The `Useful Idiots` of Militant Islam

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talism - on Sunday, April 20, 2008 - By: Ibrahim, Youssef

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Somewhere during Lawrence of Arabia?s blockbuster career, his bosses wondered if he was becoming ?more Arab? in the desert to which they sent him to lead a revolt against the Ottoman Empire. In an endearing cue to imperial haughtiness, Field Marshal Lord Allenby asks if his man had ?gone native.?

Indeed the spymaster and legendary British officer became quickly enmeshed in the tangled web he weaved back at the turn of the last century.

Likewise, when communism dawned in the 1920s, Vladimir Lenin ordered a strategy of nurturing ?useful idiots? ? by which he meant a contingent of communist Lawrences in the West. It worked, spawning hundreds of thousands of enamored scholars, intellectuals, experts, and dreamy romantics waving the red flags of Bolsheviks over the 70 years of the Cold War.

Today?s Islamist Lawrences are being cultivated among a broad swath of political analysts, scholars, anthropologists, pundits, missionaries, and even spies dissecting militant Islam and Islamofascism. While most carry out illuminating and necessary work, the fish they bait ends up ensnaring many.

A few recent catches: the archbishop of Canterbury urging the introduction of Sharia law in Britain; Harvard University, a bastion of secular scholarship, shutting its gym to men to accommodate Muslim women; authorities at Minneapolis?s international airport negotiating for months with 700 Somali Muslim taxi drivers who refused to pick up passengers carrying liquor or depending on guide dogs.

Then there was President George Bush launching his Muslim initiative last June from the Islamic Center of Washington, a Saudi institution distributing educational material instructing Muslims to segregate themselves from other Americans.

Among other things, the Saudi-funded publications admonish Muslims in America ?to dissociate from infidels, hate them for their religion, never to rely on them for support, and always oppose them in every way according to Islamic law.? The question: how was it that among the estimated five million Muslim Americans with hugely varied institutions, the president?s advisors picked a Saudi Islamofascist ghetto as a venue?

This cluelessness is spreading into the academy and the arts too.

Witness the Guggenheim Museum of New York and the Louvre of Paris, along with Carnegie Mellon, Texas A&M, and multiple U.S. institutions, rushing to open branches in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, where laws institutionalize bigotry against women, Sharia bans images, and the government condones grievous violations of human rights for millions of expatriates of other religions.

Imagine the contortions of folks at Yale, Stanford, or Oxford when they have to explain founding campuses in Riyadh where women are not allowed or can participate only via closed circuit TV.

Useful idiocy reaches a higher plane among Western pundits who propagate the Saudi view of reverse progress, namely that Islamic societies have ?particular requirements? and are evolving as ?different models,? of which we should not be ??judgmental.?

Fundamentalist creep is engulfing bastions of respectability in Western media too. At the start of Turkey?s slide away from secularism last May, the Wall Street Journal glossed over Prime Minister Erdogan?s aggressive Islamization, criticizing his secular opponents instead. The Economist argued his policy is tolerable, ?even if it means enduring a bad, ineffective, corrupt, or mildly Islamist government.?

Last April a major New York Times Magazine article by James Traub argued fervently on behalf of ?Islamic democrats? singing the praises of a reborn Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. This was followed by a major essay in Foreign Affairs, a weighty establishment publication, by Robert Leiken and Steven Brooke titled ?The Moderate Muslim Brotherhood.? The piece declared the fundamentalist group acceptable, among other things, as some of its leaders were interviewed in English, appeared reasonable, listened to classical music, and knew of Shakespeare. The article was so lacking in inquisitiveness it merited being posted on the Muslim Brotherhood website ? ikhwanonline.com ? as part of their propaganda.

The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century, a recent book  authored by respected Mideast analyst of the New Yorker Steve Coll, presents the human side of Osama bin Laden, who adopted modern technology in his terror and whose wealthy contracting father employed Christians and other infidels in his business.

We should come back to reality.

Mild Islamism is an oxymoron. Sharia law, which sanctions beating of wives and stoning for adultery, is irreconcilable with human rights. The Muslim Brotherhood founded Hamas, calls suicide bombings a good thing, and is the 21st-century version of the organized fascism of Hitler and Mussolini in the last century.

Israel News : The `Useful Idiots` of Militant Islam

People Of The Cloth?

By:  Rabbi Naphtali Hoff

Date Posted: April 2, 2008

A few years ago, I found myself in a very uncomfortable situation. One of the students at the suburban Chicago congregational school of which I was principal had clearly prioritized his love for organized sports over his need for a Jewish education.

Traveling baseball, flag football, ice hockey, you name it, he was there. Hebrew school, however, was a different story altogether.

As part of my administrative duties it had become necessary to inform this young man’s parents that their oft-truant son would not graduate from our program and, even worse, not be allowed to celebrate his bar mitzvah in our congregation if he did not significantly increase his attendance at school.

The father was incredulous. We were going to mandate Hebrew school attendance? The conversation quickly escalated from uncomfortable to antagonistic, as the father cajoled, yelled, and eventually demanded that we work out some form of alternative tutorial arrangement in lieu of regular classroom attendance.

I held my ground. Finally, out of sheer desperation, the father uttered something that really threw me for a loop.

“You know, rabbi, you people of the cloth can be so inflexible!”

I can only speculate as to what the father really meant with that statement. Needless to say, I was struck by his lumping together an Orthodox rabbi dressed in contemporary attire, and, say, certain Christian clergymen who adorn themselves in ecclesiastical robes and related apparel.

The Torah (Leviticus 18:3) makes clear the need for Jews to distinguish themselves in appearance as well as in action from the nations of the world in order to guard against assimilation:

After the doings of the land of Egypt, where you dwelt, you shall not do; and after the doings of the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you, you shall not do; nor shall you walk in their ordinances.

Rambam (Mishnah Torah, Hilchos Akum, 11:5) explains that a Jew “should be distinguished in [his] dress and actions just as he is distinct in his knowledge and understanding.” Already during the exile in Egypt we find that Jews took special pains to maintain a distinctive outside appearance, which helped them preserve their unique identity despite residing amongst the world’s most acculturated nation for more than two centuries.

“In the merit that they did not change their names, clothes, and language they were redeemed [from Egypt]” – Yalkut Shimoni.

Centuries later, during the first Temple period, prophets continuously admonished Jews who had failed to adhere to this precept. Consider this warning from the prophet Zephaniah (1:8): “And it shall come to pass in the day that God will slaughter, that I will punish the princes, and the king’s sons, and all such as are clothed with foreign apparel.”

As well as this admonition from the prophet Yirmiyahu (4:3): “What do you gain, that you clothe yourself with scarlet, that you adorn yourself with ornaments of gold, that you enlarge your eyes with paint? In vain do you make yourself fair.”

(This is not to say that Jews are required to wear distinctive, uniquely Jewish apparel in contemporary society. Rav Moshe Feinstein [Igros Moshe, Yorah Deah, 1:84] rules that there is no prohibition to dress in the modern fashion since it does not specifically identify the wearer as gentile or Jew. Nor is it rooted in idolatrous gentile mores. The primary issue with contemporary style is whether it compromises our ever-present need for modesty and humility.)

Our sages also looked to preserve national uniqueness by imposing restrictions on Jewish consumption of foods cooked or baked by gentiles, as well as gentile wine. They understood that even casual fraternization – typically accompanied by food and drink – can lead to deeper relationships and even intermarriage.

Historically, God has taken an active role where necessary to ensure that His chosen people not lose their distinctive identity. Often, He has even recruited gentiles to force us into a position of separateness, by imposing the threat of annihilation or restrictive legislation.

If the Jewish people do not repent from their own volition, the Holy One, blessed be He, will cause to rise against them a wicked king whose decrees will be as cruel as that of Haman. He will subjugate them, and consequently they will repent. (Midrash Tanchuma, Bechukosai 3)

Consider God’s response to the Jews of Shushan, who had engaged in excessive intermingling at Achashveirosh’s feast.

Eighteen thousand and five hundred went to the banquet and ate and drank and became drunk and conducted themselves inappropriately. Immediately, Satan rose up and accused them before the Holy One, blessed be He, saying, “Master of the Universe, how long will You cleave to this nation who turn their heart and their faith from You? If it pleases You, destroy this nation from the world, because they do not repent before You.”…God did indeed consent to wipe out Israel. (Esther Rabbah, 7:13)

The Talmud asks (Megillah 12a), Why were the Jews in that generation deserving of extermination? The answer: Because they partook of the feast of Achashveirosh.

Such a development would repeat itself routinely throughout subsequent centuries.

Beginning in the 4^th century CE, the Church took a series of steps to ensure meaningful separation between Christians and Jews. At the Council of Elvira in 306 CE, Church leaders decreed that intermarriage and social intercourse with Jews were forbidden. Eating together was also outlawed.

