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.
Let’s help people remember her Muslim identity then, I’ll start:
I think she was a complicated person who struggled in a lot of ways, but she did apologize for saying this…https://people.com/music/sinead-oconnor-apologizes-saying-white-people-disgusting/
I’ll never understand the switch to Islam though, but then again, I’ll probably never understand why anyone chooses any religion either – Especially someone who took the kinds of positions she had taken earlier in life. People are complicated. I won’t hold that against her.
Existence is very scary. The randomness of it all, the indifference of the universe, how little we matter, the finality of death… not everyone can cope with this stuff. Religion provides hope and comfort to them.
I mean I wish we’d move past religion, but I don’t think it’ll ever happen. Being alive is fucking terrifying.
You might feel like just a small grain of sand, but the beach is fucking beautiful.
On second thought, I have nothing useful to add to this topic.
As a queer person, I COMPLETELY understand her sentiment here. I don’t agree with it, but I understand it.
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Are you telling me I shouldn’t move to an African country? That’s kind of racist.
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occasional uncomfortable moment
Sounds absolutely exhausting
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She was angry for getting a lot of Islamophobia. It’s racism yeah but only in a very literal sense that doesn’t hurt white people. It’s not that hard to understand.
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It’s always the most racist asshole who believe “reverse racism” is a thing, always desperate to be the victim, never willing to acknowledge how they actively victimise already marginalised people constantly.
Yeah lol who said anything about “good racism”? Lemmy really is like the old Reddit, can’t say I missed “reverse racism” concern trolls.
Exactly how she wanted it to be perceived. She was protesting racism against the non-whites.
“JOKES ON THEM, I’M ONLY PRETENDING TO BE RETARDED”
When I spend a lot of time around non-queer people (although even some cisgender gay people get in my nerves too) it gets to be really difficult for me. You’re constantly hiding parts of who you are, or getting sideways looks, or other things that tell you that they really don’t “get” you. You feel constantly judged and on the outside. It makes it difficult to not have at least a quick chat with someone who does understand.
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How does she still have white fans? You’d have to be so self-hating to be a fan of hers.
Why should that be an issue? As if Black people can’t be HP Lovecraft fans.
I understand the point here, but you realise this is stupid because it legitimises that other idiot’s sense of grievance against a supposed ‘reverse racism’. Structural reverse racism is impossible because of history.
I don’t think it legitimizes that. Fans can be blissfully unaware of an artist’s politics. Or better: loving their art in spite of their politics can be empowering. It removes the hate from the art and turns it into a positive force. This has been done over and over again with Lovecraft’s work. That took effort. Not so much with Sinead’s songs, cause her “racist” fit was so impotent to begin with.
I’m a white. A queer. An atheist. And a fan.
White people have a very long & deep history of saying some really nasty shit about non-white people, especially of the muslim faith.
By separating the art from the artist.
There’s people in every industry who surely have insufferable personalities but they make great art. Enjoying her music doesn’t mean you enjoy her as a person ya know
This whole comment section is a cesspit that demonstrates exactly why she felt that way, yet even in death you fuckers just want to keep pilling on.
You are the problem here, not her.She clarified why she did that in an interview. It’s quite funny.
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Outspoken non-conformist feminist conforms and converts to Islam, declaring all other religions worldwide, wrong and invalid. Could almost be an Onion article title.
Sky daddy issues.
She’s vocal against the Catholic Church’s history of child abuse. Assuming you’re just like all other anti-theists, I would say some amount of her personal beliefs align with yours. Almost hypocritical of you.
Also, I don’t see any “issues” she’s having. Only issues people having against her. Not saying she’s the best person - she’s still kinda shit.
A woman converting to Islam has issues. Saying it’s the inevitable confusion of theological inquiry is hard evidence of brain damage.
She’s vocal against the Catholic Church’s history of child abuse.
Which is very good, but why did she then join another religion with pretty much the same history? Do people really think it’s only the Catholic church?
Edit: I learned that she also joined a Catholic church (but not the Catholic church) for a while. Yes, definitely crazy.
Pretty common trope. Check the Indian English poet Kamala Das for comparison.
Listen, I love Sinead, but she had some serious mental health issues. She became a catholic priest after lambasting the catholic church over child sexual abuse, then left the catholic church, then converted to Islam in 2018? I think if we want to completely divulge every single issue she had in her life, it does a disservice to her memory. From my perspective, there’s no reason other than mania that I can think of why someone like her would convert to a faith like Islam.
She became a catholic priest
That doesn’t sound right.
I have to admit that I always thought she was agnostic, if not atheist, from that Pope stuff.
I idly wonder why a gay feminist would convert to Islam. Aren’t those things incompatible? Is this my ignorance showing? Are there sects of Islam that are more open minded, like there are sects of Christianity?
In short, yes, Islam varies a lot based on the actual community you’re a part of. Few places are as extreme as Afghanistan, even if you look at other conservative theocracies. When you’re looking at Muslim communities in Western Europe, it’s a very different situation.
