By Asif Majid
Asif Majid is a Ph.D. Candidate in Anthropology, Media, and Performance, University of Manchester.
Liverpool FCs Egyptian-born forward Mohamed Salah is currently one of the Premier Leagues most prolific goalscorers. This, his debut season with Liverpool, has seen Salah earn multiple accolades: most left-footed goals scored in a Premier League season, second-fastest player in Liverpools history to reach 30 goals, one of the top ten goalscorers in Europe, and 2017 African Footballer of the Year.
He shows no signs of lowering his goal tally as the season goes on, with commentator and former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher viewing Salah as a strong contender for another Player of the Year award. In a league that is regularly touted as so open that any team can win, lose, or draw against any other, unpredictability is the name of the game. Yet this season, Salahs consistent goalscoring record seems to buck that trend. Salahs counterattacking form was of particular concern for Manchester United when they played Liverpool on March 10, as they sat deep and defended against the Merseyside club for much of the match.
Beautiful though they are to watch, what I find most interesting about Salahs goals are his celebrations and their reception. Because consistently, Salah does two things after scoring. First, he hugs his teammates, a typical response. But then, he performs sujood, the Islamic act of prostration.
Sujood normally occurs twice in every section of salaat a word commonly mistranslated as prayer (following its Arabic root, salaat is better translated as connection). A Muslim who performs salaat the requisite five times daily finds themself in sujood 34 times each day. In Islamic thought, sujood is perceived of as the physically lowest, but spiritually highest, position a person can take. Salahs performance of sujood outside of salaat, then, is a specific expression of gratitude for goals scored.
Though many other Premier League footballers are Muslim, Salah is the only one who regularly prostrates on the pitch.
Getting goals
Liverpool fans have taken note. After his recent Champions League goal against the Portuguese side Porto in Liverpools 5-0 victory, some fans developed a chant praising him:
Mo Sa-la-la-la-lah, Mo Sa-la-la-la-lah
If hes good enough for you hes good enough for me.
If he scores another few then Ill be Muslim too.
If hes good enough for you hes good enough for me.
Hes sitting in the mosque thats where I wanna be.
The chant, which is a rewrite of lyrics from the 1996 song Good Enough by British power pop rock trio, Dodgy, quickly went viral on Twitter and YouTube. News outlets including Al Jazeera and the BBC laud the chant as a demonstration of inclusivity. It is catchy, for sure. But is it inclusive? Its not quite that simple.
Salahs work and the chant itself fit squarely into two common narratives: that of the good Muslim/bad Muslim; and the good immigrant. Articulated by political scientist Mahmood Mamdani, among others, the good Muslim/bad Muslim binary portrays the good as those who appease society by accepting majority values and customs, while the bad are those who resist it religiously, culturally, or politically.
Being good
The good Muslim is the hero imam of Finsbury Park, who stopped worshippers from beating up a terrorist named Darren Osborne after he drove a van into a crowd during Ramadan 2017. The bad Muslim is the director of the controversial advocacy group CAGE, who refused to allow police to search his laptop and mobile phone under Schedule 7 powers granted to the British government by the Terrorism Act.
This binary maps onto those immigrants who are perceived of as good. In his note that opens The Good Immigrant, editor Nikesh Shukla references writer Musa Okwonga when arguing:
The biggest burden facing people of colour in this country is that society deems us bad immigrants job-stealers, benefit-scroungers, girlfriend-thieves, refugees until we cross over in their consciousness, through popular culture, winning races, baking good cakes, being conscientious doctors, to become good immigrants.
Salah is one of those good immigrants.
And here is the paradox of his sujood. Being praised by non-Muslim Liverpool supporters as good is positive, of course. But it is conditional. The chant makes clear that it is only if Salah continues to score goals that his displays of Muslimness will be accepted. It is only if he remains good that he will continue to be worshipped by them. It is only if he furthers his professional excellence that opinions about Islam may shift.
Addictive as it is, the chant flies in the face of spoken word poet Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khans demand that society move beyond loving the Muslim who excels in athletics or bakery to include those who dont offer our homes or free taxi rides after the event and are wretched, suicidal, naked, and contributing nothing. The double-edged sword of Salahs sujood is that it is tied to his excellence on the field.
If he stops scoring, he will stop performing sujood. As a result, fans will love him and Islam a little less.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.