Mufti's 'hymen fatwa' causes shock waves among scholars
By Yasmine Saleh
First Published 2/20/2007
CAIRO: Reconstructive hymen surgery for women who lost their virginity before marriage is halal (religiously permissible), said to Aly Gomaa, the Grand Mufti of Egypt.
Gomaa, the highest authority with the power to issue a fatwa (religious edict), appeared the popular terrestrial Channel Two’s talk show El Beit Beitek, where he condoned the controversial fatwa, released by Soad Saleh, the ex-dean of the faculty of Islamic studies at Al-Azhar University and noted scholar.
Shiekh Khaled El Gindy, an Al-Azhar scholar and member of the Higher Council of Islamic Studies told The Daily Star Egypt that he agrees with the new fatwa.
"Islam never differentiates between men and women, so it is not rational for us to think that God has placed a sign to indicate the virginity of women without having a similar sign to indicate the virginity of men," El Gindy said.
"Any man who is concerned about his prospective wife’s hymen should first provide a proof that he himself is virgin," he added.
El Gindy voiced his full support for Gomaa.
Not only did Gomaa acknowledge the fatwa but asked women who will undergo the contentious surgery not to tell their future spouses about it, since this is not a question of honesty.
"If God wants us to know everything about each other, He would have given us the ability to read each others' minds, so why did he not do so? Perhaps maybe someone would have a wrong idea about you now but will change it later," Gomaa said.
Even more shocking to many observers, Gomaa said that if a married woman had sexual intercourse with another man but truly regretted her actions and asked God for forgiveness, she should not tell her husband.
"According to Sharia, if a husband knew that his wife had sexual intercourse with anyone else, he should divorce her, so by not telling him she would be protecting her home and her life," he explained.
The fatwa has led to much controversy within Al-Azhar and Egyptian society as a whole.
In Upper Egypt honor crimes are still committed. If a woman loses her virginity out of wedlock, she is considered a big shame on everyone and deserves to die.
In response to such ideas, El Gindy told The Daily Star Egypt that, "Islam does not care for the feelings of ignorant people, just as the law does not protect the idiots."
http://www.dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=5719
Showing posts with label Religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Religion. Show all posts
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
The Concept of Bid'a in the Islamic Shari'a
The Concept of Bid'a in the Islamic Shari'a©Nuh Ha Mim Keller 1995
The following is the text of a talk given by Shaikh Nuh Ha Mim Keller at Nottingham and Trent University on Wednesday 25th January 1995.
In the name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate There are few topics that generate as much controversy today in Islam as what is sunna and what is bida or reprehensible innovation, perhaps because of the times Muslims live in today and the challenges they face. Without a doubt, one of the greatest events in impact upon Muslims in the last thousand years is the end of the Islamic caliphate at the first of this century, an event that marked not only the passing of temporal, political authority, but in many respects the passing of the consensus of orthodox Sunni Islam as well. No one familiar with the classical literature in any of the Islamic legal sciences, whether Qur'anic exegesis (tafsir), hadith, or jurisprudence (fiqh), can fail to be struck by the fact that questions are asked today about basic fundamentals of Islamic Sacred Law (Sharia) and its ancillary disciplines that would not have been asked in the Islamic period not because Islamic scholars were not brilliant enough to produce the questions, but because they already knew the answers. My talk tonight will aim to clarify some possible misunderstandings of the concept of innovation (bida) in Islam, in light of the prophetic hadith,
'Beware of matters newly begun, for every matter newly begun is innovation, every innovation is misguidance, and every misguidance is in hell.' The sources I use are traditional Islamic sources, and my discussion will centre on three points:
The first point is that scholars say that the above hadith does not refer to all new things without restriction, but only to those which nothing in Sacred Law attests to the validity of. The use of the word 'every' in the hadith does not indicate an absolute generalization, for there are many examples of similar generalizations in the Qur'an and sunna that are not applicable without restriction, but rather are qualified by restrictions found in other primary textual evidence.
The second point is that the sunna and way of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) was to accept new acts initiated in Islam that were of the good and did not conflict with established principles of Sacred Law, and to reject things that were otherwise.
And our third and last point is that new matters in Islam may not be rejected merely because they did not exist in the first century, but must be evaluated and judged according to the comprehensive methodology of Sacred Law, by virtue of which it is and remains the final and universal moral code for all peoples until the end of time.
Our first point, that the hadith does not refer to all new things without restriction, but only to those which nothing in Sacred Law attests to the validity of, may at first seem strange, in view of the wording of the hadith, which says, 'every matter newly begun is innovation, every innovation is misguidance, and every misguidance is in hell.' Now the word 'bida' or 'innovation' linguistically means anything new, So our first question must be about the generalizability of the word every in the hadith: does it literally mean that everything new in the world is haram or unlawful? The answer is no. Why?
In answer to this question, we may note that there are many similar generalities in the Qur'an and sunna, all of them admitting of some qualification, such as the word of Allah Most High in Surat al-Najm,
'. . . A man can have nothing, except what he strives for' (Qur'an 53:39), despite there being an overwhelming amount of evidence that a Muslim benefits from the spiritual works of others, for example, from his fellow Muslims, the prayers of angels for him, the funeral prayer over him, charity given by others in his name, and the supplications of believers for him;
Or consider the words of Allah to unbelievers in Surat al-Anbiya,
'Verily you and what you worship apart from Allah are the fuel of hell' (Qur'an 21:98), 'what you worship' being a general expression, while there is no doubt that Jesus, his mother, and the angels were all worshipped apart from Allah, but are not 'the fuel of hell', so are not what is meant by the verse; Or the word of Allah Most High in Surat al-Anam about past nations who paid no heed to the warners who were sent to them,
'But when they forgot what they had been reminded of, We opened unto them the doors of everything' (Qur'an 6:44), though the doors of mercy were not opened unto them; And the hadith related by Muslim that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said,
'No one who prays before sunrise and before sunset will enter hell', which is a generalised expression that definitely does not mean what its outward generality implies, for someone who prays the dawn and midafternoon prayers and neglects all other prayers and obligatory works is certainly not meant. It is rather a generalization whose intended referent is particular, or a generalization that is qualified by other texts, for when there are fully authenticated hadiths, it is obligatory to reach an accord between them, because they are in reality as a single hadith, the statements that appear without further qualification being qualified by those that furnish the qualification, that the combined implications of all of them may be utilized.
Let us look for a moment at bida or innovation in the light of the sunna of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) concerning new matters. Sunna and innovation (bida) are two opposed terms in the language of the Lawgiver (Allah bless him and give him peace), such that neither can be defined without reference to the other, meaning that they are opposites, and things are made clear by their opposites. Many writers have sought to define innovation (bida) without defining the sunna, while it is primary, and have thus fallen into inextricable difficulties and conflicts with the primary textual evidence that contradicts their definition of innovation, whereas if they had first defined the sunna, they would have produced a criterion free of shortcomings.
Sunna, in both the language of the Arabs and the Sacred Law, means way, as is illustrated by the words of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace),
'He who inaugurates a good sunna in Islam [dis: Reliance of the Traveller p58.1(2)] ...And he who introduces a bad sunna in Islam...', sunna meaning way or custom. The way of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) in giving guidance, accepting, and rejecting: this is the sunna. For 'good sunna' and 'bad sunna' mean a 'good way' or 'bad way', and cannot possibly mean anything else. Thus, the meaning of 'sunna' is not what most students, let alone ordinary people, understand; namely, that it is the prophetic hadith (as when sunna is contrasted with 'Kitab', i.e. Qur'an, in distinguishing textual sources), or the opposite of the obligatory (as when sunna, i.e. recommended, is contrasted with obligatory in legal contexts), since the former is a technical usage coined by hadith scholars, while the latter is a technical usage coined by legal scholars and specialists in fundamentals of jurisprudence. Both of these are usages of later origin that are not what is meant by sunna here. Rather, the sunna of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) is his way of acting, ordering, accepting, and rejecting, and the way of his Rightly Guided Caliphs who followed his way acting, ordering, accepting, and rejecting. So practices that are newly begun must be examined in light of the sunna of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and his way and path in acceptance or rejection.
Now, there are a great number of hadiths, most of them in the rigorously authenticated (sahih) collections, showing that many of the prophetic Companions initiated new acts, forms of invocation (dhikr), supplications (dua), and so on, that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) had never previously done or ordered to be done. Rather, the Companions did them because of their inference and conviction that such acts were of the good that Islam and the Prophet of Islam came with and in general terms urged the like of to be done, in accordance with the word of Allah Most High in Surat al-Hajj,
'And do the good, that haply you may succeed' (Qur'an 22:77), and the hadith of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace),
'He who inaugurates a good sunna in Islam earns the reward of it and all who perform it after him without diminishing their own rewards in the slightest.' Though the original context of the hadith was giving charity, the interpretative principle established by the scholarly consensus (def: Reliance of the Traveller b7) of specialists in fundamentals of Sacred Law is that the point of primary texts lies in the generality of their lexical significance, not the specificity of their historical context, without this implying that just anyone may make provisions in the Sacred Law, for Islam is defined by principles and criteria, such that whatever one initiates as a sunna must be subject to its rules, strictures, and primary textual evidence.
From this investigative point of departure, one may observe that many of the prophetic Companions performed various acts through their own personal reasoning, (ijtihad), and that the sunna and way of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) was both to accept those that were acts of worship and good deeds conformable with what the Sacred Law had established and not in conflict with it; and to reject those which were otherwise. This was his sunna and way, upon which his caliphal successors and Companions proceeded, and from which Islamic scholars (Allah be well pleased with them) have established the rule that any new matter must be judged according to the principles and primary texts of Sacred Law: whatever is attested to by the law as being good is acknowledged as good, and whatever is attested to by the law as being a contravention and bad is rejected as a blameworthy innovation (bida). They sometimes term the former a good innovation (bida hasana) in view of it lexically being termed an innovation , but legally speaking it is not really an innovation but rather an inferable sunna as long as the primary texts of the Sacred Law attest to its being acceptable.
We now turn to the primary textual evidence previously alluded to concerning the acts of the Companions and how the Prophet, (Allah bless him and give him peace) responded to them:
(1) Bukhari and Muslim relate from Abu Hurayra (Allah be well pleased with him) that at the dawn prayer the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said to Bilal, 'Bilal, tell me which of your acts in Islam you are most hopeful about, for I have heard the footfall of your sandals in paradise', and he replied, 'I have done nothing I am more hopeful about than the fact that I do not perform ablution at any time of the night or day without praying with that ablution whatever has been destined for me to pray.'
Ibn Hajar Asqalani says in Fath al-Bari that the hadith shows it is permissible to use personal reasoning (ijtihad) in choosing times for acts of worship, for Bilal reached the conclusions he mentioned by his own inference, and the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) confirmed him therein.
Similar to this is the hadith in Bukhari about Khubayb (who asked to pray two rakas before being executed by idolaters in Mecca) who was the first to establish the sunna of two rak'as for those who are steadfast in going to their death. These hadiths are explicit evidence that Bilal and Khubayb used their own personal reasoning (ijtihad) in choosing the times of acts of worship, without any previous command or precedent from the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) other than the general demand to perform the prayer.
(2) Bukhari and Muslim relate that Rifa'a ibn Rafi said, 'When we were praying behind the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and he raised his head from bowing and said , 'Allah hears whoever praises Him', a man behind him said, 'Our Lord, Yours is the praise, abundantly, wholesomely, and blessedly therein.' When he rose to leave, the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) asked 'who said it', and when the man replied that it was he, the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, 'I saw thirty-odd angels each striving to be the one to write it.' Ibn Hajar says in Fath al-Bari that the hadith indicates the permissibility of initiating new expressions of dhikr in the prayer other than the ones related through hadith texts, as long as they do not contradict those conveyed by the hadith [since the above words were a mere enhancement and addendum to the known, sunna dhikr].
(3) Bukhari relates from Aisha (Allah be well pleased with her) that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) dispatched a man at the head of a military expedition who recited the Qur'an for his companions at prayer, finishing each recital with al-Ikhlas (Qur'an 112). When they returned, they mentioned this to the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), who told them, 'Ask him why he does this', and when they asked him, the man replied, 'because it describes the All-merciful, and I love to recite it.' The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said to them, 'Tell him Allah loves him.' In spite of this, we do not know of any scholar who holds that doing the above is recommended, for the acts the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) used to do regularly are superior, though his confirming the like of this illustrates his sunna regarding his acceptance of various forms of obedience and acts of worship, and shows he did not consider the like of this to be a reprehensible innovation (bida), as do the bigots who vie with each other to be the first to brand acts as innovation and misguidance. Further, it will be noticed that all the preceding hadiths are about the prayer, which is the most important of bodily acts of worship, and of which the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, 'Pray as you have seen me pray', despite which he accepted the above examples of personal reasoning because they did not depart from the form defined by the Lawgiver, for every limit must be observed, while there is latitude in everything besides, as long as it is within the general category of being called for by Sacred Law. This is the sunna of the Prophet and his way (Allah bless him and give him peace) and is as clear as can be. Islamic scholars infer from it that every act for which there is evidence in Sacred Law that it is called for and which does not oppose an unequivocal primary text or entail harmful consequences is not included in the category of reprehensible innovation (bida), but rather is of the sunna, even if there should exist something whose performance is superior to it.
(4) Bukhari relates from Abu Said al-Khudri that a band of the Companions of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) departed on one of their journeys, alighting at the encampment of some desert Arabs whom they asked to be their hosts, but who refused to have them as guests. The leader of the encampment was stung by a scorpion, and his followers tried everything to cure him, and when all had failed, one said, 'If you would approach the group camped near you, one of them might have something'. So they came to them and said, 'O band of men, our leader has been stung and weve tried everything. Do any of you have something for it?' and one of them replied, 'Yes, by Allah, I recite healing words [ruqya, def: Reliance of the Traveller w17] over people, but by Allah, we asked you to be our hosts and you refused, so I will not recite anything unless you give us a fee'. They then agreed upon a herd of sheep, so the man went and began spitting and reciting the Fatiha over the victim until he got up and walked as if he were a camel released from its hobble, nothing the matter with him. They paid the agreed upon fee, which some of the Companions wanted to divide up, but the man who had done the reciting told them, 'Do not do so until we reach the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and tell him what has happened, to see what he may order us to do'. They came to the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and told him what had occurred, and he said, 'How did you know it was of the words which heal? You were right. Divide up the herd and give me a share.'
The hadith is explicit that the Companion had no previous knowledge that reciting the Fatiha to heal (ruqya) was countenanced by Sacred Law, but rather did so because of his own personal reasoning (ijtihad), and since it did not contravene anything that had been legislated, the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) confirmed him therein because it was of his sunna and way to accept and confirm what contained good and did not entail harm, even if it did not proceed from the acts of the Prophet himself (Allah bless him and give him peace) as a definitive precedent.
(5) Bukhari relates from Abu Said al-Khudri that one man heard another reciting al-Ikhlas (Qur'an 112) over and over again, so when morning came he went to the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and sarcastically mentioned it to him. The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, 'By Him in whose hand is my soul, it equals one-third of the Qur'an.' Daraqutni recorded another version of this hadith in which the man said, 'I have a neighbor who prays at night and does not recite anything but al-Ikhlas.' The hadith shows that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) confirmed the persons restricting himself to this sura while praying at night, despite its not being what the Prophet himself did (Allah bless him and give him peace), for though the Prophets practice of reciting from the whole Qur'an was superior, the mans act was within the general parameters of the sunna and there was nothing blameworthy about it in any case.
