Muslim Heretics Conference

At the end of the day, one goes back to basics to understand what the Quran and Islam are about.

ALL Muslims are encouraged to seek and pursue learning as a life-long passion. And like many Muslims in this country, as one ages, one seeks more spiritual enlightenment.

I, like my friends and relatives, do my best to attend tafsir and other religious classes, but I will admit that I think I’m running around in circles in this city in pursuit of spirituality and piety.

I suppose other Muslims are content with, and are more attuned to, the classes we have in the city.

But I want to attend Islamic classes which teach Muslims not just the interpretations of the Quran and Hadiths, Aqidah but also about Islamic architecture, sciences, philosophy and literature.

However, I keep being told that the latter belongs in the jurisdiction of Muslim scholars, not minions like a harried writer such as I.

I was actually told this: “Cukup la kelas tafsir dan Fardhu Ain. Yang nak tinggi-tinggi sangat kenapa? Alif Ba Ta tak pass lagi nak PhD pulak.”

If it’s one thing that gets my goat it would be someone or some people saying I can’t do A B C because I’m not X Y Z. I am a great believer that learning belongs to everyone and that learning about my faith is not just about doa-doa (supplications) and rituals.

I am a student of my faith, and I think it’s my constitutional, personal, human, everything right to find out about Islam. It is also my belief that religious classes should be enjoyable for all.

My mother will slaughter me for saying this, but my days of attending datin kelas mengaji are over. Yes, they are nice, yes they are there to learn about Islam, which is a lot better than this poor soul here, but at the end of the day, it’s like being in high school.

If it’s not about you, it’s who your husband is. In either case, I fail. Argh! I had attended another round with friends at another place and – I kid you not – everything was either bida’ah or involved a jin.

Yes, as a Muslim who has read, memorised, understands and accepts Ayatul Qursy (a verse from Surah Al Baqarah) and the three Quls (the Surahs Al-Ikhlas, Al-Falaq and Surah An-Nas) I know that there are beings which exist alongside us, but we cannot border on syirik (when a Muslim believes in an entity other than Allah).

Still, when my friend told me that she believed the ustaz was right, that there was a jin inside her knee, I lost the plot. I told her she had gout, thanks to the rubbish she ate, and that there was no jin!

Our argument amused our friends greatly. I still stand by my principle: no jin in knee. Only jin teh tarik and junk food.

It’s not without effort, I must say in my defence. I have pestered friends; I even called up Islamic institutions, only to be told (1) classes are only for scholars (ngarr) (2) there are no such classes at their establishment; and I have even gone to their libraries only to be told members of the public are not allowed to borrow books.

And the Government wants us to be global and well-read citizens. (Dina bangs head on table). There is no culture of learning in this country. Only shopping. And tenders. Argh, argh, argh.

After meeting a very handsome Dr M, who was a professor in one of our higher institutions of learning and is now an editor at a local publishing company, who understood my frustrations, and told me to calm down – learning will come to me … I didn’t need to chase it … one day – I came across a very interesting post on the following blogs: Marina Mahathir’s, Rocky’s, Zaidel B’s, Jordan Macavay’s and Art Harun’s.

The Let’s Read The Quran campaign which began in January and will end, aptly, on Valentine’s Day this year is a simple, effective and heartfelt campaign for everyone – Muslims and their non-Muslim brothers and sisters – to understand what the Quran and Islam are about.

Click on the link (www.altafsir.com) each morning and begin your day listening to recitations of chosen verses and chapters from the Quran.

My favourite chapter is the most basic but nonetheless most important one – Al Fatihah. It brought back memories of my first ustaz and my childhood in Terengganu.

The one month of reading what my peers had written in their blogs has been very satisfying. I may not have met Anas Zubedy, but I enjoyed reading about his late grandfather, who taught him how to recite the Quran.

Zaidel B’s blog showed another side to his macho personality, though the name of his blog (Lipas Sepi? Zaidel!) is very questionable.

There were other blogs that I had not read before, so off I went to explore their posts on Islam and what reading the Quran meant to them.

I enjoyed this one month because I felt that the stories were very personable, real and authentic. What a pity this has to end this weekend.

I suppose at the end of the day, one goes back to basics. This will suffice for now, until the path of learning opens up for me.

