Muslims in America

Muslims in America.
A rational approach

Even after 9/11, assimilation remains a major theme.
They graduate from college roughly at the same rate as other Americans, stress educational and economic opportunities, but also protection of free speech and religion, ideals not upheld in Muslim countries.
Bush’s war against terrorism left a feeling among most Muslims that the country had turned against Muslims.
Large majorities of Muslims strongly disagree with American policies in the Mid-East especially its reflexive support for Israel.
The domestic fall out of 9/11 was arrest of 1200 Muslims in late 2001, and later interrogation of 8,000 more.
A Gallup pole in 2006 showed that 4 out of 10 Americans distrusted Muslims.
The complexity of Islam in the US only deepens, when the painful history of African-American Muslims is added to the picture.
2/3 of American Muslims are immigrants. Most Arabs descent Americans are Christian. Muslims of South Asian descent constitute 34%, Arab Americans 26%, Arab descent 20%
Muslim faith is decentralized, the closest they have to a Pope or Cardinals are the Ayatollahs of Iran, but the Shia sect constitutes only 20% of Muslims, and not all Shias live in Iran.
Shias started as a political movement (Shian e Ali-supporters of Ali), and over a period of time evolved into a separate belief system. Briefly, they adhere to the hereditary principle of government. The prophet did not have a surviving son. Ali, his cousin and the husband of his favorite daughter Fatima, should have succeeded him and so on.
Sufism, another important school of thought in Islam claims a significant number of adherents among American Muslims. Their message is of love, tolerance and peaceful co-existence, but the rigid Muslims deride it as heretical.
The estimate of the number of Muslims in the USA varies from 3 to 6 million.
They live mostly in cities. PEW reported income level of Muslims similar to the population as a whole. 63% are registered to vote (general population 76%).
By comparison, Muslims in European countries are poorer, less educated and socially more marginalized, and live densely packed volatile slums. Europeans, for decades, had encouraged Muslim immigration, as a source of cheap menial labor. Violent Islamic extremists have found fertile ground for recruitment. 7/7 London bombers were British born, and from relatively well assimilated families. (Spanish bombers were not).
There are about 1,300 Islamic centers/ mosques and several hundred religious seminaries in the USA. The centers tend to be highly conservative, separate sexes rigidly (except an odd one like in Twin tiers, Upstate NY and Pittsburgh, PA).
Most Muslims regard the Quran as the literal word of God, not a work of divine inspiration composed by humans, as most Jews and Christians do, of their scriptures.
Muslim clergy do give sermons condemning non-believers, not essentially different from those delivered by fundamentalist Christians. Most Muslims hold disapproving views of American life that conservative Christians do too .2/3 of the Muslims consider the USA immoral because of permissive attitudes to sex, homosexuality and abortion, pornography, and would like religious schools funded by the state.
Muslim fundamentalism surged in the 1970s in the same time frame that Christian fundamentalism did in the USA and Likud won elections in Israel.
One paramount source of for the export of fundamentalism is the US ally, Saudi Arabia which promotes the Wahhabi creed named after the 18th century preacher, Abd al Wahhab who sought to ‘cleanse’ Islam of the corruptions he believed, had crept in. They are hostile not only to non-Muslims, but to Muslims who do not follow the creed as well. They have fused with other extremist and intolerant strains like Salafis, who seek to reestablish an Islamic empire based on the norms of the time of the prophet.
Saudis have financed hundreds of mosques in the USA. Fully half of the mosques and Islamic schools get money from them.
Khaled Abou El Fadl, a law professor at UCLA is reviled by many as a traitor, by many for reinterpreting Islamic scripture to justify equality of sexes, tolerance of other religions and opposition to religiously inspired bloodshed.
Asra Nomani of West VA, is derided for the audacity to enter her Morgantown mosque from the front door, and for praying in the main hall with men in front of her.
It is nothing less than a struggle for soul of religion.
Grace Song, an Ivy league MBA (from Cornell university) marketing executive, became a Muslim after listening to some tapes about Muslim women jurists of the medieval era, by Khaled Abou. She started worshipping at her local Islamic center. She found that women were sent to a basement room to pray, asked to keep their hair covered all the time, and her conservative business blouse, exposing her neck, was said to reveal too much.
