COMMENT: Hiding qualifications ...

Tonight I had a discussion with a colourful and lively Muslim activist based in South-Western Sydney. The gentleman, who runs a Centre devoted to “Islamic Sciences and Human Development” has claimed to have an undergraduate degree from the Islamic University of Madeena in Saudi Arabia.

He also claims to have ijaza (authorisation) to teach in particular areas of Islamic studies. These authorisations were allegedly obtained from a number of prominent Sunni scholars in Yemen and elsewhere.

On a number of occasions, I have asked the gentleman to show me his qualifications and to make them public. I have been doing this since as far back as April 2005, if not earlier.

What has especially concerned me about the gentleman is that he has been holding classes on specialist disciplines in Islamic law and jurisprudence. He has been charging money for holding these courses. However, his manner of speech and the content of what he teaches and writes (including on Muslim Village forums of the website islamicsydney.com) lead me to have serious doubts about his claimed scholarly credentials.

I have expressed my doubts on numerous occasions. I first doubted the gentleman when he made the almost laughable claim that my recognition or otherwise of Shaykh Tajeddine Hilaly as Mufti of Australia was a matter which affected my aqida (meaning more or less the orthodoxy of my expression of the articles of faith). H suggested that my refusal to recognise the appointment of Shaykh Hilaly as Mufti made my faith defective.

Tonight, the gentleman offered to show me his qualifications and his ijaza certificates. He would also obtain NAATI-accredited translations of the documents. However, he advised that he would prefer to do this at some stage after Ramadan.

The gentleman also made a few other claims, and he has permitted me to have these stated on the public record.

Firstly, he rejected the notion that traditional Islam requires a person asked to show his ijaza to do so. The gentleman’s position was that this is in fact not the case. He suggested that he should only show his students. Further, he said he reserved the right not to show someone whom he felt was discrediting or undermining him. He claimed that Imam Muhammad Idris ash-Shafei had refused to show his certificates of ijaza to five persons who were allegedly undermining the Imam.

Secondly, he claimed that he had studied with Professor Abdullah Saeed at the Islamic University of Madeena. He said Professor Abdullah Saeed was aware of this and had confirmed this to be the case.

Thirdly, the gentleman claimed that he is opposed to persons studying Islamic studies at mainstream universities in order to learn traditional Islamic sciences.

Fourthly, he claimed that the American scholar Shaykh Nuh Ha Mim Keller had viewed the certificates of ijaza and the university degree of the gentleman and had permitted students in Shaykh Nuh’s circle to study fiqh (personal law and jurisprudence) with the gentleman.

Fifth, he stated that the Crescent Project cooking and feeding of the homeless was a separate project of his Centre and was not being done under the auspices of Just Enough Faith. Rather, the Centre was merely using JEF’s facilities.

I am of the view that the gentleman must make his qualifications public. It is not good enough that he just shows his students or even me. And I would make the same requirement for all shaykhs and imams, including and especially those who claim to be advising on sensitive matters (such as whether a particular financial product complies with sharia).

The Khalid Yasin fiasco has shown how important it is that we take such matters seriously. It is not good enough that we accept people at face value anymore. Those claiming the mantle of scholarship and claiming to be qualified to teach should be prepared to make their qualifications public.

30 years ago, when we were a small community, it was OK to get any old person to lead the prayers, give religious advice and deliver sermons. But in the present age, with scholars and imams under the microscope, it is essential that we insist on people being up front on the nature and extent of their qualifications.

Further, as more and more younger Muslims return to traditional Islam, it is essential that those espousing traditional Islam are honest and transparent about their ijaza and be prepared to show it.

Words © 2005 Irfan Yusuf


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The Purpose of Life is not billygoats from Byron Bay

Muslim Australians don’t seem to have a good record when it comes to religious instruction. We have a range of people describing themselves as imams or sheiks or maulanas or using some other title.

Yet we have no system of accreditation for imams. It seems anyone can stand up and claim the mantle of Islamic scholarship. And if they speak even half-decent English and have some charisma, they can be believed and followed.

The Australian Muslim community is like the Byron Bay of Islam. I could go to Byron Bay, set myself up in some cottage, wear a sari or some other crazy dress and call myself “Sheik Abdullah as-Sumbluq”. I could set up the Sumbluqiyya Sufi order, and thousands of Kiwi backpackers and hippies would pay $200 a session to be part of it all.

