Do Muslims need decolonising?

This article will share highlights from the session and explain how it has informed the museum’s decolonisation practice.

The opportunity came at a time when decolonisation was at the top of the museum’s agenda; especially in the minds of the teams involved in the development of galleries for the new museum at West Smithfield, where construction is to start in 2021.

In March, about 10 museum staff went to a study day about decolonising social history museums arranged by the Social History Curators Group and Museum Detox.

The day explored challenges such as decolonising photographic archives and rural museums, as well as a facilitated session run by the Museum of London’s head of engagement Sara Wajid and its social and working history curator Vyki Sparkes, looking at how the museum’s 1994 Peopling of London exhibition might have differed if a decolonial methodology had been applied.

The day was attended by people of all levels, and the enthusiasm and willingness to continue the conversation was particularly heartening: delegates met after the session to reflect. The tone was candid and open and all at the table reflected in a refreshingly honest manner: reflections weren’t limited to the intellectual but ventured towards more emotional depths about how it felt to be in the room discussing a crucial yet challenging topic.

When the Muslim Institute got in touch, we were primed to host a day of discussion on the question of Do Muslims need decolonising? and saw the opportunity to extend our learning. In offering to host a conference on decolonising, the museum was participating in the interrogatory thinking and platforming necessary for decolonisation.

Speakers at the conference included academics, artists and experts in Islam and decolonisation. The academic and trans activist Leyla Jagiella discussed decolonisation and sex in Islam, and a closing panel discussion featuring Fatima Rajina, a lecturer in sociology at the University of Kingston London, discussed the capture of oral histories within a family context.

Visual artist, editor, producer and educator, Kinsi Abdulleh, spoke about decolonisation, Islam and blackness in a manner that made the topic accessible and easy to listen to, without detracting from the serious nature of it.

The Museum of London’s session shared images of objects with an Islamic connection from the collection and asked for feedback from delegates. This provided new understanding of the historic photographs collection, in particular, Keith Cardwell’s photographs of East London. For example, a particular shop from Brick Lane may have featured in the photographs because it served as a part-time mosque.

Zey Kussan, a curator at the Museum of London, who chose items from the collection for comment in the session, said: “The reason we chose these images was that as Ari [Haque] and I knew there was more to them than what was captured in the record, and I think that’s down to our Muslim heritage.

“This is not just about Islam – this is about our collections as a whole. We need vital information from the communities involved. The exercise has made me think deeper and also given me the confidence to express this consistently in my day-to-day work.”

For me, comments about a caption that went with a hijab on display in our collection have implications for museum practice. The caption, which was written by a Muslim community group, was critically assessed by the delegates at the conference.

Museums can’t assume that by engaging one group, you’ve engaged a whole community or successfully displayed a decolonised interpretation.

It’s a hard puzzle to solve, particularly in the context of Islam, where the breadth of people identifying as Muslim is so wide.

Decolonial thought and good practice evolve rapidly and keeping up will require constant enquiry and attention embedded across practice rather than as a one-off event.

After the conference, we shared the information and learnings, both about our own collections but equally about the other sessions presented, to other teams, including those involved in creating the new museum.

We’ve invited speakers back to speak to the wider museum about their decolonisation research. It’s sparked further research into our Islamic collections.

The conference wasn’t about decolonisation of museums in particular, but that means that Museum of London staff got to hear about decolonisation in a context they otherwise might not have done. When it comes to decolonising practice, museums have to go where the conversation is already happening.