The Wall St. Journal carries a ‘symposium’ on moderate Islam. A group of six writers on Islam, from an American neocon and an American academic, to a former member of Jamma Islamiya and a Malaysian politician offer their thoughts on the subject. The six are:
•Anwar Ibrahim: The Ball Is in Our Court
•Bernard Lewis: A History of Tolerance
•Ed Husain: Don’t Call Me Moderate, Call Me Normal
•Reuel Marc Gerecht: Putting Up With Infidels Like Me
•Tawfik Hamid: Don’t Gloss Over The Violent Texts
•Akbar Ahmed: Mystics, Modernists and Literalists
Read what they have to say:
Here’s an interesting post from Volokh Conspiracy, taking a serious look at the various arguments being raised against the construction of 51Park, the erstwhile ‘Cordoba Center’.
Three Issues in the Debate over the “Ground Zero Mosque”
Ilya SominThe ongoing debate over the “Ground Zero Mosque” has generated lots of commentary. But I fear that much of it conflates three separate issues: whether the government should use its power to block the construction of the mosque, whether the construction of any Islamic facility near Ground Zero is objectionable, and whether this particular organization is problematic because of the views of its leader. As I see it, the government should not suppress the mosque, and I see nothing wrong with building an Islamic facility near Ground Zero. But objections based on the dubious record of Cordoba Project leader Feisal Abdul Rauf are not so easily dismissed. There are many weak, foolish, and even bigoted anti-mosque arguments out there. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t any good ones.
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Somin identifies and discusses three principle arguments:
I. The Role of Government.
II. Objections to the Presence of any Islamic Center.
III. Objections to this Particular Center.
I find his discussion to be generally apt, though I’m not quite sold on his parsings of statements by Imam Rauf. Refreshingly, comments to the post are not (yet) infected by the crazies. Others, for instance, do push back on his interpretation of Rauf’s intentions and speech. Definitely worth reading, comments too.
Asharq Alawsat runs a couple of pieces today that look at the 51Park cultural center and its main promoter, Imam Feisal Abul Rauf.
The first is an op-ed by Adel Al Toraifi, current Editor-in-Chief of Al-Majalla magazine. He takes a look at the dispute over the center through the eyes of Alexis de Tocqueville, the 19th C. French diplomat who wrote an important work analyzing American culture and society. Al Toraifi correctly notes that the US Constitution, through its Bill of Rights, seeks to put limits on ‘the tyranny of the majority’, i.e. mob rule, in order to protect the rights of minorities and individuals. He also notes that in times of tension—today’s economic crises fit the bill—Americans have strayed from the ideals put forth in the Constitution. They do, he concludes, come back from the extremes.
I do disagree with him, however, about whether the US is ‘suffering from a case of Islamophobia.’ The disease may not have reached every corner of the body politic, but the infection does exist and it is purulent. As I pointed out in an earlier post, it is not just the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ that is being questioned.
Tocqueville…and the Ground Zero Mosque Crisis
Adel Al ToraifiIn his historically important book “Democracy in America” (1838) Alexis de Tocqueville writes that “I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.” This description put forward by the French diplomat brings to mind the escalation in the dispute in the US over the issue of building an Islamic community center and mosque close to the site where the World Trade Center collapsed in New York. In just a few weeks, the mosque issue has become a major public opinion issue in which everybody has had their say – including the US President – whether in favor of or against. However the issue has taken a negative turn both inside and outside of America due to the approach of the US mid-term elections, with the issue now being portrayed as a debate over America’s position towards Islam. This issue would not have reached this level of controversy if this project was scheduled to be built on any other street in New York or in any other US city; so is the US truly suffering from a case of Islamophobia?
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Asharq Alawsat also runs an article from the Associated Press that gives an overview of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. The article notes the controversy over him, over the questions of how 51Park will be funded, and arguments made, in good faith or bad, about him.
