My Brother Jermaine: Standing Up For Islam
“May Allah be with you, Michael, always.”
These are the final words Jermaine uttered, upon announcing his younger brother’s death, the incomparable Michael Jackson. The comment sparked speculation in the Muslim world that Michael became Muslim, but to me, it was Jermaine spontaneously expressing his fervent wish in the face of a personally devastating event.
Jermaine Jackson accepted Islam in 1989, but my research of his life during that time revealed little about his conversion or his practice. Rather they focused on his waning career as a solo artist and his movement into TV production with the Emmy Award nominated mini-series, “The Jackson’s: An American Dream.” And then there were the ubiquitous “reports” and speculation about controversial goings-on of selected Jackson family members. Jermaine’s life choices attracted considerable attention, and his conversion faded in importance.
However, the spotlight shifted to his Islam for a brief period in the mid 2000s, when he joined the cast of Celebrity Big Brother, UK in 2007. The first to enter the house, Jermaine spent 26 days under the camera’s watchful eye with Bollywood actor Shilpa Shetty, reality star Jade Goody, model Danielle Lloyd, singer Jo O’Meara and singer Leo Sayer among others. Reserved but affable, Jermaine enjoyed positive relations with all his housemates, but he forged the closest bond with the elegant and poised Shilpa Shetty.
Racial tensions erupted almost immediately with Jade, Danielle, and Jo targeting Shilpa, making quips about her undercooked chicken and unsanitary hands. Eventually, Jade, encouraged by Danielle and Jo, escalated what should have been a minor skirmish over bouillon cubes into a major altercation. Jade let loose with several vicious racist epitaphs, forcing Shilpa into defensive mode. Eventually, Jermaine, clued into the conflict by another housemate, physically stepped between Shilpa and the other women and steered Shilpa towards the community bedroom to decompress. Unbeknown to the housemates, the row generated tens of thousands of complaints, and created a minor international incident between India and the UK. Celebrity Big Brother lost sponsors, and eventually Ofcom, the UK regulatory authority officially sanctioned the show. Jade and Shilpa publicly reconciled, but their apologies failed to quell the fallout.
The show’s controversy placed a spotlight on Jermaine, depicting him as a wise, calm, and natural peacemaker. His final words to Shilpa before leaving the house as first runner up, “kindness is strength,” became a wrist band for people to purchase. Series host, Davinia McCall referred to the many words of wisdom he dropped during conversation as “Jermaine gems.” Housemates universally spoke highly of him.
After the show, Jermaine made the rounds on UK talk shows and I found it interesting that at least one interviewer had no idea he was Muslim, asking if he was “spiritual.” To my eye, Jermaine’s Islam was obvious. He draped his bed with his prayer rug and the circular gold medal he wore was most likely inscribed with Ayatul Kursi, the Qur’anic verse of the Throne. At least two brief moments saw him making dhikr, a meditative practice where one glorifies Allah with each tick of a prayer bead. He mentioned being so involved in his prayers that he had no idea his old friend Leo Sayer had raucously left the house. And one vignette pointedly mentioned that he was “in the bedroom, praying.” The housemates’ casual attitude towards these worshipful acts and his sprinkling of the phrases of in shaa Allah and ma shaa Allah in conversation indicated that these were regular occurrences. Jermaine, at least during this period, was a sincere, practicing Muslim.
My observations were further supported with his answers to interviewers’ questions upon leaving the house. One such exchange: “How much did you use your Islamic faith when you were in there just to get by?” Jermaine responded: “Every day, every moment, every second, just the prayers, just repeating Allah’s name with my prayer beads, and…just fasting and just keeping my composure, and staying calm and staying peaceful.”
The positive light Jermaine shed on Islam, apparently opened avenues for him to share more of his views. In October 2008 Jermaine gave a stirring keynote address at the UK’s Islam Channel’s Global Peace and Unity Event. The highlight of his speech centered around “respect,”
“We all have the right to be respected regardless of our age, religion or race and ….We should be a beacon of respect as our beloved Prophet (peace be upon him) was in his lifetime and continues to be for millions of people around the world today. Islam teaches us to be respectful and to be respected and to expect respect. It is our duty to take back the priceless gem that has been stolen from us and to bask in the radiance of respect.”
Jermaine was aware of the beneficial impact his example had on others, less than a decade after the tragic events of 9–11. When asked by an Al-Arabiyah reporter in 2010 about how he felt about US Muslims wanting to hide their religion during this period he said:
“I know that God is always one way, regardless of whether you are being accused of something, you never denounce who you are. I was very proud to say that I was …. busy during that time talking to young Muslims about continuing on with their prayers, and I spoke at the GPU (Global Peace and Unity Event) in the UK, …. and they saw me in the Big Brother House doing my prayers.”
Jermaine reprised his commitment towards young people in a circa 2013 interview with UK based Islam Channel’s program Saturday Night:
“I want to be used as much as possible in the right way, because if I can be a light or a positive thing for young people who don’t understand. I’m in a business that I grew up in that they do crazy things, but to show people that you can be in any industry and still put God first and be successful and still have people to love you.”
The originator of these words and ideas is the man with whom I hold in high regard. After all, I took the time to write these five essays. Yet, such interviews are difficult to find even today. The google algorithm favors the salacious and sensational, and there is plenty of Jackson family fodder for “reporters” to exploit. And for some reason, Jermaine is a favorite target. In 2023, I have read repurposed stories from as far back as the 1980s to satisfy a greedy readership. I have often asked why people malign him so, and came up with several theories, none of them adequate. So, I posed another question, one many Muslims ask themselves, what should we learn from the tests Allah poses?
In Islamic tradition, we know that Allah only tests those he loves. It is our duty to pass the test with patience and constancy, which we know we can because He never places a burden on us more than we can bear. And Jermaine’s test was fame, fortune, and the public scrutiny that comes with it.
So, as a mental exercise, I put myself in his shoes and imagined what it would be like to have your every move, every utterance, every mistake, every foible, every choice discussed, dissected, and disseminated to the entire world. To have former friends and partners betray your confidences to gain a few thousand dollars to give interviews or write articles or books. To have the New York Post, TMZ and Radaronline “reporters” follow your every step, record your every word, and then offer online “analysis” of their reportage. To have gossip peddlers delightedly convey your current life pain or conflict in their programs or columns. To have your sadnesses transform into others’ “entertainment.”
To me, such a life would be the stuff of nightmares from which I could never awaken. Al hamdulellah, Allah has spared me such a test.
Yet, Jermaine walks through his life with strength, grace, and generosity. Never do you see him use his considerable connections to publicly disparage those who maligned him, a trait that earns my undying respect and admiration.
I noted in my essay, “I Am My Brother’s Keeper,” that Jermaine wrote poetry from an early age, eventually writing his own song lyrics. In Arabic culture, poets are held in the highest esteem and the Qur’an honors them with these verses:
“As for the poets, only those who are lost in error follow them. Are you not aware that they roam confusedly through all valleys, and that they say what they do not do? Excepted are those who believe, and do righteous deeds, and remember God often, and strive to be triumphant after they have been wronged.” (26: 224, 227.)
Jermaine, we haven’t heard much from you since 2019, but your confirmation of faith, your dhikr and salah and your patience with the ghibah, namimah, and buhtan aimed at you, push you towards the latter group, striving for triumph after being wronged. May you always be among this group and may Allah grant you success in this life and the next. Ameen.
As-salaamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.