A few decades later, in 325 CE, at the Council of Nicea, the papacy took additional steps to diminish Christian-Jewish relations by reducing Christian dependency on the Jews and their calendar. They did so by marking the date for Easter in a way so that it would not correspond with Passover, as it had previously for many Christians.

The feast of the resurrection was thenceforth required to be celebrated everywhere on a Sunday, and never on the day of the Jewish Passover, but always after the fourteenth of Nissan, on the Sunday after the first vernal full moon. (Phillip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Volume III: Nicene and Post-Nicene.)

The basis for this change – Jews as perpetrators of deicide (murder of their lord) – was made clear by the Roman emperor Constantine:

It was, in the first place, declared improper to follow the custom of the Jews in the celebration of this holy festival, because, their hands having been stained with crime, the minds of these wretched men are necessarily blinded…. Let us, then, have nothing in common with the Jews, who are our adversaries…. Therefore, this irregularity must be corrected, in order that we may no more have any thing in common with those parricides and the murderers of our Lord…no single point in common with the perjury of the Jews. (From “The Epistle of the Emperor Constantine,” quoted by the 5^th century bishop and author Theodoret.)

Conversation and fellowship between Christian clergy and Jews were also forbidden at that time.

Later, in 364 CE, the Church Council of Laodicea furthered efforts at separation by ordering that religious observances were to be conducted on Sunday, not Saturday, with Sunday becoming the new Sabbath.

These distinctive practices remained in place for many centuries, only to be reinforced and expanded during the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 CE. In an attempt to again protect against intermarriage between Christians and non-believing “infidels,” the council took steps to ensure that Christians, Jews, and Saracens (Muslims) remained outwardly distinguishable. To that end, it called for those of other religious denominations to dress in a manner that was noticeably different from that of Christians.

In some provinces a difference in dress distinguishes the Jews or Saracens from the Christians, but in certain others such confusion has grown up that they cannot be distinguished by any difference. Thus it happens at times that through error Christians have relations with the women of Jews or Saracens, and Jews and Saracens with Christian women. Therefore … we decree that such Jews and Saracens of both sexes in every Christian province and at all times shall be marked off in the eyes of the public from other peoples through the character of their dress.(Canon 68)

Muslims were also anxious to preserve meaningful distinction between themselves and the dhimmis (protected people of a secondary status, i.e., Jews and Christians) who lived among them. In the Pact of Omar I (c. 637 CE), the Muslims set down a series of legal restrictions and obligations for the dhimmis, including payment of a special head tax, restriction from holding government office, inability to repair places of worship or erect new religious structures, as well as to not imitate Muslim dress, make use of their expressions of speech, or adopt their surnames.

Recent history has told a similar story, with the advent of Reform Judaism ushering in a new challenge to Jewish distinctiveness. Beginning in the early 19^th century, Reform leaders introduced Western (i.e., Christian) standards of aesthetics and decorum in an attempt to modernize the Jewish religious service.

In Germany, they abbreviated the prayer liturgy, retaining only what they deemed to be the relevant components. Omitted, among other things, were the traditional prayers for a return to Zion and the rebuilding of the Temple. They further supplemented the standard Hebrew liturgy with prayers in the German vernacular. In addition, they introduced the Christian concept of the sermon. Choral singing with organ accompaniment, trademarks of Church service, were added as well.

Further, many Reform rabbinic leaders began to shun the traditional rabbinic garb for attire commonly associated with members of the Christian clergy. The Berlin Reformgemeinde went even further, introducing an all-vernacular service, bareheaded worship, and the observance of the Jewish Sabbath on Sunday.

The motivation for all this was a burning desire to leave behind the “outdated” and isolated world of traditional Judaism and move forward with mainstream German society into the progressive 19^th century.

Ever since the beginning of our present [19^th] century, they had come to view our ancestral faith as old fashioned…. Old style Judaism was always in the way, so oddly out of place at the fraternities and assemblies, at balls and dinner parties, at concerts and salons…. Is it any wonder, then, that this “ancient, inhibiting” religion should have been shaken off without hesitation in the rush to join in the “progress”? (Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, Collected Writings Vol. VI, Feldheim, 1992.)

In America, Reform Judaism also advocated wholesale transformation of traditional Jewish worship. Changes included following each Hebrew prayer in the service with an English translation, adding new prayers that reflected contemporary American society, instituting a weekly English sermon, and shortening the services.

Other, later changes included abandoning the second day of festival observances, family seating rather than the separation of men and women, and the use of the organ and mixed choirs. In 1874, Dr. Kaufmann Kohler, then spiritual leader of the Chicago Sinai Congregation, introduced weekly worship services on Sundays rather than on the Sabbath.

Such reforms were not limited to houses of worship. Reform leaders of the time also spoke out against the ultimate protectors of Jewish exclusivity, marriage within the faith and circumcision.

In the words of Dr. Kohler, “We must discard the idea as altogether foreign to us, that marriage with a gentile is not legal.”

He also declared, at the seminal convention of Reform rabbis held in Pittsburgh in 1885 that ultimately produced Reform’s famous Pittsburgh Platform, “I do not for a moment hesitate to say it right here and in the face of the entire Jewish world that…circumcision is a barbarous cruelty which disfigures and disgraces our ancestral heirloom and our holy mission as priests among mankind.”

The reformers did not stop there, but also took aim at uniquely Jewish diet, purity, and dress.

As in the past, God did not allow this trend to continue completely unchecked. In Germany, the Nazis passed the Nuremburg Laws (1935), which set out to redraw the line between German and Jew. These laws stripped Jews of German citizenship, forbade intermarriage, barred Jews from most professions, and ordered that the letter “J” be printed on their identity cards. In time, Jews would be forced to wear distinctive badges identifying them as Jews. Ultimately, most were murdered, going to their deaths as despised Jews, not as proud, assimilated Germans.

Thankfully, American Jewry has not been subjected to such a forceful reminder of its true identity and purpose. There is no question, however, that much of the basis for the alarmingly high rate of Jewish intermarriage and assimilation that plagues American Jewry stems from a lack of Jewish pride and a weakened appreciation for what being Jewish is all about.

Some may suggest the problem exists only within the realm of the non-observant. I don’t believe this to be the case. Certainly, the degree of outward distinctiveness as well as internal spiritual connectivity is significantly higher within the Orthodox camp. But we all struggle with this issue of Jewish exclusivity in the open, inviting society in which we find ourselves. And while many aspects of American culture are not in conflict with our Jewish values, there can be no doubt that many others are.

It is imperative that we approach the surrounding culture with a critical eye. We must be prepared to ask ourselves if the ideas and trends espoused by the general society in such basic areas as fashion, entertainment, education, and social values really conform to the Torah’s exacting standards.

Our history clearly shows that if we do not take the necessary steps to maintain a distinctive identity on our own, the reminder may, God forbid, come from a different, less compassionate source. Let us hope we will not need such cruel, outside forces to remind us of our true mission as God’s holy nation.

Rabbi Naphtali Hoff, M.Ed., is an instructor of Jewish history at Hebrew Theological College (Skokie, Illinois) and serves as associate principal at Yeshiva Shearis Yisroel in Chicago. More information about Rabbi Hoff can be found on his website, www.rabbihoff.com.

People Of The Cloth?

Double Standards and Dialogue

Talk of ‘Muslim society’ – as if it were one unified ethnic or national body – is out of touch with reality and I just wanted to show the diversity that has existed at the geographical level since ancient times. Persians, Turks and Arabs are not a homogenous group that is held together by religion, says Georges Corm.

BONN, Germany - Georges Corm is convinced that as long as the West pursues double moral standards and applies international law unequally, its attempts to establish dialogue with the Muslim world cannot be taken seriously. Mona Sarkis, a freelance journalist, spoke to the social scientist and former Lebanese Finance Minister:

Mr. Corm, in your most recent book, Histoire du Moyen Orient (History of the Middle East) you devote a lot of attention to what you refer to as the geographic “arabesque” that historically characterises the Middle East, by which you mean the present Arab territories, the Mashriq, Turkey, and Iran. Why devote so much space to this concept?

Georges Corm: Because talk of “Muslim society” – as if it were one unified ethnic or national body – is out of touch with reality and I just wanted to show the diversity that has existed at the geographical level since ancient times. Persians, Turks and Arabs are not a homogenous group that is held together by religion. It is absurd to view Moroccan and Iranian society as one and the same. This presupposes that Islam is a living, unified being that exists in a precisely defined territory.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, authors like Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington have done their best to make the world believe in the existence of mega identity blocks such as “Islam” and “the West” – and unfortunately their efforts have been quite successful – but that is precisely the reason why reality must be quoted again and again.

In fact, Islam is – as scholars of the calibre of Michael Hodgson, Jacques Berque, Maxime Rodinson, or Ernest Gellner have demonstrated – only one aspect of the development of what is referred to as “Muslim societies”. The fact that numerous potentates exploit it in order to preserve their power is not the fault of the religion.

