Nihari Nation

COMMENT: Back to square 1 ...

2011-10-30T23:34:00.000+11:00

When I first started this blog, I named it madhab al-irfy. That name offended a fair few people, and led to accusations that I was seeking to start my own school of sacred thought and/or law.

The purpose of the blog was in fact to put on cyberpaper my infantile spiritual reflections. I didn't want to cloud my views on religion and religiosity on the other blog, Planet Irf (though I'm not sure I succeeded in this regard).

So what on earth is madhab al-irfy? What is my view on how orthodoxy is defined? And why should anyone give a shite?

My views on orthodoxy haven't really changed since the early 1990's. At the time, these weren't terribly fashionable views. Here are some of them in a nutshell, each followed by a random image:

1. No need to reinvent the wheel. If you want to follow the sacred law of Islam in your life, you have four (4) schools of law to choose from. All are equally valid. Just pick one and off you go.

2. You can't just pick and choose between schools of law. Though at times, you can pick an easier option when the option within your chosen school is just too tough. But picking and choosing for the sake of it takes away your sense of discipline.

3. Islam has an outer and inner tradition. Some call the inner tradition tasawwuf, others call it ihsan, others zuhd and others (my favourite!) irfan. Then there is that word 'sufism' that makes me ill.

4. The inner science is best (or rather, necessarily) learned from a qualified teacher. No Byron Bay sufism for me, thanks.

5. All sacred sciences of Islam are transmitted from teacher to student. Teachers were once students of teachers who were once students of teachers who were ... and on and on, all the way back to the people of the salaf, the first three generations.

6. There are two legitimate ways among Sunnis to express one's beliefs. These are known as Ashari and Maturidi. Hardly any difference between the two.

7. I like the Tabligh Jamaat, but I wish they'd phone ahead.

8. I like the Barelwi chaps but I wish they weren't so fractious.

9. I love both of them, but I wish they'd keep their disputes geographically limited to the Indian sub-Continent.

10. I unconditionally love my Shia brethren, even if I find some of their views on history uncomfortable.

11. Anyone who claims all salafis/wahhabis are terrorists is a moron who should return to the Planet G%7eHFRFft. Believe me, things aren't nice on that planet. (As in, yes, I once promoted the same rubbish.)

12. People who claim to be religious scholars but refuse to show their qualifications when asked are more likely than not complete fraudsters. Any qualified scholars who continue to support them are parties to the fraud. May God help them.

13. Scholars and imams who defend violence against women and/or children are evil.

Gee, what else? Would anyone like to add some more?

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NEWS: Muhammad gets totally tanked on a plane

2011-04-17T11:46:00.001+10:00

And in breaking news, some bloke named Muhammad gets completely sloshed on a plane. He has to appear before a magistrate. How embarrassing. Here is what Fairfax has to say:

Khairulddin Mohammad Yahya swore loudly at the inflight supervisor and poked him in the chest before the captain left the cockpit to deal with him.

Melbourne Magistrates Court yesterday heard that Yahya, 22, swore loudly at the supervisor while a passenger told his mother to shut him up because he was frightening people. Prosecutor Aman Dhillon told the court that Yahya repeatedly left his economy seat and sat next to his mother in business class after her requests for his upgrade were refused.

OK, so his name was Mohammad, not Muhammad. Whateva.

Mr Dhillon said hours after the Malyasian Airlines flight left Kuala Lumpur on July 22 last year, he was seen in the vacant seat next to his mother. He complied with a request to return to his seat but, soon after, reappeared whereupon the supervisor detected alcohol on him.

Mr Dhillon said that several hours before landing Yahya again sat in business where he called the supervisor a "motherf-----" and to "f--- all of you".

The captain, who noticed Yahya slurred his words and smelt of alcohol, asked his mother to tell him to return to his seat and stop harassing the crew.

Swearing. Drunken behaviour. But hang on. Isn't that what engineering grads normally get upto? And what did the magistrate rule?

Senior magistrate Dan Muling told Yahya, who pleaded guilty to disorderly behaviour on an aircraft, that he was out of control. "It's like you're a terrorist on a plane," Mr Muling said.

Yahya was convicted and fined $1500.

Not good enough. Send him off to Supermax.

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MEDIA: Jetlagged analysis of 60 Minutes ...

2011-03-21T09:27:00.000+11:00

No, I'm not jetlagged right now. I'm just pain-killer-lagged thanks to having some recent surgery. And so I really couldn't be bothered right now to write something about a recent silly episode of Channel 9's Sexy ... woops ... 60 Minutes show on multiculturalism and other big words tabloid TV hacks find hard to spell, let alone understand.

With that in mind, here is something I wrote for Margo's Webdiary back in January 2006.

Jetlagged analysis on upcoming 60 minutes show

By Irfan Yusuf
Created 31/01/2006 - 16:09

Two weeks ago, while I was sitting in a mini-bus melting in the 300% humidity and then boiling in the heatwave-like conditions of Jakarta, I received a call from a mate in Sydney. The conversation went something like this:

HE: Listen, dude. 60 Minutes wanted to have me on some panel. I’ll be on my honeymoon. I presumed you’d be interested so I gave them your contact details.

ME (somewhat excitedly): You f#cking what?

HE: It’s ok. It’ll go for an hour and will be live. I would’ve done it except the missus would have killed me for cancelling the honeymoon.

ME: What’s this panel about? Industrial relations?

HE: No, some crap to do with Cronulla. You know how they are. They want a few token Muslims who actually speak English.

ME: Mate, you know I’m sick of being the village Muslim!

HE: Dude, I already told the bloke you’d do it. Anyway, they are going to call you, so have your phone on.

ME: Yeah, right. Have a good honeymoon.

The Perfect Face for Radio

Over the next few days, I made sure I sent and received enough text messages to use up the entire charge in my phone. I was not keen to appear on any commercial TV show on the Cronulla issue. Why?

Well, for a start, I am becoming a bit tired of being a commentator on anything remotely to do with that confusing and convoluted group known as the “Muslim Community”. Unless if it’s radio. Heck, if it’s Radio National, bring it on. Even being on the other end of the line with Alan Jones wasn’t terribly devastating.

But TV just isn’t my thing. It might be in 12 months time, once this diet begins to kick in. Until then, in relation to the world of television, my only comment is that I have the perfect face for radio.

(Unless I’m sitting across the table from Maxine McHugh. Lateline – bring it on!)

Not only that, I do have my doubts about 60 Minutes. OK, admittedly the show isn’t as infantile and unethical as Today Tonight, a show that makes Jerry Springer and his guests look like the Op-Ed pages of the New Zealand Herald. But the prospect of being on a one hour panel with a whole bunch of Muslim dimwits who couldn’t argue their way out of a paper bag was not my way of overcoming jetlag.

Nonsensical Spokespeople

I’ve been on some forums with Muslim “leaders” before. I remember a forum on Channel 9’s Today Show which took place some 20 days after the London bombing. I was on there with Sheik Fehmi, one of the few imams who can speak English. There was also a lady from the Muslim Women’s National Network of Australia (MWNNA) who sadly didn’t get much of a chance to speak. The rest of the crowd were an embarrassment.

There was the representative from the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC), which is apparently the peak body of Muslims. This chappy was boasting about how his organisation had issued a letter condemning the London attacks.

From memory, the letter was dated 27 July 2005. The bombing happened on 7 July 2005. It took the organisation 20 days to issue a condemnation of terrorism. But when Michelle Leslie took off her scarf and put on a singlet top and hipsters (presumably so that she could fit in with all the Aussie Muslim chicks in Auburn and Broadmeadows), it took AFIC around 20 seconds to condemn her.

Then there’s that poor fellow who works in a convenience store. Wassim Doureihi is wasting away his life working for the big chief of the fringe group Hizbut Tehrir (HT) who owns a host of convenience stores in and around Sydney. This young Aussie Muslim is talented and full of energy. Why he wastes his time grinding the axes and selling over-priced soft drinks for a fringe group baffles me.

Ethnic Islam & Aussie Mossies

Actually, it doesn’t. Why? Because I could so easily have been him. You see, folks, AFIC and all the other middle aged migrant male-dominated Muslim organisations have created a system of mosques in which Islam is little more than a cultural relic of life in Muslim countries half a century ago.

Today in Pakistan and Bangladesh guys and girls may be hitting the nightclubs, but women are still not allowed in the Pakistani and Bangladeshi mosques of Sydney. The Lebanese Moslems Association may have had some kind of generational change, it Islam is still a strictly Lebanese phenomenon at the Imam Ali Mosque in Lakemba. The congregation there may be multi-racial, but most of them are barred from joining the LMA due to constitutional apartheid that only allows persons eligible for a Lebanese passport to be on the committee.

Most Imams cannot speak English. They are imported from overseas and poorly paid. Their job description is simple – do whatever it takes to make sure Islam remains a cultural relic for first generation migrants, thereby guaranteeing its almost complete irrelevance to young Australian-born Muslims who make up the majority of Australia’s Muslim community.

So what has this to do with Aussie Muslim kids following wacky fringe groups? The mainstream Imams may not speak English. Their employers may be lost on a cultural time warp. But mainstream Islamic theology which these imams can teach when they extricate themselves from their employers’ cultural time warp is not something anyone should be worried about. In fact, it is the best antidote to religious extremism.

But the migrant self-appointed elders and leaders are keeping this mainstream Islam from young Muslims who are brought up in Australia and cannot recognise fringe groups for what they are. Further, so many of the English-language materials we grew up with and which were given to us by lazy and stingy leaders were hand-outs from some radical Saudi and Pakistani publishers committed to an isolationist theology.

Getting Over Radicalism

Hence, so many of us forced to learn Islam from books have been exposed to writers on the more radical end of the Muslim literary spectrum. This in itself is no big deal. I’m sure more senior readers here will recall dabbling in those little red books of Chairman Mao.

And I do recall some months back spending an hour or so with a theatre full of well-heeled ex-lefties as they cheered on that mad Argentinian dentist as he swam across the Amazon after riding a motor cycle across South America before hanging out with Ayatollah Castro for a while.

Was I in Newtown or Glebe at the time? Nope. Roseville. In the heart of Sydney’s North Shore.

I may have read my fair share of Dr Ali Shariati and other ideologues of the Iranian Revolution. I might have attended a few lectures given by Afghan mujahideen leaders. Though admittedly that was the time when they were directed by the Grand Ayatollahs Ronald Reagan and George Bush Snr.

I’ve read my quota of radical stuff. But it didn’t take me long to get over it.

(Actually, in Shariati’s case, I haven’t quite gotten over it. If anything, the current lot of conservative Iranian mullahs are well and truly over this super-funky Sorbonne-educated Iranian sociologist. His work is deemed too liberal and is banned in Iran.)

But not all young people get over their flirtation with radicalism. For many Aussie Mossies, their first impressions of Islamic faith are lasting. Mainstream imams and mosques often cannot provide them with spiritual and ideological antidote.

I strongly doubt people like young Wassim will do anything risking national security. Their rhetoric is radical, but their actions are harmless. Although it only takes just a handful of serious wackos to … I don’t even want to think about it.

Individual Responsibility

Yes, I realise that each individual has to take responsibility for their own actions. We can’t go on always saying society is to blame. Unless, of course, if we are on the funnier end of the human spectrum and do talk shows for ABC TV.

In a sense, all Muslim individuals are responsible for the near-complete cultural irrelevance of their imams. In the same sense that all Catholics and Anglicans are to blame if a small group in their churches try to cover up for paedophile priests.

If Muslim dimwits keep speaking for Aussie Muslims, it’s because educated articulate Muslims able to understand the Aussie mainstream don’t speak out. And their silence is allowing the dimwits to confuse the hell out of mainstream Australia.

Getting Back to 60 Minutes

You might recall my leaving the mobile phone uncharged for a few days in Indonesia so that I could avoid receiving a call. The following week, I felt a bit guilty and sent an e-mail to the producers. I vaguely recall someone ringing me the next morning, but it was at around 4am.

The 60 Minutes dude finally managed to track me down when I had just touched down in Sydney. He sent me the blurb via e-mail. Here it is...

Cronulla Forum

On February 8, the 60 Minutes program is holding a forum to discuss the Cronulla riots. The forum, chaired by 60 Minutes, will be filmed and televised nationally in late February.

While calm has been restored to Sydney’s beachfront, the underlying problems that caused this unprecedented eruption of violence remain.

This was not just a suburban territorial dispute, nor simply a law and order issue – it struck at the very heart of multiculturalism in Australia, highlighting serious social problems caused by mistrust, alienation, frustration and anger.

Why did it happen and how can this potentially explosive situation be resolved?

60 Minutes is keen to involve young Muslims and non-Muslims to hear their views on what is undoubtedly the most important social issue in Australia today.

Er, I never knew Muslims were an issue in Cronulla. I understand persons of Middle Eastern appearance may be problematic to some Cronulla locals. Perhaps we might even narrow that down further to persons of Lebanese extraction and of Middle Eastern appearance.

The forum will be held in the Sydney Entertainment Centre. Apparently Ray Martin will be hosting it. It will go for around an hour, and will then be edited down to 20 minutes.

So we might have 200 people in the hall from all different sides of the argument – Cronulla locals, white supremacists, non-English speaking imams, Leb kids with bad attitudes and even worse haircuts, non-Leb surfie kids with bad attitudes and smelling of too much beer and cheap Byron Bay gunja, etc. We each have to try and contribute something within a space of 60 minutes. This gives us all a space of 18 seconds to say something. Then the show will be edited down, enabling each person to get 6 seconds on the channel. That’s 6 seconds to express one’s self on multiculturalism and alienation and Lebbos and all that stuff.

And what will be the focus of the edited version?

From the wording of the blurb, it seems the 60 Minutes crew regard the entire Cronulla thing to become a debate about Aussie Mossies. And with 6 seconds each, even the most articulate Aussie Mossie (or indeed Aussie anything) will have little chance to say anything useful.

And what is the point of running things this way? In what way will viewers be more enlightened about the issues underlying the riots?

Once I get over my jetlag, I will address more on this issue. Until then, I’m off for another nap. Selamat Lemmegetsomesleep.

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VIDEO: The mother of Salman

2011-03-13T06:11:00.000+11:00

The late Salman Hamdani was an American hero. He was a 'first responder' on September 11 2001, placing himself in harm's way to save other human beings. For 6 months, he was regarded as a suspect. Then when his remains were found at Ground Zero, Salman Hamdani was finally exonerated.

For those 6 months, his parents lived a double jeopardy of distress - their son was missing and they had neighbours looking at them suspiciously as rumours spread that their son may have been a terrorist.

Now with a terror-loving congressman holding hearings into Muslim radicalism, Salman Hamdani's story was being cited by Congressman Keith Ellison in his emotional testimony. And the American Right are having a field day of bigotry, alleging Ellison made the whole thing up. Matthew Shaffer, a Fellow at the National Review Institute, does some googling and alleges that there really weren't any serious rumours about Hamdani at all.

Shaffer should tell this to Talat Hamdani, Salman's mum. Here's what she has to say:

Despite his noble instincts, the tabloid media initially suggested that because of his Pakistani-American heritage, he might have been involved with the attacks.

My grief was compounded by the suspicions that clouded Salman's name and the suggestion that his faith -- my faith -- not the acts of 19 murderers, was somehow responsible.

Her entire piece, written in response to the IRA-supporting Peter King witch hunt, should be read in full.

All of which just goes to show how irrational is racial and religious profiling.

Words © 2011 Irfan Yusuf

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VIDEO: Protecting victims of violence against women in Dubai

2011-03-12T07:45:00.000+11:00

This is a report from 2007 about an American woman living in Dubai who has set up an organisation providing shelter to victims of domestic violence, sex trafficking and other forms of abuse. Yes, it happens in all societies including nominally Muslim ones. And even the wealthiest of them are not immune.

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VIDEO: Congressman Keith Ellison testifies ...

2011-03-11T18:39:00.000+11:00

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VIDEO: Hamza Yusuf talks about the King hearings and increasing Muslim-phobia in the United States

2011-03-11T05:14:00.000+11:00

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PROFILE: Brigitte Gabriel - American wacko

2011-03-10T23:46:00.000+11:00

Brigitte Gabriel isn't her real name. Apparently she is too afraid to use her real name in case she is attacked.

Attacked? By who?

Gabriel is an all-American wacko, a master xenophobe who has made it her mission to convince Americans that any and every Muslim anywhere and everywhere is plotting and scheming to destroy America.

Gabriel has visited Australia in May 2007 when she was keynote speaker at a dinner hosted by the Jewish National Fund. Then Prime Minister John Howard was also present at the dinner.

The New York Times recently profiled Gabriel recently. She is described as

... one of the most visible personalities on a circuit of self-appointed terrorism detectors who warn that Muslims pose an enormous danger within United States borders.

Here's how the NYT quotes her.

“America has been infiltrated on all levels by radicals who wish to harm America,” she said. “They have infiltrated us at the C.I.A., at the F.B.I., at the Pentagon, at the State Department. They are being radicalized in radical mosques in our cities and communities within the United States.”

Any reasonably objective person would hear Gabriel's message and realise she is trying to push a barrel.

She presents a portrait of Islam so thoroughly bent on destruction and domination that it is unrecognizable to those who study or practice the religion.

Like so many xenophobic fruitloops, Gabriel insists that she has no truck with 'moderate' Muslims. She's only worried about Muslims as extreme as her.

She insists that she is singling out only “radical Islam” or Muslim “extremists” — not the vast majority of Muslims or their faith. And yet, in her speeches and her two books, she leaves the opposite impression. She puts it most simply in the 2008 introduction to her first book, “Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America.”

“In the Muslim world, extreme is mainstream,” she wrote. She said that there is a “cancer” infecting the world, and said: “The cancer is called Islamofacism. This ideology is coming out of one source: The Koran.”

And in case you thought Gabriel's followers only had problems with Muslims, think again.

ACT! members are challenging high school textbooks and college courses that they deem too sympathetic to Islam. A group leader in Eugene, Ore., signed up to teach a community college course on Islam, but it was canceled when a Muslim group exposed his blog postings denouncing Islam and denying the scope of the Holocaust.

And while Gabriel and her ilk claim to target terrorism, the reality is that their conspiracy-mongering and hate-speech is actually helping extremists.

Brian Fishman, a research fellow at both the New America Foundation in Washington, and the Combating Terrorism Center at the United States Military Academy at West Point, said, “When you’ve got folks who are looking for the worst in Islam and are promoting that as the entire religion of 1.5 or 1.6 billion people, then you only empower the real extremists.”

Unfortunately I cannot embed this interview on CNN. Gabriel belongs to the Hilaly school of answering questions, forever claiming to be quoted out of context. She also claims that the Prime Minister of Australia is some person named Erbekan.

Still, here's Brigitte talking about Obama being a Muslim.

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COMMENT: Critical Muslim Studies?

2011-03-06T08:28:00.003+11:00

The University of South Australia has just established the Bob Hawke International Centre for Muslim and Non-Muslim Understanding. Here is an excerpt from its website.

Critical Muslim Studies draws on and extends the insights of post-Orientalism, post-colonialism and post-structuralism in examining the assumptions of western hegemony, the political formations of Muslim and non-Muslim subjectivities and the unresolved imbrications of multiculturalism and racism ...

One of the ways of conceiving coloniality is to see it as a framework in which the distinction between the West and non-West becomes the overriding dyad that structures the world. The reduction of the non-West to a residual category announced the subaltern position of the rest of the world as a lack in relation to the West.

I believe English language interpreters will be provided in all courses at the Centre. And I thought lawyers were bad at communication.

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INDIA: Eleven sentenced to death as mass murderers remain in power

2011-03-02T03:00:00.000+11:00

Eleven Indian Muslims have been sentenced to death by a court in Gujarat for setting fire in 2002 to a train carrying Hindu pilgrims, amongst them a contingent of supporters of a fundamentalist political party. Some 60 people were killed in that fire which led to communal rioting that saw over 2,000 civilians systematically massacred. Those orchestrating the massacre have managed to escape responsibility.

63 other accused were acquitted while some 20 were given life sentences. Here is a timeline of the case. All accused had been detained since 2002.

The sentence was awarded as Indian Muslims across the world commemorated the 9th anniversary of the Gijarat pogrom.

Here is an excerpt from an AlJazeera report:

Narendra Modi, Gujarat's chief minister and a prominent member of the BJP, was accused of failing to stop the riots, and even of encouraging them.

Gujarat officials have denied the claims.

Last month an Indian supreme court panel criticised Modi for his "partisan" handling of the unrest, but found no evidence to justify criminal prosecution of him.

A national enquiry into the fire concluded the fire was an accident, but other official investigations have differed in their findings.

One prominent civil rights lawyer, Prashant Bhushan, questioned the verdict and the evidence used.

It is a totally wrong verdict, based on wrong evidence ... Though the sentenced persons can go to the higher courts, what is needed is a re-investigation. The case is based on wrong premise that warrants a re-investigation ... On any account, the sentenced persons cannot be charged with murder and conspiracy. At the worst, they should be charged for arson.

One of those acquitted was one Muslim religious scholar, Maulana Husain Umarji, who has been demonised by the Gujarati media. Here is what a columnist from The Hindu has to say about Maulana Umarji.

... the 70-plus maulvi became the monster that he remains now in the eyes of most of those who lost family members on the Sabarmati Express. The acquittal of 63 accused in the train burning case has annoyed them, but it is for the Maulana that they reserve their anger, citing his “role” in inciting the mob — as reported by the media. The tragedy is that the role played by the Maulana was exactly the opposite. It was only he who, after the burning of the train, expressed regret on behalf of his community, repeatedly and publicly. Again, he alone restrained the young Ghanchi Muslims whose blood boiled at the sight of raped and battered Muslims pouring into the relief camps in Godhra during the massacres which followed the Godhra train-burning, and who itched to retaliate against the police for their continuous combing operations in Muslim localities after the incident.

Anil Dharker writing in the Hindustan Times also has some pertinent things to say about the verdict.

On the face of it, the judgement seems to contradict itself. As we now know, 31 people were convicted for criminal conspiracy, while 63 were acquitted. Significantly of the 63, there were two people, Maulvi Hussain Umarji and the then president of the municipality, Billal Hussain Kalota, who were accused to be the main conspirators. If your main conspirators are innocent, how can you have a conspiracy?

Can't argue with that.

Words © 2011 Irfan Yusuf

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NEWS: Housemaids in Saudi Arabia resorting to suicide

2011-03-01T21:33:00.000+11:00

I've blogged about abuse of women in Saudi Arabia in the past. An article published around 12 months ago in the Arab News (a Saudi paper) reports about the situation with domestic servants working in the Kingdom. This includes violence and mistreatment of various forms.

In the last couple of years there have been countless reports of abuse in the media, including testimonies from maids about the withholding of salaries, verbal or physical abuse and restrictions on their movements ...

