Hard times in Al-Andalus

The New York Times has an interesting article about the dearth of mosques in Spain, forcing the burgeoning muslim population to pray in smaller makeshift prayer halls in garages, rented halls, and other similar venues. The muslim community faces stiff opposition from the locals, who mask their underlying (and historic) Islamophobia with the new rhetoric of security:

Although Spain is peppered with the remnants of ancient mosques, most Muslims gather in dingy apartments, warehouses and garages like the one on North Street, pressed into service as prayer halls to accommodate a ballooning population.

The mosque shortage stems partly from the lack of resources common to any relatively poor, rapidly growing immigrant group. But in several places, Muslims trying to build mosques have also met resistance from communities wary of an alien culture or fearful they will foster violent radicals.

Distrust sharpened after a group of Islamists bombed commuter trains in Madrid in March 2004, killing 191 people, and in several cities, local governments, cowed by angry opposition from non-Muslims, have blocked Muslim groups from acquiring land for mosques.
[...]
The North Street prayer hall faced opposition from the outset. Marta Roigé, head of the local neighborhood association, said residents tried to block it five years ago by renting the garage themselves, but backed down after the landlord started a bidding war. They have since sued the local council to close it down on the basis that it is a health and safety hazard.

“The tension has grown as the numbers have grown,” Ms. Roigé said. “They’ve set up shops, butchers, long-distance call centers and restaurants.” These businesses, catering to Muslim immigrants, line the surrounding streets.

She added: “They are radicals, fundamentalists. They don’t want to integrate.”

Muslim leaders, however, say the lack of proper mosques is one barrier to integration. And Spanish authorities and Muslim leaders say the potential for extremism would be easier to monitor at fewer, larger mosques than at the 600 or so prayer halls scattered throughout the country.

The muslim communities are organizing and trying to acquire leases to land to build, though they still face opposition. Given that the majority of muslims in Spain, like the rest of Europe, are laborer class, funding is also a severe obstacle. There is a bill proposed in Spain's legislature to set aside land for all faiths to build places of worship, however the Christian leaders argue that all faiths are not equal and freedom of religion is only for some, not for all:

Cardinal Luis Martínez Sistach, archbishop of Barcelona, opposes the bill, which would entitle all religious groups to land on an equal basis. He argues that Catholicism requires different rules.

“A church, a synagogue or a mosque are not the same thing,” he said, according to the conservative Spanish newspaper ABC. The bill, he said, “impinges on our ability to exercise a fundamental right, that of religious liberty.”

While no law on religious land use exists, the wealthy Catholic Church faces no difficulty acquiring land, experts in law and religion say.

Ah, Western values! This is tremendously short-sighted, because this attitude will further prevent integration by the muslim community, facilitate extremism, and also leave a gaping void for resources which other undesirable forces may fill. Does Spain want the wahhabis to fund a mega-million dollar mosque and appear the saviors of Spanish Islam in the face of committed Christian opposition?

Who Speaks For Islam?

John Burgess of Crossroads Arabia blog gives a heads up on a new book by John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed, titled "Who Speaks For Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think." The book promo text reads,

In a post-9/11 world, many Americans conflate the mainstream Muslim majority with the beliefs and actions of an extremist minority. But what do the world’s Muslims think about the West, or about democracy, or about extremism itself? Who Speaks for Islam? spotlights this silenced majority. The book is the product of a mammoth six-year study in which the Gallup Organization conducted tens of thousands of hour-long, face-to-face interviews with residents of more than 35 predominantly Muslim nations — urban and rural, young and old, men and women, educated and illiterate. It asks the questions everyone is curious about: Why is the Muslim world so anti-American? Who are the extremists? Is democracy something Muslims really want? What do Muslim women want? The answers to these and other pertinent, provocative questions are provided not by experts, extremists, or talking heads, but by empirical evidence — the voices of a billion Muslims.

I can appreciate the enormity of the task - which is probably why this book is coming out now instead of three years ago when it might have been immensely more useful in blunting the rising jafi tide. It's worth noting that the Pew Global Voices polling probably has covered a lot of this ground before, so it will be interesting to see how Esposito and Mogahed's results compare, especially if they are more comprehensive. They give a preview of their work in this op-ed:

Our new study, "Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think," reflects the views of 1.3 billion Muslims. The book is based on six years of research and more than 50,000 interviews conducted in more than 35 predominantly Muslim nations or nations with sizable Muslim populations. Representing more than 90 percent of the world's Muslim communities, this poll is the largest, most comprehensive study of its kind. The results defy conventional wisdom and the inevitability of a global conflict -- even as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue.

