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Islam Needs Radicals — In These Times

Posted on November 10th, 2005 by .
Categories: Internal Debates, Research International.

Islam Needs Radicals — In These Times

By Mark Levine

George W. Bush. Tony Blair. Silvio Berlusconi. Jacques Chirac. Along with most every Western leader, pundit and policymaker, they are frantically searching for the �moderate Muslims� who can save Islam from itself and improve relations with the West.

The problem is that there�s no such thing as a moderate Muslim, at least the way these decision makers define the term. Look at whom they call moderate: President Bush often cites Jordan�s King Abdullah and Morocco�s King Muhammad as the epitome of modern, moderate Muslim leaders. But a glance at the Amnesty International reports on their countries, or those of other so-called moderate regimes, reveals them to be anything but moderate in the way they treat their citizens. In fact, their level of repression and censorship for the most part is equal to or greater than at any time since 9/11.

Searching for �moderate Islam� is an equally problematic enterprise. President Bush famously argued that �Islam means peace� after 9/11 as a way of signaling support for it. But however nice a sentiment, Islam in fact doesn�t mean peace; it means submission to the will of God, which�as anyone familiar with the history of the last two millennia knows�has historically involved quite a lot of war. Similarly, moderate Islam�s boosters point to a hadith, or saying of the Prophet, that argues that the �greater jihad� of self-introspection and improvement is more fundamental for Muslims than the �lesser jihad� of war and violence. In contrast, most conservative Muslim scholars consider �greater jihad� a weak hadith�that is, not the prophet�s actual words. Its use by �moderates� to reform the shari�a�the Islamic code for living that some states institute as law sanctioning violence�has long generated conservative scorn.

In the last two decades, a �moderate� school of Islamist jurisprudence has in fact emerged (known as the wasatiya movement in Arabic). But its leaders have been variously co-opted or censored by their governments, or tend to be quite immoderate when it comes to Jews, homosexuality or full equality for women. The ones that are truly moderate strongly oppose U.S. foreign policy and much of our materialist, consumer culture. For doing so they are labeled �radicals� by their governments, and ours.

Clearly we need to re-imagine our labeling of Islam, because the leaders we consider moderate are�often rightly�considered by their citizens to be corrupt and repressive handmaidens of U.S. policies that themselves could rarely be defined as moderate. On the other hand, Muslims respect those we consider �radicals� for standing up to us, even if most don�t agree with how they�re doing it.

Yet the reality is that even the most radical of extremist groups such as al-Qaeda are not that radical. Instead, they bear striking resemblances to other utopian movements across history, from the Jacobins of post-Revolutionary France to fascists and Maoists of the last century. The tools they use to wage their war�from the Internet to the suicide vest�might be new, but their desire to violently purify their societies is all too familiar.

What would a truly radical Muslim look like? Perhaps like the young Shiite sheikh named Anwar al-Ethari whom I met in Baghdad. He is known as the �Elastic Sheikh� because of his religious and secular university degrees and willingness to use �whatever works, wherever it comes from� to help the residents of his Sadr City neighborhood solve the myriad problems they face. Sadly, I have not heard from him in months, and fear he is among the victims of the increasing violence against the city�s Shiite population.

Or he might look like a friend of mine from Casablanca named Reda Zine. One of the leaders of the Moroccan heavy metal scene, he�s also a soon-to-be Ph.D. in Islamic studies at the Sorbonne. But he and his musical comrades were labeled �satanists� by moderate Islamists and arrested by the moderate Moroccan government because they dared to write powerful�and really loud�songs challenging the country�s patriarchal politics and culture.

Or they might look like Nadia Yassine, the leader of Morocco�s biggest political force, the religiously-oriented Justice and Development movement. In our first meeting she explained that Islam was �hijacked by men� after the Prophet Muhammad�s death and has suffered for it ever since. The next time I saw her she suggested that Morocco might be better off as a republic than a monarchy, a view that landed her in jail, courtesy of the same moderate government that went after the metalheads.

It is she who first suggested to me that what Islam needs is more radicals, not moderates��but radicals in a good sense.� Sitting next to her and nodding in agreement was the Swiss Muslim philosopher Tariq Ramadan. One of the leading progressive voices in Europe, his visa to teach at Notre Dame University was revoked by the U.S. government on the utterly baseless charge of being �tied to terrorists.�

My radical friends and colleagues are routinely oppressed by their governments, attacked by conservatives, obstructed by the United States and ignored by the media and peace groups who should be highlighting their activities and struggles. This suggests they�re doing something right, and that we should be doing more to help them. Of course, that would be pretty radical; but how else to achieve the radical transformation that is necessary to bring peace and democracy to the Middle East, not to mention to America?
Mark LeVine is professor of modern Middle Eastern history, culture and Islamic studies, UC Irvine, and the author of Why They Don�t Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2005)

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Oh You Who Believe…

Posted on October 29th, 2005 by .
Categories: Internal Debates.

A very interesting weblog is Ummati – Oh You Who Believe…

On this blog, among other things, a discussion on netiquette: Intermingling of the sexes I, about:

The topic in discussion is one that will surely create some controversy amongst the minds of many. Some of you may read the first paragraph and decide you would like to read no further. Others may read the entire post and quietly dismiss what is said. However I place a small request before you: please do ponder upon what is said. Jazakallah.

By communication I mean conversations between a non mehram man and a woman in person, or via the phone, even by a mere look and yes, let me utter the deadly words, the most common form of communication amongst non-mehrams is taking place on the internet. It is the most easiest form and sadly it is succeeding beyond measure in corrupting our minds and leading us astray.

(Let me stress, this form of contact I am referring to is one that is kept unnecessarily, there are instances where non-mehrams can communicate, these shall me mentioned later on inshallah)

The debate continues in a next entry: Intermingling of the sexes II

I was specifically targetting the ‘chatting’ that is taking place in todays age that has become the norm. We no longer consider it to be an evil but instead it seems to be encouraged.

However, I ask you, what has become of us today? We use this very excuse of propagating Islam and instead misuse it to suit our desires. Yes, once in a while an Islamic issue may crop up but other times? Other times, readers we are involved in deep conversations be it MSN or any other way, we are involved in many hours of zina. What is the need in speaking to a non-mehram about personal issues, about petty issues which are simply not necessary.

The discussion is picked up on several blogs: virtuallyislamic and Niqaabi-4ever

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Memories of Sayyid Qutb: An Interview With John Calvert – Worldpress.org

Posted on October 25th, 2005 by .
Categories: Internal Debates.

Memories of Sayyid Qutb: An Interview With John Calvert – Worldpress.org

Nearly 40 years after he was hanged for treason, Sayyid Qutb remains as dangerous today as he was in Nasser�s Egypt. Qutb had pushed the limits of Muslim Brotherhood thought, practically declaring war on any ruler that does not govern by Islamic law. Such talk got him executed, but a new generation of jihadists has taken up his call.

Qutb�s impact was not just felt in his native Egypt. His works and disciples have spread far and wide. In fact, it can be argued that much of Osama bin Laden�s Islamic radicalism can be traced back to the mentoring he received from Sayyid Qutb�s brother and Abdullah Azzam, a Qutb family friend.

