Nelufar Hedayat opens up on ‘heated’ religious discussions on BBC Pilgrimage: ‘Anger and frustration’
Journalist and presenter Nelufar Hedayat shared a candid revelation about “heated” religious conversations set to air on this year’s BBC Pilgrimage.
The programme, returning for its seventh series, sees seven famous faces tackling a challenging 300km pilgrimage through the majestic Austrian and Swiss Alps.
Pilgrimage: The Road Through the Alps sees Hedayat, Helen Lederer, Daliso Chaponda, Harry Clark, Jay McGuiness, Jeff Brazier and Stef Reid take a personal journey along a revived medieval Catholic route.
Speaking to GB News and other media, 37-year-old Hedayat reflected on her struggle with religion and conversations with her fellow pilgrims.
Alluding to a heavy discussion in the first episode, she stated: “There’s that that that dinner was very heated, and it was very early on, and it wasn’t heated for the reasons I thought.
“You know, you’ve got a Muslim, a Christian and more all around a table, what are they going to argue about? Religion – but it wasn’t.
“It felt very authentic and but Daliso wasn’t trying to placate me, he was trying to get a bit of that feeling of anger and frustration that I have sort to the surface whilst there’s cameras pointed at us.
“So it was all intense, and none of it is sort of easy to go through. It must be said, a pilgrimage isn’t easy to go through. The things you see touch the raw nerve of all of us really.”
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Hedayat admitted she feels conflicted about her Muslim faith, sharing: “As a Muslim, and as one who’s very critical, I’ve reached a stage in my life where I look around at the world and I’m just like, ‘What have we done with this?’
“These these books, these tenets, these rules that we were given, we were trusted with.
“I’m finding it difficult. I wasn’t expecting a Christian to help me on this journey, using her faith.
“I never expected as a Muslim to find solace and comfort in the way that Steph has given me, and it just… It’s not encouraged enough, is my point, and that’s changed my faith.
“I now know that I don’t have to stick to the old ways, the old teachers, the old mantras.
“And I’ve learned so much from everyone else. I mean, you know, Harry’s got pearls of wisdom as well that he shared with me.”
Opening up sharing her own thoughts and switching off her journalistic side, she continued by admitting she found the conversations “terrifying, itchy, cringe, difficult and unprocessed.”
“To give a bit of background, I started off my career going to Afghanistan showing the plight of women under the Taliban and then went on to d the Arab Spring, got tear-gassed, had to flee, was kettled, went to the border in Syria, saw the destitution there.
“Then my journalism took me into illegal markets where I saw babies being sold, fake pharmaceutical drugs being made – talk about the worst parts of humanity…
“And to me religion means control. So having that dissociative understanding meant I never felt challenged. I found it incredibly uncomfortable turning off the journalist in me.”
Pilgrimage: The Road Through the Alps will air on BBC Two and iPlayer on Sunday, April 20 at 9pm. Two further episodes will follow on April 21 and 22 at 9pm.