Maids who are physically or emotionally abused have no choice but to either run away or attempt suicide. Those maids are expected to work around the clock, sleeping for only two or three hours a night.

“I worked in a house where the sponsors used to feed us one meal a day and lock the fridge later to make sure we didn’t eat anything else,” said Salma, an Indonesian housemaid.

Earlier this year, a maid tried to hang herself from the ceiling. Another tried to drink detergent to end her life. Yet another threw herself from the window of a building. The lucky ones were saved. Maids are also beaten up or sexually abused by their sponsors. An Arab News report published on Feb. 27 told the story of an Indonesian maid taken to hospital when she fell from the third floor of her sponsor’s building.

The doctors later found that the maid had been beaten up and tortured and found burns and lashing marks on her back. They also detected internal bleeding and an injury to her head.

I'm not sure whether the Prophet Muhammad would recognise those employing these servants as his followers. And in case you thought it was just happening in Saudi Arabia ...

Words © 2011 Irfan Yusuf

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COMMENT: TreasoNamaz in Tennessee

2011-03-01T19:20:00.000+11:00

Five times a day Muslims are supposed to perform a special kind of worship. In Arabic, it's called salaat. But to millions of Muslims in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey, Albania, Bosnia etc, it's known as namaz.

It is performed in accordance with certain regulations concerning washing and physical postures. All of these are governed by a sacred law known as sharia.

And if a number of lawmakers in the poor state of Tennessee have their way, it will become an act of treason.

The Tennessean website reports on 23/02:

A proposed Tennessee law would make following the Islamic code known as Shariah law a felony, punishable by 15 years in jail.

Wow. That's more than what you might get for bashing your Christian wife. So who is behind this unusual piece of legislation?

State Sen. Bill Ketron, R-Murfreesboro, and state Rep. Judd Matheny, R-Tullahoma, introduced the same bill in the Senate and House last week. It calls Shariah law a danger to homeland security and gives the attorney general authority to investigate complaints and decide who's practicing it.

It exempts peaceful practice of Islam but labels any adherence to Shariah law — which includes religious practices such as feet washing and prayers — as treasonous. It claims Shariah adherents want to replace the Constitution with their religious law.

Believe it or not, similar bills have been moved in other US State legislatures. But the Tennessee one goes much further. It provides for criminal sanctions against anyone found to be involved in the practice of sharia.

And who drafted this bill?

The Tennessee bill goes further by proposing criminal penalties for following Shariah ... the bill was model legislation, given to him by the Tennessee Eagle Forum, a conservative advocacy group.

Bobbie Patray, state president of the Eagle Forum, confirmed that the law had been drafted by David Yerushalmi, a Chandler, Ariz.-based attorney. Yerushalmi runs the Society of Americans for National Existence, a nonprofit that says following Shariah is treasonous.

And so we see a bunch of alleged Christians attacking the liturgy of another monotheistic faith. The language is largely the same. The only difference is that the targets aren't Jews this time round.

And sadly some Jews are involved.

Words © 2011 Irfan Yusuf

Throw this treacherous sandnigger in jail for 15 years!!

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REFLECTION: Anne and Nada

2011-02-28T23:05:00.000+11:00

This article was first published on the Webdiary on 21 November 2005.

On the evening of Thursday 17 November 2005, I saw one of the unsung heroines of Muslim Australia tell it as it was. The good folks at the Uniya Jesuit Social Justice Centre invited Nada Roude to be grilled by Anne Henderson.

The night was billed as one feisty woman having a conversation with another. In this case, Nada came out the feistier one.

Anne is one of the leading lights of the Sydney Institute, headed by her husband Dr Gerard Henderson. Anne is also an accomplished author and (believe it or not) is a strong advocate for the human rights of asylum seekers. She has an Irish Catholic heritage, and has written much on post-war immigrants and their experiences settling in Australia.

Nada was a founding member of the Muslim Women's Association, and also founded Sydney's first refuge catering for the needs of Muslim women in need of crisis accommodation. For many years, Nada worked for the Premier's Department and what was then the Ethnic Affairs Commission of NSW.

Today, amongst her other activities, Nada collects mail for the Islamic Council of NSW. Sadly, much of it is hate-mail. Nada chose not to elaborate too much on the contents of some of these letters, preferring to focus on her life and vision for a better of Australia.

Unlike the bulk of Lebanese Muslim migrants, whose arrival in Australia coincided with the Lebanese civil war and the Israeli invasion (i.e. from mid-1970's to the mid-80's), Nada's family arrived in Australia in the early 1960's. When she arrived in Australia at age seven, Nada spoke no English but plenty of Arabic and French.

Nada commenced school in grade five. Back in those days, there were no ESL lessons in schools. Nada had to survive by relying on the extra care of her teacher, a New Zealander she remembers as Mrs Burns. Thenkfullay Nada doesn't speak Unglush un the minnar thus sintunse uz wruttin.

Nada did her serious adolescent growing during the 1970's, around the time I stull shuttung un my neppays (as Mrs Burns might have said). Those were the days when Muslim migrants didn't stand out like sore thumbs.

Back then, what counted most to Nada was surviving as the child of Lebanese migrants. She was somehow different, and spent much of her time trying to conform but also trying to educate her class fellows about her culture. She even admitted to starting a Lebanese dance group.

No, not belly dancing. Folk dancing.

In those days, Nada felt her ethnicity was the most important feature of her life as it was her greatest source of vulnerability. Those were the days when Lebanese were Lebanese, regardless of religion. Actually, in Australia, that has pretty much always been the case.

In Year 10, Nada was elected school captain. She didn't cover her head in those days, but she still stood out with her darker hair and skin colour. Nada's school principal wouldn't tolerate a Lebanese school captain, and Nada had to accept a less prominent role as vice captain. It was Nada's first experience of official discrimination.

In those days, the school authorities presumed that all Lebanese girls would just leave school and get married off to someone who wanted lots of kiddies. As such, Nada spent 6 months of her senior school, years involved in the pursuit of weaving. Her designs apparently continue to grace the wall of the office of the Director-General of the Department of Education. She ended up coming first in the state for Art.

Nada's family knew she was not going to be the orthodox Lebanese girl. She surprised Lebanese family friends by travelling overseas alone after finishing Year 12. She studied comparative religion in Malaysia, before moving to Singapore and eventually finding herself stuck at Beirut Airport with the late Al Grassby during the Israeli siege.

It was at this time that Nada decided that the only place she would ever call home was Sydney. I don't blame her. If I had to spend days being shelled by rockets and rained on with shrapnel whilst in the company of a man whose coloured ties shone more brightly than Israeli flares, I'd be calling Australia home as well.

When Nada returned from her overseas tour of universities and war zones, she made the decision to place a hijab on her head. This was also a revolutionary step, as few Muslim women identified themselves with the hijab. This didn't stop her from being a fiercely independent woman.

Nada told her story with such passion and gusto that Anne found it hard to get a word in. The only other question I remember Anne asking Nada was about her thoughts on how Muslims dealt with suspicion and hatred. It was here that Nada really showed why she made it to at least 2 episodes of Geoffrey Robertson's Hypothetical.

Nada made the important point that Muslims have always been part of the Australian landscape. Muslim involvement in Australia pre-dates the first European discoveries. Northern Australia appears in Arab maps dating back to the 11th century. Muslim fishermen regularly traded with indigenous peoples across Northern Australia. Around two-thirds of Australia's Muslim community were actually born in Australia.

Nada reminded her audience that Australia has forever been a land of migrants. She remembers the days when Indo-Chinese were treated with suspicion and hatred. She recognised that Australians as a nation are still learning to come to terms with differences in culture and language.

In the case of Muslims, the problem has become worse given that what makes some Muslims stand out from the crowd carries religious overtones. Aussies aren't exactly known for their religiosity or indeed their reverence toward the symbols of any religion.

Nada recalled a time when new Lebanese migrants would anglicise their names to fit in. Muhammad would become Michael, and Osama would become Allan. One Muslim stand-up comic from America, Azhar Usman, puts it like this:

I reckon somewhere out there, there's gotta be a guy named Haris Patel who says to his friends at work: 'If you can't say Haris Patel, just call me Harry Potter!'

But as multiculturalism really began to bloom during the Fraser, Hawke and Keating years, many Lebanese Muslims de-anglicised their names. Women starting wearing pieces of cloth on their heads, and open expression of religious symbols became the norm.

Muslim Aussies, especially recently arrived migrants, felt comfortable and accepted. I recall during the 2001 Auburn by-election, even the NSW Liberal Party started taking Muslim voters seriously. Though they wouldn't let an Aussie Mossie be their endorsed candidate. Such is life.

But then something happened. Two jets crashed into the Twin Towers, and one hit the Pentagon. People of Muslim and Sikh backgrounds were immediately implicated. Within a few days, Sydney's Daily Telegraph showed on its cover the headline "First Arrest!". Some bloke with a turban was being held by FBI agents and taken into custody.

I looked at the cover. I looked at the turban. The poor dude was a Sikh. The first person to be murdered in retaliation for September 11 was also a Sikh. In those days, it was bad enough just to be deemed Muslim.

Nada's work as a Muslim activist since September 11 has, in her own words, been just "putting out one fire after another". She says many young Aussie-born Muslims are returning to their parents' and ancestors' faith as an act of defiance. Many of these people feel their heritage is being unfairly targeted, and in a true Aussie fashion are seeking to protect the underdog.

Since September 11, more Muslims are feeling the heat. Comments made by certain politicians and media personalities are not helping in this regard. Nada resents the fact that only thick-Sheiks are being made accountable for their hate-speech but not certain tabloid columnists or Liberal backbenchers.

Nada's biggest hope is the grassroots Aussies who know Muslims through work or as good neighbours. She recalls how touched she was when her neighbour brought her a bunch of flowers and said: "I don't care what other people say. I know you had nothing to do with September 11."

Nada's prescription for the illness of social paranoia is normal human interaction. She wants people to relate to each other as human beings with human frailties, not as Muslims or Christians or Callithumpians. She made the point that all faith communities have shared problems and experiences. If people saw each other as fellow human beings and emphasised their commonalities, we would all realise that our differences are in fact a good excuse to break the ice and get to know one another.

Nada ended her speech by saying how much she wanted to have lunch with Alan Jones. Anne Henderson said she would try and arrange it. I wouldn't mind attending either. I'd love to see Nada gently de-constructing Alan's rhetoric and teaching him a thing or two about what it means to be Australian.

Words © 2005-11 Irfan Yusuf

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COMMENT: Senator Mitch Fifield on sharia

2011-02-21T02:09:00.000+11:00

This car was convicted of adultery.

The Sunday Telegraph cited Liberal Victorian senator Mitch Fifield as follows:

Australians revel in diversity and embrace different cultures but they expect people who come to Australia to sign up to mainstream values. You have to muck in with the rest of the community and not develop a sort of separate society.

Indeed. I recall Captain Arthur Phillip adopting the values of indigenous spirituality and learning to speak local languages.

We need to heed the lessons of the UK where you have whole suburbs which are basically separate entities to the rest of the community.

A bit like Chinatown in Sydney. A huge tourist attraction.

There are some interpretations of Islam which aren't healthy and aren't compatible with Australian values, such as sharia law.

The values of sharia are totally alien to Australian values? Let's consider them for a short while. I'll quote myself on this one.

Costello says most migrants become Australian citizens because they want to embrace the things this country stands for. He lists six core Australian values, including economic opportunity, security, democracy and personal freedom.

In 2002, a visiting Indonesian academic lawyer delivered a series of lectures under the auspices of the Centre for Independent Studies. Professor Mohammad Fajrul Falaakh is a vice-dean of the Gadjah Mada University, among the top 100 universities in the world. Falaakh is also a senior figure in the Council of Theologians, or Nahdatul Ulama, the world's largest Islamic organisation.

In the annual CIS Acton Lecture, on the topic of sharia and pluralism in Indonesia, Falaakh listed five basic values of sharia, agreed on by sharia scholars from all schools of Islamic law. If one compares the five principles of sharia to the six values espoused by Costello, one finds they are virtually identical.

... sharia is not the name of a draconian system of legal punishments. It is not a synonym for amputations and beheadings. Rather, sharia is a legal tradition, a set of legal principles based on certain values. And those values are identical to those expressed in the Old and New Testaments.

Further, legal scholars in the East and West agree that the traditions of sharia, English common law (from which our legal systems are derived) and European civil law have borrowed from, and influenced, each other.

Some commentators present sharia as a system of medieval criminal punishments. But for Australian Muslims, sharia represents little more than ethics (honesty, enterprise) and liturgy (how to perform prayers, weddings, funerals).

Fifield is showing the same ignorance of sharia as Peter Costello did back in 2006.

Words © 2011 Irfan Yusuf

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VIDEO: Confronting stereotypes ... er ... sorta

2011-02-20T18:41:00.000+11:00

The Daily Show - Allah in the Family
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

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COMMENT: A note from 2005 about a national Muslim youth summit ...

2011-02-20T17:51:00.000+11:00

This was first published on the Aussie Mossie blog on 29 November 2005. It concerned a youthh summit organised by the former conservative government of John Howard as part of its response to the fear of home-grown terrorism following the July 2005 London bombings.

Flippant Thoughts on this Friday's Youth Summit

This Friday, young Muslims from across Australia will be gathering in Sydney for the inaugural National Muslim Youth Summit. They will discuss a range of issues affecting young Aussie Muslims. These issues include drug & alcohol addiction, family crises, the Anti-Terrorism Bill and Muslim coverage in the media.

You’d think such a summit would be organised by a peak Muslim body such as the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils. Think again. This talkfest is being financed by the Department of Immigration Multicultural & Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA). It is being organised by a non-Muslim NGO called the Australian Multicultural Foundation.

Around two-thirds of Australian Muslims are aged under 40 and were born in Australia. Many Muslim communities – Turks, Bosnians, Albanians, Afghans and Lebanese – are into their 3rd and 4th generation. They have high levels of education and employment and integrate well in mainstream Australian society.

Yet the very fact that AFIC and other Muslim bodies have never organised a Muslim youth summit is indicative of how out-of-touch these migrant-dominated peak bodies are. It also explains why they find it so hard to send the right signals to the broader community understandably seeking some kind of reassurance that the London bombings will not be replicated in Australia.

When asked if any single event changed his perceptions toward national security, Prime Minister John Howard spoke of the London terrorist attacks of 7 July 2005. What made the London attacks so different was that the alleged perpetrators were not foreign terrorists but local boys. The phrase “home grown terror” became part of our vocabulary.

And it wasn’t just in Australia that the shockwaves were felt. Across the Tasman, at least 4 mosques were vandalised in different parts of New Zealand.

Within hours, a small group of grassroots Muslim organisations led by the Islamic Council of Victoria condemned the attacks unconditionally. These organisations had one thing in common – they were managed by Australian-born Muslims who knew how to engage with the Australian mainstream and could address the legitimate concerns Australians of all faiths and no faith in particular held on national security issues.

However, other Muslim peak bodies were much slower in their condemnation. It took the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils around 3 weeks to issue an open letter signed by its president and its mufti (chief imam) to various Muslim groups and associations. The letter made mention not just of the terror attacks but also of the alleged grievances of those carrying out many attacks. A similar letter and with similar timing was issued by the Islamic Council of NSW.

The conditional nature of the condemnations and their delayed release led to suggestions that Australian Muslims would only condemn terrorism when embarrassed into doing so, and only on a conditional basis. The suggestions were, of course, unfair but understandable. What Muslim bodies did not realise was that their management of Muslim affairs was now regarded as a national security issue.

The most recent raids and arrests conducted by ASIO and police raised even more questions about Muslim community management. The majority of those arrested were young men born and brought up in Australia. A number of these men were known to attend youth groups managed by imams and volunteers deemed to be more “radical”.

This naturally led many commentators to ask certain questions. What attracts many local Muslim youth to attend such classes and become part of such groups? Why aren’t mainstream mosques attracting more young people? What facilities and programs are being run by mainstream imams? Are mainstream imams equipped to provide programs to younger home-grown Muslims?

One troubling aspect of Muslim community leadership is that it has not yet figured out exactly who or what it represents. Both AFIC and its New Zealand equivalent (the Federation of Islamic Associations of NZ or FIANZ) are umbrella bodies representing mainly societies responsible for the management of mosques.

At least in Australia, the majority of mosques are divided along ethnic and linguistic lines, and leadership is dominated firmly by first generation middle-aged migrant men with an interest in maintaining the ethnic divisions. The leadership tends to regard mosques and religious activities as cultural artefacts which run parallel to their cultural perception of Islam.

The mosque associations tend to employ imams who fulfil a cultural role. As such, the imams of different mosques will perform different cultural roles depending on the dominant cultural group of the association. Most Friday sermons and other lectures are given in Arabic and another language (usually not English).

Indeed, most sermons being given this Friday will also tend to be in a language most young Muslims will not understand. The inability of mainstream Muslim institutions will be just one of the topics to be addressed this Friday at the National Muslim Youth Summit in Sydney.

Delegates will be divided into 6 subgroups and will brainstorm a number of the issues selected. The summit is perhaps the first time young people across the ethnic and linguistic spectrum of Muslim Australia will be able to discuss and pass on their concerns to the Australian Government.

One would have expected the topics discussed at the summit would form part and parcel of the deliberations and decision making of these bodies. The inability of peak Muslim bodies to involve and engage the youthful Muslim majority will ensure these institutions will become irrelevant in the Australian Muslim landscape. The fact that a government agency and a non-Muslim NGO are taking this initiative is yet another indication of how hopelessly out-of-touch the migrant and middle aged male dominated Muslim leadership is with the community it claims to represent.

Words © 2005-11 Irfan Yusuf

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COMMENT: A useful note with a pompous headline ...

2011-02-20T17:00:00.000+11:00

... and with a few bits worth reading. I'm not sure what I was thinking when I wrote the headline. It was first published on the Aussie Mossie blog on 23 November 2005.

A Message To Imams Across Australia, New Zealand & The World

25 November 2005 falls on a Friday, the day regarded as sacred to Muslims. On this day, Muslims gather at the mosque to pray in congregation. Part of that process includes the delivery of a sermon or “khutbah”.

The Prophet Muhammad has provided guidelines for the delivery of sermons. One od these guidelines is that the khatib (the one who delivers the sermon) is to deal with current issues facing the Muslim community.

Although I am no scholar, I have a humble suggestion for our imams and khatibs for a topic which affects all Muslims, especially Muslim men. I also have a humble request for our imams and khatibs to wear a certain item with their clothing.

The United Nations has designated 25 November to be the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. As part of this day, men wear white ribbons on their chests as a symbol that they will not commit, condone or tolerate any forms of violence against women carried out by other men.

I urge our imams and khatibs to wear a white ribbon on that day, and to encourage the male members of their congregation to also wear the white ribbon.

Islam gave dignity to women. It gave women rights and liberties. But some men, Muslim and non-Muslim, choose to take those rights away. Moreover, some men choose to act violently toward women.

Our greatest exemplar in conduct was the Prophet Muhammad. There is no instance of him ever behaving violently toward a woman. He never engaged in physical or sexual violence toward any women, be they his wives, his daughters or women outside his family.

The Prophet Muhammad brought a scripture which states that husbands and wives are like “garments unto each other”. Which man would rip up or punch or kick his garments?

The Prophet is reported to have said: “The best of you is he who is best to his wife. And I am the best amongst you because of my behaviour with my wife.”

The measure of a man is how he treats his wife. Yet we all know that Muslim men do exist who beat and act violently toward their wives. Often such violence is carried out in the presence of children, or at least comes to the knowledge of the children.

When violence against women is perpetrated in the home, it isn’t just the women victims who suffer. The children are traumatised, and this can last even after they reach maturity. Other men who care for the woman victim – fathers, brothers etc – also suffer.

Indeed, even the perpetrator of the violence suffers. He loses respect of his children. He is increasingly unable to control the anger or other causes of the violence. Most importantly, he eventually loses the woman who could have offered him unconditional love.

Society as a whole loses. And we are losing. Our women are suffering physical and sexual violence at the hands of their husbands and other men. We know it is happening. But many of us come from cultures where domestic violence is hidden.

In Australia and other Western countries, there are laws which forbid domestic violence and which provide women with remedies against the perpetrators. Similar laws exist in Muslim countries.

Yet it troubles me that when I visit a court located in an area of Sydney with a substantial Muslim community, I see names like “Ali” and “Muhammad” and “Umar” and “Abdullah” figuring prominently on the court list as perpetrators of violence toward their female partners.

It also troubles me that I see so many women with names like “Aisha” and “Khadija” and “Yasmin” and “Fatima” as victims.

Women make up at least 50% of the Muslim population, and at least 50% of the human race. Violence against women is condemned across all faiths and schools of thought. So why is it on the increase?

This is not just an issue for Muslims. It is eating at the soul of mankind. We know that God is “ar-Rahman” (absolutely gracious) and “ar-Rahim” (absolutely merciful). We know that these two primary attributes of God come from the root word “Rahm” which means “the womb”.

God uses the example of the female womb to describe His own absolutely mercy. Yet instead of respecting the wombs that carried us, we see women being subject to the worst forms of physical, mental, sexual and emotional violence in our communities. We even see fathers and brothers perpetrating violence for the sake of protecting family honour.

Yet the most honourable and best of men is the one who is best to his wife. This is the standard set for us by our Prophet. It is the standard we have failed.
The Prophet said: “Help your brother, both when he is oppressed and when he oppresses.” Those hearing asked: “How do we help someone when he oppresses?” The Prophet responded: “By stopping him from his oppression.”

Muslim men need to stop their Muslim brothers who deem it acceptable to oppress their wives and other women. The violence against women will only stop when men take a stand. If Muslim men sit by and not stop the evil from occurring, we might as well be lending a hand to the violence.

I humbly call upon all imams and khatibs to deliver this message to the men in their congregations on 25 November 2005.

Words © 2005-11 Irfan Yusuf

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COMMENT: The integration mass debate

2011-02-20T14:01:00.000+11:00

Here we go again. The integration mass debate has been started by politicians too gutless and/or stupid to deal with harder questions of economics. Pointing fingers at others without realising three fingers are pointing back at them.

Once again the pseudo-intellectual monoculturalists are coming out of the closet, dusting off the attitudes that have been used for over two centuries in Australia. One of my recent favourites has been a line from an editorial published by that American-owned newspaper the calls itself The Australian.

How wonderful it would be if the next generation of [Muslim] Lebanese-Australian kids held as their models the successful chief executives and footballers from their communities, rather than drug barons and night club owners.

What can I say? Or rather, where do I start? My responses aren't exactly the most intellectual-sounding, but then neither is what I'm responding to. So here goes:

[01] Is Professor Marie Bashir Dutch? Is Steve Bracks German?

[02] What proportion of drug barons in Australia are Lebanese?

[03] What proportion of night club owners in Australia are Lebanese?