I’m not a big fan of Lex Talionis, an-eye-for-an-eye, and thus would not make a very good Saudi. The Saudi legal system falls back on that form of retributive justice more than I care for. In the case of the Sri Lankan maid who returned from her job in Riyadh with at least 19 nails embedded in her body, allegedly put there by her Saudi employers, I might make an exception.
Photo: Arab News
Lankan officials seek justice for maid in nails & needles case
MOHAMMED RASOOLDEEN, ARAB NEWSRIYADH: Sri Lankan officials strongly urged authorities in Saudi Arabia on Friday to investigate and bring to justice the persons responsible for torturing L.T. Ariyawathi, a 49-year-old Sri Lankan housemaid by heating up nails and needles and pushing them into her legs, arms, hands and forehead.
The maid said the Saudi couple she worked for in a Riyadh household committed the crime as a form of punishment. The couple has not been identified and Saudi officials were not available for comment on Friday.
Lankan Justice Ministry sources told Arab News on Friday that legal counsel would be provided to the maid to file a case in Saudi Arabia over the incident.
“The Bureau (of Foreign Employment) will make all arrangements to take her to Saudi Arabia to testify,” said L.K. Ruhunuge of the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment.
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I do not think this behavior typical of Saudis or Saudi employers of domestic workers: this act is singularly depraved. But the Saudi system for employing foreign domestic workers does not do nearly enough to protect those workers. Other aspects of Saudi society—primarily, privacy within one’s own home, but also a disdain for foreigners, women, and non-Muslims—make the situation worse. With this worker now back in Sri Lanka, conducting a full investigation into the case will be difficult and will rely on the good will of Saudi authorities. I truly do hope they step up. It’s not just the employer(s) who are shamed by this crime, but the whole of Saudi society. It’s seen internationally as ‘just another example of Saudi brutality’.
Several commenters has stated that while the Park51 people have full legal rights to build their center where they propose, it is not wise to do so. Because building it as planned would offend the sensibilities of many, perhaps a majority of Americans, they should forgo exercising their right in order to better achieve harmony.
That was pretty much my thought before the center became a blazing political issue: Yes, the rights exist, but they need not be put into play as many could be expected to object.
As I later said, though, I believe the situation changed with its politization and backing away from building the center would be to say something which the builders do not want to say. It would, in effect, accept the premise that there’s something so noxious with Islam that it desecrates the memory of 9/11. I really don’t see many Muslims willing to say, “Yep, you’re right. Islam is the problem and an Islamic center certainly doesn’t belong here.”
Had the issue remained simply a matter of local politics, then it would have been relatively easy and relatively painless for the builders to simply back out. The issue is no longer local, however, and the problems disclosed by the controversy are not local.
As this article from The Washington Post points out, objections to building Islamic centers or mosques are not limited to geographic areas which attract heightened sensitivities. The article discusses the rhetoric flying around a plan to build a mosque in Murfreeboro, Tennessee. Now certainly, some do hold Murfreesboro ‘sacred’. It was the scene of a brutal battle in the American Civil War, in 1862. But as that battle ha nothing to do with Islam or Muslims, its ‘sanctity’ has nothing to do with the current uproar. Instead, what we see is blatant anti-Islamic bias.
Jump over to Riverside County, CA and we find another exercise in anti-Islamic bigotry. Those protesting the building of a mosque in Temecula are not dissembling, but make very clear that they argue purely on religious and political grounds.
Sheepshead Bay, in Brooklyn, NY is facing similar anti-Islamic demagoguery against the building of a mosque. So, too, are Georgia, and Sheboygan, WI.
Together, I think these protests—while certainly protected by the US 1st Amendment as free speech—are being carried out in such a way as to make it unmistakable that the issue is pure religious prejudice. Religious prejudice, I believe, should be fought always and constantly.
The issue of Park51, though, isn’t just a battle of words and feelings. There are those, still, who seek to use the power of the state to prevent the center’s being built. Eugene Volokh Ilya Somin, at Volokh Conspiracy law blog, points to efforts to use the state power of ‘eminent domain’ to seize the property and put it to a ‘better use’. He notes that this is unlikely to happen because it would be soon apparent that whatever reasons the state gave would be pretextual, merely trying to hide the anti-Muslim bias of those seeking to stop the center. [Attribution for the post at Volokh Conspiracy was mistaken. It's now fixed.]