I’d place advertisements in the Byron Bay Echo newspaper. “Come and hear the greatest Sufi master this side of India. Come and hear the great Sheik Mohiyuddin Abdullah Abu Jahash el-Sumbluq”. People would turn upto my Zawiya Ashram, enter the door, place four $50 notes in the bag and walk in to watch me miming qawwalis played from a hidden stereo set. And because I probably weigh only a few kilos less than the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the stoned hippies will believe me.

And all the time, while I would be counting the cash, I’d be laughing. Until a smart journalist (perhaps someone from the Sunday Program or 4 Corners) exposes me as a fraud. Then people will realise that Sheik el-Sumbluq is really just some bloke.

Some really gullible people hang out up at Byron. And Muslim Asutralians, especially young people, are some of the most gullible of all.

So it shocked me to see otherwise intelligent people like lawyer Adam Houda supporting and promoting a man who lied about his qualifications. To think my colleague could be director of “Purpose of Life Broadcasting” without checking whether the esteemed Sheik he was promoting was even a Sheik at all. And what explanation did Adam give?

“The Muslim youth have copped an absolute battering in the media since 1998, which has, and I've seen it first-hand, which has affected their self esteem and their confidence. Khalid Yasin instils a lot of pride in the youth and reminds them, that as Muslims, they've got a lot to be proud of … As far as the young people are concerned, he's like a superstar. They find him very appealing. He's Afro-American. They find him a little bit hip for a so-called sheikh.”

Yes, I agree that Muslim youth have copped a battering. But surely if you trust someone just because they sound a little like Malcolm-X, won’t you end up copping an even greater battering?

So why does this problem exist? Why do we have so many weirdos and wackos masquerading as sheiks? Are we all as high as a bunch of Byron Bay backpackers?

Recently, American Muslim Gary Edwards told a Muslim audience that we should insist people claiming scholarship showing and proving their qualifications when asked.

“If just having a beard and wearing a cap makes you a sheik, I know plenty of billygoats who could qualify!” Mr Edwards said.

Yet in Australia, there is little or no way of checking someone’s qualifications. And it isn’t as if a classical accreditation doesn’t exist. Before modern universities were established to teach Islam in Muslim countries, scholarship in Islamic sciences was handed down using a system of “ijaza” (authority).

What this meant is that a qualified person (i.e. one possessing an ijaza) would hand-write a certificate for you once you have satisfied him/her that you had reached the required level of proficiency. That authority could be for a certain chapter of a certain book or it could be for an entire discipline.

As a scholar, you were required to carry your ijaza documents with you everywhere. If you expressed an expert opinion on something, people could ask you to show them your ijaza documents. They could then ascertain whether you are qualified to express that opinion. If they suspected your documents were forged, they could write to the scholar who gave you the document and check.

In today’s world of e-mail and photocopying, it is even easier for this system to work. Yet today, we have people in Sydney holding classes and charging money whilst claiming to have university degrees and traditional ijaza documents. Yet when asked to show their qualifications, they refuse.

Which is fine by me. I urge Sarah Ferguson from the Sunday program to investigate a range of imams and so-called sheiks teaching in Sydney and Melbourne. I want her to show us who are the real scholars and who are just Byron Bay billygoats.

Muslim youth deserve better. We keep complaining about unqualified people like Daniel Pipes giving fatwas about how nasty Muslims are and how lynching Muslims is the best policy to fight terrorism. Yet we are no better if we are happy to sit at the feet of any charlatan claiming the mantle of scholarship.

If I want serious Islamic scholarship, I’ll go to Daar Aisha. Although I hope the instructors there will be happy to show me their qualifications now that I trust just about nobody.

If you want to learn Islam, search for qualified people. Ask to see their degrees and ijaza documents. I’ll be asking to see Gary Edwards’ papers next time he comes here. But if you don’t take your Islam seriously, sell your soul to Sheik el-Sumbluq and his billygoats up at Byron Bay.

The author is a Sydney lawyer who is happy to show his 3 university degrees to anyone who wants to see them. However, he is somewhat ashamed of his academic transcript!

© Irfan Yusuf 2005

COMMENT: Government’s Hand-Picked Muslims Oppose Human Rights

Last night, I attended a meeting at the Sydney Town Hall. Speaking at the meeting were representatives from politics, business, media and community. The meeting was to launch a new Human Rights Bill to protect the human rights of all people in Australia.

Former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser joined Greg Combet and Susan Ryan. People of all ethnic and religious backgrounds were present to pledge their support for the Bill which sought to overcome the rigours of proposed anti-terror laws.

The meeting was organised by the online magazine New Matilda. The meeting heard a moving speech by a young Australian Year 12 student who spent years in immigration detention. Her crime was to escape the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and seek asylum in Australia.

