BOOK: Travelling through Muslim minds ...

Riaz Hassan is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Flinders University in South Australia. You can find out more detail about his 4 decades of academic work here.

I'm in the process of reading his most recent book Inside Muslim Minds which I'll be reviewing for The Australian. That book is a continuation of his 2002 work Faithlines: Muslim Conceptions of Islam and Society.

The importance of work by sociologists and anthropologists of Muslim societies cannot be underestimated. It's one thing to talk about what one's preferred version of Islamic orthodoxy teaches. It's another to be able to definitively state how Muslims actually live out their faith.

So often we hear self-appointed religious leaders pretending to know what Muslims think and believe and do. We also hear self-appointed experts make similar claims, often with a view to projecting the most negatively monolithic (or should that be monolithically negative?) image of Muslim reality.

How do we rebut such claims? By talking to Muslims themselves and finding out the facts. And being prepared for some results that might make us feel somewhat uncomfortable.

Certainly my eyebrows have been raised a few times as I've ploughed through the first few chapters of Hassan's book. Questions raised in my mind include: Was his sample big enough? Has he considered the possibility that Muslims in different parts of the world may apply different connotations to the same concept?

For instance, Muslims from different parts of the world view the term sharia differently. For what they're worth, here are a few lines from something I wrote elsewhere in the context of the Archbishop of Canterbury's recent pronouncement on the subject ...

Different Muslim cultures understand sharia in different ways.

For instance, Indonesians tend to associate sharia with non-interest banking and ethical investments. In South Asia, where the common law has incorporated sharia codes in family law and inheritance, Muslims view sharia in these terms. Hence, it will be almost impossible to find any consensus among Australian Muslims as to exactly what sharia is.

Social research has its limitations. But this should not detract from nits importance. Those of us with some interest in building bridges across the broad Western and Muslim worlds should know how people in different parts of these world sectors view themselves and each other.

Riaz Hassan's book is useful because it gives us at least some idea of how many Muslims in various parts of the world approach both personal and social aspects of their faith. We need to know this information for at least two reasons.

Firstly, we need empirical evidence to answer the speculations of cultural warriors from all sides. But more importantly, if we are committed to social and spiritual reform in Muslim majority states, we need to understand where the objects of reform are now located. You cannot take a community with you toward a better path if you don't know on which path they are presently travelling.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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EVENT: Fundamentalist comedy ...

For more details, check out their extremist fundamentalist website here.

NB: This show is rated M for Muslim. Not recommended for Fred Nile, Pauline Hanson, Mark Steyn, Daniel Pipes, etc etc.


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LETTERS: The Oz letters on Muslim literalism ...

This letter was published in The Australian recently ...

Muslims tied by orthodoxy
March 06, 2008

SUPERFICIALLY, it would appear that there are many different shades of Islam around the world and many different types of Muslim.

But there does appear to be one aspect in which they are truly monolithic and that is in the acceptance of an Islamic orthodoxy.

To go outside the orthodox position is to risk being labelled a heretic. Any moderate position is locked into the orthodox position. And when viewed from a framework that is locked in by the orthodox position, moderates know that they have little or no doctrinal support for a liberal interpretation of the Koran from within the Koran itself.

A literal interpretation of the Koran, coupled with a total acceptance of the orthodox version of the life of Muhammad, and the history of the origin of Islam, leaves the doctrinally weaker moderates mortally wounded and the Salafists in the ascendency.

Riaz Hassan (Inquirer, 1-2/3) does not challenge the orthodox position, nor does he seriously challenge the Salafist position. All the moderates can do is maintain a sullen silence and keep a low profile, and not risk being added to the list. The fear of the label of heresy also requires the mandatory ostentatious demonstrations of loyalty, shows of anger, chest beating, flag burning, and the like, at every perceived slight against Islam. And they like to moan about the way they are all lumped together with extremists by non-Muslims.

A. Crooks
Adelaide, SA

Talk about issuing blank cheque fatwas! Crooks has obviously surveyed each and every Muslim-majority state and Muslim community across the planet, and can say definitively that they all regard literalism as an essential component of orthodoxy.

This kind of nonsensical analysis could not go unanswered. My response to Crooks (published on The Oz letters blog) is as follows ...