Contributing to the study of this influential Egyptian ideologue, John Calvert and William Shepard have recently translated Qutb�s autobiography A Child from the Village. The book tells of a child�s life in rural Upper Egypt, of local superstitions and Sufi holy men, of government medical missions and looming poverty � of an extremist before he became an extremist.

(more…)

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Protected: Trouw – Hoofddoek / In de Koran staat het dus niet

Posted on October 21st, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Internal Debates, Islam in the Netherlands.

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Isim – Workshop Muslim Religious Authority

Posted on September 29th, 2005 by .
Categories: Internal Debates, Islam in the Netherlands, My Research, Young Muslims.

Isim organizes: Workshop Muslim Religious Authority in Europe

30 September 2005 – 1 October 2005

Venue: Leiden University, Spectrum room,

Plexus building, Kaiserstraat 25, Leiden

Convenors: Frank Peter & Elena Arigita

Organized in cooperation with Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO)

Current processes of institutionalization of Islam in Western Europe display some paradoxical features. Muslims and non-Muslims alike often emphasize the egalitarianism inherent in Islam. In recent years, however, discussions on who is entitled to claim religious authority have become an increasingly prominent feature of Europe�s Muslim communities. This phenomenon, which may be seen in part as a response to the political need for representative Muslim spokespersons, is at the same time challenged by processes of religious individualization and the diversification of the Muslim associational network. This workshop explores approaches able to capture the complex development of Muslim religious authority in the new Western European context.

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War comes to the heart of Europe

Posted on September 25th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Internal Debates, International Terrorism, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Public Islam, Religious and Political Radicalization.

An article in Asia Times Online :: Asian News, Business and Economy. by Pepe Escobar that owes much credit to Gilles Kepels book ‘War for Muslim Minds’

The battle over the future of global Islam will be fought and decided in Europe.

Whether or not it is responsible for the attacks on London, the al-Qaeda nebula is now configured as a relentless jihadi recruitment mechanism, profiting from the fact that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has been added to its original mix of extreme Wahhabism and Silicon Valley (which al-Qaeda’s number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, visited in the early 1990s).

In this article the author discusses the concepts of al-wala wal-bara (“loyalty and separation”) that is crucial for understanding Mohammed B. cs ideology.

Whether or not it is responsible for the attacks on London, the al-Qaeda nebula is now configured as a relentless jihadi recruitment mechanism, profiting from the fact that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has been added to its original mix of extreme Wahhabism and Silicon Valley (which al-Qaeda’s number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, visited in the early 1990s).

“Al-Qaeda” is a mutating virus, proliferating secretly in unexpected places. It used to thrive on subterfuge, evasion and deception. Now, the virus is attacking on three fronts. The Internet spreads the lethal, remixed Koran of jihad’s aims and ideology; Iraq has become the university for a new, deadly generation of internationalist jihadis; and Europe is the latest battleground where the new generation is bound to strike. The Euro-jihadi is here to stay.

“Al-Qaeda” is now a metaphor for global, deterritorialized jihad – indeed a “database” (as its original name implies) that strives to represent the microcosm of the whole Islamic umma (community). This is a political war conducted by a revolutionary vanguard. It is also a social war. It is definitely not a religious war. Whether religious war may succeed it depends to a large extent on the Muslim population of Europe, and whether it can isolate the Euro-jihadis.

No one is innocent
The killing of innocents, or massacre of infidels – as in London’s attacks – is not considered terrorism by either Osama bin Laden or Zawahiri: as bin Laden himself has made clear, it is seriously regarded as only a minor reparation for all the crimes committed against Islam since the end of the 600-year-long Ottoman Empire in 1923.

Al-Qaeda may be a revolutionary vanguard, but it is always careful to cloak its war as a war against unbelievers. In December 2002, Zawahiri published a crucial pamphlet in the London daily, al-Quds al-Arabi, widely reproduced on the jihadi Internet. He quoted a Koranic verse to justify the accidental killing of Muslims in attacks against unbelievers: the Muslims should not be there in the first place. Because it is ostensibly a war against unbelievers, al-Qaeda cannot but stress that if Muslims are associated with unbelievers, Islam itself is in danger.

Many clerics used this scholarly doctrine – al-wala wal-bara (“loyalty and separation”, in Arabic) to explain why Baghdad fell to the Mongols in the 13th century, as well as the Spanish Reconquista of Andalusia. Zawahiri used it to legitimize any “collateral damage” by jihad. The measure of Zawahiri’s influence is offered by the new, lethal and even more nihilistic generation of jihadis operating in Iraq: they have no problems justifying the killing of fellow Muslims and innocent Iraqi civilians, because for them these people are “associating with unbelievers”. Zawahiri made it clear in 2002 that any Muslim ally of America was by definition an apostate: “Jihad against Americans, Jews and their allies among the hypocrites and apostates is mandatory on all Muslims.”

The Euro-jihadis
The London investigation followed three leads: the attackers might have come from the Middle East, from Northern Africa, or they could have been British. Now Scotland Yard has established they were four men aged 18 to 30, “cleanskins” – with no criminal record – and British-born, of Pakistani origin. In short: the new, lethal, generation of suicide-bombing Euro-jihadis.

Most EU counter-terrorism analysts in Brussels – indeed, all over Western Europe – are stunned. This is what many had feared for a long time. As for rumors that London was part of a plan hatched by former Iraqi Mukhabarat agents to use British jihadis and thus retaliate inside British territory, EU analysts say they have no evidence – at least not yet – that Ba’athists were involved. But the jihadi component of the Iraqi resistance may well be. EU analysts tell Asia Times Online, “At the moment we have no evidence that former Iraq intelligence was involved, but we are studying the possibility of Zarqawi agents being infiltrated in Britain, or having come to Britain to conduct an operation.”

If “al-Qaeda”, the virus, really did perpetrate the London bombings, it won’t be confronted with the huge public relations problem posed by the Casablanca attack in Morocco. Then, al-Qaeda’s ideology – disseminated by Salafist sheikhs – had contaminated a group of lumpen proletariat Moroccans, who decided to turn their impotence into terrorism. The problem is that only fellow Moroccan Muslims were killed. The attacks on Madrid in March last year – perpetrated by Casablanca-linked Moroccans – was a different story: the victims were scores of “infidel” Europeans. These jihadis were trained by al-Qaeda. The same pattern, according to EU counter-terrorism analysts, may have played itself out in London.

Just as in Madrid, the attack was claimed by the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades (which honor the Egyptian Abu Hafs, a former security chief for bin Laden and trainer of Arab Afghans, killed by American bombs in Kandahar in November 2001). Then a communique was sent to the London daily al-Quds al-Arabi. Now a communique has appeared on an Islamist website from Dubai.

Zawahiri’s jihad masterplan, elaborated in 2001, was to conduct selected, spectacular strikes whose powerful reverberation on global TV and the Internet would mobilize the Muslim masses. But Gilles Kepel, professor of Middle East Studies at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris, warns that “apart from some narrow and unlikely alliances with intellectuals or black sheep, a few random Islamic bankers, and young, dispossessed bombers, bin Laden has been unable to unify poor urban youth, the Muslim middle classes, and the Islamist intelligentsia into a coalition capable of repeating the only triumphant Islamic revolution the world has ever seen: the one that took place in Iran in 1979”.

