COMMENT: The Oz and Tanya

The Australian today provides a lengthy piece about an Australian woman who converted to Islam (presumably in Australia) before joining some Australian Muslims to study religion in Yemen. It’s hard to believe I’m writing this, but by printing stories like this, The Oz is doing Muslims an enormous favour. Here's an excerpt ...

In December 2006, Ms Smith, from Winston Hills in Sydney's northwest, posted a note on an Australian newspaper's website explaining why she had converted to Islam. "To share and enjoy the life and love of a relationship that is not managed by fear and abuse, especially not abuse that is cloaked in the name of any religion," she wrote. "As a Muslim woman I am free from any abuse because of my religion - Islam. It is because of my Islam that I don't live infear of a husband that comes back every night to bash me untilI'm black and blue, and then rape me."

The posting went on to blame alcohol - banned in Islam - for most domestic violence. "It is because of Islam that I am empowered as a woman and not sexually exploited by man, I dress for God and not for man," she went on. Islam did not permit women to be used and abused to sell alcohol and bubblegum, she wrote. "That's why I am one of many converts to Islam and that's why Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world amongst women."

Ms Smith defended her religion on the newspaper website. "Islam liberated women 1500 years ago," she wrote. "We have enjoyed the freedoms and rights of keeping our last names as we are not the property of our husbands, we have had the right to vote before the women's liberation movement in the last century, the right to keep our own money, choose who I want to marry, have the right to inheritance, run a business, the right to be protected and maintained by our husbands regardless of how rich I am."

It all began a few years ago. Ms Smith first arrived in Yemen in October 2006, and quickly settled into a community of pious Islamic Australians studying Islam and Arabic in Sana'a. Among the expatriates were Mohammed bin Ayub and Abdullah bin Ayub, the sons of the alleged former leader of Jemaah Islamiah in Australia, Abdul Rahim Ayub. The two men were arrested along with a third Australian, Marek Samulski, as part of a broad anti-terror sweep by Yemeni and British authorities.

The trio was held for more than two weeks, but were later released without charge and asked to leave Yemen with their families. Samulski is living in South Africa with his wife, while the Ayubs and their families are believed to have travelled to Dar-es-Salam and then to Lebanon.

Ms Smith's Palestinian in-laws say she converted to Islam four years ago, and she was awarded a certificate of Islam from the Yemeni Government last year.

Regardless of her travails in Gaza, Ms Smith has apparently remained committed to Islam since returning to Australia, and she has consulted a fundamentalist Salafi imam.

I’m sure some Muslims will read this story and ask: “Why do they always print the simpler and less controversial convert stories? Why do they focus on the ones full of complications and controversy?” To some extent, I agree with that. But after reading the story of Tanya Louise Smith, I couldn’t help but ask myself why leaders of peak Muslim religious organisations spend so much money fighting each other in courts and so little providing basic support services to converts.

I also couldn’t help asking why so many mosques in Sydney and Melbourne are managed by first generation migrants who want to reproduce the Pakistan or Lebanon or Turkey they left behind in the 1960’s or ‘70’s. And why they insist on employing imams who cannot communicate Muslim orthodoxy in the English language and in a culturally appropriate manner.

Most of all, I wondered why so many young Muslim Australians find themselves going overseas to study just the basics of their faith, basics which kids in Indonesia and other Muslim-majority states master in primary school.

The day our ethnic and language-based religious organisations started helping new Muslims instead of shutting them out or using them as political fodder is the day we will start reading less of such stories.

Or maybe I blame peak bodies and mosque committees too much. Maybe the fault lies with ordinary Muslims. After all, our leaders reflect who we are. Perhaps we should have a situation where ordinary Muslims "adopt" a new Muslim and provide her or him with some kind of moral or spiritual support.

In fact, it seems Tanya may have received more support from her in-laws in Gaza than from Muslims in her home town.

Still, it may all just be a complete beat-up. Either way, the story should really get us thinking.

UPDATE I: My purpose in writing about this was not to in anyway denegrate Tanya, her family or her experience of her faith. Rather, it is to get Muslim and other concerned readers to consider what we are doing and what more we could be doing to provide more support services to new Muslims. It was for similar reasons that I wrote this piece.