The study produced some surprises. It showed that Muslims and Americans are equally likely to reject attacks on civilians as morally unjustifiable. Those who do choose violence and extremism are driven by politics, not poverty or piety. In fact, of the 7 percent of respondents who did believe that 9/11 was justified, none of them hated our freedom; they want our freedom. But they believe that America -- and the western world in general -- operate with a double standard and stand in the way of Muslims determining their own future.

I will probably pre-order the book as well. Should be a handy reference for bloggers in the Brass Crescent.

defining a muslim Left II: The Gash of Civilizations

I have previously argued that in defining a genuinely Islamic-American political identity, we must identify what exactly our issues are. This news seems relevant in that regard:

Most people in Muslim countries and the West believe divisions between them are worsening, a Gallup poll for the World Economic Forum (WEF) suggests.

The poll also suggested that most Europeans thought more interaction with Islam would be a threat - though most Americans disagreed.
[...]
Describing the position now, majorities on both sides said they did not believe the two sides were getting along.

This belief was strongest in the US, Israel, Denmark - where the publication of cartoons about the Muslim Prophet Muhammad caused worldwide controversy - and among Palestinians.

WEF experts examining the poll data put this down to the effect of the Iraq war and the Middle East conflict.

By contrast, there was a less gloomy response in Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

According to WEF poll, neither the West nor the Muslim world believed the other side respected it.

But while Muslims said they believed their world did respect the West, Western respondents agreed that the West did not respect the Muslim world.

The issue for Muslim Americans is fairly obvious, given that we are highly vested in closing this gap between east and west, because the existence of this "gash" of civilizations serves to strain our own identities. We have family and friends on both sides of the Gash, we have cultural practices and values that span it, and we live in two worlds at once. Hence, a political party or politician that demonstrates an awareness of the Gash, and policies that serve to mend it or bridge it, is one that deserves our support.

It should be noted that neither political party is doing much to mend the Gash at present. The Democrats' seizure of the Dubai Ports World issue was a disgraceful example of latent xenophobia, but had they played it the correct way would have served as a powerful example of an issue which could draw east and west together (on the basis of economic cooperation and mutual gain). However, the Republicans are far worse than this, engaging in a rhetorical war against muslims and engaging in overt religious prejudice by their insistence on the phrase "Islamofascism" :

The pairing of "Islam" and "fascism" has no parallel in characterizations of extremisms tied to other religions, although the defining movements of fascism were linked to Catholicism - indirectly under Benito Mussolini in Italy, explicitly under Francisco Franco in Spain. Protestant and Catholic terrorists in Northern Ireland, both deserving the label "fascist," never had their religions prefixed to that word. Nor have Hindu extremists in India, nor Buddhist extremists in Sri Lanka.

In contrast to the way militant zealotries of other religions have been perceived, there is a broad conviction, especially among many conservative American Christians, that the inner logic of Islam and fascism go together. Political candidates appeal to those Christians by defining the ambition of Islamofascists in language that makes prior threats from, say, Hitler or Stalin seem benign. The point is that there is a deep religious prejudice at work, and when politicians adopt its code, they make it worse.

The use of such rhetoric becomes a feedback loop which drives the GOP further and further into the jafi embrace. There is a real danger that if this continues, the GOP will ultimately become as radicalized as the white supremacist political parties of Europe, except on religious grounds rather than racial. It may be that Democrats are not doing anything to improve the Gash, but the Republicans are actively exacerbating it. The challenge then for the muslim Left is to articulate the concern about the Gash, and present the case for why its existence is not just a threat to our interests but to the nation as a whole.

Christians insist they worship same god as Muslims

Presented for your perusal without further comment.

A church and Christian newspaper in Malaysia are suing the government after it decreed that the word "Allah" can only be used by Muslims.

In the Malay language "Allah" is used to mean any god, and Christians say they have used the term for centuries.

