American Muslims continue to engage in politics and are beginning to have more impact than before. By Muqtedar Khan

…all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

-- , United Nation (1786).

In this presidential election cycle, American Muslims became a subtext of American politics that exposed the profound religious bigotry embedded in some segments of American society.

A few months ago, some unscrupulous activists were sending emails claiming that Barak Obama was secretly a Muslim and in spite of repeated denials, often vehement ones, by the Obama campaign, for a long time nearly 10% of the country believed in them. The main assumption behind this tactic was that for some the mere possibility that Obama was Muslim was sufficient to discredit him.

The irony of this episode during the campaign season is that the cads who were claiming that Obama was secretly a Muslim were banking on the existence of religious bigotry amongst McCain's supporters. The subtext of this tactics: We have many bigots in our society let us exploit this reality by spreading lies about Obama's faith.

Another episode highlights the persistence of prejudice. At a campaign event, John McCain took the microphone away from a supporter who was saying that Obama was an Arab and said "No, ma'am. He's a decent family man [and] citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that's what this campaign's all about. He's not [an Arab]."

McCain's answer was more distressing than the sentiment of his ignorant follower. The gist of his reply appears to be that Obama is not an Arab; he is a decent family man and a citizen. The subtext of his answer: Arabs are foreigners, indecent and have no family values; and since Obama was a decent fellow he could not be an Arab.

So why do some in a party that has been served so well by Arab Americans like John Sununu, a former governor and current senator from New Hampshire, and Spencer Abraham the former senator from Michigan and co-chairman of the Republican Party (there are many more examples) fear and disapprove of Arabs? Well the subtext is: For some Arabs are ok as long as they are Christians; it's the Muslim ones who are unacceptable.

This is such a shame. But fortunately the Republican Party's afflictions are not mainstream anymore. America has changed significantly and for the better.

Most Americans know that the bipartisan 9/11 Commission report not only exonerated American Muslims of any connections to the attacks on 9/11, but also did not see them as a future threat at all. Several studies have found American Muslims to be typical examples of mainstream, upwardly mobile, middle class Americans, who far from being suspect are an asset to this nation.

American Muslims continue to engage in politics and are beginning to have more impact than before. In the past two years, Americans have elected two practicing and openly Muslim Muslims to the U.S. Congress; Keith Ellison from Minnesota's fifth district and Andre Carson from Indiana's seventh district.

Zalmay Khalilzad is currently the U.S.' ambassador to the United Nations and has in recent years served as the U.S. ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan. Fareed Zakaria, who like Khalilzad is also a Muslim, is now a major voice in America's political discourse. And Kareem Khan, who won a Bronze Star, and a Purple Heart, was martyred in Iraq while fighting for America.

They are all American heroes; extraordinary, each one of them. They show that in elected office, in government bureaucracy, in the military and in civil society; American Muslims are fighting the tide of Islamophobia, overcoming prejudice, and finding their rightful place in society.

General Colin Powell in his endorsement of Obama's candidacy, said: "'I am also troubled by - not what Senator McCain says - but what members of the Party say, and it is permitted to be said: such things as, "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is he is not a Muslim. He's a Christian; has always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, "What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?"

No General Powell. There is nothing wrong with that. I am a Muslim, and a proud one at that.

Subtext: I voice my thoughts freely, boldly, and frequently. And like you, I too will fight to keep this country free – free from prejudice, free from xenophobia and free from intolerance.

Source : IslamOnline

Interview : Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf (5)

It seems there is a societal dimension to being a Muslim, in terms of the ways one would like one's society to be organized. Are there conflicts in that sense between how one would like society to be, and the realities of American society?

I would say that Muslims in America, especially those who come from other countries, experience both an attraction, a strong attraction, to the positive things that America offers: freedom, political freedom; economic mobility and well-being, the ability to live a materially comfortable life. These are all the things that draws people from all over the world, Muslim and non-Muslim, to this country.
However, there are certain things that people, even when they come from their own country, don't like to give up. They don't like to give up certain aspects of their cultural norms. Their practices of family relationships they try to maintain. Their cuisines they like to maintain. Those values, which they consider to be their ethics, they like to maintain.
And so Muslims who have come to this country generally believe that the democratic principles, the political principles, the economic structure of this country really resonates with the faith of Islam, and draw them to this country.
To the sense that, let's say, American social norms or values are not supportive of the families -- in those issues, Muslims may happen to have a different opinion. [On] those values which violate their sense of decency, they may have a different opinion.
In a certain sense, much of the ethical and moral issues which Muslims feel strongly about in this country is shared by what you might call the Christian majority in this country -- more of the moral mooring, or the sense of decency, which is commonly shared in other faith traditions.
... I also believe that, as the American Muslim community matures in this country, that the American Muslim community will be an interlocutor, and important intermediary between the West and the Muslim world. And more so today, because today, we have much more much easier communications between the immigrant Muslim population and their extended families in the Muslim world. ... Unlike those who immigrated a century ago from Europe, there is maintained contacts with the Old World and the New [World]. And this phenomenon will give rise to a much different sense of what it means to be a Muslim in the world.

Tell me more about that. What is an American Muslim -- if there is such a thing as "an American Muslim?"