Among these potentates I not only count dictators or emblematic Muslim fundamentalist leaders, but also the successive governments of the United States. In the final stages of the Cold War, a young generation of radical Arab Marxists made the United States worry that the resource-rich region might fall under Soviet control. To prevent this, they encouraged the political Islamic activists, thereby setting in motion a dynamic development that can no longer be stopped.

Yet you disagree with the concept of “re-Islamicisation”…

Corm: Because it underpins the notion that Islam is a monolithic block. Until the 1960s, Iraq, Egypt and Syria all promoted secular nationalism, but they failed altogether with the collapse of pan-Arabism. Pan-Arabism was then replaced by varieties of pan-Islamism that were not uniform, but were shaped by either Shi’ism or Sunnism. The difference between the two was responsible for the devastating eight-year war between Iraq and Iran in the 1980s.

This in itself reveals the limitations of Huntington’s concept of a “civilisation” as a coherent political and military unit. Nevertheless, the West continues to address the “Muslim region” with this concept. The United States, for example, classifies Iraq, Iran, Syria, and North Korea as the “axis of evil” despite the radical differences between these very different countries, political regimes, and cultures.

Georges Corm is former Lebanese Finance Minister and the author of Histoire du Moyen Orient (History of the Middle East). This interview was conducted by Mona Sarkis, a freelance writer based in Berlin. This abridged article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service and can be accessed at GCNews. It originally appeared in www.qantara.de.

Middle East Online

Just what do they dislike, and why?

Apr 17th 2008
From The Economist print edition

Debates on Muslim grievance are generating more heat than light

Technorati Tags: Muslim polls,gallup

THE question of what exactly inspires ultra-militant Muslims to hate America has been a contentious one, to put it mildly, ever since George Bush gave his own sonorous explanation, in an address to Congress after the 2001 terrorist attacks. What enraged America’s foes, Mr Bush said, was its tradition of liberty: its freedom of religion, assembly, election and open disagreement.

Mr Bush was careful, in that speech, to insist that “they” referred to terrorists, not to all Muslims. Of Islam, he said: “Its teachings are good and peaceful…” But since then, American debates about Islam have blurred the distinction that he made. It has become much more respectable to assert that the Muslim faith turns people violent.

There are political as well as theological reasons why Western debates on the nature of Islam are so charged. If it can be shown that Islam itself is anti-freedom and pro-violence, then it makes less sense to take Muslim opinion into account when deciding policy. If you can prove that “they hate us whatever we do”, all efforts to assuage Islamic sentiment are futile. But the opposite case can also be made.

It is into this minefield that Gallup, a polling organisation based in Washington, DC, has entered by making the analysis of Muslim opinion a flagship activity. Its latest offering, presented in London earlier this month, is a slim volume entitled “Who Speaks For Islam?” written by John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed, respectively a senior adviser to and executive director of the Gallup Centre for Muslim Studies. Gallup has described the study as an exercise in “data-driven” analysis of a topic where prejudice can easily prevail.

The authors rehearse several arguments that make sense to anybody who knows the Muslim world. Rather than despising Western freedom, many Muslims admire it, but they scoff at Western claims to be promoting democracy. Muslim women want greater equality, but they are attached to their faith and culture, and hackles can rise when Westerners set out to “liberate” them. The minority of Muslims (7%) who fully approve the September 2001 attacks are not much more pious than average; so religiosity doesn’t seem to be what makes them violent. In one survey, over two-thirds of Muslim respondents called America aggressive, while the proportion who took a similar view of France or Germany was under 10%. So democracy as such isn’t a Muslim bugbear.

One problem with Gallup’s “fact-based” approach is that it has not, as yet, offered the public the full array of facts to chew over. Its Centre for Muslim Studies regularly issues press releases that cast tantalising rays of light on Islamic opinion. These insights are gleaned from the annual Gallup World Poll, which poses a vast array of questions to respondents in over 140 countries; the new book reflects Gallup’s own surveys over the past seven years, plus other organisations’ polls. But the full results of the World Poll are available only at a price—it starts at $28,500, according to the Gallup website—so it’s hard for ordinary folk to judge exactly how fair the authors have been in mining their own data.

The results of a more narrowly focused survey, by another American pollster, were released this week. They are a troubling read for the Bush administration. A poll by Zogby International of 4,000 people in six Arab countries—Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—found rising numbers had a “very unfavourable” view of America. And compared with a similar poll in 2006, an increasing number (67% versus 61%) thought Iran had every right to pursue its nuclear activities. Whatever one believes about the Muslim soul, Mr Bush’s efforts to court the Sunni world, ahead of a possible showdown with Iran, seem not to have impressed the Arab street.

Muslim opinion | Just what do they dislike, and why? | Economist.com

CAIRO, Egypt - It was a boyhood of miniskirts and stern-faced imams. As Ahmed abu Haiba grew into a man, he felt a kinship with the clerics who recited the Quran in badly lighted television studios, but he feared they didn’t stand a chance against the new Western temptations of pop divas pouting about carnal pleasures and broken hearts.

The screen beyond abu Haiba’s clicker was changing; the iconic images that defined Islam were being challenged in the 1990s from the Internet and Hollywood fantasy absorbed by tens of millions of satellite dishes humming on rooftops across the Middle East. It was an alluring cacophony that abu Haiba, a playwright and TV producer, warned would tug the Arab world further from its culture.

“The Islamic media was so poor, so traditional,” he said. “It wasn’t television. It was televised radio, a man in front of a camera speaking for hours and hours about obscure religious texts with no appeal. … Words with nothing connected to life.”

Abu Haiba rejected the West’s secular message but sought the power of its style and marketing. His creation, the latest in the struggle of faith, globalization and identity between East and West, is a music video channel that features Muslim piety through a slickly produced prism of Arabic rhythms.

“I want a new Islamic media,” said abu Haiba, 39. “My point is not to condemn the West but to build my culture with its own seeds, its own matrix. … I am more worried about Western culture than politics. … If I lose my culture, I become a stranger in my own country.”

It is difficult to escape the West’s imprint on Muslim society: Plastic surgeons are re-creating pop stars in Lebanon; independent women are appearing in Tunisian and Moroccan films; blogs are chiding political regimes from Cairo to Amman, Jordan; Facebook and text messaging are circumventing religion-based dating rules; and in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, unveiled blond women peddle shampoo in commercials.

The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the Iraq war hardened the lines between the United States and the Arab world, accentuating what many scholars and diplomats say is a clash of civilizations. But despite President Bush’s rhetoric against Islamic militants and Osama bin Laden’s screeds on infidels, Western culture was flourishing from Mecca to Tripoli.

A crude, yet telling, sign of this was glimpsed in an Internet cafe in northern Iraq days before U.S. cruise missiles would strike Baghdad in 2003. A bearded militant visited two Web sites during his 30 minutes of surfing - one sponsored by the terrorist group Ansar al Islam, the other featuring English-language porn.

The anecdote is an extreme illustration of the cultural schizophrenia Muslims in the Middle East say they face.

“It’s the search for an Arab identity, but we don’t have an identity,” said Emile Slailaty, who directs music videos and commercials in Beirut, Lebanon. “They want to be free and Westernized, but at the same time they want to be conservative.

“Look at what they’re doing with the hijab. They’re tying it different ways and doing more things with it to make it more sexy, fashionable. This is so trendy; young ladies can have lots of color but still be wearing a veil.”

It is this in-between cultural landscape that abu Haiba and other moderate Islamists want to seize from the provocative imagery and iconography of the West.

The Arab world has been absorbing and rejecting the West for centuries, since the Crusades and later when Napoleon’s armies marched across the desert with books on the Enlightenment. What’s troubling Islamists today, however, is the consuming nature of Western culture; its capitalism and liberalism are at once dizzying and alarming, especially in the Middle East, where much of the population is poor and angry about its leaders’ inability to improve their lives.

Muslim clerics worry that exposure to such unattainable materialism will weaken religious devotion, from the village prayer room to the city mosque. Their concern marks the crucial divide between a secular West that separates religion and state and a Muslim East where conservatives and many moderates adhere to Shariah law - the belief that religion, government and society are indivisible.

“America targets only your religion, it takes your religion away, it will take everything away from you,” radical Sheik Fawzi Said told worshipers in Cairo. “The devil knows that, and it is the devil that drives the Americans.”

Meanwhile, Arab media moguls, like cultural magpies, borrow from the West to create sophisticated, hybrid television programs, such as reality shows and knockoffs of Friends, to appeal to Muslim sensibilities.

Abu Haiba is distilling his own voice amid the clatter. Urbane, lightly bearded and English-speaking, he talks of the complexities of infusing art with religion. He is careful to show plurality - he happily mentions that he has a Jewish friend - but is insistent that Islam should permeate all aspects of life. During a recent interview, he excused himself briefly to answer the 6:30 p.m. call to prayer.

