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The Manhattan Mosque
By Yasser Latif Hamdani (Courtesy Daily Times)
The mosque in Manhattan has stirred a hornet’s nest. The issue now threatens to test the very ideals of western secular democracy that we admire and cherish and seek to emulate in the rest of the world. It is important, therefore, to weigh in logically and as reasonable people — though reason is hard to come by these days — on the unnecessary provocation in Manhattan created by Imam Feisal Abdel Raouf and his wife Daisy Khan that they refer to as ‘Cordoba House’ or ‘Park 51’, a $ 100 million Islamic centre in New York City.
I say unnecessary not because I oppose the good imam’s right to profess and propagate his faith as he deems fit, but because at this key juncture of the Obama presidency, this saga has delivered to the Tea Party Movement its biggest stick to beat liberals and civil rights activists with. Those of you who are unfamiliar with the Tea Party Movement, it is a populist right-wing conservative movement that broke out spontaneously against perceived government interference in economic life and backed largely by the libertarian think tanks and organisations like Freedom Works, etc. The name itself comes from the famous Boston Tea Party where Massachusetts’s men had thrown tea sacks into the Boston harbour to protest the British government’s taxes and economic policies. The modern day Tea Party Movement has already made great gains — such as the unseating of Democrats from their traditional power base in Massachusetts from where the late Ted Kennedy used to get elected. It is now set to use the mosque issue to appeal to the right wing religious sentiment. If the Tea Party manages to pull the rug from under the Democrats and moderate Republicans, the consequences for not just the US but the entire world will be extremely grave.
President Obama and his government are now under great stress because of the difficult position the mosque issue has put the Obama administration in. Logically, there should not be a problem with building a place of worship, a right guaranteed under the First Amendment to the US Constitution, but the issue is much larger than one of freedom of faith. Let us be fair. There are several mosques in New York City and no one would have done even a double take had an Islamic centre been built anywhere else. To choose the site of a building wasted by the 9/11 attacks is an act of deliberate provocation, not because Islam was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, because that is not true. It is so because not only have the mosque’s backers, including the two aforementioned protagonists, failed to disclose the source of their funding, but have also failed miserably to win the confidence of a vast majority of New Yorkers and now indeed most Americans. Yet the issue of fundamental and constitutional rights is seldom subject to the whims of the majority.
That question is of course paramount. It is about constitutional rights, freedom of religion and all those big words that Muslims selectively appeal to whenever they are in a minority, but surely Muslims can better understand the feelings of Americans that have been outraged. Who else if not a Muslim, whose faith and religious sensibility can be outraged by something so seemingly benign as an Ahmedi saying Assalam-o-alaikum, can understand why church groups, right wingers and other anti-Muslim groups have reacted so strongly to the idea of having an Islamic community centre so close to the site of the World Trade Centre? Who else if not a Muslim can understand why equality sometimes means equality for all but that some are just inherently more equal, for, after all, constitutionally equal citizens of Pakistan who are from, say, a Christian background are forever barred from becoming president or prime minister of this Islamic republic of ours. Who else if not a Muslim can understand that neither religious freedom nor privacy are absolute concepts, for was it not in the holiest of holy Saudi Arabia, that 40 Pakistani Christians were thrown in jail for worshipping quietly in their own homes?
What about Park 51? Would this be a mosque — the mosque at Park 51 — for just one kind of Muslims or will it be open to all sectarian communities? Will it open its doors to the Shias or perhaps the Nation of Islam, which believes in the last prophethood of Elijah Muhammad aka Elijah Poole? Will Amina Wudud or Asra Nomani be allowed to lead prayers in this mosque? Will Ismailis, Bohris, Druze or the Ahmedis be allowed to worship in this centre? These are central questions that should be answered for the imam has pitched this as the great project for American Islam. It is a defining moment.
The truth is that Islam in the US is practised openly and freely, without any fear — or at least till there was a backlash by the Tea Party against the proposed project. That much is clear from the latest work of Dr Akbar S Ahmed, who not long ago travelled the length and breadth of the US visiting hundreds of mosques and communities, along with his team of enthusiastic students from American University. When asked about the Manhattan fiasco, his response was: “Here is a thought — Imam Rauf should say ‘enough of creating bricks and mortar’ and move for compassion. Let me give it [the money for the mosque] to those who need it, who are suffering and pray to the same God’, hand over the capital he plans to raise for the Park 51 project as a cheque in the hands of an interfaith American delegation, fly it to Pakistan, and contribute it to the relief efforts.”
Why not? Is that not what Islam teaches its adherents? Are the rights of people not a greater obligation under Islamic law?
Yasser Latif Hamdani is a lawyer. He also blogs at pakteahouse.wordpress.com and can be reached at yasser.hamdani@gmail.com
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32 percent? Wow! And we thought we had the population explosion bad. Pakistani population – despite being subject to one of the highest population explosions- has grown by only 25 percent over the last 12 years..
Somehow your 30 percent in 10 years seems to be a Hindu nationalist fantasy.
Isn’t the census due this year? We will soon find out.
The argument is in any event a pointless one … Original Pakistan included Bangladesh…so the Muslim homelands do cater to more than 2/3rds of all South Asian Muslims.
This whole mosque thing is another case of barking up the wrong tree. The Muslim world is facing bigger issues and how do some enlightened people in west deal with it: wade into something that even a 4 yr old would have told you that it will provoke uncomfortable reactions. How does building/non-building of a mosque change the fundamental problems in the Muslim world? Rauf’s gesture would have been much appreciated if he decided to pitch his troops somewhere else.
