May 18, 2011
Caught sleeping on the job the Pakistan government has turned its machinery to bite the hand that feeds its face. Nations evolve and one would have thought that rousing nationalistic songs and hot-button phrases like “invasion of sovereignty” would have been dropped in favor of unvarnished facts. Time was that dictators spewed nonsense and one yearned for democracy and a wonderful array of elected legislators that would arm themselves with data and speak with accuracy and vote with conscience. But our kismet is crossed with parliamentarians that come with their own personal agendas.
The two things that galvanize Pakistanis of all hues are cricket and the kursi. Strange bedfellows and stranger sums of money exchange hands for both. It is in times of crisis that a person and a nation’s mettle are tested. A la Goebbels after the in-camera session of Parliament, the Information Minister stated that the ISI Chief had “surrendered” himself to Parliament. We’ve now taken to messing with the nation’s psyche. The parliamentarians got together and drew up a 12-point agenda the primary thrust of which was to stop the drones or else the NATO supply lines would be cut and to initiate a judicial inquiry commission with regard to the bin Laden fiasco.
Around the same time US Senator John Kerry visited Pakistan; and interestingly he roared in like a lion and left quite the lamb. For it seems that soon after the bin Laden fiasco American and Pakistani voices questioned their union in the fight against terrorism. The slur of infidelity seemed thrown around and both sides felt violated. $3.2 billion in aid screeched US congressmen and media, what is going on in Pakistan? In the depth of the night, in all of 40 minutes, with helicopters and Navy Seals, Osama and all multimedia files are gone, wondered the whiplashed Pakistanis.
The Pakistani media went on overdrive. Only a minuscule few honed in on the actual invasion of sovereignty that has occurred over the last quarter of a century in Pakistan and one that we have accepted with gratitude and smiles for this invasion came laced with money and religion. We welcomed Uzbeks, Chechens, Arabs, Afghans and more. It is alternately sad and stupid to realize that the real serpent that has permeated and become one with the fabric of our society is so completely ignored and like petulant children we are kicking and screaming at the United States.
Extremism is born and perpetuated by poverty and unemployment. The hungry, disenchanted teenager is much more likely to be ensnared by the charms and monetary temptations of the radicalized. And when the radicalized are your neighbors, your servants, your co-workers, your teachers or essentially anyone and you collapse your economy further, you simply guarantee extremism.
Ensconced in ultra-luxury Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has decided that the Punjab province shall refuse the American dole. While it is true that Pakistan has not accounted for its billions in aid appropriately and a good part of it has not made it to its intended purpose and has probably lined many a private pocket, it is factual that American aid is used for a large number of governmental and non-governmental educational, administrative and developmental projects. These projects will simply dry up as the aid does. Chucking charity is not as simple a choice as the ghairat (self-respect and pride) of Shahbaz Sharif might dictate.
Perhaps it was this Punjabi indignation or the graphic posters that protested in front of the in-camera parliamentary session that caught the eye of the Americans for now their tune is decidedly different. Kerry may have wagged his finger at Kayani behind closed doors but in public the story is conciliatory. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says that this is not the time for the US to flex its muscles at Pakistan, rather it should withhold judgment. Senator Mitch McConnell says that disengaging with Pakistan now was not a good idea. And most surprising is the statement by House Speaker Richard Boehner who said that Pakistan was a real asset and had lost more troops and more individuals in the fight against terror than the US.
The American-Pakistan partnership has been one of those uncomfortable but necessary alliances for both parties. So analogous to human relationships when you realize with this gnawing deep inside that you share little now except an interwoven past and an inextricable convenience.
Our hypocrisy must stop: the drones fly from Pakistan’s airfields and we have given our express permission for this, our President does not even think the non-extremist civilian deaths are collateral damage. Regardless of American intelligence, drones do not rain down on Iran, Turkey or Malaysia. They don’t froth at the mouth about “national sovereignty” they protect it by simply refusing.
Our elected representatives and our people must realize that it is not the drones or national sovereignty or American aid that is the main issue. It is that termite of the extremist mindset that kills Muslims in mosques that has permeated our society and converted it into the rotten mess that it is in today. It will take a concerted effort at de-weaponizing house by house and legislators, civil society and the media to galvanize and work tirelessly for decades on a thought revolution to ensure the extermination of extremism and the preservation of Pakistan.
Mahjabeen Islam is an addictionist, family physician and columnist. mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Of abdication, vacillation and decisions
Strange that it is France where our leaders abdicate to when Pakistan is either drowning in biblical proportion floods or frying in the greatest debacle after its 1971 division. While an entire populace sat stunned, betrayed and sleepless at the American Abbotabad strike, Prime Minister Gilani and a troupe of fifty luxuriated in the $800 a night Paris Intercontinental. Why did the Speaker of the House or the wives of the various officials need to go?
Is finding the World’s Most Wanted on Pakistani soil so much of an everyday occurrence that the Prime Minister seemed rested and his colleagues all smiles? After May 2nd America released a volley of information to the world. But Pakistan’s establishment seemed to have been given a paralytic. And when the silence did break it was nonsense that spewed forth and continues to. These are the people that we elected and the military and ISI that were once able to galvanize the nation with fiery speeches.
The insult to injury that Pakistan’s government, armed forces and ISI add to Pakistanis the world over is difficult to encapsulate in words. It would have been easy to vilify America or demonize India or abuse Israel, but when your own elected representatives and the armed forces that swelled you with pride and the intelligence agency you thought was superb are the ones that pretty much crucify Pakistan, hope all but evaporates. Is ghar ko aag lag gayi ghar key chiragh sey (this house was burned by its own candle).
The mealy-mouthed Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir is a smear on Pakistan’s Foreign Office. In a clear clash with Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States Haqqani who repeatedly spoke of an inquiry, Bashir was content with a review. Leon Panetta was quoted as not sharing information with Pakistan as they would leak it to bin Laden and Bashir said that “we have the highest regard for Mr. Panetta”. Icing on the cake: “we realized that there was invasion of Pakistan’s airspace due to a ticker tape on the television”. This is not funny, only ignominious.
A statement on the website of the Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement reads: “US helicopters entered Pakistani airspace making use of blind spots in the radar coverage due to hilly terrain. US helicopters’ undetected flight into Pakistan was also facilitated by the mountainous terrain, efficacious use of latest technology and ‘nap of the earth’ flying techniques.” So here’s the recipe, come invade us, tried and tested, it works!
The only credit that General Kayani gets is that he looked like a truck had just run him over. Interior Minister Rehman Malik shooed away reporters but had all kinds of time for the Saudi royals and Iran’s President Ahmadinejad to both of whom he paid a warm visit speaking with folded hands and deference. What of the millions that elected the PPP, don’t they deserve an answer or comfort, something? The Air Force Chief all but ripped off the scab that was barely beginning on the national psyche when he said that the radars on the western borders were not jammed they were off! And then that stealth technology was used and we couldn’t have detected them anyway. We really feel secure now.
But then it’s our fault isn’t it? We get the corrupt and the incompetent perhaps because we are damned as a people. Our own vacillation knows no bounds. The jihadists have woven their network into our society overtly and covertly, many a time with our permission. And now that our neighbor or servant has the philosophy and ability to hold us up at gunpoint or blow up our schools, we are really stuck. For within us are the likes of Amir Liaquat Hussain and the venom that they spew, and the television channels that they influence. Many pseudo-scholars like him have been successful in swaying the population by inciting hatred rather than promoting peace. On one such television channel the anchor spoke of bin Laden in the “unki” plural and respectful form and his daughter not as beyti but as his sahibzadi (honorable way of address). These are small cues but vital subliminal statements.
Pakistan remains a nation divided and is reaping the fruits of this deep division. The 6000 terrorist attacks and 30,000 innocent Pakistanis killed by fellow Pakistanis since 9/11 mean less to the population than the invasion of our sovereignty by the United States. We as a people need to understand, agree and unite on the premise that ridding our nation of terrorism can only happen with the help of the population. It must be de-weaponized and thought-controlled with regard to terrorism.
If bin Laden could have lived in Haripur and Abbotabad for nine years, under the nose of the Kakul Military Academy, what confidence should the nation have about the protection of its nuclear assets? Or is that what America is after?
