That Wouldn’t Be Very Christian, Would It? - Q-News July 2006, Issue 367

Think about Christian charities working in the developing world and you don’t have to be Muslim to imagine glazed-eyed missionaries carrot-and-sticking needy recipients with life saving food and medicines right to the old church. Farzina Alam reports from the headquarters of Christian Aid on the charity’s Muslim employees and how this truly modern faith-based charity is taking on the stereotypes.

Nadeem Khan sits at his desk at work. There’s an Ayat-ul-Kursi sticker proudly displayed in his cubicle along with other golden ‘Islamic’ ornaments that seem to say, even to the causal passer-by, “make no mistake, I’m a Muslim.” He and his colleagues work to alleviate poverty and get aid to humanitarian crisis areas all over the world. Nadeem’s inspiration comes from the Quranic verses closest to his heart, those that encourage charity work and make zakah and other good works incumbent on all good Muslims. This is what Nadeem has done every day, for the last four years, working for Christian Aid.

Nadeem, 29, is one of the few Muslim employees at one of the world’s largest Christian-faith based development organisations. Not surprisingly, many Muslims do a double-take upon hearing this. Questions abound. Isn’t it wrong to work for an organisation that gives charity with one hand and a Bible with the other? Quite the contrary, says Nadeem, “A lot of people are surprised to hear that Christian Aid doesn’t actually do any missionary work abroad at all. When I first started working here, I had to explain to about fifty people at my mosque about Christian Aid policies.”

And what would that be? “Helping people regardless of religion or race to improve their own lives and tackle the causes of poverty and injustice,” says its website. Even though it is fundamentally a church-based organisation, with donations primarily coming from worshippers and parishes across Britain, religion is the inspiration for Christian Aid but there’s much more to the organisation than just that.

So what’s it like being a Muslim employee in a majority Christian environment? “I’d love to say they make us wear armbands and sit in the basement”, says Nadeem, “but really, it’s nothing like that. You find a whole spectrum of people working here. It’s almost like a reflection of the society we live in today, being a majority Christian country, where the majority really doesn’t go to church.”

Moroccan-born Zakariah Saykouk, another one of Christian Aid’s Muslim employees, waxes poetry about a tolerant, open minded work environment.

“I often have discussions with my colleagues, who are always interested in my opinion on world events. They are open to the fact that I may think differently, and even when we disagree on things, there is still understanding.”

Neither Zakariah nor Nadeem had any specific ambitions to join Christian Aid, but when the opportunity arose, both found no reason to reject a good job.

“Obviously, I did my research before coming here,” says Zakariah. “Like many Muslims, my first reaction upon hearing the name of Christian Aid was, ‘Hold on...what does it mean?’ But after some research, I found out that they work in a lot of Muslim countries, and the more I discovered, the more interested I was in the job. So I came for the interview and have been here since.”
So what is it exactly that convinced Zakariah and Nadeem?

“What impressed me the most is their focus on alleviating poverty”, says Nadeem. “They work in many Muslim countries, including Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Central Asia. They go where the problems are, and what drives them to do the work they do is the Christian concept of charity, which is so similar to our concept of zakah. They help because they are Christian, but who they help has nothing to do with their faith.”

Christian Aid is a non-operational organisation, which means that they only work through appointed partners abroad. Many such partners are church-based, but in countries like Palestine, many of the employees working in the partner organisations are Muslim.

“A lot of the time, Christian Aids partners come to our head office to give presentations and produce reports, and I get to hear first-hand about the work actually being done,” says Zakariah. “When I hear about their experiences, and how Christian Aid is helping them achieve what they want to achieve, I feel happy. For me, it is enough that Muslim countries are getting the support they need, which by right, they should be getting from their own governments. Where the money come from ceases to matter, so long as it is used ethically and without strings attached. If you start analysing too much, over how the money is coming from churches, you merely prolong the suffering of people who desperately need help.”

Palestine has been a major focus of Christian Aid’s expanding work. What position does a faith-based organization like Christian Aid hold in a region torn apart by religious and territorial conflict? For this I go to Nigel Varndell, the Church Relations Manager, expecting a response typical of a neutral, help-with-a-blind-hand development agency. I am pleasantly surprised.

“The work we do in Palestine is the same as what we do anywhere else in the world. We are a development agency, working with the poorest communities, trying to eradicate poverty,” Nigel tells me. “In Palestine, we tend to work in the West Bank and Gaza strip, naturally because that is where the poorest communities exist. We recognise that politics is one the major causes of poverty, so we feel that if we are going to eradicate poverty, we must take political stances on many issues.”