Nahid Karimi attends Holroyd High School. She is of Afghan origin and wears a piece of cloth on her head consistent with her Afghan ethno-religious customs. Nahid was preparing to break her fast as she spoke of watching 3 persons commit suicide before her eyes at the detention centre.

I have never seen such an enormous outpouring of compassion from decent Australians as I saw last night. Nahid is just one of many thousands of people who will need immediate protection from a Human Rights Bill.

Malcolm Fraser also spoke passionately about the need for the Bill. He gave listeners some indication of the draconian nature of the measures contained in existing and proposed anti-terror laws. He was followed by former departmental head and New Matilda Chair John Menadue, who confirmed that any such laws would compromise civil liberties in ways unimaginable.

The Human Rights Bill was drafted by a panel of prominent lawyers led by a respected legal academic from La Trobe University. Both lawyers and activists were at the heart of the drafting process.

Compare this to the hand-picked Muslim Community Reference Group (MCRG) which consists of non-lawyers who are relying on one briefing from the Attorney-General and are backing laws whose provisions have not even been drafted.

The rhetoric of the MCRG is typical of what the government expects from this group. Following the Group’s meetings in Canberra, President of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils Dr Ameer Ali expressed satisfaction with the safeguards contained in proposed legislation.

Dr Ali’s language must have re-assured the government enormously. His choice phrases included:

“We can now sell these laws to our community.”

“We put our trust in the government.”

“Discrimination is against the constitution. We are happy with the safeguards.”

Having acted as legal adviser for AFIC, the Islamic Council of NSW, three Islamic schools and 4 mosque managing societies, it seemed clear to me that Dr Ali had not obtained any legal advice before making his remarks.

It also seems clear that Dr Ali has not consulted with members of his community. His entire focus is on selling the new legislation to Muslim Australians. How he will do this remains to be seen.

In NSW, the state that has the greatest number of Muslims, AFIC appears unrepresented. Having created 2 dummy councils, it appears neither have AFIC’s stamp of approval. Dummy councils have also been created in other states.

AFIC’s website allows readers to download the latest edition of its newspaper, the Australian Muslim News. And when was this edition published? November 2002.

AFIC has never commissioned any study of Muslim Australians, their views and attitudes and their demographic and other trends.

In the last 20 years, AFIC has not had a single female executive member. Women make up over 51% of the Muslim Australian community.

The MCRG consists of representatives from various Muslim groups. The majority of the Group were born overseas and are aged over 40.

Yet the most recent community study (conducted by Professor Abdullah Saeed from the University of Melbourne and funded by the Department of Immigration) shows that the largest ethnic block of Muslim Australians were those born in Australia. Further, over 50% of Australia’s Muslims are aged under 40.

The government has therefore received a rubber stamp from a Group that is unrepresentative and not reflective of the reality of Muslim Australia. That Group has chosen to endorse legislative provisions which at this stage do not exist.

So who will protect the rights, interests and liberties of Muslim Australians? Will the Group have the ability to communicate the safeguards contained in laws which it has not yet seen? Will the Group and the Attorney General make public the briefing received before the Group endorsed the proposed package of legislative provisions?

Who knows? What we do know is that we have been told by the good folk at NewMatilda.com what their Human Rights Bill has to say. And as an Aussie Mossie, I think I have more faith in Susan Ryan, Malcolm Fraser and the Bill’s supporters than in the Reference Group.

Words © 2005 Irfan Yusuf


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Terrorising Indonesian Religion

With every bombing in Indonesia, it is tempting to agree witb the usual statements of fear-mongers. They hate us. They are out to kill us. They need to be stopped. They are jealous of our liberties.

But who are they? And who are we?

Indonesia is the largest Muslim nation on earth. It is also our closest neighbour. This in itself is enough to send shivers down the spines of those who claim Indonesian Islam is the problem. The same people will talk about shutting down madressas, about tightening immigration requirements for Indonesias. Perhaps even about demanding refunds on tsunami aid dollars.

But anyone who knows something about Indonesians and their Islam will know Islam itself isn’t the problem. I have never been to Indonesia, but I have met a few Indonesians in my time.

One Indonesian I met was Mohammad Fajrul Falaakh, an academic lawyer and executive member of the largest Islamic organisation in the world known as Nahdlatul Ulama (Arabic for “The Council of Scholars”). He visited Australia and New Zealand in 1992 as a guest of the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS).