[04] Let's look at CEO's. What proportion of Australian Catholics look upto Rupert Murdoch as their model? And for what? How many Catholics living in the ACT would manage companies that avoid taxation? Or that engages in illegal phone tapping? Is success in Australian patriotism measured by how readily one gives up one's Australian passport to become an American?

[05] What kind of footballer is successful? One who successfully dodges allegations of gang rape or group sex or bestiality? How many females does one have to sexually assult before becoming a successful footballer?

[06] Did Hazem ElMasri recently retire from a successful career in chess or lawn bowls?

Okay, that's enough. Now let's enjoy Amr Zaid's bass guitar.

Words © 2011 Irfan Yusuf

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COMMENT: Reading Quilliam ...

2011-02-06T23:47:00.000+11:00

Over the next few weeks, I've set aside time to read the various papers produced by the Quilliam Foundation, a thinktank which was co-founded by Mohammed Mahbub ("Ed") Husain and Maajid Nawaaz. These two gentleman claim to have been senior members of Hizb ut-Tahrir in the UK.

Ed Husain authored a book called The Islamist. I use the word "authored" in its broadest possible sense. A reliable source close to his publishers has advised that in fact a ghost writer wrote most of the book. It isn't clear whether the ghost writer merely provided words or also contributed ideas. The ghost writer did seem to do a good job, and I gave the book a relatively positive review when it was first published in Australia.

The book was written before QF was founded and before it became the darling of cultural warriors and UK politicians hell-bent on marginalising certain minorities. QF has been criticised by many in the UK "islamic industry", and I am not so naive as to accept everything self-appointed leaders have to say on these matters. So I've decided to research the matter in detail for myself.

UPDATE: It also turns out Husain is a Senior Fellow at the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations. You can watch a video of him talking about Egypt here.

Words © 2011 Irfan Yusuf

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VIDEO: Should she be allowed to wear it?

2011-01-24T15:44:00.002+11:00

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HUMOUR: Invitation from the Muslim Village Idiots ...

2011-01-08T16:04:00.006+11:00

On 7 January 2011, I received the following e-mail from some dude calling himself "Jaaved":

Dear irfan,

Assalaamu Alaykum and Peace Be Upon You!

The Forum Guidelines for Muslim Village have been updated today, Friday 7 January 2011. It is your responsibility to read through and understand the rules as a whole and to ensure you comply with them.

For your convenience, you may access the Forum Guidelines here: http://muslimvillage.com/forums/index.php?app=forums&module=extras§ion=boardrules

If you have any questions about these new Forum Guidelines, you may do the following:

1. Contact Jaaved, the admin (http://muslimvillage.com/forums/user/1831-jaaved/)

2. Post in the relevant thread about the new Guidelines (http://muslimvillage.com/forums/topic/62569-updated-forum-guidelines/)

3. Contact any of our fantastic Moderators (http://muslimvillage.com/forums/index.php?app=forums&module=extras§ion=stats&do=leaders)

Thank you for your co-operation and thanks for your support thus far.

Wasalaam,
With Peace,
Jaaved and the rest of the Muslim Village Team

What a lovely surprise! A personal invitation!! I'd already been banned from the MV forums over the past 5 years for any number of reasons including:

1. Twice for criticising Shaykh Hilaly for his imbecilic comments, including his infamous catmeat remarks.

2. Thrice for questioning the dubious academic credentials of pseudo-imam Afroz Ali.

3. At least once for questioning the arguments of Hizb ut-Tahrir.

So anyway, I decided to join. Heck, why not?

Within 30 minutes, I was banned again. I was curious as to why. So I penned this e-mail:

To:
webmaster@muslimvillage.net

AA.

Thanks for inviting and then uninviting me.

Just out of curiosity, I'm wondering what reasoning was used to ban me.

Ma salameh
irfan

No response yet. I'll keep readers posted.

UPDATE I: Some dude named "Ahmad E" wrote this interesting comment:

You are merly using Islam to peddel your books, why don't you advertise your books elsewhere, we the Muslims here are not stupid to believe your lies.

So Irfan was once a radical "Islamo-fascist", yeah right, it shows how much credibility you've got by using a bull **** word once used by Mr. Bush our biggest enemy. He used that word when he made a speech after the attempted bombing of US and British airplanes by using chemicals stored in cans.

What is an "islamo-facist" anyway? It's a kind of oxymoron don't you think, becuase Islam and fascism are totally different and opposite.

He obviously didn't get the joke.

UPDATE II: A very kind person wrote this:

the collective IQ of that place can be measured in terms of average rainfall in Canarvon. Occassionally Irfan arrives and it floods

Thanks, OH!!

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REFLECTION: Why Christmas is an Islamic Time of Year ...

2011-01-02T21:08:00.004+11:00

From the Aussie Mossie blog first published 05 December 2005.

Christmas is hardly a fortnight away, and already some people feel affronted. What puzzles me is that some of these people claim to feel this way because of their Muslim faith.

Yet anyone who understands what Christmas is about will see nothing in it offensive to Muslim sensibilities.

Muslims believe the Jesus Christ is the Messiah. They believe his birth occurred by immaculate conception to the Virgin Mary, an miraculous act of direct Divine intervention. Muslims do not dispute that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, presently a Palestinian town in the West Bank.

You cannot be regarded as a Muslim if you do not believe in these key events of Christmas. The nativity scene is as much part of the Qur’an (the Muslim scripture) as it is of the New Testament.

I have the benefit of being exposed to both Christian and Muslim religious traditions. I attended Sydney’s only Anglican Cathedral School. I studied the New Testament in Divinity classes and attended weekly chapel services. My Indian Muslim parents insisted I be part of all Christian activities of the school.

At the same time, as a child, I grew up with the Qur’an. I learnt about the chapter of the Qur’an named after Mary which describes the nativity scene in great detail. In that chapter, it states that Mary chosen above the women of all nations and ages for the sacred task of giving birth to God’s Messiah.

Today, Bethlehem is a city where Muslims and Christians celebrate Christ’s birth together. It is not uncommon to see Muslims seated in the pews of the Church of the Nativity. During the most recent Israeli incursion into Bethlehem, both Muslims and Christians sought refuge in the Church.

Both ancient and modern realities of Bethlehem bring the two communities of Christ together. It makes no sense for Muslims to oppose the celebration of Christmas. In this regard, comments attributed to the Forum of Australia’s Islamic Relations (FAIR) in the Sunday Mail on 4 December are cause for concern.

In a press release dated 5 September 2005, FAIR director Kuranda Seyit denied suggesting that Christmas should be phased out of Australian life. The comments attributed to FAIR are certainly not echoed by Muslim leaders in other parts of Australia.

Of course, some will argue against Christmas being used to sell products. Even some Christians feel that Christmas is becoming too commercial, with more emphasis being placed on storewide sales than church services.

I personally feel that the sales themselves are a reflection of a broader Christmas spirit. Christmas is about celebrating Christ’s mass, the birth of Christ. It is a time when God showed His divine generosity by sending His Messiah to spread a message of love and compassion.

The New Testament Christ is a man who made time for the most marginalised members of society – tax collectors, sex workers and lepers. The Christ of the Qur’an was a man who brought the message of God’s mercy and love. Both versions involve celebrating a man whose life was itself a celebration of human kindness and generosity.

It therefore makes sense that people exchange gifts during this time. Retailers who choose to cash in on people’s generosity by offering incentives and sales for people are hardly doing society a disservice.

Islamic teachings state that money should continue to circulate through the economy. Money grows when it is in motion. Like still water stagnates, hoarded wealth is a source of many diseases of the heart. The cure for such diseases is generosity.

So this year, as in every other year, I will be sending Christmas cards to all my clients, Muslim and non-Muslim. I will also be sending a package to a close Muslim female friend for Christmas consisting of books of poems by the Muslim mystic Rumi.

The message of the Muslim saint Rumi, like that of the Muslim Messiah Jesus, was one of Divine love. I hope my fellow Aussie Muslims show traces of that love to their fellow countrymen and women of all faiths and of no faith in particular.

Words © 2005-11 Irfan Yusuf

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COMMENT: Wingnut wishes ...

2010-12-22T18:40:00.002+11:00

Some comments on a recent piece of mine published on ABC's The Drum challenged me to write something really cynical about the Prophet Muhammad and Muslim countries. Apparently the piece should involve the Prophet Muhammad leaving his blessed tomb in Madina and hitting the road to see what he'd find.

I'm supposed to be expecting a fatwa followed by an international madding crowd by writing that ... wait for it ... shock horror!!! ... Muslim countries don't exactly reflect Muhammadan ethics and expectations.

So I might as well start drafting these wingnut wishes on this blog. Here goes.

[01] In Saudi Arabia, female-only sports have led to a government investigation. I'm not sure if there was an investigation into the running races the Prophet Muhammad had with his wife Aisha. Imagine the Mother of the Believers being taken into custody by Saudi Arabia's morality police.

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OPINION: Column for the December/January edition of the Crescent Times

2010-12-16T19:15:00.003+11:00

How to make a Shaykh’s sides split

A traditionally trained Islamic scholar visited Sydney in September 2005 for a “Deen Intensive”, a funky way of saying that he had 30 ignoramuses like me sitting around him trying to learn something about their religious heritage.

The scholar was named Naeem Abdul Wali, though his American parents christened him Gary Edwards. For the purposes of this article, I’ll call him Gazza.

So Gazza needs somewhere to perform his evening prayers and to rest. Alf, a young Turkish Aussie who lived on a farm was hosting Gazza that evening. Alf and I go back perhaps 10 years. Alf had spent much of his youth as a Buddhist, before being brought back to Islam by his Aussie Sri Lankan wife who happened to have converted from Buddhism to Islam.

Alf took Gazza along to an old mansion in Auburn that once served as an x-ray and pathology lab but was now a hospice run by the followers of the Sufi order associated with the late Shaykh Muhammad Zahid Bursawi (also known as Mehmed Zahid Kotku).

Some years before, the hospice was located a few streets down. In 2001, I lived in the hospice for around 6 months.

Alf and I met up for coffee one day and decided that one of us should run for Parliament. It was the post-September 11 period, and we were sick of getting all jittery and nervous and defensive.

I was already thinking of throwing my hat into the ring for the Liberals in Reid, a federal seat that took in the Turkish heartland of Auburn. Alf encouraged me and promised to assist “whenever I could”. In Alf ’s case, “whenever I could” basically meant full-time around-theclock assistance. I have never seen anyone work so single-mindedly on a project. Alf was as convinced as I was that it was good for both of us for me to run. He insisted that we make a serious go of it.

At the time, I was living and running a little law practise from the hospice. Believe it or not, the hospice ended up being on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald. My opponent was sitting member Laurie Ferguson, then Shadow Minister for Multicultural Affairs. My old mate Ross Cameron (then Federal MP for Parramatta) warned me about Laurie.

“Irfan, Laurie may look like a dill, but seriously he is no dill. Watch your back. Laurie likes to play hard. He’s a lovely guy socially, but politically he is an animal!” Ross warned.

And within a few days, I found out what he meant. I got a call from a Sydney Morning Herald journalist Pilita Clark who said Laurie had made a complaint about my not living in the electorate and telling fibs to the Australian Electoral Commission about where I lived. She asked me whether Laurie was telling the truth. My response to the journo was simple.

“Come and have a look for yourself.” 45 minutes later, she rang me again to tell me she was on her way. Alf and I quickly got the place as tidied up as we could without having a vacuum cleaner or even a broom.

Pilita was accompanied by a cameraman who seemed to enjoy the exotic surrounds of a very European bookshop. I posed for the camera in a variety of spots, including lounging like a beached whale on my mattress.

The next day, 24 October 2001, that image greeted readers of the Sydney Morning Herald. Months later, Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan was to describe the event as one of the highlights of the campaign. He cornered me at a Party meeting and politely remarked: “F**ing marvellous, Yusuf! You really showed those pr*cks, didn’t you! Absolutely f***ing marvellous.”

Here are some classic excerpts from the article that put the sufi hospice on the
front page of the election campaign …

There is a thin rubber mattress on the floor. A red sleeping bag. A phone cord
trailing across the drab carpet. A gym bag half-full of clothes, an outside toilet, no fridge, no chair and no table.

But this murky space at the back of a tiny Islamic book shop in downtown Auburn is home, insists Irfan Yusuf, the Liberal Party’s somewhat unconventional candidate for the western Sydney seat of Reid.

“Here it is,” he says, gesturing about the gloom. “I live here.”

Mr Yusuf’s Labor opponent, the longtime member for Reid, Laurie Ferguson, is not so sure, however, and neither is the Australian Electoral Commission …

Lounging on his mattress, he challenged Mr Ferguson to come down and check things out for himself. “Laurie can come here any time, day or night. Just get him to ring me on the mobile first, because I’m usually at Mustafa’s [the nearby kebab shop]. I’d be happy to introduce him to the Yusuf residence. And after that, we’ll go over and have a look at his bedroom.”

Acknowledging his rudimentary surroundings, Mr Yusuf said: “I’m a bachelor.”

“Obviously when the better half comes along, she will be insisting on some
improvements.”

… Mr Yusuf said: “At the end of the day, what counts is how you relate to the people you are claiming to represent.”

“The guy’s obviously desperate,” he said of Mr Ferguson, who won just under 72 per cent of the vote in the last federal election in 1998, making Reid one of the safest Labor seats in the country.”

Later, my old friend Emine, a waitress at Mustafas, told me how proud she was of me after reading the article. “It shows you are just an ordinary guy, just like all the other ordinary people in Auburn.”

But the proudest people of all were my Naqshbandi brethren. They felt their 5 seconds of fame for many weeks as the incident was widely reported in the local and overseas Turkish press. For the next few weeks, my poster was up across the wire fence that covered at least 5 blocks of a major Auburn street. It was later dubbed “The Great Wall of Irfan”.

But now, some 4 years later, Shaykh Gazza and the rest of us were on our guided tour. Abdul (a hospice teacher) showed Gazza an example of the technique being used to teach Arabic letters to the Sufi novices. But Gaz seemed more interested in what was on the back of the white plastic sheets. He turned one around and then looked in my general direction. He then showed me what he was looking at. There was my mugshot surrounded by green and black lettering and a Liberal Party logo.

“We put these to good use. There is a whole pallet of them in the other room,” Abdul said after we completed the night prayers. Gary looked at me and Alf. We looked back and him and at Abdul. Within a few seconds, we were rolling on the floor in hysterics, laughing till our sides nearly split.

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

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INDONESIA: Aussie Muslims learn Islam from Republic of Indonesia

2010-12-07T01:08:00.003+11:00

The following article appeared in the Jakarta Post on 22 January 2005 and coincided with the visit of 5 delegates (including yours truly) as part of the Australian Muslim Leadership Exchange Program organised by the Australia Indonesia Institute. It was also published on The Aussie Mossie blog.

A group of Australian Muslims are currently visiting Indonesia to take a closer look at Islam here, which is often, if not most of the time, seen as a radical religion in the neighboring country.

Irfan Yusuf, an Australian newspaper columnist, told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday that many Australians were not aware of Indonesia's two moderate Muslim organizations Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah.

"Australians may only know Ba'asyir. Not many Australians, including Australian Muslims, know NU and Muhammadiyah," said Yusuf.

NU, which claims to have around 40 million members, is the country's largest Muslim organization, followed by Muhammadiyah, with around 25 million. Muslim cleric Abubakar Ba'asyir, who is currently serving time for immigration violations, was tried and acquitted for alleged links to regional terrorist group Jamaah Islamiyah (JI).

JI, which is believed to be a regional group of Osama bin Laden's terrorist network al-Qaeda, has been blamed for a spate of terrorist attacks in the country since 2000, including the deadly Bali bombings in October 2002, the JW Marriott Hotel bombing in Jakarta in 2003 and the Australian Embassy bombing in September 2004.

Yusuf, along with four other Australian Muslims, arrived in Indonesia under the Australia-Indonesia Institute's Young Muslim Leaders Exchange Program. They are scheduled to spend a week in Jakarta, two days in Bandung and five days in Yogyakarta to meet with their counterparts.

The program was established in 2002 to help address misperceptions about the role of religion in both countries by bringing young Indonesian and Australian Muslims into direct contact, so that they may experience life in each nation and observe the practices and interactions between Muslims and non-Muslims in a broad range of contexts.

In Australia, Muslims are a minority, numbering about 300,000 people, and are exposed to radical Islam because of a lack of access to moderate sources.

Most Islamic books and brochures circulated are published in Saudi Arabia, which carry a more puritan version of Islam called Wahhabi, the official school of thought there. "Although there have been Islamic books in English published in the United Kingdom or the United States recently, books from Saudi Arabia are still the cheapest and easiest to get," said Rowan Gould, the secretary of the Islamic Council of Victoria.

Gould, whose mother is a native of Padang, West Sumatra, admitted that the demand for Islamic books among Australian Muslims was still very basic, such as books on how to observe prayers and simple fiqh (law).He said not many Australian Muslims -- who come from 70 different ethnic backgrounds -- studied books written by Indonesian Muslim scholars, although many Australians speak Bahasa Indonesia. "Only a few of us (Australian Muslims) speak Bahasa Indonesia. We should learn more about Islam in Indonesia," Gould said.

Several leading Indonesian Muslim scholars have written books and developed progressive thinking on Islam, using new interpretations of the Koran and Hadith (a collection of the Prophet Muhammad's deeds and sayings), which they believe are still relevant to contemporary challenges, such as democracy, human rights and gender issues. The problem is that these books are written in Bahasa Indonesia, which make them less accessible for other Muslims abroad.

The Young Muslim Leaders Exchange Program may be more effective if it went beyond visits and meetings among young Muslims, and an exchange of knowledge and ideas was held on Islam as a religion of peace.

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COMMENT: Why some young people get pushed toward extremists

2010-11-24T04:22:00.004+11:00

My views have changed a fair bit on this subject. What follows is what I thought on Thursday 10 November 2005 whrn this piece was first published.

Dr Ameer Ali, President of the migrant-dominated Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, is worried about the spectre of rednecks hating Muslims.

He should be more worried about young Muslims who may be tempted to blow themselves up and take a whole heap of innocent people with them.

Rednecks are a problem. They do bin Ladin’s work by making ordinary law-abiding mainstream Aussie Mossies feel isolated and marginalised. Bin Ladin wants Muslims to feel isolated in the hope they will join his mad pseudo-jihad.

But why should young well-adjusted educated Australian-born youth be attracted to the message of hate? Is it a few government foreign policy blunders or paranoid tabloid columnists that push young people toward extremism?

The fact is that the leaders complaining about the backlash are themselves largely responsible for the radicalisation of some young Muslims. These leaders have a lot to answer for.

On 2 March 2000, the Supreme Court of NSW delivered its judgment in a marathon case between two peak Muslim bodies. The Islamic Council of NSW took on Dr Ameer Ali’s body, spending thousands of dollars arguing over a range of matters.

Who knows how many thousands of dollars were spent in legal fees. Both sides hired big-city law firms, and both had senior barristers appearing for them at the hearing.

These two bodies consist of member societies which are dominated by first generation migrants. Virtually all mosques have imams trained overseas with poor command of English. Most imams have very little understanding of the problems faced by young people growing up suspended between parental cultural pressures and mainstream Australian life. These imams practise a cultural form of Islam with little relevance to Australian conditions.

The imams are employed often on short-term contracts and are poorly paid. They must support the existing executive committees managing the mosque. The imams deliver their sermons in Arabic and the language most commonly spoken by the ethnic committee members managing the mosque.

Many mosques bar or discourage women from attending. Young people are often discouraged from participating in the executive committee.

These societies join together to form State councils which come together to form the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC). But in recent times, AFIC has spent much of its time and resources trying to remove councils it doesn’t like.

In New State Wales, AFIC had formed 2 Islamic councils in a space of 5 years. It created the Supreme Islamic Council (often jokingly referred to as “the Supreme Pizza Council”) to replace the original Islamic Council. It then kicked out the Supreme Pizza Council and replaced it with the Muslim Council of NSW (often jokingly referred to as the “Super-Supreme Council”).

A bit like John Howard having a fight with Morris Iemma and then kicking out New South Wales from the Commonwealth to be replaced by New Zealand.

While all these silly political games are being played, young Muslims are searching for answers and meaning to their lives. Most mainstream imams cannot help them, and many are forced to learn themselves by reading books. And so many books freely distributed in Australia by peak bodies and others teach an isolationist theology that encourages Muslim youth to emphasise their differences from their fellow Australians.

And because the imams cannot speak English and the mosques are dominated by migrants disinterested in the problems of young people, many youth are attracted to those whom Sydney Radio personality Mike Carlton describes as the “thick-Sheiks”.

Whatever we think of these thick-Sheiks, one thing most have is the ability to speak English. Also, the thick-Sheiks have established centres where activities and support services for young people and Muslim converts are provided.

The thick-Sheiks make use of modern technology and means of communication to get their message across. Because they actually listen to young people, the thick-Sheiks are able to provide services young people want – sporting and fitness activities, multimedia products, internet access and other facilities you would find in any local youth centre.

But most important, the thick-Sheiks are able to communicate their fringe ideas in a language young people can understand. And because the thick-Sheiks have a simplistic and volatile theology, their charisma often wins over young people with little exposure to mainstream Islamic ideas.

You rarely see thick-Sheiks preaching in mainstream mosques. They know that Muslim migrants brought up on mainstream Islam can recognise a fringe sect when they see one. In fact, many thick-Sheiks have been banned from local mosques.

The migrant parents may recognise the thick-Sheiks as representing a fringe cult. But what would young people know? They can’t understand the sermon down at the local mosque. And the elders at the mosque arrange things in a manner local kids simply cannot relate to.

So you have young people reading isolationist literature distributed free by peak bodies. They are often made to feel unwelcome at the mosque, and the imam can’t help them with the normal problems most young Aussie face. Yet a few suburbs away is a centre where the imam speaks English and where you can play some sport and meet other young people in the same predicament.

And so you have very Australian kids being pushed by migrant Muslim leaders into the waiting arms of fringe extremists. Yet some peak bodies continue to complain about being marginalised by rednecks. But so many peak body leaders have been part of community structures that isolate and alienate Aussie Muslims, both the young and converts.

Methinks the only rednecks out there (apart from some Liberal backbenchers) are those migrant leaders who divide their faith-community along ethnic lines and push young Aussie Muslims toward fringe groups.

Words © 2005-10 Irfan Yusuf

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COMMENT: Scattered facts on Muslim Australia

2010-11-24T04:10:00.002+11:00

From the Aussie Mossie blog published 23 May 2006 ...

When talking about Aussie Muslims, it’s important that commentators have accurate information based on proper research. Sadly, Muslim institutions claiming to represent Muslim communities haven’t seen the task if researching Muslims as being a priority.

Hence, the task has been left to governments and individual researchers. One such research effort was carried out by a team of researchers from the University of Melbourne and led by Professor Abdullah Saeed.