After London, this situation may be about to change. Kepel already talks of “the fight for Europe”.

Over 10 million immigrants from Muslim countries now live in Western Europe. Their children were born in Europe, speak one or more European languages, carry EU passports, are well educated and technology-savvy, and are familiar with the maze of European institutions. Internationalist jihadis are fighting to capture the hearts and minds of these 10 million.

EU analysts, among the doom and gloom, agree that tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims are bound to peak, especially in Britain and France. Some parts of Brussels, the capital of Europe, feel like Morocco. Belgium, as well as Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Scandinavia have all tried very hard to carefully calibrate their policies in terms of keeping potential jihadis under a close watch while at the same time integrating their Muslim populations. France has been too harsh; Britain had thought it kept everything under control by monitoring “Londonistan”. Now the battle for Europe has come – a matter of fitna – sedition, disagreement, war in the heart of Islam. Fitna is Islam’s enemy within – and it’s the jihadis new thrust that is provoking the turmoil.

The question facing the jihadis is whether to force the destabilization of national governments – like those of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan – or to go deeper into internationalist jihad. In these terms, “al-Qaeda”, the virus, is not different from any revolutionary vanguard: one is reminded that Stalinists wanted to consolidate the revolution in the USSR, while Trotskyites wanted a permanent, world revolution. Until now, London was a Salafi, and Salafi-jihadi, sanctuary. Now there’s bound to be major repression – and dispersal. “Invisible” Euro-jihadis may be holed up anywhere. The point is not that “al-Qaeda” wants to impose Islam in Europe: what it wants is to impose Wahhabi values in the Arab-Muslim world, and extirpate the West from Muslim lands.

Retaliation
Salafis – closely linked to House of Saud-approved sheikhs – will keep discouraging jihad with a vengeance. They prefer discreet integration. As an example: in France, they did not even protest the law that forbids veiled girls in schools. Sheikh Yousef al-Qardawi – immensely popular because of his al-Jazeera talk show – is against suicide bombing as in September 11 or London, but he approves of jihad in Palestine.

The reverberations of London’s attacks, on the other hand, may embolden more Salafi jihadis in west Yorkshire, Hamburg, Paris or Madrid. Some of these jihadis have been to Bosnia, Pakistan, Chechnya or Iraq and are more than ready to strike in western Europe. Not to mention the new jihadis born in Europe, with clean records, apparently well-socialized, and aged between 18 and 30.

When Zawahiri launched his jihad, one of his basic aims was to punish the West, specifically the Anglo-American sphere. He didn’t foresee that the massive response would include death and destruction in the Middle East, as in Iraq. According to some Middle Eastern media reports, more than 128,000 Iraqis have been killed by the invasion and occupation since March 2003; 55% are believed to be women and children under the age 12. This figure is said to be based on information gathered in Iraqi hospitals and from the families of victims. This is how the Middle East evaluates the occupation. And this is one of the major factors giving jihadis what they see as justification for no-holds-barred retaliation against the West.

This new generation of Euro-jihadis is now turning it all upside down, profiting from widespread revulsion against the Anglo-Americans takeover of Iraq to retaliate as well as advance a Salafi worldview. This could all have been prevented by a very simple move: a real democratic project for the Middle East – before indiscriminate support for every one of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s excesses; before Guantanamo; before Abu Ghraib; before the leveling of Fallujah.

Instead, thanks to Pentagon propaganda regurgitated by corporate media, we now have a cipher, a man nobody is sure even exists – Abu Musab al-Zarqawi – elevated to supernatural status. EU analysts despair: we may be entering the age of one thousand Zarqawis coming from the shadows to haunt not the US, but western Europe. It’s as much a war at the heart of Europe as a war at the heart of Islam.

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Taking Back Islam

Posted on September 19th, 2005 by .
Categories: Internal Debates, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

In the Washington Post an interesting article: Taking Back Islam

Rarely has a big idea gotten more lip service and less real substance than the argument that there is a war of ideas underway for the soul of the Muslim world. Do a Google search on war of ideas and Muslim, and you get more than 11 million hits. Yet, four years after Sept. 11, 2001, the real battle is only now beginning.

In this article David Ignatius tries to understand several developments among Muslims in relation to this ‘epic’ battle.

Traditional Islam is under assault from a puritanical fringe group known as the Salafists. The name is drawn from an Arabic word that refers to the seventh-century ancestors who walked with the Prophet Muhammad. For a Christian analogy to the Salafist extremists, think of the fanatical monk Savonarola, who in the 15th century burned the books of Florence in his rage at the corruption of the Medicis. The difference is that the Salafists have access to the Internet and car bombs — and perhaps far more dangerous weapons.

He refers to Quintan Wiktorowicz, who has done research among the Al-Muhajiroun in England and is the author of Radical Islam Rising

the Salafists operate like a cult. They draw in vulnerable young people, fill them with ideas that give their lives a fiery new meaning, and send them into battle against the unbelievers. Combating this seductive Salafist preaching requires the same kind of intense “deprogramming” used to wean away converts from other modern cults.

I have some problems with the notion of ‘deprogramming’ but nevertheless many of his insights are usefull (although not new) to get a better grasp of what is going on:

He found that the group preyed on disoriented young Muslims — not poor or oppressed themselves but confused and looking for meaning. Recruitment often involved a personal crisis that provided the Muslim cultists with a “cognitive opening.”

“To many young Muslims, their parents’ version of Islam seems archaic, backward and ill-informed,” Wiktorowicz explains. Into this spiritual void march the Salafists. They provide a structured life, through a mandatory study session every week in the halaqah , or prayer circle, and a new set of life rules. Among the prohibited activities Wiktorowicz discovered in his research were “playing games,” “watching TV,” “sleeping a lot and chilling out,” and “hanging out with friends.”

Despite the salafist dominance (or thanks to?) there is something of a counter attack emerging.

Traditional Islam is finally starting to fight back against the Salafists and their self-taught, literalist interpretations of the Koran. One of the leaders in this effort is Jordan’s King Abdullah, heir to a Hashemite throne that traces its lineage back to Muhammad. He convened an Islamic conference in Amman in July that concluded with a communique on “True Islam and Its Role in Modern Society.” It reemphasized the traditional faith — the four schools of Sunni jurisprudence, the orthodox school of Shiite jurisprudence, the canon set forth over centuries of fatwas and other orthodox interpretations of what Islam means.

Rather than running scared, as mainstream clerics sometimes do when facing the Salafist onslaught, the Amman declaration was proud and emphatic. It drew together fatwas from the leading clerics in Islam, including the sheik of Al-Azhar in Cairo and Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Najaf. Another backer was Sheik Yusuf Qaradawi, who has a weekly show on al-Jazeera and is probably the best-known television preacher in the Arab world.

