REFLECTION: Clearing Salman's Name

 

Tabloid cynics say that although not all Muslims are terrorists, most terrorists are Muslims.

But what does this prove? After all, the overwhelming majority of terror victims are also Muslims.

The cynics also ask why Muslims across the world won’t march through the streets condemning terror. Maybe it’s because they are too busy burying their own victims.

Each week, Iraq and other Muslim States are battered by terrorist attacks that kill the same number of people as died in the July 7 London bombings of 2005. And earlier this week, a Muslim family in Melbourne mourned the death by assassination of an Australian-Afghan man, Hakim Taniwal, who had returned to Afghanistan as a provincial governor in 2002 to help rebuild his ancestral country.

(And to top it all off, it was reported that a suicide bomber killed five and wounded 30 people attending Taniwal’s funeral in the Afghani village of Hisarak.)

But if, God forbid, a terrorist incident hit Sydney or Melbourne tomorrow, who would be blamed? And how would anyone deemed to belong to the assassin’s group be treated?

In the week of the fifth anniversary of the World Trade Centre attack, perhaps we should look to the lessons of New York. In particular, let’s focus on the nightmare experienced by the mother of one victim.

Mrs Talat Hamdani is your typical all-American mom. Like my family, she is from the Indian subcontinent. Her son, Mohammad Salman, was born in Karachi, Pakistan. He moved to America when he was hardly 13 months old.

At age 23, Salman had a busy life — working as a New York Police Department (NYPD) cadet, as a researcher and as a part-time ambulance driver. He had gained admission to study medicine at university. He was a Star Wars fan, and his license plate number read ‘Young Jedi'. He played American football for his high school team.

Salman was also a devout Muslim. He regularly performed his ritual prayers five times a day. As he grew older, Salman became increasingly proud of his Pakistani and Muslim heritage — although he never found time to learn to read and write in his native language, Urdu.

On the morning of 11 September, 2001, Salman left home and headed to his usual place of work as a researcher at the Rockefeller University. After catching the train, he disappeared. Within hours, his family were being questioned by the FBI; and within days, political leaders and media commentators were accusing the young Hamdani of being a terrorist.

Around the same time, American Sikhs were also being accused. The front page of Sydney’s Daily Telegraph newspaper showed the first terror suspect being taken into custody. He had his head bowed and sported a beard and a blue turban. He was, in fact, a Sikh.

Soon after, another American Sikh, Balbir Singh Sodhi, was gunned down while planting flowers at his family-owned petrol station in Arizona. His killer later admitted he shot the young man thinking he was a Muslim.

(After the London bombing, some young Sikhs wore badges saying: ‘Don’t freak, I’m a Sikh!’)

Muslim Americans were rounded up across the country. In the hysteria that followed, September 11 Muslim terror victims and their families were either ignored or demonised as terrorists.

Salman’s mother was accused of fostering terrorism at a time when she was more worried about her missing son. Some seven months later, FBI officials telephoned to advise her that Salman’s remains had been found. Far from being a terrorist, it turned out that, after he had learned of the attack on the Twin Towers, Salman had rushed to the scene and volunteered his services. Among his many part-time jobs was working as a paramedic and ambulance driver. When the towers collapsed, the debris also fell on Salman.

Eventually, the young man was laid to rest in April 2002. Among those who attended the funeral service at a New York mosque were New York’s Police Commissioner, NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and the NYPD’s first Muslim police chaplain, Imam Pasha, together with over 1000 police cadets.

Finally, after suffering the double grief of a missing son and accusations he was a terrorist, the Hamdani family were able to reach some closure. Mrs Hamdani reminded mourners of some important lessons from her son’s death:

This tragedy really united and re-united the diversity in America … Those who died on September 11 were all in a very precarious situation, but what mattered to them was that they are all human beings … We have to make the world realise that they were all human. They are just human like you are.

This devout Muslim woman now joins Christian and Jewish parents on the steering committee of Peaceful Tomorrows, an organisation founded by family me mbers of those killed on 11 September, 2001. Their mission statement says they ‘have united to turn our grief into action for peace. By developing and advocating non-violent options and actions in the pursuit of justice, we hope to break the cycles of violence engendered by war and terrorism.'

Here’s what Mrs Hamdani told a symposium this year:

Salman gave the ultimate sacrifice to save his fellow Americans, and ironically, he was investigated as a terrorist. The speculations were floated by the New York media, especially, Fox 5 and its sister company that runs the New York Post. He was investigated only because of his faith. Six months later, on March 20, 2002, we were officially notified that his remains were indeed found by the North Tower. My life took a drastic turn and I found myself in a very complex situation: I found myself not only defending my faith as a Muslim, but also defending my country, America.

Eventually, America honoured her citizen Mohammad Salman Hamdani, by acknowledging his courage and sacrifice in the Patriot Act. However, the Patriot Act is an egregious act, curtailing civil liberties and suspending due process, violating the United Nations treaty on human rights and the American Constitution. The loss of my first born child and the pain of him being investigated as a terrorist generated a lot of anger. Then my husband and I discovered September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows in the summer of 2002. And hence started my journey as an activist, as a Muslim American fighting for my rights which were never challenged before 9/11.

Could someone please identify the un-American or un-Australian values in the above sentences?

Instead of searching for congregations to blame and scapegoat, we should be working together to fight the terror scourge.

I’m not aware of any terrorist who’s been able to manufacture a bomb that discriminates on the basis of race or religion. So, even the terrorists don’t discriminate. Why on earth our politicians do, beats me.

I’m sure I’m not the only Australian who wishes that putative leaders like John Howard and Kim Beazley would stop using rhetoric which alienates people who are just as likely to be victims as anyone else.

(First published in New Matilda on 13 September 2006 and reproduced in full on the Nihari Nation blog)

REFLECTION: On Assimilation & Hatred

On the morning of 11 July 2005, I was interviewed by Mike Jeffreys on 2CC. Mr Jeffreys kept asking me questions. I kept questioning his questions and their relevance to his listeners. We ended up being irreverent to each other, and the discussion became irrelevant to all listeners. The interview eventually degenerated into a match to see who could be the bigger smartass.

That’s life on talkback. Irrelevant questions followed by irreverent answers.

The question posed to me which really sent shivers up my spine was the one on assimilation. Mr Jeffreys asked me why more Muslim Australians don’t assimilate. What shocked me about this question was that it was being asked in Canberra, was being broadcast from a studio in Canberra and was being broadcast to Canberrans.

For me, it was easy to dismiss the question as the rant of an irrelevant shock-jock struggling to reach double-figures in the ratings. But after terminating the call and complaining to 2CC management, I then thought about the question further. And one image came into my mind.

It was the image of Srebrenica. Almost exactly 10 years ago, over 7,000 innocent civilians of this Bosnian town were massacred in cold blood. They were murdered in the presence of UN troops sent to protect them. The people of Srebrenica were the subject of a horrendous policy of ethnic cleansing ordered and carried out by some of the most despicable human beings ever to walk the earth in the 20th century.

Why should I think of assimilation and Srebrenica together? The people of Srebrenica were largely Muslim. But they had the same coloured skin and hair and eyes as their Christian neighbours. They intermarried with Christians and Jews and other denominations. They were not exceptionally observant and followed mainstream Bosnian values. Many openly drank, bought and sold alcohol.

Some 40% of Bosnian children are born into interfaith families, where parents are of different faiths. If anyone could teach Muslim Australians something about assimilation, it would be Muslim Bosnians.

But did this assimilation stop the massacre? Did it stop Serbian troops from executing their neighbours and their relatives? Did it stop teenage Serbs from killing their former school teachers?