I think it is very much a work in progress. If you look at what happened to the Muslim-American community over the last, say, 40 years, it is a mosaic; it is a cross-section of the Muslim world.
We look at the Muslim centers, or mosques, starting with the early 1970s as waves of immigration began to occur from the Muslim world. You found, as certain ethnic groups reached critical mass, that mosques sprouted with a very ethnic complexion. So we have a Turkish mosque in Brooklyn, an Albanian mosque. You will find a West African mosque, mainly from French- speaking West Africans from Senegal and Mali [in] the Bronx, for instance.
You have also always had African-American mosques. You have Arab mosques, Hindu, Pakistani mosques, Bangladesh mosques.
However, what we are seeing is that these mosques tend to be maintained in terms of their cultural complexion and their general collective psychology by the continued immigration from the Old World. The second generation, the children of these immigrants, are finding themselves with a different psychological complexion. And I see a development of an American Islamic identity, which is currently a work in progress, which will be kind of the sum total of these influences.
But amongst those who are born in this country, or came very early into this country at a very early age, they grew up with a sense of belonging to the American scene, which their parents did not have. The immigrants tend to come here with a little bit of a guest mentality. But those who are born and raised here feel they are Americans. We have to define ourselves as Americans. And just as I said earlier, when Islam spread to Egypt, and Iran, and India, it restated its theology and its jurisprudence within the cultural context of those societies. It also anticipated that Islam will restate itself within the language constructs, within the social constructs, within the political constructs of American society, as well. ...

What do you think will come of the American influence on Islam?

I think the major lesson that will that will come out of it is the increased democratization of our societies, our Islamic societies. The increased democratization of Islamic societies, and the sense of greater equality amongst people, whether on the basis of gender, the elimination of any vestiges of a class society. ...

Do you think we have witnessed a period of reactionary-ism against the Western influence within the Muslim world in the past 50 or 100 years?
Source : Frontline : Muslims

Interview : Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf (3)

Who decides the rules of Islamic jurisprudence?

The thing about the Islamic situation is we don't have a church. We don't have an ordained priesthood, which makes it a little complicated. But we do have a tradition of scholarship, and rules of scholarship. It's very much like any field of knowledge.
Take any field of knowledge, like physics or biology or chemistry. Anybody can become a chemist or a biologist or a physicist. But there are rules [developed], and a kind of a growing consensus of opinion on how one should think correctly to arrive at what would be deemed a right, a correct decision.
Analogously, there is, in Islam, a tradition of theological interpretation, of [juridical] understanding and knowledge. And as long as you abide by these, the consensus of understanding on how you arrive at a decision, certain differences of opinion are considered equally valid.

What about interpretations regarding women, in particular? We find, in many parts of the world that tend to be populated by Muslims, it seems that women are getting the short end of the stick.

Well ... the prophet, for his times, was a feminist. And there are certainly voices within the Muslim world who believe and argue very strongly for the rights of women. But gender relationships really deal with the cultural norms of a particular group and the times in which they live. If one were to say, for instance, that American women are behind Muslim women -- and I pick the fact that there have been five Muslim women heads of state, and that the United States is behind the Muslim world in this regard -- that would not be considered to be an accurate assessment of how women are regarded in a particular society. One has to look at the sum total ... of the norms and the relationships and the understandings that exist in a given society in a given time. ...
Some of what we see may be considered to be inequities. But we have to remember that when Islam spread from Arabia to what we consider the Muslim world today, it spread through countries and societies which had very ancient traditions. Egypt had an ancient tradition, Iran, another ancient country, Persia before that. The subcontinent of India: another ancient culture. Same thing with current-day Turkey, the Byzantine Empire. ...
Through that, many cultural norms became to be considered by societies as being Islamic, but they're really cultural. So in matriarchal societies, which you will see some matriarchal societies like in West Africa or in Egypt, you'll find women very, very influential. Women hold the purse strings; women determine a lot of what happens, because ancient Egypt had a tradition of having women kings, women queens, queens of Egypt.
Whereas in some societies, which tended to be nomadic, it was very much more male-oriented, and the patriarchal and very strong male orientation became predominant. So as you go across much of the Muslim world, you will see this diversity, which really entered into Muslim life through custom, and not through the Quran and the hadith itself.

Can you define "hadith" for an American audience?
The word "hadith" means any report of something the prophet either said or did. That's hadith with small "h.". Hadith with capital "H" is the collection of all these reports.

Which have been carefully substantiated or authenticated?
There are all kinds of grades of hadith, from the most authentic to those that have been forged, and various degrees in between. Islamic hadith scholarship actually is a very fascinating study, because through the different hadith you get a slice of Islamic history. The politics of what happened at different periods of time are all manifest in the hadith.

And the Sunna, similarly.
The word "Sunna" is used to mean the normative practice of the prophet. In fact, the jurists have defined the general Sunna of the prophet to mean everything the prophet did or said. The hadith is the report of the Sunna. And of the practice of the prophet, there's a certain class of actions that are normative for Muslims to follow, Sunna which has legal value, has a precedent value. And there is Sunna which has no Sharia value. For instance, the prophet prayed a certain way. This has Sharia value, we're supposed to pray that way. The prophet went to hajj on a camel -- doesn't mean that we have to ride a camel from Medina to Mecca for our hajj to be valid. We can take a car. We can take a plane, because that Sunna has no Sharia value.
Source : Frontline : Muslims