So all Muslims are tied to a literalist interpretation of the Koran? If that is the case, why is the English translation of the Koran done by Abdullah Yusuf Ali still the most popular translation? Ali was a civil servant under the Raj who went against orthodoxy and regarded many of the heavenly rewards mentioned in the Koran as metaphors. He also applied metaphoric interpretations to other verses in the Koran.

My advice to far-Right polemicists is to stop cutting and pasting whatever they read from migration-fraud Ayaan Hirsi Magaan or from Robert “I’m not Opus Dei even though I look and sound like them” Spencer’s JihadWatch. You just make yourselves look really dumb.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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MEDIA: Why Eric Abetz would regard Rebecca Weisser as un-Australian ...

Recently Rebecca Weisser, Opinion Editor of an American-owned newspaper known as The Australian, wrote a profile of Swiss-born author Dr Tariq Ramadan. In her profile, Weisser made much of the fact that Tariq Ramadan's grandfather was the late Hasan al-Banna, the founder of the Islamist movement al-Ikhwan al-Muslimeen (the Muslim Brotherhood). My own take on that profile can be found here.

Effectively, Weisser was engaging in a slur by association. At least one Liberal Senator would regard this kind of behavious as "distasteful muckraking", as "unfair" and "un-Australian".

In case any readers are wondering, I'm talking about Tasmanian Senator and former minister in the Howard Government Eric Abetz. In an article on today's Sydney Morning Herald website, it is reported that Eric Abetz's uncle was a convicted Nazi war criminal. Here are some excerpts:

Senator Abetz, the deputy Liberal leader in the Senate, last night volunteered that his great uncle Otto Abetz had been a high-ranking Nazi as he sought to head off what he said was a slur by association.

... Otto Abetz was Nazi ambassador to occupied France, where he is believed to have ordered anti-Jewish drives and adopted a style that earned him the nickname King Otto I.

Senator Abetz ... was confirming the connection because some newspapers would today be carrying the story, which he suggested most Australians would find distasteful muck-raking. "Can I say that he died the same year I was born? I never met the man," Mr Abetz said.

"I think most reasonable Australians would regard any attempt to slur me by association with such a distant relative as completely unfair and, if I might say so, un-Australian."

... Otto Abetz was heavily involved in the Nazi regime as Hitler's ambassador in Paris, then tried and jailed for war crimes in 1945 ...

... Senator Abetz said the story of his connection had been "around for a while", and was raised before the last election by Labor interjection in the Senate.

"I don't have any links with national socialism," he said. "Indeed, anybody who knows … my public record knows it has been one of speaking out against socialism, be it national socialism, or Soviet-style socialism."

In the same manner as Senator Abetz, Dr Ramadan has spoken out against violent religious extremism, against draconian criminal punishments and against monocultural politics. Yet Ramadan allegedly shares such demented intellectual facinations which, according to Weissner and other critics, Ramadan inherits from his grandfather.

One wonders if Weisser will now attach Senator Abetz on the same basis. After all, Otto Abetz was responsible for orchestrating the massacres of thousands of Jews, communists and others in France murdered and persecuted for their ethnicity, religious and political beliefs.

Or does Weisser suggest that the Muslim Brotherhood is comparable to the Nazis? Does she have evidence that Hasan al-Banna called for the genocide of Jews, Gypsies and other allegedly undesirable races?

I can't say I agree with Eric Abetz on alot of things. But I do agree that to slur someone based on the actions or words of a distant relative is just cheap muck-raking. There is no evidence that Ramadan supports any of the racist, sexist or xenophobic views Weisser attributes to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Weisser owes Dr Ramadan an apology. I certainly won't be holding my breath waiting for one.

© Irfan Yusuf 2008


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COMMENT: Rebecca Weisser on Ayaan Hirsi Magaan ...

Dr Ramadan isn’t the only author of Muslim heritage The Oz's Rebecca Weisser has profiled. She profiled neo-Conservative former Dutch MP and migration fraud Ayaan Hirsi Magaan in an article for The Oz on 3 February 2007. Here are some excerpts:

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a rare public example of moral courage for the West ...

For Hirsi Ali, Islam in its current incarnation is not just different from Judeo-Christian culture, it is fundamentally incompatible with the enlightenment values that underpin Western prosperity ... Islam, with its emphasis on passive submission to the will of Allah and finding fulfillment in the hereafter rather than on earth, discourages the work ethic that is the motor for economically successful societies.