Well, TIL a few things. Thanks.
Additionally, most of the world’s Muslims don’t live in the Middle East or North Africa. South and and Southeast Asia combined have by far the largest Muslim population in the world. India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc. And the way they practice Islam is quite different from the Middle East and North Africa. According to Wikipedia, there are about 241 million in Pakistan, 236 million in Indonesia, about 200 million in India, and 151 million in Bangladesh.
And the way they practice Islam is quite different from the Middle East
Worth noting that fundamentalist Islam is exported from KSA, similar to how evangelical Christianity is exported from USA.
Mental illness.
Yeah - her anger was directed at the church not religion. Wearing a hijab, however, seems completely irrational for a feminist. But doing something people don’t expect to get attention and make people mad is definitely on-brand.
Wearing a hijab, however, seems completely irrational for a feminist
Not if you understand that feminism is first and foremost about the freedom for women to choose what’s best for ourselves (rather than have, usually a man, often with no knowledge of your history or culture, tell you what you should or shouldn’t wear), and that neither feminists nor Muslims are a monolith and that members of either or both come from all walks of life and have a variety of views and opinions.
Perhaps try gaining a better understanding before you make such bold (and Islamophobic and sexist as well as ableist) claims:
https://daily.jstor.org/muslim-women-and-the-politics-of-the-headscarf/
I think you missed a few “ists” to accuse me of.
Muslim here, so I can reply to the question as opposed to someone who only knows about Islam from what the media or the predominant islamophobic content we find on the internet tells them about what to think about it. When you have a question about the Mercator projection, you normally don’t go to a flatearther…
She was a theologian, so she studied religions and left Islam to the last, which she ended up accepting based on the scripture once she studied it.
As to the stance of Islam with regards to being gay, the sexual act is forbidden as in one should abstain from actually doing it. Thinking about it or having the desire without acting upon it is not considered a sin. There are punishments in the Islamic law for when a person has been seen by 4 eyewitnesses performing same-sex fornication. To my knowledge this has never been followed through by a judge in the Islamic state of the 4 caliphates as the prerequisites are, intentionally, hard to come by: spying invalidates the testimony, the act should take place out of the privacy of their home etc. So it’s really if the person is doing it in the open… Now I don’t speak about what western media uphold as THE Islamic states such as Iran and Saudi Arabia which are not following strictly the law (and its prerequisites). They have laws that are quite… theirs. Also being gay and being Muslim are not incompatible, since a Muslim is always striving to submit to the divine will and overcome one’s own desires. As long as a person is sincere and keeps repenting for his/her eventual shortcomings and never disbelieves in God they remain a Muslim.
About why would a feminist accept Islam, if you study it you’ll know that it is not misogynistic (ie. considers women as lower than men or is hateful against women). Rather it has a fundamentally different and more factual stance: women are psychologically and physically different from men. So it is about equity and not equality: women do some things better than men and men can so some things better that women; women desire different things than men. To each their role in a family and in society as a whole. Both are honoured in what they do, and you’d even find women are even more honoured, revered and protected.
“Openness” has less to do with sects and as another person commented is more about the society. Muslims, +90% of which are Sunni, have the same source of law but the differences do not come from the religion but are societal.
I don’t have enough knowledge to discuss the ins and outs of your religion, but I can point out that your use of misogyny seems very narrowly defined, perhaps solely to fit your stance. Telling a woman “you aren’t allowed to do that because you’re better suited for this” is misogyny. I don’t know for a fact that this is what you mean, so clarification wouldn’t be remiss, but I suspect due to your wording that your religion does tell women what they can and can’t do.
The religion tells both males and females what they should and what they should not do. Most of it is the same, some of it is different depending on the gender.
I genuinely don’t see how the above is misogynistic.
I encourage you to study it. Find reliable Muslim sources who know what they are talking about and increase your knowledge. I may recommend sine YouTube channels like Muslim Lantern or Dawahwise.
because unless that thing they’re told to do involves having specific sex organs, it has nothing to do with their sex. Like, if it says women should stay at home and care for the kids, while men go work and earn the money-- that’s bigoted; there’s no real reason for that except that it results in compliant, financially dependent women. Abuse flourishes in this type of scenario.
Sex organs are something that males and females have in different forms, but it is disingenuous to say this is the only difference.
The man MUST provide for the house. The woman is not obliged to work and bring money, but she can do it if she wants. The way you phrased it can be understood that she is barred from working when this is not the case. Prophet Muhammad’s (pbuh) first wife Khadija was a successful tradeswoman for example. So the religion does not automatically make women financially dependant. There is abuse in some Muslim countries, no doubt like everywhere, but religion is not the reason.
Moreover, whatever the woman earns is 100% hers if she chooses to, and the man has no claim on it in Islam. She can put that to use for the house expenses, or not if she chooses to. It’s her right. Usually working women help the household’s finances but it’s up to couples to decide how they want to function.
