Islamic Horizons

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MARCH/APRIL 2010/1431 | $4.00 | WWW.ISNA.NET

ISNA CONVENTION REGISTRATION FORMS - PAGES 31-34

AQuestion ofIdentity DO ISLAMIC SCHOOLS HELP DEVELOP MUSLIM AMERICAN IDENTITIES?

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visit isna online

www.isna.net

CONTENTS 36 38

VOL.39 NO.2 MARCH/APRIL 2010

22

26

COVER STORY: Do Islamic schools help develop Muslim American identities?

A Question of Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Raising God-conscious Americans . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Serving Tawheed and Turkey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 5 Ways to Make a Positive Impact on Your Children . . 52

CONFERENCES Bay Area Reunion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Hearing Each Other . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

ISLAM IN AMERICA The Giving Mason Jar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

PERSPECTIVES Eating in the Name of God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

SPIRIT FOOD FOR THE

PAGE 56

DEPARTMENTS Editorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 ISNA Matters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 National News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Food for the Spirit . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Reviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Matrimonials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

THE MUSLIM WORLD Mauled in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

TRIBUTES

DESIGN & LAYOUT BY : Omar El-Haddad, DesignWorks

Khadijah Rivera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Ainuddin Syed Hasan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Hasib Sabbagh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Ibrahim Benjamin Perez Mahomah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

The views expressed in Islamic Horizons are not necessarily the views of its editors nor of the Islamic Society of North America.

COVER: Al Fatih Academy, Sterling, VA. Photograph by Nadia Elkhatib.

(TOP FROM LEFT) COURTESY OF AL-NOOR ISLAMIC SCHOOL; SEIER+SEIER, CC-BY-SA-2.0; FABIO VENNI CC-BY-SA-2.0

Islamic Horizons does not accept unsolicitated articles or submissions.

All references to the Qur'an made are from The Holy Qur'an: Text, Translation and Commentary, Abdullah Yusuf Ali, Amana, Brentwood, MD.

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EDITORIAL PUBLISHER

The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA)

Boundless Compassion

PRESIDENT

Dr. Ingrid Mattson SECRETARY GENERAL

Safaa Zarzour

______________________

EDITOR

Omer Bin Abdullah ______________________

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

Susan Douglass (Chair); Dr. Jimmy Jones; Dr. Sulayman Nyang; Dr. Ingrid Mattson; Dr. Louay Safi. ______________________

ISLAMIC HORIZONS

is a bimonthly publication of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) P.O. Box 38 • Plainfield IN 46168-0038 Copyright ©2010 All rights reserved Reproduction, in whole or in part, of this material in mechanical or electronic form without written permission is strictly prohibited.

Islamic Horizons magazine is available electronically on ProQuest’s Ethnic NewsWatch and LexisNexis, and is indexed by Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature.

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A

A St. Louis, MO, talk show host has declared that the “Muslim world is missing from Haitian aid.” But Muslims in North America and throughout the Muslim world, on the individual and governmental levels, are proving him wrong. “Haaretz” reports that even Palestinians living in Gaza are trying to send symbolic donations—toys, toiletries, and sweets.

These people, who know in their very bones how the Haitians feel amidst the horror of such an unexpected devastation, understand just how much these small luxuries can brighten the spirits of people brought face-to-face with the incomprehensible. Unfortunately, the Red Cross director can only accept financial donations because transferring goods out of Gaza is practically impossible.

Human compassion knows no boundaries. The world reacted generously to tsunami-devastated Indonesia and the other affected countries (2004), Hurricane Katrina-smashed New Orleans (2005), and earthquake-stricken Kashmir and northern Pakistan (2005) and Iran (2003). Such disasters bring out the best in people, even those who are locked in mutual hostility, hatred, and suspicion. Although such events are horrific, they nevertheless give all of those involved at least the chance to transcend their usual stale rhetoric and lips-only commitment and to live out their religious and spiritual ideals.

So donate as much as you can—but do not stop there. Start a project to help others improve their lives. God knows there are countless opportunities to do so—probably right in your local schools, homeless shelters, and hospitals. Do something! Get involved!

ISNA has established a Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund, and all Muslim American charities are collecting and dispatching help, even marshalling resources in neighboring Dominican Republic to do so. ISNA president Dr. Ingrid Mattson has asked Muslims to “provide whatever help they can in the form of volunteers and donations as well as to pray for the victims of this horrible disaster.” Secretary General Safaa Zarzour has declared that “we are morally compelled to contribute to alleviate the suffering in Haiti.”

The Muslim Americans’ involvement in humanitarian efforts, especially in areas not traditionally associated with Muslims, truly reflects the Islamic spirit of helping all members of humanity. Qur’an 21:107 states that Prophet Muhammad (salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) was sent “as a mercy to all of humanity” and mandates cooperation and coexistence with those who do not oppress Muslims (60:8).

ADVERTISING

Contact Islamic Horizons at (703) 742-8108 / Fax (703) 464-7326 horizons@isna.net, www.isna.net for rates ______________________

Canada Post International Publications Mail Product (Canadian Distribution) Sales Agreement No. 0666300 ______________________

CORRESPONDENCE

Send all correspondence and/or Letters to the Editor at: Islamic Horizons P.O. Box 38 • Plainfield, IN 46168-0038 E-main: horizons@isna.net

8

ISLAMIC HORIZONS MARCH/APRIL 2010

stepped forward to help them. To be fair, Robertson is also sending relief supplies. And here is the interesting part: If all Americans, regardless of religion or ethnicity, can work together to help fellow human beings, why can’t we do this at home? Why is there always a “need” to demonize, insult, fear, and antagonize the “other?”

Calamities are not due to any divine curse, as Rev. Pat Robertson would have us believe, but remind us to act upon our responsibilities toward God and humanity. Unlike Robertson, who presented the Haitians’ “alleged” pact with the Devil as fact and thus obviated any need to examine colonial France’s behavior in what was once among the region’s richest countries, Muslim Americans immediately

Today ISNA, along with countless Islamic organizations and centers, is striving to rejuvenate the Islamic commitment to service. Indeed, nurturing compassion requires constant practice, as the Qur’an so elegantly informs us: “Then, even after that, your hearts were hardened and became as rocks, or worse than rocks” (2:74). Consider Haiti your personal wake-up call, a reminder to listen to your heart.

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ISNAMATTERS

Safaa Zarzour ISNA Secretary General

My Vision for ISNA mathematician turned educator turned attorney, Safaa Zarzour agrees to accept the responsibility of leading ISNA, North America’s largest Islamic organization.

Safaa Zarzour, ISNA’s new secretary general, considers his post “a tremendous honor and responsibility,” given his great admiration for the organization’s longstanding record of “serving the Muslim community and its ability to bring together the largest gathering of Muslims in North America.”

Such a career move came naturally, as he put it, because his “volunteer work with ISNA only increased my belief in the importance of its role in improving the quality of life for Muslims in [North] America and ensuring that the Muslim community, in turn, contributes to a more peaceful, just, and prosperous nation.”

He holds ISNA in high regard because it is “a membership organization that has held elections for its leadership, consistently making it independent and dynamic. It operates in accordance with a strategic plan developed by a broad section of local and national Muslim leaders, thereby making it responsive to the community.

For example, ISNA’s strategic plan identified the training of imams and engaging the youth to protect the community from radicalization as its two top strategic goals long before these issues became hot button issues for everyone else. This shows that ISNA is at the forefront of identifying is-

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10 ISLAMIC HORIZONS MARCH/APRIL 2010

sues facing the Muslim community and taking leadership in successfully dealing with them.”

Challenges and responsibilities come with stature. The new secretary general is well aware of the fact that ISNA, the largest representative of Muslims in North America, must confront the challenges that face the community at large: “The Muslim community has one of the youngest and most diverse populations among religious communities today. It is faced with an onslaught from those who do not wish for Muslims to be accepted into the mainstream. The Muslim community is too large to be ignored, but too small not to be marginalized and stigmatized by others.”

For Zarzour, ISNA is uniquely positioned to take on such challenges by ensur-

“ISNA IS A GENUINE, PRINCIPLED, COMMITTED, AND RELIABLE PARTNER IN THE LARGER STRUGGLE FOR ACHIEVING PEACE AND JUSTICE ON A GLOBAL SCALE.” — Safaa Zarzour, Secretary General

ing that its programs transform the community’s young people and diversity into assets for both the Muslim community and for North America as a whole, as opposed to a source of fragmentation and radicalization. He also envisions the organization working to ensure that the Islamophobia launched from some quarters will be turned into opportunities to clarify the true beautiful nature of North American Muslims and of ISNA to their fellow citizens and that attempts to marginalize and demonize the “other” are defeated.

Today, when so much attention is focused on young Muslims and civil rights, Zarzour brings his experience as an educator who dealt with young people closely for many years and his local advocacy work to bear on many crucial issues. His desire to make a difference has prepared him to assume this very important leadership position. Over the last fifteen years, Zarzour has helped establish and served on the boards of several local community and advocacy organizations, among them the Council on American Islamic Relations in Chicago, of which he is a former chairman.

He is an interfaith activist who is also involved in local and state political activities.

During his tenure with ISNA, Zarzour envisions that its every action will be guided by a well-thought-out strategic plan developed by the representatives of all ISNA stakeholders. He seeks to lead with compassion, commitment, and motivation — all of which will be geared toward cohesive problem-solving — in partnership with an empowered staff who utilizes sound management principles.

One of his self-bestowed tasks is to both maintain and expand ISNA’s extensive and positive presence in local communities at the grassroots level by continuing to establish mutually beneficial relationships with local mosques and organizations, provide meaningful and relevant services for the community’s young people, and improve the quality of life for all of North America’s Muslims.

ISNA, he says, will offer a platform for and support to relevant Muslim organizations and community efforts to ensure that the community’s needs are met without duplication of effort or any gaps in services.

He hopes that his leadership will cause the government, NGOs, and the interfaith community to view ISNA as a genuine, principled, committed, and reliable partner in the larger struggle for achieving peace and justice on a global scale.

Zarzour is known to many American and Middle Eastern Muslim communities, as well as those in Belgium and South Africa, through his workshops, lectures, and presentations on legal, educational, and community issues. ^

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Smoke-free Campuses Considering the overwhelming scientific evidence and clear guidance from the Qur’an and hadith, the Islamic Medical Association of North America (IMANA) has strongly recommended that all Muslim campuses, including their parking lots, be declared smoke free.

The IMANA Public Health Committee’s position paper says that such a ban would reinforce the idea of Islamic spaces (e.g., mosques) as places of purification and self-improvement. Banning smoking in Islamic spaces would help motivate smokers to quit, thereby leading to a healthier ummah.

Second-hand smoking (passive smoking or environmental smoke exposure), is defined as air inhaled by a non-smoker, contaminated by smoke released from a lighted cigarette, and/or the exhaled air of a smoker. More than 4,000 chemicals, including at least forty-three known cancer-causing agents, have been identified in environmental

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smoke (California Environmental Protection Agency, “Health Effects of Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke: Final Report” [Sacramento: Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, Sept. 1997). In 1993, the EPA classified environmental smoke as a “Class A” carcinogen.

Cigarette smoke is the number one cause of preventable death in the world. America’s surgeon general has identified smoking as the single most modifiable risk factor for cancer, heart, and lung diseases.

In 1986, involuntary smoking was identified as a cause of lung cancer as well as cardiovascular and lung diseases in otherwise healthy non-smokers. Recent scientific data also implicates exposure to environmental smoke as one cause of asthma, ear and upper respiratory tract infections, sudden infant death syndrome, spontaneous abortions, and negative effects on cognition and behavior in children (Ontario Tobacco Research Unit, “Protection from Second-hand Tobacco Smoke in Ontario: A Review

of the Evidence Regarding Best Practices [Toronto: University of Toronto, May 2001]). Second-hand smoke is estimated to cause around 62,000 deaths per year from ischemic heart disease and 3,000 deaths per year from lung cancer.

Both the Qur’an and the hadith preach cleanliness, avoidance of intoxicants and addictive behaviors, as well as protecting one’s body (Qur’an 2:195). The Qur’an says: “Killing one person is like killing all of humanity” (5:32) and “Those who annoy believing men and women undeservedly bear on themselves a glaring sin” (33:58).

One hadith states: “Anyone who believes in God and the Last Day should not hurt his/her neighbor.”

ISNA, a member of the Faiths United against Smoking, lobbied for passing legislation that would stop smoking in public places and control tobacco products from reaching children and adults. Their grassroots efforts paid off in June 2009, when President Obama signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco and Control Act into law, authorizing the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco products.

Major Giver

T

he HRH Prince Alwaleed bin Talal ISNA Fellowship program, which helps students pursuing higher education, was named a “Top Fifty Donor” by Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. The 1 Dec. 2009 announcement said that in total, these fifty donors had awarded over $500,000 and more than 350 scholarships. Many of these donors gave over $5,000 and more than five awards. A Fellowship program spokesperson describes the young male and female recipients as some of this nation’s most academically talented Muslim students who are trying to advance Islam in America through nonprofit governance and fundraising. Applications for the ISNA-administered program are currently being accepted.

Zarzour at Indy State Address

I WASHINGTONIAN OF THE YEAR Imam Magid of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) was named a “Washingtonian of the Year” (2009) by “The Washingtonian” magazine for his role in increasing understanding between religious communities. He was formally recognized at a magazinehosted luncheon in Washington on 19 Jan. and featured in the magazine’s Jan. 2010 issue. For thirty-eight years, “The Washingtonian” has honored men and women who give their time and talent to make this a better place for all.

SNA secretary general Safaa Zarzour attended, along with many other dignitaries and public officials, the State of the State Address given by Gov. Mitch Daniels to a joint session of the Indiana House and Senate on 19 Jan. Zarzour was invited by the Governor’s Office along with Rafia Zakaria (associate executive director, Muslim Alliance of Indiana) to this annual event in which the governor reports on the state of affairs of the state to the legislators. The governor outlined Indiana’s successful efforts to mitigate the negative effects of the worldwide economic crisis by investing in its people and exercising sound fiscal policies. He also proposed several electoral and administrative reforms aimed at fairer and more efficient governance.

Zarzour said that he looks “forward to meeting him one-on-one in the future to discuss how ISNA and Hoosiers of the Muslim faith can do their part in the success of their home state.” There are an estimated 200,000 Muslims in Indiana.

MARCH/APRIL 2010 ISLAMIC HORIZONS 11

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ISNAMATTERS Working for Peace through Abrahamic Unity

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12 ISLAMIC HORIZONS MARCH/APRIL 2010

Dr. Sayyid M. Syeed

ing that happen. We are united in support of such U.S. leadership for peace.” Cardinal Theodore McCarrick (Archbishop Emeritus of Washington, DC) said: “[P]eople on both sides know the difficult compromises that will be necessary for peace and most people are prepared to accept them.” Rabbi Paul Menitoff (executive vice president emeritus, Central Conference of American Rabbis) added that “most Palestinians understand that they will have to accept a negotiated solution regarding refugees that does not jeopar-

Protect Roofs over the Heads Millions of households have already lost their homes to foreclosure; others are on the path to doing so. Seeking to deal with this heartbreaking chapter in the worst financial crisis of a generation, Dr. Sayyid M. Syeed joined a long list of faith leaders in signing a letter sent to President Obama and Congress on 14 Dec. 2009. In short, they urged both parties to enact meaningful reforms that will keep families in their homes and prevent a similar financial crisis from ever happening again.

Among their suggestions were: ^ Ensure that loan modifications are extended to all who seek and qualify for them, prevent servicers from initiating foreclosure proceedings until they have made a good-faith effort to modify a loan, and require loan companies to stop foreclosure proceedings while loan modifications are under consideration. ^ Require lenders to work with homeowners in distress by making loss mitigation efforts mandatory. ^ Create a low-cost, short-term loan program to enable homeowners who have lost their jobs to keep current on their mortgage. ^ Establish a Consumer Financial Protection Agency to protect consumers from unjust and abusive financial practices and ensure that the real costs of credit are truthfully disclosed.

PHOTOGRAPH BY DAN HODGES

ollowing a week (16-23 Dec. 2009) of praying together and meeting Jordanians, Israelis, and Palestinians, a delegation of sixteen American Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religious figures returned home united in their determination to pursue peace and with a new shared sense of urgency. They called for active, fair, and firm American leadership to restart negotiations for a two-state solution, involving an end to occupation and guaranteeing security for Israel and Palestine. In accord with the goal of the National Interreligious Leadership Initiative for Peace in the Middle East (NILI; www.nilimideastpeace.org), they will seek to build on the Arab Peace Initiative for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace, including peace agreements between Israel and Syria and Lebanon. NILI’s leaders, who organized the trip, said they will seek high-level meetings with the Obama administration to offer their support for this undertaking.

The ISNA delegation, led by Dr. Sayyid M. Syeed (national director, ISNA Office for Interfaith & Community Alliances), comprised Rafia Akhtar Syeed, Dr. Shaheer Yousaf (Islamic Center of Southern Maryland), Khadija Sheikh, Imam Yahya Hendi (chaplain, Georgetown University), and Dawud Assad (president emeritus, Council of Mosques, USA). Christian leaders came from the Roman Catholic Church, the Greek Orthodox Church, Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ), the National Baptist Convention, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Episcopal Church, and the United Methodist Church. Jewish leaders came from Reform Judaism, the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation, and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association. Also participating was Clergy Beyond Borders (http://clergybeyondborders.org).

The delegation called upon the administration and Congress to be catalysts for achieving an effective, sustainable ceasefire; allowing the flow of urgently needed humanitarian and reconstruction assistance into Gaza; improving the Palestinian Authority’s capacity to increase security and economic development; continuing negotiations for a prisoner exchange; and freezing all Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Dr. Syeed said that “most [of the] people we met believe that active, fully engaged U.S. leadership is essential to mak-

dize the Jewish majority in Israel; and most Israelis understand that they will have to accept a negotiated solution regarding sharing Jerusalem that includes provision for both Israel and Palestine to have their capitals in Jerusalem.”

