{"id":830,"date":"2026-09-05T08:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T08:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/05\/uk-art-show-explores-muslim-life-europes-islamic-history-and-islamophobia\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T08:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T08:07:08","slug":"uk-art-show-explores-muslim-life-europes-islamic-history-and-islamophobia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/05\/uk-art-show-explores-muslim-life-europes-islamic-history-and-islamophobia\/","title":{"rendered":"UK art show explores Muslim life, Europe\u2019s Islamic history and Islamophobia"},"content":{"rendered":"

London, United Kingdom \u2013<\/strong> Underneath a 536-year-old Islamic-inspired Spanish roof in east London hang three tapestries linking the city\u2019s Muslim communities to Europe\u2019s longstanding Muslim histories.<\/p>\n

Among the works by artist Shahed Saleem, signs from the British Home Office\u2019s 2013 \u201cHostile Environment<\/a>\u201d policy, urging undocumented immigrants to self-deport, are depicted along with images of Muslim shoppers in London\u2019s diverse Queen\u2019s Market and a portrait of Altab Ali, a young Bangladeshi man who was murdered in a city park in a racially motivated attack.<\/p>\n

The collection, entitled I Was Born Here, is \u201ca story of migration and of belonging\u201d, said Saleem, who is also an architect, author and academic.<\/p>\n

Sitting on pillows beneath the ceiling, he invited onlookers to view and discuss his exhibition.<\/p>\n

Saleem contextualised the works against rising xenophobia, seen recently during the election wins of Reform UK, an anti-immigrant party, and racist riots<\/a> in Belfast, Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile I was making the work, I was seeing the increasing racial politics, the hateful climate against \u2026 basically all people that represented migration and processes of immigration,\u201d Saleem told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

\"Shahed
Shahed Saleem, an artist, architect and academic, sits under the Islamic-inspired Spanish roof which originated from the central Spanish town of Torrijos [Courtesy of David Parry]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018The themes remain alive\u2019<\/h2>\n

He was approached by the Victoria and Albert Museum team in 2024 to create an exhibit for their new Stratford location, the V&A East Storehouse, which responded to the local community and culture, and to the Torrijos ceiling. The elaborate carved and gilded wooden ceiling, which measures 6 by 6 metres (20 x 20 feet), originated from a palace in the central Spanish town of Torrijos.<\/p>\n

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What followed was hundreds of hours of building three enormous tapestries.<\/p>\n

The first, named Home Office, depicts verbatim quotes from government signage displayed through diverse neighbourhoods in London. Back in 2013, intimidation tactics were evident in the language used: \u201c106 ARRESTS LAST WEEK IN YOUR AREA\u201d, \u201cIn the UK Illegally?\u201d and \u201cGO HOME OR FACE ARREST\u201d. They are now woven on the fabric, against a backdrop of Alhambra patterns \u2013 Islamic geometric art rooted in medieval Spain.<\/p>\n

A panelled tapestry, Altab Ali\u2019s portrait, honours the textile worker who was stabbed to death in a racially motivated attack in 1978, when he was just 24.<\/p>\n

There is also an image of the voyage of the Santa Maria, Christopher Columbus\u2019s vehicle, funded by the Spanish monarchy, marking the beginning of Spain\u2019s colonisation of the so-called \u201cNew World\u201d in 1492.<\/p>\n

In the 1400s, despite centuries of religious plurality throughout Spain, the Spanish Inquisition began violently targeting Jewish and Muslim communities.<\/p>\n

\"The
The exhibit depicts the diversity of Britain\u2019s Muslim minority [Courtesy of David Parry]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWhile this period is often celebrated as the dawn of Spain\u2019s Golden Age, it also ushered in one of Europe\u2019s most devastating programmes of religious and ethnic homogenisation,\u201d said Tharik Hussain, historian, travel writer and author of Muslim Europe: A Journey in Search of a Fourteen Hundred Year History.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the century that followed, and in those leading up to it, hundreds of thousands of European Muslims and Jews were forced into exile, compelled to convert or driven from their homes, while countless others endured persecution, imprisonment and death in an attempt to erase entire communities that had been indigenous to the peninsula for centuries.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said throughout history, \u201cChristian Europe\u201d has admired and at times preserved and celebrated the \u201cartistic achievements of Europe\u2019s Islamic civilisation\u201d, but too often has marginalised, excluded and persecuted Muslim communities.<\/p>\n

