MAY2004 | RABI THANI 1425 | NO.356 by Q-News - The Muslim Magazine

MAY 2004 | RABI THANI 1425 | NO.356 UK£.2.50 | US$5.00 | RM10.00

PRINCE EL-HASSAN BIN TALAL

ONE CIVILISATION, TEN THOUSAND CULTURES ISABEL HILTON

AMERICA’S CLANDESTINE POLICY OF TORTURE FARISH NOOR

THAILAND’S DIRTY WAR H.A. HELLYER FORTRESS EUROPE’S NEW MUSLIM MINORITIES PLUS OUTRAGE IN IRAQ INDIA’S MONSOON ELECTION SUICIDE BOMBERS: MARTYRS OR MURDERERS? EURO 2004: IN THE LAND OF THE MOORS

HONOURING WISDOM

SIR DAWUD NOIBI

EDITORIAL

FROM THE PULPIT When the Greek poet Homer penned The Iliad - his harrowing, epic account of the Trojan War - most of his fellow countrymen probably expected him to produce a testament that made his own people appear good and noble. After all, the war against Troy was a battle to restore stolen honour, returning Helen to her marriage bed and, in the process, demonstrate the moral and military superiority of the united Greek armies. Eager Greek youth must have waited with baited breath to hear the story of their magnificent victory - after ten long years of war - aided by the pagan gods and the strong arm of heroes like Achilles and Odysseus. You can imagine their surprise when the tale did not play out as they hoped. Agamemnon, the king of Mycenae and leader of the Greeks, far from being a wise ruler, is portrayed as a greedy, arrogant and power-hungry man who sends tens of thousands to their deaths for the sake of his own glory. Achilles, the divinely protected hero of the Greeks, fights valiantly at times but is often consumed by rage and allows emotion to get in the way of his honour. Menelaus seeks the return of his wife and honour, but is driven by revenge and seeks to see the walls of Troy razed to the ground with much booty taken to fill his coffers. The enemy king, Priam, on the other hand is portrayed as an aging monarch who has little appetite for war and killing and whose reign has seen Troy prosper. Hector, his son and the Trojan hero, is the champion of his people. Hector is portrayed as civilised and gracious and he acts bravely in defence of his city and defiled in death by his rival Achilles. Homer, although a Greek, is clearly no partisan. His views are honestly and meticulously documented with little care as to who will be offended. Like a good reporter, he offers us a sincere version of the truth for all the read. It is a noble, albeit flawed, effort. Being a Muslim journalist these days is a task worthy of Homer. She struggles between two extremes. On one hand, she faces acute pressure from the Muslim community to ‘serve the cause of Islam’. On the other hand, she is faced with a cut-throat media industry that often tries to make her conform to its shifting agendas - at all costs. Muslims love to hide behind convenient slogans and shallow platitudes (like “Islam is a religion of peace” or “don’t blame Islam for the actions of Muslims”) to make up for their intellectual deficit and lack of direction. At a conference I spoke at recently, I heard one of my favourite Muslims slogans earnestly repeated by community elders: ‘we need more Muslims in journalism’. If the purpose of having more Muslim journalists is so they can somehow swoop into the profession and change the way the industry works, we are being foolish. The media isn’t here to make Muslims, or any group for that matter, look good. The best journalists are here to tell stories and to hold the mirror up to society. Consequently, attempts by Muslim journalists to produce work that is introspective or critical of the community are labelled the work of the “gutter press”. So difficult is this job that many fellow Muslim colleagues have chosen to cut their ties with the community for the sake of being journalists (who happen to be Muslim), committed to a profession, instead of an interest group. When a community systematically attributes its ill-reputation on the ‘media’, as if it is a monolith, which is systemically and inherently Islamophobic, there is a serious problem. Such finger pointing takes away responsibility from us for the state our community is in. An Islamophobic press is less than half the story. Muslims have the right to demand that the media be fair, but we must also be open to scrutiny, even when it is uncomfortable. The Quran tells us, “O you who believe! Uphold justice even against yourselves or your parents and relatives. Whether they are rich or poor, Allah is well able to look after them. Do not follow your own desires and deviate from the truth. If you twist or turn away, Allah is aware of what you do.” Our faith sets high ethical standards for us. It is to these standards that committed Muslim media professionals must aspire. Such a commitment need not come at the expense of honest, hard hitting and well researched journalism that challenges inspires and above all forces us to take a second look at ourselves. May Allah help us tell the truth, whatever the cost. Ameen. FAREENA ALAM

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C O N T E N T S REGULARS

Editor-in-Chief FUAD NAHDI Managing Editor FAREENA ALAM International Editor SIDEK AHMAD Contributing Editors FOZIA BORA ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK NABILA MUNAWAR Art Director AIYSHA MALIK Administration YASSER CHAUDHRY Events Coordinators SABA ZAMAN WAHEED MALIK FEATURING Yahya Birt Gabriel Carlyle Sanjana Deen Samar Fatany Hasna Fateh H A Hellyer Isabel Hilton Safura Houghton Atif Imtiaz Talal Malik Shamim Miah Ahmed Nassef Farish Noor Zero Quensel Faraz Rabbani Richard Stone Ahmad Thomson Ruhul Tarafder Prince El Hassan bin Talal

CLASSIC Q

SCRUTINY

SPECIAL REPORT: EUROPE

CORRESPONDENCE

Head Office Q-NEWS MEDIA LTD P.O.BOX 4295 London,W1A 7YH

www.q-news.com info@q-news.com Printing PARTNERS IN PRINT

The BNP's False Protest. RUHUL TARAFDER. Carey: A Time For Honesty. YAHYA BIRT. India's Monsoon Election. HASNA FATEH.

International Office Q-NEWS MEDIA SDN BHD 173b, Jalan Aminubdin Baki Taban Tun Dr Ismail 60000 Kuala Lumpur Malaysia

Welcome To Sublimity. After another steely round in the delivery room, FUAD NAHDI concludes that Paradise couldn't be anywhere else but under the feet of mothers.

With the expansion of the “Christian Club”, H.A. HELLYER finds out what the future holds for Europe's growing Muslim minority. British Muslims are closely watching the upcoming European elections for political breakthrough. SANJANA DEEN reports. Saudi Arabia cannot afford to appear weak on terrorism, because, argues SAMAR FATANY, Saudis themselves have the most to lose.

REVIEWS assesses Ofsted's latest report on Bangladeshi students. DR RICHARD STONE reviews an important contribution to the debate over the challenges of pluralism. SHAMIM MIAH

WRITE MIND The Al-Muhajirun are the darlings of the tabloid press but some things don't make sense. ATIF IMTIAZ asks the tough questions.

PLUS CONTRIBUTORS 6 SUBSCRIPTIONS 51

| FIQH 49 50 | VOX POPULI 52

REVIEW 46

INVOCATIONS

COVER

FEATURES

15 Euro 2004: In the Land of Oranges and Moors As Europe's finest prepare to battle it out for football glory, few of the millions of spectators will know anything about Portugal’s rich Islamic past.

17 Thailand’s Dirty War

Behind the now torn façade of peace, following weeks of state sponsored violence, Thailand’s embattled Muslims struggle for survival. FARISH NOOR reports

21 Healing Hearts in Africa ZAHRA ZERO QUENSEL reflects on the dignity of the poor and why her heart is drawn to Africa's living Sufi traditions.

22 One Civilisation,Ten Thousand Cultures PRINCE EL-HASSAN BIN TALAL argues that the Quran emphasises learning and peacefulness, respect for human dignity and calls us to truly universal values.

25 Portfolio: Iraq Torture, Assassination, Indefinite Occupation - Is there any end in sight?

“The only matter which concerns me is the future of my people. And what worries me is for how long they will remain displaced and their lands occupied.”

AND Suicide bombers: martyrs or murderers? 42 Q - NEWS

C O N T R I B U T O R S DR FARISH AHMAD NOOR

SAMAR FATANY

IS A MALAYSIAN POLITICAL SCIENTIST AND HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST CURRENTLY WORKING AT THE CENTRE FOR MODERN ORIENT STUDIES, BERLIN.

IS A SENIOR ANNOUNCER AND JOURNALIST IN THE ENGLISH SERVICE AT RADIO JEDDAH, WHERE SHE PREPARES AND PRESENTS CULTURAL, RELIGIOUS AND NEWS PROGRAMS.

PRINCE HASSAN BINTALAL

WAS JORDAN’S CROWN PRINCE FOR OVER THREE DECADES. HE SERVED AS THE LATE KING HUSSEIN’S CLOSEST POLITICAL ADVISOR, CONFIDANT AND DEPUTY.

YAHYA BIRT IS THE COORDINATOR FOR THE MUSLIM WORLDBOOK REVIEW AT THE ISLAMIC FOUNDATION, LEICESTER

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SAFURA HOUGHTON

IS A TEACHER AT ISLAMIA PRIMARY SCHOOL, LONDON AND A NEW MOTHER OF TWIN GIRLS.

ZAHRA ZERO QUENSEL

IS A SWEDISH NAQSHBANDI SUFI. SHE HAS LIVED IN ENGLAND FOR 14 YEARS AND NOW RUNS A CHARITY SHOP IN GLASTONBURY. SHE FOUNDED THE CHARITY HEALING HEARTS.

DR RICHARD STONE

IS CO-CHAIR OF ALIF-ALEPH UK, PRESIDENT OF THE JEWISH COUNCIL FOR RACIAL EQUALITY AND CHAIR OF THE RUNNYMEDE COMMISSION ON BRITISH MUSLIMS AND ISLAMOPHOBIA.

ISABEL HILTON

IS A WORLD-RENOWNED WRITER, JOURNALIST, REPORTER, COMMENTATOR AND BROADCASTER. SHE IS ALSO AN EXPERT IN CHINESE AFFAIRS.

SHAMIM MIAH

HAS A BACKGROUND IN TEACHING, SOCIAL POLICY ANDRESEARCH WORK. HE MANAGES A VOLUNTARY YOUTH GROUP IN OLDHAM.

CLASSIC Q

WELCOME TO SUBLIMINITY A

week later I am still recovering from one of the most fearsome, tasking, and uplifting experiences of my life. Talk about a jihad! There are many things that happen in a delivery room. Some start a long time before. Some end there. All are miracles. Personally, I am convinced that in our modern wimpish world where most of us Muslim men will die (most probably of too high levels of cholesterol) peacefully in bed instead of on a battlefield engaging the enemy in handto-hand combat in defence of faith, honour, and property, the best test of our manhood is to be there during child-birth. It is not for me to sermonise to my gender, but after surviving two bouts now in a delivery room, I feel humbled and, to be honest, a bit perplexed. Nevertheless, the experiences have made one thing clear to me: mothers - whatever their shortcomings - fully deserve whatever special status Islam has given them. Paradise couldn't be anywhere else, except under their feet. The miracle of child-birth is not only in the aroma of pain, dettol, and sweat that pervade the delivery room, but also in being witness to the wonder of creation: there is nothing more mystical, more musical, and more divine than the first screams of a newborn child. The arrival of the baby is one of the many blessings of marriage and family life. But it can be a confusing experience for the new parents. Like in everything else, however, a bit of preparation can be extremely useful. Long before Ilyeh Fuad Salim Abd-allah bin al-Tahir al-Nahdi made her dramatic entrance into dunya on Tuesday, 14 March (13 Shawwal), at around 1.32 a.m., we had decided that hers would be as much of a halal conception as possible. Once a Muslim couple decide that they want to conceive a child, they should remember a prayer of the Prophet, peace be upon him, regarding this. It is narrated by Ibn 'Abbas, may God be pleased be with him, that the blessed Prophet said, "If any-

one of you, when intending to have sexual intercourse with his wife, says, Bismillah, Allahumma jannibna shaitan, wa jannibi shaitan ma razaqtana ("In the Name of God: O God! Protect us from Satan and protect from Satan the child that you grant us") - and if the couple are destined to have a child (out of the encounter) then Satan will never be able to harm that child." (Bukhari 56:397) Another Prophetic recommendation is that at the time of ejaculation it is good to recite the following dua, Allahumma laa taj'al lishaitaana fiima razaaqtanii naseeb ("O God! Let there be no part of Satan in the child you grant us". As many married couples will certify, this is a difficult one. It is reported that the Messenger of God, peace be upon him, said that from the very beginning of pregnancy till a woman gives birth, and as long as she breast-feeds the child, she is like a ghazi (that is, a person our in the Path of God) guarding the borders of Islam. If she dies in this period, then she will get the reward of a shahid (martyr). What the mother (and father) do during pregnancy greatly affect the mental and spiritual qualities of the baby and its behaviour. This is a good time for the parents-tobe to engage in more prayers and increase their performing of all kinds of dhikr (remembering God) and sending greetings

to the Prophet, upon who be blessings and peace. Once born, it is a Sunnah, which we are commanded to follow, to give the call to prayer (adhan) in the right ear of the newborn baby, and the iqamah in the left ear, to remind the child of it primordial nature (fitrah) according to which God has made people, namely Tawhid. The Messenger of God, upon whom be blessings and peace, said, "Every newborn baby has, when born, his fitrah; it is his parents who make of him a Jew, a Christian, or a Zoroastrian." It is recorded that Asma, the daughter of Abu Bakr (may god be pleased with both of them), gave birth to her son Abd'Allah bin azZubair in Qubah, near Medina. She then took the baby to Allah's Messenger, peace be upon him, and placed him in his lap. The blessed Prophet then called for a date, chewed it and placed some of the juice in the baby's mouth, rubbed the baby's palate with the date's soft flesh, and then made a prayer for the child. This ritual is normally referred to as tahneek. Our holy Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, has said, "On the Day of Resurrection you will be called by your names and your father's names, so give yourselves good names." The time when you name your child is called tasmiyah. According to tradition, the child should be named on the seventh day after its birth. This time is usually accompanied by the 'Aqiqah. I could, if course go on. There is a lot to write about on the subject like what we did with the placenta…but that can wait for another day. Now it's time to head home to my daughter and wife. By the way the name Ilyeh is the Hadhramised version of 'Aliyah. It used to be my mother's name. Roughly it translates as "high, lofty, exalted, sublime, of high-standing, or even excellent." And, yes, she is.

FUAD NAHDI Q-News, Vol: 3 No. 52, 24-31 March 1994

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SCRUTINY

A FALSE PROTEST ON JUNE 10TH, MORE VOTERS THAN EVER WILL FIND THE BRITISH NATIONAL PARTY ON THE BALLOT. FUELLED BY THE GROWING DISCONTENT WITH RACE AND IMMIGRATION POLICIES IN MIDDLE ENGLAND, THE BNP IS MOUNTING ITS BIGGEST EVER-ELECTORAL OFFENSIVE. BUT, ARGUES RAHUL TARAFDER, DON’T THINK THE MAINSTREAM POLITICAL PARTIES AREN’T TO BLAME.

n the autumn of 1999, Nick Griffin was elected leader of the BNP and has since been fighting to reform the image of the party. He has attempted to legitimise the BNP by pretending that fascism and race hatred are an acceptable part of the British way of life. In response, instead of challenging these assertions mainstream parties have inflamed the situation by competing with each other to appeal to potential BNP voters by shifting decidedly to the right. The electorate ought to beware. The asylum seeker debate is instructive. Towards the end of the 1990s the Conservatives began adopting tabloid headlines bemoaning the “influx of bogus asylum seekers” and calling for “crackdowns on illegal aliens” as slogans. The Labour government’s response to concerns over immigration was quick to direct the blame. Jack Straw claimed that “the crisis is directly attributed to the flood of asylum seekers now invading Britain.” This was followed by plans of dispersal, vouchers, and detention

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centres all of which have done nothing but increase racial tensions across the UK. This pattern of policy based on tabloid hysteria continues today. In April 2004, Blair’s “Immigration Summit” seemed to be in response to tabloid reports of revelations regarding Home Office policy on immigration applications from Romania and Bulgaria. The BNP makes use of these policy pronouncements to present an image of respectability, quoting government and the media to justify their views. Furthermore the BNP spreads misinformation and taps into local resentments not being addressed adequately by the main political parties. They manage to create a climate in towns where local people were feeling, “well, the main parties have not listened to us for years. Why shouldn’t we listen to those trying to defend us and our culture?” The starting point for the BNP’s current electoral successes, however, was in the aftermath of the 2001 disturbances in the Northern towns. The government both in the immediate aftermath of the riots and in the subsequent reports that followed failed to acknowledge the true extent of racism and hatred towards Asians and Muslims in these towns that had been orchestrated by the BNP. Of course it is too simple to say that racism was the only factor which resulted in the problems of 2001. However, the government’s failure to acknowledge the role racism played has legitimised the views of the racists in the BNP and has made their ideas more acceptable in these areas. They further played into the hands of the BNP by making policies targeting language classes, arranged marriages and promoting loyalty oaths. In the lead up to the elections in June,

the blatant hysteria in tabloid newspapers and radio talk-shows suggesting that all Muslims are potential terrorists and that we are being overrun by refugees, will again be exploited by the far right. In fact the whole asylum debate has been blown so out of proportion that even in our own communities many feel that our position in society is tenuous at best. We forget that minority ethnic communities make up less than 8% of the total population, and that Britain actually accommodates less than 1% of the world’s refugees. Impoverished nations in Africa and Asia actually accommodate the majority of the world’s refugees, not European countries. Of course, the reality of the BNP is not difficult to uncover. They are a fascist party, whose objectives are based on race hatred towards the vulnerable, be they Black, Asian, Muslim, refugees or asylum seekers. The BNP wants an all white Britain with the expulsion of people of other colours and faiths. Its leader has convictions for racial offences and other members have been jailed for bomb attacks as well as vicious racist attacks. In areas where there is support for them, levels of racist attacks multiply hugely. For example in Burnley, where the BNP has 6 seats, such attacks increased by 149% between April 2000 and March 2001. In Tower Hamlets when the BNP won their first seat in 1993 attacks increased locally by 300%. Even though they have attempted to present a different image both nationally and locally, a vote for the BNP is a vote for racism. To suggest it is protest vote is to legitimise support for their views. Anyone who votes for the BNP is condoning racism and it is naïve to think otherwise. !

SCRUTINY

A TIME FOR HONESTY IN HIS LATEST MISSIVE ON ISLAM, LORD CAREY WARNS THAT WITHOUT MORE FORTHRIGHT DIALOGUE BETWEEN CHRISTIANS AND MUSLIMS, THE WORLD WAS

“IN

GREAT PERIL” OF FALLING INTO A

NIGHTMARISH CLASH OF CIVILISATIONS. YAHYA BIRT REPORTS.

t an address, “Islam and the West: The Challenge for the Human Family”, held at the University of Leicester on 12th May, the former Archbishop of Canterbury argued that urgent steps were needed to tackle both rising Islamophobia in the West and antiWest sentiments in the Muslim world that were on the increase, with heightening tensions over Iraq and unilateralist US-Israeli policy over Palestine. Lord Carey reiterated the point made in his Rome speech in March that authoritarianism in Muslim societies had stifled democracy and intellectual development and had encouraged the mistreatment of minorities, but added that he did not believe these problems to be intrinsic to Islam itself. Carey qualified his earlier charge of inadequate Muslim condemnation of terrorism to say that he was directing it at Muslims in the Middle East and not British Muslims. He argued that suicide bombing could never be justified morally, despite deep humiliation, and warned that without clear leadership from moderates, the reputation of Islam was in danger. Yet for Carey the recent abuse of Iraqi prisoners by coalition forces shows that the West does not stand on the moral high ground. Instead, along with honesty, what is needed is humility and an urge to listen to and learn from both parties.

Carey argued that suicide bombing could never be justified morally, despite deep humiliation, and warned that without clear leadership from moderates, the reputation of Islam was in danger.

One prominent Leicester Muslim commented afterwards that Carey had fallen into a trap, common in interfaith dialogue, of making easy moral equivalences without paying true regard to the great inequalities that bedevil Islam-West relations. Idealistic convocations of the great and the good will do little without gritty, realistic and fair diplomacy that empowers ordinary Muslims and allows them to recover lost dignity. Only then will intractable conflicts in the Muslim world, and the terror that they spawn, be healed. Liberals within the Church of England will perhaps see this as a partial climb down on the part of the Evangelical wing, with whom Lord Carey has some sympathies, as the more robust Rome speech, if not as onesided as portrayed in the press, was effectively arguing for an end to the highly diplomatic style of interfaith dialogue that is currently in favour with Lambeth Palace. In its place, it seems that the Evangelical wing

would like to mount robust campaigns against Islamic extremism and the mistreatment of Christian minorities, as was shown by Lord Carey’s visit to Sudan’s beleaguered Christian south in 2000. In short, some evangelicals believe the Church should not hold itself back for fear of fanning the flames of Islamophobia directed against Britain’s already embattled Muslims. But this inconclusive intervention seems unlikely to alter radically the final deliberations of a three-year Muslim-Christian listening group set up to assess the feasibility, role and structure of a proposed Council of Christians and Muslims, which Carey initiated and that has the full Support of the Church’s establishment. The group reports this in the summer of 2004, and if established in an amenable form, the CCM will formalise decades of grassroots interfaith work. Against this backdrop, Lord Carey’s call for “ethical coaction” is likely to be much more practicaQ - NEWS

SCRUTINY

A MONSOON ELECTION THE UNEXPECTED VICTORY OF INDIA’S CONGRESS PARTY IN THE GENERAL ELECTION HAS DEALT A CRUSHING BLOW TO HINDU NATIONALISM. AFTER YEARS OF SIMMERING COMMUNAL TENSIONS, HASNA FATEH ASKS IF MANMOHAN SINGH WILL DELIVER ON THE HOPES OF INDIA’S 140 MILLION MUSLIMS.

any a Muslim would have smiled and said a prayer of thanks upon hearing the Indian election result. Led by the Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born wife of the late Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi, the Indian National Congress emerged victorious after eight years in opposition. The Indian electorate rejected the Hindu-nationalist party, BJP, in an act which like the famous monsoon rains, was a sign of mercy for Indian minorities, particularly the Christian, Buddhist, Sikh, Jewish and Muslim ones. It is an upset which confounded the political analysts with a multitude of reasons being cited for Congress’s triumphant return. No doubt, Congress successfully appealed to support from India’s millions of slum-dwellers and rural poor, benefiting as well from the latent anti-incumbency factor. But it is Sonia Gandhi and her campaign team who can lay just claim to this victory. Gandhi’s decision not to seek the post of Prime Minister, is an unusual move in a country obsessed with political dynasties and cults of personality. As India’s first Roman Catholic party leader, Sonia’s

