By Huma Parveen
NEW DELHI—Irish singer and songwriter Sinead O’Connor died on July 26. She was 56.
This renowned Irish singer embraced Islam in 2018 and changed her name to Shuhada Sadaqat. However, she continued to perform in her programmes with her original name Sinead O’Connor.
The Western media avoided publishing her latest hijab photograph in hijab while covering the news of her death. It deliberately chose to publish her pre-Islamic photograph while she ensured to be in hijab in her public appearances.
In fact, the Western media did not mention her revolutionary step to change her religion and embrace Islam while publishing obituaries on her.
O’Connor is known at the international level for her hit song ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ which was named the number one world single in 1990 by the Billboard Music Awards.
She started her singing career in Dublin’s streets.
She was an international hit by the age of twenty and won the hearts of millions of music fans. She released twenty albums in her entire career. She was nominated thrice for the world’s biggest music award – the Grammy. She was awarded Artist of the Year Award by Rolling Stones in 1991.
The fans of Sinead O’Connor’s music, who are spread the world over, have raised objections to deliberately ignoring the fact that she embraced Islam in the news of her death released by the Western media agencies.
After reverting to Islam in 2018, she took to Twitter and wrote, “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. I will be given (another) new name. It will be ‘Shuhada’.”
She discussed her journey to Islam in detail while being interviewed at Irish chat show – The Late Late.
She told in her interview, “I started studying scriptures of different religions, trying to find the ‘truth’ about God…I had never thought that I would accept any religion… I left Islam until last because I had so much prejudice about Islam.”
“But then when I started reading, and I read just chapter two alone of the Quran, and I realized, oh my God, I am home”, she added.
She said, “The word ‘revert’ refers to the idea that if you were to study the Quran, you would realize you were a Muslim all your life, and you didn’t realize it.”
Sinead O’Connor was known as a fearless and revolutionary celebrity. Once she shaved off her head after being told that she would look beautiful with long hair by a recording executive and then proceeded to perform.
She refused to accept the Grammy award in 1898 and issued a statement that said, “As artists, I believe our function is to express the feelings of the human race–to always speak the truth and never keep it hidden even though we are operating in a world which does not like the sound of the truth. I believe that our purpose is to inspire and, in some way, guide and heal the human race, of which we are all equal members. They acknowledge mostly the commercial side of art. They respect mostly material gain since that is the main reason for their existence. And they have created a great respect among artists for material gain–by honouring us and exalting us when we achieve it, ignoring, for the most part, those of us who have not.”
She also refused to play the national anthem of the USA before her concerts.
In 1992, she tore up a photograph of Pope John Paul II during a live US television performance of Saturday Night Live, in protest against the inaction on allegations of child sexual abuse in Catholic churches.
Sinead O’Connor was not a celebrity who kept mum on issues affecting life and society.
She was known not only for her beautiful songs but also for her revolutionary actions.
Ignoring the aspect of the change of religion of such a renowned artist shows the Islamophobia of media.
India’s mainstream media adopted the same approach after the death of famous English language poetess Kamala Surayya after her death. Her birth name was Kamala Das but she had changed her name to Kamala Surayya after embracing Islam. But the Left and the Feminists always addressed her as Kamala Das.
The Western media, the Feminists and the so-called Liberal camps want to close their eyes to renowned personalities’ embracing Islam but that does not change the truth.
In her interview at the ‘Late Late Show’, Sinead O’Connor had revealed that while searching for the truth and God she studied many scriptures barring Islam because she was prejudiced aagainst Islam.
Her talk about ‘prejudice against Islam’ should be noted. Why did she fall prey to misunderstanding about Islam? The reason behind such things was that the Western media and the flag bearers of Feminism always indulge in false propaganda about Islam.
The Western media, Feminist writers and activists spread the false propaganda of Islam being the enemy of women’s rights was the reason for making Sinead O’Connor biased against Islam.
The point to ponder is how come the religion demeaned as anti-woman was embraced by a free and successful woman of Western society!
