CRIKEY: Muhammad wins the Nobel Prize twice!

A few weeks ago, Pope Benedict XVI cited a Byzantine emperor who claimed that Muhammad had brought nothing new to the world except war and violence. Yet in the past two years, the secretive Norwegian Nobel Committee has chosen Muhammad to receive its prestigious international peace prize. And not once, but twice in a row.

Well, not exactly. But it’s certainly significant that the two most recent recipients of this award have been prominent members of the Muslim intelligentsia who share the world’s most commonly used name given to male children.

Last year it was the Egyptian-born head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed ElBaradei. This year, the committee overlooked 190 other candidates to award the prize to an eccentric banker from the Indian sub-Continent.

Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi-born and American-trained economist who invented microcredit - an unusual method of lending money to people with no assets to mortgage and nothing to offer except a business plan and economic desperation that forces them into hard work.

Yunus’s Grameen Bank has now lent over $8 billion, most of it to impoverished villagers in Bangladesh and other parts of the Third World. Although largely unknown in the West (as opposed to prominent politicians and activists among past winners), Yunus and his bank are household names in much of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Grameen Bank has an impressive array of assets. It owns Bangladesh’s largest mobile phone network. The bank has played an important role in assisting women from impoverished backgrounds gain some financial independence, particularly women whose male providers are unable to find work.

Muhammad Yunus’ unique banking methodology has been applied outside Bangladesh to great effect. His bank has worked on development projects for women in Vietnam and other parts of the world. From time to time, he has fallen foul of religious zealots in Bangladesh unhappy at what they perceive as Yunus’ methods challenging traditional Bangladeshi gender relations.

Yunus isn’t the only Muslim to receive a Nobel Prize. This year, the Nobel Committee awarded prizes to two prominent Muslims, the other being Turkish author Orhan Pamuk.

First published in the Crikey! Daily alert for 18 October 2006.

Words © 2006 Irfan Yusuf

Australia's first honour killing?

Last year, former Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali had a number of her speeches and articles translated and published in a short book titled The Caged Virgin.

Ali’s book sought to provide background (largely from her own experiences) of how many Muslim migrants practise their faith. She painted a rather nasty picture of Muslim girls being brought up in an environment where religion is enforced on the basis of guilt and shame.

Ali’s book can be criticised for any number of reasons. She imposes her own personal experiences on all Muslim migrants and cultures. However, she does talk about difficult issues that children of some Muslim migrants must experience, and that Muslim communities must face upto.

That wake-up call was again sounded on Monday night in the form of screams emanating from a Gold Coast unit. At the time of writing, details are sketchy. Elsewhere, I have criticised certain slants on the story imposed by at least one News Limited paper.

What we know from a neighbour is that a 17-year old girl of Bangladeshi origin was involved in a stabbing frenzy that arose from her telling her parents that she intended to convert to Christianity.

The girl’s mother tried to intervene, and apparently died from a single stab wound. The father was also in a critical condition arising from stab wounds.

The Australian reported on October 12 that the girl’s parents were very strict Muslims. However, their apparent strictness was difficult to understand. They sent their daughter to a liberal non-denominational Christian school. They also insisted their daughter practise a career of their choice.

Most Islamic jurists are agreed that parents are not to force their children into a certain career choice. Further, the idea of killing daughters of any age was condemned by the Koran, which condemned the pre-Islamic practise of female infanticide practised by pre-Islamic tribal Arabs.

Yet sadly, many migrant parents place enormous and unreasonable pressures on their children. They impose an irrelevant cultural form of Islam which is totally alien to the environment their children grow up in.

The cultures of the Indian sub-Continent (Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka) can be particularly oppressive to children. This applies not just to Muslims but also Hindus, Sikhs and other faith communities.

Indians place enormous emphasis on honour. A breach of family honour can be committed in a number of ways – poor academic performance, marrying outside culture or caste, making the ‘wrong’ career choice.