UPDATE: On the matter of sensitivities, here’s an Associated Press piece of interest: 9/11 families, others rally in favor of NYC mosque
In looking at the issue of Cordoba Center at 51 Park Place in New York, people astutely note that freedom of religion is clashing with freedom of speech. While the group seeking to build the center is assured its religious freedom to do so, critics are equally assured their freedom to criticize their decision to do so. That’s exactly right.
There’s no foul, no oppression, no violation of any freedom when citizens criticize an act, rightly or wrongly. Freedom of Speech practically requires that someone else will be offended. After all, if everyone believed the same things, then such a freedom would not be needed. Offenses to the concept of free speech come only when government acts or is enlisted to act against speech and those who make it.
Freedom of Religion is similar. The right itself and the laws to protect it would not be needed if everyone prayed in the same way to the same god or gods. Again, the right is offended only when government acts or is enlisted to act against or prejudicially in favor of a religion.
No government has acted in any way to violate the rights of the sponsors of Cordoba Center. Instead, government has acted in a way to show no preference of a religion nor animus toward a religion. Nor has government sought to suppress speech against Cordoba Center. There has been no censorship, there has been no favoritism. President Obama correctly and legally supported the rights of the center’s sponsors to build on land for which they held the property rights to build.
President Obama also criticized—obliquely—their decision to build an Islamic center at that particular location. That’s fine. It’s not censorship, it’s not offensive to their religious beliefs. No one is shielded against criticism, only against governmental coercion.
Many Americans believe it was a bad decision to seek to build the Cordoba Center in that particular location, close to 70% of Americans, in fact. Most of the objections seem to me to be wrong-headed, but not malicious. Many seem to believe they have some sort of ownership right to the idea of tragedy of 9/11. Some families of those killed in the attacks on the Twin Towers claim and are granted some sort of moral ownership of the site of their loved ones’ deaths. Some of them are offended by the thought of building an Islamic center near that site. They find it ‘insensitive’ at best. This argument is undercut by the support by some other 9/11 families to have the center built. With both groups holding equal claim to the moral high ground from which to speak, I fail to find any persuasive argument in either direction. Neither side has the higher moral ground.
One side, however, does have a stronger claim to legitimacy, legitimacy based on the logical strength of their argument. The other side’s argument rests on logical fallacy as well as a great deal of incoherent feelings, not based on fact but instead on innuendo and often conspiratorial thinking.
As I said earlier, criticizing the group wanting to build the Cordoba Center at that site is constitutionally protected. What is not protected, what offends the Constitution, is the effort of find some way to force government to stop the center’s construction.
The logical flaws in the arguments against the center are several: Ad Hominem, Appeal to Belief, Appeal to Emotion, Appeal to Fear, Appeal to Spite, Compostion, the Genetic Fallacy, Poisoning the Well, Personal Attack, the Slippery Slope, and perhaps most pernicious, the Two Wrongs Make a Right argument. Most of the arguments against the center do not confine themselves to just one logical error, they combine many of them. I’ve get to come across a situation where compounded errors result in a correct response.
As I’ve said, I don’t think most people making fallacious arguments are doing it out of spite or in bad faith. I believe they are just not thinking clearly and are letting their emotions rule. There’s certainly a role for emotions in life, but the formulation of public policy is not one of them.
I keep hearing that “Moderate Muslims aren’t speaking out against extremists”. Many take a further, utterly illogical step to conclude, “That must mean the moderates support extremism.”
Just to help those whose ability to use an Internet search engine is hampered, here’re a few places to look and listen:
American Muslims Make Video to Rebut Militants
Laurie Goodstein, NY TimesA recent spate of arrests of Muslims accused of terrorism in the United States has revealed that many of them were radicalized by militant preaching they found on the Internet.