The slaughters in Srebrenica were repeated in other cities, including the capital Sarajevo. The central square of this beautiful city hosted 4 houses of worship – the Great Synagogue of Sarajevo, an Orthodox Cathedral, a Catholic Cathedral and the Gazi Husrev Baig Mosque. Bosnians of all faiths would visit each other’s churches and mosques and synagogues.

It was this spirit of love between faiths that led to Sarajevo being awarded the winter Olympics. This same spirit led to Sydney winning the Olympics in 2000. When Muslim Australians invited IOC delegates from Muslim countries and refused to let them leave until they pledged on the Quran that they would vote for Sydney, it was clear that the Sydney spirit was alive and well. And that same spirit was reflected in the words of London’s Mayor Ken Livingstone during speeches before and after the bombing.

Terrorists are opposed to this spirit of togetherness and understanding. Terrorists want us to turn against each other. Terrorists are determined to hate. And what drives terrorists into fits of rage is when they see Muslims and Jews and Christians and Hindus and Buddhists and people of other faiths and no faith in particular living side by side in peace and harmony.

Real understanding and peace can exist whether people assimilate or not. But it won’t happen in an environment where people are determined to hate. Because the real source of terrorism is not religion. The real source of terrorism is hatred.

Religions teach us to love. In the Jewish tradition, Rabbi Hillel spoke of love for others when he asked his students: “If I am not for myself, who is for me? If I care only for myself, who am I?”. In the Christian tradition, St Paul said that love was even greater than faith and hope. And the Islamic traditions are filled with references to love for God’s creation, from Qur’anic verses and sayings of the Prophet to ecstatic poems of Rumi and other Muslim saints.

Assimilation is not enough to defeat determined hate. Minority and majority faith communities can assimilate all they like. The only thing that will defeat extremists is the divine force of love. And this love is not the empty drug-induced idealism of hippy songs. This love is built on knowledge and understanding and recognition that we are all different. And that the things that unite us are more important than those which divide us.

(This piece was written on 12 July 2005)

REFLECTION: Remember the 80, but don't forget the 8,000!

Whoever takes the life of one human unjustly, it will be treated as if he has taken the lives of all humans whoever walked this earth.

We find this message in the Qur’an and in the Bible. Similar messages can be found in the scriptures of other religious traditions. Human life is always sacred. No one has the right to take the law into their own hands and take revenge on some perceived injustice by killing innocents.

Perhaps the worst excesses in murder and genocide in human history were carried out by the Mongols. I mention them because they were my ancestors. The Mongols swept across China, forcing the king of China to build a huge wall whose trail to this day can be picked up by satellites in space.

The Mongols then smashed down the doors of Baghdad and other cities. They plundered, raped, murdered and burnt wherever they went. No one was safe. We read reports of Mongol troops grabbing babies by the feet and smashing their heads against the walls of Baghdad. All in the presence of their mothers, who were typically raped and then murdered.

Baghdad back then was what London is today. The Mongol attack on Baghdad involved terrorising the heart of civilisation. Baghdad was a place where scholars and dissidents, students and artists would all meet under the protection of the Caliph. The Tariq Ali’s and Salman Rushdie’s and Abdul Majid Khoei’s of that time found security and sanctity in Baghdad. At least until the hordes arrived.

Apart from Hitler’s treatment of European Jewry, it is hard to find a modern equivalent of the Mongol massacre. The closest would perhaps be the war in Bosnia.

Human life is all sacred. We all have the same coloured blood. Among the victims of the London bombing was a young English Muslim girl named Shahara Islam. Her surname is a powerful metaphor in this conflict. If anyone needed proof that Islamic civilisation is much a victim as any other, it could be found in her name. Islam is a victim. Islam is innocent.

London had some 80 Shahara Islam’s die in the bombing. And hardly 10 years before, another place in the heart of Europe saw 8,000 Shahara Islam’s brutally murdered. Yet sadly little coverage was given to this anniversary.

In case anyone still remembers, the name of this town was Srebrenica. In July 1995, some 8,000 men and boys were massacred in this town. Their crime was that they supported a multi-ethnic multi-religious state. The inhabitants of this town were largely Muslim. The defenders of the town were a Bosnian army unit consisting of Muslims, Catholics and Orthodox Christians. The invading army were Serb ethnic chauvinists.

The UN peacekeepers sat back and watched the massacre take place. The world watched. The Bosnian army, hampered by a UN-imposed arms embargo, were powerless to do anything. The ethnic chauvinists won the battle. Humanity lost the war.

80 Britons died in London. 8,000 Bosnians died in Srebrenica. 6,000,000 Jews died in the Second World War. No one knows how many died at the hands of the Mongols. The numbers just keep getting worse. Humanity keeps losing the war.

So what is the answer? Civilisational war? Seeking justice for past crimes? There will always be Christians who never forgive Jews, Jews who never forgive Christians, Hindus who never forgive Muslims, Muslims who never forgive Sikhs.

And a God who will be happy to forgive the lot of them if they just stopped fighting and tried to get along!

You cannot fight terror with terror. Mongols terrorised the world. But one day a sufi Muslim introduced Islam to a Mongol warrior. Within a month, the vast Mongol horde had been adopted by the most civilised nation of the day. Centuries later, they arrived in India and left us with such wonders as the Taj Mahal.

If there is one thing all faiths teach, it is that you can never write off anyone. The ones society damns are often the most blessed. Christ spent much of his time with tax collectors and prostitutes. Muhammad’s closest followers were slaves and the homeless. Religion teaches love. Terrorists teach hate. Terrorism knows no religion.

Whether it be 80 or 8,000 or 6 million. Human life is human life. As one holocaust survivor said, we should not focus on numbers. Rather, we should look at it as one life lost, then another, then another, then …

(This piece was written on 19 July 2005)

OPINION: Theories on Islamic books you wouldn't read about

I HAVE a close friend who attended a Canberra Anglican school for 6 years. She is spiritually ecumenical with a keen interest in Hindu and Christian mysticism. Over the years, I have given her a number of spiritual books. Her favourite is a collection of Rumi poems entitled “Hidden Music”.

I have another close friend working medical research. She also has a superb sense of humour. I recently gave her 2 books on tib an-nabawi (classical medicine as taught by Prophet Muhammad) and a DVD of three American Muslim comics entitled “Allah made me funny!”.

Before writing this piece, I spoke to the owner of the Andalus Islamic Bookstore in Sydney (from where I purchased some of these items). I asked him what was his biggest seller. “We just can’t order enough of those books on baby names”, he said.

The biggest selling book from one of the most popular Australian Islamic bookstores is one used by parents to choose a name for their new-born child. A powerful metaphor for a religious community at the heart of mainstream Australia, and a far cry from some books sold at fringe salafist bookshops which seem to encourage young people to take their own lives and those of others.

Andalus also supplies the needs of members of Canberra’s educated and progressive Muslim community. The Canberra Islamic Centre hopes to establish Australia’s largest Islamic library. Already, it has collected an impressive array of rare books and manuscripts in a number of languages. It also sells books as part of its fundraising activities. Many of these books are sourced from the Amazon.com website.

Tabloid journalists and high rating Sydney morning shock jocks (the ones in Canberra are lucky to reach double figure ratings) may harp on about hate-filled books. A few days back I spent 45 minutes listening to a reporter from Channel 7’s Today Tonight show trying to convince me to name names of salafist book distributors. The way she was speaking, it seemed clear to me that she had never visited a single Muslim bookshop in Sydney.