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aversion to politics is well known, going back to her marriage to Rajiv Gandhi as a student in Cambridge, she continued to voice her regret over her husband’s decision to join politics after his brother’s death. Following her husband’s assassination in May 1991, the reluctant and almost reclusive Gandhi distanced herself from politics and public life, though she had been offered the leadership of the Congress Party. Eventually, she reluctantly assumed the leadership of the Congress party in 1998, but the party’s performance in the 1999 general elections was its worst performance since independence. Earlier that year, she asked a court to grant clemency to a woman who had played a part in the bomb attack which killed her husband. The bomber, Nalini, had appealed for mercy on the grounds that her seven-year-old daughter would be orphaned if she was hanged. The court later commuted Nalini’s death sentence. The leader she defeated, Vajpayee, was often described as the moderate face of the BJP. The Ayodha dispute, in which Hindutva extremists destroyed the destroyed 16th century Babari Mosque, to build their Hindu temple was once the BJP’s key campaign issue. The fanatics believed the mosque, destroyed in 1992, was built over a site marking the birthplace of the Hindu deity, Ram. But the demolition of the Babari Mosque and the massacre of a thousand people, mainly Muslims, in the state of Gujarat were both conducted during his tenure. The Cabinet minister, Murali Manohar Joshi, still faces charges over the Mosque demolition, and Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi’s, administration stands accused of turning a blind eye to the violence. Sonia Gandhi will need to ensure that justice is meted to those responsible for the atrocities. But her vows to help minorities stand her in good stead. In what will be seen as a seminal speech, Sonia Gandhi spoke at the prestigious Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies on 29 November 2002, titled ‘Conflict and Co-existence in Our Age’, following the Gujarat massacres. Though criticized as political propaganda by Arun Jaitley, the General Secretary of the BJP, the speech has succeeded in wooing Muslims back to the Congress party. Citing centuries of India’s tradition of coexistence, Gandhi said the fact that it

was home to the world’s second largest Muslim population of 140 million spoke for itself. More Muslims, she reminded the audience, stayed back in India rather than go to Pakistan at the time of the Partition. She denounced attempts to remove the secularism of India, with a veiled attack on the BJP’s Hindutva, and lauded the virtues of secularism as being essential in guaranteeing the rights of the diverse communities. Her refutation of the link between Islam with terrorism stated that there were any number of terrorist organisations whose members subscribed to other religions was “conveniently forgotten”, clearly referring to the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984 and the Tamil Hindu suicide bomber who killed Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991. The victory of the Congress Party demonstrates how Muslims are capable of participating as a united front in a democracy by voting for an avowedly secular party which guarantees their rights, security and freedom. There is optimism amongst the Indian Muslim community that there will be a renaissance under the Congress tenure. India’s Muslims will now need to expand the scope of their political clout by becoming defenders of the rights

EUROPE

THE NEW EUROPE ON 1 MAY 2004, THE EUROPEAN UNION EXPANDED EASTWARDS. THE ‘CHRISTIAN CLUB’ OF 15 STATES BECAME ONE OF 25 AND WITH IT, MUSLIMS, THE LARGEST NON-CHRISTIAN FAITH COMMUNITY ARE SET TO INCREASE YET AGAIN - IN NUMBER AND INFLUENCE.

slam is already growing faster than religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism (which, in terms of growth, is a close second in some EU states) or Christianity (which has actually decreased, even as a nominal identity, in Europe as a whole). Current estimates see the numbers as at least 11-12 million Muslims. That is larger than the combined populations of Denmark, Finland and Luxembourg, and also considerably larger than the individual populations of Austria, Belgium, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Sweden. The term ‘a Christian club’ might have been appropriate a few centuries ago, but even then it would have only applied to part of the continent. A number of parts of Europe, such as Spain, Sicily, south-eastern Europe, Eastern Europe, and some parts of northern Europe, have a history of significant and lasting Muslim influences,

although not necessarily at the same time. It should also be noted, of course, that some parts of Europe which were once Muslims, or had significant Muslim populations, such as Spain and Sicily, later became completely Christian, while in some other areas, such as south-eastern Europe, Muslim communities continued to survive and thrive. This union of states, neither as loose as the United Nations, or as amalgamated as the United States, is already searching for its ‘soul’, as a project of the Forward Studies Section of the European Commission has put it. Discussions on the future of the EU, whilst often detached from the grassroots, are now under way. Clearly, it is no longer possible to state simply that the ‘typical European’ is white and Christian; indeed, many indigenous white Europeans are not Christian. Many have abandoned Christianity, whilst Europe’s Q - NEWS

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Jewish population is long established, as, indeed, are many of Europe’s Muslim communities. Quite apart from the descendants of Muslim immigrants to Europe, who remain the majority of Muslim communities in northern and Western Europe, the process of conversion to Islam is a reality in much of Europe, including existing member states of the EU. These ‘new Muslims’ share the ethnic origin and culture of the indigenous populations and have already made their mark. As strong members of their own local part of the European section of the Muslim ummah, they are acting as bridges between the nonMuslim majority and Muslim communities in those countries. n May 1, however, the newly-expanded Europe will include many more members of a different group of Muslims, those who are Muslims not only by birth, but also by heritage, going back, in many cases, for many centuries. Thus the entry of Cyprus alone will bring with it an indigenous Muslim population of some 200,000 (although de facto, most of them will likely remain outside the EU, they will have automatic EU citizenship provided they use their Cypriot passports). The Tatars in Poland, Lithuania & Estonia have been components of those societies since before the emergence of the Russian state. There are Azeris in Estonia, Turkic populations in Hungary & Slovakia, Bosnians in Slovenia, Roma & Pomaks. These, all Muslims, have all lived in Europe for many generations - and are, in historical terms, integral components of the countries in which they live today. Obviously in many of these states, there are also recent migrants, their descendants & converts. But whilst in most Western European countries, Islam and Muslims are viewed as something ‘new’ and ‘novel’ in their midst (historically a fallacy), the situation is quite different in many of these acceding states. Once in the EU, they will likely become a part of the debate on the future of Europe, which is much contested at the moment. Discrimination on the basis of ‘religious identity’ remains a reality in the EU, for all its recent history with religious minorities in Nazi Germany and elsewhere. A secularly-defined EU with a predominantly Christian population is finding it difficult to come to terms with a spiritually-defined minority population that insists on its adherence to certain norms of behaviour; as shown by the recent developments in France vis-à-vis the head-scarf. However, whilst not exhaustive, or comprehensive, particularly when compared to similar mechanisms relating to racial discrimination, there are nonetheless legislative tools that do exist on a Europewide level designed to deal with discrimination against Muslims, or, for that matter, against other religious communities. The European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms signed in 1950 protects the freedom of religion and religious belief, as does Article 13 of the European Communities Treaty that states: “Without prejudice to the other provisions of this Treaty and within the limits of the powers conferred upon it by the Community, the Council, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission and after consulting the European Parliament, may take appropriate action to combat discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation.” Unfortunately, despite the wishes of the European Parliament, this Article does not provide for direct effect, meaning states are not obliged to create legislation in their own states to ensure that it is followed. However, it does provide a basis for action when states want to take it. Furthermore, the EU’s highest decision making body, the European Council, in 2000 adopted the European Commission’s

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directives on discrimination in employment. This directive, which does prohibit religious discrimination, is directly applicable and demands explicit action at the national level. These are some of the tools available, but whilst legal measures are sometimes necessary to restrain certain sections of societies, they cannot be substitutes for actual feelings on the ground. In many EU countries, prejudice, ignorance and ill-will towards Muslims and Islam persist. Whether or not this increased after September 11th and the invasion of Iraq is debatable, but it certainly became more noticed and more reported. For many Muslim communities, such legislative protection is not only advisable, but also necessary. The Muslim community will merely see any talk of positive integration on a fair footing as negative assimilation until such time as Islam and their commitment to it are taken seriously and considered with respect. here is, therefore, significant resistance from many quarters to seeing Muslims and Islam as something ‘European’. The trends are changing, though; no longer are the phrases ‘Islam and Europe’ as common as they used to be. Now, the phrases ‘Islam in Europe’ or ‘European Islam’ are being used, reflecting a shift of some kind. Muslims and Islam are being seen as something in Europe that cannot, and will not, leave. They are here to stay - an integral part of Europe’s mosaic of populations and beliefs. The terms of their integration have not been laid down, however. Many issues remain unresolved, the issue of wearing a headscarf being the most recent, and not simply limited to France, but to other EU states, such as Germany and the Netherlands. In this context, the incorporation into the newly-expanded Europe of new Muslim communities can be seen in a cautious, but optimistic, light, for they add to the impetus of the need to come to imaginative, lasting answers to the quandaries that face the community today. These communities have been European and integrated within their societies for, in some cases, centuries. Perhaps they have some understanding that other parts of the European Muslim community may lack, owing to their longer existence on this continent? There are then a few questions to pose to this new EU, which finds itself incorporating yet more Muslims and yet more nationalities. Will European society as a whole move down a path of inclusivity and appreciation of diversity? Or will the construction of what it means to be ‘European’ exclude the hijab wearing Muslim woman, or the bearded Muslim man? Will it be a narrow Europe, defined by an elite which seeks to limit the definition and exclude millions of EU citizens, or will it be a pluralistic Europe, based on respect and broad-mindedness? And, for the Muslims of Europe, there are other questions and challenges. Will they, for example, create links between themselves, across the nation-state divide, to meet common problems, and forge links with other groups in civil society to do the same? The answers to these questions are uncertain. But, as one commentator has already noted, if Europe continues to look for its ‘soul’ with some degree of sincerity, it will undoubtedly find that the ‘soul’ has Muslim components. And, certainly, if the Muslims choose to opt for active participation and engagement (i.e. integration) as Muslims in the expanded Europe, they will find that their heritage will provide them with access to important resources to assist them and not only in their own selfimprovement, but to their wider community at a national level, and in the expanded EU as well. !

H.A. HELLYER is an Economic and Social Research Council doctoral researcher at the Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations, University of Warwick. His research interests relate to multiculturalism, minorities and different concepts of jurisprudence.

EUROPE

BATTLE FOR BRUSSELS WHILE THE ELECTIONS FOR THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT HAVE YET TO IGNITE THE IMAGINATION OF THE ELECTORATE, BRITISH MUSLIMS HAVE BEEN QUIETLY WORKING TO MAKE THEIR VOICES HEARD. AS MUSLIM NAMES APPEAR ON CANDIDATE LISTS, SANJANA DEEN REPORTS, DISCONTENT OVER THE WAR IN IRAQ, HAS GIVEN A NEW URGENCY TO THE COMMUNITY’S POLITICAL ASPIRATIONS. uslim candidates are standing for parties across the political spectrum with a divergent range of aims, an affirmation that the Muslim community cannot simply be politically pigeon holed. In true blue fashion, Syed Kamall, a university lecturer who stands in fourth place to win the MEP seat in London for the Conservatives, is anti-Euro and feels Britain should “resist” a European identity imposed by Brussels. He also stresses that ethnic minorities should not see ethnicity as a barrier to advancement, particularly in politics where they have made little progress. “We’re lucky that Britain is such an open and accepting society,” says Kamall, “by standing as an MEP candidate, I want to show that people from different ethnicities can make a breakthrough in British politics.” Possible breakthroughs in gender representation could also hap-

pen as more female candidates fill the electoral lists. One such candidate is Rupa Huq, Lecturer at Manchester University, who is standing for Labour in the North West region. She is, however, listed eight out of ten candidates, so her chances of winning are slim. It seems the Liberal Democrats have caught the same wind as Labour, with Nahid Boethe standing seventh in the East England list. “My main area of interest is in human rights. To stand for the elections is a chance to make a difference, particularly as women are underrepresented,” says Boethe. In fact, if either Huq or Boethe are successful, they will be the first female British Muslim MEPs. Beothe is one of four Muslims on the Lib Dem candidacy list, but all eyes are on Sajjad Karim, a 33-year old solicitor from Lancashire. Karim currently stands second to existing Lib Dem MEP Chris Davies in the North Western region, and it is hoped that he will become their first MEP from an ethnic minority. “There Q - NEWS

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EUROPE

really ought to be about 24 Muslim MEPs in proportion to the number of Muslims,” says Karim. “It’s not even a question of under-representation, but no representation at all.” Whilst there are around 160,000 Muslim voters in the North West, Karim stresses that his support base is made up of many members of his community who are not from an ethnic minority. He adds that his religion and culture are bonuses to his candidacy, but first and foremost, he is standing as a Liberal Democrat. Interestingly, there are claims that the Liberal Democrats are the only major party to have selected a Muslim (Sajjad Karim) for a winning seat. However, the same cannot be said of the others, with Qassim Afzal in fourth place in the North West, Zulfiqar Ali in sixth place in Yorkshire and Humberside as well as Boethe, who all have slight chances of victory. Besides, the Tories were the first party to have elected a Muslim MEP in 1999 by the name of Bashir Khanbhai. When the MEP, who had a promising chance of re-election, was accused of fraud, the Tories deselected Khanbhai after claiming expenses of around £7,000 for travel from Heathrow to an unlisted address in Wroxham, rather than to his home in Kent. He has apologised and repaid the expenses, though belated attempts at making amends were insufficient to save his political neck. One wonders why his interest in “attacking fraud and mismanagement in Brussels” was not extended closer to home. Just after Dr Huq, Ebrahim Adia is in ninth place in the North West, and looks to be Labour’s most ‘hopeful’ Muslim candidate. There could be a range of reasons as to why Labour does not have many prospective Muslim MEPs, However, Dr Adia, a lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire defended his party. In a statement made on the USDAW Union’s website promoting a joint leaflet by the Labour, MCB and the Coalition Against Racism, Adia says, “I know from my own campaigning work that many of the Muslim community feel that the Labour Government is antiIslamic because of the war in Iraq. We want to point out all that Labour has done for Muslims over the past few years.” However, worries concerning the BNP gaining seats have possibly encouraged all the larger parties to select their candidates with caution. Since the European Parliamentary elections have proportional representation, the chances of smaller parties gaining seats are higher than in borough elections. With the inclusion of ten new member states, the number of European seats allocated to the UK has dropped from 87 to 78. The increase in Islamophobia since 9/11 has heightened popularity for the BNP. However, George Galloway’s Respect Coalition has chosen a bold rather than cautionary approach. There are many Muslims on the Respect platform, such as Dr Mohammed Naseem of Birmingham Central Mosque who is fourth place in the West Midlands and Anas Altikriti, formerly the President of the Muslim Association of Britain who is the leading candidate for Yorkshire and Humberside. This is hardly astonishing, given that the party has drawn much support from the Stop the War Coalition. Perhaps

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the most prominent member is Respect’s lead candidate for the North East, Yvonne Ridley. “I get disgusted by those hypocritical community leaders who, when Muslims are unjustly arrested, should be kicking down doors and not collaborating with the police who are doing some horrendous things,” says Ridley. “I say to them, don’t fear the police, don’t fear the authorities, fear Allah. The Muslim community can not be so gutless, it has to wake up and be vigilant.” Question remains a conflict exists between a Muslim identity and embracing the EU. Tariq Ramadan, eminent Islamic thinker and a lecturer at the University of Geneva, has spent the last fifteen years showing that there is no contradiction between being a Muslim and a European. “If we go back to our sources, we will see that there are some universal principles applicable to all, such as faith, practice and spirituality, understanding the relationship between our scriptures and our environment, educating and transmitting knowledge, and participation on an individual level and with society as a whole. There is no valid reason why a particular culture should be in conflict with having a Muslim identity.” Ramadan emphasises the need to speak one language, in the Mosque and the same outside, contributing to society in a positive way: “For example in how we explain our values and through consistency in our daily lives, in the social field, the medical field, the cultural field, even in the consumer field.” With regard to the political arena, Dr Ramadan agrees that it’s time for Muslims to be more vocal and not just delegate responsibility to Islamic scholars and intellectuals. He stresses, “It’s totally within our principles to participate. We can be very critical about the American presence in Iraq, but we also have to say that the bombings in Europe are totally un-Islamic, they have nothing to do with our values. Yet we have to avoid always being on the defensive, so people only ask us about this radical imam or that specific policy in Nigeria or Saudi Arabia. It’s important that we do not enter the political arena with ‘I am a Muslim and I’m going to advocate Muslim interests.’ Our interests are our principles and I think we ought to let people know that if we are involved in politics, we have to take society as a whole. This is where it’s important to avoid having a minority obsession, and instead protect and promote universal values against all kinds of racism.” Ramadan is critical of European governments who, taking advantage of the heightened fear of terrorism, are saying, “don’t worry we’ll protect you by monitoring you. So it’s important to make people around us understand that, not only Muslims but all European citizens are going to be affected by these policies, particularly where they are losing their civic freedoms.” Left, right, centre - Muslims are battling from all fronts to enter the parliament in Brussels. Like everyone else, their policies and principles are coloured by their political affiliations and not simply by their adherence to the same faith. A new European voice is being articulated. It’s dissonance should not overshadow its potential vibrancy. !

LEGACY

LAND OF

ORANGES AND MOORS

STARTING ON

2004. BUT

12 JUNE, THE

EYES OF THE WORLD WILL BE ON PORTUGAL AS IT HOSTS THE EURO

FEW OF THE TENS OF THOUSANDS OF FOOTBALL FANS WHO WILL MARCH TO WEST

IBERIA AND THE MILLIONS MORE WHO WILL WATCH EUROPE'S MODERN GLADIATORS BATTLE IT OUT ON TELEVISION WILL HAVE ANY IDEA ABOUT THE COUNTRY'S RICH ISLAMIC PAST. isitors to Lisbon always end up in the Alfama district, the heart of historic Portugal. Here even the football tourists will notice that they are walking through the "Arab part of the capital" whose outline has remained unchanged since the Moors built it. But few - including Luis Figo and David Beckham - will know that the Muslims had once called Lisbon - Lishbuna - home. In Spain, most of the country's inhabitants and a good number of its visitors are at least passingly familiar with its Muslim Arab heritage. It is less well known that Portugal, too, was at one time part of alAndalus, Moorish Spain. Cordoba was the capital of al-Andalus; its counterpart in southern Portugal was Silves. The influence is, of course, all-pervasive - in the language, architecture and especially in what once made Portugal a super-power: navigation. Without the lateen sail and the astrolabe, introduced by the Arab Muslims, Portugal would not have embarked into its so-called "Age of Discovery". Alfama, bustling beneath its hilltop Arab castle, is today a testimony to the brilliant Muslim legacy of convivencia- peaceful cohabitation-of learning, innovation and culture that shaped the European Renaissance. Though it was founded by the Phoenicians and later embellished by Romans and Visigoths, the Arab Muslims gave it its name, which comes from al-hammah, "hot spring." Amid narrow, cobbled streets that follow the Arab platting, and among the complexity of close-quartered whitewashed houses, the aura of the longgone Muslim city still lingers. Climbing plants and stone vases still sprout flowers in courtyards, and appear to have more in common with North Africa than Europe. It was in 711, soon after the first Arab crossing of the Strait of Gibraltar, that the Iberian Peninsula came under Arab rule. In the western portion of the peninsula, this rule continued until the end of the tenth century, when the northern provinces of what is today Portugal fell to Bermudo II, Christian king of Le贸n, who called the newly acquired lands Portucalia. Over the next 250 years, the Christian reconquista continued to

push the Muslims south. In 1139, emboldened by a brilliant victory over the Muslims at Ourique, Afonso Henriques declared himself independent of the rule of Castile and declared Portugal independent under his own crown. From that date, Portugal began to develop a national identity distinct from that of the Galicians, L茅onese, Catalonians, Castilians and others in the Iberian realms, which later united to become the nation of Spain. In the mid-thirteenth century, Afonso III conquered Faro, the last stronghold of the Muslims and the contemporary capital of Algarve, the southernmost province of the country. With its fall, five centuries of Muslim rule in Portugal ended. But the Muslim legacy enriched and shaped Portugal indelibly. The Muslim introduction of new agricultural technology, and the Muslims' plain hard work, made Muslim Portugal prosper. To this day, the common Portuguese verb mourejar means "to work like a Moor," and it implies unusual diligence and tenacity. The Muslims introduced and expanded groves and fields, some of which dated from Roman times, of almonds, apricots, carobs, figs, lemons, olives, oranges, pomegranates, rice, palms, sugar, spices and numerous vegetables. Today, many of the orchard and garden products that grace the tables of Portugal carry modified Arabic names. Throughout alAndalus, Muslim agriculture thrived with the construction of irrigation systems, parts of which are still in use today. Sometimes built on Roman foundations, this watering network was made more useful still by the introduction from Muslim lands of the windmill, the watermill (Portuguese azenha, from the Arabic al-saniyah), and the water wheel (Portuguese nora, from the Arabic na'urah). These innovations may have been the greatest gifts the Muslims gave to Spain and Portugal, for thanks to them Iberian fields were for centuries better developed than those in the rest of Europe. The twelfth-century Moroccan geographer al-Idrisi described Algarve as a land of beautiful cities surrounded by irrigated gardens and orchards. After 1249, although their western Iberian kingdoms were no Q - NEWS

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LEGACY

A LEGACY IN LANGUAGE Portuguese is saturated with more than a thousand words of Arabic origin-more even than Spanish. Some are easy to spot: Portuguese words beginning with "al-" are almost all the result of assimilation of the Arabic prefix that means "the". Similarly, Portuguese place names beginning with "Ode-" or "Odi-", such as Odeleite, Odelouca and Odiáxere, all stem from the Arabic wadi, meaning valley. This list, however, concentrates on words that, for the most part, are legacies to both Portuguese and Spanish, and in some cases to English as well. Note, though, that some of the meanings have shifted!

