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Islam Amongst World’s Fastest Growing Religions

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by Rehan Qamar

According to researchers, by 2040, Islam is estimated to be the second largest religion in the United States. The current largest religion in the US is Christianity followed by Judaism, with Islam rapidly growing as one of the most racially diverse religions.

In many parts of the world, Islam is widely considered as the fastest growing religion not only because of immigration, but because of above average birth rates and convert rates.

Various studies conducted in 2007, 2011 and 2017 including data from US Census research show the Muslim population in the US growing at an accelerated rate.

According to Pew, over three-quarters of the US Muslim population is made predominately from immigrants, with a majority being children of immigrants. Since the Muslim population in the US is mainly millennial and younger than other religious groups, they have a higher fertility rate.The population is estimated to double in the next few decades.

Islam has one of the highest Western conversion rates. According to a 2016 study by Pew Research Center, around 5000 people converted to Islam between 2010-2015. According to the Jerusalem Post, in the United Kingdom and France, up to 100,000 people converted in the last decade in each country.

As of 2010, 31% of all people on Earth are Christian with an estimated 2.2 billion followers. Islam which has the second largest population of followers with an estimated 1.6 billion people, has been estimated to reach an all time high in 2060. The number of Muslims globally is estimated to increase by 70% and nearly double from 2015-2060.

Muslim majority countries within the Middle East and African continents. Have the highest population growth and fertility rates in the world. The muslim population is expected to grow higher in many countries such as India and Nigeria, where Islam is currently the second largest religion

The Myanmar Genocide

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by Azeem Ibrahim

The humanitarian disaster unfolding in Myanmar has been in the works for decades. Like many such catastrophes in the past, it has been built half by accident, half by design, by a succession of political leaders who saw the Rohingya as victims of opportunity whenever they found themselves a little short on authority and legitimacy and thought that by rallying the country against a manufactured internal threat, they could sustain their power. But now, it looks like we are in the last chapters of this tragic story.

It all started in WW2. Burma was a part of the British Empire and thus became entangled in the war. But the Burmese were divided in their loyalties. Those who sought independence from Britain, naturally, aligned themselves to Britain’s enemies in the war: Japan. And they were predominantly of the dominant Burmese ethnic group. The Rohingya stayed loyal to Britain. Britain won that war in 1945, but Independence for the whole of the Indian Raj was unavoidable. India proper, gained theirs in 1947. Burma got theirs in 1948.

The borders between India and Burma were set on the borders of 1824, before the start of the succession of colonial wars between Britain and Burma which eventually subdued the entire country. Upon this principle of partition, Burma gained the State of Arakan, which the old Burmese Kingdom had annexed in 1784 – a mere 40 years before the cut-off date, but which had been at times part of previous Burmese empires. And the state of Arakan was home to two, very distinct populations: the Rakhine, a Sino-Tibetan looking, Buddhist ethnic group who was similar in most respects to the Burmese; and the Rohingya, a South-Asian looking, Muslim ethnic group who, though a distinct population for hundreds of years, was more similar to their Muslim neighbours in eastern India, modern-day Bangladesh.

The reigns of power in the newly independent country were taken over, naturally, by those who led the independence movement. And so, the Rohingya found themselves as a very visible minority on the border of a newly created state, led by people who fought on the other side in WW2. They were understandably concerned about this situation. But their attempts to do something about it turned out to be catastrophic. In 1948, just as the transition to independence was happening, some Arakanese Muslims petitioned the Constituent Assembly in Rangoon for the integration of the northern-most and majority-Muslim districts of Maungdaw and Buthidaung into East Pakistan – now Bangladesh.

Thereafter, the Rohingya have always been considered an outsider population, disloyal to the Burmese state, especially by the military – those who actually fought with the Japanese in WW2 and who were now tasked with holding the state together and fending off secessionist movements that were rife not just in Arakan, but all along the new country’s long and extremely porous borders.

So long as the Burmese state remained a Westminster-style democracy though, this was not too much of a problem. The Rohingya had not been deemed one of the “native races” in Burma’s first post-independence constitution, but were treated largely as though they were full citizens of the country, and had elected representatives in the central government throughout the period.

All that changed in 1962, when a military junta took over the country in a coup d’etat. The new military administration, like most military administrations, was from the very beginning in full alert mode. They saw enemies everywhere, both outside the country and inside, and waged relentless war on all border ethnic groups which questioned the authority of the central government.

Yet the Rohingya were not one of the main problems for the central government. The Shan, Kachin, Sagaing and Chin rebellions in the north and east of the country were far more serious. They were far larger in scale and ferocity. The Arakan state had its own incidents of unrest, like most of the country, but the Rohingya were far from putting up the organised, committed secessionist rebellions that the other groups were. Nevertheless, given their “history” in the eyes of the ruling military, they were treated as an equivalent threat.

But the antagonism the military juntas bore the Rohingya went deeper. The generals saw themselves rule over a divided land with little in the way of a common identity. The diverse population of the country, with its complicated history between the multiplicity of ethnic groups, was not a good basis for a modern-day nation state. The generals judged that a common, Burmese identity must be forged for the country to be viable in the long term. And the fateful decision was taken that this identity must be Sino-Tibetan and Buddhist. There were non-Sino-Tibetan Buddhists in the country, and there were Sino-Tibetan non-Buddhists. The Rohingya, uniquely, failed to qualify on both counts. The Rohingya thus became the emblematic “foreign presence” in the politically unstable and repressive country. Thus the Rohingya became the perennial target of opportunity when the military leadership needed to score some political points, as well as the scape-goats of choice.

This new status for the Rohingya in Burma was made official by the 1982 Citizenship Law, which leveraged the anomalous exclusion of the Rohingya from the “native races” list from the 1948 Constitution to disqualify virtually the entire Rohingya ethnic group from the right to have citizenship status in the country of their birth. This was very much against international law which prohibits any state to render any people born within its territory stateless, but Burma at this point in history was already a pariah state isolated from the international community, so international law was not a consideration for the junta.

Since then, various extra restrictions were added on the Rohingya as and when the powers that be deemed it opportune. They were restricted from travelling outside of their districts in Arakan. They were, obviously, barred from public office and from electing representatives – with only a handful of exceptions, who managed to work around the restrictions imposed by the 1982 Citizenship Law. They were prohibited from marrying Buddhists. Rohingya married couples were limited to having a maximum of two children. The building of new mosques was restricted. And so on. Most of these are also gross violations of international law, and they were clearly designed to restrict population growth.

The maximum two children rule, in particular, is telling. Two children per couple is below the  demographic replacement rate, which means that so long as this rule was in place, the total population of the Rohingya would be guaranteed to be shrinking. In international law, measures that are designed to reduce the population of a specific minority in a society are considered equivalent to an explicit policy of ethnic cleansing. And indeed they are: even if one is not actively trying to actively kill members of a minority, implementing such measures will achieve ethnic cleansing by population attrition given enough time.

But the Burmese authorities no longer seem content to wait this out. In light of recent developments in the country, it would not be unreasonable to expect that the Rohingya will have been completely cleansed from the country of their birth within the space of 2 months.

The Final Crisis

What looks like the final chapter in this tragedy has its roots in 2012. In Spring that year, ethnic tensions between the Rohingya and their Rakhine neighbors in the state blew up into full scale civilian war, with the two sides burning each other’s villages and committing the whole range of abuses against each other. However, the two sides were far from evenly matched. The Rakhine always had the upper hand. And the local state and federal security forces either abetted them, or in some cases got involved in the fighting on their side.

Half a year later, in Autumn 2012, violence on a similar scale erupted again. And again in Spring 2013. Smaller scale violence has been erupting intermittently every few months since. In the wake of the first major waves, over 200,000 Rohingya were displaced to other countries, mostly to Bangladesh. Over 110,000 were documented to have been effectively detained in internally displaced people’s (IDP) camps – they were discouraged from leaving, international NGOs like Medicins sans Frontieres and others were slowly but surely banned from entering the camps and helping, they were denied the ability to work, and had little to no access to medical services or education for the young.

The pressure on the Rohingya continued, and the results made the international headlines in 2015, with what became known as the Southeast Asia Migrant Crisis. In the Summer of 2015 large numbers of Rohingya poured out of the country in all directions. Not just towards Bangladesh, but also India, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. This time in particular, refugees took to escaping Mynamar by boat, with large and consistent numbers of fatalities as a result, as people smugglers packed overwhelming numbers of people in inadequate crafts which routinely capsized killing dozens and hundreds at a time.

All in all, there are between 2 and 2.5 million Rohingya in the world. By the start of 2012, the decades of persecution had seen as many as 1 million flee abroad, with only about 1.5 million remaining. The violence since 2012 and up until late 2015 saw the number remaining in the country to maybe under 1 million.

But then, in November 2015, in the first fairly democratic elections in decades, the NLD opposition party, led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi won the largest number of seats in the country’s parliament by a landslide. The new government, led by Ms Suu Kyi, was sworn in later in Spring 2016. The refugee outflows stabilised. It now looked like things could be turned around for the Rohingya, and indeed for Myanmar’s wider humanitarian outlook.

The hopes of the Rohingya, who used to affectionately call Ms Suu Kyi “Mother”, and indeed the hopes of the international community proved premature. Ms Suu Kyi’s government failed to deliver any material improvements for the Rohingya, while Ms Suu Kyi herself echoed the stance on the Rohingya of the military junta and the Rakhine extremists before her: the Rohingya were not an indigenous population to Myanmar, they were an illegitimate group of Bangladeshi migrants (from British colonial times), and had no special claim to being in the country.

Likely as a consequence of this disappointing stance from Ms Suu Kyi, later in Autumn 2016, a group calling itself the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), led by Rohingya born in Pakistan but trained in Saudi Arabia, who had been active in the region since 2013 but in non-military ways, started a low level military insurgency against the Myanmar security forces. Tensions started to rise, yet again.

Things came to a head in August 2017 – this year. A number of concerted attacks by ARSA on military outposts in the local state triggered a full blown military response from the still fully autonomous federal military leadership. A low level insurgency triggered a full-fledged anti-rebellion response from the military, complete with communal reprisals, extra-judicial killings of women and children, burnings of villages visible from satellite imagery, and allegedly, even the mining of paths Rohingya refugees would try to take to flee to Bangladesh.

In the month and a half following that attack by ARSA, the military response has already pushed a counted 500,000 or more Rohingya, out of less than 1 million, to hastily-built refugee camps in Bangladesh. The government of Ms Suu Kyi has very little to comment on the matter, and when they do, it usually falls on the side of defending the military operations. China, who is building infrastructure in the country to extend its Silk Road initiative would like the situation resolved, but is just as happy to see it resolved by the complete removal of the Rohingya from the region. Europe has neither the capacity to intervene of its own, nor the will to aggravate the Myanmar leadership when it seems to be drifting too quickly into the Chinese sphere of influence. And the United States, which under the Obama Administration has been the only reliable advocate of Rohingya concerns since Burmese independence, is now governed by a Trump administration that neither cares about humanitarian problems, nor would be interested to intervene unless there would be something to be gained. And this time, there is more to be gained in terms of economic ties with Myanmar, if they let the government and the military do what they will with the Rohingya.

The government of Bangladesh is currently in the process of building refugee facilities for 800,000 people. By some estimates, that may well be the entire Rohingya population which had been left in Myanmar before August 2017. These facilities will house the over 500,000 who have already crossed the border. And they will be housing those that are still to come. Bangladesh expects that Myanmar will expel its entire Rohingya population. As things stand, there is no reason to be hopeful that this process will stop in the coming weeks. And on current trends, the process will be complete inside two months.

The French President has been the first major world leader to call the events in Myanmar “genocide”. Increasing numbers of international law experts agree and the numbers are impossible to argue with. Myanmar is systematically destroying an entire indigenous population and is doing so as a matter of policy. Under the patient eye of a Nobel Peace Prize laureate we are, once again, allowing a genocide to happen in our world. And none of us seem moved to do anything about it. This could have been prevented had the international community had the moral fibre to intervene at any time since 2012 and establish clear and credible red lines to Myanmar in its treatment of the Rohingya. We have shirked from that moral duty, hiding behind naive hopes that things will surely get better with time. And an innocent population is paying the price.

President Obama used to believe that “the arc of history is long, but it bends our way”. It is not bending our way now. And the Rohingya of Myanmar will not be around to observe it bend in any direction except against them. Craven and self-serving “faith in the future” is facilitating genocide in the present. And no amount of well-meaning platitudes can clean our hands of the complicity we have in this genocide.

Dr Azeem Ibrahim is a Research Professor at the Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College and member of the Board of Directors at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence at the Department of War Studies at Kings College London University. He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge and has previously been appointed an International Security Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, a World Fellow at Yale University and a Rothermere Fellow at the University of Oxford. He has published hundreds of articles all over the globe including in the Daily Telegraph (UK), Foreign Policy, Al Arabiya, Chicago Tribune, LA Times and Newsweek. He is the author of the seminal book: “The Rohingyas: Inside Myanmar’s Hidden Genocide”, which was published by Hurst (UK) in May 2016. His forthcoming book “Radical Virus: Why We Are Losing the War Against Islamic Extremism” will be published in November 2017 by Pegasus (New York).

ISPU Banquet Celebrates Organization’s 15th Anniversary

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by TMO Staff

Over the past 15 years, the Institute of Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) has become America’s source for data for and about American Muslims.

Established in 2002, ISPU aims to conduct objective, solution seeking research that empowers American Muslims to develop their community and contribute to democracy and pluralism in the United States.

According to their website, “ISPU has been at the forefront of discovering trends and opportunities that impact the American Muslim community. Our research aims to educate the general public and enable community change agents, the media, and policymakers to make evidence-based decisions. In addition to building in-house capacity, ISPU has assembled leading experts across multiple disciplines, building a solid reputation as a trusted source for information for and about American Muslims.”

ISPU celebrated their 15th anniversary milestone with their supporters at the Fairlane Club in Dearborn Nov 18.

This banquet event, titled “15 Years of Research Making an Impact: Empowering Tomorrow,” honored the legacy of ISPU’s first 15 years. Attendees were able to view a timeline that highlighted the 15 most important moments from ISPU’s history, including milestone research projects such as A Portrait of Detroit Mosques and Promoting Healthy Marriages and Preventing Divorce in the American Muslim Community.

The program included remarks from various influential leaders including ISPU’s very own Executive Director, Meira Neggaz, who highlighted some of the many ways ISPU data powers the crucial work of other organizations and ISPU’s Director of Research, Dalia Mogahed, who talked about ISPU’s impact in the world of media. Other speakers included Harpreet Singh Mokha, a Regional Director at the Department of Justice, who discussed his work to address hate crimes and how ISPU’s research helped infuse data and the human faces of American Muslims into his department’s diversity trainings and Marwa Abdalla, a recipient of ISPU’s inaugural Young Scholar Award, who spoke about how ISPU’s research empowered her to address her elected official’s bigoted remarks.

The keynote speaker of the night was Representative Ilhan Omar, a former refugee and the first Somali-American lawmaker in the United States. Omar spoke about various important issues including our duty and involvement in democracy.