The intent of abu Haiba’s production company, Light of the East, which has raised $4 million from investors, is to popularize Islam for a younger generation. The music video channel is expected to launch in June. Egyptian authorities closely monitor such ventures by Islamists and abu Haiba has kept an air of secrecy around the project. He wouldn’t give the names of his investors.

Sitting at his desk the other day, abu Haiba played a promo for the channel on a large flat-screen TV. It cited ratings and demographics: In Egypt, 15- to 24-year-olds make up 50 percent to 64 percent of viewers tuning in to nearly 70 music video channels. That age group makes up 0 percent of the religious programming market.

That’s a disturbing statistic for abu Haiba, a mechanical engineer whose religious evolution mirrors that of many professionals of his generation. During his undergraduate years at Cairo University, abu Haiba, who has been writing poems and plays since he was 13, founded a theater troupe. At the same time, he explored different strands of Islam, including extremism, before settling on the political and spiritual fusion espoused by the Muslim Brotherhood, the outlawed party that has widespread support among the middle and educated classes.

Abu Haiba’s connection to the Muslim Brotherhood, which won 20 percent of seats in Parliament in 2005 and since has seen hundreds of its members jailed, earned him a file with the state security services. He says that the dossier is full of “fairy tales” but that in his artistic work, except for an occasional battle with censors, he has not been harassed. His new play, The Code, a meditation on Western influence in his nation, brought closer scrutiny.

The play tells the story of the invasion of Egypt by a fictional nation strongly resembling the United States. The conquered are controlled by robots and reclaim their freedom and cultural heritage only when they turn to God. The defeated people are powerless, becoming scared, yet seduced by the invader.

“The point of the play,” said abu Haiba, “is to ask the question: What happened to us? We were such a great nation. We lost our souls.”

The America he portrays in The Code was borrowed from years earlier when he put a Muslim spin on one of Hollywood’s most watched and globally successful sitcoms. In 1998, abu Haiba was a marketing manager for Suzuki in Cairo when a colleague introduced him to a group of Saudi investors looking for a manager for a new media production company, Light of the East. Abu Haiba produced a series called Boys and Girls, a chaste, Arabic version of Friends.

The show wasn’t a hit, and abu Haiba teamed up with a neighbor and friend, Amr Khaled, a former accountant turned moderate Islamist preacher who was captivating young professional Muslims, especially women who were seeking a less patriarchal interpretation of the Quran.

In 1999, abu Haiba and Khaled collaborated on Words From the Heart, a mainstream evangelical series that featured uplifting music and spiritual pep-talks from the likes of Soheir Babli, a renowned Egyptian actress who has donned a veil and dedicated her life to Islam. Abu Haiba’s Saudi investors weren’t happy. There were no bearded clerics, no fundamentalist fervor. Other networks weren’t interested, either.

With no distributor, abu Haiba passed tapes of the shows to street vendors. He sold 13,000 copies, and that quickly grew into tens of thousands more. The satellite channel Dream TV offered abu Haiba and Khaled airtime for the four original shows and 11 new episodes.

Abu Haiba is hoping for similar success with his music video channel and sees an opportunity to loosen the grip of the West. In the promo for the channel, the narrator proclaims, “We must exert all effort to defend what’s precious to us. … We can’t turn a blind eye to this ghost who sneaks into our houses.”

Jeffrey Fleishman writes for the Los Angeles Times.

TV producer tries Islamism for moderns — baltimoresun.com

World’s First Cross-Denominational Statement from Muslims to Jews in Modern Times

Religious scholars and Muslim leaders from around the world are to issue a statement to the world’s Jewish Community at the Centre for the Study of Muslim - Jewish Relations in Cambridge on Monday 25 February.

This demonstrates a genuine desire within the Muslim community to reach out to Jews. The letter describes itself as ‘a call for positive and constructive action that aims to improve Muslim—Jewish relations’.

The initiative behind the statement comes from the Muslim scholars of the Centre for the Study of Muslim—Jewish Relations (CMJR), Cambridge, UK, Dr Amineh Hoti (Director) and Sheikh Michael Mumisa (Lecturer). It will be formally announced following the Centre’s annual Stone—Ashdown lecture which will be given by world-leading Muslim scholar Professor Tariq Ramadan on Monday 25 February.

The signatories of the letter include:

Professor Akbar S Ahmed, Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies, American University Washington, DC

Dr Seyed Amir Akrami Secretary for Inter Religious Dialogue at the Organisation for Islamic Culture and Communication, Tehran

Professor Bunyamin Duran, Vice-Rector: Islamic University of Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Ambassador Mahmud A. Durrani, Embassy of Pakistan, Washington D.C.

Dr Shaykh Suhaib Hasan Secretary General of the Islamic Sharia Council, London

Sayyed Nadeem Kazmi, Director of International Affairs at the Al-Khoei Foundation (the largest Shia Institute in the UK)

His Excellency Shaykh Mustafa Ceric, The Grand Mufti of Bosnia, Office of Raisu-l-Ulama
Lord Khalid Hameed, High Sheriff of Greater London, UK

Dr Musharraf Hussain, Chief Imam and Director of Karimia Institute, UK

Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra, Muslim Council of Britain

Professor Sari Nusseibeh, President of Al Quds University, Beit Hanina – Jerusalem

Shaykh Muhammad Imdad Hussain Pirzada, Founder and Principal of Jamia Al-Karam, Eaton Hall, Retford, UK

Professor Tariq Ramadan, Senior Research Fellow, St Antony’s College, University of Oxford, UK;

Dr Ataullah Saddiqui, Director of Markfield Institute of Higher Education.

A response from the Jewish community is expected in the days following the announcement. This will also be released by the Centre for the Study of Muslim— Jewish Relations.

AN OPEN LETTER: A Call to Peace, Dialogue and Understanding between Muslims and Jews

Surely those who believe, and those who are Jews, and the Christians, and the Sabians, whoever believes in God and the Last day and does good, they shall have their reward from their Lord, and there is no fear for them, nor shall they grieve (Qur’an 2:62).

Shalom,
Assalam alaykum,

This letter is intended as a gesture of goodwill towards rabbinic leaders and the wider Jewish communities of the world. Our aim is to build upon existing relations in order to improve mutual understanding in places where required to further the positive work in building bridges between Muslims and Jews. In the face of the negative and destructive tensions in the Middle East, this letter is a call to positive and constructive action that aims to improve Muslim—Jewish relations.

Many Jews and Muslims today stand apart from each other due to feelings of anger, which in some parts of the world, translate into violence. It is our contention that we are faced today not with ‘a clash of civilizations’ but with ‘a clash of ill-informed misunderstandings’. Deep-seated stereotypes and prejudices have resulted in a distancing of the communities and even a dehumanizing of the ‘Other’. We urgently need to address this situation. We must strive towards turning ignorance into knowledge, intolerance into understanding, and pain into courage and sensitivity for the ‘Other’.

For many centuries our communities co-existed and worked together fruitfully and peacefully such as in the Iberian Peninsula.  As Muslims and Jews we share core doctrinal beliefs, the most important of which is strict monotheism. We both share a common patriarch, Ibrahim/Abraham, other Biblical prophets, laws and jurisprudence, many significant values and even dietary restrictions. There is more in common between our religions and peoples than is known to each of us. It is precisely due to the urgent need to address such political problems as well as acknowledge our shared values that the establishment of an inter-religious dialogue between Jews and Muslims in our time is extremely important. Failure to do so will be a missed opportunity.  Memories of positive historical encounters will dim and the current problems will lead to an increasing rift and more common misunderstandings between us. 

This Letter is important for non-Muslims and Muslims because it illustrates that the Muslim world has diversity of opinion and that Muslims are willing to engage in a conversation with Jews, a conversation that is not wholly dominated by the conflict in Israel-Palestine. Although many Muslims and non-Muslims only know of Muslim-Jewish relations through the prism of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there needs to be an awareness of other positive encounters at different stages of our history as well as the pioneering work of inter-religious dialogue being undertaken by contemporary Muslims and Jews outside of the Middle East.

What are the commonalities and differences between us?

Judaism and Islam are both monotheistic religions whose followers believe in the absolute unity of the One and Only God as emphasized by Muslims in the Shahada, Qur’an 112:1-4, and by Jews in the Shema, Deuteronomy 6:4; as well as Ibrahim/Abraham, they share other common patriarchs such as Nuh/Noah; and Jews and Muslims, as well as Christians, are regarded, by Muslims, as ‘People of the Book’. All Muslims, regardless of their theological persuasion (Sunnis and Shi’as) believe, as an article of their faith, in all Biblical Prophets.

