VOTE, VOTE, VOTE FOR ISLAM

Joanna Coles spent a day canvassing

with the Islamic Party before next week's council elections

Bolton UNDER a poster of Mecca in the back- room of the Islamic Information Centre on Bolton's Derby Road, Dr Hany Nasr, a campaign worker for the recently formed Islamic Party, was on the mobile phone trying to find a mosque. A television crew was on its way to find out about the chances of the party's success in next week's council elections and Dr Nasr was anxious to oblige.

So, it fortunately turned out, was one of the Lancashire town's nine mosques. Although filming inside the temples is usually no more allowed than women or shoes, an exception would be made. After all, it was for television.

Actually, it was for German television who, along with the rest of Europe's and South-East Asia's media, have apparently taken far more interest in Britain's newest political force than Britain itself. But then according to Sahib Bleher, the party's general secretary, the English media, like English people and English politics, have 'an insular policy'.

It was precisely to overcome this alleged insularity, which he says became especially apparent over the Rushdie affair, that he founded the party last autumn. It is not just about representing Muslims' interests, he says, but also about offering non-believers a chance to experience political solutions offered by Allah.

Carrying this message to the people, four candidates are standing in Bolton (there were supposed to be five but num- ber five filled in the form incorrectly), two in Blackburn and another in Derby — one for each month of the party's short life.

So far only 1,000 people have paid the £12 membership, so funds have not stretch- ed to much of a publicity campaign. Nevertheless, the front room of the in- formation centre, which doubles as Bol- ton's campaign headquarters, was cram- med with lime-green posters and boxes of leaflets in Gujarati, Urdu and English explaining why Karamat Hussain, a 53- year-old sheet metal worker, would repre- sent local interests better than Labour which has traditionally taken the Muslim vote for granted. At a national level the Islamic Party's policies are more spiritual than tangible. On Bolton's level they are depressingly familiar: Halal meat, headscarves and ex- tra English teaching in schools for ethnic minorities. Even taking into account a creative solution to abolish the poll tax by allowing councils to print their own currency — it is hard to see what the party offers non-believers.

Not so, says David Pidcock, or Daud Musa, as he prefers to be called. (Who wouldn't?) Middle-aged, bow-tied and laden with a paunch, he is not an unlikely political figure. A former butcher from Sheffield, he is, however, an unlikely convert and leader of the Islamic Party.

His experiences as a middle-class, articu- late white man can have little in common with the bulk of his supporters whose isolation, one suspects, rather than spir- ituality, unites them as a potential force.

Daud Musa claims Muslims have given Islam a bad name. He counsels tolerance over The Satanic Verses and says Iran's fatwa should be suspended until the author is diagnosed mad by a team of psychiat- rists. 'We are not about hounding Rushdie; we are about explaining what Islam has to offer the West.'

Prevented by my gender from watching Mr Hussain perform his political skills in front of the mullahs and German televi- sion, it was agreed that we would go for a quick canvass down nearby Lumsden Street, a long stretch of neat but poor terraced housing in his prospective ward. I had been down this road earlier, knocking on doors, but had failed to solicit opinion about the party's fortunes because I could not find anyone who spoke English.

Fluent in Gujarati, Mr Hussain fared better, although it transpired that this was the first door to door canvassing he had done. From the response it became evident he would need a lot more. No one had heard of him. Or the party. In fact Mr Hussain seemed mildly incredulous when one resident, Mr Sulaman Allibaye, took a poster and agreed to vote for him.

`You will? You'll vote for me? Well, that's wonderful.' He turned to the posse flanking him. 'He'll vote for me.' Daud Musa suggested I should interview him.

Only one white resident was at home. She opened the door as Daud was stuffing a leaflet through the letter-box. 'It's just a notice explaining about the Islamic Party,' he said, as if embarrassed, and moved on quickly to next door where an elderly man without any shoes on was asking policy questions in Urdu. His son, about 35 and wearing a white crocheted cap, was un- loading his car and did not understand when I asked him if he would be support- ing the party.

Glimpsing, even from a doorstep, the lives of those shy residents it was not difficult to understand why they would want their own representative on the coun- cil. Of the 20 or so people we spoke to before the German crew ordered Mr Hus- sain off to the mosque, most of them seemed relieved and surprised to be able to talk to a candidate who could speak their own language. Ignoring all else, the new party has aimed for the lowest common denominator, their isolation, which is over- whelming.

It is, however, unlikely to prove enough. Despite Mr Hussain's claims that Mr Riley, Labour's man for the past 18 years, has `never been seen' he won Bolton's Derby ward with 3,000 out of the 3,600 votes cast. The Muslims in the ward may be alienated but they make up only 40 per cent of the vote.

Joanna Coles writes for the Guardian.

'Well, at least they're civilised.'