The reality among mainstream Muslim Australians is quite contrary to sensationalist reports. No doubt there are bookstores selling these materials. But they are a small minority. And they have plenty of hate-filled stock as the more popular titles sell out much more quickly. It’s obvious books preaching fanaticism are just not selling.

Unlike other English-speaking countries (such as the United States, Canada and UK), Australia does not have a large Islamic publishing industry. When Fairfax journalist Nadia Jamal wanted to publish her account of growing up Muslim in Australia, she had little choice but to approach a mainstream Australian publisher.

Indeed, some of the best books on Islamic religion and culture only sell at mainstream bookstores. The popular US Muslim writer Yahya Emerick’s book entitled The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Islam is available at Belconnen Dymocks, as are books by New York Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Mainstream bookstores also sell popular titles on Islam by respected non-Muslim authors such as Karen Armstrong and John Esposito.

On the other hand, there are also books which talk about war and jihad. The Daily Telegraph recently made an issue of one bookshop in the western Sydney suburb of Auburn selling a book entitled “The Quranic Concept of War”. What the Telegraph didn’t report was that the book was a treatise on the historical rules of war under classical Islamic jurisprudence, not a modern terror manual. Further, the bookshop was managed by a small harmless sufi organisation, most of whose books are in Turkish.

Books about jihad are not necessarily offensive. Some journalists continue to harbour the misapprehension that jihad is the Islamic equivalent for medieval Christian “holy war”. But for mainstream Muslims, jihad typically refers to a spiritual struggle against one’s evil inclinations. In this respect, most sufi books are little more than manuals on spiritual jihad.

With followers of fringe ideological off-shoots of Islam responsible for most recent terrorist acts (including the recent spate in London and Baghdad), authorities are understandably concerned about literature being sold in religious bookshops. But this is no reason to believe that 400,000 Muslim Australians are busy reading terror manuals and planning suicide bombing attacks. Security and law enforcement agencies need to be alert. But alarmist sentiments should be left to immature morning shock jocks desperate for ratings.

(The author is a Sydney industrial lawyer who has advised peak Muslim organisations and independent schools. First published in the Canberra Times on 21 July 2005)

OPINION: Manji - Desperately Seeking Fatwa

 

Irshad Manji wants a fatwa. She has been screaming out for Muslims to threaten her with death in the same way that many did to Salman Rushdie. But the fact is that she won’t get one. And perhaps for no other reason than that she is no Salman Rushdie when it comes to insightful writing.

Manji claims in her latest article in The Australian (‘Sins of scripture’ in the Koran, too, 25 June 2005) that Muslims must be honest enough to admit that the Qur’an teaches people to hate and kill. She says that Christians and Jews have acknowledged the same thing with the Bible. She asks why no Muslim writer has done so with the Qur’an.

When I read Manji making such suspect claims, I wonder which planet she is living on. She effectively claims that in over 1,400 years of theological history, no Muslim scholar has ever questioned the literal meanings of the Qur’anic text.

This is simply incorrect. Any expert on Islamic history will confirm this. Most Muslims will confirm this. Which explains why most Muslims tend to ignore Manji’s work.

Manji has perhaps never heard of the Ikhwan as-Safa (the Brethren of Purity) who were a collection of Ismaili Shia scholars living outside Basra and who spent much of their time debating the meaning of basic Qur’anic concepts.

Perhaps she also has not read the tens of thousands of classical and modern commentaries on the Qur’an from all Islamic schools of thought addressing the meanings of the verses. Perhaps that is because the mainstream consensus on the meaning of these verses does not suit her purpose.

On the surface, Manji has a point. The literal words of the scriptures can be used to justify all sorts of crimes. Both the Bible and the Qur’an contain verses which have been used to justify violence, genocide and other excesses.

But Manji is clearly no expert on religion or terrorism. If she had been an expert, she would have understood that scriptures need to be interpreted. And that scriptural exegesis has its rules and principles.

An anti-Zionist Jewish writer once described the Zionism as treating God like a “real estate agent for the Jewish people”. Margaret Marcus (who adopted the Muslim faith and changed her name to Maryam Jameela) claimed Zionists had gone against thousands of years of consensus in the interpretation of Old Testament texts which insisted (she claims) that only the Messiah can lead the Jewish people back to the Promised Land.

Was Marcus correct? Who knows.

The other day, I was told by some Anglican friends of mine that the Archbishop of Sydney gave a sermon in St Andrews Cathedral claiming that the genealogy of Christ included prostitutes, adulterers and mass-murderers. What spin can be put on this? Could it be said that Christ taught these things?

And when Christ asked his disciples to gather their swords and prepare for war, was he telling them to get ready to commit acts which Roman authorities would view as terrorism?

Does Hinduism teach war? Major Hindu texts such as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata give vivid descriptions of battles between gods and demons and men and each other.

Buddhism is a peaceful religion. But one can suggest that Buddhism also produced the most genocidal army in human history. The Mongols slaughtered more people and destroyed more cities than perhaps even the Nazis.

In the current climate, it is crucial for us to explore the ideological roots of terrorist violence. That requires an honest appraisal of what scriptures and religions actually teach. Specialist expertise is a must if one is to properly walk this ideological field of landmines. Manji doesn’t have that expertise. If she is not careful, she might say something that will blow up in her face.

Then again, perhaps that is something she really wants to happen. After all, any publicity is good publicity.

(written in July 2005)

OPINION: Little progress a year after London bombings

A year after the London bombings, the understanding of home-grown terrorist threats seems no more advanced, writes IRFAN YUSUF.

A year ago, more than 50 people were killed in a terrorist attack on London's public transport system. The attack represented a turning point in the international struggle against terrorism.

All evidence points to the attack being the work of disillusioned and frustrated children of nominally Muslim migrants. These young men found themselves in what Australian Treasurer Peter Costello described in a February speech to the Sydney Institute as "a twilight zone where the values of their parents' old country have been lost but the values of the new country not fully embraced".

The attacks led to attacks on Muslim targets across the Western world, including vandalism on several mosques across New Zealand. These attacks represented extreme expressions of understandable fears and concerns of ordinary non-Muslim citizens.

Muslim institutions, dominated by first-generation migrants with poor English-language skills and limited understanding of media and government processes, found themselves unable to allay the fears of their fellow citizens.

The phenomenon of "home-grown terror" has seen a fundamental rethink by governments and security services of how the war against terror has been fought. Western governments are seeing engagement of Muslim communities (especially youth) as a security imperative.

The difficulties government and media face in understanding Muslim views arise from a number of factors. Unlike other faiths, Muslims have no priesthood and no central hierarchy. There is no such thing as a Muslim "church".

Further, mosques across the Western world are generally divided along ethnic and linguistic lines. Few imams speak workable English. Women and English-speaking youth are often sidelined from community management.

In Australia, the Howard Government has been forced to set up a special Muslim Community Reference Group under the auspices of its Ministry of Multicultural Affairs. The group is composed of the usual middle-aged male leaders. However, the Government has also recruited women and young people.

Yet the presumptions underlying the establishment of the group underscore the Government's relative ignorance on a faith community that makes up hardly 2 per cent of the population. According to a government website, the group is "among a series of initiatives which will assist Australia's Muslim communities to build a common future with all Australians", as if such a common future has not been built in over 150 years of Muslim presence in European Australia.

Further, it seems the only purpose of government consultation is "to explore how we can best challenge intolerance and extremism". Sadly, more focus has been placed on challenging intolerance and extremism from within Muslim groups than from within sections of the government and the media.

"Home-grown terror" has triggered many conservative commentators (and even politicians) to call for a new cultural revolution. Liberal democratic values are being reinterpreted in a manner which, if implemented, would hand victory to the terrorists themselves.

