don't know which books and stuff like that because it was, like a two-and-a-half-hour lecture. You have to be an Islamic scholar to, er, know each paragraph, where it's coming from, and what book and so on, and who the writers are. But, that was the general essence of it.

So, what we did was, we didn't say to the audience as progressive Muslims, we didn't say, "Ok, you have to believe this way.' That is not what we are about. We just laid it out on the table intelligently for everyone, then you go make your own decisionlah. So, that's what we are about. We are really about educating Muslims and non-Muslims about Islam. But, I think more imperatively, we are trying to educate Muslims about our own faith. We need to know what we are about first before we can really educate others.

And, so, that was one forum. Starting next month, we are holding a speaker series. Um, the one thing that we are realising about the mosques and Islamic institutions in America is that, they don't get speakers who are qualified to speak about a particular topic. It's always the imam, or the leader of that mosque, it's always them talking about issues that they are not an expert on. So, we decided that we needed to have a speaker's forum. So, the first one is going to be on Islamic influence, heritage in art, music and dance. And the second one is going to be on democracy and human rights in Islam. And at each event, we're going to have an art form because we have lost our art heritage, and now, especially in the United States, arts and music are looked upon as haram (forbidden). It's very hardcore.

I say that because my Islamic pop CD is not sold on any of the Muslim websites because I'm a female singer.

(Mimics the expression of incredulity and laughs).

This is in the United States of America. This is not Saudi Arabia.

This is among the Muslims, yes. But, it's not the majority of the Muslims, it's the minority, but they are the ones who control.

So, that is one of my battles. I have many battles (chuckles). So for every speakers' series we're having, we're going to have an art form, whether it be poetry as we have a lot of poetry in Islam, whether it be music. So, we want to incorporate that art form into our lectures. It's good to appeal intellectually, and I know how the arts bring people (together), and really break down the walls. I've seen that, and I'll get into that later. So, to use the art form as a way to reach (out) to people. Poetry is a phenomenal way of reaching out to people. I mean, one of the most bought books in America is Rumi, who is a Muslim poet, a famous poet. So, there really is something to that. Unfortunately, our Islamic institutions are basically conforming to the conservatism, to the Wahabi thinking. I'll give you an example on this. I can go into it now or I can stick to what we're doing.

One of the other topic matters we're going to talk about is, um, "Is it Islam or is it culture?' On this topic, we're going to have a panel of different types of Muslims - Shi'ites, Ismaili, Sufi and all kinds of Sunni, just so that you can really get a huge perspective. Actually, I'd probably like somebody from Malaysia to come and document this because I think it's going to be an amazing educational forum.

But the most important thing is, we're allowing a lot of time for people to ask questions. I think people really need to ask hard questions that they are afraid to ask in the mosques, you know, or too shy or whatever. So, we're holding these forums at a university, and I have a lot of professor friends who are securing spaces for me.

This is all volunteer, these are all people volunteering their time for the sake of educating people about Islam. So, it's really quite amazing.

Well, mainly because I do music in the secular world, and then as a result of 9/11, I was educating people about Islam through music and so that started getting around. I think I fit in - the way I look at life and how I look at Islam and at other faiths - it fits into the Progressive Muslim thinking in general.

So that's how I got invited as a board member and then late last year, I was asked to become executive director. That's what I'm doing now. But, it's a volunteer position because we are a young organisation, we don't have funding like all the other big organisations. So, we're slowly building our community base. And that's where we're at.

Let me touch a bit on the arts thing, like at ISNA (Islamic Society of North America), for years they would not allow a Muslim woman to perform and in the last two, three years, they would allow a female poet, but on the condition, in ISNA, that you have to pakai tudung, you have to wear a scarf and you cannot move your hands. You have to stand straight. You cannot move about.

So, it's a very restrictive environment. And most, probably 95%, of the Muslim organisations do not invite female performers. I'm not saying they should invite me!

What I'm saying is they should invite female Muslim performers because we exist, you know. And they should also nurture female artists as well because we have a way to communicate with kids especially, and with families.

So, those are some of my struggles in the arts in the Muslim community.

In Canada, there was a Muslim event called Muslimfest. It was organised by Muslim Canadian-American organisations. Their application form states, "We follow syariah law. So, female performers need not apply.' I was so livid, I called my friend in Canada and said, "Ok, you need to get a Canadian reporter to call me. I'm going to really make them just think about this.'

And so, the newspaper article covered Islamic art heritage. There are religious female performers in the Islamic world, not in the Western world. In Pakistan, in India, in Iran, in Egypt. Wherever, all over the world, you know.

And here, we have, in North America, of all places, female Muslim artists are discriminated against! So, it's very disturbing. And it's not just indicative of America because I learnt in Denmark at the international Muslim conference that I just attended, it's also the case in Europe. It's there as well. In Malaysia, there's some of that thinking as well but it's not dominant, but I think it's creeping (in).

Yes.

Among Muslims!