If the good Prophet Mohamed cannot go to the mountain, the mountain will go to him, then my teacher will appear on my lap … errr, in my life. I can only pray he’s as cute as the good professor.

• Happy belated Thaipusam, Federal Territory Day, Valentine’s Day, whatever day!

An enjoyable insight into Islam

Arab Liberals: The Arab and Muslim World Condemns Human Rights Violations Only When Perpetrated by Non-Muslims

In response to the sweeping condemnation in the Arab and Muslim world of Israel’s actions in Gaza, and the calls to prosecute Israeli leaders for war crimes, liberal Arab writers have accused the Arabs and Muslims of hypocrisy. The liberal website www.elaph.com has published two articles in this vein, by Egyptian liberal Kamal Ghobrial and by Kuwaiti liberal Fahker Al-Sultan. Both writers point out that the Arab and Muslim world is quick to express outrage over atrocities and human rights violations when Arabs or Muslims are victimized by non-Muslims, but turns a blind eye - or even condones the violations - when the victims are non-Muslims, or when Muslims prosecute their own brothers, as happened in Saddam’s Iraq and is happening today in Darfur. The writers argue that this double standard stems from the problem of hatred for the other, and especially towards Jews. Al-Sultan emphasizes the role of the traditional Islamic mentality - and of political Islam, which exploits this mentality - in promoting inflexible xenophobic and antisemitic attitudes.

Following are excerpts from the two articles:

“According To These Courageous Jihadists, Only [Muslim] Blood Is Valuable, While the Blood Of Others Is Basically Worthless And Can Be Spilled Without A Qualm; More Than That, Spilling It Is A Kind Of Sacrifice Through Which One Can Attain Paradise“

Kamal Ghobrial wrote: “…[There are] courageous [heroes] who zealously [defend] human [values], especially when it comes to Muslim blood - for, according to these courageous jihadists, only [Muslim] blood is valuable, while the blood of others is basically worthless and can be spilled without a qualm. More than that, spilling it is a kind of sacrifice through which one can attain paradise.

“[I would like to remind] all these people… that [Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir] is accused of spilling the blood of his own Sunni Muslim people. The arm of justice has reached him in order to hold him to account for crimes perpetrated during his presidency against thousands of innocent people. [These crimes] outraged everyone - except, of course, the Arabs, who are outraged only in specific circumstances and in response to deliberate incitement.

“Will we witness demonstrations in the Muslim and Arab capitals and cities calling for international justice to be carried out and demanding that the accused [i.e. Bashir] be immediately turned over to the [international] court to receive the punishment he deserves…? Or will we see the opposite?

“[I believe that,] once we calm down from our emotional reaction [to the plight of] our children and brothers in Gaza, whose blood is being spilled… we will see the avenging angels of the [Arab] television networks, who support terrorism, make an [ideological] U-turn for the second time this year. They will drop the refrains about defending human rights, and rally to the defense of the accused [i.e. Bashir]. More than that… they will claim that the allegations against him are part of the global conspiracy against the Arabs and the Muslims.

“The essential and baffling question is this: The [Arab and Muslim] outrage that is being witnessed by the region and the world - does it [really] stem from human sentiment and solidarity with the Palestinian people? If the answer is yes, we would expect to see the same reaction to the [plight of the] Darfurians… [However, it turns out that the Arab reaction to atrocities depends upon who the perpetrator is].

“The Palestinians were victimized by the Zionist and American enemy… while the Darfurians were victimized by their own leader [who is a Sunni Muslim. It follows that the support for the Palestinian people] does not stem from love for the Palestinians… but from hatred for the other… for Zionists or Christians.

“If the perpetrator of massacres against Kurds and Shi’ites in Iraq, and later [of massacres] in Kuwait, i.e. Saddam Hussein… is [considered] our hero and a leader of the Arab nation, then we will [obviously] disregard his crimes, and wake up only when some [non-Muslim] comes along to rescue us from his brutal jaws…

“[Another] example is the Muslim Brotherhood. Today, they are recruiting thousands in every Egyptian city and collecting money for the residents of Gaza… However, they, the Gama’a Al-Islamiyya, and the [Islamic] Jihad did not bat an eyelid [at the crimes of Bashir and Saddam]. Instead, they encourage terrorism in Egypt, kill its citizens, soldiers, and security officers, and especially target Copts and foreigners…” [1]

“Why Is It That Offenses Against the Dignity Of Arabs And Muslims Are ‘Blatant And Obvious’ Only When the ‘Perpetrator’ Is Israel? Why This Racial Discrimination In Defending Human Rights?”