She felt alienated, and refused to cover her hair outside the mosque or replace her corporate wardrobe for black sacks. “You live one life while at work, then go to the mosque, and it is like, check the brain at the door.” (It is not only women who have to check out their brains at the door).
Khaled was a Ph.D candidate in Islamic studies at the Princeton University. He eventually became a tenured professor of Islamic jurisprudence at the UCLA.
An American born Christian considering conversion e-mailed to the professor “When I read your work, I feel there may be some room for hope…for people like me, who feel the truth of the prophet’s message…can not accept…surrendering …intellect at the door of the mosque”.
Abou Fadl says “Muslims are living through Dark ages”. Some believers hope…his effort…will smash the shell of narrow-mindedness that…Muslims have built around their religion. At its height, a millennium ago, the religion honored intellectual debate.
He does concede that Islamic scripture contains passages that can be interpreted in an ugly way “ do not take Jews and Christian as allies…God does not guide such evildoers” (5.51). But claims that there are stronger Islamic arguments for tolerance and moderation “God has created you from male and female, made you into diverse nations and tribes so that you come know each other” (49.13).
Muslims resent his challenging views that they must take moral responsibility for terrorism committed in the name of the religion.
A thousand years ago, he contends, the Islamic world vibrated with scholarly disputation. He puts much of the blame on Saudi funded proselytizers who preach Wahhabism.
Growing up in the Mid-East, he observed hostility to dogs based on the belief that the animals are unclean. The Quran does not condemn dogs as impure or evil. He found seemingly contradictory hadith indicating the prophet’s gentleness towards the animal. Some medieval scholars of Islam like Ibne al-Marzuban “the superiority of Dogs over many…” portrayed the animals as symbols of faithfulness…he emphasizes the evolution of discourses over time, “ most Muslims are unaware of this evolution, because Wahhabism has choked off debate and imposed simplistic notions about what Islam dictates.
Abou Fadl narrates the discussion that he had at lunch at the home of a ‘Usuli’ scholar in Cairo. The scholar “I read reports that the prophet never struck, cursed or insulted anyone, and then I find these reports that…he permitted men to beat their wives…” He added “ the prophet is reported to have said that after his death, there will be many reports about him…and many will be pure inventions…we must examine… reports in the light of the Quran”.
Wahhab’s legacy has largely caused the disappearance of the cautious Usuli way.
Wahhab formed an alliance with the desert clan of Saud. They launched a rebellion against the Ottoman Empire. They slaughtered thousands of Muslims (especially in Najf and karbala), and any non-Muslim they could lay their hands on. The rebellion was put down, but the alliance was revived in the 20th century. Aided and abetted by the oil seeking West, initially the British and later the Americans, it promoted Wahhabism in the 1960s and 1970s to counter the secular nationalism of Nasser. The proselytizing became more vigorous after the 1979 revolution in Iran, as the Saudis thought that Iranian mullahs might supplant them in the minds of Muslims (and they would have, I visited Pakistan a few months after Khomeini took over. Nearly all Pakistanis I came across were euphoric over the turn events had taken in Iran. No one talked of Shia or Sunni. The extremists were hiding in their holes. The revolutionary zeal was effectively aborted by Saddam’s attack on Iran, which was backed, aided and abetted by all Arabs, including the Palestinians, whose titular leader Yasser Arafat was, for the first time, received as a head of the state in Iran, and the Israeli embassy premises handed over to him for the PLO delegation. The USA, of course, backed Saddam to the hilt, though Reagan White house indulged in arms contra affair, in a vain attempt to steer the secular wing of the rulers away from the Ayatollahs. When the Iranians were on the verge of definitive victory, an American missile boat shot down an Iran air plane with 276 passengers and crew on board).
Saudi oil money funded the spread of fundamentalism, the Islamic Assembly of North America, started in 1993 in Ypsilanti MI. Preachers featured in IANA sponsored Arabic language Web sites endorsed violent jihad, slaughter of Jews and branded the USA as the enemy of Islam.
The Saudis paid Imams and jurists from around the world to take sabbaticals in Mecca.