This conservative revolution seeks to displace decades of multicultural status quo embraced by many Western democracies. Like all revolutions, the conservative counter-culture is based more on myth and perception than reality. To understand the extent of the fiction involved, it is appropriate to focus on one victim of the London bombing.

Costello's twilight zone did not describe the lifestyle of this young English bank clerk. The smile of her published photo elegantly represented a woman at peace with her Islamic heritage and her British nationality.

For Shahara Islam, 21, having the surname and religion of Islam did not diminish her Britishness. Indeed, her family described her as being 

... an East Ender, Londoner and British, but above all a true Muslim and proud to be so.

She represented a modern multicultural success story – the daughter of migrant parents whose religious and cultural heritage she shared. At the same time, she was a thoroughly modern woman on her way to work.

She was a typical victim of terrorism. Presidents and prime ministers speak of the "war against Islamist terror" in her name. Columnists and talkback hosts rally against "Islamic terrorists" in her name. Yet they keep forgetting what her name is.

In neo-conservative circles, it has become fashionable to attribute extremist violence and terror to the heritage of the young British bank clerk. This has become apparent in a number of neo-conservative publications, including the New Zealand-based magazine Investigate.

This month, the allegedly liberal Centre for Independent Studies hosts Mark Steyn as part of its "Big Ideas Forum". Steyn's most consistent big idea involves blaming Muslim cultures for virtually all the ills of the world.

Writing in the UK Sunday Telegraph (and reproduced in Rupert Murdoch's The Australian), Steyn says: 

These days, whenever something goofy turns up on the news, chances are it involves a fellow called Mohammed.

Two recent government appointees to the government-funded ABC Board have made similar claims about the existence of a monolithic Muslim "culture", one even going so far as to suggest this culture encourages its male proponents to sexually assault white-skinned women.

On June 26, ex-Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch spoke in terms of a monolithic Muslim culture which allegedly placed religion above nationalist sentiment. Murdoch's chilling words were: 

You have to be careful about Muslims who have a very strong, in many ways a fine, but very strong religion which supercedes (sic) any sense of nationalism wherever they go.

His sentiments have been mirrored in the editorial line taken by virtually all his newspapers whose op-ed pages are frequently used to promote a European monolithic counter-culture as an alternative to the multicultural status quo.

With such powerful media and government forces busy edu-hating their religious heritage, how do the majority of moderate home-grown Muslims avoid being marginalised? A key plank of the solution is for young home-grown Muslims to take over peak Muslim bodies claiming to represent them.

When ordinary citizens know the facts about their Muslim neighbours, when Islam is no longer seen as alien, the hysteria will hopefully end. But when Muslims living in the West allow themselves to become marginalised in cultural cocoons, and when they become second-class citizens, groups like al-Qaeda will find recruitment much easier.

(Irfan Yusuf is a Sydney-based lawyer and occasional commentator on social issues on both sides of the Tasman. First published in The Christchurch Press on Friday 7 July 2006)

PROFILE: Anwar, Shakespeare & Islam

Anwar (taken from Nur or divine light) is a popular Malaysian Islamic name. Yet after visiting Malaysia last month I was left with the impression few Malaysians were interested in what one particular Anwar had to offer.

The country has moved on since the heady days of the late 1990s, when Reformasi supporters of the then recently deposed Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim brought Kuala Lumpur to a near standstill.

During a visit to the headquarters of ABIM (Malaysia's Islamic Youth Movement founded and led for many years by Anwar), not a single activist even mentioned Anwar's name.

Now he spends much of his time lecturing at Oxford or Georgetown University in Washington DC and he has just completed a whirlwind speaking tour of Australia, his second visit since his release from prison.

His first tour, in early 2005, was when he was still suffering the effects of prison-related health complications and most of his addresses were to Muslim audiences. On his recent visit, Anwar delivered lectures to wider audiences on such diverse topics as Shakespearean drama, democratic politics, liberal democracy and human rights.

Shakespeare is unlikely inspiration for Muslim political activists. But although Anwar is well known in Muslim circles for having spent his six years in jail memorising the Koran in Arabic he also finished the complete works of Shakespeare four times.

He frequently uses lines from Shakespeare in his speeches, arguing Shakespeare's message contains fundamental values shared by people of all faiths and of no faith in particular.

During an address to the Canberra Islamic Centre, Anwar managed to incorporate his image of King Lear as the Islamic ideal of a just ruler.

Anwar felt comfortable surrounded by Canberra's multi-ethnic Muslims, poking fun at the idiosyncrasies of different Muslim ethnic groups. But he had serious messages, reminding his audiences of the necessity to engage with the broader multicultural Australian community.

He says countries like Australia and New Zealand are reviving the classical Spanish Islamic tradition of multi-racial and multi-religious societies, known as convivencia.

I use the example of Malaysia. It is a multi-racial and multi-religious society. Islam is only relevant to Malaysia if it is understood in a way that reinforces our multi-racial character.

Anwar is scathing of Muslim communities who choose to live in cultural cocoons, refusing to interact with other communities. In Istanbul last month at a conference of European Muslim leaders, Anwar urged EU Muslims to see themselves first and foremost as Europeans, not confining their political activities to pursuing predominantly Muslim issues.

He castigated Muslims who only seem to agitate about human rights violations committed against other Muslims.

Where are the Muslims campaigning for the freedom of Burma's opposition leader, our sister Aung San Suu Kyi? Or must we wait for her to adopt Islam before we help her?

Anwar was accompanied for the first part of his Australian trip by his wife, Dr Wan Azizah Ismail, a medical practitioner who has now become the family's most active politician. During his last public appearance before imprisonment, Anwar surprised his wife by telling supporters of his Reformasi movement : "If anything happens to me, I want Azizah to take over."

Before his internment on charges including sodomy - an allegation, says Azizah, designed to undermine Anwar's Islamic credentials - Anwar's wife was known for her softly-spoken manner. She was elected to Parliament in 1999, and continues to hold her seat.

Anwar himself is left with profound physical and psychological scars from his jailing. In July 2004, on the eve of his release, Malaysian journalist MG Pillai reported Anwar's doctors as saying he faced "imminent paralysis, neurological, kidney and urinary failure". He has begun a multimillion-dollar civil action against former Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamed but still jokes about his prison experience.

Anwar now sees himself as a bridge linking the Islamic and Western worlds and is excited about what he calls the "great wave of democratic Islam" sweeping such countries as Indonesia and Turkey.

Anwar's goal of building bridges abroad is admirable. But perhaps a more pressing need is for him to build bridges between faiths and ethnicities within Malaysia itself.

(Irfan Yusuf is a Sydney lawyer and occasional lecturer in politics at Macquarie University. This article first appeared in the NZ Herald on 27 July 2006.)

OPINION: Progressive Islam’s Smelly Kebabs Honest Thoughts on Allegedly Feminist Friday

So a university professor of Islamic Studies who just happens to be female decides that she will give a sermon and lead a small group of Muslims in a prayer service in New York. So what? What’s all the fuss about? It’s a free country, after all.

(Well, it was until a bunch of idiots decided to fly a plane into a pair of skyscrapers in the same city.)

For average Americans or Australians or Europeans, Muslim or non-Muslim, watching or reading or hearing about Feminist Friday at that Anglican Church in New York (and the following fracas with the 10 or so demonstrators outside, according to the al-Jazeera report), the first paragraph of this article probably represent the first thoughts that came to mind.

Many would compare it to the debate over female priests in the Anglican Church. Others will have recalled Barbara Streisand dressed up as a rabbinical scholar in that movie which was so forgettable that I cannot recall its name (it definitely was NOT the equally forgettable movie called Meet the Fockers!).