Opponents of the ban say it is unconstitutional and unreasonable.
[...]
There has been no official government comment but parliamentary opposition leader Lim Kit Siang said the decision to ban the word for non-Muslims on security grounds was "unlawful".

"The term 'Allah' was used to refer to God by Arabic-speaking Christians before Arabic-speaking Muslims existed," he said.

Well, one comment: obviously, the ban is wrong and any muslim supporting it is an idiot.

via pixelisation.

UPDATE: Malaysia reversed the ban. Seems we are all the same mono in monotheist after all. All praise due to Ali Eteraz, even though I beat him to blogging about it :)

I don't believe in god

not the God who is a hypothesis, or the god who is a gene, or the God who is a hole, or any of the other Gods that those who freely choose disbelief continually insist is equivalent to the God in which I have, simply, faith.

I don't want to prove God. I don't need to prove God. However, many anti-theists (a distinct subset of atheists as a whole) seem to want to, and need to, disprove God. But all of these boil down to utilitarian descriptions of God - a functional God, one whose existence is defined by human semantic constructs such as Occam's Razor, or limited by human concepts of logic and reason (proof of negatives, the immovable stone, etc), or by linear time and space (creation and causation), or even by morality (why won't god heal amputees?). I agree; none of those gods exist, and I don't believe in any of them.

There is no god. Save Allah!

an Astrodome proposal

After 9 years, I moved from Houston to central Wisconsin this past July, but there will always be a part of Texas - and Houston - in my blood from now on. So I stay abreast of local news and politics from Houston as best I can, mostly via Charles Kuffner. His ongoing coverage of the travails of the Astrodome redevelopment project has been fascinating, and dispiriting as well. The recent news that the Texans and the Rodeo are pretty much opposed to any hotel concept on the Dome site really bodes ill; as Charles puts it, any new plan needs to be "1) commercially feasible, 2) politically viable, and 3) not in conflict with the bidness of the Texans and the Rodeo." Otherwise, it seems that the demolition of the Dome is inevitable.

A crazy thought occurred to me. The old Compaq Center in downtown Houston was sold to Lakewood Church (of Joel Osteen fame) and is now fully renovated as a megachurch. Why not attempt something similar with the Astrodome, by making it into a mosque?

Houston has several public personalities who are also muslim who could rally the community and marshal outside support and resources to such a task. Notably, city councilman M.J. Khan, Mustafa Tameez, and retired basketball legend Hakeem Olajuwon. More to the point, Houston has an estimated muslim population of 250,000, and native Texan-style Islam is vibrant and growing - especially among the Latin community. A megamosque would become a focal point of Islam in Texas and serve as a valuable icon of outreach to the rest of the spiritual community. In addition to serving as home to the annual Eid al Fitr feast, the megamosque could also compete to bring the ISNA and other important annual conferences to Houston. While the megamosque would need to be an independent entity, it could certainly have relationships with existing muslim organizations like the Islamic Society of Greater Houston, the Katy Islamic Organization, etc. The potential for charity and disaster relief work and coordination is also immense.

This could all just be a pipe dream with no pragmatic reality. Still, it fires the imagination.

defining a Muslim Left: part I

Introduction: Eteraz on Islamic reform

Ali's series on Islamic Reform at The Guardian has been, in my opinion, nothing less than a tour-de-force. I've linked the series below; they really are mandatory reading for anyone interested in discussing Islam in the context of politics and policy.

1. The Roots of Islamic Reform
2. The Islamic reformation
3. An Islamic counter-reformation
4. Beyond Islamic enlightenment
5. The making of the Muslim left

The Falwell muslims

In his latest entry, Ali identifies what he terms the Muslim Right - evangelical religious supremacists who follow the roadmap of the Christian Right, seeking to utilize the mechanisms of democracy as a vehicle to further their agenda and polemic. These are essentially the muslim analouge of Falwell and Dobson; they are not violent and they are much more numerous in the UK than in the US. Dal Nun Strong and Tariq Nelson have both done real yeoman's work in identifying and rebutting these "Falwell muslims" on their respective blogs. However, their efforts are largely isolated since the Islamosphere is loosely organized and does not have much of a platform for articulating the counter arguments within the broader media environment.