“In a democracy, it is our duty to see that the work continues and this requires steering through many complex problems. We must not give up hope in face of any adversity,” Omar said.

Omar encouraged everyone to get involved, whether it be politically or socially. She referenced how any type of involvement can surprise someone with the difference and impact it potentially can make.

We commend ISPU’s work to build understanding, catalyze community development, and safeguard American pluralism. Vist their website www.ispu.org to learn more about the organization and what they do.

The Constant Battle Between the West and the Muslim World

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by Amina Khan

The term “Islamophobia” and the ostracization of Muslims have cemented a polarized community and scrutinization of a 1400-year-old religion. After every attack claimed under the name of ISIS, the debate once again sparks on whether or not Islam is an oppressive and violent religion. However, the conversation should not levitate towards fear of Islamophobia right after an attack, but rather on discussing terms on denouncing the radicalization and political agenda of so-called Muslims.

It is egocentric and offensive to victimize Muslims after a terrorist attack. Victimization is a weakness and it only reinstates the idea that “radical-Islam” is a religious concept when it is purely political. Therefore, Muslims should not have to apologize or condemn terrorist attacks, ever. Your first thought should be on how to educate people on the differences between a practicing Muslim and that of a psychologically disturbed extremist.

Repeating “not all Muslims are like that” and “Islam is a religion of peace” does nothing to gain friction for the conversation we need to be having. Trying to put a used band-aid on a bloody wound only hinders the discussion on why radical extremists even exist.

Hatred For the West + Extremism

Extremists hide behind the guise of Islam in order enforce their acts of horror sparked by an adamant hate for the West and to pursue a fanatical political agenda. Their hate is conditioned by the West’s historic responsibility for the radicalization of Islam under terms of Zionism, CIA backed coups, colonialism, Balfour, etc; things the West would like to ignore. Their treatment of Muslims as sub humans to be manipulated and exiled has abused a supremacist attitude. Therefore, these extremists are created and classified as psychologically disturbed but do not account for the Muslim community or Islam. Extremists despise modern society, and therefore, modern Muslims.

“Islamic-extremist online recruiters are very good at pulling in people who are mentally vulnerable,” Heather Hurlburt, of the Washington-based think tank New America, said.

“[ISIS] seems to calculate- correctly in my view – that small-scale lone-wolf attacks on symbolic targets will get it outsized attention. So you see these propaganda broadcasts encouraging individuals who may be mentally unstable, who may have had a little or no actual training, to use weapons like knives and cars that will surely lead to the attackers’ capture or death.  The propagandists seem to understand the link between certain forms of mental illness and susceptibility to mass violence, even if we don’t,” Hurlburt added.

Unfortunately, people believe practicing Muslims are here to kill or forcibly convert non-Muslims based upon the illogical reasoning of their own interpretations of the Qur’an. Verses in the Qur’an are continually taken out of context by people who abuse the nature of Islam in order to fulfill the needs of a political agenda; whereas, hateful critics of Islam use verses to ‘warn’ the world about an illusion that Islam is destructive. Both sides are inherently similar in the sense they are unquestionably misleading. It is displeasing to see people choose to believe violent-natured evil men who are audacious enough to call themselves Muslim, over authentic and amicable Muslims.

Critics of Islam who seek to find a maleficent ideology behind a 1400-year-old religion use their platform as a scholar to fulfill this heroic perception of ‘uncovering the deep dark secrets of Islam’. It is understandable to be critical of Islam as it is necessary to fully apprehend religion; however, preaching hate and the defamation of religion whilst criminalizing its intentions with failure to fully understand it, is derogatory. Jointly, belittling one religion in order to prove another religion is superior demolishes any sense of tolerance, acceptance, and respect.

Violent verses in Qur’an discuss wars that took place in Meccan society in defensive battle. Nowhere in the Qur’an does it state to incite violence against innocent civilians. Those who do commit violence under the name of religion in modern society cannot be associated with Islam as their actions are misguided. Additionally, there is an entire four-hundred-page fatwah on deeming terrorism and violence as a major violation of the teachings of Islam.

Shari’a law is perpetually debated as scholars dissect and Islamophobes attack with little regard to actually understanding what it means. Creeping Shari’a is a non-existent movement as the set of ideologies is only utilized by practicing Muslims. Any claim that it is to be ‘forced’ onto the Western world is incredibly fallacious as it is stated in the Qur’an that “no compulsion in [acceptance of] the religion” (2:256) is conventional.

A further expansion of the misconceptions of Shari’a and Jihad can be found here.

ISIS’s War Against Muslims

Some scholars of Islam, such as Bassam Tibi, believe that, contrary to their own message, Islamic fundamentalists are not actually traditionalists. He refers to fatwahs issued by fundamentalists such as “every Muslim who pleads for the suspension of the Shari‘a is an apostate and can be killed. The killing of those apostates cannot be prosecuted under Islamic law because this killing is justified” as going beyond, and unsupported by the Qur’an. Tibi confirms, “the command to slay reasoning Muslims is un-Islamic, an invention of Islamic fundamentalists.”

Many are under the illusion that terrorists are going back to the roots of Qur’an and Sunnah which further stems the concept that practicing Muslims don’t realize what their Holy Book teaches. However, Eli Berman argues that radicalism is a movement seen to practice “unprecedented extremism“, thus not qualifying as a return to historic fundamentals.

ISIS kills far more Muslims than non-Muslims because Muslims do not share their invented vision of violence. The top countries that these terrorists attack include Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, India, Somalia, Egypt, and Libya. Unsurprisingly, these countries are Muslim-majority (minus India). Some of these countries hold laws that do not allow the freedom of religion and are strict against people who convert out of religion; however, these laws are not a reflection of Islam but rather cultural values. There are legitimate reasons why many Muslims emigrate to non-Muslim societies and there is no need to tolerate immigrants who resist assimilating into secular democratic societies.

On the other hand, the top terrorist attacks committed in America are by white individuals, not Muslims or foreigners. Despite the popular opinion that refugees and immigrants commit terrorist attacks, all terrorist attacks since 9/11 in America have been citizens or legal residents. Trump’s continuous attempt to propose a Muslim ban will have no effect on terrorist attacks; it only criminalizes innocent and vulnerable people.

Las Vegas Attack v.s. New York Attack + Media’s Role in Detecting “Terrorism”

Choosing to politicize one event and ignore the other is villainous and disgusting, but it’s not shocking in the American landscape.

The Las Vegas attack and the New York attack are two different issues (gun control versus political extremism) so both should be attacked from different angles, but attacked nevertheless. Though expected, it is still irritating to digest the rhetoric behind Trump’s reaction to the Vegas attack and Sutherland Spring attack compared to the New York attack. It is calculable that Trump would push forward his own political agenda over providing solutions towards the safety of Americans. Despite the fact gun violence is an issue that needs to be discussed, it is understandable to respect the second amendment right. However, those who want Muslims banned from the country should realize that this proposal violates several parts of the American Constitution including the very first amendment. Do not preach you are a true American aiming to ‘protect the country’ if you cherry-pick American values and cannot handle any critique of a flawed country.

Nevertheless, the argument should not be on whether or not mass shootings are more important than political terrorism, vice-versa. Labelling one person as a terrorist does not deduce the other individual as not a terrorist. Terrorism is defined under the FBI as: “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives”. Yet, arguing over why the Las Vegas and Sutherland Springs attack were not called terrorism is irrelevant and foolish. The word “terrorism” has lost its meaning as media has credulously granted ownership of the term to ISIS and radical jihadists, therefore terminology at this point is ineffective.

Media is responsible for deprecating the West’s view of Muslims through their strategic and systematic news broadcasting and creation of shows like Homeland. America is infatuated with the idea of maintaining a heroic and flawless identity which is maintained by labeling foreign countries as threats, specifically Muslim-majority countries.

Mistreatment of Middle-Easterners and Arabs

The New York attacker was labeled as ‘Middle-Eastern’ even though Uzbekistan is not located in the Middle East. The geographical misjudgment has demonized Middle-Easterners, Arabs, and Muslims. This aberration was an issue even before 9/11 in the Oklahoma bombing in 1995 where 168 people, including 19 children, were brutally murdered. The media had stated the FBI was looking for Middle-Eastern looking men, an analysis compelled by anti-Arab bias in Western culture. The suspect ended up being a white-American ex-Army soldier, Timothy McVeigh.

“To speak of people with dark Middle East complexions as authors of the terror even as the F.B.I. was issuing warrants for the arrests of white Americans is an act of terror, too,” said Abdelbari Atwan, editor of Al Quds, an Arab daily in London.

The credibility of facts is devoured by bias and opinion in a dangerous manner. Similarly, the recent New York attacker yelled “Allahu Akbar” before plowing into victims, a term that has unfortunately been used under negative circumstances but does not account for what it means. Practicing Muslims say “Allahu Akbar” several times throughout the day through prayer and if an enlightening event occurs. Imam Omar Suleiman has given an exceptional definition of the term; it is insulting to praise God and then commit murder.

The negative connotation of the Arabic language has forced society to be critical of Arab people. The Western conception of the Arab world has mustered up stereotypical standards like labeling the mistreatment and oppression of women an ‘Arab’ concern. Mistakenly, this conception fuels the notion that Islam is responsible for the oppression and abuse of women. It is ludicrous that people are not able to differentiate culture from religion. Islam has given more rights and respect to women way before modern Western culture, on matters like economic rights, equality to men, encouragement to work, etc.

Broadcasting the Muslim Narrative + Modernization of Society

Showing the community what a ‘normal’ Muslim is like, is not ‘breaking the stereotype’, rather it capitalizes a truth which people fail to notice due to ignorance and lack of knowledge. Many believe Islam is not compatible with Western culture, which is false. Yet, assimilating into Western society does not mean one should have to sacrifice their Muslim identity; however, not every Muslim holds the same set of beliefs and actions. Ultimately, the goal of radicals is confusing the two concepts of conventional Islamic teachings compared to extreme and misguided teachings. The aim for us is to modernize flawed societies that do oppress under the name of Islam and narrate Muslims in an enlightening and legitimate manner.

Is the Quran only relevant to Muslims?

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by Dr. Aslam Abdullah

Is the Quran only for Muslims? What about humanity? If God is the Lord of the worlds (Quran 1:2) and the Prophet is described as the messenger for the worlds (Quran 21:107) and the Quran is introduced as a reminder to the worlds, (Quran 68:52) then what is the relevance of the Quranic message to the world?

How can the world, Muslims and non-Muslims, alike, benefit from the universal message of a universal and compassionate God? Can non-Muslims practice divinely revealed values without acknowledging their original source and without adhering to the total divine call?

Introduction

The Quran, Muslims believe is the final testament God revealed for human beings through Prophet Muhammad , in the seventh century. They believe that that the Quran affirms everything that was revealed to all the previous messengers in the past including Prophets Abraham, Ismail, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and Jesus. The Quran recognizes the principle of inclusiveness when it says: “I have come to you, to attest the Law which was before me. And to make lawful to you part of what was (before) forbidden to you; I have come to you with a sign from your Lord. So fear Allah, and obey me.” (Quran 3:50) The Quran also acknowledges that divine message has been sent to all in all languages and the Quran affirms the continuity of the divine message. “O ye People of the Book! believe in what We have (now) revealed, confirming what was (already) with you, before We change the face and fame of some (of you) beyond all recognition, and turn them hind wards, or curse them as We cursed the Sabbath-breakers, for the decision of Allah Must be carried out.” (Quran 4:47)

The Quran acknowledges the common thread in all the divine messages when it says: “The same religion He has established for you as that which He enjoined on Noah – the which We have sent by inspiration to thee – and that which We enjoined on Abraham, Moses, and Jesus: Namely, that you should remain steadfast in religion, and make no divisions therein: to those who worship other things than Allah, hard is the (way) to which you call them. Allah chooses to Himself those whom He pleases, and guides to Himself those who turn (to Him). (Quran 42:13)

The Muslims believe that the guidance in the Quran is for all time, and all people. Even though many Muslim scholars have often differed on the issue of giving a copy of the Quran to non-Muslims, quoting the Quranic verse that says “none shall touch but those who are clean,” (Quran 56:79) yet more serious among them believe that the verse refers to the purity and sanctity of the divine message emphasizing the fact that it is revealed by the one who is absolutely authentic (Allah) and delivered by the one who is sacred and pure (Angel Gabriel) and delivered by the one (Prophet Muhammad ) who is innocent from committing any wrong in communicating the message.

In fact, the Quran addresses human beings as “Ya aiyuhal Nas” (O Humankind) directly 306 times and indirectly more than two thousand times in its over 6,000 verses. In contrast the Quran specifically addresses Muslim men and women (Ya aiyuhal Muslimun/Muslimat/Muslimatun/etc) by name only 49 times. How can anyone refuse to share a copy of the Quran with non-Muslims? In fact, the first revelation that the prophet received was first recited by the Prophet to non-Muslims.

Regardless, the Muslim scholarship, by and large, has inadvertently turned the Quran into a manifesto for Muslims only making the argument that Quran is a book of guidance for Muslims primarily. On top of this the use of the Quran has been limited to ceremonial recitation. Is there nothing for the non-Muslim creation of God in the book Muslims attribute to a Merciful and Compassionate God of all. Can a non-Muslim make use of the guidance of the Quran while still remaining outside the fold of Islam? Can Islam be practiced by non-Muslims in its normative sense without adhering to its form ritual structure?

Contrary to what some Muslims might believe the fact is that many human beings, regardless of their relationship with Islam, have on their own reached conclusions that the Quran introduced to the world through revelation. In a way, many non-Muslims have shown a better understanding of the message of the Quran even without fully identifying with Islam than shown by many Muslims.

For instance, the empiricism 1 in modern natural and social sciences is a known reality of our epistemology. The Quran announced this maxim clearly when it said: “And pursue not that of which you have no knowledge; for every act of hearing, or of seeing or of (feeling in) the heart will be inquired into (on the Day of Reckoning). (Quran 17:36) In other words one must use all methods of inquiry to come to a conclusion and decisions in all aspects of life must not be based on superstitions and hearsay.

There are five major divine ideas expounded in the Quran that human beings have now begun to realize as the essence of their humanity. They were there in other religious scriptures and they are defined in detail in the Quran, yet, humanity as a whole waited for almost 7,000 of its recorded human history to acknowledge their legitimacy and validity.

These ideas have constantly provided guidance to reformers and idealists regardless of their religious or ethnic backgrounds all over the world for centuries. What is ironic is that while acknowledging the supremacy of these ideas many Muslim groups and leaders in the Muslim world have often negated them through their writings or actions. Those five ideas are: oneness or unity of humanity, dignity of human beings, universalization of natural resources, justice and peace. No human society can live in a state of stability and progression without accepting these ideas and making efforts to live by them.

Oneness of humanity

The Quran places emphasis on the oneness of human beings. It introduces the idea of common human origin and ancestry at four different places and says that humans have their origin in a single cell or soul.