NILI, organized in 2003, seeks to build local interreligious cooperation to work together for Arab-Israeli-Palestinian peace.

In its letter of 27 Jan. 2009, NILI assured the administration that it was “united in support of your commitment to provide active, fair and firm U.S. leadership for ArabIsraeli-Palestinian peace” and seeking urgent American diplomacy. On 17 May 2009, NILI reminded Obama that “despite the challenges and discouraging developments, there remains a window of hope to achieve both a viable two-state solution, acceptable to majorities of Israelis and Palestinians and a final comprehensive peace between Israel and all her Arab neighbors.”

America, NILI said, should “publicly support benchmark principles and practical ideas developed in official and informal Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, e.g., the Geneva Accord, to resolve the final status issues, including borders and security, settlements, refugees and Jerusalem.”

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CONFERENCES

ISNA recognizes the Muslim Community Association and its members for making the conference a success

Bay Area Reunion

I

SNA and the Bay Area Muslim community have had a rich shared history, and thus the 18-19 Dec. 2009 conference, held at the Muslim Community Association Center in Santa Clara, CA, felt more like a reunion. The community’s success, particularly in the field of Islamic scholarship, was evident by the presence of such homegrown scholars as Ali Ataie (cofounder, Hayward Halaqa; founder and president, Muslim Interfaith Council).

The immense community interest caused volunteers and organizers from Bay Area mosques to join student volunteers from the UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC Davis, and San Jose Sate MSAs. ISNA acting secretary general Ahmed ElHattab thanked them profusely.

Concurrent MSA, MYNA, and NISA programs featured “Lessons from the Seerah of Our Beloved Prophet,” “Spiritual Development,” “Community Building,” “Leadership Skills,” “Family and Marriage,” “Interfaith/Intra-faith Relations,” and “Youth, MSA, & MYNA Programs.”

Keynote speaker Dr. Gamal Badawi (professor emeritus, St. Mary’s University, Halifax, NS), referring to the issue of extremism in light of the Fort Hood incident, argued that living in the West does not entail a conflict between loyalty to God and to one’s birth country. He stressed that as long as one’s religious freedom is maintained, any 14 ISLAMIC HORIZONS MARCH/APRIL 2010

Bay Area community and student volunteers create a successful ISNA West Zone Seerah conference.

BY RAWAN KADDOURA, WALEED RAJABALLY, AND SAAD SWEILEM notion of extremism is innately unfounded.

Imam Mohamed Magid (vice president US, ISNA) stressed the importance of credibility among Muslims, as well as its consequent empowerment of the national community, and urged Muslims to change and improve themselves in order to establish broader societal change. Imam Zaid Shakir (Zaytuna Institute) encouraged Muslims to transcend life’s daily challenges by remembering the Prophet’s (salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) own struggle for positive change.

Just as today’s Muslims face great adversity, “there is nothing that any of us have experienced that our Prophet did not experience.”

The Prophet pressed on, and so should we.

Imam Khalid Latif (chaplain, New York City Police Department) teamed up with

the inspirational Fadi Kaddoura (founder and president, MIK Fund Solutions) and Basim Elkarra (executive director, CAIRSacramento) to address Muslim youth on the importance of looking at the Prophet and the Companions as the best role models. Elkarra called for contemporary role models: “the new Companions.”

In a conference filled with college students, no discussion garnered more attention than Shaikh Alauddin El-Bakri’s (imam, Saratoga mosque; co-founder, Inner City Muslim Action Network; editor, IQRA) talk on marriage and the difficulty of staying within Islam’s bounds. He stressed the need to “use your head rather than your heart” when finding a spouse and to not fall for westernized ideals of “love” based on physical attraction, which he said is the leading contributor to the rising number of failed marriages in Muslim communities.

Relating his own experiences as a father and a husband, he maintained that intending spouses who follow the traditional Islamic manner will find the true essence of love after they are married through their mutual deep friendship, which will develop naturally. The physical aspect is only at the forefront for a very short time.

Attendees heard from various leading scholars, among them Dr. Altaf Husain (chair, ISNA Leadership Development Committee; Peaceful Families Project),

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Monem Salam (director, Islamic Investing; Saturna Capital), Dr. Louay Safi (director, ISNA Communications and Leadership Development), Dr. Manzoor Ghori (executive director, Indian Muslim Relief and Charities), Ameena Jandali (founding member, Islamic Networks Group), Suhail Khan (senior fellow for Christian-Muslim Understanding, Institute for Global Engagement), and Dr. Kamran Riaz (physician and Islamic scholar).

Basharat Saleem (ISNA Conventions Di-

rector) expressed ISNA’s appreciation of the MCA board and its president, Dr. Mohammed Nadeem, and especially of “the community and the volunteers who made this event a great success and showed their commitment to organize similar events in the future.” He accepted the ISNA community service award presented to MCA. The outpouring of support for ISNA was succinctly reflected by Dr. Mohammad Rajabally, a leading organizer of the conference and widely respected leader, who de-

clared: “There is no question about it. Alhamdullilah we are blessed now that we have so many organizations. But I always say that ISNA is the umbrella organization.”

Iyad Alnachef (director, ISNA Youth Programming and Services Department) led the event’s Youth track. ________________________________ Rawan Kaddoura (freshman, UC Davis; Bay Area political activist), is a board member for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). Waleed Rajabally (junior, UC Davis) writes for “Al Wasilah” and has served as SJP board member. Saad Sweilem (senior, UC Davis; SJP board member) heads the MSA Political Action Committee.

Hearing Each Other About 5,000 people, representing some 250 religious traditions from 80 countries, attended the Parliament of the World’s Religions. BY RAMADAN ALIG

“A

s we deal with issues of poverty and climate change, we’ll be nourishing all of our discourse with the perspective of Indigenous people — who happen to suffer the most from the excessive consumption that drives ruthless economic development,” said Imam Abdul-Malik Mujahid in his acceptance address as the first Muslim chair for the Council of the Parliament of the World’s Religions. At this time he launched the council’s new social networking site: www.peacenext.org.

About 5,000 people, representing some 250 religious traditions from 80 countries, attended the seven-day Parliament (3-9 Dec. 2009) in Melbourne to discuss the event’s theme: “Make a World of Difference: Hearing Each Other, Healing the Earth.” The world’s indigenous people were given prominence, and Australia’s efforts to deal with the tragic legacy of its abuse of the Aborigines was a strong undercurrent throughout the event.

Many prominent Islamic, Hindu, Sikh, Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian, Buddhist, Wiccan, Pagan, and Native figures were present. Among them were Dr. Tariq Ramadan (professor, Faculty of Oriental Studies, Oxford University), Anwar Ibrahim (former deputy prime minister of Malaysia and current opposition leader), Dr. Chandra Muzaffar (professor of international studies, University Sains Malaysia; president, International Movement for a Just World), Sheikh Ali Gomaa (Grand Mufti of Egypt), Imam Ali Qazwini (chairman, Assadiq Foundation), Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf (founder and chairman, The Cordoba Initiative), Imam Khalid Griggs (imam, Community Mosque, Winston-

Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid accepts the appointment to chair the Board of Trustees of the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions _______________________________________________________________________

Salem, NC), Imam Kyle Ismail (associate director, Inner City Muslim Action Network, Chicago), Rabbi Michael Lerner (editor, “Tikkun” magazine), Rabbi David Saperstein (director, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism), Dr. Joel Hunter (pastor, Northland Church in Orlando; board member, National Association of Evangelicals; member, President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships), Peter Kovach (director, Office of International Religious Freedom at U.S. Department of State), and White House religion expert Mara Vanderslice (founder, Common Good).

One of the approximately forty panels on Islam and the West, “Islam and the West: Creating an Accord of Civilizations,” featured Dr. Muzaffar, Prof.

Ramadan and Imam Abdul Rauf. The coming end of western dominance should reduce the danger of a clash between Islam and the West, said Dr.

tioners of all religions and of no religion. Beliefs may differ, he said, but the core practices of love and compassion are common in all traditions.

Various speakers, seeing the use of nuclear weapons as a crucial ethical issue for the global religious community and humanity, called for their immediate abolition. Ibrahim Ramey (director, Human and Civil Rights Division, Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation) declared: “We need a massive global uprising against nuclear weapons as was done to abolish slavery, to save humanity from annihilation.” Former president Jimmy Carter, via teleconference, mentioned the need for a religious imperative for the equality of women and girls. Dr. Suhair Qurashi (dean, Dar Al-Hekmah College, Jeddah) stressed inclusiveness and respect for every faith.

Dr. Dirk Ficca (executive director, Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions), demanded that the voices of moderate Muslims be heard. Rev. Dr. Hans Kung (professor emeritus, University of Tübingen) launched his manifesto for a global economic ethic, stressing that if it were ignored the world would probably sink into an even worse financial crisis, because several crises were interlinked: economics, climate change, poverty, and war.

The Parliament sent a sixty-meterlong scroll inscribed with thousands of messages of support to the UN Copenhagen Climate Conference.

First held in Chicago (1893), this event brings the world’s religious and spiritual communities, their leaders and followers, together to hold a global “town meeting” designed to discuss and explore peace, diversity, and sustainability within the context of interreligious understanding and cooperation.

Since 1993, this event has been convened every five years in a major international city: Chicago (1993), Cape Town (1999), and Barcelona (2004).

Muzaffar, who advocated “a conversation with three dimensions”: respect, which will only emerge when there’s a feeling of equality; inclusiveness; and the global conversation that “We either flourish together or perish together.’’ Dr. Ramadan opined that a “clash of perceptions” has led both parties to see themselves as victims: ‘’We have to understand that Islam is now a Western religion. Not only must Muslims integrate in the West, but the West must accept Islam.’’

Ali Gomaa remarked that the large number of attendees testifies to religion’s power to bring people together, unite them in a search for truth, and inspire them to improve this world. The Dalai Lama, addressing the closing plenary session, urged everyone to cooperate so that love and compassion can become real, to implement the dreams _______________________ and possibilities discussed, and for a strong secularism that respects practi- Ramadan Alig is a freelance writer.

MARCH/APRIL 2010 ISLAMIC HORIZONS 15

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NATIONALNEWS Miracle Kid

PHOTOGRAPH BY GARY ALVERADO

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heel and Sprocket, Wisconsin’s largest bicycle store, has invited Rasheed Markis, 12, to speak about bike safety at a gathering on 10 Apr. that will attract some 7,000 bicyclists. And why not … after all, he is “The Miracle Come Back Kid.” His father Bilal relates the story of his son’s miraculous survival. On the evening of 3 Aug. 2009, Rasheed and his brother Elijah (Khalifah), 16, rode their bikes to their old neighborhood the day after the family had moved to a new house. Elijah crossed what is believed to be one of Milwaukee’s worst intersections, if not the worst: South 16th St. and Greenfield Ave. He went through a changing red light and made it safely to the other side. His brother was not so lucky. After waiting about ten seconds, he decided to cross the standing red light without looking and was hit by an east-bound SUV, thrown from his bicycle onto the west-bound lane, hit by another SUV, and run over by a truck that could not stop in time.

Rasheed lost one kidney and half of his liver, broke his pelvis, crushed one lung, and lost forty-six pints of blood (red blood cells, plasma, and platelets) through surgery. The police on the scene recorded the accident as a fatality. As soon as Bilal reached the hospital, he got on the computer and asked people both here and

SHARING: Rasheed Markis, with his father Bilal, conveys the message of safe cycling ___________________________________________________

abroad who follow his web-site (www.facebook.com/pages/MilwaukeeWI/Islam-Unleashed/109127142978) to start praying for his son. The prayers were answered, for not only did Rasheed survive — he was back home by 17 Aug. He started school one week late, and his teachers say that he is doing better after the accident then before.

This has inspired Bilal to write a car-

toon book called “The Miracle Come Back Kid” and develop a clothes line called “MCB” or Miracle Come Back.”

A documentary is being made about Rasheed’s life before, during, and after the accident. Rasheed has made a Bike Federation commercial on bike safety, which is promoting Wisconsin’s largest blood drive of the year at the Milwaukee County Zoo. He was featured on the “Maury Show” in New York; did a blood drive titled “Miracle Come Back”; and is being featured on blood drive TV commercials, posters, and billboards.

Outreach to Civil Leaders he Muslim Public Affairs Council’s (www.mpac.org) new national initiative, “I Am Change: Civic Leadership Program,” offers practical opportunities to develop the skills needed to advocate for issues directly to elected officials and coalition partners. Announced at its ninth annual convention, held on 5 Dec. 2009, this event brought together 800 activists, government officials, young people, young leaders, civil rights advocates, media professionals, and thinkers for a day of discussion, debate, and action in Long Beach, CA. Thomas Perez (assistant attorney general for civil rights, U.S. Dept. of Justice) was the keynote speaker.

For the first time ever, MPAC arranged for a live web-

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF MPAC

T

Salam Al-Marayati, executive director, MPAC ___________________________________

cast of its convention. All government officials, community activists, healthcare professionals, civil rights advocates, Hollywood movers and shakers, and online mobilizers who informed, educated, and inspired the attendees were featured.

16 ISLAMIC HORIZONS MARCH/APRIL 2010

Tamara Wittes (deputy assistant secretary, Department of State) shared the panel on “Rebuilding U.S.-Muslim World Relations” with Dr. Aslam Abdullah (editor, “The Muslim Observer”), Dr. Laila AlMarayati (the Muslim Women’s League), and Jonathan Morgenstein (senior national security policy fellow, Third Way).

Dr. Nayyar Ali (executive direc-

tor, Council of Pakistan American Affairs) moderated. The panel on “Art, Film & Social Change” featured Howard Gordon (executive producer, “24”), Zarqa Nawaz (“Little Mosque on the Prairie”), and Debbie Allen (choreographer, actress, and director). Edina Lekovic (communications director, MPAC) moderated. Dr. Maher Hathout (senior advisor, MPAC) joined Constance Rice (Advancement Project) and Cynthia Venezuela (Mexican American Legal Defense & Education Fund) in addressing the panel on “Fort Hood: A Defining Moment.” Salam AlMarayati (executive director, MPAC) moderated.

Created in 1988, this public policy institution promotes Muslim American identity construction and building constructive relationships between Muslim Americans and their representatives.

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PHOTOGRAPH BY GORBY LINDA, SAINT MARY'S COLLEGE OF CA.

Work for Faith Recognized Dr. Eboo Patel (founder, Interfaith Youth Core [www.ifyc.org]; member, advisory board of the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships) became the first Muslim to deliver the keynote address at the Greater Chicago Leadership Breakfast on 4 Dec. 2009. One day before, this former Rhodes scholar had received the 2010 Louisville Grawemeyer Award, the most lucrative prize for a single work in the field of religion.

The $200,000 award, created in 1984 by H. Charles Grawemeyer, is given annually by the University of Louisville and the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary to support promising ideas in the humanities. Selected from sixty-seven nominations worldwide, Patel won the prize for his autobiography, “Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation” (Beacon Press: 2007).

Brush with Genius

T

he Islamic Center of Long Island recently honored Prof. Alia Sabur, 18, the world’s youngest professor. Dr. Sabur, who earned her Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from Drexel University, is a professor in the Department of Advanced Technology Fusion at Seoul’s Konkuk University.

Moving directly to college after finishing the fourth grade, Sabur earned her B.S. in applied mathematics summa cum laude from Stony Brook University — when she was just fourteen years old.

The youngest woman in American history to accomplish such a feat, she then earned a M.A. and a Ph.D. from Drexel. She is the youngest woman ever to receive fellowships and awards from the Department of Defense, NASA, the Graduate Assistance in Areas

(from left) Sajid Shah (president, ICLI), Faroque Khan, Dr. Alia Sabur, and Habeeb Ahmed (chair, ICLI board) ________________________________________

of National Need program, and the National Science Foundation, not to mention the youngest scientist to conduct research at Edwards Air Force Base. The multitalented teenager had her own entry in the “Guinness Book of World Records” as the youngest professor in history when she was appointed as a Konkuk faculty member, shattering the 300-yearold record held by Colin Maclaurin, 19, Isaac Newton’s protégé.

Seeking to help the relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina, she accepted a temporary position at Southern University at New Orleans, a historically Black public college then still operating out of trailers.

ISLAMIC HORIZONS 17

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NATIONALNEWS Hijab Site Grows

Chair of the Parliament of World’s Religions

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A

bdul Malik Mujahid became the first Muslim to serve as chairperson of the Parliament of the World’s Religions when he assumed office on 1 Jan. He has invited all people involved to take the next step in implementing their goals by joining Peace Next (www.peacenext.org), a social networking site developed by the Parliament.

Outgoing chair Rev. Dr. William Lesher (president emeritus, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago), who had served since 2003, said that Mujahid brings “a deep commitment to his own faith tradition. He is a recognized leader in that tradition. He has an understanding of how religion is a force in American society and also in societies throughout the world.” Executive Director Rev. Dirk Ficca added: “There were tears in the eyes of board members when we elected him as chair, I think in part, because we have a feeling that Islam is under siege around the world, that it’s greatly misunderstood. So we want to express our confidence in the Muslim community by selecting one of their own to head up the organization.”

Imam Mujahid gave the closing remarks at the Parliament in Melbourne on 9 Dec. 2009 as the Dalai Lama presided over the closing session, which was attended by over 5,000 international interfaith activists and leaders.

Mujahid, an imam in the Chicago Muslim community, is president of the Sound Vision Foundation (www.soundvision.com), which produces Radio Islam (www.radioislam.com), America’s only daily Muslim call-in talk show.

Imam Mujahid, the first Muslim to serve as chairperson of the Parliament of the World’s Religions

During his career, he has served as chair of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago; led the Bosnia Task Force, USA, a coalition of national and regional Islamic organizations that initiated a joint campaign between Muslim Americans and the National Organization of Women (www.now.org) to declare rape a war crime; served as a member of the powerful Credentials Committee during the Democrats’ 2008 national convention; and chairs Muslim Democrats (http://muslimdemocrats.net). An award-winning author, he has written extensively on religion, public policy, and applied aspects of Islamic living.

