Muslim Heretics Conference

I was recently conversing with a local schoolteacher, a thoughtful woman I admire, when she exclaimed, “I would love to talk to you more when we have time! I mean, I’d love to know what you think about Obama, since he’s black and, oh, well, Muslim.”

I’m afraid my face must have communicated the sudden blankness of my thoughts. Obama may be black, but he’s not Muslim. I am Muslim, but I’m not black. My momentary lack of response reflected the disconnect in the logic of her statement.

I do understand, as a troubling number of Americans do not, that Barack Obama has never been Muslim. Merely living in Indonesia does not cause metamorphosis Islamica, some (imaginary) loathsome disease to be contracted from environmental contact. Wearing Somali dress in a laudable attempt to show multicultural respect is not proof of religious convictions. Attending a madrasa as a child does not a Muslim make, since madrasa is simply the Arabic word for school and, as such, can be applied to Harvard Law School with as much accuracy as it can be applied to a Taliban religious school.

I understand all these points. That is why I admit to difficulty understanding why the hazy suspicions surrounding Obama’s connection to Muslims have not dissipated. To be a Muslim, it is absolutely necessary to believe in this declaration of faith: “There is no god but God and Muhammad is the messenger of God.” The first phrase signifies belief in one God, the God, as opposed to many gods. The second phrase indicates belief that Muhammad, the prophet of Islam who died in 632, was the messenger of God who brought God’s word to his fellow humankind.

Obama has unequivocally stated that he is not a Muslim. If he does not believe in the declaration of faith, then he cannot be Muslim.

Amongst the many flying rumors is one that goes like this: because Obama’s father was Muslim, Obama is Muslim, too — no matter what he personally believes. But this is not true. In Islam, there is a presumption of faith based on parentage. In pre-modern societies of all faiths, religion was one of many factors that contributed to identity and citizenship. Therefore, there were rules regarding religious adherence. But it is only a presumption. It is rebuttable by faith itself. The definition of a Muslim is not “someone whose father was a Muslim.” Rather, the definition of a Muslim is someone who believes that there is only one God and that Muhammad was the messenger of God. Obama does not fit this definition.

What I find most troublesome about this entire subject is the xenophobia involved. After all, even if Obama were a Muslim — which he has repeatedly denied — why would that be so catastrophic?

As an Indian-American, Muslim, female, corporate lawyer and author, I typify American Muslim women far more accurately than the do the images of the black-clad, oppressed Muslim women featured in the media. I am just as American as my Irish-Catholic best friend. I speak English with a standard West Coast American accent. I have no first-hand memories of the country from which my parents emigrated. Yet, I was recently asked by a new acquaintance whether I would “go back” to the Middle East, since I was Muslim.

Well, I am not from the Middle East. I’m from Southern California.

This attitude does enable me to empathize with the probable feelings of Victorian English Catholics. In 19th century England, English Catholics paid an extra tax for the privilege of remaining Catholic and not belonging to the Anglican Church. They were often viewed as treasonous because of suspicions that their allegiance would belong to Catholic France or Catholic Spain rather than to England, the country in which they were born and raised.

American Muslims are already integrated into American society. We don’t get much of a voice in the media, but we are, as a group, middle class and mainstream. Only about 15-20 percent of us attend the mosques in the U.S. — not because we’re unobservant, necessarily, but (in many cases) because mosques since the early 1980s have come under the influence of Saudi-type Islam, which is just not what most American Muslims are about. The Pew Research Center notes that we are “decidedly American in [our] outlook, values, and attitudes.”1 Moreover, our allegiance is not to the country our parents or grandparents emigrated from, but to the United States — our own country.

During World War II, Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps because they were presumed to be loyal to Japan (no matter how many generations their families had lived in America). The destruction of the World Trade Towers was a type of Pearl Harbor, casting suspicion on American Muslims this time instead of Japanese Americans. But al-Qaeda is no more representative of Islam than the Ku Klux Klan is representative of Christianity.

So even if Obama were a Muslim, he wouldn’t be any less American or any less intelligent or any less competent. The unabating furor reminds me of how John F. Kennedy’s Catholic faith was considered a factor in his presidential campaign.

Obama’s childhood years in Indonesia are a factor in his campaign, too. But why a negative factor? Should we not wish for a president with global understanding? The President of the United States interacts not only with Americans, but also North Koreans, Russians, Iranians, and people of all faiths and nationalities. Should we not aspire to bridge cultural gaps and elect a president who views the world through a big-picture, worldwide, multicultural lens rather than through a narrow one limited to his own faith and background?