“O mankind! Reverence your Guardian-Lord, who created you from a single soul, created, of like nature, the mate, and from them twain scattered (like seeds) countless men and women;- reverence Allah, through whom ye demand your mutual (rights), and (reverence) the wombs (That bore you): for Allah ever watches over you.” (Quran 4:1)

“It is He Who hath produced you from a single soul: here is a place of sojourn and a place of departure: We detail Our signs for people who understand.” (Quran 6:98)

“It is He Who created you from a single soul, and made the mate of like nature, in order that he might dwell with her (in love). When they are united, she bears a light burden and carries it about (unnoticed). When she grows heavy, they both pray to Allah their Lord, (saying): If Thou gives us a goodly child, we vow we shall (ever) be grateful.” (Quran 7:189)

“He created you (all) from a single person: then created, of like nature, his mate; and he sent down for you eight head of cattle in pairs: He makes you, in the wombs of your mothers, in stages, one after another, in three veils of darkness. such is Allah, your Lord and Cherisher: to Him belongs (all) dominion. There is no god but He: then how are ye turned away (from your true Centre)?” (Quran 39:6)

Thus the purpose is to ensure that the unity of humanity is never compromised and the differences that exist among people are resolved through a process of mutual understanding on the basis of ideas that are divine revealed.

“Mankind was one single nation, and Allah sent Messengers with glad tidings and warnings; and with them He sent the Book in truth, to judge between people in matters wherein they differed; but the People of the Book, after the clear Signs came to them, did not differ among themselves, except through selfish contumacy. Allah by His Grace guided the believers to the Truth, concerning that wherein they differed. For Allah guided whom He wills to a path that is straight.” (Quran 2:213)

The Quran acknowledges the diversity in humanity but described it as a functional aspect of existence and not structural.

“To you We sent the Scripture in truth, confirming the scripture that came before it, and guarding it in safety: so judge between them by what Allah hath revealed, and follow not their vain desires, diverging from the Truth that has come to you. To each among you we have prescribed a law and an open way. If Allah had so willed, He would have made you a single people, but (His plan is) to test you in what He has given you: so strive as in a race in all virtues. The goal of you all is to Allah. it is He that will show you the truth of the matters in which you dispute; (Quran 5:48)

The Quranic assertion about the oneness of humanity is a powerful message for all those who still want to live in their own tribal, national and ethnic cocoons without any respect and regard for the other. The Quran does not want a person to cancel one’s identity by birth but wants that identity to enhance inclusiveness rather than exclusiveness.

“O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise (each other). Verily the most honored of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things). (Quran 49:13)

The idea that despite differences in our DNAs and fingerprints, we all have a common origin and can relate with each other accepting every human as part of our extended family whether we are able to trace our bloodlines or not is in itself a powerful unifying idea, an idea whose time has finally come in a world that is shrinking every day.

Dignity of Human Beings

The Quran places great emphasis on the dignity of human beings regardless of their gender or race or even status. It says: “We have bestowed dignity on the children of Adam; provided them with transport on land and sea; given them for sustenance things good and pure; and conferred on them special favors, above a great part of our creation.” (Quran 17:70) The dignity comprises rights and duties. It means that all human beings are created equal by the One Creator, and no one is superior to another on the basis of his or her birth or family or tribe. It is only the divine that alone is the judge to decide who lived up to his/her dignified status accepting the dignity of the other. The dignity also means that human beings have a right to life, right to freedom of religion, right to freedom of lifestyle, right to labor, right to security and right to family are secured, even if that means that human beings do not accept divine guidance.

The Quran does not want people to deprive others of these rights because of their color, gender or even religion. The Quran does not give preference to one over the other. The Quran does not say that only Muslims or who have faith in God deserve dignity or rights that are associated with dignity. It talks in a broader term and declares that no one has a right to deny humans their dignity that is a God given right.

Not very long ago, the world had difficulty in realizing the validity of this Quranic message. People were discriminated on the basis of their ethnicity or gender or status and religious scholars and political experts were providing justification for these discrimination. A classic case of this denial of dignity can be found in India where according to religious scripture a group of people were categorized as low castes or untouchables because of their birth in a particular social group. Even though, India has banned that in its constitution and legally such a discrimination is punishable, yet it is still practiced widely in the country. In the United States, we had the “N” word for African-Americans in vogue for several centuries and is still uttered in several private sessions. But no one in the world today can argue for segregation and discrimination on the basis of race, religion,, gender etc. The world has begun to realize and implement the Quranic message of the dignity of humankind. This message is relevant in our time more than ever before, regardless whether Muslims practice it or not because it certainly can inspire people of all faith to stand with each other in defense of human dignity of all.

Universalization of Natural Resources

The third Quranic message relevant for humanity at large is its emphasis on the universality of natural resources. Earth, oceans, skies water, and wind are for the benefit of all. No one can monopolize them for their exclusive use. No one can use their access to these resources to deny others the rights bestowed to them. Thus the Quran states, “It is He Who has created for you all things that are on earth; moreover His design comprehended the heavens, for He gave order and perfection to the seven firmaments; and of all things He has perfect knowledge.” (Quran 2:29)

The distribution of these human resources in a manner that would ensure the dignity and oneness of humanity is a major challenge for human beings. Wars have been fought for land and access to natural resources such as water, land or gas without realizing that none of these natural treasures were created by humans, yet human beings have always fought over their greed to control them.

The Quran explains that the purpose to provide these resources is to ensure that human beings are not deprived of their basic needs for survival. It asks human beings not to use them to exploit fellow human beings. Our world today has about 1.6 billion people who sleep hungry every night. Our world has over 60 percent of the population that earns less than a dollar a day. Malnutrition is common and so is homelessness. People are deprived of drinkable water even though there is plenty of fresh water resources. People are still forced to live on streets and under open skies even though there is plenty of land to provide housing to everyone.

In religious circles everyone talks about removing poverty or at least ensuring that people’s basic needs are addressed. The Quranic message certainly gives guidance in this matter and invites people to work together to ensure that no one sleeps hungry and no one is homeless. The Quran addresses the issue of basic human needs in great details in verses 12 to 18 of chapter 90 when it explains what is this steep uphill ascent? Who else can tell you better than the Almighty? So listen: The uphill ascent is that a human should not only look after himself. Wherever he sees a human neck caught in any kind of subjugation or bondage, he should free it. That is to say, the first and foremost thing to do is to establish a system where no one is subdued by or subjugated to another. Everyone walks with his chin up, with total physical and mental freedom. (He should not have to follow and obey any Law except that of Allah the Almighty.) And during the period when some people take over all primary sources of subsistence and create a state of general distress and hunger, this system should look after the needs of those who, despite living among other people, feel lonely and helpless; or of the needs of those who have to labor hard for a morsel. They are the auspicious and prosperous people on the right path, enjoying the pleasures of life.

Justice for all

Justice is the buzz world in our modern vocabulary. The Quran not only emphasizes justice but also recommends a step above justice, i.e., working for the good of others at the expense of one’s interest. On the other side are those who are also true to their faith. They always give preference to the needs of the newcomers, even if they themselves are indigent and living a life of hardship. (Quran 59:9) The Quran reminds that people who are likely to achieve prosperity are those who change their personalities and no longer push others aside to selfishly fulfill their own needs. Realizing that the other person’s need is more demanding they voluntarily allow them to fulfill it first.

The Quran recommends a simple maxim for justice “O ye who believe! Stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses to Allah, even as against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, and whether it be (against) rich or poor: for Allah can best protect both. Follow not the lusts (of your hearts), lest ye swerve, and if ye distort (justice) or decline to do justice, verily Allah is well- acquainted with all that ye do.” (Quran 4:135)

“O ye who believe! stand out firmly for Allah, as witnesses to fair dealing, and let not the hatred of others to you make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice. Be just: that is next to piety: and fear Allah. For Allah is well-acquainted with all that ye do.” (Quran 5:8)

Every human society accepts justice as its core value, yet we find that every human society violates its own declared values and promotes injustice on the basis of divisions that people have created among themselves. So much inequality, indignity and denial of basic human rights takes place in our world simply because people tend to view justice for others as not binding. However, without adhering to justice, it is impossible to think of dignity, unity or universality of humanity.

Peace is the goal

The ultimate goal of humans in this world is to secure a peaceful human society so that a peaceful family can protect the interests of a peaceful individual for achieving his or her true potential in deliberating on the purpose of this life and preparing for a life that is eternal in every sense of the term. The unity of humanity, the dignity, the justice and the universality of human resources pave the path for peace. They liberate humans from the mundane and profane and take them to the realm of sublime and sacred. They ensure that that human beings reconcile between their greed and their need.

Defining the purpose of his guidance the Quran says that “through which God shows unto all that seek His goodly acceptance the paths leading to peace and, by His grace, brings them out of the depths of darkness into the light and guides them onto a straight way. (Quran 5:16)

The Quran repeats the message several times that the purpose of human efforts is to enable humans to dwell in an abode of peace, “theirs shall be an abode of peace with their Sustainer; and He shall be near unto them in result of what they have been doing.” (Quran 6:127) and explains “And [know that] God invites [man] unto the abode of peace, and guides him that wills [to be guided] onto a straight way.” (Quran 10:25)

Thus, the message of the Quran is universal and eternal. The divine sets the standards through messages delivered to human beings. It was left to individuals to seek the path of unity, dignity, universality, justice and peace not the path to argue with each who is better than the other or who would qualify for the grace of God and who would not. Let the world not deprive itself of the benefits of the divine guidance because of the sectarian, myopic and often arrogant behavior on the part of some Muslim groups. Let the world make use of these values that are universal and would help everyone. Muslims should also not shy away from joining those who work for these values even if their proponents happen to be those who profess other faiths or no faith.

Notes:

1. Empiricism: The practice of basing ideas and theories on testing and experience.

Continuing Rohingya Refugee Crisis

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By Dr. Shahaab Uddin

In late September, the Burmese Army, with the help of extremist Buddhists, decided to increase the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingyan Muslims from the Rakhine state, located in coastal Myanmar. Violence, rape and genocide was escalated and left over 500,000-900,000 Rohingyans fleeing for their lives to neighboring Bangladesh overnight. Although this genocide has been taking place for several years now, the heightened violence in recent months has created an epic humanitarian catastrophe.

Bangladesh, an infrastructure and resource poor country, decided to allow the Rohingyans to enter. Many of the Rohingyans left their homes with nothing on their backs. Their last memories are of their homes burning, family members being murdered and or raped, while fleeing for safety.

My journey began in Chicago, then I flew to Duha, from there to Dhakka and finally from there to Cox’s Bazar- in total approximately 24 hours. Cox’s bazar is typically known in Bangladesh as a holiday town which boasts the longest continuous beach/shoreline in the world. However, this is the closest city to where many of the refugees have been coming from- the Rakhine state. The nearest refugee camp from Cox’s bazaar is approximately an hour and half from there, the Bhanukhali refugee camp. The Rohingyan people speak Rohingyan which is different from Bengali, but Chittagonian Bengali has many similarities to Roghingyan. I needed a translator while I was there because I was limited to my English and Urdu. 

The Bhanukhali refugee camp had become the epicenter of the humanitarian relief efforts in the prior 1-2 weeks before my arrival. Many Non-Profit Organizations were on the ground trying to establish food, shelter, and water supply. Overnight, an influx of close to 800,000 people had created a human tragedy on the ground. Literally, people with no shelter, food or supplies sitting in the jungle of Bangladesh. I was working at a clinic near this camp arranged by the organization MedGlobal. I also took some of the medications I brought with me from the United States to help the people. Many of the disease conditions they had were due to the living conditions. Many of the children were severely malnourished and had active TB with many skin conditions that had erupted due to poor sanitation access to water facilities. Common conditions seen were: iron deficiency anemia, H. Pylori, malnutrition, asthma, eczema, infections, eye infections, hypertension, diarrhea due to bacterial or parasitic infections.

Most of the patients there had just suffered immense psychological calamities and were still trying to push their human spirit forward to survive. You could see it in their faces. Whenever there was an opening to talk about their journey, the pain was only one layer away-many started crying immediately.

A few of the stories I cannot forget, I will mention here.

A 34 year old father brought in his 3-4 year old son in his arms, his legs folded beneath him. The Burmese/Buddhist army entered his home and took his son and threw him on the floor, and trampled on his back with his boots. His son may have suffered a spinal cord injury, but he hasn’t been able to walk since then. A 57 year old woman, Gulzar, started weeping as soon as she saw my face. She kept insisting I looked like her son, because he was tall and had similar facial features.  Her house was burnt to the ground and her son fled for his life when they were trying to kill him. He ran away from the house and the army chased him. He eventually drowned to death after being chased, this was told to her by her neighbors. She hasn’t been able to sleep, eat or function since then. She made it to the Bhanukhali camp with her extended family. Another man I met, Bazer Hamed, he was 60 y.o, he witnessed the execution of 12 of his family members in front of his eyes. He says it was his naseeb from God that he managed to survive.  He was a well to do businessman before this genocide began, they took all his furniture out of his house and burnt it down. These are a few of the many traumatic stories that I heard. 

My medications cannot heal their deepest wounds. My feeling while I was in the camp was that if I could ease the life of even one Rohingyan in any way shape or form than I have done something. They have seen the worst- now let me be a messenger of hope, whether through my smile, my presence or my vibes. 

One day I went to see the border between Burma and Bangladesh where the majority of the refugees were crossing. The Naf river is a body of water that separates Bangladesh and Burma- one of the main ports of entry. When the conflict arose, thousands of boats were seen, and local residents from the Bangladeshi side said you could see smoke billowing into the air of the burning homes across the way. During the day, you don’t see many boats or rafts crossing as many cross at night as to not be detected. 

They enter the town of Teknaf, where I sat helping distributing goods and items as they entered the country. The process is simple. When they enter, they get fingerprinted, their name is written down and registered, they are put in a lori or a truck, and sent to one of the refugee camps.

The Bangladeshi army is also present to help keep the peace and situation calm. This was one of the most painful places to witness the human condition. For many of these people the trauma that lead them to leave their homelands was fresh and they grabbed whatever they could and fled.

A statement I heard translated to me from Rohingyan to Urdu was, “hamara iman lekhar bhagay”. “We took our faith and ran.”  I was there to distribute some cash that people had given me, which did go a long way for the people there as they were entering the country with absolutely nothing. 

A few instances from the border that I will share are of a man, unknown name. While he passed the distribution line, he had a log on his back carrying two bags on each side. I could see exhaustion and pain coursing through his eyes and body while his family followed. I walked up to him and hugged him; he immediately broke down and couldn’t let go for minutes while crying. Another woman broke into a PTSD fit and collapsed to the ground when she saw the uniforms of the Bangladeshi military. She was having flashbacks of when she was raped by Burmese military men. The camouflage of his uniform triggered her panic. Finally, she was calmed down and able to continue.

While they were being loaded on to the loris, they kept wanting to fit more people into each one before they sent them, although the limit had seemed to be reached. A boy with a stick would jump in and make everyone be quiet. The women were visibly panicked and crying, the men were frozen in shock not saying a word.

When I stood there, I started to think “Why isn’t anyone else here?”

There were some photographers and news agencies that took pictures and footage in the morning and had left.

But right now in the evening- there was no one-where is humanity?