FOODS ARABIC

ENGLISH

PORTUGUESE

al-karawiyah al-badhinjan al-zanjabil al-laymun al-zayt al-zaytun al-naranj al-rumman al-aruzz al-za'faran al-sukkar

caraway eggplant ginger lime oil olive orange pomegranate rice saffron sugar

alcaravia beringela gengibre limáo azeite azeitona laranja romã arroz açafrão açúcar

OTHER WORDS ARABIC ENGLISH

PORTUGUESE

amir al-bar al-kimiya' al-jabr al-manakh 'anbar al-samt al-zanqah al-misk al-jayb ta'rifah sifr

almirante alquimia álgebra almanaque âmbar azimute azinhaga almuscar algibeira tarifa cifra

admiral alchemy algebra almanac amber azimuth lane musk pocket tariff zero

PLACE NAMES ARABIC ARABIC ROOT MEANING Albufeira Alcantarilha Alcaria Aldeia Alfambras Alferce Almadena Almansil Almodôvar Alvor Salema Odemira

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al-buhayrah al-qantarah al-qariyah al-day'ah al-hamra' al-fa's al-madinah al-manzil al-mudawwar al-barr salam wadi al-amirah

the lake the bridge the village the small village the red the pickaxe the city the house the round the port, the dry land peace valley of the princess

more, Muslims continued to live in the Christian-ruled kingdoms, working the land, constructing and decorating homes, villas and palaces. The 1492 expulsion of Muslims from Spain led to a similar expulsion from Portugal in 1497, but even after this, the cultural legacy lived on. The early-sixteenth-century court of Manuel I, for example, the ruler who patronised the first Portuguese voyages to India around the Horn of Africa, featured Muslim clothing, Muslim dances and music, and Muslim-style harnesses for horses. One Muslim decorative tradition that has endured to become part of modern Portuguese identity is the love of vivacious ornamental tiles, called azulejos - coming from Arabic al-zulayj or "polished stone." On the walls of homes, churches, country mansions, train stations and countless other structures, these colourful, often geometrically patterned tiles seem to bring out the beauty of every building they adorn. Tiled walls in every city and village harmonise with Portugal's baroque and Manueline architecture - the latter developed largely by Francisco Arruda, an admirer of Muslim artistry and one of Portugal's finest architects in the period after the Age of Discovery. Outside Lisbon, intricately patterned tiles on the walls and floors of the National Palace and the Peña Castle in Sintra, the Church of Nossa Senhora do Pópulo in Caldas da Rainha, the Church of the Misericórdia in Vila do Conde and many other structures throughout the country incorporate a fine selection of Muslim and Musliminspired tile work. The colours, aromas and flavours of the Portuguese kitchen are another important inheritance from the Muslims. In the days of alAndalus, basic meats included lamb, goat, some beef and much seafood. Many of the Portuguese names for fish - such as atum (tuna, from Arabic al-tun), sável (shad, from shabal) and even almêijoa (clams, from al-majjah ) - attest to the origins of Portugal's seafood habit. The Muslim sweet tooth was passed on, too, as Portugal's candied fruits and its many pastries made of almonds, egg yolks, honey and rose water demonstrate. Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre noted in his book The Masters and the Slaves (1933) that old Portuguese cookbooks are filled with Muslim recipes often simply called "Moorish lamb," "Moorish sausage," "Moorish hen," "Moorish fish," "Moorish broth" and so on. Besides the fields, the tiles, the kitchens, the Muslim architecture of castles, gates and city walls and the audibly Arabic names of towns and geographical features, there is the less definable but very persuasive Muslim look and feel of Portugal's landscape, especially in Algarve, to remind the visitor of this important part of the country's history. The sparkling white houses with red terracotta roofs, set in lush orchards, the courtyard patios drowsing in their flowery shade, and the fretted chimneys unique to southern Portugal - all these are evidence of a kind. Loulé, parts of whose twelfth-century ramparts remain, is a city whose houses are adorned with attractive terraces and colourful minaret-like chimneys, situated in one of the loveliest parts of Algarve. Likewise, the older sections of Olhão and Tavira, with their narrow streets, kasbah-style town architecture and, again, the "Moorish" chimneys, also appear more North African than European. And crowning all these towns is Silves, known as Shalb when it was the Muslim capital of Algarve, vying with Cordoba to be the intellectual centre of the western Islamic world. The mystic Ibn Qasi, the poet-king of Seville, al-Mu'tamid, and the poet Ibn 'Ammar were all born in Shalb. Devastated in the reconquista, the city never again reached its former size or glory, and today it is a modest place whose economy relies heavily on tourism. Only the Muslim castle, the Alcazaba (from al-qasabah, the fortress), the nearby cathedral (which retains vestiges of the mosque it was built on) and a gate in the Muslim city walls remain. !

FEATURE

THAILAND’S

DIRTY WAR THE KILLING OF MORE THAN A HUNDRED YOUNG MUSLIMS BY THAI SECURITY FORCES IN APRIL SENT SHOCKWAVES ACROSS THE REGION. WHILE OFFICIALS TRY TO MEND THE TORN FAÇADE OF PEACE IN THE COUNTRY, IT IS CLEAR, WRITES FARISH NOOR, THAT THINGS ARE FAR FROM NORMAL IN THE EMBATTLED SOUTHERN PROVINCES .

hus far the international community has been relatively quiet about the killings and violence in Southern Thailand. The Thai government - now designated as a major non-NATO ally in the so-called ‘War Against Terror’ by the Bush administration - knows very well that it can literally get away with murder under the present climate of fear and anxiety in the region. The Thais simply have to look to their distant neighbours in Pakistan to see that any government that rides along on the ‘anti-terror’ bandwagon can get away with practically anything. President Musharraf’s dealing with the so-called ‘terror’ supporters and sympathisers in the tribal region of Waziristan in the northern tribal belt has set a precedent for many other Asian leaders to follow. Now Thailand’s Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra (who has declared his intention to be the new ‘Mahathir of ASEAN’) is simply following the model set by other pro-American leaders like Musharraf of Pakistan, Megawati of Indonesia and Aroyyo of the Philippines.

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FEATURE

DIRTY, CONVOLUTED HISTORY

But Thailand’s troubles in the Southern provinces go back to its own past and the imperial legacy of the Thai kingdom. Though Thailand was and remains a predominantly Buddhist country, it should be remembered that the people of Thailand are culturally diverse and that the Thai community happens to be just one of many ethnic groups in present-day Thailand. In the south, the population has always been predominantly Malay and history will show that the Malays of the South have had a history and identity of their own. The Malays of Southern Thailand are concentrated in the provinces of Patani, Yala, Satun and Narathiwat. These provinces were all part of what was known as Patani Raya (Greater Patani), which covered the domain of the earlier Sultanate of Patani, which was itself derived from the ancient kingdom of Langkasuka (mentioned in the Chinese texts as Lang-Ya-Hsiu). Since the 18th century, successive Thai rulers have sought to subjugate these Malay states and bring them within the domain of the Siamese empire. In 1901 the Thai ruler King Chulalongkorn broke the peace treaty with the Malay states and launched a military campaign against them. His centralisation programme (thesaphiban) regrouped the seven provinces of Patani under one unit called the Boriween chet huamuang (Area of the Seven Provinces). Siamese administrators were appointed by the King to rule the Malay provinces directly from the royal capital of Krungtheep (Bangkok). In 1906 the seven Malay provinces were brought closer together under a single administrative unit called Monthon Patani. It was only in 1909 that the Malay kingdoms of Kelantan, Trengganu, Kedah and Perlis were taken over by the British colonial power with the signing of the Anglo-Siamese treaty. Despite the division created by the Anglo-Siamese treaty, the Malay kingdoms of Patani were similar to their mainland counterparts in every respect: Patani society was Islamic and Malay in character. They shared the same language, political culture, social structures, customs and values. Cross-border contact between the kingdoms remained high, despite various attempts by the British and Siamese to police the boundary between them. It should not come as a surprise to anyone that the Malays of Greater Patani resented having to live under the yoke of Thai imperial dominance. Soon enough the Malays of Southern Thailand rose in revolt: Patani resistance to Siamese hegemony began almost as soon as Bangkok tried to re-establish its grip on the Malay kingdoms. In 1903 the Patani Malay aristocrat Tengku Abdul Kadir Qamaruddin revolted against Bangkok. He was defeated and imprisoned for nearly three years as a result. As soon as he was released he planned another insurrection against Siamese rule. The Patani Malays were angry with Bangkok for trying to impose Thai laws on them and Bangkok’s refusal to recognise traditional Malay and Islamic laws in the region. After another failed revolt in 1915, Tengku Abdul Kadir Qamaruddin retreated to Kelantan (which was under British indirect rule) and attempted to regroup his forces with the help of the Sultan of Kelantan, Sultan Muhammad IV. In 1922, Tengku Abdul Kadir launched his biggest campaign against the Siamese government, in response to the new education pol-

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icy introduced by Bangkok which made it compulsory for all Patani Malays to attend Thai government schools and learn the Siamese language. Tengku Abdul Kadir regarded this as a deliberate and calculated attempt to erase Patani-Malay identity and to convert the Patani Malays to Buddhism. But Tengku Abdul Kadir’s rebellion ended in failure and a number of prominent Malay rulers were either killed or captured. Despite the fact that they managed to defeat the insurgents, the Thai government realised that it needed to revise its own policy towards the Patani Malays. King Vajiravudh introduced new guidelines in order to help assimilate the Patani Malays into the local administrative structure in the region, in order to give them a sense of commitment and investment in Thai policies. In time, Bangkok began to offer limited concessions to the local Malay rulers, and attempted to co-opt them into the administrative framework of the Patani government. FROM CONQUEST TO CO-OPTATION

Due in part to the geo-political realities of the time, the lot of the Patani Malays was not about to improve. British colonial rule in Malaya meant that an entente cordial had been struck between the kingdom of Thailand and Britain - both of which were imperial powers, it should be noted. The British were prepared to turn a blind eye to the developments in Southern Thailand as long as the Thai government recognised the borders of British Malaya that had been set by the Anglo-Thai treaty. Throughout the 20th century successive Thai governments and rulers have sought to co-opt and pacify the Patani-Malay communities of Southern Thailand by the use of financial inducements as well as the threat of force and violence. More often than not, these policies were directed towards the goals of assimilation and absorption of the Malay community into the Thai-Buddhist mainstream. Prior to the Second World War Thailand experienced a change of political leadership which led to the rise of General Phibun Songkhram. General Phibun was an extreme right-wing nationalist who was very much influenced by the neo-fascist and ultra-nationalist ideas of Nazi Germany and Japan at the time. Under his rule, Thai society was forced to undergo many radical changes to its political system and social values. In 1939 General Phibun’s government introduced the Thai Ratthaniyom (Thai Customs Decree) which forced all Thai citizens to conform to a set of common cultural norms and which forced all minority groups to follow the model set by the government. This caused considerable outrage in the Malay provinces of Patani, and the Patani Malays regarded it as yet another attempt to erase their cultural and religious identity. Under General Phibun’s decree, Patani Malays were not allowed to dress according to their Malay customs, were forced to use the Thai language, and in some cases even forced to participate in the public worship of Buddhist idols. Phibun’s policy led to an immediate response from the Patani Malays who rebelled against the government. But the government’s response was equally harsh: the army was used to quell the rebellion, leading to the arrest and killing of many Patani leaders. Thousands of Patani Malays fled south to join their fellow Malays in Malaya. During the post-war years the southern regions became the hotbed of militant anti-state and communist activities, and by the 1970s was the hideout of the Malaysian Communist Party (MCP) that had been forced to go underground. Southern Thailand also became the base for a number of Malay separatist groups such as the Barisan Nasional Pembebasan Patani (BNPP- National Liberation Front of Patani), Pertubuhan Perpaduan Pembebasan Patani (PULO- Patani United Liberation Organisation) and the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRNNational Revolutionary Front). Between 1968 to 1975 the Thai government launched a series of

FEATURE

military operations in the south that were aimed at destroying the networks of Patani liberation movements and underground organisations. Operation Ramkamhaeng and the Special Anti-Terrorist Campaign that lasted nearly seven years resulted in 385 violent armed clashes between Thai security forces and Patani militant groups. A total of 1,208 detentions and arrests were made, while 329 Patani fighters were killed. 250 militia camps were destroyed and 1,451 weapons were captured. But despite the scale of the counter-insurgency programmes and operations, the Patani region remained tense. In December 1975 Thai security forces killed five Patani youths, leading to the largest anti-government rallies in the history of the region that were carried out in front of the Patani central mosque. To complicate matters even further, the killing of the Patani youths sparked off protests by Malays in the neighbouring state of Kelantan as well, and prompted the leader of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), Asri Muda, to raise the matter in the Malaysian Parliament. ISLAMISATION AND RADICALISATION OF PATANI RESISTANCE GROUPS

In the wake of the Iranian revolution of 1979, the Patani resistance movements in Southern Thailand also experienced a shift towards a more radical Islamist register. While some of the more ‘secular’ Patani liberation movements like BRN and PULO would gradually pale into insignificance (the BRN and PULO offices in Saudi Arabia were practically inoperative by the mid-1980s), other movements like the BNPP would move closer to the global current of Islamist radicalism. In 1979 the BNPP upgraded its military training programme and expanded the scope of its guerrilla activities against Thai security forces in the region. In 1985 the more radical and militant elements of the BNPP, led by its vice-chairman Wahyuddin Muhammad, broke away from the parent organisation to form the Barisan Bersatu Mujahideen Patani (BBMP- United Mujahideen Front of Patani). Later in 1986 the BNPP renamed itself the Barisan Islam Pembebasan Patani (BIPP-Islamic Liberation Front of Patani) in order to underline its stronger commitment to Islamist politics. The developments in Southern Thailand point to a similar trend across the Muslim world in the late 20th century. All over the world disaffected and marginalised Muslim minorities began to clamour for equal rights and equal citizenship, and when these demands were not met they inevitably turned to some form of popular resistance or another. Groups like the PLO in Palestine, PULO and MNLF in ASEAN and others of their ilk were all fighting on secular-democratic platforms, but were defeated due to their secular-leftist orientation. With the Cold War at its height and American power on the ascendant, these groups were summarily labelled as ‘terrorist’ or ‘Leftist’. The failure of the secular-democratic resistance groups in turn contributed to the shift to the Islamist register and the growing appeal of Islam as a marker of common solidarity and identity among persecuted minority communities. Following the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, political Islam became the political tool of choice and this led to the emergence of splinter groups with a more Islamic image and leaning in the 1980s. In the Philippines the MNLF was overtaken by the MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front), in Palestine the PLO was eclipsed by Hamas, in Thailand PULO, BRN and BNPP were overtaken by the Barisan Bersatu Mujahideen Patani (BBMP United Muhajideen Front of Patani) (est. 1985). The rest, as they say, is history - and what a bloody, sordid, shameful history it is too.

‘ANTI-TERROR’

OR BUSINESS AS USUAL?

Thus far the Thai and international public has been fed a steady stream of undiluted hogwash about the possible causes for the insurgency in the region. Prime Minister Thaksin has claimed that

‘criminal gangs’ may be behind it all. Thailand’s Chief of Armed Forces General Chaiyasidh Shinawatra has claimed that these ‘fanatical bandits’ may have been ‘under the influence of drugs’. The region’s so-called ‘terror experts’ have pontificated about the alleged links to foreign Islamist militant groups. While Thai government officials insist that this is a local problem that needs to be handled domestically. None of these lame and flaccid excuses actually help to explain the developments taking place in Southern Thailand at present. To label such groups as ‘fanatics’, ‘terrorists’ and ‘criminals’ is to take a page out of the propaganda book of the Cold War when legitimate autonomy and freedom movements were criminalised and pathologised by the cold warriors of the past. Lest it be forgotten, it was the Southern provinces that voted for the democratic party at the past few elections - proof, if any was needed, that the Southerners still believed in the democratic process until not too long ago. But the failure of the government to deliver on their much-lauded reform programmes - coupled with Bangkok’s failure to deal with issues like local corruption, nepotism, police brutality and violence meted out by the Thai army - has ended up alienating vast sections of Patani society who may now feel that the democratic process simply doesn’t work and have turned back to radical religio-politics as they did in the 1980s. Prime Minister Thaksin may well think that he has the green light to go on with his policies vis the South of Thailand. Indeed, with Thailand being declared a major ally of the US at the moment, the geopolitical winds seem to be blowing his way. But the Thai government would be naïve and foolish to think that Washington’s endorsement and support for its policies is a fixed factor that will not shift in the future. Likewise Thaksin should consider the fate of other

The people of Southern Thailand feel themselves to be the victims of Bangkok’s uneven development policies and like their counterparts in the northeastern province of Phaak Isaan, they feel that they have been left out and cast aside in the nation’s march towards development pro-US despots and tyrants of ASEAN, such as Ferdinand Marcos and Soeharto of Indonesia, who were ultimately let down and abandoned by their erstwhile American allies when push came to shove. In the end, no amount of bogus anti-terror rhetoric or propaganda will alter the fact that Thailand’s troubles in the southern provinces are rooted in the internal politics of Thai society itself. The people of Southern Thailand feel themselves to be the victims of Bangkok’s uneven development policies and like their counterparts in the northeastern province of Phaak Isaan, they feel that they have been left out and cast aside in the nation’s march towards development. In the end, it is this simple economic and political factor that will shape the future development of relations between Bangkok and the outer provinces. Talk of ‘militant Islamist groups’ and ‘war on terror’ should be exposed for what it is: A shallow and facile disguise for a divisive form of politics that has thus far torn apart Thai society, at the cost of the country and its neighbours. ! This essay was first published on MuslimWakeUp.com Q - NEWS

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FEATURE

HEALING HEARTS

IN AFRICA HEALING HEARTS IS A SUFI CHARITY WHICH HAS SERVED THE PEOPLE OF THE

GAMBIA BY BUILDING SCHOOLS, MOSQUES AND PROVIDING WHEELCHAIRS AND ARTIFICIAL LIMBS FOR THE LAST FIVE YEARS. ITS FOUNDER ZAHRA ZERO QUENSEL REFLECTS ON THE DIGNITY OF THE POOR AND WHY HER HEART IS DRAWN TO AFRICA’S LIVING SUFI TRADITION. handful of handicapped people are sitting in front of the hotel. They own very little. Missing limbs and yet, still smiling. They have the kind of enlightened faces that can only come from a peaceful heart. In the Gambia, you can find this time and time again: people living simultaneously in material impoverishment and spiritual enrichment. In deep West Africa, precisely from where most of the slaves were dispatched to ‘the New World’, you can find people whose Islam comes from the heart. Even the beggars hold prayer-beads, carrying their worldly tests with dignity and an inner strength which can only come from people who are in constant connection with their Creator. I first visited the Gambia on a family holiday in April 1997 and soon made friends with a ten-year-old beggar on the beach. As a child, Ibrahim contracted polio and was left partly crippled. He had difficulties walking, even with crutches. From the tender age of three, he has served as the only breadwinner of a family of ten. His dream in life was to have a wheelchair and he implored me to help him to get one. Despite my efforts, not a single wheelchair was to be found in the whole of the Gambia. Back in England, there were so many wheelchairs, deemed antiquated by our standards, but which many generous people were happy to give away. Instead of just one wheelchair for little Ibrahim, we have so far been able to send 253 wheelchairs and 107 artificial limbs to The Gambia in over half a decade. Returning to the Gambia, I became increasingly ashamed of

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being white, sharing the collective guilt for how my race has treated other members of humanity. I saw how we, for the third time in the last centuries, were trying to drive Islam out of Africa. First, through slavery, when one of the first actions on board ships was to whip Islam out of the slaves and impose on Christian names on them. The next attempt was around a hundred years ago, when the colonialists recognised quite rightly the spiritual and political powers which real holy people of Africa exercise, so they introduced a new system of succession: they convinced the children of the great sheikhs that they were the real successors of their holy fathers. It is the civilised method; this is how things are done in Europe, they said. The children of the big sheikhs did not mind and adopted this new way quickly. Due to this the great spiritual secret of the Sufi tariqats was not officially passed on, and the spiritual power diminished. Five years later after my first visit, Africa still touches my deepest core. The more my destiny is entwined with this continent, the more I understand that material poverty is often connected with spiritual greatness. No other part of the world is tested the way Africa is. Millions of people die of AIDS each year. The economic situation is a complete catastrophe. One tribe is set against another, with the “divide-and-conquer” strategy of the neo-colonialist still in full-swing. Gold and diamond mines remain to be “exploited”. In the last century, Africa has been through tremendous upheaval, with its prospects, materially and politically, very poor. But it is here that

FEATURE

your heart opens up. Whoever has seen the red African soil knows what I mean. Africa has soul, even the ground vibrates, as if it is breathing. For every Sufi Africa has the extra charm that there are only Sufis there. The Wahabis never had a chance, because to try to convince an African that religion has nothing to do with mysticism, would be the same as to say that they should dance without music. Mysticism is in their blood. They are not upset about yesterday, and they do not worry about tomorrow. They are here now, and that is the greatest gift. Returning to the Gambia in February 2002, I decided to first speak with Imam Abdoulie of the mosque we had built in the Kotu Craft Market who I know and trust since 5 years. He suggested helping the Quran school in his village, Naema Naziru, a place long blessed by the late great Tijani Master, Shaykh Nazir Nyass. He chose this village as his home away from Senegal to be with his followers in the Gambia. Naturally, Naema Naziro seemed the first place to help. The school in Naema Nazir was developing beautifully. The children were delighted with their uniforms, complete with its new classroom, tables and benches too. Equally pleased where the he teachers looked pleased, who also advised us that it would be necessary to fence the school perimeter to prevent the village using the facilities without permission! We all agreed on this and I returned to Europe with gratitude in my heart that Allah has shown me such reliable and trustworthy people to work with in Africa.

Arriving in the Gambia, a new idea was born: we turned half the enclosed schoolyard into a vegetable plot and employed the local gardener to start teaching the children how to grow their own vegetables! With water, a wall for protection and annual sunshine; what a perfect combination! We also employed an English teacher. So far children in The Gambia have only had the choice of either getting traditional teachings and going to a Quran school, or abandoning all that and getting a western style education. This school was now offering a mixture of both, which is what they need. A new load of wheelchairs had arrived, so we had now sent 248 in total. I had a meeting with the disabled basketball team and decided to give each of them some money, as the rainy season would be approaching and there would be little income. On this occasion, people in general looked sadder and worried. I began to understand one of the tricks of the modern economy and how it is that the rich get richer and the poor become poorer: inflation. Last year in the Gambia, there were 22 Dalasi for English sterling. This year it is 50. As most goods are imported, prices have doubled, but the income of most people is the same. So they are now twice as poor. The rich, on the other hand, who deal mainly in foreign currencies, are now twice as rich. The next day, Imam Abdoulie took me to two new villages, both have very dilapidated Quran schools. We decided to start by refurbishing the school in Faratou. The school has only one tiny room for 99 pupils. It was also founded by Shaykh Nazir and had a big piece of land with it, so we measured out a 3 room building, where we would dig for the well and where the toilets would be. Having to start from scratch gave the great advantage of being able to have the building completed in mud bricks this time. The word spreads fast in a small country like the Gambia, and so many requests for help are piling up. The ever growing physical tragedy of Africa has another side of the coin: nowhere is spirituality greater, nowhere is the capacity of joining people of the spirit easier, nowhere is it clearer that people of the heart are one. ! Since the writing of this article, the school in Faratou has been completed and has been named â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Haqqani Schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; in honour of Shaykh Nazir Tijani and Sheikh Nazim Naqshbandiya. Another school in Tanji is under construction.We have also started a new project: distributing mosquito-nets against malaria. If you want to support these projects, please send a cheque in the name of Healing Hearts to: 16 High Street, Butleigh, Somerset, BA6 8SU or write to zero@synergynet.co.uk. Healing Hearts is a registered charity no: 1072922. All donations are tax deductible.

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PODIUM

ONE CIVILISATION

A THOUSAND

he Quran in its self-description is not the exclusive property of Arabs or Arabic-speakers. It was conveyed by the ‘prophet sent to the Arabs’, the Prophet Muhammad, and therefore conveyed in Arabic. However, there is no evidence that this honour done to the Arabic language renders native Arabicspeakers more ‘Muslim’ than non-Arabic speakers. The story of attempts to translate, to explain, interpret, praise or denigrate the sacred text, is a long and muddled one. On the one hand, to quote Professor Harry Norris, Professor Emeritus of Arabic and Islamic Studies, University of London: “The obstacles presented by ‘Quranophobia’ of Church and State, and inadequate knowledge of Arabic, had meant that centuries were to pass before the Quran was allowed to be printed and published in Europe.” On the other hand, despite the fact that translation may be viewed as a valid form of exegesis, the Muslim attitude towards translation of the Arabic text has always been ambivalent. In Europe, the first Latin translation of the Quran in around the middle of the twelfth century, was I believe the work of an Englishman, Robert of Ketton, at the famous Toledan school. Others followed in numerous modern European languages, from the 17th century onwards. The Muslim need for translating the Quran soon became paramount, both to educate the growing numbers of non-Arabic speakers who embraced Islam, and as a means of combating Christian missionary efforts whose own translations of the Quran were not always without bias or indeed, political motive. (It would be wrong, howev-

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er, to omit that some Muslim translations of the Quran have likewise been guilty of sectarian bias, political purpose, or mere lack of scholarship.) In English, there have of course been some remarkable previous attempts to ‘translate the untranslatable’, including those by George Sale, M. M. Pickthall, E. H. Palmer and A. J. Arberry, not to mention the renowned 1934 version by Abdullah Yusuf Ali. However, all despite their merits - suffer from a variety of weaknesses; not least the fact that in some cases their language is now archaic. The turgid prose of yesteryear will not clarify the original Arabic for our young people today. It may, in fact, obscure it further. Likewise, as the contexts of human understanding change with time, there will always be some issues and terminology that need revisiting. PROBLEMS OF QURANIC TRANSLATION TODAY There is a scriptural difference between the concepts of translation of the Bible and ‘translation’ of the Quran: 1. The Quran was originally delivered during the lifetime of one man in one language, Arabic (contrast the Old Testament and New Testament compiled over centuries in different languages and by different people). 2. The Quran is self-proclaimed as pre-created and eternal; it is the manifestation of God in the life of Man (by contrast with Christ, who is believed by Christians to be the Incarnation, with the Bible as a guide to his life and words).