Judicial commissions and closed sessions of Parliament are all delaying and diffusing techniques, crafted to gain political points. The “referendum” of the MQM is a misnomer, it is more of a survey and again serves to bide time. People who love Pakistan deeply are beginning to question its creation. This is not a time to create more bitterness and skepticism; sharp surgical action is needed to yank the nation out of its dark malaise. Prime Minister Gilani in an address to Parliament incredulously demanded several questions of the nation: what was the citizenship of bin Laden, what of the thousands dead in terrorist attacks, why has all this happened? Perhaps it was jet lag from French jaunts for even the Speaker of the House looked pained and confused as the Prime Minister seemed to be asking questions the country should be demanding of his elected administration.
Pakistanis are very slick at getting out of the worst pickles. Commissions and parliament sessions should be easy as pie. A no-confidence motion should be passed in the Parliament post-haste or a true referendum held on this one issue of resignation. And President Zardari, Prime Minister Gilani and ISI Chief Ahmad Shuja Pasha should gracefully resign. It’s generally three strikes or a grave violation and you’re out. This is as grave as it gets. Pakistan desperately needs a change at the helm. Immediately.
Mahjabeen Islam is an addictionist, family physician and columnist. mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
Is finding the World’s Most Wanted on Pakistani soil so much of an everyday occurrence that the Prime Minister seemed rested and his colleagues all smiles? After May 2nd America released a volley of information to the world. But Pakistan’s establishment seemed to have been given a paralytic. And when the silence did break it was nonsense that spewed forth and continues to. These are the people that we elected and the military and ISI that were once able to galvanize the nation with fiery speeches.
The insult to injury that Pakistan’s government, armed forces and ISI add to Pakistanis the world over is difficult to encapsulate in words. It would have been easy to vilify America or demonize India or abuse Israel, but when your own elected representatives and the armed forces that swelled you with pride and the intelligence agency you thought was superb are the ones that pretty much crucify Pakistan, hope all but evaporates. Is ghar ko aag lag gayi ghar key chiragh sey (this house was burned by its own candle).
The mealy-mouthed Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir is a smear on Pakistan’s Foreign Office. In a clear clash with Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States Haqqani who repeatedly spoke of an inquiry, Bashir was content with a review. Leon Panetta was quoted as not sharing information with Pakistan as they would leak it to bin Laden and Bashir said that “we have the highest regard for Mr. Panetta”. Icing on the cake: “we realized that there was invasion of Pakistan’s airspace due to a ticker tape on the television”. This is not funny, only ignominious.
A statement on the website of the Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement reads: “US helicopters entered Pakistani airspace making use of blind spots in the radar coverage due to hilly terrain. US helicopters’ undetected flight into Pakistan was also facilitated by the mountainous terrain, efficacious use of latest technology and ‘nap of the earth’ flying techniques.” So here’s the recipe, come invade us, tried and tested, it works!
The only credit that General Kayani gets is that he looked like a truck had just run him over. Interior Minister Rehman Malik shooed away reporters but had all kinds of time for the Saudi royals and Iran’s President Ahmadinejad to both of whom he paid a warm visit speaking with folded hands and deference. What of the millions that elected the PPP, don’t they deserve an answer or comfort, something? The Air Force Chief all but ripped off the scab that was barely beginning on the national psyche when he said that the radars on the western borders were not jammed they were off! And then that stealth technology was used and we couldn’t have detected them anyway. We really feel secure now.
But then it’s our fault isn’t it? We get the corrupt and the incompetent perhaps because we are damned as a people. Our own vacillation knows no bounds. The jihadists have woven their network into our society overtly and covertly, many a time with our permission. And now that our neighbor or servant has the philosophy and ability to hold us up at gunpoint or blow up our schools, we are really stuck. For within us are the likes of Amir Liaquat Hussain and the venom that they spew, and the television channels that they influence. Many pseudo-scholars like him have been successful in swaying the population by inciting hatred rather than promoting peace. On one such television channel the anchor spoke of bin Laden in the “unki” plural and respectful form and his daughter not as beyti but as his sahibzadi (honorable way of address). These are small cues but vital subliminal statements.
Pakistan remains a nation divided and is reaping the fruits of this deep division. The 6000 terrorist attacks and 30,000 innocent Pakistanis killed by fellow Pakistanis since 9/11 mean less to the population than the invasion of our sovereignty by the United States. We as a people need to understand, agree and unite on the premise that ridding our nation of terrorism can only happen with the help of the population. It must be de-weaponized and thought-controlled with regard to terrorism.
If bin Laden could have lived in Haripur and Abbotabad for nine years, under the nose of the Kakul Military Academy, what confidence should the nation have about the protection of its nuclear assets? Or is that what America is after?
Judicial commissions and closed sessions of Parliament are all delaying and diffusing techniques, crafted to gain political points. The “referendum” of the MQM is a misnomer, it is more of a survey and again serves to bide time. People who love Pakistan deeply are beginning to question its creation. This is not a time to create more bitterness and skepticism; sharp surgical action is needed to yank the nation out of its dark malaise. Prime Minister Gilani in an address to Parliament incredulously demanded several questions of the nation: what was the citizenship of bin Laden, what of the thousands dead in terrorist attacks, why has all this happened? Perhaps it was jet lag from French jaunts for even the Speaker of the House looked pained and confused as the Prime Minister seemed to be asking questions the country should be demanding of his elected administration.
Pakistanis are very slick at getting out of the worst pickles. Commissions and parliament sessions should be easy as pie. A no-confidence motion should be passed in the Parliament post-haste or a true referendum held on this one issue of resignation. And President Zardari, Prime Minister Gilani and ISI Chief Ahmad Shuja Pasha should gracefully resign. It’s generally three strikes or a grave violation and you’re out. This is as grave as it gets. Pakistan desperately needs a change at the helm. Immediately.
Mahjabeen Islam is an addictionist, family physician and columnist. mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
Monday, May 9, 2011
The two faces of Pakistan
This is a tough time to be Pakistani. Perhaps the humiliation and bewilderment of the average Pakistani can be analogized to the time when West Pakistan unleashed rape and murder on its eastern half and lost it. But those were not the days of the Internet revolution; propaganda whitewashed the gory details and West Pakistanis lived in ignorant bliss.
Osama bin Laden’s killing remains shrouded in mystery; the backpedalling of the American government is unsettling. And for Pakistanis across the world the initial eerie silence and the subsequent outlandish statements of the Pakistan government and the ISI add the last nail in our coffin of infamy.
The media had a heyday with reports of Bin Laden using his wife as a shield and all that connotes. After 24 hours there was a recant. President Obama seems very concerned about Muslim sentiment and the preference in Islam to bury as soon as possible. So with “Muslim rites” bin Laden is dumped in the sea! The bodies of all previous high value terrorists that were killed were shown to the media and all were buried. A basic knowledge of Islam would reveal that Muslims cannot be buried at sea unless there are extenuating circumstances, and this was not one. The calls for closure and quashing of conspiracy theories demand, at the very minimum, photographs of the body but the decision now emerges that it would inflame Muslims and threaten national security so they too shall not be shown.
That bin Laden was living for at least a year in the backyard of the elite Kakul Military Academy in the garrison city of Abbotabad, that America could kill him and gather all computer data in 40 minutes flat before the Pakistan Air Force could mobilize, that the Pakistanis were deliberately kept in the dark about this and now there is no public evidence of bin Laden’s death only leads to further vilification of America and arms Al-Qaeda and the Taliban to advance their conspiracy theories and extremist ideology.
Even non-Muslim Americans and those that lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks would have benefited by the closure that photos provide. Reprisals one can anticipate, making definitive evidence public rather than expecting the world to believe the “99.9% DNA match” would not have been gloating but the closing of a terrible chapter in world history. 64 % in a CNN poll wanted the photos to be made public.
Pakistanis must face that over the last 25 years Pakistan has been converted into a haven for terrorism. That the thousands of Paksitani military and civilian lives lost in a war that was not Pakistan’s died at the hands of Muslims. With the tacit and overt support of the population.
There are two Pakistans-one that is committed to democracy, human rights, education and professional advancement of women and a Sufistic practice of Islam. The other is the Taliban brand-literalistic, uneducated, violent, treating women as receptacles of procreation and following the Salafi/Wahabi practice of Islam.