The Parliament, the world’s oldest and the interfaith movement’s largest body, first convened in 1893. At that event, American convert Alexander Russell Webb was the only Muslim speaker.

ijabtrendz.com, which receives over 2.5 million hits a month, was recently featured on the front page of the Turkish newspaper “Zaman.” It is also frequently quoted by various websites, said editor-in-chief Mariam Sobh, who launched it in 2007 out of frustration with the lack of resources available to women who wanted to dress more conservatively.

She was looking more for “clothing that was in line with today’s fashion and trends, but adhered to my personal preferences.”

Sobh decided to develop her own media platform, one where “Muslim and nonMuslim women around the world could come together and find out about the latest fashion trends, health advice, entertainment reports, and more. And at the same time I wanted to be able to utilize women and their talents.”

Hijabtrendz.com now includes podcasts and videos.

In her own words, launching Hijabtrendz, which is neither religious nor political and never judges anyone based on their beliefs, was the best thing she ever did.

CORRIGENDUM In Dr. Parvez Ahmad’s article “Lootery” (pp. 32-39; Nov/Dec 2009) the following sentence “Reuven and Gabrielle Brenner found that younger, less educated, single or divorced men tend to find lotteries more attractive, indicating that lottery buying is impulsive (“Gambling and Speculation” [Cambridge University Press: 1990])” is an error and should not have appeared in the article. The error was made by the author and is regretted.

^

Muslim Honesty Mukul Asaduzzaman, a broke but honest taxi driver, spent his Christmas Eve driving back and forth to Long Island to find the Italian grandmother who had left $21,000 cash in his taxi outside Penn Station, NY. He made two round trips, a total of 240 miles, and waited outside an empty house in between, before he finally found Felicia Lettieri, 72, his forgetful passenger who was visiting relatives in New York from Italy. On his first trip, he left her a note: “Don’t worry, Felicia ... I’ll keep it safe.”

Asaduzzaman, a Muslim American pre-med student from Queens, refused to accept any reward money, declaring that he was only living up to the tenets of his faith and his mother’s training.

18 ISLAMIC HORIZONS MARCH/APRIL 2010

In the article “A Place Where Kinship Thrives” by Zohra Lasania (pp.

32-42; Jan./Feb. 2010), the name of Safdar Khwaja, who is among the pioneers of the Muslim Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh, was inadvertently omitted. “Islamic Horizons” and the author apologize for the oversight.

^

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.OW 0LAYING WASHINGTON, DC - Smithsonian Museum of Natural History (Tel: 202.633.4629 - www.si.edu/imax) JERSEY CITY, NJ - Liberty Science Center (Tel: 201.200.1000 - www.lsc.org) DEARBORN, MI - The Henry Ford Museum (Tel: 313.982.6001 - www.hfmgv.org) SEATTLE, WA - Pacific Science Center (Tel: 1-800-664-8775 - www.pacsci.org) TORONTO, ON - Ontario Science Centre (Tel: 416.696.1000 - www.ontariosciencecentre.ca) VANCOUVER, BC - Telus World of Science (Tel: 604.443.7443 - www.scienceworld.ca) EDMONTON, AB - Telus World of Science (Tel: 780-451-3344 - www.edmontonscience.com) *ALSO CURRENTLY PLAYING IN: Paris, Bradford, Pretoria, Jakarta, Kuwait, Dubai )&9/5 7/5,$ ,)+%4/ (%,0 "2).' */52.%94/ -%##! 4/ !. )-!84(%!4%2 ).9/52 #)49

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MOST POPULAR FILM AWARD La GĂŠode Film Festival, Paris 2009 “Stunning sceneryâ€?

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NATIONALNEWS Counting Everyone Once

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merican democracy depends on fair and equitable representation in Congress. To accurately assess the number and location of people living in America, the Constitution mandates a census every decade to determine which states gain or lose representation in Congress and how much state and federal funding communities will receive during the decade. The data gathered on 1 Apr. 2010 (census.gov/2010) will affect how more than $4 trillion is allocated to local, state, and American Indian tribal governments. Its goal is to count everybody, count them only once, and count them in the right place. The resulting facts will also help shape decisions related to public health, transportation, education, senior services, and much more.

The U.S. Census Bureau does not ask about one’s legal status in any survey and/or census program. To cater to the na-

tion’s increasingly diverse population, about 13 million bilingual Spanish/English forms; questionnaires in Spanish, Chinese (Simplified), Korean, Vietnamese, and Russian; and language guides in fifty-nine languages will be available upon request.

By 2010, an estimated 310 million people will be residing in America. Counting each person is one of the federal government’s largest operations. One of the shortest questionnaires in history, the 2010 Census form will ask for your name, gender, age, race, ethnicity, relationship, and whether you own or rent your home. The average household should be able to complete it in about ten minutes; questions about how we live as a nation—our diversity, education, housing, jobs, and more—are now covered in the Census 2000 long-form questionnaire. Responses to the 2010 Census questionnaire are required by law.

N E W S ^ Students from the Islamic School of the Muslim Educational Trust and the Oregon Islamic Academy had four of the five winning entries in the 1st Annual Human Rights Council of Washington County (OR) Poster Contest, held in Nov. 2009. The theme was “Human Rights: Let it Begin with Me.” They are the only schools to have earned three first places plus the grand prize at this national competition open to both public and private schools.

pulled off Abusumayah’s hijab. Kenney apologized to Abusumayah, her family, and the Muslim community. ^ The village of Bolingbrook (IL) has approved a $1.5 million building that will house the Furqaan Academy’s fulltime hifz and Islamic school.

The school is a division of AlFurqaan Foundation. To donate, contact the Furqaan Academy, 444 E. Roosevelt Rd. no. 173, Lombard, IL 60148; 630-620-0801; www.furqaanacademy.org.

One of the most significant changes in modern census history will occur this year: for the first time since 1930, all addresses in the country will receive a census short form. After a decade of testing and development, the Census Bureau launched the American Community Survey (ACS; www.census.gov/acs) in Jan. 2005. Officially part of the decennial census, the ACS includes essentially the same questions as the long form. But rather than once a decade, it is sent to a rolling sample of addresses every month and every year throughout the nation. By 2010, the new survey will yield current annual data for all geographic areas in the form of single- or multi-year estimates.

The 2010 Census seeks information on age, origin, relationship, home ownership (or not), marital status, number of children, citizenship, language spoken, educational attainment, disability rating, income, benefits, employment status, health insurance coverage, and housing conditions.

B R I E F S ^ The Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago continued its now annual tradition, the Eid al-Adha meat drive, to provide fresh meat to Chicago Muslim families for Eid. Kiran Ansari, the council’s interim executive director, said: “You do not have to look far to find deserving families in Chicago.” ^ Imam Anwar Kearney (Masjid Mutakabbir, Poughkeepsie, NY) expressed his appreciation for the nationwide help that enabled the fire-

^ Cook County Judge David

Sterba recently ordered Tinley Park (IL) bank teller Valerie Kenney, 55, to serve two years of probation, including 200 hours of community service and anger management classes focusing on diversity training, and to pay $2,500 in fines. This plea bargain enabled her to avoid time in prison and to avoid paying a hefty fine for committing a hate crime against Amal Abusumayah, 28, a stay-athome mother of four young girls. On 7 Nov. 2009, when both women were shipping at a grocery store, Kenney had

The Hyderabad Society of North Texas recognized Azhar Azeez for his leadership and contributions to the Muslim community for the past fifteen years, at its annual event held in Garland, TX on 16 Jan. (from left) Dr. Basheer Ahmed, Abdul Hadi, Azhar Azeez, and Dr. Moazzam Siddiqui.

20 ISLAMIC HORIZONS MARCH/APRIL 2010

damaged mosque to carry out the repairs and renovations needed to meet city building codes. It is now fully operational and holds the Friday congregational prayer. ^ According to Ziyad Awad (principal, The Islamic Academy of Alabama), the academy was accredited for another five years on 18 Nov. 2009 after receiving approval by the Quality Assurance Review Board. ^ Masjid Al-Sahabah, established in 2002 in a very small rental house on the west side of Indianapolis, is seeking to build a permanent mosque for its growing congregation.

The mosque currently offers the five daily prayers, Qur’anic memorization classes (five days a week), a weekend Islamic school, and Arabic speaking classes on Sunday.

Substantial funds have already been raised; however, more money is needed. To donate, mail checks to: Sahabah Foundation, P.O. Box 421603, Indianapolis, IN 46242 or via credit card at: www.sahabahmasjid.org.

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PERSPECTIVES

Eating in the Name of God

BY INGRID MATTSON Muslims are taught to utter “Bismillah” (In the name of God) when beginning a new activity, whether mundane or profound: for example, stepping out of the house to go to work, beginning a surgical operation, opening a notebook and writing it at the top of the page. But most importantly, because it is explicitly ordained in the Qur’an, the name of God is uttered before eating.

To perform any activity “in the name of God” means to undertake it in full awareness that God is the ultimate source of all means and capacities and that activities are blessed only if undertaken with a grateful recognition of this reality. Muslims who seek to act in His name must also be aware of the divine guidelines established for their activi22 ISLAMIC HORIZONS MARCH/APRIL 2010

ties. Most Muslims are well informed about Islam’s dietary and slaughtering rules.

Many try to consume only halal (lawful) or zabihah (Islamically slaughtered) meat; many others, following an interpretation of the Qur’an, consider all permissible animals slaughtered by the “People of the Book” (Christians and Jews) to be halal. Beyond these basic rules, there is an increasing awareness that the Qur’anic command to consume “wholesome” (tayyib) foods might require paying more attention to how animals are raised and what they are fed.

At the same time, this increased awareness has not necessarily been matched by a widespread change in consumption. This is not surprising, for busy families find it diffi-

cult enough to get dinner on the table on time, much less ensuring that organic halal meat is at hand whenever they need to prepare a meal. Given that many Muslims do not restrict themselves to zabihah meat, it may seem impractical to propose even more factors to what eating “in the name of God” actually involves. Presented with a more holistic ethical approach, however, Muslims might have more motivation to reassess their consumption patterns.

The Place of Humans in Creation To begin, it may be helpful to reconsider the Islamic theological justification for consuming animal products and the related restrictions. Perhaps one of the most compelling (FROM TOP) PHOTOGRAPHS BY FABIO VENNI, SEIER+SEIER (CC-BY-SA-2.0)

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articulations of the proper human-animal relationship is a fable that circulated in early Muslim society: A group of men, shipwrecked on an island previously inhabited only by animals, quickly create a society dependent upon the brutal exploitation of those very animals. Seeking redress, the animals bring their case to the “King of the Jinn,” who agrees to adjudicate. After moving and eloquent testimony from a hoopee, a bee, a donkey, and other creatures, as well as the men, he rules: “[Man is] superior to all other animals because it is he alone who has been promised by the Maker a life after death. This life after death in this world may be in the gardens of Paradise or in the fires of Hell; it is for him to choose how he lives his present life on this earth. The animals, on the other hand, have only this one life on earth and have been granted no future life after death. How greatly, therefore, has the Almighty favored man over animals by promising him everlasting life! For this reason man must be regarded as superior to all animals and is therefore their master ... But let man not imagine … that just because he

MUSLIMS SHOULD NOT ONLY HELP TO DEVELOP AND CONSUME ALTERNATIVE MEAT SOURCES THAT ARE IN HARMONY WITH THEIR VALUES, THEY MUST ALSO ENGAGE IN BROADER POLICY DISCUSSIONS ABOUT THESE ISSUES AND PROMOTE LEGISLATION REGULATING THE INDUSTRY AT LARGE.

is superior to animals that they are his slaves. Rather it is that we are all slaves of the Almighty and must obey His commands. Man must know that, while he has rights over animals, he also has responsibilities towards them. He must know that he is master of them only because the Creator has appointed man as His representative on earth. Let man not forget that he is accountable for his behavior towards his fellow human beings. Man bears a heavy responsibility, for we know that the Almighty will, on the Day of Judgment, hold him accountable for all his actions. And let us remember that in the life of our beloved Prophet, may the blessings and peace of Allah be upon him, there are numerous stories that tell of his kindness to animals. Let us also remember that many of the Prophet’s sayings remind man of his duties towards animals: to help them in their lives and not to harm them, to give them food when they are hungry and water when they are thirsty and to be considerate to them in every way. So return home, all of you, in peace under the protection of Almighty God.” [Denys JohnsonDavies, “The Island of Animals” (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994), 74-76.

Note: The author has made some minor changes to the translation.]

In his judgment, the king confirms the Qur’anic description of humans as ordained by God to be His vicegerents (khulafa’) on Earth. Having seen the result, we, like the animals, might find it difficult to disMARCH/APRIL 2010 ISLAMIC HORIZONS 23

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PERSPECTIVES

PHOTOGRAPH BY PAUL JOSEPH; CC-BY-SA-2.0

cern God’s wisdom for this order of creation. Indeed, Qur’an 2:30 states that even the angels, His perfectly obedient servants, asked Him why He would appoint as His vicegerent one who would so often shed blood and be destructive on Earth.

Perhaps some people consider this Islamic doctrine a convenient apology for human dominance. If we leave theology aside, however, the reality is that humans are uniquely equipped to control and alter their environment, as well as to exert great power over other creatures. Whether it is because of our vertical posture, our opposable thumbs, the shape of our tongue and jaw, or for other reasons, humans can—and do—rule Earth. Islam and other sacred traditions insist that how we use this dominance has cosmic significance. Indeed, for Muslims this responsibility is an awesome burden, for deliberate cruelty toward other humans and animals can merit the most terrible consequences. Muslims know well the Prophet’s (salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) story of a woman who tied up a cat, neither feeding it nor letting it find its own food, until it died (Bukhari and Muslim). A merciless person has no portal to the Merciful Creator, and so this woman’s final destination was hellfire.

Consuming Animal Products Limited in our knowledge, humans will never fully understand the wisdom of many aspects of creation. The bird catches the worm and the cat catches the bird, and thus carnivorous creatures continue in their struggles for survival day after day. According to Islamic law, humans can kill animals for food. While there is no universal obligation to consume meat, from an Islamic legal standpoint it is better to do so occasionally than to shun it all together. The Prophet, whose practice exemplifies Islamic principles and hence is normative for Muslims, both ate meat and distributed it to the poor and needy on Eid al-Adha and other occasions. At the same time, the Qur’an and the Prophet restricted the way animals can be killed for consumption and the kinds and amounts of meat that can be consumed.

Live animals must be treated kindly and with dignity. The Prophet explicitly forbade castration, branding, striking them in the face, loading them with very heavy burdens, cutting off a piece of their flesh, separating baby animals from their mothers, and delaying their milking until their udders became uncomfortably full. If animals are to be killed for food, many rules to prevent their suffering must be observed.

When the Prophet once saw a man sharpening his knife in front of an animal, he asked: “Do you want to inflict death on the animal twice—once by sharpening the knife in its sight and once by cutting its throat?”(Al-Hakim). Thus, a conscious ef24 ISLAMIC HORIZONS MARCH/APRIL 2010

fort should be made to shield the animal from any fear that it will be harmed.

Sadly, many of these rules are violated, especially in large commercial farms and slaughterhouses. Live animals are drugged, deprived of wholesome food, and sometimes force-fed; baby animals are separated from their mothers at birth; hormones that leave their udders painfully distended are given to dairy cows; and terrified animals are routinely slaughtered in front of one another. The list of cruelties committed against animals raised for human consumption is long.

Given that most of the meat available on the American market is produced in violation of multiple Islamic legal and ethical guidelines, Muslims should avoid it. I refrain from declaring such meat haram (prohibited), given the Islamic legal tradition that allows some leeway for consuming meat produced in less-than-ideal circumstances. But it should be noted that this leeway is designed to make life easy for people who have access to very limited resources. In other words, those who are not so restricted have to seriously consider

their obligation to consume foods that meet Islam’s highest legal and moral standards. At the same time, Muslims should not only help to develop and consume alternative meat sources that are in harmony with their values, they must also engage in broader policy discussions about these issues and promote legislation regulating the industry at large.

As long as animals continue to be mistreated in an immoral fashion, Muslims have a duty to work to change their situation. These are not issues that simply can be relegated to the sphere of personal choice.

Animals have rights, and these rights can only—and must be—protected by people.

Implementing Values Many people who hear about the multiple ethical concerns related to raising livestock and food consumption feel overwhelmed by the complexity of these issues. Of course it is unrealistic to expect that everyone will research these issues, as is the case with most ethical issues. Thus, Islamic law distinguishes between individual (fard ‘ayn) and collective (fard kifayah) obligations. Indi-

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viduals are responsible for acquiring and implementing knowledge of the primary rules governing their food consumption. In other words, all adult Muslims should be aware of Islam’s prohibition of consuming pork and blood and its requirement that animals be slaughtered according to certain rules that minimize their suffering and render the meat wholesome. While Muslims can find competent people to guide them in such matters, the community must ensure that such competent people exist, for in their absence the whole community bears the burden of sinful negligence.

Religious leaders and theologians can ensure that these issues are continually researched and that the community is educated; however, it is up to the business community to make halal food accessible. Muslim leaders who advocate such a change will notice a better reception for their moral voices if savvy marketers echo their message. At the same time, we have to recognize that no Muslim business committed to ethical practices can survive without the community’s support, despite the products’ slightly higher prices.

Given that many Muslims are reluctant to pay more for zabihah meat, Muslim businesses seek to cut other costs. Unfortu-

IT MAY BE HELPFUL TO RECONSIDER THE ISLAMIC THEOLOGICAL JUSTIFICATION FOR CONSUMING ANIMAL PRODUCTS AND THE RELATED RESTRICTIONS. nately, this is often done by underpaying employees and having them work in unhealthy conditions—also violations of Islamic law and ethics. We cannot really be said to be eating in the name of God if those men and women who provide us with our food are being exploited.