Falaakh made some points during his Sydney lecture which startled many in his conservative audience. He said that election results since the 1950’s show that the popularity of political Islam is dwindling in Indonesia. He also gave a 5-point summary of Sharia law which showed it to be almost perfectly consistent with the highest aspirations of any liberal democrat.

Those 5 Sharia principles were centred around protection of certain individual and social rights. These rights included: religious freedom, life, mental health and sanity (known in technical Sharia terminology as “hifzul aql” or “protection of reasoning faculties”), property and economic assets, and marriage and family.

Perhaps those committed to fighting Islam in the name of some allegedly coherent vision of conservative Judeo-Christian ethics could show which of these values conflicts in any way with what most Australians hold dear.

If we were to ponder over Falaakh’s list, it should not surprise us that Indonesia is at the forefront of the war against terrorism. It should also not surprise us to learn that perhaps the biggest factor in the election victory of Indonesian President SBY was his commitment to get tough on terror.

Indonesians – Muslim, Catholic, Protestant, Hindu, Buddhist – are all victims of terror. For every 1 Western victim, at least 3 Indonesians die. Indonesia’s fragile economy and nascent democratic institutions are under attack.

And understanding Indonesian Islam will perhaps give some indication of how committed Indonesians are to the fight against terrorism. No army brought Islam to this part of the world. Islam was first introduced by Yemeni traders some 7 centuries ago who practised a form of orthodox sunni Islam grounded in the spiritual traditions of Sufism.

Indonesia was then a mix of various tribes who spoke different languages and dialects and whose cultural connection was expressed in trade. Yet Indonesians had no common script, system of numeracy or method of resolving disputes (apart from the use of weapons).

The Yemenis are believed to have introduced a common accounting system based on the use of Hindu-Arabic numerals. More importantly, the Yemenis introduced Sharia, a word which literally means “the way to a watering place”.

Wells and watering places were traditionally places of rest during the long desert journeys in the Arabian peninsula. For the Indonesians, Sharia meant a basic procedure for resolving commercial disputes based on conciliation and an understanding of how merchants think. Sharia commercial law was less about right and wrong, and more about watching the bottom line.

For this reason, Falaakh mentioned in his CIS lecture in Sydney that for Indonesian Muslims, Sharia is less about chopping hands and stoning adulterers as it is about resolving commercial disputes, non-interest banking and financial products.

Indonesian Islam has been tarnished by the recent terrorist attacks. But more than that, Indonesian Muslims have been offended and affronted. The recent attacks took place during the sacred Islamic month of Sha’ban, hardly a few days before the sacred Islamic fasting month of Ramadan. During these months, all forms of war and shedding of blood is strictly forbidden.

Ramadan is a month of fasting, generosity and meditation. The Prophet Muhammad, a direct ancestor of the Yemeni traders and of many Malays and Indonesians (including former President “Gus Dur” Wahid), is reported to have said that God shackles Satan and the lesser devils in chains during this month.

But now, it seems the devils of terrorism are being let loose. And as always, Muslims are the victims. In this case, the innocent Hindus and Buddhists and Muslims and Catholics and Protestants that inhabit world’s largest Muslim country are victims.

The ideology of terrorism bears little resemblance to mainstream Indonesian Islam. Though terrorists may use religious rhetoric and symbols in their war on Indonesia, we should resist the temptation to attribute blame to the faith that brings peace to the lives of millions of our closest global neighbours.

The author is a Sydney lawyer and occasional lecturer in the Department of Politics & International Relations at Macquarie University. iyusuf@sydneylawyers.com.au

© Irfan Yusuf 2005

COMMENT: Al-Ghazali and Billygoats

At the inaugural Deen Intensive organised by the Forum of Australia’s Islamic Relations (FAIR), Gary Edwards (also known as Naeem Abdul Wali) spent some 10 hours speaking about the meanings of 7 verses of the Qur’an.

At the conclusion of the workshop, Mr Edwards took questions from participants. One question involved scholarship and the means by which Islamic scholarship is passed on. The question was directly relevant to why Mr Edwards was in Australia.

Edwards is director of the al-Kawthar Institute in Arizona, and is part of the growing “Traditional Islam” (TI) movement. TI seeks to revive the orthodox and traditional method of transmitting Islamic sciences by means of chains of narration.

Under the TI model, a person’s knowledge of Islamic sciences derives its legitimacy from the person holding a published ijaza or authorisation from someone who themselves has ijaza and is part of a chain of ijaza going all the way back to the Prophet Muhammad (peace & blessings of God be upon him and his household).