They (non-Muslims) accept. You know, I try to educate people about Islam through music, 95% of my performances are in fact invitations by non-Muslim organisations, not by Muslims.

Can we talk a little bit about your music then, and about your Ummah Wake Up (Islamic pop) project?

Ya. My Ummah Wake Up project actually is directed at the Islamic world, to the Muslim population, and it's about, words of encouragement, words of unity, and things like that.

I started singing Islamic songs, pop songs, songs that I write, and I call it Islamic pop because the track is very pop in genre but with an Eastern- style melody and with Islamic content. But when I say "Islamic' though, it's really a universal message. It's like, "Work hard, and insya Allah (God willing), you'll do well. God will bless you'. But what makes it "Islamic' is the word insya Allah. But if I use something generic like "God willing', then it could be any faith. So the one Arabic word or two Arabic words is what makes it Islamic in nature.

I did this album after 9/11 because I really felt that we needed to have an alternative modern voice as a face, a new face, that America or the Western world can identify with. Alhamdullilah (praise God), I have God's gift of song writing, so that's what I use. I use my song-writing gift to educate people about Islam.

Ya, ya, a lot of Jewish temples, churches, national organisations, Planned Parenthood Federation, um, interfaith events, just all kinds of non-conventional (chuckles) locations, ya.

I have performed at a mosque but only at an interfaith event I organised (chuckles).

For the most part, it's been like, "Wow! We didn't realise that Islam was so dynamic and intelligent. We thought it was just a barbaric and violent faith.'

Because that's what they see on TV, so I don't blame them. Prior to singing a song, I set it up by way of a political or social event that is happening currently in America or in the world. I'll give you an example. When there was this guy, Muslim man who converted to Christianity in Afghanistan. There was a mob who wanted to hang him. So, I sang a song called My Favourite Passages, and what I've done in this song is I've taken my favourite passages from the Quran, the English translation, and I've put it into a song format. And one of the passages is there's no compulsion in faith. I sing that the Quran says "We have created a man and a woman, and divided you into nations and tribes for you to learn from each other, not for you to hate each other'.

Those are all very universal (messages). "Work together in peace and harmony' passages. So, for the Afghanis to say, "Oh, we're going to hang this guy because he converted to Christianity', or to whatever faith, because that's syariah law, then we Muslims really need to go back and understand what the Quran actually said. Any claim that killing someone for converting out of Islam is a real deviation from what the Quran says. The Quran is clear on this but it is humans who embellished God's words.

So, by way of what I sing and what I speak, how I frame it, people understand that Muslims are disconnected from Islam, you know. Sometimes, it's really hard to convince people that Islam is not violent, the Quran is really peaceful ... when the actions of the Muslims have been contrary to that. I'm like, "Come on, give me a break', you know. But, I guess I'm believable. And people believe me (laughs), you know.

So, I have success in that. I get a lot of feedback from non-Muslims that they really learnt a lot and it's very positive feedback. And I have a song, Ummah Wake Up, and the chorus is, "Come, my ummah wake up. Our jihad is long overdue. Let's go ummah, wake up. You and I have much to do'. In this song, when I say the word jihad (struggle) to a non-Muslim audience, they squirm. It's like "oohoohooh', they can't stand that word because now it means holy war but I explained to them that that's not the original meaning.

By the end of the song, they're all clapping and singing along. So, that's why I'm saying music is so powerful, the art form is so powerful. I present it in a positive manner to people, and for me, it tells me so much about how open-hearted Americans are. I mean, can we get a Jewish person to come and sing in a mosque in Malaysia? I don't think so. That will never happen. And it goes to show how open-minded Americans are, no matter what faith you are.

Of course, there are whackos as well who call Islam evil. We have those in the Muslim world, too. But, um, for the most part though, if you present yourself in a positive manner and intelligently, Americans do open up their hearts. And that is what I see as lacking in our Muslim community which I hope to also help influence and correct.

Ya, ya. I did. I had a concert two years ago called "Ani's Concert for Palestine'. So, I performed. That was the launch of my CD here and so I did a 45-minute show of my songs.

It was ok. My English is stronger than my Malay, and so I think that's probably my weakness as far as my presentation goes.

I went to college at 18 to study economics and political science. My dad packed me off. "You're not doing music. You're going to go to college and do something useful with your life!' And so, I did that and I graduated.

And then, I said, "Ok, now it's my turn to do what I want to do.' I was supposed to come back and join the foreign service because my dad was an ambassador but I moved to Los Angeles instead and decided to follow my heart.

I knew I was musically inclined. I took piano lessons since I was five, so I've always been exposed to a lot of music and so that's how I just started writing silly pop songs. And I've been doing that for 16, 17 years. But then when 9/11 happened, I have a double life now, you know. My secular pop-writing life and my educating-Islam and social-activist-as-a-Muslim-in-America life. So, I've got two parallel lives going on.

My husband's Dutch.

Ya, and every other year, for sure. More often if there's work.

Part 2...

• Challenging core beliefs