In his article, Fakher Al-Sultan accused traditional and political Islam, as well as its leaders, of encouraging hatred towards the other, and especially towards Jews. He too argued that it is the identity of the perpetrator that determines whether the Arab and Muslim world will condemn human rights violations or ignore (or even encourage) them.

He wrote: “The Summer 2006 Israel-Hizbullah war in Lebanon is a striking example that shows the need to [examine] the essence of a popular religious outlook [prevalent] among Arabs and Muslims - namely the tendency which was legitimized [by the religious principle] of rejecting all non-Muslims. [This tendency is part of] the traditional religious outlook of [various] branches [of Islam]. It is manifested in [the ideology of] political Islam, and is taken to extremes in the actions and policy of Hizbullah…

“The sweeping popular support enjoyed by Hizbullah [in 2006] - was it sincere and natural, or did it stem from the fact that the enemy was the state of Israel, ‘the racist religious Jewish [state]?’ Perhaps it had to do with the traditional religious outlook of political Islam - [that is,] with the way [in which political Islam] views other religions, especially the Israeli Jew?

“In fact… why are the Muslims and Arabs categorically interested in the fate of the Lebanese and Palestinians, but are not so intensely interested in the fate of other Arab and Muslim peoples, such as the Iraqis, Sudanese, Afghanis, Somalis and others, who have faced much more severe persecution, terrorism and military [violence]?…

“The traditional religious outlook, which is being manipulated by political [forces], has covertly granted categorical religious legitimacy to any struggle against the Jews or Israel. It has also infected the Arabs and Muslims with egomania, so that all backwardness and all killings are [automatically] blamed on the other - on the foreigner or the non-Muslim, and especially on the Jew.

“The [Arab] nations, other than the Lebanese and Palestinians, are not confronting the Israeli ‘enemy,’ but are fighting a domestic enemy. Consequently, the Arab and Muslim interest in their fate… is shamefully [negligible], and in most cases, [the reaction is complete] indifference…

“When Saddam Hussein invaded and devoured Kuwait in 1990, he deliberately evoked the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, claiming that the way to the liberation of Jerusalem passes through Kuwait… [He did] this because it was clear to him that the popular Muslim view, which is rooted in [the Muslims'] traditional historic-religious outlook, rests on a basic principle which intensifies the hostility towards the Jews and the state of Israel.

“[Saddam] took full advantage [of this fact]… [In this way,] the Iraqi tyrant… managed to enlist the support of the Arab and Muslim peoples, especially the Sunnis [who espouse] the traditional religious outlook. However, at the same time, he accidentally exposed the fallacy and preposterousness of this outlook, and of the politically manipulated devoutness, which are based on the principle of ’support your brother, whether he is the oppressed or the oppressor,’ especially when the ‘enemy’ is Israel.”

“We therefore have to ask: What will be the fate of the Muslim peoples who are doomed to [be the victims of] home-grown oppression, terrorism, tyranny and extremism? Why shouldn’t they receive the same amount of popular assistance and religious support [as the Lebanese and Palestinians], in order to confront their own dictatorial and oppressive regimes?

“Why [do we witness] these populist Islamist attacks on the actions and policies of Israel and the U.S. - [who are accused of violating] the rights of the peoples, such as the Palestinians and the Lebanese - while at the same time there is conspicuous silence in the face of the inhuman atrocities and tortures carried on in almost all prisons in the Arab and Muslim countries? Why this strange silence in the face of human rights violations of all kinds, including the rights of women and children, the rights of foreign workers, and the political and social rights of individuals and peoples?

“Why is it that offenses against the dignity of Arabs and Muslims are ‘blatant and obvious’ only when the ‘perpetrator’ is Israel? Why this racial discrimination in defending human rights? Why distinguish one enemy from the other when the results of the oppression are the same?

“[This approach] is mostly the fault of the traditional religious outlook and of political Islam. The religious scholars who promote this kind of outlook and interpretation are responsible for perpetuating this discriminatory [approach], which can be very simply characterized as inhuman racism. [The proponents of] this approach do not come out against oppressors and against various acts of oppression [as such], but only against acts of oppression perpetrated by Jews, and only because it corresponds to their [religious] outlook, serves their populist goals and furthers their political agenda.

