OPINION: Of Anwar, terror and The Oz

Well, it looks like Anwar Ibrahim will be playing a rather major role in Malaysian politics. He may well have to put his PhD programme to one side. For those who don’t know, Anwar is currently enrolled in a PhD program at Griffith University in Brisbane. His research topic is "Asian Renaissance" and he is enrolled in the Griffith Islamic Research Unit (GIRU), a postgraduate centre headed by one Dr Mohammad Abdalla.

In recent times, GIRU has been embroiled in some controversy. A national broadsheet newspaper owned by American citizen Rupert Murdoch and oddly enough known as The Australian (also known affectionately as The Oz ) has made an enormous fuss over GIRU’s links to terrorist groups and Islamic extremists.

I’m sure Malaysians of all creeds will be amused by the sheer paranoia displayed by so much of the reporting on this issue. No doubt if some of the allegations were used in the Malaysian press to taint Anwar, they would be scoffed and dismissed even by the most hardened UMNO activist.

'Saudi funding'

It all started in September 2007, when The Oz broke the story of GIRU receiving $100,000 from the Saudi embassy in Canberra. Then on April 22, 2008 Richard Kerbaj, who regularly writes on Australian Muslim matters for The Oz , broke the story under the headline "Top uni ‘begged for Saudi funding’".

And what, you may ask, is the big deal? Kerbaj writes that: 

The Saudi Government espouses a hardline version of the faith, policed at home by the Mutaween, the country's religious police notorious for enforcing strict Muslim laws. Women are subjected to particularly harsh treatment in Saudi Arabia, and foreigners face severe punishment for not obeying the religious laws.

The Oz also ran an editorial on April 23, which tells readers of ...

... a new 50-page Human Rights Watch report, based on interviews with 100 Saudi women, [which] showed they continued to be banned from driving cars in the oil-rich kingdom. Nor can a woman work, travel, study, marry, or access healthcare without the permission of her father, brother, husband or sons. They are even banned from libraries. The nation reportedly beheaded 136 people last year, with stonings, amputations and floggings also practised. Child trafficking is rife and public Christian worship prohibited.

The editorial acknowledges the realities of higher education in Australia. 

To put the issues in context, all Australian universities aggressively court foreign students. They are also on a constant, relentless chase for research dollars. And some donors prefer anonymity.

Yet for some reason, it expects GIRU to be more upfront than other university centres and faculties: 

Such a cap-in-hand approach to a nation that despises all manner of freedom, including academic freedom, does not encourage confidence. The funding of such units should be transparent and any conditions attached to it acknowledged publicly.

Yes, we all know that Saudi Arabia isn’t the best example of Islam or human rights. But what does this have to do with Anwar’s chosen faculty? Kerbaj reports that there are fears GIRU could be used by the Saudis to promote a hardline Wahhabi form of Islam. He quotes various critics who allege that Griffith University is allowing itself to become akin to a Saudi-funded Pakistani madressa.

Osama will be excited

Interestingly, GIRU has just joined a consortium of three universities that have come together to establish a Centre for Excellence in Islamic Studies. That Centre was the subject of a competitive tender process managed by the Australian government. The government has committed some $8 million to the Centre’s establishment.

So The Oz has made an issue of a $100,000 foreign donation whilst ignoring the investment of $8 million of Australian taxpayers’ money in just the establishment of the Centre.

But let’s presume that The Oz is correct in its hysteria. Let’s look at the extensive impact the Wahhabis are having on GIRU. Certainly the postgraduate research being conducted at GIRU would excite Osama bin Laden no end. A visiting scholar to GIRU is Prof George Saliba, an expert on the history of science in the medieval Muslim world who also teaches at Columbia University. We all know what a radical Wahhabised Pakistani madressa Columbia University is.

Just a simple perusal of research topics being pursued by Anwar’s fellow students will convince anyone that GIRU is pandering to extremists. No doubt al-Qaeda would be teaching topics like "why Palestinian non-violence would be more conducive to liberation than violent resistance" in its terrorist training camps.

What readers will find most amusing is Kerbaj’s latest claim made in an article on April 29, 2008 – that Dr Abdalla, one of the academics supervising students like Anwar, is a leader of a secretive extremist organisation linked to al-Qaeda.

And which organisation is that? Jemaah Islamiyyah? Abu Sayyaf? Nope. The extremist organisation is the Tabligh Jamaat.

That’s right. Our humble brothers from the TJ, who refuse to talk politics in their gatherings and whose textbook was authored by an Indian Sufi of the Chishtiyya order buried in Madina, is a secretive terrorist organisation.

So how is this organisation that keeps knocking on the front doors of Muslims inviting them to pray at the mosque to be regarded as secretive? How is TJ – the closest thing Sunni Islam has to door-knocking missionaries such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormons – linked to al-Qaeda?

Please, readers, try not to laugh. This organisation is ...

... an Islamic group whose overseas members have been linked to al-Qaeda and the 2005 London bombings … identified in the latest report by Stratfor (a private US intelligence group) as a recruiting ground for al-Qaeda. It has also been linked to failed shoe bomber Richard Reid and to two of the four bombers who killed 52 people on London's transport system on July 7, 2005.

So some suspected and actual terrorists have sat in on a TJ bayaan or two down at their local mosque. A few may have even gone for 40 days or four months on "khurooj". This makes them somehow linked to terrorism and extremism.

But is this nasty extremism limited to Richard Reid? Other deceased, former and current TJ participants include Dr Zakir Hussein (a former Indian President), Nawaz Sharif (former Pakistani PM), Junaid Jamshed (former lead singer of Pakistan rock band "Vital Signs") and at least six Pakistani international cricketers (including champion batsman Inzamam-ul-Haq).

Dr Zakir Hussein was a member of the Indian Congress Party, currently in power at a federal level in India. Using the logic of The Oz , India’s current Sikh Prime Minister is linked to al-Qaeda. Nawaz Sharif is a prominent figure in the Pakistan coalition government that includes the husband of the late Benazir Bhutto. I guess that means the Bhuttos are linked to al-Qaeda.

And if Anwar ever spent time in the company of the TJ, no doubt he will also be regarded as linked to al-Qaeda!

To think that this kind of reporting is used in Australia’s only national broadsheet newspaper. And what’s the moral of this story? You should thank your lucky stars the New Straits Times and The Sun aren’t owned by a certain American citizen.

(IRFAN YUSUF is a Sydney-based lawyer, writer and blogger whose articles and reviews have appeared in various newspapers including The Sydney Morning Herald, Melbourne Age, Canberra Times, Australian Financial Review and The New Zealand Herald. He recently interviewed Ayaan Hirsi Ali for NewMatilda.com. First published in malaysiakini.com on 2 May 2008)