Transforming Muslims’ consumption

patterns can be achieved over time, God willing, if multiple strategies are employed.

Specialists must keep current on the relevant research and work with Muslim ethicists to create clear, practical guidelines. Research findings have to be disseminated among religious leaders and educators who will spread it to the community at large.

Businesses that are struggling to provide halal food must be supported. For example, Muslim organizations and institutions should purchase their products for community dinners, school lunches, and other events from such businesses. The extra expense of doing so is justified if we consider providing them as part of our religious and educational mission. Community meals, after all, are not just about food, but are ways to communicate our values.

The Muslim community is justifiably proud of its reputation for hospitality; by providing wholesome food that preserves the rights of animals and workers, we can also be proud of our integrated ethical approach to consumption.

_______________________________

Dr. Ingrid Mattson is ISNA’s president as well as director of Hartford Seminary’s Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and ChristianMuslim Relations, director of its Islamic Chaplaincy Program, and professor of Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations.

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THE MUSLIM WORLD

Uighurs face a seemingly uphill task as they seek to free East Turkestan from Chinese occupation. BY HILAL SHIMLAVI

Mauled in China

O

n 24 Dec. 2009, China announced its decision to execute another five Uighurs in connection with July 2009’s bloody ethnic riots between indigenous Uighurs and Chinese settlers living in Urumqi, the capital city of Chinese-occupied East Turkestan, officially known as the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Five other Uighurs were sentenced and given “two-year reprieves,” a lesser penalty that is usually commuted to life imprisonment. In early November, China executed nine people (only one of whom was a Han Chinese) arrested during the July riots, in which nearly 200 people were killed and more than 1,000 injured.

The prisoners were convicted of “murder” and “arson” after a closed trial. According to Uighur sources, the defendants were not allowed to pick their own lawyers before the controversial trial began, and spent just ten minutes with lawyers assigned

by Beijing. A Chinese white paper claims that the riots were caused by Uighur “separatists” promoting an independent East Turkestan. The World Uighur Congress (WUC), a federation of exile groups based mainly in Munich, Germany, that claims to represent the Uighur’s interests both inside and outside their occupied homeland, says that Beijing exaggerates the threat to justify its repression. Uighur activist Dilxat Raxit (Dilshad Rashid), WUC spokesman, said that the executions sought to appease Urumqi’s Han population.

In recent decades, China has moved millions of Han Chinese, the nation’s dominant ethnic group (92%), into this strategic oil and mineral-rich territory. This is only 26 ISLAMIC HORIZONS MARCH/APRIL 2010

the latest development in a long history of subjugation: the Qing dynasty conquered it in 1759 and, renaming it Xinjiang (“New Frontier”), began sending Han settlers to the region. In 1953, the Uighurs, a predominantly Muslim Turkic people, made up 75% of the population; they are now down to 45%. The Han population, a small minority at that time, is now 37% according to Chinese figures; other figures put it at 40%. The Hans are a crushing 70% majority in Urumqi. This demographic transformation has caused growing alarm and resentment among the Uighurs and other local ethnic groups. In the region’s far west, the ethnic Kazakh city of Ghulja, at present the capital of the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, is now officially referred to by its Chinese name of Yining. All top positions in the region’s Communist Party, as well as the regional government, the military, and the police, are held by Hans.

Wang Lequan, Xinjiang’s powerful Com-

munist Party boss, heads its government.

Some argue that those at the helm in Beijing are not communists at all; rather, they use communism as a fig leaf for their totalitarian rule. China is not a country; it is an empire that is staying intact through totalitarian rule.

GLOBAL INDIFFERENCE Since 9/11, the Uighur struggle has been caught up in politics that have little, if anything, to do with its long-standing grievances and demands. China has conveniently used the al-Qaeda card to garner western sympathy and support for its continued denial of rights to the ethnic Uighur, Tartar, Kyrgyz, Tajik, and Mongol minorities. Beijing blames the unrest in occupied East Turkestan on “overseas-based groups,” although it offers no direct evidence of their alleged interference. Exiled Uighur activists such as Rebiya Kadeer, 62, current president of the WUC, deny

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Chinese military blocking streets after ethnic riots in downtown Urumqi, Xinjiang, China

‘‘

China has conveniently used the al-Qaeda card to garner western sympathy and support for its continued denial of rights to the ethnic Uighur, Tartar, Kyrgyz, Tajik, and Mongol minorities.”

having been behind the riots.

A small group of Uighur men have been detained in Guantanamo since late 2001, after the camp at which they were training to fight the Chinese was bombed. Subsequently captured by Pakistan, at that time led by the dictator and close American ally Gen. PHOTOGRAPH BY REMKO TANIS; CC-BY-SA-2.0

Pervez Musharraf, they were turned over to America in the name of rounding up “alQaeda insurgents.” Despite intense pressure by Washington, who has proclaimed them innocent of being “enemy combatants,” no country wants them — other than China, of course, which claims that the men belong to the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, which the UN has classified as a terrorist organization.

Canada has declined to accept any Uighurs, even those declared innocent, on the grounds that doing so would jeopardize Huseyin Çelil, a naturalized Canadian Uighur jailed in China since 2006 after being deported from Uzbekistan, where he was visiting relatives. Others have been sent to Albania, Bermuda, and Pulau. Pakistan, who considers China a close ally that help it keep India at bay, routinely deports Uighur exiles to China, where they are tortured, jailed, and quite often executed. Cambodia, also a close Chinese ally, sent twenty

Uighurs back to China on 19 Dec. 2009.

In this troubled region, China can count on Israel’s support: the two countries have joint agricultural projects in East Turkestan and, over the years, Israel has become China’s second largest supplier of arms. And then there is the similar trend of settlers colonizing the indigenous populations’ land.

ISOLATION AND ASSIMILATION China maintains strict control over the restive autonomous region. Uighurs cannot be contacted by international phone or the Internet, and more than 1,500 websites have been closed and their members arrested.

According to “Christian Science Monitor” reporter Jonathan Landreth, on 30 Dec. 2009, “The government information office of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region opened access to the websites of China’s official Xinhua News Agency and the Communist Party’s leading newspaper, The People’s Daily, according a report in “The MARCH/APRIL 2010 ISLAMIC HORIZONS 27

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THE MUSLIM WORLD

China Daily”, another official publication.

The e-mail and comment functions of both websites remain restricted, and the stateenforced moratorium on international phone calls and mobile text messages into or out of Xinjiang remains firmly in place” (China reconnects Xinjiang region to the Web—very slightly, “The Christian Science Monitor” 30 Dec. 2009).

Chris Lefkow, Agence France-Presse’s (AFP) Washington-based high-tech coordinator, wrote on 31 Dec. 2009: “China regularly blocks access to websites deemed sensitive and a number of US companies, including Microsoft, Cisco, Google and Yahoo!, have been hauled before the US Congress in recent years and accused of complicity in building what has been called the ‘Great Firewall of China.’” According to him, Apple’s iPhone is going along with this deplorable trend.

There is also more visible coercion: a mosque in Kalpin county, near Aksu city in the territory’s rugged southwest, was demolished in 2008 for allegedly refusing to put up signs supporting the Beijing Olympics. The mosque, which had been renovated in 1998, was accused of illegally renovating the structure, carrying out illegal religious activities, and illegally storing copies of the Qur’an.

Kadeer told Inter Press Service’s (IPS) Catherine Makino in Tokyo, where she released her biography in Japanese, “Dragon Fighter: One Woman’s Epic Struggle for Peace,” that China holds 10,000 Uighur political prisoners (“Asia Times,” 6 Nov. 2009) and has sent over 300,000 Uighur women, aged 14 and 25, to work 28 ISLAMIC HORIZONS MARCH/APRIL 2010

and assimilate into Chinese society. Some were posted to factories; the “beautiful” ones were sent to work in hotels and bars.

The women, she said, are miserable, have no freedom or even contact with their families, and “are supported [by the government] if they want to marry inside China.”

Once among China’s wealthiest public figures ($25 million), this Muslim woman built and ran a multimillion dollar trading company and department store in Urumqi.

But she lost it all after the “Gulja incident” in 1997, a series of demonstrations and riots that led to the execution of thirty Uighurs, when she openly criticized the government’s policies in a speech before Parliament. She was removed from the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a top political body that represents non-Communist party people, and imprisoned. Released six years later, in 2005, under pressure from the Bush administration, she moved to the United States. “The Chinese government wants to stop my voice,” Kadeer told IPS, adding: “They can influence other countries by telling them I’m a terrorist … I am a Muslim, so it is easy for them to say I am a terrorist, and maybe some people in other countries will believe it.”

But she is far more than just a Muslim: she is the founder of the “1,000 Families Mothers Project,” a charity that helped Uighur women start their own local businesses; was an appointed delegate to the eighth session of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the National People’s Congress, and representative to the UN Fourth World Conference for Women in Beijing in 1995; former vice

chairwoman of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region Federation of Industry and Commerce; former vice chairwoman of the Xinjiang Association of Women Entrepreneurs; founder of the “Thousand Mothers Movement,” which promoted job training for Uighur women; and establisher of evening schools for Uighurs who did not have chance to go to ordinary school (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebiya_Kadeer#Imprisonment).

The 19 million Uighur and the other nationalities of East Turkestan, most of whom are Muslim, want more autonomy and cultural and religious rights than Beijing currently allows, according to exiles. If this modest demand cannot elicit support from the region and the world, it at least deserves their sympathy. Continued global indifference is more likely to turn this tense region into another global hotspot as other disgruntled groups use it for their own ends, as seems to have happened with the indigenous struggle in Indian-occupied Kashmir.

GLOBAL FALLOUT AND LINKS In a world driven by various interests, another viewpoint is being offered: the Uighur unrest is part of a larger western geopolitical strategy involving Turkey and the CIA to advance the “Bernard Lewis Plan.” Originally implemented under the supervision of Zbigniew Brzezinski during the Carter administration, the plan was based on Lewis’ idea of creating an “arc of crisis” along the Soviet Union’s southern borders by empowering Muslims to rebel against the communists to bring down the Soviet Empire, writes David Livingstone (www.terrorism-

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(from far left) Uighurs raise the Uighur flag during an antiChina protest outside the White House; Rebiya Kadeer, the leader of the World Uighur Congress, leads a protest rally.

Kadeer was jailed by the Chinese from 1999-2005 in the harshest conditions. Unrest in the autonomous region in July 2009 left nearly 200 people dead and ten times that number injured; Protesters demand “Free the Uighurs.”

‘‘

China maintains strict control over the autonomous region. Uighurs cannot be contacted by international phone or the Internet, and more than 1,500 websites have been closed and their members arrested.” illuminati.com/uighur-nationalism-turkeyand-the-cia; 3 Aug. 2008). As outlined in Brzezinski’s Grand Chessboard, control over Central Asia (viz., the five former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) and Afghanistan is a key factor in mastery of Eurasia and, thereby, the world.

Livingstone also alleges that Turkish spiritual leader Fethullah Gülen, living in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania, is part of this strategy. Turkey, says Livingstone, shares the same heritage/race as Central Asia, the same language (Turkic), the same religion (mostly Sunni Islam), and has the strategic location and proximity. He further claims that Morton Abramowitz (American ambassador to Turkey, 1989-91) and Graham E. Fuller (author and political analyst specializing in “Islamic extremism,” as well as a former vice-chair of the National Intelligence Council who served as CIA station chief in Kabul) were key players in estab-

lishing and, roughly four months later, proclaiming East Turkestan’s government-inexile, on 14 Sept. 2004. The ceremony was held on Capitol Hill under American flags.

No country recognizes the government-inexile, led by “Prime Minister” Enver Yusuf Turani, 47, who lives in Washington, DC. Gülen’s apparent involvement, claims Livingstone, is revealed in that he used Fuller and Abramowitz as references in his immigration application. According to TurkPulse(www.turkpulse.com/turkish16.htm): “One of the main tools Washington is using in this affair in order to get Turkey involved in the Xinjiang affair is some Turkish Americans, primarily the Fetullah Gulen (sic).” Fuller compiled “The Xinjiang Project” for the Rand Corporation (1998) and, in 2003, revised it under a new title: “The Xinjiang Problem.” This document emphasizes the region’s importance in encircling China and provides a strategy for doing so.

The Uighurs face a daunting task. Shen Dingli, head of the International Relations Studies Institute at Shanghai’s Fudan University told Peter Ford of “The Christian Science Monitor” (6 Jan., 2010), “This is not the China of 10 or 20 years ago.” China, said Shen, is “unstoppably on the rise.” And addressing criticism of China’s human rights record, he added: “Domestic stability is more important than the need to handle the international side.”

EARLIER UIGHUR REPUBLICS This is not the first time that the Uighurs have tried to free themselves from Han Chinese domination. Isa Yusuf Alptekin

(FROM FAR LEFT) PHOTOGRAPHS BY MALCOLM BROWN; DAVID PHAM; FUTUREATLAS.COM (CC-BY-SA-2.0)

(1901-95), a Uighur political leader exiled from China in 1949, headed the First East Turkestan Republic in Kashgar (1933-34) as the general secretary of the National Assembly of the Republic, alongside Prime Minister Sabit Damulla, and titular President Hoja-Niyaz. During 1932-34 he represented Eastern Turkestan in Nanking, home of Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist (Kuomintang) government. Initially named the “Turkish Islamic Republic of East Turkestan,” the republic’s multinational governmental staff included Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, as well as Uighurs. Its declaration of independence contained anti-Han and anti-communist policies and basic Islamic principles. From 1944-49, the region’s three northern districts (Ili, Tarbaghatai, and Altai) set up, with Soviet help, the Second East Turkestan Republic.

When Alptekin, 94, died in Istanbul, around one million Turks, from top government officials to ordinary citizens, attended his funeral. He was buried next to the graves of two former Turkish presidents. A memorial park, named after him, was established in Istanbul with the Eastern Turkestan national flag, “Kok Bayraq,” flying on its grounds. His son Erkin Alptekin, who sought refuge in Indian-occupied Kashmir in 1949 and graduated from Srinagar’s Convent College, moved to Munich in 1971 and became “senior policy advisor” to the director of the American-run Radio Liberty. He was the WUC’s first president and, in 1991, founded the East Turkestan Union in Europe.

_______________________________ Hilal Shimlavi is a freelance writer.

MARCH/APRIL 2010 ISLAMIC HORIZONS 29

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PHOTOGRAPH BY TIMOTHY CENTERS

PROFILE

Rabbi Elliot Dorff, 2009 Lake Lecturer, speaks with audience member Eileen Savage and Lake Institute board member Shakeela Hassan

THE GIVING MASON JAR Thomas Lake’s memory is enshrined through an institution that teaches personal generosity. BY NATALIE INGLE IF TOM LAKE HAD EVER BEEN

asked to draw a picture of generosity, he might have sketched a Mason jar containing a few soot-covered bills and maybe some coins. But the glass itself would be smooth and shiny from frequent handling.

For Tom, the memory of his mother pausing mid-chore to pull such a jar down from the shelf and inserting a portion of his father’s coal-mining pay was the portrait of devotion. This biweekly ritual to benefit the community church taught Tom that it is a gift to give and that the dearer the gift is to you, the greater is its value to the world.

Later, through his decades-long experience of working up ranks and then leading the Eli Lilly

and Company and the Lilly Endowment, he would come to understand how the people he knew, the conversations he had had and—significantly—his faith, had shaped his own guiding values. “Generosity doesn’t necessarily come down through the genes,” he said. “Generosity and sharing have to be taught.”

Inspired by her father’s philosophy that successful philanthropy must be deliberate and personal, his daughter Karen Lake Buttrey wished to create a space in his honor where people could reflect on their charity, motivations, and understanding of community. Knowing that her father’s religion was central to all of these things and a legitimate theme on which to focus

30 ISLAMIC HORIZONS MARCH/APRIL 2010

discussion within both the community and the academy, the Lake estate (Karen and her husband Don), the Lilly Endowment, and Indiana University’s matching funds inaugurated the Lake Institute on Faith & Giving ( LIFG; www.philanthropy.iupui.edu/L akeFamilyInstitute) in 2002.

The words faith and giving were chosen carefully, giving as opposed to philanthropy, to reflect how most Americans think of their generosity, and faith to exemplify Karen’s desire that LIFG encompass the rich cultures of multiple religious traditions.

As part of Indiana University’s prestigious academic and research-driven Center on Philanthropy, LIFG benefits from long-standing local, national, and international connections.

In addition, links with the university’s School of Liberal Arts and Religious Studies departments—where LIFG supports a faculty member who teaches on and writes about religion and philanthropy—enrich LIFG’s programming. These help nurture serious study of the practice of giving and the faith values that often help guide it.

Furthering its commitment to scholarly work, LIFG offers a nationally competitive $22,000 fellowship each year to a doctoral student writing a dissertation in this field. Cosponsoring with the Alban Institute, LIFG recently released a national study of over 1,500 congregations that examines the recession’s effects on congregations.

This year, IU Press will publish LIFG’s “Religious Giving: For Love of God,” a volume of ten essays that examines generosity in the Abrahamic traditions.

Crowning LIFG’s academic ventures is the annual Thomas H. Lake Lecture, at which top national religious scholars have discussed, among other themes, the economics of giving, unique philanthropic concerns among Evangelicals, and how Jewish law responds to charitable ethics violations. On 25 Mar. 2010 LIFG hosted its first Muslim lecturer, Dr. Ingrid Mattson (president, ISNA) who spoke on how zakat has tradi-

tionally shaped Muslim American communities and how contemporary society is placing new pressures on that role.

Reaching into the heart of giving, LIFG’s multiple seminars are geared toward community-level conversations and individual discernment. Empowering faith leaders to discuss an expanded idea of stewardship and to grow a more generous populace, these seminars are built on academic research and experience with hundreds of organizations and congregations from New York to Hawaii. In partnership with the center’s Fund Raising School, LIFG also presents a course for development professionals.