The chain of ijaza is known as a silsila. Apart from being the name of an old and highly unsuccessful Bollywood movie, the term is used to define a chain of narration and transmission of knowledge from teacher to student. The student is in fact a possible future teacher who will in turn transmit the knowledge to other students.

The TI model has been vilified in recent times by the neo-Conservative salafi movement which seeks to discredit the twin-poles of ijaza and silsila around which all traditional Islamic sciences rotate. The Islamic neo-Cons have themselves been discredited for generating terrorist movements responsible for a spate of attacks on civilian targets, the brunt of which all innocent Muslims have felt in one way or another.

TI is exemplified in Sydney by a variety of practitioners. Each Friday night, a retired academic and economist Dr Mohsin Labban leads a session of young couples and families on a spiritual journey firmly rooted in the TI movement as taught in al-Azhar University in Cairo.

Other TI practitioners include Sheik Shady Soliman who teaches students at the UMA Centre in Lakemba. Then there is the Daar Aishah Sharia College in Punchbowl, an institution which focuses on transmitting traditional Islamic sciences to women.

In recent times, and under the influence of Gary Edwards and Dr Tariq Ramadan, groups like Daar Aisha Sharia College and Islamic Realm have championed the cause of TI. The Andalus Bookstore has become almost soul distributor of popular TI works by writers such as Hamza Yusuf, Haddad and Esack (though some TI practitioners frown on Esack’s liberation theology).

Some local institutions flirt with TI, but have some reluctance to embrace the TI cause fully. Amongst them is the al-Ghazali Centre for Islamic Sciences & Human Development (I will refer to it as “AGC”).

The AGC is directed by Mr Afroz Ali, an Australian architect of Fiji-Indian origin. Mr Ali is a charismatic speaker and has been involved with a variety of excellent initiatives under the auspices of the AGC. Amongst them has been a joint venture with the group Just Enough Faith to feed the homeless of Sydney.

Mr Ali has also been holding classes in Sydney. Many of these classes involve topics not specific to theology but more to do with personal development. The Marriage Courses have been particularly popular and have filled a huge gap which has been left by the inability of most local imams to communicate Islam’s sexual values without bogging students down in cultural irrelevancies.

However, in recent times, Mr Ali has commenced teaching courses in specialised schools of law and jurisprudence. As part of the promotional drive for these courses, Mr Ali has made a number of claims.

Firstly, Mr Ali claims to hold an undergraduate degree in Sharia Law from the Islamic University of Madeena in Saudi Arabia.

Secondly, Mr Ali claims to have a number of ijaza’s from qualified teachers in a number of subjects. These include ijaza in aqeeda (expression of creed), hanafi fiqh (jurisprudence of the school of Imam Abu Hanifa and his students) and other topics.

Thirdly, Mr Ali has claimed in the past that his courses will enable a graduate to be awarded a Diploma in Sharia that will be recognised by various institutions including al-Azhar in Egypt.

From time to time, Mr Ali has engaged scholars and lay persons in open debates on various theological issues. He has frequently criticised the qualifications of others, and has even gone to the extent of using disparaging language regarding established scholars such as Professor Abdullah Saeed.

Yet when asked to produce his own qualifications, Mr Ali has been reluctant if not extremely hostile to the suggestion. In this regard, he is not the best exemplar of TI.

Returning to the Deen Intensive referred to at the beginning of this piece, Gary Edwards was most surprised to hear of persons claiming qualifications to teach specialised Islamic sciences yet not being prepared to produce their qualifications when asked.

For Edwards, the mere wearing of a beard and turban is not enough to make one a scholar. “You can put a beard and turban on a billygoat”, Edwards remarked.

Further, Edwards suggested that anyone not prepared to show their ijaza before teaching was engaging in deception. Such refusal showed a fundamental character flaw, and people learning religious sciences from such persons were risking their own souls.

Edwards likened the refusal to show one’s ijaza to getting married to someone whilst hiding one’s true matrimonial status or refusing to show one’s drivers license when requested by a police officer.

In light of Mr Edwards’ comments, it would be most helpful if Mr Ali and indeed all teachers of Islamic sciences were prepared to show the precise nature and extent of their qualifications in those sciences.

Any teacher who charges money for teaching Islamic sciences and claims to be qualified yet refuses to show their qualifications should be reported to the NSW Police. Such teaching could, in my opinion, constitute an offence of obtaining benefit by deception. Further, they should also be reported to the NSW Department of Fair Trading for breaches of relevant provisions of the Fair Trading Act.

I have no problem with unqualified persons teaching Islamic sciences. If people are stupid enough to learn their faith from unqualified people, that is their problem. But those who claim the mantle of TI yet refuse to follow a simple precept of TI practitioners (i.e. disclosing and showing one’s qualifications) should be exposed.