Words © 2007 Irfan Yusuf

COMMENT: Polygamous ponderings ...

It seems Keysar Trad just can't get enough of polygamy. Just when Aussie Muslims were enjoying the calm of a Howard-free existence, with no Ministers breathing down their allegedly non-integrating throats, Keysar managed to manufacture a completely unnecessary controversy and make us all look stupid in the process. You can read Keysar attempting to undo the damage (only to make things worse) here. The nerve of him to write these lines ...

From my perspective as a Muslim, I really do not wish to rock the boat. I am happy not to talk about the issue and not to disturb the status quo ...

It's true. Keysar doesn't wish to rock the boat. He'd much rather sink it.

A more nuanced and sensible approach to the topic comes from Melbourne researcher Rachel Woodlock. Writing in The Age, Wooklock acknowledges (and asks her readers to perhaps grudgingly acknowledge) that there may be grounds for polygamous marriage. She then tells about her own experiences and those of the people she knows ...

... since embracing Islam I have become friends with about half-a-dozen different women who are co-wives (none of them with each other). Tellingly, all the relationships involved include at least one convert, which means that polygamy is not merely the preserve of refugees who can barely speak a lick of English and who know nothing of our culture or way of life.

Whether or not we like to admit it, polygamy is part of the diverse fabric of family life in 21st century Australia, although admittedly a minority practice. This is partly because although Australian multiculturalism requires assent to the law of the land, many groups (for example, Jews, Catholics, Baha'is and Aborigines) also operate under community-imposed religio-legal codes, particularly when it comes to family relationships.

Religio-legal codes. I like it. Though I prefer to use the term "sacred law". But do all Muslims insist on the right to polygamous marriage? Or rather, how many Muslims want polygamous marriages recognised in Australia under the Marriage Act?

When news started filtering around the Australian Muslim grapevine of lobbying for polygamy to be recognised, reactions ranged from outrage to ambivalence to cautious approval. If ever there was evidence that Muslims do not speak with a single, homogeneous voice, this is it.

Muslims come from many different cultures, some of which historically viewed polygamy with great disapproval and imbued it with social stigma, and others that considered polygamy perfectly normal, although it seems the practice is becoming less popular even in many traditionally polygamous countries.

Woodlock even claims a possible feminist argument in favour of polygamy. You'll have to read the article yourself if you want to learn more.

Now for those who, like me, prefer to laugh than engage in serious discussion, Lisa Pryor's column in the Sydney Morning Herald is essential reading. She begins her article with this profound observation:

Keysar Trad, you cheeky old fox.

Her summary of current marriage practices is a gem:

Australia has been well served by the Judaeo-Christian interpretation of marriage, in which two people fall in love, commit themselves to each other for life, pop out some sprogs, get divorced, shack up with someone younger and bitch about child support.

Priceless!


Words © 2007 Irfan Yusuf


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MEDIA: Giving credit where credit is due ...

Regular readers (all 2 of you) will know that I have used this blog and other forums to bag the reporting of certain journalists and columnists reporting and writing about issues relating to Islamic faith, Muslim cultures and Muslim societies. One journalist who has occasionally come up for criticism has been Natalie O'Brien from The Australian.

When the polygamy issue was raised on Triple-J's Hack program and then reported widely in the press, I expected The Oz to lead the charge with vicious editorials and columns over the past 24 hours or so. And as I write these lines (at ~11:20pm on 26 June 2008), it is quite possible that some rather nasty articles may appear.

However, I must congratulate Ms O'Brien and her colleague Sian Powell for putting together two thoughtful articles on this issue. Their articles can be found here and here.

I personally do not believe it was appropriate for Keysar Trad and Khalil Chami to raise this issue at this very point in time or indeed at all. Still, this is a free country and they are entitled to express their views.

On the other hand, as we have increased migration from parts of the world where polygamy is widely practised (and not just by Muslims), this issue was bound to come up sooner or later. Further, it needs to be recognised that some communities among the first Australians also traditionally practised various forms of polygamy.