Now nine influential American Muslim scholars have come together in a YouTube video to repudiate the militants’ message. The nine represent a diversity of theological schools within Islam, and several of them have large followings among American Muslim youths.
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If that’s too American-Muslim-centric, then take a look at this page of linked quotes, via Mujahiba blog.
The issue of the building of an Islamic center at 51 Park Place, two blocks from the site of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, has gone beyond controversial. It has, in my opinion, spiraled dangerously into a whirlpool of intolerance, ignorance, ill-will, and in some quarters, out-and-out, bigoted Islamophobia.
The decision by the real estate investment firm Soho Properties to build a center there seems to have been made in good faith. According to the company’s CEO, Sharif Al- Gamal:
Our hope is that by helping to revitalize downtown New York, this project will demonstrate to all Americans and to the rest of the world that the American Muslim community rejects the violence perpetrated on September 11 and wants to be a part of the healing and rebuilding process…
That decision may have been ill-considered, though. A lot of people have an emotional attachment to the World Trade Center and what happened there some nine years ago. As it is an emotional attachment, it is not necessarily a rational attachment. Dealing with the issues, dealing with history rationally can often be at odds with how people feel and behave.
The result of the controversy is the greatest rupture in American politics since the candidacy of John F Kennedy to become President, back in 1960. Then, there were those who were certain that were Kennedy to be elected, the US government would take its orders from the Pope in the Vatican. As it turned out, Kennedy was elected, but the secular nature of the US continued unabated.
Arguments against building the center and its encorporated mosque are held by some 68% of the American population, according to several polls. Reasons range from ‘sensitivity’ to fear of ‘the new Caliphate’. I think the reasons proffered, while many are heart-felt, are missing the point. In missing the point, Americans are feeding the dreams of Islamic extremists and spreading fear among Islamic moderates.
The facts are that building this center is supported both by American Constitutional law—both the 1st Amendment dealing with religious freedom and the 5th, dealing with private property rights. The would-be builders went through all the proper channels to receive zoning approval for its intended use. In sum, there are no legal barriers to its construction.
Matters covered by the Constitution are not open to interpretation by popular votes. The Constitution may be amended by popular vote, but it does not flex in the winds of popular opinion—or mob preferences.
Initially, I thought the decision to build the Cordoba Center at this location wasn’t the smartest choice. I pretty much still think that: Mr. Al-Gamal’s aspirations notwithstanding, he and his advisors just might have realized that this would be a very sensitive decision. Having the right to do something does not require that one do that thing, however. This is the same argument I’ve made about the ‘Mohammed Cartoons’.
The backlash over the proposed project, however, has changed my mind. Much of that backlash argues that Al-Qaeda, the perpetrators of 9/11, is synonymous with the totality of Muslims. That is utterly false.
If the builders now simply say, ‘Ok, bad decision’ and cancel their plans, they are accepting that false equation as true. That is not good for Islam, nor is it good for Muslims, American or otherwise.
It is yet possible that this center will not be built. The organizers do not have funding for it, currently, at least not enough. Their plan has caused so much anti-Muslim animus that potential donors may very well think it a bad investment or even a bad charitable donation.
Too, the State or City of New York could come up with an offer of other property that would be too good to refuse. I can’t think offhand what that might be—Seven floors of the Empire State Building? Ten acres of Central Park?—but it’s not impossible. Accepting such an offer would certainly provide adequate excuse for changing plans.
I am deeply dismayed that so much politics is being played with this issue and that the result is increased feelings of hostility toward Islam and Muslims. American Muslims, who would be the primary users of this center, did not fly those planes on 9/11. I fail to see how they should be blamed or forced to suffer unfair consequences.
The most distressing fact coming from this is that the new intolerance is coming from both Republican and Democratic parties and candidates. Arguments against the center, for example, have come from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reed, a Democrat. As a member of a religious minority (Mormons) that has, in its history, suffered from popular and governmental intolerance, one would think he’d know better. A member of a different minority—Rep. Jerrold Nadler, who is Jewish and who just happens to represent this part of New York City—on the other hand, calls for the center to be built.