(6) Ahmad and Ibn Hibban relates from Abdullah ibn Burayda that his father said, I entered the mosque with the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), where a man was at prayer, supplicating: 'O Allah, I ask You by the fact that I testify You are Allah, there is no god but You, the One, the Ultimate, who did not beget and was not begotten, and to whom none is equal', and the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, 'By Him in whose hand is my soul, he has asked Allah by His greatest name, which if He is asked by it He gives, and if supplicated He answers'. It is plain that this supplication came spontaneously from the Companion, and since it conformed to what the Sacred Law calls for, the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) confirmed it with the highest degree of approbation and acceptance, while it is not known that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) had ever taught it to him (Adilla Ahl al-Sunna wa'al-Jamaa, 119-33).
We are now able to return to the hadith with which I began my talk tonight, in which the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, '. . . Beware of matters newly begun, for every innovation is misguidance'. And understand it as expounded by a classic scholar of Islam, Sheikh Muhammad Jurdani, who said:
'Beware of matters newly begun', distance yourselves and be wary of matters newly innovated that did not previously exist', i.e. things invented in Islam that contravene the Sacred Law, 'for every innovation is misguidance' meaning that every innovation is the opposite of the truth, i.e. falsehood, a hadith that has been related elsewhere as: 'for every newly begun matter is innovation, every innovation is misguidance, and every misguidance is in hell' meaning that everyone who is misguided, whether through himself or by following another, is in hell, the hadith referring to matters that are not good innovations with a basis in Sacred Law. It has been stated (by Izz ibn Abd al-Salam) that innovations (bida) fall under the five headings of the Sacred Law (n: i.e. the obligatory, unlawful, recommended, offensive, and permissible):
(1) The first category comprises innovations that are obligatory , such as recording the Qur'an and the laws of Islam in writing when it was feared that something might be lost from them; the study of the disciplines of Arabic that are necessary to understand the Qur'an and sunna such as grammar, word declension, and lexicography; hadith classification to distinguish between genuine and spurious prophetic traditions; and the philosophical refutations of arguments advanced by the Mu'tazilites and the like.
(2) The second category is that of unlawful innovations such as non- Islamic taxes and levies, giving positions of authority in Sacred Law to those unfit for them, and devoting ones time to learning the beliefs of heretical sects that contravene the tenets of faith of Ahl al-Sunna.
(3) The third category consists of recommended innovations such as building hostels and schools of Sacred Law, recording the research of Islamic schools of legal thought, writing books on beneficial subjects, extensive research into fundamentals and particular applications of Sacred Law, in-depth studies of Arabic linguistics, the reciting of wirds (def: Reliance of the Traveller w20) by those with a Sufi path, and commemorating the birth (mawlid), of the Prophet Muhammad (Allah bless him and give him peace) and wearing ones best and rejoicing at it.
(4) The fourth category includes innovations that are offensive, such as embellishing mosques, decorating the Qur'an and having a backup man (muballigh) loudly repeat the spoken Allahu Akbar of the imam when the latter's voice is already clearly audible to those who are praying behind him.
(5) the fifth category is that of innovations that are permissible, such as sifting flour, using spoons and having more enjoyable food, drink and housing. (al Jawahir al-luluiyya fi sharh al-Arbain al-nawawiyya, 220-21). I will conclude my remarks tonight with a translation of Sheikh Abdullah al-Ghimari, who said: In his al-Qawaid al-kubra, 'Izz ibn Abd al-Salam classifies innovations (bida), according to their benefit, harm, or indifference, into the five categories of rulings: the obligatory, recommended, unlawful, offensive, and permissible; giving examples of each and mentioning the principles of Sacred Law that verify his classification. His words on the subject display his keen insight and comprehensive knowledge of both the principles of jurisprudence and the human advantages and disadvantages in view of which the Lawgiver has established the rulings of Sacred Law. Because his classification of innovation (bida) was established on a firm basis in Islamic jurisprudence and legal principles, it was confirmed by Imam Nawawi, Ibn Hajar Asqalani, and the vast majority of Islamic scholars, who received his words with acceptance and viewed it obligatory to apply them to the new events and contingencies that occur with the changing times and the peoples who live in them. One may not support the denial of his classification by clinging to the hadith 'Every innovation is misguidance', because the only form of innovation that is without exception misguidance is that concerning tenets of faith, like the innovations of the Mutazilites, Qadarites, Murjiites, and so on, that contradicted the beliefs of the early Muslims. This is the innovation of misguidance because it is harmful and devoid of benefit. As for innovation in works, meaning the occurrence of an act connected with worship or something else that did not exist in the first century of Islam, it must necessarily be judged according to the five categories mentioned by Izz ibn Abd al-Salam. To claim that such innovation is misguidance without further qualification is simply not applicable to it, for new things are among the exigencies brought into being by the passage of time and generations, and nothing that is new lacks a ruling of Allah Most High that is applicable to it, whether explicitly mentioned in primary texts, or inferable from them in some way. The only reason that Islamic law can be valid for every time and place and be the consummate and most perfect of all divine laws is because it comprises general methodological principles and universal criteria, together with the ability its scholars have been endowed with to understand its primary texts, the knowledge of types of analogy and parallelism, and the other excellences that characterize it. Were we to rule that every new act that has come into being after the first century of Islam is an innovation of misguidance without considering whether it entails benefit or harm, it would invalidate a large share of the fundamental bases of Sacred Law as well as those rulings established by analogical reasoning, and would narrow and limit the Sacred Laws vast and comprehensive scope. (Adilla Ahl al-Sunna wa al-Jamaa, 145-47).
Wa Jazakum Allahu khayran, wal-hamdu lillahi Rabbil Alamin.
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The following is the text of a talk given by Shaikh Nuh Ha Mim Keller at Nottingham and Trent University on Wednesday 25th January 1995.
In the name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate There are few topics that generate as much controversy today in Islam as what is sunna and what is bida or reprehensible innovation, perhaps because of the times Muslims live in today and the challenges they face. Without a doubt, one of the greatest events in impact upon Muslims in the last thousand years is the end of the Islamic caliphate at the first of this century, an event that marked not only the passing of temporal, political authority, but in many respects the passing of the consensus of orthodox Sunni Islam as well. No one familiar with the classical literature in any of the Islamic legal sciences, whether Qur'anic exegesis (tafsir), hadith, or jurisprudence (fiqh), can fail to be struck by the fact that questions are asked today about basic fundamentals of Islamic Sacred Law (Sharia) and its ancillary disciplines that would not have been asked in the Islamic period not because Islamic scholars were not brilliant enough to produce the questions, but because they already knew the answers. My talk tonight will aim to clarify some possible misunderstandings of the concept of innovation (bida) in Islam, in light of the prophetic hadith,
'Beware of matters newly begun, for every matter newly begun is innovation, every innovation is misguidance, and every misguidance is in hell.' The sources I use are traditional Islamic sources, and my discussion will centre on three points:
The first point is that scholars say that the above hadith does not refer to all new things without restriction, but only to those which nothing in Sacred Law attests to the validity of. The use of the word 'every' in the hadith does not indicate an absolute generalization, for there are many examples of similar generalizations in the Qur'an and sunna that are not applicable without restriction, but rather are qualified by restrictions found in other primary textual evidence.
The second point is that the sunna and way of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) was to accept new acts initiated in Islam that were of the good and did not conflict with established principles of Sacred Law, and to reject things that were otherwise.
And our third and last point is that new matters in Islam may not be rejected merely because they did not exist in the first century, but must be evaluated and judged according to the comprehensive methodology of Sacred Law, by virtue of which it is and remains the final and universal moral code for all peoples until the end of time.
Our first point, that the hadith does not refer to all new things without restriction, but only to those which nothing in Sacred Law attests to the validity of, may at first seem strange, in view of the wording of the hadith, which says, 'every matter newly begun is innovation, every innovation is misguidance, and every misguidance is in hell.' Now the word 'bida' or 'innovation' linguistically means anything new, So our first question must be about the generalizability of the word every in the hadith: does it literally mean that everything new in the world is haram or unlawful? The answer is no. Why?
In answer to this question, we may note that there are many similar generalities in the Qur'an and sunna, all of them admitting of some qualification, such as the word of Allah Most High in Surat al-Najm,
'. . . A man can have nothing, except what he strives for' (Qur'an 53:39), despite there being an overwhelming amount of evidence that a Muslim benefits from the spiritual works of others, for example, from his fellow Muslims, the prayers of angels for him, the funeral prayer over him, charity given by others in his name, and the supplications of believers for him;
Or consider the words of Allah to unbelievers in Surat al-Anbiya,
'Verily you and what you worship apart from Allah are the fuel of hell' (Qur'an 21:98), 'what you worship' being a general expression, while there is no doubt that Jesus, his mother, and the angels were all worshipped apart from Allah, but are not 'the fuel of hell', so are not what is meant by the verse; Or the word of Allah Most High in Surat al-Anam about past nations who paid no heed to the warners who were sent to them,
'But when they forgot what they had been reminded of, We opened unto them the doors of everything' (Qur'an 6:44), though the doors of mercy were not opened unto them; And the hadith related by Muslim that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said,
'No one who prays before sunrise and before sunset will enter hell', which is a generalised expression that definitely does not mean what its outward generality implies, for someone who prays the dawn and midafternoon prayers and neglects all other prayers and obligatory works is certainly not meant. It is rather a generalization whose intended referent is particular, or a generalization that is qualified by other texts, for when there are fully authenticated hadiths, it is obligatory to reach an accord between them, because they are in reality as a single hadith, the statements that appear without further qualification being qualified by those that furnish the qualification, that the combined implications of all of them may be utilized.
Let us look for a moment at bida or innovation in the light of the sunna of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) concerning new matters. Sunna and innovation (bida) are two opposed terms in the language of the Lawgiver (Allah bless him and give him peace), such that neither can be defined without reference to the other, meaning that they are opposites, and things are made clear by their opposites. Many writers have sought to define innovation (bida) without defining the sunna, while it is primary, and have thus fallen into inextricable difficulties and conflicts with the primary textual evidence that contradicts their definition of innovation, whereas if they had first defined the sunna, they would have produced a criterion free of shortcomings.
Sunna, in both the language of the Arabs and the Sacred Law, means way, as is illustrated by the words of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace),
'He who inaugurates a good sunna in Islam [dis: Reliance of the Traveller p58.1(2)] ...And he who introduces a bad sunna in Islam...', sunna meaning way or custom. The way of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) in giving guidance, accepting, and rejecting: this is the sunna. For 'good sunna' and 'bad sunna' mean a 'good way' or 'bad way', and cannot possibly mean anything else. Thus, the meaning of 'sunna' is not what most students, let alone ordinary people, understand; namely, that it is the prophetic hadith (as when sunna is contrasted with 'Kitab', i.e. Qur'an, in distinguishing textual sources), or the opposite of the obligatory (as when sunna, i.e. recommended, is contrasted with obligatory in legal contexts), since the former is a technical usage coined by hadith scholars, while the latter is a technical usage coined by legal scholars and specialists in fundamentals of jurisprudence. Both of these are usages of later origin that are not what is meant by sunna here. Rather, the sunna of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) is his way of acting, ordering, accepting, and rejecting, and the way of his Rightly Guided Caliphs who followed his way acting, ordering, accepting, and rejecting. So practices that are newly begun must be examined in light of the sunna of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and his way and path in acceptance or rejection.
Now, there are a great number of hadiths, most of them in the rigorously authenticated (sahih) collections, showing that many of the prophetic Companions initiated new acts, forms of invocation (dhikr), supplications (dua), and so on, that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) had never previously done or ordered to be done. Rather, the Companions did them because of their inference and conviction that such acts were of the good that Islam and the Prophet of Islam came with and in general terms urged the like of to be done, in accordance with the word of Allah Most High in Surat al-Hajj,
'And do the good, that haply you may succeed' (Qur'an 22:77), and the hadith of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace),
'He who inaugurates a good sunna in Islam earns the reward of it and all who perform it after him without diminishing their own rewards in the slightest.' Though the original context of the hadith was giving charity, the interpretative principle established by the scholarly consensus (def: Reliance of the Traveller b7) of specialists in fundamentals of Sacred Law is that the point of primary texts lies in the generality of their lexical significance, not the specificity of their historical context, without this implying that just anyone may make provisions in the Sacred Law, for Islam is defined by principles and criteria, such that whatever one initiates as a sunna must be subject to its rules, strictures, and primary textual evidence.
From this investigative point of departure, one may observe that many of the prophetic Companions performed various acts through their own personal reasoning, (ijtihad), and that the sunna and way of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) was both to accept those that were acts of worship and good deeds conformable with what the Sacred Law had established and not in conflict with it; and to reject those which were otherwise. This was his sunna and way, upon which his caliphal successors and Companions proceeded, and from which Islamic scholars (Allah be well pleased with them) have established the rule that any new matter must be judged according to the principles and primary texts of Sacred Law: whatever is attested to by the law as being good is acknowledged as good, and whatever is attested to by the law as being a contravention and bad is rejected as a blameworthy innovation (bida). They sometimes term the former a good innovation (bida hasana) in view of it lexically being termed an innovation , but legally speaking it is not really an innovation but rather an inferable sunna as long as the primary texts of the Sacred Law attest to its being acceptable.
We now turn to the primary textual evidence previously alluded to concerning the acts of the Companions and how the Prophet, (Allah bless him and give him peace) responded to them:
(1) Bukhari and Muslim relate from Abu Hurayra (Allah be well pleased with him) that at the dawn prayer the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said to Bilal, 'Bilal, tell me which of your acts in Islam you are most hopeful about, for I have heard the footfall of your sandals in paradise', and he replied, 'I have done nothing I am more hopeful about than the fact that I do not perform ablution at any time of the night or day without praying with that ablution whatever has been destined for me to pray.'
Ibn Hajar Asqalani says in Fath al-Bari that the hadith shows it is permissible to use personal reasoning (ijtihad) in choosing times for acts of worship, for Bilal reached the conclusions he mentioned by his own inference, and the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) confirmed him therein.
Similar to this is the hadith in Bukhari about Khubayb (who asked to pray two rakas before being executed by idolaters in Mecca) who was the first to establish the sunna of two rak'as for those who are steadfast in going to their death. These hadiths are explicit evidence that Bilal and Khubayb used their own personal reasoning (ijtihad) in choosing the times of acts of worship, without any previous command or precedent from the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) other than the general demand to perform the prayer.
(2) Bukhari and Muslim relate that Rifa'a ibn Rafi said, 'When we were praying behind the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and he raised his head from bowing and said , 'Allah hears whoever praises Him', a man behind him said, 'Our Lord, Yours is the praise, abundantly, wholesomely, and blessedly therein.' When he rose to leave, the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) asked 'who said it', and when the man replied that it was he, the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, 'I saw thirty-odd angels each striving to be the one to write it.' Ibn Hajar says in Fath al-Bari that the hadith indicates the permissibility of initiating new expressions of dhikr in the prayer other than the ones related through hadith texts, as long as they do not contradict those conveyed by the hadith [since the above words were a mere enhancement and addendum to the known, sunna dhikr].
(3) Bukhari relates from Aisha (Allah be well pleased with her) that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) dispatched a man at the head of a military expedition who recited the Qur'an for his companions at prayer, finishing each recital with al-Ikhlas (Qur'an 112). When they returned, they mentioned this to the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), who told them, 'Ask him why he does this', and when they asked him, the man replied, 'because it describes the All-merciful, and I love to recite it.' The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said to them, 'Tell him Allah loves him.' In spite of this, we do not know of any scholar who holds that doing the above is recommended, for the acts the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) used to do regularly are superior, though his confirming the like of this illustrates his sunna regarding his acceptance of various forms of obedience and acts of worship, and shows he did not consider the like of this to be a reprehensible innovation (bida), as do the bigots who vie with each other to be the first to brand acts as innovation and misguidance. Further, it will be noticed that all the preceding hadiths are about the prayer, which is the most important of bodily acts of worship, and of which the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, 'Pray as you have seen me pray', despite which he accepted the above examples of personal reasoning because they did not depart from the form defined by the Lawgiver, for every limit must be observed, while there is latitude in everything besides, as long as it is within the general category of being called for by Sacred Law. This is the sunna of the Prophet and his way (Allah bless him and give him peace) and is as clear as can be. Islamic scholars infer from it that every act for which there is evidence in Sacred Law that it is called for and which does not oppose an unequivocal primary text or entail harmful consequences is not included in the category of reprehensible innovation (bida), but rather is of the sunna, even if there should exist something whose performance is superior to it.
