Islam Dreaming: Indigenous Muslims In Australia

PETA STEPHENSON specialises in the study of cross-cultural relationships between Indigenous and non-white immigrant communities in Australia. She recently completed an ARC Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Asia Institute, Faculty of Arts, the University of Melbourne, where she is now an honorary fellow. Her first book, The Outsiders Within (UNSW Press, 2007), traced the hidden story of centuries of trade and intermarriage between Indigenous and South-East Asian communities across Australia. 2 ISLAM DREAMING Indigenous Muslims in Australia PETA STEPHENSON 3 A UNSW Press book Published by University of New South Wales Press Ltd University of New South Wales Sydney NSW 2052 AUSTRALIA www.unswpress.com.au © Peta Stephenson 2010 First published 2010 This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the publisher. Indigenous readers are advised that this book contains names, images and words of people who are now deceased. National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Author: Stephenson, Peta. 4 Title: Islam dreaming: Indigenous Muslims in Australia/ by Peta Stephenson. ISBN: 978-1-74224-018-3 Subjects: Muslims – Australia – History. Aboriginal Australians6. – Religion. Dewey Number: 305.69794 Digital conversion by Pindar NZ 5 CONTENTS Acknowledgments Introduction 1 The beginnings 2 Telling it like it was 3 Keeping it in the family 4 Marriage matters 5 Having faith 6 Speaking to the converted 7 Sisters are doing it for themselves 8 Malcolm X Down Under Conclusion Interviews Notes Bibliography 6 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book would not have been possible without the generous contribution of the many Indigenous people who shared their personal and family histories with me. I feel privileged to have been taken into their confidence, and thank them for their warm hospitality, time and trust. I also give thanks to those interviewees who allowed me to reproduce photographs of themselves or their forebears. I owe a further debt of gratitude to the many other interviewees who shared their expertise and experience with me. Philip Morrissey generously read and commented on an earlier version of the manuscript. For their feedback on individual chapters I likewise extend heartfelt thanks to Athol Chase, Philip Jones, Ian McIntosh, Balfour Ross, Anna Shnukal and Pamela Rajkowski OAM. I would also like to express my appreciation to Pamela for introducing me to many Afghan cameleer descendants, particularly Mona Wilson and Shirley Wilson. I give thanks to Simon Caldwell, Dilara Reznikas, Joan Staples and Ken O’Shea for providing access to interviews they had previously conducted. Thank you to Sandy Caldow, Aziz Cooper, Dexter Duncan, Soliman Gilany, Beylal Racheha, Kurander Seyit, Halima Binti Hassan Awal, Eugenia Flynn and Julie Nimmo for putting me in touch with other interviewees. I also thank Julie for allowing me to use the title ‘Islam Dreaming’. I thank Muhammad Kamal for answering my queries along the way. Thanks to Tuba Boz for the copy of her honours thesis and to Edmund Carter for his help with the maps and cover image