President Obama has not helped to clarify the issues at stake. While he made a strong statement of support one night—at an Iftar—the next day he ‘clarified’ by backing off that support.
A couple of days ago, I received an e-mail from the Republican Party in the county in which I live. The e-mail asked that I take part in a poll about whether or not the center should be built. I did not. Instead, I contacted the Party and told them that they should be ashamed to even ask the question. The point was to incite anger at Muslims and no American political party should be doing that, whether or not it gave them some advantage in upcoming elections.
I’m deeply unhappy to find that writers and friends whom I had respected have shown themselves to be simply insane on this issue. Balderdash about ‘sacred ground’ (there are already bars and strip joints equally distant from ‘Ground Zero’) or ‘sensitivity toward those who died’ (Some 9/11 families support the center; some don’t) or the sheer lunacy of ‘giving into Islamic triumphalism’ is truly depressing.
There were times in my career as a Foreign Service Officer, representing my country and its policies, where I was not thrilled with particular policies, but nevertheless had to find ways to make them understandable, if not palatable. This, though, is a far more difficult challenge. Too many Americans seem to have forgotten what this country and its constitution are about. That is depressing.
It’s Ramadan, so it must be time for another ‘Tash Ma Tash’ controversy! Arab News reports…
This time around, the target is polygamy. The writers turn it around to a matter of polyandry, though, and that’s got some people hot under the collar. Rather than seeing it as a social critique, the humor-impaired see it as an attack on religion. It’s hardly that… Islam, after all, doesn’t require that a man have four wives. It only permits it. The choice to have multiple wives is a personal and somewhat-social matter. But it certainly has an effect on the supernumerary wives. And that is exactly the point this popular TV show was making.
Tash Ma Tash again stirs controversy
FATIMA SIDIYAJEDDAH: A controversial episode from a satirical Saudi television show was finally aired on Saturday, despite coming under fire from scholars and viewers.
The “Multiple Husbands” episode, the fourth to be shown on the 17th series of Tash Ma Tash, revolves around a woman with four husbands who wants to divorce one so she can marry for the fifth time.
It is based on Saudi columnist Nadine Al-Bidair’s article “My Four Husbands and I,” published last December in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Masri Al-Youm. The column created a major Islamic debate and received massive criticism.
In the episode, the woman marries her second husband because the first stops caring about his looks after five years of marriage as well as being too busy with work.
The woman marries the third husband as part of a dare with her friends. She then weds the fourth because he is Syrian and by that point she is bored with Saudi men.
She tells her husbands that she wants a fifth because she wants to feel young again, but adds that she needs to divorce one of them first in order to achieve this.
After the men draw lots, she divorces the husband who draws the short straw.
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Writing in Asharq Alawsat, Dr. Al-Majid notes how names can be used to delegitimize. Calling others by unsavory or prejudiced names, though, has a long history within Islam. That doesn’t make it good; in fact, it’s almost always unhelpful. He argue that those who toss around the name ‘Wahhabi’ have politics as their mission, not anything approaching Islamic unity.
Wahabis, the Nawasib and the Rawafid
Dr. Hamad Al-MajidAre all of the above terms an example of insults and name-calling? The answer is yes, and for one simple reason, and that is that nobody likes to be branded with such names. It is impossible to get to know others, or create a healthy environment for dialogue, or develop a platform for understanding or communication, whilst branding others with names that they do not like being called and consider insulting. Of the three terms mentioned above, let us bear in mind that the term “nawasib” is the most insulting because it is untrue. The term “Nawasib” comes from the root word “Nasibi” meaning to declare hostility against, and in this context means those who declare hostility against Ahl al-Bayt [Household of the Prophet]. This is a term used by some Shiite extremists when referring to Sunnis; however this is a huge fabrication, for all Sunnis without exception love and respect Ahl al-Bayt. As for the [original] Nawasib who were hostile towards Ahl al-Bayt for political reasons, they are all extinct.
