BOOKS: Ed Husain and political engagement ...

Well, I did say that I’d be focussing on posting old stuff. So much for that.

Hopefully I’ll be getting my manuscript back on Monday. I’ll then have 14 days to do the final editing and chiselling of the text.

My book is about how young Muslims I grew up with during the 1980’s and 90’s navigated our way into, through and out of various forms of political Islam. No doubt some will compare the book with Mohamed Mahbub (Ed) Husain’s The Islamist: Why I joined radical Islam in Britain, what I saw inside and why I left, which was published by Penguin in the United Kingdom in 2007.

Husain claims to have spent five years dabbling in various forms of political Islam, from the Jamaat-i-Islami style of Sayyid Maududi to Hizbut Tahrir (HT). He says that he felt compelled to leave after he witnessed someone at his college being murdered. It isn’t clear exactly how this murder was in any way related to HT, apart from the person alleged to have been the culprit having a particular mindset that was apparently fostered by HT.

Husain’s preface outlines the purpose of his book ...

This book is a protest against political Islam, based on my own experience as a British Muslim who grew up in London, became an extremist – an Islamist – and saw the error of his ways ... This is the story of my journey from the inside, in the fullest sense of the word: inside today’s Islam, inside Britain’s Muslim communities, inside my own heart.

I can’t but help wonder if Husain’s work is less one of analysis and more of hubris. Just how many British Muslim communities was he exposed to? Just how many forms of political Islam did he encounter? To what extent was he really a leader in any group?

The utility of Husain’s book is that he explores his own thinking with a fair degree of honesty, warts and all. However, I wonder whether it was the various forms of political Islam that is at issue here or rather his own interpretation of them?

In saying all this, I am in no way suggesting that Husain’s work can be dismissed. I’ve reviewed Husain’s book here and here. However, I did make some critical notes about the book which I was unable to incorporate into these reviews due to word-count restrictions.

Husain claims that his parent’s Islam had little or no political content. He appears to have come from a family that followed the Barelwi school of thought, and speaks about frequent mawlid gatherings in his home and dhikr sessions at the Brick Lane mosque. His parents followed a Bangladeshi Islamic scholar and sufi shaykh named Abdul Latif Fulthali (or “Abd al-Latif Fultholy” as spelt by Husain). On page 9, Husain describes Fulthali as

... a master of five Muslim mystical orders, as well as the founder of over 400 religious seminaries in India and Bangladesh.

Husain says that both his father and Shaykh Fulthali were critics of Sayyid Maududi and the Jamaat-i-Islami. On page 10 he writes:

I heard names such as ‘Mawdudi’ being severely criticised, an organisation named Jamat-e-Islami being refuted and invalidated on theological grounds. All this was beyond me.

I also heard similar stuff throughout my time and still do. However, I eventually learned that much of the attack on Maududi was based not just on theology but also on political grounds.

One chap I met in Sydney during the early 1990’s was named “Sufi Javed”. He was founder of the Australian branch of a mild Barelwi group called Idara Minhaj al-Qur’an. But Sufi Javed was anything but mild. The first time I sat with him, I was with an old friend of Fiji-Indian background I refer to in my book as “Shaf” and another friend of Lebanese extraction nicknamed “Shamir Yahood” (his actual name in Arabic rhymed with this). Sufi Javed’s words in Urdu are still ringing in my ears:

Maududdi bohot bara aalim tha. Aur bohot bara CIA agent bhi tha! ("Maududi was a big scholar. And also a big CIA agent!")

Apparently being a CIA agent was regarded as a bad thing. It probably still is. I’m sure glad I’m not one.

Sufi Javed also hacked into other groups. Shaf was a huge fan of the Tablighi Jamaat (TJ) and a staunch critic of Maududi. Shaf was smiling broadly when he heard Sufi Javed declare Maududi to be a CIA agent. His smile didn’t last for long when Sufi Javed proclaimed the founder of the TJ, Muhammad Ilyas Kandhalwi, to be an Angrezo ka jaasoos ("spy to the British"). Kandhalwi founded the TJ in Delhi before Indian independence and Partition.

This kind of sectarian and political hyperbole was common in Muslim discourse, at least in Sydney. And apparently in India and Pakistan also. Kandhalwi’s son-in-law, Muhammad Zakariyya, wrote a book called Fitnat-i-Maududiyyat (literally “the Chaos resulting from Maududiism”), which Shaf often harped on about. I never could locate an English language edition of the book, but I did read badly-translated excerpts in a book many years later.

