My name Mohammed Ahmed Ahmed Uddin, I’m 42 years old and I currently reside in Streatham. I’ve lived in Streatham now for about 8/9 years. I’m actually from around here, my family is from around here. My Dad, my brothers, my uncles, they all worship at this mosque. Consequently, my affiliation to this mosque is, principally, through worship and then through family ties, etc. The reason for my involvement is in the way of Allah, as a form of worship because when you undertake to do something for the mosque, for the community at large, it’s something that you are doing in the name of the religion, Allah, however you want to term it. So that’s the main reason for my involvement and my benefit is purely a mental benefit, I receive great pleasure from doing work for the community at large, for the Masjid – mosque as it’s otherwise known – and in the path of Allah.
Incidentally, it is the first time that I have been on an archaeological site. I find archaeology very interesting as I learnt about it vaguely at school, it’s principles, digging up history, recording history, I’m sure that there’s a lot more to it than just that but as you learn about these things at primary school and secondary school, those are the things that you generally tend to remember, the purposes of archaeology. Did I ever think I’d get the opportunity to be involved with an archaeological site, no! It just never even crossed my mind. Other than perhaps watching Indiana Jones digging something up, working on an archaeological site, generally, the perception is that its a job for middle class people who don’t have to worry about bills that much and who are doing it for the love of it. But, obviously, you can follow your loves and your passions when your main bases are covered ie the bills and the mortgage etc.
What do I associate with archaeology, like I said, Indiana Jones is probably the first one, number two is probably the image of the crystal skull; the word Saxon comes to mind, and a lot of the books that I read at school had Saxon archaeology. There were Saxon war items, there was a particular helmet [the Sutton Hoo helmet in the BritishMuseum] if I remember correctly, it was in all the books at school, on the front cover. Tutankhamen comes to mind, the discovery of the golden mask, and other than that, archaeology, where does it fit into my brain? Not a lot really. I was aware that it was going to be part of the planning condition but I wasn’t aware that it was going to be this deep in financial terms.
I, generally, don’t watch too many Discovery Channel programmes, on archaeology, although I do watch a lot of Discovery stuff, but, mostly Gold Rush and the history Channel would be like watching storage lockers being cleaned out of historical items.
What else can I associate with archaeology other than people on their hands and knees using brushes, and digging things out? Other than that, Indiana Jones and the discovery of Tutankhamen have probably done more for archaeology than anything else, in my limited knowledge of the subject.
I would possibly like to take the opportunity to research local studies. I’m very interested in genealogy, in my own family and where we came from. I believe that my own genealogy goes back to the Yemen, which is in the southern Arabian peninsula. We’re from Bangladesh, it was Yemeni missionaries that came to our parts and transformed the lie of the land. I personally believe that I descend from that group of people.
Where you have an older generation segment of worshippers, you generally just tell them the headlines because going deep about it goes in one ear and comes out the other. I’ve had no archaeological training because I’m principally involved in organising and the mystical side, things like that. I’m a lot more familiar with archaeology now than I was due to my experiences on the site. The wish to involve the wider community, that particular point is really important for myself and as a person who leads the way in terms as a kind of spokesman for the mosque. I played a part in getting the main building erected, I had a lot of input in that. From that I’ve learnt – and from my own experiences in life – that you can’t just put something on the landscape which is foreign to the local incumbents. You need a transition and to smooth that transition information has to pass through which is understandable to the locals and if the locals have a colloquial way who have to try and level in a colloquial way to get the message through because a lot of the problems that we have in this society is not really ignorance, it’s misinformation. And to put the right information across is essential, otherwise people fear the unknown: I can imagine that a lot of people walk down the road and see the mosque, and they don’t see it with rose tinted glasses they see it with a dark tint and they think that all kind of stuff goes on in there, clandestine activities. All the kind of stuff they see in films, movies and through reading the tabloids and you know, the first day we started work one guy came up to the excavator driver and said that he would slice him up if he switched the machine on next morning. The point is that man, whoever he was, he fears something and it’s more likely than not the unknown, the colonisation by Muslims? If we don’t work to try and break these barriers we won’t be doing our job. So there’s misinformation and there’s also lack of information which also contributes to ignorance. Fear comes in and it only takes one bad headline to whip up fear for a week. That’s why we’ve talked about an Open Day for people to come to the site and to the mosque, to hear about the religion and our backgrounds; to come on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon and we would put out some tables, have some food and drinks, get kids to come along and have information boards up and staff from PCA to say a few words and a couple of us from the mosque to say a few words, make a celebration of it.
It’s a benefit to us to move ahead and I remember street parties in 1977 when I was a kid and lived in Vauxhall and they were great. The locals they’ll come, they’ll see they’ll listen and they’ll see we’re ordinary people, not people planning the next atrocity! A lot of people are sceptics but they’ll see ordinary people attending and it’ll have an impact.
PCA 