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According to Abdul Rahman Al-Rashid, when enough members of Saudi society are convinced that it’s a good thing for women to drive.
In his column in Asharq Alawsat, he says that efforts to push the government to wave its magic wand and simply say, ‘Women shall drive!’ is misguided. That’s not the way social change works, particularly in the face of strong opposition from other members of society. He notes, correctly, that incidents don’t generally result in change, but instead, a long stream of incidents that upset larger and larger numbers of people. Eventually, that mass grows great enough to offer government the protection it needs to make drastic change. Saudi Arabian society has complications that other countries might not have, at least not the same complications. While the mass of public opinion might lean one way, some groups within the country have voices that count more than others. Unfortunately for women drivers, many of the religious conservatives have very loud and weighty voices. Even here, though, there are clerics who want to see women behind the wheel, or at least have the right to be there.
Al-Rashid does note that no one really knows what the Saudi population thinks about women’s driving, due to a lack of polling data. A poll on the subject would be very helpful, I think.
Women Will Not Drive Cars in Saudi Arabia!
Abdul Rahman Al-RashidRepeated appeals to the official authorities in Saudi Arabia to put an end to the ban on women being allowed to drive have been to no avail. Women will not be sitting in the driver’s seat anytime soon, despite a huge number of text messages and emails calling for this by those who advocate women being permitted to drive.
All campaigns to remedy this situation have failed, and in my opinion this is as a result of a mistake being made by attempting to take a shortcut with regards to convincing the government to change its position on this issue. I personally believe that it is impossible to convince any government, regardless of one’s influence, of something without there first being widespread public acceptance of the idea. Those who oppose this idea base their opposition on the official rejection of this, as well as on religious and social aspects as well. It may be difficult for others, by which I mean those outside of Saudi Arabia, to believe that a large proportion of Saudi Arabian men and women are against the idea of women driving cars, especially as this is something normal and ordinary to them, and women also ride donkeys, horses, and camels. Those outside of Saudi Arabia believe that this ban exists in opposition to the will of the public, but we do not know if this is true, in light of the lack of polling information to reveal public opinion on this issue.
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The Boston Globe has an interesting essay on religion. The writer, Stephen Prothero, is the author of the book God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World–and Why Their Differences Matter. His point is that efforts to make all religions part of the same happily family are misguided. The differences among the religions, he says, are at least as important as the similarities. Do read the whole piece at the link.
Separate truths
It is misleading — and dangerous — to think that religions are different paths to the same wisdom
Stephen ProtheroAt least since the first petals of the counterculture bloomed across Europe and the United States in the 1960s, it has been fashionable to affirm that all religions are beautiful and all are true. This claim, which reaches back to “All Religions Are One” (1795) by the English poet, printmaker, and prophet William Blake, is as odd as it is intriguing. No one argues that different economic systems or political regimes are one and the same. Capitalism and socialism are so self-evidently at odds that their differences hardly bear mentioning. The same goes for democracy and monarchy. Yet scholars continue to claim that religious rivals such as Hinduism and Islam, Judaism and Christianity are, by some miracle of the imagination, both essentially the same and basically good.
This view resounds in the echo chamber of popular culture, not least on the “Oprah Winfrey Show” and in Elizabeth Gilbert’s bestseller, “Eat Pray Love,” where the world’s religions are described as rivers emptying into the ocean of God. Karen Armstrong, author of “A History of God,” has made a career out of emphasizing the commonalities of religion while eliding their differences. Even the Dalai Lama, who should know better, has gotten into the act, claiming that “all major religious traditions carry basically the same message.”
Of course, those who claim that the world’s religions are different paths up the same mountain do not deny the undeniable fact that they differ in some particulars…
This is a lovely sentiment but it is untrue, disrespectful, and dangerous.
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UPDATE: For another view on the limitations of interfaith dialogues, take a look at what Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf has to say (Google translation into English here). [Thanks to Solomon2 for the link.]