I've praised the two articles appearing in The Australian on this issue elsewhere. The Herald-Sun in particular ran a rather silly headline on its website today - "Muslim polygamy ruled out" - although Mark Dunn's article was quite fair.

The headlines of today's articles in The Oz didn't make Muslims or their faith the issue. They acknowledged that polygamy is practised by non-Islamic faiths and communities including certain African Christian communities and breakaway sections of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. A wide range of views, including those of researchers and experts in various fields, were canvassed.

I guess we'll have to see how the next 24 hours pans out. Most likely, media will be focussing more on issues that families of all faiths and backgrounds will be concerned with - the increasing child abuse and neglect amongst largely non-indigenous Australians. Perhaps it's time for an intervention ...

Words © 2007 Irfan Yusuf


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COMMENT: Ali Sina's medical madness ...

Centuries ago, the great Iranian Muslim philosopher and physician Hussein ibn Ali Sina (known as Avicenna in the West and shown above) wrote a 14-volume treatise on medicine called al-Qanun (the Canon). He is believed to have been barely 19 years old at the time.

Now, a modern-day Iranian Ali Sina tells the Jerusalem Post that the faith of Avicenna is the result of a mental illness which allegedly afflicted the Prophet Muhammad (s.).

... his latest book, Understanding Muhammad: A Psychobiography of Allah's Prophet ... Sina suggests that Islam's central figure suffered from a series of mental disorders, including narcissistic personality disorder, temporal lobe epilepsy and obsessive compulsive disorder.
"These disorders," he says via telephone, "can explain the phenomenon known as Islam... which is nothing but one man's insanity."

He then says that Muslims have inherited ab "original hatred" in a manner comparable to the Christian doctrine of original sin.

"In Islam, it's not the community that is bad, but the religion. Islam has nothing like 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.' Islam is full of hatred, and the hatred is in Muhammad himself. I argue in my book that Muhammad was insane - and that Muslims, by emulating him and by emulating his ways, his insanity is bequeathed to them."

Sina then provides this prediction:

Sina knows that his blunt, outspoken approach can be "problematic." But he is confident nonetheless that the force of his arguments will ultimately prevail.
"I am sure that, with time, I will convince millions and millions of Muslims, and the foundations of Islam will collapse," he says.

The foundations of Islam will collapse and 1.2 billion people will see the light thanks to Sina's blog and a few books. Methinks, Mr Sina, that you should be worrying about your own mental health.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

REFLECTION: Flippant thoughts on Comrade Steyn

I’m watching Mark Steyn being interviewed by a Canadian journalist (at least I think he is Canadian – it’s hard for us poor sods down under to tell the difference!) Steve Paikin about the thesis in his book America Alone. You can watch the interview by clicking here and following the prompts or by clicking here.

Here is this pompous theatre critic who doesn't know the first thing about about demography talking about the demographic history and future of Europe. This sanctimonious windbag wondering why no one in Europe wants to breed.

And this chap claims to be a conservative! He is pontificating about a topic he knows absolutely zilch about, and expects us to treat him as an authority just because he writes lots of columns for newspapers many Americans use to wrap fish with.

Real conservatives don’t talk about topics in a critical manner without first learning about the subject. This kind of ignorant critique is what the Left are known for. It’s the sort of stuff I was taught to do by my McGill-inspired Marxist law lecturers at Macquarie University back in the days when you enrolled in the law school to get a degree in sociology (or rather, socialist-ology). Mark Steyn should just cut the crap and produce his Communist Party membership now.

The most hilarious bit of the interview is where Steyn is asked about whether Muslim migrants to Europe might actually Westernise and therefore not pose as big a demographic or cultural "threat" as Steyn makes out. Steyn knew that Paikan had nailed his argument by this one simple question, and then proceeded to talk about some e-mail fired off from his end to the producers of Paikan's show.