The results of this research were published in a 2004 study entitled Muslim Australians: Their Beliefs, Practices & Institutions. The study was based largely on the 2001 Census.

It would, in my opinion, be the height of ignorance for anyone to write or comment on Muslim issues without having read this study. So many myths are shattered just on pages 5 and 6.

For instance, many people presume that Lakemba has the highest concentration of Muslims of any suburb in Australia. In fact, the highest concentration is found in Dallas, Melbourne (39%). In terms of Sydney, Auburn has a higher Muslim concentration than Lakemba or Bankstown.

Often Muslim loyalties to Australia are questioned. Yet an overwhelming majority of Muslim migrants (221,856 out of a total of 281,578, some 79%) have obtained Australian citizenship.

The terms “Muslim” and “Lebanese” are often used interchangeably. It is assumed that most Lebanese are Muslims and vice versa. Yet the most frequently cited country of birth for Australian Muslims is Australia (some 103,000). This is over three times the number of people born in Lebanon (29,321).

It is also assumed that most Muslims speak only Arabic. Yet the overwhelming majority of Muslims are proficient in English, both written and spoken.

Muslims are often accused of being hostile to mainstream Judeo-Christian Australian values. Yet Muslim rates of marriage are far higher than the national average. 51% of Aussie Muslim males are married by the age of 34. Some 41% of Muslim females are married by the age of 24. De facto relationships are uncommon.

The historical presence of Muslims in Australia is also not well-known. On page 7 of the Saeed study, mention is made of Saib Sultan, a settler who arrived in Australia in the early 19th century. After arriving at Norfolk Island, he later settled in Van Dieman’s Land (Tasmania) in 1809 where he worked on 30 acres of land with his wife and family.

Muslims arrived in Australia as both convicts and settlers. Later, during the 1870’s Malay Muslim divers were recruited to work on Western Australian and Northern Territory pearling grounds. By 1875, some 1,800 Malay divers were working in Western Australia.

Australian troops are part of a Coalition force seeking to restore order in Afghanistan. Yet little of the Afghan contribution to Australia is taught in schools. Those complaining about the over-emphasis on Aboriginal culture and history are themselves almost always guilty of neglecting non-European contributions to Australia.

The Afghan (and in many cases, Baluchi and Pathan from what is now Pakistan) cameleers were recruited to assist in early European exploration of the inland Australia. During the late 19th century, they controlled the camel transport industry and played a vital role in the economic development of early Australia.

Afghans were largely responsible for the transport of goods through inland Australia, for laying telegraph and railway lines and for establishing many outback settlements. Cameleers transported goods and supplies to gold miners and to outback settlements.

The contributions of Muslim Australians to our economy and well-being are also not mentioned enough. Often this is caused by a reluctance of Muslims in senior positions to identify themselves by their faith. There is a perception that being open about one’s Islamic faith can be a career and social liability. Negative remarks made by a tiny minority of political and church leaders don’t help in this regard.

Words © 2006-10 Irfan Yusuf

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COMMENT: al-Ahbash to speak at Melbourne University??

2010-11-21T14:05:00.007+11:00

No, my Lebanese Moslems Association friends, don't get over-excited. It's just a post-graduate research conference that juist happens to be hosted by a university department. It's quite normal for university departments to allow all kinds of people to submit abstracts and speak at conferences.

Indeed at least one sufi (or so he once claimed) deviant fitna-mongering former Liberal Party member has spoken at a conference organised by the Centre for Excellence in Islamic Studies.

And it would not be fair to suggest that Mustapha Kara-Ali, an engineering graduate and a PhD student at the International Islamic University of Malaysia has only one layer of identity - being an admirer of one religious leader in Lebanon known as Abdullah Hareri al-Habashi and allegedly belonging to a group known as "al-Ahbash".

This same group was strongly favoured by a former Australian government for assisting with deradicalising (whatever that means) Muslim youth. The result of over $150,000 in Australian taxpayer funded largesse was one manual.

That manual was produced under the auspices of an independent school founded and managed by followers of the said religious scholar in Lebanon. In his bio for the conference, Kara-Ali refers to that manual:

In 2007, he proposed and led a Government-Community-Partnership named the Building Identity and Resisting Radicalisation (BIRR) Initiative. He was also the lead-author of its publication The Way Forward - an Islamic Mentoring Guide for Building Identity and Resisting Radicalisation (2008), which was academically endorsed.

I'm not sure who "academically endorsed" the book, or indeed how something can be "academically endorsed". Did they send it to a university academic who said some relatively nice things about the layout? Did they sit on some steering committees and provide some general direction? Or did it go through a peer review process? Is it being published in an academic journal? Or just being excerpted in Quadrant Magazine?

I was amused by this entry:

In 2007, Mustapha was selected by DFAT to join a delegation to Malaysia to strengthen people-to-people relations ...

I wonder how DFAT staff on that trip found him to work with. What was his response to a presentation on the rights of religious minorities in Malaysia by the Malaysia Chinese Association (MCA)? I really cannot say. I'd have to ask others who went with him. I wasn't in that delegation. I went in 2006 instead. But I don't mention it in a bio for an academic conference.

One thing I would shove in a bio (if I had the chance) was hanging out with the wonderful Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf of New York. Imam Feisal has had a few issues of late with imbecilic fruitloops. Many who happily endorsed Imam Feisal are now having second thoughts due to political and social pressures arising from the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" project.

When Kara-Ali attended a conference organised by Imam Feisal's American Sufi Muslim Association entitled Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow, he had this stunning bio:

Mustapha Kara-Ali is a 29-year-old representative on the Prime Minister's Muslim Community Reference Group (MCRG). He represents second generation Australian Muslims. The Bulletin Magazine recently profiled him as "an active mentor and educator within the Australian Muslim youth community since 1995", and last month he was introduced on the ABC's Religion Report as "an agent for change". Kara-Ali has been an outspoken critic of some ethnic leaders in the community for what he says is their failure to address the concerns of an emerging community of homegrown Muslim youth in Australia. He believes that sections of the Muslim community can be too defensive and fail to articulate issues in which they believe strongly.

Mr. Kara-Ali has a Masters degree in Engineering from UNSW and has worked as a consultant for Sydney University and CSC. He is a NAATI accredited translator in Arabic, and has a graduate diploma in media studies. Mustapha has appeared on the Channel 9 Sunday Program, Channel 7 Today Tonight, SBS Insight, ABC Religion Report and other media fronts. He has authored opinion pieces in metropolitan newspapers on Muslim issues such as Muslim integration in the West, identity struggles and immigrant marginalization. In talking politics, Mustapha's approach is informed by the conviction that Muslims in the west are part of the solution, not the problem.

For some reason, Kara-Ali's attendance at such a prestigious international forum isn't mentioned in his conference bio. Is he also now embarrassed to be associated with Imam Feisal?

UPDATE I: It will be interesting to see if Mr Kara-Ali's BIRR makes a bid for the latest round of government-sponsored deradicalisation dosh. According to a recent report in The Australian:

INDIVIDUALS believed to be at risk of falling prey to the lure of violent extremism are to be targeted in a series of community-based programs under the federal government's $9.7 million counter-radicalisation strategy.

Attorney-General Robert McClelland is inviting community groups to apply for federal funding to run grassroots projects to steer young people away from extremist ideology.

Grants of between $5000 and $200,000 are to be allocated to organisations in Victoria and NSW as part of the new Youth Mentoring Grants Program, to be launched by Mr McClelland today.

"The program will support activities that directly assist young people to disengage from intolerant and radical ideologies and encourage positive and constructive participation in the community," Mr McClelland said yesterday.

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

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VIDEO: A farmer from Swat talks of Hajj

2010-11-13T23:20:00.001+11:00

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OPINION: David Hicks finally gets to tell his story on his own terms

2010-11-08T23:35:00.005+11:00

There are many good reasons to buy David Hicks’ long awaited memoir Guantanamo: My Journey. One is to find out what happened to this young man without any adverse filtering from nasty pundits who would have us believe Hicks is the anti-Christ.

Naturally not everyone is pleased with Hicks’ work. John Howard, the Prime Minister who left Hicks to rot at Guantanamo for years, recently said on the Q&A program that there was ...

... a lot of criticism of that book from sources unrelated to me and I’ve read some very severe criticisms of that book.

Writing in The Australian, Sally Neighbour claims that Hicks hasn’t been forthcoming and honest. She writes:

Hicks’s firsthand account was awaited with keen interest by historians, academics and journalists who have followed these events. It has also been anticipated by the thousands of Australians who joined the Fair Go for David campaign for Hicks’s release. Hicks describes the book as the first opportunity to tell his story. In fact he’s had many such opportunities, in the form of scores - probably hundreds - of interview requests, all of which he has declined, choosing instead to write his story himself, thereby avoiding the discomfort of having his version of events questioned.

Having gone through years of abuse and torture culminating in the kangaroo court officially referred to as the “military tribunal”, one can hardly blame Hicks for refusing to undergo a trial by media. Especially from journalists who don’t venture into international trouble spots without interpreters and whose knowledge of militant groups is limited to the latest offerings from socalled socalled terrorism “experts”.

It won’t surprise many Muslims to learn that Hicks’ first exposure to Islam was from some Tablighi Jamaat people in Adelaide. Some journalists would have you believe that the TJ are an extremist organisation with links to terrorist groups. I remember once receiving an angry phone call from a senior writer for The Oz about a posting on my blog in which I lampooned her characterisation of TJ as a “secretive group” with a hidden agenda. She claimed to have done thorough research on the TJ, yet did not know the six points of tabligh and was not even aware on which night and in which mosque the TJ met in Sydney.

Still, enough media-bashing. Time for some lawyer-bashing. In his book Torture Team: Deception, Cruelty and the Compromise of Law, international law professor Phillipe Sands, QC, exposes unethical Defence Department lawyers joining forces with neo-conservative politicians to produce the Acton Memo. This document, signed by Donald Rumsfeld on December 2, 2002, enabled interrogators at Guantanamo Bay (and later at Abu Ghraib) to lawfully commit acts of torture in violation of Article 3 of the Geneva Convention.

The Americans landed in Abu Ghraib partly because of “intelligence” provided by a CIA
prisoner. Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libbi, is said to have been subjected to waterboarding that proved so effective that he provided false evidence of a link between al-Qaeda and the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein which led to the 2003 invasion. Al-Libbi made these fabricated claims as he was terrified of further harsh treatment.

Still, that is all ancient history. President Obama is in power, embracing Muslims with open arms. The days of torture are gone. Or are they?

The Washington Post reported on February 1, 2009, that Obama issued executive orders allowing the CIA to carry on with renditions. He further allowed the CIA to detain suspects in facilities used only to hold people on a shortterm, transitory basis. America will effectively now outsource Guantanamo-type operations to the generals, sheikhs, colonels, dictators and presidents-for-life who will no doubt torture not just those deemed terror suspects by the US but also domestic political opponents.

Anyway, go out and by David Hicks’ book. Whether you believe him or not, his book makes riveting reading.

* Irfan Yusuf is a Melbourne based lawyer and author. He recently published his first book Once Were Radicals: My Years As A Teenage Islamo-fascist. This column was first published in Issue 25 of the Crescent Times in November 2010.

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

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VIDEO: Blonde journalism ...

2010-10-29T21:02:00.002+11:00

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COMMENT: Yasir Morsi on assimilation ...

2010-10-24T23:01:00.007+11:00

On Sunday morning, 24 October 2010 I found myself at Melbourne University for a talk by Yasir Morsi, current President of the Melbourne University Muslim Students Association (a position formerly held by luminaries such as Waleed Aly) and one of the brains behind the Granada Project.

In the past, Yasir has taken great exception to my book and to what he perceives to be my "sucking up to whitey". His criticisms of me during public exchanges on Facebook have been so polite, have involved so little name-calling or personal attacks and have always been so focussed on the issues that they are best left for the far-right margin of Planet Irf.

So it was with some interest that I attended Yasir's lecture on Sunday. I took some copious notes and also recorded it on my rather primitive Nokia.

Believe it or not, Yasir did have some very useful things to say. What really impressed me about his presentation was his definition of assimilation, which in the context of 21st century Aussie Muslims he described as ...

... not a move toward something but rather a move away from something. Muslims are expected to move away from their tradition.

He used a very powerful image of seeing the reflection of his face with all its Arab features on the TV set while he was watching the towers collapse in New York on 11 September 2001. He remarked that since that date, it is as if ...

The towers are always collapsing.

Muslims are only being seen as those responsible for the collapsing of the towers.

I'll blog some more about this interesting talk later.

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

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RACISM: Words of wisdom from Eugenia Flynn ...

2010-10-24T15:17:00.006+11:00

On Tuesday 19 October 2010, Adelaide-based Eugenia Flynn spoke at a gathering at Melbourne University on the topic of Race & Identity in the Muslim Community. Her words and her delivery stunned her listeners as well as her fellow panellists (North American comics Preacher Moss and Azhar Usman).

I tried taking copious notes at the event, which I have typed out and reproduced below. If anyone who attended has any corrections or can add anything, please do.

[01] My conversion to Islam did not represent a rejection of my Aboriginal or Catholic heritage. I don't reject Catholicism as some kind of religion of oppressors. My path to Islam was more of a flowering of my innate spirituality.

[02] Some Muslims see Islam as a badge of honour. Because Islam is getting a rough time, they see being Muslim as giving them street cred.

[03] Some migrant Muslims claim that they have a more exclusive and legitimate connection with Aboriginal people, as if Muslims have a superior claim to Australia than non-indigenous followers of other faiths. This sense of ownership and superiority leads to a kind of arrogance, as if Muslims have a greater right to speak for indigenous people, which is compounded by the fact that many Muslim migrants are not white. Many Muslims don't realise that this kind of arrogance makes them complicit in the injustice perpetrated toward indigenous people.

[04] Why is the Aboriginal Muslim community growing? Are Aboriginal converts attracted by some alleged increase in freedom? Do Aboriginal Muslims feel Muslim for all the same reasons? Must it always be explained as a rejection of Christianity and/or Western culture?

[05] Many Muslims have adopted the same colonial mindset toward indigenous people as Christian missionaries. They see the purpose of dawah (preaching) to be saving Aboriginal people and getting them to leave behind their aboriginality. Aboriginal Muslims are also pressed to adopt migrant Muslim modes of dress etc. Underlying this is often the presumption that Aboriginality boils down to petrol sniffing, alcohol abuse and criminality.

[06] The notion that Muslims somehow become morally superior over other Australians simply because a growing number of indigenous people are adopting Islam must be challenged.

To be continued ...

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OPINION: Column for the October edition of the Crescent Times ...

2010-10-18T12:44:00.003+11:00

Irfan, shut the hell up, you right-wing fascist bull artist!!

Recently a colleague told me that I almost didn’t get my job when I applied for it. I found this rather disturbing and wanted to know the source of the reluctance.

“They googled you,” she said. I wondered why my writing against racism, prejudice and bigotry would land me in trouble with a community organisation. Wouldn’t it be an asset in the community sector to be someone who sticks his neck out and advocates for the marginalised?

“They read you were a former Liberal Party candidate.”

It is true. I was a Liberal Party candidate in 2001. By 2002, I was no longer a member of the Party. I haven’t rejoined. Since 2005, I have lambasted the Party and Australian conservatives generally.

I printed out for my colleague a copy of all the articles I had published which lambasted, ridiculed and attacked the Right (or rather, the wrong) side of Australian politics. It went into over 100 pages. She read it. Her response? “They don’t read all this. They just read
Wikipedia.”

I soon realised that even after all this time, many people will see me as a raving right wing nutcase. There isn’t much I can do about it. When you enter into the public arena, especially when you enter into politics, people will judge you by your
affiliation and by the words and deeds of those who share your affiliation. It sux, I know. But it’s life. Life sux and then you get cross examined by two angels.

I might poke fun at Kevin Andrews’ immigration policies. I might joke about John
Howard’s statements about Asians. I might describe Tony Abbott’s views on foreign policy as infantile. I might attack the Howard government for its disdain for two Australian citizens who languished at the Guantanamo gulag. I might be repeatedly attacked by right-wing pro-Liberal columnists and editorial writers.

But in the eyes of many, Irfan Yusuf is the guy who ran for the Liberals in 2001 which must mean I am anti-migrant, anti-union, anti-welfare, anti-Muslim etc. You name it, I’m anti it.

The same must happen to my friends who feel inclined to join the Labor Party or the Greens. These days if you run for the Greens, many will assume you are plotting to murder their sick granny or want their kids to be forcibly adopted by a couple of dikes on bikes.

As for the ALP, they only believe in ... um ... what do they believe in? Stabbing each other in the back? Mash’Allah, they have becoming Muslims! Julia Gillard for
AFIC President!!

In the last issue of this august publication, someone decided to have a go at a bloke who happens to be a member of the Greens. No doubt the poor brother’s marriage prospects have been affected. Then again, as we all learned from the article, Greens are anti-marriage.

If the article proved anything, it is just how little political sophistication exists in many devout Muslim circles. Heck, I wouldn’t stick my neck out and claim that the Prophet would have been a card-carrying member of the Liberal Party of
Arabia were he alive today. And despite the fact that green was one of his favourite colours, it is a bit much to argue that Bob Brown’s policies are more Islamic (whatever that means) than those of Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott.

At the same time, this is a newspaper read by people who share a common faith, even if they don’t share the same misunderstanding of the faith. And yes, there are some Green values that are arguably more Islamic in the same way that they are more Jewish or Christian or Hindu or Buddhist. Religions are about social justice and
preserving the environment. If someone from the Greens says this, why should this annoy anyone?

Let me end with two more remarks. Firstly, although I am listed as opinion editor, I had nothing to do with the commissioning or editing of either article. These days I have little to do with commissioning or editing any article (other than my own).

Secondly, the headline is a quote from a comment made to me by my fiancé during the
early days of our relationship. She will only allow me to use it here if I disclose that she stands by it to this minute.

Then again, she’s a Labor girl, which probably makes her a Feminist Communist Socialist Maoist Leninist Trotskyist Stalinist.

Talk about political sophistication!

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COMMENT: One from my younger days ...

2010-10-16T16:54:00.002+11:00

This was published on The Aussie Mossie blog on 24 February 2006.

No time to whinge ...

My immediate response to the comments on Muslims and Australian values [made by former PM John Howard and former Treasurer Peter Costello] was shock, dismay and disgust. It made me sick in the stomach that 2 prominent political leaders could express such ignorance on fundamental Islamic concepts such as sharia and jihad.

Of course, we all know they are doing this as a diversion to other emerging issues and scandals. But I think Muslims need to also consider why they can get away with expressing such divisive views.

The fact is that probably most Australians agree with the views expressed by Messrs Howard and Costello. Aussie Muslims know that Costello’s remarks on sharia evidenced near-chronic ignorance on his part.

They also illustrate our near-chronic laziness and inability to communicate our values to the broader Australian community. If the broader community understood what sharia really is and what it means to Aussie Muslims, the Howards and Costellos of this world would never be able to use such issues as a successful diversion.

We know that Muslim mobs rioting and burning embassies were being manipulated by their leaders to divert attention away from more pressing issues. Costello and Howard are using the same device in Australia.

Or are they? When was the last time a group of Muslim Australians sat down and explained to Mr Howard what sharia actually means? When was the last time a Muslim group even bothered to invite Mr Costello to one of their functions?

Our disappointment with our political leaders is understandable. But what else can we expect when we allow our fellow Australians to be bombarded with only ignorant views about our faith and cultures?

The time has come for Muslims to come out of the spiritual closet and to be proactive about their religious responsibilities. Our primary religious responsibility in Australia is to inform people about who we are and what we believe.

The Arabic word “dawah” is often used to describe Muslim outreach and educational activities. We know dawah is a religious imperative upon all of us. It is now becoming an imperative for our national security and our social cohesion. We cannot afford to sit back and complain about the ignorance of wedge-creating politicians. Now is not the time to complain. Now is the time to talk and act.

Words © 2006-10 Irfan Yusuf

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EVENT: Launch of "Islam Dreaming: Indigenous Muslims in Australia"

2010-10-12T09:31:00.003+11:00

Peta Stephenson is a scholar who has written on aspects of Australian history most of us never learned about at high school. I've learned a fair bit from her first book, which I've written elsewhere:

Genuine conservatives show genuine respect and reverence to our 40,000 year indigenous cultural status quo at least as much as they will to our 220-odd year European status quo. That involves recognising the sophistication of indigenous communities. In her 2007 book The Outsiders Within: Telling Australia's Indigenous-Asian Story Peta Stephenson tells just some of the stories of trade and cultural interaction (and indeed intermarriage) between indigenous tribes and Makassar trepang fishermen from Sulawesi (going back at least a century before Captain Phillip landed in Botany Bay) and Chinese indentured labourers.

Stephenson shows that these interactions were suppressed by colonial and Australian authorities, with members of culturally mixed families torn apart. Her book should convince even the most hardened monoculturalist the Indigenous Australia wasn't some isolated monolithic horde of noble savages waiting for the Poms to civilise them. Before and after Europeans settled and plundered, non-European peoples interacted with indigenous peoples on more equal terms, respecting their laws and customs.

We've all heard of Cathy Freeman's indigenous heritage. But how many of us are aware that Freeman is also part-Chinese? Her great-great grandfather moved from China in the late 19th century to work on sugarcane farms in northern Queensland. Stephenson writes that Freeman actively supported Beijing's bid to host the 2008 Olympics, and Chinese-language newspapers openly celebrate her Chinese heritage even if mainstream newspapers ignore it.

And who could forget the 1988 bicentennial celebrations, including the re-enactment of the Endeavour landing in Sydney? Our Territorian cousins up north had their own celebration, with the landing of the Hati Marege (meaning "Heart of Arnhem Land" in Indonesian) on the Arnhem Land coast. Stephenson provides evidence of Makassar fisherman from Sulawesi making annual voyages to fish for trepang (sea cucumbers) and to trade with the local Yolngu people since as early as the 17th century. This mutually beneficial trading relationship was banned by the South Australian government in 1906-07, ensuring the local Aboriginal people became isolated and insular. Mixed Makassan and indigenous families were torn apart, some only reunited recently after 80 years.

Dr Stephenson is now launching her second book, entitled Islam Dreaming: Indigenous Muslims in Australia. You can find out more about the book here.

The launch of the book is coming up in Melbourne. Details of the launch are as follows:

Friday 5 November 2010
6:30 for 7pm
Institute for Postcolonial Studies
78-80 Curzon Street
North Melbourne
RSVP by October 29 p.stephenson@unimelb.edu.au

Come along!

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

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MEDIA: Islam 4 za Yoos?