I just don’t understand a basic issue here. How can we expect others to behave in a radically different way when we don’t behave like that? Do we expect Americans to be a different species? In a weird way, some of us who are basing this mosque thing as a test of American tolerance, constitution, etc., etc., subconsciously elevate them to a higher level. The need of the hour is to understand their concerns too.
It would be better too not to just go by the Pew and gallop polls but to hear the voices on the street. Like Ylh, I too have heard similar idiocy about Ummah from even very educated(young) Muslims. It was also quite common before for the calendars issued by the local mosques detailing the atrocities(some very inflated) faced by Muslims all over the world.
Majumdar,
“The first time I heard of the hostage theory was in the context of the Partition where MAJ (pbuh)”
I wish that while you were at it, you would have gone ahead and added SAW to pbuh. I don’t know what “saw” means but seems like a necessary addendum when people write “pbuh.”
@Bade Miya
One is the formula in Arabic, the other a loose translation in English.
I nearly added ‘cretin’, then stopped short; it would have been unfair. You have a genuine problem, which I haven’t figured out yet, but it means you aren’t being deliberately mischievous. These are genuine errors. I won’t abuse you again no matter what the provocation. I hope.
Vajra,
“You have a genuine problem, which I haven’t figured out yet, but it means you aren’t being deliberately mischievous.”
Told you, subtlety is not your forte.
Vajra,
“I won’t abuse you again no matter what the provocation. I hope.”
The last time you did that, you came a poor second. That self-restraint is more a case of “discretion is the better part of valor.”
Of course, if you choose to do so, do remember an old saying,”if you play with cats, expect to be scratched.”
I think this is more of an internal matter of western/american society rather than any muslim nation.
the principles of equality/secularism has to be applied ruthlessly in each case for consistency, otherwise there is danger of dilution of constitutional principles.
Anyway western societies are forming right examples on secular polity for everyone to follow, a comparison with closed islamic nations, tit-for-tat arguments are unfounded.
what u are missing is the untangible and severe damagae it will cause to the ‘american dream’
rauf is also entitled to the ‘american dream’ within the law of the land.
karun,
No one disagrees with Rauf’s right to build his place of worship anywhere/everywhere. One just hopes that he could have taken this issue at another time, maybe in another 2-3 years. When someone dies in your neighborhood, common sense dictates that you lower the volume of your music. Of course, it’s your right to play music at the full blast, but it won’t be a decent thing to do so.
I know this comparison is far fetched but I was just trying to put forward an analogy.
Read the article again Karun mian. I have already conceded the constitutional question.
This is more addressed to Muslims than anything else … a call for consistency. Maybe American Muslims would want to change a thing or two about the actions of the closed Islamic nations they openly condone. Maybe this debate would force the proposed Islamic center -if and when it is built- to be more accepting of intra-communal diversity of opinion and thought within Islam also.
Yes ofcourse i understand ur standpoint. you are coming from an internal correction standpoint of (american muslims and other muslim societies). very valid. but i think inherently any such minority community is opprutunistic in nature and am not sure can be expected to take a holier than thou attitude. they are always more likely to play victims than to own up that they were careless and less responsible in a far liberal society. has more to do with identity and insecurity issues. given that i am really not competent to comment on (ahmedis/shias/bohris) being allowed to conduct prayers. perhaps the right set of questions to ask Rauf.(how liberal is liberal?)
However i am more concerned (like gorki) from the standpoint of mainstream(actually means everyone) U.S citizens. Its a far more important question for them than its for american muslims.
whether american muslims grow up or not is an important question, but whats far more important whether americans may elect a muslim president in future, just the way they have elected a black.
The direction of secular evolution has to be one way. No back-tracking.
I have never been to U.S or understand the aspirations of American Muslims about a supranational Ummah, but I agree with YLH that the construction of a Church near Kaabah would never be agreed upon by the Muslims at large. But then again the ground zero site doesn’t hold any religious significance for the Americans.
@bademiyan
no..no.. its not the right example….i am sure rauf would not have advertised too much…it rather actually wud have been a very clandestine thing…its the tea party people/irresponsible media who have blown it out of proportion and making a mountain out of a molehill.
muslims world over take up citizenship,in the residing country,for convenience sake only.look at the u.k. muslims their loyalty is with the greater ‘umma’.muslim countries require religion’s backing to earn the patriotism of their people.yankee muslims are taking advantage of the citezenship bestowed upon them,to further their umma’s agenda without a concern for the plural society,which allows them such great freedom.a clever taqeeya.similar freedom a dream in their country of origin.a.a. khalid can afford this freedom of speech and secular mindset by the vertue of his ”citizenship”,if only he had tried this in his place of origin.
YLH
All this is official, available on Govt’s census website. In India, Dalits also have more than 30% decennial increase. Basically, it’s more related to poverty.
The 1991 census put Muslim population at 12.1% and 2001 census suggested it had gone up to around 13.5%.
Exercise for 2011 census have begun. Let’s see.
”There is no such thing as a Catholic “Ummah”. The Pope is not some political leader you swear loyalty to. This can be contrasted to Muslims, who often expressly state that their first loyalty to and first community is the Muslim Ummah”
You sir obviously have no clue about Catholic theology. Catholics believe they are a community in the ”body of Christ”, fellowship if you will in the ”body of Christ”, in ”Christ’s body”. So Catholics too have a concept of a transnational religious community, expressed in the concept of ”communion”.
The Pope was in fact in the past a political leader who could rely on the loyalty of Christendom, this is something not found in Muslim history where one religious leader could hold sway over the whole faithful. Catholics were also accused of being two faced and hidden enemies in the religious history of American society.
It is only in recent times that the Pope has had to give up pretensions of secular authority and try to consolidate their authority in religious matters, but even that seems to be a lost cause in the modern world.