Hinduism is a pacifist and deeply mystical tradition that emphasises God’s merciful presence in all creation. Yet so many of my Hindu friends do not see this mercy in their parents, who force their children into marriage and career choices. Kids who don’t conform are shamed.

Marriage is an area where sub-Continental parents can be particularly oppressive. Even in cases where parents allow children to choose their spouses, they insist that any potential spouse must be of the same culture or caste. I know of one Indian Muslim family who refused to attend their son’s wedding as he married a Muslim girl outside their culture.

Religion is a particularly sensitive issue in the sub-Continent. Who could forget that scene in the movie Bend It Like Beckham where Jasminder, the Sikh soccer player, told her friends in the dressing room that her parents would slit her throat if she married a Muslim boy.

Indian faiths are seeped in rich ancient cultures that attract many Western devotees. Sadly, these faiths are smothered with irrelevant cultural conditions frequently force-fed on the children of migrants.

My Delhi-born parents sent me to an Anglican school. I attended chapel services and divinity classes. I associated Christianity with the lion from the CS Lewis novel The Lion The Witch & The Wardrobe – the noble king of the jungle who laid down his life so that others could be saved.

On the other hand, I associated Islam with Indian culture. Islam was about learning to read and recite a scripture in a strange language. Mosques were places where foreign people would gather and where imams would speak in languages I had little understanding of. Islam was an alien cultural experience.

I was told good Muslims obeyed their parents in major life decisions like marriage and career. I associated Islam with my uncles who forced their daughters to stay home yet allowed their sons to party into the night. Islam was a religion of hypocrisy and double standards.

If I am still a Muslim today, it is no thanks to community elders or imams. Rather, it is thanks to a combination of God’s mercy and my own reading and understanding of Islam’s rich heritage.

In January I visited Indonesia and found an open Muslim society where people openly enter and leave religions for marriage and other reasons. Gender relations in Indonesia are open, and women openly participate in public life. Some of Indonesia’s most fervently Islamic communities continue to practise matriarchal cultures where women traditionally rule the roost.

Yet still I know so many young 2nd and 3rd generation Aussie Muslims who have never been exposed to other Muslim cultures. They aren’t aware of the multicultural richness of their faith and heritage. Then again, how many Aussie Christians know that the oldest hymns on earth are sung in Syria?

Muslim parents who don’t want their children to leave Islam should learn that Islam is more than just a cultural construct designed to remind parents of the ‘home country’. They should allow their children to experience a wide variety of cultural experiences that Islam in Australia has to offer. No country has as great a diversity of Muslim cultures as Australia. When elders and community leaders allow Islam to become a truly Australian faith, they will find they no longer need to force-feed the faith.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

OPINION: PM's points of reference don't reflect reality of Muslim Australia

Howard’s selection process is flawed and doesn’t inspire confidence it will get better, IRFAN YUSUF reports.

PRIME Minister John Howard and his ministerial minstrels want Muslims to learn some genuine Australian values. In doing so, they have been misleading by example.
Different ministers provide differing lists of Australian values. Howard speaks of equality for women, an Australian value so treasured that, in the past seven years, reported incidents of domestic violence in Howard's home state of NSW have increased by about 50 per cent. He then condemned certain isolationist practices of Muslims before defending a fringe Christian sect with even more isolationist practices. Perhaps he was trying to encourage Muslims to run covert political campaigns against his enemies.

Former education minister Dr Brendan Nelson warned Muslim independent schools to clear off if they refused to emulate an English illegal immigrant and his donkey. Treasurer Peter Costello advised Muslims against implementing sharia, before listing a set of Australian values that would find pride of place in an elementary sharia textbook. He followed this up with a lecture calling on Muslims to embrace the separation of church and state, his message being delivered to a conference of a Christian lobby which wants religion to play a more active role in Australian statehood. Health Minister Tony Abbott spoke in less patronising tones, perhaps a reflection of his own experience of being lampooned for holding unfashionable religious views. Abbott encouraged Muslims to engage in more self-critique.
One value all ministers would agree on is the need for Muslims to embrace democracy. This means encouraging fair elections and ensuring government is representative of the governed.