(4) Bukhari relates from Abu Said al-Khudri that a band of the Companions of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) departed on one of their journeys, alighting at the encampment of some desert Arabs whom they asked to be their hosts, but who refused to have them as guests. The leader of the encampment was stung by a scorpion, and his followers tried everything to cure him, and when all had failed, one said, 'If you would approach the group camped near you, one of them might have something'. So they came to them and said, 'O band of men, our leader has been stung and weve tried everything. Do any of you have something for it?' and one of them replied, 'Yes, by Allah, I recite healing words [ruqya, def: Reliance of the Traveller w17] over people, but by Allah, we asked you to be our hosts and you refused, so I will not recite anything unless you give us a fee'. They then agreed upon a herd of sheep, so the man went and began spitting and reciting the Fatiha over the victim until he got up and walked as if he were a camel released from its hobble, nothing the matter with him. They paid the agreed upon fee, which some of the Companions wanted to divide up, but the man who had done the reciting told them, 'Do not do so until we reach the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and tell him what has happened, to see what he may order us to do'. They came to the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and told him what had occurred, and he said, 'How did you know it was of the words which heal? You were right. Divide up the herd and give me a share.'
The hadith is explicit that the Companion had no previous knowledge that reciting the Fatiha to heal (ruqya) was countenanced by Sacred Law, but rather did so because of his own personal reasoning (ijtihad), and since it did not contravene anything that had been legislated, the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) confirmed him therein because it was of his sunna and way to accept and confirm what contained good and did not entail harm, even if it did not proceed from the acts of the Prophet himself (Allah bless him and give him peace) as a definitive precedent.
(5) Bukhari relates from Abu Said al-Khudri that one man heard another reciting al-Ikhlas (Qur'an 112) over and over again, so when morning came he went to the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and sarcastically mentioned it to him. The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, 'By Him in whose hand is my soul, it equals one-third of the Qur'an.' Daraqutni recorded another version of this hadith in which the man said, 'I have a neighbor who prays at night and does not recite anything but al-Ikhlas.' The hadith shows that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) confirmed the persons restricting himself to this sura while praying at night, despite its not being what the Prophet himself did (Allah bless him and give him peace), for though the Prophets practice of reciting from the whole Qur'an was superior, the mans act was within the general parameters of the sunna and there was nothing blameworthy about it in any case.
(6) Ahmad and Ibn Hibban relates from Abdullah ibn Burayda that his father said, I entered the mosque with the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), where a man was at prayer, supplicating: 'O Allah, I ask You by the fact that I testify You are Allah, there is no god but You, the One, the Ultimate, who did not beget and was not begotten, and to whom none is equal', and the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, 'By Him in whose hand is my soul, he has asked Allah by His greatest name, which if He is asked by it He gives, and if supplicated He answers'. It is plain that this supplication came spontaneously from the Companion, and since it conformed to what the Sacred Law calls for, the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) confirmed it with the highest degree of approbation and acceptance, while it is not known that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) had ever taught it to him (Adilla Ahl al-Sunna wa'al-Jamaa, 119-33).
We are now able to return to the hadith with which I began my talk tonight, in which the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, '. . . Beware of matters newly begun, for every innovation is misguidance'. And understand it as expounded by a classic scholar of Islam, Sheikh Muhammad Jurdani, who said:
'Beware of matters newly begun', distance yourselves and be wary of matters newly innovated that did not previously exist', i.e. things invented in Islam that contravene the Sacred Law, 'for every innovation is misguidance' meaning that every innovation is the opposite of the truth, i.e. falsehood, a hadith that has been related elsewhere as: 'for every newly begun matter is innovation, every innovation is misguidance, and every misguidance is in hell' meaning that everyone who is misguided, whether through himself or by following another, is in hell, the hadith referring to matters that are not good innovations with a basis in Sacred Law. It has been stated (by Izz ibn Abd al-Salam) that innovations (bida) fall under the five headings of the Sacred Law (n: i.e. the obligatory, unlawful, recommended, offensive, and permissible):
(1) The first category comprises innovations that are obligatory , such as recording the Qur'an and the laws of Islam in writing when it was feared that something might be lost from them; the study of the disciplines of Arabic that are necessary to understand the Qur'an and sunna such as grammar, word declension, and lexicography; hadith classification to distinguish between genuine and spurious prophetic traditions; and the philosophical refutations of arguments advanced by the Mu'tazilites and the like.
(2) The second category is that of unlawful innovations such as non- Islamic taxes and levies, giving positions of authority in Sacred Law to those unfit for them, and devoting ones time to learning the beliefs of heretical sects that contravene the tenets of faith of Ahl al-Sunna.
(3) The third category consists of recommended innovations such as building hostels and schools of Sacred Law, recording the research of Islamic schools of legal thought, writing books on beneficial subjects, extensive research into fundamentals and particular applications of Sacred Law, in-depth studies of Arabic linguistics, the reciting of wirds (def: Reliance of the Traveller w20) by those with a Sufi path, and commemorating the birth (mawlid), of the Prophet Muhammad (Allah bless him and give him peace) and wearing ones best and rejoicing at it.
(4) The fourth category includes innovations that are offensive, such as embellishing mosques, decorating the Qur'an and having a backup man (muballigh) loudly repeat the spoken Allahu Akbar of the imam when the latter's voice is already clearly audible to those who are praying behind him.
(5) the fifth category is that of innovations that are permissible, such as sifting flour, using spoons and having more enjoyable food, drink and housing. (al Jawahir al-luluiyya fi sharh al-Arbain al-nawawiyya, 220-21). I will conclude my remarks tonight with a translation of Sheikh Abdullah al-Ghimari, who said: In his al-Qawaid al-kubra, 'Izz ibn Abd al-Salam classifies innovations (bida), according to their benefit, harm, or indifference, into the five categories of rulings: the obligatory, recommended, unlawful, offensive, and permissible; giving examples of each and mentioning the principles of Sacred Law that verify his classification. His words on the subject display his keen insight and comprehensive knowledge of both the principles of jurisprudence and the human advantages and disadvantages in view of which the Lawgiver has established the rulings of Sacred Law. Because his classification of innovation (bida) was established on a firm basis in Islamic jurisprudence and legal principles, it was confirmed by Imam Nawawi, Ibn Hajar Asqalani, and the vast majority of Islamic scholars, who received his words with acceptance and viewed it obligatory to apply them to the new events and contingencies that occur with the changing times and the peoples who live in them. One may not support the denial of his classification by clinging to the hadith 'Every innovation is misguidance', because the only form of innovation that is without exception misguidance is that concerning tenets of faith, like the innovations of the Mutazilites, Qadarites, Murjiites, and so on, that contradicted the beliefs of the early Muslims. This is the innovation of misguidance because it is harmful and devoid of benefit. As for innovation in works, meaning the occurrence of an act connected with worship or something else that did not exist in the first century of Islam, it must necessarily be judged according to the five categories mentioned by Izz ibn Abd al-Salam. To claim that such innovation is misguidance without further qualification is simply not applicable to it, for new things are among the exigencies brought into being by the passage of time and generations, and nothing that is new lacks a ruling of Allah Most High that is applicable to it, whether explicitly mentioned in primary texts, or inferable from them in some way. The only reason that Islamic law can be valid for every time and place and be the consummate and most perfect of all divine laws is because it comprises general methodological principles and universal criteria, together with the ability its scholars have been endowed with to understand its primary texts, the knowledge of types of analogy and parallelism, and the other excellences that characterize it. Were we to rule that every new act that has come into being after the first century of Islam is an innovation of misguidance without considering whether it entails benefit or harm, it would invalidate a large share of the fundamental bases of Sacred Law as well as those rulings established by analogical reasoning, and would narrow and limit the Sacred Laws vast and comprehensive scope. (Adilla Ahl al-Sunna wa al-Jamaa, 145-47).
Wa Jazakum Allahu khayran, wal-hamdu lillahi Rabbil Alamin.
This text is also available in a professionally typeset booklet from
Man is a human being....
'...man is a human being, not because of his physical prowess for physically the camel is his superior; not because of his size for the elephant is larger; not because his courage for the lion is more courageous ; not because of his appetite for the ox has the greater; not because of coitus for the least of the birds are more virile than he; but rather by virtue of his noble aims and ideals. As a matter of fact he was created to know." Imam Al-Gazzali(Ra), The Book of Knowlege, page 8. I added the picture.
The Creed of Imam Al-Tahawi
This is book is written in the 9th century by Imam Al-Tahawi and translated with commentary by Hamza Yusuf. It is all about Aquida. It is small book with numbered paragraphs. The following is an excerpt:
#59 ...Knowledge is of two types: the humanly accesssible and the humanly inaccessible. To either deny accessible knowledge or to claim the inaccessible is disbelief. Faith is not sound unless accessible knowledge is embraced and the pursuit of the inaccessible is abandoned.
#71 We refer to the people who face our quilba as muslim be livers, as long as they acknowlege, confirm, and don't deny all that the Prophet(SAW) brought , stated, and imparted.
#74 We don't dissent from the majority of Muslims.
#75 We don't declare anyone among the people of our quliba a disbeliever for any sin, as long as he doesn't deem it lawful.
#76 Nor do we opine that where there is faith, a sin doesn't harm the sinner.
#82 Faith is one reality, and the people of faith are essentially the same. Any disparity among them results from distinctions in knowledge, piety, struggle, and adherence to priorities.
#88 We consider congregational prayer behind any of the people of quibla, both the virtuous and sinful, to be valid. We also pray over those among them who died.
#89 We don't specify anyone among them to be in either Paradise or the Fire. We also don't accuse any of them of disbelief, idolatry, or hypocrisy, as long as none of that manifests from them. We resign their inner states to God the Sublime and Exalted.
#91 We don't accept any rebellion against our leaders or the administrators of our public affairs, even if they are oppressive. We also don't pray for evil to befall any of them or withdraw our allegiance from them. We consider our civic duty to them concordant with our duty to God, the Sublime and Exalted, and legally binding on us, unless they command us to the immoral. We pray for their probity, success, and welfare.
#92 We adhere to the Sunnah and the majority (of scholars), and we avoid isolated opinions, discord, and sectarianism.
#94 In inconclusive matters of knowledge, we assert "God knows best."
#122 The pious scholars of the past and those after them who follow their path--the people of goodness and tradition' or understanding and profound scholarship--should be mentioned only in the best manner. Anyone who speaks ill of them has deviated from the path.
#59 ...Knowledge is of two types: the humanly accesssible and the humanly inaccessible. To either deny accessible knowledge or to claim the inaccessible is disbelief. Faith is not sound unless accessible knowledge is embraced and the pursuit of the inaccessible is abandoned.
#71 We refer to the people who face our quilba as muslim be livers, as long as they acknowlege, confirm, and don't deny all that the Prophet(SAW) brought , stated, and imparted.
#74 We don't dissent from the majority of Muslims.
#75 We don't declare anyone among the people of our quliba a disbeliever for any sin, as long as he doesn't deem it lawful.
#76 Nor do we opine that where there is faith, a sin doesn't harm the sinner.
#82 Faith is one reality, and the people of faith are essentially the same. Any disparity among them results from distinctions in knowledge, piety, struggle, and adherence to priorities.
#88 We consider congregational prayer behind any of the people of quibla, both the virtuous and sinful, to be valid. We also pray over those among them who died.
#89 We don't specify anyone among them to be in either Paradise or the Fire. We also don't accuse any of them of disbelief, idolatry, or hypocrisy, as long as none of that manifests from them. We resign their inner states to God the Sublime and Exalted.
#91 We don't accept any rebellion against our leaders or the administrators of our public affairs, even if they are oppressive. We also don't pray for evil to befall any of them or withdraw our allegiance from them. We consider our civic duty to them concordant with our duty to God, the Sublime and Exalted, and legally binding on us, unless they command us to the immoral. We pray for their probity, success, and welfare.
#92 We adhere to the Sunnah and the majority (of scholars), and we avoid isolated opinions, discord, and sectarianism.
#94 In inconclusive matters of knowledge, we assert "God knows best."
#122 The pious scholars of the past and those after them who follow their path--the people of goodness and tradition' or understanding and profound scholarship--should be mentioned only in the best manner. Anyone who speaks ill of them has deviated from the path.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Saudi cleric favours one-eye veil
A Muslim cleric in Saudi Arabia has called on women to wear a full veil, or niqab, that reveals only one eye.
Sheikh Muhammad al-Habadan said showing both eyes encouraged women to use eye make-up to look seductive.
The question of how much of her face a woman should cover is a controversial topic in many Muslim societies.
The niqab is more common in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, but women in much of the Muslim Middle East wear a headscarf which covers only their hair.
Sheikh Habadan, an ultra-conservative cleric who is said to have wide influence among religious Saudis, was answering questions on the Muslim satellite channel al-Majd.
Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/7651231.stmPublished: 2008/10/03 14:51:01 GMT© BBC MMIX
Sheikh Muhammad al-Habadan said showing both eyes encouraged women to use eye make-up to look seductive.
The question of how much of her face a woman should cover is a controversial topic in many Muslim societies.
The niqab is more common in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, but women in much of the Muslim Middle East wear a headscarf which covers only their hair.
Sheikh Habadan, an ultra-conservative cleric who is said to have wide influence among religious Saudis, was answering questions on the Muslim satellite channel al-Majd.
Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/7651231.stmPublished: 2008/10/03 14:51:01 GMT© BBC MMIX
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Ethnic clothes mental health link
Ethnic clothes mental health link
Some 1,000 teenagers were questioned
Teenage girls from some minority communities who stick to their family customs have better mental health, researchers say.
Queen Mary University of London found Bangladeshi girls who chose traditional rather than Western dress had fewer behavioural and emotional problems.
The team said close-knit families and communities could help protect them.
Pressure to integrate fully could be stressful, the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health reported.
Traditional clothing represents a tighter family unit, and this may offer some protection against some of the pressures that young people face
Professor Kam Bhui, report co-author
Adolescents are particularly vulnerable to mental health problems, and the researchers said that identity, often bound up in friendship choices or clothing, played a role.
They questioned a total of 1,000 white British and Bangladeshi 11 to 14-year-olds about their culture, social life and health, including questions designed to reveal any emotional or mental problems.
Bangladeshi pupils who wore traditional clothing were significantly less likely to have mental health problems than those whose style of dress was a mix of traditional and white British styles.
When this was broken down by gender, it appeared that only girls were affected.
No similar effect was found in white British adolescents who chose a mixture of clothes from their own and other cultures.
More support
Professor Kam Bhui, one of the study authors, said that the result was "surprising" - he had expected that girls who were less fully integrated to show signs of greater strain.
"Traditional clothing represents a tighter family unit, and this may offer some protection against some of the pressures that young people face.
"What it suggests is that we need to assist people who are moving from traditional cultures and becoming integrated into Western societies, as they may be more vulnerable to mental health problems."
Professor James Nazroo, a medical sociologist at the University of Manchester, said that the findings meant that "notions of Britishness" should be dealt with in a sophisticated way.
"There are many ways in which people can be British - these girls who have good mental health, and still have a strong traditional culture, are by implication settled and comfortable with their identities."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7347092.stm
Some 1,000 teenagers were questioned
Teenage girls from some minority communities who stick to their family customs have better mental health, researchers say.
Queen Mary University of London found Bangladeshi girls who chose traditional rather than Western dress had fewer behavioural and emotional problems.
The team said close-knit families and communities could help protect them.