According to former Indianapolis mayor Bart Peterson, LIFG is literally changing lives— including his. After hearing Tom Cousins, an Atlanta developer who helped turn around his city’s most dangerous neighborhood, speak at a Lake Distinguished Visitor Program, Peterson made it his personal mission to help replicate the story’s success both locally and nationally.

Another philanthropic visionary, Dr. Eboo Patel (founder, Interfaith Youth Core) has inspired audiences of over two hundred high school and college students, interfaith clergy, and civic leaders with his call to overcome religious conflict. Motivated by that event in mid2008, a group of Indianapolisarea colleges and universities are creating a dynamic new campus initiative with IFYC. In this period of unprecedented change for religion in America, LIFG is leveraging its resources to help educate and catalyze what is still the most generous segment of our population—those who identify as believers in the divine. Through its diverse channels, LIFG continually seeks ways to expand thoughtful conversation on faith and generosity. Although the landscape of religious giving is evolving rapidly, the timeless Mason jar is still at its core.

_______________________

Natalie Ingle, program manager at the Lake Institute on Faith & Giving, is completing her M.A. in philanthropic studies at Indiana University this fall.

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H OOTEL T E L R EESERVATION S E R VA T I O N

• Early Registration Registration egistratiion Deadline Deadline is JUNE JUNE 1,, 2010.

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H How ow to R Reserve eservee Y Your our R Room oom m JJuly uly 2 – 5, 2010 1.

H Hotel otel reservations reservations must be made either online or on this form and sent along the registration registraation form. Based Based on hotel availability, availaabilityy, you you would rreceive eceive your your confirmation confirmation within 3 weeks. weeks. Confirmation Confirm mation for online rreservations eservations will be b received received by by e-mail immediately. immediatelyy.

2.

R Rooms ooms are are assigned assign ned on a first-come first-serve first-serve and availability availability basis.

IIff the h hotel h l off your your choice h i is i full, f ll you you will ill be b assigned assiigned i d to the h next alternativ alternative. e.

33..

B Bed ed type type is is not not guaranteed guaranteed & subject subject to to availability. availability. There There may may be be aan n eextra xtra charge charge for for rollaway rollaway beds. beds. (The (The hotel hotel at at check check in in w ill notify notify you.) you.) will SSince ince there there are are a limited limited number number ooff rooms rooms with with two two double double beds, beds, and and in in cconsideration onsideration for for those those with with families, families, please please only only request request rooms rooms with with 2 bbeds eds if if it it is is absolutely absolutely necessary. necessary.

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by ISNA. Fax Fax your your written rrequest equest too 317-839-1822.

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I NFOR M ATION

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PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE AMERICAN YOUTH ACADEMY

A QUESTION OF

IDENTITY Do Islamic schools help develop Muslim American identities?

By Craig Joseph and Karen Keyworth

36 ISLAMIC HORIZONS MARCH/APRIL 2010

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POISED: Fifth graders present their project at the Tampa, FL American Youth Academy’s 2010 elementary school science fair

MARCH/APRIL 2010 ISLAMIC HORIZONS 37

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PHOTOGRAPH BY ZUHAIR RAZZACK

COVER STORY

Seattle, WA ILM Academy students meet with Pennies for Education and Health board chair Richard Scammel and board member Saleha Khumwala

W

What is the purpose of Islamic schools in America? Certainly, two of their major purposes are to transmit information to pupils and to teach such technical skills as math, reading, and scientific thinking. But equally certainly, a major purpose of any Islamic school comes from the fact that it is an Islamic school, one intended to address not only these “cognitive” parts of the student, but also the student as a Muslim. In one form or another, an Islamic school’s teachers and administrators seek to make their students better Muslims.

Perhaps you noticed the vagueness of that last phrase and thought: “Okay, but what does ‘make their students better Muslims’ mean?”

There are many different ideas about what it means to be “a good Muslim,” and how Muslim educators view this adds yet another layer of complexity. In a fairly simple and straightforward way,

38 ISLAMIC HORIZONS MARCH/APRIL 2010

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PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF AL-NOOR ISLAMIC SCHOOL

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Rep. Ellison (D-MN) advises students at Al-Noor Islamic School (Poughkeepsie, NY) about civic involvement

“identity” means a person’s reactions to questions like: Who am I? What kind of person am I? What does it mean that I am “X” (where “X” may be “black,” “white,” “Muslim,” “American,” etc.)? What consequences does being “X” have for how I should relate to others, what career I should choose, and other aspects of how I live my life?

The second important point about identity is that the vast majority of human beings have multiple “identities.” Each of us is a member of multiple significant social categories. For example, one person’s social identities might include all of the following: “American,” “engineer,” “Arab,” “Iraqi,” “baseball fan,” and so on.

Psychologists and other social scientists have extensively researched the consequences of our diverse social identities. They have learned that social context and other external factors often MARCH/APRIL 2010 ISLAMIC HORIZONS 39

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COVER STORY make certain identities more relevant than others and thus influence how one thinks about oneself, at least momentarily. The philosopher Akeel Bilgrami related an interesting example of this in a 1992 essay entitled “What Is a Muslim?” He writes: “I recall that some years ago in India, almost to my surprise, I heard the words ‘I am a Muslim’ on my lips. … I was looking for payingguest accommodation in a neighborhood with a predominantly lower-middle-class Hindu population, hostile to Muslims. A landlord who was interviewing me asked me what my religion was. It seemed hardly

with communist leanings. It still seemed the only self-respecting thing to say in that context. It was clear to me that I was, without strain or artificiality, a Muslim for about five minutes. That is how negotiable the concept of identity can be.”

Social context, understood as the features of a person that make him or her “qualify” as an example of the category in question, can also affect the importance of the membership criteria for a social category. For instance, it is not uncommon to find Muslims who tolerated things like drinking alcohol in their countries of ori-

such a way that they always feel that they are fundamentally the same person in each of these contexts.

Why Is “Identity” Important?

Identity is only one of the “lenses” through which Islamic schooling and its consequences can be viewed. It is an especially important one, however, for it is one of the main forces that bind people together into groups—from families and small groups of friends all the way to civilizations, the ummah, or humanity. Throughout human history, the power of “collective identity,” as

THE SITUATION FACED BY MUSLIMS IN AMERICA TODAY IS WORRISOME, AND THE NEED FOR ISLAMIC SCHOOLS TO PROVIDE A CRITICAL BUFFER AGAINST EXTREMISM IS INCREASING. to matter that I found Islamic theological doctrine wholly noncredible, that I had grown up in a home dominated by the views of an irreligious father, and that I had then for some years adopted the customary aggressive secular stance of those

40 ISLAMIC HORIZONS MARCH/APRIL 2010

gin to take such infractions of Islamic norms far more seriously after immigrating to a non-Muslim country. Nevertheless, most people are very good at juggling their various identities as they move from one social context or situation to another in

social scientists often call this phenomenon, has been a force for good as well as bad. It has enabled human beings to live together in (more or less) harmonious groups, to make spectacular achievements, and even to enable different groups of people to coex-

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COVER STORY ist peacefully. For example, the Umayyad caliphate in Andalusia ruled a civilization in which Muslims, Jews, and Christians shared a vibrant culture. Conversely, collective identity has also motivated some of the worst human behavior, including wars, genocide, oppression, racism, and bigotry.

Indeed, it is identity’s double-edged quality that makes it so important to understand, especially today. Furthermore, it is related to a second reason why we focus on identity, namely, its key role in societies like that of the United States—liberal democratic societies with large multicultural, multiethnic, and multireligious populations.

America is often referred to as “a nation of immigrants.” Consequently, all Americans have a permanent concern about identity— or, more accurately, identities: how to reconcile the need for a shared, deeply felt

American identity with the other identities and loyalties held by American citizens?

In Dec. 2009 several incidents were still fresh in the public mind: the killing of thirteen people at the Fort Hood, TX, army base by a Muslim psychiatrist; the disappearance of a number of Somali youth from their Minneapolis communities and their reappearance in Somalia as fighters for alShabaab, an insurgent group (one of them appears to have acted as a suicide bomber); and a similar incident involving five young men from the suburbs of Washington, DC, who disappeared in late Nov. 2009 and were arrested shortly thereafter in Pakistan on the grounds that they were seeking to get involved with jihadi groups.

Predictably, these incidents have been used by right-wing and anti-Muslim commentators, bloggers, and politicians to cast

further doubt on the Muslims’ capacity, or willingness, to be loyal American citizens.

But there has also been a less predictable reaction, especially to the incidents of radicalized young men: Families and community members are, despite a history of mistrust and suspicion of the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, straightforwardly cooperating with authorities, and even, in the case of the DC-area men arrested in Pakistan, going to the FBI themselves. In addition, Muslim scholars and leaders have responded to these incidents with explanations of their own and plans for action. A spokesperson for the Muslim Public Affairs Council (www.mpac.org) told the “New York Times”: “Among leaders, there’s a recognition that there’s a challenge within our community that needs to be addressed.”

And in an Associated Press article, Saeed

Raising God-conscious Americans Why do questions of identity, such as what it means to be Muslim and what it means to be American, continue to elude us?

BY MATTHEW MOES

T

his seemingly simple question What terminology do you suggest students use when referring to themselves: Muslim-American, American-Muslim, Muslim, American? recently sparked a lively debate among Muslim educators. Some endorsed “MuslimAmerican” to emphasize Islam, while “American-Muslim” was recommended for grammatical reasons. Simply “American” was preferred by another on the basis that it is not normally necessary or common to separate oneself from the general population by religion. Tariq Ramadan supports this final view on the grounds that “The primary identity depends on the necessities of the situation” (interview Sunday “Zaman” 27 Sept.

2009). He argues that a person’s identity is complex, made up of his/her ethnicity, citizenship, political views, religion, and so on.

Some people even reacted with dismay, asking: “Are we still having this discussion?”

The outcome lay to rest any question, usually raised to cast doubt on the community’s patriotism, of whether Muslim educators in Islamic schools see their students’ civic identity as anything other than American. This general attitude was reaffirmed by Richard Wike and Greg Smith in their 17 Dec. 2009 article: “When asked whether they think of themselves first as an American or

42 ISLAMIC HORIZONS MARCH/APRIL 2010

as a Muslim, 47% of Muslims in the U.S. think of themselves first in terms of their religion, while 28% identify themselves first as Americans and 18% volunteer that they identify as both. … Primary identification with religious affiliation is not unique to Muslims. Religious identity is almost equally as high among American Christians, 42% of whom say they think of themselves first as Christian. About half (48%) of Christians in the U.S. identify first as Americans, while 7% volunteer that they identify both with their nationality and their religion” (“Little Support for Terrorism Among Muslim Americans - Pew Research Center.”).

Although this discussion settled one issue, it raised another. While there was a common presupposition about civic identity, it quickly became obvious that there was little consensus about the deeper, more nuanced aspects of identity — religious identity in particular.

After belief in God and following Prophet Muhammad (salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam), instilling an Islamic identity is one of Islamic schooling’s primary objectives. And yet, after thirty years of Islamic schooling in America, what consensus have Muslim educators reached on this critical issue? Perhaps it is because questions of identity, such as what it means to be Muslim and what it means to be American, continue to elude us. Individu-

ally, we may even have contradictory assumptions and convictions about what these particular terms imply. When it comes to schools, however, this translates into tension and conflict when parents, teachers, and administrators attempt to teach and instill identity without having given adequate philosophical attention to these questions. This must be followed by dialogue and discussion in order to eventually arrive at a common vision of what they are trying to produce.

Such a discussion might appropriately begin with the question of the terminology students should use to describe themselves.

The Qur’anic verse “And He taught Adam all the names of everything...” (2:31) is significant to educators because, taken in context, it states that Adam’s capacity to learn sets him apart from other creatures—even the angels. In learning “the names of everything,” Adam was taught to identify and distinguish things through their labels. Consider how naming defines an object, thereby giving it an identity and enabling it to be recognized as distinct. Naming can also lead to oversimplification by imposing artificial limits on the given definition, and even more so when certain names come to elicit stereotypes.

When it comes to something as dynamic as a human being, this challenge is more significant. The terms we agree upon must help

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Khan, a Wayne State University professor and specialist in Islam, described the young men as “seemingly well-adjusted kids who are forming a subculture of their own— namely, the Muslim under siege.”

While there are always multiple factors

at work in incidents like these, we argue that issues of identity play a central role and that the just cited responses from the Muslim American community indicate that the community also recognizes these issues.

When Prof. Khan talks about the “subcul-

HELPERS: Cincinnati International Academy students extend their learning with a food drive

us achieve a healthy sense of identity that allows us to be defined for who we are. In addition, they cannot be limited by artificial notions of what implications those names might carry. In other words, the terms and labels we choose have philosophical implications for the student’s identity. School communities therefore need to discuss their members’ diverse understandings about identity and embody their views in the school’s curriculum and teaching methodology.

Discussions on Identity The Islamic studies curriculum is not the only opportunity for schools to address issues of identity. Leading experts on Islamic school curricula have distinguished between knowledge about Islam (e.g., aqidah, tafsir, hadith, and fiqh) and opportunities to live and act according to Islam and to internalize Islamic values. In other words, the school curriculum and teaching methods must support the actions and beliefs that will contribute to real identity formation.

Isolation from non-Muslims and overemphasis on countering stereotypes should be avoided. Too often, part of the motivation for sending children to Islamic schools is the parents’ fear of losing their children to a new culture and competing views on religion. A healthy identity will be formed in a safe eduPHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF CINCINNATI INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY

cational environment, one in which students can learn about the world in harmony with Islamic beliefs and practices. However, the school must not become a place where fear and demonization of others, paranoia, and conspiracy theories are propagated and transmitted to students. The school administration must have visible outreach initiatives, service learning programs, and extracurricular opportunities to engage Muslim students in meaningful ways with the greater society.

A spirit of inquiry and intellectual freedom must prevail so that students are encouraged to think for themselves and self-actualize.

They cannot do this in a climate that anticipates rigid conformity with dogmatic foregone conclusions on issues ranging from politics to science to social interaction.

Throughout history, Islam and Muslims — as well as humanity as a whole — have prospered when Muslim scientists and other thinkers continuously evaluated and scrutinized both religious and worldly knowledge.

Students need to arrive at their own convictions about such issues as Palestine, evolution, and hijab (among others) if we want those convictions to last beyond school hours. Educators must guide with the confidence that Islam is the truth and is not threatened by allowing students to discover it for

ture” of “the Muslim under siege,” he is really referring to a shared identity, a collective self-image that some Muslims have developed and that motivates their actions.

Muslims in the West (and elsewhere) also confront another issue, which in a sense is the opposite of the issue of extremism: the problem of an Islamic identity that is too flexible, too easily discarded or disregarded in response to social norms or pressures. Examples of what we have in mind are the Muslim man who, while generally adhering conscientiously to Islamic standards of behavior, drinks alcohol at office parties; the young man who is known as devout and even strict at the mosque, but who upon leaving it goes directly to meet his (nonMuslim) girlfriend; or the teenage girl who removes her hijab as soon as she is out of the view of her family, teachers, or community.

themselves. This can be achieved through a variety of means: writing, speech, debate, and other forms of artistic expression.

Open communication must be fostered between parents and children, teachers and students, and elders and young people. Interaction must be sincere and non-judgmental.

The Arabic term for education, tarbiyah, implies that we must let the seed in each person unfold while tending to it much like a gardener — without coercion and without smothering its growth and development. As Islamic schools come of age, their alumni become a very valuable resource who can speak more confidently (in retrospect) about their experiences and how the school impacted their identity formation for better or worse. They can also mentor current students.

Islamic schools must be guided by an ethos of pluralism and tolerance for multiple expressions of Islam. As evidenced thus far, defining identity for Muslims in America can prove elusive. What it means to be a Muslim is not based on a monolithic articulation of divine will, but rather a universal one. We must resist the pull to be defined by movements or ideologies derived from historical and socially specific circumstances to which we expect our students to conform. Transplanting a specific response to the colonialist threat in Muslim countries is not appropriate in the American context, although these movements’ impact on the formation of Islamic institutions in this country is an important area for further study. Muslim educators must become aware of this influence (of the Islamic movements) in our schools and how it impacts our effectiveness. Islamic schools must foster a healthy God-conscious identity that is compatible with America’s pluralistic culture.

________________________________ Matthew Moes, executive director of the Yusuf Ziya Kavakci Institute, is co-founder of the Good Tree Academy in Richardson, TX. MARCH/APRIL 2010 ISLAMIC HORIZONS 43

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COVER STORY Generally speaking, appropriate and healthy identity development produces a person who is strong enough to act on deeply held beliefs and values while, at the same time, avoiding extremism.

The Development of Identity A person’s identity develops and changes throughout his or her life, from early childhood to advanced old age. While most of these changes are not dramatic, some are transformative. For example, getting married (becoming a husband or a wife) and having children (becoming a

points is Malcolm’s making the hajj, which resulted in his turning away from the Nation of Islam and toward a more orthodox form of Sunni Islam.

One might think that performing the hajj would be associated with more dogmatic and extreme views. But according to D. Clingingsmith, A. I. Khwaja, and M. Kremer in their 2008 paper “Estimating the Impact of the Hajj: Religion and Tolerance in Islam’s Global Gathering,” just the opposite is true. The authors looked at the beliefs and views of a random sample of Pakistani Muslims who made the hajj in 2006 and com-

Islamic beliefs, a weakened attachment to local religious customs, and a sense of unity and equality with others who are ordinarily separated in everyday life by sect, ethnicity, nationality, or gender, but who are brought together during the Hajj. Although the Hajj may help forge a common Islamic identity, there is no evidence that this is defined in opposition to non-Muslims. On the contrary, the notions of equality and harmony appear to extend to adherents of other religions as well. These results contrast sharply with the view that increased Islamic orthodoxy goes hand in hand with extremism.”

