Posted on 06/05/2004 7:21:49 PM PDT by nuconvert
Taking Back Islam - Moderate Muslims say their faith is compatible with Freedom.
By Erick Stakelbeck & Nir Boms
June 03, 2004
There's an elephant in the room whenever the current U.S. operation in Iraq is discussed: Is Islam truly compatible with democracy? Or do the U.S.'s troubles in stabilizing Iraq signal that Muslims simply have no desire to live in a free, democratic society?
Right now the answers to these questions are unclear. For every modern Islamic "success story" like Turkey or Malaysia, there are Islamist nightmares like Saudi Arabia and Iran.
In the United States, too, there is reason for uncertainty. American Muslims with moderate views have been either unable or unwilling to engage in public discourse. As a result, militant groups with a moderate veneer have been able to set the tone.
A patriotic group of Arizona Muslims, however, is looking to change all that.
Earlier this spring in Phoenix, the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) held a "Rally Against Terror" that gave moderate Muslims a platform on which to condemn terrorism and pledge support for the United States.
Identified by the Arizona Republic as "the nation's first Muslim rally against terrorism," the 50-minute event drew, according to various estimates, between 250 and 400 people, most of them non-Muslims.
Considering that the event was actively promoted within Phoenix's 50,000-strong Muslim community, that number is a bit disappointing. Nevertheless, AIFD Chairman Zuhdi Jasser says the rally was a positive first step for the group, which was founded in March 2003 by Muslim professionals in the Phoenix area.
"When the moderates stay silent, the radicals speak for everyone," says Jasser, a physician. "Up until now, moderates have not been articulating a moderate form of Islam which Americans can embrace. We want to take back our faith from the radicals and let them know that we are side-by-side with the U.S."
Listening to Jasser, the son of Syrian immigrants, is a breath of fresh air at a time when anti-American sentiment engulfs a large part of the Arab and Muslim world. A former U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander who served as a Navy medical officer from 1988 to 1999, Jasser clearly loves his country and his faith, and sees no reason why the two cannot coexist.
"Our inspiration for this is two things," says Jasser. "Number one, at the core of the war on terror is a battle over ideology. World War II had fascism, the Cold War had Communism. Our present war has the targeting and killing of civilians in the name of religion: Islam. There needs to be a Muslim voice that speaks directly against that ideology. Secondly, there is a lack of any American Islamic institution that discusses the synergy of the U.S. Constitution with the Islamic faith. This makes it an obligation for us to be leaders in promoting a form of Islam that is tolerant and secular in nature."
Jasser is quick to clarify his use of the word "secular."
"Secularism as a term is almost associated with a lack of piety," he says. "What I'm trying to say is that in America, there are many devout people who are politically active. But we don't make decisions here based on theocracy or religious views."
The values that Jasser and AIFD are promoting are deeply rooted in the American experience. Jasser is confident that Muslims in the U.S. will eventually embrace his message and realize that, as he says, "Freedom brings you closer to God."
For now, though, Jasser realizes that views like the ones he expressed in a May 25 op-ed for azcentral.com aren't likely to endear him to the al-Jazeera crowd. In the piece, titled "Iraq is Your War," Jasser listed four reasons why the U.S. is currently fighting abroad:
It is impossible to keep America safe by just playing defense.
The Middle East is the epicenter of the terror network.
Despotic governments bring out the worst in religion.
Change the political environment in the Middle East and we change the associated religious pathology.
"Over half of the Muslim immigrants in the U.S. came here in the past 25 years," says Jasser. "And many of them bring with them the baggage that government coercion and autonomy are necessary, just as in their former countries. We want to educate them and let them know that is not the case."
It would help if U.S. government officials and the mainstream media took notice of AIFD's efforts, rather than continuing to promote the agendas of radical Muslims with anti-American views. AIFD is attempting to increase its visibility through its website and by holding future anti-terrorism rallies.
By supporting the endeavors of AIFD and other moderate Muslim organizations, the U.S. may yet be able to avert the clash of civilizations simmering in its own backyard.
— Nir Boms is a fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the Council for Democracy and Tolerance. Erick Stakelbeck is senior writer for the Investigative Project, a Washington, D.C.-based counterterrorism research institute.
