The Manrilla Blog | Life. Art. Religion. Culture.

In lieu of the previous post, I thought I’d add this link to some material by Olivier Roy, the author of The Political Failure of Islam, has written a new book, Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah, as a sort of sequel or follow up to the first book. Roy was invited to speak at CCEIA. I found his talk to be quite insightful. Here’s a link to the video, audio and transcript. Enjoy.

Like many, both Muslim and non-Muslim, I have paid attention to the events that have unfolded abroad – the UK incidents and the Lal Mosque standoff. My sentiments were inline with many readers I came across: bewilderment at the UK incident [doctors killing people?] and disappointment mixed with confusion of the Lal Mosque siege. But perhaps what caught my attention even more was the reaction of Muslims, predominantly from America, more specifically in the American-Muslim blogosphere, a reaction that seemed to revolve around apologizing for the attacks. The root of this apology seems to be rooted more in the embarrassment that these heinous acts have had upon the public lives of many American-Muslims. I found this embarrassment to be somewhat concerning. Were American-Muslims more concerned with how they were viewed at work than with the crimes themselves? If so, then why is there not an equal outcry of embarrassment over, say, the Dar Fur atrocities or, if we want to keep it simply humanistic and go beyond religion as a signifying factor, why has not inner-city gun violence [especially for the many Blackamericans who are also Muslims!] garnered the same rosy-cheeked blush? Perhaps this embarrassment has more to do with “who’s watching us” than it really has to do with any moral outcry. It is this latter part here that I shall address in a moment, but first things first. What gets our deserving attention and what sets us off? Read more this entry »

We may have to add an addendum to Al Franken’s book - Lying Muslim Haters et cetera. Tariq’s article is quite disturbing, though, in truth, not hard to believe. And while I wish to treat this incident in isolation, it is concerning that a group of people will go to any lengths to prosecute and demonize Muslims simply for being Muslim.

It appears that a group of men, affiliated with Mapping Shari’a.com [their bi-line reads: “Mapping Shari’a in America: Know the Enemy”, entered a mosque in the DC area, posing as potential shahadahs, claiming to be wearing thobes [what?! No one ever shows up with Middle Eastern clothes on!], and that they were giving Jihad Qatil literature and so forth. While this might initially seem to portray itself as a right-wing, pro-patriotic organization, it’s true colors bleed to the edge, as seen in their Mission Statement:

America is a unique people bound together through a commitment to America’s Judeo-Christian moral foundation and to an enduring faith and trust in G-d and in His Providence. America’s founding, and its greatness was neither accident nor staging ground for some better existence or world state. America was the handiwork of faithful Christians, mostly men, and almost entirely white, who ventured from Europe to create a nation in their image of a country existing as free men under G-d.

This type of extreme White Supremacy is the same old schtick that is from a page right out of the Klan. It has not taken very long in the scheme of things for Muslims to become targets for hate groups, and what better group than the poster child of hate in America than the Klan or its affiliate or off-shoot groups. I know imam Johari - I just was with him a few months ago at a talk for WHYY. He’s a good man. With the “veil” lifted from this idiots, Muslims will not have to go to great lengths to exonerate themselves in the eyes of their own community. But in the eyes of America? We shall have to wait and see if the seed of hate sprouts. Check out Tariq’s article. Perhaps they mistook the thobes for white hoods?

al-Hamdu lillah, this summer marks my 15th year as a Muslim. Where does the time go? I look back fondly now at my early days as a Muslim when ever encounter with another Muslim was filled with the excitement for something “new, fresh and unseen before”. Back then, the spirit seems a bit different than it does today. Many of us were simply after a system of morality and piety that we could feel good about. But as Bob Dylan put it, “The times they is ‘a changin’” - or in my case, changed.

Living in West Philadelphia, in Philadelphia at large, which last year, who’s murder rate topped four hundred, leading the nation, grounds one in reality. And that reality spells out to me that the majority of perpetrators and victims of those aforementioned crimes were of Black descent. So for me, the question begs the perennial answer, “when are the Muslims [and here I am talking to Blackamerican Muslims] going to address the situations that they live in and begin to use or at least steer Islam towards a direction where it can be used as a means of addressing these issues. In frank terms, what’s the point in having morality if it has no impact on your daily existence, if it in no way combats the evils that plague your environment? Fifteen years in to this enterprise and I’m still waiting for an answer.

I no way should this critique be taken as high-handed. As I stated, I live and work in this environment - I have a vested interest in its success. And in my opinion, I see great potential for Islam to not only have a positive impact on the lives of the Blackamerican Muslims who live here but in the greater non-Muslim populace as well. For those who initially might think such an exerted influence might be some sort of Utopian daydreaming, one need only look around at Black Culture in Philadelphia and see the lasting and continuing influence that Islam has on the Black conscious here - albeit mostly in fashion and perhaps a sort of protestant, protest attitude. The question is - why is this influence limited to such things as fashion? Is this the best thing that Islam has to offer [Dickies, ‘Tims, long beards, head scarves and the like?]?