“This approach… finds in the struggle against Israel fertile grounds for promoting its totalitarian religious slogans that correspond to its ideology. It characterizes every crisis as a struggle between what is completely lacking in religious validity and what is absolute religious truth. According to shari’a, [this truth] must be defended even it this contravenes our national and social interests and comes at the cost of thousands of innocent lives.

“Whenever there is a confrontation involving the state of Israel, the politically-manipulated traditional religious mentality… must always draw a dichotomy between the believers, representatives of Allah, and the representatives of Satan, [who are] traitors, agents, infidels and polytheists. This mentality [always] discerns a struggle between the forces of truth and the forces of falsehood, and uses the religious texts as a whip [to enforce its views]. This is meant to prevent any potential criticism against the Muslim side of this burning religious confrontation between the Jews and the Muslims…

“Therefore, the proponents of this type of religious devoutness, [i.e.] those who espouse the traditional religious outlook [and the proponents of] political Islam in some of the Arab countries and societies that are controlled by religious slogans and mystical fantasies, impose the familiar old [method of] resolving their confrontation with the non-Muslims, and especially the Jews. That is, they [hold that] the Muslim public must choose between joining the Muslim side [of the struggle], which is the side of the truth, and joining the [opposite] side, which is the side of falsehood - for there is no room for any intermediate ‘grey area’ view.

“In their opinion, every individual [is one of two things]: either a Zionist, agent and traitor, or a Muslim who believes in Allah and in the plan of politically guided traditional Islam, and who is convinced that Allah will [eventually] give the Muslims victory and eliminate the Jews and their state…

“Hizbullah’s abduction of the two Israeli soldiers in the summer of 2006, as well as Hamas’ actions [in 2009, and its decision] to continue firing its wretched rockets [into Israel] - should they not be subjected to objective and comprehensive criticism?

“More than that - should we not subject these two movements [as a whole], their leaders and their ideology, to criticism? Is it correct to deal with such profound and violent crises only by criticizing the Israeli side, while disregarding the political behavior of the religious groups…?

“[These groups] claim that their conduct and policy are based on transcendental religious methods that may not be criticized, since they [emanate] from the true and original divine [source], and represent a divine stance opposing the stance of the devil.” [2]

MEMRI: Special Dispatch - No. 2239

MUMBAI: Dismayed at the al-Qaida threat to India, Muslim scholars have denounced the terror outfit as a “ruthless army of agent provocateurs”. Both

clerics and secular activists agree that the threat is a tactic to win the sympathy of Pakistan, which is under pressure to crack down on terror camps inside its territory.
Condemning the threat, the scholars said al-Qaida’s bluff must be called. “They claim to represent Islam and protect Muslims. I ask them, `Which Islam is this?’ This is a political game and has nothing to do with Islam or Muslims as Islam doesn’t sanction its believers any right to issue threats,” Islamic scholar Asghar Ali Engineer said.
Senior cleric Abu Zafar Hassan Nadvi Azhari, who studied Islam at several seminaries, including the famous Cairo-based Al-Azhar University, is equally outraged. “Yeh hemaqat hai aur hemaqat ka ka koi jawaz nahi hota (This is stupidity and it has no logic),” Maulana Azhari, who likened the al-Qaida with radical Hindutva outfits like the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, said. “They are two sides of the same coin. They talk in the same language of intimidation and threat,” the cleric said, adding that al-Qaida was harming the interests of Muslims across the world.
Secular activist and Urdu columnist Hasan Kamal agreed: “By appearing as Pakistan’s saviour, al-Qaida is making that country more vulnerable. It shows their sheer ruthlessness and lack of respect for dialogue.” Kamal, in a recent column, lambasted the al-Qaida-backed Taliban order for closing girls’ schools in some parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Muslim scholars also believe that the al-Qaida threat might be out of desperation. “An India-Pakistan conflict always suits such forces. India has shown admirable patience and restraint by not attacking Pakistan after the 26/11 terror strike. The al-Qaida sees this as their defeat but we must not get caught in their trap and allow them to succeed,” counselled Akhtarul Wasey, a teacher of Islamic Studies at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.