Jesus never spoke against slavery. (at least not as recorded in the bible)
201 - "Jesus never spoke against slavery. (at least not as recorded in the bible)"
True, as far as I know. However Mohammed actually had slaves, promoted slavery (the Koran is full of it), and the Koran even gives instructions on treatment of slaves.
Also, the Old Testiment, like the Koran, does in fact 'endorse' slavery, and numbers of places addresses the treatment of 'slaves'. However, like most mid-easterners, intent on deception, they call them 'man-servants and maid-servents', and they are 'property'.
Also, Jesus never promoted 'killing' your enemies, but in fact promoted 'loving' them, or at least 'turning the other cheek', unlike Muhammed, who actively promoted and participated in killing his enemies.
Islam needs a reformation and a New Testament, just like ancient Judism needed it.
"Islam needs a reformation and a New Testament,.."
I absolutely agree.
Go thru an enlightenment?
exactly what they need
I brought up this question of Jesus not speaking against slavery, once before. I think it surprises people. More importantly, I wonder how history would have been altered if He had. What if it had been made a big taboo? What if the practice were never condoned? What if there were never slaves brought to America? Would we have had a Civil War?
Quite a bit off-topic. Maybe a subject for a thread one day.
205 - "I wonder how history would have been altered if He had. What if it had been made a big taboo? "
Interesting thought, and I am sure history would have turned out vastly differently.
IMO - Probably, there would have been no Christianity at all, as the Jews would have killed Jesus long before the Romans, if he were to have tried to free their slaves. But, Jesus was no dummy. Remember - "Render unto Caesar, the things which are Caesars."
I don't think he really wanted to die on the cross, but eventually sucumbed to the inevitability of it, because he disturbed too many 'rice bowls'.
Interestingly enough, I am a student of history, myself, following causes and effects. And in my personal life, in tracing events, I figured out that I met my wife, traveling in India, because I wore a pair of new fancy boots in Texas several years before, and it rained that day and I got them muddy.
I got into insurance adjusting for a while, and learned how to determine 'proximate cause'. Very interesting, to trace events and their causes. Sort of like "CSI", crime Scene Investigating.
"because he disturbed too many 'rice bowls'. "
Remember one specifically documented case, when he kicked the money lenders/changers out of the temple.
no comment?
Sorry, I hadn't checked back here...out of sight, out of mind, I guess.
"Probably, there would have been no Christianity at all, as the Jews would have killed Jesus long before the Romans, if he were to have tried to free their slaves."
Lol. Maybe. But He could have condemned the practice without going around trying to free all the slaves. As I said, might make a good Thread discussion topic some time.
Yes, I think as you get older, you start to see the 'cause and effect' aspect of things in your own life. ["It's a Wonderful Life" .]
209 - "Lol. Maybe. But He could have condemned the practice without going around trying to free all the slaves. As I said, might make a good Thread discussion topic some time. "
You don't address my previous point though, that while Jesus didn't 'condemn' slavery, he didn't 'endorse' it either. On the other hand Mohammed, did 'endorse' slavery, and in fact practiced it.
209 - And he endorsed and practiced murder too.
"However, they did sail the coasts of Africa, and most of the coastal slave traders, from whom black slaves were bought in the middle of the second millenium, were actually bought from Arab Slavers."
This may be true for the Indian Ocean and Trans-Saharan slave trades (I don't have the numbers to confirm it, but it seems likely), but does not describe the West African region (Senegambia; Southern Rivers; Gold, Grain and Slave Coasts; Bights of Benin and Biafra) at any time, from the Age of Discovery through the 19th C.
212 - a number of years back, in the days of Alex Haley, and before all the this politically correctness, and muslim terrorism, when the liberals were still basically interested in the 'underpriveledged' blacks, and slavery there was an excellent documentary on the various arab slave forts of West Africa, some of which were now museums, and which were where most of the American and Caribbean colonial slave trade got their slaves. And how the Arabs traders would trade with the local africans for slaves to trade with the Europeans and Americans. Sometimes there were arguments, and Spanish and the Portuguese particularly, took the Arab forts or built thier own, back and forth.
