…but you can’t leave your demographics. Gun violence is an issue facing all people who live in urban centers but the dangers facing Blackamericans is even greater. Is this a danger that faces all African-Americans? No, but if you are Black and living in a major urban city, the chances are you may be involved or caught up in it. And being Muslim does not exonerate you. Your shahadah will not invalidate your demographics. The following links are to a study that was produced by the students at Swenson High School here in Philadelphia, assisted by Learning Lab and presented by WHYY. Here’s a blurb page as well as a direct link to the movie. And in case you think your shahadah is bullet proof, there are Muslim names amongst the dead.

One of the most common questions put to me is, “so what was it about Islam that made you convert?” It is interesting on how the demographics of this inquiry break down. Overwhelmingly, the vast majority of those who seem [and this is putting it "politically correct"] puzzled are of a Whiteamerican background. Today’s interlocutor was a white woman, raised in Minnesota, who has had very little to no real world experience with Muslims. Instead, as admitted by her, she’s only informed by popular media.

Our conversation started out on another track but ended up on her realization that I was a Muslim [a fact, that she stated, she "never knew about me before"]. She followed up her new found view of me by asking why I became a Muslim. It was phrased as, “what was it about Islam that made you want to be a Muslim?” I replied that it was not a mere single item but yet the amalgamation of my 19 years as a human being, my rearing from my parents, who being moral people, led me to be attracted to the moral teachings of Islam and so and so forth. She became irked, stating that I was “dodging the question”, which I in turn asking what that question was. Instead of clarifying her point, she instead asked why so many Muslims adhere to extremist views! I asked her what she meant by this, where she added that in the Middle East, so many Muslims are willing to blow themselves up with innumerable innocent people. She found that a “curious morality”. I asked her, keeping in line with her apparent way of thinking, what she thought of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke, or Timothy McVeigh? She quipped that despite these groups or these individuals partaking in violent behavior or association with violent groups, “it didn’t measure with the numbers of peoples hailing from the Muslims world”. She pointed to Iraq as well as the 9/11 attacks on New York City. When I then questioned her about the atrocities committed by Christians against the indigenous peoples of the Americans [North, Central, South and the Carribean] as well as the countless millions who were slaughtered in the Atlantic slave trade as well as the numbers of Germans [who were not all Nazis], who were white and of Christian backgrounds, who supported the extermination of millions of Jews, she again appealed that the still didn’t compare the barbarity of the Muslim world.

Our conversation took a turn toward the heated as I fed her back her words, leaving her perplexed, that essentially, whenever someone white or European, who was also a Christian, performed some heinous act, that it was an unfortunate event, somewhere far off in History, that was made “alright” by the kindly efforts of the Europeans to accommodate these groups in the aftermath [Civil Rights, Black History Month, Latino Heritage Month, etc.]. That it is somehow valid for millions of brown-skinned people to be murdered, subjugated and wiped out, all in the name of Progress – that their actions were accidental, unfortunate but somehow justifiable and ultimately redeemable. Yet, when similar actions [even if they were to a far lesser extent or intensity] on the part of Muslims, it was precisely their Islam that informed them, with no chance of being just “fallibly human”.

I am sharing this because these conversations are becoming more frequent, at least as far as me being the target/participant. Muslims are going to have to find a way to not simply counter these attacks or measures but find a way to “deal with them”. This will prove to be extremely difficult when the other half of the conversation believes they never evolved out a history.

And God knows best

If there is one primary characteristic that Modernity spells out to me, it is in the way in which certain schools of thought or groups of people, who deemed antagonistic or undesirable, are cast, part and parcel, as barbaric and backwards. The underlined point in this type of casting is that the target group has always been so. Modernity, in all of its technological advancements, falls short in analytical thinking. Islam, as an example, a highly sophisticated entity [no different than any other religious tradition] is reduced to simple barbarism [as if it has always been so]. Ironically, many Muslims have fallen pray to this line of thinking as well. Recently, I was reflecting on the user of the word, kafir, and how it is used and understood now, in this Modern context, and then how it was used and understood in contexts prior. And while I do not subscribe to the apologists’ theory that the word some how does not have any application for Modern Muslims, I do think there is a sincere and important need to revisit the history of this word in the Muslim tradition. Sample if you will, as articulated by Dr. Sherman Jackson:

“Premodern and even early modern jurists spoke quite casually of the “non-Muslim wife” [al-zawjah al-kafirah], the “non-Muslim mother” [al-umm al-kafirah], and “non-Muslim parents” [al-walidan al-kafiran] as human beings worthy of respect as such. For example, in Bulgat al-salik li agrab al-masalik ila madhhab al-imam Malik 2 vols. [Cairo: Mustafa al-Babi al-Halabi, n.d.] [an authritative Maliki text still used on the graduate level at al-Azhar seminary today], after indicating that a Muslim must be good to his parents regardless of their religion, al-Dardir [d. 1201/1786] writes, “and he should guide the blind parent, even if he or she is a kafir, to church, and deliver him or her thereto and provide him or her with money to spend during their holidays” [2: 523]. Also, the Maliki and Hanafi schools unanimously agreed that a non-Muslim mother [umm kafirah] had a primary right to custody of her Muslim children in cases of divorce from a Muslim husband, assuming that she would not attempt to steer the children away from Islam. [...] It should be noted that the Maliki school bore the brunt of the atrocities inflicted by the Christians upon their expulsion of the Muslims from Spain and Sicily and the Hanafi school bore the brunt of the Mongol invasions. Still, these views on the non-Muslim relatives remain standard in the Maliki and Hanafi schools right down to the present day.

Essentially, in the Modern context, both used by Muslims and understood by non-Muslims, kafir has come to no longer be a religious term for those who are outside the belief-fold of Islam but rather a subset of humanity, unworthy of respect, completely devoid of value. In the Modern context, the kafir is someone who is rejected, not on moral or religious grounds, but some deeper, innate characteristic that is wholly incompatible with Islam. Sadly, this philosophy was common in much of the rejectionist rhetoric I heard as a young Muslim in the Blackamerican community as well as the need-to-dominate propaganda I head from immigrant Muslims. This is completely inconsistent with the view of many of the jurists and great personalities from Islam’s past that Modern Muslims evoke! When one examines this, the [hostile and unfortunate] nature of relationships between Muslims and non-Muslims becomes more clear. Does this mean that the word kafir has no place in Islam today? I would argue it certainly does have a place but it should have nothing to due with placing or determining “human value”. Instead, as it has been understood in times past, it is merely a demarcation, signifying someone who is outside the religious fold of Islam. And as in a recent conversation with a non-Muslim, who stated, “this is the problem with Islam”, in that as long as Muslims see the world in a Muslim/non-Muslim dichotomy, then we will inevitably have this issue. My rebuttal to her was to quite frankly, “grow up”. There is no reason why I should be forced to not recognize those who are outside of my religious fold whilst still keeping good relationships with them. To claim that I have to make up my mind, to either jettison the word [and join the rest of the "reformist" Muslims who would just as soon sell the religion for a chance to gain the approving nod of the dominant culture] or use the word in its current state, dehumanizing all those who fall outside the classification as Muslims, is erroneous and childish. Life is not a true or false exam – I will make my own choices and operate by my own rationals, thank you very much. In truth, this classification, kafir, would apply in my case with many members of my family and even friends – it is no way a classification of their worth as human beings.

And God knows best.

If Islam failed to find a mooring to ground itself in this version of Modernity or Post-Modernity, the phenomenon of 9/11 certainly has done so for it. The offshoot from this grounding has been the creation of a new class of “intellectuals” and pundits, all claiming from various angles to be experts on Islam. The dominate culture and media engine then picks and chooses its star players like selecting sides at a salad bar. The preferred choices seem to rank with “Progressive Muslims”, liberal Muslims, and the great crowd pleaser, the Apostates. Interestingly enough, these three groups share some interesting characteristics, primarily, that many do not “practice” Islam [it is instead a social club or cultural experience] and are often detached and aloof from the very communities they either berate or in some form of pity, attempt to “reform”.

The other day, I was sent a link from a popular Muslim critic and “reformer”, Ali Eteraz, informing me he had written a piece on Noam Chomsky and the linguist’s lack of sufficient dissent. I am familiar with Ali and have been in correspondence with him, off and on, over the past couple of years. So in the spirit of his article and critique of Noam and “those who invoke him”, I too shall offer a reprisal of Ali’s post and offer some insights as well as possible alternatives. (more…)