Several of my acquaintances have tried to convince me over the years that I should send my children to Catholic schools. “No,” I say, “we have good public schools; I’d rather just send them there.” Someone actually said to me in response, “Well, going to mass and taking religion classes won’t force your children to be Christian or anything!”

Yet the thought of Obama attending both Islamic and Catholic schools in Indonesia strikes fear into some hearts. Instead, it should give us hope that finally we might just have a president who would know how to communicate with the leaders of both Muslim and Christian countries. It is not civilizations that are antithetical and which must clash - it is the misunderstandings of those civilizations that cause clashes. Perhaps, in Obama, we might have a president who would know better than to characterize post-9/11 military actions as a “crusade.”

The tendency to disbelieve Obama’s unequivocal statements that he’s a Christian reminds me of what Norman Daniel writes in his history of Western perceptions of Islam: “It was with very great reluctance that what Muslims said Muslims believed was accepted as what they did believe.”2

Of course, Obama isn’t Muslim, so I guess that analogy doesn’t apply.

Religion

Barack Obama

I was recently conversing with a local schoolteacher, a thoughtful woman I admire, when she exclaimed, “I would love to talk to you more when we have time! I mean, I’d love to know what you think abou…

Sumbul Ali-Karamali: Obama Is Not A Muslim — (But Would it Be So Terrible if He Were?)

By Michelle Boorstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 21, 2008; C01

Once upon a time, Sherry Jones was a Montana newspaper reporter who dreamed she could contribute to world peace with a novel about the prophet Muhammad and his feminist leanings. Then she wrote it. Today? She’s the target of a Serbian mufti and a Middle Eastern studies professor with a lawyer.

Life has been a roller coaster lately for Jones, 46, who went from being a Book-of-the-Month Club pick to seeing her novel dropped by Random House, which said in a statement it had received “cautionary advice” that the fictionalized story of one of Muhammad’s wives might “incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment.”

A Random House spokeswoman said she could not think of any other time the company had canceled a book because of such fears.

Jones and her novel, “The Jewel of Medina,” are subjects of debate from Egypt to Italy to Serbia, where 1,000 Serbian-language copies were printed before the local publisher backed out, too.

Finger-pointing abounds. Feminist Muslims are blaming censorship; Jones and her agent are blaming the Middle Eastern studies professor; and Random House is saying that Jones — who says she doesn’t fear Islamic retaliation — should honor a non-disclosure agreement and stop talking about their dispute.

Ironically, Jones began with a pro-Islamic mind-set when she began writing the novel in 2002. After the Sept. 11 attacks led her to an interest in the Taliban, she began to research the status of women under Islam. And she came to a conclusion: Muhammad supported more rights for women than do many of his modern followers.

“I wanted to tell the story of the women around Muhammad, and to honor them and him as well,” Jones said yesterday from Spokane, Wash., where she lives and writes about environmental issues for the Bureau of National Affairs. “What I see as the Islam Muhammad envisioned has, in crucial ways, been changed. I wanted to show people, especially in the West, about early Islam.”

She started writing a fictionalized story of Aisha, a young and much-beloved wife of Muhammad. Seven drafts later, in April 2007, Random House gave Jones a $100,000 contract for “The Jewel of Medina” and a sequel.

“Jewel” was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection for August 2008, and Random House’s imprint, Ballantine Books, named it one of their featured books. Jones gave Random House a list of people who might be interested in reviewing the book or writing blurbs for it.

All was well until April 30, when one suggested reviewers hit the alarm switch. Denise Spellberg, who teaches Middle Eastern studies at the University of Texas and has written about Aisha, called her own editor — at Knopf, another Random House imprint — to say the book was inflammatory and problematic.

According to Natasha Kern, Jones’s agent, Spellberg went on to hire an attorney and threatened to sue if her name wasn’t taken out of the book’s bibliography. “She said it would endanger her family,” said Kern, who said Spellberg then contacted several Muslim Web sites and told them to oppose the book’s coming publication. Earlier this month, Spellberg wrote in a letter to the Wall Street Journal that the book was “provocative” and followed a tradition of anti-Islamic writings that “use sex and violence to attack the Prophet and his faith.” She did not return a phone call or e-mail message for this story.