I was fortunate to give these people water bottles and candy while they were on these lorries. They flee such harsh conditions than get put into a lori like cattle.

The Rohingya Muslims: The Victims of Pure Genocide

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by Dr. Firoz Mahboob Kamal

‘Genocide’ is the cruelest and most violent form of crime against humanity. It targets people through arson, rape, torture and total annihilation purely based on race, religion and language. Therefore, no one needs to do any wrong for becoming the definitive target of genocide. His or her faith, race, language or religion is enough to invite the worst type of murderous thugs, robbers and rapists at their doorstep.

The case of Rohigya Muslims is the perfect example of that. It is indeed a violent expression of the very fast growing metastasizing moral cancer. Now it appears that the cancer has deeply affected not only the whole civil and military institutions of Myanmar, but also the country’s Buddhist monks, the political elites, the intelligentsia, the media and a large section of the common people.

Because of such a tsunamic scale of the moral disease, on  Oct. 30 2017, tens of thousands of Burmese people assembled on the streets of Yangon –the former capital of Myanmar, to show full support for the Army. It was indeed a huge homage to the Army for the execution of its policy of killing, raping and ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims.

When a moral cancer is not treated at its early phase, its rapid spread cause massive number of deaths, rapes and arsons on earth. During Hitler era in Germany, the same moral cancer could quickly engulf all of Europe- it led to a devastating World War. Because of it, more than 60 million people had to die. Moral disease thus proved to more catastrophic than any physical illness. In fact, no other physical illness could cause such a massive and rapid destruction of life and wealth –as done by this moral disease.

In Rakhine state of Myanmar, the same moral cancer is showing its destructive and de-humanizing power. It could cause the “textbook case of ethnic cleansing” and the “fasting growing refugee” on earth.

The disease could also get embedded inside the United Nations (UN) and its powerful stakeholders like the USA, Russia and China.  The disease could kill the moral authority and the sense of perception of the leaders of the UN and the affected states. As a consequence, even the most visible symptoms of genocide in Arakan could stay unnoticed in their moral radar. This is why, a robust form of genocide could continue for decades in broad day light. These world leaders showed, how easy it is to condemn a dead Hitler, but difficult to avoid close collaboration with the living ones.

The UN and these controlling states failed similarly and terribly in the case of genocide in Bosnia, Rwanda and Cambodia. In fact, the crime of genocide by the Myanmar Army and the crime of inaction by the UN and its stakeholders continued side by side for decades. The recent declaration of support by China, Russia, India and Japan for the Myanmar government has indeed added more fuel to the ongoing genocide. As a direct consequence of such patronisation, the Rohingya villages continue to burn. And the Rohingya people continue to get raped, killed or evicted from them home to Bangladesh.

The word ‘genocide’ was coined with genos (Greek: birth, kind, race) and an English suffix –cide by Raphael Lemkin in his book “Axis Rule in Occupied Europe” in 1944. Now, almost all international bodies of law label a crime as ‘genocide’ while a state and state sponsored perpetrators of the crime incorporate the “intent to destroy” a population of dissimilar race, language, religion or geographical identity in their operational objective of the crime. In fact, such an intent to destroy the Rohingya Muslims is not hidden in the ruling circle and among the nationalists Buddhists of Myanmar. It is indeed clearly visible in all the anti-Rohingya policy of persecution of the civil and military institutions of Myanmar government.

Only in three weeks, ethnic cleansing of more than half a million Rohingya Muslims from Rakhine state, killing of more than 3,000 and raping thousands of Rohingya women and girls are the robust expression of such a genocidal intent. Here, the selection of the target for physical extermination, rape and torture are made only on race and religion. And the scale of killing and eviction are conducted only to achieve the stipulated target of elimination of Rohigya Muslims in Myanmar. So, it needs little intelligence or research to uncover the real motive of the perpetrators. Even a Rohingya child can see that. This is why, the Rohingya men, women and children are fleeing from Myanmar amidst harsh difficulties only to save their life.

Even the Head of UN Human Rights Commission had to describe it as the test book example of ethnic cleansing. Therefore, how such a crime of ethnic cleansing can be de linked from the crime of genocide?

Cleansing of a race, religion or ethnicity always operates through massive arson, gang rape, mass killing and forced eviction. In Myanmar, all these genocidal tools are being used against the Rohingya Muslims.

The UN Human Rights report stated that the Rohingya Muslims are the most persecuted minority on earth. But how such a worst persecution aimed at a single ethnic and religious community could be different from a planned genocide?

All the genocidal crimes in human history gave birth to wholesale migration –as happened in the case of the Red Indians, the German Jews and the Bosnian Muslims. That is happening with the fastest possible speed in the case of Rohingya Muslims, too. This is why, the UN Security General Antonio Guterres had to say that they are the fastest growing refugee in human history. Only a highly motivated genocidal regime in Myanmar could carry out such a man-made disaster of an epic proportion.

The Conceptual Basis of Genocide                      

For every genocide, some toxic ideologies, an extreme form moral sickness and a paranoid mind-set must work together to prepare the ground for that. Only because of deep ideological, political and cultural perversion in a huge section of population, Hitler’s gas chambers could operate in broad day light on an industrial scale in the heart of so-called civilized Europe. Only because of such conceptual cum ideological shift towards evil, the criminal herds of Europe could give birth to so many evil ideologies like colonialism, imperialism, fascism, communism, and racism in the past. The colonial wars, the occupational wars, the World Wars, the cold wars, ethnic cleansing and other tools of pure evil could also flourish on the same perverted conceptual premise.

It is significant to note that such a perverted psyche still survives. Therefore even today, those who carry the legacy of the colonial crimes take pride in that. This is why, on November 2, the British Prime Minister Theresa May could join the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to celebrate hundred years of Balfour Declaration –the pure evil of British colonialism, that caused so many wars, so many deaths and evictions through illicit creation of Israel.

In the past, people with such perverted colonial psych did not feel any shame or remorse for the most genocidal massacre of the Red Indians of America, the Aborigines of Australis and the Maoris of New Zealand. Rather, they thought such crimes as the part of their civilizational mission! The Burmese nationalists –like the ideological Nazi cousins have taken the same route.

Today, the moral, ethical and political ill health of the world leaders looks seldom any better or different from that of the genocidal colonial past. Because of the same conceptual base  of genocide, the same genocide still continues on an industrial scale; only the tools, the targets and the venues are different.

Instead of gas chambers, the new tools are the barrel bombs, cluster bombs, mother of all bombs, depleted uranium bombs, drones, and missiles. These are being deployed to commit the same crime with the same cruelty. As a result, hundreds of Syrian and Iraqi cities and villages are turned to rubbles by the US and the Russian bombers. More than a million are killed. And about 6 million Syrians and Iraqis are made refugees. Now, Muslims are the new target. Arakan, Syria, Iraq, Kashmir, Afghanistan, Xinjiang and many other Muslim lands are the new killing fields.

The Visible Evidence of the Genocide

No crime can hide its crime-site, motive and evidences. That is equally true for the genocide in Myanmar. The most important proof of any genocide is the genocidal intent of the perpetrators. In Myanmar, the perpetrators of the crime operate in such a strong anti-Muslim hatred of the local people, the media and the Buddhist monks that they never felt any need to hide their motive. Nor do they need to stay underground for committing the crime. Therefore, the motive of the crime is clearly visible. The perpetrators of the crime are also well identified. They are the ruling elites of the government, the Army, the Buddhist nationalist monks and the Islamophobic political cadres.

The motive of these people is to uproot the Rohimgya Muslims from their birth place. In fact, both the civil and military wings of the ruling ultra nationalists are operating with the same motive. Besides, they have a strong delusional base to support that motive. The existence of the Muslims in Rakhine state, is perceived as the existential threat to the Burmese Buddhists.

The whole genocidal crime against the Rohingya Muslims operates on such a sick, hateful and delusional concept. Because of that, inside Myanmar, there exists no sympathy for this most persecuted minority on earth. Rather, ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims through arson, mass slaughter, gang rape and forced eviction enjoys huge popularity among the cadre of the ruling party, the Army, the Buddhist monks, the political cadres and the general public.

 If 1.2 million Rohigya Muslims are evicted from their farm lands, gardens, homes, businesses, and community institutions like mosques and madrasa, the local Burmese people will get the opportunity to grab these Muslim properties without any hindrance. This is why, the genocidal intent against the Muslims enjoys a popular base in Myanmar. Such a huge economic temptation pulls people to the crime scene to actively engage in the crime. Thus, the anti-Muslim campaign is being used as a tool of mass-scale robbery, raping, arson and killing against Muslims.

In the past, the same happened in America against the Red Indians and in Nazi Germany against the Jews. Therefore, it raises little wonder that on Oct. 29, a huge rally was held in Yangon –the former capital of Myanmar, to celebrate the large scale eviction of the Rohigya Muslims and to show their support for the Army, sited from Al Jazeera. Because of such an evil motive, a cataclysmic crime against the Rohingya Muslims could run for decades with the public support. But the UN and world leaders continue to commit their own crime of silence and inaction, too. It is indeed an extreme form of moral collapse as well as the worst form of leadership failure that even the worst genocidal regime in Myanmar could enjoy support from so many states. Such supportive leaders for the genocidal state have indeed proven that they are the part of the same moral disease.

The success of the state-run genocidal scheme in Arakan is huge. It is easily visible from drastic downsizing the Muslim population there. In this traditionally Muslim majority state of Rakhine, the Muslims have been reduced to a minority. Now two-third population are the Burmese Buddhist. In 1952, the Rohingya Muslims were 1.2 million- source: Countdown to Annihilation: Genocide in Myanmar, a research study of London’s Queen Mary University, 2015. Now they have a population of 1.1 million. There has been a 8% reduction in Rohingya population in last 65 years. Whereas, in the same period of time, the population in Bangladesh showed a more than 4 folds increase. In Pakistan, the increase was 6 folds. (As per census of 1951, the population of former East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) was 42 million; and in 2017 it is estimated to be 170 million. As per same census in 1951, the population was 33.7 million in former West Pakistan; and in 2017, it is 207 million).

Genocide: The Literal Meaning & Execution

The UN General Assembly’s resolution passed on Dec. 9, 1948 was brought into effect on Jan. 12, 1951 (Resolution 260 (III)), specified the definition of genocide in following terms: “Any of the acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethical, racial or religious group; killing members of a group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to its members; deliberately inflicting on their conditions of life, calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. It is also the intended and the coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of the national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be to disintegrate the political and social institutions, culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of the national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.”

In 2002, Article 6 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court assigned almost similar narrative for the crime of genocide. It stated that “genocide” means any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, such as: (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. As per above definition, the Rohingya Muslims are the victim of all brutal specifics of genocidal crimes committed by the Myanmar Army, the Police, the Buddhist monks and the racially motivated common people. The catalogue of such crimes include arson, mass killings, rape, gang rape, torture, burning homes, deprivation of citizenship and civic rights, forceful eviction, and segregating in concentration camps. In order to facilitate their death, the Rohingya people are not allowed to have any access to healthcare. They are even deprived of basic education, jobs, income generating activities, social and cultural institutions, and mobility in the community. They are not allowed to perform even the obligatory prayers in public. On Feb 2, AFP reported from Yangon that Myanmar Authority charged three Muslims men for holding Ramadan (Tarawih) prayers on the street. It was also reported that they were performing prayers on the street because of closure of the two local schools that gave premise to hold prayers. The schools were closed in late April 2017 after the ultra-nationalists complained to the ruling authority that the school-premises are used by the Muslims for the congregational prayers. Thus, the congressional prayer was taken as a serious crime to close down the school! This was done at a time when Aung San Suu Kyi is the de facto leader of the so-called democratic government.

Malnutrition has also been used as an effective weapon against the Rohingya Muslims. Those who are kept in camps are subjected to slow death through it. They are allowed to survive only on sub-subsistence level through international relief goods. Along with other horrendous means of persecution, such a dreadful situation was created only to promote silent disappearance of the Rohingya Muslims through desperate migration to other countries. Only in three weeks in September-October in 2017, about 600, 000 migrated to Bangladesh. In addition, more than 400,000 migrated to Bangladesh on previous episodes of similar forced evictions. About 400, 000 migrated to Saudi Arabia, about 350, 000 to Pakistan, 40, 000 to India and about 100, 000 to Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.

The Genocide In Phases & the Myanmar Style

Genocide always follows a classical pattern –as postulated by a famous social scientist named Mr Daniel Feuerstein in his book Genocide in Social Practice. The case of Myanmar isn’t different either.

These are:

  1. Stigmatization
  2. Harassment, violence and terror
  3. Isolation and segregation
  4. Systemic weakening
  5. Extermination
  6. Symbolic enactment.

The case of Myanmar indeed presents the textbook example of passing through all such genocidal phases. It starts with the imposed stigmatization by the perpetrators of genocide between “us” and “them”. Here, “us” are the agents who commit the genocide. In Myanmar, they are the Myanmar government and its civil and military institutions, the Buddhist monks, the ultra nationalist political thugs and the state-run gangs of salaried murderers. “Them” are the people who are stigmatized as the target of elimination –either by a process of mass killing or by forced eviction. In Myanmar, the term “them” was assigned for the Rohingya Muslims. They are made scapegoat for all the failures of Myanmar as well as cause of the future threat; hence black listed as the perfect target of genocidal elimination.

In such an appalling situation, it was the duty of the UN and its Human Right offices to identify such a genocidal phase at its earliest stages. It was also their duty to pressurize the Myanmar government to re frame from such an act of criminalizing the innocent people for ethnic cleansing and extermination.

The duty of other world players and human right organizations should have been the same to save the innocent people from a man-made barbaric catastrophe. But they could display only the awful failure. None of the prophylactic or curative interventions by the UN or by any other state or international body happened to protect these people from ongoing genocide. Rather, they did exactly the opposite. The US removed the already imposed embargo; and the countries like India, Russia, and Japan increased their political, diplomatic and economic cooperation with the genocidal regimes. And Aung San Suu Kyi -the de facto leader who currently presides over the genocide, was given a Nobel Prize –a certificate of so-called upright moral conscience! As a result of such commission and omission, the whole community of the Rohingya Muslims was thrown into a death trap. Thus, the genocidal process was allowed to march into a phase of protracted harassment, violence and terror.

The Final Phase

The Myanmar regime deployed all possible tools to carry out the physical as well as the psychological torture against the Rohingya people. These are done deliberated to pass on the message that they have no political, cultural and survival space in Myanmar. Taking away their right of citizenship in 1982 indeed worked as a powerful tool to give them such a message very crudely. It terrorized them psychologically and made them refugee in their own birth place.

Living in a state without its citizenship indeed worked as source of all-time fear and agony. Moreover, the Buddhist monks and nationalist extremist leaders were let loose to label them publicly as the foreign infiltrators from Bangladesh and future threat to Buddhists’ existence in Myanmar. Thus, they instigated violence against these captivated poor Muslims and prescribe full elimination from Arakan. As a result, even a few nationalist thugs could feel highly emboldened to snatch domestic cattle, hens, vegetables and other staff from their Muslim neighbors. Thus they became hostage to frequent arson, violence and rape by the state and non-state agents. And the Muslim women became the regular target for the sex predators of the Army and other security apparatus. The state-run violence, terror and harassment were made deliberately the parts of their daily life. As a result, those who had the means, silently left the country. A field research done by London’s Queen Mary University in 2015 gave a very detailed information of such systematic physical, and psychological torture. Even at this phase of state-run protracted genocide, the UN and other agencies kept their eyes closed and showed a policy of total inaction.