Once again, Howard is misleading by example. He is so committed to Muslim democracy that he will be deciding which Muslims will form part of the new Muslim community leadership that makes up his Muslim Community Reference Group. Howard will hand-pick which Muslims he consults on matters potentially affecting all 360,000 Muslims (not to mention more than 19million other Australians). He won't leave the choice to Muslims themselves. He has not even invited nominations.

Howard's record in his first reference group provided interesting outcomes. At least 50 per cent of Muslims are female. At least 50 per cent of Muslims were born after 1969 (the year I was born). Turks represent the largest ethno-religious community. Yet Howard's first reference group had only a handful of women and hardly any young people. And no Australian Turks.

Instead, Howard chose to surround himself with a group dominated by middle-aged migrant men with poor English skills and unable to challenge him on policy. He could then drop a few bombshell comments and watch as his hand-picked Muslims would scurry around. He could then attribute their behaviour to the entire Muslim population, thereby creating a useful diversion from more pressing political issues plaguing his administration. His methodology is simple. He picks which Muslims he will talk to. He will then make nonsensical or provocative statements knowing his hand-picked Muslims will overreact. He will then blame all Muslims and shrug his shoulders as his problems with industrial relations, Telstra, Medibank Private, right-wing branch- stacking and AWB leave the front pages.

It is likely the next group of men (and a few token women and youth) Howard chooses for his next Muslim reference group will also satisfy the caricatured Muslims he has found so politically useful. They will be people who do not reflect the composition of a largely young, educated and home- grown faith-community.

His next reference group will be unlikely to have prominent Muslim women. He is likely to overlook Muslim business people, doctors, accountants, lawyers, bankers, journalists, public servants, sportspeople, local councillors and academics. He is unlikely to choose Muslims who have significant contacts and networks in the broader community which they can use to challenge him and mobilise opposition to his domestic and foreign policies. He is unlikely also to appoint people who can challenge him on a political and public policy level in public and with a certain degree of media savvy. He is unlikely to pick Muslims who do not meet a stereotype. He won't pick ones of perhaps a lesser degree of religiosity but greater expertise. Such Muslims exist in substantial numbers. For his patronising agenda, these Muslims are a problem. But for Australia's social cohesion, they are an essential part of the solution.

I hope Howard proves me wrong. I hope he selects prominent Muslim business people and professionals, journalists and academics, sportspeople and public servants. I hope at least 50 per cent of his reference group are women, and that at least 50 per cent are aged under 40. In short, I hope he selects Muslims who best reflect the reality of Muslim Australia, not just another group of middle-aged male sycophants who oscillate between blind acceptance and even blinder reaction.

Irfan Yusuf is a Sydney lawyer who has acted for Muslim peak bodies and independent schools. First published in the Canberra Times on Tuesday October 10 2006.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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My own thoughts on the Dr Ameer Ali controversy

The following article was submitted to the op-ed editor of The Australian on Thursday 5 October 2006.

This entire matter has been a beat-up from start to finish. Notice how only The Oz was running with the issue. The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald refused to touch it. I don't think even the tabloids ran with it.

What does this show? It shows the entire issue was a beat-up. And people like Hilaly, Kara-Ali and others who reacted gave this obvious beat-up more legs than it deserved.

____________________

Once again, unelected and self-appointed Australian Muslim leaders are seeking attention by manufacturing a mountain of controversy from a theological mole hill. This time, the controversy concerns remarks by Dr Ameer Ali, the outgoing Chair of the Prime Minister’s unelected and handpicked Muslim Community Reference Group (MCRG).

The current MCRG is reaching the end of its term. As the Group’s chair, Dr Ali is among its more outspoken members. Often, he has been criticised for playing musical chairs, changing sides on issues depending on whichever direction he feels the communal or political winds appear to be blowing.