I certainly hope that Mr Ali is in fact qualified as he claims. I hope he is prepared to show and publish his qualifications, especially now that I have made my request public on at least 3 occasions. And I certainly am not the first to do so.

Words © 2005 Irfan Yusuf


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COMMENT: How the new security laws could deem you a terrorist!

So you think the latest national security laws don’t target people from certain ethnic and religious backgrounds? Think again.

The PM has reached agreement with State Premiers and Territory Chief Ministers to enact a raft of new laws that are allegedly designed to protect all Australians. The laws apparently don’t discriminate against a particular group, and are designed to strike a balance between civil liberties and security (as if the two cancel each other out!).

The Prime Minister claims that new “unusual” laws are needed to cope with “unusual” circumstances arising from what he perceives as a direct threat by terrorists to Australia. Following briefings by officials from ASIO and the Office of National Assessments, it seems State Premiers and Territory Chief Ministers agree with him.

According to a report in The Australian newspaper on 28 September 2005, ASIO’s briefing to Premiers and Chief Ministers attending the COAG meeting included claims that some 800 local Muslim “extremists” are ready to carry out a London-style attack.

The report came as President of the Police Federation of Australia issued a statement confirming that Muslims will be directly affected by enforcement of the new laws. The Federation has called upon the government to legislate so that police officers are indemnified for civil action.

To describe the proposed laws as unusual would be an understatement. To claim the laws will not lead to racial profiling of persons deemed Muslim is a bald-faced lie.

How will the laws work in practice? Who will be the ones deciding on who is a suspect, who should be detained without charge and who should be forced to wear a strap around their ankles? And on what basis will they decide?

When the President of a union representing police and law enforcement agencies across the state claims Muslims will be racially profiled, you’d better believe it. Police are the ones implementing the laws on the ground. They have already had experience with existing laws and with responding to intelligence reports. They also communicate with their counterparts in other Western countries implementing similar laws.

The police know what is happening. Politicians sitting in their ivory towers or think tank heads counting their private sponsorship dollars simply cannot credibly contradict what the police are saying.

Under existing laws, only Muslim Australians have been charged and convicted. Only Muslim organisations are listed as terrorist groups in Australia. In the US, a similar list has groups from Israel, Northern Ireland Spain and South America.

The last terrorist acts in Australia were committed against Indian and Turkish interests. One attack involved the assassination of a Turkish Muslim diplomat by Armenian extremists. Yep, you guessed it right. Muslims were the last people to be targeted by terrorists in Australia.

And today, they are being effectively targeted by terror laws. It’s not me saying this. It’s the police themselves.

And in case you had any doubts about who is being targeted, consider this. On August 28 2005, the Sunday program on the Nine Network aired a Hypothetical moderated by Geoffrey Robertson QC. The subject was terrorism, and the panel included political leaders, security officials and media representatives. Part of the scenario involved the shooting of a person of “Middle Eastern” appearance deemed a terrorist suspect.

Apart from Mr Robertson and myself, not a single person on the panel saw any problem with shooting the terror suspect based on his appearance.

So where does that leave my former law clerk? She “looks” Muslim despite having a Hindu mother and Catholic father and being born in Canberra. And where does that leave Christians and Jews of Arab descent? And after events in London, where does that leave Brazilians?

There are hundreds of thousands of Australians that could be deemed Muslim. They might be part-Aboriginal. They might have Muslim dads whom they never met and who left them with Arabic or Turkish or Malay surnames. They might have Muslim ancestry of some sort. They might just look a little different. Their liberties will be compromised. And they are just as Australian as you are.

These laws will not make us feel safer. They will actually hand victory to the terrorists. Bin Ladin wants Muslims to believe they are targeted by Western governments. He must be sitting in his cave and smiling right now.

But we still have a few weeks to raise our voices before the laws are enacted. In that regard, all I can suggest is that we all make noisy hay while the sun of liberty still shines!

Words © 2005 Irfan Yusuf


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COMMENT: Muslims and the Holocaust

Nazi-hunter Simon Weisenthal passed away. He was perhaps the world’s premiere Nazi hunter. His centre built up an intelligence network that provided evidence leading to the trial and conviction of numerous people at all levels of the Nazi regime.

Yet for some Muslims, Weisenthal has been a problematic figure. His stated views on Palestinian rights were sometimes reminiscent of attitudes of some of the very people he was fighting. It seemed as if he lived in denial of Palestinian suffering.