Most Al-Qaeda figures that have been arrested for terrorist activities in various parts of the world have had links to Pakistan and the majority of them were not Pakistani. Over the last 25 years Uzbeks, Arabs, Chechens, Afghanis and even Filipinos have found safe haven in Pakistan, learnt Urdu and Pashto and obtained Pakistani passports. Worse, economic conditions have forced the local population to rent to and aid and marry these foreigners and slowly but surely Pakistan has been radicalized and also permeated with Wahabi thought.
As a young woman I don’t remember seeing flailing beards in our cricket team or army passing out parades as one notices now. Not to mention the entirely modest dupatta and shalwar kameez outfit that has been dumped in favor of the Arab hijab, niqab, gown and gloves, that also in the searing heat of Lahore.
Speaker of the House John Boehner and other members of Congress are questioning the US$2 billion aid that Pakistan receives. And rightfully so. Accountability is not Pakistan’s strong point. It is conjectured that some of the aid went with Musharraf when he went overseas. The current government is mired in corruption and Prime Minister Gilani soaks up French hospitality while Pakistan burns.
The ISI most likely knew of the operation and perhaps it was decided that it would play dumb, for CIA Director Leon Panetta claims that the first response of his counterpart on hearing the news was “congratulations”. It is virtually impossible for Pakistanis to believe that supposedly one of the best secret services in the world did not know of bin Laden living in a military garrison. It is conjectured that a large part of the ISI and the army has been permeated by Taliban thought, with the unjust American invasion of Iraq as a terrible catalyst and perhaps keeping the ISI out of the operation completely would allow it to better deal with its radicalized members.
After the London train bombings the friend of one of the bombers said that it did not matter if bin Laden was alive or dead; “al-Qaeda is inside” he said pointing to his head. The same premise applies to Pakistan. The government and now the ISI are inept, true. But the problem is the population and with it lies the solution.
The non-radicalized face of Pakistan has an onerous responsibility. It must form coalitions and maybe an umbrella organization to rid Pakistan of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Ironically bin Laden and terrorists like him are easy surgical strikes. Wahabi/Taliban thought that has permeated into the population over the last 25 years may take another generation to cleanse. And by that time Pakistan may not even be the banana republic it is now. Probably drawn and quartered beyond recognition.
Mahjabeen Islam is an addictionist, family physician and columnist. mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
Osama bin Laden’s killing remains shrouded in mystery; the backpedalling of the American government is unsettling. And for Pakistanis across the world the initial eerie silence and the subsequent outlandish statements of the Pakistan government and the ISI add the last nail in our coffin of infamy.
The media had a heyday with reports of Bin Laden using his wife as a shield and all that connotes. After 24 hours there was a recant. President Obama seems very concerned about Muslim sentiment and the preference in Islam to bury as soon as possible. So with “Muslim rites” bin Laden is dumped in the sea! The bodies of all previous high value terrorists that were killed were shown to the media and all were buried. A basic knowledge of Islam would reveal that Muslims cannot be buried at sea unless there are extenuating circumstances, and this was not one. The calls for closure and quashing of conspiracy theories demand, at the very minimum, photographs of the body but the decision now emerges that it would inflame Muslims and threaten national security so they too shall not be shown.
That bin Laden was living for at least a year in the backyard of the elite Kakul Military Academy in the garrison city of Abbotabad, that America could kill him and gather all computer data in 40 minutes flat before the Pakistan Air Force could mobilize, that the Pakistanis were deliberately kept in the dark about this and now there is no public evidence of bin Laden’s death only leads to further vilification of America and arms Al-Qaeda and the Taliban to advance their conspiracy theories and extremist ideology.
Even non-Muslim Americans and those that lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks would have benefited by the closure that photos provide. Reprisals one can anticipate, making definitive evidence public rather than expecting the world to believe the “99.9% DNA match” would not have been gloating but the closing of a terrible chapter in world history. 64 % in a CNN poll wanted the photos to be made public.
Pakistanis must face that over the last 25 years Pakistan has been converted into a haven for terrorism. That the thousands of Paksitani military and civilian lives lost in a war that was not Pakistan’s died at the hands of Muslims. With the tacit and overt support of the population.
There are two Pakistans-one that is committed to democracy, human rights, education and professional advancement of women and a Sufistic practice of Islam. The other is the Taliban brand-literalistic, uneducated, violent, treating women as receptacles of procreation and following the Salafi/Wahabi practice of Islam.
Most Al-Qaeda figures that have been arrested for terrorist activities in various parts of the world have had links to Pakistan and the majority of them were not Pakistani. Over the last 25 years Uzbeks, Arabs, Chechens, Afghanis and even Filipinos have found safe haven in Pakistan, learnt Urdu and Pashto and obtained Pakistani passports. Worse, economic conditions have forced the local population to rent to and aid and marry these foreigners and slowly but surely Pakistan has been radicalized and also permeated with Wahabi thought.
As a young woman I don’t remember seeing flailing beards in our cricket team or army passing out parades as one notices now. Not to mention the entirely modest dupatta and shalwar kameez outfit that has been dumped in favor of the Arab hijab, niqab, gown and gloves, that also in the searing heat of Lahore.
Speaker of the House John Boehner and other members of Congress are questioning the US$2 billion aid that Pakistan receives. And rightfully so. Accountability is not Pakistan’s strong point. It is conjectured that some of the aid went with Musharraf when he went overseas. The current government is mired in corruption and Prime Minister Gilani soaks up French hospitality while Pakistan burns.
The ISI most likely knew of the operation and perhaps it was decided that it would play dumb, for CIA Director Leon Panetta claims that the first response of his counterpart on hearing the news was “congratulations”. It is virtually impossible for Pakistanis to believe that supposedly one of the best secret services in the world did not know of bin Laden living in a military garrison. It is conjectured that a large part of the ISI and the army has been permeated by Taliban thought, with the unjust American invasion of Iraq as a terrible catalyst and perhaps keeping the ISI out of the operation completely would allow it to better deal with its radicalized members.
After the London train bombings the friend of one of the bombers said that it did not matter if bin Laden was alive or dead; “al-Qaeda is inside” he said pointing to his head. The same premise applies to Pakistan. The government and now the ISI are inept, true. But the problem is the population and with it lies the solution.
The non-radicalized face of Pakistan has an onerous responsibility. It must form coalitions and maybe an umbrella organization to rid Pakistan of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Ironically bin Laden and terrorists like him are easy surgical strikes. Wahabi/Taliban thought that has permeated into the population over the last 25 years may take another generation to cleanse. And by that time Pakistan may not even be the banana republic it is now. Probably drawn and quartered beyond recognition.
Mahjabeen Islam is an addictionist, family physician and columnist. mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Interview with The Toledo Blade/Osama Bin Laden death
May 3, 2011
Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. Special Forces, but his ideology died before him, several local Muslim leaders said Monday.
“I think he effectively died in the Arab revolution of the last few months when the whole relevance of his call against the West received a ‘no confidence vote’ by the Muslims in the street,” said Ovamir Anjum, the Imam Khattab endowed chair of Islamic studies at the University of Toledo.
Dr. Abed Alo of the Masjid Saad Foundation in Sylvania expressed a similar view, saying the revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and other Arab nations showed that the people’s peaceful actions can be more effective than terrorism.
“The current developments in the Middle East showed that bin Laden’s thinking was not valid. The only reason why such ideologies will attract some people is when there is too much oppression and dictatorships. Now when people think they can change the situation without violence, then this type of ideology will not have much attraction any more,” Dr. Alo said.
“My reaction is that it’s no longer a really big deal except in America and possibly in the Afghanistan and Pakistan region,” Mr. Anjum said. “In the short term his death might provoke some reactions, but on the whole, what has happened in the Arab world already sounded the death knell of bin Laden’s ideology. This puts the final nail in that coffin.”
A number of area Muslims said they were relieved to learn that bin Laden was taken out at his Pakistani mansion hideout.
“He got what he asked for,” said Yehia “John” Shousher of Toledo. “He started out defending against the evil Russian occupation of Afghanistan and then he became a devil himself. ‘
Mr. Shousher and others said bin Laden’s radical and violent actions have given mainstream Muslims a bad name.