Say [O Muslims!]: “We believe in God”, in that which has been revealed to us; in that which was revealed to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and their descendents; in that which was given to Moses and Jesus; and in that which was given to the Prophets from their Lord; we do not make any distinction between any of them, and to Him we are Muslimun (those who submit to his will)” (Qur’an 2:136).

As a pillar of our faith (Iman), we (Muslims) are expected to believe that the author of the Torah (Tawrat) and the Qur’an is the same one God:

It was We (God) who revealed the Torah (to Moses): therein was guidance and light. By its standard have been judged the Jews, by the prophets who bowed to God’s will, by the Rabbis and the doctors of law: for to them was entrusted the protection of God’s book, and they were witnesses thereto…(Qur’an 5:44). 

Thus, for us as Muslims the message of the Prophet Muhammad is an extension and continuation of the message brought from God by Moses, and other Prophets:

The Messenger (Muhammad) believes in that which has been revealed to him from his Lord, and so do the believers; they all believe in God, His angels, His Books, and His Messengers; [they say] we make no distinction between any of His Messengers; and they say: “We hear and obey (God’s commandments); grant us your forgiveness, our Lord. And to you is the eventual course” (Qur’an 2:285).

Jews and Muslims both have elaborate and comparable codes of conduct, laws and jurisprudence, covering all aspects of life (the Sharia in Islam and the Halacha in Judaism). The importance of charity (sadaka, tsedaka) is pertinent to the value system of each tradition. Even the dietary procedures (halal and kashrut/kosher) are comparable. Jews and Muslims have contributed to a highly sophisticated form of art and architecture. Indeed, Islamic art has influenced the architecture of many synagogues and, in parts of the Muslim world where coexistence was once prevalent, Jewish symbols still decorate Islamic buildings.

Prejudice and bigotry towards each other have been perpetuated by our lack of knowledge about the other and yet the pursuit of knowledge is at the core of both our religious traditions. Indeed, the facts that the term “Torah” means “teaching” and “Qur’an” means “reading” should instil in us the desire to read, understand and teach about each other.

Yes, there are texts in both our religious traditions which, when interpreted literally outside of their specific contexts can damage relations and stifle attempts to engage in solidarity and inter-religious dialogue.  For the majority of Muslims, such texts reflect the political discourse and shifts in relations between Muslims and the religious ‘Other’ in 7th century Arabia. The Qur’an constantly reminds Muslims that ‘among’ the People of the Book are those who believe and do righteous deeds.

Among the People of the Book there is a staunch and just community who recite the revelations of God in the night season, falling prostrate (before Him). They believe in God and the Last Day; they enjoin what is right, and forbid what is wrong; and they hasten (in emulation) in (all) good works: They are in the ranks of the righteous. And whatever good they do, they will not be denied the reward thereof. For God knows well those that do right (Qur’an 3: 113-115; see also 3:199).

The word ‘among’ is an important modifier that has been forgotten and is often overlooked by many readers of the Qur’an today, whether Muslim or non-Muslim. Yet, in today’s world, it is easy to label Jews, Muslims or Christians with one sweeping brush stroke; but a careful and thoughtful reading of the Qur’an or Torah reveals a far more sophisticated approach of seeing, acknowledging and appreciating the diversity of the human family. 

O mankind, truly We have created you male and female, and have made you nations and tribes that ye may recognize one another (Qur’an 49:13).

This, to us as Muslims and Jews, enforces the will of our Creator who urges us to read, understand and teach – can there be a more noble way in which to uphold this core message of the Creator than to learn more about each other?  In this way, we will replace prejudice, ignorance and intolerance by knowing, understanding and being sensitive to the ‘Other’, who becomes our ‘brother’ and ‘sister’.

Jews and Muslims as One Umma: Reflecting briefly on early Muslim—Jewish encounters:

In the spirit of Islam’s emphasis on compassion and respect for all humanity, one vignette from the Prophet’s life reveals how a Jewish funeral procession passed before the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon Him), at which he stood up as a sign of respect. His Companions asked him, why he stood up for a Jewish funeral ? The Prophet dismissed this exclusivist attitude and rising above these polarities responded on a humanitarian level, “is he not a human being!” (as recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari, a collection of statements and traditions by and about the Prophet Muhammad in the Book on Funeral Procession, Section on “Standing up in respect of a Jewish Funeral”.

In the year of 622, when the Prophet was exiled from Mecca his city of birth, he migrated to Yathrib (Medina). Upon his arrival in the city, the Prophet declared in the now famous Medina Charter that the Jewish tribes of Medina constituted the new one umma (nation) together with the Muslims.

“This is a document from Muhammad the Prophet, governing relations between the Believers i.e. Muslims of Quraysh and Yathrib and those who followed them and worked hard with them. They form one nation—ummah.

“No Jew will be wronged for being a Jew.”

“The enemies of the Jews who follow us will not be helped.”

“Those Jews who live peacefully with the Believers will be helped and will be treated with equality.”

“The Jews of the tribe of Bani Awf will be treated as one ummah with the Believers.”

Thus, the document refers to the Jews and Muslims as ummatun wahidatun (“one nation”, a term that recurs in the Qur’an a number of times to denote a people united by common values and beliefs. Therefore, Muslim—Jewish encounters have had their moment of friendship as well as tension.

When the Prophet died his shield was mortgaged with a Jew to show that Muslims are permitted to trade with Jews. More significantly, the Prophet’s married daughter Hazrat Fatima, who was very close to her father, used to work for a Jew – she would spin for him in return for grain. Moreover, the Prophet’s wife, Sofia, was a Jewish woman who was considered by God as ‘a mother of the believers’.

When, out of human jealousy, the Prophet’s other wives mocked Sofia by calling her “a Jew” in a derogatory manner, Sofia who was clearly upset by their mocking would complain to her husband Prophet Muhammad.  He would say to her respond to them by saying: “my father was a Prophet (Moses) and my uncle was a Prophet (Aron) and I am the wife of a Prophet!”

Historically, Muslims and Jews have shared a common intellectual history: from the dissemination of the Isra’iliyyat (authenticated Jewish sources employed by early classical Muslim historians and commentators of the Qur’an), to the philosophical exchanges between Ibn Rushd (Averroes, 1126-1198) and Moses Maimonides (Musa ibn Maymun al-Qurtubi, 1135-1204) in Medieval Spain.

Sir Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, on the inauguration of the world’s first Centre for the Study of Muslim—Jewish Relations (in Cambridge), emphasized the importance of learning from each other.  He said “Islam’s strength of faith is remarkable. We can all learn from Islam this strength of faith. And that is something immensely positive. If I wanted to suggest what Muslims can learn from Jews today, I would say how to survive as a minority in a culture that does not share your values. We have to learn from one another.”

It was the intellectual world of Islam that brought to Europe in particular, and to the modern world in general, the lost tradition of the Greek Philosophers (for example, the works and ideas of Plato and Aristotle). Indeed, their teachings were first revived by Muslim scholars such as Al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd and others, who went on to influence the ideas and writings of many Jewish and Christian scholars including Maimonides. In this intellectually thriving environment the passing of the flame of knowledge between religious scholars eventually influenced the development of secular Humanism and contemporary sciences.

In the example of Maimonides, who held the position of physician to the great Sultan Salah-ud-din, and Averroes, we observe a fruitful intellectual conversation and exchange between Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.

Combating estrangements and negative perceptions of the ‘Other’

European Jews and Muslims today share experiences as minority groups. With the increasing anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, Jews and Muslims need to develop joint strategies to tackle discrimination. They could also come together to support each other’s efforts to maintain their identities in an age that promotes and expects conformity to the dominant culture. It is, therefore, in the spirit of both religious and geo-political compulsions that we emphasise the process of bridge-building between the two communities. This process must go beyond dialogue and move towards genuine understanding and encounters, such as visiting each other’s places of worship.

It is important to be honest about the level of anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim/anti-Arab sentiment that translates into conflict within and between the two communities.  The need today is for us to see each other’s history and appreciate each other’s cultures with a genuine attempt at understanding.

At this moment, there is no challenge more pressing than the need to bring to a closure some of the historical and long lasting estrangements between the Jews and Muslims.  Because of the increasing polarisation, many feel forced to choose between dialogue and violence as a response. At the core of the Muslim—Jewish tension lies the Israeli—Palestinian conflict. The loss of every single life is a loss to humanity and a bloody stain on the tapestry of history. We call for a peaceful resolution that will assure mutual respect, prosperity and security to both Palestinians and Israelis, while allowing the Palestinian people their rights to self-determination.

Most Muslims would hope that the sufferings Jews have experienced over many centuries would make them more sensitive to the sufferings of others, especially the Palestinian people. In the Hebrew Bible Jews read how they are commanded to love the stranger because they themselves were strangers in the land of Egypt (this is mentioned 36 times in the Torah).