Very interesting.
http://www.ukans.edu/kansas/medieval/100/sections/20slave.html
Since Europeans did not fare well in the interior of Africa, they established their trading posts along the coast and, for the most part, bought their slaves from native slave-traders, or even Arab slavers, who ranged throughout the interior of the continent, kidnapping, capturing, and buying prisoners from those tribes who also participated in this complex business. The captives were then marched to a European station and sold to a European agent. After a wait, they were packed into sailing ships and conveyed to the Americas, where they were sold to local slave agents who then conducted auctions, selling their slaves off to those who needed and could afford them.
Interesting post. The only specific location where Arab traders are mentioned in the link is at Zanzibar, which was the capital of Oman for a spell in the 19th century. With the exception of Senegambia (particularly at the mouth of the Senegal river) there was never a significant Arab presence on the West African coast. Indeed, Arabs rarely made it to the coast and if they did, they wouldn't have the political power to establish slave trading operations and usurp local traders' share of the lucrative (and abhorrent) business.
The Gambia was once part of the Empire of Ghana and the Kingdom of the Songhais. The first written accounts of the region come from records of Arab traders in the 9th and 10th centuries A.D. Arab traders established the trans-Saharan trade route for slaves, gold, and ivory. In the 15th century, the Portuguese took over this trade using maritime routes. At that time, The Gambia was part of the Kingdom of Mali.
Gambia is 92% muslim, how did they get that way, on the far west coast of Africa?
Gambian Muslims sold 3 million Gambians into slavery to the Portugese, in the slave trade (portugese records). No record of how many they sold to Arabs.
The Portuguese didn't take over the trans-Saharan slave trade and reroute it. Their presence on the West African coast opened a previously unimportant and economically stagnant part of the region to direct trade with Europe. Effectively, European merchants selling to West Africa eliminated the middlemen of the trans-Saharan routes after the mid-15th century.
But the slave trade continued across the desert, albeit at a much smaller human volume, until the 19th C. When the plantation colonies of the Carribean and their insatiable thirst for cheap labor emerged in the 17th C., the demand for slaves in the West Atlantic far exceeded the trans-Saharan demand and slavecatchers and merchants went with the money, to the coast. But coastal countries also understood the power of supply and demand and imposed strict controls on coastal trading (in human beings or otherwise).
Slavery still exists in Sudan, Mauritania and other less publicized cases, but it's no longer trans-Saharan or trans-Atlantic. Slaves are taken into the desert, far from the reach of the state and kept as an open secret.
NB -- In the 15th C., the Mali Empire was fragmented and a shadow of its former self. The Portuguese sent an ambassador to Niani in the mid-15th century, but that country no longer controlled the Gambia River basin or the eastern desert port towns of Timbuktu and Gao.
Then please explain the islam inspired conflicts in Indonesia, Thailand, India (Kashmir), Malayasia, China, Nigeria, etc...
islam is at the core of all these, nothing arab about any of them.
Islam was introduced to West Africa approximately 1100-1200 years ago by Berber merchants traveling from the Southern Mediterranian region. On the desert's shore (the Sahel) other Africans adopted the religion and converted others in more southerly regions. These itinerant traders are known as juulaw or juulalu in Maninka.
However, Islam spread quickly under colonial rule. Missionary campaigns against and bureaucratic bias against "pagan religions" gave many Africans reason to adopt a recognized, monotheistic religion that the colonial powers (primarily Britain and France) hoped to use as a vehicle for administration and pacification, the argument being that those who accepted an international relgion like Islam, rather than local faiths, would also accept a distant ruler in the form of the British monarch.
Islam really began to spread after World War 2, when Africans were given a measure of civil rights and a more prominent place in the colonial administration. Most African bureaucrats were city-dwellers and sons of merchant families -- mostly Muslim. To avoid official scorn then (as is still the case now) villagers would respond to census questions about religion by professing (at least outwardly) the Muslim faith.
There are very few Arabs in The Gambia, just a handful of Moors (Arabo-Berbers, really) who run restaurants and corner stores in Banjul and its suburbs.
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