The declaration forbids the practice of takfir and calls for unity among Muslims and also limits the issueing of fatwas to qualified Muslim clerics.

According to Ignatius:

These Islamic leaders sense that their religion is being kidnapped by Salafist radicals with a grab-bag theology, and they are finally beginning to push back. It’s a war of ideas they should win, if they can make traditional Islam a vibrant, living faith. Young Muslims don’t want to go back to the seventh century; they want to live with dignity in the 21st.

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Protected: de Volkskrant – Gruwen van je land

Posted on September 18th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Internal Debates, Islam in the Netherlands.

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Protected: Genoeg is Genoeg!

Posted on September 17th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Internal Debates, Multiculti Issues.

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Violence and Jihad

Posted on September 17th, 2005 by .
Categories: Internal Debates, International Terrorism, Young Muslims.

Violence in Iraq is dividing the jihad-warriors. It raising several interesting questions concerning religious authority and also about the religious legitimization of the attacks (not only in Iraq but also in Madrid and London).

n the past two weeks, two major controversial positions appeared on Jihadi web sites and in the Arab media. These statements were made by two of the most important and influential clerics of the Jihadi-Salafi current of global Jihad. The first was an interview of Abu Muhammad al-Maqdesi, the Jordanian-Palestinian Islamist scholar and spiritual guide of Al-Tawhid wal-Jihad in Jordan and Iraq , and was aired on the Al-Jazirah TV channel on July 3 rd 2005 . 1 Jordanian authorities have recently released Al-Maqdesi after a long arrest of about six months, only to detain him again following his controversial interview. In the interview, he criticized the Islamist insurgents in Iraq , led by his prot�g� Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi, for the mass killing of Muslims in Iraq . On 5 July 2005 , he repeated his criticism in another interview with the Jordanian paper �Al-Ghad.’ 2 His most important statement was that �the indiscriminate attacks might distort the true Jihad.� This was not his first criticism of Zarqawi and his group. In September 2004, Al-Maqdesi sent a long message from Al-Qafqafa prison through Jihadi forums on the Internet. 3 In both cases this criticism generated a wave of responses by Jihadi scholars, clerics, and youngsters, who were surprised and confused. If in September 2004 Al-Maqdesi used a �soft� tone, much like a father talking to his son, then this time his tone was direct and decisive, especially as it was aired through the media. The interview also enjoyed high degree of publicity in Jordan and Iraq .

The second statement was given by the Syrian Mustafa Abd al-Mun`im Abu Halimah, better known as Abu Basir al-Tartusi, a Syrian Jihadi scholar residing in London. Like Al-Maqdesi, Abu Basir is one of the leading guides of the Jihadi-Salafi current. Unlike Al-Maqdesi, however, he enjoys complete freedom of activity and speech in London , and hence, can manage close contact with other supporters of global Jihad. In the past, Abu Basir used to be in close contact with the Algerian Jihadi-Salafi group and its supporters in London . Abu Basir is known for his very strict and sharp language, and for his, at times, harsh and brave criticism of Islamist groups. In the past year, for instance, he severely attacked the Palestinian movement Hamas for what he called its �deviation from true Jihad.�

On 9 July 2005 , Abu Basir published a Fatwa on his web site that protested the London bombings and the killing of innocent British civilians. 4 Abu Basir described the bombings as a �disgraceful and shameful act, with no manhood, bravery, or morality. We cannot approve it nor accept it, and it is denied islamically and politically.� He refused labeling the British citizens as �attackers� ( Harbiyyun ), emphasizing instead the social alliance ( `Ahd ) of Muslims in the United Kingdom with the British government and society, among which they live. He added, �if this act was done by British Muslims it does not mean that Islam or the Muslim community in the UK approve of this act.� He ended his statement by raising doubts about the responsibility taken for the London bombings by �The secret group of Al-Qaeda in Europe �

Abu Basir’s statement/Fatwa elicited many responses in Jihadi forums, most among them creating anger and resentment against him. Once again, the supporters of global Jihad were left confused and surprised. The harsh responses Abu Basir generated led him to publish yet another statement on 11 July 2005 , titled �The Love of Revenge or the Legal ruling.� 5 In this second statement, which did not sound apologetic at all, he explained that his position towards the attacks in London was not at all a retreat from his former well-documented positions on Jihad. His main argument was that there was no place for the symmetry of revenge between the Muslims and their oppressors�a symmetry that is a vital component of the strategy of global Jihad. According to Abu Basir, there is no place for revenge in Islamic doctrine, but only integrity based upon the interpretations of Islamic law. He also hinted at an attempt by Islamists to place a wedge between ordinary Muslims and clerics.

This last claim by Abu Basir, we should note, concerns a crucial issue in the research and analysis of religious groups in general, and radical ones in particular: the question of�who is leading who�are the clerics leading the operatives or vice versa? The examples of the martyrdom operations, beheadings, killing of Muslim civilians (Shi`is or Sunnis), and other such issues provide us with a clear answer�the operatives are leading the clerics. Jihadi clerics usually provide the ideological �umbrella’ for the radicalization of the modus operandi .

Concerning Iraq the issue of Takfir is also an important debate.

The enthusiasm that emerges from Iraq is also influencing another field�the Islamic debate over Takfir (excommunication), suicide bombings, and massive killing of Muslims. Zarqawi and his �military strategy� in Iraq attract harsh criticism by clerics who were regarded by the older generation of Al-Qaeda, including Zarqawi himself, as leading mentors�Abu Basir al-Tartusi, who recently published a fatwa against suicide bombings; Abu Muhammad al-Maqdesi, who criticized Zarqawi in public; Muhammad al-Mas`ari, one of the fathers of the oppositionist Saudi reform movement in London; and others who advised Zarqawi and his Sunni supporters in Iraq to reconsider their strict opposition to the new Iraqi constitution, and the planned elections.

It seems that there is a developing crisis in the relations between the older generation of Jihadi-Salafi clerics and scholars and their operative prot�g�s. Zarqawi and his colleagues in Chechnya , Afghanistan , Saudi Arabia , or Kashmir , will always find new and younger clerics to back their strategy from an Islamic point of view. Finding the �proper’ authority among the hundreds of graduates of Saudi Wahhabi Islamic universities should not prove too difficult. Such a split occurred for example between the two Saudi scholars, Safar al-Hawali and Salman al-Awdah, and their younger followers in the past three years in Saudi Arabia . In this case Hawali and al-Awdah lost their appeal and influence over the Saudi supporters of Al-Qaeda, were pushed aside, and became part of Ulamaa al-Salatin �the clerics of the government. They could not be divorced from the negative image Arab governments have in the eyes of the Jihadis.

The recent reactions in Jihadi forums against these debates and criticism over Zarqawi and his strategy by his supporters are in many cases insulting and disrespectful. The main motive is: �let the Mujahidin decide their policy, since they are in the front of Jihad and not the clerics.� This is a new style of discourse, if we look back to the criticizing but most respectful letters of Bin Laden to Sheikh Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz, or of Sheikh Yousef al-Uyeri to Dr. Safar al-Hawali. The �new generation of Iraqi Arabs� is rude and much more self-confident than their fathers of the �Arab Afghans,� especially that they have a new kind of a king�Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi.