PODIUM

TRANSLATING THE QURAN HAS ALWAYS PRESENTED SCHOLARS WITH ENORMOUS CHALLENGES. AFTER ALL, HOW DO YOU TRANSLATE THE UNTRANSLATABLE? YET, IN AN AGE OF GLOBAL HOSTILITY AND HOPELESSNESS, PRINCE EL HASSAN BIN TALAL ARGUES THAT THE NEED FOR A FRESH LOOK AT THE SACRED TEXT HAS NEVER BEEN GREATER.

CULTURES

3. In Islam, although it is righteous to spread the word of God, there is no messianic apocalyptic consequence of spreading the word to all peoples, nor is there a scriptural antecedent for translations as supplied by the account of Pentecost and the ‘speaking in tongues’ of the apostles in the Book of Acts. The Quran describes itself as an immutable manifestation of the divine, and not unlike the Bible is a library of prophetic texts. The history of the text is a difficult topic in this context because of the clash of assumptions about textual origins, but it deserves a good deal of attention; various points of view have to be acknowledged even if they are disagreed with. I have always been advised to put the text in the context. In several European languages, there is a pithy expression: ‘traduttore, traditore’ in the Italian; ‘übersetzen ist übergengen’ in German; ‘traduire c’est trahir’ in French, all rendered into English as: ‘to translate is to betray.’ Yet betrayal of this kind, as Andé Gide suggested, does not take place if the translator has some cultural and artistic affinity with that which is translated. Interpretation and explanation is of course a significant responsibility of preachers and imams, religious leaders and guides. But mainstream Islam, like Quakerism and some other forms of Christianity, emphasises the right and responsibility of each believer to learn and know for him- or herself. The image of Islam, whether inside or outside Muslim states, is shaped by statements about Islam by Muslims and non-Muslims alike that have to be checked against the text of the Quran. In the new

translation of the Quran by Professor Abdel Haleem, his methodology promises a clear and more reader-friendly translation.Reading the Quran is not the easiest task. This translation will hold the interest of the readers. THE CONTEMPORARY CONTEXT: CONFLICT AND CONNECTIVITY It has been a painful few years for humanity. The number of minor conflicts raging around the world now stands at some forty-one. Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq - all have provided fodder for those pundits who argue that religion and religious animosity have played a fundamental and atavistic role in these and other post-Cold War conflicts. We are witnessing generations in Iraq and Palestine enduring without hope. Their young people, full of energy and the desire for a brighter future, are denied any opportunity to determine their own future, by poor governance as well as conflict, and are gradually being deprived of their own past. In the United States, anxiety about terrorism and ambitions for regime-change in Iraq have fuelled a vilification campaign against Islam. Discriminatory measures have been applied to Muslims and Arabs with open disregard for the American values of freedom and equality that were a beacon over at least the last half century.

Further, although Islam does not believe in the notion of racial difference, Muslims today are forced to confront racism as a reality they are experiencing. The difficulties of massive immigration of people of different ethnic, religious, racial, as well as social backgrounds, is to some extent something that we can all identify with. But phobias Islamophobia, Semiticophobia, xenophobia - are all, by their very definition, irrational. Muslim communities, especially our youth, must not choose isolation over integration. Security is also about a secure sense of identity, based on faith and culture while accepting minority communities whose cultures are different than that of the majority population in a given country. Samuel Huntington hypothesised an inevitable ‘clash of civilisations’ between a notional entity ‘the West’ and a notional entity ‘Islam’. By contrast, I would cite the words of Professor Mircea Malitza of the Black Sea University in Romania: one civilisation with ten thousand cultures. RELIGIOUS CODES OF CONDUCT, SECULAR ENLIGHTENMENT AND COMMON HUMAN GROUND Scripture which is easily accessible to the mind of the reader enables better scriptural understanding, which includes an ability and willingness to question meanings and struggle with difficulties. Discussion will uncover counterarguments to those who assert, rather illogically, that religion starts and sustains conflicts, but has no role to play in forestalling or ending them. It is true that religious writings, being fixed and passive, allow us Q - NEWS

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PODIUM

to actively read into them human tendencies towards intolerance, oppression or violence towards ‘the other’. The gift of freewill and individual choice carries with it a heavy responsibility. We cannot however, talk of terrorism and security without talking of the root causes. We must become more sensitised to the consequences of the insidious freight of pessimism that is the result of exclusion and helplessness. We ignore the importance of soft security at our peril. Long before the hijacking of the planes that crashed into New York and Washington DC, I believed that we needed an enlightened centrist platform based on inclusion where men and women of goodwill shared in their common humanity. The example of the Egyptian scholar Nasr Abu Zayd reminds us that no one should be punished for asking searching questions. Tajdid and inclusionism are in a sense parallel modes both moving towards a wider common good; they are not mutual antagonists. Many Muslims have come to believe that only male experts can produce legitimate religious knowledge. Yet the Quran proclaims itself to be a book of universal religious knowledge. Muslims generally need to start reading the Quran for themselves. For women especially, this is a struggle in terms of educational opportunity. The three Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, may not say exactly the same things about peace and peace-making, but there are enough analogies to indicate the general direction in which our common journey will take us. ‘Believing in the good intentions of the text’ was a principle that emerged during a meeting for religious peacemakers from around the world in Amman recently. From the Muslim perspective, I would look at the core text of surah 39, verse 18 which refers to those who listen to all kinds of speech and then follow what is best. The wider Islamic context emphasises learning and peacefulness, thus exposing ourselves to differences and cultivating an awareness of the overarching ethical framework. I would stress the importance of working for something universal rather than merely against the specifics of various phobias. There has to be a new concept - a code of conduct - that should not be based on secular scientific method alone, but should also consider the importance of values. The key is understanding and respect for human dignity - and there are some glimmers of hope.

mental potential; the Club of Rome’s youth programme and development of strategies to promote a world-wide eco-social market economy in contrast to the unsustainable development of today. The list, I am delighted to say, goes on and on, including the academic work of SOAS itself with the series London Quran Studies, the Journal of Quran Studies and the Arabic-English Dictionary of Quran Usage. BRITISH AND INTERNATIONAL ISLAM Islamophobia was described in the Runnymede Report as: “…a challenge not only to Muslims in the West, but to all thinking people who are trying to grapple with complex problems of civilisational friction and conflict.” It is not a new phenomenon. Sadly, today it is on the increase. In a recent meeting of the OSCE we heard denunciations of antiSemitism. The historical denotations of that word in English suggest merely the Jews, but, as a modern Semite, I would like to say that anti-Semitism is a much broader problem than anti-Jewishness. I was heartened to read of the exception in the British Press the other day, of the demonstration that took place in Luton of moderate Muslims, decrying and defying such description, but it is sad that it should be necessary. (Just as it is sad that we should have to remind people that Jewishness, Zionism and Israeli government policy are not synonymous.) Lord Ahmed commented recently on the danger posed to British Muslim society by ill-qualified and prejudiced imams preaching messages of division, exclusion and hatred. He proposed education in British culture as a prerequisite to attain the status of an imam of the British community. I would agree that shared culture is an essential prerequisite for dialogue across religious differences. Culture and religion are not the same, nor are they mutually exclusive. There has been a mushrooming of both international and local inter-faith organisations in recent years and I am credibly informed by my local bookseller that the demand for books on Islam, by Muslims and non-Muslims alike, has outstripped anything he has known before. It is crucial, however, that we reach out beyond the circle of like-minded people drawn to the groups I have mentioned above. With his new translation, Professor Abdel Haleem has achieved precisely that. At this moment of unparalleled interest in the Islamic world, he has seized an historic opportunity for building bridges and overcoming obstacles. In bringing us his clear, contemporary, but uncompromising of the original text translation to us, Professor Haleem has done us all a great service in lighting a candle rather than cursing the dark. May all who read it gain an insight into what the Quran actually says and not what others say about it. ‘The best among you are those who learn the Quran and teach it (Hadith narrated in Bukhari).” !

All translations of the Quran - despite their merits - suffer from a variety of weaknesses; not least the fact that in some cases their language is now archaic. The turgid prose of yesteryear will not clarify the original Arabic for our young people today.

SIGNS OF HOPE In my own small sphere I have witnessed the work and achievements of Partners in Humanity, set up with John Marks of Search for Common Ground, whose aim it is to build bridges of understanding between America and the Islamic World; The Parents’ Circle, bringing together Palestinians and Israelis who have lost their loved ones in the conflict; the formidable steps taken by the then Archbishop of Canterbury and the Sheikh of Al Azhar in first the Lambeth conference and then the subsequent meeting in Qatar; the work of the South Centre towards enabling developing countries to fulfil their develop-

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The above is an excerpt from an address delivered at the launch of The Quran: A New Translation by M.A.S. Abdel Haleem (Oxford University Press), at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London on 13th May, 2004.

PORTFOLIO

O U T R AG E A ll I can do is scream through my keyboard. Do the soldiers-torturers act with such abject cruelty out of racism? Racism is not enough to explain their behaviour, their abuse, the joy on their faces while they are attacking the prisoners in their flesh and their dignity. Are they aware that the only justification left to their leaders was to save the poor Iraqi people from a regime that behaved incessantly like they do in the pictures that make me want to throw up? Have they studied Saddam’s methods of abuse and felt their efficiency, so they re-enacted them? Keeping prisoners naked, sodomising them or obliging them to have sex with each other, were common practice in Saddam’s jails, in Abu Ghraib in particular. Dragging a man like you drag an abused dog is the ultimate humiliation for an Arab man: dogs are najes in Islamic tradition, a synonym of dirt. Are they aware, were they ever told, that those who acted in Bosnia like we saw them doing in the pictures circulating these last few days are being tried for war crimes in the Hague? Depraved people like to abuse and torture, but there are too many of them here to allow us to speak of psychologically deranged individuals. They are too many and they are seemingly not hiding from their fellow-soldiers and the rest of the prison guards. They are even taking souvenir snapshots like hunters who smile in front of their cameras proudly holding their prey to exhibit their trophies. How can this be? Can we ever say “never again” with any conviction? We have asked these questions before.We have heard the same justifications before: “we did not know!” or: “we were obeying orders!” Now there is a new phrase: we are investigating the

claims (for months). The family of a woman soldier shown abusing prisoners have released a picture of her holding tenderly a young Iraqi child. It is meant to show that she is a loving person who cares for the Iraqis. She was told to obey orders, declare her family. Another familiar story! You may love children, be sweet and caring but the rules of war are special and they turn you into something particularly ugly. The secrecy of occupying armies turns soldiers into little gods shaping and coercing peoples’ bodies. The secrecy of occupying armies has also turned women soldiers into sadistic pornographers.The leaders were “investigating the claims”; the soldiers, the guards were obeying orders. But even the doctors who were conducting experiments in Nazi camps were supposedly obeying orders. Can it be the same? They always seem to have obeyed with great enthusiasm. I feel angry and lost. I do not know where to look for hope. I cannot even repeat in front of people in the country where I come from in the Middle East that in western democracies people in power are accountable. How can I tell them now that democracy, more than any other system, rests on openness and honesty? Those in power in America and Britain have been mainly trying to suppress evidence; they don’t even understand the need to resign immediately in the face of these disgusting crimes, so as to have the decency to admit their failure. If they have succeeded in creating disbelief in me, what effect does their behaviour have on people who were already sceptical about the virtues of democracy and the rule of law – never more badly needed in the Arab world than now? Mai Ghoussoub

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PORTFOLIO

WHO GIVES THE ORDERS? “TORTURE THRIVES WHEN THOSE WHO

MAKE THE POLICY ARE CONVINCED THAT

THEY POSSESS A MORAL SUPERIORITY THAT SHOULD NOT BE CONSTRAINED BY REGULATION.” FROM ARGENTINA TO IRAN AND CENTRAL AMERICA, ISABEL HILTON EXCAVATES THE LOGIC AS WELL AS THE GRUESOME PRECEDENTS OF AMERICA’S MORAL COLLAPSE AT ABU GHRAIB. hen the images from Abu Ghraib first appeared, an Argentinian friend telephoned in distress. For her, those images were a rerun of a national nightmare of the “dirty war” of 1976-83: an experience that she and her compatriots had tried to forget on the premise that it was an aberration, a departure from the norm of civilised behaviour. The images from Iraq had ruptured that shield. Torture was not, after all, an aberration. The distress of my Argentinian friend was equalled if not exceeded in the Muslim world. There the images punctured any remaining illusions that the occupation of Iraq was a cause that could be defended and, at a stroke, discredited not only the friends of America in the Muslim world but also those more numerous Muslims who stand on their own account for the values of political secularism, the rule of law and democracy. That language has been appropriated by the United States and its partners in order - as many in the Muslim world now perceive it - to mask a ruthless pursuit of the right of the US to monopolise the world’s resources. For the Argentinian, it was a reminder of a perception that many would rather forget: that the accommodation of torture, to put it no higher, has followed US security policy for decades.

IN THE SHADOWS OF HISTORY The former CIA operative Robert Baer, who joined the CIA in the 1970s, said in a recent interview that when he worked for the agency torture was a sacking offence. He cited the example of two CIA operatives in Guatemala who were dismissed when a Guatemalan colonel they were running was accused of torture. Yet in Vietnam, thousands of prisoners had already died in US “tiger cages.” In Iran under the Shah’s regime, the Savak used methods outlined in CIA training manuals. In Latin America in the 1970s and early 1980s torture and disappearance became established practices throughout the continent under military dictator-

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ships that had the support of the United States, whose officers had been trained in the US-run School of the Americas in Panama and whose security policies were coordinated through a network organised and run by US agencies. Argentina, Chile, Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Paraguay tortured wholesale under successive US administrations without suffering any sanctions from Washington. President Carter (1976-80) tried to take a different course, and was accused of being “soft on communism.” When Ronald Reagan came to power in 1980, a pandemic of torture and extra-judicial murders spread throughout Central America, practiced by military officers who had received US training in “interrogation techniques.” If the methods were not publicly approved, the results were applauded. In the Reagan years (1980-88), torture was a central part of a pattern of abuse and illegality that underlay a wider strategic policy. CIA recruited “deniable assets”, many of them Cuban exiles, who could pursue Ronald Reagan’s definition of freedom with fewer constraints than salaried employees. US diplomats who protested were marginalised, US and international law was broken and Congress was deceived. When the Iran-Contra scandal erupted in late 1986, a few scapegoats were charged but the high-level politicians escaped unscathed. When the first George Bush (director of the CIA from 1976-77) succeeded Ronald Reagan as US president in 1989, he distributed pardons to those in the outgoing administration who might otherwise suffer judicial inconvenience, including the former president himself. After the Clinton interregnum (1992-2000), George W. Bush celebrated his arrival in Washington by welcoming back to power many of the men implicated in the 1980s abuses in Central America. John Negroponte, the US ambassador to Honduras during that period, was implicated both in the activities of the Contras in Nicaragua and with death squads in Honduras. He has now been named as ambassador to Iraq. James Steele, who served in El Salvador in

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1985, is now serving as US advisor to the Iraqi security forces. Both men were also implicated in the Iran-Contra scandal. THE DAMAGE DONE If is not yet provable that the use of torture in Iraq is high-level policy, it is demonstrable that the use of torture follows the flag. In Latin America, the cattle-prods were wielded by native labour, but the victims often reported the presence of US personnel. No administration will acknowledge torture as a policy. But torture thrives when those who make the policy are convinced that they possess a moral superiority that should not be constrained by regulation. Ronald Reagan waged battle with an entity he described as the “evil empire”. Local struggles, civil wars, labour disputes, campaigns for inclusion in a political process - all were defined as part of a global contest between opposing global ideologies: democracy and freedom against totalitarianism. How it played out at the grassroots might not be pretty, but the cause was just. The accounts we have of that period are largely from survivors, but there are a few from the perpetrators that give us an insight into how a group of men, bonded together by an ideology that tells them they are engaged in mortal struggle against evil, rapidly descend into a morass that permits any physical and sexual violation. Once the rules are discarded, anyone can become a victim. Even before 9/11 the Bush administration demonstrated an unusu-

al contempt for rules and constraints. After 9/11 the disregard became widespread. Within weeks of the attack on the twin towers the use of torture was openly discussed in the establishment press. Conservative voices argued the hypothetical case of the ticking bomb and the terrorist subject. Surely torture, they said, was legitimate to pre-empt an atrocity? Liberal voices like the Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz argued that torture was probably inevitable and should therefore be acknowledged and regulated by the courts through a system of licenses to torture. In the Senate hearings on 7 May 2004, Donald Rumsfeld described the abuses of Abu Ghraib as “fundamentally un-American”, a claim echoed throughout the administration. This is historically questionable but even if it had been true in the past, there was a policy shift after 9/11 when the CIA general counsel issued a new set of rules governing interrogation. The new rules sanctioned methods that cause “temporary physical or mental pain.” By any definition the door was officially opened to torture. With the war on Afghanistan the gloves came off. On 21 November 2001, 8,000 Taliban soldiers and civilians surrendered at Konduz to the warlord (and US ally) General Abdul Rashid Dostum. They were loaded into containers, without food water or enough air to be shipped to Sheberghan prison, 120 kilometres away. Then the containers were machine-gunned. Those who survived were later massacred in the presence of US special forces. In the attempt to dismantle al-Qaeda and capture Osama bin Laden, the US set up a network of secret prisons, an international gulag into which prisoners vanish, all rights suspended, all information denied to families, all methods permitted. The camp at Guantanamo Bay is the most notorious, a place occupied (in the words of George W. Bush), by the most evil of the evil, but there are many others. Exact numbers worldwide are unknown, in addition to the 700 in Guantanamo itself, there are an estimated 10,000 detainees in Iraq and 1,000 in Afghanistan. Of this host of prisoners, scarcely a handful has ever been charged with any crime, despite the treatment they have received. The pattern of abuse is global. The New York Times (12 May 2004) reported that the Afghan Human Rights Commission has noted forty-four complaints of abuse by US personnel against detainees in Afghanistan, at a range of bases from Bagram to Kandahar and Gardez. The methods inflicted include sexual humiliation, beating, sleep deprivation and being repeatedly photographed when naked while in US custody. The abuses have been documented for more than a year, yet the US embassy in Kabul claimed this week that it had been unaware of any complaints. Detainees released from Guantanamo have their own harrowing stories of ill- treatment at the hands of US allies in Afghanistan and of US personnel there. Others are farmed out for torture by proxy regimes in Egypt, Uzbekistan, Syria and Jordan. Several of the deaths in custody in Iraq are attributed to individuals among the 20,000 “private contractors” sent there at US taxpayers’ expense, operating in a legal black hole, immune from official reprimand or judicial sanction. The pattern is too widespread, the official response to the disclosures too muted to allow for any doubt that the sanction for torture comes from a high level of policy. ! This article and the introduction by Mai Ghoussoub were first published on www.opendemocracy.net as part of an ongoing debate on the Middle East. openDemocracy.net is a forum for debate on issues of global politics and culture. It is home to creative international dialogue that builds understanding through access to free thought and informed analysis. Q - NEWS

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DECEPTIONS FUEL CONSPIRACY THEORIES AS SOON AS NICHOLAS BERG’S ABHORRENT BEHEADING WAS BROADCAST,THE CONSPIRACY THEORIES BEGAN TO FLY...

hy did the US detain Berg for so long prior to his final disappearance? Was the revelation timed to dilute the impact of the Abu Ghraib torture scandal (his “beheading” was announced to outraged US Senators in the middle of an Armed Services Committee hearing on the scandal)? How did the alleged perpetrator, Abu Musab Al Zarqawi ever grow his leg back? Practically every announcement or news event involving the US government or military, generates conspiracy theories. However, what makes President Bush different is that the facts, as revealed by former members of his own administration, and increasingly by mainstream US media, have already proven many of these conspiracy theories true, which only goes to fuel further conjectures. Another factor that fuels the doubters is that the Bush administration itself, with its paramount reliance on secrecy and deception, has shaped its “war on terror” on one massive conspiracy theory after another. For the past three years, President Bush has painted the world in stark black and white tones - you are either with us or with the terrorists, he said soon after 11 September 2001. Taking his word, major international events are the provenance of either “them” or “us,” so excuse those who draw the conclusion that if facts indicate that certain catastrophic events were not perpetrated by “the terrorists,” they must have been committed by “us.” The failed Iraq adventure is a tragic case in point for this phenomenon. When the Bush White House began publicly beating the war drums in the infamous Axis of Evil State of the Union speech in January 2002, many observers pointed to the fact that many top Bush administration members - from Vice President Dick Cheney to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, had been pushing for an invasion of Iraq for years. While they were out of power, they participated in a neoconservative think tank called the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). As early as 1997, Iraq was an integral step in their plan to re-establish American power in the world. Although this was reported in the international press and alternative news sources, most of the US corporate media remained silent. The nation was still reeling from the September 11th attacks, Bush’s popularity soared with his tough talk of retaliation, and US TV news broadcasts - from CNN to Fox, were plastered with waving American flags. Talk of a preplanned Iraq invasion was discounted as the work of idle conspiracy theorists. Today, as the Iraq war effort has unraveled, and Bush’s approval rating is at an all-time low, the notion of a Bush administration cabal intent on taking over Iraq has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. As former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neal has revealed, the invasion of Iraq was the main topic of discussion at Bush’s first cabinet meeting, soon after he took office. The plan went full throttle in the immediate aftermath of September 11th. According to CBS News, just five hours after the attacks on the World Trade Center

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and the Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld set his sights on Saddam Hussein. That afternoon, Rumsfeld ordered the military to gather the “best info fast. Judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at same time. Not only UBL [Usama bin Laden]… Go massive… Sweep it all up. Things related and not.” Bush’s former anti-terrorism chief Richard Clarke-who served under several Republican and Democratic presidents has offered some of the most damning testimony, charging that Bush and his closest aides were so fixated with invading Iraq that they neglected repeated warnings about Al Qaeda. At one point, according to Clarke, the President himself gave him the clear impression that he needed to come up with a connection between Saddam Hussein and the September 11th attacks, no matter what he had to do. When he came back with a report denying any connection, disappointed White House officials told him to go back and try again. As time has passed, practically every Bush administration claim about Iraq has proven to be an outright lie: Iraq’s connection to September 11th, the massive threat of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, the eager Iraqis showering flowers at entering American and British troops, the wave of democracy and freedom sweeping Arab and Muslim countries. That President Bush and his top advisers lied is now difficult to dispute. But the American corporate media has yet to spell out the obvious ramifications of this deception. People lie to cover something up. Why did President Bush and the highest US government officials knowingly send hundreds of American soldiers to their deaths, kill untold thousands of Iraqi soldiers and civilians, endanger millions of Americans who are now more likely to become targets of further terrorism than ever before? The answer: the economic dominance of American corporate interests hoped for in PNAC documents and demonstrated by billiondollar contracts to Haliburton subsidiaries, is not hard to figure out. All this is brings us back to conspiracies. Bush wants the world to think that there is a global conspiracy that requires the “civilised” world to fight a faceless enemy in a war without end. The cost, in human lives and stifled civil liberties, is a heavy yet necessary consequence of this undefined war to, paradoxically, protect human life and individual freedoms. We now know that terrorists share disrespect for human life with the Bush administration, their former benefactors. But if the Bush henchmen are willing to sacrifice American and Iraqi lives to accomplish Neocon objectives, where will they draw the line? How many lives are too many? Would they draw the line at the life of an independent American contractor (Berg) whose father was an anti-war activist? Would they draw the line at 3,000 people at the twin towers? We don’t know the answers to these questions yet. Perhaps, in time, we will, just as we now know about the rampant torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of their American captors, reports of which were discounted for months as Al Jazeera conspiracy theories, until photos were broadcast on American television. Thanks to this lying President, the question is no longer whether we should believe in conspiracy theories; it’s about whose conspiracy theory you choose to believe. !