2010-10-10T15:38:00.005+11:00

Last month, the New York Times Magazine carried a lengthy profile of an Egyptian media entrepreneur who has started a Muslim version of MTV. Here's how the reporter describes Ahmed Abu Haiba:

At the age of 42 he is tubby and, as a sign of his deep faith, has a large zabiba — a dark smudge on his forehead born of rubbing his head repeatedly on a prayer mat. And yet he is not a conventional man and certainly not a conventional Muslim. Today he looks more like a hip-hop mogul, with a black knit golf cap on backward and a suit of all black. And a pink tie.

Plenty of hip hop. You won't find me watching it. Unless of course they feature some Islamic hard rock. Perhaps a band calling itself Aqida (Creed). When it comes to music, I'm rather fussy.

There's also plenty of folksy stuff from Yusuf, as well as Sami Yusuf (no relation). And entertainment of the "Dr Phil" variety. My mum should subscribe.

Abu Haiba is apparently part of a bigger culture war going on in the Arabic-speaking world. The wars take on a particularly political flavour given that so much of the Arab media is controlled by dictatorial governments imposed by governments of countries that would never tolerate such dictatorship. The result is the imposition of a kind of Islam that despises the development of an indigenous culture open to outside influences.

Under whatever guise, and in spite of long and storied musical traditions, there is a significant history of restrictions on music across the Islamic world. In the 1950s, according to the scholar Jonas Otterbeck, the Committee for the Advancement of Virtue and Elimination of Vice in Saudi Arabia banned music and singing, linking them to immorality and Sufism. In Afghanistan, the Taliban famously banned music and went as far as to kill musicians. In Lebanon, Nirvana was banned in the late 1990s after being linked to Satan worship. Between 2000 and 2005, 80 percent of the issues raised by Muslim Brotherhood parliamentarians concerned the need to take an Islamic stand on culture and media. And then, in November of this past year, the American pop singer Beyoncé was scheduled to play a concert at an elite resort on the Red Sea. The promotional ads for the concert — featuring Beyoncé in all manner of suggestive costumes, including a half-unitard covered in flames — inspired one Muslim Brotherhood parliamentarian named Hamdi Hassan to declare her concert an “insolent sex party” in a letter written to the Egyptian Parliament. The Beyoncé affair, in turn, prompted a great drama in the press, pitting Beyoncé’s defenders against outraged detractors. The concert went on anyway, but not before inspiring an “Against Beyoncé” Facebook campaign. The group attracted about 10,000 members.

Yet these same forces are condemned by their backers for being "extremists" and "Wahhabists". I mean, what the ...?

And so you have young entrepreneurs like Aby Haiba struggling to see outside the imposed cultural square, only to find himself even more inside of it. Still, at least he is trying.

“The voices speaking for Islam today are extremists,” he went on, with his own sort of evangelical zeal. “We see an angry man throwing a stone at an embassy more often than an Amr Khaled.” ...

“4Shbab is changing the way young people look at Islam. I know we can change people at the far end, the Salafists or jihadists. Some of the people who listen to us now used to not listen to music at all!” ...

... “Imagine ‘Big Love’ or ‘The Wire’ with Islamic themes,” he said. You could see the optimism and excitement in his eyes. “I think in a short time we will be at the top of the charts. You see, Islam is like a big bus. You can be standing at the door, or you can be at the steering wheel. My plan is to be at the steering wheel.”

Should we imagine?

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

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COMMENT: Saints of Colour ...

2010-10-10T14:03:00.005+11:00

A recent Good Weekend cover featured a saintly piece of toast. Well, actually it was a picture of the image of Mary MacKillop on a piece of freshly toasted slice of white bread. The headline was

Hail, Mary! The making of an Australian saint

For some reason, the image reminded me of something I heard last night at the Majlis at-Tariqat al-Afroziyya. Dr Salih Yucel, Monash University lecturer in Islamic studies, a follower of Turkish religious scholar Fethullah Gulen and former Imam of Redfern Mosque, spoke about his knowledge of African-American Islam based on his doctoral studies at Boston and meetings with various experts in the field.

Dr Yucel spoke of an African American of Muslim heritage who studied in a seminary and was sent by an American denomination to preach to Muslims in Africa and the Middle East. The missionary reports that he arrived in Damascus and saw Arabs performing devotions at a tomb. He was curious as to who was buried there.

The crowd told him about an Ethiopian slave named Bilal who was blessed with being the Muezzin of theProphet Muhammad's mosque in Madina. The missionary was impressed by the sight of fair-skinned Arabs showing reverence to an Ethiopian honoured by their Prophet.

The missionary returned to his teachers in the United States. He asked them why it was that in 1,900 years, the Catholic Church had not appointed a black man to be a saint.

I'm not sure if there ever has been a Catholic saint of colour. I do know that there have been Sufi saints of just about every colour and ethnicity. Saints like Uthman dan Fodio.

UPDATE I: One reader IE has corrected me and/or Dr Yucel. In fact there have been numerous African saints. Actually, numerous is an understatement.

UPDATE II: Another reader, SJW, points out:

One of our most famous and beloved saints, is Martin de Porres. And there are many other examples across all ethnicities including Chinese, and Native Americans. The word "Catholic" means "universal", the universality of the human race thro...ugh the love of God. There are some things that I am uncomfortable about at times in my faith but one thing I am truly proud of is that all through my Catholic education was a very strong message of social justice and anti-racism. So I don't quite understand the point you are trying to make.

Given the degree of interfaith activity that the Fethullahists do with the Australian Catholic University and other Catholic institutions, I wonder what point Dr Yucel was trying to make.

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

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OPINION: Terror Recuitment by Remote Control ...

2010-09-14T17:42:00.004+10:00

One of my all-time favourite movies is The Naked Gun. For those who can’t recall the plot, an LA businessman (played by the late Ricardo Montalban of Fantasy Island fame) is hired by terrorists determined to have Queen Elizabeth II assassinated. His solution? A special key ring with a button that, when pressed, will turn anyone into an unwilling assassin.

And in case you thought this only happens in hilariously bad comedies, now al-Qaeda is using the same strategy in its jihad against anyone who isn’t them. Al-Qaeda’s slaughter of tens of thousands of Muslims in Somalia, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan obviously hasn’t convinced Muslims to join its cause. Hence it has had to resort to
remote control non-Muslim wingnuts in the United States to help things along.

One of them is a goofy pastor from Florida named Terry Jones who wanted to gather his flock to burn copies of the Quran on the anniversary of September 11. Jones thought this crazy act would somehow send a message to crazy suicide bombers.

President Obama agreed. Except that he thought the event would be a “recruitment
bonanza for al-Qaeda” and similar groups looking for even more people crazy enough to “blow themselves up” in American, European, Middle Eastern, Asian etc cities. As if the Americans bombing Middle Eastern and Asian cities isn’t enough incentive.

Of course, Muslims who understand their faith will understand that no amount of burning Qurans will have any effect on the book’s appeal to its believers. They believe the promise contained in the Quran’s text that God will preserve and protect the Quran.

Muslims who understand their faith will know this. But here’s the bad news. There are lots of Muslims who don’t understand their faith very well at all. There are Muslims whose dictators, kings, emirs and presidents-for-life hold special key rings. At the press of a button, thousands are transformed into nutty crowds that behave like attendees at a KKK rally.

We all saw how much damage these crazies did in response to the Danish cartoons. And - in a touch of irony - the Danish cartoonist who drew the most offensive one - depicting the Prophet wearing a bomb for a turban - has also come out and condemned the Florida pastor.

In fact, it’s hard to find anyone who won’t condemn the nutty pastor. Sarah Palin has
refudiated him, as has Angela Merkel of Germany and David Cameron of Britain. One Indian politician has even asked media not to print or broadcast images of the event.

Perhaps the wisest words came from a French government spokesman who declared the event would be a grave insult to the 9/11 victims and their families.

For one victim, this especially rings true. On the morning of September 11 2001, Baraheen Ashrafi joined her husband Mohammad Chowdhury for morning prayers and recitation of the Quran. He then left for his work as a waiter at the Windows of the World restaurant, on the top floors of Tower One. Reciting the Quran was one of their last acts together.

Pastors burning Qurans and wingnuts protesting outside proposed mosques won’t reduce Baraheen’s pain. Still, those who share the same types of hatred as terrorists would hardly care for the sentiments of victims.

First published in the Crescent Times Issue 23, September 2010.

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

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REFLECTION: A night with the brethren ...

2010-08-14T16:41:00.003+10:00

The following was first published on the Aussie Mossie blog on 22 May 2005.

Muslims come in all shapes and sizes, colours and flavours. They speak all different languages at home. And like all major religions, Muslims have different denominations with different understandings of Islam.

Yet regardless of colour or sect or belief, Muslims all become equally upset when neo-Conservative commentators and shock jocks speak with ignorance about Islam and Muslims. Usually the ill speech consists of the presentation of a huge conspiracy that Muslims are conspiring to destroy western civilisation. The ill speech is often made to sound less defamatory by pretending that a clear distinction exists between “Islamists” and the “moderate” Muslims.

Daniel Pipes is a great supporter of the notion that “Islamists” are evil and must be destroyed. He estimates that 10-15% of Muslims are “Islamist”. In a community of 1 billion people, that means that at least 100 million of these are eligible for elimination.

Hitler killed 6 million Jews. Daniel Pipes allegedly wants to see 100 million Muslims eliminated. Who is more dangerous? Or is that an unfair question to ask?

Of course, what hate-mongers like Mr Pipes do not focus on is the enormous diversity of faith and culture that exists within Muslim communities. I witnessed that diversity first-hand on the evening of 21 May 2005 when I attended a cultural night organised by the Ismaili Shia community in Sydney.

The Ismailis are a small sect that branched off from the mainstream varieties of shia (being the ithna ashariyya and the zaydiyya). The spiritual leader of the branch of Ismailis I met is known as the Agha Khan. Hence, this branch are often described as ‘Agha Khanis’.

The bulk of the Ismaili Muslims I met that night hailed from Gujrat in the Indian sub-Continent. They form a large minority within a broader Ismaili community that find their homes in Central Asia, China, the Middle East and Africa. Most of my Indian Ismaili friends travelled widely, and many settled in Pakistan following partition in 1947. Many speak Urdu and Gujrati, but almost all speak fluent English.

The Agha Khani community are extremely organised, and have a very slick public relations machine. Many of our allegedly mainstream Muslim organisations could learn a lot from this small Ismaili branch about building bridges with their host communities and communicating their contributions and achievements.

The night commenced with drinks and tandoori chicken. I felt right at home in the company of ‘desi’ (i.e. from the Indian sub-Continent) people. There were plenty of saris floating around, and I even noticed mums eyeing me as a marriage prospect for some female relative.

How on earth did they know I was single? I pondered on this point over a samosa before remembering a common refrain of my own desi mum: "Hindustani aur Pakistani ma'o ko sab kuch patha lag jaatha hai" (more or less translated as "Indian and Pakistani mums have a unique system of matrimonial telepathic radar").

The Communications & Publications Director of the Australia/New Zealand wing of the international Ismaili community addressed a mixed crowd of politicians, civic leaders and other people of actual and supposed influence. He cited the verse from the Quran in which God says that He created us from one male and one female, then making us into tribes and nations so that we may come to know each other, not hate each other.

The Director went onto mention the Clash of Civilisations thesis of Samuel Huntington. He said that in reality, civilisations can only enrich each other, and that a clash of civilisations was impossible. Sadly, what was possible was a clash of different forms of ignorance. And so it is when ignorance spreads within and between communities that conflicts begin.

It was not hard to read between the lines of the Director’s message. On the one hand, he was signalling that Ismailis were mainstream Muslims and mainstream Australians, and that most Muslims are of this description. On the other hand, he was telling his audience (which included a close Parliamentary colleague of the Prime Minister) that Muslims are not a monolith and are not to be treated as the enemy.

His message is hopefully still ringing in the ears of the Mayor of Baulkham Hills Shire (where the function was being held). The Shire Council had recently shown its commitment to the Muslim communities by refusing to allow a development application from a Muslim to build a small inconspicuous prayer facility on his property. The property was located in the heart of an industrial zone and on a main road, well away from residential areas where parking and noise may have affected residents.

The Director’s message was later expressed to me in more strident language by some young Ismailis I met. They are highly educated, articulate young men and women who had travelled far and wide. Their view of the world was far more realistic than so many Muslim young people from mainstream sunni and shia communities (many of whom rarely venture outside of the Muslim ‘ghettos’ of south western Sydney).

Words © 2005-10 Irfan Yusuf

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OPINION: Wanted - home-grown imams ...

2010-08-14T16:35:00.003+10:00

Radical sheiks have attracted a following because of their ability to relate to young people, writes Irfan Yusuf.

SOMETHING is rotten in the state of Australian Islam. Mainstream imams are preaching mainstream peaceful Islamic theology in a language young Muslims don't understand. More young Australian Muslims are attending classes given by locally born imams who are educated and radicalised overseas, mainly in Saudi Arabia. What is the solution?

The Prime Minister's Muslim Advisory Council wants a system for regulation and accreditation of imams which it hopes will weed out the radical imams, who are accused of misleading gullible youth to a version of Islamic theology which isolates them from broader Australian society.

What the council fails to mention is the reason mainstream imams are not able to attract more young people.

In Christian churches, the hierarchy is dominated by clerics who determine not only theological issues but also manage church affairs. Lay members have varying degrees of input. But imams are not priests or clerics but are more akin to legal counsel who can be consulted on matters of religious law.

Australian mosques are governed by societies whose members generally come from its congregation. These societies are generally divided on ethnic and linguistic lines. Membership is often limited to members of a single ethnic community.

The Lebanese Moslems Association, based in Lakemba, manages the Imam Ali ben Abi Taleb Mosque, one of Sydney's largest. Yet the association's constitution refuses full membership and voting rights to anyone ineligible to hold a Lebanese passport. The Muslim League of NSW manages the Green Valley Mosque. Its constitution allows only persons of Fijian-Indian origin to be members.

Mosque management committees are therefore run along ethnic lines. As such, the imam is generally someone who will toe the ethnic, cultural and linguistic line of whichever group runs the society.

Inevitably imams are brought from overseas. Often they are related to members of the societies' executive committees, many of which are run like family fiefdoms. The ability to speak English and relate to young people is not a prerequisite for employment.

Imams are expected to play roles consistent with Islam's status as a cultural artefact in most mosques. The sermon is rarely, if ever, in English. Women are excluded from many mosques. One Pakistani imam was dismissed in part for holding classes for women inside the mosque.

Yet for the majority of Australian Muslims, such cultures are irrelevant. The most recent study of Australian Muslims, conducted by Professor Abdullah Saeed of the University of Melbourne, shows that most were born in Australia and are aged under 40.

With few imams able to speak English, and with mosques unable to provide a culturally relevant version of Islam, it is little wonder many young people flock to the more radical sheiks. One of these, Feiz Mohamed, was brought up in Australia and speaks fluent English. He heads the Global Islamic Youth Centre in Liverpool.

Many will remember Feiz for his remarks attributing sexual assault to the manner in which some women dress. But for thousands of young Muslims, Feiz is the only person who stands between them and jail or drugs.

Feiz might have some unusual views on theology, but his ability to relate to young people has enabled him to attract a large following. His centre is welcoming to young people; its prayer hall doubles as an indoor sports arena, it has internet facilities, a gym, a cafeteria, and a multimedia and book store. All classes are conducted in English. Women are welcome.

Few mosques are willing to imitate this model. Mosque societies are not prepared to open their doors to women and young people.

Regulating imams is only part of the answer. But who will manage the regulation process? It isn't the role of government to tell religious congregations who should preach from their pulpits.

Unless Australian Muslims at a grassroots level take back control of their mosque societies from the governing ethnic cliques, the system will remain in the hands of the same people who have overseen the system of overseas and largely irrelevant imams.

This will lead young Australian Muslims to turn to the "thick sheiks" or leave their faith altogether.

First published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 29 December 2005.

Words © 2005-10 Irfan Yusuf

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COMMENT: Thoughts on the run in Indonesia ...

2010-07-17T18:40:00.003+10:00

The following column was first published on the Webdiary while I was touring Indonesia for two weeks in January 2006.

I am sitting here in an internet cafe near the Hotel Ibis in Yogyakarta, Indonesia's major university town. Our delegation of five Aussie Muslims has just had a meeting with students and staff at the Centre for Religious and Cross-Cultural Studies at the Gadjah Mada University.

We are now entering the second week of our Indonesian escapade, a tour of young Muslims organised by the Australia Indonesia Institute. We are discovering how much awesome variety exists in this extraordinary country. I am writing these lines in a hurry, and apologise to readers in case this seems like a disorganised jumble of thoughts.

If Australians think they are an open, multicultural and pluralistic society, they should understand that our multiculturalism is child's play compared to the multiculturalism we witness in this, the world's largest Muslim country.

And Aussie Muslims in particular have plenty to learn. In this awesome and hauntingly beautiful land, Islam has adapted itself to a wide variety of cultural and linguistic settings.

In Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia you will find women sitting side by side with men in the largest mosque in South East Asia. The Masjid Istiqlal (Independence Mosque) has no separate entrance for men and women. Everyone worships in the same hall. There are no curtains. Women enter the mosque, regardless of how they are dressed.

Across the road from the mosque is the Catholic Cathedral of Jakarta. When parking in the Cathedral overflows for services, worshippers use the mosque carpark.

Today I met a Muslim Balinese student studying in “Jogja” (as Yogyakarta is often referred to by locals). He told us that in Bali, it is almost impossible to tell if a person is Muslim or Christian or Hindu from their name. He also spoke of how Balinese people of all faiths are suffering because of the drop in tourism since the Bali bombings. Many talented Balinese students are finding it impossible to study in universities as their families cannot afford the tertiary fees. Such students are forced to terminate their studies in Year 12.

I also met a Muslim girl from Java. She wears a “jilbab”, the word Indonesians use to describe a headscarf. I asked her name, and she told me she was called “Sita”. I was surprised because Sita is a name typically associated with Hinduism.

In India, one would rarely find a Muslim girl named Sita. But in Indonesia, people are proud of their Hindu heritage. Hindu names are still used even by the most observant Muslims. Tonight we will be seeing a traditional play using shadow puppets. The play tells the story of the Ramayana, an ancient Hindu epic.

Many people think Indonesian women are covered from head to toe. But anyone who sets foot on a Jakarta footpath will see young girls wearing hipster jeans and tank tops. The young guys are all dressed in jeans and t-shirts. Just like at the mosque, segregation is hardly anywhere to be seen.

We leave Jakarta on 29 November. Sadly, we will miss seeing Chinese New Year, now a public holiday in Indonesia. Things have changed since the Suharto era when Chinese culture was relatively suppressed and Chinese had to adopt Indonesian names to move up the social ladder. Today, Mandarin programs are show on free-to-air TV, and Chinese New Year is even celebrated in many mosques.

In my next installment, I will tell readers about the work of a heroic group of Muslim women trying to help women suffering from domestic violence. Like in most countries, the scourge of violence against women exists in Indonesia.

I'll write more soon. I have to go to the bathroom to attend to the results of eating too much chillied and spicy food!

Words © 2006-10 Irfan Yusuf

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COMMENT: Trad appeal

2010-06-15T03:21:00.002+10:00

These days, Keysar Trad doesn’t appear all too often in the press. I’m not really sure why. Maybe journos have cottoned onto the fact that the vast majority of Muslims aren’t too keen on polygamy. Maybe it’s the impact of a NSW Supreme Court judgment from last July in a defamation claim brought by Trad against Radio 2GB presenter Jason Morrison.

In that judgment, a jury found Trad had been defamed by Morrison, but Justice McClellan ruled that Morrison had established his remarks about Trad were largely true. His Honour said it was reasonable to describe Trad as racist and offensive. He made other interesting remarks which are currently the subject of appeal.

I checked Google News but couldn’t see any reporting of Trad’s appeal. Only one opinion piece by columnist Paul Sheehan appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday 14 June 2010.

Sheehan, who was in court for the appeal on Friday, describes Trad as

... a quote-machine representing the Muslim community in Australia.

You wish, Mr Sheehan.

For more on Paul Sheehan, see this article by Shakira Hussein.

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

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OPINION: False Prophecy ...

2010-06-12T14:52:00.005+10:00

This article was first published in NewMatilda on 11 October 2006.

_________________________

The Australian's editorials and columnists frequently praise Muslim 'reformers' for doing little more than abandoning Islam altogether, writes Irfan Yusuf.

John Howard recently expressed his belief that 99 per cent of Muslims have successfully integrated into mainstream Australia and have adopted a set of uniquely Australian values.

Unique values. You know the ones like mateship. Just ask the current Telstra board.

And like democracy. Yes, apparently this is a uniquely Australian value. Howard has repeatedly lectured Muslims on why their countries should adopt democracy. His Treasurer lectures Muslims on why they should support secularism, separating Mosque from State.

Over the next few days, Howard will announce the new Muslim Community Reference Group (MCRG), a set of ‘leaders’ he will consult on matters affecting Australia’s 360,000 Muslims. The MCGR was formed in September 2005, and its first term recently expired.

And what democratic processes will be used to select these people? Will ordinary Muslims get to nominate people? Will Muslims get to vote on who is selected?

Yeah, right. The Government may have just enough of a majority of shares in Telstra to select one director but the Howard Government seems to hold 100 per cent of all shares in Australia’s Muslim communities.

When it comes to democracy, Howard will be misleading by example. He and his ministers will handpick which Muslims they wish to talk to. Who knows what the criteria will be.

Lately, one of Howard’s favourite newspapers has been busy supporting, promoting, and then condemning, certain current MCRG members.

Consider The Australian’s interest in Dr Ameer Ali, a former president of the virtually defunct Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, and outgoing chair of Howard’s MCRG. Some readers will remember Ali as the man whose organisation took 21 days to issue a letter condemning the London bombing, while taking less than 21 minutes to condemn Michelle Leslie’s dress sense.

Ali is now writing an academic paper on how some Muslims seem to be interpreting Islamic texts literally: an interesting theological and philosophical subject.

But for Richard Kerbaj, The Oz’s specialist reporter assigned to report on all things Muslim, Ali’s research findings have become a yardstick against which to decide who is and isn’t a moderate Muslim.

The circus began on 4 October with an article headlined ‘Prophet not perfect, says Islamic scholar’. The article followed a predictable script, with words thrown together randomly to produce a meaningless yet scary message. Try this sentence on for size:

The chairman of John Howard’s Muslim advisory board yesterday warned that Islamists would continue to breed jihadis unless the Koran was œreinterpreted for today’s society.

So when Islamists do some horizontal folk dancing and one falls pregnant, you can bet your bottom dinar that nine months later out will pop a jihadi. The bastards are breeding like rabbits!

It gets better.

He also said mosques were increasingly being used by imams to deliver sermons that were not open to discussion.

What the? How can imams stop people from discussing their sermons?