One evening during a visit to Cairo, several men in plain clothes grabbed Abou Fadl. They kept him in a Cairo jail for three weeks, during which they hung him by one arm, gave him electric shocks and pulled out his fingernails. They let him go after they found that he had nothing to confess.
He learned the methods of literary criticism, and shed the approach of a defeated and insecure people. He gained confidence in the use of human reason in the search for divine meaning.
While still in his twenties, he started getting requests from other Muslims for guidance on Islamic law. One woman convert told him, that men in a mosque told her that she could greet them only if they greeted her first, otherwise she should remain silent. He informed her that a number of Islamic scholars have manipulated reports about the prophet’s words, and deeds to come up with rules that oppress women.
An hour’s reflection:
The prophet is said to have declared “an hour’s reflection is better than a year’s worship.. the followers asked him if reflection was better than reading the Quran. The prophet “can the Quran be useful without knowledge”.
Abou Fadl enlists the prophet in the intellectual struggle that engulfs Islam. Rationalist Muslims have argued that the Quran can be understood as both the literal word of god, and a historical document, whose larger meaning might progress with the times. Fundamentalists insist that Quran has a fixed meaning, the ideal society grows from reproduction of the early Muslim community, and not out of the intangible principles derived from God’s word.
The rationalists are losing the contest.
The prophet, though engaged in commerce, had reservations about Mecca’s religion business of getting wealthy by hosting pagan rites.
Contemplative men of his time known as hanifs went off on their own to worship a deity known as Allah or ‘the God’.
He came across monotheists Jews and Christians during his travels. Between the journeys, he began spending extended periods of time meditating in a cave near Mecca, and at the age of 40, he had a visitation from the angel Gabriel, who brought messages from Allah. The process continued for the next 23 years. He would repeat the revelations to his companions and wives. During the times of the third caliph, the utterances were compiled as the Quran (tradition has it that out of several versions, one was officially endorsed, the others destroyed. Many Shias believe that ten chapters relating to succession to the prophet were suppressed).
The Quran is not arranged chronologically or by theme. Divine guidance during the Meccan period, when the prophet and the followers were persecuted, are milder and tolerant in tone. The revelations in the Medinan period appear to be related to the requirement of a fast rising community beset by still powerful rivals, and are more aggressive than the Meccan ones.
Knotty questions of interpretation arise whether the later more bellicose verses cancel the earlier ones that limited jihad to a strictly defensive war. One passage to legitimate warfare against non-Muslims “…slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captive… but the very next sentence says…if they repent …and pay a religious tax to Muslims…they should be allowed to go their way” (9:5). By the standards of the seventh century, the latter injunction was fairly humane.
Fadl argues that specific instructions on how the first Muslims should act, as revealed to Muhammad, should be interpreted in the light of the practices of the time. The Quran, like the Bible offers no prohibition of slavery, a common practice in ancient times. That does not mean that Muslims should practice slavery.
The essential moral teaching of the Quran echoes that of Christian and Jewish scriptures “treat others as you would have them treat you”. The Quran recognizes earlier faiths and offers itself as a corrective document. Chapter 5 “Jews, Christians and any who believe in God and the final day, and do good will achieve salvation (5.9). Yet the same chapter offers the verse about not taking Jews and Christians as allies (? prudent military and political move). Fadl reads the chapter as “layered discourse about reciprocity”.
Al Fadl traces the squelching of healthy discussion to the rise of Wahhabism, while others trace it to Imam Ghazali. In his talks he scoffed at the Muslims who spend debating whether women should always cover their hair in public or be separated from men during prayers with a physical barrier, as their visibility will distract attention from prayers.. (It actually depends on the state of sexual repression. In Quetta a mob would chase woman without Burqa with uninhibited stares. In Karachi, no body looks at them twice. In India, girls ride on scooters. In USA and the West, even the skimpiest bikini would elicit an odd whistle. 7th century Arabs were most likely more repressed than the tribes in Pakistan/Afghanistan). He contends that immigrant Muslims in the USA are led by engineers, doctors and IT experts, who conceal their lack of knowledge by superficial displays of religiosity.