Muslim scholars slam al-Qaida-India-The Times of India

February 3, 2009
by Supna Zaidi
Muslim World Today

With the inclusion of Ingrid Mattson, President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), in the national prayer service this week, it seems it is again time to re-evaluate America’s desire to forge alliances with “moderate” Muslims. Various news sources report that Mattson’s invitation raised criticism due to ISNA’s alleged connections to terrorism. (http://www.islamist-watch.org/article/1292 )

It is a fact that ISNA is a listed un-indicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorist financing case and one of a number of “individuals/entities who are and/or were members of the US Muslim Brotherhood.” It is also a fact that Mattson and heads of other “moderate” Muslim organizations have failed to criticize Hamas by name.

Yet, defenders of Ingrid Mattson, like Mark Pelavin, director of inter-religious affairs for the Union for Reform Judaism has called Mattson “a really important voice denouncing terrorism.”

In a Fox News article, Palavin states, “Clearly, Dr. Mattson has been welcome throughout the government,” he said. “I haven’t found anyone anywhere who’s found anything Dr. Mattson has said that’s anything other than clearly denouncing terrorism in quite explicit Islamic terms.”

Without realizing it, Palavin hits on the crux of the problem. By definition terrorism simply refers to the use of violence to achieve a political end. It includes no evaluation, let alone criticism of the motivation behind the violence or the political end desired.

The “war on terror” is an ideological conflict that the Islamist movement has initiated by re-asserting Islam as a socio-political system to counter western cultural, political and economic influence in the Muslim world by bounding society under Islamic law. As a 20^th century phenomenon it grew out of a growing sense of inferiority Muslims felt upon heavy losses endured at the end of the first world war. This sense of loss was exacerbated by the subsequent rise of a variety of autocratic rule that suppressed the growth of civil society, and socio-economic development in the newly formed nation states, giving Islamists room to propagate their message.

Today, the Islamist movement is internally conflicted. Where one side seeks to further the violence initiated by men like Osama bin Laden, while the other prefers non-violence. Non-violent Islamists prefer to work legally through political system with parties, and candidates to persuade the public with their message in elections. Non-violent Islamists further their cause by creating the need among Muslims for a “Muslim voting bloc,” and actively strive to increase the number of Muslim voters in the West through proselytizing, civic engagement and in lobbying.

It is possible that Mattson falls into this latter category considering the history of ISNA and some of her own statements.

ISNA was founded in 1981 by the Muslim Student’s Association (MSA) of the U.S. and Canada. The MSA is a Muslim Brotherhood creation meant to recruit Muslim youth to Islamism. As one past member of MSA stated:

“We are told America’s foreign policy is based on racist neo-imperialism; we are taught that national security is a foul epithet to be reviled; we are told the Jews and Israel are to blame for the hatred against us”.

Moreover, ISNA co-founder and convicted terrorist Sami Al-Arian acknowledges that he was a Muslim Brotherhood member in 1981. It is shocking that the U.S. government continues to embrace ISNA despite a 1991 memorandum made available through discovery in the first HLF case that lists ISNA among a list of Islamist organizations supporting the Muslim Brotherhood’s agenda in the US. (see a copy of the memorandum here).

Steven Emerson, A well-respected terrorist expert has stated that ISNA is “a radical group hiding under a false veneer of moderation”; “convenes annual conferences where Islamist militants have been given a platform to incite violence and promote hatred” (for instance, al Qaeda supporter and PLO official Yusuf Al-Qaradawi was invited to speak at an ISNA conference); has held fundraisers for terrorists (after Hamas leader Mousa Marzook was arrested and eventually deported in 1997, ISNA raised money for his defense); has condemned the U.S. government’s post-9/11 seizure of Hamas’ and Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s financial assets; and publishes a bi-monthly magazine, Islamic Horizons, that “often champions militant Islamist doctrine.”

ISNA has learned to tone down the violent rhetoric and Mattson’s rise in the Islamist ranks, as a white female convert might be intentional effort to appear progressive after 9/11. This is the same year Mattson became Vice-President of ISNA. Like all Islamists, Mattson blames the West for the problems in the Muslim world today. Note her response to the following question during an interview with CNN:

“CHAT PARTICIPANT: At what point in history, if known, did the Islamic nation turn from a philosophical and educated state comparable to the Greeks to the now third world state it is in?