Following this are quotes from Ali about how the Koran needs to be reinterpreted to suit modern times; that people should question its teachings; that Muslims should stop reacting to every provocation; and that Muslims should stop judging people’s religiosity by the length of their beards (presuming they are blokes).

It’s hard to know what to make of Kerbaj’s article. He treats Ali’s theologically benign statements as a virtual revolutionary manifesto for an all-Aussie Islamic revolution. Such a characterisation shows he has little understanding of current debates in Western Muslim communities.

Ali isn’t the first person to condemn Muslim responses to the Danish cartoons. He also isn’t the first to criticise literalism in Koranic interpretations, nor is he the first to call for honest dialogue with Islam’s critics.

The usual suspects roundly condemned Ali’s comments. The Oz then published a somewhat patronising editorial about the issue, which made out that the Alis of this world will rarely find support within Muslim communities. The article even went so far as to suggest that Ali’s remarks dealt with ‘some of Islam’s most controversial issues, which have already sparked widespread displays of anger and retaliatory violence around the world’.

I’m not aware of a single riot within the Muslim world on the issue of literalism in Koranic interpretation or on the notion of questioning Islamic teachings. Indeed, in the world’s largest Muslim country, followers of liberal reformers like Nurcholis Madjid are setting up foundations and even establishing universities. And the grandson of the founder of Egypt’s Islamist Muslim Brotherhood is openly calling for a limit to the application of Islamic sharia .

Most amusing was The Oz’s explanation of Ali’s scholarly authority.

Dr Ali’s standing cannot be easily dismissed. He is a doctor of economics who works at Murdoch University in Perth and is writing an academic paper entitled Closing of the Muslim Mind.

So let me get this right: an economics lecturer has the right to authoritatively comment on matters pertaining to religious law and esoteric theology. Presumably, this applies vice versa. I look forward to seeing Cardinal Pell appointed to the Reserve Bank board.

The Oz editorial then manufactured facts, claiming that the entire Muslim world was on fire as a result of the Pope’s speech and the Danish cartoons. The paper suggested that violence was a default position to be expected of Muslims:

Thankfully, the response of Australia’s Islamic leaders has been rhetorical and not vengeful, in stark contrast to the response overseas to publication of the Danish cartoons and the Pope’s speech and the treatment of French philosophy teacher Robert Redeker, who has been forced into hiding for linking Mohammed to violence.

I am the first to admit that some Muslims behaved in an extreme and inappropriate manner, to say the least. But seriously, these responses represent a minority. The vast majority of Muslims protested peacefully. Some voted with their wallets by boycotting Danish goods. Others organised peaceful rallies. There are 1.2 billion Muslims on the planet, if even half of them each lit a match, global warming would soon become global boiling.

The Oz would have us believe that Ali is a brave lone voice in the wilderness. The paper’s editorials and columnists frequently praise Muslim ‘reformers’ for doing little more than abandoning Islam altogether. Openly ex-Muslims like Wafa Sultan and Ayaan Hirsi Ali are put on pedestals. Rushdie-wannabes like Irshad Manji are frequently quoted making outlandish claims that they single-handedly rediscovered ijtihad , a fundamental concept and process used by just about everyone from Osama bin Ladin to Anwar Ibrahim.

(Ali has since criticised the headline and slant taken on his comments by The Oz .)

People should be free to enter or leave Islam as they wish. They should be free to practise whatever religion, if any, takes their fancy (so long as it doesn’t involve blowing themselves and/or others up). And they should be able to define who they are, instead of having pseudo-conservative newspapers and politicians trying to impose alien definitions on them.

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

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COMMENT: Zero tolerance at Ground Zero

2010-06-12T02:55:00.004+10:00

Imam Feisal Abdur Rauf, regarded as one of the softest voices in North America
n Islam, wants to establish a new mosque and cultural centre some 2 blocks from the site of what was once the World Trade Centre in New York.

Opposition to the project is led by a blogger named Pamela Geller and author Robert Spencer who have formed a group calling itself Stap the Islamisation of America.

So who are these people? Here is how one local website covered the group's protest:

Only a handful of victims' relatives came on Sunday.

Sunday's crowd included representatives of the conservative Tea Party movement, some of them wearing anti-tax T-shirts that had nothing to do with Ground Zero, Islam or terrorism.

"We must take a stand and we must say no," shouted rally organizer Pamela Geller as the crowd roared approval. Moments later, another keynote speaker, Robert Spencer, sparked more cheers when he asked, "Are you tired of being lied to?"

Spencer, however, did not explain precisely what lies he was referring to.

Many protesters held American flags. Many carried signs ...

Clearly these people weren't very smart. Here's why.

At one point, a portion of the crowd menacingly surrounded two Egyptian men who were speaking Arabic and were thought to be Muslims.

"Go home," several shouted from the crowd.

"Get out," others shouted.

In fact, the two men – Joseph Nassralla and Karam El Masry — were not Muslims at all. They turned out to be Egyptian Coptic Christians who work for a California-based Christian satellite TV station called "The Way." Both said they had come to protest the mosque.

"I'm a Christian," Nassralla shouted to the crowd, his eyes bulging and beads of sweat rolling down his face.

But it was no use. The protesters had become so angry at what they thought were Muslims that New York City police officers had to rush in and pull Nassralla and El Masry to safety.

"I flew nine hours in an airplane to come here," a frustrated Nassralla said afterward.

Yep, if you look like Jesus, you ain't welcome! Another "Tea Party" protestor decided to drag monkeys into the controversy:

... the proposed mosque has also drawn criticism, including a blast from a Tea Party bigwig who said it would serve as a tribute to the 9/11 terrorists "for the worship of the terrorists' monkey-god."

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

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COMMENT: The athiest who wants Muslims to become Catholic ...

2010-06-08T16:58:00.003+10:00

No, I kid you not. Self-confessed migration fraud and evangelical athiest Ayaan Hirsi Magaan argues in her new book Nomad that Muslims should be converted to Catholicism.

Many Muslims recognize the weaknesses in Islam... But they will not join me in atheism because they still believe there must be a God. This is not easy for an atheist like me to admit, but it appears that the painstaking construction of a personal ethic is not enough for many people ...

I explained to Father Bodar [a Dutch priest living in Rome] why I had asked him to meet me. 'I'm not a Christian and I'm not here to ask you to help me convert and become one," I told him. "But I think the Christian Churches should begin dawa (proselytizing) exactly as Islam does. You need to compete, because you can be a powerful tool to reverse Islamization. You should start with Muslim neighborhoods in Rome. Europe is sleepwalking into disaster - cultural, ideological, and political disaster - because the authorities of the church have neglected the immigrant ghettos.

The churches could go into Muslim communities, provide services just as the radical Muslims do: build new Catholic schools, hospitals and community centers, just like the ones that were such a civilizing force under colonialism in Africa. Don't just leave this in the hands of governments - take an active role. The churches have the resources, the authority, and the motivation to convert Muslim immigrants to a more modern way of life and more modern beliefs. Teach hygiene, discipline, a work ethic, and also what you believe in. The West is losing the propaganda war. But you can compete with Islam outside Europe and vigorously assimilate Muslims within it.'

Father Bodar positively beamed with happiness.

So Catholicism is like a half-way house on the way to atheism. Christianity is a sheltered workshop for Muslims not yet ready to embrace the athiest faith.

Many in the so-called Christian Right will probably be too imbecilic to see just how insulting and patronising such an attitude is to their faith. Presumably Hirsi Magaan is counting on that to keep them on side. But I doubt many genuine Christians would be happy to see their faith treated as some kind of temporary arrangement.

I also wonder why Ms Magaan doesn't choose other faiths for Muslims. Why, for instance, does she not want Muslims to become Jews? Surely Jewish doctrine is far more close to Islam than Christianity. Rabbis play a similar role to Imams. There is a sacred law and an emphasis on maintaining scripture in its original language. Dietary laws are similar. And Muslims don't have to forcibly wrap their heads around a trinity.

What about Buddhism? Or Javanese spirituality? Or Mormonism?

Hirsi Ali appears to have seriously lost the plot. And I have no doubt that many Muslim atheists (as in atheists with a Muslim cultural heritage) will agree with my assessment.

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

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COMMENT: The Irrelevant Men's Club ...

2010-06-06T21:22:00.002+10:00

The following article was first published in NewMatilda on 5 April 2006.

____________________

Australia's 300,000 Muslims - more than 40 per cent of whom were born in Australia and are under 40 - are being represented by a bunch of middle-aged and muddle-headed migrant blokes with poor English skills, writes Irfan Yusuf

There are two really exciting events coming up in the Aussie Islamic calendar. And, as is the case with most organised religious events, both are dominated by blokes.

The first is the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC) elections, timed to coincide with its congress in late April.

And who are these guys?

They are the peak body of middle-aged men who apparently speak for anyone who has anything to do with the Aussie version of the world’s most disorganised form of organised religion. (They claim to speak for all Muslims. Unless, of course, you decide to start modelling underwear, in which case the AFIC leadership will outlaw you regardless of how many days you spend in a Bali prison cell with your head covered.)

Clause 26 of AFIC’s constitution sets out the selection criteria for nominees wishing to fill the elected positions of President, Vice-President, Secretary and Treasurer. The other positions are appointed. Each of the criteria is different except for the first word. Subclauses (a), (b) and (c) begin respectively with ‘He must be ,’ ‘He has served ,’ and ‘He is not in receipt of any ’

AFIC hasn’t had a female executive member for over 20 years. And the last female executive member was appointed, not elected.

In case you’re wondering, AFIC is an umbrella body of nine councils representing various Australian States and Territories, including Christmas Island. Only accredited delegates from each council can vote on who gets to rule the halal roost. The average Muslim punter doesn’t get a vote and cannot even attend the meeting as an observer.

The councils are interesting creatures, frequently changing shape to suit the powers-that-be in the AFIC. In the past 5 years, AFIC has fallen out with the Islamic Council of NSW. It then endorsed the Supreme Islamic Council of NSW, before falling out with them and creating a third council.

Before this third council was officially named, Muslim Sydney-siders already called it the ‘Super-Supreme Council of NSW’ and now all three competing councils are collectively labelled the ‘Pizza Councils.’

The amazing thing about AFIC’s newly endorsed council is that no one quite knows who runs the show. Try dialling their number as it appears on their website good luck if someone picks up the phone. Or send an e-mail to the address taken directly from the AFIC website and it bounces back as having ‘permanent fatal errors.’

But I shouldn’t say anything nasty about AFIC. After all, they are the PM’s favourite Muslims. Howard knows that, when he wants to pass legislation giving ASIO the power to lock people up if they are associated with terrorism, he can always rely on the AFIC to rubber stamp his proposals in public.

The PM would rather deal with middle-aged men with poor English skills than with, say, the former CEO of Citigroup, the current Managing Director of a major telecommunications company, or even a senior bureaucrat responsible for implementing immigration policy.

The reality is that these last three guys are more reflective of mainstream Muslim Australia than most of the PM’s favourite Muslims. They won’t react nonsensically to every alleged criticism of Islamic culture. And the next time the PM or the Treasurer want to wax unlyrically about the burqa or sharia law, their only response will be to point in Commissioner Cole’s general direction.

The PM relies on the AFIC to make sure those nasty critters known as ‘imams’ are kept in line. This is absolutely crucial for national security. After all, we cannot have a bunch of guys unable to speak English and hardly able to draw a crowd of 1000 each Friday, corrupting our English-speaking Aussie Mossie kids by turning them into terrorists!

Which brings me to the second huge event on this year’s Islamic calendar.

As I write, the AFIC is holding its National Summit of Imams. I’m not sure if any TV channels are providing live coverage of what promises to be a sectarian football game that would match the best stoushes held at Sydney’s Anglican Synod.

Howard and other senior ministers want a system of accreditation for imams. During a recent visit to the UK, Phillip Ruddock observed that imams should give sermons in English, not in Arabic or Urdu. (My Urdu-speaking mum will be so upset! Then again, most Urdu-speaking mosques probably wouldn’t let her through the front door. She has to use the separate entrance, usually out the back at the end of a dark lane, where she has to dodge used needles and inebriated street people.)

The National Summit of Imams was meant to be in mid-February, but had to be delayed after some nasty people of the female persuasion complained about the absence of women at the summit. (Female imams! What would the Jensens say?)

The Summit will be attended by the Mufti, Sheik al-Hilaly, who also doubles as the adviser to the AFIC on youth affairs. Now that makes sense: a non-English-speaking imam in his 60s advising a group of middle-aged male migrants about young people in Australia.

What is the role of the Mufti in Australia? Apart from spitting the halal dummy at the prospect of his role becoming redundant should a National Council of Imams be formed, I don’t quite know. Nor, dare I say, does the Mufti. Or his employers.

Not that the elderly Sheik has no role to play whatsoever. He did, after all, have a hand in what our Foreign Minister described as the ‘Team Australia’ effort to free Douglas Wood from his Iraqi captors.

According to an article by The Australian’s Richard Kerbaj, there is a push to get rid of Sheik Hilaly as Mufti. At least, that’s what the elusive President of the Super-Supreme Pizza Council (properly known as the Muslim Council of NSW), Na’il Kaddoumi, reckons.

Sheik Hilaly appears to have made a few too many enemies over the years. Mosque leaders aren’t used to having imams who speak out on controversial social or political issues. In fact, the only thing Hilaly has in common with the rest of the subservient imams is his inability to speak English.

One Imam told me that Sheilk Hilaly is not even qualified to pronounce fatwas (the literal meaning of the word Mufti). His major qualifications are apparently not in Islamic law but rather in Islamic literature. (Imagine John Howard appointing Colleen McCullough to the High Court bench.)

So there you have it: Australia’s 300,000 Muslims from over 60 different nationalities, more than 40 per cent of whom were born in Australia and are under 40, are being represented by a bunch of middle-aged and muddle-headed migrant blokes with poor English skills.

It’s a pizza well past its use-by date with perhaps too much cheese and all the wrong toppings!

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

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COMMENT: Miranda Devine and the coming Muslim demographic winter ...

2010-05-15T23:32:00.002+10:00

New Zealand Conservative Catholic columnist Miranda Devine writes about the coming demographic winter about to hit the human race largely because people no longer link sex to having babies.

As the tattered sexual revolution spawned by the pill hits middle age we can see the consequences of unmooring sex from the possibility of children, and the rejection of the age-old imperative to be "fruitful and multiply".

The result is a so-called contraceptive culture, societies which regard children and childbearing as a nuisance, a burden and an expense, rather than a blessing.

This is truly an international phenomenon. It affects even that nebulous and frightfully monolithic entity they call the "Muslim world".

Contrary to popular opinion, these trends of the past 30 years are being mirrored in the developing world, in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.

"Barren wombs and empty cradles" are a phenomenon of both the Christian and Muslim worlds. Even Iran has retreated from its baby boom of the 1980s, with the fertility rate of 6.5 collapsing to 1.7. The same trend can be seen in the once fruitful United Arab Emirates, Tunisia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Lebanon. The world's most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia, has a birth rate just above replacement, at 2.31, according to the 2009 CIA World Factbook.

The birth rate for Muslim immigrants in Europe may be higher than the countries they come from, leading to the widely predicted Islamification of the continent in the next 50 years. But it is nonetheless declining.

Seventeenth Column in Crescent Times - My Childish Mawlid ...

2010-03-11T13:14:00.008+11:00

Muslims like me of Indian heritage make up one in four of the entire world’s Muslim population. The North Indian ones have their own unique sectarian divides that cannot be found among any other cultural Muslim group. And it’s around this time of year that these cultural divides become especially prominent.

Some non-South Asian readers will be familiar with controversies about the permissibility or otherwise of celebrating the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad. In most nominally Muslim countries, there really isn’t any controversy. Everyone celebrates, with only minor variations between different groups.

But among South Asian Muslims, the meelad is always a source of controversy. Those who insist on doing meelad a certain way regard themselves as “sunni” and label anyone else as wahhabi or deobandi (a “sect” I doubt anyone in Indonesia or Bosnia has heard of). Those who prefer not to perform the meelad in that particular way label their opponents as barelvis (a “sect” I doubt anyone in Mauritania or Kazakhstan would have heard of) or qabar pujaris (grave worshippers) or ahl-i-bidat (innovators). Yes, it’s all gentlemanly good fun.

I grew up in a family where meelad was less about learning and applying sectarian labels and more about forcing your kids to attend boring functions and watching bearded boofy blokes sing devotional songs that none of us wheatbix kids could understand. The imams and uncles would give speeches in Urdu and occasionally in Hindlish (a special form of English unique to the Pakistani imams and the Pakistani medical doctors who dominated these proceedings).

But times have changed. On Saturday I went to a meelad function in Brisbane which was
largely in English. I looked forward to seeing how English-speaking Muslim communities kept the Indian meelad tradition alive. I looked forward to listening to songs kids of my nephews’ generation could understand. I looked forward to being spiritually energised by a lecture in English delivered in a manner my nephews would relate to.

And was I to be disappointed? You betcha! Some 2 hours was spent listening to naat devotional songs sung in Urdu so chaste that even Kevin Rudd would not be able to understand it despite his mastery of Asian languages. The singer was some dude whose claim to fame was that he was the nephew of a famous naat singer from Pakistan. And the name of the naat-nephew? Who cares?

At one stage, our naat dude asked the audience in Urdu: “How many people here can understand Punjabi?”. Two hands rose from the audience. Mine wasn’t one of them. This didn’t stop Mr Naat from singing an incomprehensible Punjabi hymn.

And if you think that was bad, the singer then decided he wanted to provide some entertainment for a group he described using the mixed Urdu-English phrase of yooth keh log (literally “people of youth”). His effort consisted of the following naat in words even the most eminent linguists may find difficult to decipher. Here is the chorus:

Svit Madeenah, svit Madeenah svit Madeenah
Veree lowlee

Finally the English-speaking imam stood up to speak. This chap claimed to be a barrister and Islamic jurist (“faqih”) whose main claim to fame was that he had some association with an institution in the UK called Hijaz College.

This young barrister-cum-faqih then decided to use the occasion of the Prophet’s birthday to remind the Prophet’s followers gathered that we are divided into 73 sects, 72 of which are headed for hell. What better way to celebrate the birth and life of the man who united Muslims of all sects.

I almost fell off my chair when the Pommy imam made this fantastic claim: “I have been giving lectures since I was four years old!” Amazing. Imagine what kind of wisdom would emanate from the mouth of a 4 year old. The following examples immediately come to mind:

“Mummy, for God’s sake, give me an ice cream!”

“Wallahi, that toy is mine!!”

And finally, this classic:

“Waaaaaaah!!!!!!!!!!!!”

If the meelad event I attended proved anything it’s that, despite the level of discourse being rather infantile, not even the infants and kids found the proceedings at all interesting. They were outside listening to their iPods. I joined them. Kate Ceberano proved much more enlightening than the mob of manic mullahs on stage.

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

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OPINION: Thirteenth Column in Crescent Times: Why should we bother writing for a Muslim newspaper?

2010-01-25T13:53:00.004+11:00

One of the best books I’ve read this year is entitled Leave to Remain. It’s a memoir by an associate professor of environmental engineering at the University of Sydney. The author talks about his experiences growing up in a country wracked by civil war, his studies and work in the United Kingdom and his eventual settlement in Australia. Of particular interest to me was reading about how the author gets along with people of his own ethnic and religious heritage.

That author’s experiences are somewhat similar to my father’s. Dad completed his PhD in Canberra during the 1960’s before moving back to his home country of Pakistan. He was about to be transferred to what was then East Pakistan when he was offered a job in Sydney. Had that job offer not come through, he and his family may have been caught up in a civil war.

My father has an Indian Muslim heritage. He privately practices his faith. The author of Leave to Remain, Dr Abbas El-Zein, has Lebanese Muslim heritage. He publicly professes to be a non-believer. They could both be described as “Muslim migrants”. They both migrated in similar circumstances.

But can these migration experiences really be compared? Isn’t it like comparing chalk
and cheese? And isn’t comparing one Muslim experience to another a little silly?

Greg Sheridan, the Foreign Editor of a foreign-owned newspaper calling itself The Australian, doesn’t seem to think so. Recently he wrote a column suggesting we need to have a debate in this country about the desirability of having Muslim migrants. Or migrants from Muslim backgrounds. Or migrants from Muslim-majority states. He message wasn’t very clear.

Sheridan’s editor gave him the headline of “Uncontrolled Muslim influx a threat”. He acknowledged in the 4th paragraph that:

It is extremely difficult to talk honestly about Muslim immigration. All generalisations about it are subject to countless exceptions. Muslims are very different from each other.

Sheridan then proceeded to praise a book which made all kinds of outlandish generalisations in the service of a conspiracy theory that Muslims are on the verge of taking over Europe. It was real “Eurabia” stuff.

Apparently Muslim migration leads to certain problems for host societies that Sheridan describes as “the Muslim problems”.

These problems include: they outbreed us; they tend not to integrate, they have a strange kind of victimhood, they all seem to hate Jews.

Sheridan says that the solution is that we should not have uncontrolled Muslim immigration. Since when has Australia had uncontrolled Muslim immigration? Indeed, since when has Australia had an immigration policy that is built on religion? Yes, we had the White Australia Policy. But this policy did not stop Albanian Muslims from migrating here in the 1920’s or Yugoslav Muslims in the 1940’s and ‘50’s.

You’d think an experienced editor of a national newspaper would get his facts right. But sadly when it comes to issues even vaguely related to something vaguely related to something deemed Muslim, facts and logic are thrown overboard. This is what happens when we allow others to write our story instead of writing it ourselves.

If for no other reason than this, we need a national newspaper that reflects the diversity of opinion among those Australians who feel inclined to tick the “Muslim” box on their census forms. The newspaper you are holding in your hands or reading on your screens is put together by a bunch of writers and editors who disagree on more things than they agree on.

Yet we still are civil in our disagreements and appreciate each other’s criticisms. After all, as the greatest of men said, disagreements among his followers are a mercy from God.

So celebrate the first anniversary of the Crescent Times. And if you disagree with anything I or anyone else writes here, put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and give readers a piece of your mind. You’ll only be adding to our collective store of divine mercy.

Words © 2009-10 Irfan Yusuf

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OPINION: Fourteenth Column in Crescent Times: How to burn Swiss chocolate?

2010-01-25T13:16:00.005+11:00

Next week, I’m organizing a huge bonfire. Hundreds of people dedicated to freedom of religion will be joining me. We have decided to show our solidarity with four Swiss minarets by burning the symbols of Swiss culture at our disposal.

Some will bring chocolate to burn. Others will turn the bonfire into a huge toasted sandwich by emptying their fridges of imported cheese.

Still others will be targeting cuckoo clocks. The wealthier ones will bring records of their secret bank accounts (I assure readers I’m not in that category).