Principles for a muslim Left

To try and address the problem, Ali calls for the emergence of a "Muslim Left" which would explicitly affirm the following principles:

• separation of mosque and state;
• opposition to tyranny (even if the tyrant has liberal values);
• affirmance of republicanism or democracy;
• an ability to coherently demonstrate that the Muslim right represents merely one interpretation of Islam;
• a commitment to free speech and eagerness to defeat the Muslim right in the marketplace of ideas;
• commitment to religious individualism and opposition to left-collectivism, specifically Marxism;
• opposition to economic protectionism;
• opposing any and all calls for a "council of religious experts" that can oversee legislation (even if those experts are liberals); and
• affirming international law.

Strategies for a muslim Left

To be effective, Ali argues that the muslim Left must utilize the following strategies:

1. Popularising the slogan "theocentric, not theocratic" to counter claims of religious treason that will be hurled by Islamists;
2. An alliance with supporters of old-school Muslim orthodoxy who despite their conservative values are not the same as the Muslim right because they do not like to politicise their faith. These Muslims, by virtue of doctrine and history, have always supported separation of mosque and state, and still do;
3. Having the confidence to call their solutions truer to the ethos of Islam than the ideas of the Islamists, without engaging in apostasy wars;
4. An alliance with Marxists and neo-Marxist Muslims without getting sucked into their collectivist phantasmagoria;
5. Opposing any and all punishments, fines and stigma for "apostasy," "heresy," and "blasphemy". This includes opposition to all "sedition" crimes;
6. Accepting that the enthronement of the left through democratic means might require the intermediate step of the Muslim right succeeding as well, due largely to its head-start;
7. Supporting arts, literature, agnosticism and atheism without engaging in derogatory or insulting gestures. The battle against Islamism isn't a fight against Allah or Prophet; it is against an ideology;
8. Supporting Muslims' right to express their piety with beards, hijab, niqab in order to draw the moderates among the pietists away from the Islamists; and most importantly
9. Opposition to all imperial western behaviour. Also, rejection of any and all alliances and support from the western right.

An intrinsic conflict

I am in large, broad agreement with essentially all of this (with some exceptions, addressed shortly). I agree that the mainstream conservative Right is now a hostile entity, emphasized by Ali in the last point above. However, it must also be noted that the mainstream liberal Left is not automatically a natural ally for our putative muslim Left, either.

Part of the conflict arises from the basic principles, which come into conflict with the mainstream of liberal political thought. For example, the issue of "opposition to leftist collectivism specifically Marxism" is problematic. What aspect of Marxism specifically do we mean? The central tenets of Marxism, ie the dignity of the working class and the conscience that keeps capitalism fettered, remain core principles of modern liberalism. Likewise, the warning against "economic protectionism" is also somewhat vague and opens us to conflict with the liberal mainstream. The free vs fair trade debate is a critical one. The final and "most important" strategy prescription that Ali makes is to reject the Western Right, but it's worth noting that embracing the principles above would put the Muslim Left in de facto alliance after all.

The Fallwell Left

More important than matters of domestic policy and social justice however is tolerance. And on this score, the Left is just as hostile to muslims as the Right. The mainstream Left remains deeply skeptical of religious faith, with secularism as a core value. Ali notes that the muslim Left will need to make concrete and sincere alliance with old-school muslim orthodoxy, but this also entails defending the orthodox (muslim and christian alike) against the secularist assault. An example is the overt hostility to expressions of faith in the public sphere, which do not violate the concept of separation of church/mosque and state but still elicit a pathological response from the warriors of secularism on the Left. In Europe, the fault line lies firmly upon hijab, which Ali mentions above as an expression of piety. The zeal with which the secularists pursue their agenda is no less supremacist than their analouges on the right.

Dubai Ports World

Beyond the conflict with secularism lies something even uglier; outright xenophobia. The best example of this was the Dubai Ports World fracas. While President Bush argued forcefully in support of the deal, Democrats seized upon the issue as a means to burnish their security image, a gross example of political pandering at the expense of the muslim community. Leading the charge was none other than Hillary Clinton, who claimed the deal would "surrender" our ports to "foreign governments", even though 80% of US ports are already operated by foreign-based firms (including Chinese). There were Democratic voices in support of the deal, including former Presidents Bill Clinton (heh) and Jimmy Carter, the latter of whom took the trouble to answer a question I posted to him on Daily Kos regarding the matter:

Answer to azizhp: In an interview on CNN, I publicly supported the DPW as
soon as the issue arose. My agreement with President Bush on the issue was highlighted that evening by Jon Stewart on the Daily Show. There was no
threat to U.S. security, and it was a false and demagogic issue.