Pressure to integrate fully could be stressful, the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health reported.
Traditional clothing represents a tighter family unit, and this may offer some protection against some of the pressures that young people face
Professor Kam Bhui, report co-author
Adolescents are particularly vulnerable to mental health problems, and the researchers said that identity, often bound up in friendship choices or clothing, played a role.
They questioned a total of 1,000 white British and Bangladeshi 11 to 14-year-olds about their culture, social life and health, including questions designed to reveal any emotional or mental problems.
Bangladeshi pupils who wore traditional clothing were significantly less likely to have mental health problems than those whose style of dress was a mix of traditional and white British styles.
When this was broken down by gender, it appeared that only girls were affected.
No similar effect was found in white British adolescents who chose a mixture of clothes from their own and other cultures.
More support
Professor Kam Bhui, one of the study authors, said that the result was "surprising" - he had expected that girls who were less fully integrated to show signs of greater strain.
"Traditional clothing represents a tighter family unit, and this may offer some protection against some of the pressures that young people face.
"What it suggests is that we need to assist people who are moving from traditional cultures and becoming integrated into Western societies, as they may be more vulnerable to mental health problems."
Professor James Nazroo, a medical sociologist at the University of Manchester, said that the findings meant that "notions of Britishness" should be dealt with in a sophisticated way.
"There are many ways in which people can be British - these girls who have good mental health, and still have a strong traditional culture, are by implication settled and comfortable with their identities."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7347092.stm
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Teachers 'fear evolution lessons'
Teachers 'fear evolution lessons' The teaching of evolution is becoming increasingly difficult in UK schools because of the rise of creationism, a leading scientist is warning.
Head of science at London's Institute of Education Professor Michael Reiss says some teachers, fearful of entering the debate, avoid the subject totally.
This could leave pupils with gaps in their scientific knowledge, he says.
Prof Reiss says the rise of creationism is partly down to the large increase in Muslim pupils in UK schools.
The days have long gone when science teachers could ignore creationism when teaching about origins Professor Reiss
He said: "The number of Muslim students has grown considerably in the last 10 to 20 years and a higher proportion of Muslim families do not accept evolutionary theory compared with Christian families.
"That's one reason why it's more of an issue in schools."
Prof Reiss estimates that one in 10 people in the UK now believes in literal interpretations of religious creation stories - whether they are based on the Bible or the Koran.
Many more teachers he met at scientific meetings were telling him they encountered more pupils with creationist views, he said.
"The days have long gone when science teachers could ignore creationism when teaching about origins."
Instead, teachers should tackle the issue head-on, whilst trying not to alienate students, he argues in a new book.
'Not equally valid'
"By not dismissing their beliefs, we can ensure that these students learn what evolutionary theory really says - and give everyone the understanding to respect the views of others," he added.
His book; Teaching about Scientific Origins: Taking Account of Creationism, gives science teachers advice on how to deal with the "dilemma".
Further discussion of creationism should occur in religious education as it is a belief system, not one based on science Hilary Leevers Campaign for Science and Engineering
He supports new government guidelines which say creationism should not be discussed in science classes unless it is raised by pupils.
But Prof Reiss argues that there is an educational value in comparing creationist ideas with scientific theories like Darwin's theory of evolution because they demonstrate how science, unlike religious beliefs, can be tested.
The scientist, who is also a Church of England priest, adds that any teaching should not give the impression that creationism and the theory of evolution are equally valid scientifically.
Dr Hilary Leevers, of the Campaign for Science and Engineering, said science teachers would be teaching evolution not creationism and so should not need a book to tell them how to "delicately handle controversy between a scientific theory and a belief".
"The author suggests that science teachers cannot ignore creationism when teaching origins, but the opposite is true," she said.
Teachers could discuss how creationism differed from scientific theory if a student brought up the subject, but any further discussion should occur in religious education lessons, she said.
A Department for Children, Schools and Families spokesman said it had recently published guidelines to teachers on the issue.
"Creationism and intelligent design are not scientific theories nor testable as scientific fact - and have no place in the science curriculum. "But we advise science teachers that when questions about creationism come up in lessons, it provides an opportunity to explain or explore what makes a scientific theory."
Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/education/7028639.stmPublished: 2007/10/04 23:28:30 GMT© BBC MMVII
Comment.
As far as the basic Islamic belief is concerned there is no compromise or justification to accept any kind of theory whether it is scientific or nonscientific theory related to the creation of the universe including human being. Muslims pursue knowledge by studying science to understand nature and to use science for betterment of human existence in this world. For the Muslim the study of science starts with the basic belief of creation-the man study what is created. It is every Muslims family responsibility to teach his children that the evolution theory is not acceptable for a beliver.
Head of science at London's Institute of Education Professor Michael Reiss says some teachers, fearful of entering the debate, avoid the subject totally.
This could leave pupils with gaps in their scientific knowledge, he says.
Prof Reiss says the rise of creationism is partly down to the large increase in Muslim pupils in UK schools.
The days have long gone when science teachers could ignore creationism when teaching about origins Professor Reiss
He said: "The number of Muslim students has grown considerably in the last 10 to 20 years and a higher proportion of Muslim families do not accept evolutionary theory compared with Christian families.
"That's one reason why it's more of an issue in schools."
Prof Reiss estimates that one in 10 people in the UK now believes in literal interpretations of religious creation stories - whether they are based on the Bible or the Koran.
Many more teachers he met at scientific meetings were telling him they encountered more pupils with creationist views, he said.
"The days have long gone when science teachers could ignore creationism when teaching about origins."
Instead, teachers should tackle the issue head-on, whilst trying not to alienate students, he argues in a new book.
'Not equally valid'
"By not dismissing their beliefs, we can ensure that these students learn what evolutionary theory really says - and give everyone the understanding to respect the views of others," he added.
His book; Teaching about Scientific Origins: Taking Account of Creationism, gives science teachers advice on how to deal with the "dilemma".
Further discussion of creationism should occur in religious education as it is a belief system, not one based on science Hilary Leevers Campaign for Science and Engineering
He supports new government guidelines which say creationism should not be discussed in science classes unless it is raised by pupils.
But Prof Reiss argues that there is an educational value in comparing creationist ideas with scientific theories like Darwin's theory of evolution because they demonstrate how science, unlike religious beliefs, can be tested.
The scientist, who is also a Church of England priest, adds that any teaching should not give the impression that creationism and the theory of evolution are equally valid scientifically.
Dr Hilary Leevers, of the Campaign for Science and Engineering, said science teachers would be teaching evolution not creationism and so should not need a book to tell them how to "delicately handle controversy between a scientific theory and a belief".
"The author suggests that science teachers cannot ignore creationism when teaching origins, but the opposite is true," she said.
Teachers could discuss how creationism differed from scientific theory if a student brought up the subject, but any further discussion should occur in religious education lessons, she said.
A Department for Children, Schools and Families spokesman said it had recently published guidelines to teachers on the issue.
"Creationism and intelligent design are not scientific theories nor testable as scientific fact - and have no place in the science curriculum. "But we advise science teachers that when questions about creationism come up in lessons, it provides an opportunity to explain or explore what makes a scientific theory."
Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/education/7028639.stmPublished: 2007/10/04 23:28:30 GMT© BBC MMVII
Comment.
As far as the basic Islamic belief is concerned there is no compromise or justification to accept any kind of theory whether it is scientific or nonscientific theory related to the creation of the universe including human being. Muslims pursue knowledge by studying science to understand nature and to use science for betterment of human existence in this world. For the Muslim the study of science starts with the basic belief of creation-the man study what is created. It is every Muslims family responsibility to teach his children that the evolution theory is not acceptable for a beliver.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Socialism is back
This story appear on the recent Christian Science monitor. For me it is an amazing story. It is a bad and a good story. I is good story- people form a community work together and improve their living condition. As far as fighting poverty is concerned it is a success story specially in a country like Ethiopia. On the other hand it is a bad news because to alleviate poverty these people abandon their religion both the Muslims and the Christians. It looks it was their religiousness brought their poverty. The story echoed that when they abandon their religion they become better of. Even their village was visited by religious leaders. I don't understand why the religious leaders went there. To bless their action of abandoning their religion or to preach them to keep their religion. To be economically successful is it necessary to abandon religion? Is religion against prosperity? Is material success is the only measurement for a community or a society success? In Ethiopia Socialism is back again.
Abdella
In Ethiopia, one man's model for a just society
By Orly HalpernTue Aug 21, 4:00 AM ET
He can't read or write, but Zumra Nuru created a society that would have made Karl Marx proud. The 60-year-old Ethiopian farmer founded and cochairs Awra Amba, a commune where men cook, women plow, and religion has no place.
His inspiration came from his childhood: He was sent to the fields instead of to school and beaten for eating meat at his Christian neighbor's home.His mother had to work much more than his father.
"It made me sad," says Mr. Nuru. "When I asked my parents about it ... they acted as if I were foolish."
In the 1980s, Nuru finally launched the egalitarian society he dreamed of with 19 other people who adopted his vision.
Today Awra Amba has some 400 members and is lauded as a model to alleviate poverty and promote gender equality in a country where women generally hold a subservient status to men.
The experimental community first came to national awareness when Nuru gave an interview on national television a few years ago.
Since then numerous camera crews have driven out to the northern village. They are not alone.
Government officials and members of parliament, sheikhs and priests, and local and foreign nongovernmental organization workers have made the trip via a rocky road only accessible with a four-wheel-drive vehicle to see the success for themselves.
"I was completely captivated by my visit to the community," says Ambassador Tim Clarke, head of the European Union delegation to Ethiopia. "I regard it as the model for the world community on how gender issues should be treated. I have come across nothing else like it anywhere in Africa – and indeed the world. I am using it to inspire the work of my office here on gender mainstreaming and empowerment of women."
Once ostracized, now laudedBut achieving this level of recognition was a long time in coming.
Since his childhood, Nuru was ostracized by his family and his neighbors not only for his support for gender equality but for his opposition to institutionalized religion.
"My family is originally Muslim," Nuru says. "I visited my Christian neighbors and ate meat at their home. My mother got angry and beat me. She said, 'We can't eat meat slaughtered by Christians. I said, 'Is it not the same animal?'
"I began thinking about these issues of religion. Later I thought why not make one family? There is one God. So why not unite? Honesty and love for fellow human beings is our religion."
Not surprising, there is no picturesque church or mosque decorating the village and religious observance is shunned.
However, in a tour for visitors, locals proudly show off the simple but clean mud-built library and the classroom, where children ages 3-5 study before attending the district public school.
Nuru never had the opportunity to study and when he was 13, he was thrown out of his home, he says.
"They said I was mad," says Nuru, whose name means 'Father of the Village.'
In his 20s he became a wandering preacher of his own ideals.
"I traveled to find people who would accept my ideas," he says. In the 1980s he gathered a group in the Amhara region and together they established Awra Amba – meaning "top of the hill."
For years the small group of farmers was ostracized by neighbors who saw its ideas as radical. Eventually they were forced to abandon their land for political reasons.
Model for reducing poverty?They returned in the early 1990s only to discover their neighbors had been given their land.
They managed to get back only 43 acres – not enough to support a growing community with farming. "So we began weaving for a living," says Nuru.
Weaving has become one of the symbols of Awra Amba.
In Ethiopian society, weaving is women's work, yet men and women work side by side here in Awra Amba.
The hand-woven scarves, clothes, and blankets are sold in the village shop. Awra Amba will not accept donations, but offers its products for sale.
Prices are low, but so is supply, partly because the village has a shortage of modern weaving machinery and training.
"Weaving is not so profitable because we are not experts," he says. "We are all originally farmers."
Fortunately, their reputation for being honest is also paying off. Donkeys laden with bags of grains wait beside the village grain mills to be unloaded.
"Neighboring farmers prefer to use our mills because they trust us not to cheat them," says Asnake Gebeyehu, 18, a native of Awra Amban who served as an English-language translator for foreign visitors on a recent day.
Awra Ambans work seven days a week and shun religious holidays.
Ideals are paying offTheir ideals have literally paid off.
The villagers are well fed and clothed. Children play instead of working.
"So many Christian and Muslim leaders from all over [Ethiopia's northern Amhara region] and some from outside have visited the village because it is very famous in its endeavor to eliminate poverty," says Mulgeta Wuletaw, a regional government administrator and member of parliament.
Still, the village hopes to earn more money in order to build potable water and sewage systems, pave the road, and create an education fund for the children.
Gebeyehu is one of eight Awra Ambans who will be attending university this year and he credits his village for that. "Education is very important to this community," he says.
The village is unique not only for its attitudes toward gender, religion, and education, but for the social security it provides its members in need.
Village social securityThere's a home for the elderly with 24-hour care and a committee that helps out new mothers, who also get three months of maternity leave. Early and forced marriage are forbidden.
The village's success has made it a subject of numerous studies.
"This is an extraordinary initiative within a traditional and conservative community," says Mohammed Musa, a rural development consultant who prepared a case study on the village for the World Bank. "It's a good example for other Ethiopian communities – and even beyond Ethiopia – because of its gender equality, its work ethic, and its social security system."
Today 96 families live in closely built mud huts.
Nuru said more people want to join, but there is not enough space.
Now, after years of being ostracized, Awra Amba is seen as having a positive effect on its conservative region.
A newsletter published by the regional state health bureau last year credited the village with triggering "amazing change in the Amhara region."
Copyright © 2007 The Christian Science Monitor
Abdella
In Ethiopia, one man's model for a just society
By Orly HalpernTue Aug 21, 4:00 AM ET
He can't read or write, but Zumra Nuru created a society that would have made Karl Marx proud. The 60-year-old Ethiopian farmer founded and cochairs Awra Amba, a commune where men cook, women plow, and religion has no place.
His inspiration came from his childhood: He was sent to the fields instead of to school and beaten for eating meat at his Christian neighbor's home.His mother had to work much more than his father.
"It made me sad," says Mr. Nuru. "When I asked my parents about it ... they acted as if I were foolish."
In the 1980s, Nuru finally launched the egalitarian society he dreamed of with 19 other people who adopted his vision.
Today Awra Amba has some 400 members and is lauded as a model to alleviate poverty and promote gender equality in a country where women generally hold a subservient status to men.
The experimental community first came to national awareness when Nuru gave an interview on national television a few years ago.
Since then numerous camera crews have driven out to the northern village. They are not alone.
Government officials and members of parliament, sheikhs and priests, and local and foreign nongovernmental organization workers have made the trip via a rocky road only accessible with a four-wheel-drive vehicle to see the success for themselves.
"I was completely captivated by my visit to the community," says Ambassador Tim Clarke, head of the European Union delegation to Ethiopia. "I regard it as the model for the world community on how gender issues should be treated. I have come across nothing else like it anywhere in Africa – and indeed the world. I am using it to inspire the work of my office here on gender mainstreaming and empowerment of women."
Once ostracized, now laudedBut achieving this level of recognition was a long time in coming.
Since his childhood, Nuru was ostracized by his family and his neighbors not only for his support for gender equality but for his opposition to institutionalized religion.
"My family is originally Muslim," Nuru says. "I visited my Christian neighbors and ate meat at their home. My mother got angry and beat me. She said, 'We can't eat meat slaughtered by Christians. I said, 'Is it not the same animal?'
"I began thinking about these issues of religion. Later I thought why not make one family? There is one God. So why not unite? Honesty and love for fellow human beings is our religion."
Not surprising, there is no picturesque church or mosque decorating the village and religious observance is shunned.
However, in a tour for visitors, locals proudly show off the simple but clean mud-built library and the classroom, where children ages 3-5 study before attending the district public school.
Nuru never had the opportunity to study and when he was 13, he was thrown out of his home, he says.
"They said I was mad," says Nuru, whose name means 'Father of the Village.'
In his 20s he became a wandering preacher of his own ideals.