The Burmese ultra nationalist can’t believe that Rohingya Muslims have any survival rights or human rights in Myanmar. They could prescribe only a pre-mediated blue print of total extermination for them –as Adolf Hitler had for the Jews. It is the strategy of isolating and segregating the Rohingya Muslims in concentration camps and restricting their food supply and prohibiting their health, social and educational care. These camps are called the Internally Displaced People’s (IDP) camps. In order to feed these concentration camps, the Rohingya Muslims are periodically evicted by force from their homes, farms and businesses. Therefore those who were evicted in 1978, 1991-92, 2012, 2013, and 2015, never had any chance to return back to their own homes, farm or business; rather found their final abode in those concentration camps. Those who wish to return back from Bangladesh to Arakan, they do not see any different or better future either. Thus, only a road of physical, moral, cultural and emotional death through systematic weakening is left open for them. Those who do not finish this way, mass slaughtering and forced eviction to other countries wait for them. Now, the long process of such a forced elimination of the Rohingya Muslims has indeed reached the final point.

“Creeping Sharia”: A Myth?

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by Amina Khan

The term “Sharia law” ignites heated arguments as non-Muslims attempt to define it through tenuous sources. However, concurrently, radical Muslims also disseminate false translations of Sharia for the benefit of their own religious extremism and political gain.

So then, what is Sharia and is it something Americans should fear?

History and Origin

Sharia sprouted following the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 AD. It derives its essence from the Qur’an and Hadith; yet, conflictions develop as the credibility of Hadith is scrutinized between Muslim scholars. The reliability of a Hadith may have faltered through the “chain of transmission” down the years. If a Hadith contradicts another Hadith or the Qur’an, it cannot be true. Unfortunately, Hadith have been abused under degrading rhetoric and is always undergoing analysis between scholars.

Sharia translates to “the direct path to water”, as it is wholly a practiced way of life for Muslims.

Trying to ban Sharia is denying Muslims their religious freedom. But, Sharia is not a set of laws that are to be forced on anyone against their will as it is stated in the Qur’an that “no compulsion in [acceptance of] the religion” (2:256) is allowed. Furthermore, Sharia is not even a set of laws, but rather a philosophical concept of guidelines that root from the concepts learned in the Qur’an and Hadith. It molds with the society that a Muslim currently resides in; however, it is strictly only for Muslims and is not something that is trying to spread or be forced onto the Western world.

Five Parts of Sharia + Fiqh

The five branches of Sharia are Adab (behavior, morals and manners), ibadah (ritual worship), i’tiqadat (beliefs), mu’amalat (transactions and contracts) and ‘uqubat (punishments). However, it should be noted that these rulings apply to a willing person, not through forced government implementation.

Fiqh means “understanding” and is taught through four different schools (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, Hanbali) with the common conception that these scholars are not speaking for God. Fiqh is essentially stories of Prophet Muhammad (SAW), Qur’an and Hadith. Unfortunately, the Western view of Sharia and Fiqh is based on how Middle East countries make use of the Islamic laws.

Countries like Saudi Arabia, abuse the nature of Islam to weaken the disposition of Muslims for their own political gain. These countries eradicate the concept of justice that is essential to Sharia, simply to gain power and fuel their extremist views. An honest example of Sharia law is prevalent in America, as freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of thought are promoted. The Islamic part of Sharia is fully a Muslim’s own spiritual relationship with God in directing themselves to be a better person.

Violence and Punishment in Qur’an + Concept of Hudud

“Whoever kills a person who has a truce with the Muslims will never smell the fragrance of Paradise.” – Saheeh Muslim

It is narrated that Muhammad (SAW) said, “To free someone criminal mistakenly is better than to punish someone innocent mistakenly.” ‘A’isha (ra) narrated, “Ward off punishments as much as you can. If you find any way out for a Muslim then set him free. If the Imam makes a mistake in granting forgiveness it is better for him than that he should commit a mistake in imposing punishment.”

“Avert the Hudud (legal punishments) from being inflicted as much as you can, and whenever you find a way for a release [of a defendant] go through it, since it is better for one who rules to make a mistake in acquitting, than to make it in punishment of the innocent.” (Sunan al-Tirmidhi no. 1424. Classified authentic [sahih] by al-Hakim)

Hudud means the “limits of God”, Jonathan Brown from Yaqeen Institute states, but nowhere does the phrase appear in the clear context of labeling certain crimes (see Quran, 2:229, 4:14, 58:4, 65:1, though 4:14 is followed by a discussion of sexual impropriety). As punishments in Islamic law are formatted by human reason and not by the verses in the Qur’an, there is ample room for error. There are only four undeniable Hudud penalties specified by the Qur’an: 1) Theft; 2) Armed robbery; 3) Illicit sexual intercourse; 4) Slander.

The Qur’an does not command the death penalty for major sins, even murder. The family of the victim of a murder is given the option to forgive a murderer, be given compensation for the murder, or have the murderer killed (2:178). Stoning someone to death is never mentioned in the Qur’an, but is a common practice in some countries who are clearly not following the book accurately.

However, it is important to note that the concept of Hudud is not meant to be implemented into society today, rather it is there to sustain Quranic maqasid of justice/compassion in the specific context of Meccan society at the time.

In a typical book of fiqh, less than 2% of the book is devoted to the Hudud crimes and their punishments.

“Those who commit unlawful sexual intercourse of your women – bring against them four [witnesses] from among you. And if they testify, confine the guilty women to houses until death takes them or Allah ordains for them [another] way. (4:15) But if they repent and correct themselves, leave them alone. Indeed, Allah is ever Accepting of repentance and Merciful (4:16).

“And those who accuse chaste women and then do not produce four witnesses – lash them with eighty lashes and do not accept from them testimony ever after. And those are the defiantly disobedient, Except for those who repent thereafter and reform, for indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful” (read 24:4-9).

Forgiveness is a prime factor in Islam, and punishment is only given if there is substantial evidence of a sin, which is extremely rare. These punishments are scarcely ever used and if they are, it’s used in an extreme and unfitting manner. Also, the Qur’an was revealed 1400 years ago in a time where punishment like prison did not exist. In fact, in the entirety of the Quran of 114 chapters, only three punishments are written: prescribed punishments, retribution, and discretionary punishments. Also, in modern societies, where the vast majority of crimes cannot be examined on the basis of eyewitness evidence and where all kinds of forensic data enabled by scientific advancements have become critical to investigating and prosecuting crimes: there is no need for Hudud to be used.

“And the retribution for an evil act is an evil one like it, but whoever pardons and makes reconciliation – his reward is [due] from Allah . Indeed, He does not like wrongdoers”(42:40).

“And if ye do catch them out, catch them out no worse than they catch you out: But if ye show patience, that is indeed the best (course) for those who are patient” (16:126).

Scholars argue that the verse on theft giving the punishment of cutting off one’s hand is mistranslated. You shall “eqta’u” the thief’s hands as a punishment for their deeds, and to serve as a deterrent from God. The word “eqta’u” is normally used along the lines of ‘marking’ or ‘leaving a scar’ where as “batara” would mean to “cut off”. In Qur’an 108:3, “Indeed, your enemy is the one cut off” (abtar – a derivative from batara).

This can be further argued in the story of Joseph:

“So when she heard of their scheming, she sent for them and prepared for them a banquet and gave each one of them a knife and said [to Joseph], ‘Come out before them.’ And when they saw him, they greatly admired him and cut their hands and said, ‘Perfect is Allah ! This is not a man; this is none but a noble angel.’” (12:31). “Eqta’u is also used in 5:38.

As for other violent verses of war, are only written in the Qur’an as explanations for wars that happened at that time, like the Battle of Badr. However, people of ISIS and Taliban take these verses and use it to cowardly support their own horrendous actions of war and savagery.

In a hadith of an underpaid child who stole fruit from his employer was brought to Prophet Muhammad (SAW) by the employer who demanded the child’s hand be cut. Upon seeing that the child suffered from hunger, Prophet Muhammad (SAW) rebuked the employer for underpayment and made it obligatory on him to educate the child and provide proper food to him until he grows up. This hadith makes up several of examples of Prophet Muhammad’s way of promoting justice where it is necessary. Among forgiveness in Islam, a good deed can also wipe away sin, as narrated in a hadith of a prostitute whose sins were forgiven simply because she gave water to a thirsty dog.

Hiraba

The harshest punishment written in the Qur’an is 5:33. Majority of Muslim scholars deem this verse was revealed after men had blinded, maimed and murdered a shepherd while also stealing his camels. Prophet Muhammad (SAW) ordered the killers to be punished in the same manner. However, some scholars argue that these reports are skeptical. Nevertheless, it is stressed that the ruler or state has the preference in deciding the proper punishment for Hiraba.

Terrorism is classified as Hiraba, which is punishable by death, as Hiraba means “waging war against a society”. Therefore, Islam heavily supports the notion that groups like ISIS are to be punished.

Misconceptions of Jihad

Opposite of Hiraba is Jihad. The term Jihad has been abused to hold a negative connotation juxtaposing its true meaning in Islam. People who do abuse the term are disregarding Islam’s immaculate history of consistency to the standards of law and justice in affairs of state. Jihad in Arabic means to “strive for some objective”. Countries who use Jihad for unwarranted violence and propaganda have been misguided and are neglecting Islamic conditions. It has become a norm for cultural society to define Jihad as rebellions against authority, which stressfully denounce Islamic principles.

Spiritual Jihad’s goal is to diminish demeaning characteristics by practicing dhikr, the Remembrance of God.

Jihad essentially means to “struggle” and is overall an internal and external way to be a good Muslim. The only reference of Jihad to violence is when Prophet Muhammad (SAW) mentioned to his followers on the way back from military campaign that a transition was made from armed battle to the peaceful battle, enforcing the idea of a “just war” and terms of defensive battles.

Islam’s Tolerance of Other Religions

“After Muhammad’s death, Jews and Christians were never required to convert to Islam but were allowed to practice their religions freely in the Islamic empire. Later Zoroastrians, Hindus, Buddhists, and Sikhs were also counted among the People of the Book. It has never been a problem for Muslims to coexist with people of other religions. The Islamic empire was able to play host to Christians and Jews for centuries, but Western Europe has found it almost impossible to tolerate Muslims and Jews in Christian territory.” – Karen Armstrong

“Beware!  Whoever is cruel and hard on a non-Muslim minority, or curtails their rights, or burdens them with more than they can bear, or takes anything from them against their free will; I (Prophet Muhammad) will complain against the person on the Day of Judgment.” – Abu Dawud

“You will surely find the most intense of the people in animosity toward the believers [to be] the Jews and those who associate others with Allah , and you will find the nearest of them in affection to the believers those who say, “We are Christians.” That is because among them are priests and monks and because they are not arrogant” (5:82).

Several Quranic verses denounce the ostracization of any religion besides Islam. Misconfigurations of verses stating the murder of non-Believers repudiate the understanding of historical context at that time. Meccan “Pagans” had waged war against the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and his community, while they violently oppressed and tortured Muhammad and his followers. Eventually, after several assassination attempts on Muhammad, various hostile Arab tribes joined in the fight against the Muslims, cultivating the Battle of the Trench, when 10,000 soldiers from many Arab tribes gathered to take out the entirety of the Muslim community. Muslims survived this war and went onto civilization.

As mentioned in the Huffington Post, the verses that come immediately before 9:5 state, “Those with whom you have treaties are immune from attack.” It further states, “Fulfill your treaties with them to the end of their term, for God loves the conscientious.” Now, in its proper context, verse 9:5 can be accurately understood.

“Creeping Sharia” is a non-existent movement. Sharia is not here to “take over” the world and convert everyone to Islam as Allah (SWT) “guides whomever He wills”. The violence that is so prevalent in the Middle East has no relation to religion, rather it capitalizes globalization and colonialism. Muslims are victims under those who use the name of Islam for their own political agenda to obtain power and sustain greed. Sharia has no intention to be violent, unless drastic sins like those ISIS is committing, then punishment is deemed to be fitting. Above all, forgiveness is dramatically portrayed in Islam, punishment is not something that should easily be given. It is important to understand the correct principles of Islam, and digest the violent terms in the Qur’an as verses that befitted society at that time and era.

Karbala, A Reminder

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Photo Credit: Davoud Ghahrdar

by Suraiya Ali

There is a story of Karbala

that everyone knows.

There is a story of a man who was connected to divinity

There is a story of a man who knew that he was the prophet’s progeny.

There is a story of a man who realized his life was political currency,

that with spending it, he could save thousands, millions, of others from calamity.

There is a story of Karbala that is harsh. It is chains on the chest of mourning men.

This is a story about Hazart Hussain, who went to aid his allies in Kufa, and with his family, walked into his own martyrdom.

There is a story that he knew he was going to die, and that when his enemy told him

that not even a funeral shroud

would be provided for his corpse,

he responded, God will send onto his body a cloth of divine light, directly from Heaven.

There is a story that is about massacre.

70 women and children, warrior and worshipper, killed by an army of thousands; starved from water for three days.

There is a story of Karbala that everyone knows.

It is sharp like swords, putrid like the smell of bodies left to rot in the desert.

There is another Karbala, that we do not speak about.

There is a Karbala that is soft.

There is a Karbala;

In which Hazart Hussein was a father, a new father, to baby boys; Ali as-Asghar and Zayn-al Abidin,

In which he felt their infant hands, soft as the petals of Persian Jasmine, grasp his fingers.

There is a Karbala;

In which he heard his young daughter, Ruqayyah, speak to him in the gentle and gibbering Arabic of a toddler.

There is a Karbala full of mothers, who tended to their children, regardless of thirst, regardless of heat, with love as supple as the hand-woven rugs they left behind in their homes.

There is a Karbala full of husbands, who’s bond in marriage reeked so much of love that their wives walked with them through that desert, to the last moment they would ever be able to embrace one and other.

There is a Karbala of love.

There is a Karbala as soft as the laugh of a child, as smooth as silk on a jummah afternoon.

There is Karbala as sweet as Hafiz, as succulent as Rumi.

Why do I remind you of this? When you fathers beat themselves with chains, and your mothers weep into black chadors– why do I remind you of softness?

I do not wish to romanticize Karbala.

There is no romance in malpractice.

I wish to remind you that as you fight for the injustices of our past, and blaze forward to undo the injustice of our future, you must seek the soft.

You must remember as you mourn that while they fought they also loved.

While they died they also loved.

While their last breath left their bodies, they also loved.

My Karbala so full of love that it is as soft as pink chiffon, as delicate as rose petals.

My Karbala is one where the Army of the Holy was massacred, but the love of their House was only sanctified.

My Karbala is soft, so soft, that even chain links covered with the blood of devotees, are no match for the noor they bring to those who hold them.