In all cases however it is the new generation that seems to support the violent jihad (against Muslims and non-Muslims) and reject the older religious authorities stating that they are Ulamaa al-Salatin �the clerics of the government.

In Trouw of today there is more about the criticism of Maqdesi (in Dutch):
Trouw, deVerdieping| overigeartikelen – Geweld verdeelt djihadstrijders

�De heilige oorlog, zijn doelen en zijn middelen zijn te rein, te zuiver en te verheven dan dat ze mag lijken op de daden van maffiabendes.�

Na deze donderpreek trekt Zarkawi een lange neus naar zijn leermeester Maqdesi en gaat hij vuiler dan ooit tekeer. De combinatie van maffia en heilige oorlog bevalt wel.

Dat hij nog meer ge�soleerd raakt, zal hem weinig deren. In zijn geboorteplaats Zarka stond hij toch al nooit bekend als een gezellige mensenvriend.

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TCS: Tech Central Station – Four Years After September 11th: The Media Failure

Posted on September 12th, 2005 by .
Categories: Internal Debates, International Terrorism, Religious and Political Radicalization.

An article by Stephen Schwartz on ‘takfir’: Four Years After September 11th: The Media Failure

We have reached the fourth anniversary of the terrible attacks of September 11, 2001. I am sorry to say that, in my view, the U.S. and Western media have completely failed to meet the challenge of reporting on Islam, in the four succeeding years since then, or in reaction to the atrocities that followed, including the extremist violence in Iraq, which I would not dignify with the titles “insurgency” or “resistance,” the Madrid metro and London underground bombings, and the terror assaults in Indonesia, Morocco, Turkey, and elsewhere.

Islamic shari’a is quite clear on what constitutes a state policy that contradicts Islam: it is one that silences the call to prayer (adhan), and prevents the teaching and preaching of the religion. Serbia, Croatia (in Bosnia-Hercegovina), Macedonia, and Russia may be said to have done so in recent times, although indigenous and legitimate clerics did not judge it to be so. Thus, regardless of conflicts over land, Israel does not interfere with the peaceful activity of Muslim teachers and faithful. Nor, most certainly, does the United States. So one could just as quickly describe the U.S. constitution as a document that does not conflict with Islam, as to so label the Iraqi constitution. Is there reason to be concerned about the U.S. constitution as an Islamic theocratic document? I think not.

The failure to grasp the nature of the new Iraqi constitution extends to the document itself. Much noise has been made about Article Two, in which it is stated that “Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation,” and some praise has been issued for Article 14, which proclaims equality of gender, ethnic groups, religion, opinion, social and economic status, etc. But little has been said about one of the most remarkable and significant elements of the new Iraqi charter: The ban in Article Seven on “Entities or trends that justify or propagate racism, terrorism, ‘takfir,’ sectarian expulsions,” as well as the Saddamist Ba’ath party.

The ban on takfir, which means excommunication or expulsion of one’s opponents from Islam, is exceptionally important, but I can say with considerable certainty that most Western journalists do not have the slightest idea about it. I have found no Western media commentaries on the issue of takfir as treated in the Iraqi constitution, but many that seek to associate tribal customs in the treatment of women, which have no basis whatever in Islamic tradition or law, with the future Iraqi legal system.

(more…)

0 comments.

Fatwa Crackdown

Posted on September 6th, 2005 by .
Categories: Internal Debates.

Issuing misleading fatwas should be punished by Sharia law, says the Grand Mufti.
Fatwa Crackdown:

Whoever intends to make a mockery of the edicts mocks the faith and scholars. Such a person deserves to be punished in accordance with the Sharia rules in order to deter others from giving misleading edicts usually transmitted on the Internet

Saudi Grand Mufti for action against ‘unofficial’ fatwas

The trustworthy ancestors used not to rush in giving an edict not because of any shortcoming in themselves but just teach and enlighten others about the position of the rulings in Islam so that unqualified people may refrain from involving themselves in matters that they ignorant about

Nothing wrong with teaching and enlighten others instead of rushing into giving an edict of course. Several interesting issues are touched upon here. Referring to the internet: this means a decline of traditional religious authority and the rise of new authorities who are difficult to control. Also of course the increase of educational levels among young people create a situation in which they do not rely anymore on those traditional authorities but interpret islam by themselves and search for their own authorities (who do not ‘sell out’ to the west).

0 comments.

Ali B. for president?

Posted on August 29th, 2005 by .
Categories: Internal Debates, Multiculti Issues.

Aboutaleb zou lijsttrekker mogen worden en anders Ali B.: nu.nl/algemeen | Weinig kansen voor islamitische partij
Weinig kansen voor islamitische partij

0 comments.

Challenging Islamic Nationalism

Posted on August 23rd, 2005 by .
Categories: Internal Debates.

alt.muslim – your muslim news community

Challenging Islamic Nationalism

By Yakoub Islam, August 21, 2005

Nationalism, despite its claims to unite, always divides – the ‘natives’ from the ‘foreigners’, the whites from the blacks. It divides people into groups like a farmer separates different breeds of cattle.

(more…)

0 comments.

How Progressive is the Progressive Muslim Movement?

Posted on August 23rd, 2005 by .
Categories: Internal Debates.

alt.muslim – your muslim news community
How Progressive is the Progressive Muslim Movement?

By Aamir Siddiqui, August 23, 2005

Without presenting believers with a clear understanding of what they represent, the Progressive Muslim movement is at risk of making itself unrecognizable to mainstream believers

(more…)

0 comments.

Asharq Alawsat – Abu Mohammed al Maqdisi: al-Zarqawi “Spiritual Godfather”

Posted on July 29th, 2005 by .
Categories: Internal Debates, International Terrorism, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization.

Asharq Alawsat Abu Mohammed al Maqdisi: al-Zarqawi “Spiritual Godfather”

Al Maqdisi is not only Al-Zarqawi’s “spiritual godfather”. The same can be said for Mohammed B. who frequently uses texts from Sayyd Qutb’s Milestones and from Al Maqdisi. The concepts of al-Walaa’ wal Baraa’ (to be loyal and to disavow for the sake of Allah) were central. Mohammed B. translated al-Maqdisi’s ‘Millat Ibrahim’ into Dutch. In this text Maqdisi elaborates on loyalty and disavowal. It is also very informative about Al Maqdisi, his thoughts, his connection with international terrorism and especially with his student al-Zarqawi.

The concept of loyalty and disavowal is one of the pillars of al Maqdisi’s thought and his favorite argument. He used it in conjunction with extracts from the Quran, the Hadith (sayings of the Prophet), Salafi teachings and the fatwas (religious edicts) of Wahabi clerics ( strict orthodox Sunni Muslims from Saudi Arabia who strive to purify Islamic beliefs and reject any innovation occurring after the 3rd century of Islam). Al Maqdisi’s use of the concept was best displayed in his famous book, “The Faith of Ibrahim”�, his most significant representation of Salafi ideology. The book is similar to Sayyid Qutb’s “Milestones”� in terms of its impact on Salafi ideology. Based on a simple idea, the book advocates following the path set by the Prophet Ibrahim, because God ordered his followers to take Ibrahim as a model in the Koranic verse: “You have a good example in Ibrahim and those who were with him. They said to their people, we disavow you because what you idolize is different than Allah.”