“We felt we have paid a price with the victims in New York and other places because of what happened. We never approved what went on, but we paid the price and now we have to fight for respect in the community in which we live,” he said. “What bin Laden did is against our faith and our country and against humanity and 99.9 percent of the Muslim world feels the same way.”
“We are very happy about what has happened,” said Dr. Syed Maseeh Rehman, president of the United Muslim Association of Toledo. “It was like Osama declared himself as the Muslim voice for the world when in fact he does not represent the mainstream Muslims. He is not a scholar. He’s a nobody. He has his own version of Islam and he brought a bad name to everybody — to Muslims, to Arabs, and to human beings. Killing innocent women and children in the name of Islam — this is absolutely not allowed in Islam.”
Dr. Mahjabeen Islam said the al-Qaeda leader’s death raises a number of serious questions, such as how he was able to hide in a heavily fortified mansion that towered over the rest of the neighborhood and which was close to a prestigious military academy. It suggests government collusion, she said.
“As a Pakistani American, I am absolutely furious at the Pakistani government. How much did the Pakistani government know? Clearly something was going on,” she said.
Dr. Islam also fears that bin Laden’s death might trigger violent reprisals among his supporters and other extremists.
“I think his death is going to radicalize his al-Qaeda followers more. … I think his death is going to make it stronger. I think there are going to be vengeful attacks on innocent people,” she said.
Dr. Islam also voiced concern that U.S. officials reported they buried bin Laden at sea. If so, that would be a violation of Islamic practice, she said. It also means that if bin Laden’s body is at sea, there is no way to check the DNA evidence that officials said proved he was the target of the raid.
Ziad Hummos, a member of Masjid Saad, said he hopes the terrorist leader’s death will bring about peace.
“Violence creates violence. I hope this will be the end of killing innocent people around the world,” Mr. Hummos said. “I hope now the world will come to peace and people will come back to their sanity. It is something really important that people respect all human life.”
Imam Ahmed Abou Seif of the Toledo Muslim Community Center also said the events might provide a chance for positive change.
“Getting rid of Osama, that would be a great opportunity for both the Muslim people and the U.S. to work together toward the same goal,” Imam Seif said, adding that the goals are “justice, freedom, and equality.”
Cherrefe Kadri, a Toledo attorney and former president of the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo, said Muslim Americans feel no differently about bin Laden’s death than do other citizens.
“I don’t know that Muslim Americans should have any different feelings than any other Americans. It’s a measure of justice for all Americans,” she said. “We don’t have any special interest in Osama bin Laden. We never looked at him as a religious leader or a religious figure. If somebody does bad, then I think they get their just due. Hopefully this closes a chapter.”
Staff writer Tom Troy contributed to this report.
Contact David Yonke at: dyonke@theblade.com or 419-724-6154.
http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2011/05/03/Local-Muslims-say-they-re-relieved-2.html
Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. Special Forces, but his ideology died before him, several local Muslim leaders said Monday.
“I think he effectively died in the Arab revolution of the last few months when the whole relevance of his call against the West received a ‘no confidence vote’ by the Muslims in the street,” said Ovamir Anjum, the Imam Khattab endowed chair of Islamic studies at the University of Toledo.
Dr. Abed Alo of the Masjid Saad Foundation in Sylvania expressed a similar view, saying the revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and other Arab nations showed that the people’s peaceful actions can be more effective than terrorism.
“The current developments in the Middle East showed that bin Laden’s thinking was not valid. The only reason why such ideologies will attract some people is when there is too much oppression and dictatorships. Now when people think they can change the situation without violence, then this type of ideology will not have much attraction any more,” Dr. Alo said.
“My reaction is that it’s no longer a really big deal except in America and possibly in the Afghanistan and Pakistan region,” Mr. Anjum said. “In the short term his death might provoke some reactions, but on the whole, what has happened in the Arab world already sounded the death knell of bin Laden’s ideology. This puts the final nail in that coffin.”
A number of area Muslims said they were relieved to learn that bin Laden was taken out at his Pakistani mansion hideout.
“He got what he asked for,” said Yehia “John” Shousher of Toledo. “He started out defending against the evil Russian occupation of Afghanistan and then he became a devil himself. ‘
Mr. Shousher and others said bin Laden’s radical and violent actions have given mainstream Muslims a bad name.
“We felt we have paid a price with the victims in New York and other places because of what happened. We never approved what went on, but we paid the price and now we have to fight for respect in the community in which we live,” he said. “What bin Laden did is against our faith and our country and against humanity and 99.9 percent of the Muslim world feels the same way.”
“We are very happy about what has happened,” said Dr. Syed Maseeh Rehman, president of the United Muslim Association of Toledo. “It was like Osama declared himself as the Muslim voice for the world when in fact he does not represent the mainstream Muslims. He is not a scholar. He’s a nobody. He has his own version of Islam and he brought a bad name to everybody — to Muslims, to Arabs, and to human beings. Killing innocent women and children in the name of Islam — this is absolutely not allowed in Islam.”
Dr. Mahjabeen Islam said the al-Qaeda leader’s death raises a number of serious questions, such as how he was able to hide in a heavily fortified mansion that towered over the rest of the neighborhood and which was close to a prestigious military academy. It suggests government collusion, she said.
“As a Pakistani American, I am absolutely furious at the Pakistani government. How much did the Pakistani government know? Clearly something was going on,” she said.
Dr. Islam also fears that bin Laden’s death might trigger violent reprisals among his supporters and other extremists.
“I think his death is going to radicalize his al-Qaeda followers more. … I think his death is going to make it stronger. I think there are going to be vengeful attacks on innocent people,” she said.
Dr. Islam also voiced concern that U.S. officials reported they buried bin Laden at sea. If so, that would be a violation of Islamic practice, she said. It also means that if bin Laden’s body is at sea, there is no way to check the DNA evidence that officials said proved he was the target of the raid.
Ziad Hummos, a member of Masjid Saad, said he hopes the terrorist leader’s death will bring about peace.
“Violence creates violence. I hope this will be the end of killing innocent people around the world,” Mr. Hummos said. “I hope now the world will come to peace and people will come back to their sanity. It is something really important that people respect all human life.”
Imam Ahmed Abou Seif of the Toledo Muslim Community Center also said the events might provide a chance for positive change.
“Getting rid of Osama, that would be a great opportunity for both the Muslim people and the U.S. to work together toward the same goal,” Imam Seif said, adding that the goals are “justice, freedom, and equality.”
Cherrefe Kadri, a Toledo attorney and former president of the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo, said Muslim Americans feel no differently about bin Laden’s death than do other citizens.
“I don’t know that Muslim Americans should have any different feelings than any other Americans. It’s a measure of justice for all Americans,” she said. “We don’t have any special interest in Osama bin Laden. We never looked at him as a religious leader or a religious figure. If somebody does bad, then I think they get their just due. Hopefully this closes a chapter.”
Staff writer Tom Troy contributed to this report.
Contact David Yonke at: dyonke@theblade.com or 419-724-6154.
http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2011/05/03/Local-Muslims-say-they-re-relieved-2.html
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Saved by the Sharia
It’s hip to hate Sharia or Islamic law. Many a Republican is jumping on the bandwagon and Rep. Don Wells (R. Cabool) even likens it to polio. That a CIA spy who killed two Pakistanis was freed because of it is quite ironic.
In late January Raymond Davis was driving in a populated area of Lahore when he killed two Pakistanis, photographed their bodies and radioed for help wherein an American consular vehicle rushed to the scene, crushing a bystander to death in the process. Davis’ car was loaded with arms and his cell phones showed contact with terrorist groups. Davis was arrested and started a diplomatic frenzy wherein the US maintained that he had diplomatic immunity and Pakistan’s foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi was fired for not toeing the line, for he and his department maintained that Davis did not. Even President Obama invoked the Vienna Convention that confers diplomatic immunity insisting that Davis was an embassy employee. The Vienna Convention however confers diplomatic immunity in the pursuit of diplomatic duties and running around with unlicensed arms does not fall in that arena.
The American mantra did not change. For four weeks under severe public pressure the Pakistani government ran from pillar to post frazzled but loathe to annoy its benefactor. And then someone had an epiphany; blood money or the qisas and diyat law.