 

Poet Suraiya Ali has grown up with the mourning of Karbala. She has felt her history every Ashura. During the Muslim month of Moharram, where Shia and Sunni Muslims alike, mourn the martyrdom of Hazart Hussain, who suffered on the fields of Karbala a death deemed gruesome by most in history, it is easy to be lost in the convictions of pain. Suraiya in her work, “Karbala, A Reminder”, engages readers in realize, that even with pain comes softness and in that softness, a devotee can find bliss. 

27th AFMI International Convention in Chicago 2017

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by TMO Staff

The American Federation of Muslims of Indian origin (AFMI) held its 27th annual convention in Chicago, IL on October 7. 

It was a great gathering of intellectuals, academicians, thinkers, and sociologists from India and US, that started at 9:30 AM and went on till midnight and beyond at Shalimar Banquet Hall in Chicago, Illinois. Close to 600 people attended the convention. Morning Session started with Recitation of Holy Quran by Dr. Mairaj Uddin. After that Dr. Tajuddin Ahmed gave the welcoming address. During the day session, eminent scholars, human rights activists and lawmakers addressed on the topic of Current Challenges of Secularism and Pluralism in India.

AFMI was formed in 1989 by Muslims of Indian origin to work for the educational uplifting of Muslims in India. In the last 28 years of its existence, it has opened up hundreds of schools, colleges and clinics while participating in rehabilitation and relief programs all over the country.

The flagship of AFMI’s work is its national and regional gold, silver and bronze programs offered to high achievers in secondary and higher secondary students in all 29 states and over 600 students. During the last 26 years, AFMI has given awards to over 3,000 students. When the organization began its medal program the average marks received by students in high school or higher secondary were about 76 percent. Last year, even the students with 98 percent marks were competing for bronze medals. The medal program has generated a spirit of competition and progress among Muslim students and has helped inspire thousands of students to work harder to secure a better educational future for themselves.

AFMI has promoted the emergence of a new educational identity among Muslims in India and convinced the younger Muslim generation that education is the essence of progress and prosperity. AFMI holds two annual conventions in the US and India. These conventions are organized with the help of local communities. AFMI’s convention in India will be held in Jodhpur on December 30 and 31, in cooperation with Maulana Azad University.

This year AFMI has also decided to expand its medal program by opening it to students coming from religious communities other than Muslims as well. Each year AFMI plans to offer gold medals to non-Muslim students from all 29 states in addition to Muslim students.

Dr. Ram Puniyani, a worldwide known human rights activist was the Honored Guest from India and a keynote speaker at the convention. He asserted that the communalization of Indian politics by certain special interest groups, motivated by their narrowly defined religious agenda, was one of the factors causing insecurity among minorities and Dalits.

He appealed to the delegates and participants to strengthen secular forces to ensure that India retains its multi-cultural and multi-ethnic identity.

Dr. Tajuddin started the convention and introduced AFMI’s efforts in uplifting the lives of underprivileged and poor Indian students and their families. He also highlighted other AFMI projects.

Dr. Abidullah Ghazi talked about the important and vital role of Muslims in freedom struggle of India. He also emphasized on the importance of secularism, democracy, pluralism in Indian constitution.

Dr. Aslam Abdullah, the Master of Ceremonies, (MC) made remarks about the guarantees and protection of freedom of speech, religion and secular character of Indian Constitution.

Kannan Srinivasan discussed the human rights violation and injustices towards Muslims and other minorities in India.

Dr. Khutb Uddin spoke about the psychological impact due to the rise of extremism and fanaticism in the Indian politics and how it has been affecting negatively on the Muslims and other minorities. It has created fears, phobias, and an insecure atmosphere.

Rajeev Ravi Shankar gave a thought-provoking presentation on how RSS and BJP are planning to make India a Hindu state. He further added how RSS is having international connections and using new technologies like, social media and web media to poison youth.

Dr. Akbar emphasized on the interfaith dialogue and conflict resolutions to deal with the challenges of right-wing extremists.

Professor Balwant Singh Hansra focused on Sikhs’ sacrifices and their contribution in India’s independence. He stated that even after 70 years of independence, Sikhs’ pains, sufferings, and grievances have not been addressed. He stressed on the need of unity among secular Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Dalits and other minorities.

Dr. Nagamia talked about how difficult it is for Muslims in India to get any support or even protection of their basic human rights from the government.

Dr. Nakadar expressed his deep concerns about the polarization of communities. He said out of 1.3 Billion the total population of India, 4635 (that is 78%) consist of linguistic, social and cultural categories. Religious groups form only 19.4%. Based on this diversity, he exhorted, that if India wants to achieve meaningful progress, growth and development, it must develop a cohesive society and not a coercive society- an accommodative society and not an annihilating society. Unity doesn’t mean uniformity.

AFMI delegates and speakers with Prof. Ram Puniyani (6th from left) a night before the convention.

Honorable Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White welcomed the delegates and attendees. He thanked AFMI for its efforts to uplift and educate the poor and underprivileged Indian Muslims. He talked about the importance of harmony in the US among all citizens, be it US, Indian or any other country.

After the speeches, Honorable Consular General of India and Chicago, Neeta Bhushan, the Chief Guest of the convention, addressed the convention and congratulated AFMI for its efforts and improving the educational and economic status of Indian Muslims. She reassured that India’s commitment to secularism and pluralism is deep and the rights of all Indians are protected by the constitution.

She gave the award of Pride of India to Keynote Speaker Dr. Ram Punyani, Excellence Awards to Dr. Abidullah Ghazi for his commitment to excellence in educational services, to Sher Rajput for building the harmony among all communities of India, and Azhar Azeez for his leadership and dedication to the plural American society. She also distributed Distinguished and Appreciation awards.

Towards the end, Azhar Azeez, President of Islamic Society of America, gave a passionate lecture about the situation of Muslims in India and appealed for fundraising for AFMI’s educational programs.

After the fundraising a lavish dinner was served followed by a musical program by the world renowned gazal singer Munni Begum Saahiba. The event ended around 1 AM, with a feeling of joy and excitement.

Muslim activism Leads to Progress with Google Search

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by Tina Lapsia

We all know that Islamophobia is a rampant issue in this country, especially as seen by the discriminatory rhetoric and legislation advanced by President Trump and his supporters over the recent year.

In fact, according to a recent Vox article, the trends seen in Google searches reveal much about spikes in prejudicial behavior and the American psyche. Based on research done by author Seth Stephens-Davidowitz of Everybody Lies, it is apparent who has hateful sentiments towards Muslim based on their Internet history.

“People search things like ‘kill Muslims’ or ‘I hate Muslims’ or ‘Muslims are evil.’ These people are basically maniacs and you can actually see minute-by-minute when these searches rise and when these searches fall… [I]t’s a small group but it’s also an important group… They are the ones who tend to commit hate crimes or even murder Muslims,” Stephens-Davidowitz explained in the article.

That is why Google is actually so important to facilitating understanding and breaking stereotypes about Muslims around the world. In June, the Huffington Post released a piece highlighting the negative effects the search engine has for truly understanding Islam. The issue? When searching for specific Islamic phrases like “sharia,” “jihad,” or “taqiyya,” Google’s top results included links to Islamophobic sites run by white supremacists. Since 90% of people who run searches don’t look past the first page of hits, this can lead to an incredible outflow of misinformation.

Concerned about this issue, Oman Suleiman, a Dallas imam and founder of the Yaqeen Institution for Islamic Research, has formed a team of individuals to public accurate reports on such topics in order to influence Google’s search algorithm.

“Imam Omar Suleiman and Ali Fiaz photographed in the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research office in Las Colinas, Texas. Suleiman is currently the President of the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research and a professor of Islamic Studies at Southern Methodist University.” Both are collaborating on the Google project. Photo Source: Allison V. Smith/The Huffington Post

Although Imam Suleiman admitted he did not have the monetary power to quickly influence Google like the $57 million funding Islamophobia, he was hopeful that Google would realize the problem based on the corrections it has made in the past. “It’s a fair ask that when someone goes to Google they are not being presented with information from hate groups, and representatives of the faith, as well as respectable academics… as if they’re all on the same playing field,” he said. The company removed the autofill suggestion “are Jews evil” last year in addition to the “glitch” that tagged the term “gorillas” in image searches run for African-Americans on its photos app.

Fortunately, Google has recently taken steps in the right direction. Amid pressure from activists like Imam Suleiman’s organization and others, Google’s first page results for searches of terms such as “jihad,” “shariah,” and “taqiyya” now show mostly reputable sources for explanations of these concepts. The search engine released a statement saying, “To help prevent the spread of such content for this subset of queries, we’ve improved our evaluation methods and made algorithmic updates to surface more authoritative content.” Although such hate speech should have been filtered in the first place, this is certainly a step in the right direction for the Muslim-American community.

Pressure Mounts on Myanmar to Stop Ethnic Cleansing of Rohingya Muslims

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Adam Dean/The New York Times

by TMO Staff

They came out in- London, Toronto, Ottawa, New York, Washington, Houston, Arlington, Denver, Birmingham, Toledo, Seattle, Kansas City, Kansas, Los Angeles, Lanham, Tampa, Santa Clara, Dallas, Chicago, San Francisco, Portland, Atlanta and in Moscow- to show solidarity with Rohingyas on September 16, yet the military leadership of Myanmar, rather than responding to the call of world leaders to respect human life intensified its violent campaign by torching 80 more sites.

The situation has been deteriorating rapidly as thousands of stranded Rohingya Muslims are seeking safe passage from remote villages. At least half a million Rohingyas have escaped into Bangladesh from what is described by the United Nations as a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.

Reports trickling down from these villages reveal that ethnic Rakhine Buddhists were visiting Muslim dominated villages shouting, “leave or we will kill you all.”

The US State Department’s East Asia Bureau has called “urgently” for Burma’s security forces “to act in accordance with the rule of law and to stop the violence and displacement suffered by individuals from all communities.”

“Tens of thousands of people reportedly lack adequate food, water, and shelter in northern Rakhine state,” spokeswoman Katina Adams said. “The government should act immediately to assist them.” She added that Patrick Murphy, the US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia, would reiterate grave concern about the situation in Rakhine when he meets senior officials in Burma this week.

The UK also hosted a ministerial meeting to discuss the crisis in Rakhine on September 18 on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly in New York.

However, neighboring country India has silently endorsed the campaign against Rohingyas by refusing an international declaration to condemn the ongoing ethnic cleansing.

Dalai Lama, the spiritual head of Buddhism is also silent on the situation despite the fact that the Pope and other religious leaders have urged the Myanmar government to show restrain.

Myanmar experts believe that the world needs to act tougher to stop genocide in Myanmar. Sanctions and diplomatic pressure with the possibility of military action against the security forces of Myanmar are some of the options the diplomatic community is suggesting. The Organization of Islamic Conference is expected to discuss the issue during the UN General Assembly meeting and come up with an action plan.

The Russian and the US Religious Right Axis

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by Dr. Aslam Abdullah

It was a sensational revelation yet, it could not generate enough discussion even among those who were directly affected by the disclosure. Facebook has acknowledged receiving advertisement money from Russian interest groups for posts announcing anti-Muslim rallies in Idaho in 2016.

The revelation was seen as yet another proof of the Russian meddling in US elections. However, a few bothered to delve deep into the Russian instigated Islamophobia in the US and Western World. A cursory look at the background of known Islamophobes indicates a Russian hand directly or indirectly in anti-Islam rhetoric especially in the US.

The Idaho anti-Muslim rally became a springboard of similar rallies across the country. But, the Idaho rally is not the only event planted by Russian interest groups. Several other US groups and individuals have been promoting the Kremlin agenda in the US for years.

One of them is Lt. Gen Michael Flynn, the former national security advisor. He was in close contact with the Russian government officials and his stance on Islam is not hidden from the general public.

He called Islam a “vicious cancer inside the body of 1.7 billion people” that has to be “excised”.

Flynn also falsely claimed, in a speech in August 2016, that Florida Democrats voted to impose Islamic Shariah law at the state and local level. This claim which was first made by religious right groups, who were also in the forefront of the anti Muslim rallies in August 2016, proved nothing .

Flynn was and is still a favorite of religious right groups, where he is celebrated as an expert on Islam.

In recent years, the relationship between America’s religious right and the Russian Orthodox Church have seen a significant rise.  Franklin Graham, a hugely influential evangelical preacher, who prayed at Mr Trump’s inauguration, declared in his Facebook posting the following:

The media and enemies of President Trump have tried to drive a wedge between Russia and the United States. Our country needs Russia as an ally in the fight against Islamic terrorism. Join me in praying for President Trump and for President Vladimir Putin as they have this very strategic meeting.

Graham even met the Russian President during a visit to Russia in 2015, where he reportedly said. “Pray for the President of Russia, [who] defends traditional Christianity.”

Graham, who supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, referred to Islam as “a very evil and wicked religion.” He also said “true Islam cannot be practiced in this country,” in conversation with CNN’s Campbell Brown in December 2009. “You can’t beat your wife. You cannot murder your children if you think they’ve committed adultery or something like that, which they do practice in these other countries.”

Graham was also the organizer of a conference in Washington DC on the global persecution of Christians in May, that brought together senior figures from Russia and America. Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, head of the external relations arm of the Russian Orthodox Church, had a cordial meeting with Vice President Mike Pence, a religious conservative who was raised Catholic but later became evangelical.

Alfeyev called the conversation optimistic about Russo-American ties. In their speeches to the conference, both Pence and the Russian prelate said Christians in the Middle East were suffering genocide.

Putin and the Orthodox Church have developed a codependent strategy that benefits both parties. The Russian president often grants the Church privileges not afforded to other faith groups to help him win domestic debates. Recently, the Kremlin funded a Church controlled spiritual center in Paris.

There are enough Russians in the US for the Kremlin to find support for its programs. The Russian Orthodox Church followers in America are said to be in large numbers. The Russian American population is estimated at approximately 2.9 million people. They are the second largest ethnic group representing 10.3% (2.9 Million people) of the total foreign-born population of 28.4 million. The leading ethnic group is Mexicans that represent 28% or 7.8 million of all US foreign-born population.

It is not a farfetched idea that the Kremlin is working through its sources in the Orthodox Church to win support for its agenda in the US. Islam is perceived as a state enemy by many former KGB and Russian politicians who witnessed the worst humiliating defeat of their country at the hands of Muslim Afghanistan.  The Russians have not forgotten their ordeal in Afghanistan, that in their view was the graveyard of their empire and superpower status. In their view, a conflict between the West and Islam would pave the way for their leadership in Europe and America, and to achieve this goal they are enlisting the support of the evangelical groups in the US.

The growing relationship between Putin, the Orthodox Church and the religious right groups in America clearly indicate that the Kremlin is eager to support anti-Islam groups in the US and Europe to ensure its own agenda is secured. The Facebook revelation is just the beginning. In months to come, we may learn more about the Russian involvement in anti-Muslim propaganda world wide.