MATTSON: Well, the decline began with the colonization of the Muslim world by European powers. One of the first things the colonialists did was to dismantle the institutions of what we could call civil society. The Muslim world has until now not recovered from that dismemberment of its society”.

And like other Islamists, Mattson prefers that Muslims live under Islamic law. She states in her work , “Stopping Oppression: An Islamic Obligation”:

“Before colonialism, authority was acquired by religious leaders in a much more subtle process, and religious leaders who advocated extreme hostility or aggression against the state were usually marginalized. After all, most Muslims did not want to be led into revolution, they simply wanted their lives to be better. In general, the most successful religious leaders were those who, in addition to serving the spiritual needs of the community, were able to moderate how state power was exercised on ordinary people, and in some sense, acted as intermediaries between the people and state.” (emphasis added)

In the same article Mattson paints a picture of men like Osama bin Laden as charismatic revolutionaries who win the support of the oppressed masses because they have no one else to turn to, regardless of how unfounded violent interpretations of Islam men like Osama advocate. Again it is only the strategy of Islamists that Mattson objects to, not their grievances against the West or their end goal of Muslims living under Sharia as defined by one supra-national body, known as a fiqh council.

Thus it makes sense that she can denounce terrorism on the one hand, and remain silent regarding Hamas on the other. Hamas’ actions are not those of a terrorist organization, but freedom fighters fighting a colonizer on “their” land - Israel.

As the President of ISNA, Mattson is responsible for the activities and statements of the organization. ISNA was founded in 1981 by the Muslim Student’s Association of the U.S. and Canada, another controversial and Saudi-funded organization. Though most mosques are not official ISNA members, ISNA provides materials such as books and periodicals following the Wahhabi ideology to a large percentage of mosques throughout the United States. Kaukab Siddique, the editor of New Trend, an extremist Islamic periodical that is nonetheless opposed to Wahhabi domination of American Islam, states that: “ISNA controls most mosques in America and thus also controls who will speak at every Friday prayer, and which literature will be distributed there.”

ISNA has demonstrated repeatedly that its goals in the United States are no different from the Muslim Brotherhood’s goals in Jordan, Egypt, Syria, or England for that matter. Its leadership is generally either an outgrowth of the MB salafist ideology in the Middle East or an outgrowth of the similar Deobandi ideology of the Indo-Pakistani region.

In 2005, ISNA chose not to participate in the May 14 “Free Muslims March Against Terror,” an event that supported the end to terrorism. ISNA has been accused of supporting Hamas and was investigated by US law enforcement for possible terrorist connections. Its tax records were requested in December 2003 by the Senate Finance Committee. U.S. Senators Charles Grassley and Max Baucus of the Senate Committee on Finance listed ISNA as one of 25 American Muslim organizations that “finance terrorism and perpetuate violence.”

There is no reason either Ingrid Mattson, or ISNA should have been the representative face of Islam at the national prayer service inaugurating President Obama’s first days in office. As the President of ISNA in the United States and Canada, Mattson is responsible for the activities and statements of the organization. Under her watch, ISNA Canada invited a terrorist with Jamaat Islami connections to speak at their conference in 2008, and has featured Tariq Ramadan as a speaker.

Mattson’s presence challenges today’s definition of what the elusive “moderate” Muslim is. Being a moderate requires more than simply denouncing violence. American-Muslims who do not politicize their faith, respect individuals of all other faiths or not faith and defend the secular principles that put all Americans on equal footing are the individuals US. agencies should seek out. They do exist: Consider Zuhdi Jasser, Stephen Schwartz, and Sheikh Kabbani. Otherwise, we will continue to lose in this war on terror by relying on Americans whose loyalties lie elsewhere.

200902033550 | “Moderate” Muslims versus American-Muslims | / | Global Terrorism

By Mohamed Elshinnawi
Washington, D.C.
11 February 2009

Just four days before President Barack Obama’s inauguration in Washington, D.C., on January 20th, an international group of young Muslim activists gathered in Doha, Qatar, to launch what they described as a global Muslim movement for peace, justice and the common good.