Jones says the book has no sex scenes, though it explores Aisha’s relationship with Muhammad in the first person and includes steamy scenes like this one: “Scandal blew in on the errant wind when I rode into Medina clutching Safwan’s waist. My neighbors rushed into the street. What they saw: my wrapper fallen to my shoulders, unheeded. Loose hair lashing my face. The wife of God’s Prophet entwined around another man.”

Publishing insiders are of two minds on the cancellation of “Jewel,” with many calling it alarming, despite the violence that followed the 2005 publication of Danish cartoons about Islam and the worldwide fatwah inspired by Salman Rushdie’s 1988 novel, “The Satanic Verses.” (Rushdie is alive, but one translator of the novel was killed and another injured.)

“It’s a commentary on the times we live in . . . in this frightened time, it’s a much more loaded and charged time in history than it even was then [when Rushdie's book was published],” said Sara Nelson, a blogger for Publishers Weekly, noting that Jones is not the literary figure Rushdie is or was. “It’s understandable they would do it but it still raises troubling issues about publishers’ responsibilities to free speech and non-censorship.”

And besides, she said, “They commissioned this book and knew what it would be about, and it’s surprising to me that they didn’t think of this a long time ago.”

Some progressive Muslims, including feminist journalist Asra Nomani, think too much emphasis is being placed on the notion of Muhammad and Aisha as sexual beings.

“Okay, so this isn’t the next great piece of literature, but it pushes the ball forward in challenging dogmatic ideas about how you can relate to Islam,” Nomani said in an interview this week. “We need movement from this static relationship we have with Islam. . . . Look, Mary and Mary Magdalene have taken hits and survived somehow.”

Carol Schneider, the Random House spokeswoman, said that after hearing from Spellberg, the company called security consultants and Islamic scholars, “all but one of whom expressed strong concern.”

Though the book is fiction, Schneider said, Spellberg’s criticisms were relevant: “Denise is a historian, but what she brought up wasn’t historical inaccuracies but inflammatory passages.”

On May 21, Ballantine called Jones to say the Aug. 12 publishing date should be postponed. Days later, publication was canceled.

Recently, Jones got a boost when a Serbian publisher agreed to print 1,000 copies, but within 24 hours said it wouldn’t do another run after protests from a Belgrade mufti, or Islamic scholar. Soon another mufti was quoted as saying the first one was using the book to pander to orthodox Muslims. Kern says publishers in Hungary, Russia, Italy and Spain have purchased rights to print the book, but are waiting to see what happens in Serbia.

“This has taught me something I’ve been trying to learn my whole life,” Jones said. “To accept life as it happens. I’m not in control of any of this.”

A Book Too Hot Off The Presses

By Jay Tolson

Posted August 20, 2008

Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, U. S. efforts to identify and support moderate voices within the Islamic world have been inconsistent and fumbling. Yet it is becoming increasingly clear that the long-term success in fighting terrorism will depend far more on the result of Islam’s own internal debate than on the outcomes of the fighting in either Iraq or Afghanistan.

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To the extent that it can influence that debate, the next U. S. administration might consider paying closer attention to followers of the Sufi tradition, a mystical and philosophical current within Islam. (”Sufi” itself as a term may have derived from the Arab word for wool, in reference to the simple, rough cloak worn by early Muslim ascetics).

In his new book, The Other Islam: Sufism and Global Harmony, Stephen Schwartz, a journalist and executive director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism in Washington, D.C., argues that Sufism “offers the clearest Muslim option for reconciliation between the Judeo-Christian and Islamic worlds, as well as fulfillment of the promise that Islam shall be a religion of peace.” U. S. News spoke with the author, himself a convert to Islam. Excerpts:

What is Sufism?
Sufism is the esoteric, metaphysical, and mystical tradition within Islam, similar to and influencing [Jewish mystical] kabbalah and Catholic spirituality. It is the tradition in Islam that looks behind the sacred texts, behind the practice, behind the outward manifestations of the religion, seeking the inner truth, the truth of the heart.

When and where did Sufism emerge within Islam?
Sufis say that Sufism begins with Islam itself. There is the famous concept that the Creator was a hidden treasure who wanted to be known. And almost all Sufis trace their lineage back to Caliph Ali, who was a relative and fourth successor [caliph] of Muhammad. The first Sufis are generally considered to be the Basra school in southern Iraq in the first century and a half after the death of the Prophet, and actually the first famous one is a woman, Rabiya Al-Adawiyya. She was the first person to speak eloquently of divine love and love for God and God’s love for creation and humanity.

