As musicians, politicians and fans remember Sinead O’Connor, some Muslims are disappointed that the Irish singer and lifelong activist’s religious identity is not being highlighted in tributes.
UK police on Wednesday said the 56-year-old was found unresponsive in her London residence on Wednesday and that there her death was not being treated as suspicious.
Since the news of her death, Muslim fans of the 90s superstar have said her conversion to Islam, a cornerstone of her identity, was inspiring, but that some media reports have failed to note her religious beliefs in obituaries.
O’Connor, whose chart-topping hit “Nothing Compares 2 U” helped her reach global stardom, converted to Islam in 2018.
“This is to announce that I am proud to have become a Muslim. This is the natural conclusion of any intelligent theologian‘s journey. All scripture study leads to Islam. Which makes all other scriptures redundant,” the songstress tweeted on October 19, 2018.
At that time, O’Connor tweeted selfies donning the Muslim headscarf, the hijab, and uploaded a video of her reciting the Islamic call to prayer, the azan.
She took on the Muslim name Shuhada’ Davitt – later changing it to Shuhada Sadaqat – but continued to use the name Sinead O’Connor professionally.
One social media user said imagery of the singer without the hijab points to the glaring lack of Muslim reporters in newsrooms.
Meanwhile, some said that O’Connor was an inspiration for queer Muslims globally.
In 2000, she came out as a lesbian during an interview. But the singer, who was married to multiple men throughout her life, later said that her sexuality was fluid and that she did not believe in labels.
Some found joy in O’Connor’s conversion growing up, seeing themselves represented, while others, just learning about her Muslim identity at the news of her death, also took inspiration.
O’Connor was no stranger to controversy.
A lifelong nonconformist, she was outspoken about religion, feminism, and war, as well as her own addiction and mental health issues.
In 2014, she refused to play in Israel.
“Let’s just say that, on a human level, nobody with any sanity, including myself, would have anything but sympathy for the Palestinian plight. There’s not a sane person on earth who in any way sanctions what the f*** the Israeli authorities are doing,” she told Hot Press, an Irish music magazine.
Her iconic shaved head and shapeless wardrobe defied early 90s popular culture’s notions of femininity and sexuality.
In 1992, she ripped up a photo of Pope John Paul II during a television appearance on Saturday Night Live, vocal against the Catholic Church’s history of child abuse.
The late former star was also a firm supporter of a united Ireland, under which the United Kingdom would relinquish control of Northern Ireland.
Islam as religious text basis doesn’t really differ in a bad way from the other two Abrahamic religions. It even gives some extra rights to women that Christianity and Judaism don’t. Forcing hijab on women is also expressively banned in Islamic theological texts. Doesn’t change how it works in practice as forced hijab is pretty common in fundamentalistic Islamic theocracies. But might explain why converting is a little bit less insane than at the surface level. If I had to choose one of the Abrahamic religions on a purely theological basis I might end up choosing Islam. Please note, I am not trying to give a pass to Islam, Islamic countries or especially fundamentalist Muslims. The issues are myriad. People outside Islamic countries just have a somewhat skewed image of the religion. Both in theory and practice.
It’s a religion founded by a guy who consummated a marriage to a 9 year old girl - on that basis alone, converting as a woman is super fucked up.
That’s no better or worse than the morals of the founders of the other Abrahamic religions.
yeah, and it’s dumb for women to convert to those, too. tbh it’s dumb for women to convert to any religion that allows men, period.
Its dumb for women to convert to a religion that allows men?
Yeah, you can get the cooties.
Playing with crystals doesn’t make you magic.
Holy yes yes no batman.
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Why call it indefensible, and then go onto defend it?
I realized later that’s what it sounds like. I am not defending the act itself. I have spent a lot of time criticising it myself. What I am trying to do is to frame it into context. Bible is not without its pretty heinous acts. What I have an issue with is that people frame Islam, Christianity and Judaism in completely separate contexts. It is no less insane to convert to Christianity than Islam. Both are problematic and all three are built on each other literally. IMO based on religious texts Islam is better but that doesn’t mean it is without significant faults. There are buts like with Aisha. Otherwise, I would have converted already.
People forget that countries, cultures, religions and people are not as simply understood as Islam bad. That would make my work easier. But religions are a complex mixture of all with a side of history. For example, both Christianity and Judaism also require veiling yourself as a woman but few do. I haven’t really met a Christian who doesn’t wear polycotton. And as few that don’t eat crustaceans. Not even Catholicism nor Orthodoxy require either. But Bible does.
Fundamentalist thought processes have been pretty widespread in Islam for the past half a century. But they are not also explainable with just Islam bad. A lot of it is overcorrection because of imperialism. Some are about the far-right which while Islamophobic carries a lot of commonalities with fundamentalists of all types. And some are about religion. It is a potent mix and is used by a lot of populists globally. While there is a lot to criticize, it is often mischaracterized. Which makes me sound like I am defending the faults. I am not and should have framed better.
No it isn’t. Most rapists back then waited until after puberty. 9 is extremely young no matter the era.
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Here’s a video on this presentism fallacy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzXN6Mv9k8A
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=lzXN6Mv9k8A
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
I don’t think this really applies to a prophet of god. What kind of god forbids bacon, but leaves friggen pedophilia on the table?
You have a time machine to prove that she was nine years old?
I’m a non-muslim from islamic country, i feels like the so called “skewed image” is justified. A lot of muslim isn’t right in their head. I know i can’t criticise the whole religion just because people practice it wrong, but man, these people do project these skewed image themselves, and dare i say, proudly.
I have lived in multiple as non-Muslims for long periods of time. My group of friends is pretty varied. I am not disagreeing with that in any way. A lot of Muslims are problematic at best. Why it is so is a lot more complex than just Islam. The skewed image comes not from the fact that a lot of the criticism of Islam, and especially Islamic countries, is not true. It comes from not knowing what religion says theologically, what the jurisprudence of Islam says and what Muslims actually do both in good and bad. Instead in the West we majorly hear about negative things without similar group understanding we have with Christians. When we hear that Iran is shooting people for protesting mandatory hijab majority of us do not have knowledge that mandatory hijab is pretty clearly against religious texts and that neighbour Bill while being Muslim is a good person. We do that with Christianity for example. For example, even Christian fundamentalists do similar you need to act like my religion says thing. A case-and-point example is the overturning of Roe vs Wade in the US. Nor did people start really deciding all Catholics are bad because the church had a huge CSA problem and might still have it.
Fundamentalist religion is a problem as it usually comes with extending religious values outside oneself. How Islam landed on that in many countries is a very complex issue but one thing is that it didn’t happen in a vacuum. Radicalization has a huge component of different types of marginalization. One huge and studied cause is colonialism.
It doesn’t sit well with me how the West is part of the cause for radicalized Islam while the widespread Islamophobia means that Muslims are treated badly no matter of their own actions which is likely to further radicalize Islam.
Religion is control. It doesn’t deliver freedom.
Islam has a completely different God to Christianity. Despite both being monotheistic, Christianity worships a triune God and believes that Jesus was a personage of God. It also rejects Jesus’ death and other historical knowledge of Jesus.
It also completely invalidates Islam in the eyes of the Qur’an