HEALTHY IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT PRODUCES A PERSON WHO IS STRONG ENOUGH TO ACT ON DEEPLY HELD BELIEFS AND VALUES WHILE, AT THE SAME TIME, AVOIDING EXTREMISM. mother or a father) are usually occasions for significant re-orderings of the importance of other identities. Religious conversion may also radically transform one’s identity. In “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” for instance, one of the crucial

pared them with a random sample of people who wanted to do so but were not chosen in the government’s travel quota lottery. They concluded: “Our results support the idea that the Hajj helps to integrate the Muslim world, leading to a strengthening of global

EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES College Preparatory School of America 331 W. Madison St., Lombard, IL 60148 630-889-8000 • www.cpsaonline.com 460 Students • PS-Grade 12 • State Recognized Academic Excellence in an Islamic Environment ALL POSITIONS OPEN Seeking Qualified Candidates: ^ Teachers for all grades, with certification or enrolled in a program to obtain certification ^ Curriculum Development with certification ^ Library/Media with experience or certification ^ General Administration with certification ^ Office Personnel Benefits: ^ Competitive salary with good benefits ^ 50% tuition discount for children of full-time employees ^ Health Insurance ^ Competitive Salary Please contact Ms. Farhat Siddiqui for Positions E-mail: principal@cpsaonline.org

44 ISLAMIC HORIZONS MARCH/APRIL 2010

Note that there are several aspects of identity at issue here: first, a “common Islamic identity” that transcends Islamic identities defined by ethnicity, nationality, gender, and “local religious customs”; second, the relationship between Muslim iden-

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tity and attitudes toward “out-groups” (especially non-Muslims). This is most interesting because of the intriguing question it raises about whether other Islamic institutions, such as Islamic schools, might have a similar effect.

Psychologists agree that adolescence, a period defined as lasting approximately from the ages of twelve to eighteen or twenty, is an especially crucial period for identity development. One of the bestknown theories of identity is that of Erik Erikson (1902-94)—a Danish-GermanAmerican developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theory on the social development of human beings—who identified eight stages in the life course, each of which has its own specific challenges and tasks. For the adolescent, the central challenge is to solidify his or her identity. This involves exploring— sometimes in real life, sometimes more in the imagination—different identities, seeing what it is (or would be) like to be a liberal, conservative, doctor, lawyer, engineer, athlete, or chef. It also involves sorting through one’s ideals and values, the individuals one admires, one’s friendships and other relationships, and issues of right and wrong. For many of them, this is a time for confronting their parents’ religious beliefs, political and social attitudes, and life choices and deciding whether one will adopt them, reject them, or choose something in between.

For Erikson and other theorists like him, it is vitally important that adolescents have (and take advantage of) opportunities to explore, question, and challenge. It is equally important that they “come down” somewhere, that they arrive at some conclusions about what they value, what they believe, and what commitments to other people and groups are most important. All of this will change to some degree throughout one’s life; however, it is critical that their identity and sense of self have a solid base that has been achieved through reflection, exploration of alternatives, and making choices. As adolescents mature into adults, accomplishing this solid base is considered a “success.”

What about unsuccessful outcomes?

There are different types of unsuccessful resolutions to the challenges of adolescence, but two are most relevant in this context. The first is identity foreclosure.

This means that rather than arriving at a solid sense of self through exploring different ideas and self-images, forming meaningful relationships, and so on, these adolescents have shut down the process by taking refuge in an identity structure that is rigid, unquestionable, and unable to adapt to new life situations. They might appear to be people with strong, consistent beliefs and a commitment to values and stanISLAMIC HORIZONS 45

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COVER STORY dards—for example, to religious beliefs and values. However, because they have avoided the kind of exploration and making of choices that is integral to successful identity development, their beliefs, ideals, and values are brittle; incapable of responding to life’s changing and variable circumstances; and resistant to growth and learning.

In contrast to the stereotypes often propagated by pundits and some scholars, many Muslim parents feel that girls and women should wear hijab only as the result of a conscious, considered decision to do so and not because of external pressure or out of a desire to “belong.” Indeed, to wear hijab for such reasons would rob it of merit in God’s eyes. Similarly, if teenagers pray five times a day but cannot derive any personal meaning from them, there will be no consequent transformative effect upon them. Instead of discovering the personal desire to engage in prayer, such teenagers are merely being obedient. While obedience is good, its pow-

er to sustain a behavior or a decision is frail when compared with the power of an internalized desire to carry out one’s own beliefs.

Certainly youths must learn Islam’s rules and beliefs, but eventually they must make these beliefs their own if they are going to develop a successful Muslim identity that will carry them through life’s struggles.

Another type of unsuccessful outcome is identity diffusion (or, sometimes, confusion). In a way, it is the opposite of foreclosure, for it results from not making a choice at all. Those adolescents who have a diffuse identity lack the solid and stable sense of self possessed by their well-adjusted peers. One of the most frequently observed characteristics of such individuals is their inauthenticity. Since they have not developed a unique identity or self, they tend to be highly susceptible to external influences, especially charismatic or self-assured others.

As important as adolescence is to identity formation, significant changes in one’s

identity can take place later in life. For example, it is not uncommon to see issues of religion and identity emerge in middle age as part of what is often referred to as the “mid-life crisis.” People seeking meaning in their lives, particularly as the end of life comes closer, may find security in orthodoxy, conformity to rigid rules of behavior, and other outward markers of religious identity. In such cases it is not only the individual who is affected, but also others, including one’s spouse and children.

Religious Identity and Civic Identity Identity is not just psychologically significant; it is also politically significant, especially in contemporary pluralistic societies such as America, Canada, and many European countries. Such societies face a fundamental tension. On the one hand, they are explicitly committed to tolerating and even encouraging ethnic and religious diversity and its accompanying diversity of beliefs,

Serving Tawheed and Turkey Why should parents worry about their children integrating their identity as a Muslim and as an American?

BY SOMMIEH FLOWER

I

n the third week of November 2009, public school children nationwide were cutting out paper turkeys with colorful feathers, writing about what they are thankful for, and dressing up like pilgrims at Plymouth Rock. Outside of class and in society at large, the talk was of Black Friday bargains and food, food, food. Concurrently, at Crescent Academy International in Canton, MI, and Islamic schools nationwide, it was not only November but also the month of Dhul Hijjah. Students were parading through the halls dressed as hajjis and circling a cardboard Ka‘bah while saying “Labbayk, Allahumma, labbayk” (Here I am, my Lord, here I am), the words of a different kind of pilgrim.

How did Crescent bring these two events together so that young Muslim Americans could internalize both into their sense of self, their identity? Along with hajj reenactments and the Eid Gift Shop, this school also participated in the local food drive for the Christmas holiday. The gym served as the collection and distribution point for a month-long interfaith clothing drive that 46 ISLAMIC HORIZONS MARCH/APRIL 2010

brought together twelve different faith communities. The ongoing charity collections for impoverished children worldwide also helped students reflect on just how thankful they are for what they have and for the opportunity to help others. Eid and Thanksgiving, fasting and feasting, sacrifice and reward — American Islam at its best and most integrated.

Our relationship with God is the cornerstone, center, and core of our identity as human beings. That is what it means to be Muslim by God’s definition, one that refers to our consciousness of spirit. That spark of consciousness is what we strive to nurture in our children and ourselves: tawheed, defined as the consciousness of God’s wholeness and unity, that lies at the very center of our existence, with all other relationships stemming from this bedrock of faith. As the well known hadith states: “Every child is born in a natural state of goodness (fitrah).

It is only his/her parents (and society) that later turn him/her into a Jew, a Christian or a Magian” (“Sahih Muslim bi Sharh alNawawi,” Book of Qadr, vol. 16]. Our mission

as parents and educators is to strengthen and nurture our children’s inherent fitrah.

Why should parents worry about their children integrating their identity as a Muslim and as an American? Erik Erikson, a famous child development expert, found that failure to achieve an identity can lead to confusion and despair. Could it be that your children learn to turn against their fitrah at school and adopt a different face to show in public? They may lack the confidence that comes with a truly integrated personality and thus develop an alter ego to present to non-Muslims. Children must “actively explore” ideas and attitudes before they can adopt them as their own. Islamic schools have the potential to provide a safe place for them to question and grapple with challenging spiritual and societal issues.

A child’s personality may be largely determined by the age of five, but the influence of family and society will shape the identity.

A spiritually aware environment nurtures God-consciousness. The public school day may begin with a pledge to God and country, but there is little reality in it. A typical day in

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attitudes, and practices. On the other hand, like all societies they need to promote a common set of values, beliefs, and identifications if they are to survive and flourish.

Some of these values, beliefs, and identifications, however, may conflict with those of particular ethnic, religious, or other types of communities.

People often talk about this dilemma in terms of identity, specifically “civic identity.” Basically, a flourishing, liberal, pluralis-

tic, democratic society like America’s requires that its citizens identify with the society in a deep way—for example, that “being an American” means something and is important to them.

Former Secretary of State Gen. (ret.)

Colin Powell, in his now famous 19 Oct. 2008 “Meet the Press” (NBC News) interview, dared to oppose his own party and asked: “Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer

GOOD USE: Good Tree Academy (Plano, TX) students take pumpkins to their tasty end

an Islamic school usually starts with a supplication (du‘a), and after lunch students pray dhuhr together with their teachers, principal, and support staff. In math, they might be asked to create a formula to determine the number of people who can line up for prayer in a given space and, therefore, how many parking spaces the local zoning laws might require. As a civics project, they might even go speak to their local zoning board. These might seem like small things, but they create a sense of wholeness, continuity, and integration in children.

In an Islamic school, a curriculum organized by themes provides powerful opportunities to integrate learning and contributes in a very positive, comprehensive manner to each child’s identity formation and development.

Crescent’s curriculum is driven by the Tarbiyah Project, a framework for holistic, transdisciplinary, Islamic education developed by Dawud Tauhidi, the school’s director. The school-wide thematic curriculum is based on seven major states of being: “Godwardness,” “Goodness,” “Wiseness,” “Wellness,” “Kindness,” “Faithfulness,” and “Usefulness.” Think PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF GOOD TREE ACADEMY

of these as the essential character traits of a well-rounded human being. Each character trait is then associated with a universal megaconcept and can be connected to anything a student might learn in school or life: “Systems,” “Energy,” “Space,” “Form,” “Motion,” “Time,” and “Function.”

The mega-concept of “Motion” connects to the theme of “Kindness” and how we treat others. Interpersonal literacy is the curriculum highlight, often entitled “human relations.” The instructional component is “Collaboration,” and the goal and outcome is to “develop kindness, cooperation, and better communication skills.” For example, kindergarten students learn how workers such as doctors, supermarket clerks, and mail carriers help the community. Teachers also heighten students’ identities as global citizens by looking at other communities around the world with the Children of Charity projects, which focus on helping children in Gaza and leukemia patients in America. Students experience how being a local American and a global Muslim are one and the same.

While learning how communities work,

is no. That’s not America. Is there something wrong with a seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing he or she could be president? Yet I have heard senior members of my own [Republican] party drop the suggestion that he [Obama] is a Muslim and might have an association with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America.”

It has been argued that this tension is especially acute in America because, to a greater extent than in European countries, “Americanness” is first and foremost a matter of subscribing to certain ideas, rather than an ethnic or national identity that is hundreds or thousands of years old.

For example, in his “American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword” (W.W. Norton & Co., 1997), sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset wrote that in Europe “nationality is related to community, and thus one cannot become un-English or unSwedish. Being an American, however, is

kindergarten students read, write, and research. In both Arabic and English language arts, they learn the names of community helpers, the days and month of the year, and how the helpers affect the community’s activities — again integrating all aspects of the child’s learning and identity. Moral literacy, often called “Noble Character” in our curriculum, is the human component of the “Energy” theme. The students look at cause and effect in human actions. One goal is for them to see that just like forces in nature, everything they do affects their lives in either a positive or negative way, and they must make the right choices. They look at the qualities of a good leader and reflect on their own lives to see how they can be winners and leaders not only in this life, but in the afterlife as well, thereby extending their identity beyond corporeal life and into the afterlife.

As parents and educators, we share the responsibility of raising the next generation to inherit the future, with all of its problems and possibilities. The creativity and dynamism they employ in carrying out their missions will, in large part, reflect the educational opportunities with which we have provided them. The way they carry their fitrah forward will also determine the future of Islam in America. Funding, supporting, and developing Islamic educational institutions that serve the needs of the child’s total development and nurture his/her fitrah is the best way we can help each child grow into an emotionally whole, healthy, and mature adult.

________________________________ Sommieh Flower is the elementary school principal at Crescent Academy International and one of the founders of Al-Ghazaly, a pioneer Islamic school in New Jersey. She has also helped establish several schools in the New York/New Jersey community.

MARCH/APRIL 2010 ISLAMIC HORIZONS 47

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COVER STORY an ideological commitment. It is not a matter of birth. Those who reject American values are un-American.”

This means that individuals and communities, especially those with deep and strong commitments to particular values and worldviews, will sometimes clash with “American” norms and institutions. This is not only, or even primarily, the case with respect to immigrant groups; indeed, most commonly it is Christian groups and denominations (or issue groups affiliated with Christian churches) that come into conflict with American laws and principles. For ex-

ly decided this case in Wisconsin v. Yoder, one of its most famous decisions: requiring the Old Order Amish to send their children to public school beyond that point “would gravely endanger if not destroy the free exercise of their religious beliefs.”

Roman Catholics had an especially difficult time adapting to American norms and being accepted by mainstream American society. Catholic politicians have long been suspected of harboring dual loyalties.

In 1928 Democratic New York governor Al Smith, the first Catholic to be nominated by a major party for president, lost to Her-

on the part of non-Catholics were, no doubt, partly the product of racism (Roman Catholics were overwhelmingly immigrants from places like Ireland, Italy, and the Slavic countries). But they were also driven by the Catholic Church’s overt opposition to fundamental American beliefs and values, an opposition that was not officially moderated until the Second Vatican Council (“Vatican II”) in the 1960s.

The Role of Islamic Schools The question of what role Islamic schools can play in Muslim-American identity de-

IF PARENTS WISH TO INCULCATE “MUSLIM” INTO THEIR CHILD’S IDENTITY, THEY CANNOT EXPECT PUBLIC SCHOOLS TO ASSIST THEM. AT BEST, THESE SCHOOLS WOULD IGNORE THEIR CHILD’S MUSLIM IDENTITY. ample, in the 1970s three families in an Amish community in Wisconsin were convicted in state court for violating the state’s compulsory school attendance law by withdrawing their children from school after the eighth grade. The Supreme Court eventual-

bert Hoover at least in part because of persistent worries that he would “take orders” from the Vatican in governing the country.

More than thirty years later, John F. Kennedy faced the same questions during his presidential campaign. Such worries

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velopment must be considered alongside the question of what role public schools are likely to play in that very same Muslim and American identity development. If parents wish to inculcate “Muslim” into their child’s identity, they cannot expect

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COVER STORY

MCC School (Morton Grove, IL) has a robust mentoring program; Al Biruni Holistic Academy (Pittsburgh, PA); Al-Hamra Academy (Shrewsbury, MA) Robo Trekkers par tic

public schools to assist them. At best, these schools would ignore their child’s Muslim identity; at worst, that identity would come under assault. When considering what Islamic schools can do, therefore, one must also weigh that against what public schools will do.

When Things Go Wrong: Islamic schools have the potential to be the primary centers for learning and educating future leaders, or they can sink into disarray and develop toxic environments. “Bad” schooling can result in a variety of negative outcomes regardless of whether a school is private or public. But

with private religious schools, there are some special problems against which the schools need to guard. If they discourage critical thinking and promote rote learning as the primary way to learn, their students run the risk of becoming particularly dogmatic. This is dangerous for any child’s de-

Islamic Foundation School, Villa Park, IL

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TO APPLY: Send a resume detailing work history and qualifications. All applications will be dealt with in strictest confidence.

Benefits: IFS offers a competitive salary and benefits package commensurate with qualifications and experience.

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Description of Position: This is a challenging position requiring the ability to foster all-round development of teachers, support staff and students through a shared and collaborative process. The Principal is responsible for developing, supervising and maintaining a positive learning environment in a prestigious Islamic institution.

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Qualifications and Education: The candidate should have an advanced degree in education (Type-75 certification preferred), and at least 3-5 years relevant administration/leadership experience and excellent interpersonal and communication skills. A minimum of 5 years of successful teaching experience is required. Experience in data driven decision-making using state and local assessment data and ability to provide a collaborative leadership approach with strong communicative and interpersonal skills. The candidate should be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.

50 ISLAMIC HORIZONS MARCH/APRIL 2010

Ali Ahmed, Islamic Foundation School Committee Chair Email: aliahmed67@gmail.com Phone: 630-935-6797 Additional Information is available at www.islamicfoundationvp.org/school www.islamicfoundation2020.org

(FROM LEFT) PHOTOGRAPHS BY GHAZNA SIDDIQU; AMAT ALSHABANI; AL-HAMRA ACADEMY

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Wanted Principal for Islamic School Austin Peace Academy is a nationally accredited full-time Islamic school (PK-11th) located in Austin, Texas. APA aims to prepare its students for a life of academic success, personal fulfillment, and leadership to the community. For additional information please visit www.apacademy.org

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velopment because dogmatic thinking damages a person’s ability to grapple with new situations and make positive choices.

Furthermore, if Islamic schools do not make an effort to involve their students in the local community in productive and positive ways, they risk becoming isolated and developing a “siege” mentality. A defensive feeling of “us” and “them” can create a toxic environment in which feelings of isolation and alienation from the larger society can flourish. Across religions and cultures, people who feel isolated and alienated are at great risk of harming themselves or others: Virginia Tech, Columbine … the list goes on.

Islamic schools that do not recognize or understand the “immigrant” experience will find it difficult to balance the negative attitudes often engendered through that experience. Schools that do not work to integrate the various naturally occurring identities in their students will do no better than the public schools, for they will also produce students who live segmented or compartmentalized lives. A compartmentalized life allows a person to live with deeply divided behaviors, a situation that is neither psychologically nor spiritually healthy.