"I traveled to find people who would accept my ideas," he says. In the 1980s he gathered a group in the Amhara region and together they established Awra Amba – meaning "top of the hill."
For years the small group of farmers was ostracized by neighbors who saw its ideas as radical. Eventually they were forced to abandon their land for political reasons.
Model for reducing poverty?They returned in the early 1990s only to discover their neighbors had been given their land.
They managed to get back only 43 acres – not enough to support a growing community with farming. "So we began weaving for a living," says Nuru.
Weaving has become one of the symbols of Awra Amba.
In Ethiopian society, weaving is women's work, yet men and women work side by side here in Awra Amba.
The hand-woven scarves, clothes, and blankets are sold in the village shop. Awra Amba will not accept donations, but offers its products for sale.
Prices are low, but so is supply, partly because the village has a shortage of modern weaving machinery and training.
"Weaving is not so profitable because we are not experts," he says. "We are all originally farmers."
Fortunately, their reputation for being honest is also paying off. Donkeys laden with bags of grains wait beside the village grain mills to be unloaded.
"Neighboring farmers prefer to use our mills because they trust us not to cheat them," says Asnake Gebeyehu, 18, a native of Awra Amban who served as an English-language translator for foreign visitors on a recent day.
Awra Ambans work seven days a week and shun religious holidays.
Ideals are paying offTheir ideals have literally paid off.
The villagers are well fed and clothed. Children play instead of working.
"So many Christian and Muslim leaders from all over [Ethiopia's northern Amhara region] and some from outside have visited the village because it is very famous in its endeavor to eliminate poverty," says Mulgeta Wuletaw, a regional government administrator and member of parliament.
Still, the village hopes to earn more money in order to build potable water and sewage systems, pave the road, and create an education fund for the children.
Gebeyehu is one of eight Awra Ambans who will be attending university this year and he credits his village for that. "Education is very important to this community," he says.
The village is unique not only for its attitudes toward gender, religion, and education, but for the social security it provides its members in need.
Village social securityThere's a home for the elderly with 24-hour care and a committee that helps out new mothers, who also get three months of maternity leave. Early and forced marriage are forbidden.
The village's success has made it a subject of numerous studies.
"This is an extraordinary initiative within a traditional and conservative community," says Mohammed Musa, a rural development consultant who prepared a case study on the village for the World Bank. "It's a good example for other Ethiopian communities – and even beyond Ethiopia – because of its gender equality, its work ethic, and its social security system."
Today 96 families live in closely built mud huts.
Nuru said more people want to join, but there is not enough space.
Now, after years of being ostracized, Awra Amba is seen as having a positive effect on its conservative region.
A newsletter published by the regional state health bureau last year credited the village with triggering "amazing change in the Amhara region."
Copyright © 2007 The Christian Science Monitor
Australian Muslims and Politics
DON CHIPP FOUNDATION EVENTS
Politics, religion and Other Impolite Topics Forum November 2005
Speech: Jamila Hussain While there has been a lot of discussion recently about the role of the Christian right in politics, the nature of Australian society has been transformed, inadvertently, by another religion entirely. Islam, or rather fear of Islam, and the threat of terrorism allegedly associated with it has cost us our civil liberties and moved what used to be a free, democratic Australia well down the path towards a police state. Let us consider the way in which Islam has been brought into politics, & more particularly, who stands to benefit by bringing Islam into politics in Australia.
Muslims began to migrate to Australia in some numbers from the early 1970s. The White Australia Policy had been repealed and under the Whitlam, Fraser and subsequent Labor governments, a new fresh policy of multiculturalism was instituted. Migrants were made to feel welcome and were no longer expected to abandon their culture and religion completely before entering the arrival terminal at the airport. A new Australia was being blended from a harmonious mix of many different cultures.The vast majority of Muslim migrants who came as refugees from Lebanon, or workers from Turkey at that time, had little, if any interest in Australian politics. They were too busy getting jobs, finding housing and looking after the well being of their families to become involved in any political scene. Such political involvement as they did undertake was largely confined to obtaining permission to establish mosques and later Islamic schools for their children, against the frequent objections of the NIMBY brigade. Australians then, as now, were abysmally ignorant of Islam and Muslim culture and feared anything different.Fast forward to the election of the Howard government in 1996, the year in which Pauline Hanson was also elected to the Federal parliament. Ms Hanson's views resonated with a section of the Australian population. She opposed Asian immigration, claiming that Australians were in danger of being swamped by Asian immigrants who would take their jobs and undercut their wages.
Under the guise of protecting the right to free speech, John Howard failed to refute her argument. In 1988 he had himself stated publicly that Australia was taking too many Asian immigrants, and he has always been unenthusiastic about multiculturalism. The scene was set for a return to more conservative ways.
The first Gulf war of 1990-91 had focused the national attention on the Muslim community in Australia. Although the war was supposedly to free one fundamentalist Arab state ruled by a feudal emir (Kuwait) from invasion by another Arab state ruled by a secular dictator (Saddam Hussein) suddenly and inexplicably, Australian Muslims became the target of popular hatred, although there was no apparent support for Saddam Hussein among local Muslims and many Iraqis here were in fact refugees from the excesses of Saddam's regime. Nevertheless, mosques and Islamic schools were attacked & Muslim women, especially those who wore hijab were insulted and abused in streets and public places. The community's response was largely to lie quiet, avoiding involvement in controversy, and redoubling efforts to meet the mainstream in areas such as inter-faith activities.
In 2001 the Tampa sailed into Australian waters, with its cargo of mostly Muslim asylum seekers - the answer to a conservative politician's prayer immediately before an election. The spectre of the 'yellow peril' was easily revived - this time the brown Muslim peril of people who would throw their children overboard, people who might be terrorists (according to Peter Reith), people who were not wanted in this country. The electorate was scared silly & voted decisively for the coalition on border protection. The unfortunate asylum seekers were imprisoned on Nauru or Manus island, safely away from any danger of infecting Aussie society. Most of them were later found to be genuine refugees and released but they had served their political purpose.
In Nov. 2001, the attack on the United States on 9/11 again galvanized ill feeling against Muslims as a whole, despite the fact that local Muslim spokespeople and organizations condemned terrorism publicly & unequivocally. It was not enough - all the old Orientalist stereotypes got free rein. If a few Muslims had attacked the US then all Muslims must be blamed. Talk back radio and the tabloid press bristled with anti-Muslim hatred & women were again attacked because of their recognizable dress.
Again the communities adopted a low profile. There were no riots, no Islamic political parties were formed & the great majority of Muslims tried to stay away from politics.
In the following years, a few Muslims joined mainstream political parties; one even became endorsed as Liberal candidate for an unwinnable seat in Sydney. In 2002 Adem Somyurek, a 'cultural' i.e. non-practising, Muslim of Turkish descent, was elected to the upper house of the Victorian parliament. He made a conscious effort not to project himself as a spokesman for the Muslim community. He saw himself as elected by his constituents on the platform for the ALP and not as a Muslim activist. Since 9/11 he has been forced to take more notice of his Muslim identity and he sees himself as a bridge between the moderate majority in the Muslim community and other Australians.
Prior to the 2004 election, another 'cultural' Muslim of Bosnian heritage, Ed Husic, became the endorsed ALP candidate for the federal seat of Greenway. He did not stand on an 'Islamic' platform, nor did he seek to bring religion into the political discourse. Ed Husic, however, found that persons on the other side of politics were more than willing to use his religion as a weapon against him. In the course of the campaign, a pamphlet - a dummied version of his campaign ads - was distributed in the electorate, claiming that he was a devout Muslim fighting for a better deal for Muslims in Greenway. Voters were contacted by telephone with the advice that Ed Husic was a Muslim. He does not blame his opponent, a member of the Hillsong church, but clearly someone believed correctly that identification with Islam would help to sink Ed Husic's chances at the election.
More recently, two female Liberal MPs have mounted a direct and unprovoked attack on Muslim women, calling for the hijab to be banned completely (in one case) & in state schools in the other . Bronwyn Bishop called the headscarf 'an iconic symbol of defiance.' She did not call for a ban on the of the Jewish yarmulke or the Sikh turban. Why she does not see these also as symbols of defiance is not explained. Dog-whistling, the Prime Minister stated that it was not practical to ban the hijab.
In recent months, following the Bali & London bombings, fear of 'Islamic' terrorism has gripped Australia, It is rare today to see the word 'terrorism' without the adjective 'Islamic' before it. However, the carefully documented findings of Assoc. Prof Robert Pape of the University of Chicago show that the vast majority of suicide bombings have been political in motivation and usually a response to foreign occupation, such a as the presence of US troops in Iraq & Saudi Arabia. Christians and atheists as well as Muslims were among the numbers of suicide bombers in his study. In fact the most prolific and original suicide bombers have been the secular Marxist Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka whose recruits come mostly from a Hindu Tamil background. Nevertheless, the public identification of suicide bombing with Islam is firmly entrenched..
As Ross Gittins points out in an article in the SMH last week, politicians are exaggerating the risk of terrorism in Australia for their own purposes. Agencies such as ASIO & the AFP are more than happy to go along with even the wildest claims because anti-terrorism measures mean more money for their agencies and more powers - no need to worry too much about civil liberties once the anti-terrorism legislation is in place. And so the Islamist terrorist bogeyman serves a very useful purpose in Australian politics - it helps the Coalition win elections and provides money and extra powers for security agencies. The media loves it too, since bad news sells papers.The public hysteria about terrorism has generated undue fear and suspicion between Muslim communities and the mainstream. Once again Muslims are living in fear, feeling alienated and rejected by the rest of the population. As Ed Husic said the day after the last federal election, "I always considered myself as a regular Aussie, who happened to be Muslim. But when I woke up the day after the election, I didn't completely feel like a regular Aussie any more."
Back to DCF Events page
Politics, religion and Other Impolite Topics Forum November 2005
Speech: Jamila Hussain While there has been a lot of discussion recently about the role of the Christian right in politics, the nature of Australian society has been transformed, inadvertently, by another religion entirely. Islam, or rather fear of Islam, and the threat of terrorism allegedly associated with it has cost us our civil liberties and moved what used to be a free, democratic Australia well down the path towards a police state. Let us consider the way in which Islam has been brought into politics, & more particularly, who stands to benefit by bringing Islam into politics in Australia.
Muslims began to migrate to Australia in some numbers from the early 1970s. The White Australia Policy had been repealed and under the Whitlam, Fraser and subsequent Labor governments, a new fresh policy of multiculturalism was instituted. Migrants were made to feel welcome and were no longer expected to abandon their culture and religion completely before entering the arrival terminal at the airport. A new Australia was being blended from a harmonious mix of many different cultures.The vast majority of Muslim migrants who came as refugees from Lebanon, or workers from Turkey at that time, had little, if any interest in Australian politics. They were too busy getting jobs, finding housing and looking after the well being of their families to become involved in any political scene. Such political involvement as they did undertake was largely confined to obtaining permission to establish mosques and later Islamic schools for their children, against the frequent objections of the NIMBY brigade. Australians then, as now, were abysmally ignorant of Islam and Muslim culture and feared anything different.Fast forward to the election of the Howard government in 1996, the year in which Pauline Hanson was also elected to the Federal parliament. Ms Hanson's views resonated with a section of the Australian population. She opposed Asian immigration, claiming that Australians were in danger of being swamped by Asian immigrants who would take their jobs and undercut their wages.
Under the guise of protecting the right to free speech, John Howard failed to refute her argument. In 1988 he had himself stated publicly that Australia was taking too many Asian immigrants, and he has always been unenthusiastic about multiculturalism. The scene was set for a return to more conservative ways.
The first Gulf war of 1990-91 had focused the national attention on the Muslim community in Australia. Although the war was supposedly to free one fundamentalist Arab state ruled by a feudal emir (Kuwait) from invasion by another Arab state ruled by a secular dictator (Saddam Hussein) suddenly and inexplicably, Australian Muslims became the target of popular hatred, although there was no apparent support for Saddam Hussein among local Muslims and many Iraqis here were in fact refugees from the excesses of Saddam's regime. Nevertheless, mosques and Islamic schools were attacked & Muslim women, especially those who wore hijab were insulted and abused in streets and public places. The community's response was largely to lie quiet, avoiding involvement in controversy, and redoubling efforts to meet the mainstream in areas such as inter-faith activities.
In 2001 the Tampa sailed into Australian waters, with its cargo of mostly Muslim asylum seekers - the answer to a conservative politician's prayer immediately before an election. The spectre of the 'yellow peril' was easily revived - this time the brown Muslim peril of people who would throw their children overboard, people who might be terrorists (according to Peter Reith), people who were not wanted in this country. The electorate was scared silly & voted decisively for the coalition on border protection. The unfortunate asylum seekers were imprisoned on Nauru or Manus island, safely away from any danger of infecting Aussie society. Most of them were later found to be genuine refugees and released but they had served their political purpose.
In Nov. 2001, the attack on the United States on 9/11 again galvanized ill feeling against Muslims as a whole, despite the fact that local Muslim spokespeople and organizations condemned terrorism publicly & unequivocally. It was not enough - all the old Orientalist stereotypes got free rein. If a few Muslims had attacked the US then all Muslims must be blamed. Talk back radio and the tabloid press bristled with anti-Muslim hatred & women were again attacked because of their recognizable dress.
Again the communities adopted a low profile. There were no riots, no Islamic political parties were formed & the great majority of Muslims tried to stay away from politics.
In the following years, a few Muslims joined mainstream political parties; one even became endorsed as Liberal candidate for an unwinnable seat in Sydney. In 2002 Adem Somyurek, a 'cultural' i.e. non-practising, Muslim of Turkish descent, was elected to the upper house of the Victorian parliament. He made a conscious effort not to project himself as a spokesman for the Muslim community. He saw himself as elected by his constituents on the platform for the ALP and not as a Muslim activist. Since 9/11 he has been forced to take more notice of his Muslim identity and he sees himself as a bridge between the moderate majority in the Muslim community and other Australians.
Prior to the 2004 election, another 'cultural' Muslim of Bosnian heritage, Ed Husic, became the endorsed ALP candidate for the federal seat of Greenway. He did not stand on an 'Islamic' platform, nor did he seek to bring religion into the political discourse. Ed Husic, however, found that persons on the other side of politics were more than willing to use his religion as a weapon against him. In the course of the campaign, a pamphlet - a dummied version of his campaign ads - was distributed in the electorate, claiming that he was a devout Muslim fighting for a better deal for Muslims in Greenway. Voters were contacted by telephone with the advice that Ed Husic was a Muslim. He does not blame his opponent, a member of the Hillsong church, but clearly someone believed correctly that identification with Islam would help to sink Ed Husic's chances at the election.
More recently, two female Liberal MPs have mounted a direct and unprovoked attack on Muslim women, calling for the hijab to be banned completely (in one case) & in state schools in the other . Bronwyn Bishop called the headscarf 'an iconic symbol of defiance.' She did not call for a ban on the of the Jewish yarmulke or the Sikh turban. Why she does not see these also as symbols of defiance is not explained. Dog-whistling, the Prime Minister stated that it was not practical to ban the hijab.
In recent months, following the Bali & London bombings, fear of 'Islamic' terrorism has gripped Australia, It is rare today to see the word 'terrorism' without the adjective 'Islamic' before it. However, the carefully documented findings of Assoc. Prof Robert Pape of the University of Chicago show that the vast majority of suicide bombings have been political in motivation and usually a response to foreign occupation, such a as the presence of US troops in Iraq & Saudi Arabia. Christians and atheists as well as Muslims were among the numbers of suicide bombers in his study. In fact the most prolific and original suicide bombers have been the secular Marxist Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka whose recruits come mostly from a Hindu Tamil background. Nevertheless, the public identification of suicide bombing with Islam is firmly entrenched..