So yes the Catholic analogy is perfectly reasonable in the American context, Jose Cassanova a sociologist and historian of religion at Georgetown in America himself used such an analogy.
Oh yes and Quantum please refer to Rauf’s views directly rather than listening to the Tea Party propaganda machine formally known as Fox News (Glenn Beck is the lastest preacher for this movement who is one of Fox’s headline acts).
And BM:
”It would be better too not to just go by the Pew and gallop polls but to hear the voices on the street”
Why? Why shun empirical and sociological research? Talk about your experience by all means but give some importance to facts and figures…
When Catholics started to enter political life in America in the 19th-20th century (some would argue even today) some Americans accused these politicians of taking orders from Rome and the Pope, and that they were working to destroy America from within.
Replace the religious references, subsitute Catholic references with Islamic references and you have the same sort of rhetoric today against Muslims.
Funny that those people who wish to assert that Muslims in the West do not value citizenship or are not really ”American”/”European”, can never actually provide evidence in terms of sociological research and polls.
I have already cited Pew and Gallup in the context of American Muslims. In the Times, there was an excellent piece on the findings of another Gallup Poll: ”Poll reveals Muslims as model citizens” (type in and google).
Unfortuantely for those who wish to plug the agenda that Muslims in the West are not faithful citizens have little evidence to point to, have no sociological and empirical research and are playing on fear and emotion rather than cold hard reason.
As to YLH’s point about Hamza Yusuf. I would argue there should be no problem to have independent institutions of religious scholarship or seminaries. What is a problem is when the State gets involved, when coercion and intimidation is used to spread the views of these institutions. Coercion, intimidation and authoratarianism is to be opposed. I see no evidence that this institution will proliferate those type of attitudes and foster a dogmatic mindset. (If you have any evidence I would like to see it).
Such institutions one can attend or not attend, one can accept their views or leave them, one can debate their views, scrutinise them and be critical of them. They are private institutions you have to pay for the courses to attend them.
So really this institution is not really a problem, but rather is the first step towards religious scholarship reinventing itself and trying to integrate other disciplnes rather than simply mindlessly repeat medieval religious texts in rote learning fashion. Its trying to reinvent the way we deal with religious tradition in a gradual but critical fashion.
This institution is trying something different, I do not see how it is trying to stifle dissent in Muslim communities, I cannot see the causal link between the two.
@AA Khalid
btw under MY definition of secularism( i am an avowed secularist): i support burqa ban.
What are ur views?
Secularism is not a monolithic concept, and to pretend that it is monolithic is woefully deluded.
Secularism initially meant that of a procedural kind, where all citizens are equal, religious identity does not influence citizenship, and that State religion is counter productive and generally coercive. There has to be a separation between religious and political authority.
Secularism and liberalism are also not one and the same. The Arab world has suffered at the hands of many secular despots aswell who were not particularly religious. For me authoratarianism is authoratarianism whether its of a religious colour or any other colour.
As to the burqa, I take the burqa has no fixed meaning, it means whatever the person wearing it wants it to mean. I do not think its a religious requirement. I detest the secularism which tries to marginalise religious convicitions from the public sphere [i.e society] (which is separate form the State). I think banning the burqa is pointless , especially when in France about 1000-2000 (even less) women are thought to wear the burqa.
In fact such legislation is pointless and really is obscene identity politics rather than anything meaningful. For example in the Guardian article, ”Who Really Wears A Burka”?:
”In France, where there is an inflamed debate on the matter right now, the first investigation carried out by the police last year found that there were 367 women in France who wore burka or Niqab – 0.015% of the population. This was so low that the secret service was told to count again, and came up with a figure of 2,000; in Holland there seem to be about 400, and in Sweden a respectable guess suggests 100. ”
This is such a shameful piece of legislation that there are surely better ways of tackling the great problems of gender issues in the Muslim community. Why not spend money on educational centres, or other similar sorts of projects and infrastructure?
Hence I think this type of legislation is in the pursuit of cultural and ethinc homogenity and is a hopeless cause of shameful identity politics rather than concerned about secularism.
@AA Khalid
“You sir obviously have no clue about Catholic theology. Catholics believe they are a community in the ”body of Christ”, fellowship if you will in the ”body of Christ”, in ”Christ’s body”. So Catholics too have a concept of a transnational religious community, expressed in the concept of ”communion”. “
Still off the mark. It is true that there is a fellowship in the “body of Christ” (actually what it is really being said is that we are all one with God). A fellowship (virtually all religions have this to some degree), however, hardly compares with the concept of the Muslim Ummah which has significant political contexts. The Church does not view the concept of a Catholic fellowship to be superior to that of a nation state in a political context. Most Catholics view their religion as just that: a religion, not a transnational religious community/nation that is above their identity as Americans.
“The Pope was in fact in the past a political leader who could rely on the loyalty of Christendom, this is something not found in Muslim history where one religious leader could hold sway over the whole faithful. Catholics were also accused of being two faced and hidden enemies in the religious history of American society. “
The Pope has not had secular power for a number of centuries. Even during the Middle Ages, the Pope did not rule over large nations, rather he had limited power to interfere in the affairs of the secular rulers. Your reference to Muslim history is inaccurate, the early Caliphates had clear sway over the vast majority of Muslims, not to mention the fact that other theocracies (e.g. the Ottoman Caliphate) existed throughout Muslim history.