Of the some 1.2 billion Muslims today, approximately how many are Sufis?
Husain Haqqani, who is now Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, had a conversation with me about this, and he said that we were pretty legitimate in saying that half of the Muslims in the world either are Sufis or consider themselves to be pretty much under Sufi influence or in some ways follow Sufi precepts. When you start breaking it down demographically and look at large Muslim societies like India, Indonesia, Egypt, Morocco, French-speaking west Africa, Turkey, and some parts of Central Asia, that figure of about half makes sense. I’ve developed the proposition that you have two kinds of Sufism. You have a kind of generally diffuse Sufism in Muslim societies where basically the Islam of the whole society is very saturated with Sufism. Indonesia is one specific example of this. Then, overlapping with that, you have societies with the organized tariqat [orders], where Sufism is a social institution. In countries like Morocco, Kosovo, Turkey, Sufism is really belonging to a movement, going on Tuesday or Saturday night to dhikrs [ceremonies devoted to remembering God]; it’s having a sheik and going to regular lectures, and participating in some of the social-welfare activities.

Taking a complicated case such as Iran, would you say that its deep Sufi tradition could potentially be a counterweight to the political-ideological Islam that now dominates?
I would say in Iran, and also in Saudi Arabia and to a less visible extent in Iraq, Sufism represents the main cultural, social, and religious alternative to the ideological forms of Islam that have recently dominated. In Iran, the situation is very complicated because of the obstacles to reporting on what is really going on inside the country. Part of the argument of my book is that in both Saudi Arabia and Iran the Sufis can provide the basis for a transition away from the model of ideological Islamic governance toward a more normal type of society in which religion plays a large role, just as it does in Mexico or Poland, but a normal role.

Why have some Muslims, particularly those called fundamentalists or puritans, objected to Sufism?
There are two objections. There is the theological objection, which begins with Ibn Taymiyya in the 13th century and continues with Wahhabisim starting 250 years ago, and that simply says that the Sufis elevate the saints or the sheiks or the Prophet himself to the equivalent of God, that this is like the Christians who view Jesus as a divine being, and that this is against the Islamic principle that only God is worthy of worship. That is the theological objection.

But in the 19th century, you have a situation in which the Ottoman Empire is heavily involved with Sufism; you also have the Persian Empire, which became Shia under Sufi guidance. These empires are the leading Islamic states at the time, and there was a group of Islamic reformers who looked at the situation of Islam, and especially the weakness of Islam faced by the West and the problems of western imperialism, and they said, “Well, Islam is weak because of the superstitious practices of praying over graves, the dhikrs, following sheiks, believing in saints.”

So you have two streams that object to Sufism, the stream of puritanism and the stream of reformism. And course they could hook up and combine, as they did in Wahhabism.

As you point out in your book, Wahhabis are probably the biggest foes of Sufism.
I’ve said for a long time you can have two visions of Islam as a religion, just as we can have two visions of Christianity as a religion. You can view religion as a fairly narrow set of doctrines that require fairly rigid obedience in which the emphasis is on strictness, discipline, and outward adherence. Or you can see religion in civilizational terms. If you think the world is impressed when a young Muslim commits an act of terror, you are wrong, because the world is much more impressed by cultural achievements. The picture of the Taj Mahal means a lot more than a headline about a bombing to make people respect and become interested in Islam. The biggest difference to me is that Wahhabis don’t view Islam civilizationally. They’re against decorating mosques, against music, against anything beyond saying the prayers, going to the mosque on Fridays, keeping the prayers limited, maintaining this extremely puritanical, fundamentalistic, and limited view of religion as a set of doctrines according to which you live life in a very limited manner.

If you see that there is a variety of Islamic cultures, if you accept, for example, that most Indonesian women are not going to cover their faces, if you see that each of the Islams, the Islam of the Kazakhs or the Islam of the Moroccans, has a specific cultural character that is still Islam and believes in one God, one Prophet, and one Koran but also accepts that there is much else that goes with it, that’s the Sufi mentality.