This is the sort of third-rate mass-debate Steyn often engages in. And he is so easy to intellectually punch in the guts, as I discovered when Steyn came here as a guest of the Centre for Independent Studies some years back. You can read about it here. As one scribe wrote to me after hearing the podcast on Radio National ...

i finally heard your question to mark steyn at that cis function the other day (it was on this morning's background briefing on abc radio). you clearly scored a direct hit, which left him winded, so much so it took him an inordinate amount of time to get back on top of his pitch arguing the inevitable that islam has a problem with its silent majority (which group doesn't) before he lost his cool with the zion protocols rubbish. well done!

I wish I could understand why the folks at Canadian Islamic Congress are wasting their time and resources on this chap. What they should be doing is focussing their time and resources on innoculating ordinary Canadians against the disease of collective responsibility Steyn and his ilk represent.

If his appearance on the Steve Paikin show is any indication, Steyn might best be described as a fruitloop. I used to eat fruitloops when I was young. Now that I’m older and more mature, I prefer cornflakes or muesli.

What the CIC should be doing is providing the facts. And not just doing it on their own. There are plenty of intelligent smart demographers, ethnographers, sociologists, anthropologists, historians and other social science gurus on both sides of the Atlantic who can do to Steyn’s 'ideas' what that character played by John Travolta accidentally did to that guy who was sitting in the back seat and had his brains splattered all over the car.

(Naturally, even a nominal Muslim like me has no idea about the joys of Western popular culture!)

Steyn is the last person who should be made into a martyr of free speech. Thanks to Steve Paikin for the interview. At least now I don’t have to waste my $2 buying Steyn’s book when it makes its way to Basement Books or some other remaindering factory.



Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

Shirin Ebadi facts continued ...

[06] Recently the conservative speaker of the Iranian parliament wrote a dissertation on the philosophy of Kant which was published in a supplement to a mainstream newspaper.

[07] In some areas of mathematics and physics, Iranian research is amongst the best in the world. But the question is: why isn't this new cultural and academic energy being translated into pro-democracy political energy?

[08] Democracy has increased but has also been manipulated by the regime in Iran. In 1997, Mohammad Khatami (a reformist Shia imam) won a landslide victory in the presidential election. He even defeated a conservative candidate backed by the supreme spiritual leader Ali Khamanei. Khatami won with a 70% majority. His election rhetoric was about the rule of law, the status of women and the need for "dialogue among civilisations".

[09] Iran has comparably more real democracy than other Middle Eastern or Arab states. Two heads of state have stepped down after completing their set constitutional terms and are now living peacefully in their homes. This kind of stability is almost unheard-of in the Arab world.

[10] Since the fall of the Shah, there have been 9 presidential elections and 7 parliamentary elections. Unfortunately, there is still serious vetting of candidates by the ulama.

[11] An entire generation of Iranians has grown up with ballots and promises from politicians. The democratic groundwork is there.

[12] The minimum voting age under Iranian law is 15.

[13] "The Iranian constitution vests sovereignty in God, but Iranian politicians look to the people for their mandate ... The problem is not with the embrace of democratic practices but with their full and effective enshrinement in politics."

[14] The "Tehran Spring" - by 1998, 740 newspapers were in circulation.

[15] Khatami didn't live upto the expectations of many reformists. His emphasis on the rule of law without constitutional reforms merely allowed unelected 'clerical' rulers to tighten their grip. During his 8 years in office, the Guardian Council blocked one third of Khatami's legislative agenda.

[16] 30% of Iran's population is between 15 and 29 years. Unemployment is close to 20%. Income per capita is a quarter of what it was in 1979.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

PROFILE: Shirin Ebadi facts ...

I'm again typing out some hand-written notes found in my study, this time of a TV interview with Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi.

(Seriously, I've got some really radical stuff in this room. Someone should ring MI6 and send them over to raid my room. Then again, London trains have enough litter on them as it is.)

[01] Ebadi was a judge during the Shah's era. However, the same regime punished her for her political choices. Her brother-in-law was executed and she was stripped of her position on the Bench. She was then imprisoned. So why did she go through all this? She responds: "I'd rather be a free Iranian than an enslaved attorney".

[02] Ebadi says many highly Westernised and liberal Iranians were "hypnotised" by Khomeini's revolution. They saw it as a better alternative to the Shah's brutality.