(emphasis mine). Eventually DPW sold its stake to an American-based firm to defuse te issue, but the damage was done.

And the DPW issue is not an isolated incident. Via 'Aqoul, there was another display of Democratic xenophobia, this time with Senator Charles Schumer leading the crusade against another Dubai-based firm buying a stake in the NASDAQ exchange:

Saying the deal gives him pause, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., pressed Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Thursday to thoroughly review a proposal by Borse Dubai to buy a nearly 20% stake in the Nasdaq Stock Market.

"I believe that the acquisition of such a large stake in a U.S. exchange by a foreign government raises some serious questions," the senator wrote to Paulson.

An outdated political axis

It should be noted that if one wishes to critique Dubai, there are plenty of legitimate avenues to do so; for example, the fact that the engine of economic prosperity runs off the back of indentured labor. Man-made island chains, 7-star hotels, and the tallest building in the world, all are gleaming Pharonic monuments to economic disparity. Dubai is a "gulf" state indeed, but there is little critique of Dubai on this score from the liberal mainstream.

And therein lies the crux of any attempt to define a muslim Left solely in relation to the traditional left-right political axis. In doing so, we become constrained by the same stultifying left-right narratives that so hobble mainstream political discourse. Exhibit A is today's New York Times piece on Ali's reform series, where they (wrongly) describe the concept of a muslim Left as "centered on Western political liberalism." But who can blame them for that perception, when Western political conservatism is so explicitly rejected in its formulation? The truth is that there are issues on which the muslim Left can, and even must, agree with the political Right. Of these, the most critical is foreign policy, to be addressed in Part 2 of this post.

Traditionalism: Yahya Birt responds

I am honored that Yahya bhi Birt left a comment in response to my earlier post, where I disputed his definition of traditionalism. The full text of the comment is as follows:

A commitment to the scholastic interpretive legacy of Islam, or Traditionalism, equals an principled and rigorous engagement with the establishment of the proof-texts (nusus), the debate over the principles by which the authenticity of proof-texts are established, the debate about interpretive methods (usul al-fiqh) and the derivation of rulings (furu) which are various as a result. This results of this engagement are not absolutely fixed, they are various, and there is a sense in which a process of refinement goes on (because debates develop as more people contribute to them over time and ponder on previous interventions). Secondly there is process of self-correction which as I mentioned in the original article which relies on the mechanism of "moral and intellectual peer review".

But note all this is defining "traditionalism" not "tradition" itself, and the two should not be confused. Tradition is the totality of the canonical proof-texts of the religion.

wa s-salam Yahya Birt

I am sympathetic to this clarification, and agree with Yahya bhai that the subset of who is qualified to engage in this process is highly limited.

What is more, there is a modern component to the term Traditionalism as used in intra-Sunni religious discourse in the West, as he explains at his original post (which I had not read, I had only requoted from Ali Eteraz):

Outside of its more general and normative sense, what is more often referred to in the West today as traditionalism is a particular and recent manifestation. Around the beginning of the nineties, a set of scholars in the West attempted to defend traditional Islam against the polemics of the political Islamic movements and the Salafis. For a young generation in Britain and North America, traditional Islam was in danger of losing serious ground. It was accused of being either backward, hidebound or even unorthodox and heretical. This group of scholars restored the conviction of many in this generation in the intellectual validity of traditional Islam and initiated them in the wellsprings of its scholastic and mystical traditions.

The article as a whole is a fascinating read, and I have not done it proper justice yet. Coming from the Shi'a (and specifically, the Ismaili) perspective, I am somewhat of an outsider to the debate, but I think that on the broad issue of the value of tradition (and the importance of a genuine religious authority to police it) we are on very much the same page.

Reflecting Ramadan

It is like a pool of water ahead on the path; it shimmers with anticipation. It is Ramadan, which begins at sunset tonight according to the Hijri calendar.