So much of this hyperbole was just sheer hypocrisy. Ed Husain seems to suggest his father’s spiritual guide (or pir), Shaykh Fulthali, was not interested in politics. I’ll believe that when someone can convince me that John Howard and Pauline Hanson are both members of the Aeora Aboriginal nation.

Husain was very fortunate to be in the company of a pir from a young age. But his family pir clearly had a deep interest in politics. Shaykh Fulthali stayed with Husain’s family in the summer of 1990. At the time, Husain was 15 years old and preparing for his GCSE exams. However, studies didn’t concern Husain as much as the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait and the resulting war.

Husain refers to Shaykh Fulthali as “Grandpa”. He writes on pages 16-17:

Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi president, had invaded his small neighbour. Grandpa would return home every night and ask me for the latest news. The first time he asked, I had no idea where Iraq was on the map, let alone what its leader had done.

Very quickly I sharpened up my geography of the Middle East. But that was not enough. The following day he asked me how the international community had responded. What was going on at the UN? What were other Arab governments saying? Astounded, I wondered how I was supposed to know. But I knew I had to know. Pleading ignorance was not an option.

I grabbed pen and paper and started watching news bulletins in the mornings and afternoons. I took copious notes. I did this for about five months while Grandpa stayed with us, providing him with the details of Saddam’s rhetoric, Tareq Aziz’s interviews and John Simpson’s bomb-ducking analyses. ... Before my sixteenth birthday my father’s interest in current affairs and Grandpa’s delegation of news monitoring to me meant that I had become politicized.

This degree of political engagement with overseas conflicts would never have been tolerated by my Jamaat-i-Islami relatives so close to major exams. It would never have been tolerated under any circumstances in the TJ.

To be continued ...

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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UPDATE: More old stuff ...

I'll be posting more old stuff I've written elsewhere. Sometimes I'll add some comments but usually not.

My editor has almost finished editing my manuscript, so I'll be working on that for a fair while (as in 2 weeks or so).

After all that, hopefully this blog will have more original stuff. I'll be uploading more al-Jazeera videos from time to time also.

Enjoy!

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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MEDIA: Mission of Hope knocks back NewMatilda.com

Some weeks back, I decided to nominate NewMatilda.com for the prize of "Media Outlet of the Year" as part of Mission of Hope's Austrlian Muslim Achievement Awards.

In my nomination, I noted that this news and commentary website had provided an outlet for numerous emerging Muslim voices to comment on a range of issues affecting Australia and the world. Among the Muslim voices heard in NewMatilda.com were Mohammed El-Leissy, Sarah Malik and Saeed Saeed.

The judges of AMAA clearly didn't regard NewMatilda.com as being a suitable recipient of this award, preferring to instead shortlist MuslimVillage.net, a site known less for encouraging and more for silencing emerging and critical Muslim voices on its forums.

Perhaps the real reason the AMAA judges decided against shortlisting NewMatilda.com is because it published an article containing these remarks:

The Council's last major initiative, earlier this month, was to prepare a petition complaining about an undergraduate course taught by an academic at the Centre for Excellence in Islamic Studies. The course, Women in Arabic & Islamic Literature, has earned the ire of the Council because it allegedly doesn't reflect "normative" understandings of gender relations in Islamic sacred law. The lecturer, Dr Samar Habib, has written extensively on homosexuality in the Middle East.

Why would ANIC expect a course on Arabic literature to necessarily reflect "normative" understandings of Islamic sacred law? Is this a course on law or on literature? Don't they understand the concept of academic freedom?

Even more concerning is that the petition is being distributed by a person who moderates a popular Muslim youth internet forum. This person has previously used her position to promote among Muslim youth the work of North American "scientists" who allege that
homosexuality is a disease that can be cured.

Muslims aren't the only religious congregation to frown on homosexuality or to struggle with gay believers. But when religious leaders become captive of persons promoting homophobia through bad science, it's something we should all be concerned about.

And who is the person distributing the said petition? Why none other than the President of MoH!

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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COMMENT: Village idiots issue black-cheque fatwas ...

Some two decades ago, a respected elder named Syed Kandil used to publish a newsletter from Canberra. In one editorial, he used the term "blank cheque fatwa" to describe the judgments of self-proclaimed imams who spoke on topics beyond their expertise.

An excellent source of black cheque fatwas is the Muslim Village forums. Here, you will find many a self-proclaimed imam and his supporters issuing all kinds of fatwas about matters beyond their understanding.