Under Sharia law in the event of grievous injury or murder, the case must first go to court and a verdict pronounced. Thereafter it is the victim’s family’s prerogative to either go with full retribution/an eye-for an eye (qisas) or monetary compensation (diyat) with consequent forgiveness or complete forgiveness with neither qisas or diyat. The Qisas and Diyat Law has been part of Pakistan’s legal system for the last thirty years and a Federal Shariat Court specializes in cases of this nature. Monetary compensation is calculated in the case of murder as the cost of approximately 30,000 grams of silver.
In the Davis case one of the victims’ widows committed suicide and on her deathbed repeatedly said that she was killing herself as she was not getting justice and she wanted “blood for blood”. The families of both of Davis’ victims repeatedly said that they did not want compensation but justice.
Sen. John Kerry visited Pakistan and CIA Director Leon Panetta visited President Zardari and Pakistan’s CIA counterpart, ISI Director General Ahmad Shuja Pasha a few weeks ago. Many Pakistani antennae went up when David Ignatius wrote of the concept of blood money in the Washington Post.
Pakistan is famous for its bureaucracy and its maddening inefficiency. Yet in a matter of two hours the attorneys for the victims’ families were changed, their original attorneys detained, a one-by-one questioning of 18 family members by the judge about their compensation and forgiveness, and the whisking away of Davis to a waiting US Air Force jet at Lahore airport were all accomplished.
A total of $2.34 million was divided among the 18 family members. Not by the US but some fund of the Pakistan government. The ingratiation of Zardari to the US is so complete that the vanity of the US was also kept in mind: no precedent was to be created in which the US might find itself paying blood money for its wayward spies. Foreign Policy magazine reports a Pakistani official as saying that the US promises to pay Pakistan back in the future.
The victims’ families have disappeared. It is difficult to tell whether the compensation was forced or volitional, and whether they’ve left for greener pastures or have gone into hiding for fear of public humiliation. The anger and outrage in Pakistan over Davis’ hurried release is widespread and spans all sectors of society from students to lawyers.
Even relatively America friendly scholars have clearly stated that the Qisas and Diyat Law was misapplied for first the court should have given a verdict. Religious scholars state additionally that Davis committed an act of terror against a nation and the Law of Qisas and Diyat does not apply in this case. An appeal against the disposition of this case has been filed with the Supreme Court of Pakistan. But the futility of that is obvious. It’s all semantics now; Davis is gone.
The greater issue is what is raging in the Pakistani mind: America’s flagrant double standard. In 1997 Mir Ajmal Kansi killed two CIA agents outside Langley, disappeared, surfaced in Pakistan and was handed over to the US by Pakistani authorities and executed. In 1995 Ramzi Yousef was extradited to the US by Pakistan, convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and given two life sentences. In September 2010 another Pakistani, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, an MIT graduate and frail mother of two, was convicted in Manhattan of armed assault, carrying a firearm and three counts of assault on US officers and sentenced to 86 years in prison, essentially a lifeterm.
The questions in the Pakistani mind center around the vast difference between an American life and a Pakistani one. There is furor over America’s chest-thumping pronouncements about the supremacy of the law and then its flagrant violation in other countries. The sudden, suspicious release of Davis stokes the self-respect of the common Pakistani, entrenches anti-Americanism and catalyzes extremism.
I am appalled at the wholesale caving in of the farcical Zardari government but it’s a disaster on wheels, I know and expect it. It is primarily my America that I am so ashamed of and so scared for. We’re not exporting peace, justice and democracy; we’re just the super-bully of the world. With blinders on to boot. Pakistanis thought that the US would be forever grateful for Raymond Davis’ miraculous exit and all kinds of overtures would occur to curb anti-American sentiments. The very next day American drones bombed northern Pakistan and killed 42 innocent village elders. Thank you Pakistan, we’ll do it again.
Mahjabeen Islam is an addictionist, family physician and columnist. mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
In late January Raymond Davis was driving in a populated area of Lahore when he killed two Pakistanis, photographed their bodies and radioed for help wherein an American consular vehicle rushed to the scene, crushing a bystander to death in the process. Davis’ car was loaded with arms and his cell phones showed contact with terrorist groups. Davis was arrested and started a diplomatic frenzy wherein the US maintained that he had diplomatic immunity and Pakistan’s foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi was fired for not toeing the line, for he and his department maintained that Davis did not. Even President Obama invoked the Vienna Convention that confers diplomatic immunity insisting that Davis was an embassy employee. The Vienna Convention however confers diplomatic immunity in the pursuit of diplomatic duties and running around with unlicensed arms does not fall in that arena.
The American mantra did not change. For four weeks under severe public pressure the Pakistani government ran from pillar to post frazzled but loathe to annoy its benefactor. And then someone had an epiphany; blood money or the qisas and diyat law.
Under Sharia law in the event of grievous injury or murder, the case must first go to court and a verdict pronounced. Thereafter it is the victim’s family’s prerogative to either go with full retribution/an eye-for an eye (qisas) or monetary compensation (diyat) with consequent forgiveness or complete forgiveness with neither qisas or diyat. The Qisas and Diyat Law has been part of Pakistan’s legal system for the last thirty years and a Federal Shariat Court specializes in cases of this nature. Monetary compensation is calculated in the case of murder as the cost of approximately 30,000 grams of silver.
In the Davis case one of the victims’ widows committed suicide and on her deathbed repeatedly said that she was killing herself as she was not getting justice and she wanted “blood for blood”. The families of both of Davis’ victims repeatedly said that they did not want compensation but justice.
Sen. John Kerry visited Pakistan and CIA Director Leon Panetta visited President Zardari and Pakistan’s CIA counterpart, ISI Director General Ahmad Shuja Pasha a few weeks ago. Many Pakistani antennae went up when David Ignatius wrote of the concept of blood money in the Washington Post.
Pakistan is famous for its bureaucracy and its maddening inefficiency. Yet in a matter of two hours the attorneys for the victims’ families were changed, their original attorneys detained, a one-by-one questioning of 18 family members by the judge about their compensation and forgiveness, and the whisking away of Davis to a waiting US Air Force jet at Lahore airport were all accomplished.
A total of $2.34 million was divided among the 18 family members. Not by the US but some fund of the Pakistan government. The ingratiation of Zardari to the US is so complete that the vanity of the US was also kept in mind: no precedent was to be created in which the US might find itself paying blood money for its wayward spies. Foreign Policy magazine reports a Pakistani official as saying that the US promises to pay Pakistan back in the future.
The victims’ families have disappeared. It is difficult to tell whether the compensation was forced or volitional, and whether they’ve left for greener pastures or have gone into hiding for fear of public humiliation. The anger and outrage in Pakistan over Davis’ hurried release is widespread and spans all sectors of society from students to lawyers.
Even relatively America friendly scholars have clearly stated that the Qisas and Diyat Law was misapplied for first the court should have given a verdict. Religious scholars state additionally that Davis committed an act of terror against a nation and the Law of Qisas and Diyat does not apply in this case. An appeal against the disposition of this case has been filed with the Supreme Court of Pakistan. But the futility of that is obvious. It’s all semantics now; Davis is gone.
The greater issue is what is raging in the Pakistani mind: America’s flagrant double standard. In 1997 Mir Ajmal Kansi killed two CIA agents outside Langley, disappeared, surfaced in Pakistan and was handed over to the US by Pakistani authorities and executed. In 1995 Ramzi Yousef was extradited to the US by Pakistan, convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and given two life sentences. In September 2010 another Pakistani, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, an MIT graduate and frail mother of two, was convicted in Manhattan of armed assault, carrying a firearm and three counts of assault on US officers and sentenced to 86 years in prison, essentially a lifeterm.
The questions in the Pakistani mind center around the vast difference between an American life and a Pakistani one. There is furor over America’s chest-thumping pronouncements about the supremacy of the law and then its flagrant violation in other countries. The sudden, suspicious release of Davis stokes the self-respect of the common Pakistani, entrenches anti-Americanism and catalyzes extremism.