Why has the United States, and particularly the public-diplomacy arms of the government, been so poor at recognizing and highlighting the importance of Sufism, Sufi leaders, and Sufi organizations and, where possible, supporting them?
First of all, it’s a daunting task for any westerners to engage with these issues. I’ve been engaged with them for a long time, and it’s hard to sort them all out. There is no denying that in the State Department and in the legacy of public diplomacy in dealing with the Islamic world, there has been a bias in favor of dealing with the official authorities, with the clerics, with the Saudi structures, with the Wahhabis and others who claim to represent a normative Islam and who have behind them the vast oil wealth and the special role of Saudi Arabia as an ambiguous but long-standing partner of the United States. Public diplomacy has not attracted people who know or have much interest in this, and also there is a bias in academic study toward a normative and official Islam.

Now, if the United States or the West were to embark on some sort of wholesale embrace of the Sufis, that could conceivably lead to a problematical outcome. Sufism has always thrived because of its autonomy and its independence, and we can’t compromise its spiritual autonomy in the name of a short-term or even long-term political advantage.

However, there are certain things, just in terms of the human-rights responsibilities of western democracies, that we should be able to do for the Sufis. In places where Sufis are under physical attack from Wahhabis—for example, in Macedonia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Iraq—I think democratic governments, human-rights organizations, and NGOs have a moral responsibility to point this out and engage in diplomatic interventions and to make it clear they are on the side of Sufis. But first of all, that means that they have to sit down with them, meet with them, get to know them, invite them to diplomatic receptions, and consult with them fairly regularly. As long as the consultation is one that is based on respect instead of vulgar recruitment, I think it would be beneficial for both sides.

Paying Attention to the “Other Islam” - US News and World Report

Official does not apologize for distributing missive in June

By Mary Owen | Chicago Tribune reporter

10:50 PM CDT, August 20, 2008

Frankfort Township Assessor Paul Ruff held a press conference Wednesday to a respond to an e-mail that angered the local Muslim community. (Tribune photo / John Smierciak / August 20, 2008)

Despite outrage from the local Muslim community, a Frankfort Township official did not apologize Wednesday for circulating an e-mail with anti-Islamic sentiments.
“The e-mail’s basic message was that people coming to this country should adapt,” Township Assessor Paul Ruff said in a statement. “This wasn’t a hateful e-mail, but one that touched upon a sentiment in this country and around the world that immigrants have to adapt to their new homes.”
Statements in the e-mail were attributed to former Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who a few years ago ignited controversy with criticism of Islam and statements asserting that immigrants need to adapt to their new country.
Ruff said he did not write the content of the e-mail, and its origins were unknown.

The flap has drawn the ire of the Council on American-Islamic Relations of Chicago and members of a mosque in Frankfort, prompting residents and religious leaders to hold a town hall meeting last week to discuss discrimination against Muslims. Ruff did not attend the meeting.
“It’s kind of a shock,” Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the council, said Wednesday. “Clearly this is offensive behavior on behalf of a public official.”
Ruff held a news conference at the township hall to defend himself against critics of the e-mail, which he acknowledges forwarding in June to people he knew.
Two Will County sheriff’s deputies were present at the township hall in case of a disturbance. Before Ruff spoke, officials distributed copies of letters to the editor from a local newspaper and played audio recordings of voice-mail messages from people who agree with Ruff.
Among the voice-mail messages were statements such as: “Thank you for standing up for our way of life” and “It’s about time someone had the you-know-what to speak up.”
Rehab criticized Ruff’s use of the township hall for his news conference and was frustrated by the distribution of letters to the editor.
“If we were unhappy with his behavior before, this is even worse,” he said. “He can’t keep hiding behind somebody else’s name and passing out material that is hateful to support his perspective.”
Ruff said he is not a bigot or a racist, noting he has black and Hispanic neighbors. However, he did reiterate sentiments in the e-mail that denounced Islam and said the religion “institutionalizes discrimination against women and non-Muslims.”
Tariq Khan, a board trustee for the American Islamic Association, which operates the Frankfort mosque, said he believes Ruff’s response will further strain relations with the Muslim community.
“It’s unfortunate that he’s been so stubborn in not apologizing,” said Khan, who arrived at the township hall moments after the news conference ended. “It’s time to move on. He is a fine public servant, but I feel he made an error in judgment. “
Ruff said he was being smeared by people angry about their property assessments.
Phyllis Leonardo, 75, of Beecher said she came to support Ruff after seeing criticism of him in the newspaper.
“They’re trying to change our way of living,” she said. “Why are we selling our country out?”

Frankfort Township Assessor Paul Ruff stands by e-mail on Islam, immigrants — chicagotribune.com