AHMED NASSEF is editor-in-chief of MuslimWakeUp.com

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OCCUPATION: INDEFINITE THE JUNE HANDOVER OF SOVEREIGNTY TO AN INTERIM IRAQI GOVERNMENT HAS BEEN TOUTED BY WASHINGTON AND LONDON AS THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF THE MILTARY OCCUPATION. NONSENSE, SAYS GABRIEL CARLYLE. ccording to the US and British governments on 30th June the US and the UK will hand over ‘sovereignty’ to a socalled Iraqi Interim Government (IIG) ‘ending’ the occupation of Iraq. In reality, nothing of the kind will take place: the US military occupation will continue; the US will remain in control of the new Iraqi army; the IIG will be unable to change any of the laws that the US has enacted since it occupied Iraq; and most power will reside in a new US embassy, with 1700 staff and an annual budget of $1 billion.

THE ONGOING MILITARY OCCUPATION Earlier this year the US had expressed concern about the demand by Iraq’s most senior Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, that any agreement for American-led forces to remain in Iraq be approved by directly elected representatives - rather than with the US-appointed Governing Council. As the New York Times noted dryly, reaching such an agreement ‘could be much tougher if [it has] to be carried out with Iraqis who are directly elected’, rather than with the handpicked Council. However ‘[a]fter months of concern about the legal status of the 110,000 American troops who are expected to remain here after the occupation ends [sic] on June 30’ US officials suddenly made the miraculous discovery that ‘an existing United Nations resolution…gives American commanders the authority needed to maintain control after sovereignty [sic] is handed back...[and] can provide legal [sic] justification for the American military command to operate until 31 December 2005’ (New York Times, 26 March 2004). Article 59 of Iraq’s March 2004 Interim Constitution - a document drafted under close US supervision and signed by the Governing Council - states that ‘the Iraqi Armed Forces will be a principal partner in the multi-national force operating in Iraq under unified command pursuant to the provisions of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1511’ and that ‘this arrangement shall last until ratification of a permanent constitution and the election of a new government pursuant to that new constitution.’ The US apparently believes itself to be the ‘unified command’

of a multi-national force authorised by the UN - though there is actually no basis for this in the text of the resolution cited. 1511 ‘authorize[d] a multinational force under unified command to take all necessary measures to contribute to the maintenance of security and stability in Iraq’ but there was no agreement as to whether it provided a UN mandate for the existing US and British forces in Iraq - the US claimed it did ‘but other UN diplomats disagreed, insisting that the occupying forces remained just that’ (Financial Times, 18 Oct). The US is currently trying to obtain a new UN resolution authorising these arrangements but this is largely for public relations purposes - with typical arrogance it has already “granted itself” these rights. DECEMBER 2005 OR DECEMBER 2006? According to the Interim Constitution, ‘elections pursuant to a permanent constitution’ - when the current US pretext for occupying Iraq expires - are supposed to take place ‘no later than 15 December 2005.’ However, if the permanent constitution drafted by the Transitional National Assembly (TNA) - the legislative arm of the Transitional Iraqi Government, an elected body that is supposed to replace the IIG by 31 Jan 2005 - is rejected when it is put to a referendum, or if the TNA fails to draft such a constitution by 15 August 2005, these elections could be pushed back until December 2006 or beyond. Since the Interim Constitution allows Iraq’s Kurdish minority (with which the US is currently allied) to veto the new constitution and since the Kurdish and Shi’a leadership are at loggerheads over the unresolved issues around future Kurdish autonomy these caveats could well kick in - if the process ever gets that far - extending the US ‘mandate’ for its military occupation even further into the future. ENDURING OCCUPATION Certainly the evidence suggests that the US is planning for the long haul. Thus the Chicago Tribune reports that ‘US engineers are focusing on constructing 14 “enduring bases,” long-term encampments for the thousands of American troops expected to serve in Iraq for at least two years. The bases would be key outposts for Q - NEWS

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Bush administration policy advisers.’ Meanwhile the US has been moving rapidly to create a civilianrun Iraqi Defense Ministry that will work in tandem with the American military after 30 June. 50 Iraqi officials have already been flown to Washington to attend a Pentagon-run school and new laws have been promulgated establishing an Iraqi forces chief of staff and a national security adviser for three-year terms, and an inspector-general with a five year term - all appointed by the US. THE ‘SOVEREIGNTY ISSUE’ One US official recently told the New York Times that there was ‘no sovereignty issue for [Iraqis]’ arising from having the Iraqi army under US command since ‘nations like Britain … h[ave] placed military contingents [in Iraq] under an American general.’ True, the analogy is not exact: the US has not invaded and occupied Britain killing tens of thousands of people; the British army in Britain has not been placed under US command; and US troops are not currently rampaging around Britain detaining people at will and killing them with impunity - but presumably these are not ‘sovereignty issues’ either. THE IRAQI INTERIM GOVERNMENT The IIG will be a selected - and not an elected - body with zero democratic mandate.The deadline for the first elections (for a socalled Iraqi Transitional Government) is not until 31 Jan 2005 - if they ever materialise. The IIG will also be prohibited from reversing any of the laws that the US has passed since it occupied Iraq. The Interim Constitution states that ‘the laws in force in Iraq on 30 June 2004 shall remain in effect unless and until rescinded or amended by the Iraqi Transitional Government.’ In particular the IIG is powerless to change any of these laws, including the illegal economic reforms introduced by the US permitting mass privatisation. The US Government also wants to deny the IIG the authority to pass new laws. According to US Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman, “The interim government should not have a law-making body. We don’t believe that the period between the first of July and the end of December should be a time for making new laws” (WP, 23 April). In the meantime the US shown no such scruples, passing at least 15 new laws for Iraq since the signing of the Interim Constitution - creating a new Ministry of Defence, a national intelligence service, a stock exchange and a public broadcasting service amongst other things (see www.cpa-iraq.org).

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A NEW SECRET POLICE AND A NEW “EMBASSY” The US is also creating a new secret police force for Iraq which ‘the Pentagon and CIA have told the White House … will allow America to maintain control over the direction of the country’ (Sunday Telegraph, 4 Jan) and will simply relocate to an “embassy” where most power will reside. The new US “ambassador” to Iraq, John Negroponte, is notorious for his previous role as Ambassador to Honduras where he was instrumental in assisting the Contras the proxy army the US used to attack “soft targets” (ie. undefended civilians) in Nicaragua during the ‘80s - as well as helping to cover up the activities of Battalion 316, a Honduran ‘secret army unit trained and supported by the [CIA]’ which ‘kidnapped, tortured and killed’ hundreds of Honduran citizens (Baltimore Sun, 11 June 1995). Meanwhile the US has been seeking to ‘cement [its] presence beyond [30 June] … appointing a host of Iraqis to new posts whose tenure will last into the planned 18-month transitional period and beyond’ (Economist, 3 April). “We’re still here. We’ll be paying a lot of attention and we’ll have a lot of influence,” a top US official told Associated Press. THE CONTINUING OCCUPATION Since the occupation will continue, so will the pattern identified in a recent report by Amnesty International: Iraqis shot dead during demonstrations; arbitrary arrests and indefinite detention without charge; house demolitions and collective punishment; and the torture and ill-treatment of detainees - a pattern that has dramatically escalated recently with the killing of over 600 people in Fallujah, the vast majority of whom were women, children and the elderly, according to the director of the town’s general hospital. Likewise the corporate invasion of Iraq will continue and the US will be well placed to fulfil what the Financial Times’s Middle East editor correctly identifies as its ‘desire to control Iraq’s political transition while making it appear that it is driven by Iraqis.’ Furthermore the idea that the occupation has somehow ‘ended’ is likely to become a crucial weapon in the struggle to undermine opposition to the invasion and occupation both here and in the US. This fraud must be resisted. !

GABRIEL CARLYLE is with voices in the wilderness uk which has been campaigning on British policy towards Iraq for the last six years www.voicesuk.org

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BAGHDAD

“THE ABODE OF PEACE”

TODAY’S IMAGE OF A BURNING AND TORMENTED BAGHDAD EASILY ERASES THE IMAGE OF A CITY WHOSE OTHER NAME IS DAR AL-SALAAM, “THE ABODE OF PEACE.” IT WAS BUILT ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF HOPE AND SECURITY AND HAS ALWAYS HAD THE ABILITY TO SURVIVE AND REINVENT ITSELF. n a summer’s day in 762 CE, a group of horsemen cantered toward the Tigris River when they turned westwards in the direction of the Euphrates. No one could mistake their leader. Ja’far Abdullah al-Mansur sat on his prancing steed with the bearing of a soldier, the bridle held tautly in his left hand, his right in constant motion as he issued commands. His dark eyes, piercing as a falcon’s, were those of a man who would not be disobeyed. He looked every inch the ruler of an Islamic empire. At the riverbank, the Caliph ordered his companions to halt and, spurring his horse to a trot, he rode down to the water’s edge. Carefully he surveyed the Tigris upstream and down with the practiced eye of a military man and monarch. The swiftly-flowing river, he saw, was a natural defence, a hazardous obstacle for any invading army. The few farms in the area could easily be multiplied throughout surrounding fields to meet the needs of an expanding population. In short, here might stand a metropolis in peace and a citadel in war. Such were the Caliph’s thoughts as he gazed around him, twisting in the saddle to get a better view. One last long look, and he had made up his mind. Rearing his horse on its haunches, he pirouetted and galloped up the bank to his bodyguard. “This is where we will

build our capital,” he said. Why a new city when he had so many old ones from which to choose? Before setting out, al-Mansur had explained his motives. “We ‘Abbasids,” he said, “are a recent dynasty. We have supplanted the Umayyads, but we cannot be safe in their Syrian capital, Damascus. We must move closer to the Persian source of our power.” He was referring to the traditional conflict of two powerful Islamic families. When Omar the Great fell under an assassin’s dagger in 644 CE, Uthman of the Umayyad clan was chosen to succeed him. The Umayyads gained most of their support from Syria: hence, their decision to move the centre of government from Madina to Damascus. The House of ‘Abbas, opposing the House of Uthman but temporarily defeated, retired to Persia to wait for a change in their fortunes. It came with Abu ‘Abbas ‘Abdullah, who overthrew the Umayyad Caliphate and founded the ‘Abbasid dynasty. His brother inherited his rule in 754 CE - Ja’far ‘Abdullah al-Mansur, the vigorous captain and statesman who extended ‘Abbasid sovereignty around the huge geographical circle of Persia, Mesopotamia, Arabia and Syria. As the Umayyads had moved from Madina to Damascus, the Q - NEWS

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‘Abbasids would now move from old Damascus to - where? The Caliph looked at the map of his empire, and placed his finger on its most strategic province. Centrally located, close to his Persian allies, Mesopotamia had been from time immemorial the base from which conquering armies dominated the civilized world. Al-Mansur saw that he could use the same base for his own imperial aims. The precise spot would be that known to the ancient Babylonians as Bag-Da-Duh-Baghdad. The commands were given. ‘Abbasid Caliphate workmen, artisans and artists converged on the middle of the Tigris-100,000 of them before the three years of labour were over. The Caliph himself supervised the construction of the city walls around a circle three miles in diameter-making Baghdad the “Round City” of folklore. He shouted orders, exhortations and advice as two-hundredpound blocks of stone were placed on top of one another to a height of 90 feet and a width of 40 feet. He visited the foundries to inspect the casting of four massive iron gates. He leaped into the moat to be sure that it was deep enough. Al-Mansur summoned his surveyors and architects to periodic conferences. “Lay out the streets in straight lines with a clear view to the walls on every side,” he commanded. His metropolis was to look like a fort with broad, paved avenues radiating from the centre like the spokes of a wheel. He wanted his sentries on the walls, to spot an enemy outside or a disturbance inside, to have his garrison marching to the scene within minutes. The Caliph’s palace rose at the hub of the “wheel,” until its lofty, emerald-coloured dome, 130 feet high, dominated the city. The palace gained the nickname of “The Green Dome.” It was also called “The Golden Gate” because its main portal was encrusted with the precious metal. The palace of Baghdad formed a labyrinth of rooms and corridors leading into alcoves, cloisters and courtyards. The gardens were laced with rose bowers, dotted with splashing fountains, and ornamented with strutting peacocks. Here might the Caliph and his entourage stroll, converse and relax amid a scene that inspired delicate lyric poetry and magical tales of the Arabian Nights. The audience chamber was an enormous room where hundreds of persons congregated on great occasions, such as royal weddings and the reception of foreign ambassadors. Down the walls of the audience chamber were hung heavy velvet drapes. Deep Persian carpets were underfoot and beautifully decorated cushions lay on every chair. In every corner flashed the sparkle of gold and diamonds. The imperial dining room was a counterpart of the audience chamber. A thousand guests could be seated, and every dish, utensil and piece of cutlery was of silver or gold. Thus did Caliph al-Mansur rule in Baghdad in Persian-style magnificence. His courtiers imitated him and achieved splendour of

their own. It was they who made priceless jewellery a part of everyday dress. It was they who first adopted the Persian slipper with its upturned toe and the magnificent coats of silk. Culture flourished in Baghdad. The Caliph set an example for his subjects by patronising scholars, poets and painters. Hakim, the composer, was not only al-Mansur’s client but also his good friend. Schools of philosophy and science developed. A Spanish traveller who visited the city at this time remarked: “Baghdad is a hive of bees in which much honey is produced.” The capital of an empire, Baghdad soon was filled with ordinary citizens. They built houses, practiced trades, farmed the surrounding fields and did the routine jobs of any big city. But Baghdad’s special flair prevented it from being just another city. The colour of the palace filtered down to the populace. After the toil of the day, the citizen might frequent his choice from a thousand public baths. He might go to a polo game, or a poetry recital, or perhaps he would attend meetings of metaphysicians or wander through the darker quarters of the city in search of excitement and danger. And there were always the bazaars filled with teeming, chattering humanity in search of a loaf of bread or an Indian diamond. Merchants became wealthy by sending caravans to Egypt and Syria and commanding ships down the Tigris to the emporiums in the Persian Gulf. The bazaars of Baghdad offered wares from the known world: African ivory, Indian teak, Chinese porcelain. In spite of the aura of fantasy that lay over his metropolis, the Caliph al-Mansur was not a ruler who left the affairs of state to his subordinates. He chose able officials to carry out his laws and issued a standing order that appeals from the common people must be referred directly to him. He took the field at the head of his army and waged military campaigns against the Byzantine Empire, the Khazars of the Caucacus and rebels in Khurasan. These campaigns forced respect for his authority and frontiers. At home, the Caliph assumed more mundane duties, visiting the farms so that there might be no dereliction by his farmers or any danger of famine. The second of the ‘Abbasid Caliphs built so well that he remains one of the master city-planners of history. He turned a primitive village into a scintillating imperial metropolis. He selected its site so wisely and gave it such strong political and economic foundations that it continued to grow long after his death in 775 CE. A generation later Baghdad would reach yet another pinnacle of its glory under Harun al-Rashid. For five centuries it was a beacon of power and culture. ‘Abbasid Caliphs lived in the palace, sending out decrees to an empire until the city was stormed and sacked by the ferocious Mongols in 1225. The splendour came to a devastating end amid flames and rubble. Its fame did not end, nor has it ever ended. Today, few remember the builder-Ja’far ‘Abdullah al-Mansur. But everybody remembers what he built-medieval Baghdad. !

Baghdad’s special flair prevented it from being just another city.The colour of the palace filtered down to the populace. After the toil of the day, the citizen might frequent his choice from a thousand public baths.

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HARUN AL-RASHID

THE SPLENDID

SULTAN “NOW

IT HAPPENED IN THE REIGN OF THE MIGHTY HARUN AL-RASHID, THE CALIPH OF BAGHDAD...”

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according to one report, an elephant. he Caliph of Baghdad held audience in an antechamber of Harun al-Rashid, for all the Arabian Nights fantasy that surhis royal palace. The room was small but sumptuous, rounds his legend, was a diplomat of the highest order. He underbefitting the Commander of the Faithful, Harun alstood international politics better, perhaps, than any other man of Rashid. No noises from the outside penetrated the plush the ninth century. His liaison with Charlemagne across so much brocade drapes from Syria. Thick Persian carpets muffled the sound space and time proves this. Aachen lay far from Baghdad, off in the of footfalls inside. Brilliant tapestries from Samarkhand hung from middle of Europe, in the depths of the Rhine forests. Yet the Caliph the walls; shimmering gold figurines from the Horn of Africa stood was astute enough to propose an alliance with Charlemagne, an on the shelves; there were pearls from Arabia, and bars of platinum alliance firmly cemented by mutual self-interest, and an alliance that from Malaya, and glossy furs from Russia. worked. Harun al-Rashid sat at a table of polished teakwood from Harun al-Rashid kept the Byzantines occupied while Ceylon. His robes were of the finest cloth from China. To his right Charlemagne ruled as Emperor of the flickered an oil lamp from Egypt. He Western Empire. Charlemagne kept played idly with an ivory medallion the Umayyads occupied while Harun from Zanzibar, while on his finger an Harun al-Rashid, for all the Arabian al-Rashid ruled as Caliph of the enormous diamond ring from Abbasid Empire. Turkistan glittered in coruscating Nights fantasy that surrounds his Harun al-Rashid was the grandcolours. son of the great Caliph al-Mansur It was like a scene from the legend, was a of the who built Baghdad. He inherited Arabian Nights, the immortal anthol. He much of al-Mansur’s military ability, ogy of tales in which Harun al-Rashid and as a young man made a name for appears so often as a character. But international himself in the Byzantine wars. Only this time the Caliph of Baghdad was politics better, perhaps, than any 22 when he became Caliph in 786 CE, not playing a fictional role. He was he was accepted by the soldiers of the dealing with the intricate problems of other man of the ninth century. army and the people of Baghdad. He international diplomacy. reigned until 809 CE, the most spec“The important thing,” said tacular 23 years in the annals of the Harun al-Rashid to the officials Caliphate-years forever memorable in history and romance. grouped around the table, “is to make my friend, the Emperor of the The Sultan based his imperial power solidly on the realities of Franks, the mighty Charlemagne, realise how helpful we can be to war, diplomacy and economics. one another.” He unrolled a map of the known world and flattened His armies bivouacked at strong points along the frontiers. The it on the teakwood. His officials leaned over the map as his finger most important of these barred the way from the Anatolian Plateau traced the outline of continents, seas and empires, as they were into Armenia and Persia, blocking the advance of Byzantine power. known in 803 CE. The other, in central Asia, held in check the Mongols of Khurasan “Here, to our northwest on the Bosporus,” the Caliph noted, who threatened to invade Persia from the east. Here Harun al“lies Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire. The Rashid took the field in person, hitting the Mongols first, and drivByzantines, as we know, are rivals of the Franks. Therefore, ing them back into the steppes beyond the Caspian. Charlemagne is beholden to me for defeating the Byzantine armies While the armies of the Caliph were fighting, his diplomats were and preventing them from driving west beyond the Balkans.” negotiating, his biggest coup in this respect being his long-range “And we shall gain from the pressure exerted by the Franks on alliance with Charlemagne. As a result, the Umayyads of Spain Spain?” said one of the officials. never did imperil the extension of the Abbasid Caliphate west along “Exactly. The Umayyad Caliphate of Cordova challenges our the Mediterranean shores of North Africa. Safe from outside interAbbasid Caliphate for authority in the Islamic world. By invading ference, Harun al Rashid was free to develop his city and his empire. Spain, Charlemagne has drawn the Umayyad power from the The beautiful furnishings of the royal palace reflected the prosMediterranean to the Pyrenees. We hope that he will continue to perity of Baghdad. The Caliph’s merchants were known in the trade harry their Pyrenean frontier.” marts of the world. Their ships docked at Aden and Bombay and The officials nodded. “We understand,” said one, “and are Cadiz. Their caravans plodded the historic trails to Madina and ready to leave for Aachen on the Rhine. We will repeat your sagaSamarkhand. They filled the bazaars of Baghdad with the articles cious words to the Frankish barbarian.” mentioned above, and with such other exotic goods as Indonesian Harun al-Rashid smiled. “Barbarian? Yes, Charlemagne can dyes and English honey. No other city on the globe could compete barely write his name, according to reports. Nevertheless, do not with Baghdad in luxury. underestimate him. He has, after all, built an empire. Tell him that Harun al-Rashid ruled Baghdad through administrative disI wish I were in Aachen, or he in our own city of Baghdad.” tricts, each under its own mayor accountable directly to him. The This meeting, held over a thousand years ago, is regarded by arts and crafts of the city lay grouped together-a builders’ quarter, a scholars today as one of the piquant moments of history-the planning tailors’ quarter, a physicians’ quarter, and so on. Since the people of of a ninth-century summit conference between the slim dark Sultan Baghdad craved entertainment, there was even a circus quarter. And Harun al-Rashid and the tall blond Emperor Charlemagne. the Caliph’s police were well aware of the thieves’ quarter! Unfortunately, the two most imposing personalities of their time never The police, incidentally, were strictly charged by the Caliph to met. supervise all shops and bazaars. They examined the goods on sale They did exchange embassies. The diplomats of Harun alfor quality and price. They tested the weights and measures for Rashid astounded Charlemagne and his court when they arrived in accuracy. They heard complaints from displeased buyers, and explaAachen with gifts that included spices, perfumes, a water clock and,

diplomat

highest order

understood

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PORTFOLIO

nations both plausible and implausible from glib tradesmen. The saying went that no commercial community was more honest than that of Baghdad during the reign of Harun al-Rashid. The city was no less famous for its justice. The Caliph took particular care in selecting judges, interrogating each personally before awarding him a commission. And severe verdicts involving the death penalty, or long prison terms, or heavy fines, had to be approved at the royal palace. Harun al-Rashid’s care in the selection and supervision of his officials was responsible for the romantic legend about him. He used to sally out into the streets of Baghdad by night, disguised as an ordinary citizen. He would wander through the city, stopping occasionally to inquire of those he met how they felt about their government. Countless stories tell of this practice. On one occasion, a shopkeeper criticised the Caliph. When the Caliph-in-disguise asked why, the shopkeeper replied: “He stays in the palace too much. The people never see him.” The next day, a royal procession wound its way down that same street. The Caliph reined in his white steed before the shop that he had visited the night before. Beckoning the shopkeeper forward, Harun al-Rashid asked gravely: “My friend, do you still feel that the Caliph does not mingle with his people?” The terror-stricken subject feared that he would pay with his head for having spoken thus to his sovereign. But the Caliph smiled and threw him a bag of gold before riding on.