As Ross Gittins points out in an article in the SMH last week, politicians are exaggerating the risk of terrorism in Australia for their own purposes. Agencies such as ASIO & the AFP are more than happy to go along with even the wildest claims because anti-terrorism measures mean more money for their agencies and more powers - no need to worry too much about civil liberties once the anti-terrorism legislation is in place. And so the Islamist terrorist bogeyman serves a very useful purpose in Australian politics - it helps the Coalition win elections and provides money and extra powers for security agencies. The media loves it too, since bad news sells papers.The public hysteria about terrorism has generated undue fear and suspicion between Muslim communities and the mainstream. Once again Muslims are living in fear, feeling alienated and rejected by the rest of the population. As Ed Husic said the day after the last federal election, "I always considered myself as a regular Aussie, who happened to be Muslim. But when I woke up the day after the election, I didn't completely feel like a regular Aussie any more."
Back to DCF Events page
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Why do Indian Muslims lag behind?
Why do Indian Muslims lag behind?
By Soutik Biswas BBC News
As historians tell it, during India's first election in 1952, Jawaharlal Nehru was already worrying about the feeble representation of Muslims in the country's positions of authority.
Many more Muslims had stayed back in India than the millions who migrated to newly-born Pakistan after the partition just five years ago.
India's first prime minister's concerns about the country's second largest religious group and the largest religious minority were eminently justified.
"There were hardly any Muslims left in the defence service, and not many in the secretariat," says historian Ramachandra Guha.
Little change
Next year, in 1953, a group of intellectuals met to discuss forming a political party for the Muslims and spoke about the low representation of Muslims in political positions and bureaucracy.
More than half century later, on India's 60th anniversary of independence, very little has changed.
(Indian Muslims) carry a double burden of being labelled as 'anti-national' and as being 'appeased' at the same time
Today, at over 138 million, Muslims constitute over 13% of India 's billion-strong population, and in sheer numbers are exceeded only by Indonesia's and Pakistan's Muslim community.
The country has had three Muslim presidents - a largely ceremonial role. Bollywood and cricket, two secular pan-Indian obsessions, continue to have their fair share of Muslim stars - the ruling heroes in Mumbai films are Shah Rukh, Aamir and Salman Khan, and the star of India's current English cricket tour is pace bowler Zaheer Khan. Not long ago, the national team was led by the stylish Mohammed Azharuddin.
That's where the good news essentially ends.
Muslims comprise only 5% of employees in India's big government, a recent study found. The figure for Indian Railways, the country's biggest employer, is only 4.5%.
The community continues to have a paltry representation in the bureaucracy and police - 3% in the powerful Indian Civil Service, 1.8% in foreign service and only 4% in the Indian Police Service. And Muslims account for only 7.8% of the people working in the judiciary.
Indian Muslims are also largely illiterate and poor.
At just under 60%, the community's literacy rate is lower than the national average of 65%. Only half of Muslim women can read and write. As many as a quarter of Muslim children in the age-group 6-14 have either never attended school or dropped out.
They are also poor - 31% of Muslims are below the country's poverty line, just a notch above the lowest castes and tribes who remain the poorest of the poor.
Identity card
To add to the community's woes are myriad problems relating to, as one expert says, "identity, security and equity".
"They carry a double burden of being labelled as 'anti-national' and as being 'appeased' at the same time," says a recent report on the state of Indian Muslims.
Historians say it is ironic that many Indians bought the Hindu nationalist bogey of 'Muslim appeasement' when it had not translated into any major socio-economic gain for the community.
So why has the lot of Indian Muslims remained miserable after six decades of independence?
For one, it is the sheer apathy and ineptitude of the Indian state which has failed to provide equality of opportunity in health, education and employment.
This has hurt the poor - including the Muslim poor who comprise the majority of the community - most.
There is also the relatively recent trend of political bias against the community when Hindu nationalist governments have ruled in Delhi and the states.
Also, the lack of credible middle class leadership among the Muslims has hobbled the community's vision and progress.
Consequently, rabble rousers claiming to represent the community have thrust themselves to the fore.
To be true, mass migration during partition robbed the community of potential leaders - most Muslim civil servants, teachers, doctors and professionals crossed over.
But the failure to throw up credible leaders has meant low community participation in the political processes and government - of the 543 MPs in India's lower house of parliament, only 36 are Muslims.
Also, as Ramachandra Guha says, the "vicissitudes of India-Pakistan relations and Pakistan's treatment of its minorities" ensured that Muslims remained a "vulnerable" community.
Regional disparities
The plight of Indian Muslims also has a lot to do with the appalling quality of governance, unequal social order and lack of equality of opportunity in northern India where most of the community lives.
Populous Uttar Pradesh is home to nearly a fifth of Muslims (31 million) living in India, while Bihar has more than 10 million community members.
"Southern India is a different picture. Larger cultural and social movements have made education more accessible and self employment more lucrative benefiting a large number of Muslims," says historian Mahesh Rangarajan.
In Andhra Pradesh state, for example, 68% of Muslims are literate, higher than the state and national average. School enrolment rates for Muslim children are above 90% in Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
Mahesh Rangarajan says poverty and "absence of ameliorative policies" has hurt India's Muslims most.
If India was to be "a secular, stable and strong state," Nehru once said, "then our first consideration must be to give absolute fair play to our minority.."
Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/6938090.stmPublished: 2007/08/09 14:20:32 GMT© BBC MMVII
By Soutik Biswas BBC News
As historians tell it, during India's first election in 1952, Jawaharlal Nehru was already worrying about the feeble representation of Muslims in the country's positions of authority.
Many more Muslims had stayed back in India than the millions who migrated to newly-born Pakistan after the partition just five years ago.
India's first prime minister's concerns about the country's second largest religious group and the largest religious minority were eminently justified.
"There were hardly any Muslims left in the defence service, and not many in the secretariat," says historian Ramachandra Guha.
Little change
Next year, in 1953, a group of intellectuals met to discuss forming a political party for the Muslims and spoke about the low representation of Muslims in political positions and bureaucracy.
More than half century later, on India's 60th anniversary of independence, very little has changed.
(Indian Muslims) carry a double burden of being labelled as 'anti-national' and as being 'appeased' at the same time
Today, at over 138 million, Muslims constitute over 13% of India 's billion-strong population, and in sheer numbers are exceeded only by Indonesia's and Pakistan's Muslim community.
The country has had three Muslim presidents - a largely ceremonial role. Bollywood and cricket, two secular pan-Indian obsessions, continue to have their fair share of Muslim stars - the ruling heroes in Mumbai films are Shah Rukh, Aamir and Salman Khan, and the star of India's current English cricket tour is pace bowler Zaheer Khan. Not long ago, the national team was led by the stylish Mohammed Azharuddin.
That's where the good news essentially ends.
Muslims comprise only 5% of employees in India's big government, a recent study found. The figure for Indian Railways, the country's biggest employer, is only 4.5%.
The community continues to have a paltry representation in the bureaucracy and police - 3% in the powerful Indian Civil Service, 1.8% in foreign service and only 4% in the Indian Police Service. And Muslims account for only 7.8% of the people working in the judiciary.
Indian Muslims are also largely illiterate and poor.
At just under 60%, the community's literacy rate is lower than the national average of 65%. Only half of Muslim women can read and write. As many as a quarter of Muslim children in the age-group 6-14 have either never attended school or dropped out.
They are also poor - 31% of Muslims are below the country's poverty line, just a notch above the lowest castes and tribes who remain the poorest of the poor.
Identity card
To add to the community's woes are myriad problems relating to, as one expert says, "identity, security and equity".
"They carry a double burden of being labelled as 'anti-national' and as being 'appeased' at the same time," says a recent report on the state of Indian Muslims.
Historians say it is ironic that many Indians bought the Hindu nationalist bogey of 'Muslim appeasement' when it had not translated into any major socio-economic gain for the community.
So why has the lot of Indian Muslims remained miserable after six decades of independence?
For one, it is the sheer apathy and ineptitude of the Indian state which has failed to provide equality of opportunity in health, education and employment.
This has hurt the poor - including the Muslim poor who comprise the majority of the community - most.
There is also the relatively recent trend of political bias against the community when Hindu nationalist governments have ruled in Delhi and the states.
Also, the lack of credible middle class leadership among the Muslims has hobbled the community's vision and progress.
Consequently, rabble rousers claiming to represent the community have thrust themselves to the fore.
To be true, mass migration during partition robbed the community of potential leaders - most Muslim civil servants, teachers, doctors and professionals crossed over.
But the failure to throw up credible leaders has meant low community participation in the political processes and government - of the 543 MPs in India's lower house of parliament, only 36 are Muslims.
Also, as Ramachandra Guha says, the "vicissitudes of India-Pakistan relations and Pakistan's treatment of its minorities" ensured that Muslims remained a "vulnerable" community.
Regional disparities
The plight of Indian Muslims also has a lot to do with the appalling quality of governance, unequal social order and lack of equality of opportunity in northern India where most of the community lives.
Populous Uttar Pradesh is home to nearly a fifth of Muslims (31 million) living in India, while Bihar has more than 10 million community members.
"Southern India is a different picture. Larger cultural and social movements have made education more accessible and self employment more lucrative benefiting a large number of Muslims," says historian Mahesh Rangarajan.
In Andhra Pradesh state, for example, 68% of Muslims are literate, higher than the state and national average. School enrolment rates for Muslim children are above 90% in Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
Mahesh Rangarajan says poverty and "absence of ameliorative policies" has hurt India's Muslims most.
If India was to be "a secular, stable and strong state," Nehru once said, "then our first consideration must be to give absolute fair play to our minority.."
Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/6938090.stmPublished: 2007/08/09 14:20:32 GMT© BBC MMVII
Indian Muslim community growing
Indian Muslim community growing
India has released census figures showing that the Muslim community is growing much faster than other groups.
Hindus continue to make up about 80% of India's billion-plus population but their growth rate has declined.
This is the first time a religious breakdown of India's population figures has assessed "the progress made by different groups".
But critics have questioned the timing of the survey, saying it could be exploited by Hindu hardliners.
According to figures released by India's census commissioner, India's Muslim community grew by 36% between 1991 and 2001 and now stands at 138 million, or 13.4% of the total population.
Hindus account for 80.5% of all Indians, a growth of 20.3% in the same period, down from 25% in 1981-1991.
Christians make up the third largest group (24 million) followed by Sikhs (19 million).
Poor literacy
The Muslim community fares poorly in literacy compared to other groups - which is seen as one reason for their increasing numbers.
Population breakdown
Hindus: 827.5m - 80.5%
Muslims: 138.2m - 13.4%
Christians: 24m - 2.3%
Sikhs: 19.2m - 1.9%
"There has not been a significant increase in Muslim population in the southern state of Kerala because of high literacy rates," the chairman of India's Minorities Commission, Tarlochan Singh, told the BBC.
"But unfortunately this is not the case with their population in other parts of the country."
There were other alarming numbers for the Sikhs and the small Parsi community.
The ratio of females to males was lowest among the Sikh community - 893 women for every 1,000 males.
And despite controlling more than 15% of the market value in India's main financial market, the Bombay Stock Exchange, the Parsi community makes up less than 1% of Indians and is on the verge of extinction because of its low birth rates.
The Parsi population has decreased from 76,382 in 1991 to 69,601 in 2001.
Criticism
The timing of the census figures is being criticised by some who say it could be used politically against Muslims.
"I am absolutely sure that right-wing Hindu groups will misuse this data politically," social activist Teesta Setalvad told the BBC.
In its first reaction, the main opposition Hindu nationalist BJP said the increased numbers of Muslims was a matter of "grave concern for all those who think of India's unity and integrity in the long term".
"We are strongly in favour of an even and uniform adoption of population control measures by people belonging to different communities," party president Venkaiah Naidu said.
"Any imbalance in this regard is not a healthy trend."
Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/3634546.stmPublished: 2004/09/07 13:04:07 GMT© BBC MMVII
India has released census figures showing that the Muslim community is growing much faster than other groups.
Hindus continue to make up about 80% of India's billion-plus population but their growth rate has declined.
This is the first time a religious breakdown of India's population figures has assessed "the progress made by different groups".
But critics have questioned the timing of the survey, saying it could be exploited by Hindu hardliners.
According to figures released by India's census commissioner, India's Muslim community grew by 36% between 1991 and 2001 and now stands at 138 million, or 13.4% of the total population.
Hindus account for 80.5% of all Indians, a growth of 20.3% in the same period, down from 25% in 1981-1991.
Christians make up the third largest group (24 million) followed by Sikhs (19 million).
Poor literacy
The Muslim community fares poorly in literacy compared to other groups - which is seen as one reason for their increasing numbers.
Population breakdown
Hindus: 827.5m - 80.5%
Muslims: 138.2m - 13.4%
Christians: 24m - 2.3%
Sikhs: 19.2m - 1.9%
"There has not been a significant increase in Muslim population in the southern state of Kerala because of high literacy rates," the chairman of India's Minorities Commission, Tarlochan Singh, told the BBC.
"But unfortunately this is not the case with their population in other parts of the country."
There were other alarming numbers for the Sikhs and the small Parsi community.
The ratio of females to males was lowest among the Sikh community - 893 women for every 1,000 males.
And despite controlling more than 15% of the market value in India's main financial market, the Bombay Stock Exchange, the Parsi community makes up less than 1% of Indians and is on the verge of extinction because of its low birth rates.
The Parsi population has decreased from 76,382 in 1991 to 69,601 in 2001.
Criticism
The timing of the census figures is being criticised by some who say it could be used politically against Muslims.
"I am absolutely sure that right-wing Hindu groups will misuse this data politically," social activist Teesta Setalvad told the BBC.
In its first reaction, the main opposition Hindu nationalist BJP said the increased numbers of Muslims was a matter of "grave concern for all those who think of India's unity and integrity in the long term".
"We are strongly in favour of an even and uniform adoption of population control measures by people belonging to different communities," party president Venkaiah Naidu said.
"Any imbalance in this regard is not a healthy trend."
Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/3634546.stmPublished: 2004/09/07 13:04:07 GMT© BBC MMVII
As American as my neighbour
Tuesday, August 7th, 2007
As American as my neighbour
Tue Aug 7 2007
By Mohja Kahf
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. -- A certain Middle Eastern religion is much maligned in the United States. Full of veils and mystery, it is widely seen as sexist. Often violent, sometimes manipulated by demagogues, it yet has sweetness at the core, and many people are turning to it in their search for meaning.
I'm talking about Christianity.
This Muslim squirms whenever secular friends -- tolerant toward believers in Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam and Native American spirituality -- dismiss Christians with snorts of contempt. "It's because the Christian right wants to take over this country," they protest.
That may be, but it doesn't justify trashing the religion and its spectrum of believers. Christianity has inspired Americans to the politics of abolition and civil rights, as well as to heinous acts. Christian values have motivated the Ku Klux Klan to burn houses, and Jimmy Carter to build them. You can't say that when Christianity informs politics, only bad things happen.
People of faith do not signify the apocalypse for democracy. And (here comes the Muslim agenda) that goes for believing Muslims as much as for other religious folk. Muslims, in a very specific way, are not strangers in your midst. We are kin. We carry pieces of your family story.
Muslims are the youngest sibling in the Semitic family of religions, and we typically get no respect from the older kids -- Judaism and Christianity. That our older sisters didn't stick our pictures in the family scrapbook doesn't make us less related, sweetheart. And our stories are no less legit just because we have a different angle on family history. Want to know what happened to Hagar after she fades from the Bible story of Abraham and Sarah? Sit, have coffee, we'll talk.
My cousin was president of a national student group, and reporters constantly ask her whether Muslim youth turn to religion to reject their American identity. She grew up in the South, with friends who went to Bible camp in the summer. "Would you ask a Baptist that question?" she says, smoothing her head veil.