Its the only meaningful difference in this context. And don’t think I’m giving a pass on the religion telling men what they can and can’t do. That’s also bigotry.
We do not have the same paradigm, that’s for sure. That’s why we need to learn about each other’s views.
Islam’s is: God created mankind and put it on earth for a propose. He gave us this life which is a test with do’s and don’ts. And depending on whether we follow the rules or not there is eternal bliss or eternal punishment.
Why am I or others positing this? Because God sent throughout our existence messengers to remind us of our purpose.
Why should we trust these so called messengers? They were granted miracles, ie. things others cannot perform like splitting the sea, reviving the dead, splitting the moon etc.
He also gave these messengers scripture with the laws to abide by. Where are these scriptures? Most of them were lost (Abraham’s tablet, David’s psalms…) or demonstrably corrupted by people (the old and the new testaments). The last scripture revealed is the Qur’an which is demonstrably preserved for everyone to read.
Read it and read about Muhammad’s life and you’ll understand what so called “Islam” (“peace through submission” in Arabic) is.
I have only one question. Can women worship with men and be imams in their mosque?
If no, then you don’t have equality and it is wrong.
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I just found out she converted to islam after her departure. I’ve been thinking about this.
It is easy to believe a religion is “the good one” when it’s under represented because the members of the religion don’t really have the power over the society so they don’t, or can’t, hold other people down with their extremist ideals.
When I first left islam I went through something similar. Here majority is muslim and other religions are scarce. So christians seemed like peaceful modern people minding their own business, respecting women and stuff. Which they were. But as I learned about the church and bible and all that, I understood I failed to analyze the religion as a whole properly. I just looked into a very small window and thought that was the whole thing.
Christianity was the antithesis of islam for me for a while. It’s the same with the artists and rich white folks who convert to islam. They get new eccentic sounding names and their melodies change. But they never really live in a real muslim community nor they experience a VERY oppressive muslim culture. They get this image of a religion where you casually cover your head if you want to and nobody cares about anything other than inner peace. Which is cool but far, far from any kind of reality.
That’s insightful, thanks for sharing your views on this
Almost every article I read yesterday mentioned that she converted to Islam. They didn’t spend a lot of time on it, because it happened relatively recently and the articles mostly hit the highlights that most people would know, like the songs she released in the 90s and the infamous incident on SNL that resulted in an informal ban in the US.
Yeah this is just a shitty ragebait sharticle. In most countries, someone’s religion is a private matter and isn’t mentioned more than in passing in an obituary
If people are getting wound up about it, they’re probably stupid cunts looking for something to get wound up about
It’s just religion. Any fanatism should be ignored.
Unfortunately many religions are fanatic.
You’re welcome to downvote me into the depths of the underworld now.
It’s because people assume it’s just a phase for her, like being a lesbian or being Catholic. None of those lasted.
But theres a point here - what does it really matter if she does? People aren’t static, we all have constant varying degrees of change in our lives and our perceptions of the world around us - I think it’s worthwhile and even noble to try and find words to communicate those changes.
She said so herself, right? Like, we identify with the labels that’ll help people outside ourselves understand best where we’re at - sometimes we change, sometimes we find a more immediately accurate label that articulates something the last one we identified with couldn’t quite reach.
Sure it’s reflective work for the perceived and asks a bit more headspace to process things in that frame for the perceiver - but we’re people. When we commit to being honest (for lack of a better word), we’re never going to live as simple narratives for others.
Sure. But should Muslim fans be proud of her Muslim identity as the article says, when she was also at different times a Catholic and given enough time might have become a Buddhist?
Did she take religion seriously?
But her being a great singer will last forever. Which is what we are remembering. Kinda weird that people are shaming that. Celebrate peoples talents and the things that brought them joy, not what was controversial or brought pain.
One social media user said imagery of the singer without the hijab points to the glaring lack of Muslim reporters in newsrooms.
So we can’t use images of Sinead O’Conner pre-2018 when talking about her legacy and remembering her work?
She had a lot of mental issues so making great choices was sometimes not her strength. Choosing to become a muslim might very highlight one of those bad choices.
Yea her whole reasoning for converting is flawed too. When she says every theologians’ studies leads to Islam and that all other scriptures are just redundant, she fails to see how most of the Abrahamic texts stories originated from Hindu and the Sumerians. Those are the oldest known recordings of many of the stories in the Bible and the Quran.
I also find it weird that she condemned the Catholic church for sexual abuse, and then joined a religion with a prophet that married and slept with a 9 year old.
Uhh, if anyone wants to highlight religion, especially a change of religion, to someone’s early death please feel free.
It’s not normal to die at 56. What health problems did she hav?
Huh, Allah wouldnt save her either.
The media, especially the tabloids, have been like vultures, picking apart her life, her mental health, her marriages, her kids, etc, since her death. There’s no dignity in death when you’re famous.
Cope