My intention is to blog daily during Ramadan, in the quiet space after the morning pre-dawn meal (sihori) and the sunrise prayer (fajr). I also note that my friend Shahed Amanullah will also be blogging during Ramadan over at Beliefnet. His first post, about the intersection of 9-11 and Ramadan this year, is an excellent start:

But this Ramadan has been heralded by images of Osama bin Laden taunting us from his cave and exhorting non-Muslims to accept Islam, obviously unaware that the actions of him and his kind have done more to bring curses down upon our beloved Prophet Muhammad and turn people away from Islam more than anything in Islam's history. It's imagery and words like this, and the strong feelings they evoke in me, that I have to push aside in order to focus on starting this month right.

The terrorism that I read about in the news represents the polar opposite of what Ramadan stands for. Ramadan is about opening yourself up to God's mercy, enduring patience in the face of discomfort and adversity, and providing assistance to those less fortunate. Extremism and terrorism is just the opposite--the ultimate exercise of self-indulgence and inflicting merciless hardship on the innocent.

Indeed. In fact, for the next two years, 9-11 will fall within Ramadan again. It is important for muslims to move beyond 9-11 as a context in which we defend our faith and simply embrace our faith on our own terms. The time for attempting to assuage other Americans' fears about Islam is over; it is time to simply be muslims, and Americans, again. Ramadan this year represents an opportunity for a renewal of our identity as a community like any other in this great nation.

Why I wear the ridah

This essay was written by an 18-year old Bohra woman in Toronto, Tasneem bhen Yahya. It was originally published in the Young People's Press and the Halifax Chronicle Herald in 2003.

Contrary to popular misconceptions, the ridah or veil is liberating. It forces people to focus on the person, rather than the clothes they are wearing.

Designer jeans and tube tops don't have to be what defines a person. Success shouldn't be determined by how much skin is revealed, but by intelligence and personality. The ridah helps emphasize these attributes by covering a woman's body.

The ridah is also beautiful.

It comes in colours ranging from pretty pastels to rich shades of indigo, emerald, and crimson. The materials used vary from simple cottons to rich satins and chikan (embroidered cloth).

Usually ridahs are adorned with lace, embroidery and flowery appliques. Pre-designed ridah material is readily available in Pakistani and Indian street markets, but you still have to get them stitched by a tailor.

I look forward to trips to Pakistan where I can purchase my own material and accessories to fit my taste. I pick vividly printed cloth and intricately crocheted laces that are unusual.

I figured wearing a ridah to school would alienate me from my friends. Instead, all my friends from various backgrounds - Irish, Italian, British, Guyanese, Pakistani - encouraged me to wear it.

One of my friends asked questions about wearing it. She asked me where it came from, and whether it was mandatory for women to be veiled.

I explained to her it's my choice to wear it. It's a true reflection of my faith.

The ridah is an expression of faith similar to crosses for Christians and yarmulkes for Jewish men. For me, the ridah is a way to tell others I'm a practicing Muslim. I follow Islam and everything it teaches me about how to live my life and be a better person.

My friend then asked, "Aren't veiled women a product of fundamentalist Islamic regimes run by men?"

I was shocked she was so misinformed. But I couldn't blame her.

The only images I've seen of veiled women on television were from CNN's coverage of the "War on Terrorism." I saw women who were starving, uneducated and oppressed. Everything I'm not.

I'm skirting the edge of copyright by excerpting so much; the piece is worth reading in full.

Also related: my old essay, the Burka and the Bikini (altMuslim.com)

You can have the West

This thread at Dean's World about the movie 300 is stupefyingly predictable. One one side, people who know history. On the other, commentators like Kevin D who insist that the modern West was exclusively the product of Judeo-Christian values. Another commentator tries to explain to Kevin:

much of the knowledge of the ancient Greeks was brought back to Europe through the crusades... "Rescued" from the Muslims who had been protecting it. It's part of why Europe emerged from the Dark Ages.

Dave Schuler of the Glittering Eye chimes in as well, arguing,

Aristotle (and, I believe, Herodotus—our primary source on the Battle of Thermopylae) was unknown in the West until his works were promulgated in Latin translations of Arabic translations by Muslim scholars. Thomas Aquinas, for example, relied exclusively on one such translation.

Kevin's response?

So, we should thank the Muslims for stealing our stuff and being kind enough not to destroy it until we could get it back?