As such, following the way of Ibrahim requires disbelieving the devil and disavowing him. The devil’s infidelity can be seen in several ways, mainly in the fact that he does not rule according to God’s ordinance. A verse in the Quran says, “Those who do not follow Allah’s revelation in their rule are infidels.”� According to al Maqdisi, since all Arab governments do not rule by God’s edict, they are all infidels and need to be disavowed, as the Prophet Ibrahim did before.

The book had a powerful impact in a generation of jihadist men. Al Maqdisi, using seemingly obvious religious language and texts, motivated a number of young Muslim men and incite them to commit violence. This was best illustrated by the al Ulya explosions in Riyadh , in November 1995, when a group blew up a training center for the Saudi National Guard. Abd al Aziz al Muthim who masterminded the attack had been traveling frequently to Jordan and bringing back with him al Maqdisi’s books, listening to his teachings, and promoting his ideas. The Palestinian cleric himself paid a few visits to the Kingdom, even after he wrote “Conspicuous Manifestations of the Saudi State’s Infidelity”� where he unequivocally denounced the Kingdom’s government.

(more…)

2 comments.

Asharq Alawsat – Abu Mohammed al Maqdisi: al-Zarqawi "Spiritual Godfather"

Posted on July 29th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Internal Debates, International Terrorism, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization.

Asharq Alawsat Abu Mohammed al Maqdisi: al-Zarqawi “Spiritual Godfather”

Al Maqdisi is not only Al-Zarqawi’s “spiritual godfather”. The same can be said for Mohammed B. who frequently uses texts from Sayyd Qutb’s Milestones and from Al Maqdisi. The concepts of al-Walaa’ wal Baraa’ (to be loyal and to disavow for the sake of Allah) were central. Mohammed B. translated al-Maqdisi’s ‘Millat Ibrahim’ into Dutch. In this text Maqdisi elaborates on loyalty and disavowal. It is also very informative about Al Maqdisi, his thoughts, his connection with international terrorism and especially with his student al-Zarqawi.

The concept of loyalty and disavowal is one of the pillars of al Maqdisi’s thought and his favorite argument. He used it in conjunction with extracts from the Quran, the Hadith (sayings of the Prophet), Salafi teachings and the fatwas (religious edicts) of Wahabi clerics ( strict orthodox Sunni Muslims from Saudi Arabia who strive to purify Islamic beliefs and reject any innovation occurring after the 3rd century of Islam). Al Maqdisi’s use of the concept was best displayed in his famous book, “The Faith of Ibrahim”�, his most significant representation of Salafi ideology. The book is similar to Sayyid Qutb’s “Milestones”� in terms of its impact on Salafi ideology. Based on a simple idea, the book advocates following the path set by the Prophet Ibrahim, because God ordered his followers to take Ibrahim as a model in the Koranic verse: “You have a good example in Ibrahim and those who were with him. They said to their people, we disavow you because what you idolize is different than Allah.”

As such, following the way of Ibrahim requires disbelieving the devil and disavowing him. The devil’s infidelity can be seen in several ways, mainly in the fact that he does not rule according to God’s ordinance. A verse in the Quran says, “Those who do not follow Allah’s revelation in their rule are infidels.”� According to al Maqdisi, since all Arab governments do not rule by God’s edict, they are all infidels and need to be disavowed, as the Prophet Ibrahim did before.

The book had a powerful impact in a generation of jihadist men. Al Maqdisi, using seemingly obvious religious language and texts, motivated a number of young Muslim men and incite them to commit violence. This was best illustrated by the al Ulya explosions in Riyadh , in November 1995, when a group blew up a training center for the Saudi National Guard. Abd al Aziz al Muthim who masterminded the attack had been traveling frequently to Jordan and bringing back with him al Maqdisi’s books, listening to his teachings, and promoting his ideas. The Palestinian cleric himself paid a few visits to the Kingdom, even after he wrote “Conspicuous Manifestations of the Saudi State’s Infidelity”� where he unequivocally denounced the Kingdom’s government.

(more…)

2 comments.

Asharq Alawsat – Terrorism: Where is the Counter Fatwa?

Posted on July 29th, 2005 by .
Categories: Internal Debates, International Terrorism.

Asharq Alawsat Terrorism: Where is the Counter Fatwa?

The time has come for a fatwa (a legal Islamic opinion) to be issued that disconnects Osama Bin Laden and his followers from Islam. In a time in which terrorist operations have spread across world cities from New York to Casablanca, from Cairo to London, and most recently in Sharm El Sheikh, we desperately need a series of fatwas that assert that Islam does not condone violence against innocent people. However, this is not even enough. We also need to exclude those among us who believe that violence is the way to defend Islam. As a Muslim, I believe that we need total clarity on the subject. We should respond to the fatwas that are issued in our name.

2 comments.

Lifemakers NL

Posted on July 4th, 2005 by .
Categories: Internal Debates, My Research, Young Muslims.

Sinds vandaag online: Lifemakers NL

Dit is een website gerelateerd aan Amr Khaled’s initiatief Lifemakers. Volgens de website gelooft Amr Khaled dat het de (hoogste?) tijd was voor verandering en dat het overschot aan energie van de jeugd moet worden gebruikt voor een betere toekomst en om een toegevoegde waarde te leveren aan de reden en het nut van het bestaan. Het idee achter Lifemakers is het opzetten van projecten waarvan de opleving van de samenlevingen het doel is. Voor meer info ga zelf maar even kijken.

0 comments.

C L O S E R: De inkt van de geleerde en het bloed van de martelaar door Dick Pels

Posted on June 22nd, 2005 by .
Categories: Internal Debates, Islam in the Netherlands, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

Ontvangen via Tareq van de MoslimMedia Yahoogroep.

De inkt van de geleerde en het bloed van de martelaar

Dick Pels
Dick Pels over Azzam, de pen, het bloed, scheiding kerk-staat enz. Zeer de moeite waard!

De institutionele machtenscheiding tussen wetenschap en staat is dus niet hetzelfde als de filosofische scheiding tussen wetenschap
en politiek, of for that matter die tussen rede en geloof. Ook hier moeten de harde onderscheidingen door zachtere worden vervangen. De modernistische opvatting van wetenschap, die zich zo sterk tegen
zowel religie als politiek heeft afgezet, onttrekt gemakkelijk allerlei onderhuidse continu�teiten aan het zicht. Een meer postmoderne en reflexieve benadering van de kennisvorming staat in elk geval sceptischer tegenover de universalistische claims van waarheid, ethische neutraliteit en objectieve feitelijkheid die het
wetenschappelijk rationalisme zo dierbaar zijn (en komt daarmee in zeker opzicht tegemoet aan de islamitische kritiek). De westerse
wetenschap blijkt politieker van inslag te zijn en meer geloofselementen in zich te dragen dan door modernisten en Verlichters doorgaans wordt erkend (11). Wie hierin een heilloos
relativisme ziet, dient te bedenken dat deze sceptische benadering van de wetenschappelijke waarheid nog veel scherper gekant is tegen de absolute openbaringswaarheden van de politieke islam. Voor radicalen die m�t Azzam de inkt van de geleerde laten ineenvloeien met het bloed van de martelaar, is deze vorm van veelgoderij zonder meer een influistering van de Duivel.