In more recent times, Dr Ali has taken and stuck to sensible opinions. His final comments on what should have been a ‘claytons’ controversy surrounding a recent papal speech – that Muslims should accept the Pope’s apology and move on – effectively killed the debate on this issue in Australia, with only a handful of tabloid columnists dragging the discussion further.

Dr Ali’s recent pronouncements are, by and large, fairly benign. Notwithstanding what the editorial authors of The Australian may claim, much of what Dr Ali said was neither new nor courageous. Further, to claim his kind of views “have already sparked widespread displays of anger and retaliatory violence around the world” is more than a slight exaggeration.

Dr Ali’s call – that Muslims should not read the Koran literally and should adapt their understanding to changing times - represents orthodox consensus among Muslims of all denominations. Indeed, literalism in interpreting the Koran is a sure sign of heterodoxy.

The Prophet Muhammad himself is known to have taught various methods of interpreting (and therefore, of re-interpreting) the Koran, and his example has been followed over 14 centuries. In this sense, certain strains of the Wahhabi school, who generally prefer literal meanings over traditional (often metaphorical) interpretation, represent a departure from orthodoxy.

However, in relation to his recent remarks on the status of the Prophet, Dr Ali has really hit a raw nerve. Yet it wasn’t so much his basic message that was the problem. Rather, it was the words he used.

Muslims regard all Prophets of God as being perfect human beings. The Koran rejects Biblical claims of Prophets such as Dawud (David) and Sulayman (Solomon) engaging in sexual and other vices. Muslims believe Prophets were ma’sum (free of sin).

The gist of Dr Ali’s message seems to be that the Prophet Muhammad was not perfect. But by what standard of perfection is he talking about? Muslims of all schools of thought and denominations agree that the Prophet was a perfect human (al-insan al-kaamil in Arabic). But then, the word for human (insan) itself means forgetful or negligent. Muslims agree that, as a human being, the Prophet was perfect. Yet there are places in the Koran where the Prophet has been corrected in his conduct.

So how is this Prophetic perfection to be worded? To what extent can he be praised? What are the limits of his human perfection? This is where the controversy among different Muslim denominations begins. It features prominently in sectarian polemical discussions across the Muslim world.

In the Indian sub-Continent, the dividing line is between followers of the Barelwi sect (who believe the Prophet was created from divine light or nur) and the Deobandi sect (who believe he was created from both nur as well as the stuff all humans are made from). And that’s only part of the controversy.

Some years back, I acted for a Fiji-Indian mosque located in the Sydney suburb of Green Valley . There, controversy raged about whether to celebrate the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday.

One might regard this as a trivial issue. However, among Indian Muslims (and their Diaspora communities in Fiji , South Africa and elsewhere), celebrating the Prophet’s birthday often involves the congregation standing up out of respect for the Prophet. This is based on the belief that the Prophet Muhammad can be in more than one place at a time (haadhir wa naadhir), and that he attends all celebrations of his birthday.

Fiji-Indian Muslims from the competing faction opposed the celebration of the Prophet’s birthday on the basis that it involved attributing a divine quality to the Prophet Muhammad. And while the elders of the congregation quarrelled over this issue, their children were deserting the mosque in droves.

The extent of reverence to be paid to the Prophet has been a controversial issue in recent times. In Lebanon and Syria , the al-Ahbash sect insists that the Prophet’s relics (such as his clothes) can be used to obtain blessings. The sect is known for what some Muslims deem its excessive praise of the Prophet.

In this sense, it is little wonder Reference Group youth representative Mustapha Kara-Ali is criticising Dr Ali. Mr Kara-Ali is known to have close ties with the al-Ahbash sect. Indeed, Mr Kara-Ali is managing a government funded project under the auspices of al-Amanah College , a Sydney independent school managed by members of the sect. Criticism of Dr Ali’s position is perhaps one of the few areas where the al-Ahbash sect agrees with Sheik Tajeddine Hilaly, a man they otherwise regard as an apostate.

