Smash hit

“In the 16th-century Punjab, there lived a Sufi \ saint and poet called Shah Hussain who is greatly venerated. He fell in love with a Hindu boy. They lived together and are buried side by side in the same tomb. Pilgrims come to the tomb and shrine in Lahore district even today, but some people want to rewrite history, saying the boy was in fact a girl.”

He also points to the presence of “antinomian Sufis in the Indian subcontinent — men who have pierced ears and dance in women’s clothing”.

The concept of antinomianism probably comes close to describing De Sondy’s own academic approach. Rooted in the Greek word for unlawful, it can be applied to people of any religious denomination who do not consider themselves bound by traditional ethics or morality. They believe salvation comes through faith alone.

De Sondy argues that the central tenet of Islam is submission to God; this is what the word means. “Everything else is secondary to that, whether it be ideas about women being second-class or veiled, or men being patriarchs. These are cultural constructions. They are rituals. What we really need to ask if we want to know whether something is right or wrong is: ‘Does it affect our relationship with God?’”

Still only 29, De Sondy is a second-generation Scottish Pakistani who grew up in the shadow of the Gothic university in the west end of Glasgow, where he attended Hillhead high school. His father travelled the world before settling in Scotland and served as a policeman in Hong Kong. His mother, a talented seamstress, did not finish primary school. Although conservative in religious belief, they had friends from diverse backgrounds and De Sondy’s father was popular with the white Scottish customers at his newsagents in Pollokshields.

It was one of these customers, an elderly catholic woman, who changed the course of De Sondy’s life. When she stopped coming to the shop, she wrote to his father to say she was ill and in a hospice. De Sondy, then 16, found the letter and began visiting her. They struck up an unlikely but strong friendship. When she died, she left him a small legacy, which he spent studying Arabic at religious schools in France, Jordan and Syria. “I began to realise that these schools were very conservative. It made me ask questions,” he recalls.

On his return to Scotland, he enrolled for a degree in religious studies and education at Stirling University and is qualified to teach about all world religions.

“Some Muslims have asked me how on earth I can teach about other religions. But there is no reason why not.”

Forced conversion and demonisation of “the infidel” are not Islamic, he says. He points out that the Prophet Mohammed took as his wife a Coptic Christian woman. She refused to convert to his new religion and he accepted this. Although De Sondy argues that the Koran was written for a tribal society and should not be interpreted literally, he still believes in its primacy. “The Islamists are free to interpret it in their own way. I hope to challenge that, however,” he says.

Outwith academia, he writes a popular blog called Progressive Scottish Muslims. Many Muslims privately approve of it, but remain wary of publicly supporting him for fear of a backlash from hard liners.

He likes to undermine stereotypes. He has just returned the kilt he wore to receive his PhD at Glasgow University two weeks ago. “I am very proud of both my Pakistani and Scottish heritage,” he says.

As a student, he was a member of the SNP but worries the Scottish government is too close to conservative Islam. “They should be careful. The Westminster government allied itself closely with the Muslim Council of Britain, then discovered some of its leaders opposed commemorating the Jewish Holocaust annd supported the jihad against Salman Rushdie.”

Soon he will fly to America, where he has accepted a post as assistant professor in world religions at Ithaca College, one of the country’s most respected teaching universities, in upstate New York.

“I think it is easier to speak out and ask questions in the US,” he says. “Many Muslims in this country, because they originate in Pakistan and India, have been shaped by the Raj, by notions of anti-imperialism. In the States, it’s different. They are not obsessed with Islam versus the West and they are obviously not anti-American. They can therefore concentrate on nuances of faith and how it is practised.”

There is the added attraction of more tennis. He hopes to umpire at the US Open, which, by fortunate coincidence, takes place in New York City, a short hop from his new home.

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