Assimilation is overrated. And it's not what minority religions do in the United States. Did Irish-Catholics stop being Catholic when they arrived generations ago? People once believed that devout Catholics and Orthodox Jews could never be "true Americans." Today, I receive e-mails with solemn lists of why Muslims, "according to their own faith," can't possibly be "loyal Americans." The work of nut jobs. Yet purportedly sane people in Washington seem to think it's a valid question.
The Muslim spectrum contains many complex identities, from lapsed to ultra-orthodox. There's this wisdom going around that only the liberal sort are worthy of existence. No, my dears. Conservative Muslims have a right to breathe the air. Being devout, even if it means prostration prayer at airports, is not a criminal offence. And those stubborn unassimilated types may have a critique of the American social fabric that you should hear.
I grew up Islamist. That's right, not only conservative Muslim, but full-blown, caliphate-loving Islamist, among folk who take core Islamic values and put them to work in education and politics, much like evangelical Christians. One of the things about the United States that delighted my parents, and many Islamist immigrants, is that here, through patient daily jihad, they could actually teach their children Islam -- as opposed to motley customs that pass for Islam in the Old Countries.
Look, Islam never really "took" in the Arab world. The egalitarianism that the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) preached, for example, never much budged Arab tribalism. The Koran's sexual ethic, enjoining chaste behaviour and personal responsibility toward God on men and women both, not tribal ownership of women's sexuality, never uprooted the sexual double standard or the pagan honour code. Honour killing, as a recent fatwa by al-Azhar University's mufti reminds believers, is a pagan rite violating Islamic principles. Here in the United States, religious Muslims can practise Islam without those entrenched codes.
Muslims, pious ones even, will tell you that they believe in equality, too, and are no more sexist than you. Your sexism just takes forms so familiar that they're invisible; holding doors open for women doesn't seem nearly as sexist as walking protectively ahead of them.
Other American values are easily in synch with the Islam of the devout. Observant Muslims have long seen meritocracy, consultation of the people by the government and the idea that hard work should trump family name as refreshing affirmations of Islamic values. "America is Islam, without the Muslim 'brand name,' " goes a refrain from the pulpit of immigrant mosques. Usually followed by, "The Old Countries are Muslim in name, without Islamic values."
This is the Mayflower Compact of these new Pilgrims. That analogy may not sit well with African-Americans, whose ancestors didn't come voluntarily, and with Native Americans, because it links newcomers to those who devastated their lands. Nevertheless, this is one way immigrant Muslims see themselves in this land: as part of a long caravan of faiths seeking to build the beloved community. This American narrative merges with the Muslim concept of hijrah -- emigration for the sake of worshiping God freely.
Doctrinal differences abound, and each faith has its sacraments. Exploring these distinctions should be a source of delight, not of one-upmanship. In difference lie blessing and abundance. The Gospels detail many moments in Christ's life, but for Mary's own feelings in labour, you'll want a glimpse of the Koran -- and of Muslim hearts where the scene lives.
Pious Christian and Jewish values are not inherently in conflict with American civic life, as secular folk tend to forget. Devout immigrant Muslims don't belong? That ship has sailed. Myles Muhammad Standish and Harriet Halima Tubman are here. Not as strangers out of place, either. This is a letter to your beautiful heart: We are your blood.
Mohja Kahf is the author of the novel The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf. Author e-mail:
DamasceneQueen@yahoo.com
-- Washington Post
A week with Islam
Sunday: Where Bush went wrong
Today: As American as my neighbour
Wednesday: Islam for Dummies
Thursday: Thoughts from a former firebomber
Friday: Don't call me oppressed
Missed one? Read what's been published so far online at Winnipegfreepress.com. Click on Opinions and then Commentary. Stories are listed by date.
© 2007 Winnipeg Free Press. All Rights Reserved.
_uacct = "UA-140612-2";
urchinTracker();
As American as my neighbour
Tue Aug 7 2007
By Mohja Kahf
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. -- A certain Middle Eastern religion is much maligned in the United States. Full of veils and mystery, it is widely seen as sexist. Often violent, sometimes manipulated by demagogues, it yet has sweetness at the core, and many people are turning to it in their search for meaning.
I'm talking about Christianity.
This Muslim squirms whenever secular friends -- tolerant toward believers in Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam and Native American spirituality -- dismiss Christians with snorts of contempt. "It's because the Christian right wants to take over this country," they protest.
That may be, but it doesn't justify trashing the religion and its spectrum of believers. Christianity has inspired Americans to the politics of abolition and civil rights, as well as to heinous acts. Christian values have motivated the Ku Klux Klan to burn houses, and Jimmy Carter to build them. You can't say that when Christianity informs politics, only bad things happen.
People of faith do not signify the apocalypse for democracy. And (here comes the Muslim agenda) that goes for believing Muslims as much as for other religious folk. Muslims, in a very specific way, are not strangers in your midst. We are kin. We carry pieces of your family story.
Muslims are the youngest sibling in the Semitic family of religions, and we typically get no respect from the older kids -- Judaism and Christianity. That our older sisters didn't stick our pictures in the family scrapbook doesn't make us less related, sweetheart. And our stories are no less legit just because we have a different angle on family history. Want to know what happened to Hagar after she fades from the Bible story of Abraham and Sarah? Sit, have coffee, we'll talk.
My cousin was president of a national student group, and reporters constantly ask her whether Muslim youth turn to religion to reject their American identity. She grew up in the South, with friends who went to Bible camp in the summer. "Would you ask a Baptist that question?" she says, smoothing her head veil.
Assimilation is overrated. And it's not what minority religions do in the United States. Did Irish-Catholics stop being Catholic when they arrived generations ago? People once believed that devout Catholics and Orthodox Jews could never be "true Americans." Today, I receive e-mails with solemn lists of why Muslims, "according to their own faith," can't possibly be "loyal Americans." The work of nut jobs. Yet purportedly sane people in Washington seem to think it's a valid question.
The Muslim spectrum contains many complex identities, from lapsed to ultra-orthodox. There's this wisdom going around that only the liberal sort are worthy of existence. No, my dears. Conservative Muslims have a right to breathe the air. Being devout, even if it means prostration prayer at airports, is not a criminal offence. And those stubborn unassimilated types may have a critique of the American social fabric that you should hear.
I grew up Islamist. That's right, not only conservative Muslim, but full-blown, caliphate-loving Islamist, among folk who take core Islamic values and put them to work in education and politics, much like evangelical Christians. One of the things about the United States that delighted my parents, and many Islamist immigrants, is that here, through patient daily jihad, they could actually teach their children Islam -- as opposed to motley customs that pass for Islam in the Old Countries.
Look, Islam never really "took" in the Arab world. The egalitarianism that the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) preached, for example, never much budged Arab tribalism. The Koran's sexual ethic, enjoining chaste behaviour and personal responsibility toward God on men and women both, not tribal ownership of women's sexuality, never uprooted the sexual double standard or the pagan honour code. Honour killing, as a recent fatwa by al-Azhar University's mufti reminds believers, is a pagan rite violating Islamic principles. Here in the United States, religious Muslims can practise Islam without those entrenched codes.
Muslims, pious ones even, will tell you that they believe in equality, too, and are no more sexist than you. Your sexism just takes forms so familiar that they're invisible; holding doors open for women doesn't seem nearly as sexist as walking protectively ahead of them.
Other American values are easily in synch with the Islam of the devout. Observant Muslims have long seen meritocracy, consultation of the people by the government and the idea that hard work should trump family name as refreshing affirmations of Islamic values. "America is Islam, without the Muslim 'brand name,' " goes a refrain from the pulpit of immigrant mosques. Usually followed by, "The Old Countries are Muslim in name, without Islamic values."
This is the Mayflower Compact of these new Pilgrims. That analogy may not sit well with African-Americans, whose ancestors didn't come voluntarily, and with Native Americans, because it links newcomers to those who devastated their lands. Nevertheless, this is one way immigrant Muslims see themselves in this land: as part of a long caravan of faiths seeking to build the beloved community. This American narrative merges with the Muslim concept of hijrah -- emigration for the sake of worshiping God freely.
Doctrinal differences abound, and each faith has its sacraments. Exploring these distinctions should be a source of delight, not of one-upmanship. In difference lie blessing and abundance. The Gospels detail many moments in Christ's life, but for Mary's own feelings in labour, you'll want a glimpse of the Koran -- and of Muslim hearts where the scene lives.
Pious Christian and Jewish values are not inherently in conflict with American civic life, as secular folk tend to forget. Devout immigrant Muslims don't belong? That ship has sailed. Myles Muhammad Standish and Harriet Halima Tubman are here. Not as strangers out of place, either. This is a letter to your beautiful heart: We are your blood.
Mohja Kahf is the author of the novel The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf. Author e-mail:
DamasceneQueen@yahoo.com
-- Washington Post
A week with Islam
Sunday: Where Bush went wrong
Today: As American as my neighbour
Wednesday: Islam for Dummies
Thursday: Thoughts from a former firebomber
Friday: Don't call me oppressed
Missed one? Read what's been published so far online at Winnipegfreepress.com. Click on Opinions and then Commentary. Stories are listed by date.
© 2007 Winnipeg Free Press. All Rights Reserved.
_uacct = "UA-140612-2";
urchinTracker();
Islam for dummies
Thursday, August 9th, 2007
Islam for dummies Thumbnail sketch of the religion
Wed Aug 8 2007
By John L. Esposito
WASHINGTON -- Nearly half of Americans have a generally unfavourable view of Islam, according to a 2006 Washington Post-ABC News poll, a number that has risen since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. That climate makes it easy to lose sight of the fact that the majority of mainstream Muslims hate terrorism and violence as much as we do -- and makes it hard for non-Muslims to know where to begin to try to understand a great world faith.
Like Judaism and Christianity, Islam originated in the Middle East. As F.E. Peters shows in The Children of Abraham, the commonalities can be striking. Muslims worship the God of Abraham, as do Christians and Jews. Islam was seen as a continuation of the Abrahamic faith tradition, not a totally new religion. Muslims recognize the biblical prophets and believe in the holiness of God's revelations to Moses (in the Torah) and Jesus (in the Gospels). Indeed, Musa (Moses), Issa (Jesus) and Mariam (Mary) are common Muslim names.
Muslims believe in Islam's five pillars, which are straightforward and simple. To become a Muslim, one need only offer the faith's basic credo, "There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the prophet of God." This statement reflects the two main fundamentals of Islamic faith: belief in the one true God, which carries with it a refusal to worship anything else (not money, not career, not ego), and the crucial importance of Muhammad, God's messenger.
Muhammad is the central role model for Muslims -- much like Jesus is for Christians, except solely human. He is seen as the ideal husband, father and friend, the ultimate political leader, general, diplomat and judge. Understanding Muhammad's special place in Muslim hearts helps us appreciate the widespread anger of many mainstream Muslims -- not just extremists -- with the denigration of a Muhammad-like figure in Salman Rushdie's 1988 novel The Satanic Verses, the controversial 2005 Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad in unflattering lights or Pope Benedict XVI's 2006 speech quoting a long-dead Byzantine emperor who accused the prophet of bringing "only evil and inhuman" things into the world. Karen Armstrong's Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time and Tariq Ramadan's In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad provide fresh, perceptive views on his modern-day relevance.
The three next pillars of Islam are prayer, which is to be performed five times daily; giving alms, in the form of an annual wealth tax that helps support the poor; and fasting during daylight in the holy month of Ramadan. The fifth pillar requires that Muslims perform the pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca at least once.
We tend to equate Islam with the Arab world, but the largest Muslim communities are found in Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and Nigeria. Only about one in five of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims are Arabs. Islam is the second-largest religion in Europe and the third-largest in the United States.
The treatment of women under Islam is also wildly diverse. In countries such as Saudi Arabia, women must be fully covered in public, cannot drive cars and struggle for the right to vote. But elsewhere, Muslim women freely enter politics, drive motorcycles and wear everything from saris to pantsuits. Women can get university educations and pursue professional careers in Egypt, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia; they have been heads of state in Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia.
Anyone who has followed the news from Iraq has heard a lot about Sunnis and Shiites, the faith's two major branches. About 85 per cent of the world's Muslims are Sunni, with about 15 per cent Shiite. The division stems from a bitter dispute after Muhammad's death over who should take over the leadership of the newly founded Muslim community. Sunnis believed that the most qualified person should succeed the prophet, but a minority thought that his descendants should carry his mantle. That minority was known as the followers or partisans (Shiites) of Ali; they believed that Muhammad had designated Ali, his cousin and son-in-law, as his heir. Historically, Shiites have viewed themselves as oppressed and disenfranchised under Sunni rule -- a longstanding grievance that has flared up again in recent years in such countries as Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Pakistan. Vali Nasr's The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future does a fine job of distinguishing between theology and politics in today's Sunni-Shiite rivalries.
Muslims also argue over what some refer to as Islam's sixth pillar, jihad. In the Koran, Islam's sacred text, jihad means "to strive or struggle" to realize God's will, to lead a virtuous life, to create a just society and to defend Islam and the Muslim community. But historically, Muslim rulers, backed by religious scholars, used the term to legitimize holy wars to expand their empires. Contemporary extremists -- most notably Osama bin Laden -- also appeal to Islam to bless their attacks. My book Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam, tackles this theme, as does Fawaz Gerges' Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy.
The Gallup World Poll's helpful section on the Muslim world (www.muslimwestfacts.com) sheds some light on the views and aspirations of more than one billion Muslims. My years studying those attitudes suggest that Muslim hostility toward the West is mostly political, not religious, and that Muslims hope the West will show their faith more respect. In our post-9/11 world, the ability to distinguish between Islam itself and Muslim extremism will be critical. Only thus will we be able to avoid pushing away mainstream Muslims around the world, marginalizing Muslim citizens at home and alienating the allies we need to help us fight global terrorism.
John L. Esposito is a professor of religion and international affairs at Georgetown University and the author of "What Everyone Needs to Know about Islam." Author e-mail: jlejpe@gmail.com
-- Washington Post
A week with Islam
Sunday: Where Bush went wrong
Tuesday: As American as my neighbour
Today: Islam for Dummies
Thursday: Thoughts from a former firebomber
Friday: Don't call me oppressed
Missed one? Read what's been published so far online at Winnipegfreepress.com. Click on Opinions and then Commentary. Stories are listed by date.
© 2007 Winnipeg Free Press. All Rights Reserved.
_uacct = "UA-140612-2";
urchinTracker();
Islam for dummies Thumbnail sketch of the religion
Wed Aug 8 2007
By John L. Esposito
WASHINGTON -- Nearly half of Americans have a generally unfavourable view of Islam, according to a 2006 Washington Post-ABC News poll, a number that has risen since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. That climate makes it easy to lose sight of the fact that the majority of mainstream Muslims hate terrorism and violence as much as we do -- and makes it hard for non-Muslims to know where to begin to try to understand a great world faith.
Like Judaism and Christianity, Islam originated in the Middle East. As F.E. Peters shows in The Children of Abraham, the commonalities can be striking. Muslims worship the God of Abraham, as do Christians and Jews. Islam was seen as a continuation of the Abrahamic faith tradition, not a totally new religion. Muslims recognize the biblical prophets and believe in the holiness of God's revelations to Moses (in the Torah) and Jesus (in the Gospels). Indeed, Musa (Moses), Issa (Jesus) and Mariam (Mary) are common Muslim names.
Muslims believe in Islam's five pillars, which are straightforward and simple. To become a Muslim, one need only offer the faith's basic credo, "There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the prophet of God." This statement reflects the two main fundamentals of Islamic faith: belief in the one true God, which carries with it a refusal to worship anything else (not money, not career, not ego), and the crucial importance of Muhammad, God's messenger.