By entering the dispute over the appropriate expression for Prophetic perfection, Dr Ali is in fact opening an irrelevant sectarian and cultural hornet’s nest of little relevance to young Muslims. Muslims seeking to openly discuss his well-intentioned questions might find themselves shouted down by sectarian zealots seeking attention by diverting young Muslims away from more pressing issues.

Far from helping the cause of developing an Australian Islam, Dr Ali might have just further entrenched sectarian irrelevance.

The author is a Sydney lawyer who has acted for various Muslim organisations and independent schools.

©Irfan Yusuf 2006

Piercing through Piers on imams of hate

Daily Telegraph columnist Piers Akerman is blogging away on the subject of multiculturalism. His blog is one of a series of blogs on the subject, with other bloggers involved including Keysar Trad, 2 Christian clergy and myself.

Akerman has been upto his old games again, holding all Muslims responsible for the attitudes and actions of a minority of dangerous and violent nutcases. In this respect, he is repeating his allegations that imams in Sydney are preaching hatred …

Irfan, you are a lawyer, aren't you. It is sufficient to say to that (1) I have spoken to a number of imams. (2) A number make what can only be described as hate-filled addresses. Your clumsy attempts to put up straw men to distract attention from the central points do you no good at all. Any respect that may have attached to you has dissipated.

I’ve asked him for specifics of his allegations. Sadly, he tries to evade my probing questions. In one post, I’ve asked him …

Piers, I’m sorry if my simple requests for basic information are causing you discomfort.

However, since you have alleged that certain imams in Australia have made hate-filled addresses, why not provide your readers with the following details:

a. The names of these imams and the mosques where they preached;
b. The languages in which the sermons were delivered;
c. The approximate dates on which the sermons were delivered;
d. The words that were used during the sermons;
e. Whether or not you had discussions with these imams following their sermon.
f. What was said during those discussions.

After all, Piers, you are a journalist. Presumably you carry a notebook to take notes or voice recorder. All you have to do is pull your notes and/or recordings out and reveal all ...

... that is, if you have anything to reveal!

Piers’ response was to advise that he had told the relevant authorities. I’ve again asked him for the details, reminding him of his frequent suggestion that ‘moderate’ Muslims aren’t doing enough to silence radicals.

Let’s see if Piers continues to evade my questions. It’s all good and fine for columnists to make claims about Muslims. However, columnists need to be held accountable and required to provide evidence for their claims.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

Muslims, The Brethren & Aussie Values

Imagine a religious community which forbids its adherents from using computers, from eating with non-believers, from attending university and from voting. Imagine if the group was led by a Lebanese sheik.

One can only guess John Howard’s reaction to such a sect. “These people need to integrate. They need to adopt Australian values. This sort of culture could breed home-grown terror.”

One can also imagine Brendan Nelson’s response (were he still education minister). “I will write to their schools and impress upon them the importance of observing Australian values. Otherwise, they can clear off!”

Perhaps Treasurer Peter Costello would talk about such a sect as manufacturing generation of young people caught in a “twilight zone”, not feeling comfortable in their parents’ culture or in broader Australian culture.

No doubt Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock would be concerned about allegations the sect was actively engaged in breaching Family Court orders in relation to children. Joe Hockey would be most concerned the group was potentially assisting its members by channelling money through secret accounts to avoid falling foul of Centrelink.

Select newspapers owned by a certain American citizen would no doubt be running hard with the story. The Australian would publish editorials about how this sect has little respect for Australian values. Its op-ed and letters pages would be flooded with pieces from former supporters of Sir Joh on “ Australia ’s Muslim problem” and “the Islamic cancer in our body politic”. Its favoured education writer would use his Menzies Foundation credentials to speculate about funding for the sect’s schools.

The tabloid duo in Sydney and Melbourne would be carping away, using the story as yet more proof that Muslims just don’t wish to integrate and their dual citizens are a bunch of social security cheats.