What follows in the next few paragraphs is my attempt to understand my own feelings toward the event. I have spent hours arguing and debating the issue on the internet. Many will have been offended by my posts on the issue on this website. And others on more “orthodox” websites will be wondering why I still bother to stand on my cyber-milk-cart and shout like Abdul Rahim Greene here.

Smelly Kebabs

Some months back, on this website, someone published an article on the ‘smelly kebabs’ of the Zaytuna Institute. In relation to that article, I can make my first real confession. If Islam were Turkish cuisine, I would much prefer the smell and taste of Zaytuna kebabs over the slush of 'progressive' salad.

And for all of you who think you are progressive, listen up. I believe Zaytuna is the epitome of genuinely progressive Islam. Why? Because they seek and find progress WITHIN their tradition. They are happy to engage with other traditions. And they appreciate that many traditions share common features.

But what is the point of trying to get beyond ‘traditional’ Islam when you have not bothered to master that tradition? If you try to walk forward without knowing where you came from, you probably don’t know where you are going. So you might as well walk off the edge of a cliff without a parachute.

It’s easy to take elements of different trendy vegetarian ideas, put them together into some kind of ideological salad, add a bit of media-frenzy dressing and start munching. It may taste fresh, but it won’t necessarily be good for you.

Which leads me to acknowledge my own biases.

Confessions

I believe it is essential that all you boys and girls out there in the Islamic cyber-State know where I am coming from. I make my prejudices public and resent those (progressive or otherwise) commentators on this issue who claim to be totally objective.

So let me start with a few confessions.

I am Muslim. I am a male. I live in Sydney, Australia. I practise law.

Is that it? No, there’s more.

In matters of fiqh (personal religious law), I follow the school of the ahnaaf (often incorrectly referred to as the ‘hanafi’ school). Most of my teachers were from the deoband tradition of North Indian hanafi sunni Islam, though I have been known to shed a tear or two whilst watching videos of Dr Tahir al-Qadri (from the allegedly competing barelwi tradition) speaking in his gorgeous Urdu on the status of our Prophet Muhammad (peace & blessings of God be upon him).

I believe in what is popularly known as “traditional” Islam. That does not mean that I agree with everything that every traditional scholar or writer has ever written or stated. For instance, like many followers of the orthodox naqshbandi tradition, I have serious problems with some “haqqani” elders. Especially after one of them decided to go to the US State Department and call most North American groups (including presumably the Zaytuna Institute) supporters of extremism and terrorism.

I have also had no problems in questioning some criticisms of Maulana Farid Esack made by Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad (Tim Winter). And I told Shaykh Tim this when he visited Sydney last year.

But by and large, I regard traditional Islam as the most suitable and progressive form of Islam, flexible enough to be just as much at home in a deobandi madressa (or a barelwi one for that matter) in Karachi as in a halaqa of Young Muslims of Australia.

OK, those are my cards on the table. What does that make me think of Professor Amina Wudud Muhsin and the allegedly first mixed congregational prayer to be led by a woman?

The First Time …

MWU! and other organisers of the event told us that this would be the first time in history that a woman would be leading the salat al-jumuah (Friday congregational prayer) and delivering a khutbah (sermon that forms part of the prayer) in over 1,400 years of Islamic history. They waxed lyrical about the whole ‘first time’, until at one stage I thought it was Roberta Flack who would be leading the prayer.

Really? Are you sure this was the first time? I certainly wasn’t. I thought I had better check things out.

In the West, when you see something weird, you predict that it will probably have something to do with the United States. “Only in America!”, we often here. In the Muslim world, the weird things often seem to happen in Turkey. So asking Turks was a good start.

I rang my mate Alf, a Turkish Aussie who has sat with numerous Turkish scholars (including my own late teacher). Alf asked around a few of the hocas in Sydney. He then came back to me.

Irfan, these guys who claim it is the first time in history are spinning sh#t. One hoca [Turkish for “imam”] told me these stunts were happening in Turkey 20 years ago! And also, there was that thing in South Africa that the funny dude was talking about.

The thing in South Africa? That funny dude? I guessed Alf was talking about Maulana Farid Esack. I looked up the index of his book “On Being A Muslim” (which I reviewed on this very website) and found references to both Amina Wudud and Shamima Shaikh (may God have mercy on her) having something to do with mixed congregational prayers.Then someone sent me something about mosques in China built specially for women. Women giving khutba on Fridays and leading prayers. Admittedly blokes probably weren’t on the invitation list there.

Ok, I know some of you will be saying that these other incidents did not contain all the same features as the recent service led by Professor Wudud. But I think it was a bit misleading for the organisers to claim they were making history.

Sharia Arguments

I am no scholar of sharia (Islamic legal traditions). I have no ijaza (permission to teach) from another expert also possessing ijaza as part of a chain (sanad) of ijaza going all the way back to the Messenger of God (peace and blessings of God be upon him and his family). I also have not graduated from any Islamic or other university [in sharia]. Nor have I studied Islamic Studies at a western university or other institution.

As such, I cannot comment on whether Professor Wudud’s arguments have some basis within sharia. Many of those making outlandish comments and giving blank cheque fatwas on behalf of either side of the argument should have the guts to make the same admissions.

I have seen elsewhere that Imam Ibn Rushd, an expert on comparative systems of understanding sharia in the sunni school, has cited the opinion of the famous Imam Tabari which lends support to the recent service led by Professor Wudud. And many have pointed to this opinion.

Imam Tabari was well-known in his time. He was also well-respected. If he had openly expressed such an opinion, we might safely presume that somewhere some woman in his community led the Friday prayers. This further undermines the “we were first” claims.

Some have been arguing that sharia is sexist and that women were rarely allowed to be scholars. What, then, have we to say about Imam Shafei (God have mercy on him) who admitted having been taught by over 20 female scholars? And what do we make of our spiritual mother Aisha (God be pleased with her) who taught us so much about the more private aspects of sharia and who is regarded (at least in the sunni school) as one of the greatest hadith scholars and jurists of her time?

But even if I were to agree that the entire evolution of sharia kept women out of the scholarly loop, does it make sense for me to look within that same tradition for an opinion supporting my case? And an opinion from a male?

It’s a bit like the late Ahmed Deedat (God have mercy on him) disputing the authenticity of the New Testament, but then using the same inauthentic document to prove his case against the crucifixion.

Minority Opinions

Legally, one thing is certain. If you stray from the mainstream, you are swimming in dangerous waters. This applies to any legal tradition, whether common law or continental law or sharia law.

In Nigeria, Amina Lawal was the victim of a magistrate with little knowledge of sharia trying and sentencing her in accordance with a minority and largely discredited opinion of the Maliki school of law.

Minority opinions are dangerous because they have rarely been tested and applied. This in itself does not make them wrong. It also does not make them completely without basis. You cannot say the recent Friday service was without basis when someone of the calibre of Imam Tabari was prepared to stick his scholarly neck out over one millennium ago and support the idea.

Minority opinions can be dangerous. And when used to support noble intentions and agendas, they can cause more damage than good to the cause they are being used to serve. Which leads me to my main point.

Amina Is Not Helping Amina

I have no doubts about the sincerity of the organisers of the recent Friday service, their supporters and all those who agree with Professor Wudud’s position.

The Prophet (peace and blessings of God be upon him) once said: “The best of you is he who is best to his wife”. He also said: “Paradise is under your mother’s feet”.Yet look at how our communities across the world treat their wives, sisters, mothers, aunts. Anyone who claims Muslims respect human rights must be joking. How can you claim to respect human rights when you discriminate against over 50% of your community? I’ve heard of oppressing minorities, but this is gender apartheid and it is just ridiculous.