Out of incidents like this came the legend of the Caliph of Baghdad that still charms readers of the Arabian Nights. Harun alRashid provides colour for several of the tales by appearing as the dramatic potentate of the luxurious metropolis in which the events take place. “Now it happened in the reign of the mighty Caliph Harun al-Rashid”-this is the kind of opening that so often captures the attention of the reader and makes it impossible for him to set the book down before he finds out what happened. The reality is almost as romantic. Harun al-Rashid frequently roamed Baghdad accompanied by the poet Abu Nuwas, who chanted extemporaneous lampoons as they pushed their way through the milling crowds at the bazaar. Back at the palace, the Caliph listened to more dignified poetry such as the devotional verse of Abu Atahiya. Harun al-Rashid patronised writers, artists, musicians, scholars. Among the latter, interestingly, was the feminine savant Shuhda, proving that the anti-feminist tradition was not as strong in Baghdad as has sometimes been supposed. Because of his fondness for listening to popular storytellers, Harun al-Rashid gave impetus to the subsequent gathering of the tales that became the Arabian Nights, and he himself stands at the origin of much history and romantic legend. Even his death was memorable, for he fell in battle in far-off Khurasan, leading his soldiers in the defence of his Caliphate. He lives on in the historical archives, and in the Arabian Nights. Neither would be what they are with out medieval Baghdad and Harun al-Rashid. !

PORTFOLIO

FATAL

ERROR

THE LIES OF OUR TIMES IN THEIR NEW BOOK, THE EXCEPTION TO THE RULERS: EXPOSING OILY POLITICIANS, WAR PROFITEERS AND THE MEDIA THAT LOVE THEM, AMY AND DAVID GOODMAN TITLED ONE CHAPTER THE LIES OF OUR TIMES TO EXAMINE HOW AMERICA’S MOST INFLUENTIAL NEWSPAPER, THE NEW YORK TIMES COVERAGE ON IRAQ AND ITS ALLEGED WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION HELPED LEAD AMERICA TO WAR. ON 26 MAY 2004, THE NEW YORK TIMES, FOR THE FIRST TIME, RAISED QUESTIONS ABOUT ITS OWN COVERAGE IN AN 1,100-WORD EDITOR’S NOTE. HERE IS AN EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK. From a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August. - Andrew H. Card, White House Chief of Staff speaking about the Iraq war P.R. campaign, 6 September 2002. In the midst of the buildup to war, a major scandal was unfolding at The New York Times-the paper that sets the news agenda for other media. The Times admitted that for several years a 27-yearold reporter named Jayson Blair had been conning his editors and falsifying stories. He had pretended to be places he hadn’t been, fabricated quotes, and just plain lied in order to tell a sensational tale. For this, Blair was fired. But The Times went further: It ran a 7,000word, five-page expose on the young reporter, laying bare his per-

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sonal and professional escapades. The Times said it had reached a low point in its 152-year history. I agreed. But not because of the Jayson Blair affair. It was The Times coverage of the Bush-Blair affair. When George W. Bush and Tony Blair made their fraudulent case to attack Iraq, The Times, along with most corporate media outlets in the United States, became cheerleaders for the war. And while Jayson Blair was being crucified for his journalistic sins, veteran Times national security correspondent and best-selling author Judith Miller was filling The Times’ front pages with unchallenged government propaganda. Unlike Blair’s deceptions, Miller’s lies provided the pretext for war. Her lies cost lives. If only The New York Times had done the same kind of investigation of Miller’s reports as it had with Jayson Blair. The White House propaganda blitz was launched on 7 September 2002, at a Camp David press conference. Prime Minister Tony Blair stood by his co-conspirator, President George Bush. Together, they declared that evidence from a report published by the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) showed that Iraq was “six months away” from building nuclear weapons. “I don’t know what more evidence we need,” crowed Bush. Actually, any evidence would help - there was no such IAEA report. But, few mainstream American journalists questioned the leaders’ outright lies. Instead, the following day, “evidence” popped up in the Sunday New York Times under the twin byline of Michael Gordon and Judith Miller. “More than a decade after Saddam Hussein agreed to give up weapons of mass destruction,” they stated with authority, “Iraq has stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons and has embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb, Bush administration officials said today.” In a revealing example of how the story amplified administration spin, the authors included the phrase soon to be repeated by President Bush and his top officials: “The first sign of a ‘smoking gun,’ [administration officials] argue, may be a mushroom cloud.” Harper’s publisher John R. MacArthur, author of Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War, knew what to make of this front-page bombshell. “In a disgraceful piece of stenography,” he wrote, Gordon and Miller “inflated an administration leak into something resembling imminent Armageddon.” The Bush administration knew just what to do with the story they had fed to Gordon and Miller. The day The Times story ran, Vice President Dick Cheney made the rounds on the Sunday talk

PORTFOLIO

shows to advance the administration’s bogus claims. On NBC’s Meet the Press, Cheney declared that Iraq had purchased aluminum tubes to make enriched uranium. It didn’t matter that the IAEA refuted the charge both before and after it was made. But Cheney didn’t want viewers just to take his word for it. “There’s a story in The New York Times this morning,” he said smugly. “And I want to attribute The Times.” This was the classic disinformation two-step: the White House leaks a lie to The Times, the newspaper publishes it as a startling expose, and then the White House conveniently masquerades behind the credibility of The Times. “What mattered,” wrote MacArthur, “was the unencumbered rollout of a commercial for war.” Judith Miller was just getting warmed up. Reporting for America’s most influential newspaper, Miller continued to trumpet administration leaks and other bogus sources as the basis for eyepopping stories that backed the administration’s false premises for war. “If reporters who live by their sources were obliged to die by their sources,” Jack Shafer wrote later in Slate, “Miller would be stinking up her family tomb right now.” After the war, Shafer pointed out, “None of the sensational allegations about chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons given to Miller have panned out, despite the furious crisscrossing of Iraq by U.S. weapons hunters.” Did The New York Times publish corrections? Clarifications? Did heads roll? Not a chance: Judith Miller’s “scoops” continued to be proudly run on the front pages. Here are just some of the corrections The Times should have run after the year-long campaign of front-page false claims by one of its premier reporters, Judith Miller. FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS Scoop: U.S. Says Hussein Intensifies Quest for A-Bomb Parts, by Judith Miller and Michael R. Gordon, 8 September 2002. The authors quote Ahmed al-Shemri (a pseudonym), who contends that he worked in Iraq’s chemical weapons program before defecting in 2000. “’All of Iraq is one large storage facility,’ said Mr. Shemri, who claimed to have worked for many years at the Muthanna State Enterprise, once Iraq’s chemical weapons plant.” The authors quote Shemri as stating that Iraq is stockpiling “12,500 gallons of anthrax, 2,500 gallons of gas gangrene, 1,250 gallons of aflatoxin, and 2,000 gallons of botulinum throughout the country.” Oops: As UN weapons inspectors had earlier stated - and U.S. weapons inspectors confirmed in September 2003 - none of these claims were true. The unnamed source is one of many Iraqi defectors who made sensational false claims that were championed by Miller and The Times. Scoop: White House Lists Iraq Steps to Build Banned Weapons, by Judith Miller and Michael Gordon, 13 September 2002. The article quotes the White House contention that Iraq was trying to purchase aluminum pipes to assist its nuclear weapons program. Oops: Rather than run a major story on how the United States had falsely cited the UN to back its claim that Iraq was expanding its nuclear weapons program, Miller and Gordon repeated and embellished the lie. Contrast this with the lead paragraph of a story that ran in The Guardian on 9 September: “The International Atomic Energy Agency has no evidence that Iraq is developing nuclear weapons at a former site previously destroyed by UN inspectors, despite claims made over the weekend by Tony Blair, western diplomatic sources told The Guardian yesterday.” The story

goes on to say that the IAEA “issued a statement insisting it had ‘no new information’ on Iraq’s nuclear program since December 1998 when its inspectors left Iraq.” Miller’s trumped-up story contributed to the climate of the time and The Times. A month later, numerous congressional representatives cited the nuclear threat as a reason for voting to authorise war. Scoop: U.S. Faulted Over Its Efforts to Unite Iraqi Dissidents, by Judith Miller, 2 October 2002. Quoting Ahmed Chalabi and Defense Department adviser Richard Perle, this story stated: “The INC [Iraqi National Congress] has been without question the single most important source of intelligence about Saddam Hussein.” Miller airs the INC’s chief complaint: “Iraqi dissidents and administration officials complain that [the State Department and CIA] have also tried to cast doubt on information provided by defectors Mr. Chalabi’s organization has brought out of Iraq.” Oops: Miller championed the cause of Chalabi, the Iraqi exile leader who had been lobbying Washington for over a decade to support the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime. As The Washington Post revealed, Miller wrote to Times veteran foreign correspondent John Burns, who was working in Baghdad at the time, that Chalabi “has provided most of the front page exclusives on WMD [weapons of mass destruction] to our paper.” Times readers might be interested to learn the details of how Ahmed Chalabi was bought and paid for by the CIA. Chalabi heads the INC, an organization of Iraqi exiles created by the CIA in 1992 with the help of the Rendon Group, a powerful public relations firm that has worked extensively for the two Bush administrations. Between 1992 and 1996, the CIA covertly funneled $12 million to Chalabi’s INC. In 1998, the Clinton administration gave Chalabi control of another $98 million of U.S. taxpayer money. Chalabi’s credibility has always been questionable: he was convicted in absentia in Jordan of stealing some $500 million from a bank he established, leaving shareholders high and dry. He has been accused by Iraqi exiles of pocketing at least $4 million of CIA funds. In the lead-up to war, the CIA dismissed Chalabi as unreliable. But he was the darling of Pentagon hawks, putting an Iraqi face on their warmongering. So the Pentagon established a new entity, the Office of Special Plans, to champion the views of discredited INC defectors who helped make its case for war. As Howard Kurtz later asked in The Washington Post: “Could Chalabi have been using The Times to build a drumbeat that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction?” Scoop: C.I.A. Hunts Iraq Tie to Soviet Smallpox, by Judith Miller, 3 December 2002. The story claims that “Iraq obtained a particularly virulent strain of smallpox from a Russian scientist.” The story adds later: “The information came to the American government from an informant whose identity has not been disclosed.” Smallpox was cited by President Bush as one of the “weapons of mass destruction” possessed by Iraq that justified a dangerous national inoculation program-and an invasion. Oops: After a three-month search of Iraq, “Team Pox” turned up only signs to the contrary: disabled equipment that had been rendered harmless by UN inspectors, Iraqi scientists deemed credible who gave no indication they had worked with smallpox, and a laboratory thought to be back in use that was covered in cobwebs,” reported the Associated Press in September 2003. Scoop: Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, an Iraqi Scientist Is Said to Assert, by Judith Miller, 21 April 2003. In this front-page article, Miller quotes an American military officer who passes on Q - NEWS

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the assertions of “a man who said he was an Iraqi scientist” in U.S. Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi “at Judy’s direccustody. The “scientist” claims that Iraq destroyed its WMD stock- tion,” where they interrogated and took custody of an Iraqi man pile days before the war began, that the regime had transferred who was on the Pentagon’s wanted list-despite the fact that MET banned weapons to Syria, and that Saddam Hussein was working Alpha’s only role was to search for WMDs. As one officer told the closely with Al-Qaeda. Who is the messenger for this bombshell? Post, “It’s impossible to exaggerate the impact she had on the misMiller tells us only that she “was permitted to see him from a dis- sion of this unit, and not for the better.” tance at the sites where he said that material from the arms program After a year of bogus scoops from Miller, the paper gave itself a was buried. Clad in nondescript clothes and a baseball cap, he bit of cover. Not corrections - just cover. On 28 September 2003, pointed to several spots in the Times reporter Douglas Jehl sand where he said chemical surprisingly kicked the legs out precursors and other weapons from under Miller’s sources. In material were buried.” his story headlined Agency And then there were the Belittles Information Given By Q: Has the unit you’ve been traveling with terms of this disclosure: “This Directors, Jehl revealed: An of weapons of mass found any reporter was not permitted to internal assessment by the destruction in Iraq? interview the scientist or visit Defense Intelligence Agency his home. Nor was she permithas concluded that most of the ted to write about the discovinformation provided by Iraqi JUDITH MILLER: Well, I think they found ery of the scientist for three defectors who were made availdays, and the copy was then able by the Iraqi National something more than a smoking gun.What submitted for a check by miliCongress was of little or no they’ve found...is a silver bullet in the form tary officials. Those officials value, according to federal offiasked that details of what cials briefed on the arrange, an Iraqi individual, a scientist, of a chemicals were uncovered be ment. In addition, several Iraqi as we’ve called him, who really worked on deleted.” No proof. No names. defectors introduced to No chemicals. Only a baseball American intelligence agents by the programs, who knows them firsthand. cap-and the credibility of the exile organization and its Miller and The Times - to leader, Ahmed Chalabi, inventvouch for a “scientist” who ed or exaggerated their credenconveniently backs up key tials as people with direct claims of the Bush administraknowledge of the Iraqi governtion. Miller, who was embedded with MET Alpha, a military unit ment and its suspected unconventional weapons program, the offisearching for WMDs, pumped up her sensational assertions the next cials said. day on PBS’s NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (see inset). The Iraqi National Congress had made some of these defectors Oops: The silver bullet got more tarnished as it was examined. available to...The New York Times, which reported their allegations Three months later, Miller acknowledged that the scientist was about prisoners and the country’s weapons program. Poof. Up in merely “a senior Iraqi military intelligence official.” His explosive smoke went thousands of words of what can only be called rank claims vaporized. propaganda. A final note from the Department of Corrections: The Times This Times confession was too little, too late. After an unnecesdeeply regrets any wars or loss of life that these errors may have sary war, during a brutal occupation, and several thousand lives contributed to. later, The Times obliquely acknowledged that it had been recycling disinformation. Miller’s reports played an invaluable role in the Tom Wolfe once wrote about a war-happy Times correspondent administration’s propaganda war. They gave public legitimacy to in Vietnam (same idea, different war): The administration was outright lies, providing what appeared to be independent confirma“playing [the reporter] of The New York Times like an ocarina, as tion of wild speculation and false accusations. “What Miller has if they were blowing smoke up his pipe and the finger work was just done over time seriously violates several Times’ policies under their right and the song was coming forth better than they could have code of conduct for news and editorial departments,” wrote William played it themselves.” But who was playing whom? The E. Jackson in Editor & Publisher. “Jayson Blair was only a fluke Washington Post reported that while Miller was embedded with deviation.... Miller strikes right at the core of the regular functionMET Alpha, her role in the unit’s operations became so central that ing news machine.” it became known as the “Judith Miller team.” In one instance, she More than that, Miller’s false reporting was key to justifying a disagreed with a decision to relocate the unit to another area and war. And The Times’ unabashed servitude to the administration’s threatened to file a critical report in The Times about the action. war agenda did not end with Iraq. When she took her protest to a two-star general, the decision was On 16 September 2003, The Times ran a story headlined Senior reversed. One Army officer told the Post, “Judith was always issu- U.S. Official to Level Weapons Charges Against Syria. The stuning threats of either going to The New York Times or to the secre- ningly uncritical article was virtually an excerpt of the testimony tary of defense. There was nothing veiled about that threat.” about to be given that day by outspoken hawk John Bolton, underLater, she played a starring role in a ceremony in which MET secretary of state for arms control. The article included this curious Alpha’s leader was promoted. Other officers were surprised to caveat: The testimony “was provided to The New York Times by watch as Miller pinned a new rank on the uniform of Chief Warrant individuals who feel that the accusations against Syria have received Officer Richard Gonzales. He thanked her for her “contributions” insufficient attention.” The article certainly solved that problem. to the unit. In April 2003, MET Alpha traveled to the compound of The author? Judith Miller-preparing for the next battlefront. !

proof

person

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COVER

IN CONVERSATION WITH PROFESSOR DAWUD NOIBI

HONOURING

WISDOM

BORN IN BRITISH-HELD NIGERIA IN 1934, EMINENT MUSLIM ACADEMIC,

DR DAWUD NOIBI IS THE LATEST MUSLIM TO BE NAMED OFFICER OF THE ORDER OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE BY THE QUEEN AND WITH GOOD REASON. HE HAS SERVED THE MUSLIM COMMUNITY FOR OVER FIFTY YEARS, HAVING RETIRED IN

1996 AS A PROFESSOR OF ISLAMIC STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN, WHERE HE TAUGHT FOR OVER TWO DECADES. DR NOIBI WAS UNTIL RECENTLY A RESEARCHER AND CONSULTANT WITH IQRA TRUST IN LONDON. TALAL MALIK TALKS TO HIM ABOUT NIGERIA, LIVING IN THE SHADOW OF WAR AND THE FUTURE OF BRITISH ISLAM.

What is the traditional Islamic background of your family? Well, Nigeria is a place where the Maliki madhab is predominant, and across north and West Africa, so we're Maliki. There were two Sufi orders well-known in Nigeria: the Tijaniyya and the Qadiriyya. My father was a Qadiri and as a child, I remember them sitting in a circle doing their dhikr. My father was the local Imam of our area in Sapele but he was the Na'ib al-Imam for the whole of Sapele. Our mosque was right in front of our house. And I recall that shortly after I joined the university as a lecturer, I went back to Sapele for the first time in twenty years and my father's very close friend was alive at the time, but he was very old. The first thing he said to me was, "Look, let me get hold of the key and I will take you to your mosque." It had been rebuilt and refurbished, and I was deeply moved. I immediately went did wudu, two rak'aats tahiyyat al-masjid and shukr liLlaah in thanksgiving to Allah. What were the relations with the non-Muslims community at that time? We never had any problems with the non-Muslims. They knew about our prayers, they saw us go to pray at the mosques, and they saw us when it was Ramadan, they saw us doing taraweeh and celebrating Eid, and learned about Islam through such occasions. Indeed, my father was a member of the local Judicial Council and he was the only Yoruba Muslim on that council. All the other members were non-Muslims. In the mid-1960s, you were based in Cairo. I was in Cairo from 1965 to 1972. So, when the war was on in Nigeria in 1966, I followed the developments from the Egyptian Broadcasting Corporation, where I was working parttime, which broadcast to West Africa in Yoruba. I also experienced the Six-Day War in Egypt.

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How was it to live during the Six-Day War? We all thought that the strength of Egypt under Gamal Abdul-Nasser would see the victory of the Arab world. But what concerned us were not just the ramifications for the Arab world. The eyes of Muslims were on the future of Jerusalem. So, one had looked forward to victory, though it does not mean that we were war-mongers. No, we were not interested in war. But when the enemies were imposing themselves on the Muslims, we had to fight back to defend ourselves. But we also got to know later on that the Egyptian authorities were not careful enough. America was really spying for Israel - there is no doubt about that! Things that have happened ever since then, reports by journalists show that, but for the logistical and intelligence support that Israel got from the West, the war would probably not have ended the way it did. It was a humiliation. Some say that war was fought more for Arab nationalism? Even if there were people who saw a distinction between espousing Islam and Arab nationalism, they dared not mention it under Nasser. That is because of how he dealt with the Muslim Brotherhood. The attitude from the Muslim Brothers was that the Egyptians were likely to lose, and this should be expected as Nasser had subjected them to the persecution that he did. Moreover, they were pessimistic because of the nationalistic, rather than Islamic, stance of most of the Arab governments, led by Egypt. What have been the key developments in the Muslim World since the Six-Day War? Developments ever since the SixDay War and what followed show clearly that the masses are dissatisfied with much of what their leaders are doing. There has been a rapid awareness of the need to be committed to Islamic principles, rather than a political bloc. Islam is what should be important to them. They want to be ruled according to Islamic teachings and want their leaders to be more responsive to their aspirations as Muslims. It's not surprising, therefore, that despite the fact that the British tried to wipe out the Shariah in Nigeria when they came in 1900, by the year 2000, the Shariah came back in full force. Even in the South, where the Muslim leaders and rulers were a bit sceptical, the people themselves, for example in Ibadan and Lagos, set up Shariah courts where they settle disputes between husband and

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wife, family matters, land and inheritance matters, and even some criminal matters. Some young people came forward and said, "We have committed zina (fornication) and we want to be punished!" and then, in some cases, the punishment prescribed by the Quran was permitted. As an African Muslim academic, how influential is the work of the great scholar and leader, Uthman Dan Fodio, today? The impact of Uthman Dan Fodio has always been there. It was simply that most of the elite would not allow this outward expression of commitment to Islam because they profited by allowing the status quo to remain. They support a kind of democracy that allows them to steal money and manipulate the system, so they are scared by the emergence of the Shariah. The re-emergence of the Shariah is evidence of the triumph of the masses, the grassroots. In essence, the emergence of Shariah is democratic. That's right and one wonders why the West criticises Muslims in Nigeria for deciding to apply the Shariah on themselves - that's democracy! You cannot say you want us to be democratic and when we apply your yardstick, you say, "No! We don't want it like you did in Algeria!" So, it's better if they allow us to sort ourselves out. Of course, there is the case of Amina Lawal. I said it in every one of my radio interviews that I was pretty sure that if the matter went to the higher court, the Shariah Court of Appeal, the woman would be set free because the Shariah has already made provision for justice to be done and if the various criteria are applied, then justice would be done, and that is what happened. Do you envisage any future obstacles for the restoration of the Shariah in Nigeria? Are their ways to change the international perception of its application? I believe that the courts themselves must adhere strictly to the rules of the Shariah. Moreover, in Nigeria, since it is not applied to non-Muslims, there is no fear and on the contrary, there are many Christian women in the Shariah-states who say that, "The