Meanwhile, conservative think tanks would publish comment on the social and economic dangers posed by this sect. They would invite theatre critics to lecture on more “big ideas” of how Muslim activities represent a threat to our Western culture.

Security commentators and self-declared terrorism “experts” would issue fatwas on possible dangers posed by such fundamentalist beliefs, and possible links of the Muslim sect to al-Qaida and Hezbollah.

Of course, all this is hypothetical. I’m not aware of any Muslim sect in Australia which insists on such isolationist thinking and living. However, viewers of Four Corners on 25 September would be aware of a Christian sect accused of engaging in such conduct.

The Exclusive Brethren have every right to practise their form of Christianity. They have every right to stop their members from going to university, eating with non-Brethren, marrying outside their sect and voting.

But when any religious group is accused of engaging in deliberate breaches of the law, our law makers should be the last to defend them (or at least the first to call for an investigation). Hence, John Howard’s description of the Exclusive Brethren in the Sydney Morning Herald on September 27 as merely “an organisation within the law” which has “a different, a more disciplined” version of religion is most disturbing.

Mr Howard frequently lectures Muslims about Australian values. These include mateship, respect for the law and equality for women. However, such rules clearly do not apply to Christian sects which bankroll campaigns benefiting Mr Howard’s (and indeed my own) side of politics.

Australians of all denominations have expressed concern about what they perceive to be Mr Howard’s anti-Muslim sentiments. Many would argue that Mr Howard and other politicians are engaging in a campaign of vilification of Australians of Muslim heritage. Howard has defended critics of Islamic religion even when their comments are based on ignorance.

Mr Howard refused to silence backbenchers and NSW Upper House member Fred Nile who called for hijab to be banned from public schools. Howard even refused to contradict them.

(Of course, the Niles and Bishops of this world are silent when it comes to headscarves worn by women from the Brethren.)

But the PM will not tolerate “some vilification campaign” (to use his words) against Christian sects. He will not call upon his ministers to investigate potential breaches of social security and family laws against them. He certainly will not follow conservative politicians in Victoria and New Zealand who have disassociated themselves from the Brethren.

Perhaps what Muslim groups need to do is ensure their leader lives and works in John Howard’s electorate. Perhaps Muslims should start publishing advertisements attacking the Greens and other parties who don’t share their conservative views on social issues.

Better still, perhaps Muslims should declare themselves to be a Christian sect.

One of John Howard’s former staffers, Dr Gerard Henderson, wrote in The Age on May 25 2004 of

...the one significant blot on [Howard’s] record in public life … a certain lack of empathy in dealing with individuals with whom he does not identify at a personal level: for example, Asian Australians in the late 1980s and asylum seekers in the early 21st century.

Cynics might suggest that apart from having white skin, conservative social views and Christian symbols, it’s difficult to see how Mr Howard can identify with the Exclusive Brethren on a personal level. At the very least, the responses of Howard and his ministers to the Brethren show that it is the Coalition which desperately needs to adopt Australian values.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

The Islam of burning books & condemning Buddhists

I’ve been going to the Commonwealth Street mosque in Surry Hills since I was a child. The mosque is managed by the Islamic Society of New South Wales, an organisation with which my family has had association since its inception in the early 1970’s.

In 1986, I joined the Surry Hills Mosque Library. A chap named Ronnie processed my membership, and I borrowed a number of books. The library was filled with English titles on a range of religious and other subjects, including magazines, HSC study guides and university textbooks.

Some years later, a new committee took over the mosque. It was a coalition of members of the Tablighi Jamaat (TJ) and the al-Ahbash sect which operated under a front organisation calling itself the Islamic Charitable Projects Association (ICPA).

I recall meeting a red-headed gentleman at the mosque that year (I believe it was 1988 or 89). He was a leader of the al-Ahbash sect and was an executive member of the Islamic Society of NSW. I asked him about the library. I still clearly remember his answer.

“Brother, we burnt most of the books. They teach kufr (unbelief) and shirk (idolatry). We only want books with true Islamic teachings in them. We don’t want non-Muslim material.”