Let's start with Islamic studies, an academic discipline taught in universities across the world. Melbourne University, along with the University of Western Sydney and Griffith University, recently set up a National Centre for Excellence in Islamic Studies. You can find out more about the NCEIS from their first newsletter here.

Islamic studies is not the same as studies in a madressa or in a darul uloom, though there can often be some overlap. Rather, Islamic studies is an inter-disciplinary subject that focuses on a range of issues related to a nebulous (for want of a better term) "blob" of peoples, cultures, histories, theologies, languages etc etc which is often given the label of "Muslim" or "Islamic" or "Islam".

Similar subjects are taught in relation to other "blobs". Hence there is Jewish studies, Christian studies, Buddhist studies, American studies, Middle East studies etc etc. A Christian studies course at Harvard or Macquarie is not the same as a course at Moore Theological College, nor is it meant to be.

Yet repeatedly black cheque fatwas are issued by MV mass debaters about the NCEIS, its personnel, its subjects etc. A classic example of this is a remark by Olive Tree which can be read here, who seemed to be taking credit on behalf of ...

... the Muslim students and community members [who were the ones complaining ...

... about a course taught last year by one Dr Samar Habib, whom s/he accused of having a ...

... personal and political agenda ...

Olive Tree then suggested:

It is not an issue of harming academic freedom but a realisation that they probably should be seeking proper Islamic studies lecturers similar to that of Griffith University and Melbourne University.

Yet the same course Olive Tree complains of was also taught at Melbourne University, with not a single complaint made by any student. Was all this talk really about the course?

Olive Tree then delivers the killer blow.

I attended the Ramadan Iftar with my sister this year. All these so called lecturers from the Islamic Studies Dept at UWS were no-where to be seen. No- where!

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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VIDEO: Islam in America Part III

Rageh Omaar talks to prominent African-American Muslims like (now the late) Imam Warith Deen Muhammad. He also visits a half-way house for Muslim ex-prisoners.




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CRIKEY: Israeli torn between ''Islamists'' and ''the Muslim thugs'' ...

Visiting Israeli Professor Raphael Israeli presents different faces for different audiences. Sometimes he says his target is only “Islamists”, ie, those Muslims who want to impose a political version of Islam on secular democracies.

Certainly this is what he said in a letter to The Australian. Here's an excerpt from The Oz report on February 19 2007 ...

A VISITING Israeli academic has blasted Australia's Jewish leaders for disowning him after he raised concerns about the level of Muslim immigration in Europe and the consequences of a similar approach here.

Raphael Israeli, Professor of Islamic, Middle East and Chinese History at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, wrote to The Australian yesterday to complain about his treatment after a story in the Australian Jewish News which claimed he favoured a cap on Muslim immigration.

The story, which Professor Israeli said didn't accurately reflect his views, led to criticism from Muslim and Jewish leaders without further checks with him, he said. The Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council, co-sponsoring his lecture tour, decided to sever ties with him.

"Instead of standing by their guest, and supporting free debate in this country, Jewish leaders have elected to shamefully disown me in their statements that were geared to placate Muslims," Professor Israeli wrote.

"I come from a country dipped in solidarity and that never abandons its fighters in the battlefield. Here I feel abandoned, forlorn, betrayed by people who lack courage and stamina to stand up for principles."

Professor Israeli's attributed comments in the Jewish press last week in part suggested there would be demographic pressure for Indonesian Muslims to resettle. The article quoted him as saying "one of the big possibilities is Australia, so they will continue to come legally, or illegally, and settle here, and when they get to the rate of the 10per cent, like in France, then you will see life will become untenable".

Yet he wrote an almost identical, though more virulent (and need I say honest) letter to the far-Right polemical JihadWatch website. In that letter, he made it clear he was talking about “the Muslim thugs”, without differentiation. In other words, his attitudes are directed to all Australians who happen to tick the “Muslim” box on their census forms. Here's how The Age reported Israeli's remarks ...

A VISITING Jewish professor has lashed out at Australian Jewish leaders for their "shameful submission to Muslim thugs", saying his comments were less harsh than some by the Prime Minister and federal Treasurer.

Hebrew University professor Raphael Israeli, dropped from a proposed lecture tour after comments last week, said political correctness did not allow his remarks to be said, though, privately, all supported them.

He said Prime Minister John Howard and Treasurer Peter Costello had said harsher things after "Muslim riots", but "someone elected to seize upon this opportunity now and sweep Australia into a storm in a teacup".