Orlando Mosque Welcomes Hurricane Irma Evacuees

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by Aysha Qamar

While many worshipping and religious houses closed their doors to avoid Hurricane Irma destruction, Tariq Rasheed, the imam of the Islamic Center of Orlando, opened his mosque for people seeking shelter, hosting around 150.

After millions were forced to flee as Hurricane Irma traveled up Florida’s west coast, the Islamic Center of Orlando, Jama Masjid, opened up its doors to all those seeking shelter. The local Orlando Mosque has been named as one of the first religious organizations to have opened its doors for Hurricane Irma Evacuees.

The mosque posted its welcome on social media and was met with positive responses.

The building was sheltering about 150 people as of 5 pm on Sept. 10, according to Rasheed during an interview with The Washington Post.

The mosque hosted people of different ethnicities and religious backgrounds.  While other worship places such as churches and synagogues have community halls or areas specifically meant to accommodate people due to pews, mosques are able to offer the actual worship space as shelter. The wide open carpeted prayer floors allow for a space to be transformed into shelter camping ground.

“We wanted people to feel as comfortable as possible and we wanted to do our best and did not want anyone to have any discomfort.”

The Islamic Center of Orlando is one of the few houses of worship that remained open in the area. It announced it will continue its usual prayers five times a day, while welcoming anyone in the community who needs shelter.

“Lots of hospitality, they’ve been feeding us three meals, giving us cots to sleep on and we’ve just had an excellent experience. And of course, being in the Islamic community is just wonderful for us,” one of the evacuees, Sally Killic, told The Washington Post.

An estimated of 10,000 residents are homeless after Hurricane Irma blew through Florida as a massive and powerful Category 4 storm.

The storm downgraded as it moved north towards Atlanta, with maximum sustained winds of 56km/h (35mph) later recorded, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said in a statement.

6.5 million homes in Florida, two-thirds of the total, are without power after Hurricane Irma cut a deadly path through the state, officials said.

Many other mosques have also opened their doors, providing shelter, food and daily necessities for those in need.

The Hajj Paradigm: Islam’s Most Unifying Narrative

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by Imam Luqman Ahmad

Perhaps, the purest, and most poignant narrative of what Islam really stands for at its core, is the visual takeaway one gets from the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca-called Hajj. Every sane adult Muslim, who is physically and financially able, is required to perform the Hajj at least once in their lifetime. A religious scholar, an illiterate farmer, an international banker, a tribal Bedouin, a head of state, a decorated soldier, and a truck driver, each are all required to perform the Hajj in the same manner. Each are equally obligated by religious law to wear exactly the same style and color of clothing, donned and draped in the same way and to repeat from their mouths, the same words;

labbaik Allahumma labbaik, labbaik laa shareeka laka labbaik. Inna al-hamda, wa ni’mata laka wal mulk, laa shareeka lak.

“Here I come oh Lord here I come. Here I come You have no partners here I come, surely all praise, all grace and good, and (all of) the Kingdom belongs to You. You have no partners”

While people are circling around the Ka’ba, Islam’s holiest Mosque, it is impossible to distinguish the prince from the pauper, the rich from the poor, the teacher from the student or the barber from the baker. Nor is it possible, as they perform the rites of Hajj, to define with any accuracy just by looking, what a person’s ethnicity, group, nationality or language is. The only considerations which determine incongruence between one pilgrim (hajji), and the other during the Hajj is their personal level of faith, their god consciousness (taqwa), each person’s individual physical, emotional, and spiritual challenge and the personal prayer of each pilgrim, as they perform the required rites of the Hajj as guests of Allah to the holy sanctuary.

The Hajj grounds- Mecca, Mina, Arafat, and Muz’dalifa– are the only places on earth, and the only season of the Islamic calendar year, where race, power, social preference, position, economic status, ethnicity or politics have no standing whatsoever. There are no lands to conquer, no power struggles, no physical enemies to combat and no images of Islam to defend. There are no media cameras to prep for and no one to convince of your legitimacy or sincerity except the Almighty God, Allah be He Exalted and Glorified. During the Hajj, all that is left is submission to Allah, striving towards Him, and the reality that every Muslim has the same rights and obligations as every other Muslim. The only avowed enemy and the only action of aggression during Hajj are the Shaitaan (Satan) and the three stones that pilgrims throw against him, as a sign of their obedience to Allah and their opposition to evil. According to Allah, it is Satan who is mankind’s greatest enemy.

It was during the Hajj, that the Prophet (SAWS) delivered his farewell sermon and unequivocally declared,

“All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety (taqwa) and good action. Know that every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and that the Muslims constitute one brotherhood. Nothing shall be legitimate to a Muslim which belongs to a fellow Muslim unless it was given freely and willingly. Do not, therefore, do injustice to yourselves. Remember, one day you will appear before ALLAH and answer your deeds. So beware, do not stray from the path of righteousness after I am gone.”

The words of the Prophet (SAWS) are as relevant today as they were spoken more than fourteen hundred years ago. Perhaps even more so. The Hajj is a yearly reminder that we are all equal in the sight of Allah and that we only excel above one another through taqwa [piety]. The Hajj also reminds us that we do not judge a book by it’s cover. The Prophet (SAWS) said,

“Verily Allah does not look at your shapes or your bodies but He looks at your hearts”.

The type of equality embodied in the Hajj, is the type of equality that the Prophet (SAWS) spoke of during his Farwell Sermon. This is the kind of justice that makes us unafraid to look at ourselves in the mirror. It is the kind of justice that depoliticizes our religion, and the type of justice where we do not simply move from campaign, to campaign, but stand firmly on principles. This is the type of justice upon which Allah created human beings:

“O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other. Verily the most honored of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things),” [49:13]

As Muslims, we do not own Islam. Islam is the religion of Allah and He owns it. We are all merely His servants who strive to submit to His will. The picture and meaning of the hajj is what all Muslims should strive to live up to- being true servants of Allah and brothers and sisters in faith. We must be an ummah that transcends race, ethnicity, status and nationality.

Reliving the Hajj paradigm every year is a reminder to us all that we as Muslims are essentially one community, and that we should not let the differences in our color, our positions in life, our ethnicity or our nationalities prevent us from coming together, as brothers and sisters in faith. Every year, the sea of undistinguishable believers in white garments circling the Sacred Ka’ba, standing with their hands outstretched to Allah, or standing in peace on the mountain of Arafat, is a reminder of that message and that our God, Allah, is One God and that our faith is one faith.

 

Anti-Islamophobia Campaign Encourages Intervention

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by Aysha Qamar

According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the number of anti-Muslim attacks in the United States has sharply risen. With the rise of hate crimes and Islamophobia a desire for change and advocacy has increased; however, while many wish to help in uncomfortable situations, they are unsure what to do.

The city of Boston has launched a poster campaign to fight Islamophobia by encouraging bystanders to intervene, in a non-confrontational way, when they witness anti-Muslim harassment. 

50 posters have been placed around the city with advice on what to do if you see Islamophobic behavior.

The campaign follows a racist incident in the city, where a man shouted anti-Muslim slurs at an old woman wearing a headscarf while traveling in a train and accused her of having a bomb. The posters, to be displayed at bus stops and other public spaces, recommend sitting by a victim of harassment and spreading to them about a neutral subject while ignoring the harasser.

The original version of these posters was designed for a Feminist Group based in the Middle East by Marie-Shirine Yener, who goes by the alias Maerill. The Paris-based illustrator’s step-by-step guide first appeared on Tumblr in September, as a response to the “wave of Islamophobic hatred” in France.

She encouraged her followers to keep conversation with those targeted about “anything: a movie you liked, the weather … Keep eye contact with them, and don’t acknowledge the attacker’s presence: the absence of response from you two will push them to leave the area shortly,” she wrote on Tumblr. She also urged followers to share the how-to guide saying, “it could push a lot of people to overcome bystander syndrome.”

The cartoon quickly went viral with more than 200,000 responses. Maerill said the responses she had received since the guide went global left her confident in her technique’s capability.

“As the creator of this guide, it is very exciting to know that the public is going to discover it in a more official, accessible way,” she said.

According to the Associated Press, “the technique is called ‘non-complementary behavior,’ and is intended to disempower an aggressive person by countering their expectations.”

After garnering the attention of four San Franciscans, who were seeking to make the city’s Bay Area Rapid Transit (Bart) system more inclusive, 40 posters of the guide were displayed in Bart advertising spaces as well.

The theme of the campaign is to encourage people from all over to converse with Muslim citizens and immigrants in America, especially when they are being targeted for their faith.

The ‘How-to’ guides for bystander intervention are a progressive step to a more peaceful environment.

“These posters are one tool we have to send the message that all are welcome in Boston,” Mayor Marty Walsh told the Associated Press. “Education is key to fighting intolerance, and these posters share a simple strategy for engaging with those around you.”

While most comments have been positive in regards to the campaign, many disagree with some stating it brings unnecessary to potential targets as well as others generating hate speech and comments stating the posters do not belong in public spaces.

According to the Associated Press, the posters will remain in place for six months.

 

The Freedoms We Celebrate

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 by Azher Quader

Earlier this month our country celebrated its 241st Independence Day. That same weekend ISNA had its 54th Annual Convention too, here in Chicago, which was unusual for it as its normal schedule for Labor Day weekend was conflicting with Eid-ul-Adha this year. The confluence of these two events had some special significance and relevance for us. One celebrated the Quran, the other celebrated freedom.

 We, Americans take great pride in the freedoms we enjoy. Our founding fathers included freedom of speech and freedom of religion in the document we revere as our constitution. At a later date President Roosevelt added two more freedoms as goals to pursue: freedom from want and freedom from fear.

 The Quran emphasizes another freedom: freedom of choice, given to all humans. 

As is often the case with such a far reaching document as a constitution, which is meant to guide individuals and societies over perpetuity, the original intentions of the creators are subject to the way such directives are interpreted and implemented by subsequent generations, that determines their outcomes over different periods of time. Such is also the case with the Quran where its guidance, intended to produce successful outcomes for individuals and societies, by its Creator, has sometimes not done so, frustrating individuals and societies due to their particular interpretations and implementations of its guidance.

Our genius as American citizens today as well as members of our faith community, therefore we may surmise, face similar challenges. If we are experiencing as Americans, divisions within the country that are unprecedented in our times and if we are suffering as Muslims, the agony of terrible turmoil abroad and insecurity at home, should we not perhaps question our interpretations of our revered documents as well as our sacred texts?

In addressing the issue of freedom to choose, the Quran accepts the premise of human reason and intellect as valid instruments to choose with, but says it has provided some help through revelation from time to time, just in case we humans, in our pride and arrogance would choose to conclude our reason and intellect can never go wrong. 

While all other freedoms we cherish are dependent upon the benevolence of a state or the will of another entity, freedom of choice, the Quran declares, is personal and independent of any external authority. By exercising this freedom over issues of our daily life, using the guidance from reason bolstered by revelation, the Quran makes the argument, a more “just and compassionate” society can be established. Furthermore, where reason and revelation appear to contradict, we can and should observe outcomes to determine if the choices we make are appropriate or not. 

From the sobering stories of history, the Quran repeatedly reminds us that when societies failed to pursue a code of ethics, upholding the centrality of “justice and compassion”, they suffered the inevitable misfortune of decay and self destruction. The rise and fall of nations and civilizations it contends has little to do with their economic prosperity or their military might during their times, but everything to do with the pursuit of this moral code. The boomerang of cause and consequence, dictated by the choices we make, never fails to bring home the inevitable results, regardless of what our wishes may be. 

So how does all this stack up on the issue of our freedoms in America.  Famously the freedom of speech, for instance, guaranteed in our constitution that we celebrate so much. How well have we interpreted and implemented it through the course of our history? Have we always done a good job? Not very convincingly, it seems if we are to look dispassionately on the record, at many times.

Why then we should wonder young Snowden is living in Russia for spilling the beans on our government’s secrets.  What about a preacher from Georgia who was preaching non violent means for ending racial segregation, but met with a violent end in Tennessee?  What about a truth teller named Malcolm, who spoke a bit too harshly about the hypocrisy of white America’s claim for equal rights and we silenced him for good as well? Or should we forget the four who raised their voices against the war in Vietnam on the campus of Kent State and we sent the National Guard to shoot them down? Who decides when the freedom we cherish is the freedom to crush? Do we really permit people to speak their minds or do we disallow the kind of speech that speaks truth to power? Are we truly free to speak our minds or are we warned through these examples to hold our tongues? As, Iqbal, our poet philosopher of the East would say:

“Ye Dastoor-e-Zuban Bandi Hai Kaisa Teri Mehfil Mein

Yahan To Baat Karne Ko Tarasti Hai Zuban Meri”

Why does this tradition of silencing exist in your place?

My tongue is yearning so much to speak over here

The Quran too promotes free speech, open debates and discussions, encourages us to listen and learn, to reason and reflect, to understand another’s point of view. But is that how we have interpreted its guidance in our communal life? What is our reality? 

Try making a case for the permissibility of interest within orthodox circles and see what happens. Or question the infallibility of Hadith and see the verbal lashing you receive. Or mention adjusting the rate of Zakat, heaven forbid arguing against the payment of Zakat. Or speak about the futility of memorizing the Quran without understanding its meaning. Or talk about women’s empowerment at home, the workplace or even the masjid, much less raise the concern for gender equity in matters of inheritance. Or render an opinion on celebrating Milad within a crowd of Wahabi patriots. Try rocking the boat any and you will drown in the puddle of your audacious free speech. Yes freedom provided by the Book, yet denied by the mullah, who chooses to interpret the text much differently, is the way the argument ends.

The Quran regularly insists for us to share the abundance, to serve the other, to be engaged, to be good neighbors, to be bridge builders, to be action oriented, to speak up for the oppressed, to stand up for justice.  But look what so many of us choose to do? We choose to collect and not give, to be isolated and disengaged, to be meditative and aloof, to be silent and voiceless, to be indifferent to the needs of the other, to be strangers to our neighbors, to be consumed with our self interest. We repeatedly choose the easier ways, the ones less painful, more comfortable, less demanding of any sacrifices. We choose rituals over service, dialogues over dynamism, mediocrity over excellence, conformity over change. When asked to climb the steep path, we choose to travel the level road. Need we question our interpretations and our implementations of the Divine writ? Are we making the prudent choices for our salvation?    

Let us check out another freedom we celebrate as American citizens so very much. Our cherished freedom of religion. When we are told of this freedom we are regularly reminded of the separation of church and state. That we can have our churches , our temples , our synagogues and our mosques; build them, worship in them, practice our rituals, recite our sacred texts, sing our praises of the Lord and congregate there with complete freedom. No government body, we are comforted,  will interfere and impose any restrictions upon our religious practices there. We are told we have the freedom to observe our holy days and our religious festivals. We can wear our yarmulks and our hijabs, our kufis and our turbans, observe our fastings and our sabaths.

But sadly that is where the case for religious freedom ends. Is there nothing more to religion? Does religion not have a say in the way we are to live? The larger domain of ethics and morality which is really foundational to the understanding of religiosity, is carved out from this freedom on the grounds of domain. When we draw a line between the practice of rituals and the foundations of faith where “justice and compassion” abide, and say this freedom you are guaranteed but not this other one, what freedom do we really celebrate?