Fadl went on that “they build Islamic Centers, organize camps and conferences, and pretend that the mainstream does not exist. Many American Muslims believe that religion bans music, as it is an incitement to carnality (again cultural. They might have in the 7th century Arabia. Songs of devotion do not incite carnality). Quran includes no such prohibition. There is debate over whether the prophet cautioned against women singers, flutes, and stringed instruments. As Islam spread, music became a venerated art form. It is only over the last 3-4 decades that Wahhabis and other fundamentalists have proscribed music and public jollity. ‘Educated’ Muslims in the US abhor intellectualism, adore activism and learn the religion from pamphleteers. Islamic conferences combine religion and socializing, but only try to reassure the audiences and not challenge them.
The Quran does contain a substantial supply of bellicose exhortation. But the likes of bin Laden rely on the Quran selectively, and without attention to historical context. In the Medinan period, Muslims were instructed to fight unbelievers until all oppression had ended (8.39, 9.36). But the Quran forbids aggression and requires that hostilities be proportional to the provocation and to slay “those… wage war against you…for oppression is worse than killing” and “fight …the people of the book who do not believe in God or the hereafter…fight them until they pay the poll tax with willing submission…and feel subdued” (9.29). He points out in his The Place of Tolerance in Islam “Many classical Islamic jurists adapted an imperialist orientation, which divided the world into the abode of Islam and the abode of war, and supported expansionist wars against the unbelievers, Wahhab revived some of these ideas…so did the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (established by Hassan al-Banna in 1928”). That Islam contained the solution to all social and political problems produced the bumper sticker ideology-“Islam is the answer”.
After a group of Muslim Brothers tried to kill Nasser, he banned the group and imprisoned thousands. One of the detainees was Syed Qutb, whom the government executed in 1966. Saudis hosted and funded the Brothers who took refuge, in an attempt to counter Arab nationalist movement led by Nasser. Wahhabism, Salafism and the Brotherhood combined to help create the surge of Islamic Fundamentalism.
In Egypt, though still banned, the Brothers are informally tolerated, as they help Mubarak suppress Arab nationalism.
The Brothers now profess non-violence, but they assassinated Sadaat, and helped (with Israel) form HAMAS, and Islamic jihad. The latter was led by al-Zawahiri, till he merged it with bin Laden’s al-Qaeda. This kind of intolerance does find support in some of the traditional interpretations. “The God of Israel can sound as pitiless as the Quran. In the Book of Exodus, the God of Moses exhorts his followers to slaughter opposing nations, and even destroy the Israelites that had reverted to paganism. (all religions preach violence against opponents, but try to camouflage it with messages of peace).
Fadl insists that problematic verses should be read in historical context. In times of conflict, the prophet exiled Jews from Madina, and in one instance executed hundreds of them. But legitimacy of differing beliefs is also endorsed “If God would have willed, He would have made you a single people” (5.48).
Regarding the history of Muslim conquest from the Atlantic Ocean to China with in a century of Muhammad’s death, Fadl “Conquest and invasion were the norms of the time”. (as they have always been since and were before, so what is the difference between Muslims and others).
The political dominance…during the first 500 years, left Muslims scholars with a sense of self sufficient confidence (arrogance). Jews and Christians did not have the benefit of such a start, so did not enjoy the kind of security and smugness as they developed their fundamental principles.
Fadl asserts that the meaning of a text is often only as moral as the reader. If the reader is intolerant…so will be the interpretation.
“Terrorism is not a virus that suddenly infects…it is the result of long standing cultural and rhetorical dynamics”. Resistance to colonialism and secular Arab despots had bred this extreme form of puritanical and ethically oblivious Islam”. Muslim intellectuals have devoted themselves to “rampant apologetics”.
Fadl saw 9/11 as a grim confirmation of the poverty of contemporary Muslim thought and the growing influence of a twisted fundamentalism. The Quran and the prophet had placed restrictions on stealth attacks, rebellion and harm to non-combatants.
Muslim leaders failed to convince the American public of the outrage felt by most Muslims over 9/11. There were isolated statements of condemnation, but no unified and overwhelming response (I addressed the staff of a Police Academy in upstate NY. I was asked why Muslims had not condemned 9/11 with vigor). American Muslim leaders did not infuse their condemnation of 9/11 with the same fervor as animates their statements about Kashmir, Palestine, Chechnya and Bosnia