Reflecting on the exhibit, 26-year-old visitor Hana said, \u201cAlthough the stories were rooted in the past, you can see that the themes remain alive in today\u2019s public.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was something particularly ironic about [the roof] being presented alongside the tapestry\u2019s representation of hostility and the uncomfortable realities of migration.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the irony is in Europe\u2019s longstanding fascination and orientalisation of Islamic art and people, alongside increasing Islamophobia. In the past year alone, Islamic art has sold for record-setting<\/a> amounts in London\u2019s auction houses, while anti-Muslim crimes<\/a> terrorise communities.<\/p>\n

For Saleem, histories are intentionally interwoven.<\/p>\n

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\u201cColonisation abroad and the creation of ethno-nationalism at home, these two components became constituent parts of the Modern European nation, which continues today,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in the exhibit, The Bell Hotel and the Britannia Hotel, both of which have been used to host asylum seekers, are depicted on a coat of arms. Last July, hundreds of far-right protesters attempted to storm The Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, at least three of whom were found guilty of violent disorder this month.<\/p>\n

Another tapestry is lively. A crowd of market-goers bustles throughout Newham\u2019s Queen\u2019s Market, an iconic publicly owned market that locals have recently fought to protect against corporate development.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt that these are the people who are being very largely impacted by legislation and timing that we\u2019re seeing,\u201d Saleem told Al Jazeera. \u201cBut they also represent a multicultural [Britain] and a process of arriving, settling, creativity, labour and life, really. This piece shows the richness of the city which is threatened.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was born here: A defensive statement in the face of hostility<\/h2>\n

For Imran Haque, 25, the exhibit is more than just an artistic and political commentary \u2013 it speaks to him and his family\u2019s personal histories.<\/p>\n

\u201cI Was Born Here manifests the very real, tangible and honest truth that I, and thousands more British Muslims, were, in fact, born here,\u201d he told Al Jazeera. In the 1970s, Haque\u2019s mother and her friends, as young Bangladeshi newcomers to London, shopped for fabrics at the very same marketplace that Saleem sourced his textiles from.<\/p>\n

Underpinning Saleem\u2019s work is an undermining of ethnonationalist thinking that positions Muslim immigrants as foreign and non-British.<\/p>\n

The histories of the Alhambra and the roof itself nod to Islam\u2019s place in Europe for centuries, while the title of the exhibit, I Was Born Here, satirises a common phrase that Muslim and non-white Londoners are often forced to repeat.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something that we would have to use to justify our existence here, in England, to counter racist attacks,\u201d Saleem explained to Al Jazeera. \u201cIt\u2019s part [of] a parody of having to continuously claim one\u2019s space in the palace where you actually belong.\u201d<\/p>\n

The works are the first thing the eye catches when entering the first floor of the Storehouse, taking up an enormous amount of space with its bright colours and sheer size.<\/p>\n

This significance is not lost on onlookers like Haque, who said its prominence in the gallery \u201chas allowed me to feel free to occupy space with my history and story\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cMuslims are not a strange or foreign concept,\u201d he said. \u201cThe religion has been known on these shores from the 16th century, and the pieces serve as a reminder that faith has no borders.\u201d<\/p>\n

I Was Born Here, to Saleem, is not just a political commentary or a series of artworks \u2013 it is an artefact. \u201cWe\u2019re in a historical moment at this point in time so the work acts as a marker of that moment, as well,\u201d says Saleem, viewing the works as documenting an unprecedented wave of Islamophobia and anti-migrant sentiment, and a historical revisionism that positions Europe as solely Christian. \u201cWhen you come back and read the work in 100 years\u2019 time, it will speak of all these things.\u201d<\/p>\n

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