Anyone who thought Britain’s biggest Christian arts festival was a homogeneous gathering of 20,000 largely white middle-class God-botherers in a field should think again, Damian Arnold writes.
There will be a significant Muslim presence for the first time at this year’s Greenbelt festival, which takes place at Broughton House in Northamptonshire. Amal, a recently formed charity that gives £300,000 of grants to Muslim musicians, artists and poets, is pitching a marquee to showcase Islamic talent.
It is hoped that the acts will appeal to the festival’s changing demographic, which has become noticeably younger and less bourgeois in recent years. Those on the lookout for “edgy and urban” are likely to gravitate to the Amal tent, which will have space for more than 300 people.
The organisation has worked hard to buck the trend of funding being channelled mainly to traditional Islamic arts. Among the acts on offer are Poetic Pilgrimage, a female hip-hop duo from Bristol, Native Sun, a funk/soul collective, and Fahad Khalid, a singer-songwriter. Bilal Zafar, who was nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy award last year, will be doing stand-up and the Ansari Qadiri Rifai Sufi Order will lead chants.
Abdul-Rehman Malik, a journalist and member of Amal’s advisory board who has been coming to Greenbelt for the past ten years, says: “I’m always made to feel incredibly welcome. Muslims have featured here in the past as part of small interfaith projects, but we’ve never had a dedicated presence at Greenbelt until now.”
Advertisement
There will be talks and seminars comparing Christian and Islamic scripture; the programme is designed to challenge Christians’ preconceptions about Islam.
The festival was first staged in 1974 and in previous years has
featured U2, Cliff Richard, Moby and Goldie. This year Mohammed takes centre stage.
August 25-28, greenbelt.org.uk