Rashid's religion looked a lot more positive than the white racist's version of Christianity; yes, Rashid was rather rigid initially, but he did show real compassion towards the end - and much of his over-zealous mosque-visiting stemmed from his personal interpretation of the rules.
I remember similar practices (multiple church visits, the belief that if you do so many penances or offer vast numbers of prayers or recite certain words, that you're a better Christian, ) among religious people in certain areas of 1950s Scotland. Even now in Scotland, we have people who think that music in church is evil, that Sundays shouldn't be blighted by cooking or Sunday sailings, that dancing is the work of the devil, and that women should dress modestly and keep their mouths shut. It's funny how we imagine that a deity would value that sort of ritual when most religious writings emphasise compassion and love for our fellow-humans.
That appalling retired policeman is the sort of person who blusters on about how Britain is a Christian country, while demonstrating a total lack of Christian charity. I used to live in the area and he ain't alone. I'll be interested to see whether he changes during the course of the programme, though I'm not sure I want to watch the pub scenes next week.
I am still wondering what "Britishness" is. It's a question I asked many times when I lived near Bradford, but it was never properly answered. Considering so many people want to "preserve the British way of life", you'd think they'd know what they wanted to save. All-white pubs? Empty churches? Drunks blighting our streets on Saturday nights? Stately homes reminding us of our shameful, class-ridden past?
The Haworth ex-policeman looks out on Haworth's cobbled streets today - with its tourists and Morris dancers, its tea roooms and middle-class buskers - and forgets that when the Brontes lived there, people were dropping like flies through poverty and lack of sanitation. It was no English rural idyll then.
My apologies for the essay.