“Oh yes and Quantum please refer to Rauf’s views directly rather than listening to the Tea Party propaganda machine formally known as Fox News (Glenn Beck is the lastest preacher for this movement who is one of Fox’s headline acts). “
It is not from Fox News. Nineteen days after the [9/11] attacks, [Rauf] told CBS’s 60 Minutes that fanaticism and terrorism have no place in Islam. Rauch said that the message was mixed, however, because when then asked if the U.S. deserved the attacks, Rauf answered, “I wouldn’t say that the United States deserved what happened. But the United States’ policies were an accessory to the crime that happened.” During an interview on New York WABC radio in June 2010, Rauf declined to say whether he agreed with the U.S. State Department’s designation of Hamas as a terrorist organization.
@AA Khalid
“Funny that those people who wish to assert that Muslims in the West do not value citizenship or are not really ”American”/”European”, can never actually provide evidence in terms of sociological research and polls.
I have already cited Pew and Gallup in the context of American Muslims. In the Times, there was an excellent piece on the findings of another Gallup Poll: ”Poll reveals Muslims as model citizens” (type in and google).
Unfortuantely for those who wish to plug the agenda that Muslims in the West are not faithful citizens have little evidence to point to, have no sociological and empirical research and are playing on fear and emotion rather than cold hard reason. “
Actually what the Pew and Gallup Polls reveal is that American Muslims are less extremist and insular than European Muslims not that the they are less extremist and insular compared to Americans at large. It is pretty self-evident that Muslims are more insular then the rest of America, especially when considering the inability of many American Muslims to marry non-Muslims, some American Muslims who only interact with their own community, etc.
Quauntum all your ideas are meaningless because they presume that the concept of the ummah is political in terms of overriding citizenship when really polls such as Gallup and Pew confirm the opposite. I have yet to see you produce any form of sociological and empirical research from reputable organizations.
Furthermore, you also assume there has always been a central authority of religious reference in Islam, but again historically speaking there never has been. Also as Anthony Black the religious historian documents in his work, ” The History of Islamic Political Thought: From the Prophet to the Present”, that the Caliphate was held as an authority over secular matters. The Caliphate never passed verdicts on religious matters, that was for a separate class of ulema. Hence we read in ”Keeping the State Out: Separation of Law and State in Classical Islamic Law” (Michigan Law Review):
”nature of Islamic law .. was traditionally epistemically grounded and contained a variety of equally valid and orthodox viewpoints”, in other words a pluralistic discourse with many competing viewpoints.
Also as An Naim, Feldman, Affendi and Raziq (and many other scholars of religious law point out) that the Caliph was never a locus of religious interpretation and scholarship, but secular power. Hence why the Caliphs established to set a contrasting set of jurisprudence known as Qanun instead of fiqh. That dichotomy as noted by Professor Sachedina is also noted in his work ”Islam and the Challenge of Human Rights”.
The Catholic analogy still stands, since Catholics believe they are a religious community but in a spiritual sense. The same thing applies to the Ummah, its a spiritual concept more than anything else.
Oh yes a theocracy is when clerics rule over the population, what we have in Muslim history is not theocracy but autocrats, monarchs, sultans and kings. Arguably the Islamic Revolution in Iran is the first time that the clergy had full control of political power. In theocracy you need a central religious authority, but in Muslim history religious authority was always decentralised and pluralistic in the sense there were many competing schools of thought.
You could however strongly argue and I would agree with you that Muslim societies had theonomic aspirations.
As for the Hamas issue, try visiting Rauf’s website (cordoba initiative):
” When Hamas commits atrocious acts of terror, those actions should be condemned. Imam Feisal has forcefully and consistently condemned all forms of terrorism, including those committed by Hamas, as un-Islamic. In his 2004 book [What's Right With Islam is Right With America], he even went so far as to include a copy of the Fatwa issued after 9/11 by the most respected clerics of Egypt defining the 9/11 attack as an un-Islamic act of terror and giving permission to Muslims in the U.S. armed forces to fight against those Muslims who committed this act of terror. Imam Feisal included this in his book to prove that terrorism must be fought even if Muslims have to fight fellow Muslims to stop it. ”
On the issue of 9/11, most journalists such as Robert Fisk absolutely condemned 9/11, but tried to understand the phenomenon of it in terms of what caused 9/11. In a crime you look for a motive, but as Fisk lectures one thing the American media did not look for was a motive. Fisk delivered a lecture at MIT, ”Ask All You Like about 9/11, But Just Don’t Ask Why?” (its available online just google and watch for yourself) Fisk concludes the question of ”why” is not asked in American media discourse because it raises uncomfortable and troubling questions about American foreign policy in the Middle East such as supporting corrupt regimes in Egypt, propping up monarchies such as Saudi Arabia and questions America’s policies in that region. Rauf’s views hence are mainstream they are not extreme in any sense since many other journalists, intellectuals and scholars would agree with him.
That’s all Rauf did in a sense, and you said it yourself he condemned the attacks so what’s the issue? The issue is that he raised an uncomfortable question. Even American scholars such as Michael Scheuer, an historian criticises American foreign policy but he does not get labelled as an”extremist” by the right wing press in America because of his creed. If you are a Muslim citizen and question foreign policy that’s equivalent to treason according to some so called media commentators in the US. That’s just pathetic…
The most Rauf can be is a foreign policy critic, that’s all, you may disagree or agree with his views but his views are not extreme but they are presented as such by the right wing press who manipulate fear and emotion rather than use cold hard reason.
Even then he takes part in inter-faith initiatives on behalf of the American government…
A A you are in denial. This duplicity of claiming citizenship when convenient and global fraternity when convenient (instead of embracing both) is for all to see.
Every Muslim scholar in America speaks of “lands of Islam”…even converts like Hamza Yusuf. Most American Muslims condone religious bigotry …and if they were in a majority would try to impose a narrowminded view of Islam. Where ever American Muslims get some authority they resort to it. What happened to Asra Nomani in Morgan Town is a case in point.