A Call for Dialogue Between People of all Faiths

While the purpose of this letter is to generate dialogue and understanding between Jews and Muslims, it reflects the need for a wider dialogue between all faiths and communities, including the non-Abrahamic ones. We must keep talking—especially when we do not agree.

This is, therefore, an appeal and a hand held out, based on the teachings of both the Qur’an and the Hebrew Bible, in a genuine desire for dialogue and mutual respect:

Turn from Evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it (Tehilim/Psalms 34:14).

And the servants of the Infinitely Compassionate are those who walk on the earth in humility and when the ignorant accost them, they only reply with “Peace!” (Qur’an 25:65).

May the peace and blessing of God Almighty be upon you.  And may this letter be accepted as a small step towards opening doors to genuine dialogue and understanding. May it also lead the way towards concrete outcomes in Muslim—Jewish relations in different parts of our shared world.

Muslim scholars from The Centre for the Study of Muslim-Jewish Relations, part of The Woolf Institute of Abrahamic Faiths, Cambridge, have facilitated this Letter with the support of Muslims scholars throughout the world. 

Background notes:

About the Woolf Institute of Abrahamic Faiths, the Centre for the Study of Jewish-Christian Relations (CJCR) and the Centre for the Study of Muslim-Jewish Relations (CMJR)

CJCR and CMJR are members of an independent educational charity, the Woolf Institute of Abrahamic Faiths based in Cambridge UK. Through teaching, research and dialogue they are dedicated to the academic study of Jewish-Christian relations and Muslim-Jewish relations respectively.

Under the auspices of the Woolf Institute, they aim to overcome prejudice and intolerance between Jews, Christians and Muslims, and to establish a more positive basis for relations.

CJCR was founded in 1998 by Dr Edward Kessler of St Edmund’s College, Cambridge. Its flagship educational programme is the University of Cambridge Master of Studies (MSt) in the Study of Jewish-Christian Relations, which it offers in conjunction with the University’s Faculty of Divinity and the Institute of Continuing Education. The first and only course of its kind, the MSt can be studied in Cambridge or predominantly via e-learning. CJCR also offers a range of other educational programmes and since 1998 has taught over 1000 students, many of whom have gone onto take positions of leadership. CJCR is also an Associate Member of the Cambridge Theological Federation (http://www.theofed.cam.ac.uk), which provides the Centre with teaching resources and accommodation.

CMJR was founded in 2006 by Dr Edward Kessler and Dr Amineh Hoti as a sister organisation to CJCR and is built on the same core principles of Teaching, Research and Dialogue. CMJR is pleased to work with the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education whose Certificate programme in Islam, Judaism and Muslim-Jewish Relations is offered at the CMJR this academic year. CMJR also offers a menu of e-learning courses. The Centre published its Teacher’s Guide, Valuing Diversity in February 2008 and aims to prepare A Dictionary of Jewish-Muslim Relations, to sit alongside A Dictionary of Jewish-Christian Relations (Cambridge University Press:2005)

The CJCR and CMJR offices are located in the heart of Cambridge where they are hosted by Methodist Theological College, Wesley House.

The CMJR’s annual Stone—Ashdown Lecture is named in honour of the Stone—Ashdown Trust who last year donated £1 million to the Institute.

Full text of statement at http://www.woolfinstitute.cam.ac.uk/cmjr/assets/img/letter.pdf

For further information, see http://www.woolfinstitute.cam.ac.uk/cmjr where you can also SIGN TO SUPPORT THE STATEMENT

Israel News : Muslim Scholars Issue Statement to World`s Jewish Community

Paving the path to dialogue

By Judea Pearl

First came an “Open Letter From Muslims to Jews,” signed by dozens of leading Muslim scholars and intellectuals in the West, calling for “Peace, Dialogue and Understanding Between Muslims and Jews.”
The letter, which was initiated by American University professor Akbar Ahmed and formally presented by Oxford University professor Tariq Ramadan at Cambridge, England, stresses the Quranic acceptance of Jews and Muslims as one nation (Ummah); elaborates on commonalities of contemporary beliefs, rituals and values; celebrates shared memories of positive historical encounters; and ends with a call for “concrete outcomes in Muslim-Jewish relations in different parts of our shared world.”
Second came an impassioned plea from the Saudi King Abdullah, for a dialogue among Muslims, Christians and Jews, the first such proposal from the custodian of Islam’s holiest shrines and a nation that bans non-Muslim religious services and symbols. Abdullah said that Saudi Arabia’s top clerics have given him the green light to hold meetings with “our brothers” in Christianity and Judaism, “so we can agree on something that guarantees the preservation of humanity against those who tamper with ethics, family systems and honesty.”
Israel’s newspaper Yediot Ahronot had subsequently reported on March 30, based on a phone call from the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, that Israeli rabbis will soon be invited to an interfaith conference initiated by the Saudi kingdom.
The official Jewish response to these proposals has been wholeheartedly enthusiastic. Responding to the Muslim letter, the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC), an umbrella committee representing major Jewish organizations, has issued a welcoming call for dialogue between Muslims and Jews titled, “Seek Peace and Pursue It,” and IJCIC’s chair, Rabbi David Rosen, encouraged Muslims to develop the dialogue “in the pursuit of a world made better through our efforts.”
As to King Abdullah’s proposal, my understanding is that all chief rabbis in Israel, and there are many of them, are currently busy packing for an adventurous trip to the Arabian Peninsula.
Oddly, when I was asked by the initiative organizers to respond to the Muslim letter, I felt somewhat reluctant; it seems that all the media excitement caused me to take a sober look at the enterprise of Jewish-Muslim dialogue, with which I have been involved for almost five years.
My first thought landed of course on the positive symbolic value of having a visible dialogue going, regardless of its content. I therefore commended the authors for opening a new channel of communication between Jews and Muslims, and endorsed the letter as “a welcome first step toward the goals of peace, understanding and mutual respect.”
But then I asked myself, how would an average Jewish reader react to the content of the letter? It became clear that the letter would evoke two immediate reservations, if not objections: First, it is totally void of self-criticism and, second, it skirts the thorniest of all issues: Israel’s right to exist.
The question then became not whether a dialogue is a good thing to have (this I take as an axiom), but whether unconditional embracing of an invitation based on certain premises constitutes a tacit endorsement of those premises, with which one may disagree: In our case, the two premises in question are, first, that Islam is in no need for reform or introspection because it is already a pluralistic, nonexpansionist, Jew-respecting, violence-minimizing and human-rights-protecting religion and, second, that peace can somehow be achieved without Muslim acceptance of the legitimacy and permanency of Israel.
The concept of reform is a sensitive one in conversations with Muslims. Understandably, no person, let alone a community leader, would engage in an interfaith discussion only to listen to a sermon on how his or her religion should be reformed. Reforms, as Jews would surely recall, emerge from internal debates, not external criticism. Dealing with reform is especially hard for Muslims, since they are instructed to view the Quran as the final, perfect and immutable word of God.
In view of these contraints, what the Muslim letter is presenting to us is, in effect, a progressive reform strategy that we might as well call “stealth reform,” namely, reform cast as reinterpretation of the sacred scriptures. The strategy invokes a simple recipe of dealing with contradictory texts in the Quran: texts that conform to accepted norms of modernity are to be considered central, universal and intentional, while those that deviate from modern norms are contextualized to specific events in seventh century Arabia and marginalized from modern discourse.
Before we dismiss this strategy as self-deceptive or disingenuous, we should be reminded that identical strategy has been used to great advantage in the Jewish tradition since the time of the Mishnah. Its most explicit expression is encapsulated in the Talmudic saying: “Kol mah Sh’Talmid vatik atid l’horot lifnei rabbo, kevar n’emar L’Moshe B’Sinai” (Translated: “Whatever a seasoned scholar is destined to innovate before his master was already revealed to Moses at Sinai”) (Yerushalmi, Pe’ah 2.4). In other words, the Talmud bestows divine power unto the capacity of the human mind to reason and innovate.
The secret of this “stealthy” strategy lies in its power to usher in reform without challenging the divine origin of the scriptures; modern interpretations, however creative, are given equal chance to compete against extremist, literalist interpretations that accord universal validity to morally outdated texts. Stealth reform worked marvels in the Jewish tradition (e.g. no child was ever stoned for disobeying his parents, Sanhedrin, 71) and, if it worked in the Muslim world, we would be the last ones to quibble with its logic.
However, the effectiveness of this strategy depends critically on finding authoritative spiritual leaders who are willing to implement it in practice and turn it into the ruling philosophy of religious education. In other words, progressive interpretations of the Quran would become credible if sustained and reinforced by educational and jurisprudence institutions such as, for example, Al Azhar University, in Cairo, the most prestigious center of Muslim learning in Sunni Islam. Unfortunately, the leaders of these institutions, including Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, grand imam of Al-Azhar University, often support literalist interpretations that depict Jews as despicable, eternal enemies of Islam, and these interpretations are the ones that are currently gaining momentum in vast areas of the Muslim world.
It seems reasonable therefore to suggest that the Muslim letter would do more good if sent to Grand Imam Tantawi and other Islamic leaders in the Middle East who, evidently, have compelling reasons to object to the conciliatory interpretation espoused in the letter.
The Israeli-Palestinian issue is more subtle. Though the Muslim letter tries hard to avert controversial topics, it admits nevertheless: “At the core of the Muslim-Jewish tension lies the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” and proposes: “A peaceful resolution that will assure mutual respect, prosperity and security to both Palestinians and Israelis, while allowing the Palestinian people their rights to self-determination.”
Readers familiar with the history of Israel’s plight for a two-state solution would notice immediately the asymmetrical language in which the proposed resolution is cast. Whereas the rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination are affirmed explicitly, the rights of Israelis to the same status of self-determination are left undeclared, vulnerable to future assaults by enemies of co-existence.
In my response to the letter, I therefore expressed hope that the next phase of the dialogue “will bring Muslim and Jewish leaders closer toward a position of symmetry and reciprocity, and boldly acknowledge the historical rights of both sides to self-determination in two, equally legitimate, equally indigenous, and equally secured states.”
I am thoroughly convinced that such acknowledgment, benign and neutral as it may sound, would do more for world peace than theological accounts of shared prophets and common rituals. And if King Abdullah’s conference manages to sprout such acknowledgment we will indeed be facing the dawn of a totally new era in the Middle East.
What I am still unable to determine, though, is whether entering a dialogue in response to an asymmetrical invitation has a better chance of restoring symmetry than insisting on symmetry at the onset. Let us hope that the Jewish delegation to King Abdullah’s dialogue will find some of the answer in Riyadh.
Judea Pearl is a professor at UCLA and president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation (www.danielpearl.org), named after his son. He and his wife Ruth are editors of “I am Jewish: Personal Reflections Inspired by the Last Words of Daniel Pearl” (Jewish Light, 2004), winner of the National Jewish Book Award.