That was my first exposure to the ICPA and the al-Ahbash sect. I was used to some members of the TJ having an aversion to learning Islam by reading books alone without assistance from a qualified Islamic scholar (especially in the case of complex and advanced books on Islamic spirituality such as Imam Ghazali’s Ihya Uloom ad-Din translated as Revival of the Religious Sciences).

What disturbed me was the idea of burning books. Members of the Society had donated hundreds of books to the library, only to be summarily burnt without their knowledge or approval. I recall other library members also complaining about the destruction of library books, which formed part of mosque property.

This would not be the first time I experienced the extreme narrow-mindedness of the al-Ahbash sect leaders toward non-Muslim literature and ideas. In 1999, I was involved in a campaign to assist members of the Bankstown Vietnamese Buddhist community who were having difficulties having extensions to their temple approved by the Bankstown City Council.

My campaign included publicising the issue on the Morning Glory Show run by Ahmed Abdo and his colleagues at the Voice of Islam Radio in Sydney. During the show, numerous listeners rang up and expressed their support for members of the Buddhist community. Some Councillors also phoned in an vain attempt to justify their decision to oppose temple extensions.

The campaign brought Islamic and Buddhist communities closer together and was a huge win for good community relations. However, this did not stop members of the al-Ahbash sect from openly expressing their opposition to our campaign.

And the basis of their objection? One al-Ahbash leader said to me: “As Muslims, we must never support and encourage false religions”!

The Prime Minister has emphasised the importance of integration and Australian values. I would have thought that supporting freedom of religion for religious minorities was such a value. Yet sadly al-Ahbash interpret Islam in a manner which is extreme and completely opposed to Australian values. They burn books in a medieval manner. They also oppose Muslim involvement in efforts to assist other faith communities.

Indeed, not only did leaders of al-Ahbash condemn my involvement in the campaign to support Vietnamese Buddhists. I was also criticised by a member of the Prime Minister’s Muslim Reference Group associated with the sect. This same member was recently praised by Minister for Citizenship Andrew Robb for his commitment to integration.

I believe that groups which oppose friendly and supportive relations between Muslims and Buddhists represent a fringe element within the Muslim communities. The al-Ahbash sect has proven time and again that their agenda is built upon ensuring Muslims remain on the margins of mainstream society.

It therefore disturbs me that I receive news from a source that the Federal Government has made a grant of $200,000 to people linked to the sect. I am not sure if this money was awarded as part of its grant funds to combat extremism and promote harmony. However, I wonder whether the organisation has moved on from times when it engaged in medieval arts of book burning and modern prejudices against Buddhists.

I guess time will tell.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

Toward Understanding Ayaan Hirsi Ali Part 1

Many readers will not have heard of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born former Dutch MP who abandoned her ancestral faith some years back. I’ve been reading Ali’s book, a collection of speeches and articles translated from Dutch and collectively entitled The Caged Virgin: A Muslim Woman’s Cry for Reason.

Ali’s book has also been published in the United States as under the title of The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam. It has received mixed reviews, with perhaps the most detailed review published in The Nation in June this year by Laila Lalami.

