The following is information on an upcoming webinar/lecture by Dr. Sherman Jackson regarding his latest book, Islam & The Problem of Black Suffering [amazon link]. It’s an excellent opportunity to engage Dr. Jackson and have him break down some of the intricate and complex arguments in his book. The webinar is put on by Lamppost Productions. The date is Sunday, January 17, 2010 at 9:00 am – 10:30 am PST/12:00 pm EST (USA). The cost of the lecture if $20. Registration opened December 23, 2009, so make sure to sign up. For more information, see here. Also, don’t miss out on Ustadh Abdullah Ali’s twelve week course on Maliki fiqh/jurisprudence. More info on that here.

In the last several years, I have had conversations with a number of leading Muslim scholars—American and foreign—who recognize and advocate the ascension of American Muslims to the role of leadership in the Muslim world. I concur with this observation, not out of heedless pride or nationalism, but because I believe American Muslims are in a unique place to affect real change in the Muslim world; a world that now includes the United States. I will list a few reasons why I agree with their opinions: American foreign policy and how it impacts Muslims around the world; American domestic policy and how it impacts the lives of Americans at home; educating and interacting with the broader American public to not simply state but demonstrate the willingness on the part of Muslims in American to engage the society and invest their human, intellectual and creative capital in the society. These are but a few reasons I believe that American Muslims have the greatest chance of affecting American geopolitical strategies which have the potential to impact the lives of Muslims abroad and at home. What I have written here is more than a laundry list: it is a clarion call to American Muslims to take up the role of leadership that has been foisted upon us and make the most of this boon. In fact, it can be argued that if we do not take up this baton, that it will not only be our children here in America who will suffer, but the Ummah as a whole. I leave this small bread crumb trail with some thoughts of Ebrahim Moosa of Duke University, in a 2006 review of Vartan Gregorian’s book, Islam: A Mosaic, Not a Monolith:

“Today, America is undoubtedly equipped with the best resources in the West to study Islam in terms of the range of scholarship, universities, and research cohorts it can boast, even though more is always welcome. And yet ironically, its public discourses and public policy communities—let alone government—display the most anemic symptoms when it comes to knowledge about Islam and Muslim societies.”

In a recent article featured in The New York Review of Books, Malise Ruthven postulates on the phenomenon of Islam in Europe.  He interrogates the question by examining Christopher Caldwell’s Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West, in tandem with Tariq Ramadan’s What I Believe.  Essentially, Ruthven sees both authors, while articulate, essentially digging the respective posts of their respective fences further into the ground.  Caldwell, in Ruthven’s opinion, does not provide substantiated evidence to support the claims of his argument which endeavors to pit a large “believing” population of Muslims against a skeptical, atheistic Europe.  Caldwell’s evidence looks impressive as he calls upon a number of wide ranging sources such as government statistical reports and social/census data.  Ruthven questions the validity of these findings by presenting some facts of his own, namely that in 2001, a French survey found that approximately 60% of French Muslim men did not practice, while French Muslim women came in at around 70%.  Though non-practicing, according to the findings, these Muslims still observed what they felt were “cultural attachments” such as avoiding pork or alcohol, or fasting during the month of Ramadan.

When turning her attention to Ramadan, Ruthven’s findings were no less scathing.  She accuses Ramadan of being a moral elitist, whose academic work is more like a Friday sermon in sheep’s clothing.  He also finds that Ramadan’s willingness to engage in difficult debate, where he might have to face some heavy-handed criticism coming from Europe’s intelligencia, too shallow for his taste.  In the introduction to What I Believe, Ramadan writes, “I will not waste my time here trying to defend myself.” For Ruthven, this is self-indictment on Ramadan’s part, a form of “doublespeak”, as he puts it, which only provides more ammunition to some of Ramadan’s staunchest critics, not the least of them is Caroline Fourest.  Fourest, whose dealings with Ramadan can seem to almost border on the obsessive, continues to find plenty of fodder to infer  a type of “double-talk”.  Fourest examines the tone and topic of Ramadan’s public works and those that speak to a young Muslim audience.  The topics range from his familial ties and history [his grandfather, Hasan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood] to his academic work, which at times seems conflicted between accepting or rejecting Darwinism as well as the philosophies of the likes of Kant and Pascal. (more…)

I greatly enjoyed Dr. Sherman Jackson’s keynote address at the 2009 fundraiser for the Quba Institute. In it, he touched on some key, if not entirely new, points about the nature of education as it relates to Muslims. To a greater extent, his talk was focused at Blakcamerican Muslims and specifically the need for us to address the detriment or dystrophy of education in our ranks and religious proclivities. I have a number of thoughts regarding it as well as expounding on them, but that will have to wait for a few moments as I am in the thick of finals. In the meantime, a short article by Stephen Schwartz entitled, “What Johnny Needs to Learn about Islam”. It was published in the Weekly Standard [Volume 015, Issue 12]. The excerpt below followed by a link to the full article. Something to chew on.

“In the past, American textbooks were prone to two great pitfalls: Either they dealt with Islam superficially or they presented it in the manner preferred and promoted by well-funded defenders of Islamic extremism. A hallmark of that latter view is an emphasis on the unity of Islam, which is portrayed as simple, monolithic, and benign. The wide range of belief and practice between Sunni, Shia, and Sufi Islam, to name only the best-known variations, is downplayed, and the problems of Islam, especially violent jihad, are simply left out. Some of the current efforts at revising textbooks successfully avoid these mistakes.” Read the full article here.