September 6, 2004
HAMMERING HOME THE THESES:
Shaking Up Islam in America (ASRA Q. NOMANI, September 5, 2004, TIME)
Pundits have long been asking whether Islam is ready for a reform. The answer is that across the U.S., a quiet tide of Islamic reform is very much under way. In Chicago last year, the Downtown Islamic Center made room for four women on its board after they protested the design of a new mosque that would have given women inadequate space in which to pray. Instead, women got access to the main hall when the new mosque opened in July. In Dearborn, Mich., earlier this year, Imam Mohammed Mardini welcomed Christian women who weren't covering their hair, over the protests of men who wanted them barred. In Sacramento, Calif., not long ago, mosque leaders wrote their bylaws with clauses guaranteeing tolerance and gender equity. In New York City an e-magazine, Muslim WakeUp!, organizes monthly gatherings for Muslims who want to make their communities more tolerant.Over the past year I have found myself on the front lines of the struggle over Islam's future in America. Last November, my mother, niece and I walked through the front door of our hometown mosque in Morgantown, W.Va., and prayed in the main sanctuary. In so doing we defied a policy that women enter through a back door and pray in an isolated balcony. Then, in the spring, my father resigned from the board of the mosque to protest speeches spewed from the pulpit that were hateful to non-Muslims. As a result of our protests, my family was vilified by local Muslims. I even face a secret trial to banish me from the mosque.
But our protests have also helped bring about a transformation. In May the first woman was elected to mosque leadership. In June mosque authorities publicly reversed policy and said women could enter through the front door and pray in the main hall. Since our actions began, more women attend worship services. Last month we won an even bigger victory. A Ph.D. student declared from the pulpit that "one of the most important fundamentals of our religion is to love and be loyal to Islam and the Muslims and to hate and renounce the disbelievers," the "cursed" Jews and Christians. I immediately protested the sermon, as did others. In the past, leaders have looked the other way. This time they called an emergency meeting and did the right thing. They fired the student from his post giving sermons.
Those of us pushing for reforms are not seeking to change Islam. We are questioning defective doctrine from an intellectual and theological position, using the Koran, the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad and ijtihad, or critical reasoning, as ideological weapons in the war over how Muslim communities define themselves. Islamic scholar Amina Wadud notes that we are emboldened to take public action to reject the way extremists have defined Islam since 9/11. We are in the midst of jihad li tajdid al-ruh al-Islami, a struggle for the soul of Islam.
That the outcome of the struggle is foreordained does not make it any less difficult. Posted by Orrin Judd at September 6, 2004 7:39 PM
How does one spell Augustine or Luther in Arabic?
Posted by: Fred Jacobsen (San Fran) at September 6, 2004 8:02 PMSistani
Posted by: oj at September 6, 2004 8:15 PMWhat portion of "history; which is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind"* makes you say that.
If I could bet on it I would take under.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at September 6, 2004 9:11 PMFirst you let the women in the front door, and next thing you know, you have to stop killing infidel babies . . .
Uh, how much time are we allotting?
Posted by: Harry Eagar at September 6, 2004 10:18 PMSistani - that's a fatuous answer if I ever heard one. When writes a sermon delineating either the faults of contemporary Islam or the future path to a "free" existence within the world at large, then you might be talking.
For a first step, he might try telling the mullahs in Iran that the condition of their souls depends on how they give up their power.
Posted by: jim hamlen at September 6, 2004 10:48 PMjim:
Your failure to read his sermons doesn't mean he hasn't so preached:
http://www.brothersjudd.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=sistani+secular
Posted by: oj at September 6, 2004 10:56 PMThe experience of letting the Ayatollahs run things in Iran has caused real problems in Shia Islam there. For centuries, the religious authorities were the ombudsmen betweent the rulers and the ruled interceding on their behalf with the brutal despots who ruled Persia. They gained a reputation among ordinary Iranians for probity, honesty, decency, and fairness. When Khomeini took charge ordinary Iranians, even those who weren't very religious, cheered it as being the installation of a period of relative fairness and decency.
However, in the intervening 25 years or so, it has been anything but that. All the horribles that existed under the Shah, like the corruption, the cronyism, the excesses, the brutality exist today only far worse. You can violate whatever Islamic rule you wish, so long as you have enough cash. The government employs 'Revolutionary Guards' to maintain ideological purity, underemployed and unemployed working class youth not unlike the Red Guard of the Cultural Revolution.
Maybe Sistani has a better idea. He seems to understand the need for separation of mosque and state as well as the role of the mosque as an underpinning for creating a moral basis of governance. But the stock of Ayatollahs has generally been dropping since 1978.
Posted by: Bart at September 7, 2004 7:25 AMBart:
Yes, Khomeinism was a departure from Shi'ism and predictably a disaster.
Posted by: oj at September 7, 2004 8:31 AMSistani has preached for "civilian" government, not clerical rule (the perversion of Khomeini). I will grant that.
But I spent about an hour on Google looking for a Sistani sermon or text. Couldn't find a one - just a lot of references to Sadr and some loony imams in Qum.
Augustine watched Rome fall, and wrote "City of God". He also delineated the doctrine of original sin. Luther turned the church on its head and gave the common people the Scripture. These were men who impacted not just the church of their day, but the church for all time, and history as well.
Sistani is one of five Grand Ayatollahs, and not the most senior (as best as I can understand). But even if he issued a fatwa tomorrow (on any topic), it would not be observed in all of Iraq, much less the remainder of the Muslim world. He is revered, but an Augustine or Luther, he is not.
If he proves to be consequential in 'leading' Iraq into political freedom, your statement would have more meaning.
Perhaps you have read his works in the original Arabic (I have learned not to be surprised) - but he has a long way to go to catch up with Augustine and Luther. On theological grounds, there is no comparison. And we will long be dead before any historical comparisons can be made.
Posted by: jim hamlen at September 7, 2004 11:46 PMAugustine wasn't a saint when he was writing in some forsaken backwater of Christendom.
Posted by: oj at September 7, 2004 11:59 PM"Pilgrim's Progress" was written in prison, as was some of Solzhenitsyn's work (not to mention parts of the New Testament). You think geography determines quality?
P.S. - the Latin on your logo says it all
Posted by: jim hamlen at September 8, 2004 8:42 AMjim:
No, you did one comment ago:
"Sistani is one of five Grand Ayatollahs, and not the most senior (as best as I can understand). But even if he issued a fatwa tomorrow (on any topic), it would not be observed in all of Iraq, much less the remainder of the Muslim world. He is revered, but an Augustine or Luther, he is not."
Posted by: oj at September 8, 2004 9:06 AMAs long as Islam is driven by volume and violence, and by submission and conformity, spirituality (i.e., timelessness) will mean nothing. That is Sistani's problem (locally), and it is our problem (world-wide).
Reform may come, but there is no vehicle for it to arrive. In writing, in a sermon, on the Internet? Very unlikely. A popular revolt (led by women) is the most probable spark.
Posted by: jim hamlen at September 8, 2004 1:13 PMNorth Africa was not a backwater of Christendom. It was the center then.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at September 10, 2004 2:42 AM