Hirsi Ali's views have added weight because they are not those of an outsider or a dilettante ...

Weisser has nothing even mildly critical to say about a woman who has acknowledged to having told lies about her background in an attempt to queue-jump and defraud the Netherlands’ asylum laws. Weisser also doesn’t question any of Hirsi Magaan’s claims about Islamic theology or Muslim societies, regardless of the gross ignorance and prejudice than underlies them.

And why does Weisser believe what Hirsi Magaan says about Muslims and not Dr Ramadan? After all, neither is an outsider nor a dilettante. This idea of insiders being more authentic can work both ways. I could easily claim that Judaism is a racist religion which teaches God is little more than a real estate agent for the Jews. I could then claim that these are the views of American Jewish insider Margaret Marcus (now known as Maryam Jameelah).

Is it all really about believing what alleged insiders have to say? Or is it just that Weissner shares Hirsi Magaan’s prejudices about Muslims and wants to give them maximum currency? Does Weisser reject Ramadan’s optimism that Muslims can develop a European Islam while? Does she prefer Hirsi Magaan’s claim that Islam is incompatible with Western values?

I’d love to see Weisser or Hirsi Magaan tell a group of Liberal-voting Zimbabwean or South African Muslim business people from Algester or Campbelltown or Lysterfield that Islam discourages the work ethic. Or maybe they could try convincing the academics, professionals, postgrad students and senior public servants that gather once a month at the Canberra Islamic Centre.

Weisser's totally uncritical treatment of Hirsi Magaan, when compared with her brutal attacks of Ramadan, say more about Weisser's own prejudices than those of her subjects.

© Irfan Yusuf 2008


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COMMENT: Rebecca Weisser on Tariq Ramadan ...

I am sitting in Brisbane at the home of an old buddy and trying to focus on writing a paper I have to deliver at a conference at Griffith University. I expected the conference to be a fairly low-key affair – a bunch of university academics and writers talking about the future of a set of religious traditions whose adherents make up less than 2% of the broader Australian community.

Among the academics invited is a Swiss-born author who has studied philosophy and speaks fluent French. This chap has urged Muslim governments across the world to abandon any steps toward implementing hudood, the maximum capital punishments that apply to a handful of criminal offences under classical sharia. In fact, he has called for a complete moratorium of such punishments in Muslim communities across the world.

You’d think this is exactly the kind of Muslim intellectual we need more of. But Rebecca Weisser’s profile of Dr Ramadan presents him as being, at best, extremely controversial.

Rebecca Weisser has just been appointed interim Opinion Editor of The Australian. Her predecessor, Tom Switzer, had some interesting views on Islam, some of which I have discussed here.

Weisser complains of Ramadan’s apparently “contradictory” views on Israel. She writes ...

On his website, in English, he says he supports Israel's right to exist. At the same time, he says he favours a single Israel and Palestine. Presumably he does not support, in the long term, a two-state solution.

Yes, and? In what sense are his views on Israel relevant to his book or to the conference he is attending? I haven’t read his entire book, but I understand it explores how certain themes arising from the life of the Prophet Muhammad could be understand and applied today. As for the conference, I understand it is more about Australia than any other country.

I understand Ramadan has expressed the view that Muslim-majority states should and must recognise Israel’s right to exist. He has also condemned Iranian president Ahmedinejad’s calls to wipe Israel off the map. But that doesn’t seem enough for Weisser.

And why should Weisser have an issue with Ramadan allegedly not supporting a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians? Is she aware of the number of Israelis (or even Australian Jewish organisational leaders) who are opposed to the establishment of any Palestinian state? Is she aware of the work of far-Right American polemicists like Daniel Pipes (who has visited Australia on numerous occasions as a guest of major Jewish organisations) who also oppose the two-state solution?

Then Weisser complains that Ramadan was the grandson of Hasan al-Banna, the founder of al-Ikhwan al-Muslimeen (literally “the Muslim Brotherhood”). Those who have studied the Ikhwan carefully know it has gone through a number of stages in its development and that has it has split into various factions.