Professor Israeli, who will teach his six-week Islamic history course at the University of NSW, posted his version of the stoush on a website.

On the Dhimmi Watch section of www.jihadwatch.org, he wrote: "The dhimmi-like Jewish leadership cancelled all activities, in a shameful submission to the Muslim thugs and under the false claims of a 'multicultural society' in Australia, which they know is not true."

Regardless of where he stands, we’d be living in denial if we insisted Israeli’s attitudes to that nebulous Arab/Muslim/Islamist/Middle Eastern “them” aren’t gaining some hold.

Why is this so? Who is responsible? And what is being done about it?

Journalism professor and veteran reporter Peter Manning believes that skewed reporting is largely to blame. His research of metropolitan Sydney newspaper reporting pre and post-September 11 shows that the prejudices have pre-dated the emergence of al-Qaeda.

Experts like Dr James Jupp of the Australian National University argue cogently against Israeli’s central thesis on limiting immigration for a particular religious group. Here's how ninemsn reported Jupp's remarks on February 16 2007.

A local immigration expert has dismissed suggestions by a visiting Israeli academic that Islamic migration to Australia should be capped.

... immigration expert Dr James Jupp from the Australian National University said talk of limiting immigration for Muslims was the kind of idea "put forward by crackpots" — even though there is no legal barrier to doing so.

He said banning immigrants on religious grounds is possible as all migrant applications are done in other countries which are not subject to our racial vilification laws.

“You [immigrants] have no legal rights to Australian law if you are outside Australia,” Dr Jupp said.

Proving religious discrimination “would be extremely difficult” as immigrants cannot access our legal system before they arrive in Australia.

”I don’t think you’d have a leg to stand on, you couldn’t prove it,” Dr Jupp said.

He added that officials could easily hide religious discrimination behind the various other requirements immigrants must meet to enter this country ...

... Dr Jupp said that would not occur here as European countries gave full citizenship to emigrants from ex-colonial nations — many of which are Muslim countries.

As Australia has no colonial ties with Muslim countries like Algeria, it was unlikely that Muslims would come to this country in such large numbers as they do in Europe.

I think much responsibility rests with Muslims themselves, especially with religious and organisational leaders who are largely first generation migrants who regard Islam as a relic of their lives “back home” and are generally disinterested in communicating Islamic theology to the broader community.

The ethno-religious nature of the Muslim religious establishment is the biggest reason why Israeli’s claims simply don’t apply to Muslims here (if they apply anywhere else).

On Radio National Israeli said that

... in Islam, secular Islam, or secular Muslims, is a contradiction in terms.

He also said that there is only one Islam, and that Muslims either adopt it or they don’t.

This is the weakest link in Israeli’s argument. Australian Muslims come from over 60 different countries. Australian Islam is more ethno-cultural than religious a phenomenon, reflected in Muslim community leadership drawn from ethnic-based mosques.

To say there is one Islam means there is one Muslim community. But the fact is that Muslims cannot even agree on holding festival days. Israeli says that a growing monolithic Muslim community in Australia is a threat. This Muslim community doesn’t exist down under.

An edited version of this piece was first published in Crikey on 23 February 2007.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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VIDEO: A few minutes with Shazia Mirza ...

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COMMENT: Thomas Keneally on prejudice ...

Award-winning Australian author Thomas Keneally knows plenty about prejudice. He was born in 1935 of Irish Catholic stock and grew up in the NSW coastal town of Kempsey. He experienced sectarian prejudice and saw racial prejudice against local indigenous peoples. He also wrote the Booker prize-winning Schindler's Ark, the story of a German businessman who saved a few hundred Jews from Hitler's death camps. The book was made into the famous Steven Spielberg movie Schindler's List.

Keneally is now writing a book about Oskar Schindler. He was recently profiled by The Guardian newspaper on Saturday 15 November 2008. Here's part of what Keneally said on how prejudice, like history, can repeat itself:

The town where I grew up had two Aboriginal settlements. Questions of the balance between races and, when two races don't get on particularly well, how they behave towards each other were everywhere. This was wartime, and the notion that Catholics couldn't be trusted if it came to the crunch, because they would side with the Pope not the Queen, was very strong. It is essentially the same rhetoric that is currently used against Muslims, and even at the time that fascinated me as much as it scared and affronted me. This stuff has always been my bag. It's what I'm interested in.

(Thanks to BC)

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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