I am appalled at the wholesale caving in of the farcical Zardari government but it’s a disaster on wheels, I know and expect it. It is primarily my America that I am so ashamed of and so scared for. We’re not exporting peace, justice and democracy; we’re just the super-bully of the world. With blinders on to boot. Pakistanis thought that the US would be forever grateful for Raymond Davis’ miraculous exit and all kinds of overtures would occur to curb anti-American sentiments. The very next day American drones bombed northern Pakistan and killed 42 innocent village elders. Thank you Pakistan, we’ll do it again.
Mahjabeen Islam is an addictionist, family physician and columnist. mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Project Friday Khutba
Imagine tens of millions of Muslims as captive audiences to imams for a half hour every Friday all across the globe. The Friday sermon is so much a part of the prayer itself that one cannot talk, text or phone during it.
Through the ages the Juma prayer has been ingrained as part of the Friday schedule of observant Muslim men. And yet most daydream during the sermon, shutting out the frequently out-of-touch imam. With the rapidly escalating state of global insecurity perpetrated by fringe-fanatics, it behoves the larger Muslim population to go into overdrive and find very quickly what it is that we can do to stem this tide of lunacy in the name of Islam.
Feeling similarly violated after the London train bombings in 2005, I felt I had an epiphany: Project Friday Khutba I called it. The premise is a simple statement in every Friday sermon plainly calling terrorism haram (forbidden). The Friday sermon is governed by rules: there must be a quotation from the Quran, one from the Hadith, and by most schools of thought some reflection on areas of current day socio-politics.
To understand the impact of this better, first, the current state of imams the world over deserves attention. In Pakistan and probably most of the Muslim world, bright achieving children become professionals: doctors, engineers, architects, accountants and the like. As a general rule, imams, mullahs and maulvis are unfortunately a default profession. Some of them are products of orphanages and thus there is the added layer of the pathology of an absent family life.
Unlike clergy schools in Christianity and Judaism, the basic prerequisite of being an imam in the Muslim world may only be that of being hafiz (having memorized the Quran). The non-religious education of an imam may be either non-existent or minuscule, up to the tenth grade, usually not university level.
The North American situation is similarly bleak. Most imams are imports from the Arab and Muslim world, with thick accents in English and little understanding of the North American Muslim socio-politics. Some are graduates of Al-Azhar in Egypt or the International Islamic University in Islamabad, but mindsets do not change with BAs or even PhDs. Egocentricity, myopia, self-aggrandisement, frank materialism, hidden agendas, strong male chauvinism and intense patriarchy characterise the majority of imams in North America. There is also a perverse penchant for four marriages, the public one under American or Canadian law and a couple others under their distorted interpretation of Islamic law. For shame!
The intense interest in sex is so transparent that during taraweeh (the evening prayer in Ramadan), the sole subject across the continent is how intercourse is allowed during the nights of Ramadan. And to these specimens we have given over our religion and the spiritual leadership of the Muslim masses!
In Surah Juma (62:9) the Quran says, “O you who believe! When the call for prayer is given on [Friday] the day of congregation, rush towards the remembrance of Allah and stop buying and selling; this is better for you if you understand.” As per a Hadith, women are exempted due to childcare constraints but I figure that if I am a wage-earner and monitor a medical schedule and do not have little children to tend to at home, Friday prayer becomes mandatory on me as well, for the Quran always supersedes a Hadith. I digress only to prove that Friday prayer at the mosque is equivalently imposed on both genders. And that swells the population that the imams have access to.
If you draw upon memory you will agree that in the most major of world events, imams slickly go ostrich. It is true that a lot of them are totally clueless and have not heard about what is going on. Others feel that if they put on their robes and sit in the pulpit and act important and talk about minutiae like how not to close your eyes when you are standing for prayer, the elephant in the mosque, I mean the room, will miraculously go away.
“Sister, sister we do not have no terrorists in the mosque!” I was told dismissively when I approached a couple of imams to implement what is perfectly doable after the London train bombings. I thought machines had x-ray vision; here they were claiming to know the minds of their entire congregations?
If a disenchanted, angry and possibly economically distraught young man does attend the Friday prayer and for a half hour is compelled to listen to an imam, the opportunity for preaching Islam’s message of “killing non-combatants is haram” becomes a golden one.
Dire economic straits seem to rule the world over as well as a deep well of fury against the West for the perceived injustices in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and now Pakistan. One does not need both for an explosive future; one is more than enough to capitalize and build on.
The premise is “diloan mein kehney sunney sey kudoorat aa hi jati hai, safai laakh ho lekin adavat aa hi jati hai” (listening to and talking about things does cause misgivings, regardless of rationalisations an enmity does build up).
All of us develop in the crucible of our own very personal worldview. With Faisal Shahzad an ideological pull seems to have done it. With the underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the same seems to apply, for it was his father that alerted the authorities of his leanings. Neither of them were economically disadvantaged, though talk has it Shahzad’s home was foreclosed a year before the event.
Islam is a deeds-based religion and for those of us so inclined it is necessary to do a quick inventory and see how we fit on the world stage and what it is that we can do to prevent the crazies from wresting our religion. Umar ibn al-Khattab advised to “do your hisab (accounting) before it is done for you”. On a collective level, as an ummah we need to make it mandatory on ourselves to determine the causes of this lunacy and develop ideas to deal with it.
No imam holds divinity in the eyes of God. Imams serve the mosque and are answerable to mosque councils and boards. Their job descriptions should be documented, their sermons prepared in advance and reviewed and each sermon should clearly state that terrorism is haram and that “killing one is like killing all of humanity” (Quran, Maidah, 5:32).
On July 17, 2005, 500 imams in Britain issued a fatwa (religious decree) condemning the use of violence and destruction of innocent lives, saying suicide bombings were “vehemently prohibited”.
On July 28, 2005, the Fiqh Council of North America together with 120 religious organisations and leaders in North America issued a fatwa that unequivocally labels terrorism and cooperation with its perpetrators as haram in Islam. And with each insult this condemnation chorus continues.
What is needed by the Fiqh Council of North America and imams the world over is to go a few steps further. They, Muslim governments and congregations themselves, should do some house-cleaning of imams that are equivocal about violence or openly promote it. And use the Friday sermon to wash the brains of the flock of any extremist ideology that might be taking root.
Allama Iqbal poetically translated verse 11 of Surah Ra’ad that “God does not change the condition of a people unless they themselves make the decision to change” with: “Khuda ney aaj tak us qaum ki halat nahin badli na ho jis ko khayal khud apni halat key badalney ka.”
Muslims in general and Pakistanis in particular have been brought to a precipice it seems. We need to de-escalate quickly. The message in the Friday sermon can be effective and powerfully reverberating, being all the while clothed in the beautiful tranquility of Islam.
Through the ages the Juma prayer has been ingrained as part of the Friday schedule of observant Muslim men. And yet most daydream during the sermon, shutting out the frequently out-of-touch imam. With the rapidly escalating state of global insecurity perpetrated by fringe-fanatics, it behoves the larger Muslim population to go into overdrive and find very quickly what it is that we can do to stem this tide of lunacy in the name of Islam.
Feeling similarly violated after the London train bombings in 2005, I felt I had an epiphany: Project Friday Khutba I called it. The premise is a simple statement in every Friday sermon plainly calling terrorism haram (forbidden). The Friday sermon is governed by rules: there must be a quotation from the Quran, one from the Hadith, and by most schools of thought some reflection on areas of current day socio-politics.
To understand the impact of this better, first, the current state of imams the world over deserves attention. In Pakistan and probably most of the Muslim world, bright achieving children become professionals: doctors, engineers, architects, accountants and the like. As a general rule, imams, mullahs and maulvis are unfortunately a default profession. Some of them are products of orphanages and thus there is the added layer of the pathology of an absent family life.
Unlike clergy schools in Christianity and Judaism, the basic prerequisite of being an imam in the Muslim world may only be that of being hafiz (having memorized the Quran). The non-religious education of an imam may be either non-existent or minuscule, up to the tenth grade, usually not university level.
The North American situation is similarly bleak. Most imams are imports from the Arab and Muslim world, with thick accents in English and little understanding of the North American Muslim socio-politics. Some are graduates of Al-Azhar in Egypt or the International Islamic University in Islamabad, but mindsets do not change with BAs or even PhDs. Egocentricity, myopia, self-aggrandisement, frank materialism, hidden agendas, strong male chauvinism and intense patriarchy characterise the majority of imams in North America. There is also a perverse penchant for four marriages, the public one under American or Canadian law and a couple others under their distorted interpretation of Islamic law. For shame!