How often do you see Punjabi Muslim men being gang-raped or shot or stoned for talking to a female? How often do you see a middle class Karachi kid being whipped for sneaking out of a video-hire place with pornographic DVD’s? Why do prostitutes in Dhaka get punished and ostracised but not their clients?

I have heard of Amina Lawal. Where is Ahmed or Muhammad or Tariq or Irfan Lawal?

When it comes to human rights, we have reached crisis point. When we Muslim men mistreat our wives and our mothers, we are clearly not the best among men. And we are certainly not deserving of the paradise that lies under the feet of our mothers.

This, I believe, was the real motivation of Professor Wudud and those behind her (both at the Friday service and otherwise). Their intentions are noble and necessary. But the prayer service itself was not.

Yes, we sitting in our middle class homes in air-conditioned comfort eating micro-waved meals and typing words on the latest computers as we illegally download songs from LimeWire, we might think our well-intentioned acts reach out and touch the lives of millions.

But how many of us have been to Muslim societies and Muslim countries and really understood the core of the problem? Are Muslim women oppressed because they may or may not be allowed to lead congregational prayers?

The causes for women’s oppression are many and varied. Muslims are not a monolith. Our understanding of Islam and what it has to say about gender relations is conditioned by our cultures, our climate, our history, our interactions with non-Muslim cultures, our exposure to mass media etc.

Liturgy and procedures of ibada (formal worship) are not necessarily the only cause. And not all Muslim women necessarily feel oppressed by our traditional liturgy.

And our solutions may not suit all Muslim communities. In South Africa, many Muslim women are struggling just to get into the mosque. In most mosques in Sydney, women are given the smallest and smelliest places for prayer. In some mosques, cars are parked in nicer spots than the places where women are expected to worship their Creator.

Did traditional Islam lock these women out of the mosque or confine them to such small and smelly spots? Did traditional Islam empower village elders to gang-rape women? Did traditional Islam allow a lowly Nigerian magistrate to wrongly sentence a woman to death?

Muslim women in Aceh trying to re-build their lives destroyed by the tsunami probably could not care less about events in New York. Muslim women in Pakistan in hiding from honour-killing male relatives won’t feel any less insecure thanks to Professor Wudud being an Imam. Amina Wudud has not helped Amina Lawal.

Yes, we are told. This is all true. But the Friday prayer of Professor Wudud was a start in the process of liberation. Really?

Are we to presume it is only mad mullahs who are offended by this event? I don’t think so. Many Muslim women are speaking out against the prayer, and they do so for a variety of reasons. Writers here might express disdain for those reasons. But the onus is on those introducing this practice to convince their sceptical critics.

How to Lose Friends & Infuriate People

And why shouldn’t the critics be sceptical? Many Muslim women find it offensive that one woman feels she can re-invent the salat/nemaz/ritual worship wheel. They also feel offended that those involved are taking credit for liberating Muslim women whilst the reality on the ground is so stark.

You cannot expect to be able to liberate women by offending them and their sensibilities. You cannot expect to implement change by belittling people’s beliefs and core practices. Unless, of course, if you want to look like Hizbut Tahrir or al-Muhajiroun, trying to convince people to adopt Islam by telling them their entire system is evil and should be crushed.

Changing established rules of fiqh to get a good write-up in the NYT is not my idea of a sound prescription for reform of any legal system. Do-it-yourself sharia for publicity should be left to the experts, along with flying jets into skyscrapers.

Then again, in a community with as little intellectual vigour as ours, you could come up with a most eminently sensible view and have scholarly views and sources to back up your argument, and people will still call you nasty things. Look at poor Dr Ramadan and his view on the suspension of capital punishment in Muslim countries. Even those claiming to follow his grandfather are opposing him.

So I guess a good way to lose friends in our society is to speak your mind. It infuriates people and gives them the sh#ts. I may not agree with Professor Wudud, but I am sure both of us sleep very comfortably at night.

(This article was submitted to the MWU website in April 2005 but was not published.) 

OPINION: Muslims must speak out, or be condemned for their silence

A leader's controversial comments on rape do not reflect the view of the majority, writes Irfan Yusef.

Muslim websites in Sydney and Melbourne have been running hot in the wake of comments made some weeks ago by Sheik Faiz Mohamad, a graduate of Islamic law and lecturer at an Islamic centre in south-western Sydney.

Faiz's comments, that women largely bear responsibility for rape if they make themselves an object of sexual desire, have upset many in a religious community that is still haunted by images and stories of Bosnian refugees being gang-raped during the recent war. The fear is that as Australians outside the Muslim community become aware of his comments, a wider backlash will result.

Faiz has been described in some circles as a cleric. Yet Islam knows no priestly or clerical class. The word sheik literally means old man. In a religious context, sheiks are little more than religious lawyers, similar in status to rabbis in the Jewish tradition.

Faiz studied Islamic law in Saudi Arabia and is a follower of one of a number of fringe "salafi" groups. Salafi groups are regarded as heterodox, removing texts from their historical context and turning a religion whose name literally means peace into a violent political ideology. They are rejected by even the Saudi religious establishment.

I prefer the wisdom of Turkish sufis to the fires of hatred that al-Qaeda wannabes like to fuel. The beliefs of mainstream Muslims of all ethnic backgrounds are more reflected by whirling dervishes than rants of a small minority of hate-filled youngsters. This is especially the case with local Arabic, Turkish and Indian subcontinent communities, which are dominant among Australian Muslims.

In a public address last month, Faiz is reported to have said there is a victim of rape somewhere in the world every minute, and that the woman is usually to blame. 

She displayed her beauty to the entire world. She degraded herself by being an object of sexual desire and thus becoming vulnerable to a man who looks at her for gratification of his sexual urge.

Not surprisingly, most in the Muslim community feel revulsion at his comments. Yet there has been little significant response from Muslim community leaders, when condemnation of Faiz's comments should have been swift.

In NSW, three umbrella Islamic councils compete to represent the Muslim communities across all cultural and language groups and have spent thousands of dollars fighting in the Supreme Court for governance of the Muslim community.

Muslims are not the only religious community suffering a crisis of leadership. I am yet to meet a Sydney Anglican who is completely happy with their church, and many Catholics are not exactly jumping for joy at the choice of a new pope.

However, most - if not all - cardinals, archbishops and rabbis at least speak English and don't need interpreters everywhere they go, so they are in tune with the thinking and mores of the wider community. With Muslims, it seems that language ability and understanding the local culture are the last criteria you need to satisfy to become a community leader.

This is why your average, anonymous Aussie Mossie (as local Muslims often refer to themselves) such as myself has to speak out. If we don't, people pretending to speak on our behalf will continue to say stupid things, and we will be the ones who have to bear the abuse of fellow Australians via the radio shock jocks and the broader community.

Yet Muslim community leaders sit back and do next to nothing or, worse, try to defend the indefensible comments of the likes of Faiz.

Meanwhile, your average Muslim will be too busy organising his or her business, or career; most Muslims are too busy getting on with life to worry about what some religious crackpot is saying.

So let me state for the record what I think most Muslims believe. Like other Australians, most Muslims believe rape is a crime; that rapists should and must be punished. Women and men are subject to sexual assault regardless of what they wear. And sadly, idiots of all religious denominations sometimes claim that women could avoid being raped by dressing more modestly, but I am yet to read any scripture or learn of a religion that justifies rape.

Muslims have to speak out. We cannot afford to rely on our non-English-speaking imams and feuding leaders to make incoherent noises while we are busy getting on with our lives.

In the present environment, where shock jocks and columnists are quoting our incompetent leadership, our silence will be treated as an admission of guilt.

More than 90 per cent of programs broadcast on Sydney Muslim radio stations are in Arabic, not English. Yet I doubt any of them will say a word about Faiz.

And if they do, it will be in a language most Muslims, indeed most Australians, will not understand.

(Irfan Yusef is a Sydney lawyer. First published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 28 April 2005. Also published in Online Opinion. Reproduced in full on the Nihari Nation blog.)

This was the very first opinion piece I had published in a mainstream Australian newspaper. It all went downhill from there. For some reason, SMH decided to spell my surname incorrectly.

**********

The following day, a letter to the editor was published ...

Learning to live with the Aussie Mossie

Thank you for publishing Irfan Yusef's article ("Muslims must speak out, or be condemned for their silence", Herald, April 28). His views probably do reflect the thoughts and opinions of most Muslims in this country. I have never heard the term "Aussie Mossie" before, and I couldn't help smiling at this very Australian sense of humour.

I, too, am tired of hearing shock jock comments in the media and rarely hearing from local Muslims. Thanks to Irfan Yusef and the likes of George Negus (his book, The world from Islam), at least we can start to understand and coexist with Australians of the Muslim faith.

Neil Feller

Potts Point

OPINION: How Sheik al-Hilali has disarmed critics

SHEIK Taj el-Din al-Hilali is a controversial figure at the best of times. He arrived in Australia to take up the position of Imam (resident scholar) at the main Lakemba mosque to replace another who had been removed under controversial circumstances. Since then, he has been frequently quoted making unfortunate (and at times, downright offensive) comments.

Around 20 years ago, in a speech at Sydney University, Sheik al-Hilali was quoted as saying that Jews controlled the world using pornography and corruption. I was at that seminar. The speech was in Arabic with simultaneous translation using overheads. No cameras were present. I was so upset at this that I complained to the organisers.

Then, hardly five months after the event, I saw on TV news reports a senior and respected Jewish community leader holding a video cassette in his hand. One of Sheik al-Hilali's enemies with close links to the Saudi Embassy had secretly videoed the entire speech.

Sheik al-Hilali and his employer (the Lebanese Moslems Association) were forced to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal fees to stop his deportation. Eventually, someone in Acting PM Paul Keating's office suggested a position be created for the Sheik. Hence the new title, Mufti of Australia.

What is a Mufti? Is he an Archbishop or Governor General of Australian Muslims as has been suggested by his former adviser, Keysar Trad? The position of "mufti" has rarely existed in Muslim minority communities. Britain does not have a Mufti. The United States has a Council of Imams, most of whom speak fluent English and are native Americans.

The mufti's role has tended to be that of a Queens Counsel. In complex or novel legal questions, you go to the mufti for legal advice. The mufti gives you an opinion which is authoritative but not binding. That advice is known as a "fatwa".

The real position of legal authority in traditional Muslim societies rests with the Qadi (Chief Justice), not the mufti. Indeed, many Muslim communities have multiple muftis to handle the large workload. In Pakistan, there is a mufti in each city for each school of thought.

The position of mufti was hastily created for Sheik al-Hilali by the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils. It appears not much thought went into the process. To this day, it is unclear as to exactly what the mufti's role is. Is it to tell us when we have sighted the moon correctly to identify the start of the new lunar month? Is it to provide advice on how to reach the pearly gates of Paradise? Or is it to comment on the latest Israeli incursion into Lebanon?

Sheik al-Hilali's inability to speak and communicate in English has been a huge problem, and an enormous source of embarrassment for Aussie Mossies. It is, therefore, little wonder that the Sheik is misunderstood even by his own community.

So who is to blame for this dysfunctional leadership situation? Firstly, before anyone points the finger at the Sheik, we need to understand his situation. The Sheik entered a divided congregation of highly traumatised Lebanese migrants with fresh memories of a war zone.

Lebanese Muslim migration to Australia is unique in that most Lebanese Muslims have tended to come from uneducated village environments. Most are unskilled and have little English language abilities.

The Sheik has had to be all things for all these people. He has had to handle their social, economic and family crises. His time is so occupied with these matters that he has not had much chance handling the bigger issues.

When the Government and the Wood family approached the Sheik to help secure Mr Wood's release, some accused him of seeking publicity. But the sheik is an old man with a serious heart condition and a community at loggerheads. He had every reason to stay in Australia. Instead, he dropped everything and risked his life to enter a war zone. At the very least, he was able to arrange delivery of much-needed medication to Douglas Wood.

Sheik al-Hilali has many critics among Australian Muslims. I am one of them. But on this occasion, I would have to agree with the assessments of John Howard, Alexander Downer and the Wood family. Regardless of how influential a role the sheik played in the end, his very presence in Iraq speaks volumes for his commitment to his adopted country.

Mainstream Muslim Australians need to find time from managing major banks and telecommunications companies and commercial law firms and government departments to participate in community management.

We sit back on our laurels and do nothing. And we get the result predicted by the Prophet Muhammad 14 centuries ago: "You will get the leaders you deserve from amongst yourselves".

(The author is a Sydney employment and industrial lawyer and a former legal adviser to the Islamic Council of NSW. First published in the Canberra Times on June 21, 2005. Reproduced in full on the Nihani Nation blog)

OPINION: Violence Against Women - Be part of the solution, not the problem

YOU may have been shocked to see the most recent TV commercial for White Ribbon Day. In case you haven't seen it and are wondering what everyone's talking about, here is a brief summary.

A husband and wife are eating a meal quietly together in their home until they are disturbed by the sound of their neighbour shouting at and beating up his female partner repeatedly.

After a few moments of hearing screams and shouts as they try to eat, the husband picks himself and a baseball bat up, knocks on his neighbour's door and hands the offending male the bat, saying something like "here - this will help".

The message backing this disturbing ad is simple: "If you stay silent about violence against women, you may as well lend a hand. Or a baseball bat."These days, we often see women working their way up in the world, showing success and gaining respect from their male colleagues.

Salam works in a senior role in a major financial institution. She also has martial arts training, and is quite confident she could defend herself against a male trying to assault her.

What we both have in common is we are Aussie Mossies, young Muslims brought up in Australia. One was born here, the other missed out by around five months. But we both know how prevalent domestic violence is in our own and other faith communities.

This year, one of us will join two other Muslim men and numerous other prominent men as ambassadors for White Ribbon Day in Australia.

Part of that role includes encouraging imams in Australia to devote their sermons this Friday to tackling the issue of domestic violence.

White Ribbon Day started in Canada in 1991. It was the initiative of a small group of men who wanted other men to speak out more about violence against women. But after 14 or so White Ribbon Days, there is still an big rise in violence against women, both in domestic and public settings, and across all faith communities.

It is actually quite disgusting to think that there are many men out there who still think it is all right to physically or emotionally hurt women because they believe they have the power or the right to do so.

Many people are oblivious to how common violence against women is.

Studies have shown more than a million Australian women experienced violence during a relationship with 600,000 women claiming they have lived in fear during a relationship. Worse, 20 per cent of women were pregnant when the violence first occurred!

Many victims are too frightened to report, and suffer in silence.

Friday November 25 is White Ribbon Day, the UN's designated International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

This year, men are being asked to wear white ribbons as a symbol they will no longer condone or stay silent about this issue. Whatever you think of the UN, no one can doubt the importance of this day and the urgency of this issue.