Well, there is a kind of logic to that.

Essentially, you're all saying that Islam didn't actually add to the West, it just held on to the documents the West wrote.

How about I rob your house and you can thank me for helping you get a TV when you come to take yours back? Deal?

In the above exchange - which takes place on the Internet, upon which detailed and informative articles about Aquinas and Ibn Rushd are just mouse-clicks away - Kevin seems almost proud of his anti-intellectual stance. I can't explain why someone would choose to be so doggedly ignorant.

John of Crossroads Arabia tries to educate Kevin:

I think the use of the term 'stole' is hysterically anachronistic. Really quite funny.

Now that, with Kevin's permission, we can redefine 'conquest' as 'theft', we can go about righting all sorts of historic wrongs, all the way back to the days Cro Magnon dealt from the bottom of the deck to Neaderthal.

Let the Goths give back to Rome what they took; let the Romans give back to Etrusca and Greece what they stole.

The Arab armies didn't 'steal' Western treasures. They didn't even share, for a long time, a common sense of what 'treasure' was outside of gold and jewelery. By the Medieval period, though, Muslim culture (formed by Muslim, Christian, and Jewish tought) did recognize the value of what they had in their hands. They didn't just store it, either, but interpreted it, used it as the basis of more modern ways of looking at the world. Averroes, Avicenna, Maimonedes were all products of that Muslim civilization that transferred 'Greek' wisdom to the West through their mediation, both physically and intellectually.

and another commentator DanielH also chimes in,

Science was advanced by Muslims during the European Dark Ages. Roger Bacon learned science by studying original works of physics, optics, etc. written by Muslims and translated in Toledo. The preservation of Aristotle is a minor, but laudable part of the contribution of Muslims to world civilization. One could add that it wasn't just Aristotle, but Aristotle through the perspective contemporary scholarship of Ibn Rushd that was soaked up by Aquinas et al in Paris.

and later provides a handy list of historical figures with links to their Wikipedia entries. However it's a safe assumption that Kevin's worldview, which hinges on a Christianized polemical reading of history, is largely immune.

The irony is that there was no West in antiquity, and the very concept of the West is still one that no one can satisfactorily define. Why not just go ahead and let The West be defined as the nonsensical phrase "civilization founded on Greek principles and informed by Judeo Christian values" ? Its just as arbitrary as any other definition.

I look at history and I see two civilizations - that of the Islamic-Christian arc, and the East (China). I also see a vast struggle between barbarians and nations. Those are the obvious dividing lines of history and even the modern day. Kevin can have the West; I don't care.

The St. Petersburg Declaration: text and analysis

Here is the full text of the St. Petersburg declaration from the Secular Islam Summit.

We are secular Muslims, and secular persons of Muslim societies. We are believers, doubters, and unbelievers, brought together by a great struggle, not between the West and Islam, but between the free and the unfree.

We affirm the inviolable freedom of the individual conscience. We believe in the equality of all human persons.

We insist upon the separation of religion from state and the observance of universal human rights.

We find traditions of liberty, rationality, and tolerance in the rich histories of pre-Islamic and Islamic societies. These values do not belong to the West or the East; they are the common moral heritage of humankind.

We see no colonialism, racism, or so-called “Islamaphobia” in submitting Islamic practices to criticism or condemnation when they violate human reason or rights.

We call on the governments of the world to

reject Sharia law, fatwa courts, clerical rule, and state-sanctioned religion in all their forms; oppose all penalties for blasphemy and apostacy, in accordance with Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human rights;

eliminate practices, such as female circumcision, honor killing, forced veiling, and forced marriage, that further the oppression of women;

protect sexual and gender minorities from persecution and violence;

reform sectarian education that teaches intolerance and bigotry towards non-Muslims;

and foster an open public sphere in which all matters may be discussed without coercion or intimidation.

We demand the release of Islam from its captivity to the totalitarian ambitions of power-hungry men and the rigid strictures of orthodoxy.

We enjoin academics and thinkers everywhere to embark on a fearless examination of the origins and sources of Islam, and to promulgate the ideals of free scientific and spiritual inquiry through cross-cultural translation, publishing, and the mass media.