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”’Actually what the Pew and Gallup Polls reveal is that American Muslims are less extremist and insular than European Muslims not that the they are less extremist and insular compared to Americans at large. It is pretty self-evident that Muslims are more insular then the rest of America, especially when considering the inability of many American Muslims to marry non-Muslims, some American Muslims who only interact with their own community, etc.”’
But the poll does conclude American Muslims are quote ”middle class, mainstream and have moderate political views”.
Gorki:
You are correct. I meant to say that “this sort of shallow patriotism is not equal to the long term interests of a nation in most cases”, but skipped writing the complete context. Thanks for correcting me there.
YLH:
Scenario one: Mosque project is stopped. Right wing and Tea Party wins. Constitution loses.
Scenario two: Mosque project goes through. Orthodoxy is promoted and mainstreamed. Tomorrow Hamza Yusuf’s little college for Islamic law in Berkeley will get accredited as well. Over all result – marginalization of dissenting voices within the Muslim community.
Scenario 1: Tea Party wins the elections. That’s part of democracy. Right wing wins elections everywhere all the time, and part of democracy is to accept it without reservations.
But if the mosque project is stopped on the pretext of hurt emotions and sentimental values, that would be a grave subversion of constitution. History shows us that small precedents often lead to widespread abuses down the road.
Scenario 2: There are lot of assumptions here, that Rauf will promote orthodoxy and segregation. I do not agree with Rauf’s views on 9/11 and Hamas. And I will oppose him on these issues wholeheartedly. But I will not take away his constitutional rights just because I am ideologically opposed to him or the mosque/cultural center builders.
I don’t think ideological leanings is the issue here; it is the issue of suppressing someone’s right to worship and preach in a property legally owned by that person or a group. It is the freedom to preach that is enshrined in the constitution and that is being subverted by the Republicans in the guise of shallow patriotism.
Wall Street Journal has published an interesting collection of views by Anwar Ibrahim (Malaysian opposition leader), Dr. Bernard Lewis, Akbar S. Ahmad and others about what constitutes a moderate Muslim. This is with regards to the Cordoba Center controversy. I think we ought not to subject Imam Rauf to a moderation test. This tactic is employed by the Tea Party and the Republican right wing and completely takes the attention away from the legality aspect of the Cordoba Center.
>President Obama and his government are now
>under great stress because of the difficult position
>the mosque issue has put the Obama admin in
So by tactfully retreating, the muslims can support the democrats against the right wingers ? Right? Wrong!
The Republicans will be back with some other manufactured grievance. What do you do then? More retreats?
Lets say the republicans are back in power. Where does that leave the American muslims?
Try this for another point of view….
http: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZpT2Muxoo0
Luq
”A A you are in denial. This duplicity of claiming citizenship when convenient and global fraternity when convenient (instead of embracing both) is for all to see”
You sound like a neo con now, ”those pesky two faced Moooslems, using that taaaqiyaah, being closet radicals, being ”stealth Islamists” (what a joke Daniel Pipes should be writing comedy..)”. This sort of Pipesian, Spencerian discourse about Muslims being hopelessly disloyal and eternally insincere would be quiet funny but unfortunately this tripe is actually taken seriously….
The Nomani case was sad. I think Eteraz’s article, ”The death of “progressive Islam” is quiet pertinent:
” The flagship organization of the movement Progressive Muslim Union of North America has lost almost 90% of its board members. MuslimWakeUp!, the primary organ of the movement, is neither frequented nor active, often going weeks without publishing new content.”
I think Eteraz summed it well when he said, ”At the end of the day, all practicing Muslims turn to some kind of juridical authority. The fact that the Progressives did not have one to offer was a great cause of concern for me.”
The fact is until the foundations of fiqh are not addressed nothing can change or will change, you need to address the underlying hermeneutic, ethical, juridicial and philosophical underpinnings of religious interpretation, which the likes of Nomani and others don’t do. There is something utilitarian about such discourse that it just doesn’t engage. In Christianity, it was the effort of the German theologians using new hermeneutic techniques in interpreting religious scripture which was a real change, and before that the work of religious humanists like Erasmus. Liberal theologians in Christianity built up a tradition of deep and solid philosophical, ethical and spiritual knowledge, and henc offered a genuine alternative. It takes time, since all religions are tradition based in one sense or the other. The key is to deal with the tradition and work within it for reform, otherwise it will end in abject failure.
Unfortunately, Nomani and others like her though have a well meaning message, have no intellectual tools to fight the good fight. And the act of intra community reasoning (which is so crucial) seems alien and almost backward to such well meaning thinkers.
Also and this point is serious is that:
” Progressive Muslims allowed themselves to be identified with Neo-conservatives in DC, and because they seemed more interested in publicity stunts than hands-on work with communities. ”
Yusuf’s initiative is the first step to actually wrestly and shift religious authority from traditional Muslim majority societies to American Muslims who have been born and bred and the US.
What on earth does a Pakistani cleric have to say to an American Muslim teenager who plays XBOX on the weekends? There is a massive gap, and Yusuf’s work (which is private since one has to pay to attend his institution) is trying to address that.
The College’s purpose as I understand it is:
”The ultimate purpose of Zaytuna College is to become the bulwark for a wholly new construction of Islam, one firmly rooted in traditional Islamic teachings, yet uniquely and unapologetically American. ”
Let’s see. I want to see the type of syllabus they will teach, the texts they use, the teaching style and the quality of the graduates they will produce and their mindsets and how the graduates end up thinking. Only then can I actually judge, otherwise its just bigoted of me to presume and assume.
