Muslims in Halloween

Our Fight

Muslim Convert Sets Off Bomb

There was a time in Muslim history when a Muslim leader sent a warring general his doctor when he heard of him being ill, and now where are we? It seems now there are Muslims that are ok with convincing mentally challenged people to blow up families with their children at dinnertime. These are the cowards, the filth that ruin al our efforts as peaceful, tolerant Muslims. So let me ask you this? Isn’t it possible that we have greater problems to discuss than Zionists? When an Israeli soldier shoots a boy and his father who are innocent bystanders, it is nothing less than a horrific act, a horrible act that directly affects two people. But when a spineless Muslim cleric “recruits” a mentally challenged youth to hurt innocent people, it affects 1.6 Billion Muslims directly. Because this is how we are now seen, as people who are soulless and horribly misguided by our religion. There is an important fight going on in our world today, and it is not a fight against any race, religion or political belief, it is a fight against ignorance. When Muslims in Britain are ignorant enough to let this happen, it hurts each and every one of us. Therefore when we go and organize a Justice in Palestine week to show people the plight of the Palestinians, it is completely useless, we have absolutely zero credibility left to stand on. When one day it’s a handicapped boy in Britain and the next its mentally challenged suicide bombers in Iraq and the next is little children with explosives, how do we expect to stand up before the people of the world who hear and see these crimes against humanity and tell them about how we are suffering in other parts of the world, or how we are being oppressed in a country on the other side of the globe. There is a duty for each and every one of us to fight against the Muslims who are raping our religion and our integrity. But this is not a fight fought with weaponry, organization or bloodshed, far from that it is a fight fought with kindness. Now I know this will start to sound like hippie crap right now but it’s necessary for a fight we are losing. When we go out into the cities we live in we must shower everyone we meet with kindness, and love, I once heard a Christian priest tell his followers “treat everyone you meet as if they were going to die at midnight.” This is powerful and effective, because people’s personal experience with you and your kindness, your going out of your way for them, your selflessness and your courage will ring louder in their hearts than a clerics attempt at killing people ever will.

Islam, the Solution?

It was interesting to see the vibrancy of the Muslim Brotherhood during the Egyptian elections a few years ago. With the strength of religious revival on the banks of the Nile, the organization, despite the impediments it faced as an illegal party, significantly increased its presence in the parliament. But what troubled me throughout the election was the Brotherhood's use of sloganeering - for instance, one often heard the statement, "Islam huwa-l-hal" or "Islam is the Solution." We may agree with such a statement on principal, but a question still remains: What exactly does that mean?

I remember one Brotherhood-affiliated politician making the claim, "If Islam were truly applied, we would have no hunger." Will the true application of Islam usher in a new utopia - freedom from hunger, poverty, loss, and fear? Will God stop testing those who believe?

The answer is clearly no, as God has promised, "We will surely test you with something of fear and hunger, and loss of wealth, life, and fruits" (Q2:155). The problem with sloganeering is that the society is often given a false expectation of what Islamic-based rule will look like, something that Islamic movements may not be able to deliver once in power. In fact, Islamic movements, long prevented from political power by dictatorial rule, may often find themselves extremely unprepared to deal with actual issues once in power, lacking the necessary practical insight. Slogans may help in winning an election, but they won't keep a government running.

That's why I see the current antagonism from Turkey's secular establishment as a good thing for the Turkish Islamic movement. Despite being democratically elected, the religious-based Justice and Development Party (Turkish: Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi or AKP) has only narrowly escaped being banned by secularists, yet such fears continue and the party must tread very carefully. Its recent attempt to allow women to wear headscarves in universities and government offices has been overturned as subversive to Turkey's secular constitution. These issues may seem unfortunate to some, but in reality, they require the AKP to be responsive to the needs of the entire spectrum of Turkish society and to actually establish sound social and economic policies. Furthermore, the AKP may become an example of how Islam could be gradually established in a society without the use of force and unjust imposition.

Take the response of one Turkish pro-headscarf activist, Hilal Kaplan, when asked about homosexuality (see hyperlinked article above):

“Islam tells us to fight this urge,” but she said that did not affect a homosexual’s rights as a citizen. “I am against police oppression of homosexuals. I am against a worldview that diminishes us to our scarves and homosexuals to the bedroom.”

