An Interview with Haroon Shirwani (President 2002-03)

The following is an interview with Haroon Shirwani, the OUISoc President for Michaelmas 2002 and Hilary 2003

1. Tell us a bit more about yourself

Born and brought up in Surrey, I matriculated in 1999 at St John’s to read French and Arabic. Delighted to be part of a community, I was a super keen fresher and spent much of my first term running around Oxford very happily doing tasks for my ISoc elders, such as buying halal meat in Cowley, collecting prayer mats from Cowley, attending meetings in Cowley. There was a lot of running to Cowley. So I ended up finding a different way of being helpful by setting up the ISoc Library. This involved bringing up an eclectic pile of books and cassettes from London, creating a Hotmail account and then sending people items they requested via the pigeon post. After a magical second year (mostly in Damascus) and a pleasant third year (lots of cultural activities but no ISoc), I planned to spend my fourth year focused on finals. I had even got the smallest room in college so as to deter visitors. And then, while on a summer course in Grenoble, I received a phonecall saying no one else was available so could I be ISoc President.

2. What was your defining memory of ISOC?

The dizzying variety of people and the dazzling range of activities!We had an amazing committee of women and men, Shi’a and Sunnis, freshers and graduates - who all worked very hard together for the community. There was a whirl of activity. People stepped up to teach classes, run workshops, sing songs, perform sketches, design posters, store prayer rugs, coordinate social activities, arrange sports matches, host visiting speakers, cook huge meals, lobby for a prayer room and organise collections for charity. It was beautiful!

3. What was your favourite event?

My favourite events were all the things people got together to do for Ramadan 2002 and the two Eids. It’s astonishing to think of it now. During Ramadan (over most of November and going into December), two of my fellow fourth years worked wonders. They managed to persuade Oxford’s halal restaurants to take it in turns to provide free iftars. And they got the food over to our gatherings in Keble from a different part of town each night for the whole month, racking up huge personal phone bills and wearing out at least one of their cars. For Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, again, it was wonderful to see many different people stepping up: some members of the community organised the prayers, which were the first held on campus and thus the first in Oxford accessible to women (in our time there); some hard-working volunteers made and delivered the food; international students performed devotional songs; and some creative types wrote and performed genius comedy sketches.

4. What notable speakers and events occurred during your time at ISoc?

We had a variety of visiting speakers who were generous with their time and insights, including: Humera Khan; Aisha Masterton; Afifi al-Akiti; Neal Robinson; Muhammad al-Yaqoubi; Yahya Birt; and Haytham Tamim. A special highlight for me was the concluding night of the Abrahamic Faiths Week, when we hosted Rabbi Norman Solomons, Rev’d Liz Carmichael and Dr Yahya Michot talking about the idea of love from the perspective of their faith traditions. One of the things that I learnt through all this is that small internal events can be at least as valuable as big speaker meetings: a beginners’ Arabic class open to all faiths, for example, was particularly successful; and creative arts sessions run by and for students proved to be spiritually and emotionally enriching experiences.

5. What challenges did you face during your presidency?

It was a hugely diverse community with a lot of different views, but things were beautiful when people were happy to share spaces and appreciate each other.

6. How did ISoc help with your personal development, spiritually and socially

It allowed me to meet a variety of inspirational people from whom I have learnt a lot.

7. What was Ramadan like back then?

It brought out the best in the community. In addition to the fantastic iftars and delightful Eid mentioned above, we also managed to have a few suhur gatherings. What was funny was that people showed up to the suhur gatherings that I had never met at any other event!

8. Could you tell me more about the Abrahamic faith week?

A Muslim student active in interfaith work said that we should explore our shared heritage through an Abrahamic Faiths Week featuring speaker meetings and discussions. It was beautiful on a number of levels. The ISoc members organising it were themselves from a range of doctrinal backgrounds. And it culminated in a rabbi, a vicar and a shaykh talking about love.

9. Is there anything you would have liked to have been done differently while you were involved with ISoc?

Our approach to ISoc events was still largely based on the speaker meeting paradigm. Even though we also had a variety of cultural, social and sporting activities, I wish that we had worked even harder on thinking up different possible formats for internal meetings where we could leverage the talents of Muslim students or have more shared activities with other faith societies.

10. What are your thoughts on ISOC today?

It looks amazing. It seems that you have a diverse range of people occupying a rich variety of committee and sub-committee roles. People still can’t spell jumu’a properly, but some things never change. All in all, If everyone is doing their jobs, and is ensuring proper handovers to their successors, then the students of Oxford must be very well served!

11. In one sentence, can you summarise why ISOC was important to you?

For many people, the ISoc is the one time in their lives when they can live in a close-knit faith community where they can feel loved, appreciated and nourished in a way that sets them up for the rest of their lives.