JewishJournal.com

Do Muslims deserve democracy?

What’s stopping democracy from taking root in Muslim countries? Abdelwahab El-Affendi tackles a thorny issue.

To gain a revealing insight into why many Muslim countries fail to develop or sustain democratic systems, one has just to follow the news stories of recent times. Prominent among these was the vigorous campaign by Britain and its allies against Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe as he appeared increasingly intent on rigging the March general elections. Mugabe was vociferously criticized and threatened with sanctions, while the media seemed about to run out of loathsome epithets to bestow on the would-be dictator.

During the same period, however, Muslim leaders, whom nobody elected and compared to whom Mugabe is a saint, continue to be fêted in Western capitals or wooed in their own. Syrian President Bashar Asad even offered visiting American dignitaries the opportunity to ‘benefit from the Syrian experience in combating terrorism’, while the Tunisian Foreign Minister asked France during a recent visit to hand over ‘terrorists’ who have been given political asylum in Europe. These despots may thus be excused for seeing in the ruins of the World Trade Centre the reverse of what others saw in the collapse of the Berlin Wall: a vindication of their autocratic, even genocidal, methods for hanging on to power at any price.

Technorati Tags: Islam democracy

That the world loves muslim despots is a major factor in sustaining anti-democratic regimes

Western leaders have been effortlessly converted to the despots’ view that Muslims neither need nor deserve democracy. Intellectual analyses have emerged with a glorified recasting of common prejudices as ‘scientific’ revelations about why the Muslims were anti-democratic, have always been so and will forever remain thus. Instead of highlighting the brutality sustaining the incumbent regimes in power, these analysts blame the victims.

The weakness of civil society in Muslim countries is ascribed by some to cultural factors, rather than to the sheer ruthlessness of regimes that did not permit society any room to manoeuvre: no free trade unions, no real opposition, no free press, no tolerance of even a hint of dissent. What is rarely highlighted is the miracle of a stubborn civil society in countries like Indonesia where, after over 30 years of brutal military rule underwritten by generous external economic and diplomatic support, the determination of courageous pro-democracy activists succeeded in restoring democracy against heavy odds. The fact that the world loves Muslim despots is no doubt a major factor in sustaining the anti-democratic regimes in the Muslim world. Take the recent civil unrest in Argentina that accompanied its economic collapse. The idea of a military take-over to restore order was unthinkable. But in Pakistan, a minor crisis was exploited by the military to step into power. Both Argentina and Pakistan are heavily dependent on international support for their economy, which makes international backing for any military dictatorship absolutely crucial. This support was not forthcoming in the case of Argentina, but became readily available for Pakistan.

It is easy to exaggerate the international factor. Regimes such as those of in Iraq, Libya, Syria or Sudan maintain their ruthless hold on power without foreign support. But even in the face of sustained attempts at destabilization from abroad, foreign connections still play a role. Rentier states cannot survive if they do not find someone to sell oil to. The West, which has imposed sanctions on Iraq as ruthless as its regime, continues to buy Iraqi oil and has never stopped buying Libyan crude. More important, though, is the fact that the West did turn a blind eye to unbelievable atrocities in Iraq — including the use of chemical weapons against civilians and systematic liquidation of opponents — and Syria, guilty of genocidal destruction of entire cities and repeated massacres of civilians.

But why does the outside world not support democracy in Muslim countries?

There are some easy answers, especially in relation to the Middle East. Industrialized nations’ interests in cheap oil and the survival of Israel are better served by authoritarian regimes which will resist demands for a fairer share of oil revenues or for a fair deal for the Palestinians.

In other parts of the world, countries like Pakistan or Indonesia were more useful as Cold War allies under despotic regimes.

There are other factors at play, however. The Muslim world is deeply divided. The main divide is between those seeking a more central role for religion in public life and those opposed to this. The rising support for Islamists, and the divisions within Islamist trends, coupled with the capture of power by some Islamist groups in Iran, Sudan and Afghanistan, has worsened the tensions and increased the worries of the dominant secular regimes. Since the Algerian democratic experiment of 1988-91 came within a whisker of putting Islamists in power through the ballot box, democracy became a dirty word in Arab political circles. The West swung decisively behind the autocrats, pleading concern for human rights and democracy’s long-term prospects.

High and dry

Students in Tunisia where democratic hopes are flourishing. Giacomo Pirozzi / Panos Pictures

Such bitter internal divisions within societies are hindering democracy. This serves as a reminder that although democracy in its normative sense has a long history as an ideal, democratic modes of governance have been notoriously unstable. In former times, including Classical Greece and Rome, consensual government could only really be maintained within small areas where face-to-face communication was the norm. In modern times it has become possible to stabilize democracies thanks to a number of factors including: improved communications, economic and educational empowerment of the masses and the development of effective institutions of governance and representation. But the wave of democratization that has swept over many parts of the world during the past two decades has left the Muslim world high and dry. It is the only region where despotism appears to thrive. Some analysts search for ‘cultural’ reasons for this anomaly. Democracy, some argue, is ‘alien to the Muslim mind’. Islam emphasizes conformity and obedience, and Muslim societies have failed to develop civil society institutions. Muslim societies remain excessively patriarchical and rigid, while Islam has proved ‘secularization-resistant’. Secularization is seen by these theorists as essential for democratisation. Others point to economic and social factors, such as low literacy rates, the state’s economic independence from society, and the weakness of civil organizations and of the middle class.

Whatever the ‘Muslim mind’ dictates, the fact is that the overwhelming majority of Muslims are actively demanding democracy. And while it is true that economic, political and social factors make the fight for democracy a steep uphill struggle, yet in many Muslim countries courageous individuals have emerged to challenge, at great risk to themselves, the monopoly of power by dominant cliques.

In Syria, a burgeoning civil society movement is fighting to establish itself against heavy odds. In Egypt, members of the moderate Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as human-rights activists and journalists, are routinely hauled before military tribunals and summarily jailed. Political prisoners in Egypt are estimated to be as high as 30,000, down from double this figure in the mid-1990’s, and torture is routinely used.

Turkey is often cited as the only genuine democracy in the Muslim world. However, even if specifically Western models are adopted, it would be difficult to regard Turkey as a full democracy. Discrimination against ethnic minorities is both systematic and brutal, extending to denial of basic cultural rights, something which even Israel or apartheid South Africa did not do. Like Iran, Turkey imposes a state ideology which impinges on the most personal freedoms, such as what names individuals may choose for their children, what they could wear and what they could say in private or public.

A more credible contender could be Malaysia, which has strong social movements, Islamist parties and a vibrant multi-cultural society. In spite of its recent slide towards autocracy, it has remained a democracy since independence and appears to show how the Islamist-secular divide could be bridged.