I have written before that simply taking shahadah in no way connotes leaving one’s demographics. If you live in environment were violence is king; where drug trafficking and addiction is king; where homelessness is a concern; where teen pregnancy is a concern; where education [or lack there of] and economic prospects [or lack there of] is an issue, then recognizing Allah as your Lord and Master will not “magic wand” any of the above crises away. But instead of addressing any of these issues, I see an almost OCD-like condition amongst Muslims in their “pursuit of knowledge”. I cannot count the number of fliers and emails I have received inviting members of the community to come and “master the sciences of Hadith” or “mastering usul al-fiqh“. Make no mistake, these areas of knowledge are important and they have their place. But I find it hard to justify this type of “educational system” in light of a severe lack of real-life, secular education. Are the mastering of these sciences in anyway crucial to the survival of these communities? If one does not possess an education or a job [often the two go hand-in-hand] then in what way is mastering the science of Hadith going to serve your worldly purpose? There seems to be two factors at work here: [1] the misplaced emphasis cum desire on such knowledge and [2] the misplaced emphasis cum propagation of such studies. There needs to a be greater awareness on the part of the community to look critically at itself and deal with what’s most important. Likewise, the religious leaders also need to reassess what it is they’re teaching - is it of immediate, pertinent value? Unless the vast majority of people who plan to attend such classes and seminars are planning an academic career in Islamic Studies [which being that many have not gone beyond a high school education if that] then again, how is this justified? Instead, could we have a simple return to morality and piety?

This past fifteen years of “research” has shown me that the vast amounts of knowledge soaked up by these communities have done little to nothing at alleviating the above mentioned maladies. Rather, knowledge is used either as a blunt weapon, wielded against other “lesser informed” members of the community, to bludgeon people into submissiveness and conformity. Issues such as rape, domestic violence, or even just simple social responsibility [i.e., getting and maintaining a job and providing for one’s family] go conveniently unaddressed. Knowledge, as it is currently perceived, cannot be seen “‘fore the trees”. It amazes me how Muslims seem to both neglect and miss the simple yet profound piety of the Prophet Muhammad. “Sunnah” becomes a stun gun word, meant to shock and threaten the unaware that they might be rejecting the way of the Prophet. The Prophet’s example of manhood is also carelessly overlooked. Instead, such popular examples of ‘Umar ibn al Khattab are used. For in modern, hyper-masculine Black culture, the “imagined” ‘Umar, who told the leaders of Quraysh, “O Quraysh, if any of you wants his mother to lose a son, his wife to become a widow, and his children to become orphans, then let him meet me tomorrow after Fajr prayers behind this valley because I am migrating!” has captured the imagination of many Muslim men. This type of “John Wayne” persona finds a greater appeal in current times [curious, that other aspects of ‘Umar’s character, such as caring for the poor during his rule as Khalifa are systematically ignored] and yet, the Prophet Muhammad, who was neither overly aggressive nor large and imposing, like ‘Umar, was never seen by his enemies as a coward or, in modern parlance, a “chump”. So why is it that the Prophet is not looked to as an example for manhood? There is a great deal in all this psychology that warrants further examination and adjustment.

In a time when so many suffer from ills that could be combated with simple acts of piety and morality, it continues to baffle and disappoint. Not unlike those who long for knowledge, I too thirst for the ‘ilm - just I’m tired of being wait listed for Islam 201.

And God knows best.

…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.

It’s really warming up, he thought to himself as he crossed the street. Ten minutes - I should be able to make it. He stepped up on to the curb and waited patiently in line.

This guy has the best chicken wrap in town. The line was short and in no time he was greeted by the foodcart vendor.

“as-Salaamu ‘alaykum, ya shabaab. Kayfahaluka?”

“al Hamdu lillah, q’ways. Atiyniy ad-dajjah ‘alaa ar-Ruwl wa hut ‘alayha honey mustard. Shukran.”

The man smiled back and turned his gaze to the next woman in line. “You know this young man?”, he asked.

“No”, she smiled towards the tall man. “Should I?”

“This man”, proclaimed the vendor with a broad smile, “he speaks perfect Arabic”. Brandishing a toothy grin, as if he had had some hand in it, he turned his attention to the grill. The tall man shook his shoulders at the woman, smiled and rolled his eyes upward. She giggled in return.

“You know”, said a boy’s voice from within the cart, “the Arab way is the best way”.

The tall man had to stoop down to look under the awning of the cart to see where this curious voice came from. A boy of perhaps seventeen stood next to what appeared to be his father, wrapping sandwiches as they came off the grill. “What’s that supposed to mean, exactly?”, asked the tall man. The boy kept wrapping his sandwiches but never took his gaze off the tall man. “You want some pork on your sandwich, man?”

The vendor turned from his grill, his look a mixture of outrage and embarrassment, “hey, man. You can’t talk to him like this. He’s Muslim, you know! Brother, I’m sorry. This my son”, he apologized, trying to keep his voice low, though it was apparent that the woman in line could hear him clearly. “He’s born here you, you know.”

“Right…”, replied the tall man slowly. “No worries.”

The woman gave the tall man a pensive look and then placed her order.

—

“Okay, finish his order”, instructed the vendor in a stern voice to his son. “Hadha ibniy…, ya’aniy, laa tahkiy ‘arabiyyah”, his voice soaked full of lament. “Wulida hunaa.”

“I was born here”, retorted the tall man hotly. “What’s that got to do with it? Wa lastu ‘arabiyyan. I’m not even Arab.”

The vendor licked his lips nervously and nudged his son. The boy began wrapping the sandwich with a grin on his face. “You want some bacon bits on here?”, he quipped.

“Look, boy. Just wrap my damned sandwich or there’s gonna be some trouble, okay?”. He leaned in real close, imposing his considerable bulk inside the awning, face to face with the boy, who was now swallowing slowly. “Don’t start no S. H. - won’t be no I. T. Got me?”

“Yeah, man. Sure. Here you go, sir. Ma’a salaam”, he offered up weakly.

The vendor looked out from his hot grill and gave the tall man an apologetic smile, “wulida hunaa, akhi. Born here”, he said, shaking his head and then turned back to his grill.

Passing the woman in line the tall man said, “the chicken with provolone and honey mustard is really to die for”, he said, chuckling under his breath.