I hate to judge things without having some sort of evidence to go on. Anyone who does that must be psychic or something…
@AA Khalid
“Quauntum all your ideas are meaningless because they presume that the concept of the ummah is political in terms of overriding citizenship when really polls such as Gallup and Pew confirm the opposite. I have yet to see you produce any form of sociological and empirical research from reputable organizations. “
Huh? Your own Pew Article/Publication (http://pewresearch.org/assets/pdf/muslim-americans.pdf) on page 12 states that 60% of young Muslim Americans think of themselves as Muslim first, American second, while only 25% think the opposite.
“Furthermore, you also assume there has always been a central authority of religious reference in Islam, but again historically speaking there never has been.”
Mohammed himself was a fused political/religious supreme leader, followed by Abu Bakr as was Umar, the first caliph, the Ummayad’s also had fused political/religious leaders.
“The Caliphate was held as an authority over secular matters. The Caliphate never passed verdicts on religious matters, that was for a separate class of ulema… Also as An Naim, Feldman, Affendi and Raziq (and many other scholars of religious law point out) that the Caliph was never a locus of religious interpretation and scholarship, but secular power”
The very essence of a Caliphate is that it is based upon religious law, if you want to argue that certain individuals, such as the Caliph, wielded power in different spheres that is fine.
“Oh yes a theocracy is when clerics rule over the population, what we have in Muslim history is not theocracy but autocrats, monarchs, sultans and kings. Arguably the Islamic Revolution in Iran is the first time that the clergy had full control of political power. In theocracy you need a central religious authority, but in Muslim history religious authority was always decentralised and pluralistic in the sense there were many competing schools of thought. “
That is a bit rich, so Saudi Arabia is not a theocracy because it is ruled by a King instead of the Ulema? BTW a theocracy does not have to be ruled by the clerics, by definition a Theocracy is a form of government in which a god or deity is recognized as the state’s supreme civil ruler.
“That’s all Rauf did in a sense, and you said it yourself he condemned the attacks so what’s the issue? The issue is that he raised an uncomfortable question. Even American scholars such as Michael Scheuer, an historian criticises American foreign policy but he does not get labelled as an”extremist” by the right wing press in America because of his creed. If you are a Muslim citizen and question foreign policy that’s equivalent to treason according to some so called media commentators in the US. That’s just pathetic…”
Disagreeing with foreign policy is one thing, however, condemning the attack only to later say that you had it coming makes him nothing more than an apologist.
“But the poll does conclude American Muslims are quote ”middle class, mainstream and have moderate political views””
That was in comparison with European Muslims.
muslim 2nd and 3rd generation youngsters , ”citizens” of western lands going to far muslim lands to do jihad[ fight] for the greater umma is proof enough of the deep rooted devotion tothe umma in the muslim psyche,galup polls are not needed to see this fact.it is a requirement for the hard fast.apologism will not alter facts
QS, the report states that there are some glaring problems and issues with the youngsters in the American Muslim community however, since the community overall has moderate views and is easily integrated into American life it can be very easy said there are other causal factors for this phenomenon.
Furthermore, the question itself is counter productive, since many Muslims think themselves as both Muslims and citizens, but if you force them to choose they will choose their religious identity because that is existential. A person’s existential position is always going to be more important. The reason why one may say they are a Muslim first is not because of political reasons but because of existential reasons. So that statistic itself does lend itself to any solid conclusions based on causal links. One’s identity is not monolithic, like Amartya Sen argues our identity is a composite entity made up of different dimensions. From personal experience, Muslims feel the existential dimension of their identity is more important than the civic one, but that does not mean they have split political loyalties or are bad citizens at all.
When we are deliberating in politics for instance we are citizens, but when we are faced with death we forget our civic identity and focus on our existential identity. Its like arguing that one cannot be a poet and a vegetarian at the same time. Its nonsense, to suggest that being a Muslim and a citizen are conflicting identities is rubbish and symptomatic of a deep seated prejudice. ”Muslim” is not a political identity.
In the technical sense a theocracy is always contingent on a ruling religious class of scholars in terms of a priesthood. That’s the standard model of theocratic rule. Rule by a community of religious scholars. I have already accepted that Muslim societies in the past were theonomic rather than theocratic. There is a difference.
As Affendi and Raziq have pointed out political theory was never divinely ordained but the models the Prophet and the Caliphs afterwards adopted were borne out of historical considerations. As Professor Zubaida points out in his paper ”Islam and Secularization” (just google and download):
”Government was distinct from religion in that it did not proceed in accordance with religious precepts (Shariha, church doctrine) but accord-
ing to raison d’etats and the dominant interests. Religious institutions and personnel were separate from the government or subordinate to it. ”
”That was in comparison with European Muslims”
No the Pew Report does not make comparisons with European Muslims.
Its key findings, and one which is very important is:
”Overall, Muslim Americans have a generally positive view of the larger society. Most say their communities are excellent or good places to live.”
And:
”The survey shows that although many Muslims are relative newcomers to the U.S., they are highly assimilated into American society. On balance, they believe that Muslims coming to the U.S. should try and adopt American customs, rather than trying to remain distinct from the larger society”
” So that statistic itself does lend itself to any solid conclusions based on causal links.”
should read:
So that statistic itself does NOT lend itself to any solid conclusions based on causal links.
In the Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Political Thought (pg 702):
Theocracy:
” in common usage, ‘government by priests, The term was coined by the Greek-speaking Jewish historian Josephus, to denote the Jewish concep-
tion of government as embodied in the Torah, where divine laws are treated as creating both religious and civil obligations”
Furthermore under the entry ”Caliphate” (pg 74):
”His [the Caliph] role was compared at the time to that of the Pope in Christendom; the comparison is misleading, however, since the office of Caliph was without specific priestly duties, nor did the Caliph have the kind of universal responsibil-
ity for the souls of the faithful that was vested in the Pope. ”
”concept of the ummah is political”
That assumption is still not proven that the concept of Ummah is a form of political alleigance to an authority competing with the nation state. Since there is no central religious or political authority in Islam (there never has been historically) the connotation of the word Ummah in a political dimension is meaningless. Hence being a Muslim does not conflict with being a citizen, its just the difference in existential and civic spheres of identity as I have mentioned which have been jumbled up.
