Credits
Presenter: Jason Mohammad
Production companies: Firecracker Films and Amplify Consulting
Commissioners: Daisy Scalchi and Jack Bootle
Length: Eid Live 1 x 40-minutes and Celebrity Eid 1 x 45-minutes
Executive producers: Jes Wilkins for Firecracker Films and Aaqil Ahmed for Amplify Consulting
Producer director: Ahmed Peerbux
Live director: Helen Scott
Senior producer: Farah Qayum
Outside broadcast: Cloudbass
Post house: MSV
A couple of years ago, I had an idea. I was sat in a gathering of thousands of Muslims praying together at Eid, the Muslim holy day. I knew this was something that just went under the radar for most people, but I thought showing the event on TV could be a great way of marking the significance of Eid in the UK calendar and showing what really happens in a Mosque - just what is Muslim prayer and what is this thing called Eid?
Around this key point in time I bumped into Daisy Scalchi, the BBC’s head of commissioning for religion and ethics. She got it straight away and agreed that this would not only serve Muslim audiences but also inform non-Muslims. She felt its time had come.
Then I had another fateful bumping into someone. At a programme launch I spotted Jes Wilkins from Firecracker Films. I told him about the idea and asked would he like to co-produce this idea with my little company? He said yes and after some development we ended up in Bradford, the 2025 UK City of Culture, with a commission for two shows: A live Eid service in the morning and a celebration celebrity special in the evening.
A few weeks later I ended up in a room in Bradford Central Mosque talking to the man who knows everything and everyone in Bradford - deputy lieutenant of West Yorkshire Zulfi Karim. He listened, got excited and said ‘leave it with me’ - his way of saying he would make it happen.
Having a great relationship with the Mosque was not a given. As a collective we have spent a lot of time with them and worked hard to build a relationship on an understanding that we are all working to the same end.
Research tells us that there is distrust between Muslims and the media. We had to show them that we wanted them to be part of all major discussions about what was still their Eid service.
They have embraced the whole process, even the daily meetings. Zulfi explained why; he realised this was a major opportunity to counter all the illiteracy and myths about Muslims and that it was an honour for Bradford to host this TV first, a live Muslim service on terrestrial TV.
A scheduling headache
Bradford Central Mosque
Eid al Fitr comes at the end of the Muslim month of Ramadan. So, all production in the month leading up has been while Muslims fast. That has meant having to work around the sunset fast breaking and the increase in prayers during the month.
The Islamic calendar is a lunar one, so the dates move every year based on the phases of the moon. Effectively nothing is fixed until the moon is sighted. What that means in TV terms is that, until around 24 to 48 hours before Eid, you don’t really know what day it is going to fall on.
Normally this would have schedulers running to the hills, but I have to say the level of understanding from the BBC has been incredible. In a scene that I wished we could have filmed, in the humble Mosque office we had moon cycle charts and decades of experience from the Mosque’s main man, Mr Liaqat, to come up with an educated guess on what day would Eid fall.
We settled on Monday the 31 of March and as I write this we won’t know until Saturday evening if we got it right or must shift everything to the next day.
With something like this, another big question is ‘who can work for both audiences as a host?’
Jason Mohammad
Jason Mohammad is known to many as the voice of Radio Wales and the face of Match of the Day final score, but what’s not known so well is that he’s a practising Muslim.
When we all discussed the ideal candidate who had enough credibility with Muslims and non-Muslims to take them on this unique journey, all roads led to Jason. His response was everything we wanted to hear – it was the role he had been waiting for, ‘a true calling’, as he put it.
For me, the last week has been spent in the Mosque. Not in the way my dad would have wanted it, but it has been great fun working with the young British northern Imams who will be running the service.
Peer Syed Ahsan Shah may be 29 years old, but he is the head of this Mosque and the organisation consisting of over 20 Mosques. His close confidants are similar aged Imams and our discussions have swung between the theology of the running order to what clothing they need to wear on the day and whether the Imam needs a new prayer mat!
This is a TV first, but at its core is a sacred religious celebration. It’s about Muslims being real, in the heart of the schedule, at a time that means so much.
Daisy Scalchi, BBC head of religion
Every Spring, across the BBC, we aim to bring communities together, both religious and secular, around a huge range of content reflecting faith and belief. It’s an opportunity to celebrate, reflect and contemplate.
So when Aaqil first raised the idea of programming live Muslim worship for Eid, I was immediately keen to explore it further. Straight away it seemed to be a brilliant opportunity both to reflect one of the most important moments in the Islamic calendar, as well as bringing a broad audience to the celebrations to hear more about why Ramadan and Eid are so important.
With Eid Live, the morning programme, we want to bring audiences inclusive and accessible worship as well as something many viewers won’t have seen before. For the evening, it’s about food and fun with well-known guests celebrating what Eid means to them.
With brilliant support from many platforms across the BBC who will be programming complementary content, this feels like a genuine opportunity to join people together in both worship and celebration.
Aaqil and the team at Firecracker have been incredible to work with, pulling out all the stops to create an extraordinary UK broadcast first. This is a moment for everyone so please come and join us.