But then, it is hard to blame him. For many holocaust survivors, Israel is a life insurance policy they wish they had access to when Hitler came to power. They lived in a Europe which promised and preached emancipation of Jews in the name of liberalism or socialism or secularism or some other ism.

Yet all the rhetoric could not face the tsunami of hatred built up over centuries toward the Jewish people. Jews were lambasted as Christ-killers, as nasty bankers and money-lenders, as being involved in a huge conspiracy to destroy Christianity and Western civilisation.

From time to time, I read some disgustingly anti-Muslim editorials and opinion pieces in newspapers. The suspects are well-known – Janet Albrechtsen, Andrew Bolt, Miranda Devine. Some are more subtle and sophisticated – Pamela Bone and Paul Sheehan comes to mind.

I imagine the hatred and venom that goes into these articles, and am reminded of a verse from the Qur’an which goes something like this.

Their lips speak hatred of you, but what their hearts conceal is much worse.

I sometimes wonder whether such editorials hide a deeper hatred which many in this country have toward Muslims. Today, people are able to say things about Muslims which they couldn’t say maybe 10 years or even 5 years ago. Today, a politician can stand up and describe me in Federal parliament as a “bomb thrower”, suggesting I have some links to terrorism.

Had that politician not been the human embodiment of all that is irrelevant and redundant in Australian politics, I would perhaps have ignored her. But then, I wonder – are her attitudes all that irrelevant? Is there an undercurrent of racism against Muslims in Australia?

I wonder whether David Hicks would receive more government support if he had not converted to Islam. I wonder if Schapelle Corby would have received the support she does if she had announced a conversion to Islam and not Christianity? But it goes beyond that.

I wonder if Aussie Mossie Ed Husic would have won the seat of Greenway at the last Federal Election if he had been born to a Bosnian Catholic family. I wonder if Paul Sheehan would have written about Husic’s religion a fortnight from the campaign. I wonder if some Young Liberals would have handed out a false how-to-vote in letterboxes speaking about Husic being “an asset to Islam”.

The attitudes we see in Christendom toward Muslims seem to find a mirror in what Jews saw in Germany and elsewhere in Europe in the first half of the 20th century. And that means that Muslim Australians need to learn some coping mechanisms from Jewish Australians.

The attitudes of the late Simon Weisenthal toward Palestinians should not blind us to the importance of learning to recognise the signs of xenophobia from our Jewish spiritual cousins.

Islamic and Jewish theology, law and culture have more similarities than differences. Today’s Muslims are being demonised in the same way Jews have been, the attitudes are centuries old and are locked into the Christian psyche.

Jews are Christ-killers. Muslims are Saracens or Moors or Turks, the Sick Men of the 21st Century. Muslims don’t understand “our” values and refuse to conform to “our” way of life.

Recently, I bought over $100 worth of books on Jewish culture. I have been wanting to especially focus on how Jews lived as persecuted minorities and survived for so long. As an Aussie Muslim, I feel like an endangered species. I fear a holocaust on the horizon. The rhetoric of conservative politicians, shock jocks and columnists makes me even more fearful.

Muslims don’t know what it is like to live as an oppressed minority with nowhere to go. We have only in the past 200 years been suffering real internal oppression and external domination.

Jews have been experiencing this for thousands of years. We need to learn from them how to keep our theology, our cultures and our memories alive. And many Jewish Australians are reaching out to us. In this regard, I was heartened to read the reaction of the peak body of Australian Jews, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) in relation to the pseudo-debate on the wearing of hijabs in state schools.

If Jewish Australians, especially holocaust survivors, can find resonance in our current position, perhaps we need to learn from their experiences. Our current fears should bring us closer to those who share so much with us.

Let us learn from the victims of a holocaust so that we are prepared to perhaps face our own.

Words © 2005 Irfan Yusuf

COMMENT: Time To Come Clean

Recently I read the announcement by our Citizenship Minister, John Cobb, about a Muslim Community Reference Group set up in the aftermath of the Prime Minister’s Summit with Muslim leaders.

Among the names was that of an allegedly non-aligned young Muslim male. Non-aligned? Really?

I have known the young chap for some years now. He is associated with a body called “Darul Fatwa Islamic High Council of Australia”, an alternative umbrella Muslim body competing with the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC) for leadership of the deeply fragmented Muslim Australian faith-communities.

Darul Fatwa is an organisation which is based in Lebanon, and it follows the teachings of one Sheik Abdullah Hareri al-Habashi. Among Lebanese Sunni Muslims, this group has a controversial history of cooperation with the Syrian occupation forces.