We say to Muslim believers: there is a noble future for Islam as a personal faith, not a political doctrine;

to Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Baha’is, and all members of non-Muslim faith communities: we stand with you as free and equal citizens;

and to nonbelievers: we defend your unqualified liberty to question and dissent.

Before any of us is a member of the Umma, the Body of Christ, or the Chosen People, we are all members of the community of conscience, the people who must chose for themselves.

It won't surprise regular readers of mine to learn that I largely agree with the declaration as written. Note that I am taking the Declaration at its word; I have emphasized some words above upon which my agreement is contingent.

Agreement aside, however, I simply cannot sign or endorse the St. Petersburg Declaration. The reason is not for what it does say, but rather for what it does not. The signatories explicitly reject Shari'a as Law; that's fine, but they do not acknowledge it as a valid source of law, which is not fine. Shari'a is a complex tradition with many schools of thought and as such is as perfectly valid as the Judeo-Christian jurisprudential tradition for deriving inspiration and guidance for Law. As matoko puts it, they suck at bricolage.

By excluding Islam and excluding muslims of faith from the conversation about how to achieve these noble goals, they have marginalized themselves.

To be taken seriusly, the declaration must live up to its assertion of freedom of religion, by validating the choice of Islam as faith as compatible with the freedoms they enunciate. Instead, they have created a document that explicitly separates Islam from freedom, and in so doing becomes an attack on Islam and muslims themselves. The skeptical muslim might well conclude that - noble lofty rhetoric about rich Islamic traditions and no war between West and Islam aside, the real purpose of this Summit was to erode the legitimacy of Islam itself in the eyes of the West. Having wild-eyed reactionaries like Wafa Sultan aboard certainly doesn't help their credibility in this regard, either. I also note that Irshad Manji refused to sign the declaration and protested vigorously when her name was added to it without her consent. Based on an insider report from a practicing muslim at the Summit, I have revised my opinion of Manji and in fact am unashamed to admit that I misjudged her. She has my authentic respect.

How could the signatories of the Secular Islam Summit obtained my support? I am after all a signatory to the Euston Manifesto; I am pro-freedom (though I think democracy is putting cart before horse); I am pro-Israel (I support the Wall and was pleased at Arafat's demise). Simply put, they could have made an attempt to acknowledge that being a pious muslim is perfectly compatible with these universal principles. That could have been achieved by including something like this addendum via eteraz:

1. We believe that faithful, practicing Muslims are an integral part of the global community and that there is nothing inherently irreconcilable between the practice of Islam and affirmation of universal human rights. 2. In democracies the world over practicing Muslims routinely affirm the principles of separation of religion from the state by participation in such civic systems. 3. We believe that practicing Muslims, as holds true for every person in every faith tradition, should be free to rely upon their faith tradition to inform their social and political decisions as long as they are consistent with the principles of pluralism. 4. We stand by those who practice the religion of Islam and draw from it empathy, justice, peace, and humanity and oppose violence of any kind including violence in the name of Islam.

In addition, they could make some effort at outreach to those who have already done much yeoman's work in explaining liberty and freedom from within the Islamic context. That includes the blogsphere as well as noted thinkers like Khaled Abou el Fadl and Syed Hussein Nasr.

Ultimately, for any kind of true progress towards the goals that the St. Petersburg signatories desire, they must talk to muslims themselves and rely on Islam itself for the solution. Or be irrelevant; as they choose.

the muslima book: a call for essays

My sister and another close friend are putting together a collection of essays by Muslim American women, to be published in a book by the end of this year. They have asked me to help them publicize a call for essays to be published in this book. The details are as follows:

Each essay must be written by a practicing Muslim American woman, either born and/or predominantly raised in the U.S. We are looking for contributors between the ages of 22 and 35 who are born into a Muslim family and claim Islam as their faith.

Please write articulately about a personal aspect of your life with regards to being a Muslim American woman. The essay should express in some way how your Muslim-ness and American-ness affect your life. This need not be overt but the essay should come from that perspective.

Essays should be no longer than 1000 words and will be edited for clarity. All submissions may not be accepted, but every submission will be considered. Please include name, age, birthplace, sect of Islam, profession/field, and anything else about yourself that might be useful for us to know (short bios are fine).

This is a project that, Inshallah, will appear across a variety of platforms, both national and international.

Please send all entries via email to: muslimabook@gmail.com