The intense interest in sex is so transparent that during taraweeh (the evening prayer in Ramadan), the sole subject across the continent is how intercourse is allowed during the nights of Ramadan. And to these specimens we have given over our religion and the spiritual leadership of the Muslim masses!
In Surah Juma (62:9) the Quran says, “O you who believe! When the call for prayer is given on [Friday] the day of congregation, rush towards the remembrance of Allah and stop buying and selling; this is better for you if you understand.” As per a Hadith, women are exempted due to childcare constraints but I figure that if I am a wage-earner and monitor a medical schedule and do not have little children to tend to at home, Friday prayer becomes mandatory on me as well, for the Quran always supersedes a Hadith. I digress only to prove that Friday prayer at the mosque is equivalently imposed on both genders. And that swells the population that the imams have access to.
If you draw upon memory you will agree that in the most major of world events, imams slickly go ostrich. It is true that a lot of them are totally clueless and have not heard about what is going on. Others feel that if they put on their robes and sit in the pulpit and act important and talk about minutiae like how not to close your eyes when you are standing for prayer, the elephant in the mosque, I mean the room, will miraculously go away.
“Sister, sister we do not have no terrorists in the mosque!” I was told dismissively when I approached a couple of imams to implement what is perfectly doable after the London train bombings. I thought machines had x-ray vision; here they were claiming to know the minds of their entire congregations?
If a disenchanted, angry and possibly economically distraught young man does attend the Friday prayer and for a half hour is compelled to listen to an imam, the opportunity for preaching Islam’s message of “killing non-combatants is haram” becomes a golden one.
Dire economic straits seem to rule the world over as well as a deep well of fury against the West for the perceived injustices in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and now Pakistan. One does not need both for an explosive future; one is more than enough to capitalize and build on.
The premise is “diloan mein kehney sunney sey kudoorat aa hi jati hai, safai laakh ho lekin adavat aa hi jati hai” (listening to and talking about things does cause misgivings, regardless of rationalisations an enmity does build up).
All of us develop in the crucible of our own very personal worldview. With Faisal Shahzad an ideological pull seems to have done it. With the underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the same seems to apply, for it was his father that alerted the authorities of his leanings. Neither of them were economically disadvantaged, though talk has it Shahzad’s home was foreclosed a year before the event.
Islam is a deeds-based religion and for those of us so inclined it is necessary to do a quick inventory and see how we fit on the world stage and what it is that we can do to prevent the crazies from wresting our religion. Umar ibn al-Khattab advised to “do your hisab (accounting) before it is done for you”. On a collective level, as an ummah we need to make it mandatory on ourselves to determine the causes of this lunacy and develop ideas to deal with it.
No imam holds divinity in the eyes of God. Imams serve the mosque and are answerable to mosque councils and boards. Their job descriptions should be documented, their sermons prepared in advance and reviewed and each sermon should clearly state that terrorism is haram and that “killing one is like killing all of humanity” (Quran, Maidah, 5:32).
On July 17, 2005, 500 imams in Britain issued a fatwa (religious decree) condemning the use of violence and destruction of innocent lives, saying suicide bombings were “vehemently prohibited”.
On July 28, 2005, the Fiqh Council of North America together with 120 religious organisations and leaders in North America issued a fatwa that unequivocally labels terrorism and cooperation with its perpetrators as haram in Islam. And with each insult this condemnation chorus continues.
What is needed by the Fiqh Council of North America and imams the world over is to go a few steps further. They, Muslim governments and congregations themselves, should do some house-cleaning of imams that are equivocal about violence or openly promote it. And use the Friday sermon to wash the brains of the flock of any extremist ideology that might be taking root.
Allama Iqbal poetically translated verse 11 of Surah Ra’ad that “God does not change the condition of a people unless they themselves make the decision to change” with: “Khuda ney aaj tak us qaum ki halat nahin badli na ho jis ko khayal khud apni halat key badalney ka.”
Muslims in general and Pakistanis in particular have been brought to a precipice it seems. We need to de-escalate quickly. The message in the Friday sermon can be effective and powerfully reverberating, being all the while clothed in the beautiful tranquility of Islam.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
King witch hunt failed
Dr. S. Amjad Hussain wrote an article on the King hearing on March 21, 2011. My response to the article and the article itself are appended below. My response below is the unedited version, The Toledo Blade did print an edited version as a letter to the editor on March 29, 2011.
King witch hunt failed-Mahjabeen Islam
Amjad Hussain’s article on the King hearing was simply brilliant, not just in how well it encompassed the situation, but its dispassionate solution-seeking approach.
Islamophobic propaganda is so widespread now that suggestions like his for Muslims to engage and take charge that do occur seem to get lost in the cacophony.
Like many mosques that dot the landscape of America, the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo has had a wonderful record of organizing conferences and events that promote education and understanding within its congregation as well as the larger interfaith community.
Each Friday sermon and Sunday lecture educate the congregation and just this past October Rabbi Moshe Saks, Father Tom Doyle and Prof. Ovamir Anjum spoke to a packed Islamic Center on “Terrorism in the name of religion”. The remembrance of 9/11 by the Islamic Center went way past its scheduled hours due to attendance by both Muslim and non-Muslim community members.
The situation of American-Muslims is unenviable. Muslims in Southern California had a great relationship with the FBI until the advent of Craig Monteilh. He converted to Islam, prayed five times a day in the mosque and vehemently called out for jihad, entrapping a Muslim and building a case against him. Deeply concerned by his actions the Islamic Center of Irvine got a restraining order on him. It was only after the case against the Muslim collapsed in court and Monteilh sued the FBI that it was made public by the FBI that Monteilh was a paid FBI informant. Citing this case and the increasing pattern of FBI surveillance, a large group of leading national Muslim organizations has essentially suspended contact with the Bureau.
During the King hearing Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D. Ca) rejected the suggestion that American Muslims submit to FBI questioning without legal presence based on the high possibility of self-incrimination.
AMT, The American Muslim Task Force is an umbrella organization of several mainstream American-Muslim organizations. AMT’s Chair Dr. Agha Saeed summed up my impression of the King hearing well. "We thank fellow Americans, notably Los Angeles County Sheriff Leroy Baca, Rep. Bennie Thompson, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, Rep. Loretta Sanchez, Rep. Laura Richardson, Rep. Al Green, Rep. John Dingell, and Rep. Danny Davis, for their courage of conviction in rejecting Congressman King's religious McCarthyism. His agenda-driven hearing was a planned assault on the U.S. Constitution that failed.
***
Muslims should speak up to prevent witch hunts by S. Amjad Hussain
THE congressional hearing conducted by Rep. Peter King into Muslim influence in this country had supporters and detractors. Surprisingly, not all those who opposed the hearing were Muslims.
Representative King (R., N.Y.) said he wanted to expose the menace of radicalization of Muslim communities in the United States. He said the hearing wasn't a witch hunt and that he, as chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, is obligated to investigate threats to the homeland.
It appears that when Mr. King thinks of terrorism, he sees only Muslims. He also has an extremely short memory.
Mr. King was at one time an ardent supporter of the Catholic terrorist organization the Irish Republican Army and its leader, Gerry Adams. Asked about his ties to the group, Mr. King said the IRA never attacked the United States. As if blowing up innocent civilians, including children, was acceptable as long as it was done away from our shores.
According to the British newspaper the Guardian, in the 1980s Mr. King said that if civilians were killed in an attack on a military installation, it would be certainly regrettable, but he would not blame the IRA for it. In 2005, the New York Sun reported he had been thrown out of a Belfast court during a murder trial because the judge deemed him an IRA collaborator.
Terrorism is not new to our country. America's history includes many incidents of terrorism committed by homegrown groups. Long before Muslims became the favorite targets of right-wing Republicans and their evangelical Christian bedfellows, the Ku Klux Klan terrorized the South, burning churches and lynching blacks.
Congress has not extensively investigated militia groups in America, despite terrorist acts such as the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and, more recently, alleged terrorist activities by the Hutaree militia in Michigan. Most people think of militias as grass-roots efforts to safeguard the misconceived notion of the right to bear arms.