In Australia, representatives of this group have been involved in attempts to take over a variety of mosques. At one stage during the late 1980’s, they had taken over the King Faisal Mosque in Commonwealth Street Surry Hills. Their first act was to close the library and burn thousands of dollars worth of Islamic literature which they regarded as heterodox.

In the near future, and on the other side of the ideological spectrum, Mr Ruddock will be dining and enjoying the hospitality of a man who is now known as “Sheik Shafiq Khan Abdullah”. Uncle Shafiq (as I always call him) is an old Pakistani gentleman who used to represent interests of the Libyan Islamic establishment in Australia. After having a falling out with the Libyans, Uncle Shafiq then fell into the lap of the Saudis.

Over the years, Uncle Shafiq has sent numerous young Muslim Australians to study in some of the most conservative Wahhabist institutions in Saudi Arabia. Wahhabism is the name often given to the official religion of Saudi Arabia. I have described some of the characteristics of this sect in an article published in the New Zealand Herald in the context of a visit by Wahhabist preacher Abdur Rahim Green:

Green is part of a minority so small it could not even be regarded as a sect. He belongs to the "Salafi", an offshoot of a small fringe sect known as the "Wahhabis". The Salafi strain includes elements from the benign to the outright dangerous. Osama bin Laden belongs to the Salafi strain. But so do most Saudi religious authorities. The various Salafi strains have a number of common
features. Salafis take an anthropomorphic view of many of God's attributes. For instance, when the Koran speaks of God's hands, most Muslims take this metaphorically. But Salafis insist God literally has two hands. They regard anyone who rejects this view as "kafir" (infidel). As a result, Salafis regard most Sunni Muslims as kafir. But it isn't just Sunnis that Salafis reject. Salafis reject Shia Muslims as kafir. And their worst venom is reserved for Sufi Muslims (both Sunni and Shia).

… Salafis regard many Sufi teachings as outside Islam. One of Green's fellow Salafi preachers, an African-American named Dawud Adib, once told an audience at Melbourne University that a prominent Sufi text written by Imam Ghazali (known in Europe as "Algazel") was worth less than
a mosquito wing. Because the Salafis reject mainstream Islam, they are regarded as being on the very edge of the Muslim fringe.

I doubt Uncle Shafiq subscribes to such fringe theology. But he does represent the interests of Saudi organisations and institutions that sponsor this fringe from which al-Qaida and so many other terrorist groups have emerged.

The point here is not so much the theology. What is really at issue is the failure of many of the PM’s favourite Muslim leaders to chalk out an indigenous Australian vision of Islam. Most of the PM’s select leaders are still clinging to foreign regimes of questionable democratic credentials who have provided (and in some cases, continue to) support and finance to these Islamic institutional operations.

If the PM wishes to be seen hob-knobbing with this crowd, that is his business and his risk. But what the PM must be prepared for is scandal. Because when the spotlight is put on many of these bodies, there will be scandal and plenty of it.

Many of these bodies have actively sought to push mainstream Muslim Australians away from their institutions. Others represent the most laughably incompetent bunch in the Muslim communities. One school principal invited to the Prime Minister does not have an HSC. He has been the chairman of a peak NSW Muslim body for over 2 decades.

His younger brother was hand-picked to lead a rotten borough “Islamic Youth Association”. The same brother was employed by the umbrella body as an employment case manager. He went onto win a job-search tender under controversial circumstances in 1998, and is yet to have paid the consultants who helped him write the tender.

So you win a $2 million contract, but you won’t pay $4,500 to your consultant. Makes sense?

Lack of professionalism, incompetence, nepotism, jobs for the boys. All the hallmarks of so many of Mr Howard’s favourite Muslim leaders. If it happened in the ALP, Mr Howard would be gleefully scandalising it in Parliament. But he invites the same types of people to be partners in national security.

This culture of nepotism and incompetence was fostered in organisations which always relied on overseas governments and bureaucracies to butter their bread. In Saudi Arabia, all senior government posts are held by the Royal Family and their cronies (including the bin-Ladin’s). In NSW, select Lebanese, Pakistani and Fiji-Indian families are ruling the roost.

It is time for Muslim community bodies to come clean on the exact extent of their links to overseas groups and bodies. They need to disclose the exact extent of their past and present financial and other links to various regimes and religious institutions in Muslim countries. These people claim to speak for Muslims, most of whom have only tenuous links to countries outside Australia. Aussie Mossies have a right to know, especially now that our national security and not just communal reputation is at stake.

Words © Irfan Yusuf