The pilgrims did not come to America in pursuit of rituals to practice but a life of ethics and morality to live. That freedom is what they sought. That freedom today we no longer possess. The values for which they journeyed across stormy waters, risking their lives, are all but lost. Today we worship the secular life, which has redefined marriage, idolized adultery, institutionalized racism, legalized abortion, commercialized pornography, corrupted our democracy with money laws declared constitutional and given us a new religion to claim as our own, and a new freedom in its name to cherish. Yes we have freedom of religion and the religion we have now adopted is called ‘secularism’. 

There was another place and time in history when our favorite poet [Iqbal] again alluded to this mistaken understanding of religious freedom, when he cautioned his people in his own special way:

“Mullah ko jo hai Hind mein sajde ke ijazat

Nadaan yeh samajhta hai ke Islam hai azaad!”

The mullah in India is happy to have the freedom to pray

The foolish one believes his religion (Islam) is free

To be sure we have freedom of religion in our country, but the religion that celebrates freedom here today is unfortunately not the religion originally prescribed for us by Moses or Jesus or Buddha or Muhammad (Peace-be-Upon them all).

What about FDR’s vision of a country and world someday enjoying freedom from want and freedom from fear? Ignore the world for now. Let us see how far we have succeeded in our own country in eliminating want. Here are the sobering facts.

  • 45 million Americans live in poverty (poverty line defined as individuals making less than $12k a year; or a family of four making less than $24K). An additional 97 million earn less than twice the poverty line. Translation: nearly half of the population in America is poor or of low income.   
  •  42 percent of our workforce makes less than $15 an hour. In 23 of our 50 states the minimum wage is stuck at $7.25 an hour. Two earner families is not an issue of choice today, but a matter of necessity, and even then millions work more than one job and still live paycheck to paycheck. 
  •  47.5 million are on food stamps.
  •  51% of public school students depend on free or reduced-price lunches for their only decent meal for the day
  •  3.5 million people become homeless each year and 39% of them are children

The war on poverty that President Johnson  launched in 1964, gave us Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps and College Loans for sure, but failed to free us from our wants. 28 million still lack health insurance, not counting another 11 million undocumented who remain invisible to the system. Medicaid is under assault by the present bunch in congress. Without it millions will lose long term care and disability benefits.  Our student loan debt has mushroomed to $1.2 trillion with no relief in sight for the 40 million young people struggling to repay it. We have neither eradicated poverty nor overcome our wants, but arguably created, as some would say, a culture of dependency in our society. Clearly we need to rethink our strategies if we are to ever find cures for our wants.

Lastly the issue of freedom from fear needs little discussion. Since 911 fear and worry has become a quiet accompaniment of our daily lives. Terror hides in ambush at every corner, to maim and murder, in malls and markets, in clubs and classrooms wherever people come to meet and enjoy their freedoms. Gangs play shooting games on our neighborhood streets, while neighbors live in mortal fear, hiding in their unsafe homes. Law enforcement terrifies a whole community with their open distrust and profiling of them. Millions live in the shadows without status, fearful of that knock on the door, when they can be deported and separated from their loved ones.  Thousands of kids brave going to school every day, painfully afraid of the bullies they have to face in their class rooms. And so many live in fear of bankruptcy form medical bills they could not pay if they fell sick or hurt and have no coverage.  Our political class delight in hate speech to win cheap votes and spread fear among the people. Our money managers steal the workers pensions, robbing them of their life savings, leaving them fearful of their retirement years. Hate crimes, road rage, sexual assault, worker abuse, have all become normalized in a world where passions fly high while patience runs low. How then can there be freedom from fear?   

Such is the state of freedoms we live in and celebrate. Freedoms we have all been told are exceptional and to be proud of. We are often reminded, that our journey “for a more perfect union” as written in our constitution, is ongoing. But it is our journey for justice on which we have been stumbling all these past two centuries or more that should concern us. Without learning to stand tall and walk straight on this journey, our goal for perfection will remain elusive. When freedom is worshiped and justice ignored, that freedom is wanting and offers little to celebrate. Our love affair for freedom without a passion for justice, will forever frustrate us to overcome our wants and find peace, security and happiness.

 May His guidance show us the way and help us travel the path which will lead us to celebrate real freedom.

Trump Asks Supreme Court to Block Travel Ban Ruling

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by Aysha Qamar

The U.S. Justice Department asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block a judge’s ruling that prevented the President’s travel ban from being applied to grandparents of U.S. citizens and refugees already being processed by resettlement agencies, Friday.

In a court filing, the administration asked the justices to overturn Thursday’s decision by a U.S. district judge in Hawaii, that limited those affected by the administration’s temporary ban on refugees and travelers from six predominately Muslim countries.

The Hawaii federal judge ruled that grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, and siblings-in-law must be added to the list of close family members, who can still get visas to travel to the United States during the 90 days while the executive order is in force.

Last month, the Supreme Court announced it would hear a challenge to the travel ban later this year, but partially lifted an injunction that barred the order from taking effect.

The State Department said on June 29 that only parents, parents-in-law, spouses, fiancés, children, and children-in-law would be exempt from the ban on visas for travel.

It acted after the Supreme Court stated that while aspects of the travel ban could be enforced, people abroad with credible claim of a “bona fide relationship” to a person or entity in the U.S. would be exempt and allowed into the country.

In response to a motion by the state of Hawaii to broaden the exceptions, U.S. District Court Judge Derrick Watson said the State Department’s definition of close family member “represents the antithesis of common sense.” Grandparents, he said “are the epitome of close family members” and past Supreme Court decisions have defined the term much more broadly.

Watson, appointed by former President Barack Obama, was one of the federal judges who issued a nationwide injunction blocking Trump’s initial and revised ban.

While the Trump administration argued that directive did not include grandparents, uncles, aunts, nieces, and nephews-Watson said that the administration’s definition of “bona fide relationship” was too narrow, and ruled that grandparents were also among those allowed into the country.

During the court filling, the Justice Department said Watson’s ruling on refugees would make the Supreme Court’s decision on that part of the executive order “effectively meaningless” as it included not just “close” family members but all.

The ruling would allow for refugees to continue to resettle in the United States, beyond a cap of 50,000, which was set by the executive order.

While the Supreme Court is currently not in session, it can hear emergency requests.

The administration’s application could be directed either to Justice Anthony Kennedy, responsible for emergency requests from western states, or to the nine justices together. If the court as a whole is asked to weigh in, five votes are needed to grant a request.

“The Supreme Court has had to correct this lower court once, and we will now reluctantly return directly to the Supreme Court to again vindicate the rule of law and the executive branch’s duty to protect the nation,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement.

Lawyers for the Trump administration have asked the Supreme Court to let the government use the list it compiled in June for deciding who can apply for a visa under the limited enforcement of the president’s executive order on travel.

pedestrians

Muslim Pedestrians Struck by Van After Prayers in London

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by Aysha Qamar

“I want to kill all Muslims” Witnesses say they heard the driver shout, as a van rammed into pedestrians in a diverse neighborhood in north London.

Witnesses said the vehicle veered off the road into worshippers leaving prayers in Finsbury Park shortly after midnight.

“From the window, I started hearing a lot of yelling and screeching, a lot of chaos outside,” a woman living across the scene told the British Broadcasting Corporation.

“Everybody was shouting: ‘A van’s hit people, a van’s hit people’.

“There was this white van stopped outside Finsbury Park mosque that seemed to have hit people who were coming out after prayers had finished.”

According to witnesses, members of the public managed to restrain the driver after he left the van.

Footage has confirmed this showing injured people motionless on the pavement with angry crowds surrounding a white man believed to be the driver.

One man has died with several more injured during this suspected terror attack following evening prayers at a nearby London mosque.

Counter-terror police are investigating the incident in Finsbury Park as a potential terrorist attack. Eight people have been taken to the hospital and the more were treated at the scene for minor injuries.

The lone suspect is in custody and has been identified as 48-year-old Darren Osborne from Cardiff, Wales area.

“The driver of the van – a man aged 48 – was found detained by members of public at the scene and then arrested by police in connection with the incident,” a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police said.

“He has been taken to hospital as a precaution and will be taken into custody once discharged.”

The incident occurred near the Muslim Welfare House, a community center down the road from several local mosques, according to the U.K.’s Muslim Council.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick stated the attack was “quite clearly an attack on Muslims.”

Chief executive of the Ramadan Foundation Muslim organization, Mohammed Shafiq, stated the incident occurred as members of two mosques left Tarawih, late night prayers performed for the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

“It happened outside the Muslim Welfare House but people were leaving Finsbury Park Mosque as well so there’s a lot of confusion at the moment,” Shafiq told The Independent.

“According to eyewitnesses it was a deliberate attack against innocent Muslims, and if that’s confirmed by authorities it should be classed as a terror attack, no doubt about that.”

Ambulances, advance paramedics, special response teams and an advance trauma crew were sent to the scene, according to London Ambulance Service’s deputy director of operations, Kevin Bate.

“Our priority is to assess the level and nature of injuries and ensure those in the most need are treated first and taken to hospital,” Bate said.

The incident reflects the growing fear within the community on the rise of Islamophobia, Miqdaad Versi, the assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council told the Huffington Post.

“People are shocked. People are terrified,” Versi, who was not at the scene, went on. “It’s an important time. It’s the last 10 nights of Ramadan, and that’s why there are such big crowds.”

This attack is the latest in a series of incidents occurring in the United Kingdom involving vehicles hitting pedestrians.

Preciously, 4 people were killed and dozens were injured after a man drove his car into a crowd on Westminster Bridge and then stabbed a police officer, in March. A suicide bomber killed 22 people during a concert by Adriana Grande in the Manchester Arena, in May.

Three ISIS supporters rammed a van into pedestrians on the London Bridge before stabbing people in Borough Market, killing 8 people in June.

This incident has also been the third major incident in less than a month for London’s emergency services, following the London Bridge attack and Grenfell Tower disaster.

“This is a terrible incident,” British Prime Minister Theresa May said in a statement. “All my thoughts are with those who have been injured, their loved ones, and the emergency services on the scene.”

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has condemned the incident in a statement.

“We don’t yet know the full details, but this was clearly a deliberate attack on innocent Londoners, many of whom were finishing prayers during the holy month of Ramadan,” Khan wrote. “While this appears to be an attack on a particular community, like the terrible attacks in Manchester, Westminster and London Bridge, it is also an assault on all our shared values of tolerance, freedom, and respect.”

While the attack has not yet been classified as a terrorist attack or one of hate witnesses believe otherwise.

“One thing that is clear: This happened after night prayer that us Muslims pray during Ramadan,” a witness told Huffington Post. “It was clearly an act that was planned and an act that was done with full intention.”

travel ban

The Trump Muslim Travel Ban: Another Rebuke from the Appellate Courts

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by Saeed Khan

In a development hailed by immigration rights and social justice advocates alike, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court decision that the Trump administration’s second executive order/travel ban was unconstitutional. The restriction often cited as effectively a Muslim ban due to its focus on six Muslim-majority countries (Iran, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen). The revised ban was offered upon failure of the initial ban, one that included Iraq on the prohibited countries list, to survive judicial review in February. It is the latest in a string of defeats for a president who campaigned on a pledge to ban all Muslims from entering the country, a declaration that the courts have cited as evidence of unconstitutional intent.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals is based in Richmond, Virginia, presiding over cases brought on appeal from Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia.  In International Refugee Assistance Project, et al. v Trump, et al., a panel held, 10-3, that the March 2017 revised travel ban was invalid as it unconstitutionally singled out a group of people based upon their religious identity. This was the second such judgment for the same executive order in recent weeks. Affirming a decision made by a federal court in Honolulu, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments two weeks ago for an appeal filed by the Trump administration. A three-judge panel will consider the legal issues in State of Hawai’i & Ismail El Shikh v Trump and issue its holding in the next few weeks. The same appellate court had struck down the validity of the administration’s’ initial travel ban.

In arriving at its decision, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals specifically focused on the rhetoric of Donald Trump when he was campaigning for the presidency, where he called for the “complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” The government argued that the ban fell far short of such an objective, a ban that only affected persons from six Muslim majority countries, and that President Trump was somehow a different person than Candidate Trump. It also contended that the president, as head of the executive branch, has broad discretion to act for the sake of national security, including the exclusion of entire groups of people for any rationale he deems appropriate.

The Richmond Court’s decision is significant in four ways. First, this is the second appellate court to have held that a Trump travel ban is unconstitutional. The 9th Circuit did so in March on the original ban and is expected to follow suit for the revised ban as well. Secondly, the 4th Circuit has a reputation for being one of the most conservative, if not the most conservative of the federal circuits. Such a judgment would be expected more readily from a more liberal court, say, the 9th Circuit. For the 4th Circuit to arrive at this conclusion suggests it was utterly unpersuaded by the government’s argument of national security being an unrestricted rationale to enact measures that would otherwise trample on constitutional rights and principles. Thirdly, the 4th Circuit’s judgment was reached by the entire (en banc) court, not just by a three-judge panel, which is usually the first step at this appellate level. A 10-3 vote, rather than a tight 7-6 holding, is quite decisive as well. Lastly, the language and reasoning behind the Court’s holding is critical. The judges held that Trump’s prior statements on the campaign, as well as those of his campaign representatives like former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, were indicative of the true motivation behind the ban: an anti-Muslim agenda.

While the decision out of Richmond is a major victory, it’s still not the end of the road regarding the travel ban. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has already announced that the administration plans to take the issue to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). There is no certainty that the nation’s highest court will accept the case. Each year, the SCOTUS receives approximately 6,000 writs of certiorari, the petition to hear a case on appeal. It accepts around 150 of those for oral argument, a 1 in 40 ratio. The two most common justifications to accept a case for argument before the nine justices are a compelling constitutional question that requires definitive resolution or a decision that reconciles a difference of conclusion reached between or among the various appellate courts. To date, there is no cause based on the latter, as the fourth circuit has decisively rejected the ban’s validity and the ninth circuit is expected to reach the same decision, given its nullification of the first ban. But the court may still choose to hear the case if it feels that the issue of the president’s authority over immigration, especially in the name of national security, extends to restricting groups of people based on their religious affiliation.

The stated objective of the government’s so-called travel ban was to keep the country safe from the potential entry of prospective terrorists. The ban also included refugees from the six countries (and Iraq in the initial ban). If national security was indeed the administration’s main concern, then arguably the ban would include countries from where actual terrorists emanated, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, neither of which has been considered for inclusion in such restrictions. There have been no efforts by the administration to seek emergency recourse by the courts under the guise that there is a significant and imminent terrorist threat. Now comes word that the State Department has quietly been expanding the number of refugees allowed to enter the country, seemingly in direct contradiction to the purpose of the very ban the Trump administration seeks.

The Fourth Circuit Decision to “ban the ban” is a welcome and promising development in light of the government’s efforts to single out and target Muslims and their ability to enter the United States. While there are certainly several measures that the administration can take, both with the current travel ban and with potentially new policies in the future, for now, there is cautious optimism that at least one branch of government has built a wall to prevent improper executive branch encroachment on the US Constitution.