I’m shocked that Muslims are not repeating the imbecilic spectacle that accompanied (or rather, that followed by 6 months) the publication of the Danish cartoons. Remember the burning of embassies? Remember the huge protests in Arab and other nominally Muslim countries where normally you cannot even sneeze without the secret police reading the contents of your handkerchief to make sure the blood and mucus don’t spell some criticism of the king or general or emir?

I doubt any crazed crowds will be protesting or burning Swiss embassies. Why? Because let’s be frank and honest about this. Where will the corrupt Muslim rulers store their ill-gotten and embezzled wealth if they tell their people to boycott all things Swiss? Which other country has such liberalized banking laws that allow corrupt despots to hide their loot?

Swiss Muslims are largely of indigenous European - Albanian, Bosnian and Turkish – extraction. Their mosques are likely to be designed along Ottoman lines, with flat domes and skinny minarets that look like scud missiles (and would probably be about as inaccurate if filled with explosives and launched). Ottoman mosques are modeled on the St Sophia’s Orthodox Basilica in what was once Constantinople. Apparently when the city was taken over by Fatih Sultan Mehmed, he ordered the Basilica to be surrounded by a bunch of minarets but otherwise left the structure intact. He also ordered mosques across the empire, including in European cities like Sarajevo, to be designed to resemble the cathedral/mosque.

And so mosques across the Ottoman empire resemble Eastern Greek churches. But where did Fatih Sultan Mehmed get the idea of minarets anyway? After all, the first mosques built by the Prophet in Quba did not have big tall minarets. Neither did his mosque in Madina. The minarets were added after he passed away.

So where did the minarets come from? Well, when the first generations moved out of Arabia, they modeled their mosques on the existing architecture. One of the oldest mosques in existence can be found in China. It was built by a companion of a companion (tab at-tabi’i). If you walked in the street where it was located, you could not tell it was a mosque from its architecture. Why? Because it looks just like a Chinese pagoda.

Similarly, mosques in Syria were modeled on existing Byzantine churches, which had towers for bells. Muslims also decided to build towers for their muezzins.

And so the minaret is little more than an act of architectural plagiarism. Muslims added minarets to mosques so that they did not stick out like sore thumbs in the environment.

The early Muslims were happy to build mosques that looked like the houses of worship of the dominant cultures where they settled. Australian Muslims, of course, don’t need to follow this precedent. We prefer building mosques that look like something out of 1965 Karachi. We cry “racism” when residents get upset at our insistence at always being different. Then we spend tens of thousands of dollars taking local councils to court. All for the right to build domes and minarets that our ancestors copied from churches and synagogues anyway.

Still, try telling moronic Swiss voters that they are seeking to maintain their Christian heritage by objecting to what are essentially (or at least historically) Christian religious symbols. It isn’t just their clocks that have gone cuckoo.

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

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OPINION: Fifteenth column in Crescent Times - Bloody politics of division in my birthplace ...

2010-01-09T16:01:00.007+11:00

One of my relatives is visiting my birthplace of Karachi at the moment. She hopes to see siblings she hasn’t seen for years, in some cases, decades.

Visiting Karachi at this time is always a little risky. The city is an ethnic and sectarian melting pot. Ethnic Pathans (also known as Pushtuns) dominate the transport industry. Most other businesses are owned by so-called Muhajir - Muslims who migrated from various parts of India after the 1947 Partition. There are large Shia communities of various denominations, and the Sunnis are also fragmented in various ways. To give readers an idea of just how prevalent the sectarian divide is, the last time I was in Karachi during the mid-90’s, my cousin took me for Friday prayers one day. We had to walk past 3 mosques to get to the mosque. I asked my cousin what was wrong with the first three. “One is barelvi, the other is shia and the third are ahl-i-hadis.”

Back then, Karachi experienced a multilayered civil war. No one quite knew who fought who or why. There was conflict between rival factions of the Muhajir political party. Then there were Sunni and Shia groups fighting a proxy war on behalf of their respective Saudi and Iranian sponsors. One anti-Shia party called ASSP (which probably stood for the “Absurdly Silly Saudi Party”) fought pitch battles against the Shia TNFJ (which probably stood for “Totally Nuevo Funky Jihad”).

Exactly whose side you fought on depended on which conflict you were fighting. One day, you’d be in a trench with Ahmed shooting in the general direction of Javed and Ali from that nasty Muhajir splinter group. The next day, you and Javed were in the same trench shooting in the general Absurdly Silly direction of those nasty pro-Iranian TNFJ infidels Ahmed and Ali.

Now things have taken a definite turn for the worse. For my elderly relative to visit Karachi during Muharram took plenty of guts. Like many traditional Sunni families, we commemorate Muharram in certain ways. We fast on Ashura (the 10th day of Muharram when Imam Hussain was martyred along with most of his family at Karbala) and we also refrain from certain forms of entertainment.

Pakistan TV channels frequently have religious programs commemorating Muharram, which my parents in Sydney get to watch thanks to the dish on their roof. But this time Muharram in Karachi is bloodier than ever. Much blood is spilt during religious processions when men and boys perform rituals that many Shia religious authorities condemn as innovation. Still, these practices have entered South Asian Shia culture in much the same way as circling and prostrating to the graves of saints has entered South Asian sunni culture.

Thousands take part in these processions. Sometimes sectarian riots take place. But Pakistan right now has much bigger worries than sectarian rioting. When even traditionally anti-American religious party leaders are using phrases like “war on terror” in a serious fashion to describe the fight against the renegade Taliban, you know there’s an unusual level of strife.

According to one Pakistani politician, in thelast year Pakistan has now had more suicide attacks than Iraq and Afghanistan. One recent attack targeted the women’s section of the Sharia Faculty at the International Islamic University of Islamabad. Talk about the Taliban implementing sharia! More recently, the notoriously anti-Shia Taliban attacked a Muharram procession in Karachi, killing over 40 people. And the most recent episode was an attack on a volleyball game that killed over 80.

So will we have special security set up for mosques (especially Shia ones), educational institutions and volleyball grounds? No way. Don’t be surprised if Murdoch bloggers start suggesting it’s more important for our security that we perform cavity searches on non-white people for explosive underwear.

Pakistan’s terrorist attacks have received little coverage and have led to little reconsideration of our policy toward that troubled country. Pakistan is always blamed for terrorism in various parts of the world, and it’s as if Pakistanis dying from suicide attacks is treated as a case of “serves you right”.

Still, for my relative in Karachi, the inconvenience to her schedule has been most disturbing. She may not be able to see third cousins she hasn’t seen for 40 years, presuming she even knows they exist. Which hopefully means her kids can remain single until the next trip.

First published in the January 2010 edition of the Crescent Times.

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf

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CONGRATS: To Mustafa ...

2010-01-03T02:43:00.002+11:00

Mustafa Qadri is a lawyer and an upcoming journalistic voice who has been published in the UK, Australia and online. He recently got married to another young lawyer who once presided over the same campus Muslim Students' Assoc as yours truly. She also doesn't mind being referred to as an "Aussie Mossie".

Congrats to both, and we hope they have a long life together.

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

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COMMENT: Fair Dinkum Pilgrimage

2009-12-12T00:10:00.003+11:00

The following piece was published on the Aussie Mossie blog on Monday 9 January 2006.

In the past few days, around 2.5 million Muslims from across the globe have converged on the ancient city of Mecca in central-west Saudi Arabia to perform the various rites that form part of the Muslim pilgrimage tradition known as the “Hadj”.

On Tuesday 10 & Wednesday 11 January millions more will attend prayer services and gatherings in their local areas for the feast of sacrifice (known in Arabic as “Eid al-Adha”), the most important religious and cultural festival of the Muslim calendar. The feast commemorates an event mentioned in both the Old Testament and the Koran.

The Old Testament recounts how God ordered Abraham to show his devotion by sacrificing his own son Isaac. The Qur’an is silent on the identity of the son, though Islamic tradition suggests the proposed sacrificial son was to be the elder Ishmael.

Just as Abraham places the blade on his son’s throat, the command is given to sacrifice a ram instead. The rites of the Hadj conclude with pilgrims sacrificing an animal, following the example of Abraham. Hadj also involves a variety of other acts commemorating the sacrifices made by Abraham and members of his family to establish monotheism in the region.

These acts include circling a cubic structure known as the Kaaba (believed to have been built by Abraham) which is draped in fresh black embroidered cloth each year. Near the Kaaba are two hills (named “Safa” and “Marwa”), between which it is believed Ishmael’s mother ran to fetch water for her infant child. Pilgrims run between these two hills following in Hagar’s footsteps.

The highlight of the Hadj is the assembly on Mount Arafat, regarded as a preliminary to the gathering of all humanity on Day of Judgment. In January 2005, TVNZ reported that over 20,000 buses were used to carry a portion of the millions of pilgrims who made the journey last year.

At one time, travel to Hadj was a difficult and dangerous journey. American Muslim writer Michael Wolfe recounts the pre-jet-age perils of pilgrims in his book “One Thousand Roads To Mecca”, an anthology of 10 centuries of Hadj travel writing.

Wolfe’s characters include Ibn Battuta (Islam’s very own Marco Polo) who travelled by land and sea during the 14th century over some 75,000 miles and over a period of 30 years. Also included are “fake” pilgrims who smuggled themselves into Mecca defying its ban on non-Muslims entering its gates, such as Englishman Joseph Pitts who managed to sneak into Mecca undetected in 1685.

The journeys recorded also include the diary entries of an Australian woman Winifred Stegar who married an Indian merchant in Singapore. Her pilgrimage was performed in 1927, with she and her Indian husband running out of money and having to leave some of their children behind along the way.

Wolfe’s own Hadj journey, described in his book 1993 “The Hadj – An American’s Pilgrimage to Mecca”, was a much safer affair. Like most modern pilgrims, he travelled by air. The grandson of an Orthodox Jewish religious scholar, Wolfe adopted Islam after spending time in Morocco.

In many Muslim cultures, Hadj represents the culmination of a lifetime of devotion with the “Hadjis” (as those making the journey are called) leaving the journey until later years. It is said that a person’s entire adult life of sins is erased by a successful Hadj.

On the other hand, the delayed Hadj is also the subject of wry humour. Hadjis are often jokingly regarded as veteran sinners seeking a “quick fix” to their perilous spiritual status. An Urdu saying goes: “After eating several thousand mice, the elderly cat finally decides to set off for Hadj!”

But with hundreds of elderly Hadjis dying each year, and with an increased sense of religiosity amongst young Muslims, the average age of pilgrims appears to be decreasing.

In Malay and Indonesian cultures, it is traditional for Hadj to be performed in one’s early adult years. And amongst Australian pilgrims, young adults are also heavily represented.

Sydney’s Sun-Herald reported on December 11 2005 of a group of young Muslims from the Sydney Muslim heartland of Lakemba making preparations for the journey. One of them was Omar Abas, a 26 year old software engineer and a personal friend of the writer.

Omar’s father first went to Hadj at age 65, and his own decision to go for Hadj relatively young is unusual in the context of his parents’ Lebanese heritage wherein leaving Hadj to the end of one’s life “was the traditional Lebanese mentality. You live your life and do what you want, and then go to Hajj.

“For my parents' and grandparents' generations, religion played a small part in their upbringing. Today it’s different. Religion is very important to young Muslims because it is a way of life.”

For those Muslims not at Hadj, the time is one for feasting with family and friends. Non-Muslim readers with Muslim work colleagues should remind them of this fact at next week’s work lunch. But sorry, most of us won’t buy you a ham sandwich or a schooner of VB!

COMMENT: No time to whinge

2009-12-12T00:02:00.003+11:00

This comment was published on the Aussie Mossie blog on Friday 24 February 2006 ...

My immediate response to the comments on Muslims and Australian values was shock, dismay and disgust. It made me sick in the stomach that 2 prominent political leaders could express such ignorance on fundamental Islamic concepts such as sharia and jihad.

Of course, we all know they are doing this as a diversion to other emerging issues and scandals. But I think Muslims need to also consider why they can get away with expressing such divisive views.

The fact is that probably most Australians agree with the views expressed by Messrs Howard and Costello. Aussie Muslims know that Costello’s remarks on sharia evidenced near-chronic ignorance on his part.

They also illustrate our near-chronic laziness and inability to communicate our values to the broader Australian community. If the broader community understood what sharia really is and what it means to Aussie Muslims, the Howards and Costellos of this world would never be able to use such issues as a successful diversion.

We know that Muslim mobs rioting and burning embassies were being manipulated by their leaders to divert attention away from more pressing issues. Costello and Howard are using the same device in Australia.

Or are they? When was the last time a group of Muslim Australians sat down and explained to Mr Howard what sharia actually means? When was the last time a Muslim group even bothered to invite Mr Costello to one of their functions?

Our disappointment with our political leaders is understandable. But what else can we expect when we allow our fellow Australians to be bombarded with only ignorant views about our faith and cultures?

The time has come for Muslims to come out of the spiritual closet and to be proactive about their religious responsibilities. Our primary religious responsibility in Australia is to inform people about who we are and what we believe.

The Arabic word “dawah” is often used to describe Muslim outreach and educational activities. We know dawah is a religious imperative upon all of us. It is now becoming an imperative for our national security and our social cohesion. We cannot afford to sit back and complain about the ignorance of wedge-creating politicians. Now is not the time to complain. Now is the time to talk and act.

COMMENT: Rachael Kohn on imam con-artistry ...

2009-11-09T23:27:00.007+11:00

According to ABC Radio National religion presenter Dr Rachaael Kohn, it is the responsibility of Muslims in Australia to expose some wacky Iranian self-proclaimed Ayatollah they probably have never heard of except through the news.

In the many media conferences and interfaith meetings I've attended, Muslims have regularly complained that the media cast them in a poor light.

However valid that complaint may be, it loses all credibility when they don't go after the radicals in their community.

If they don't, the media will do it for them.

Indeed. And when the media does it, it's likely that it will be the first time even the most well-connected Muslims will learn about the person in question. But what if Muslim religious leaders go further and actually request law enforcement agencies to do something about it? As Kohn herself notes:

Almost two years ago, Richard Kerbaj [The Australian, Jan 28 2008] reported that the Melbourne based Shia Muslim leader, Kamal Mousselmani, urged the Australian Federal Police to investigate Sheik Haron, whom Mousselmani claimed was not a genuine religious leader.

Did you read that, Rachael? Almost two years ago. Perhaps you should be directing your inquiries to AFP.

Still, Rachael does have one point:

But one issue remains outstanding: just who is a genuine religious leader in the Muslim community and who is monitoring their output to young Australians?

I've been making that precise point in the matter of Afroz Ali. But then, Afroz doesn't exactly go around preaching suicide bombing. I don't think someone who promotes feeding the homeless and getting involved in climate change activism could be described as a threat to our national security even if he isn't as qualified to teach religion as he claims to be.

You'd think a religious reporter from Radio National would be able to make such distinctions and address such issues. Still, you don't need to know much about Islam or Muslims to get a job in the Religion department there. Indeed even Afroz Ali wouldn't be silly enough to object (as Kohn once did) to using the term "unitarian Islam" (or something similar) to describe wahhabism. A bit like objecting using "lawyer" to describe a legal practitioner.

Read this paragraph and wonder:

Yet it would seem that with the rapid growth of storefront prayer halls, it is time to ensure that all the independent sheiks who garner a following be known and when necessary reined-in by a body that represents the interests of Australian Muslims.

It's hard not to be flippant about Kohn's claims. Yes, these shopfront prayer hall sheiks are breeding like rabbits, popping up all over the place. And as we all know, Muslim youth are so damned vulnerable that they can be brainwashed into doing just about anything. I mean, we've all heard of those genetic deficiencies, haven't we?

Seriously, Rachael, if you want to hold me and 359,999 other Australians who tick the "Muslim" box on their census forms responsible for the wacky remarks of some wacky dude we know bugger-all about just because our unelected self-appointed leaders do bugger-all about him, you might consider resigning from Radio National and move to 2GB where people holding such silly views do their broadcasting.

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf

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LETTERS: Further Open Letter to Afroz Ali ...

2009-11-02T01:01:00.002+11:00

The following open letter was sent to Afroz Ali. I don't expect a response given that I have had such letters unanswered since as early as least April 2006!

Dear Afroz,

Assalamu alaykum.

As you are aware, there has been some discussion for the past 4 years concerning your religious qualifications and credentials, if any. Some of that discussion has been in the form of blog posts on my blog as well as discussion on internet forums. I have also spoken with you personally about this matter and have documented our conversations on my blog.

Your Melbourne representative, Taymour Nabulsi, has advised that your full academic qualifications and credentials are available and on display at your office in Lakemba. If that is the case, I wanted to arrange a time to meet with you and you could explain to me these documents which, Mr Nabulsi says, are quite complex and intricate.

As my own knowledge of Arabic is rather weak (to say the least!), I also wanted to bring along 2 persons whom I trust in these matters. One is a graduate of the Islamic University of Madina as well as having qualifications from Turkey and strong Arabic fluency.

Can you please advise via return e-mail on when would be a good time to visit your centre. Ma salameh.

Regards
Irfan Yusuf

COMMENT: Pseudo-Sheik Haron and Radio 2GB ...

2009-10-22T16:56:00.005+11:00

I’ve just gotten off the phone from Jason Morrison of the Sydney talkback radio station 2GB. His researcher, Judy Goldman, had been trying to contact me since this morning. She had e-mailed me via the AltMuslim.com website (of which I am an associate editor) and also rang the Law Society of NSW. I contacted her and had a brief conversation with her.

I spoke with Mr Morrison at 3:40pm. He wanted to talk about a certain "sheik" Haron who had been charged with sending grossly offensive letters to the families of fallen Australian soldiers.

Morrison asked me if I had ever heard of Haron. I said that I had read about him in a media report in The Australian newspaper last year. However, he first really came to prominence when it was reported he had written to a judge in a terrorism trial supporting and justifying the decision of certain defendants not to stand up when the judge entered the courtroom.

Morrison said that many ordinary Australians would look at this incident and wonder why more ordinary Muslims didn’t step up and condemn Haron’s remarks. He said that his show had been having trouble finding a single Muslim prepared to comment on this issue on the air.

Morrison admitted that he thought Haron had a screw or two loose (which makes one wonder why people might expect Muslims to speak out given that we don’t expect Christians t speak out when someone with a screw loose says something silly in the name of Christ).

The impression he seemed to be giving his listeners was that Muslims in general did not regard this as a serious enough issue. It was as if Australians who ticked the “Muslim” box on their census forms had little concern for the sentiments of their fellow citizens.

After the interview, I spoke to his researcher for a second time. She confirmed to me that she had not contacted any of the following to seek comment:

# Any Islamic Council

# Any imam or Board of Imams

# The NSW Community Relations Commission

She did say that Mr Morrison may have tried to contact people before the show.

This raises the question – exactly who did Mr Morrison or his researchers ring? What efforts did they make to contact representatives from Muslim communities? And why did he tell his listeners on air that he had in fact been trying to contact people from Muslim communities all day to comment about this?

UPDATE I: The website of the so-called Sheik Haron now appears to have been "suspended".

UPDATE II: My suggestion to "sheik" Haron is that he follow the commercial lead of another sheik ...

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf

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COMMENT: Time for Jewish-Muslim Solidarity ...

2009-10-14T16:21:00.004+11:00

The following comment from the now-defunct Aussie Mossie blog was first published on Saturday 29 July 2006.

Israel may well gain its military objectives in Lebanon, just as it always has in the constructively occupied West Bank and Gaza. But Israel is fast losing the war of public opinion.

People across all sectors of Australian society, of all ethnicities and faiths are questioning what has clearly been a disproportionate response by Israel to the military incursions of Hamas and Hezbollah.

Australia’s Jewish community has been largely supportive of Israel. With a relatively higher proportion of Holocaust survivors compared to other Jewish communities in the Western world, many Australian Jews regard support for Israel as a kind of emotional life insurance policy.

But now even prominent Jewish writers and academics are beginning to make critical noises against Israel. This must prove unsettling for more hawkish pro-Israel lobbies. They now see Americans and Australians and New Zealanders and Europeans, people whose support they always took for granted, abandoning the blindly pro-Israel position.

Why is this happening?

Firstly, things haven’t been the same since Yasir Arafat shook hands with Yitzhak Rabin on the White House Lawn. Since then, the Palestinian cause gained respectability.

There was a time when Lebanese, palestinian or Muslim groups on Australian campuses faced a barrage of criticism when inviting speakers critical of Israel to speak. Today, on campuses across the country, Jewish, Muslim, Arab and other students are holding inter-faith gatherings and joint functions.

Secondly, the internet has opened up sources of information hitherto unavailable. Westerners now have access to Israeli and Palestinian newspapers and magazines online. Views and positions labelled anti-Semitic by rabid pro-Israel lobbies are now accessible on Israeli news websites. Previously, such views were only known to people in Israel.

Thirdly, Israel’s treatment of Christian minorities is also becoming known, thanks to the work of writers from various Christian denominations. Books such as William Dalrymple’s From the Holy Mountain are exposing the excesses of Jewish extremists in Jerusalem as they engage in blatant and often violent takeovers of Church land under the watchful and supportive eye of Israeli authorities.

Fourthly, Palestinians have also gained many articulate spokespeople actively building bridges for peace. Attempts to paint Sydney Peace Prize recipient Dr Hanan Ashrawi as a bloodthirsty supporter of suicide bombers in 2003 failed dismally.Attempts to discredit the recent study by two prominent American academics, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, on the power of the pro-Israel lobby seem to have backfired. In Australia, we see the paper profiled even on the pages of establishment papers such as the Australian Financial Review.

It also doesn’t help the more hawkish pro-Israel lobbies when their views are couched in the xenophobic and racist language of News Limited tabloid scribes. Today, many pro-Israel positions are represented by the most extreme, belligerent and imbecilic argument.

Recently Australia’s Ambassador to Lebanon declared that it is almost inevitable that Australians will be amongst the dead and wounded among Lebanon’s civilian population as Israel’s campaign in Lebanon continues. When Australians see their fellow countrymen and women being incinerated and blown to pieces by Israeli fire power, when the effects of this war begin to affect ordinary Australian families, goodwill toward Israel in Australia will nose-dive.

And should Hezbollah and Lebanon’s armed forces join forces under a unified command, it will be impossible for Israel’s friends in Canberra to cry “terrorist” when young Australians leave in droves to join in the fighting on either side of the war.

Lebanon is being seen as the victim. Israel’s apparent policy of “an Israeli eye for 30 Lebanese and Palestinian heads” is being exposed in all its ugliness.

So what should Australian Muslims do? Should we raise our voices in anger toward those we presume to be Israel’s die-hard supporters? Should we be demanding Jewish Australians to prove their loyalty the way we are demanded to prove ours when Aussie are killed in terror attacks in Bali? Should we be complaining that Jewish leaders aren’t condemning Israeli aggression enough as many complained (and continue to complain) about ours?

Should we produce our own Muslim versions of Mark Steyn and Daniel Pipes? No. We should rise above such divisive strategies.