COVER

Shariah has saved us because our husbands will remain at home and do not go to pubs, running after women!" Why did you come to Britain in 1990? I was invited by an organisation called Iqra Trust, which is devoted to helping people to know more about Islam and the Muslim way of life. Initially, I was invited to be here for 12 to 18 months but the organisation later wanted me to stay on, and my university allowed me to extend my stay until the time came when I thought I should retire and ever since I have been here working with Iqra and several other Muslim organisations. But my base is the Nigerian Muslim community whose base is again is the Muslim Association of Nigeria. I have also been involved in working with other Muslim organisations, as well as other inter-faith and multi-faith groups. I was involved with interfaith work even before I came to Britain. What do you think of your recent OBE? I do not know how this award came about. I received a letter from the office of the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs that my name had been forwarded to the Queen for the award, and it didn't even say why! It was when the Honours List was published on 31 December last year that I got to know that it was for my "services to inter-faith cooperation". I came to the conclusion that these services could only be through my contribution to the understanding of Islam amongst non-Muslims at both the official and non-official levels. By the way, the first time I became involved with inter-faith work at the international level was when, in 1987, I was invited to present a paper at a conference in Vancouver, Canada. Following that conference, I was again invited, along with Dr. Zaki Badawi, to represent Islam on a committee to prepare for the World Conference on Religion. We were on this Committee for about two years during which period we held several meetings in the United States followed by conferences in places like Australia, South Korea, USA and India. I have also been involved in working for Muslim prisoners in the UK, providing the authorities with specific guidance about Islam and the needs of Muslim prisoners. I was also involved in multi-faith co-operation in the London Borough of Southwark; I was also involved in helping to teach Islam as part of RE in schools. So, I see this award as recognition of the fact that Islam can save humanity if people under-

stand it better. I agree with Prince Charles, who has said that the government should invite more Muslims to come and teach British children moral and spiritual values You were born in a town where Muslims are a minority and you are now based in the UK, where Muslims are also a minority. Do you think there Muslims can live as minorities and still be effective citizens? Why not! I think we should acknowledge that the UK government has done much better than many of its European counterparts in allowing Muslims to practice their faith here. Even though it has been a slow process, more and more Muslim schools are being granted and supported by the government. There is a consciousness about the need to get rid of Islamophobia. It is possible for Muslims to thrive here especially because people increasingly see that the Islamic culture can make a very positive contribution to life in a multi-faith Britain. The problems are there, but the fact that we have gone a long way in the past thirty years shows that the future is bright As a senior member of the community, what is your advice for young Muslims spiritually and professionally? One of the things I remember with a feeling of gratitude to Almighty Allah is that quite a number of educated young Nigerian Muslims came here and picked up Islam afresh, though they were born to Muslim parents in Nigeria. They didn't actually have the opportunity to learn about Islam as deeply as they did here. My advice is that young people should devote themselves to studying Islam, and to keep away from sectarianism. Stay in the mainstream. You will discover that the more you know about Islam from the mainstream perspective; you will be in a position to advise those who are extremists to come back to the main path. After all, we are described as the people of the middle path going to neither of the two extremes. I also want to advise that they should keep away from bad company, be it at the intellectual level or at the social level because the Prophet said, 'A man is influenced by the lifestyle that his very close friend follows, so you must be very careful in choosing whom your close friend should be.' That is not to say you should not have anything to do with non-Muslims. You should be in the stronger position to advise them with wisdom and sound advice. That is more of a reason to acquire knowledge. Sound knowledge and divine guidance ensures that you are always on safe ground. ! Q - NEWS

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MARTYR OR THE MUSLIMS’ RULE Some are born to sweet delight. Some are born to endless night. William Blake, Proverbs of Heaven and Hell Both the Quran and the hadith make it clear that it is forbidden either to murder someone or to commit suicide, both of which will take you to the Fire: And do not kill yourselves, Allah is Most Merciful to you. As for anyone who does that out of enmity and wrongdoing, We will roast him in a Fire. That is an easy matter for Allah. (The Holy Quran, 4:29-30) And: As for anyone who kills a mu’min deliberately, his repayment is Hell, remaining in it timelessly, for ever. Allah is angry with him and has cursed him, and has prepared for him a terrible punishment. (The Holy Quran, 4:92) And: So We decreed for the tribe of Israel that if someone kills another person unless it is in retaliation for someone else or for causing corruption in the earth it is as if he had murdered all mankind. And if anyone gives life to another person, it is as if he had given life to all mankind. Our Messengers came to them with Clear Signs but even after that many of them committed outrages in the earth. (The Holy Quran, 5:32) Ibn Mas’ud related that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, “The blood of a Muslim may not be legally spilt other than in one of three situations: the married person who commits adultery; a life for a life; and one who forsakes his deen and abandons the community.” (Al-Bukhari). As in the case of most legal systems, the Shariah permits Muslims to fight in self-defence if they are attacked - but even in times of war, it is forbidden to kill non-combatants, especially women and children and old men: Yahya related to me from Malik from Nafi from Ibn Umar that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, saw the corpse of a woman who had been slain in one of the raids, and he disapproved of it and forbade the killing of women and children. Yahya related to me from Malik from Yahya ibn Sa’id that Abu

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Bakr as-Siddiq was sending armies to ash-Sham. He went for a walk with Yazid ibn Abi Sufyan who was the commander of one of the battalions. It is claimed that Yazid said to Abu Bakr, “Will you ride or shall I get down?” Abu Bakr said, “I will not ride and you will not get down. I intend these steps of mine to be in the way of Allah.” Then Abu Bakr advised Yazid, “… I advise you ten things: Do not kill women or children or an aged, infirm person. Do not cut down fruit-bearing trees. Do not destroy an inhabited place. Do not slaughter sheep or camels except for food. Do not burn bees and do not scatter them. Do not steal from the booty, and do not be cowardly.” Y a h y a related to me from Malik that he had heard that Umar ibn Abd alAziz wrote to one of his governors, “It has been passed down to us that when the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, sent out a raiding party, he would say to them, ‘Make your raids in the name of Allah in the way of Allah. Fight whoever denies Allah. Do not steal from the booty, and do not act treacherously. Do not mutilate and do not kill children.’ Say the same to your armies and raiding parties, Allah willing. Peace be upon you.” (Al-Muwatta of Imam Malik: 21.3.9-11) As regards suicide, the hadith not only confirm that it is haram to commit suicide and that the punishment for it is to repeatedly commit the same act in the Fire without ever dying, forever - but also clearly confirm that it is forbidden to commit suicide even in war: Narrated Sahl bin Sad As-Sa’idi: “The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and the disbelievers faced each

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MURDERER? S OF ENGAGEMENT other and started fighting. When the Messenger of Allah returned to his camp and when the disbelievers returned to their camp, someone talked about a man amongst the companions of the Messenger of Allah who had been pursuing and killing with his sword any disbeliever fleeing alone. He said, ‘No one fought as hard today as that man.’ The Messenger of Allah said, ‘Truly, he is one of the people of the Fire.’ A man among the people said, ‘I shall follow him (to see what he does).’ So he followed him, and wherever he stood, he would stand with him, and wherever he ran, he would run with him. “Then the (brave) man was wounded seriously and decided to bring about his own death quickly. He slanted the blade of the sword in the ground directing its sharp end towards his chest between his two breasts. Then he leaned on the sword and killed himself. The other man came to the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and said, ‘I testify that you are the Messenger of Allah.’ The Prophet asked, ‘What happened?’ He replied, ‘(It is about) the man whom you described as being one of the people of the Fire. The people were greatly surprised at what you said, and so I said, “I will find out his reality for you.” So, I followed him and watched him. He was severely wounded, and hastened to die by slanting the blade of his sword in the ground and directing its sharp end towards his chest between his two breasts. Then he leant on his sword and killed himself.’ “Then the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, ‘A man may seem to the people as if he were practising the deeds of the people of Paradise while in fact he is from the people of the Fire, and another may seem to the people as if he were practising the deeds of the people of Hell, while in fact he is from the people of the Garden.’” (Sahih Al-Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 147). And: Narrated Jundub: “The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, ‘Amongst the nations before you there was a man who received a wound, and growing impatient (because of the pain), he took a knife and cut his wrist with it and the blood did not stop flowing until he died. Allah said, “My Slave hurried to bring death upon himself so I have forbidden him the Garden.”’” (Sahih AlBukhari Volume 4, Book 56, Number 669). The verses of Quran and hadith quoted above are not the only

ones on the subject, but in my opinion they summarise what the Shariah has to say about killing another human being or committing suicide, whether in peace time or during war. I cannot see, in the light of these verses of Quran and hadith, how any well-informed Muslim can believe that blowing him or her self up and killing and maiming anyone in the vicinity will take him or her to the Garden. Historically only certain members of the Ismaili sect have held this kind of view - and they are not accepted as being Muslims or as representing Islam by the main body of Muslims. These acts have nothing to do with the Sunnah. I can understand how someone whose home and family and friends have been annihilated by laser precision bomb or rocket attacks may be driven in anger to carry out such a nihilistic act against civilian targets - using the rationale, “If they are killing our families, we will kill their families,” - but both indiscriminate bombing (whether by land, sea or air) and suicide bombing remain nevertheless unacceptable from a balanced Islamic perspective and neither course of action can be condoned. They have nothing to do with the Sunnah. They cannot possibly have positive consequences either in this world or in the next. In the Palestinian conflict, both sides are blowing each other up, each claiming that it is retaliation - and ascertaining at this stage who committed the first act of aggression (possibly the massacre of some 250 civilian inhabitants, mostly women and children, of Deir Yasin by the Stern Gang and Irgun Zvai Leumi terrorists on the 9th April 1948) will n ot in itself halt this chain reaction which appears to be out of control and leading ineluctably to fulfilment of the prophecies in chapters 38 and 39 of Ezekiel. It is true that the shahid, the martyr who dies in the way of Allah, is promised many rewards in the next life, both in the Quran and in the hadith, but in my opinion anyone who murders an innocent bystander or non-combatant or commits suicide cannot die as a shahid. It is also true that there is more than one kind of martyr: Yahya related to me from Malik from Sumayy, the mawla of Abu Bakr ibn ‘Abd ar-Rahman from Abu Salih from Abu Hurayra that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said... “Martyrs are five: the one killed by a plague, the one killed by a disease of the belly, the one who drowns, the one killed by a collapsing building, and the martyr in the path of Allah.” (Al-Muwatta’ of Imam Malik: 8.2.6) ! Quotations from the Quran from The Noble Quran - a New Rendering of its Meaning in English by Abdalhaqq and Aisha Bewley, (Bookwork, Norwich, 1999). Quotations of hadith from AlMuwatta of Imam Malik translated by Aisha Bewley and Yaqub Johnson (Diwan Press, Norwich, 1982) and the Sahih of Imam AlBukhari translated by Dr. Muhammad Muhsin Khan (Madina University Press, 1971). AHMAD THOMSON Q - NEWS

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LETTER FROM JEDDAH The Saudia Arabian people are deeply embarrassed that fifteen of the nineteen September 11 hijackers were Saudis. Even then, it is unjustified that collective guilt should be placed on an entire nation. We are accused of being a nation that supports the extremist ideology of terrorists. We wholeheartedly reject these allegations. The criminals who committed the heinous act do not represent Saudi Arabia or the Muslim world. It’s time for closure because that horrific event has dragged the whole world into a seemingly endless conflict. Saudi Arabia herself is a victim of terrorism. Saudi law enforcement agencies continue to cooperate with international organisations to confront this global threat and probe the causes behind it. We are united in exposing and arresting those who terrorise innocent people and promote extremist ideologies that are alien to Islam. There are new laws and regulations in the crackdown against vigilantism. For example, guns and other weapons, often owned as a symbol of strength in Saudi homes, have been confiscated from across Saudi Arabia. The national borders of the Kingdom are now better protected against infiltrators, terrorists and smugglers. Police are now physically present on the streets to secure lives and property and to crack down on any suspicious activities. Saudi Arabia cannot afford to appear weak in the fight against terrorism, because we ourselves have so much to lose. Religious scholars and responsible citizens as well as concerned mothers in Saudi Arabia are determined to guide our youth to the path of moderate Islam. The war on terrorism is a global war and we must unite to protect our children from the deadly pursuits of terrorists, supremacists, racists, and xenophobic minorities that have robbed us all of our peaceful societies. However, it must be said that it is totally unacceptable to punish all Muslims for the small minority of extremists amongst us when the world routinely neglects all other kinds of extremism. The Likudists in Israel, for example, are extremists who defy international law, reject peace and continue to escalate tensions in the Middle East, terrorising

Palestinians and enraging Arabs and Muslims everywhere. The neoconservatives in the US with their antagonistic policies and warmongering support an extremist ideology that is also a threat to peace. Oklahoma bomber, Timothy McVeigh and his Christian group were also the kind of extremists who still exist in the US today. For the sake of world peace and global security we must have the wisdom and the political will to stop all threatening ideologies. If we continue to suppress some while allowing others to spread, we will lose all credibility. Saudi Arabia and the Muslim world have spoken out against Muslim extremists but the US and the West have yet to speak out against the extremists in their own midst. If we do not act soon, more and more frustrated young Muslims will be driven into the arms of extremist groups. Furthermore, blasphemous attacks against Islam and the Prophet Muhammad by prominent politicians and Christian scholars in America continue to enrage Muslims. Having gained momentum after September 11, 2001 such blasphemous statements continue to feed the widespread perception in the Muslim world that the war on terror is a Judeo-Christian crusade against Islam. The ordinary Muslim is not plotting to kill the infidel. The Arabs and Muslims are not secretly plotting to take over the world

in order to establish an Islamic caliphate. This rhetoric is emanating from suspicious individuals who are outlawed in their own countries but are given safe haven in the West. They don’t represent the one billion Muslims of the world and are not tolerated in any Arab or Muslim country. Nonetheless, according to the American-Arab AntiDiscrimination Committee (ADC) in America, Muslims and Arabs are now portrayed negatively even in schools. American education curricula depict Muslims as butchers, terrorists, rapists and oppressors of women, and believers in holy war. The curricula also portrays Arabs as ‘camel riders’ and ‘sand slaves’. The Arab man is depicted as an oil sheikh who is wealthy, extravagant and wants to buy the USA with his money. All this only augments the deep antiArab bias that has existed in Hollywood movies and Western media for decades. We strongly denounce this distortion of the image of Islam and Muslims. This harmful stereotyping of 1.25 billion Muslims of the world and of Arabs in general will only escalate tensions. To put an end to global terror, we need tolerance and goodwill. People of different faiths and cultures need to coexist and respect each other’s beliefs and lifestyle. There are obviously concerns about fundamentalist Islam in different parts of the world. Muslim countries are well aware of this. However, the solution is not for Muslims to be forced to Westernise or for Muslim countries to be secular. The solution is to address issues that divide the Muslim world and the West. People of goodwill, whether in the East or in the West, must speak out against their own extremists and radicals. Targeting only the Muslim radicals while giving a free hand to other radicals in the world, whether Christians, Jews or otherwise will only create more barriers and suspicions that will further divide our world. ! Samar Fatany

REFLECTIONS

THE GREAT TRUST HANNAH AND MARYAM CAME INTO THE WORLD ON A COLD WINTER’S NIGHT IN DECEMBER. OVERWHELMED BY THE BLESSING OF THEIR BIRTH, SAFURA HOUGHTON, PREPARING FOR A LIFE OF JOY AND STRUGGLE, REFLECTS ON WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS FOR HER DAUGHTERS. I fell in love with my twins daughters Hannah and Maryam the moment I set eyes on them. Such beautiful, tiny human beings. They were a great gift and trust given to me by Allah. I was to educate them, to instill values that would prepare them for the big cold world. As soon as I began to view society through the eyes of a mother, all my concerns suddenly seemed more serious. Surely, this is too big a test; surely failure is inevitable. I walk through the streets and wonder how such lewd images of semi-naked women crept onto our billboards, the sides of our buses and our television screens. Do we want our daughters to aspire to these women? We cannot even watch a supposedly educational children’s programme without feeling compelled to frequently switch between channels. Everywhere we look, it seems the less clothing one wears the more attention one gets. As a Muslim woman who values modesty, this is very difficult to deal with. As a hadith says, Every religion has a distinctive quality, and the distinctive quality of Islam is modesty. (Muwatta) A friend was walking home with her eight year old brother when the little boy noticed a new billboard outside his school. It was an advertisement for mineral water, with a picture of a naked woman lying on her front. The boy looked away and told his older sister to look away too, asking out loud, “Why have they put a rude picture up outside my school?” Children themselves are disturbed by such images. If they are taught by adults around them that this is all normal, they will become immune to this kind of exposure. It is far too simplistic for us to say we can choose not to look but what about our children? Young minds are like brand new sponges; soaking up everything they are exposed to. Having worked with children for seven years, I assumed I would know exactly what to do when I had my own. I was naïve. We must especially bring up our daughters with strong Islamic values and genuine self-worth. They are the mothers of the next generation of Muslims in Britain. What happens when a child tells her parents she wants to wear a belly top just like her friend’s? Or asks for a make-up kit like the

one advertised on television? Do we go along with whatever this innocent child wants because she is still ‘just a little girl’? Are we then encouraging the child’s desire to be like the others around her, risking her growing into a woman who feels that drawing lots of attention to herself is the only way to get places? How do we protect our children from these influences without molly-cuddling them? It seems harsh to say that children should closely guarded by their parents against the immorality and shamelessness that is rife, but this is the only option many parents feel they have. Sadly, many parents who only wish to protect their children’s innocence and morality are labelled as narrow-minded and control freaks. So what else can we do? To being with, we must be good role models to our children. We need more Islamic support groups that can help with childrearing according to Islam. We need to be in tune with our children at all times. We need to be able to read our children well enough to spot potential problems. We need to support them when they silently cry for support. We need to regularly take time to sit down and casually discuss day to day things with them, such as school and friends. We need to create an environment of accountability to Allah in our homes. We need to encourage goodness. Apart from the forbidden and discouraged acts, there are literally thousands of enjoyable and constructive ways to use time. We need to teach our children to reflect upon each day. One thing that never ceased to amaze me when I worked with children was their innate ability to see and admit to the mistakes they have made. It becomes easy for a child to apologize for a mistake he or she can admit to. We may feel overwhelmed by the seriousness of our responsibility towards our children, but for all the care and concern that children involve, we are promised by our Creator that no task is greater than we can bear. I feel that Allah has set me a double test. I can only strive to do my best and hope and pray with all my heart that I pass Insha allah. And know ye that your possessions and your progeny are but a trial; and that it is Allah with Whom lies your highest reward. (The Holy Quran, 8:28) !

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The Challenge of Pluralism and the Middle Way of Islam Dr Henzell-Thomas plunges straight into a “challenge to the dangerous doctrine of the clash of civilisations”, a doctrine from Professor Samuel Huntington in 1996, published in response to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Huntington saw the “remaking of the World Order” as “largely between Muslims and non-Muslims”. Henzell-Thomas’s paper seems to be an attempt to stem the hysterical tide of fear, hate and negative stereotyping of Muslims, provoked by the horror of citizens and politicians in the aftermath of the destruction of the Twin Towers. My time on the Islamophobia Commission put me in the privileged position of being introduced to Muslim communities in Britain by fellow Commissioners who themselves are Muslims. The Commission’s 1997 report “Islamophobia, a Challenge for Us All” was launched by Jack Straw MP soon after he became Home Secretary. It includes a masterful analysis of “closed and open views of Islam” which was in fact written by the editor of the Commission, Robin Richardson. With the simplicity of an excellent teacher, he describes the “closed view” as “Islam seen as a single monolithic bloc, static and unresponsive to new realities”. This he contrasts with the “open view” in which “Islam is seen as diverse and progressive, with internal differences, debates and development”. His seven other distinctions between “closed views” and “open views” are an admirable analysis of discrimination of all kinds. It is a tool for sorting out prejudice from reality not just in Islamophobia, but also in racism, anti-semitism and prejudice against asylum-seekers. Dr Henzell-Thomas is an equally fine teacher. He elucidates a “Middle Way” based on the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings upon him, in the proud English tradition of “fair play”. I can only add that “there are good and bad in all communities”. This applies to British Muslims but, because I am a Jew, I have to add that it also applies to British Jews. It applies to Muslim and Jewish populations elsewhere, as well as to the populations of countries which consider themselves as “The

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WITH THE CONTINUING RISE OF ISLAMOPHOBIA, THE RECOGNITION THAT PLURALISM IS BOTH POSSIBLE, AND IS BEING DEBATED, WITHIN MUSLIM COMMUNITIES NEEDS WIDER APPRECIATION. THAT IS WHY, WRITES DR RICHARD STONE, THE PUBLICATION OF JEREMY HENZELLTHOMAS’S IMPASSIONED PLEA TO HIGHER VIRTUES, THE CHALLENGE OF PLURALISM AND THE MIDDLE WAY OF ISLAM, IS SUCH AN IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTION TO THE DEBATE. West”. To categorise all members of any group as all bad or all good is a “closed view”, and is simply contrary to the experiences of all human beings. If in doubt, I suggest the “reverse discrimination test”: this means switching the negative generalisation about other people, and trying out how it feels if replaced with “us”. Slogans which brand all Muslims as terrorists are belied by the rarely heard condemnations by Muslim leaders that “Islamist terrorists” act in ways totally contrary to the teachings of the Quran. In my view, they should not be decribed as “Islamist”. They are terrorists. They may abuse Quranic teachings to justify their actions, but they are no more representatives of their faith than terrorists in Northern Ireland who claim to be Protestant or Catholic, but are condemned by the leaders of both denominations. Dr Henzell-Thomas writes “unlike computers, human beings have the means to reconcile opposites, to encompass creative paradox, to be comfortable with diversity and difference”. We can indeed can make choices that are more complex than mere “either/or”. Norman Tebbitt famously challenged all who live in Britain to answer his unhelpful and divisive “cricket test”. My twenty years as a doctor in Notting Hill brought me close involvement in small slices with the lives of many families whose origins are in the Caribbean. Now, I am just delighted that the West Indies cricket team are playing England. The closer the match, the more I enjoy it. The Tebbitt test is based on a false assumption based in infantile playground categories. The mature adult response is to rejoice in watching good cricket, no matter which side wins. This is why I am uneasy with the current search for “common values of Britishness”. To me, this is a false Tebbitt-quest which Dr Henzell-Thomas describes as “a cliché about celebration of diversity”. He proposes dialogue as the first principle of pluralism. He draws on Harvard Professor Diana Eck who says we may “meet for an interfaith prayer breakfast, but without real dialogue these [religious leaders] become simply icons of diversity not instruments of relationship”.