Dit artikel verscheen eerder in Civis Mundi. Tijdschrift voor
politieke filosofie en cultuur 44(3), juni 2005.
(more…)

2 comments.

Cairo Magazine – When the religious gets political

Posted on June 18th, 2005 by .
Categories: Internal Debates.

One of the major questions among Muslims is: Who has the right to issue a fatwa, and over what? This article from Cairo Magazine – When the religious gets political
goes into this important issue focusing on Al-Azhar.

In recent years, there has been a growing trend of �unofficial fatwas� being announced on state TV, satellite channels radio, newspapers and in mosques. For instance, earlier this year fatwas were issued banning yoga and ironing women�s pants�the latter because, according to the man who issued that fatwa, women are not allowed to wear pants in Islam.

Confusing the dispute is the lack of clear hierarchy between Al Azhar and Dar Al Iftaa, which is technically under Al Azhar�s jurisdiction yet supposed to be the sole source of fatwas. This has caused problem before. For instance, in January 2004, after Al Tantawi urged French Muslims to respect the ban on veils in public schools, Gomaa argued that the veil was an obligation for Muslims. Other religious scholars around the world also condemned Al Tantawi�s position.

Aboul Ela says the way people perceive fatwas has changed from the way they were perceived earlier in Islam’s history. “After the death of the Prophet Muhammed, Muslim scholars used fatwas to adapt to the changes of everyday life, because there are issues that are not mentioned in the Quran or the Sunna,” he explained. “Now people go and seek fatwas even if the issues are already mentioned in the Quran and are not debatable. The sheikhs don’t see how dangerous it is to issue a wrong fatwa.”

0 comments.

The Dutch-Muslim Culture War – Yahoo! News

Posted on June 12th, 2005 by .
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Internal Debates, Islam in the Netherlands, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, My Research, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

In The Nation an article of Deborah Scroggins (placed on Yahoo! News) on The Dutch-Muslim Culture War

It has become a nice article that centres around Hirsi Ali. I have a small contribution in it (in italics) and for the record, no I do not investigate jihadi-groups. And I also do not work at Leiden University but at ISIM in Leiden.

Meanwhile, Hirsi Ali focused her broadsides more and more plainly on Islam itself. She wrote that the Prophet Mohammed was a “despicable” individual who had married “the 9-year-old daughter of his best friend.” “Mohammed is, by our Western standards, a perverse man,” she wrote. “A tyrant. He is against free speech. If you do not do what he says, then you will have an unhappy ending. It makes me think of all those megalomaniac rulers in the Middle East: bin Laden, Khomeini, Saddam.” By this point, Hirsi Ali had gravitated further to the right; she left the Labor Party for the center-right Liberal VVD Party and won a parliamentary seat in 2003.

Hirsi Ali’s many critics contend that far from being a revolutionary, she brings a message that the West is all too willing to hear. They say that in calling for European governments to protect Muslim women from Muslim men, she and her admirers recycle the same Orientalist tropes that the West has used since colonial times as an excuse to control and subjugate Muslims. “White men saving black women from black men–it’s a very old fantasy that is always popular,” Annelies Moors, a University of Amsterdam anthropologist who writes about Islamic gender relations, said dryly. “But I don’t think male violence against women, a phenomenon known to every society in history, can be explained by a few Koranic verses.”

Moors and others don’t dispute the existence of the social problems Hirsi Ali identifies. Many Dutch Muslim women do live in segregated “parallel cities” where Islamic social codes are enforced. Muslims make up only 5.5 percent of the Dutch population, but they account for more than half the women in battered women’s shelters and more than half of those seeking abortions. Muslim girls have far higher suicide rates than non-Muslim girls. Some Muslim girls, mostly African, are genitally mutilated. But in putting all the blame on Islam, they say, Hirsi Ali ignores the influence of patriarchal custom as well as the work of a generation of Muslim feminists. They point to thinkers like Fatima Mernissi and Amina Wadud, who have shown that Islam’s sacred texts can be interpreted in a more female-friendly way. And they say Hirsi Ali avoids mention of the role the West has played and continues to play in assisting the rise of the Islamist movements. “The rightist forces and the radical Islamists feed on each other, and she contributes to that,” Moors said.

Karima Belhaj is the director of the largest women’s shelter in Amsterdam. She’s also one of the organizers of the “Stop the Witchhunt!” campaign against what she sees as anti-Muslim hysteria. On the day we talked, she was despondent. Arsonists had set fire for the second time to an Islamic school in the town of Uden. A few days later a regional police unit warned that the rise of right-wing Dutch youth gangs potentially presents a more dangerous threat to the country than Islamist terrorism. “The rise of Islamism is not the problem,” Belhaj said. “The problem is that hatred against Arabs and Muslims is shown in this country without any shame.” With her message that Muslim women must give up their faith and their families if they want to be liberated, Hirsi Ali is actually driving women into the arms of the fundamentalists, said Belhaj: “She attacks their values, so they are wearing more and more veils. It frightens me. I’m losing my country. I’m losing my people.”

If Belhaj was sad, another “Stop the Witchhunt!” organizer was angry. Like Belhaj, Miriyam Aouragh is a second-generation immigrant of Moroccan background. A self-described peace and women’s activist, Aouragh was the first in her family to attend university. She’s now studying for a PhD in anthropology. She scoffs at the idea that Hirsi Ali is a champion of oppressed Muslim women. “She’s nothing but an Uncle Tom,” Aouragh said. “She has never fought for the oppressed. In fact, she’s done the opposite. She uses these problems as a cover to attack Islam. She insults me and she makes my life as a feminist ten times harder because she forces me to be associated with anti-Muslim attacks.”

Aouragh accuses Hirsi Ali and her political allies of deliberately fostering the hostility that has led to the attacks on Islamic institutions and to police brutality against young Muslim men. “I’m surprised the Arab-Muslim community isn’t more angry with her,” Aouragh said. “When she talks about Muslims as violent people, and Muslim men as rapists, this is very insulting. She calls the Prophet a pedophile. Theo van Gogh called the Prophet a pimp, a goat-fucker. Well, no, we don’t accept that.”

Although the press has focused on the threats against critics of Islam like Hirsi Ali and Geert Wilders, Aouragh says that there have been many more attacks on Dutch Muslims than on non-Muslims. She suspects that what the Dutch really fear is not Islamic fundamentalism but the prospect of having to deal with a new generation of highly educated young Muslims who demand a fair hearing for their values. “We are telling them, ‘We have rights, too. You have to change your idea about freedom or face the consequences.'”