Now is the time for us to engage our brethren of Jewish faith. Now is the time for us to hold out the hand of friendship. Because the reality is that we are all victims in this war.

We know there are many Australian Jews who are openly questioning Israel’s military policies. We also know there are many decent people inside Israel (including inside Israel’s Defence Forces) questioning and rejecting Israel’s current campaign.

As Israel’s army commits more atrocities, Hezbollah replies by firing more rockets. Who is killed? Ordinary Lebanese. Ordinary Israelis. Ordinary Jews, Christians and Muslims.

As Muslims, we should be the first to hold out the hand of friendship. Yes, we are opposed to Israeli government policies. But that doesn’t mean we show venom and resentment to our Jewish neighbours and colleagues and workmates and classmates.

Extra efforts should be made by Muslim organisations, particularly those representing young people, to arrange meetings and joint functions with Jewish organisations. Imams should go out of their way to meet with rabbis. Principals of Muslim schools should arrange visits to Jewish schools.

It makes me so pleased to see the disciples of Turkish Islamic scholar Muhammad Fethullah Gulen arranging functions with groups associated with the congregation of Temple Emanuel in Northern Sydney. More such gatherings need to occur.

With so much tension in the air, surely now is the best time for Muslims and Jews to interact and to build friendships. Let the hawks and extremists on both sides talk war and blood and death. Let us ordinary Australians, Muslims and Jews, speak the language of friendship.

Rabbi Hillel is quoted as saying: “Judge not your neighbour till you've been in his place.”

The Prophet Muhammad (peace & blessings of God be upon him) is reported to have said: “You are not a true believer until you want for your brother what you want for yourself.”

Muslims and Jews in Australia are fellow citizens and neighbours. Now more than ever, both our communities need to show we will not allow conflicts overseas to colour our relations with each other. We are already friends. We now must be seen to becoming better friends.

I love your last paragraph. That is the 'ideal' isn't it. I think criticism and more in-depth examination of these conflicts is eessential. I am a practising Australian Christian currently living in the UK (I differentiate myself from 'cultural' Christians, of which most white Aussies/Brits would probably describe themselves as).

And this comment was left in Spanish by a Chilean Jewish brother:

Irfan,

He leído con atención tu blog, y concuerdo con tus ideas.

Como chileno, judío y activista del diálogo fraterno entre los "hermanos separados" te envío un caluroso abrazo desde Santiago de Chile.

Jorge

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COMMENT: Good intentions are no substitute for expertise ...

2009-10-02T00:38:00.008+10:00

A group of organisations in Australia and New Zealand were sending a delegation to the Pacific islands-nation of Samoa to conduct an inter-faith ecological program. Since then, parts of Samoa have been struck by a devastating earthquake and tsunami which has killed perhaps over 100 people and flattened entire villages.

Here is an excerpt from their promotional Facebook page for the original Samoa adventure.

Interfaith With a Difference
A 5-Day MIZAAN Ecology Rihla to the South Pacific! ...

Join Imam Afroz Ali in this unique experience of good fun and good deed all in one! Be one of only 20 people for a 5-day journey to the beautiful Pacific Islands of Western Samoa and participate in a unique Ecology initiative of Al-Ghazzali Centre.

This Rihla will open your hearts to many realities; from environmental degradation and its effect on Pacific islanders, simplicity of living as opposed to our consumer-extremism, to why acting on the principles of your faith is the best guidance for humanity. Be part of a unique journey that does not stop in Samoa.

Now that group is still going but for different reasons. Here is an excerpt from a new promotional Facebook page.

1000 for 1000 Survivor Kit
Emergency Relief Support for Samoa ...

Al-Ghazzali Centre is responding to the post-Tsunami Disaster Relief Work in the island of Upolu, Western Samoa, by packaging emergency Survivor Food Packs specifically designed for:

• Essentials packed for 1 family per week*
• Food and water packed for 3 times a day for the family
• 1000 Australians helping 1000 Samoans with 2 weeks!

Imam Afroz Ali of al-Ghazzali Centre (Australia) and sidi Aarif Rasheed of Rasheed Memorial Dawah Trust (RMDT, New Zealand) are taking a delegation of 10 people to the island of Upolu from Friday 2nd October – Tuesday 6th October for humanitarian aid and reconnaissance for the most effective and prompt ways to provide relief assistance on the ground in Samoa. This delegation initially had planned to visit Samoa to undertake ecological regeneration work as an interfaith initiative, where Muslim Australians and New Zealanders would assist Christian villages to regenerate mangroves marine habitat which is part of the major Pacific Stream- a program supported by the United Nations Development Program. Due to the latest natural disaster in Samoa, the objectives have been re-focussed to humanitarian efforts despite the difficult circumstances the delegation is sure to experience upon arrival ...

This emergency relief work needs your full support. To source, pack and dispatch the Survivor Food Kits to Samoa by ship within approximately 10 days is significantly costly exercise. With sponsorships, much of shipping logistical is already covered. Your financial donations will be most important in sourcing the food and the essentials. 1000 Australians can easily assist 1000 Samoans for as little AU$90 per family. 1 Australian family donating $90 supporting 1 Samoan family in distress.

Your donation is needed immediately- make it happen!

In Australia, donate your AU$90 to:

Al-Ghazzali Centre
BSB: 032024
Acc: 401251
Ref: Samoa

It sounds like a great initiative. A bunch of people carrying aid packets that will keep people nourished for around a month. Delivering these packets in Samoa where the aid is most needed.

But then this delegation consists of the same people who were part of a camping trip which would conduct an inter-faith ecological project. One would think that the skills required to conduct an ecological project are quite different to those involved in surveying a natural disaster zone and determining how best to deliver aid.

I wonder whether any members of the delegation have experience in disaster relief. I also wonder whether they will liaise with existing aid agencies such as the Red Cross and Caritas who are already on the ground. And I wonder why people should donate to the Al-Ghazzali Centre to carry out such a project using inexperienced personnel when the same money could be given to more experienced aid organisations. Further, how many extra resources will be taken up by members of this delegation staying at the disaster zone, and for what net benefit to survivors?

Good intentions in disaster relief and aid are great but they are no substitute for experience and professionalism. Still, we wish the delegation well in their endeavours.

UPDATE I: I notice that some persons leaving comments here are suggesting that the Samoa trip is just a publicity stunt. There are a number of reasons to reject this suggestion:

a. The delegation were going to Samoa anyway and their trip was not triggered by the natural disasters there.

b. The organisations' publicity is limited, as far as I can see, to Facebook and perhaps some e-mails.

c. The organisations involved could have generated much more media publicity for this trip had they wished to.

d. In terms of Muslim community goodwill, there would have been more incentive for the organisations to travel to Padang and other parts of Sumatra which have been afflicted by earthquakes.

I have little reason to doubt the sincerity of the people involved, even if I doubt their good sense.

UPDATE II: If this report from a Samoan newspaper is any indication, the group is working with and under the direction of local people.

UPDATE III: Donations in New Zealand can be made to ...

Name: Rasheed Memorial Dawah Trust Inc.
Number: 12 3043 0365388 00
Charities Commission Reference: RAS22987
CONTACT: Subaie Ishaque - 021 0628 156

I'm not sure which bank the RMDT deals with. I'm also not sure who is collecting aid in Australia or whether they are legally authorised to do so. Perhaps someone could ring Muslim Aid Australia and find out.

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf

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MEDIA: Helen Razer enters the burqa mass debate

2009-09-20T15:31:00.002+10:00

Aussie journo Helen Razer has written an interesting and intelligent piece on the burqa which is actually more than just about burqas but also lashes out at society's misrepresentation of feminism.

Read it here.

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AUDIO: Inside Islam radio episodes

2009-09-20T15:22:00.003+10:00

Jeez, twitter is a superb thing. I picked up this podcast from the University of Wisconsin about a whole bunch of Muslim-related topics. They take a little while to download but are certainly worth it.

Click here to start exceeding your download limit.

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Eid Mubarak!!

2009-09-20T15:17:00.002+10:00

I just wanted to wish all my readers (yess, all 3 of you!) a very happy Eid! It's been a hard slog, this Ramadan. Especially in Australia, where we've had some really tough fasting. I mean, breaking fast at 5:30pm everyday is am absolute killer! People in the northern hemisphere always seem to have it easier.

Anyway, enjoy your feasting!!

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OPINION: Fourth Column in Crescent Times - Why Pain Matters More Than Prejudice ...

2009-09-07T20:55:00.005+10:00

These days Alexander Downer finds himself working for the UN on a big fat tax-free salary. He travels between freezing New York, sweltering Adelaide and the even hotter Cyprus. Not bad for our longest serving (and some would say worst) foreign minister.

But things weren’t always so exciting for Mr Downer. Back in 1995, his reign as the Federal Liberal Parliamentary Party’s shortest serving leader ended with the release of a set of motherhood statements parading as policies entitled The Things That Matter.

In the presence of journalists, Downer made this ... er ... joke:

When we release our domestic violence policy, [it will be] the things that batter.

In one verbal swoop, he managed to offend at least a certain 51 per cent of the electorate born female. Downer later explained it was all a joke. His party colleagues weren’t laughing, and made sure he didn’t last in the job beyond a few days over eight months.

Jokes about domestic violence are no joke in Australia, making insensitive remarks about female and/or child victims of physical or sexual violence and their families
shouldn’t be seen as funny anywhere.

So one could hardly expect imams and Muslim preachers like Melbourne’s Samir Mohtadi (also known as Abu Hamza or “Hamza’s dad” presumably because his eldest child is named Hamza) to get away with advising Muslim men that it is permissible to bash one’s wife. Presuming, of course, that’s what he actually said. But anyone taking the time out to watch the 4 minute excerpt of Abu Hamza’s speech on the website of the Melbourne Herald-Sun and other News Limited tabloids across the country during the week of the Australia Day long weekend would soon realise Abu Hamza didn’t exactly endorse wife-beating.

However, the part of what Abu Hamza said that I think is worth focussing on is his suggestion that it’s impossible for a man to rape his wife. At least that’s how I interpreted what he said. We cannot be sure exactly what Abu Hamza meant by these words when he said them in 2002, since only a badly edited excerpt is available. Exactly why his words were reported by tabloids across the country on the eve of Australia Day in 2009 is also unclear. Is it yet another case of American-owned tabloids wanting to spread prejudice under the guise of Australian patriotism?

What we do know is that the vast majority of incidents of sexual assault are by men against women they have a pre-existing relationship with – an acquaintance, a date or even a partner or spouse. It is estimated that at least 10% of Australian women will be sexually assaulted by their husbands.

Rape is under-reported as it is, and too often its victims suffer in silence. Indeed, as the South African Muslim scholar Farid Esack says, female victims of rape are double victims. They are victims of the act itself and are then victims of a kind of enforced or pressured silence based on false notions of shame. Imagine being a victim and having an extra layer of shame due to the perpetrator being the father of one’s children.

What hurts much more than double standards and prejudice and bigotry of tabloid editors is the too-often silent pain of female victims of all races and creeds and classes. Violence against women is all too common in Australian households. What kind of sick man gets his kicks out of forcing any woman, let alone his own wife, to have s-x with him?

Sadly, the answer all too often is an Australian man. That man can belong to any religion or no religion at all. That man can be of indigenous or immigrant stock. But if we focus on one set of perpetrators, it means we ignore other perpetrators. And that does injustice to all victims.

When news reports of the words of imams create an environment of prejudice, inevitably it is Muslim women who suffer more. Your average Muslim bloke, even if he wears an impressive beard, could easily be mistaken for a Sikh or a fanatical ZZ Top
fan. But not a Muslim woman wearing a hijab or niqab.

It’s hard enough for our female folk to have to cop nasty stares and abuse for most visibly personifying a despised religious culture. But when these same women cannot even feel safe from their own husbands, when our sisters know that imams and shaykhs are teaching husbands that raping your wife is okay, surely this must magnify the burden of prejudice our sisters in faith already face.

In an environment like this, where non Muslim men and women abuse them and where Muslim husbands are taught it’s okay to rape them, is it any wonder so many of our sisters who would regularly wear hijab in public are now removing it? Why should Muslim women cop the lion’s share of abuse when Muslim men (including imams) are silent on issues of domestic violence?

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf

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COMMENT: Just how un-Western is Christianity? And just how Christian is Australia?

2009-09-07T17:10:00.004+10:00

I’m writing an article about Eastern Christianity. Actually, it’s an article about just how un-Western Christianity really is. I’m not writing about theology because I’m no theologian. I’ve written about these themes in various places over the years, and I hope this article will bring all that stuff together and take it a little further.

Interestingly, the article is for a Catholic website! I’m hoping the following notes will help clear my head about these issues a little.

[01] Muslims who are on the receiving end of allegedly Christian prejudice, who are often lectured to about how the West is the way it is because it has a distinctly Christian heritage, need to understand the reality of just how un-Western Christianity today is.

[02] The message also needs to get through to Christians who swallow this Christianity=West equation. Hopefully the spread of understanding of the true nature of Christianity will have a number of effects.

[03] It will help Muslims understand just how much they have culturally in common with Christians. It will also give Muslims an opportunity to remind allegedly Christian bigots just how ignorant and misplaced their bigotry is.

[04] It’s not enough to just be reminding ourselves at interfaith conferences just how similar our beliefs are. We also need to be talking about culture, politics, music, art, civilisation and much more.

[05] During the Howard era, religion frequently became the subject of cultural wars which rarely had anything to do with theology or dogma. So often we heard about the so-called “Judeo-Christian ethic”. Even today, former ministers of the Howard government like Tony Abbott talk about how ours is a nation built on the New Testament. On a recent episode of ABC TV’s Q&A program filmed at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival, Abbott remarked:

I think everyone who has grown up in a western country is profoundly shaped and formed by the New Testament, because this is the core document of our civilisation.

He went onto say that he gave up reading the Koran after 70 pages as it was:

… it struck me as the old testament on steroids …

So we can forget about the “Judeo” bit. It’s just Christian Australia, the land of the Holy Spirit.

[06] Peter Costello used to often refer to the Judeo-Christian tradition as some kind of cultural wedge.

On May 29, 2004, Treasurer Peter Costello addressed a crowd of Pentecostal Christians at Scots Church in Melbourne.

Costello provided his audience with a lesson in Australia’s colonial history. “If the Arab traders that brought Islam to Australia, had … settled or spread their faith among the Indigenous population, our country today would be vastly different. Our laws, our institutions, our economy would be vastly different.

“But that did not happen. Our society was founded by British colonists. And the single most decisive feature that determined the way it developed was the Judeo-Christian-Western tradition. As a society, we are who we are because of that tradition … one founded on that faith and one that draws on the Judeo-Christian tradition.”

Of course, all this talk about “Judeo-Christian heritage” is all a joke when you consider, as I wrote back in 2007, that:

… Judeo-Christian culture wasn’t exactly alive and well in England. Both colonists and convicts would have been aware of the passing of the Jew Bill through the English Parliament in 1753, allowing Jews to be naturalised by application to Parliament. Mr Costello’s ideological ancestors, the Tories, opposed the Bill, claiming it involved an “abandonment of Christianity”. Conservative protesters burnt effigies of Jews and carried placards reading “No Jews, no wooden shoes”.

Jews were forbidden from attending university and practising law in England until the mid 19th century. One can only imagine the prejudice the 750-odd First Fleet Jewish convicts faced from English jailors brought up in such an anti-Semitic environment.

PHOTOS: Auburn Mosque on a Ramadan night ...

2009-09-07T16:02:00.006+10:00

REFLECTION: On speaking English

2009-09-05T17:45:00.003+10:00

This piece was published on the Aussie Mossie blog on Sunday 17 September 2006.

The Dooley’s Catholic Club at John Street Lidcombe was the seen of a generational clash on Friday night.

Tony Abbott was addressing an ethnically and religiously mixed audience. He told them it was simply impossible for someone to fully engage in Australian life unless they could speak English.

Some elderly members of the Lebanese community sitting at the front shouted “rubbish”. And the rest? Particularly the youngsters?

I was seated up the back of the room. Nearby were young Lebanese Aussies, including girls wearing traditional hijab. Seated directly in front of me was an Australian of Bosnian heritage. She joined many who cheered and clapped. The rest nodded in agreement.

I admit I applauded as well. But now I am having second thoughts.

Yes, it’s self-evident that inability to speak and communicate in English limits a migrant’s own personal ability to reach their full potential. I remember a sermon I heard at my childhood mosque in Surry Hills. The imam quoted the Prophet Muhammad who said: “When you settle in a land, learn the language of that land so that you are not deceived.”

Deception can take numerous forms. It can be as subtle as misunderstandings. It can also take more sinister forms. The common element in all forms of deception by language is being pushed to the margins.

Young people of non-English speaking background don’t want to be marginalised. They are tired of seeing their faith or heritage represented by people unable to communicate in the language most people at school or college or uni or work speak. It angers me when I see imams and Muslim leaders appear in media unable to speak proper English or needing interpreters.

Young people from non-English Speaking background are also tired of seeing their parents hampered and marginalised due to poor language skills. Many feel humiliated at watching their parents struggle in simple tasks and at having to constantly act as translators.

I learnt about my Indian heritage from my mother, a highly educated woman with postgraduate qualifications Indian literature and language. My mother completed her studies in some of the finest institutions of the sub-Continent.

But when she arrived in Canberra in 1965, my mother found her strong abilities in Hindi and Urdu dialects couldn’t assist her in even buying a loaf of bread at the O’Connor shops. Were it not for a kind Anglo-Indian Hindi-speaking Jewish woman, my mother would have been lost.

My mother had a policy that we only spoke Hindi and Urdu at home. She wanted to make sure her children could speak her first language. She was different to other Indian mothers who learnt English by encouraged their children to speak English at home. Now these mothers can speak English a little better than my mother. But their kids cannot speak a word of Hindi and Urdu, and hence miss out on enjoying their parents’ culture.

I am able to speak my mum’s first language quite fluently, but there are times when we unnecessarily end up in arguments because we have misunderstood something she has said.

My mother has always wanted to feel a sense of belonging. It hurts me when, despite her best efforts, she finds communicating in English so difficult. However, her inability to learn the language has its own background.

My mother’s situation was almost identical to the situation of the mother of an old school friend I’ll refer to as Igor. Both Igor and I were in the same class at a Sydney Anglican private school. Our mums were both educated in their own countries (in Igor’s case, Yugoslavia). Both performed manual labour jobs in factories. That was the only way our parents could afford to send us to our school.

Migrants who cannot find time to learn English are not necessarily lazy or unwilling to integrate. In my mother’s case, she had young children to look after. She, like Igor’s mum, wanted her children to have the best education money could buy. She sacrificed her time and energy to perform manual labour instead of taking time out to learn English to the degree of fluency her children have.

A few nights back, I was at a dinner of young professionals. An elderly Lebanese Muslim lady was seated at my table. She was the only person of her generation there. She spoke very little English and tried to express her resentment at the PM’s Muslim-baiting. The only item she conceded was of the need for migrants to learn English.

This woman found it hard to find time to learn English as she had to bring up 6 children. All her children have graduated from university and are working in a range of professions – law, accounting, engineering, medicine and education. Her children are participating in mainstream Australia in productive ways that make this non-English-speaking Australian proud.

Migrants who today refuse to take time out to learn English could regret their decision tomorrow. However, these migrants compensate for their language difficulties. They can still make a sterling contribution by bringing up their children to work hard and become model citizens. However, my own experience suggests this can only work in an environment where parents and children are able to communicate in a shared language.

UPDATE: Here is a comment left by dezhen on the original blogpost:

Great point, and one that is overlooked in amongst all this nonsense. Whenever I hear these guys speak, I am reminded of Captain Picard on the Starship Enterprise "Make it so." Unfortunately it doesn't happen like that in real life. Repeating the same thing over and over again does not make it so, there are other issues to consider as well - but they don't make such catchy slogans.

And here is another comment left by Dean:

My grandfather came from Mozambique to Melbourne in 1924. All his life he struggled with English but he refused to teach his children Portuguese. 'When in Rome,' he said. My grandmother, an Anglo Anglican, was very understanding when I married a Japanese. "Granny doesn't mind it if I don't talk," said my wife when she came over for lunch. "I like just sitting with her. She understands about people who don't speak English fluently." My granny was a trooper: she married a migrant but when he started seeing other women, she left him. "I don't need him anymore," she said.

I don't think it is necessary for migrants to speak English. What is more important is that they be able to mix with people from different ethnic backgrounds. Staying cooped up in a ghetto is the worst thing because it allows you to become complacent, and prevents you from broadening your horizons. Maybe council-sponsored English classes for migrants are the answer.

COMMENT: Reasonable and unanswered questions ...

2009-09-04T22:40:00.006+10:00

Recently I received an e-mail via a Melbourne Muslim yahoogroup. The e-mail was from a young chap who currently represents the AlGhazali Centre, and promoted a series of lectures to be delivered by "sheikh" Afroz Ali. Here is an excerpt of that e-mail:

Imam Afroz Ali is the Founder and President of Al-Ghazzali Centre for Islamic Sciences & Human Development, based in Sydney, Australia. He is a qualified Imam in the Islamic Tradition, having studied under Traditional Islam and received licence to teach in various Islamic Sciences. His studies have taken him from university-based Islamic University- Madina, Saudi Arabia then moving towards Traditional Scholarship in Yemen, United States and Mauritania, where he has spent considerable time to learn from the most esteemed Rightly Guided Islamic Scholars of our time. He has also travelled to Cairo, Egypt for further studies in Islamic Jurisprudence with Scholars at al-Azhar University and is on the Board of Advisors at Markaz Aleem in Cairo, Egypt.

He has presented lectures, workshops and training programs worldwide, including Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, United States, The Emirates, Egypt, China, Japan and Denmark. He lectures around the world on Islamic Jurisprudence, Spirituality, Ecological Wellbeing, Ethical Rights and Responsibilities, and Personal and Corporate Citizenship.

He has initiated philanthropic as well as sustainable environment projects in Australia and abroad, and continues to advocate peace, acceptance, justice and interpersonal rights. Imam Afroz is a founding and executive member of the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change. He is also the recipient of the International Ambassador for Peace award.

I wrote to the brother in the following terms:

Dear Taymour,

In the bio of Mr Ali, it states:

"He is also the recipient of the International Ambassador for Peace award."

Can you please advise:

1. Who granted this award?

2. What was the award granted for?

3. When was it granted?

In relation to his studies at Madina University, can you please advise:

a. When did he study there?

b. How long did he study there?

c. Which courses, if any, did he complete?

d. Who were his teachers?

e. Did he complete any qualifications?

Looking forward to your response.

Ma salameh

These questions are, in my opinion, perfectly reasonable. And I expect that they will also remain perfectly unanswered.

I will keep readers informed of any response I receive. I don't expect any clarification at any stage before 2052 Olympics.

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf

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