 |
|
Islam in America is an excellent site with contributions from a wide range of thoughtful Muslim and non-Muslim contributors. We encourage you to visit the site. The following links will take you to particularly useful articles there.
Muslims Speak Out Against Holocaust Denial
Ahmad Sadri, College Professor of Islamic World Studies, Lake Forest College
I saw Zack Snyder’s 300 at a sleepy suburban movie theatre near Chicago. The lady behind me was telling her husband that she did not expect to like the movie because “it sounds too violent!” Those who came for that exact reason got their fill of digital gore. There were other dark premonitions. Hours before the movie I opened a forwarded Internet petition singed by some 10.000 bewildered Iranians who were shocked that their Persian identity could be just as savagely demonized as their “Muslim” heritage.
I didn’t sign. It is after all, a comic book movie made by a director whose last masterpiece was a remake of the “Dawn of the Dead.” Protests should be preserved for threatening preemptive invasions not fantasy flicks – even when they bang on the drums of jingoism. To my mind, Snyder’s 300 drinks deeply at the cauldron of rage that is still boiling over in the United States six years after that bloody Tuesday. Two invasions, a trillion dollars in smoke and three thousand dead Americans have not sated the Achellian anger in a remote part of the American psyche. The movie 300 unleashes that abiding desire to curse, brag and rave at “endless Asian hordes.” Bring’em on you barbarian slaves, you, you…, black, gay, effeminate, depraved cowards. Your friends are hunchbacks, deformed giants, midgets, magicians, eunuchs, perverts, lesbians and executioners. To hell with you all and your “mysticism and tyranny!” (more…)
The modern Muslim Controversial scholar Tariq Ramadan explains why Mohammed had progressive views of women, the Quran is a prescription for peace — and why he is banned from Saudi Arabia and the U.S. By Steve Paulson Feb. 20, 2007 |
Why are there so few moderate Muslims speaking out against Islamic terrorism?
That’s a common complaint heard in the West, but in truth, plenty of Muslims are critical of suicide bombers. What’s harder to find are Muslim leaders who condemn terrorism while also maintaining credibility among disaffected Muslims, and intellectuals who can appeal to both secular Europeans and Middle Eastern imams. That’s why the Swiss-born Tariq Ramadan is such a compelling figure. Ramadan has been called the Muslim Martin Luther King, and he’s often described as Europe’s most important Muslim intellectual. He has no shortage of charisma — a quality that serves him well as he reaches out to various constituencies. There’s no doubt that Ramadan commands a large following. Hundreds of young Muslims turn up at his public talks, and tapes of his lectures are widely circulated. He travels frequently throughout the Islamic world, trying to build bridges between European Muslims and conservative clerics.
But there are some countries Ramadan can’t visit. The United States, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have all banned him — each for different reasons. In 2004 Ramadan was all set to move his family to Indiana, where he’d accepted a teaching position at Notre Dame. But the U.S. State Department revoked his visa — though exactly why remains a mystery. Ramadan says it’s because he’s an outspoken critic of U.S. foreign policy. His critics say he has ties to Muslim terrorists. No evidence of a direct link to terrorism has ever surfaced, though plenty of people have looked for one. Yet his most vocal critics are in France, where Ramadan is a prominent public intellectual.
The French journalist Caroline Fourest even wrote a book-length attack on Ramadan, titled “Brother Tariq.” One reason Ramadan garners such close scrutiny is his distinguished — some would say notorious — family background. In 1928 his grandfather, Hassan al-Banna, founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt — the group that later spawned al-Qaida’s Ayman al-Zawahiri. Al-Banna was murdered in 1949. Ramadan’s parents fled Egypt and settled in Switzerland, where his father, Said Ramadan, emerged as a major Islamic thinker. Tariq Ramadan resists simple labels. He’s a devout Muslim, but one who wants to loosen the strict interpretations of Islamic law. He embraces the Western values of pluralism and democracy, while also retaining the anti-colonial mantle of his grandfather. Ramadan is often accused of being two-faced, making nice with Western journalists while giving fiery speeches to young Muslims. Ramadan says his tone may change, but he insists that his message is consistent.
