MADE in Europe Project Officer Sadia Kidwai interviewed Shaynul Khan, Assistant Executive Director at London Muslim Centre, about why he’s At Our Mothers’ Feet. London Muslim Centre is the first mosque to host the At Our Mothers’ Feet exhibtion, which will be up in the foyer until 9 December

To the untrained eye, Shaynul Khan might just seem like another young Muslim activist – bursting with energy, and frequenting all the usual Muslim community events. But anyone who has been involved in the East London community knows that Shaynul Khan is one of the movers and future leaders of our flourishing community. He is currently on the Steering Committee for the At Our Mothers’ Feet campaign, and is also Assistant Director of the venerable London Muslim Centre/East London Mosque, where we recently launched our maternal health exhibition. Shaynul took a few minutes out of his busy schedule to share with us his thoughts on the At Our Mothers’ Feet campaign...

What does your mother mean to you? For me, my mother is one of the most special people in my life. She’s enabled me to become who I am, given me all the values that I need. I think my relationship with my mum is something that you can’t put a price on, you can’t do enough for them. The mother, as we’re taught in Islam is the most important person. When the Prophet (saw) was asked who was more important, the mother or the father, 3 times he said the mother. And unequivocally I would absolutely agree with that. I mean, my father was fantastic, but my mother was the rock basically. Photo: BBC 2010

What is your understanding of maternal mortality?

I think maternal mortality is quite simply that we see a lot of mothers passing away at childbirth, through simple measures of not being provided basic care – health, social, mental – and I think my reason for getting involved in At Our Mothers’ Feet is that quite honestly I was quite ignorant of the numbers of women who are affected by this simple lack of basic care. And often the care is just simple education, you don’t need medical education to do these simple things. Simple educational programmes, or simple initiatives of providing means of getting a person that’s pregnant into hospital quick enough – that changes lives. And it changes families. Because if the mother was to die while giving birth then that rock which I said wouldn’t exist for that child which has made it into the world. And that’s something which is a serious loss, given that it can be avoided.

Why do you think this is an important issue for the Muslim community, and what do you think we should do about it?

Well I think the first thing is that it’s not just an issue for the Muslim community, I think it’s a humanitarian issue. In the very first instance, we should be raising awareness amongst our own, here. I’ve been in this community for a long long time, and it’s not one of those issues which always sticks out to me.  But some of the issues which At Our Mothers’ Feet raises is that there are issues happening all the time, to the point where people think it’s not a problem. Here, we’re content with giving a small bit of donation to Palestine and Gaza and so forth. But saving a life in Afghanistan or Pakistan because a mother needed a little bit of treatment, I think that goes miles in equivalence.

So I think there is a fair amount of work to be done, and I think the work that MADE is doing is phenomenal. It’s taking something we often ignore and neglect and just trying to bring it to the fore. I’ll be honest with you, I think it’s going to be a massive challenge, but if you don’t start somewhere, you’re never going to get a move on.

What kind of obstacles do you forsee with a campaign like this? Especially when talking to the Muslim community?

I think in terms of awareness, I think there is a challenge with regards to the fact that “it’s for mothers”, so the blokes don’t necessarily want to go out of their way to need to learn about the issue. Or some people still – I feel that it is a bit unfortunate that in this day and age – that people, or men, recoil at an issue which may be personal to a woman. But the fact is, it’s not so personal when your mother, or your wife, is attempting to give birth and they’ve died.

Do you have any personal experience of people experiencing difficulties in pregnancy and childbirth, or is this something which your community has asked you for guidance on?

When I was born I had a twin sister. My twin sister was stillborn, and my mother was almost not going to make it as well. By the grace of Allah, she did. I made it, but my sister didn’t make it, and it could have been that my mother didn’t make it. And we’re talking about rural Bangladesh. And it could have been that if Allah wasn’t kind enough to bestow His grace upon us, that perhaps today none of us would have been here, because the healthcare or the awareness wasn’t there. Maybe the persons there helping my mother at the time knew what they should do, and as a result I survived

Why are you At Our Mothers’ Feet?

I owe her big time, and I don’t think I could ever repay her. And that’s it.

For more information about MADE in Europe's At Our Mothers' Feet campaign please visit www.atourmothersfeet.org.uk.