Among its most extreme factions is one which calls for the establishment of an Islamic state using violent means. I guess this faction would be the Muslim equivalent of the followers of Vladimir Jabotinsky, the founder of an extreme Zionist faction with close links to Italian fascist leaders during the Second World War.

Jabotinsky’s movement, of course, has been through developments of its own. On the one hand, its early years were characterised by terrorist attacks on British and Arab targets. Deir Yassin and the King David Hotel come to mind. Yet the movement also produced an Israeli Prime Minister that made peace with Egypt.

If we keep harping on about people’s past, it’s because we are too afraid of the present and certainly aren’t interested in making peace in the future.

In Ramadan’s case, the past being harped on about is beyond his control. Yes, he was Hasan al-Banna’s grandson. What can he do about it? Jump into a time machine and insist his mother married someone else?

Weisser should judge Ramadan on his own merits. She might start by reading his books or listening to some of the lectures he gave when he was last in Sydney.

© Irfan Yusuf 2008


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VIDEO: New film on Muslim women in Melbourne ...

To watch this docco, click here.


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MEDIA: Stephen Crittenden's Religion report - some reflections ...

I get the feeling that Stephen Crittenden just cannot discuss anything to do with Muslims without sounding negative. Of course, he's not as prejudiced as, say, Andrew Bolt or Piersed Akumen or Tim Blair. He's also more nuanced than a certain female columnist who sits on the Board of his employer.

Yet for some reason, Crittenden always always makes sure his listeners are left with a sour taste on their tongues when discussing Islam.

Which is a real shame. The ABC prides itself on its relative neutrality, on allowing all sides of the argument to be heard. But it seems when it comes to Islam, objectivity at the Religion Report is more the exception than the rule.

I understand religion is a sensitive topic. People are entitled to their views when discussing it. And naturally, there will be times when followers of one faith will feel their most precious beliefs are being trampled on just because the broadcast does not treat their religious symbols with what they regard as a sufficient degree of reverence.

However, the Religion Report goes well beyond this. Some time back, at a conference on The Journalist and Islam, author and journalism guru Peter Manning delivered a paper on systemic bias in the ABC's religion department. The paper received very little coverage outside the conference. I guess it was the kind of bias shared by those who are always harping on about ABC bias.

Manning studied some of the interviewing techniques employed by Crittenden. He concluded that Crittenden's interviewing style bordered on sycophancy with even the most jaundiced interviewees on Islam. But when interviewing Muslims, Crittenden reverted in the other direction, almost verballing the interviewees.

I put Manning's allegations to Crittenden in a private exchange of e-mails. As it was a private exchange, it would be inappropriate for me to publish its details. Suffice it to say that Crittenden wasn't exactly a happy chappy.

He also wasn't happy when I claimed that the only time his program ever mentioned the persecution off Christians was when this was being allegedly carried out by Muslims. For instance, we never heard about the perilous situation facing Catholics and Catholic institutions in India at the hands of Hindu extremists. Nor do we ever hear about what Palestinian Christians are experiencing at the hands of the Israelis.

Now it seems that even when he has some spare space, Crittenden cannot help but make someone associated with Islam look bad. His episode of 6 February 2008 talks about Cat Stevens, and includes soundbites from an ABC documentary about Stevens. But Crittenden then decided to play what he described as:

... another side of Cat Stevens from the archives when ABC reporter Mark Tamhane spoke to him on AM in 1995.

What we heard was a tough interview that dealt with Stevens' remarks concerning Salman Rushdie. The interview concludes with this interesting exchange:

Mark Tamhane: You say that for every person who stands up and speaks there's a challenger. Is it fair to put a death sentence on that challenger?

Cat Stevens: Well I think you'll remember I wrote a song once called 'I'm going to get me a gun'. And now you know who that gun is for. It's for people like you who keep on asking provocative questions like that!

One might assume this was a light-hearted remark. Perhaps it was. Yet Stevens had already explained in the documentary what he actually said concerning Khomeini's outrageous fatwa against Rushdie. Why bring it up again?

In this week's episode, Crittenden deals with the recent speech by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams. And who does he interview? The Archbishop himself? Another Anglican bishop? A Sydney Anglican? Nope. Crittenden chats with tablouid columnist and chronic Muslim-hater Melanie Phillips. No doubt he will be asking some grovelling questions.

© Irfan Yusuf 2008


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