These issues include aid, debt and the way trade relationships work in various countries worldwide. Nigel continues, “We have identified in the last four years that the single largest contributing factor to Palestinian poverty is the Israeli occupation, so if you want to get rid of poverty, you have to end the occupation.”

I ask Nigel how the public has responded to such a bold stance. “We are always going to get complaints, owing to the nature of the conflict. Some people make valid points, but a lot of it is emotional reaction. Having been in the region for forty-odd years, we have worked with plenty of groups in the territories and we are quite confident that what we are saying is right. The evidence is there.”

“Although Christian Aid have been quite vociferous in its support for Palestine, they also work with Israeli organisations, especially those which bring attention to human rights abuses taking place in Palestine,” Nigel adds. I’m told of an organisation Christian Aid has funded, called the Parents Circle, where Israeli parents of children killed in suicide attacks are brought together with Palestinian parents who also have lost their offspring during the ongoing conflict.

It’s understandable if many of Muslims have never considered Christian Aid as a kindred charity. Sometimes it is hard to see beyond the name of an organisation, stereotypes often abound from first impressions. The history of European churches in Muslim lands, the close relationship of churches with colonisation and the ongoing, hard-sell missionary work particularly in Muslim Africa has shaped popular Muslim impressions of ‘church organisations’. That’s why Nigel and his team are going about trying to change things.

“What we have recognised in the last few years, is that we are increasingly living in a multicultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious society, and that we work in countries which are the same,” says Nigel.
“We feel we have to start taking that seriously, so we have started looking at how we, as a faith based organisation, can work with other faith based development organisations, seeing as how we share a common agenda on poverty alleviation.”

I ask him what significance this has for other faith communities sharing the development platform in Britain. “At the end of the day, we will have a bigger effect on poverty if we do things together, than if we were to do them apart. If you look back over recent campaigns like Make Poverty History, one of the reasons why it was a huge success is because it was a coalition of different organisations who came together, and what they accomplished together was much more effective than if they’d worked apart.

“So the question is who should we be forming relationships and partnerships with? As a faith-based development organisation, it makes sense to us to work with other faith-based development organisations. All the faith based development organisations in this country share the same beliefs in when it comes to poverty, justice and so on. You can make a common platform for them to speak that will be more effective.”

When I mention this to Nadeem, he reiterates why this kind of inter-faith work is so important. “Once I’ve explained to them what Christian Aid really does, Muslims are usually quite impressed, seeing a Christian organisation active in countries that are part of our ummah.”

With recent events driving the local Muslim community into isolation, and vulnerability, Nadeem feels that knowledge of Christian Aid’s activities will help break down some barriers. One such example of inter-faith work was Christian Aid’s recent collaboration with Islamic Relief in the aid efforts for the 2005 Kashmir earthquake.

“Christian Aid doesn’t have any projects in Kashmir,” Nigel points out. “But when an emergency is aired on the television, our supporters naturally start sending us money expecting us to respond. And when you don’t have organisations in place, you look for other organisations who can do as good a job.” This was the rationale behind Christian Aid pumping Islamic Relief with close to half a million pounds during relief efforts.

“Christian Aid is massive compared to Muslims charities like Islamic Relief or Muslim Aid. People listen when they speak, so they used their clout to help Islamic Relief’s work during the quake.”
I wonder out loud what this means for Muslims.

“I think it’s misleading to say that you have to make a choice between Islamic Relief and Christian Aid. People shouldn’t see it as black and white, as they’re all performing similar roles. If I didn’t know about Christian Aid and what it does,” says Zakariah, “I too would naturally be uncomfortable supporting them because of their name, preferring for example, a mosque to direct my money towards. I don’t know if that’s right or wrong, but living in England, it is easier for us to go with the organisation we recognise. But that is a perception which needs to change.”

It would be easy to paint Nadeem and Zakariah as ‘assimilated’ Muslims with little sense of what is of concern in Muslim communities. They defy such facile boxes. Nadeem is currently studying for his third degree, a Masters in Islamic Studies from Birkbeck University in London. And Zakariah points out that the chapel provided for employees by Christian Aid is used much more by the Muslims working. Are they a sign of hope for the future of integration in Britain? Nadeem certainly thinks so. “I, a Muslim, work for Christian Aid. I even know of Christians who work for Islamic Relief. It just shows that those of us who are quite committed to our faith are all quite open and tolerant of other people. Which begs the question: who is actually being intolerant?”