[03] Iran's 1979 revolution mobilised, educated and ultimately frustrated Iranian women. The rhetoric of the revolution promised to break down patriarchy, but merely replaced it with new forms of discrimination.

[04] The 2005 elections saw a clear majority voting for Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.

[05] Iran's society is youthful, literate and web-savvy. Iran has thousands of activist NGO's. Iranian universities have more women than men. Farsi is the 3rd most popular online language (after English and Mandarin Chinese). There are tens of thousands of Iranian blogs. Hundreds of newspapers, periodicals and magazines are published with thinly-veiled political and philosophical debate. Full-page debates on post-modernism and other philosophical topics appear in major newspapers. Iran isn't what many Westerners think it is.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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COMMENT: Islamo-fascist fundamentalist extremist cleric Tariq Ramadan exposed promoting radical madressas for Barack Hussein Obama's children ...

OK, now that I have your attention, I thought I'd share with readers some notes I took from a workshop led by Dr Tariq Ramadan in Melbourne in January 2005. That way I can throw these hand-written notes away and move one tiny step further to having an office free of all this junk!

I made some reference to this workshop in an article in The Age ...

The Age reported (February 25, 2008) that more than 200,000 children - almost 40 per cent of
non-government school students - attended a religious school outside the main Catholic, Anglican and Uniting systems. Some are taught creationism as part of their science studies. A teacher at one small Christian school was quoted as saying that evolution was taught as a theory. This is exactly how I was taught about evolution by my year 9 science teacher at a Sydney Anglican school.

Another critic of faith-based schools, psychologist and educationist Louise Samway, believes faith-based schools are leading to a whole lot of disparate sub-groups that are suspicious of each other.

Such views are not limited to supposedly more secular professionals. In January 2005, I was in Melbourne at a workshop led by Swiss Muslim scholar Dr Tariq Ramadan. Now you'd expect that the grandson of the founder of the Ikhwan al-Muslimeen (Muslim Brotherhood), the Arab world's
largest Islamist movement, would support Muslim minorities establishing their own schools.

Dr Ramadan, however, suggested that the whole idea of Islamic schools was problematic as it implied that secular schools were somehow less Islamic or even anti-Islamic. He asked participants to consider whether the long-term process of mainstreaming their faith in Australia was being helped or hindered by having their children attend schools open only to Muslims. Dr Ramadan also insisted
that learning mathematics and sciences were just as much a requirement of religion as learning how to read the Koran in Arabic.

Anyway, here are just some of the notes from that session, divided into numbered paragraphs.

[01] In any discussion on Islamic independent schools, a number of key questions need to be asked. What exactly is "Islamic" education? What is an "Islamic" school? Why do some Muslim parents insist on sending their children to an "Islamic" school? Why do other (equally) Muslim parents choose not to send their children to an "Islamic" school?

[02] And there are other questions. Like this one: What steps do Muslim independent schools take to provide a broad-based education instead of just providing an allegedly more sheltered "Islamic" environment?

[03] Genuine spirituality equates to living with an understanding that we have a creator and a spirit. This should make us far more universalist, wholistic and ecumenical in our outlook.

[04] Genuine Islamic education encourages and harnesses such spirituality. Islamic education makes time for sport and leisure activities, especially organised structured sport. It encourages students to become involved in their local communities, including charity and welfare work. It doesn't discourage Muslim young people from involvement in popular culture such as fashion.

[05] True Muslims won't shut themselves off from people who don't necessarily share their faith. We take the initiative to get to know our neighbours. In our dealings with people, we focus on similarities and not differences. We are also not afraid to use local facilities and infrastructure (e.g. community centres) for religious and cultural activities, and are happy to participate in activities organised by our Christian, Jewish and neighbours of other faiths and no faith in particular.

[06] Our children will have little or no attraction to Islamic "culture" unless it is part of and comfortable with mainstream culture. We should start looking at Islamic culture as being anything good in any culture.

[07] One important step to make Muslim cultures mainstream is to contact local museums and encourage them to bring collections from nominally Muslim countries and communities.

[08] Not all Muslim independent schools are the same. Some are isolationist, protective and quite scary. Others encourage their students to participate in the wider community. We need to support the latter.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf