Category Archives: Islam in America

The Empire’s New Clothes

Bible and Holy Land, Ethics, Islam and Christianity, Islam in America, Islamophobia 101


Biblical Job by Gustave Gore, surrounded by his so-called “friends”

In biblical times when an individual mourned, it involved tearing up everyday clothes and putting on coarse sackcloth and ashes. This is what the patriarch Jacob did when told his young son Joseph had been killed. When Job lost his family he sat on a dung pile. Both acts were motivated by humility rather than thoughts of revenge. As fitting as Job’s location might be for some of the memorial scenes yesterday, several of those making the news headlines represented the Empire (it is hard not to think of the United States superpower as anything else but an empire) in what they thought were patriotic “red, white, and blue” cloth, but which even a little child could see were politically naked to the core. The New York Times reports a woman at the 9/11 site holding up a sign that read ““Today is ONLY about my sister and the other innocents killed nine years ago.” Would that were true.

The loss of life nine years ago in a terrorist act deserves reflection for many reasons. For those of us who live in the New York area, there but for the grace of timing go we. Those who died had pulled no triggers, pushed no buttons to drop bombs, made no political decisions to invade another country, burned no Qur’ans. They died because politically motivated extremists so hated the policies of the United States in the Middle East that they were willing to commit an atrocious suicidal act to make a symbolic statement. It did not matter that among those killed were Americans who strongly disagreed with America’s foreign policy or were in fact Muslims. Such is the ethical nothingness that hate sets as a trap, no matter which God is being called upon to condone an evil act. Continue reading The Empire’s New Clothes →

Eid Mubarak: Blessed Holiday, Service to Humanity

Islam and Christianity, Islam in America, Islamic Rituals, Islamophobia 101


by Omid Safi, The Huffington Post, September 9, 2010

Ramadan is the holiest month of the year for Muslims, a lovely combination of spiritual introspection, family gatherings, late night prayers, and social justice identification with those for whom going hungry is not a voluntary choice, but a daily reality. And Eid, the holiday marking the end of Ramadan, is a joyous time. In many Muslim cultures, this is the time of the year where families will buy new clothes for the children, and the whole town is dressed up in lights, sweets are served, and families visit loved ones, offering embraces and celebrations.

This Ramadan, on the contrast, has felt heavy. Don’t get me wrong: there have been hundreds of millions of Muslims fasting around the world, and untold numbers of Muslims have spent nights drawing nearer to their Lord through prayer and recitation of the Qur’an. There have been family gatherings and mosque prayers as before, but at least for Muslims in America a heaviness has also been a part of this Ramadan. The whole month has had the shadow of the Park51 controversy (the misnamed “Ground Zero Mosque”) and then more recently the prospects of the savage Qur’an-burning episode down in Gainesville, cast over it. Continue reading Eid Mubarak: Blessed Holiday, Service to Humanity →

Bücher und Menschen

Bible and Holy Land, Islam and Christianity, Islam in America, Islamophobia 101, Luke R. E. Publican


“Is this the book you wish to burn, Rev. Jones?”
Painting of the Devil tempting St. Augustine, by Michael Pacher (1435-1498).

I doubt that Rev. Terry Jones reads German, but he should. The German poet Heinrich Heine (1797-1856), reflecting well over a century ago on the atrocities of the Spanish Inquisition, wrote:

Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen
“Where they burn books, so too will they in the end burn human beings.”

Heine was born Jewish. His books were eventually burned in Nazi Germany; so were a number of his coreligionists.

If there is a hell down there or out there (apart from the one some people create for others here on earth every day), the Rev. would seem to be warming up for his grand entrance and welcome from Der Teufel himself.

Luke R. E. Publican

Burning books, burning bodies, burning bridges

Bible and Holy Land, Humor and Satire, Islam and Christianity, Islam in America, Islamophobia 101

“Burn, baby, burn.” One might expect these words to come from a comedian as much as an arsonist. If you put the name “Terry Jones” into Google you will find a comedian. That is Terence Graham Parry Jones of Monty Python fame. These days there is another Terry Jones, a “Rev.ed” up one to boot. Rev. Terry Jones is the previously and foreseeably future little-known pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center on the outskirts of Gainesville, Florida. For a congregation estimated at about 50, their outreach may take a millennium or more, but they do have an inflammatory website, which promotes the “Right” (in all the irony this words entails) Rev. Jones’ book with the rather unoriginal title of “Islam is of the Devil,” which is for sale, as is a $20 t-shirt to advertise hatred of Islam. For an individual who has no clue about Islam, apart from his own rabid intolerance, the devil is certainly not in the details. His moment of fame is about to eclipse, but his motive is so shameful it deserves all the condemnation it can get, the kind in which the pen is mightier than the bonfire.

Let’s start with the desire to burn. One name should suffice to call out the hypocrisy of Mr. Jones. That name is John Wycliffe, the 14th century Christian cleric whose name inspired the Wycliffe Bible Translators, one of the most active Protestant organizations translating the Bible into other languages. Wycliffe dared to translate the Latin Vulgate into English, so earning the ire of the Catholic Pope that he was excommunicated. Some 44 years after Wycliffe died of a stroke, the “Church” had his bones dug up and burned, along with all his writings. I suspect that Jones prefers the King James Version of the Bible, although I do not know if he is aware that this “authorized” version was greatly influenced by Wycliffe. Continue reading Burning books, burning bodies, burning bridges →

Don’t Call Me Moderate, Call Me Normal

Islam and Christianity, Islam in America, Islamophobia 101, Journalism and Media, Terrorism Issue


Ed Husayn

[The Wall Street Journal recently published a series of short commentaries on “moderate Islam.” Here is the one by Ed Husayn, author of “The Islamist” (Penguin, 2007) and co-founder of the Quilliam Foundation, a counterextremist think tank.]

By Ed Husain

I am a moderate Muslim, yet I don’t like being termed a “moderate”—it somehow implies that I am less of a Muslim.

We use the designation “moderate Islam” to differentiate it from “radical Islam.” But in so doing, we insinuate that while Islam in moderation is tolerable, real Islam—often perceived as radical Islam—is intolerable. This simplistic, flawed thinking hands our extremist enemies a propaganda victory: They are genuine Muslims. In this rubric, the majority, non-radical Muslim populace has somehow compromised Islam to become moderate.

What is moderate Christianity? Or moderate Judaism? Is Pastor Terry Jones’s commitment to burning the Quran authentic Christianity, by virtue of the fanaticism of his action? Or, is Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual head of the Shas Party in Israel, more Jewish because he calls on Jews to rain missiles on the Arabs and “annihilate them”?

The pastor and the rabbi can, no doubt, find abstruse scriptural justifications for their angry actions. And so it is with Islam’s fringe: Our radicals find religious excuses for their political anger. But Muslim fanatics cannot be allowed to define Islam.

The Prophet Muhammad warned us against ghuluw, or extremism, in religion. The Quran reinforces the need for qist, or balance. For me, Islam at its essence is the middle way in all matters. This is normative Islam, adhered to by a billion normal Muslims across the globe.

Normative Islam is inherently pluralist. It is supported by 1,000 years of Muslim history in which religious freedom was cherished. The claim, made today by the governments of Iran and Saudi Arabia, that they represent God’s will expressed through their version of oppressive Shariah law is a modern innovation.

The classical thinking within Islam was to let a thousand flowers bloom. Ours is not a centralized tradition, and Islam’s rich diversity is a legacy of our pluralist past.

Normative Islam, from its early history to the present, is defined by its commitment to protecting religion, life, progeny, wealth and the human mind. In the religious language of Muslim scholars, this is known as maqasid, or aims. This is the heart of Islam.

I am fully Muslim and fully Western. Don’t call me moderate—call me a normal Muslim.

What We Still Don’t Know About Islam

Islam in America, Islamophobia 101, Journalism and Media


by Hussein Rashid, Religion Dispatches, August 26, 2010

Cathy Lynn Grossman, at USA Today’s Faith and Reason blog, writes about how most Americans know very little about Islam. Intentionally or not, she actually models this ignorance of Muslim traditions. Like William Dalrymple in the New York Times, she pulls out this word “sufism,” as though it is the silver bullet that will bring peace to the world. To say that Feisal Abdul-Rauf is a sufi is technically true and about as useful as saying he is male.

Sufism is theological orientation amongst Muslims that covers a wide variety of beliefs and practices. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of sufi orders. They range from politically quiet to very politically engaged. In many contexts they have served as the conscience of the community, speaking truth to power, whether that power was political or religious. Feisal Abdul-Rauf is not apolitical. He speaks from what we would consider to be a politically liberal perspective, and in service to the government of the United States.

Both Grossman and Dalrymple want to create a simple notion of Islam, where there are good Muslims and there are bad Muslims. In their construction, sufis are by definition “good.” This view denies the complexity of the Muslim experience and the reality of our past constructions of the “good” Muslim that have backfired. Ronald Reagan once hailed the Afghan mujahidin, the precursors to the Taliban, as the greatest freedom fighters since the American Revolution. Donald Rumsfeld has his infamous photo with Saddam Hussein.

Now New York Gov. Paterson is using the same simple constructions, comparing sufis and Shi’ah Muslims, as thought they are mutually exclusive categories. One can be sufi and Shi’ah or sufi and Sunni. For example, Khomeini, leader of the Iranian Revolution, had sufi leanings. Paterson’s ignorance conflates current concerns about Iran with the Park51 issue, and shows no understanding of the Sunni nature of Al-Qaida.

The simple categories of Muslims, without any real understanding of what they mean, does a disservice to the tradition and does not actually improve the conversation. Paterson’s comments will confuse the the conversation in New York, even if people recognize that he is simply floundering for legitimacy in the discussion. Grossman and Dalrymple’s gross generalizations tell us nothing about the drivers behind Park51 or the supporters of the center. It’s a shame that instead of focusing on battling the ignorance of Muslims, they are contributing to it.

America’s “Good Muslims” Are Being Left Out to Dry

Ethics, Islam and Christianity, Islam in America, Islamophobia 101


by Abbas Barzegar, Huffington Post, August 19, 2010

There were a few things I did and didn’t expect when I first heard about the now controversial Cordoba Initiative’s Muslim community center project in Manhattan. Of course, right wing fringe hysteria and contrived national debate — that was easy to predict. But in truth, I never thought it would get as far as it has. And never did my jaded skepticism expect to see Mayor Bloomberg and other NYC authorities support Muslim rights to religious freedom so unequivocally. But the real shockers for me are 1) the national polls which reveal a deep seeded anti-Muslim bias in American society and 2) the way in which Democrats are balking on one of our country’s greatest values because of a midterm election. That the construction of a “Muslim YMCA” has devolved into a lame discussion of “why there?” is not only insulting to our constitutional principles, it shows how little we have come as a society since 9/11, despite incessant overtures by American Muslims to be fully accepted in our society.

Let there be no mistake. For decades American Muslims have struggled to reconcile a falsely conceived identity crisis which pits their American and Muslim loyalties at odds. Continue reading America’s “Good Muslims” Are Being Left Out to Dry →

Speaking up

Ethics, Humor and Satire, Islam and Christianity, Islam in America, Islamophobia 101, Journalism and Media


The right wing smells blood, perhaps not knowing in the case of the so-called Ground Zero Mosque, that it is from a self-inflicted wound. For a passionate rebuttal to the ludicrous Islamophobic comments of Newt and Sarah, listen to Keith Olbermann of MSNBC’s Countdown.

An if you want a more humorous spin that out-foxes Fox News coverage, see the latest by Jon Stewart.