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Through dialogue, he continues “we understand ourselves more deeply… dialogue and dialectic enhance not only the possibility of living together in harmony, but also deepen our understanding of our own faith and our own selves”. It is this “mutual self-understanding” which is so urgently needed between British Hindus and British Muslims whose children find themselves divided in playgrounds as a result of divisions spilling over from Ayodhya and Gujarat as well as from Kashmir. Similarly, British Muslims and British Jews need to listen to each other on what they think and feel about the terrible events in Israel/Palestine which also spill over to cause divisions here, two thousand miles away. Divided communities in Britain need their “icons of diversity” but those political and religious leaders must do more than meet and smile together. I ask them to find ways to seek out the silent majorities in their communities and to create safe places where feelings and loyalties can be spoken of, and be heard to the point of being respected by the silent majorities in communities felt to be hostile. It is not enough to promote superficial community cohesion and pretend we have left our baggage behind. When we know that our loyalties and feelings have been heard enough that they are respected by those on the other side, and then we can make real cohesive steps forward with our baggage proudly on our shoulders. Dr Henzell-Thomas describes “a climate of revolt amongst many Muslims against what has been called the trajectory of globalisation and an active resistance to the cultural and political dominance that has accompanied it”. This is “even more sharply polarised in some quarters in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks [with] every prospect of increasing disaffection and alienation in some sections of the Muslim community which have become marginalized and disadvantaged by … inequalities, by Islamophobia … as much as by certain fixed attitudes in the community itself”. His explanation of a “retreat into hostile alienation and exclusiveness” is markedly similar to the experience of Diaspora Jewry. The silent majority within both our communities find it difficult to express in public their rejection of our extremists who provide such profitable headlines for owners of the media. Most difficult of all is to counter the voices of our own community leaders who try to defend what is often indefensible. Criticise bad things done in the name of our religion and you find yourself attacked by your own leaders who demand unity from us with their own defensive positions. A unified defence of the indefensible bolsters the closed views that lump all Muslims or all Jews as inferior. Debates and disagreements within our communities should be welcomed by our leaders as practical ways of combating discrimination and exclusion.

In Britain we have Reform, Liberal Progressive, and more recently the Masorti synagogue movements. They recognise, as does Dr Henzall-Thomas that “human minds are conditioned differently in each age, and that tradition must be dynamically self-renewing and responsive to new conditions and new questions if it is to remain a living tradition”. Many Orthodox rabbis too have been appalled by, for example, the treatment of some non-Jewish tribes described in the Torah. From the classical period onwards Jewish law has found ways of tackling the many instances where the Torah appears to conflict with larger Jewish values over, for example capital punishment, slavery and the treatment of women. Rabbis have often managed to distance themselves without betraying basic Jewish beliefs. So too, Muslim teachers have explained to me that the Hadith which tells Muslims “do not trust the Jews” refer to the Jewish Tribes of Medina. When Medina was surrounded by enemy armies, those Tribes thought that the Prophet Muhammad would lose the battle, so they abandoned their Contract with the Prophet Muhammad and went to join the enemy. After the Muslims had won the battle, of course they could no longer “trust the Jews”. But that does not necessarily mean that Muslims must never trust any Jews at any time in the following thousand and more years. When Jews lived under Muslim rule in Al-Andalus and in the Ottoman Empire we developed our Golden Ages. Those were also Golden Ages for Muslims. In Europe today we again live side by side, but for the first time we are both minorities. We both feel increasingly under threat, fending off rising tides of old prejudices and hostility. However in Britain in particular this need not be all negative. There are many opportunities for another period of joint creativity, perhaps building a new Golden age together in this ‘Green and Pleasant Land’. Alif-Aleph (UK) is a group of British Muslims and British Jews who define ourselves by the first letters of the Arabic and Hebrew alphabets, adding “(UK)” to demonstrate that we are here, and that we are not going away. We aim to support exactly the urgently needed dialogue described by Dr Jeremy Henzell-Thomas, which is already going on between both of our minority communities for our mutual benefit and for the public good of all who live in this country. We have no wish to take over, nor control dialogues and activities of others, and the increasing numbers of positive contacts between our communities. By mapping those positive contacts we will enable more meeting of the silent majorities who firmly reject the small number of extremists who hijack our religions for political and self-promoting purposes. !

Divided communities in Britain need their “icons of diversity” but those political and religious leaders must do more than meet and smile together. I ask them to find ways to seek out the silent majorities in their communities and to create safe places where feelings and loyalties can be spoken of, and be heard to the point of being respected by the silent majorities in communities felt to be hostile.

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REVIEW | REPORT

OFSTED REPORT ON BANGLADESHI STUDENTS

indicators for educational achievement; Bangladeshi pupils with greater English fluency are closing the gap for GCSE average scores with other ethnic groups. For example, 71% of Bangladeshi pupils who achieve level 5 passes at key Stage 3 achieve five or more A*-C grades at GCSE compared with 67% for Pakistani Pupils and 48% for Black Caribbean pupils. In other cases such as in Tower Hamlets in London, a borough with more than 50% of its pupils from Bangladeshi heritageBangladeshi pupils notably, the girls, attain better than the London average. In keeping with national trends on gender and educational achievement, Bangladeshi girls are improving faster than boys. The report said that girls valued school because it widened their horizons and allowed them to make friends, because many of them were confined to the family home out of school hours. The Education watch dog, Ofsted (Office for Standards in Although parents were very ambitious for their children’s Education) published their much awaited report in May 2004. achievement and appreciated that education would provide the Entitled Achievement of Bangladeshi Heritage Pupils, the opportunity to play a part in English society. Nevertheless some report focuses on the way in which Bangladeshi students have parents were still had a ‘traditional’ approach to schools for been making gradual improvements in GCSE results. there daughters, believing it important that access to further The report is based on small-scale survey of nine secondary and higher education be fitted around marriage rather than the schools in the UK with substantial Bangladeshi pupil cohort. other way around. The main aim of the survey was ‘to explore the educational The report further highlighted that Bangladeshi staff proexperiences of Bangladeshi pupils in English schools’. This was vided invaluable support in building and bridging understandachieved through focuses on qualitative interviews with paring between staff, students and parents. More importantly they ents, teachers and students combined with qualitative findings provided a positive role models for pupils. on attainments of Bangladeshi students with GCSE A*-C. Attendance was also a key element for underachievement, The report makes a slight change in the genre in educalack of continuity in schooling and extended holidays in tional research, from educational underachievement to educaBangladesh during school term together with young pupils tional achievement. Various local and more importantly leaving for jummah were issues that were cited in the report. national figures have showed a slow but significant increase in However some mosques were modifying prayer times to fit betthe levels of achievement. For example, the figures from the ter with school times. Department of Education and Skills (DES) show the proporHowever, research by Dr Virindar Kalra at the University of Manchester KEY STATISTICS ON THE BANGLADESHI COMMUNITY found that extended holidays made very little impact in the overall picture of educational underPopulation: 283,063 (0.5% of total) achievement. Many aca38% are under the age of 16 demics have also argued that this is a strategy often 65% are male, 35% are female used to put the blame 4.5 people make up an average household solely to parents and fam7% are in professional employment ilies for educational underachievement. Two in five Bangladeshi men are either cooks or waiters Other than the data 54% Bangladeshi’s live in London analysis the report does not make any significant contribution to the Source: Census April 2001, Office for National Statistics debate. For example, most of the key findings have already been discussed in previous government reports, such as the famous tion of Bangladeshi pupils achieving five good GCSE passes Swann Report (1985) or other academic research by Zubaida rose by 2.2% to 45.5% last summer, compared with a nationHaque. Despite some of its flows the report should be welal average of 50.7%. The OFSTED performance data figures comed, there is a desperate and crying need of more research in based on the nine schools also reflected the DES figures with this field. ! 45.2% pass rates at A-C. Although this is lower than the national average but when compared with all the pupils in the nine schools in the study Bangladeshi achievement is slightly SHAMIM MIAH higher (all pupils in the school only achieved 34.8%). Fluency in the English language seems to be one of many

48 | Q - NEWS

COUNSEL

In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate. May His abundant blessing and most perfect of peace be on His Beloved Prophet, the best of creation, and his family, companions and followers. SUICIDE DURING AN ACT OF RAPE MUFTI MUHAMMAD IBN ADAM AL-KAWTHARI

Is a woman permitted to commit suicide when she is about to be raped? What about those in war torn countries? Committing suicide is strictly forbidden in Islam and can never be justified. No matter how miserable and depressed one becomes, one cannot not kill oneself. Allah Most High says: “Do not kill yourselves, for indeed Allah is Most Merciful to you.” (Surah al-Nisa, V. 29) The Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and give him peace, said: “Whoever intentionally throws himself from a mountain and kills himself, will be in the fire (of Hell) falling down into it and abiding therein eternally forever; and whoever drinks poison and kills himself with it, he will be carrying his poison in his hand and drinking it in the fire (of Hell) wherein he will abide eternally forever; and whoever kills himself with an iron weapon, will be carrying that weapon in his hand and stabbing his abdomen with it in the fire (of Hell) wherein he will abide eternally forever.” (Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim) Therefore, committing suicide even for fear of being raped is not justified. Yes, this is easier said than done and it is difficult for an outsider to judge such a situation, but in light of the evidences, it is difficult to declare committing suicide permissible. Sayyiduna Jundub, Allah be pleased with him, narrates that the Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and give him peace, said: “There was amongst those before you a man who had a wound. He was in (such) anguish that he took a knife and made with it a cut in his hand, and the blood did not cease to flow till he died. Allah the Almighty said: “My servant has himself forestalled me; I have forbidden him Paradise.” (Sahih al-Bukhari, no. 1298 & Sahih Muslim, no. 180) This narration clearly shows the impermissibility of killing oneself even in extreme anguish and pain, for in killing oneself, one is bringing death upon one’s self before Allah Almighty gives one death. Thus, it will not be permitted to commit suicide even if carried out in defence of one’s honour.

WHAT YOU

OUGHT TO

KNOW In such a case, a Muslim woman should resist her attacker with all means possible. If he kills her during her struggle to prevent him raping and abusing her, she will be considered a martyr, thus securing a place in heaven. Having said that, we should not condemn Muslim women who do commit suicide, for only Allah knows what situation they were in, and what emotional and physical trauma they faced. Thus, we should pray for them and seek their forgiveness, and it is not beyond the mercy of Allah to forgive them. VOTING IN WESTERN DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM FARAZ RABBANI

Are we permitted to vote in a Western democratic system, which considers man instead of God, as Al-Hakim (ruler). Surely this is shirk as voting is tantamount to asserting that Allah rules aren’t good enough for us. In the absence of an Islamic rule, it is an obligation to establish it, not settle for the ‘next best alternative’. I don’t see the logic in this thinking. In traditional curriculums, both in the Islamic world and Europe, logic was an important science taught to young adults, for the simple reason that they be able to reason without falling into simple errors. Without study of logic, or keeping the company of those who think according to the dictates of Sacred Law and reason, arguments like, “We were told to eat mangoes, so it is haram to eat oranges,” arise. People have to wake up. If you live in a non-Muslim country, you have accepted the reality that you are not living in a land where the Shariah’s public and political laws can be applied (unless, some time in the future, the population chooses to enter Islam), at least at present.

In these situations, Muslims have three main duties: a) fulfill their personal religious obligations; b) as a community, fulfill their communal religious obligations; and c) promote the general good. Muslims dream of and work towards ideals but live realities. The only way these three duties can be fulfilled now and in the future is for Muslims to be strong at the individual and community levels, and have strong individual and community presence in society at large, at every level. As for sitting in London, and saying you are ‘working towards establishing an Islamic state’, this is folly. No Islamic state can exist without a state of Islam; otherwise, more harm is done than good. MEDICINE WITH ALCOHOL FARAZ RABBANI

Is it permissible to take a medicinal tonic that has alcohol as an ingredient in it? Can I offer my prayers after taking the tonic? Yes, such a tonic is permissable for medical purposes, as long as the alcohol is not based on or derived from grape wine. It would be more scrupulous (though not obligatory) to seek out non-alcohol medicine - such alternatives are normally available if one searches for them. It would remain obligatory for you to pray when you have taken such a tonic, unless you are legally drunk, which is highly unlikely. ANONYMOUS COMPLAINTS FARAZ RABBANI

My non-muslim neighbors play loud thumping music that can be heard through our walls. Is it right to anonymously call and complain about them? The sunnah way would be to develop good relations with your neighbors and politely request that they reduce the volume. Allah Most High told His Beloved Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), “It was by the mercy of Allah that you were lenient with them, for if you had been stern and fierce of heart they would have dispersed from around you. So pardon them and ask forgiveness for them and consult with them upon the conduct of affairs. And when You art resolved, then put your trust in Allah. Lo! Allah loves those who put their trust (in Him). [Qur’an, 3.159] ! FARAZ RABBANI answers questions and teaches through Sunni Path www.sunnipath.com Q - NEWS

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INVOCATIONS

DEAR BELOVED SON Read this duâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;a at different times and especially after your prayers: 0 Allah, truly I seek from thee of grace the most perfect, and of protection the most abiding, and of mercy the most encompassing, and of forgiveness its attainment, and of living the most comforting, and of life the happiest, and of beneficence the most perfect, and of blessing the most general, and of favor the sweetest, and of kindliness the most beneficial. 0 Allah, be for us and be not against us. 0 Allah, seal with happiness our appointed time and confirm in excess our hopes, and unite in forgiveness our mornings and our evenings, and bring to thy mercy our final state and what is for us, and pour out the gift of thy pardon upon our transgressions, and bestow upon us the correction of our blemishes, and make piety our provision for the journey; in thy religion is our endeavor, and upon thee is our trust and our confidence. Fix us firmly upon the path of uprightness and protect us in this world from acts necessitating regrets on the day of judgment and lighten on us the burden of the sins and bestow upon us the life of the righteous, and avert and dispel from us the evils and set free our necks and the necks of our fathers and our mothers from the fire in thy mercy, 0 thou Illustrious One, thou Coverer of sins, thou Gracious One, thou Forgiving One, thou Benevolent One, thou Mighty One, 0 Allah, 0 Allah, thou Most Compassionate of the Compassionate, and in Him we trust. Extract from Chapter 24 of Letter to My Beloved Son, by Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, translated by George Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Shraer.

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I would like to congratulate QNews for organising such a stimulating and relevant event Citizenship, Islam and the West on 4 May 2004. I felt all of the speakers made a worthwhile and important contribution to the debate and approached such an age old and controversial topic with competence and sensitivity. However, I was struck by a sense of irony during the course of the evening that I feel I must share with you. Surely if as Muslims we are to talk about the role we must play in the western world and how we are represented within the mainstream structures of society, we must first ensure that all our voices are being heard. Those that stand on platforms and direct the debate and our thinking must reflect those in the audience and yet the panel was, to put it bluntly, made up of white middle class men. Now, I am in no way suggesting that I have a problem with white middle class men but do they reflect the diverse nature of the Muslim community in the West and thus, the diverse issues or can they truly fully appreciate all issues relating to our lives here? Is it not about time that at events like these the female voice is given the space to be heard? And with an increasing amount of black Muslims feeling marginalised within our communities should they not be encouraged to share the platform? How can we truly hope to play a positive role as active citizens in these societies when we still haven’t moved on from a minority speaking for and to everyone? I sense there is a danger that while our intentions are good we are recreating the same biased structures where the power of speech and decision-

making is being held by a small group that have emerged from a specific social-economic experience, leaving them partially incapable of seeing things from the viewpoint of others and thus, incapable of ensuring the needs and concerns of others are being addressed. Yasmine Ahmed London

SPOTTED I am a postman and I recently saw a copy of Q-News in the Royal Mail sorting office where I work. Please, could you send me information on an annual subscription? Naeem Ul-Haq Oldham

ALIENATION I’m not a Muslim and yet I consider myself as politically alienated, both in the UK and thus, obviously on wider issues, as many Muslims must feel. Feeling a strong sense of duty, both morally and intellectually, to defend the people of Palestine, Chechnya, Kashmir as best I can from within a society that has all but written off any of these dispossessed and angry people as terrorists and fanatics’, I feel unable to put my trust in any of the political parties to represent me. I just reckon that if, as a white male, I can be made to feel so dejected there is little hope for the Muslim minority, subject to increased suspicion, stereotype and marginalisation as they are, to feel like an organic and valued section of society as they should be. These are troubling times but hopefully good people can come forward to show the peaceful possibilities of life together rather than more images of division, conflict and mistrust that are constantly perpetuated and diffused by

THE PEO P the all to rightwing media. I’m an idealist so I maintain my vision of hope, I hope you do too. Leigh Rice Leeds

INTEGRATION I was chairman of the Bedford Council of Faiths for three years, and was Very aware that Bangladeshi Muslims, Pakistani Muslims and other Muslim groups were very insular. If one group attended a function, the others would not come. It was a similar situation with Sikhs, Nirankari and Hindus they refused to attend if any other of those mentioned were to be present. I have to say that a similar situation arises with some Christian groups too, but in the cases mentioned earlier there seems to be a racial context too. As a Buddhist myself, I feel I am outside most of this, looking in, but I am well aware of the bad feeling caused to people who would like to mix with, and learn from, others from different backgrounds and faiths, as I would like to do. I have tried to read the Holy Quran, but it is very difficult. I have read the teachings of other faiths. Is it fear? Is it ignorance, leading to fear? Is it race-based fear of the different? This is something which has concerned me for many years, and I continue to be interested in your views. Tony Cook Bedford

NETWORKING I am writing to you to share my deep concerns with regards to the British Muslim community. My concern began with my experience working as a teacher in Muslim-majority

PLE HAVE SPOKEN primary schools in West Yorkshire 1999-2001, where I observed communities being disenfranchised by institutionalised racism within the education system. My concerns have not diminished in the years that followed, both in my own experience as a Muslim attending a mosque, and in relation to the upsurge of Islamophobia following 9/11 and the socalled ‘war on terror’. At the same time, I have been aware of growing body of progressive Muslim activists and academics, primarily in the USA, liaising to develop a coherent and powerful voice in academia, as well as in the traditional and new medias. Progressive Muslims include Omar Safi, Khaled Abou El Fadl, Ebrahim Moosa, Farid Esack, Amir Hussain, Amina Wadud and Sa’diyya Shaikh. They have impressed and inspired me with their ability to engage both with the sophistries of contemporary extremisms as well as pressing social and environmental issues. I find their voices refreshing, erudite, incisive and imbued with a genuine devotion to the Islamic faith. It has been suggested there may be benefits to building or perhaps extending this network within the UK. With this idea in mind, I am currently working with US-based Muslim academic Amir Hussain and a Canadian-based Muslim journalist Raheel Raza, in order to facilitate better links between progressive Muslims in the UK. However, I am keen to emphasize my belief in a broadlybased network, including Muslims from all walks of life - not just professionals and academics! I would hope that those interested would feel they could broadly align themselves with the definition of progressive

Islam developed by the Progressive Muslim Network, despite its hermeneutic terminology. Having said that, I am keen to build a network that is founded first and foremost on a humanistic approach to Islam, rather than yet another ideological-based sectarian Muslim group. Yunus Yakoub Islam Huddersfield

QUIT WHINING I always wonder; has there been any evaluation of the purpose for private Islamic School in Britain? Isn’t this a contributing factor to Muslim isolation and exclusion? Why not promote integration in the public school where youth can learn to live in harmony with fellow British? Instead of building mosques, why not community and recreational centres? Muslims in Britain have to take responsibility for “ghettolike situation” they find themselves. It’s a disgrace. First, they must reject the invasion into Britain, the perverted beliefs and extreme ideology prevalent in the Middle East and South East Asia. Second, totally reject hate speech of socalled Muslims scholars. Third, recognise the Islamic values of freedom and democracy in Britain which allow so many to flee their so-called Islamic countries to seek sanctuary. Speak up loudly against the fanatic groups. Complaining and whining about the Muslim Council Of Britain, and their letter to all mosques, is not going to solve the problem. Self-analysis and introspection are always painful, but it is time to feel and welcome such pain. The vast majority of Muslims in Canada fully endorse the position taken by MCB. Bibi Khan Canada

THE FUTURE I am a black man who has links (albeit tenuous ones) with the so-called black community. What impressed me about Q-News is the vision and clarity.At the root it is, I believe, the call for truth in analysing one’s situiation. This is a virtue that is almost completely missing when dealing with our deplorable situation. The absolute need to totally overhall the way that we perceive ourselves is long, long overdue. In fact, I would go so far as to say that we are about two generations a head of you in regards to our sophisticated arguments of self-deception. Don’t believe me? Then take a stroll through the black "community", and see the madness that reigns at all levels. Whenever a non-black person points this out, they are immediately accused of being racist. The major turning point for blacks to evaluate themselves came in the early 1980s during the riots. We did not turn. What we did, was accept a few

more crumbs at the master’s table. The real truths within were never dealt with. Thus, 20 years on, you have a generation that is even more ignorant than there parents, if that is possible! If you what to gaze into the chrystal ball of your future, then look no further than us. Olu London

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| 53

WRITE MIND

LETTER TO AN AL-MUHAJIRUN BROTHER THE AL-MUHAJIROUN HAVE A PENCHANT FOR MAKING HEADLINES. THEIR INFLAMMATORY RHETORIC AND PROVOCATIVE PUBLICITY STUNTS HAVE MADE THEM A FAVOURITE TARGET OF THE TABLOID PRESS. BUT SOME THINGS JUST DON’T MAKE SENSE. ATIF IMTIAZ LEVELS SOME TOUGH QUESTIONS AT BRITAIN’S JIHADIST FRINGE.

ear brother, I am forced to ask you some questions even though I feel extremely uncomfortable doing so. When your group was formed in the mid-nineties after Omar Bakri Mohamed left Hizb ut-Tahrir, some of us watched your group evolve towards what could today be regarded as a halfway house between the Hizb, with its ideological-rhetorical emphasis, and the violence of the jihadis. We have to take you seriously now because of the exposure that the media have given you and the damage this is doing to the Muslim case as a whole. History has shown repeatedly that extremist organizations have been used by sections of the state and sections of society in order to advance projects against certain communities. Let us work through the claims. You claim to work for the khilafah. May I then suggest that it would be easier to fulfill such an objective elsewhere? If not, then how exactly do you intend to go about it? Perhaps you would say this will be through dawah? Then, my second question is, what do you do that invites people to Islam? Perhaps, you would point to your leaflets and debates. Would you then not accept that what you are achieving is more political agitation than dawah - one being at the expense of the other? Then, you may say that you are upholding jihad. If so, and if paradise lies in the battlefield, then shouldn’t those who seek the Garden leave with a one way ticket towards the doors of Paradise? So, on khilafah, dawah and jihad, your group makes no sense. If we were to take some of the most serious, widely-accepted, consistent, hard-working, knowledgeable Muslims from across the community - people who have been active in Islamic work for the

54 | Q - NEWS

last two decades - and place them in a room, do you think that they would agree or disagree with you? You may insist they are all insincere. I would not respond. You may say that they are all wrong, but all of them? What disturbs me most is the ease with which you tip-toe around the issue of violence and the taking of innocent life - something universally condemned across the major divisions that exist within the ummah - except that is for the jihadi scholars. But whereas the jihadis clearly state their position, you don’t. And yet you speak with so much force - so why, if you are so right, are you so ambiguous? You will point to the elders of your community who are corrupt and sold-out, you will point to Muslims who seek fame and fortune, you will point to cluster bombs and assassinations, you will point to neo-imperialism, you will point to racism, you will point to the majority who don’t care, you will point to a media that hides photographs of Muslim blood, you will point to a democracy which has been betrayed by its own champion…you will point to all of these and I agree with you on all of them. But there are Islamically legitimate and strategically more productive ways to deal with these very problems. Finally, a word on your leader: he is not regarded as credible across the board. Why does he always, and I mean, always say the wrong thing at the right time? And why does it always make front-page news? It is obviously because he serves an important purpose. Your life and your practice of Islam are far too precious to serve a similar purpose. If after all this, you do not agree, then I ask you and please excuse my lack of patience, if your group is called Muhajirun, why haven’t you made hijrah yet?. !