When ordinary militia members take to the woods to play at war games, they are not training as terrorists. But the Timothy McVeighs and Hutaree members did move on from seemingly innocent activities to mortally or potentially dangerous ones.
Then there is the Jewish Defense League, characterized by the FBI as a right-wing terrorist group, which has been involved in plotting terrorist attacks in the United States.
Mr. King's self-serving and selective focus on American Muslims is ill-timed and ill-conceived. His hearing adds fuel to an already incendiary situation in which Islamophobia is sweeping the country.
In America, almost every ethnic and religious minority has gone through similar discrimination and witch hunts. It was no different for Catholics, Jews, Italians, Irish, or Japanese. Often, the driving force was a political or religious demagogue who capitalized on popular fears for selfish gain. One wonders whether the King hearing is a prelude to the 2012 elections.
In 1953, Sen. Joseph McCarthy's Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations conducted its infamous quest to unearth communists in the U.S. government. The Wisconsin Republican saw a communist under every American bed and behind every cupboard door in government.
In the end the senator was discredited and disgraced, but not before he destroyed many lives, reputations, and careers. He was censured by the Senate. His name has become synonymous with personal attacks and indiscriminate allegations based on unsubstantiated evidence. Yet the philosophical and political heirs of McCarthy are still at work.
That does not absolve Muslims of their responsibilities. Simply saying that Islam is an inherently peaceful religion is not sufficient.
Why don't Muslims enter the public debate about the evils of terrorism? Why don't they have programs in their mosques to address the real and perceived grievances of Muslims worldwide?
Why don't they try to change the narrative from one of victimhood to one that is honest, open, and self-critical? And in the spirit of that openness, if there are Muslims who espouse ill feelings toward this country, the leaders of their communities should boot them out of the mosques.
Do all ethnic and religious groups practice such openness? Hardly. But this is the only way to confront bigotry head-on.
Mr. King's hearing was a wake-up call for American Muslims. There are forces that are bent on discrediting not only Muslims, but also Islam. They will be countered only when Muslims begin talking openly about potential problems within their communities and take charge.
Dr. S. Amjad Hussain is a retired Toledo surgeon whose column appears every other week in The Blade.
Contact him at: aghaji@bex.net
King witch hunt failed-Mahjabeen Islam
Amjad Hussain’s article on the King hearing was simply brilliant, not just in how well it encompassed the situation, but its dispassionate solution-seeking approach.
Islamophobic propaganda is so widespread now that suggestions like his for Muslims to engage and take charge that do occur seem to get lost in the cacophony.
Like many mosques that dot the landscape of America, the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo has had a wonderful record of organizing conferences and events that promote education and understanding within its congregation as well as the larger interfaith community.
Each Friday sermon and Sunday lecture educate the congregation and just this past October Rabbi Moshe Saks, Father Tom Doyle and Prof. Ovamir Anjum spoke to a packed Islamic Center on “Terrorism in the name of religion”. The remembrance of 9/11 by the Islamic Center went way past its scheduled hours due to attendance by both Muslim and non-Muslim community members.
The situation of American-Muslims is unenviable. Muslims in Southern California had a great relationship with the FBI until the advent of Craig Monteilh. He converted to Islam, prayed five times a day in the mosque and vehemently called out for jihad, entrapping a Muslim and building a case against him. Deeply concerned by his actions the Islamic Center of Irvine got a restraining order on him. It was only after the case against the Muslim collapsed in court and Monteilh sued the FBI that it was made public by the FBI that Monteilh was a paid FBI informant. Citing this case and the increasing pattern of FBI surveillance, a large group of leading national Muslim organizations has essentially suspended contact with the Bureau.
During the King hearing Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D. Ca) rejected the suggestion that American Muslims submit to FBI questioning without legal presence based on the high possibility of self-incrimination.
AMT, The American Muslim Task Force is an umbrella organization of several mainstream American-Muslim organizations. AMT’s Chair Dr. Agha Saeed summed up my impression of the King hearing well. "We thank fellow Americans, notably Los Angeles County Sheriff Leroy Baca, Rep. Bennie Thompson, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, Rep. Loretta Sanchez, Rep. Laura Richardson, Rep. Al Green, Rep. John Dingell, and Rep. Danny Davis, for their courage of conviction in rejecting Congressman King's religious McCarthyism. His agenda-driven hearing was a planned assault on the U.S. Constitution that failed.
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Muslims should speak up to prevent witch hunts by S. Amjad Hussain
THE congressional hearing conducted by Rep. Peter King into Muslim influence in this country had supporters and detractors. Surprisingly, not all those who opposed the hearing were Muslims.
Representative King (R., N.Y.) said he wanted to expose the menace of radicalization of Muslim communities in the United States. He said the hearing wasn't a witch hunt and that he, as chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, is obligated to investigate threats to the homeland.
It appears that when Mr. King thinks of terrorism, he sees only Muslims. He also has an extremely short memory.
Mr. King was at one time an ardent supporter of the Catholic terrorist organization the Irish Republican Army and its leader, Gerry Adams. Asked about his ties to the group, Mr. King said the IRA never attacked the United States. As if blowing up innocent civilians, including children, was acceptable as long as it was done away from our shores.
According to the British newspaper the Guardian, in the 1980s Mr. King said that if civilians were killed in an attack on a military installation, it would be certainly regrettable, but he would not blame the IRA for it. In 2005, the New York Sun reported he had been thrown out of a Belfast court during a murder trial because the judge deemed him an IRA collaborator.
Terrorism is not new to our country. America's history includes many incidents of terrorism committed by homegrown groups. Long before Muslims became the favorite targets of right-wing Republicans and their evangelical Christian bedfellows, the Ku Klux Klan terrorized the South, burning churches and lynching blacks.
Congress has not extensively investigated militia groups in America, despite terrorist acts such as the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and, more recently, alleged terrorist activities by the Hutaree militia in Michigan. Most people think of militias as grass-roots efforts to safeguard the misconceived notion of the right to bear arms.
When ordinary militia members take to the woods to play at war games, they are not training as terrorists. But the Timothy McVeighs and Hutaree members did move on from seemingly innocent activities to mortally or potentially dangerous ones.
Then there is the Jewish Defense League, characterized by the FBI as a right-wing terrorist group, which has been involved in plotting terrorist attacks in the United States.
Mr. King's self-serving and selective focus on American Muslims is ill-timed and ill-conceived. His hearing adds fuel to an already incendiary situation in which Islamophobia is sweeping the country.
In America, almost every ethnic and religious minority has gone through similar discrimination and witch hunts. It was no different for Catholics, Jews, Italians, Irish, or Japanese. Often, the driving force was a political or religious demagogue who capitalized on popular fears for selfish gain. One wonders whether the King hearing is a prelude to the 2012 elections.
In 1953, Sen. Joseph McCarthy's Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations conducted its infamous quest to unearth communists in the U.S. government. The Wisconsin Republican saw a communist under every American bed and behind every cupboard door in government.
In the end the senator was discredited and disgraced, but not before he destroyed many lives, reputations, and careers. He was censured by the Senate. His name has become synonymous with personal attacks and indiscriminate allegations based on unsubstantiated evidence. Yet the philosophical and political heirs of McCarthy are still at work.
That does not absolve Muslims of their responsibilities. Simply saying that Islam is an inherently peaceful religion is not sufficient.
Why don't Muslims enter the public debate about the evils of terrorism? Why don't they have programs in their mosques to address the real and perceived grievances of Muslims worldwide?
Why don't they try to change the narrative from one of victimhood to one that is honest, open, and self-critical? And in the spirit of that openness, if there are Muslims who espouse ill feelings toward this country, the leaders of their communities should boot them out of the mosques.
Do all ethnic and religious groups practice such openness? Hardly. But this is the only way to confront bigotry head-on.
Mr. King's hearing was a wake-up call for American Muslims. There are forces that are bent on discrediting not only Muslims, but also Islam. They will be countered only when Muslims begin talking openly about potential problems within their communities and take charge.
Dr. S. Amjad Hussain is a retired Toledo surgeon whose column appears every other week in The Blade.
Contact him at: aghaji@bex.net
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