Whatever happens to Hirsi Ali, the debate she helped polarize over women and Islam is sure to spread and intensify all over Europe in the next few years. As Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris have argued in their book Rising Tide, the true clash of opinions between Islam and the West is not about democracy but sex. Successive World Values Surveys, in which social scientists polled public opinion in more than eighty countries between 1981 and 2001, have shown that people in Muslim countries share broadly the same views on political participation as people in the West. What they disagree strongly about is gender equality and sexual liberalization.

In the United States the distinction is not as sharply drawn. Conservative Muslims are not the only religious group here opposed to what they see as sexual license; it’s their opposition to Israel and US foreign policy, not their sexual politics, that sets American Muslims apart from the rest of the right. But in Europe, acceptance of gender equality and homosexuality have become core values across the political spectrum, said Jocelyne Cesari, a Harvard research associate and the author of When Islam and Democracy Meet. “Here it is part of a national debate that doesn’t involve immigrants only,” Cesari said. “In Europe, this is seen as proof that Muslims are still outsiders whose values are in contradiction to ours.”

Islamist thinkers have often argued that women are the key to culture, since they have the responsibility of raising children. An emerging coalition of European feminist and anti-immigration forces seems to be adopting the same view. In France, Belgium, Germany and Scandinavia, as in the Netherlands, the “woman question” is at the center of the debate over how to integrate the Muslim community. “I know most of my Muslim friends will disagree with me, but in my opinion the gender issue is the most important issue,” says Martijn de Koning, an anthropologist at Leiden University who studies jihadi groups. “The head scarf, the Islamic schools, the policy of family reunification–every debate here more or less concerns the position of women.”

Hirsi Ali is only the most prominent of a number of young Muslim women who have lately begun to criticize their own communities for their treatment of women. In Sweden, Fadime Sahindal campaigned against forced marriages before her father killed her in 2002 for having a relationship with a Swedish man. In France, Fadela Amara heads the Ni Putes ni Soumises (“Neither Whores nor Submissives”) movement against Islamist groups she calls “the green fascists.” In Germany, where six honor killings have taken place just this year, Seyran Ates, a Berlin-based lawyer, has charged the government with allowing Islamic fundamentalism to flourish under a policy of false tolerance.

I really do think the gender-issues is the key-issue, at least in Europe (as Cesari also acknowledges in this article) It is for Muslims as well as for non-Muslims. That is not very surprisingly. Gender-issues are often the most important boundary-markers between insiders and outsiders for all groups. Of course it is more than a boundary marker. There are some real issues like domestic violence. It isn’t true however that half of the women in women’s shelters are Muslim. It is probably about one third; still too much of course. I don’t know exactly about the suicide rates, but they are higher among most of the immigrant girls compared to native dutch. Also all these statistics don’t include Muslims but ethnicity and nationality. So it is implied that every Turk or Moroccan woman is also a (practising) Muslim.

(more…)

0 comments.

Van waterdruppel tot mens: Moslims, evolutie & intelligent design

Posted on June 5th, 2005 by .
Categories: Internal Debates, Islam in the Netherlands, Multiculti Issues, Religious and Political Radicalization, Some personal considerations, Young Muslims.

Nou ja ik ben iets te jong om de Big Bang meegemaakt te hebben en volgens mijn moeder ook nog eens een wandelend Intelligent Design (…maar hoever ben je nu eigenlijk met je proefschrift?), maar heb toch wel wat te zeggen over het door minister Van der Hoeven aangezwengelde debat.

Van der Hoeven’s pleidooi voor een debat over ID hoeft helemaal niet weggegooid te worden, maar als ze denkt hiermee multiculti spanningen op te lossen, slaat ze de plank mis. Vragen als ‘wat zegt de islam over de evolutietheorie’ of ‘wat zegt de koran over de schepping’ zijn wel interessant voor moslims, maar zijn totaal onbelangrijk als we houding en gedrag van moslims in Nederland willen verklaren. Wanneer we daar iets meer van willen weten, moeten we niet met de Koran beginnen, maar moeten we onderzoeken hoe moslims zelf, binnen de gegeven politieke, juridische, economische en sociale omstandigheden, betekenis geven aan hun leven in Nederland. Dat is ook waar mijn proefschrift en dat van anderen zoals Welmoet Boender van het ISIM en Susan Ketner van de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen over gaat. Misschien moeten we toch maar eens opschieten met dat proefschrift.

(more…)

1 comment.

Van waterdruppel tot mens: Moslims, evolutie & intelligent design

Posted on June 5th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Internal Debates, Islam in the Netherlands, Multiculti Issues, Religious and Political Radicalization, Some personal considerations, Young Muslims.

Nou ja ik ben iets te jong om de Big Bang meegemaakt te hebben en volgens mijn moeder ook nog eens een wandelend Intelligent Design (…maar hoever ben je nu eigenlijk met je proefschrift?), maar heb toch wel wat te zeggen over het door minister Van der Hoeven aangezwengelde debat.

Van der Hoeven’s pleidooi voor een debat over ID hoeft helemaal niet weggegooid te worden, maar als ze denkt hiermee multiculti spanningen op te lossen, slaat ze de plank mis. Vragen als ‘wat zegt de islam over de evolutietheorie’ of ‘wat zegt de koran over de schepping’ zijn wel interessant voor moslims, maar zijn totaal onbelangrijk als we houding en gedrag van moslims in Nederland willen verklaren. Wanneer we daar iets meer van willen weten, moeten we niet met de Koran beginnen, maar moeten we onderzoeken hoe moslims zelf, binnen de gegeven politieke, juridische, economische en sociale omstandigheden, betekenis geven aan hun leven in Nederland. Dat is ook waar mijn proefschrift en dat van anderen zoals Welmoet Boender van het ISIM en Susan Ketner van de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen over gaat. Misschien moeten we toch maar eens opschieten met dat proefschrift.

(more…)

1 comment.

‘No god but God’: The War Within Islam – New York Times

Posted on May 30th, 2005 by .
Categories: Internal Debates.

‘No god but God’: The War Within Islam – New York Times
‘No god but God’: The War Within Islam
By MAX RODENBECK

THESE are rough times for Islam. It is not simply that frictions have intensified lately between Muslims and followers of other faiths. There is trouble, and perhaps even greater trouble, brewing inside the Abode of Peace itself, the notional Islamic ummah or nation that comprises a fifth of humanity.

News reports reveal glimpses of such trouble — for instance, in the form of flaring strife between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in places like Iraq and Pakistan. Yet the greater tensions, while similarly rooted in the distant past, are less visible to the wider world. The rapid expansion of literacy among Muslims in the past half-century, and of access to new means of communication in the last decade, have created a tremendous momentum for change. Furious debates rage on the Internet, for example, about issues like the true meaning of jihad, or how to interpret and apply Islamic law, or how Muslim minorities should engage with the societies they live in.

What is unfolding, Reza Aslan argues in his wise and passionate book, ”No god but God,” is nothing less than a struggle over who will ultimately define the sweeping ”Islamic Reformation” that he believes is already well under way across much of the Muslim world. The West, he says, is ”merely a bystander — an unwary yet complicit casualty of a rivalry that is raging in Islam over who will write the next chapter in its story.”

(more…)

0 comments.

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