I had the chance to see Ramadan last summer in Cambridge, England, where he spoke to a small group of journalists. (After his job at Notre Dame fell through, he took an academic position at Oxford University.) In person, Ramadan was elegantly dressed and quite dashing. Now, at the age of 44, he’s just come out with a book about the life of Mohammed, “In the Footsteps of the Prophet.” Ramadan recently went into the BBC studios in London, where he spoke to me about his efforts to reconcile Islamic values with Western secularism, his difficulties with the U.S. government, and his new reading of the life of Mohammed.
There have been many books about Mohammed. Do you see your book as a corrective to what other scholars have written about the Prophet?
No. The purpose of the book was not to correct or to come with new revelations about his life. It’s really a rereading of his life, stressing two dimensions. The first one is spiritual. We can extract from his life the spiritual lessons for now and forever. And the second dimension is about contemporary lessons as to our relationships with our neighbor, with nature, with people from other religions. So it’s really to come back to the teachings, the lessons and the meditations.
Tikkun Magazine has published a reaction to the controversy occasioned by Jimmy Carter’s new book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.
On December 11, 2006 National Public Radio aired Terry Gross’ interview with former president Jimmy Carter. The accompanying article reviews the strong reactions provoked by his latest book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Access the article and interview by following the link.
Posted from the Tikkun Community Newsletter
From: Tikkun Email: magazine@tikkun.org
Friday, December 15
In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, Most Merciful
True Muslims Must Never Deny the European Holocaust
By Ibrahim Ramey
History will recall the tragedy of the genocide that slaughtered some six million European Jews between the rise of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party in 1933 and the culmination of the Second World War in Europe in May, 1945.
The evidence of this crime, and the horrible magnitude of this killing, is irrefutable. From sources as varied as Nazi war records, film documentation, and most importantly, the testimony of survivors and witnesses, we know that the mass murder of European Jews was, indeed, the single greatest crime of genocide in the twentieth century.
Yet the world now witnesses yet another wave of historical revisionism and Holocaust denial, this time emerging not from European Anti-Semites, but from none other than the President of Iran. Indeed, this head of state has taken the unprecedented act of hosting an international conference of anti-Semites, Holocaust deniers, and even white racists like former Klan leader David Duke, to gather in Tehran to deny the magnitude, if not the very existence, of this barbaric act.
As a Muslim of African decent in the United States, whose ancestors were victimized by the enormous crime of slavery, I object. And I believe that all Muslims, like other human beings who value compassion and truth, must vigorously object to this gathering as well.
Like many in the global Muslim community, I regard the occupation of Palestinian land and the policies of the State of Israel as issues of extreme importance. I am certainly among those who believe that the occupation of Palestinian territory and the denial of full human rights to Palestinians, and even to Arab people regarded as Israeli citizens, is deplorable.
But I find it to be morally unconscionable to attempt to build political arguments and political movements on a platform of racial hatred and the denial of the suffering of the human beings who were victimized by the viciousness of Hitler’s genocidal rampage through Europe.
President Ahmedinejad should recognize that the issue of the Palestinian people must not, and cannot, be transmogrified into the ugly and spiritually bankrupt context of racial hatred. The cause of freedom must never drink from the well of hatred and racism.
And indeed, as the Holy Qur’an compels Muslims to demand justice for the oppressed, we are also called to witness against ourselves when we are in error.
And in this case, the President of Iran most certainly is.
********************************
Ibrahim Raney is the Director of the Human and Civil Rights Division of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation.
————————————————————————
To visit the Tikkun web site (www.tikkun.org): Click here
Note from the Host:
The following letter was submitted by Professor Abdullah Ahsan of the International Movement for a Just World, one of the co-sponsors of the Dialogue of Civilizations project. We welcome responses. Email: iep21@seachanges.net
The November 7, 2006 mid-term election verdict in the United States is a welcome development. Foreign policy issues, particularly the war in Iraq, have dominated the mind of the electorate and the international response has already demonstrated that this will help improve America’s global image.
The election results are more of disapproval of Bush Administration’s so-called war on terror and pre-emptive actions in Iraq and Afghanistan than approval of the Democratic Party’s position on those issues. In this connection what comes to mind is the contribution of civil society groups such as GoldStarFamiliesforPeace.org, Antiwar.com, BringThemHomeNow.org and particularly individuals such as activist Cindy Sheehan and academicians such as Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky and many others.