”only to later say that you had it coming makes him nothing more than an apologist”
He did not say that, he said POLICIES, you know as in American foreign policy which Fisk and Scheurer and others have pointed out as a big flaw could be one of the reasons that created the antecedent conditions for such terrorist movements.
Rauf only cites policies, he never said the American people ”had it coming”. That is a neo-con distortion which is being peddled around with no one bothering to scrutinise it.
How about actually letting Rauf speak instead of putting words in his mouth [from his website the Corodoba Initiative]:
”The ‘60 Minutes’ piece was completely incorrect as the statement was edited out of context. In the full interview, Imam Feisal describes the mistake the CIA made in the 1980s by financing Osama Bin Laden and strengthening the Taliban. This view is widely shared today by journalists, foreign policy experts and the US government [which I have in my posts pointed out so far]. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf underlines the importance of not supporting “friends of convenience” who may later become our enemies. This is common sense.
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is an American who takes his role as a citizen-ambassador very seriously. He is frequently requested by the US State Department to tour Muslim majority and western countries to speak about the merits of American ideals and Muslim integration into Western society. At the request of the FBI after 9/11, he provided cultural training to hundreds of FBI agents.”’
A.A. Khalid
“Furthermore, the question itself is counter productive, since many Muslims think themselves as both Muslims and citizens, but if you force them to choose they will choose their religious identity because that is existential. A person’s existential position is always going to be more important.”
Khalid Sb, I have a Pakistani Muslim friend from Morgantown, West Virginia. He is well educated and articulate. However, he never ever talks to my wife. Consequently, I have also never spoken to his. Now, I am not saying that all Muslims behave so strangely; they don’t. However, they do take their religion a little too seriously than others. That is where most of the other issues follow from. And it is not strongly correlated with the education level.
To me, religion is a set of rules (usually frozen in time) societies developed in the absence of better knowledge about the universe. It still holds currency, mostly because we still do not know how life is created, and what happens to it after death. For example, if we suddenly discover that, after death, everyone moves to a remote part of Australia, religion will disappear. People will then try to book a good piece of real estate in that corner of Australia to be used after death. This little bit of irreverence, which I have seen in most people at least in usual drawing room conversations, I haven’t seen in my Muslim friends (of course there are exceptions, but they remain hidden). To many of them, it means complete subjugation, without question, even if it means continuing with many traditions of 7th century.
Now, I did not want to write a critique on religion, Muslims, or American Muslims. But from all your eloquent writings, it seems like Muslims do not have any assimilation issue whatsoever. However, the ground reality is otherwise, at least in my experience, although I agree that it is only anecdotal evidence. I guess the point I am trying to make is that all religions create a firewall around most, because qualitative, non-terrestrial issues, which cannot be proven or disproven, are involved. And if taken without a grain of salt, it creates assimilation issues in other spheres of life as well.
@no-communal
You will not mind my pointing out that this is characteristic of individuals, not of masses in general; it happens that many individuals in a mass happen to think alike, but they never lose their individuality.
You will also not take it personally, or anyone else take it personall if I point out that Christians, too, have been seen to be conservative, particularly those in the South of Europe.
The point being that societies and cultures change. They don’t change the way metals do, or chemicals do; they change one individual at a time. So your anecdotal evidence is quite accurate as its influence and utility as information for your innate inner beliefs is concerned. In like manner, it is terribly wrong, or rather, inaccurate, as far as predicting the general trend in society is concerned.
I will stop here, to stop labouring the point.
@Vajra.
I agree with you. The point is well taken. Thanks.
if the good imam is as wise as we hope, he would take akbar ahmed’s advice (in essence) and make a gesture even more genuinely symbolic than the proposed building is seen to be by the Tea Party-ists. if he is not that wise, then we have YLH’s view or suspicions of him which takes the argument into an entirely different area.
liberal muslims cannot ask the US to fight their fight for them to such an extent that she even compromises her own laws. the US has her own fundamentalists to fight, and as a state, the law is all she has to fight them with. the principles of america cannot be sacrificed just so the muslims – as given examples of by YLH – can hope to have some.
BCiv:
Aboslutely agree. Well said.
all religions are based on belief (without logic and argument). thus all religions are irrational. so it is not surprising that a debate based on an irrational subject will also be irrational.
opponents – what kind of building would the perpetrators of the 9/11 terrorist attack on the world trade center build on the site of the building they destroyed? if your answer is ‘a mosque’ then you have the reason why this mosque should not be built
supporters – if this mosque is stopped then it will become a powerful recruiting tool for al qaeda
neither realizing that they are using the same argument, that al qaeda should be allowed the power to influence our decisions….
yes this community center not mosque not at ground zero is just like the civil rights movement as there are not already hundreds of mosques in new york and thousands across america and muslims do not have the same rights under the law as every other american citizen. i have also heard that they are the new jews which i’m sure the jews will be glad to hear since, according to the fbi, 67% of hate crimes are against jews. and now they are the new japanese during world war two? so they are every minority that has ever struggled for equal rights all because this one mosque is being questioned.
there are a handful of mosque being opposed across the country, how many are being built with no opposition? this one mosque holds such great importance that if it is not built it will mean the end to ameircan democracy….wow that’s one powerful building….as the teaparty is one powerful organization in that it can sway over half of the american populace opinion…they should sweep the elections in november with ease with that kind of power of persuasion.