Muslim Educator (listserve e-mail, 2009) says: “[I]t sends very mixed signals to our youth to have parents pledge allegiance to the flag to get their ‘citizenship’ or green card and not support the same for their children. It encourages the same ‘schizophrenia’ which is the present global Muslim mindset and is reflected in the observed behavior of too many of our youth, who [say] ‘Abi’ and ‘Ummi’ at home, but in the outer world—in the Mall, on campus, in the ‘hood’ and on the Internet, among other places—have a complete different ‘identity’ (sometimes even another name), and associates.”

ISLAMIC HORIZONS 51

Description of Position APA is actively searching for an educational leader who will promote the success of all students by providing effective management and planning of the school operations. APA Principal formulates staff hiring, evaluation, professional development plans, school policies and procedures in support of APA mission, vision, and beliefs and implements them in a consistent manner.

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COVER STORY

5

Ways to Impact Your Children’s Identity Development

BY KAREN KEYWORTH

CONNECT: Talk to your children and connect positively. Avoid sounding preachy. Be honest and genuine. Use identity-shaping statements like “You are a truthful person” and “You’re part of this family, and we tell the truth. It’s who we are.”

Islamic schools can and do provide “safe” spaces for students. But while parents might enroll children in them to keep them safe from the social ills of American society, sooner or later these children will have to face those situations and make choices for themselves. Therefore, the schools must move beyond being passive refuges and work diligently toward making “safe” spaces active environments in which Muslim adolescents are encouraged and facilitated with their exploration of values and beliefs.

When Things Go Right: Islamic schools have the potential to contribute positively to their students’ lives and American society. In fact, many of them have been doing exactly that for many years now. However, the situation faced by Muslims in America today is worrisome, and the need for Islamic schools to provide a critical buffer against extremism—often exacerbated by isolation, ignorance about Islam, feeling besieged—is increasing. The “2009 Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life” states: “Eight years after the terrorist attacks of

schools can contribute in a meaningful way to the Muslim American struggle to define the shape and expression that this core value will take.

While Islam teaches moderation as a core value, different Muslim cultures express moderation differently, as evidenced by the wide range in clothing designs and colors from the rich fabrics and colors of Indonesia to the ebony black of Saudi Arabia.

Moderation in the home of a wealthy family looks very different in the home of a middle-class family, and so on. Islamic schools can help their students and communities define what moderation means according to the American Muslim yardstick. Muslim Educator (listserve e-mail, 2009) opines: “Some parents feel anything with an Islamic tone is backward and not suitable for this age, even asking where our camel was tied?

Then others would turn their backs on academic stuff and want mullahs. I would like to develop a sense of the ‘golden mean.’”

Providing students a solid knowledge base of Islam, and thus a firmer sense of themselves as Muslims, enables them to be more critical and less persuadable by ex-

INTERACTION: Eman Elementary School (Fishers, IN) students keep close to their teacher

AFFIRM: Make your children feel like God’s unique creations. If God gave them an ability to write, create art, make logical arguments, or deal with algorithms, affirm and recognize that particular gift.

PHOTOGRAPH BY NICOLE RUNYAN

ALLOW: Give your children a sense of their own power by allowing them to handle problems that come along and influence the outcome. Help them build courage.

MODEL: You are your children’s greatest role model. They watch how you live your life and respond to problems, and they learn their own coping skills, values, ideals, and spiritual depth from you.

SHARE: Discuss cultural messages around you. “When Victoria’s Secret features a scantily clad model in its magazine ad, what are they really trying to sell?” Do not shy away from issues — positive or negative — in either Islamic culture or the wider culture.

52 ISLAMIC HORIZONS MARCH/APRIL 2010

9/11, Americans see Muslims as facing more discrimination inside the U.S. than other major religious groups. … In fact, of all the groups asked about, only gays and lesbians are seen as facing more discrimination than Muslims...”

To combat extremism on both the liberal and conservative ends, Islamic schools need to stress moderation, which is a well-established core value in Islam.

Over the centuries, each culture that embraced Islam struggled to define the yardstick with which it would measure and determine moderation. American Islamic

tremism. Islamic schools are well situated to do this. On the whole, there is little “room” for extremist ideas to be born, grow, or be transmitted unnoticed in Islamic schools. First, the faculty and staff are usually comprised of Muslims from many different backgrounds as well as a fair number of non-Muslims. Given this hajj-like mix of customs and traditions, the schools tend to focus on core beliefs and behaviors as a way of cooperating and avoiding conflict. Second, since the faculty is a repository of Islamic knowledge, it would be difficult for extremist views to go unchallenged.

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PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY ANDALUSIA SCHOOL

COVER STORY

FOCUS: Dr. David Steiner, Yonkers (NY) Public Schools superintendent visits Andalusia School

Furthermore, students often have a variety of teachers, and given that students love to play one teacher against another, extremist views espoused by any teacher would quickly come to the attention of the others.

Finally, Islamic schools tend to be small— usually 100 students or less—and, just like in a small town, there are no secrets.

Islamic schools can inculcate not only Islamic values, beliefs, and identity, but also American values, beliefs, and identity. Perhaps even more importantly, they can juxtapose the two in the classroom and in extracurricular activities. The example in the

their peers, and I don’t mean just those they sit next to in class. The idea of being American isn’t just adopting the actions of prior generations but developing new subcultures. The key is knowing our limits. In that regard I encourage and push kids to be 100% assimilated with whatever is safe for us to partake in.”

While it would be foolish to suggest that no graduate of an Islamic school could ever commit a serious crime such as terrorism, it is possible that the factors leading people to commit such crimes are outside the purview of the Islamic school—or

have graduated from public, not Islamic, schools. According to Prof. Marcia Hermansen in the edited book “Progressive Muslims” (Oneworld Publications, 2003), [who is mentioned in the “editorial review”]: “[W]hile one might expect graduates of Islamic schools to have the most problems with the shift to integration in a more diverse environment, the pressures of minority status in public schools seem to have more of a negative impact on some Muslim students.”

Being such a small minority in the public schools creates a situation in which

BEING SUCH A SMALL MINORITY IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS CREATES A SITUATION IN WHICH MUSLIM TEENS CAN EASILY BECOME ISOLATED OR FEEL ALIENATED. companion article by Sommieh Flower, “Serving Tawheed and Turkey,” shows how this can be done while fully upholding Islam’s beliefs and tenets.

Muslim Educator (listserve e-mail, 2009) declares: “Ultimately it doesn’t matter what their parents or I think for that matter. The kids will adopt the culture of 54 ISLAMIC HORIZONS MARCH/APRIL 2010

of any school—and is perhaps more related to psychological or political issues that bring enormous pressures to bear on individuals. We are not banging on the doors of the public schools from which these young men graduated to find out what “radicalized” them. Those who have been accused or found guilty of terrorism in America

Muslim teens can easily become isolated or feel alienated. Although it is not the larger culture’s job to inculcate children with various ethnic or religious identities, it should, however, create an atmosphere of acceptance and respect for other cultures. If hostility toward Muslims and Islam in America continues to rise, we can

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PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF COLLEGE PREPARATORY SCHOOL OF AMERICA

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WELL-EQUIPPED: Offering broad based education, the College Preparatory School of America, Lombard, IL

expect to see that tolerance diminish.

This might increase the need for Islamic schools, particularly those that do an excellent job of integrating the Muslim and American identities.

The “subculture” of “the Muslim under siege” mentioned earlier might have less of an opportunity to develop in Islamic schools because students can identify with the majority and thus do not have to be the “disaffected other.” Additionally, there is often a variety of Muslim backgrounds in any Islamic school, so students can choose who to emulate and which values to adopt. Furthermore, those choices are generally positive and similar to those of the student’s family. Muslim children who attend public schools are almost always a tiny minority, and this complicates their identity struggle.

American Islamic schools have been working for years to address their students’ identity development in general and the relationship between Muslim and American identity. The Tarbiyah Project (www.tarbiyah.org) is perhaps the bestknown framework related to Muslim character education. In addition, several schools have worked to create curricula that facilitate students’ American and Muslim identities. A few notables include Al Fathi Academy in Sterling, VA; the

Universal School in Buffalo, NY; and the Islamic School of Seattle, WA. If space allowed, at least twenty more names could easily be added to this list, because the curriculum development work being done in Islamic schools across the country is impressive. Muslim countries have taken note, and the Islamic Schools’ League of America (www.4islamicschools.org) regularly receives inquiries about American Islamic schools’ character education curricula.

If one listens to the voices of Muslim educators in the schools, one cannot help but be optimistic about Islamic schools in America as both positive and essential change agents in Muslim communities— despite the lack of empirical research on the schools. Muslim Educator (listserve e-mail, 2009) states: “We have to be relevant in this country, and have relevant experiences and role models at school, for our students to actually have a self-actualizing, Muslim identity.” ^

______________________________ Craig Joseph is a visiting lecturer in Northwestern University’s Department of Psychology and an associate member of the University of Chicago’s Department of Comparative Human Development.

Karen Keyworth is the co-founder and director of education at the Islamic Schools League of America (www.4islamicschools.org) as well as the founding principal of the Greater Lansing Islamic School in East Lansing, MI. MARCH/APRIL 2010 ISLAMIC HORIZONS 55

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TRIBUTES

Heart of the Community KHADIJAH RIVERA (1950-2009) iscussing her conversion, Khadijah Rivera, a Puerto Rican exRoman Catholic, wrote: “Reverting to Islam would be complicated by my childhood training that Jesus Christ was my savior and salvation. To pray to anyone but him would be blasphemy. I therefore studied several religions when I left my church and its rigid teachings. But they were all Christian and not much different from the original one. Of course they all believed that the papal aristocracy was nonsense and I praised them for that. But they could not justify Jesus Christ in a sensible nor logical manner.”

On 22 Oct. 1983, this activist who had been going from marches to study groups of dialectical materialism, Maoism, and socialism—and even to China to see the system for herself—embraced Islam. She wrote: “I have become stronger and more resolved to not only raise a family of Muslims, but also to become a da‘iee and spread the good word [of Islam] among Hispanics.

After the tragedy of 9/11, many Muslims removed their veils for fear of assaults. I was destined to die as a Muslim if need be, for my only defense was faith! Alhamdulilah, neither did I remove the veil nor hide. I stood up and went on live television to speak to Hispanics on Telemundo on the noted Cristina Show from Miami. I had become a modest but resonant Muslimah. Rather than roll over, I made an uproar about the injustices done to Muslims.”

Soon after her conversion, she married

D

Khadija Rivera was at the heart of Muslim social activities (with artist Azhar Usman)

an Egyptian Muslim and gradually noticed that many of his co-workers were married to non-Muslim Latinas. Hoping to uplift Hispanic women, in 1988 she founded PIEDAD (Propagacion Islamica para la Educacion de Ala el Divino [having faith and compassion]; (PiedadOnline.com).

The majority of members of this womenled organization, consisting of both Latinas and non-Latinas, are converts. PIEDAD’s leadership has joined the Shura Council of the League of Latino Muslims Organizations and actively participates in local mosques and communities to collaborate, share information, and devise strategies to better all communities. Its five national chapters, with more than 300 members,

now focus on helping converts adapt to living in a sometimes hostile society.

Rivera, involved in some two dozen social causes, encouraged members to become active in their mosques, for that is where “the life and pulse of the Muslim community” is located. During her life, this social activist, community worker, and mother of five taught at a local Tampa Bay school and, after school, helped immigrant Burmese children learn English; worked for three years at the Universal Academy of Florida—the high school was closed so its students could attend her funeral; and was a coordinator of Project Downtown Tampa, a student-initiated project that assists the homeless and needy. Beginning in summer 2009, she worked at CAIR’s Tampa office; two weeks before her demise on 22 Nov., she was a featured speaker at the Seventh Annual Hispanic Muslim Day in Union City, NJ. One friend summed up her life as a perfect example of how to be American and Muslim as well as how Muslims can be a positive social force. Another tribute said that not only did she feed empty stomachs, but she also touched the hearts of the fallen and downtrodden. Regardless of how society saw these people, she treated them with the respect and dignity she believed everyone deserves.

She is survived by her children David Sanchez (39), Andre Rivera (38), Mahmoud Abdel-Mohty (24), Maryam Abdel-Mohty (22), and Aisha Abdel-Mohty (21).

New York’s Abu Hurayrah AINUDDIN SYED HASAN (1929-2009) inuddin Syed Hasan, a cat lover par excellence who personally took care of his forty-five cats, passed away on 15 Nov. 2009 after feeding them and then making wudu’ for ‘asr. When it came to cats, he was like the Companion Abd al-Rahman, to whom the Prophet (salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) had given the nickname Abu Hurayrah, “Father of the Little Cat.”

A

Born in Hyderabad, he migrated to Pakistan after India invaded and occupied his homeland. He earned an M.A. in English literature. His love for Shakespeare and other English poets caused him to move again — this time to the U.K., where he taught English for twenty years. He finished his career as a supervisor at New York’s Administration for Children’s Services.

His personal library in-

56 ISLAMIC HORIZONS MARCH/APRIL 2010

cludes thousands of books, mostly English literature, but also a wide variety of other publications, especially on South Asian Islam and culture. A confirmed book lover, he would sometimes travel to Pakistan just to acquire new ones.

In his later years, Syed Hassan mastered Arabic so he could start relating to the Qur’an on a more personal level. He studied with many

Islamic scholars, including Imam Shuaib Hassan of London, and eventually surprised everyone by memorizing the entire Qur’an. This feat only came to light in 1991, when he would correct the imam leading the tarawih prayers if the latter made a mistake.

His wife Sanjeedah and nine children survive him.

—Excerpted from a memorial

by Syed Ameenuddin Husaini

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Sabbagh (right) attending the dedication of the CMCU at Gergetown (seen with Dr. Esposito)

Widely Sharing Love of Islam IBRAHIM BENJAMIN PEREZ MAHOMAH (1933-2009) Hajji Ibrahim Benjamin Perez Mahomah

Bridged Hearts HASIB SABBAGH (1920-2010)

H

asib Sabbagh, a prominent Christian Palestinian businessman, philanthropist, and the man responsible for creating the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (CMCU) at Georgetown University in 1993, passed away on 12 Jan. 2010.

A son of Tiberius, Palestine, he graduated from the American University of Beirut in 1943 and co-founded the Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC) in Haifa. Following the establishment of Israel, CCC moved its headquarters to Beirut in 1948 and, due to the Lebanese civil war, to Athens in 1977. It is now the largest Arab multinational corporation operating in the Middle East and one of the world’s largest contracting companies, with at least 160,000 employees.

Sabbagh’s greatest hope, passion, and mission was establishing an independent Palestinian state, a cause to which he dedicated his life, energy, and resources. A member of the Palestine National Council and the Palestine Central Council, both of which are committed to peace based on a two-state solution, this leading Palestinian philanthropist contributed generously to a wide range of social service, civic, humanitarian, and educational institutions both in Palestine and around the world.

According to John Esposito, “[Sabbagh], an Arab Christian, had benefited and prospered from his long association and dealings with many Arab Muslim leaders and countries. He now wished to provide something enduring to the Arab

world … As he had lived and done business in a world in which Christians and Muslims worked side by side, so, too, he wanted to counter those forces that contributed to undermining that spirit of cooperation and mutuality.”

In 1993, Sabbagh realized what he often called his second great wish. Under his leadership and vision, a group of Arab Christian and Muslim businessmen who had formed the Fondation pour L’Entente entre Chretiens et Musulmans, Geneva, signed an agreement with Georgetown University to establish the CMCU in order to build bridges of understanding between the Muslim world and the West as well as between Islam and Christianity. CMCU, which focuses on the Muslim world from North Africa to Southeast Asia, as well as Europe and America, continues to pursue these dual missions. The center is now internationally recognized as a leader in the field of Muslim-Christian relations. Sabbagh was a donor to the Carter Center, which was founded in 1982 by former president Jimmy Carter. Carter said in 2005 that Sabbagh was “one of my earliest and strongest allies in pursuing peace in the Middle East.”

Sabbagh, who worked tirelessly as a fundraiser and who made generous contributions, is survived by two sons and a daughter.

passed away peacefully in his sleep on 8 Dec. 2009 after a fight with brain and stomach cancer. He was laid to rest in Livermore, CA. One of the first, if not the first, Hispanic converts to what he thought was Islam in the San Francisco/Bay Area back in the 1950s, he told Deborah Kong of the Associated Press in June 2002 about his conversion. A Puerto Rican, he was nevertheless drawn to the Nation of Islam meeting in 1957 out of curiosity. The only Latino at the meetings of dozens, then hundreds, of African Americans, he reminisced: “Their food was delicious. They were friendly. I liked it there and I stayed.”

Eventually joining mainstream Sunni Islam, he traveled around the country introducing Islam to Hispanic and Native American peoples, especially in the California prison system. The first president of the California Latino Muslim Association, a speaker at various Islamic conventions and conferences, as well as a contributor of several articles to Islamic magazines, he was widely known as Imam Perez.

He leaves his wife of fifty-four years, Cecilia Perez, daughters Diana Perez, Patricia Perez Navarro, and Rachel (Perez) Juarez — his son Benajmin Perez Jr. died in 2004; nine grandchildren: Lina Perez Vega, Leticia Ochoa, Marianna Juarez, Benjamin Perez III, Melinda Perez, Cecilia Navarro, Sophia Perez, Raul Juarez III, and Nicolasa Navarro; and one great-granddaughter.

—Excerpted and copyedited with permission from Prof. John L. Esposito’s tribute, “Hasib Sabbagh: A Man and His Vision,” http://cmcu.georgetown.edu/ events/HasibSabbagh.PDF. MARCH/APRIL 2010 ISLAMIC HORIZONS 57

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BY IMAM MOHAMMED IBN HAGMAGID ^ WITH SAMUEL ROSS

The historian Frederick Jackson Turner once observed of America’s Westward expansion that “each frontier did indeed furnish a new field of opportunity … freshness, and confidence … offering new experiences, calling out new institutions and activities” (“The Frontier in American History” [BiblioBazaar: 2008], 41).