Young Muslim leaders gathered from around the world to spark social change in their communities and advocate improving relations with the United States

Participants ended their two-day meeting with a document they called “An Open Letter to the World Leaders of Today from the Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow.” A series of policy recommendations, the document was addressed to both Muslim and non-Muslim leaders around the world.
Americans were among more than 300 young Muslim activists from 76 countries who attended the 2009 Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow Conference. Organizers of the Doha meeting, a nonprofit consortium of Muslim and interfaith groups, promoted it as a catalyst for social change in the Islamic world and as a signal that Muslims - like non-Muslims - support political pluralism, freedom, social justice and combating extremism.
Young Muslim-Americans hope for change
Zeba Khan is a young Muslim-American who went to Doha. During the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, Khan helped set up a group called Muslim-Americans for Obama. She says that from Obama’s election victory and from the Doha conference, she has gained new hope that relations between the United States and the world’s Muslims will improve.
“I saw change in the United States with his overwhelming win, and people in America, regardless of their faith, reject the notion of fear-mongering. Then to go to Doha and see Muslims of all backgrounds and from all countries, whether they are Muslim countries or non-Muslim countries, and to have a common identity and a belief that: Yes, we can change the situation. The dynamic does not have to be negative.
“We can build a positive relationship among ourselves and with people of other backgrounds and faiths. And that, to me, is the kind of change that I have not seen before, and it was inspiring just as much as the change that was happening in the U.S.”
Countering violent extremism
Discussions at the conference focused on ways to counter violent extremism. Seventy-five percent of the young Muslims at Doha agreed in a conference survey that Muslims and non-Muslims must share responsibility for combating extremism, noting that both extremist interpretations of Islam and the foreign policies of western governments have contributed to the radicalization of Muslim youth.
Eighty-six percent of participants agreed that while hundreds of Islamic religious leaders condemned the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States, they were not heard clearly because Islam has no central religious authority like the Vatican.
The conference also discussed policy recommendations to provide Muslim youth with educational and employment opportunities that would help deter violent extremism.

The conference comprised a group of young, engaged Muslims, including Haroon Moghul, a doctoral candidate at Columbia University in New York City

Haroon Moghul is a doctoral candidate at Columbia University in New York, where he is studying the intellectual history of Islam in colonial Asia. He says the Doha conference convinced him young Muslims can lead the change in their respective societies and help bridge the gap between the U.S. and the Muslim world.
“There was a feeling that the relationship between the Muslim world and the U.S. is perhaps the most important relationship, in terms of political and cultural relations, and that there is now a new president and hopefully there is a possibility for a change and we should capitalize on that,” he says. “I think more broadly, it is about saying that many of the problems we face do connect to how countries deal with each other.”
Moghul says the young Muslims gathered in Doha expressed hope for a more democratic Muslim world. And they are counting on President Obama to abandon what they called the gunboat diplomacy of the previous U.S. administration and find a new way forward with the Muslim world based on mutual interest and respect.
Human rights, diplomacy top young Muslims’ agenda
In their open letter, published online at Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow’s Web site and in several major international newspapers, the young Muslims at the Doha conference urged world leaders to promote development and human rights rather than war. The letter urges Obama and other world leaders to prioritize youth and minority development, to respect mutually held values and to pursue honest dialogue and diplomacy to resolve conflicts.

In an open letter, Sayyeda Mirza-Jafri and other participants urged world leaders to prioritize youth development, respect mutually held values and pursue honest dialogue and diplomacy

Sayyeda Mirza-Jafri, another young Muslim-American at the Doha meeting, is already working to build new bridges between Islam and the west. She has managed a collaborative philanthropic project that aims to enhance understanding of Islam and Muslims in the United States using multimedia communications and grass-roots educational events. She says she welcomes President Obama’s message pledging to find a better way forward with the Muslim world.
“I think it is a welcome, wonderful, embracing message, and I think Muslims from around the world - despite their socioeconomic differences and geographic variation - welcome this. They see it as a positive sign. They are waiting to see how the words match the action. And there is good will, there is openness, there is engagement and a very positive, warm feeling [in response] to his wonderful speech.”
The Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow program was established in the United States shortly after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The nonprofit group held its first major international conference in New York City in 2004, when some 125 young Muslim leaders convened to discuss ways of improving the image of Islam in the U.S.
The group expanded its work to Western Europe, and in 2006 it held its second conference in Denmark on the challenges of Muslim integration into Western society.

VOA News - Young Muslim Activists Launch Global Peace Movement