I fully agree with that sentiment, but I wonder if that understanding could have come about in a society where one segment of the population quickly and myopically imposes religious doctrine on everyone else. The Qur'an states, "And if God did not check one group of people with another, the earth would have been corrupted, but God is full of bounty for everything" (Q2:251). Some may consider the checks to power that Islamic movements confront as undesired impediments, but in reality, these checks transform slogans like "Islam is the Solution" into concrete realities. These checks are a blessing - forcing Muslims to rise above ethnic and cultural aspects of our identity so that we can reflect on what we truly believe and what we're really fighting for.

Claiming the Deceased

"Hindu-Muslim Family's Choice of Cremation Arouses Anger" - Anne Barnard

"The cremation dispute goes to the heart of a debate among Muslims in America about what makes someone a Muslim – to some of the critics, the fact that Shafayet Reja listed Islam as his religion on Facebook is enough."

In an era scarred by takfirist militancy, the question of what makes somebody a Muslim is a very salient one. For some people, a Muslim would be known by a defined set of outward marks – hijab, a beard and kufi, or even the position of one's hands in prayer. The article above reveals an opposite trend, in which a mere declaration of one's religious faith on Facebook is sufficient. The author precisely identified the real dispute at hand – not cremation itself, but the tug-of-war of religious identity that cremation and burial represent.

Conflicts like these where groups vie to claim souls – even deceased bodies – into their fold have a curious tendency to escalate beyond expectation. It’s interesting that although the author relates that the initial contention came from a "small group of Muslims," the dispute sprung from the New York-based Bengali newspapers to make national news in Bangladesh. From what I've seen, mixed Hindu-Muslim marriages like that of the Rejas are generally looked down upon by both Bengali Muslims and Hindus, and such families find themselves alienated to a degree from both communities. In the eyes of many from the Muslim community, Shafayet Reja's growing acceptance of his Muslim identity may have been seen as a victory over the secular society that allows such mixed marriages to occur – and his cremation, an unfortunate setback.

What rites were to be done with Reja's body could only be his family's choice – if the Muslim community had an issue with cremation, its only recourse could have been calm persuasion. The fact that he was cremated is nothing to grieve over, though, and scattered ashes won't make it any harder for God to resurrect anybody on the Day of Gathering. And as for the question of whether Facebook identity is enough to know if someone is a Muslim – I would say resoundingly yes. The Messenger's Paradigm, his Sunnah, is replete with examples that a legal definition of who is Muslim hinges on one basic, outward statement: “that there is no god but God, and Muhammad is God’s slave and messenger.”

On Azhar Usman's "Apology"

"An Apology" - Azhar Usman

I found it hard to keep my composure while reading Azhar Usman's "Apology" upon the passing of Imam Warith Deen Mohammed. Far from the lighthearted comedy Usman is renown for, "Apology" is a biting critique of the American Muslim community, which nearly left me in tears as I recalled cases where I've seen firsthand the very prejudices that Usman describes. Growing up in a fairly wealthy suburban mosque with a large immigrant population, I don't remember any instance in which our congregation was reminded of the situation of the inner-city, predominantly African-American mosque a few miles away. Even on the two yearly Eid holidays, the only times where our communities would have any interaction, the suburban mosques in town would always seem to have undue influence in deciding the location of the Morning Prayer and who would give its sermon. I couldn't help but notice that lingering among us, we felt an unspoken sense of superiority in financial means or religious knowledge.

Five years ago, my father and I attended a scientific conference in a city I would eventually come to live in. On Friday, we decided to go to prayers at the closest mosque downtown which had a predominantly African-American population. "That was a very good khutba," my father mentioned as we left. "It's a very nice community. It's just that their recitation of the Qur'an had some problems."

My father's comment left me stunned and incredulous, especially considering that tajweed was by no means my father's forte. Although my father considers racism abhorrent, his comment struck me as being emblematic of one of the many, possibly unconscious biases that Muslims of foreign origin have in respect to their African-American siblings - that something about them hasn't become completely Islamic enough. An inner-city mosque may have the kindest congregation and the most inspiring and intellectual sermon, but something isn't completely Islamic enough, even if it's just the way the imam pronounces his 'Ayns and Qafs.

Incidentally, as I had mentioned, I recently came to reside in the very city where my father and I had been visiting five years ago. I asked a few people at the suburban mosque nearby which I live about the state of the downtown mosque we had visited, but nobody could put forth its name. And at the Eid prayer commemorating the end of Ramadan a week ago, a few city mosques were asked to each send forth a representative to relay some greetings before the prayer commenced. Despite standing a few blocks from where we were having the morning prayer, that downtown mosque was never once mentioned.

Dedication to Understanding

In a decade where rules are being redefined and the status quo is being challenged, what aspects of our values are we ready to negotiate and which are we willing to stand up for.