Lalami provides the following short and matter-of-fact biography of Ali.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in Mogadishu, Somalia. Her father, Hirsi Magan
Isse, was a prominent critic of the Siyad Barre regime, and the family had to
flee the country, first to Saudi Arabia and then to Ethiopia and Kenya. When
Hirsi Ali was 22, her father arranged a marriage for her with a distant
relation. On a layover in Germany en route to Canada, where the man lived, Hirsi
Ali escaped to the Netherlands, where she applied for and received asylum. She
worked as an interpreter for Somali refugees and studied political science at
the University of Leiden. Hirsi Ali first came into the public eye in 2002, with
the publication of De Zoontjesfabriek (The Son Factory), whose vehement
criticisms of Islam made her the subject of death threats. She joined a think
tank affiliated with the social-democratic Labor Party but a year later switched
membership to the right-wing VVD Party, which had invited her to run for a seat
in Parliament. She won, and became a member of Parliament in January 2003. Hirsi Ali explained her shifting allegiance by saying that the VVD granted her greater ability to advocate for the rights of Muslim women. Then in 2004, she wrote the script to the short film Submission, which was directed by Theo van Gogh, a man who was known for his virulently anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim statements. That fall, van Gogh was slaughtered in Amsterdam, in broad daylight, by a Dutch man named Mohammed Bouyeri, whose parents had emigrated from Morocco. A letter left on van Gogh's body made it clear that Hirsi Ali was the next target. She immediately went into hiding and has needed heavy protection ever since. A few years ago, Hirsi Ali admitted to lying on her asylum application, but a Dutch TV documentary challenged her on other details of her life, including whether or not she was forced into marriage. The revelations sparked a row that culminated when Rita Verdonk, the Minister of Integration and a member of Hirsi Ali's own party, informed her that she could no longer consider herself a Dutch citizen. Although there has been no specific move to strip her of citizenship, Hirsi Ali has already announced that she is resigning from Parliament and moving to the United States, where she will take up a position at the right-wing American
Enterprise Institute.

Ali provides some details about herself in the preface to her book entitled Breaking Through the Islamic Curtain. She says she was brought up by her parents

… to be a Muslim – a good Muslim. Islam dominated the lives of our family
and relations down to the smallest detail. It was our ideology, our political
conviction, our moral standard, our law and our identity. We were first and
foremost Muslim and only then Somali.

From this excerpt it appears that Ali came from a family of conservative Muslims for whom Islamist politics reigned supreme. Her father was a political activist and a critic of the government of his time.

Ali explains what growing up as a Muslim meant to her. She was taught to regard Muslims as separate from and superior to non-Muslims. The “us and them” mentality seemed to be drilled into her.

Some 12 years ago and aged 22, Ali arrived in Western Europe. She had fled an arranged marriage to a distant relative who lived in Canada. Her whole outlook on life changed.

Ali described 3 elements of her Islamic faith following her exposure to European civilisation. First, Muslims’ relationship with their God was one of fear. Second, the only moral source for Muslims was the infallible Prophet Muhammad. Third, Islam is strongly dominated by sexual morality derived from tribal Arab values dating back to the 7th century.

The essence of a woman is reduced to her hymen. Her veil functions as a
constant reminder to the outside world of this stifling morality that makes men
the owners of women …

For Ali, these three elements largely explain why Muslim nations lag behind both the West and emerging Asian nations. The fact that emerging Asian nations include Muslim majority states such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei doesn’t seem to figure. The fact that Muslim minorities play active roles in the development of both Muslim and Western nations also seems to be ignored.

Ali paints a selective picture of the West, Western cultures, Muslim cultures and Islam. Her analysis is simplistic and based on anecdotes. Her referencing is poor, which seems strange given that much of what she has written has quite likely been written by political staffers and speech writers assigned to her as a Member of the Dutch Parliament.

I do not doubt Ali’s sincerity. She has clearly had troubled experiences that have left her with deep emotional and psychological scars. Her childhood as a refugee uprooted from her home and almost always on the run, must have been unsettling. She was shipped off to Canada to marry a man she had never met.

Perhaps Ali’s most troubling childhood experience was her exposure to the disgusting practise of female genital mutilation (FGM). In this respect, she will disappoint those who claim FGM is an Islamic practice. She acknowledges it is a tribal African practice, though claims Muslims spread the practice far and wide.

The title of Ali’s book is “A Muslim Woman’s Cry for Reason”. Yet in what sense Ali regards herself as Muslim remains unclear. She certainly acknowledges that she no longer regards herself religiously or even culturally as Muslim. And if her descriptions of Islamic doctrines and Muslim cultures are any indication, Ali has had little exposure to various forms of Islam beyond her conservative middle-class Somali upbringing.

(To be continued. And this time I mean it!)

© Irfan Yusuf 2006