Aiysha Malik is the Spokesperson of the Muslim Women’s Sports Foundation. 

The Muslim Women’s Sports Foundation (MWSF) – the brain-child of Ahmed Versi of The Muslim News – is an ever-growing organisation. It is devoted towards developing the potential and encouraging the talent that lies within British Muslim women and girls in the competitive world of sport. The MWSF was established in 2001 and was developed with participation in the International Women’s Islamic Games in mind – an Olympic style tournament. The Games were developed because it was recognised that no elite-level international competitions existed that catered for the religious requirements of Muslim women (Islamic Federation of Women’s Sport). Having sent teams to the Women’s Islamic Games of 2001 and 2005, which were endorsed by the International Olympic Committee, the on-going goal of the MWSF remains to develop squads for future international events – notably the up-coming 2009 Games.  

Over the last six years, the MWSF has successfully acquired a membership of ninety, and with taster-sessions in place, this is set to increase continually in the future. Encouraging an active and healthy lifestyle is just one of the grass-roots goals of this organisation. We also provide training sessions with professional coaches in futsal, – a form of 5-a-side football originating in South America – basketball and badminton in order to develop the skills and abilities of current players. Involvement in playing: coaching, organising and supporting the MWSF team are also at the heart of our long-term objectives. Furthermore, the MWSF is able to offer advice and assist in securing suitable training facilities for smaller Muslim women’s teams across the country in the hope of one day establishing a league competition for these teams in a suitably Islamic environment. However, the intention to form these talented teams to match those existing in countries such as Iran has been hindered by a battery of problems – impediments which nations who identify as majority Muslim escape.  

Numerous misconceptions prevail concerning the notion that Muslim women and physical activity are able to co-exist in the same sentence, with a conjoining: enjoy, rather than the assumed: don’t do. Muslim women don’t play sport; Muslim women don’t leave the house; Muslim women aren’t allowed to do anything – though Muslim women are fine cooks. Due in part to media misrepresentation, some people would find it difficult to fathom the fact that Islam actually encourages women to participate in sport. The demand that the Muslim community integrates with its host state is hindered by obstacles intruding on religious customs: notably the International Football Association Board’s ambiguous ruling banning the wearing of the hijab during football matches. Sport is a wonderful thing where personal beliefs can be put aside for common goals – winning of course! Yet this transformation – not integration policy which many international organisations have taken up is likely to prove a great barrier for Muslim women who want to play sport. The extremist label which has marred the Muslim population since 9/11 is one which Muslim communities in Britain – and other places around the world – have been attempting to neutralise. The demand for social integration, by the likes of ex British Prime Minister Tony Blair, is being made progressively difficult to fulfil. Muslim girls who simply want to play the world’s most popular game, who simply want to enjoy a good kick about are being prevented from doing so by the likes of the IFAB.  

Such problems are mirrored on a smaller scale, where Muslim girls are unlikely to participate in Physical Education at school. Unable to dress in a way which fits in with their religious identity, Muslim girls tend to avoid sport during their school years and post-education, physical activity is rarely engaged in. This unfortunately accepted phenomenon in the Muslim community makes the work of the MWSF much more challenging – parents and Muslim community members have difficulty in appreciating the needs for those daughters and Muslim women who do want to kick a ball around in a more worthwhile way. Talented Muslim sports-women are an elusive species, and making up for lost years of PE at school is a job which the MWSF is more than happy to do, but unfortunately cannot thoroughly fulfil, given the organisation’s great need for financial support. This need has translated into a difficulty in obtaining suitably qualified and experienced coaches on more than a fortnightly basis, especially in futsal – a newly developing sport in the United Kingdom (UK).  

Yet increasingly impervious to these obstacles, the MWSF has successfully sent futsal teams to the 2001 and 2005 Women’s Islamic Games and we are currently in the process of developing futsal, basketball and badminton squads for the 2009 Games. In addition to these international achievements are the national ones, where the futsal team competed in the FA Umbro Fives and the National Futsal Championships in Sheffield, where the girls were semi-finalists in the plate competition as well as winning the Fair Play award for the tournament.  

In addition to these committed efforts by MWSF to get involved in national and international sports, the dedication and hard work of the National Futsal Development Officer, Dr Iram Sattar, and Chair, Rimla Akhtar, and Vice-Chair Person, Ayesha Abdeen, resulted in the MWSF being awarded a Community Chest Grant, courtesy of both the Kick It Out campaign and the Football Foundation. The latter is the largest sports charity to exist in the UK. The grant was awarded as part of Kick It Out’s ‘One Game, One Community’ Week of Action, where the MWSF’s Eid Sports Festival was one of a thousand funded events taking place across the country in October, that were geared towards emphasising ethnic minority inclusion and equality in sport. Paul Thorogood – the Chief Executive of the Football Foundation – noted that: “Sport has the power to unite people and this great project will ensure that Muslim women from towns and cities across the country join football in helping to build a more tolerant and fair society.” This is a notion that the MWSF shares.  

The Eid Sports Festival was held on the 27^th October 2007 at the current MWSF training ground in Watford. It was a successful event which attracted over forty women and girls to the all-day affair. In a strictly female-only environment, girls from as far afield as Birmingham enjoyed taster sessions and activities, led by experienced players and professional coaches in Futsal and Basketball – two of the sports currently offered by the MWSF. For the more creative individuals there was an opportunity to produce designs for a new MWSF logo. The most outstanding designer will see their logo printed on the new training tops for the squad – team spirit reinforced by a uniform identity. With prizes promised, friendly individual games took place alongside spirited team tournaments where competitive streaks – the definitive feature of a sportsperson – effervesced from amongst these young women. That is a character-streak that is generally thought to be unidentifiable in the meek Muslim women’s image that has been so embedded in eastern culture and western media. As well as an entertaining assault course involving inflatable sumo suits, the girls enjoyed an all-you-can-eat lunch buffet, comprising tasteful delights representing the many Muslim communities from which these young sportswomen had come from.  

The Eid Sports Festival proved an excellent promotion day for the MWSF with local, national and international media interest fortifying the success that the KIO campaign had intended to achieve in the ‘One Game, One Community’ Week of Action. This support, including that of Islamic interest groups such as The Muslim News and Ummah Foods, has been gratefully appreciated by the MWSF. Such encouragement and collaboration has assisted in beginning to cultivate the goals of the Foundation to get more Muslim women involved and interested in sport: in playing, coaching, organising and supporting the teams which represent Britain at the Women’s Islamic Games.  

To flourish further these young women greatly require backing from Islamic and Sports organisations from the British and the Muslim community and from other young Muslim women and men. The members of the MWSF are an imperative example of the much-needed British Muslim role-model – a rare breed who are so sought after in the political climate of today and a breed whom the Muslim community should aspire to promote. The Eid Sports Festival has been a key occasion in raising awareness about the Muslim Women’s Sports Foundation. Let us hope that the success of these talented Sisters may prosper with vital contributions from those Islamic and Sport establishments that have reached the pinnacle in the UK.²