Tunisia offers another example where the promise of democratization is apparent. Over the past few months, a vigorous and courageous democracy movement has emerged there, representing a broad and loose coalition of human-rights activists, media personalities, opposition politicians, and at least one senior judge. Protesters paid a heavy price for challenging the ruthless regime of General Zine El-Abine ben Ali, who came to power in a military coup in November 1987. Activists were sacked from jobs, banned from travel, imprisoned on trumped-up charges, harassed, denied medical treatment and had their phones disconnected. Some were beaten up or saw their families assaulted and harassed.

But Tunisia represents an important test case due to the emergence of a genuine pro-democracy movement, transcending the divisions within civil society between Islamist and secularist, Left and Right, men and women. All are agreed on one thing: they want pluralist democracy and they want it now.

Tunisia thus looks increasingly like the first Arab country where the democratic movement has achieved maturity and become unstoppable. Ironically, this is an indirect result of the success of the Government in achieving stability and relative economic prosperity. The highly educated and prosperous middle class in Tunisia could no longer tolerate leaders who have a tendency to treat them as children or colonized people.

To varying degrees Malaysia, Indonesia and Tunisia show how democracy could come to the Muslim world. In all these countries a broad alliance of democratic forces, which do not exclude Islamists or anyone else, has emerged to champion democratic reforms. Success is conditional on reaching and sustaining a democratic consensus, based on inclusion for all. And of central importance will be resolving the role of Islam in the public arena.

Abdelwahab El-Affendi is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster.

Democratic regimes are thin on the ground in the Muslim world. Abdelwahab El-Affendi explores the reasons why. | May 2002 | New Internationalist

When John Paul II traveled to Syria in 2000, he became the first pope ever to visit a mosque. He stood in Damascus’s Umayyad Masjid, kissed the Qur’an and stated, “For all the times that Muslims and Christians have offended one another, we need to seek forgiveness from the Almighty and to offer each other forgiveness.” It’s no wonder many Muslims look back on John Paul’s reign as the golden days of interfaith relations–and as Pope Benedict XVI’s first few years as anything but.

Today, more than a few U.S. Muslims wonder if Pope Benedict is simply tone deaf when it comes to interfaith sensitivity, or if he really does have it in for Islam. During a 2006 lecture at a German university, he quoted these lines from a 14th-century Christian Byzantine emperor: “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” The lecture spurred outcry and protests, and though Benedict said that he was “very upset” that Muslims were offended, he never clearly apologized. A visit to Turkey, where he prayed in a noted Istanbul mosque, seemed to cool things off … until Easter Day of this year. At Rome’s St. Peter’s Basilica, the pope himself baptized Italian journalist Magdi Allam–an Egyptian Muslim who’d moved to Europe and become an outspoken critic of Islam. “The act of conversion itself was not offensive, but rather, the high-profile nature of how the conversion was carried out was insulting to Muslims,” said Washington’s Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) in a recent statement. “The fact that the conversion took place at St. Peter’s Basilica, one of the most sacred locations for Christians, and on the holiest day of the Christian calendar carried a negative message of competition and superiority. Unfortunately, these recent events are neither constructive, nor conducive to effective interfaith dialogue.”

Though the pope’s first official trip to the U.S. is likely aimed at energizing America’s 77 million Roman Catholics, the nation’s 8 million Muslims will also be listening–closely–for any comments or clarifications that might soothe Benedict’s strained relations with the followers of Islam. Though the pope has not scheduled any sort of meeting specifically with Muslim leaders, he will host an interfaith dinner in Washington, D.C., on Thursday night with 150 representatives of every major world religion. Dr. Muhammad Shafiq, director and imam of the Islamic Center of Rochester, N.Y., and head of Interfaith Studies at Nazareth College, will be one of at least 15 Muslim attendees. “There’s an awakening in Muslim America, and we know that we cannot live in isolation,” says Shafiq. “We need to be global partners. If I get a chance, I would like to ask [the pope] for an international agreement that will bring us together–a mission statement from each community to abide by. We need that from the pope, and our top Muslim leaders.”

Other representatives of Islam in the United States, skeptical about the depth of the pope’s commitment, declined the invitation. “We’ve had no indication that the pope would engage in any meaningful dialogue beyond the exchange of gifts, and perhaps a photo op,” said Salam Al-Marayati, executive director at MPAC. “We want a meeting with his bishops and key Muslim figures in the U.S. The topic should specifically be Muslim-Catholic issues. But it doesn’t seem to be a priority [for them] right now, even though the pope seems to be a person with very strong views about Islam and the Prophet Muhammad.”

For Muslims not on the Vatican’s VIP list, the pope’s elicits mixed reactions. Zaheer Ali,  a doctoral student in history at New York’s Columbia University, says the pope’s ideas about Islam are not a priority right now in terms of defending the faith. “I’m more concerned about some of the things American religious leaders have to say about Islam,” he says. “Pastors Rod Parsley and John Hagee, who are closely aligned with the McCain campaign, have said some really disparaging things about Islam, and a lot of other groups, including Catholics. Political pundits have accepted this idea of the word Muslim being a slur when discussing the ‘accusations’ that Barack Obama is a Muslim. Those things are more concerning to me than something the pope said.”

Political sociologist Younes Abouyoub, who grew up in Morocco, f

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eels that while the pope may not have as much influence in America as he does in Europe, the Vatican should do something to smooth their now bumpy relationship with the Muslim world. “The pope could explain in his speeches the strong relationship that exists between the three monotheist religions instead of accusing Islam of being a violent and irrational religion,” says Abouyoub. “He could mention that Muslims have to believe in the Virgin Mary and Jesus to be considered Muslim. Why not stress the common characteristics–and there are many–instead of mentioning the disparities?”

Highlighting commonalities may be the key to improved relations, especially at a time when new data–cited by the Vatican, no less–shows that Islam has overtaken Roman Catholicism as the biggest single religious denomination in the world. “We know it’s important to have dialogue of civilizations,” says M. J. Kahn, a Houston city council member and a Muslim. “We believe the more people talk, the better off we will be. But we as Muslims don’t need to have some sort of confirmation from the pope to say we’re OK. We know we are, it would just be nice if he noticed, too.”

The Pope and American Muslims | Newsweek Religion | Newsweek.com

Furor over Islam taught at US public school

2 hours ago

CHICAGO (AFP) — Police have stepped up patrols of an elementary school in Minnesota after it received threats in the wake of accusations that it was using public funds to teach Islam.

The threats came after a local columnist wrote that the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, a suburban Minneapolis charter school run by an Islamic charity, appeared to be violating a ban on teaching religion in public schools.

Charter schools are public schools run by private organizations with public funds.

While many have been started by religious groups, they are bound to US rules that public schools must accommodate the religious needs of their students but are not allowed to promote religious views or lead prayer services.

The brewing controversy came to head in recent days when a substitute teacher said she saw students “corralled” into involuntary prayer services, and a local television station criticized the school for failing to fly a US flag.

The story got picked up on anti-Muslim websites and the school started getting threatening calls and e-mails, including threats to burn it down and “destroy” its students and leaders.

“These vile and vicious attacks on us have resulted in death threats against my students, myself and my family,” Asad Zaman, executive director of the academy, told AFP Wednesday.

Tarek ibn Ziyad is run by the charity Islamic Relief USA and specializes in teaching Arabic language and culture in addition to standard public grade school subjects.

The majority of the students are Muslim and the school offers regular prayer services and after-school Islamic instruction, but officials say they are careful to follow state guidelines.

Zaman scoffs at the idea that the school is secretly Islamic or that students are forced to attend prayer services, noting that it is inspected regularly by the state Department of Education and has hosted a number of reporters and high-profile politicians.

“We do not teach religion. We do not favor any religion,” he said in a telephone interview.

“We specialize in dramatic turnarounds. More than 90 percent of our students are in poverty and we outperform schools in the (wealthy) suburbs.”

But the columnist who sparked the controversy says that while the reports of threats are “repellant” they should not “distract attraction from the central issue here, and that is, whether this publicly-financed school is skirting or breaking the law that all others must observe when it comes to religious endorsement.”

“If this were a bunch of Baptists or Catholics with the kids being led to the rosary on Mondays through Thursday and led to Mass on Fridays there wouldn’t be any question that this is crossing the line,” said Minneapolis Star-Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten.

Kersten is also concerned that the school, which has a long waiting list and has recently expanded to a second campus, will prevent the assimilation of the area’s growing population of new Muslim immigrants.

“If you have a very large immigrant Muslim population being educated at taxpayer expenses in a separate system where Arabic is mandatory and there’s an emphasis on the culture of the so-called Eastern world, it seems to me you are setting up a very problematic situation,” she told AFP.

The Minnesota Department of Education said it goes to “great lengths” to ensure that charter schools understand they must be “non-sectarian” in nature while also accommodating the religious beliefs of students.

“We take seriously the concerns raised regarding Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy and are conducting an appropriate review,” Minnesota Education Commissioner Alice Seagren said in a statement.

AFP: Furor over Islam taught at US public school