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.
She clarified why she did that in an interview. It’s quite funny.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=ibmsdJ5R0b0
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
As a queer person, I COMPLETELY understand her sentiment here. I don’t agree with it, but I understand it.
Exactly how she wanted it to be perceived. She was protesting racism against the non-whites.
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.
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.
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’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.
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.
Especially given this context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibmsdJ5R0b0
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=ibmsdJ5R0b0
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Outspoken non-conformist feminist conforms and converts to Islam, declaring all other religions worldwide, wrong and invalid. Could almost be an Onion article title.
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.
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.
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.
There are no unofficial Catholic sects. By definition, if you’re not official, you’re not Catholic. They’re allowed to define that.
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.
Here’s a video on this presentism fallacy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzXN6Mv9k8A
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.
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
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.
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.
She herself seemed to lack this sort of nuance. She refused to play in Israel, for example, effectively accusing and dismissing an entire nation as oppressors.
I suspect she was, deep down, not a particularly reflective person. We all know people like these. Feel a feeling, act on it immediately, and maaaybe consider the implications and consequences later. Maybe. Or just double down, and never dare to truly look at yourself in the mirror.
It’s unfortunate because these types of people also sometimes turn out to be incredible artists. I assume it’s the combination of talent plus the ability (/curse?) to experience raw feelings much more strongly than the rest of us.
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.
If it’s her own free choice, I see absolutely no contradiction there.
I see absolutely no contradiction there.
Then I doubt that I could explain to you why it is.
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/
Even the scenario you lay out is “be tolerant and accept other religions” and create a society where rationality and decency are valued. That’s actually being friendly and inclusive, not pretending
And those values will in time annihilate religion. Islam and Christianity are nasty expansionist cultural viruses that rely on social force to keep their roots and spread their lies.
Integrating into Islam and spreading tolerance kills Islam.
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.
Nobody mentioned the relligion of Tonny Bennet, Tina Turner, Jerry Springer, Michael Jackson, Meat Loaf, Taylor Hawkins, Whitney Huston or any other celebrity that has died in my lifetime. The only two dead celebrities that I remember being connected to religion was the Pope and Mother Teresa (I am sure that I am biased though)
I don’t remember prince having any other name than Ƭ̵̬̊, which was unpronounceable.
On a related note, Sinéad O’Connor, as a public figure, may have been ok with the media continuing to use her professional name. I’m only basing this off the article stating she also used her birth name publicly. It is interesting though, because Mos Def goes by Yasiin Bey both privately and publicly. But then we still call Yusuf Islam Cat Stevens, while Muhammad Ali’s birth name is more of a trivia nugget.
Are you implying that the media didn’t use her chosen name because she was Muslim or because she was a woman? I’m not trying to be condescending.
Could it be because she tore up the Pope on TV like a fucking boss?
Hmmm. I wonder why?
because nobody would know who that was, but everyone remembers Sinéad O’Connor. They also only bring up one song, because that’s what she’s known for. There doesn’t have to be a plot.
Then they could refer to it as how she used it, as her stage name - it seems like he still used it as her act title because her brand was her former name.
It’s like talking to a performer - when they’re on stage or in the artiface of their character, you recognise that by using their stage name or their characters name; when the artiface is removed and they’re not performing anymore, you recognise that by using their name.
I’m this way, we’re implicitly saying we’re mourning her act rather than her. If that’s not the case, we should be using her name - not her stage name.