(Co-authored by Salam Zreika and Irfan Yusuf. This article is to be published in the Daily Telegraph on 23 November 2005 and reproduced in full on the Nihari Nation blog)

REVIEW: The Theology of Hate

Today, Baghdad is a city in ruins. Almost daily, we watch TV news of another suicide bombing in which more innocent lives are lost to some wacko form of 'jihad'. But were things always this bad?

Some 900 years ago, Baghdad was the centre of civilisation. Europe may have been struggling out of its Dark Ages, but Baghdad was experiencing a Renaissance.

It was around this time that a great Baghdad jurist named Abdul Qadir Jilani appeared. Jilani is regarded as one of Islam's greatest legal scholars. Yet this Christ-like figure also spent many years in the wilderness searching for the real meaning of life. He found it in the mystical traditions of Sufism.

In his classic work, Fayuz-i-Yazdani, we read the following:

Once a person said to a dervish, 'All I ask for is a small dwelling in Paradise.' The dervish replied, 'If you displayed the same contentment with what you already have in this world, you would have found ultimate bliss.'

Sufis were not escapist mystics hiding in caves and escaping from the world — they believed that the path to God lay in the struggle for justice and truth, and that the highest state of spirituality was not achieved by total immersion in the Divine Being, but through service to one's fellow human beings.

We often hear of modern politicised 'Islamism' — a term devised by veteran islamophobe Daniel Pipes to describe a modern political ideology which co-opts the religious terminology and symbols of Islam to achieve essentially political ends. But for neo-Conservatives like Daniel Pipes and Mark Steyn to claim Islamic religion must always be kept separate from politics is the height of hypocrisy. In reality, 'Islamism' is little more than neo-Conservative Islam.

Many neo-Cons use the language of Biblical Zionism and Armageddon to foment a clash of civilisations. Similarly, the nutcases from al-Qaeda and other fringe groups use Islamic theology and its symbols to fight their war against anything they deem against their vision for the world.

What both the American and Muslim neo-Cons have in common is a deep-seated hatred for Muslims. If you don't believe me, read Pipes's article 'Two Opposite Responses to Terrorism', published in the tabloid New York Post on 14 September, 2004.

The article's thesis is simple. When Nepalese civilians in Iraq are kidnapped by dissidents, members of the majority Nepalese Hindu community lynched their Muslim countrymen, burnt their shops and destroyed their homes. Nepalese civilians were then released. The French, on the other hand, respond to kidnappings of their nationals in Iraq by sending French Muslim delegations and other peaceful means. These didn't work and French nationals were killed.

The moral of the story? The best way to fight Iraqi dissidents and secure the release of your nationals is to persecute your Muslim minority. Basically, bring on another Cristalnacht. How such a hate-filled article could have found its way into the otherwise sober Melbourne Age beats me. Both in aims and results (race-hatred, terror and repression) there is very little difference between between Pipes's prescription and the activities of al-Qaeda, Jemaah Islamiyah and al-Zarqawi.

That is the macro-theory. What about the micro-reality? How can these fringe Muslim movements convince young people to adopt suicide as a religiously mandated option when their entire theology is based on living and struggling even when the odds are stacked against them?

Perhaps this is where the recent movie Paradise Now becomes essential viewing. This is not a movie to watch on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Or maybe it is, because that's when a friend and I watched it.

My friend is of South Indian Tamil background. I am of North Indian Muslim background. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were most successful in using suicide bombing as a weapon, and their methods were adopted by terrorist groups masquerading as 'Islamic movements' — HAMAS, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda, Jemaah Islamiyah — and, it seems, second and third generation North Indian and Pakistani boys in Leeds and London … and Iraqis and Jordanians and others responsible for the recent bombings in Jordan.

Not a single bomb goes off in the 90 minutes of this movie. A few images were shown of young men being shot at by soldiers.

For the most part, the movie centred upon a few characters. There is Suha (played by Lubna Azabal), the middle-class daughter of a Palestinian hero. She has arrived in the West Bank town of Nablus after spending years studying in France and Morocco, and speaks Arabic with a distinctly cosmopolitan North African accent.

Suha has her car repaired by young Said (Kais Nashef), and takes a liking to him. Said's childhood friend Khaled (Ali Suliman) loses his job, and has little to do except spend time with activists from an un-named group. Khaled has enlisted Said to join him on a mission.

For Khaled, the suicide mission to Tel Aviv is about faith and resistance. For Said, there are much deeper wounds. At age 10, Said learnt of his father being executed by the 'Resistance' for acting as an agent for the Israel's Shin Beth agency. Said and his family have been living that shame ever since.

When Said asks his mother (Hiam Abbass) to tell him about his father. She brushes off his question with: 

Whatever he did, he did for our benefit. May God have mercy on him.

Perhaps more powerful than the characters are the images of Nablus itself. This really does seem like hell-on-earth — dirty water, no jobs, checkpoints, humiliating searches, air raids, concrete everywhere.

The film captures the daily struggles of Palestinians — the human side of the conflict between Arab and Israeli — rather than the de-humanising depiction of leaders, press conferences and political statements we usually see in our world of sound bites. In one scene, Said asks Khaled why one of their uncles limps. Khaled casually tells the story of the first Intifada, when Israeli soldiers asked the uncle which leg he would like to keep before disposing of the other leg using machine gun fire and boots.

This is depressing stuff. But for me, as a Muslim, the most depressing thing was the raw cynicism of the organisers of the suicide mission. These two men, known in the film by the title 'Abu' ('Father of'), clearly had little faith in what they were doing, but were happy to send depressed and disheartened young people to their deaths.

So why did these young boys decide to kill themselves? Was it a wish for martyrdom? Was it to have their posters pasted on the walls of Nablus?

After the film, my friend and I discussed Said and Khaled's motivation. For my friend, it was a case of hopelessness combined with depression and despair, soaked in injustice and oppression.

For me it was all these things manipulated by warped theology. The boys were told they were fighting for their homeland. They were reminded about the horrors of the Israeli occupation, and the hypocrisy of the Palestinian bourgeois chardonnay-socialists, as represented by the character Suha.

While the selfish hypocrisy of the 'Islamist' ringleaders was clear, the luxuriant hypocrisy of Suha, whose overseas travel and ostentation represent all that is corrupt and wrong with the Palestinian Left (and the Left in general), was also glaring. Suha's attempts to convince the boys away from their mission were so unconvincing as to be almost farcical. Her empty political rhetoric and ideological mantras could do little to erase the pain these boys felt.

Socialism is no match for mysticism. But tragically, the indigenous Islamic mysticism of the Palestinian boys had been hijacked by the 'Islamicists'. This mysticism focussed on revenge and hatred.

Instead of fighting for real Islam, these boys were sucked into the world of fraudulent Islam which taught them to blow themselves up and kill civilians.

That same fraudulent Islam was exceptionally convenient when used to fight the West's proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan during the 1980s. But when Osama ceased being bin-Reagan and returned to being bin-Laden, this fraudulent Islam became the excuse to demonise the true mainstream Sufi Islam.

Had these two young boys been given a proper grounding in the works of jurists and mystics like Abdul Qadir Jilani and others, perhaps they would have recognised the fraudulent nature of the 'Abu' brigade's message. But it's easy for me sitting in my comfortable middle-class Sydney home to speculate. I have no idea what it is like to live in a shanty town surrounded by hostile Jewish religious fanatics and brainwashed by Muslim religious fanatics.

The theology of hate is not what I was taught. And it is my responsibility and the responsibility of all those who claim to be liberal to ensure that our future generations are not infected with neo-Conservatism, whether of the Muslim or Judeo-Christian variety.

(First published in New Matilda on Wednesday 7 December 2005. Reproduced in full on the Nihari Nation blog)