To be realistic, however, one must note that this election will not bring any fundamental change in US foreign policy. The “Love-for-Israel” foreign policy of the US administration is going to continue at least for a while. But again, one good sign is that increasingly more and more apprehensive Americans are now voicing their concerns about the influence of Israeli lobby groups in Washington. Public response to the recent Mearsheimer-Walt paper on the subject is evidence of this concern. One also becomes optimistic when one observes the response to Ehud Olmert’s post-election public praise for the war in Iraq. Commenting on Olmert’s meeting with President Bush, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz (November 14) said, “Politicians from the Democratic Party said that they wanted to speak to Olmert about his comments on Iraq before responding publicly, but expressed disapproval over the remarks.” We are not sure what the Democrats conveyed to Olmert but a public statement of their disapproval of Israeli interference in American politics is a positive sign.
The main disturbing aspect in Israeli-US relationship is the increasing role of Evangelicals. David Kirkpatrick has rightly pointed in his article in The New York Times of November 14 that, “For Evangelicals, Supporting Israel is ‘God’s Foreign Policy’.” He adds, “Many conservative Christians say they believe that the president’s support for Israel fulfills a biblical injunction to protect the Jewish state.” Here one should highlight the fact that when President Truman signed the document to recognize the “state of Israel” in 1948 he scratched the term “the Jewish state” and wrote by hand “the state of Israel”. Also, one should recall that the founding fathers of the United States of America categorically rejected the role of religion in politics because of similar use of religious myths in politics in medieval times. Rational minds of the 21st century must be able to distinguish between noble religious teachings on human dignity and the use of religious myths for political purposes. The faster the people of the United States differentiate “religion” from the “exploitation of religion”, the better it will be not only for the people of the US, but also for the rest of the world.
Professor Abdullah Al-Ahsan
Committee Member
International Movement for a Just World
Malaysia
Note from the Hosts: We received this essay from Dr. Chandra Muzaffar, President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST), one of the co-sponsoring organizations for the Global Dialogue of Civilizations. We welcome your replies. (Email: iep21@seachanges.net)
23 November 2006 was the bloodiest day in Iraq since the invasion and occupation of that land in March 2003. 202 people were killed in a Shiite stronghold, allegedly by Sunni suicide bombers. The Shiites who are the majority retaliated almost immediately by massacring at least 18 Sunnis.
This tit for tat Sunni- Shiite violence has been going on for some time now. It took a turn for the worse with the bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine in Samarra on 22 February 2006. Sectarian violence has become so bad that many fear that Iraq may well be on the verge of an all-out civil war.
What is the primary cause of this violence? Is it rooted in Sunni-Shiite doctrinal differences that go back to the early decades of Islam? Or, is it the consequence of more recent political developments in Iraq?
Note from the Hosts: We received this essay by Ram Punyani, General Secretary of the All-India Secular Forum. We welcome responses. (Email to iep21@seachanges.net.)
During the last two decades World has seen the rise of politics based on religious identity. Particularly after the 9/11 2001 WTC disaster there is a widespread feeling that Samuel Huntington?s thesis, that after the end of cold war the current time is the one of Clash of Civilizations, is true. One has witnessed many a controversies where religion has been dragged into the murky world of politics. Osama bin Laden talked of Jihad and George Bush responded to the WTC attack by uttering that it is going to be Crusade for him. He and his associate Blair both gave divine reasons for attack on Iraq. Multitude of controversies veered around Danish cartoons, Pope?s statement about Islam, the banning of burqa in some Western countries, the rise of acts of terror in the name of Islam with the epithet coming that all terrorists are Muslims, has become popular in the social thinking at broad layers. Superficially it is projected as if it is the clash between the Islamic culture and the Western civilization. Here in India also attempts were made and are underway to project Islam as a religion of violence and Muslims being fanatics out to stick to the medieval social norms. The overall impact of the events and acceptance of this Clash thesis by Huntington has worsened the problem and is widening the intercommunity rifts.
You are currently browsing the archives for the Articles of Interest category.