Interestingly, this has also been the experience of our own community, for the majority of North America’s Muslims are immigrants or descendents of immigrants who traveled west to begin new lives and seek out “a new field of opportunity.” Our indigenous African-American Muslim brothers and sisters, descendants of enslaved people, also crossed frontiers, although theirs were largely spiritual rather than physical. All are converts or the descendents of converts. They too share the same courage to experiment, the same “freshness and confidence.”

The result has been one of the world’s most dynamic Muslim communities.

North American Muslims have innovated high-quality print and electronic media, summer camps, deen intensives, online Islamic learning, and organic halal meat distribution. In the cultural arena they have experimented with Muslim-themed comedy, theatre, spoken word, and music.

But our orientation toward the new has often entailed, according to Turner, the “scorn of older society, impatience of its restraints and its ideas, and indifference to its lessons” (Ibid., 41). Thus, what are the consequences of our orientation toward the new for our spiritual lives? Is it a good thing that, as Mark Twain quipped, “[a]n Englishman is a person who does things because they have been done before. An American is a person who does things because they haven’t been done before”?

This tension comes to the fore in Surat al-Fatihah’s final verse, where God teaches us to identify the straight path as “the way of those on whom You have bestowed Your Grace, those whose (portion) is not wrath, and who go not astray” (1:7). Here, God 58 ISLAMIC HORIZONS MARCH/APRIL 2010

Food for the Spirit Surat al-Fatihah / The Opener. Part IX teaches us to identify the path we hope to tread with what was walked before.

As human beings in general, and as Americans in particular, it is tempting to consider our experience as somehow exceptional. However, the soul’s reality and journey to its Maker has not changed, despite the passage of millennia. Our physical journeys, however, have changed. We have moved from walking to domesticating animals to carry us, and, more recently, invented the boats, trains, cars, and airplanes that have so dramatically increased the speed, ease, and experience of our travels.

Indeed God celebrates them, stating, for example, that in the “ships that sail in the ocean … are signs for a people who use their reason” (2:164). But the “technology” of

The soul’s reality and journey to its Maker has not changed, despite the passage of millennia.

Our physical journeys, however, have changed. ______________________________________________________

Imam Mohammed ibn Hagmagid, vice president of ISNA, was educated by his father, an al-Azhar graduate and a leading scholar in Sudan, and other notable scholars, and earned the ijazah (permission to teach) in several disciplines.

Samuel Ross is a student of the Arabic language.

spiritual travel remains fundamentally the same, for we journey to God today just as the prophets and righteous ones before us did: through the unchanged spiritual “technologies” of prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, remembrance of God, service, and reflection.

As Surat al-Fatihah teaches us, we do not have to blaze a new trail to reach our spiritual destination; all we need to do is allow ourselves to be guided to the path still discernable in the footsteps of our Muslim forebears. Let us take their path, then, as our own and strive to benefit from the wisdom of their collective experience. The first question we might ask is who are the ones whose footsteps mark the path? One of the best ways to interpret the Qur’an is by using the Qur’an. In Surat al-Nisa’, God clarifies whom we should intend to follow when we recite “the path of those upon whom You have bestowed Your grace”: “All who obey God and the Messenger are in the company of those upon whom God has bestowed His grace, of the prophets, the saints, the martyrs, and the righteous” (4:69).

Another question we can ask ourselves is how well do we know their path, for how can we ask to be guided to it if we do not know what that path was? If we were asked to give a short biography of the prophets, could we do so? If we were asked to relate the life stories of the ten Companions

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promised Paradise, could we do it? What of the great imams such as Abu Hanifah, alBukhari, and al-Ghazali?

If we cannot, let’s take the time to familiarize ourselves with their stories, for they struggled with the same existential realities that we do. Through familiarity, let’s strive to discern our own struggles in the contours of theirs. The past two decades have seen a growing output of excellent translations of biographical and autobiographical literature—we should seek to make it our own.

Consider the stirring words of al-Ghazali, where his critical mind and spiritual questioning, sometimes mistakenly believed to be uniquely modern phenomena, can be seen at work: “To thirst after a comprehension of things as they really are was my habit and custom from a very early age … Consequently, as I drew near the age of adolescence the bonds of mere authority ceased to hold me and inherited beliefs lost their grip upon me, for I saw that Christian youths always grew up to be Christians, Jewish youths to be Jews, and Muslim youths to be Muslims … My inmost being was moved to discover what [man’s]…original nature really was and what the beliefs derived from the authority of parents and teachers really were,” writes William Montgomery Watt (“The Faith and Practice of al-Ghazali” [London: George Allen and Unwin, 1952], 21).

One common problem we can fall into is to believe that the prophets, the Companions, and the great men and women of God before us did not struggle with themselves and others; were not challenged by the same questions, desires, and temptations that beset us. In so doing, we idealize them to the point that their model can no longer be emulated. Consider al-Ghazali’s candidness in his spiritual autobiography: “I examined my motive in my work of teaching, and realized that it was not a pure desire for the things of God, but that the impulse moving me was the desire for an influential position and public recognition.

I saw for certain that I was on the brink of a crumbling bank of sand and in imminent danger of Hellfire unless I set about to mend my ways” (Ibid., 56).

In their biographies is not just a record of the struggles they faced, but inspiring accounts of the beauty and success they found as well. God says: “All that we relate to you of the stories of the Messengers is to make your heart firm. In them there comes to you the Truth, as well as an exhortation and a message of remembrance to those who believe” (11:120). May God help us to learn more about our spiritual ancestors so that our hearts may be made firm and that we too may receive the Truth. Ameen.

Please send your feedback and questions to: foodforthespirit@isna.net. Visit us at our website, where you can download this and previous columns at: www.isna.net/foodforthespirit.

ISLAMIC HORIZONS 59

WANTED

YOUTH DIRECTOR The Islamic Society of Tulsa The Islamic Society of Tulsa is seeking a full time Youth Director to administrate a youth program and oversee and direct a youth center, its management, and volunteers.

Duties include: > Youth development programming and implementation > Ramadan activities: toddlers – young adult > Weekly: educational, sports and social programs for all youth > Program staffing > Developing and overseeing the annual budget > Coordinating activities with Youth Council and Youth Planning Team Qualifications include: You must be legally eligible to work in the U.S. Bachelor’s degree from an American university. > Thorough knowledge of Qur’an, Sharia, Hadith, and Adab. > Three years experience. > Candidate must be familiar with American teen issues and counseling youth on current issues. > Candidate will report to Youth Council President and will be expected to communicate with the Sheik as needed. >

Qualified candidates can submit their resume to Zia Zahid at ziazah@msn.com

Z AY TUNA COLLEG E

AMERICA’S FIRST MUSLIM COLLEGE IS NOW SEEKING STUDENTS FOR ITS FIRST FRESHMAN CLASS. Will You Be One of Them?

Classes begin Fall 2010

ZAYTUNA C O L L E GE www.ZaytunaCollege.org

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REVIEWS

Short Takes

Simply Islam

I

n his own words, John Esposito has the easiest job in the world, for he has been asked only one question for more than twenty years: Is Islam a violent religion? In his latest book, he once again strives to sweep away the negative stereotypes and provide an accurate account of Islam. While surveying such topics as identity issues for Muslims living in the West, he also highlights the worldviews of modern Muslim thinkers, among them Tariq Ramadan and other Muslim men The Future of Islam and women.

John L. Esposito He challenges the myth of Mus2010. pp. 256. HB. $24.95 lim support for 9/11 by pointing Oxford University Press, USA to polls showing that the vast majority of Muslims disapproved of it and that 358 Muslim World Trade Center employees were among the dead. As a senior consultant for Gallup, Esposito has ready access to the results of numerous polls of and about Muslims. Here, he goes beyond the numbers to showcase what Muslims really stand for and want in today’s world; underlines the unexpected similarities between the Islamic world and the West; and, at times, explains to Americans how we appear to Muslims.

As with his other books, he highlights the crucial point that there is nothing exceptional about Islam.

Bestselling author Karen Armstrong pens a foreword.

Muslims and Their Prophet

S

afi’s portrait of Prophet Muhammad (salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) reveals his centrality in Muslim devotions. This religious biography offers new insights on the spread of Islam, jihad, women, Jerusalem, and cyberspace’s role in Islam’s continuing evolution.

The author discusses who the historical Muhammad was and how Muslims remember him: as a holy prophet, a culMemories of Muhammad: tural revolutionary, a military Why the Prophet Matters leader, or a spiritual mystic. In

By Omid Safi an age of Islamophobic cover2009. pp. 352. HB. $24.99 HarperOne, New York, NY age of Islam and its Prophet, extremist fanatics, and offensive cartoon depictions of Muhammad, a time when Western perceptions of Muslims and Islam are mainly negative, Safi seeks to provide a three-dimensional portrait of Muhammad and the global community that follows him.

He moves from telling Muhammad’s story to talking about how Muslims throughout Islamic history have both honored and contested the Prophet’s legacy.

60 ISLAMIC HORIZONS MARCH/APRIL 2010

Sugar Comes from Arabic: A Beginner’s Guide to Arabic Letters and Words Barbara Whitesides 2009. pp. 136. $20.00. Interlink Pub Group, Northampton, MA

Created as a user-friendly Arabic alphabet-and-culture book for beginners, the author simplifies learning the letters by ordering and then matching them according to the English alphabet. The ample and imaginative use of color also makes this an informative, fun, and useful teaching aid.

Numbers at the Masjid: My First Books of Numbers 2009. HB. $4.50. Compass Books, Mississauga, ON, Canada

This board book, designed for children aged two to five, will delight those who are familiar with mosques, and teach others who are not as familiar, all while they learn how to count. It contains bright and colorful illustrations with finger countable objects, as well as a numbers review on the inside back cover.

The Holy Prophets of Islam Syed Azhar Ali Shah 2010. pp. 185.

PB. Self-published, Sugarland, TX

Shah, an MSA activist from the early era, has drawn on his experience in leading study circles to compile a manageable compendium on Islam’s major and minor prophets, among them Joshua, Enoch, Elijah, and Zacharias. The book especially seeks to inform Muslims living in North America about their true character and the authenticity of their divinely ordained mission.

Latina/o y Musulmán: The Construction of Latina/o Identity among Latina/o Muslims in the United States Hjamil A. Martínez-Vázquez 2010. PB. $10.00 Pickwick Publications , Eugene, OR

Martínez-Vázquez shows how the identity construction of Latinas/os, America’s fastest growing “minoritized” ethnic group, a minority within a minority, is not only interesting in itself but also of interest as regards how they challenge traditional understandings of American Latina/o identity. He explores this process, focusing particularly on how cultural memory is discovered through religious experience and how it becomes the foundation for constructing and understanding American Latina/o identity.

Domestic Violence: Cross Cultural Perspective M. Basheer Ahmed, ed.

2009. pp. 109.

Xlibris, Bloomington, IN

Dr. Ahmed’s collection of writings by both Muslim and non-Muslim experts on domestic violence studies the issue from different cultural and religious orientations and offers ways to help victims and perpetrators.

Christ Jesus: The Son of Mary – A Muslim Perspective Adil Nizamuddin Imran 2010. pp. 253 + App. PB. Book of Signs Foundation

A seven-year labor of love intended to share the Muslim perspective on Jesus (‘alayhi as-salaam) with people of all faiths, the author quotes extensively from the Bible and the Qur’an in an attempt to lay the foundations of understanding and trust between Muslims and Christians, both of whom revere Jesus.

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A Message of Faith

I

MAX movies focus on the natural wonders of the world. And “Journey to Mecca” (www.journeytomeccagiantscreen.com), based on the real-life pilgrimage of Ibn Battuta, a fourteenthcentury Moroccan student of Islamic law, has a sumptuous fare to offer.

The producers, who trained three Muslim cinematographers for this assignment, were allowed to take IMAX cameras into the Haram al-Shareef and shoot aerial footage from Saudi Air Force helicopters.

This is the first time that one can see both inside the mosque and the aerial footage.

The results are so spectacular that some Muslims in the audience were moved to intone “Labbayk.” Perhaps a non-Muslim who witnesses the rituals inside the Great Mosque will take away an unforgettable and touching experience. However, the film may have played better if the modern day comparison was spared in favor of telling Ibn Battuta’s full hajj experience.

“Journey,” far more than yet another cinematographic spectacle, shows how Ibn Battuta’s dedication to fulfilling his mission melts the heart of a brigand chief and was no easy task. In an era when hajjis jet in and

Journey to Mecca. Directed by Emmy Award winning director Bruce Neibaur. In English with some unsubtitled Arabic and Berber. Running Time: 45 minutes. National Geographic, Cosmic Picture and SK Films

jet out, often carrying out the rituals in airconditioned and catered comfort, this epic offers a glimpse of the challenges faced by earlier generations of hajjis. The movie should remind all people that duty knows no frontiers and that those who persevere with pure intentions not only get help, but actually succeed.

The values illuminated by Ibn Battuta’s life—modesty, perseverance, acceptance of others, a love of learning—are eternal.

Undoubtedly the IMAX format (66’x90’ at Washington’s National Museum of Natural History) offers a great spectacle. But

a film that tells a tale that is more about spirit than spectacle should also be viewable on any size screen. Perhaps a regular dimension film will appear, given that IMAX versions are mostly confined to science-related museums.

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SEEKING HUSBAND

SEEKING WIFE

SO360 March/April 2010

BO145 March/April 2010

Muslim professional parents of a beautiful daughter, 26, 1st year resident at a hospital affiliated with a reputable medical institution, seek correspondence from a medical, law, or business graduate.

Respond with photo. Contact: mujarab@gmail.com.

SO417 March/April 2010 Sunni Muslim practicing, Urdu-speaking parents invite correspondence for their very pretty and very fair daughter, slim, 5’4”, 24, dental (DMD) final year student, wears hijab from MD/DMD practicing Muslim. Contact: njma786@yahoo.com.

SO494 March/April 2010 Sunni Muslim parents of daughter, 26, in 2nd year residency, good-looking, religious, non-hijabi looking for professionals of similar background.

E-mail: Salam546@live.com.

SO506 March/April 2010 Correspondence invited from suitable Sunni professionals for charming, slender daughter, 32, engineer, Pakistani origin, living in U.S. for 20 years. Not previously married. Contact: royalmaya1@gmail.com.

SO515 Jan/Feb 2010 Sunni Muslim Indian parents

Matrimonials And of His signs is this; He created for you spouses from yourselves that you might find peace in them, and He ordained between you love and mercy.

Lo, herein indeed are signs for people who reflect.

Sunni Muslim parents seek correspondence for U.S.born/raised, practicing Muslim son, 29, in fellowship from Muslimah, 23-27, medical professional with good religious and family values. Contact: Sunnah786@gmail.com.

BO146 March/April 2010 Sunni Muslim parents seek match for their son, 26, graphic designer, U.S.-born from U.S.-born slim woman with good moral values. Contact: ahmedsn10@gmail.com.

(Qur’an 30:21)

BO147 March/April 2010 seek a practicing Muslim of professional background for their U.S.-citizen/raised daughter, 26, wears hijab, finishing law school. Contact: qwerty_keyb@hotmail.com.

SO516 March/April 2010 Physician parents of Indian origin seek professional from well-educated family for attractive daughter, 24, in 1st year radiology residency at prestigious institution.

Contact: DR.ZSSZN@gmail.com.

SO517 March/April 2010 Sunni Muslim parents of Indian origin invite correspondence for their daughter, U.S. citizen, 26, 5’5”, fair, pretty, wears hijab, currently 1st year

resident. Respond to islamiparent@gmail.com.

SO518 March/April 2009 Hyderabadi Muslim parents invite correspondence for their U.S.-born/raised daughter, beautiful, slim, fair, 26, 5’4”, pharmacist, from U.S.born/raised MD, JDD, DDS, other professionals. Send photo/info to: hilal_hilal58@hotmail.com.

SO519 March/April 2010 Pakistani Sunni Muslim parents based in Saudi Arabia seek matrimonial alliance with professional for their daughter, 27, 5’5”, fair, doctor, in 1st year residency near Houston.

Contact: f5tax@yahoo.com.

Sunni Muslim parents, highly educated family, seeking correspondence for their son, 27, 5’6”, practicing Muslim, Canadian-born/raised, engineering graduate from beautiful, educated, Sunni Muslim woman from a respectable family. Contact: shaadi687@gmail.com.

BO148 March/April 2010 Sunni Muslim, 33, U.S. citizen, Punjabi, Urdu-speaking, divorced, no children, looking for religious, traditional, educated, professional woman. Contact: humsafar09@gmail.com.

BO149 March/April 2010 Sunni Muslim parents of U.S.born son, MD, with Islamic values, seek practicing Muslima, age 22-25. Contact: nissa786m@gmail.com.

FOR MATRIMONIAL ADVERTISING please call 317-839-8157 ext. 248 or 317-204-0187 TO PLACE A MATRIMONIAL ADVERTISEMENT: Write legibly or type your ad on a sheet of paper, in 32 words or less. Enclosing payment of: $125/$CAN150.00 Canadian/US$200.00 Overseas; $1.50 for each word over 32.

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New Title From IIIT THE ASTRONOMICAL CALCULATIONS AND RAMADAN A Fiqhi Discourse

By Zulfiqar Ali Shah This book shatters the myth that naked-eye sighting of the new moon and completing thirty days in the case of weather-related or other obscurities are the only two valid methods of determining the month of Ramadan.

The author explains that certainty, not actual sighting, is the real objective of the Shari’ah and that the Qur’an does not mandate physical sighting. A careful analysis shows that those hadiths that seemingly require sighting actually require certainty. The assertion that all Muslim scholars prohibit the use of astronomical calculations, both in affirming or negating the month of Ramadan, is not correct. As calculation is now more accurate than naked-eye sighting, due to certain astronomical and scientific advancements, the use of calculation is the closest to the real objective of the Shari‘ah and to the spirit of the hadiths.

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