Muhammad is the central role model for Muslims -- much like Jesus is for Christians, except solely human. He is seen as the ideal husband, father and friend, the ultimate political leader, general, diplomat and judge. Understanding Muhammad's special place in Muslim hearts helps us appreciate the widespread anger of many mainstream Muslims -- not just extremists -- with the denigration of a Muhammad-like figure in Salman Rushdie's 1988 novel The Satanic Verses, the controversial 2005 Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad in unflattering lights or Pope Benedict XVI's 2006 speech quoting a long-dead Byzantine emperor who accused the prophet of bringing "only evil and inhuman" things into the world. Karen Armstrong's Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time and Tariq Ramadan's In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad provide fresh, perceptive views on his modern-day relevance.
The three next pillars of Islam are prayer, which is to be performed five times daily; giving alms, in the form of an annual wealth tax that helps support the poor; and fasting during daylight in the holy month of Ramadan. The fifth pillar requires that Muslims perform the pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca at least once.
We tend to equate Islam with the Arab world, but the largest Muslim communities are found in Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and Nigeria. Only about one in five of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims are Arabs. Islam is the second-largest religion in Europe and the third-largest in the United States.
The treatment of women under Islam is also wildly diverse. In countries such as Saudi Arabia, women must be fully covered in public, cannot drive cars and struggle for the right to vote. But elsewhere, Muslim women freely enter politics, drive motorcycles and wear everything from saris to pantsuits. Women can get university educations and pursue professional careers in Egypt, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia; they have been heads of state in Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia.
Anyone who has followed the news from Iraq has heard a lot about Sunnis and Shiites, the faith's two major branches. About 85 per cent of the world's Muslims are Sunni, with about 15 per cent Shiite. The division stems from a bitter dispute after Muhammad's death over who should take over the leadership of the newly founded Muslim community. Sunnis believed that the most qualified person should succeed the prophet, but a minority thought that his descendants should carry his mantle. That minority was known as the followers or partisans (Shiites) of Ali; they believed that Muhammad had designated Ali, his cousin and son-in-law, as his heir. Historically, Shiites have viewed themselves as oppressed and disenfranchised under Sunni rule -- a longstanding grievance that has flared up again in recent years in such countries as Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Pakistan. Vali Nasr's The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future does a fine job of distinguishing between theology and politics in today's Sunni-Shiite rivalries.
Muslims also argue over what some refer to as Islam's sixth pillar, jihad. In the Koran, Islam's sacred text, jihad means "to strive or struggle" to realize God's will, to lead a virtuous life, to create a just society and to defend Islam and the Muslim community. But historically, Muslim rulers, backed by religious scholars, used the term to legitimize holy wars to expand their empires. Contemporary extremists -- most notably Osama bin Laden -- also appeal to Islam to bless their attacks. My book Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam, tackles this theme, as does Fawaz Gerges' Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy.
The Gallup World Poll's helpful section on the Muslim world (www.muslimwestfacts.com) sheds some light on the views and aspirations of more than one billion Muslims. My years studying those attitudes suggest that Muslim hostility toward the West is mostly political, not religious, and that Muslims hope the West will show their faith more respect. In our post-9/11 world, the ability to distinguish between Islam itself and Muslim extremism will be critical. Only thus will we be able to avoid pushing away mainstream Muslims around the world, marginalizing Muslim citizens at home and alienating the allies we need to help us fight global terrorism.
John L. Esposito is a professor of religion and international affairs at Georgetown University and the author of "What Everyone Needs to Know about Islam." Author e-mail: jlejpe@gmail.com
-- Washington Post
A week with Islam
Sunday: Where Bush went wrong
Tuesday: As American as my neighbour
Today: Islam for Dummies
Thursday: Thoughts from a former firebomber
Friday: Don't call me oppressed
Missed one? Read what's been published so far online at Winnipegfreepress.com. Click on Opinions and then Commentary. Stories are listed by date.
© 2007 Winnipeg Free Press. All Rights Reserved.
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Don't call me oppressed
Friday, August 10th, 2007
Don't call me oppressed
Fri Aug 10 2007
By Leila Aboulela
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates -- The West believes that Islam oppresses women. But as a Muslim, descended from generations of Muslims, I have a different story to tell. It starts like this: You say, "The sea is salty." I say, "But it is blue and full of fish." I am not objective about Islam, and although I am considerably Westernized, I can never truly see it through Western eyes. I am in this religion. It is in me. And articulating the intimacy of faith and the experience of worship to a Western audience is a challenge and a discovery.
* * *
My mother instilled a spiritual awareness in me from an early age. My grandmother told me stories from the Koran, and I grew up listening to adults discussing Islamic law. I don't remember when I learned that Allah existed just as I don't remember when I learned my name.
My earliest contact with the West came when I was seven and my parents enrolled my younger brother and me in the Khartoum American School in Sudan. For the first time in my life I entered a library, selected a book and took it home with me. It was the books I discovered then that made me fall in love with reading: Little House on the Prairie, A Wrinkle in Time, Harriet the Spy and Little Women.
I read them again and again, and even though I knew that the characters were not Muslim, I found Muslim values in those novels. I found spiritual journeys, and familiar depictions of the rigour and patience needed to discipline the ego.
I appreciate the West. I love its literature, its transparency and its energy. I admire its work ethic and its fairness. I need its technology and its medicine, and I want my children to have a Western education. At the same time, I am fulfilled in my religion. Nothing can compete with the elegance, authority and details of the Koran.
My personal life may be similar to that of a Western woman in the 1950s. I lived with my parents until I married. As was true for my cousins and friends, my wedding was the defining moment of my life and one of the happiest. It felt like the beginning of a story, the start of an adventure. The social life of young Muslim girls (and this is true for Arab Christian girls as well) is not unlike that of the March sisters in Little Women. The courtship rituals of modern-day Muslims can be found in a Jane Austen novel. I can't help seeing this as romantic and refreshing, innocence surviving today's tumultuous, often difficult reality.
I am not oppressed simply because I have, thank God, been spared the causes of oppression: poverty, war, destitution, abuse, illness and ignorance. I grew up in the Sudan of the 1970s, a time before civil war and economic collapse. My mother was a university professor, and my businessman father took us to Europe and spoke to me about Shakespeare. These things make a difference. I think it is ridiculous that women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, deeply shameful that young girls are still circumcised in Sudan and criminal that women in any part of the Muslim world can be denied health care or education. Change and progress, though, are happening, slowly but steadily, as Muslim societies acknowledge that their unjust traditions are rooted in a culture that can evolve, rather than in timeless religious values.
Neither Muslims nor Muslim societies are static; they move forward -- but they have their own trajectory. They cannot be replicas of the West. In 1985, when I graduated from the University of Khartoum, I was the only female student in my statistics honours class. When I visited the university a few months ago, the first thing that caught my eye was the sheer number of young women on campus -- nearly 40 per cent, compared with 20 per cent in my day.
Things have been improving in our personal lives, too. Polygamy is mostly out of fashion. Divorce, which has always been allowed by the sharia, has become easier and more socially acceptable. It is still the norm for single women to live with their families, but seeking work or education in another city is now a legitimate reason for leaving home. In recent years, divorced and widowed women have started to defy society by living alone. Although patriarchal pressure on the young is still strong, women older than 50 have considerably more clout and leeway to live as they please.
One of the results of greater education for Muslim women is that they now refuse to turn a blind eye and instead insist that prohibitions that apply to them must apply to their brothers and husbands as well. Among young educated Muslims, it is now rare to find the kind of marriage described by Naguib Mahfouz in the classic novel "Palace Walk," in which the husband is a pleasure-seeking philanderer roaming through Cairo's night life while his submissive wife is locked up at home.
But despite all this, the West will still consider an affluent, empowered, happy professional Muslim woman oppressed if she dons a veil. The West's distaste for the hijab is no surprise; Muslim liberals and progressives have also opposed the veil for centuries. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, banned it. In 1923, Hoda Shaarawi, the mother of the Egyptian feminist movement, removed her veil in Cairo's Central Station in a defining moment in Muslim women's history.
Yet over the years, Muslim women have gone back to wearing the veil or have remained loyal to their national dress, which usually includes some kind of head cover. Twenty years ago, when I was recently married and a graduate student at the London School of Economics, I, too, started to wear the hijab. I took this step with no pressure from my parents or my husband. It came after years of hesitation, years during which I held back out of fear that I would look ugly in a head scarf and that my progressive friends would make fun of me.
But I had so often gazed with longing at the girls at university who covered their hair, and I wanted to be like them. To me they seemed romantic, feminine, wrapped in some kind of mystique. I liked the look, but it was more than that. I was persuaded by the religious argument for the veil, which stresses modesty. I wanted to take a step in the right direction.
Recently, Muslim progressives have softened their stance against the veil. In some countries, the hijab's widespread popularity has made it almost the norm, rather than a gesture of defiance by a minority. Also, the veil has turned out to be a red herring; it has not stalled Muslim women's advancement, as was feared.
I hope that in time the West will come to look at the veil in a different light. It encourages me when a Western woman comments on my head scarf. When one says "That is a lovely colour" or asks "Is that batik?" I feel that she has reached out to me. She has seen that beyond the symbol is an item of clothing not unlike the veils that Western women once wore to church, or the bonnets Laura sported on the prairie. That mark of perceived female submissiveness is also an accessory that can be purchased in any department store in the West; it comes in gorgeous silks and beautiful hues.
So I say, the sea is salty, but it is also blue and full of fish.
Leila Aboulela is the author of two novels, The Translator and Minaret. Author e-mail: laboulela@hotmail.com
--Washington Post
A week with Islam
Sunday: Where Bush went wrong
Tuesday: As American as my neighbour
Wednesday: Islam for dummies
Thursday: Thoughts from a former firebomber
Today: Don't call me oppressed
Missed one? Read what's been published so far online at Winnipegfreepress.com. Click on Opinions and then Commentary. Stories are listed by date. Or go to wfpfaith.com and click on Islam: What the West doesn't get, in the index to the left
© 2007 Winnipeg Free Press. All Rights Reserved.
_uacct = "UA-140612-2";
urchinTracker();
Don't call me oppressed
Fri Aug 10 2007
By Leila Aboulela
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates -- The West believes that Islam oppresses women. But as a Muslim, descended from generations of Muslims, I have a different story to tell. It starts like this: You say, "The sea is salty." I say, "But it is blue and full of fish." I am not objective about Islam, and although I am considerably Westernized, I can never truly see it through Western eyes. I am in this religion. It is in me. And articulating the intimacy of faith and the experience of worship to a Western audience is a challenge and a discovery.
* * *
My mother instilled a spiritual awareness in me from an early age. My grandmother told me stories from the Koran, and I grew up listening to adults discussing Islamic law. I don't remember when I learned that Allah existed just as I don't remember when I learned my name.
My earliest contact with the West came when I was seven and my parents enrolled my younger brother and me in the Khartoum American School in Sudan. For the first time in my life I entered a library, selected a book and took it home with me. It was the books I discovered then that made me fall in love with reading: Little House on the Prairie, A Wrinkle in Time, Harriet the Spy and Little Women.
I read them again and again, and even though I knew that the characters were not Muslim, I found Muslim values in those novels. I found spiritual journeys, and familiar depictions of the rigour and patience needed to discipline the ego.
I appreciate the West. I love its literature, its transparency and its energy. I admire its work ethic and its fairness. I need its technology and its medicine, and I want my children to have a Western education. At the same time, I am fulfilled in my religion. Nothing can compete with the elegance, authority and details of the Koran.
My personal life may be similar to that of a Western woman in the 1950s. I lived with my parents until I married. As was true for my cousins and friends, my wedding was the defining moment of my life and one of the happiest. It felt like the beginning of a story, the start of an adventure. The social life of young Muslim girls (and this is true for Arab Christian girls as well) is not unlike that of the March sisters in Little Women. The courtship rituals of modern-day Muslims can be found in a Jane Austen novel. I can't help seeing this as romantic and refreshing, innocence surviving today's tumultuous, often difficult reality.
I am not oppressed simply because I have, thank God, been spared the causes of oppression: poverty, war, destitution, abuse, illness and ignorance. I grew up in the Sudan of the 1970s, a time before civil war and economic collapse. My mother was a university professor, and my businessman father took us to Europe and spoke to me about Shakespeare. These things make a difference. I think it is ridiculous that women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, deeply shameful that young girls are still circumcised in Sudan and criminal that women in any part of the Muslim world can be denied health care or education. Change and progress, though, are happening, slowly but steadily, as Muslim societies acknowledge that their unjust traditions are rooted in a culture that can evolve, rather than in timeless religious values.
Neither Muslims nor Muslim societies are static; they move forward -- but they have their own trajectory. They cannot be replicas of the West. In 1985, when I graduated from the University of Khartoum, I was the only female student in my statistics honours class. When I visited the university a few months ago, the first thing that caught my eye was the sheer number of young women on campus -- nearly 40 per cent, compared with 20 per cent in my day.
Things have been improving in our personal lives, too. Polygamy is mostly out of fashion. Divorce, which has always been allowed by the sharia, has become easier and more socially acceptable. It is still the norm for single women to live with their families, but seeking work or education in another city is now a legitimate reason for leaving home. In recent years, divorced and widowed women have started to defy society by living alone. Although patriarchal pressure on the young is still strong, women older than 50 have considerably more clout and leeway to live as they please.
One of the results of greater education for Muslim women is that they now refuse to turn a blind eye and instead insist that prohibitions that apply to them must apply to their brothers and husbands as well. Among young educated Muslims, it is now rare to find the kind of marriage described by Naguib Mahfouz in the classic novel "Palace Walk," in which the husband is a pleasure-seeking philanderer roaming through Cairo's night life while his submissive wife is locked up at home.
But despite all this, the West will still consider an affluent, empowered, happy professional Muslim woman oppressed if she dons a veil. The West's distaste for the hijab is no surprise; Muslim liberals and progressives have also opposed the veil for centuries. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, banned it. In 1923, Hoda Shaarawi, the mother of the Egyptian feminist movement, removed her veil in Cairo's Central Station in a defining moment in Muslim women's history.
Yet over the years, Muslim women have gone back to wearing the veil or have remained loyal to their national dress, which usually includes some kind of head cover. Twenty years ago, when I was recently married and a graduate student at the London School of Economics, I, too, started to wear the hijab. I took this step with no pressure from my parents or my husband. It came after years of hesitation, years during which I held back out of fear that I would look ugly in a head scarf and that my progressive friends would make fun of me.
But I had so often gazed with longing at the girls at university who covered their hair, and I wanted to be like them. To me they seemed romantic, feminine, wrapped in some kind of mystique. I liked the look, but it was more than that. I was persuaded by the religious argument for the veil, which stresses modesty. I wanted to take a step in the right direction.
Recently, Muslim progressives have softened their stance against the veil. In some countries, the hijab's widespread popularity has made it almost the norm, rather than a gesture of defiance by a minority. Also, the veil has turned out to be a red herring; it has not stalled Muslim women's advancement, as was feared.
I hope that in time the West will come to look at the veil in a different light. It encourages me when a Western woman comments on my head scarf. When one says "That is a lovely colour" or asks "Is that batik?" I feel that she has reached out to me. She has seen that beyond the symbol is an item of clothing not unlike the veils that Western women once wore to church, or the bonnets Laura sported on the prairie. That mark of perceived female submissiveness is also an accessory that can be purchased in any department store in the West; it comes in gorgeous silks and beautiful hues.
So I say, the sea is salty, but it is also blue and full of fish.
Leila Aboulela is the author of two novels, The Translator and Minaret. Author e-mail: laboulela@hotmail.com
--Washington Post
A week with Islam
Sunday: Where Bush went wrong
Tuesday: As American as my neighbour
Wednesday: Islam for dummies
Thursday: Thoughts from a former firebomber
Today: Don't call me oppressed
Missed one? Read what's been published so far online at Winnipegfreepress.com. Click on Opinions and then Commentary. Stories are listed by date. Or go to wfpfaith.com and click on Islam: What the West doesn't get, in the index to the left
© 2007 Winnipeg Free Press. All Rights Reserved.
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urchinTracker();
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