and oh yeah this imam is a moderate.. yes of course he is a moderate who’s “conviction” is that america has misinterpreted its constitution for over 200 years on separation of church and state , what the founding fathers meant to say is that all religions should have an equal say in how a country is run…you know like the ottoman empire (his example not mine). yep, ignorant american infidels not only do we need this mosque to teach us the “true” face of islam we also need to be taught the “true” meaning our constitution. “
feisal rauf on sharia – “The recent and controversial call by Dr. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, primate of the Church of England and spiritual leader of 80 million Anglicans, for incorporation of Sharia law into British law will not be the last utterance in favor of Islamic law. Nor should it be. The addition of Sharia law to “the law of the land”, in this case British law, complements, rather than undermines, existing legal frameworks. The Archbishop was right. It is time for Britain to integrate aspects of Islamic law.”
hmmmm…..and just how long will it be before he makes the pronouncement that it is time for america to “integrate aspects of islamic law”?
i’ve never had a problem with muslims, islam or mosque….but i do have a problem with this guy and if he speaks for all the “moderate” muslim americans then i think i need to rethink my thoughts on islam
Actually there is no constitutional right that can be interpretted as giving the Imam absolute right to build the mosque at that very place. So let us just put that out of the way.
Eteraz is a friend of mine. I’ll have to ask him what his views are. But anyone who thinks of Hamza Yusuf as anything but the retrogressive Islamo-fascist bigot that he is, is delusional.
Dear lecia tally:
‘there are a handful of mosque being opposed across the country, how many are being built with no opposition? this one mosque holds such great importance that if it is not built it will mean the end to American democracy….’
Then let me ask you another question; how many mosque need to be opposed to threaten the American democracy?
Fifteen?
Fifty?
Five hundred?
Remind me of the much used and abused joke:
Churchill: Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?
Socialite: My goodness, Mr. Churchill… Well, I suppose… we would have to discuss terms, of course…
Churchill: Would you sleep with me for five pounds?
Socialite: Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!
Churchill: Madam, we’ve already established that. Now we are haggling about the price…’
I am afraid that those who are making this issue sound as if it is about religious beliefs or about Mr. Rauf’s controversial views do not seem to understand America and its appeal for those of us who call it home.
The issue is not the number or the size of the Mosque or its distance from ground zero; it is about the principal of fairness.
Ironically this fairness principal was first hammered into the American consciousness by the original Boston tea partiers when they revolted against a mere token of a tea tax.
You and many well meaning folks here, (including those like YLH and BC who normally stand steadfast on principals) don’t seem to understand that while American Muslims may well need some introspection for other reaasons, this here is not a Muslim issue and it is not the Muslims of America who are being judged here.
It is America and its principles.
Three things need to be clearly understood.
1. By accepting a link between the 9/11 and Islam we risk accepting the claim made by those murderers that they were acting on the behalf of Islam. I reject that claim.
2. By forbidding someone to build something just because of his views is unfair; and un-American.
3. By selectively forbidding the building of a house of worship belonging to one particular faith is offensive to us because it discriminates not against one particular person but against an entire faith; guilt by association!
That too is un-American.
Once we surrender our principals then we would have become at least a little bit less like our former selves and a tiny bit more like the Saudis we love to criticize….
Regards
Khalid,
“It would be better too not to just go by the Pew and gallop polls but to hear the voices on the street”
Why? Why shun empirical and sociological research? Talk about your experience by all means but give some importance to facts and figures…”
I guess you didn’t read my statement properly. I was not advocating shunning empirical research. My issue with such polls is, as you said it, that they are empirical studies. With no further information as to how the study was conducted, how the sample was chosen, what was the list of questions asked, it becomes a little difficult to put one’s faith completely in such “scientific” studies. Frequently, it has been observed that when the questions are a little controversial, people generally tend to give the “acceptable” answers, which defeats the whole purpose of such studies. Also, for every conclusion drawn from the polls, it’s rather easy to find a different set of polls coming to contradictory conclusions. I can give you an example that shows the limitations of polls:
(1) Gallup polls regularly goof up election results in India.
Plus, I am also not too sure about the Pew study that claims the reach of fundamentalism in Pakistan to fantastical proportions.
Gorki,
Actually, the issue is a little more delicate than that. People, including Americans, don’t exist in vacuum.
Gorki sb,
Constitutional rights are never as black or white as folks seem to think they are.
If for example Manhattan city council or some other state/government authority were to intervene and stop this project from going through… if the Imam would plead the first amendment, he would have to prove that by not making this complex his right to free exercise of faith is being impeded. For kicks, when I get some time, I will dig through the American Juris and see the case law on 1st Amendment and the religious question but if principles of English jurisprudence are in effect… well then that would be a task for the Imam.
Come September 11 … and boys will be separated from men when it comes to pleading the first amendment and how that right applies to a little Church in Florida.
What about building a mosque the size of National Cathedral in Washington DC? I’d like all ne0-Americans – with due respect- to answer this one after having the investigating the matter thoroughly.
Gorki,
My comment above is strictly about the assimilation question. It has no relation with the said mosque, with which I have no problem. However, I see that the whole debate is causing a lot of friction in the American public sentiment, to the detriment of millions of average Muslims whose only concern is un unconstrained peaceful life.
I do not particularly buy this argument that America is this exceptionally fair place where justice always prevails. Like all big countries with a big population, it has all kinds of people, some just, some unjust, some liberal and humane, some bigoted and one-dimensional. And if you are talking about institutional injustice, think war in Iraq.
muslims speak against their own ilk = liberal
others do the same = rightwinger